PROBLEM
Our government organisation's IT department is about to be
outsourced. We have retained an in-house team to look after IT
security issues, manage the relationship, including service levels,
and guide IT strategy. How should this type of function work,
specifically as regards the IT strategy?
SOLUTIONS
Ensure alignment with the organisation's
objectives
I am pleased that the IT strategy has been retained in-house.
This will give your team a potentially high-profile role in
identifying and prioritising the demand for IT applications. The
output from this activity can help inform the security and service
level agreement elements of your group.
The starting point for an IT strategy is to ensure alignment
with the organisation's objectives. To achieve this I suggest
organising workshops involving key stakeholders from the "business
community". Together, using business analysis techniques, you can
develop a shared understanding of existing business operations, and
agree on critical areas that require improvement and how IT can
help to deliver the objectives.
Clearly you will need to look at the skills in your group to see
if they can achieve this task. Gaining this shared view of the
organisation and agreeing a list of IT applications from a
corporate perspective are vital if the IT strategy is to be little
more than a document which, once produced, sits on a shelf,
gathering dust.
Rob Lambert, senior lecturer in IS, Cranfield
How will you measure your own strategic
performance?
The trend towards outsourcing the traditional work of IT
departments is heralding a quiet revolution in IT strategy and
management structures. The new generation of IT strategies is all
about being an "intelligent customer" of IT, whether or not the
company has its own internal IT provision. These strategies are
driven explicitly by maximising ROI and have a management framework
to match.
The people I help to define and execute this kind of strategy
find that it is very different from orthodox IT strategies, and
that in certain respects they need to think quite differently to
make it succeed. For example, the IT experts must work as an
integral part of the business team, so any actual or perceived
divide between them and "the business" needs to disappear
completely. Under no circumstances should they be seen as providing
a service to everyone else.
The strategy and management framework is concerned mainly with
the organisation's investments in, and exploitation of, information
and technology, with a secondary focus on the technology you use
and where you source it from. So the building blocks of the new IT
function are: investment management, IT service management (as the
customer, not a provider), IT architecture management (as the user,
not the builder) and IT sourcing - all backed up by ongoing
analysis of the IT marketplace to pinpoint opportunities and
risks.
A very good place to start is to explore how, with a strategy
founded on being an intelligent customer of IT, you will measure
your organisation's own strategic and operational performance.
Chris Potts, Dominic Barrow
Do not fall into trap of owning technical
problems
This type of situation is now common in the public sector
marketplace. Outsourcing and privatisation are viewed as a
cost-effective solution to long-term IT management issues. However,
the need for an understanding of the business and to ensure
organisational security has led almost all organisations to retain
internal IT staff to manage user requirements and the supplier.
The role of your IT department will become dedicated to service
management, controlling strategy and acting as client-side
management on behalf of the end-user community. How the IT is
delivered will not come under your department's remit, and if the
privatisation has been established appropriately in terms of risk
transfer, you should have no influence in this area.
Your team's primary concern will be with delivering to the
governance arrangements that have been set up by the senior
management. It needs to ensure that the privatised function is
delivering and meeting the business outcomes that have been agreed
at contract.
It is vital you have a clear, measurable and tangible framework,
which you can reference to judge the outsourced service. This
framework should have been agreed between your organisation and the
supplier.
Your IT department has a crucial role in ensuring that the
direction and security of your organisation is met through the
revised service arrangements and it needs to ensure it does not get
sucked into the technology. Do not fall into the trap of owning
technical problems that you and your team do not own.
Roger Rawlinson, NCC Group
Key is to understand the business drivers and
IT
You have some significant and varied challenges in developing
the IT strategy and in managing the supplier(s). It is likely your
focus will change from a delivery function to operating as a
policy-setting and escalation group between your internal customers
and external suppliers.
In creating the IT strategy, the key challenge is to understand
the business drivers and required IT capabilities. You will need to
develop a portfolio of IT-enabled initiatives in partnership with
your senior business colleagues. Their functional managers should
work with you to implement the agreed IT solutions. It is unclear
from your question how the applications are to be developed and it
may represent your biggest challenge if you are expected to provide
programme management skills.
Given that the supplier will be providing the IT services, you
have clearly identified the need for appropriate IT service level
and security agreements. It will be critical to define the criteria
for escalation when the service issues are not being resolved by
the suppliers. You will also need to find the right balance between
security and information access.
In summary, you should ensure you have strong business,
relationship and management skills in your group. The level of
technology skills will depend on the terms of the contracts with
your suppliers.
Sharm Manwani, Henley Management College
You will need to lead and manage ownership
You have made a positive start by clearly identifying the areas
of responsibility you and your team will retain. This team will
have a pivotal role in the success of this arrangement for the
government and I would strongly suggest you develop frameworks for
how the new team will work.
Although you and the team have stayed "in situ" there will still
be a period of adjustment as well as a need to develop new skills.
For example, in the area of security this could include skills to
define policies and processes as well as strategy. Similarly,
managing SLAs and working with third parties demands a particular
mix of skills as well as commercial experience. Recognise that
set-up in this situation is different and therefore you may have to
revisit team skills and priorities.
In the specific area of strategy, your group should look to take
full responsibility for the IT strategy as well as defining the
technology needed to deliver it. You should focus on working
closely with the organisation and any third parties to gain insight
and input but ensure you retain control. More importantly, you will
be accountable for the strategy and will therefore need to lead and
manage ownership. It will be important to establish the parameters
for the working relationship with the supplier. This means
understanding what is of value to each organisation and enabling
each to derive that value.
Andrew Barstow, partner, Ernst & Young
THE EXPERTS
Computer Weekly has put together a panel of experts whose
specialist knowledge you can draw on to solve a problem. E-mail
your questions (or your solution to this question) to
computer.weekly@rbi.co.uk
Cranfield School of Management
www.cranfield.ac.uk/som
Dominic
Barrow
www.dominicbarrow.com
Ernst & Young
www.ey.com
Henley Management
College
www.henleymc.ac.uk
NCC
Group
www.nccglobal.com