University IT Initiative: Staffing, Installation, and Evaluation

This project analyzes the IT management of a university undertaking an initiative to develop a classroom model inspired by École 42. The project begins by assessing current IT staffing skills through various methods such as testing, self-assessment, and real-world challenges, and then develops a staffing policy plan considering the university's strategic goals. It explores different staffing approaches, including ethnocentric, geocentric, polycentric, and regio-centric, and justifies the selection of a geocentric approach, which prioritizes the best talent regardless of nationality. The project also considers the ethical implications of this staffing approach. Furthermore, it details the IT implementation and installation plan, including key steps and a scheduled plan, along with an IT initiative budget plan. The project concludes with an evaluation of the initiative's impact, risk assessment, environmental impact, and overall conclusions, providing a comprehensive overview of the project's planning, execution, and evaluation phases. The project also includes a section on references that includes all the academic resources used to develop the assignment.

Running head: MANAGEMENT IN IT
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Name of Student-
Name of University-
Author’s Note-

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Table of Contents
Section 2: IT Initiative Staffing.......................................................................................................3
a) Conducting a review on current IT staffing skills...................................................................3
b) Staffing policy plan for IT department of University..............................................................4
Section 3: Staffing Approaches.......................................................................................................6
a) Different staffing approach......................................................................................................6
b) Justification of selected staffing approach..............................................................................7
c) Ethical Impact..........................................................................................................................8
Section 4: IT installation plan..........................................................................................................9
a) IT implementation and installation plan..................................................................................9
b) Scheduled plan......................................................................................................................10
c) IT initiative budget plan........................................................................................................12
Section 5: Evaluation of Initiative.................................................................................................13
a) Impact of new technology on university...............................................................................13
b) Risk assessment for the IT initiative.....................................................................................13
c) Environmental impact for project..........................................................................................15
d) Conclusion.............................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16

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Section 2: IT Initiative Staffing
a) Conducting a review on current IT staffing skills
The IT staffs of the university have adapted to the changing environment along with the
university to become more innovative and technologically advanced. For making the change
smooth, the management of the university should know the skills those are possessed by the IT
management staffs. The management of the university should know the skills in which they lack
behind. Based on the skills lacking, the management will provide them with training or organize
seminars so that the lacking skills of the staffs can be recovered (Akram et al. 2018). The skills
of the IT staffs can be measured by following some processes.
1. Taking test among the employees: This is one of the most traditional ways to test the
employees working in the environment. Testing process helps to know the technical as well as
theoretical knowledge about managing the IT network among the IT staffs. Testing process helps
to give precise picture about the knowledge of the employee and that helps the management to
know about the skills if staffs in IT department.
2. Prepare self-assessment: Another way to test the skills the employees is to send them
personal questionnaire so that they can fill it by themselves. This helps to shows the abilities and
skills that the staffs have and also defines their self-perception. These type of evaluation for
testing the skills of the IT staffs is very optimistic.
3. Get feedback from IT staffs: In this method, the employees are asked to rate the
performance on other employees. This will help to find out the performance of each employee
and summary of the feedback will provide the results about the skills of the employees working
in the university.

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4. Put the staffs in real challenge: Another way to test the skills of the staffs is to give
them real situation where they have to work and show their skills and also get the chance to
improve their skills. This situation is a risky one as staffs work on real time situation to show
their skills.
For conducting the review of the present IT staffs in the university, the most preferable
method will be allowing them to work on the project directly. The project of the university is to
develop a class room model like École 42 and employing the present IT staffs on the project will
test their abilities as well as have some progress on the project (Ellappan and Ashwini 2017).
The IT staffs of the university are already capable of handling online system. So, managing the
class room model like École 42 will also be doable from their end.
b) Staffing policy plan for IT department of University
Staffing plan includes strategic process of planning by which the organization can
accesses as well as identify all personal needs in the organization. Good staffing plans helps to
understand the total number of staffs working in the organization and all different types of staffs
needed for the company to accomplish its goal.
The staffing policy plan that would be included in developing the project for the
university includes some key objectives. These objectives aims to ensure in acheiving strategic
target of the organization. The staff policy plan includes
1. Planning for needs of staffs: This ensures that the company has availability of
resources to complete the present project that is in progress and helps to accomplish all the tasks
that the organization has assigned to do.

