Creating a process driven organization at Agcredit

Introduction

Process driven organizations are those organizations that rely on corporate law’s principles stating that any organization acts as a separate entity (Golembiewski, 1989). It is the opposite of a people driven organization. It exists independently from its promoters or originators, and it is alike an artificial person formed by law. Thinking about an organization in light of an abstract creation brings about exciting ideas. A process-driven organization has perpetual succession and has no limitation by constraints of time, morality, and skills of its members. Process driven organizations can operate across the globe independently and simultaneously because human limitations do not bind them (Rothwell et al., 1995). It is with this knowledge that there is an explanation of how to come up with a process driven organization at Agcredit. It will provide a new way of organizing work tasks within the organization and put emphasis on process orientation as an essential factor for management.

An organizational structure for IT department

There will be need to come with a way of recognizing the ownership of the business in question as this is key to the progress of any projects that will be vital to the success of the organization. The business will then sign on and then have active participation and communication regarding the IT related projects as they are instrumental for business success (Collins & Baccarini, 2004). The company will then come up with a steering committee that will help in approving all the projects for the organization to ensure that those projects are in line with the view of the enterprise. The steering committee will consist of the IT personnel and representatives from all the departments so as to have an organizational view and good representation of every individual. They will also help to integrate ideas of all the departments, and this is vital for the integration of IT and business. The steering committee should make sure that all the projects for the company fit into the SOA framework (Moore, 2002). The steering committee has the mandate to make sure that the governance of SOA is delivering the business as well as SOA objectives.

The chief information officer (CIO) should be in touch with the company’s CEO and then senior management. He should be able to hire a senior management that understands the departmental as well as the business objectives so that it can convey this information and guide IT personnel. There should be account managers that will be in the finance department, but they will have an obligation of reporting to the senior IT management periodically as the organization will decide. There will also be a need to reassess the skills and experience of the IT personnel to ensure that the company assigns roles to people that have required qualifications and are highly competent. All the functions of the IT department will have to have alignment with the vision of the company. The company will advertise the roles within the organization and if there are any roles not filled, and then it will in-source those IT functions. There will also a necessity to continuously training the IT personnel so that they have the necessary skills with time through the in-sourcing. The company will also consider outsourcing the functions of IT that are not primary competencies if there will be a need to do so.

Project selection process

The first thing to do for selecting a project that is in alignment with the vision of the enterprise should take place cautiously and involve the relevant stakeholders. The first step is to identify the need for the project depending on the needs of the organization and its objectives. The organizational project needs to adhere to all departmental design standards and applicable statutory and federal laws (Thompson, 1967). The input in this step will form the steering committee made up of individuals from their various lines of business. The next thing is to determine how the project affects different divisions and how it will meet the needs of each department. The steering committee will ensure that this project fits within the SOA, and it does not have duplication of the current process or other software nodes. They should collaborate with end users so as to understand their needs and note the potential benefits of the project under consideration. They will ensure that the project can have standardization and modularization as this can be very important for the architecture of the organization.

The next step entails building a successful financial plan; it is majorly the funding strategy for the suggested project from the first step. There should be consulting with key stakeholders at this stage because they are the ones to ensure funding for the project. The availability of funding is a key element that determines project selection. Funding of projects is through a combination of resources, and this step is to ensure there is in Identification of these resources (Hinds et al., 2000). The third step in the process of project selection is planning how the funding should take place and how much should go top each task. The funding of projects is via a combination of many funding categories at different levels of authority. Thus, it is a complex process. There should be funding for all project types through a tax upon all the lines of business to support the SOA framework. There should then be the planning how the construction of the project will take place and whether there is enough expertise in the company to work on the project. The steering committee should continuously monitor progress to ensure it meets the company’s vision.

How Manley should "make the case" for SOA to ensure that the executive team at AgCredit buys-in

Manley will have to present the benefits of SOA focusing on how it will support the organization’s objectives, goals, and vision. That will make it possible for the executives to buy in the technology.

• Current products and services will have modification and availability for usability purposes.
• The transition will simplify the company and speed up the implementing of the product.
• SOA supports web services that are in line with the growth opportunities, closer customer relationships, and the possibility of cross-selling between divisions.
• The technology will change the way the company works, for instance, it will enable working from home or on the way through the virtual private network.
• It will provide opportunities for a different line of business both in terms of stretching development dollars and financial gains.
• The transition will enable purchasing of services and their implementation in a quick manner. That will increase the company‘s capabilities and ensure that it catches up with other organizations that are more competitive.
• It will ensure the centralization of customer information and consequently help in the realization of savings from reduced database needs.
• The organization has a transformation from a people driven the organization to a process driven. Having common processes will integrate the business as a whole and create value from increased communication as well as decreased uncertainty.

