IT Management

Our approach for the setup and creation of an IT Strategy is based upon 2 pillars. The first is the Demand side. With the Demand Side we cover the link between the Business and IT. Whereas the Supply side, the second pillar, corresponds to the delivery of IT services to the Business.

Phase  1: Scope

After an initial Kick-off workshop, we start our work on both the Demand and the Supply side.

Demand Side: Scoping the demand side covers the high-level review of the business model, strategy, environment and clients and partners.

The following sub steps can be identified:

• High Level Assessment of the Business Organization: here a SWOT analysis is drafted or reviewed, should it exist;

• Determine Appropriateness of Strategy: The review should initially focus on validating the business strategy. Should this strategy seem insufficient to be the base of a profound IT Strategy, some further in-depth investigation appears to be required.  Where this in-depth investigation does not fulfill the requirements then serious consideration should be given to postponing the engagement until such time as a new strategy is developed.

Supply side: Scoping the supply side covers the assessment of the current IT organization and environment.

The following sub steps can be identified:

• IT Customers assessment: within this review we identify the primary customers of the IT department
• Application portfolio assessment: The Application Portfolio Assessment identifies issues associated with the technical and functional quality of the application portfolio (both package and custom). The Functional Quality Assessment gauges an application’s effectiveness in meeting business objectives, while the Technical Quality assessment measures how well an application performs from a technical standpoint.
• IT Process Assessment: This review assesses the current IT processes as implemented within the company. There are 3 levels: the IT Management processes, IT Project processes and the IT Operations processes.

Phase  2: Design

Within this second phase, DelITad will derive from the gathered information the necessary items to begin with the design of the IT Strategy. On the demand side this means:

• Definition of the Business Systems architecture. Under the business systems architecture we understand the application environment supporting the current and future business processes.
• Definition of the Demand side architecture: In this step we define the structures to make sure the business requirements are adequately transferred to the IT Supply side. This mainly consists of defining Committees and communication and reporting lines between Business and IT.
• Definition of the future IT Processes: based on, the current state of the processes we here define the future state and desired maturity of the IT processes.

On the supply side we understand:

• Definition of the Technical infrastructure: based on the business architecture, the underlying technological choices are defined, both for the current installation, the migration period and the future IT infrastructure;
• Sourcing of the IT requirements: based on the IT requirements, the needs in terms of current and future IT personnel are defined.

Phase  3: Plan

During this last phase, the IT Strategy that has been defined in the Design phase is put into practice. The migration strategy is defined and the actual implementation of the different structures and processes is planned. The following sub items will answered:

• The Business Planning might be updated in case the technological consequences are limiting the implementation of the business strategy;
• For all processes and structures, a migration plan is defined;
• Workstreams, priorities and dependencies are separately defined;
• All related IT projects are gathered into a Program and the corresponding high-level planning is defined.

Example: Business IT Alignment project

How are the communication lines between de different business departments and ICT?  Are they speaking different languages?

This might lead to a situation where it is not completely clear whether business is leading ICT or  vice versa.

Therefore it is very important to know  what to look for when these worlds are coming together. There are 4 major domains where business enters the field of ICT: Security Management, Project Management, Business Continuity Management and Service Management.

For each of these 4 domains the focus within  the Business/IT alignment question is based on the governance processes: communication, compliance and  dispensation and of course the norms and standards and organizational aspects.

For each of the 4 domains a spider diagram shows the results of the research. Here the security diagramma shows that the security policy is still to be improved  and formalized. From these diagrams appropriate recommendations  can be drafted.