Company Profile QUIKDISTRIBUTE is a logistics company that transports and distributes many different products all over S
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2022 6:36 am
Company Profile
QUIKDISTRIBUTE is a logistics company that transports anddistributes many different products all over South Africa for manyclients. For example, QUIKDISTRIBUTE transports soft drinks fromthe soft drink manufacturers to small shops throughout SouthAfrica. QUIKDISTRIBUTE has over 1000 transport vehicles that makeabout 20 000 deliveries every week. QUIKDISTRIBUTE is completelyreliant on its Information Technology (IT) to operate and manageits business, collections and deliveries.
External environment
The logistics market is very competitive because there are manybig and small companies offering transport services. Business hasbeen satisfactory at QUIKDISTRIBUTE, but the company knows that itneeds to improve to survive. Thus, QUIKDISTRIBUTE is concentratingon customer service improvements, cost reductions and efficiencygains by doing the same work with less resources and reducingwaste, duplication and rework.
Information Technology at the company
QUIKDISTRIBUTE operates its Information Technology (IT) in anuncoordinated and haphazard manner, with very little planning andcontrol. As a result, QUIKDISTRIBUTE is experiencing challenges intheir daily IT operations. Often, their systems, such as theircustomer relationship management (CRM) system, collectionscheduling system, vehicle tracking system, product deliveryscheduling system and client invoicing and receipts systems, godown for no apparent reason and no-one in IT knows why or how toget them back online quickly. When they eventually get the systemsback, delivery data and information are sometimes missing orincorrect.
In addition, the IT people are always running around franticallytrying to fix IT problems, so there is never anyone available totake client (internal and external) requests for access to systemsand information, especially for new business and even general ITneeds. The current IT team structure in the IT department is shownin Figure 1.
Figure 1: The current IT team structure in theIT department
These IT problems have a negative impact on QUIKDISTRIBUTE'sbottom line. When these IT problems occur, collections anddeliveries get delayed and even sent to the incorrect addresses,clients get very upset, and some have even taken their valuablebusiness away.
Significant IT problems/issues/circumstances at thecompany
The IT executive had heard about the practice of combining ITdevelopment and IT support teams to improve the entire softwarelifecycle but was unsure what a typical combined team would looklike where an IT development team was combined with an IToperations team. In particular, the IT executive needed tounderstand what typical roles were required for the combined teamthat she wanted to establish.
The IT executive wanted to put together a combined team becausethe current IT team structure in the IT department created problemsfor the IT executive. The IT team structure in the IT departmentresulted in an inability to quickly take advantage of new ITservice opportunities, resulted in suboptimal resource use, baddecision making, lack of transparency, hidden silo agendas andincreased problematic organisational politics.
The IT executive has a dilemma about how to speed up ITdevelopment so that the company can become a leader in the market,but still have stability in the IT operational environment toprevent negative impact on the business and customers. Currently,the business requirements for new developments change all the timeand when the development team hands over a new IT service to the ITservice operations staff there are always incidents, problems,disruptions and conflict. She would appreciate some general,high-level guidance to help her solve this dilemma.
Which of the following is the BEST advice to give the ITexecutive to help her solve her dilemma and is LOGICALLY CONSISTENT(logically consistent means that all parts in a paragraph are truein relation to all other parts in the paragraph)?
A. The IT executive should consider forming DevOps teams. ADevOps team combines development and operations. The benefits arereduced implementation times of new IT services, increased ITproductivity, improved IT services quality, reliability,reusability and operational stability. However, DevOps cannot workeffectively with other frameworks such as ITIL, Agile and Lean.DevOps accommodates rapidly changing requirements, continuousdeployment and removes conflict between development and operations.DevOps principles involve CALMS, which stands for Culture,Automation, Lean, Measurement and Sharing. Culture embraces if youbuild it then you run it, Automation enables fast delivery, Leankeeps things straightforward and minimal and reduces waste,Measurement ensures that all the critical activities andinfrastructure are monitored and optimised for measurement andSharing promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing betweenpeople.
B. The IT executive should consider forming DevOps teams. ADevOps team combines development and operations. The benefits arereduced implementation times of new IT services, increased ITproductivity, improved IT services quality, reliability,reusability and operational stability. DevOps can work effectivelywith other frameworks such as ITIL, Agile and Lean. DevOpsaccommodates rapidly changing requirements, continuous deploymentand removes conflict between development and operations. DevOpsprinciples involve ADDIE, which stands for Analysis which is thefirst stage and finds out the exact nature of the service to bedeveloped, Design is the second stage and provides an outlineanswer to the question, Develop involves building the software andtesting the builds to remove any bugs from the software, Implementmoves the new software into production and Evaluate refers toobtaining feedback about whether the software meetsexpectations.