After Manley helps the organization executives to understand the benefits that can accrue from SOA, he should then create comprehensive, dynamic and collaborative applications. Those applications should be convincing and well understandable to the executives. They should also be sensitive to the content and the context of the specific business process. The SOA framework should be a model that effectively integrates the business logic and information of all the necessary systems. Manley should utilize the techniques that allow diverse and redundant systems to have address via a common and coherent single interface. The SOA has to protect the IT investments without hindering the application of new capabilities (Abraham et al., 2010). The technology should integrate the IT investments with the business strategy for it to have full support from the executives.

New IT capabilities

There are IT capabilities that are essential for supporting the SOA technology that is the future business architecture to support the process driven organization. There are a many tools required to support the company’s future architecture from an IT perspective. They include information tools, development cycles, management tools, information delivery options as well as client attitudes towards the lines of business. The development of those IT capabilities should have their basis on role clarifications so as to reduce conflicts and have seamless management and operations (McKeen & Smith, 2009). The management capabilities will involve visioning and alignment of the processes with the company’s vision and mission. There should also be funding methods to projects that are in line with policies set out by the company, ensuring that expenses are much higher than the expenses. Other management capabilities include focus and measurement metrics, and monitoring methods. The monitoring of the progress of any project or investment is a paramount process that any organization should embrace because there are changes in the market trend (Hinds et al., 2000).

The changes are in the arena of technology, demand, competition and environment that can force changes to take place for the organization. It is useful in helping an organization to have accelerated achievement of its objectives, vision, and mission. It helps to accommodate all those changes in the market trends and in bridging the gap between the anticipations as well as the current status of the business. The information management capabilities include process organization, data mining activities, an organization of schemas and taxonomy to utilize the information, and maintenance procedures for business functions. Development of systems should conform to the SOA standards and its guidelines through compliant software and hardware to come up with systems that break down functionality with regulatory requirements. There should be system proficiency in the creation of reports for audit purposes. When the company is putting in place all those capabilities, it should ensure that it does everything with the client attitude so as to manage the perceptions and maintain a close tie with the business.

Aspects of IT governance to support the transformation

The first thing to do before formalizing the governance structures is to outline the departmental as well as the enterprise vision and objectives. The company also will have to draft some guiding principles that will help close the gap between the IT and the business strategies because they now have integration. The data should have a better administration as it is one of the key factors for an organization’s existence Smaltz, 2011). One of the IT governance structures required to support the transformation is the creation of account managers in each line of business and then having a multidiscipline steering committee. The discipline committee should have the power to make vital decisions for the organization without intimidation or manipulation by the higher authority of the organization. They steering committee will have to work in close collaboration with the chief information officer and have a high level of sponsorship and corporate approval. The governance system should have its focus on the guiding and transformation process as they keep the key issues into focus like regulatory compliance and Sox.

The stakeholders will have involvement in the steering committee so as to tie together the IT structures and the business and ensure they work together without any mishap. The governance system will give an ear to all the voices and put them to consideration when making decisions that impact the entire organization. The executives will put in place prior on the policy decisions that are supportive of the organization’s vision. The other aspect of IT governance is to use IT in managing the demands of employees and the customers as they are the primary stakeholders in the business. "The organization should also use IT to achieve value delivery and provision of executive management. It should also have usage in managing risks, performance and change" (McKeen & Smith, 2009).

References

Abraham, C. et al (2010). Systems analysis and design for service oriented architecture projects. Journal of emerging trends in computing and Information Sciences, 2(1)

Balancing similarity, competence, and familiarity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81(2), 226-251.

Collins, A. & Baccarini, D. (2004). Project success – A survey. Journal of Construction

Construction. Malden MA: Blackwell Science.

Golembiewski, T. (1989). Organization development: Ideas and issues. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction

Hinds, J., Carley, M., Krackhardt, D. & Wholey, D. (2000). Choosing work group members:

Smaltz, H. (2011). Are You Leveraging Your Data or Is Your Data Leveraging You? HIT Exchange, pp. 8-9.

Thompson, D. (1967). Organisation in action. New York: McGraw Hill.

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