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2. Ensure time satisfaction for completing the objective of the company having
appropriate qualified personnel.
3. Ensuring the efficiency of staff work, increasing the productivity of labor in the
companies.
Staffing policy plan that is to be planned for developing the project of the university is
reducing the labor cost, and maximize the productivity (Chiam et al. 2017). This also includes to
eliminate the skill gaps and increases the staff’s engagement in the project. Staffing policy plan
also increases the staff retention and helps to reduce the turnover in the company. This helps to
improve the customer experience and helps to streamline the business growth in the organization.
The staffing policy plan in this project will be carried out in three main ways.
1. Firstly by determining the present staffs levels
2. Forecast the need of staffing in future
3. Lastly finding the gaps between current and future staffing.
Staffing needs in staffing policy plan can be calculated by following steps.
1. The business goal of the organization is to be identified before calculating the staffing
needs.
2. The present situation of staffing is to be calculated in the organization s that the need
of staffing can be calculated.
3. Last step is to calculate is the future need of the staffing. The staffs needed to carry out
the project in future is to be calculated in the staffing need plan. This will help to get an idea

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about the staffs needed in the company for completing the project or the staffs present with the
company to be included in the project.
Section 3: Staffing Approaches
a) Different staffing approach
There are four main approaches of staffing for a company. Those are ethnocentric,
geocentric approach, polycentric and regio-centric approach of staffing. Four different staffing
approach are defined below:
1. Ethnocentric approach of staffing: This particular approach of staffing mainly focuses
on norms and on practices of the parent company. The top management level of the company
will employ staffs from their parent headquarters. This approach does not includes local staffs to
be employed in head quarter management (Ge and Xu 2016). There are many organizations
which are depended on the parent country nationals (PCNs) to manage their higher management
positions. There are number of reasons for doing so. This can be because of the technical as well
as the business expertise that the expert from the parent headquarter might have to manage the
team. The person might also have the ability to transfer the culture of headquarter to execute
foreign operations. The person might also be political understandable person and can have the
capability to establish effective communication between headquarter and other branches.
2. Geocentric approach of staffing: The geocentric approach of staffing includes choosing
best people who are appropriate to do the job. This recruitment of job is done irrespective of their
parent country or host country (Sarro et al. 2017). The best person who is appropriate for job is
recruitment irrespective of their nationality. This is one of the best approach of staffing that can
be included which staffing people in an organization.

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3. Polycentric approach of staffing: This type of staffing approaches recruits person of the
host country where the branch of the organization is located. This is a multinational approach
which recruits HCN (Host country nationals) for managing the branch of that company in their
own region. In this staffing approach, no personnel are bought from other countries or parent
country to manage the branch of the company.
4. Regio-centric approach of staffing: In this approach of staffing, staffs are being
transferred to other countries in the subsidiaries of that organization. But the transfer is done in
the same region (Rezende et al. 2019). The main advantage of region-centric approach is that the
managers gets the opportunity for influencing decisions and completing jobs at the regional
level. Development of this regional approach mainly helps MNC via evolution from the
ethnocentric as well as polycentric approach.
b) Justification of selected staffing approach
The best approach that can be used for staffing to complete the project of developing
École 42 classes is geocentric approach. This approach of staffing includes two main advantages:
this enables the organization to develop a group of senior managers who are from own country or
from outside. This approach helps to have a network with all the international experience as well
as helps to have contact across the borders. This approach helps in reducing the tendency for the
national identification of managers having subsidiary units of organization. This method will
help to have the best people available to complete the project.
The main motive of the university is to develop a classroom similar to École 42 and for
that the management team of the university needs to recruit best people available to complete the
project and those who have adequate skills and knowledge about the processes to develop the

