Process overview
As a strategic business partner of the University, IT Services must and is happy to accept requests for work. These requests follow the IT Governance process that is outlined in four general steps below:
Step 1: Idea Generation and Collection
Our IT Business Analysts meet regularly with and build relationships with divisions and departments across campus to tease out initiatives that require or could use technology assistance. Additionally, the Change and Continuous Improvement Committee (CCIC) representatives can gather and assess internal divisional technology requests and present them to IT in addition to their relationship with the Business Analysts. In this way, any person at Miami University (including students!) can submit requests for IT initiatives and improvements by contacting their CCIC representative.
The IT Business Analysts gather information from stakeholders, then will add the request to the Value Engineering agenda as a Ticket, Project Request, or line-item on the meeting agenda. This determination is based on the potential size, complexity, and tentatively proposed solution, as judged by the Business Analyst.
Tickets and Project Requests automatically flow through a pre-built work flow that achieve appropriate visibility of the request to the groups that have the ability to complete the request.
Step 2: Value Engineering (VE)
The purpose of this group is to assess the requested result and determine the best method to achieve the outcome. For each request (agenda item, Ticket, or Project Request), the Value Engineering team will:
- Determine if there are any solutions in Miami's current technologies that can achieve the same outcome
- If not, determine what person or group(s) within IT Services are required to complete the work
- Facilitate a discussion to determine the estimated amount of effort complete the work
- Determine recommended priority and/or schedule the activity on the portfolio
- Recommend a solution architecture, based on the detailed list of solution architectures maintained by the VE team
In other words, each request processed by Value Engineering should come out with WHO is going to do the work, WHEN is it going to happen, and HOW it will get done (architecturally-speaking).
Note: Value Engineering provides other services to the organization, e.g. participating in the Software and Cloud Services IT Review Process. These duties are out of scope for this article.
Step 3: Change and Continuous Improvement Committee (CCIC)
After VE performs its duties with a given request, CCIC reviews the recommended path forward. CCIC is the group with the decision making power over what projects are addressed by the teams and work they govern (currently, the four solution-delivery development teams, and BI team). However, some types of projects may be out of scope of CCIC such as, but not limited to, strategic initiatives, and activities that support security practices like upgrades and other improvements.
If CCIC expresses concern with the proposed course of action, they will work with the Business Analyst to review and resolve the issue.
Step 4: Pre-planning and Execution
Once work is approved by CCIC, the request waits until the work is ready to start. At this time, a pre-planning session or other kick-off commensurate to the size/complexity of the work is held to gather all the required people that must be involved to discuss, build and test the new solution. A more accurate time frame may be assigned based on these initial discussions. The work will then begin when the assigned team is ready to start the work. The IT Business Analysts and Project Managers will usher the project request into an active project and monitor and facilitate the execution of the project until completion.