Damage: The Adventures of an IT Leader, Teaching Note

"The Adventures of an IT Leader" invites readers to "walk in the shoes" of a new CIO, Jim Barton, as he spends a difficult year learning effective information technology leadership, sidestepping the pitfalls that make the CIO job the most volatile, high-turnover job in the business. In this chapter, Barton and his IT team undertake a measured analysis of the recent DoS attack, and discuss what recovery action to recommend to the CEO: Do nothing and hope for the best; shut down immediately and rebuild the system from development files; or keep business running by building a mirror site to handle the rebuild. The chapter creates an opportunity in classroom discussion to focus on management-level decision making: the decision process can be analyzed, alternatives understood, and lessons highlighted.