A PMI Lakeshore Chapter Dinner/Presentation

Online, On Time, On Demand:
Lessons from Churchill's Information Portal

Date: Monday, February 9th, 2004
 
Schedule: 6:30 - 7:00 pm networking/cocktails (cash bar)

7:00 - 8:00 pm sit down dinner

8:00 - 9:00 pm presentation
 
Location: Holiday Inn Oakville (Center), 590 Argus Road, Oakville, Ontario, L6J 3J3, (905) 842-5000 (go south off of the QEW on Trafalgar Road South then turn west onto Argus Road).
 
Cost:
  Chapter
Member
Non-Member
Pre-Registration
pay by cash/cheque
$30.00 $35.00
Pre-Registration
pay on-line by
Visa or Mastercard
$31.50 $37.00
Registration after
Deadline Date
(space permiting)
 
$35.00 $40.00
Payment: By Cash or Cheque:   At the door, by cash or cheque made out to "PMI - Lakeshore Chapter", receipts will be provided at the event.
 
By Visa or MasterCard:   On-line before the pre-registration deadline. No credit card payment will be accepted at the door. Receipts are issued and emailed to you at time of payment. Note: The higher costs for credit card payment are due to the per transaction costs charged to the Chapter by Visa and Mastercard.
 
Deadline: Registration deadline is 5 pm on Thursday February 5, 2004.
 
Register: Registration is closed. Deadline was February 5, 2004.
 
Program: C193-040209
 

Presentation Abstract

Today organizations must sense changing situations and respond to these rapidly. They must understand the impact of business events in real-time, compare these against various scenarios, make sound decisions and take actions to counter competitive threats. Online, On time, On demand is about reacting to these events proactively so organizations can stay ahead of their competition and thrive. It is about leveraging today's emerging portal technologies, utilizing information, resources and people, to facilitate better decision velocity and making, and increase individual and team productivity.

This presentation reaches back into history to show how an organization under tremendous pressure built the equivalent of a modern day on demand solution, a portal, using the emerging technologies of the day. In June 1940, after the fall of France, Winston Churchill was facing defeat. Not only did he have to stave off an imminent enemy invasion but he had to quickly turn the UK economy around. This meant focusing slender resources on the immediate threat, unifying a disparate peacetime economy and putting it onto a war footing so that it could sustain total economic warfare, and directing its output into immediate military use.

The on demand solution helped do this by pulling the various military, industrial, and civilian establishments and communities together into a federation working towards this common cause. It integrated disparate facilities and information to create a sophisticated early warning system and executive dashboard driven by events, and closely linked with the supply-chain. Based on accurate and timely information and intelligence, Churchill and his organization were better able to understand what was going on in preparation for war, and also in the heat of battle. With the ever-changing battlefront they were better able to leverage all the resources at their disposal, and select the best tactics. They were also able to select the most promising strategies and projects, and make the best possible decisions. In the final outcome not only was the imminent invasion staved off but the groundwork laid to eventually defeat a much more powerful military opponent.

As today's organizations move towards an on demand business using portal and e-business technologies, many of the challenges are the same. They need to be responsive enough to anticipate market conditions and customer needs, and react to business events; variable enough to manage multitude projects, resources, and costs; focused enough to manage the core business and leverage best-of-breed partners for the rest; resilient enough to keep the core business accessible, yet safe.

Speaker - Mark Kozak-Holland

Mark has over 20 years of systems integration and services experience gained internationally. Mark helps organizations evaluate how enabling technologies can impact their business and enhance existing business processes to the customer. Mark is passionate about history and advocates that we move through repeating cycles of historical change. Paying attention to how historical projects and emerging technologies of the past solved complex problems of the day provides some very valuable insight into how to solve today's more challenging business problems. Mark authored his first book titled "On-line, On-time, On-budget: Titanic lessons for the e-business executive" as part of a lessons from history series with IBM press . The book explains in layman's terms how to deliver an Internet project successfully using Titanic as a case study. Mark has completed his second book in the series "Online, On time, On demand: lessons from Churchill's Information Portal".