Volkswagen of America: Managing It Priorities

Volkswagen of America: Managing IT Priorities

1.  What is your assessment of the new process for managing priorities at Volkswagen of America? Are the criticisms justified? Is it an improvement over the old process?  How is it an improvement, if it is an improvement?

This Volkswagen of America case sheds light on a common issue of complexity when it comes to planning. Dr. Uwe Matulovic clearly demonstrates the ‘know-how’ to run an effective Information Technology organization, but the planning process he designed was simply over-complex. Distinguishing an IT Steering Committee within the Executive Leadership Team is critical in determining fair funding efforts for all IT projects; this is a major improvement on the previous process. However, the additional committees, groups, and ever changing iterations of analysis seemed to have muddied the waters of this process. While roles and responsibilities seem to be defined at the highest of levels in the ITSC and ETL, it is the decision making process and those that are fighting for funding that were ignored.

While creating categories to rank upon, like “Stay-in-Business” and ROI, was a major improvement in the planning process; it also was very clear that certain decision making criteria or attributes were missed. For example, the Supply Flow funding problem could have been mitigated if the criteria of placing value on global projects were not ignored. Additionally, broadcasting such rankings offered up a shortcut for business units to move their projects higher up the chain. Even with its first-run flaws, this planning process does appear to be an improvement on the previous rendition.

When comparing this to the previous, freestyle, planning process, it is easy to see that this structured system has the bones to be a much better process. I believe this first exercise, while needing improvement, provided enough fruit to prove the process is an improvement. This rigid and cumbersome method ensured that each...