IT Exam Framework

Executive Summary – Time permitting

Read the Case

Issue – Problem statement
Role
Limitations of the role
Goals
Write a sentence outlining the key problem
Connect issues with business strategy (growth  stable IT)
Prioritize the issues
Address the symptoms
Assess how big the project is, how much risk?
Long term plans and goals
What does success look like?

Constraints and Considerations
Time, scope, money
Tradeoffs - Prioritize
Does it satisfy?

Resources
Time available
Location – geography, rural/urban, high-tech, departments
Is it possible?
Financial assessment
Capital available
Leadership capabilities
Assess the company’s IT capabilities
Make an assumption about their department’s skills – balanced analysis
Infrastructure – hardware, network, backup, software
IT generating value? - Using the data
Project overruns?
Openness to change + flexibility
IT staff skilful?
Draw a diagram of the system if applicable
IT governance structure
Who makes decisions?
What is IT viewed as? Culture

Analysis Current Situation – purpose is to evaluate positives and negatives
System, structure, strategy  alignment?
Riskiness of project? How big is it?
Culture
Views IT as an investment?
Level of buy-in
Trends
Technology
Industry
Competitive advantage
Do we have a proprietary process/technology?
Proprietary technology for a competitive advantage
Generic technology for a generic process
What are competitors doing?
Talk about pros and cons (balanced)

KSFs
Briefly list them and rank them
How are we doing?

Criteria
Define criteria and explain them
Prioritize them – top, important, other considerations
Quantitative and qualitative
Try to determine how to evaluate/measure them + hurdle rates
Only choose criteria that can distinguish the alternatives and are specific (can’t be revenue, cost, profit). Potentials
Lowest investment cost + lowest operating costs
Efficiency – makes process faster by x
IT risk + scope
Leverage existing IT resources
Fulfills constraints
Employee commitment (%)
Speed of implementation

Alternatives
Define the alternatives. Types of options:
System
Organizational
Marketing
Brainstorm new alternative – “outside of the box”
Don’t try to change the overall structure
Focus on IT options
Only use options that have possibility of being chosen
Use quick no-go/go qualitative analysis to get rid of really bad alternatives
Access the alternatives (2-3) based on resources and constraints/considerations
Always have quantitative and qualitative benefit cost analysis
Make assumptions
Some benefits may not be directly tied
Which systems are replaced? Costs of running them is also saved
Do options fulfill criteria (+,-,neutral) (matrix)
Explain why are they ranked like this?
Must show positives and negatives = balanced analysis
Prioritize the benefits
Which problems need to be addressed first?

Recommendations
Why do it? Use language from criteria
Refer back to the issues
Recommendations should be consistent with constraints and resources
Don’t pick too many options  extra risk + lack of resources
Risk
Short term  medium term  long term
Technology risk?
Scope of project too big, project management risk?
Financial risk?

Implementation
Action Plan  Short term (30-60 days), medium term (90-140 days), long term plan (3/4 years +)
What, when, who, how, which customers
Gantt Chart (days/months/years)
Timing is very important in IT, lose competitive advantage or technology advances
Technology advances every 18 months
Always need to train and update your personnel
Who’s going to govern the IT investment?
How long will it take? (how long have past projects taken?)
Enterprise systems = 1.5 year
Modules = 0.5 years
How to get buy-in from employees and management?
Mitigate identified risks
Probably will go over-budget, over-time
Contingency plan
Could be 2nd best alternatives or legacy system
When does