Information Technology Examples

In today's economy, more companies are demanding that their IT organizations make wise investments and demonstrate IT's value to the business not just by traditional IT measurements such as uptime and throughput but also by proof of this value in the form of business metrics. For projects, these business metrics can be easily collected and reported.

The following section lists the project and resource outline codes that can help IT managers manage their portfolio and balance the workload with the available resources.

Project Location

As previously discussed in this chapter, grouping the portfolio of projects by geographic distribution is a good start for any organization.

Project Status

Portfolio and senior managers in any organization need to know at any given time how many projects are currently active versus the ones that have been canceled or closed. It is important to understand this mix of projects to direct the necessary funds to active projects and make sure that the canceled or closed projects do not incur any more charges. IT organizations are no different from any others, and grouping projects by their status is always a helpful view for decision makers. Following is a sample of how projects can be grouped by their respective status:

• Initiated

• Approved

• In Execution

• On Hold

• Canceled

• Closed

Project Life Cycle

Understanding your project portfolio from the perspective of project life cycle is important for an IT organization to ensure proper utilization of financial, material, and human resources. It also has a positive impact on ensuring a healthy project pipeline and identifying potential problems well in advance, such as all the necessary steps needed to correct an unbalanced pipeline. Following is an example of how projects can be grouped in a portfolio by life cycle:

• Project Planning, Feasibility Study

• Systems Analysis, Requirements Definition

• Systems Design

• Implementation

• Integration and Testing

• Acceptance, Installation, Deployment

• Maintenance

Project Portfolio by Area

In many IT organizations there is a need to group projects in a portfolio by area that they are addressing. For example, understanding how many projects are undertaken in the Help Desk area allows decision makers to ensure the appropriate level of staffing and financing. Following is an example of possible values for grouping projects in a portfolio by area:

• Hardware

• Software

• Business Practices

• Corporate Strategy Alignment

• Help Desk

• Procurement

Resources by Skill Set

It is equally important for IT organizations to properly identify resources available for project and nonproject work. To achieve this goal, a deploying IT organization may choose to use the skill set outline for resources.

NOTE

Given the wide variety of software applications and skill sets associated, it is recommended to use the multivalue fields outline codes.

Many IT organizations try to compile a list of the skill sets available to make sure that project work demand is properly met. This is particularly useful to resource or functional managers who need to anticipate staffing levels and coordinate the workload with multiple project managers. Project and resource managers can achieve a better coordination of projects and resources when there is a clear understanding of various skills required. The following is a list of IT skill sets that may be used as a starting point in the development of such a list:

• IT Manager

• Network Administrator

• Windows/Linux Administrator

• Database Administrator

• System Administrator

• C++ Developer

• Java Developer

• PHP Developer

• Web Design Specialist

• Graphic Design Specialist

• Help Desk

• Business Analyst

• IT Work Flow Configuration

• Quality Systems Engineer

• Software Tester