1. (Anh Thi Nguyen, Karim Samaali, Glen Goldman, Todd Savage)

Suppose it is 1990, the year when UPRR's transition from traditional mainframe computing to client-server networks was just beginning. As a member of the staff of Jim Shattuck -- at the time, head of the Information Technologies Department in UPRR's headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska (see p. 4 and p. 9 of the case) -- you have been asked to prepare a brief report in which you identify what it is that the transition to client server networks is supposed to achieve or intended to satisfy. Write up such a report (no more than three or four pages) to Jim Shattuck.

2. (Michel Kreidi, Abbas Khalil, Jane Lu, Kenneth Yau)

Suppose it is 1990, the year when UPRR's transition from traditional mainframe computing to client-server networks was just beginning. As a member of the staff of Jim Shattuck -- at the time, head of the Information Technologies Department in UPRR's headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska (see p. 4 and p. 9 of the case) -- you have been asked to prepare a brief report in which you explain "client server" to Jim Shattuck, including (but not limited to) matters about how "client server" platforms are different from traditional, centralized, mainframe-based platforms. In your report, you should cover what client server is, what client server is not, what client server can do that is new or different, what client server cannot do, and so forth. Write up such a report (no more than three or four pages) to Jim Shattuck.

3. (Olivier Charbonneau, Danny Wong, Popi Makris-Lambrinakos, John Alexander)

UPRR's Information Technologies Department (headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska) and UPRR's Union Pacific Technologies (headquartered in St. Louis) were businesses unto themselves, with their own business process, technology, participants, data/information, products/services, and customers. (See especially pages 4 to 9.) First describe the business process, for both the Information Technologies Department and UPT; be sure your description is specific and non-generic. Second, describe (where the case makes the facts available) the technology, participants, data/information, products/services, and customers for both the Information Technologies Department and UPT; be sure your description is specific and non-generic.

4. (Mihai Maicaneanu, Shayne Mitchell, Scott Godfree, Sami Rejeb)

A lesson from our case discussion of Citibank Brazil was that a necessary condition for success in a firm's implementation of information technology is that the firm's business strategy, information systems strategy, and human resource strategy must all be aligned or otherwise coordinated. (This also means that a firm must have an established business strategy, an established I.S. strategy, and an established H.R. strategy in the first place.) How well did UPRR's implementation of client server technology satisfy this necessary condition? Write up an answer that consists of no more than three or four pages. Be sure to include details specific to UPRR, so that your points will not appear so generic that they could apply to just about any firm in the railroad (or other) industry.

5. (Arthur Wong, Stuart McLean, Maya Chechelnitsky, Mireille T. Nguyen)

Nowadays, a corporation is likely to be a "bionic organization" because of the deeply embedded role of information technology as the nervous system and lifeblood essential to its day-to-day and long-term functioning. Some authors have even said that, in these corporations, the information-technology design is the organization design. Neither the organization structure nor the business process of Phillips 66, for instance, could have functioned without the Phillips 66 EIS. The design of the organization/business-process, on the one hand, and the design of the EIS, on the other hand, reflected and reinforced each other. Describe the ways in which UPRR was also a "bionic organization."