Case Study Questions

(Make sure you complete all the week’s readings before you answer these questions. There are references to terms and techniques featured in those readings.)

Era of Quality at the Akshaya Patra Foundation

1. Based on the services TAPF provides, what are the major processes that must be executed by the organization in order to fulfill their mission?
   • Create a high-level process map (1^st level) showing the flow of those processes.
   • What insight do you get by looking at the process map about TAPF’s operations?
   • Who are TAPF’s “customers”? Describe their customer journey. How is this different from the type of customer journey described in this week’s readings?
2. What are the key challenges for the Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF)?
   • In what ways are their challenges related to their processes (within their control)?
   • In what ways are their challenges related to their environment (beyond their control)?
   • How can TAPF further improve their processes?
3. What strategies should TAPF use to orient and motivate the unskilled workers of the kitchen on quality aspects?
   • Identify the KPI’s that you think will help Akshaya meet its performance goals, keeping in mind their definition of quality.
   • What processes are critical ensuring that these performance goals are met? Are there process measures that might predict when their performance goals might not be met?

Pharmacy Service Improvement at CVS (A)

1. Who are the key stakeholders in the process of fulfilling a prescription (you can use a RACI chart to summarize their role)?
   • What does each stakeholder want out of the prescription fulfillment process?
   • Which requirements might conflict with each other?
   • Which stakeholder’s requirements should be given priority?
2. What are the most significant problems with the current process?
   • How do these problems specifically affect the tech fulfilling the prescription?
   • How do these problems specifically affect the customer experience?
   • Assess to what degree CVS’s process problems are due to things within their control or beyond their control.
3. What changes do you recommend to CVS’s existing pharmacy fulfillment process?
   (You might try using swim lane diagram to map out your new process.)
   • What technology changes, if any, are required to implement your changes?
     (Keep in mind this case is dated 2006! What’s new in 2016?)
   • What metrics would you use to verify that the new process you propose will be an improvement over the existing one?
   • What groups are likely to have objections to your proposed solution? How would you deal with those objections?

Building Watson: It’s not so elementary my dear!

1. In what ways does the “problem” to be addressed by the Watson project differ from a traditional information systems initiative? In what ways is it similar?
   • What new capabilities was IBM trying to develop through this project?
   • What were the decisions that Watson had to successfully make to play the game?
   • What were the performance metrics to measure success for Watson?
2. Do you agree with the case’s contention that the Jeopardy problem specification as “win at Jeopardy” and therefore that there were no clear requirements?
   • How did the project team develop a set of requirements and specifications for Watson?
   • Do you think Watson could have been implemented using a more traditional approach, such as the Systems Development Life Cycle?
3. How was Watson’s “dumb” answer to the US airport question in the first game (e.g., the “Toronto” question) consistent with the requirements and design specifications of the system?
   • Do you think that failure was represents a larger failure in Watson’s design ?
   • Assess the decisions the design team made in balancing arriving at the “right answer” and developing a flexible, generalizable software architecture for answering questions.
   • What lessons can you derive from this case to determine requirements for projects in other domains?

Reinventing the Practices of Distance Information Systems Development: CGI and the Hubble Project (A/B)

1. What are the major challenges of the Hubble project?
   • What does this project have in common with IBM’s Watson project? How does it differ?
   • Why did Financials select CGI? Do you think this was a good decision?
   • If you were CGI, would you take on this project? What are the threats to the success of the project? What are the specific risks to CGI?
2. Do you agree with the selection of the agile approach for this project?
   • Do you think a more traditional, structured approach would have been more appropriate?
   • What are the major objections to using an agile approach for this project? Do their modifications of the agile methodology sufficiently address those objections?
   • In what ways does their proposed approach consistent with “systems thinking”?
3. What actions did CGI propose to lessen the project’s risks?
   • What risks are mitigated? What risks still remain?
   • What are the desired skills and qualities of the project leader and team members on this project?
   • Do you think this project will be successful? What has to “go right” in order for that to happen?

Information technology at Cirque du Soleil: looking back, moving forward

1. Many of the processes supported by IT at Cirque du Soleil are ill-structured. Describe how the touring show life cycle is supported by IT.
   • Translate the figure provided in the case to describe the life-cycle in simple generic terms.
   • What are the systems at Cirque du Soleil?
   • If you were CGI, would you take on this project? What are the threats to the success of the project? What are the specific risks to CGI?
2. What was the level of IT alignment at Cirque du Soleil in 2008?
   • How did IT help the organization achieve its business strategy?
   • How would you communicate the benefits of IT to the top management team?
   • How did IT support the key business processes?
3. What was the level of tension between the business needs and IT capacity?
   • What issues and challenges did they have along the way?
   • How did the “show must go on” business mindset impact the IT implementation?
   • Identify four key IT risks that Danielle Savoie faced. Why are they so important to the success of a touring Cirque show?