MIS Project Management at First National Bank During the last ve years, First National Bank (FNB) has been one of the fastest growing banks in the Midwest. The holding company of the bank has been actively involved in purchasing small banks though-out the state of Ohio. This expansion and the resulting increase of operations had been attended by considerable growth in numbers of employees and in the complexity of the organizational structure. In five years the staff of the bank has increased by 35 percent, and total assets have grown by 70 percent. FNB management is eagerly looking fonivard to a change in the Ohio banking laws that will allow state-wide branch banking. CORPORATE DATABASE John Hart had for several years seen the need to use the computer to support the corporate marketing effort of the bank. Despite the fact that the majority of the bank's prots were from corporate customers, most information systems effort was directed at speeding up transactions handling forsmall unprofitable accounts. Mr. Hart had extensive experience in the Corporate Banking Division of the bank. He realized the need to consolidate information about corporate customers from many areas of the bank into one corporate database. From this information corporate banking services could be developed not only to better serve the corporate cu stomers, but also to contribute heavily to the profit structure of the bank through repricing of services. The absence of a corporate database meant that no one individual knew what total banking services a corporate customer was using, because corporate services were provided by many banking departments. It was also impossible to determine how profitable a corporate customerwas to the bank. Contact ofcers did not have regularly scheduled calls. They serviced corporate customers almost on a hit-or-miss basis. Unfortunately. many customers were \"sold" on a service because they walked in the door and requested it. Mr. Hartfelt that there was a vast market of untapped corporate customers in Ohio who would purchase services from the bank if they were contacted and "sold" in a professional manner. A corporate database could be used to develop corporate proles to help contact ofcers sell likely services to corporations. Mr. Hart knew that data about corporate customers was being processed in many departments of the bank, but mainly in the following divisions: Corporate banking, Corporate trust and Consumer banking. He also realized that much of the information was processed in manual systems, some was processed by time-sharing at various vendors, and other information was computerized in many internal information systems. The upper management of FNB must have agreed with Mr. Hart because in December of 1986 the Corporate Marketing Division was formed with John Hart as its executive vice president. Mr. Hart was due to retire within the year but was honoured to be selected for the new position. He agreed to stay with the bank until \"his" new system was "off the ground." He immediately composed a problem statement and sent it to the ISD. Systems Research compiled a preliminary impact statement. At the next Priorities Committee meeting. a project proposal was authorized to be done by Systems Research. The project proposal was completed by Systems Research in record time. Most information was obtained from Mr. Hart. He had been thinking about the systems requirements for years and possessed vast experience in almost all areas of the bank. Other user divisions and departments were often "too busy" when approached for information. A common reply to a request for information was, "That project is John's baby; he knows what we need The project proposal as prepared by Systems Research recommended the following: - Interfaces should be designed to extract information from existing computerized systems for the corporate database (CDB). - Time-sharing systems should be brought in-house to be interfaced with the CDB. - Information should be collected from manual systems to be integrated into the CBS on a temporary basis. - Manual systems should be consolidated and computerized, potentially causing a reorganization of some departments. - Information analysis and flow for all departments and divisions having contact with corporate customers should be coordinated by the Corporate Marketing Division. - All corporate database analysis should be done by the Corporate Marketing Division staff, using either a user-controlled report writer or interactive inquiry. The project proposal was presented at the next Priorities Committee meeting where it was approved and rated as the highest priority MIS development project in the bank. Mr. Hart became the user sponsor for the CDB project. The project proposal was sent to the manager of corporate development, who appointed Jim Gunn as project manager from the staff of analysts in corporate development. Jim Gunn was the most experienced project manager available. His prior experience consisted of successful projects in the Financial Division of the bank