Case Study on Operational Strategy for an It Organization

Table of Contents

1.        Introduction        3

2.        Problem Statement        3

2.1        Undefined Clear Goals        3

2.2        Lack of overall Project Charter and success criteria signoff        4

2.3        Execution and Testing Strategy        5

2.4        Resource and Risk Management Plan        6

3.        Success Strategy Factors - Recommendation        6

3.1        Create Project Management Plan – Overall Monitoring        7

3.2        Software Development Lifecycle – Agile        7

3.4        Testing Strategy        8

3.5        Risk Management        9

4        Success Strategy – Advantages        9

5        Success Strategy – Disadvantages        10

6        Summary        10

References        10

1. Introduction

This case study focusses on evaluating the overall day-to-day challenges on running an IT organization and recommending solution strategy to mitigate the risks associated with it. The reports highlights some of the key parameters and techniques which can be selected to operationalize the IT execution across the organization which will direct the organization to meet the intended goal.

1. Summary of Challenges

An IT project’s level of complexity is dependent on various parameters and wide range of realized and unrealized issues also contribute towards it. It is the forward thinking, detection, evaluation and preparedness of what role these factors play in the success and failure of the project that increases project success. Some of the key areas which the case study brings in to research are as follows:

1. Undefined Clear Goals  

The gap in requirements is clear from the statement made by the business analysts, it seems during the prioritization and creation of the primary project charter some of the key decisions were not ascertained with the respective business partners.

The most widespread problem in the requirements analysis phase is that customers have only a vague idea of what they need, and it's up to you to ask the right questions and perform the analysis necessary to turn this amorphous vision into a formally-documented software requirements specification that can, in turn, be used as the basis for both a project plan and an engineering architecture. (Melonfire, 2007)

When goals are not clearly identified, the whole project and team can suffer. When upper management cannot agree to or support undefined goals, the project in question typically has little chance of succeeding. The project manager must ask the right questions to establish and communicate clear goals from the outset. (Bisk, 2017)

1. Lack of overall Project Charter and success criteria signoff

When a new manager is onboarded to take over a project execution, the best point of reference needs to be the project charter. Under the current case study situation, all the communication of gaps and challenges are reported by the business analysts and rest of the team instead of a trackable and quantifiable document of reference.

The project charter should contain the following and would have been helpful (Usmani, 2013):

• Project title and description
• Project purpose or justification
• Measurable project objectives
• Description of output of the project
• Assigning the project manager and setting his authority level
• High-level assumptions and constraints
• Pre-assigned resources
• Name of main stakeholders
• Expectations
• High-level project and product requirements
• Acceptance criteria
• Summary of important milestones
• Estimated budget
• High-level risks
• Name of the sponsor
• Project’s approval criteria

1. Execution and Testing Strategy

The scenario also leads me to believe there is a major gap in mapping of the overall implementation cycle and misaligned testing strategy. It is critical for any project execution to clearly define all the levels of execution and phases, ensure the alignment of the testing process which is key integral part of the handover to the internal and external stakeholder acceptance.

Key areas to consider which were missing from the planning:

• Test Objectives
• Tool mappings for each phase of execution
• Test results and acceptance boundary
• Test Coverage (Tellicherry, 2016)

1. Resource and Risk Management Plan

Considering it is a mission critical project, it lacked the overall resource and risk mitigation plan.  Usually the challenges can range from poor capacity planning, resource contention or prioritization conflicts and improper scheduling.

Some of the key resource management and planning conflicts which impacts majority of the projects (Khal, 2007):

• Resource capacity planning is poor
• Resource risks are not assessed
• Resource use is not optimized
• Too many unplanned requests for resources
• Resource utilization is poorly documented
• Transition process of resources is inadequate

1. Success Strategy Factors - Recommendation

Overall the some of the options to overcome the challenges will be to consider the implementation life cycle from inception to completion. The initiation phase planning is key and some of the factors highlighted below will act as catalyst for successfully implementing and executing the project.