McGill University, B.Com. & M.B.A. programs
273-432 & 273-636, Information Systems Administration, Winter 1997
STUDY QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR TUESDAY, March 18

Case:
Phillips 66: Controlling a Company through Crisis

Theme:
EXPERT SYSTEMS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Bob Wallace, president of Phillips 66, believes that there is the strong possibility that expert systems can be developed to support some management tasks. (For instance, there is the task in which front line managers make pricing decisions.) Bob Wallace is directing Bobby Culpepper and Glenn Jones to set up an expert system. Whereas Culpepper and Jones are technically proficient, they have no understanding of expert systems. Your group has been assigned to Culpepper and Jones. They are asking your group to prepare a proposal that would

In thinking about what you would include in such a proposal, your group could benefit by taking advantage of general principles and other lessons learned previously, such as the WCA framework, the need for pro-active top management support, and so forth.

The final proposal could easily fill ten pages. Do not write a ten-page paper! Instead, identify the main points that you would include and eventually flesh out in a full proposal. Be sure to include details specific to Phillips 66, so that your main points will not appear so generic that they could apply to just about any firm in the petroleum (or any other) industry.

For the sake of efficiency, your group may decide to apportion different parts of this assignment to different group members. For instance, after the group decides the general answer to each of the bullets, above, one group member might be assigned the responsibility for listing out the main points for just one or two of the bullets.

You will need to decide (1) who will write up the single paper to be e-mailed to AllenLee@Management.McGill.ca by Tuesday at 1 o'clock, (2) who will present the proposal in class (if your group is among those selected), and (3) who will act as the group manager (the person responsible for establishing the division of labor among the members of the group and for establishing the schedule for what tasks will be done when and by whom).

Of course, you may communicate with each other and coordinate your tasks by using e-mail, by meeting physically, by telephoning, and so forth.

In class on Tuesday, March 18, one or more groups will be selected at random to present its main points (not a full proposal!) to the class. The jobs of the other groups will be to discuss the correctness and completeness of the main points.

Group A:

Group B:

Group C:

Group D:

Group E: