MISST

The MISST program is an innovative new program combining information and business strategy. In addition to blending two key areas, the format of the program is unique as well. The program is organized around a series of 9 projects that are completed by different high performance teams. The teams collaborate remotely to complete each project after receiving their charge during a 2 to 4 day residency. The final presentation is made at the following residency. Traditional classroom instruction is replaced by individual research and application demonstrated through the completion of the projects and individual learning modules. The instructors work more as mentors assisting the participants.

I am excited to be a participant in this pilot launch of the MISST program. The program overlays well with my goal of working with organizations to operate in an efficient and effective manner.

My Personal Learning Goals
Here are my goals coming in. The reflections on these goals was getting long, so I've moved them to a new page - MISST Reflections. A chronological and more complete sequence of my MISST artifacts is listed below:

  1. New systems implementation on a large scale project.
    To date my work in systems has primarily been on projects where I have exerted a greater deal of control. I am looking to the MISST program to understand how to implement improvements across functions.
  2. Better understand how to apply technology to business processes.
  3. Effective recommendation and "selling" of system improvements.
    Many of the MISST projects involve selling our idea. 
  4. Continuous improvement! I'm always wanting to learn new ideas and better ways to accomplish anything. This 4th goal is the moving target where the learning I didn't know I needed is documented.

I'll discuss more on how I feel I'm progressing on these on the Reflections page. A key component to learning (I've learned) is how we apply our experiences to future situations.

Artifacts from my MISST work to date:

Last Thought
My last thought for this page is what you may be thinking about the MISST name. Masters of Information Strategy, Systems and Technology is a mouthful and MISST is not an acronym you normally think of for a masters degree. You may have thought of Clint Eastwood's thriller, "Play Misty for Me" (trailer below) or the song from the movie, "Misty." Despite any name awkwardness, the program is truly worthwhile. I highly recommend it for anyone who works with understanding technology and business processes (how many jobs don't do this?).

Why is MISST important? - This quote from a Business Week article may sum it up best:

"I have heard many Western business execs complain that while their IT function is good at showcasing cool new tech inventions like RFID and Web 2.0, it is unable to align these technologies with the firm's business processes in a way that boosts value and impact for the enterprise. In other words, Western CEOs view their CIOs as great tech inventors but poor business transformers."

The program is not just for IT types (look at me!). I also like that article because it talks about the success of CIO's from India who don't come from tech backgrounds. Instead they come from finance or operations. The message is that every part of an organization should be focused on aligning with and contributing to the overall strategy. This is a sign of successful organizations.

Now the fun(ny) stuff: As you watch this trailer, you may think that there are more similarities to this program than just the name - those are only coincidental! It seriously is a great program and I am excited to benefit from it.

 

Page Links

Recent Updates

[6/14/09] Project 9 document is up.

[4/4/09] Project 5 has a new web page and a story about it in the College student newspaper. More is in the Reflections page.

P8 work is mainly in the wiki. We are working on our video that will tell the main story. We'll use a wiki page to be the background. This will be the original wiki used for outside input.

[2/12/09] Project 5 update - Today I presented and received approval to proceed with full implementation of the student payroll enhancements developed and proposed in Project 5. We will begin with the summer payroll in June and fully implement for all students in the Fall of 2009.

[2/3/09] Remaining artifacts and reflections for Project 7 are up.

[12/2/08] First artifacts for Project 7 are up. Also have some reflections on my development experience in P7

[9/17/08] Added some of the artifacts for Project 6. We've also found out that the Director and CIO from ODNR will be attending our final presentation in October.

[8/10/08] Starting Project 6. Team is the whole group (or cohort, if you will). New challenges in terms of the team size and the content. Watch the Reflections page for future thoughts.

[7/30/08] Less than a week to the next residency. Some additional P5 artifacts are up.

[7/12/08] The page is getting a little long. Moved the thoughts on my goals to a "reflections" page.

[5/23/08] Wrapped up Project 4. This was the most unstructured project to date. Glad it's over. Now time to reflect. Plenty of learning occurred. Need to figure out what it was.

[5/13/08] Approaching the final deliverable for Project 3. We've posted use cases as a group exercise and individually. Now on to the final deliverable and pulling it all together. Interesting to try to find information on available services in a rural area. As much of my information has probably come from interviews and conversations as it has from websites. Something to be said for actually talking to people.

[4/4/08] Finished the 1st learning module for Project 3. Presenting on network concepts was outside my comfort zone, but it went well.

[4/1/08] Listening to my wife discuss general problems in her job as a facilitator with the Creative Options program in the Children and Family First Council, I have an idea to approach the mental health needs with our telehealth project. It's a sorely needed but very overllooked need.

[3/26/2008] We're into Project 3 now. The project is to make a recommendation for providing telehealth solutions to Morgan County in Ohio.

[3/4/2008] Project 4 is posted! The format for this project is different. No presentation this time. Instead we will meet and discuss or "defend" our product. I have to say that I'm not as enthused about Dell's prospects. I was much more excited researching Apple. Apple seems to have a good grasp on places that the market is going. See in the artifacts section for more on that.

[2/2008] The new facility in Coshocton is really something! Montgomery Hall
The rooms are very well laid out and so quiet!

[12/9/2007] Project 2 is done! and now we are on to Project 4. We ended up renaming our product to Boomerang for our target market. Project 2 lessons are discussed in Goals and Artifacts. Project 4 is focused more on business strategy and the faculty feel this is a better next step in our learning process. The project: What can we recommend to return Dell to its previous success?

[10/2007] Project 2 charge: to propose a new information based product.  Our product: NutriGo, comprehensive nutrition and exercise tracking program that can be run on a variety of smartphone devices with built in cameras.  .

[09/13/2007] Wrap up project 1.  More…

[09/09/2007] MISST begins with a week long residency at the Coshocton Campus shared by Muskingum, COTC and OSU Newark.