C. The IT executive should consider forming Lean teams. A Leanteam combines development and operations. The benefits are reducedimplementation times of new IT services, increased IT productivity,improved IT services quality, reliability, reusability andoperational stability. Lean can work effectively with otherframeworks such as ITIL, Agile and Scrum. Lean accommodates rapidlychanging requirements, continuous deployment and removes conflictbetween development and operations. Lean principles involve CALMS,which stands for Culture, Automation, Lean, Measurement andSharing. Culture embraces if you build it then you run it,Automation enables fast delivery, Lean keeps things straightforwardand minimal and reduces waste, Measurement ensures that all thecritical activities and infrastructure is monitored and optimisedfor measurement and Sharing promotes collaboration and knowledgesharing between people.
D. The IT executive should consider forming Agile teams. AnAgile team combines development and operations. The benefits arereduced implementation times of new IT services, increased ITproductivity, improved IT services quality, reliability,reusability and operational stability. Agile can work effectivelywith other frameworks such as ITIL, Extreme Programming (XP) andLean. Agile accommodates rapidly changing requirements, continuousdeployment and removes conflict between development and operations.Agile principles involve CALMS, which stands for Culture,Automation, Lean, Measurement and Sharing. Culture embraces if youbuild it then you run it, Automation enables fast delivery, Leankeeps things straightforward and minimal and reduces waste,Measurement ensures that all the critical activities andinfrastructure is monitored and optimised for measurement andSharing promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing betweenpeople.
E. The IT executive should consider forming DevOps teams. ADevOps team combines development and operations. The benefits arereduced implementation times of new IT services, increased ITproductivity, improved IT services quality, reliability,reusability and operational stability. DevOps can work effectivelywith other frameworks such as ITIL, Agile and Lean. DevOpsaccommodates rapidly changing requirements, continuous deploymentand removes conflict between development and operations. DevOpsprinciples involve CALMS, which stands for Culture, Automation,Lean, Measurement and Sharing. Culture embraces if you build itthen you run it, Automation enables fast delivery, Lean keepsthings straightforward and minimal and reduces waste, Measurementensures that all the critical activities and infrastructure ismonitored and optimised for measurement and Sharing promotescollaboration and knowledge sharing between people.
QUIKDISTRIBUTE is a logistics company that transports anddistributes many different products all over South Africa for manyclients. For example, QUIKDISTRIBUTE transports soft drinks fromthe soft drink manufacturers to small shops throughout SouthAfrica. QUIKDISTRIBUTE has over 1000 transport vehicles that makeabout 20 000 deliveries every week. QUIKDISTRIBUTE is completelyreliant on its Information Technology (IT) to operate and manageits business, collections and deliveries.
External environment
The logistics market is very competitive because there are manybig and small companies offering transport services. Business hasbeen satisfactory at QUIKDISTRIBUTE, but the company knows that itneeds to improve to survive. Thus, QUIKDISTRIBUTE is concentratingon customer service improvements, cost reductions and efficiencygains by doing the same work with less resources and reducingwaste, duplication and rework.
Information Technology at the company
QUIKDISTRIBUTE operates its Information Technology (IT) in anuncoordinated and haphazard manner, with very little planning andcontrol. As a result, QUIKDISTRIBUTE is experiencing challenges intheir daily IT operations. Often, their systems, such as theircustomer relationship management (CRM) system, collectionscheduling system, vehicle tracking system, product deliveryscheduling system and client invoicing and receipts systems, godown for no apparent reason and no-one in IT knows why or how toget them back online quickly. When they eventually get the systemsback, delivery data and information are sometimes missing orincorrect.
In addition, the IT people are always running around franticallytrying to fix IT problems, so there is never anyone available totake client (internal and external) requests for access to systemsand information, especially for new business and even general ITneeds. The current IT team structure in the IT department is shownin Figure 1.
Figure 1: The current IT team structure in theIT department
These IT problems have a negative impact on QUIKDISTRIBUTE'sbottom line. When these IT problems occur, collections anddeliveries get delayed and even sent to the incorrect addresses,clients get very upset, and some have even taken their valuablebusiness away.
Significant IT problems/issues/circumstances at thecompany
The IT executive had heard about the practice of combining ITdevelopment and IT support teams to improve the entire softwarelifecycle but was unsure what a typical combined team would looklike where an IT development team was combined with an IToperations team. In particular, the IT executive needed tounderstand what typical roles were required for the combined teamthat she wanted to establish.