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project. This recruitment process includes global outlook of recruitment (Eeckhout, Maenhout
and Vanhoucke 2019). This might include to advertise on the global job boards or can be
contacted with source candidates. For recruitment, the management can also check the database
of the global employee to complete project successfully.
c) Ethical Impact
The ethical problems that might arise in undertaking the geocentric approach of staffing
are as follows:
1. In the recruitment process of the geocentric approach, the host countries might use the
immigration laws for requiring employment from the national regions wherever necessary.
2. This particular recruitment approach of staffing not very easy to implement and
implementing this approach requires training, relocation costs and compensation cost. The
company need to spend more money on the on this recruitment process.
3. With the implementation of the geometric approach of staffing, the company or
organization needs to implement high centralized control to manage the staffing process. The
organization might also resent the autonomy of the subsidiary management while recruiting
people with geocentric approach.
4. To recruit people using the geocentric approach, the organization needs to include high
sophisticated board members for the process of recruitment (Savalgi et al. 2016). The planning
of recruitment should include high level planning and the process of recruitment should match
the processes between vacant positions and the people who have adequate profiles for
recruitment.

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5. This cost of recruitment using this approach is higher compared to all other
approaches, but developing an innovative project that would bring pioneer advancement in the
educational development will not include less amount of money in the development process. The
organization also has funding from the research and development and thus they need best people
who are capable of completing the project.
Section 4: IT installation plan
a) IT implementation and installation plan
Implementing software system can be said a daunting task and this is very important for
developing a system (Sajjadiani, Kammeyer-Mueller and Benson 2019). Before starting the
development system, the implementation process and the installation process of the system is to
be planned so that the development of the system is successful. The processes includes in IT
implementation are as follows:
1. Creating the list of outcomes that are required: For determining the actions in the
project implementation plan, the activities are to be determined and the tasks are to be prioritized
as per the implementation plan. The implementation outcome are to be listed in the process of
implementation.
2. Allocate skilled staffs for the implementation process: In the project implementation
plan, the list of outcomes in the project are to be specified. The project manager should allocate a
skilled staff for managing the project (Lakshman, Lakshman and Estay 2017). The project
manager should be motivated for achieving the project outcome and the team involved in the
project is to manage and the team should be accountable for achieving the project successfully.

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3. Determining the tasks required to achieve outcome: For the implementation plan, the
actions are to be specified for the team so that the project can be carried out successfully. The
actions those are to be included in development. The actions those are required in the project are
to be practical and the actions those are to be included are simple.
4. Establishing roles, budgets as well as accountabilities: After the list of activities are
completed in the implementation process, the roles and the responsibilities associated to
complete the activities are to be assigned (Abbott et al. 2016). The IT staffs in the project are to
be assigned for the job and their roles in the project. The budget for the project is also to be
specified in the project for establishing roles, accountabilities and budgets.
5. Setting up teaching process for monitoring the progress: The manager associated for
managing the implementation process should have a tracking sheet so that he can track the
activities that are completed in the implementation process (Chiam et al. 2017). The manager
also needs to track down the activities those are yet to be completed in the development process
of the system.
b) Scheduled plan

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Figure 1: Project Gantt chart
(Source: Created by Author using MS Project)

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The diagram above shows the total number of days needed to complete the project. The
project has seven phases those are to be completed to complete the project. This project will take
130 days to complete and the cost of developing the project is £412,880. The details of the
activities needed to complete the project are explained in the diagram above.
c) IT initiative budget plan
Figure 2: Project Budget
(Source: Created by Author)
The above diagram shows the budget for the project of developing an IT system for
organizing automated system. The total cost for developing the system will be £412,880. The net
benefit for the project is considered to be £200,000. With 8% discount rate, the net present value