Volkswagen : Managing It Priorities Case Study

The paper is divided into three sections, the first of which will establish a timeline of events. This project background will serve as a case study for the analysis in the following section that will be structured such that each of the previously mentioned facets will be independently analyzed and contrasted with project management principles. Finally the paper will conclude with a summary of the analysis and recommendations based on

This research paper is a brief discussion of budget management analysis. Budgeting is the key to financial management, and is the key to translates an organization goals or plan into money. Budgeting is a rough estimate of how much a company will need to get their work done, and provides the basis for evaluating performance, a source of motivation, coordinating business activities, a tool for management communication and instructions to employees. Without a budget an organization would be like a driver, driving blinded without instructions or any sense of direction, that’s how important a budget is to every organization and individual likewise (Clark, 2005).

There are five major variables to consider when starting a major IT projects and there are scope, time, cost, quality, and risk. Most major IT projects will require a project manager to handle to overseeing of the project. The project management refers to the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to achieve specific targets within specified budget and time constraints. Project managers activities will include the planning of the work, assessing the risk, estimating the costs required to complete the project, and several other important duties. As in other areas of business, Project management for

A company's budget serves as a guideline in planning and committing costs in order to meet tactical and strategic goals. Tactical goals such as providing budgetary costs for daily operations, and strategic objectives that include R&D, production, marketing, and distribution are all part of the budgeting process. Serving as a guideline rather than being set in stone, the budget is a snapshot of manager's "best thinking at the time it is prepared." (Marshall, 2003, p.496) The budget is a method in which to reign-in discretionary spending, and will likely show variances between what costs have been anticipated and what costs are actually incurred.

There is an old adage which insists “time is money.” While simple, in concept, it has been proven true, in fact. In a global, technologically driven society, however, the very idea of time has changed. Having once implied a spanning space between the hours of “nine to five” relative to the person or organization from whose vantage money was viewed, time is now irrespective of person, organization, or location; it is, literally, “24/7.” With this shift in perception, organizations, especially, have taken on the greater challenge of ensuring efficiency in their operations, allowing their customers the

In the market today, business is showing growing interest to partner with IT to make sure they get the value for investing huge in technology. But, still there is a gap between the two departments and the IT folks think that they do not have enough support from the business to ensure the value is realized for the organization. A good example of deep integration of IT and business is the recent firing of the Apple maps chief. The ill-fated Apple maps was the failure of both the IT folks who couldn’t develop an efficient app for maps and also the business who couldn’t gather all the requirements and couldn’t manage the project to achieve the desired output. As a result, the Apple exec Richard Williamson was blamed and fired for the disastrous project and humiliation for the organization.

When the CEO launches two new strategic initiatives requiring integration across all business units, the organization – whose IT decisions have been largely delegated to its business units in proportion to their revenue generating capacity – now faces the dilemma of how to prioritize its IT projects in order to support the new strategic “enterprise” vision.

1) How should Matulovic respond to his fellow executives who are calling to ask him for special treatment outside the new priority management system?

There was not a clear charter and authority for PMO at AtekPC. The implementation strategy was to work within the culture and to develop forces that would promote the PMO and overcome cultural resistance. The senior IT managers encouraged a slow, incremental strategy that would allow the PMO concept to prove itself with small victories won through mentoring one project at a time. Initiating

• Meet regularly with other departments’ heads- Sales- HR-Accounting-Marketing-Customer Service-Institutional trading-R&A-Client Services to communicate IT strategies and projects. Gather feedback from other departments regarding current needs. Be sure that all departments are aware of an IT strategy and that all future projects and initiatives must fall within this strategy.

There are several organizations acting their role in the budgetary system. To be specific, in the United States the Bureau of Budget acts as presidential servant with a cutting bias. The subcommittees in congress plat the role of guardian, attempting to protect their budget by making cuts in requests. The

The new process that was instituted to prioritize IT projects at Volkswagen of America is very well organized. It takes an IT project and looks at it from multiple aspects, from business to IT. It also allows for several departmental entities to play a more active role in tying in business objectives with stated benefits of the IT project. As stated in Applegate, “IT governance is the effort to devise an overarching and integrated approach, addressing broad themes such as operating performance, strategic control, risk management, and values alignment.” (Applegate, 403) In

VWoA laid out their five next round of growth goals (NRG) and built a business architecture with the help of different organizational entities to manage priorities of different projects in order to implement these goals. The ELT was given the primary responsibility along with ITSC, PMO, BPTO and DBC playing important roles while selecting and prioritizing projects. The Digital Business Council was to play the most challenging role here as it would work with different Business Unit managers in order to select and prioritize projects, keeping in mind a way to categorize projects, assess their business impact, aligning project with business goals and making tradeoff decisions. The process played out in three phases initiated by PMO. Thus, this process is well structured and would help DBC to consider different trade-offs while selecting and prioritizing projects.

A budget allows organisation to set targets and goals that are then compared with actual performance and evaluated. When using budgets (that have been used

(Seal et al, 2015, page 883) define a budget as “a detailed plan for the acquisition and use of financial and other resources over a specified time period”. While