1. TACTICAL/OPERATIONAL PLANNING
Title: Tactical/Operational Planning
Tactical Planning
Operational Planning
Case Study

2. 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

3. Breakdown of IT Processes
Long term – strategic – 3 IT processes
Short term - tactical – 14 IT processes
Day-to-day - operational IT processes

4. 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

5. Strategic IT Processes
Business Strategic Planning
Architecture Scanning and definition
IT strategic planning and control

6. TACTICAL PLANNING

7. 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)

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. OPERATIONAL PLANNING

15. 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

16. Operational Level Processes
Project Management
Development and Maintenance
Resource Control
Service Control
Administration Services
Information Services

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

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

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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