Mark Van Dorn, president of Van Dorn Sub-Oceanic Exploration, Inc., has authorized his Director of Information Services to begin a major project that will redesign the engineering support workstations used by his staff of design engineers. Mark has been concerned for a number of months that his firm was losing market competitiveness because of inadequate computer support for his engineering staff.

Richard, his IS Director, is eager to begin the project. He and his staff have many ideas on how new hardware, software, and networking technologies can support the work of the design engineers. He is very concerned, however, that the engineers participate in defining their needs for this new system, so that the system will truly be valuable to them and so that they are more likely to use its capabilities.

Richard and Mark have discussed the process for including the engineers in the analysis process, and Richard has recommended a technique called Joint Application Development (JAD). One of his IS staff members used JAD in a previous job, and is an experienced JAD facilitator. Richard explained how JAD involves the users and managers in a series of intensive group workshops that will guide the group through the process of identifying needs for the new system, and formulating the design of the new system. Mark was impressed with the JAD concept, and realized it would certainly help accomplish his objective of involving his engineers in the development process.

After reflecting on his conversation with Richard, Mark has identified a couple of concerns, however. One is the amount of time his engineers would have to commit to the JAD sessions. Can his firm withstand the lost productivity of the core of his engineering staff for a number of days? A second, and perhaps more important concern, is the fact that Mark knows the personalities of his engineers better than Richard. The engineering staff tends to break down into two groups. One group consists of seasoned ‘old-timers’ who are accustomed to traditional ways of doing engineering. Several of this group are tough, irascible, ex-nuclear submariner types who have domineering personalities. The other group is younger, right out of college, who are eager to utilize computer tools and technologies they were exposed to during their college training. A few of this group are outspoken, but most defer to the older engineers who have far more experience and seniority. Mark has serious concerns about getting these engineers to work together on a JAD project team.

One evening, shortly after his discussion with Richard, Mark called his daughter, Julia, who is a IS consultant in another city. Mark laid out for her the need for the project, his goal of heavily involving the engineering staff, and his concerns about the strong personalities clashing and the shy personalities getting ignored during the JAD sessions. Julia’s response was immediate. “You need to use a new way of performing JAD, called e-JAD. This will take care of most of your specific concerns. My firm has already performed several e-JAD consulting engagements, and we’re pleased with it. I think it will work for you.”

Explain what Julia means by e-JAD. Why does she think it may be a solution to this problem? Are there any disadvantages in using e-JAD?