Organization/Environment Description - This is a recently merged public electric utility, created from 2 companies (called "North" and "South"), whose new name is "NS". This merger was advertised as a "merger of equals". This means the board of directors was consolidated into one from the 2 separate organizations, and there are 2 CEO's with equal authority to run the company "as one" and meet the expectation of the stockholders and the board of directors.(It is too early in the merger to form any opinions about how well this will work out. We'll see how it develops as the course progresses. The philosophy of "merger of equals" will likely have some bearing as the business units consolidate.) N & S were subject to state public utility regulation (their territories were within their states), and the newly formed NS is subject to regulation by both state regulatory agencies. Some of the business groups from N and S are now "consolidated" into a single NS organization (Senior Leadership of NS is already consolidated) and some of the business groups are not consolidated yet. There is a Field Service Organization made up of independent N and S groups (in-tact since the merger) which is in the process of consolidating. Within this organization are N and S mobile groups (N-Mobile and S-Mobile) which repair and enhance the electrical network. N-Mobile is unionized and S-Mobile is not. S-Mobile does not currently have a union. N-Mobile's union cannot legally become involved in any S-Mobile's business operations, even after the merger. S-Mobile's field organization employees are free to entertain the idea of starting a union and discussing it with any existing union. Union votes have occurred over the years, but none have ever come close to passing. S-Mobile's business leadership would love to see a non- union situation continue. Over the years, S-mobiles leadership have tried to maintain benefits and work rules that would obviate a need for union representation. With the coming consolidation, and threat of down-sizing (this has occurred with other recent utility mergers), the topic of staring up a union is "hot" again in the field organization There are N and S Field Organization Vice Presidents and N-Mobile and S-Mobile business directors and leadership teams. A very important application for both N and S Field organizations is their specific Time Tracking Systems, which were explicitly designed to meet their respective needs. The Time Tracking system not only tracks time worked for purposes of pay and benefits, but it also tracks time charged to various projects and other work initiatives, so that the organization knows how employees are being used for company objectives. The N Time Tracking System is a Windows Operating System based application, and the S Time Tracking System is a Sun Solaris (Unix) Operating System based application. Both systems run on servers connected to NS's consolidated computer network. The N and S Field Service organizations are supported by a consolidated Information Technology (IT) group, made up of personnel from the previously separate IT organizations. There is a small group of IT personnel

who provide IT support for the N Time Tracking system for the field service organization, and these folks work closely with "ACME Time Tracking Inc.", the vendor who provided the time tracking system. This vendor provides programming and problem resolution support to the small IT organization. There is a large group of IT personnel who provide IT support for the S time tracking system for the S field service organization. These IT folks developed the application and provide programming and problem resolution support directly to business organization. The NS Field Service IT Organization, and the NS Business Services Organization are consolidated. They are, however, made up of personnel from the previously separated groups that existed before the merger. While they serve consolidated senior leadership with associated consolidated organizational goals, these personnel cannot easily forget their previous loyalties. This can "color" their business decisions, and could cause them to make less than a completely objective decisions. It is hoped that there are enough checks and balances in place so that this does not happen going forward. There is an NS business services organization which is already consolidated and which provides consolidated and non-consolidated business groups with such services as Human Resources, Financial services, infrastructure services and real estate management. The consolidated Information systems used by this organization get data feeds from both N and S local information systems (including the N and S Time Tracking systems described above), and the consolidated Information Systems are supported by a consolidated IT staff. This staff also supports the NS Computer Network and the physical servers connected to it (but not the applications and systems running on the network). Business Plans for the current Time Tracking Systems of N and S- Both N and S Field Service Organizations (including N-Mobile and S-Mobile) have plans to allow the Time Tracking Systems to be accessed remotely from external sites with no network connectivity and to be accessed remotely by field personnel in their work vehicles (mobile units). This is a highly visible business initiative, and there is some talk of adding GPS tracking capabilities as a follow-on initiative. Employees in S-Mobile are NOT enthusiastic about remote access because the next step is the possibility of "big brother" monitoring their movements once GPS is added. Unionized employees in N-Mobile are subject to contract work rules that allow GPS monitoring, and are resigned to the probability that this will occur, although they would not complain if GPS never arrived. The Project - IT Leadership from the consolidated IT Support for the Field Service Organization has proposed that a single Time Tracking system be implemented for the N and S Field Service Organization. This consolidated Time Tracking System would implement consolidated functionality from the 2 current systems, and provide the same interfaces to external systems. IT Senior Leadership is enthusiastic and views the advantages as follows: evidence (to senior business leadership) that the IT organization has successfully consolidated; potential cost savings in personnel (because one system is cheaper to support), and potential costs savings in hardware/software licenses. The Field Service business leadership is not as enthusiastic, because: they fear loss of local control for local initiatives; they do not know how the business consolidation will affect the organizations and do not want to have to deal with the politics of merging business systems (and maybe business processes) while consolidating a business organization.

The Field Service business organization (both N and S) has reluctantly agreed to go along with the initiative, and agreed that an N Project Manager (NPM) from the N business field organization will be the PM, and a Deputy PM (SDPM)from S will assist. Both are physically located in their respective territories. Additional help on the project would be matrix in as identified by the PM's, and approved by the functional organizations providing the help. The business has also agreed to temporarily postpone plans to enhance the current Time Tracking Systems until it is clear what the consolidated system will look like. The business organization is very anxious to get these local enhancements back on track, however, and this drives their expectations on how quickly the consolidated project should be done.

1. what would be one advantage to engaging the vendor very early in the project (long before the final system was chosen).
2. What would be one disadvantage....why might you want to delay engaging this vendor as long as possible? I want only one example of each!