Appendix J: Glossary

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A-E

Action (annual) plan

a formal IT organization management process and document that captures the goals, objectives, responsible parties, and performance metrics for the unit's service and project delivery over the course of a given fiscal year and aligns these activities with the goals and objectives of the parent enterprise.

Alignment

a management mindset and process whereby the activities and resource allocations of the IT organization map directly to the goals, objectives, and values of that body's parent organization.

Architected solution

an IT system built upon the foundation of the enterprise's existing technology standards and architecture. Such solutions take full advantage of the technologies, business processes, and technical expertise already in place across the enterprise.

Architecture

a set of standards, guidelines, and statements of direction that constrain the design of IT solutions for the purpose of eventual integration.

Artifacts (project)

materials generated as a result of IT service and project management delivery efforts that document the process and its outcomes, such as project plans, budgets, commitment documents, specifications, scorecards, interview notes, and so forth.

Business analyst

typically an IT staffer whose expertise lies in the documentation of customer business and functional requirements and the integration of this knowledge into the design and development of IT solutions.

Business process engineering

those analytical and design activities concerned with the characterization of existing work processes within the enterprise and the restructuring of those workflows for efficiency, effectiveness, and to better leverage associated, enabling information technologies.

Call center (also, help desk)

within an IT organization, the call center or help desk serves as the first point of contact between a customer requiring support with a problem or service requests. Typically, this first tier of customer support will address anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of the issues without recourse to Tier 2 or Tier 3 technical teams.

Certification

See Quality assurance (QA).

Change management

See Business process engineering.

Chief information officer (CIO)

one of the many titles of the individual who leads an enterprise IT organization.

Chief knowledge officer (CKO)

businesses where information assets are managed for competitive advantage often employ an executive to oversee the associated knowledge management practices.

Commitment document

See Project commitment.

Critical success factors

those performance measures that align most directly with customer satisfaction, i.e., those deliverables most important to the sponsor of the IT service or project.

Customer

a direct end user of IT organization products and services.

Customer relationship executive (CRE)

the IT liaison responsible for understanding the overall needs of particular customer groups, communicating IT accomplishments in relation to these requirements, and managing customer expectations throughout the delivery process.

Enhancement

work performed by an IT team or its external partner providers to extend existing IT services to a new person or population; also, work to extend the functionality or improve the performance of an existing IT product or service.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP)system

typically a large, complex suite of software applications that integrate to enable the core business services of the enterprise, e.g., integrating financial, human resources, customer relationship, manufacturing, and distribution management.

Extranet

a set of Web services delivered to both external and internal partner providers of an enterprise via the Internet.

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