Joseph KK Ho's work diary

Assignment Objective: The assignment, which accounts for 30% of your overall score in this module, has to be done individually. The objective of this assignment is to develop your skills in assessing approaches in: (a) initiating, planning and controlling information systems projects and (b) identify and apply methods of organizing and accounting for information systems delivery and information systems projects. Assignment Question: “With their information technology (IT) investments, most organizations focus on the implementation of technology not on the realization of expected business benefits. Consequently, benefits are not forthcoming despite projects being considered a technical success. This failure to realize benefits is primarily due to methods and tools that emphasize improving the supply-side of IT delivery, including the use of outsourcing. No IT investment is ever just about technology.” (Peppard, Ward and Daniel, 2006). Critically assess 2 IT project management/ IT-...

The following are key concepts in the subject of Information Systems : * Intranet/ extranet * IT project evaluation methods, notabley on Financial methods, e.g. NPV calculation ; steps involved in IT evaluation * Using pilot site in IT project; on pilot experiment * Benefit-dependency network ( pdf doc ) * "Invest first, analyze later" approach * Project risks ; project risk management * Agile approach in IT/IS projects * Software prototyping * Time-boxing * JAD * Project management , e.g. activity-on=node diagrams, critical path analysis * Security concerns in IS development, e.g. data reliability and integrity, physical security.; security consideratins in SDLC * IT outsourcing * Business Process Re-engineering * IT governance; IT governance * Software design usability Reference: IS subject syllabus Related FB notes Class exercise on Project Management: ABC company has decided that it needs a new logistics system and that an off-the shelf pa...

Quite some students,educators and employers I have come across are concerned about the university ranking. Obviously, the higher the ranking the university has, the more attractive it is as a student's choice to study at. I think evaluation of degree programme is more complicated than that. And, I am not prepared to examine the various evaluation criteria in this article. I have 1 problem here: ranking is not static... when you study for a university's programme, its ranking could be, e.g. 40; over time, e.g. after 20 years, its ranking can goes up or drops a lot.. Now, if the university that you graduated from 20 years' ago has got a much lower ranking now, what does it mean to you? Different people may respond to this concern differently. I do feel that university ranking is just not a vital issue in our career development within certain ranking range; and we do develop our own personal branding and career profile over time.

In the following case of dissertation project, I illustrate how personal coaching works and why it is useful: Student A attends a dissertation project meeting, having a very vague idea that he wants to evaluate a potential Information System project for a company. The main characterisic for this project is that, the student wants to spare some effort on why certain software standard is relevant for the Information System software evaluation in his company's case. Other than that, this Master Degree student has no idea on how to formulate a proper dissertation proposal. Now is July and the student needs to submit his final report in November. The supervisor suggests that the student could consider theories and concepts from the literature on (a) standardization in the IT field, (b) Information systems project evaluation, (c) IT infrastructure planning, (d) Soft systems methodology, and, finally, (e) case study research method. The project supervisor some academic resources wit...

Writing a letter of appeal: How (based on a query from students) Part 1: State your reasons to write the letter of appearl (e.g. to allow you to resume your study in the academic program) Part 2: State the context and reasons on what caused the faillures in your study Part 3: State the reasons why the university should give you another chance (e.g. to allow you to resume your study in its programme) Part 4: State clearly what you hope the university would do for you. ... Other points to note: (a) check your grammar; (b) provide a clear title for your letter of appeal. [You should be able to find information on how to write reports/ memos, etc in references on Business Communication]

Some of my students ask me whether they should study for an MBA programme after they graduate from their Undergraduate degree programmes. My viewpoints are as follows: a. If your first degree is in Business Admin, then further study with an MBA is not a good move because there is much overlapping of subject contents between BA and MBA programmes. b. If your first degree is in Computing Science or Accounting and Finance, then studying for an MBA can be considered. c. If you are below 30, then you may be too young to study for an MBA; probably a more specialized Master Degree, e.g. Marketing, Logistics Management, etc. will be more useful to you in improving your immediate employability. d. If you are not rich, or if establishing a social network with senior managers is not your main career objective, then do not go for Executive MBA. Try to consider MBA programmes that are not too expensive.. [you still need to evaluate the quality of the MBA programmes for making your ch...

Quite a number of students ask me about Doctor of Business Admin. (DBA) Thus, I did some internet searching and here is what I found: http://info.university-liverpool-online.com/programmes/doctorates/doctor-of-business-administration?comm_code=wwgog1xxxx&infinity=gaw~Doctorate%20Programmes%2BSPART%2BENG%2BAPAC%2BHK~HK%2BDOC%2BDBA%2BBusiness%20Administration%20Doctorate%20Programme~19957623962~doctor%20of%20business%20administration%20programs~b&gclid=CMXO3c6okbgCFUkB4godb28AIw  (online DBA from University of Liverpool) PolyU DBA: http://dba.fb.polyu.edu.hk/ CityU DBA: http://www.cb.cityu.edu.hk/dba/ Chinese U Business School - PhD: http://www.baf.cuhk.edu.hk/program/mphil-phd.shtml Baptist U DBA: http://bus.hkbu.edu.hk/hkbusob/live/html/en/content.php?id=503 Grenoble DBA: http://www.grenoble-em.com/461-grenoble-ecole-de-management-dba-program-2.aspx University of Newcastle DBA: http://degree.hkma.org.hk/program/program_next.asp?prog_no=DBA&prog_cat=DOC&ver...