Av Corporate: Software Tool Project
Manuel C. Manuel · Journal of the International Academy of Case Studies · 2013
CASE DESCRIPTIONThe primary subject matter of this case is project management. Secondary issues examined include change management and operations management (specifically process management). The case has a difficulty level appropriate for junior level courses. The case is designed to be taught in one class session equivalent to one and a half hour (specifically if an assigned group of students do a 20 - 30 minute presentation of their analysis and recommendations and the rest of the period is spent for discussion (through question and answer)). It is expected to require between four to six hours of outside preparation by students.CASE SYNOPSISChange is a key factor that often makes or breaks an organization. The ability to adapt to change, however, must go hand in hand with the ability to manage change. Many Information Technology (IT) companies and organizations nowadays have difficulty managing change due to the dynamic nature of the Information Technology industry where standards, processes, products and the like continually evolve and where new product development is the norm. In this case study, we examine the effects of such a dynamic culture to a company's people, process and technologies.AV CORPORATEKenneth Tirona has been working for the second largest information security company in the world for the past three years. He started out as a Quality Assurance Specialist and is now a project manager in the Product Research and Development Department who is familiar with the internal processes of the Anti Virus Operations Department. The company's organizational setup is shown below.Organization BackgroundMarketingThe Marketing Department is involved not just in typical sales and marketing but also in Product Development where they assist the Product Research and Development Department conduct market studies for potential products and finally in Beta testing upcoming products.Product Research and DevelopmentThe Product Research and Development Department is in charge of driving the entire project from start to finish. The department typically interfaces with Marketing at the start of the project to understand the requirements needed by customers and then develop these new products.Technical SupportTechnical Support is the customer facing side of the business and deals with issues and requests after a product is launched. They routinely escalate other issues to the Anti Virus Operations Department if required. These issues typically lead to new that are sent out to products used by customers.Anti Virus OperationsThis department typically supplies the that are updated regularly for the company's products. These instructions are based on File, Web and Email analysis conducted by engineers. They also provide support as needed by Technical Support.File Analysis ServicesThis team typically receives suspicious files from either Technical Support or from other sources. They then build a set of instructions that will clean the suspicious file. These instructions will be compiled and verified by Quality Assurance team before it is sent out to the company's products.Web Analysis ServicesThis team typically receives suspicious URLs and websites from either Technical Support or from other sources. They then tag these websites in a temporary database. The Quality Assurance team verifies the URLs before it is published in the final database. The company's products can look up suspicious URLs from this final database.Email Analysis ServicesThis team typically receives suspicious Emails from either Technical Support or from other sources. They then verify the URLs or files within these emails and send it to either Web Analysis or File Analysis teams for further verification. Fore emails without files/URLs, the Email Analysis team simply verifies if the email is spam. They then build a set of instructions that will block the spam. …