INFR 512 – Building the Business Case to Information Systems Value Management

  • VALIT – The value of IT Management and the different ways companies can measure it.
  • RACI Charts – I’ve used this in the past, in both IT and Business departments.
  • Business Cases – I use business cases a lot, so this information was familiar to me already.
  • Risk Register – I found this information very valuable, as on my current project, I’m involved in the risks and communicating them a lot, so to see the different ways of measuring the impacts is very beneficial.
  • Cost Benefit Models – I don’t see myself using these a whole lot in my career path, but I did find it valuable to learn about the ways it can predict a projects profitability and help determine whether or not it worth pursuing the project.

INFR 514 – Strategic Vision to Business Strategy – Strategy – I learned that it a takes a lot more view points to accurately develop a strategy.

  • Being ahead in the game instead of staying on a level path with your competitors. For example, there is a new project coming into Nationwide called “Usage Based Insurance” I’m seeing all kinds of resistance to this, comments of how complicated it is and why are we doing this. When doing some research, I see that this is the future of auto insurance and we need to get into this now or we will be left behind and potentially lose out on a lot of business. Instead of saying how its too complicated, we should work more to find the most effective way to do this, make it better than what our competitors are doing.

INFR 521 – Team Problem Solving and Collaboration

  • Team Collaboration – I remember this class, along with all the MACP classes about the importance of collaboration and team work. I’ve grown to really enjoy the open environments I work in and

INFR 618 – Workplace Team Practicum to Information Technology Fundamentals

  • I honestly did not gain much out of this course. I Took the security option just out of curiosity but I have no real interest in utilizing this in my career path. I felt it was too detailed for anything I would ever need to be aware of.

INFR 617 – Foundations for Information Strategy, Systems, and Technology

  • I think what I remember most about this course is the learning outcomes and the different learning strategies. I remember Dan Pink and the different work environments and how there are multiple different work environments emerging in the 21st century. Ever since I’ve taken 617 I’ve found my behavior at work much different and much more productive, I no longer focus on being at work for 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week, but I focus on setting personal, team and project goals and then meeting those goals. I set up task lists and strive to complete them as quickly as possible. I find myself working some long days, and other times working some shorter days, but always accomplishing the goals.

INFR 517 – Enterprise Systems to Data in the Enterprise Data and Analytics –

  • I’ve learned how Nationwide is using data and analytics so much in the development of our pricing and products. I go back to the “usage-based insurance” that I mentioned earlier and how we are pricing based purely on analytics. Throughout the history of auto insurance, there have only been so many ways that the prices can be measured, but by increasing amount of data that we can collect today, there are no options to truly price an individual by the way you drive, not just by the category you fall into.
  • I recall learning about enterprise systems in general. While its difficult for a company the size of Nationwide to have one true enterprise system, I have seen how the project I work on and the system we are deploying is in a sense an enterprise system, as it is now a single system for all quoting, binding and servicing of personal lines policies, in the past, we had multiple systems for this where the data was sent through batch files to different systems and not real time.