1. A data breach occurs when a hacker gains illegal access to a system and steals personal data, such as credit card numbers or home addresses. With more of our information stored in the cloud, data breaches are becoming increasingly common. Research recent news articles about large-scale data breaches, summarize why they occurred, and suggest how they might be prevented in the future.

2. Imagine you work for a large automotive company. Your manager asks you to look into integrating a digital assistant into a new vehicle for the next production year. How would understanding your companyàbusiness profile help you complete this task? 

3. Suppose you work in the IT department of Global Hotels, a multinational hotel chain. Global Hotels runs several specialized business support systems, including a guest reservations system that was developed in-house to meet the requirements of a large company with worldwide operations. Guests can make one-stop online reservations by visiting Globalàwebsite, which has links to all major travel industry sites. Global Hotels just acquired Mommaì a regional chain of 20 motels. Mommaàuses a vertical reservations package suitable for small- to medium-sized businesses and a generic accounting and finance package. Should Mommaàuse Global Hotels)nformation systems or continue with its own? In your answer, consider issues such as business profiles, business processes, system interactivity, and e-commerce. What additional information would be helpful to you in making a recommendation?

4. Pets for Rent is an innovative company that brings puppies to corporate meetings.

The companyàCEO says that having puppies in a room with employees in an informal setting helps break down communication barriers and fosters a greater sense of teamwork and comradery.

Since this is a new company, the CEO has asked you if a mission statement is necessary.

After you review the chapter material, write a brief memo with your views. Be sure to include good (and not-so-good) examples of actual mission statements that you find on the web.

5. You are the IT director at Attaway Airlines, a small regional air carrier. You chair the companyàsystems review committee, and you currently are dealing with strong disagreements about two key projects. The marketing manager says it is vital to have a new computerized reservation system that can provide better customer service and reduce operational costs. The vice president of finance is equally adamant that a new accounting system is needed immediately because it will be very expensive to adjust the current system to new federal reporting requirements. The VP outranks the marketing manager, and the VP is your boss. The next meeting, which promises to be a real showdown, is set for 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.

How will you prepare for the meeting? What questions and issues should be discussed?

6. Back at Attaway Airlines, the morning meeting ended with no agreement between the VP of finance and the marketing manager. In fact, a new issue arose. The VP now says that the new accounting system is entitled to the highest priority because the federal government soon will require the reporting of certain types of company-paid health insurance premiums.

Because the current system will not handle this report, the VP insists that the entire accounting system is a nondiscretionary project. As you might expect, the marketing manager is upset. Can part of a project be nondiscretionary? What issues need to be discussed? The committee meets again tomorrow, and the members will look to you, as the IT director, for guidance.

7. A lively discussion is under way at Sunrise Software, where you are a project manager.

The main question is whether the person-days concept has limitations. In other words, if a task will require 100 person-days, does it matter whether two people in 50 days, five people in 20 days, ten people in 10 days, or some other combination that adds up to 100 performs the work? Two programmers on the project seem to think it doesn matter. On the other hand, one of the projectàsystems analysts says it is ridiculous to think that any combination would work. To support his point, this extreme example was offered: Could 100 people accomplish a task estimated at 100 person-days in one day? Is the systems analyst correct? If so, what are the limits in the %ople versus days%quation? Taking the concept a step further, is there an optimum number of people to be assigned to a task? If so, how would that number be determined? You need to offer some guidance at the next project team meeting. What will you say?

8. The project management team at Parallel Services is having a debate about how to define tasks in the WBS. The project manager wants to break tasks down into the smallest possible units. For example, she objected to a broad task statement called %velop a training schedule. nstead, she suggested three subtasks: (1) %termine availability of training room,(2) %termine availability of attendees,!nd (3) ålect specific dates and training times. nother project team member disagrees. He feels that the broader task statement is better because it allows more flexibility and will produce the same result. He says that if you break tasks into pieces that are too small, you risk overmanaging the work and spending more time on monitoring than actually performing the tasks. As a member of the team, which approach do you agree with more? What are the pros and cons of each?

9. You are a systems analyst at Just-in-Time Software, a company that specializes in short delivery cycles for its products. The current project is running behind schedule, and the project manager wants to bring a few extra programmers onboard to help with the work. You are familiar with BrookàLaw. How can you best explain to the project manager that adding more people to the project at this late stage may make things worse? You don want to be seen as a negative team player, but you¥ convinced that if you don speak up, the projectàschedule will slip even more.