The IT executive wanted to put together a combined team becausethe current IT team structure in the IT department created problemsfor the IT executive. The IT team structure in the IT departmentresulted in an inability to quickly take advantage of new ITservice opportunities, resulted in suboptimal resource use, baddecision making, lack of transparency, hidden silo agendas andincreased problematic organisational politics.
The IT executive has a dilemma about how to speed up ITdevelopment so that the company can become a leader in the market,but still have stability in the IT operational environment toprevent negative impact on the business and customers. Currently,the business requirements for new developments change all the timeand when the development team hands over a new IT service to the ITservice operations staff there are always incidents, problems,disruptions and conflict. She would appreciate some general,high-level guidance to help her solve this dilemma.
Which of the following is the BEST advice to give the ITexecutive to help her solve her dilemma and is LOGICALLY CONSISTENT(logically consistent means that all parts in a paragraph are truein relation to all other parts in the paragraph)?
A. The IT executive should consider forming DevOps teams. ADevOps team combines development and operations. The benefits arereduced implementation times of new IT services, increased ITproductivity, improved IT services quality, reliability,reusability and operational stability. However, DevOps cannot workeffectively with other frameworks such as ITIL, Agile and Lean.DevOps accommodates rapidly changing requirements, continuousdeployment and removes conflict between development and operations.DevOps principles involve CALMS, which stands for Culture,Automation, Lean, Measurement and Sharing. Culture embraces if youbuild it then you run it, Automation enables fast delivery, Leankeeps things straightforward and minimal and reduces waste,Measurement ensures that all the critical activities andinfrastructure are monitored and optimised for measurement andSharing promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing betweenpeople.
B. The IT executive should consider forming DevOps teams. ADevOps team combines development and operations. The benefits arereduced implementation times of new IT services, increased ITproductivity, improved IT services quality, reliability,reusability and operational stability. DevOps can work effectivelywith other frameworks such as ITIL, Agile and Lean. DevOpsaccommodates rapidly changing requirements, continuous deploymentand removes conflict between development and operations. DevOpsprinciples involve ADDIE, which stands for Analysis which is thefirst stage and finds out the exact nature of the service to bedeveloped, Design is the second stage and provides an outlineanswer to the question, Develop involves building the software andtesting the builds to remove any bugs from the software, Implementmoves the new software into production and Evaluate refers toobtaining feedback about whether the software meetsexpectations.
C. The IT executive should consider forming Lean teams. A Leanteam combines development and operations. The benefits are reducedimplementation times of new IT services, increased IT productivity,improved IT services quality, reliability, reusability andoperational stability. Lean can work effectively with otherframeworks such as ITIL, Agile and Scrum. Lean accommodates rapidlychanging requirements, continuous deployment and removes conflictbetween development and operations. Lean principles involve CALMS,which stands for Culture, Automation, Lean, Measurement andSharing. Culture embraces if you build it then you run it,Automation enables fast delivery, Lean keeps things straightforwardand minimal and reduces waste, Measurement ensures that all thecritical activities and infrastructure is monitored and optimisedfor measurement and Sharing promotes collaboration and knowledgesharing between people.
D. The IT executive should consider forming Agile teams. AnAgile team combines development and operations. The benefits arereduced implementation times of new IT services, increased ITproductivity, improved IT services quality, reliability,reusability and operational stability. Agile can work effectivelywith other frameworks such as ITIL, Extreme Programming (XP) andLean. Agile accommodates rapidly changing requirements, continuousdeployment and removes conflict between development and operations.Agile principles involve CALMS, which stands for Culture,Automation, Lean, Measurement and Sharing. Culture embraces if youbuild it then you run it, Automation enables fast delivery, Leankeeps things straightforward and minimal and reduces waste,Measurement ensures that all the critical activities andinfrastructure is monitored and optimised for measurement andSharing promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing betweenpeople.
E. The IT executive should consider forming DevOps teams. ADevOps team combines development and operations. The benefits arereduced implementation times of new IT services, increased ITproductivity, improved IT services quality, reliability,reusability and operational stability. DevOps can work effectivelywith other frameworks such as ITIL, Agile and Lean. DevOpsaccommodates rapidly changing requirements, continuous deploymentand removes conflict between development and operations. DevOpsprinciples involve CALMS, which stands for Culture, Automation,Lean, Measurement and Sharing. Culture embraces if you build itthen you run it, Automation enables fast delivery, Lean keepsthings straightforward and minimal and reduces waste, Measurementensures that all the critical activities and infrastructure ismonitored and optimised for measurement and Sharing promotescollaboration and knowledge sharing between people.