Slide 1 of 20

TACTICAL/OPERATIONAL PLANNING

• Title: Tactical/Operational Planning

– Tactical Planning

– Operational Planning

– Case Study

Slide 2 of 20

How Many Processes are there in IT?

• Ernst & Young – 70• PricewaterhouseCoopers – 62• Society of Information Management – 40• David Feeney – 9 major categories

– Categories deemed to overlap

• CobiT and IT Governance Institute – 34• For the IM Course – 38 IT processes are

included in an attempt to consolidate the various vews

Slide 3 of 20

Breakdown of IT Processes

• Long term – strategic – 3 IT processes

• Short term - tactical – 14 IT processes

• Day-to-day - operational - 21 IT processes

Slide 4 of 20

Strategic IT Planning

• Strategic IT processes have a long-term impact on the enterprise

• Decisions over a long time horizon• Long time to attain benefits• Can create

– competitive advantage– deliver cost efficiencies– introduce major improvements

Slide 5 of 20

Strategic IT Processes

• Business Strategic Planning

• Architecture Scanning and definition

• IT strategic planning and control

Slide 6 of 20

TACTICAL PLANNING

Slide 7 of 20

Tactical Planning

• What is it?– Addresses issues that have a time horizon

generally bounded or strongly influenced by the budget cycle of the organisation (12-24 months)

Slide 8 of 20

Tactical Planning - STEPS

Step 1: Assess orgs’ information requirements– Current & project info needs

Step 2: Assemble master development plan– IT projects definition, project ranking, multi-year

development plan

Step 3: Develop Resource Allocation Plan– H/ware, S/ware, personnel, facilities and financial plans

Step 4: Operations Planning– service levels, problem, change, recovery,

capacity and network planning

Slide 9 of 20

Tactical Level Processes

• Management Planning– Mgmt System

monitoring & planning

• Development Planning– Application– Data– System– Network– Project

• ServicePlanning – Service level – Recovery – Security – Audit

• Resource Planning– Capacity– Skills– Budget– Vendor

Slide 10 of 20

Example 1: Application Planning

• Objectives

– Schedule of applications to be modified within a set period of time

– Must address each key fundtion of enterprise– Business and IS strategy – inputs– May expand architecture

• Emerging technologies• Integrated processes• Improved standards

Slide 11 of 20

Example 2: Data Planning

• Objectives

– Facilitate the cost-effective and timely transformation of raw data into productive information

– Facilitates the reuse of data and information across the organisation

– Protect the organisation’s data and information assets

Slide 12 of 20

Example 3: Systems Planning

• Objectives– Document

• which systems are planned for development• the justification for developing those systems• the impact on the organisation’s IT architecture of

developing those systems• Any implications on the organisation’s disaster

recovery plan

Slide 13 of 20

Example 4: Network Planning

• Considerations– Impacts of recent mergers or consolidations on network

capacity and future demand– The impact on current network capacity and infrastructure– Opportunities to consolidate existing services and infrastructure

to enhance network– Security of the network against external and internal threats– Recovery of the network from natural or man-made

catastrophes– Identification and repair of network performance issues– Customer service (e.g .help desk)– Vendor management and service agreements– Cross-border issues– Hardware upgrade plan– Software upgrade plan– Capital investment plan

Slide 14 of 20

OPERATIONAL PLANNING

Slide 15 of 20

Operational Planning

• The day to day administration and execution of processes and plans

• Plans are transient in nature • Concern in execution of immediate tasks and

activities• Meets needs of tactical plans/strategic plans• Focus on

– Annual operating budget– Individual project plans

Slide 16 of 20

Operational Level Processes

• Project Management• Development and

Maintenance• Resource Control• Service Control• Administration Services• Information Services

Slide 17 of 20

Operational Process contin 1…

• Project Management– Assignment, scheduling, controlling,

requirements control, evaluating

• Development and Maintenance– Sware Development and Upgrade– Sware Procurement and Upgrade– Hardware Procurement and upgrade– Systems maintenance– Tuning and system balancing

Slide 18 of 20

Operational Process contin 2

• Resource Control– Change control– Asset management

• Service Control– Production and

Distribution Scheduling– Problem Control– Service Evaluating

• Administration Services– Financial Performance– Staff Performance– Education/Training– Recruiting, hiring and

retention

• Information Services– Production– Service Marketing

Slide 19 of 20

Example 1: Production and Distribution Scheduling

• Components of this process:– Planning production and distribution service

workload– Developing

• A maintenance and measurement schedule• A current work schedule

– Negotiation of any deviations from the service agreements with users

Slide 20 of 20

What Processes are Most Important

• All are important• Each contributes to effective management and

performance of IT• Some processes, however, are considered to

have a more important contribution to the companies’s success e.g.– Project management related processes

• Application development considered to be most visible to developing competitive and strategic advantage

– Security and recovery planning• New threats to stability of the system

Slide 21 of 20

Who Owns the Process?

• IT processes are the domain of IT• Each process varies in complexity, active

management required• Some processes may be considered for

outsourcing– Must ensure ownership not forgotten

Slide 22 of 20

How Effective are these Processes today?

• Over past 3 decades, IT has continously improved many of the 38 processes

• Most IT processes can be improved by introducing new tools & methodologies

• There are known troubling issues – ie. unevent execution

– E.g. hware and sware procurement and upgrade processes vary widely across many corporate implementations

– Asset management, change control, problem control, service evaluating and service marketing all operated very differently

• Reason being that they do not have uniform standards and methodologies

• Support services for many of these are fragmented, as a great variety of vendors supply different products

Slide 23 of 20

What Priority should be placed on improving these processes?

• IT process improvement need to demonstrate quantifiable results that will justify the expense for the job

• Use of Frameworks

Slide 24 of 20

Why IT Frameworks?

• Frameworks bring consistency and an ability to measure performance in a scientific manner

• Popular frameworks include– Capability Maturity Model– Six Sigma– Cobit– ITIL

• Each has a particular area of emphasis