Customizing and Applying the IT Planning and Management Guides
Interpreting the concepts and principles
Customizing the roles
Customizing the artifacts
Customizing the activities
Interpreting the concepts and principles
The integrated approach presented in the IT Planning and Management Guides is based on a fundamental set of concepts and accompanying principles Before considering any customization of the process descriptions, the concepts and principles should be reviewed by those intending to apply the process (e.g., the Strategy Team or the Architecture Team ). Some of the concepts and principles are fundamental and apply to all of the guides. Others are basic to specific guidance (e.g., see Background - Strategic IT Planning and Management). Those customizing the guidance should consider the following issues:
- What does the concept or principle mean within the expected usage context and how important is it? For example, the need for interoperability embodied in the Open Systems principle may be essential when dealing with systems with which the HS Agency interacts.
- What systemic, automated system planning, development, delivery, or maintenance issues seem to be the most significant to address in the HS Agency? How would the customized process help identify and address these issues? For example, component-based design and development approaches can help make applications modular and more easily modified. This may reduce cycle time for changes, if that is a high-priority issue the HS Agency must address.
- Who will have responsibility to customize the approach, tailoring it to the specific organizational culture? Individuals assuming key roles in the process are initial candidates.
- Who will support and have oversight of the state-specific processes, supporting process training, and application and use?
Customizing the roles
Roles represent the individuals or groups that directly or indirectly perform the activities identified in the processes (see Role Models) . Each State will have to associate these generic roles with one or more individuals in their context. Consider the following items when performing this mapping:
- Clearly identify the boundary for application of the guidance. This is necessary to establish the context for environmental scanning during the the Plan Course of Action activities .
- Review the role descriptions and their responsibilities. Identify individuals in the State who have similar responsibilities to the role model. Map the roles to those individuals.
- When a responsibility in the role model does not translate to an individual or group in the current organization, you may need to create a new organizational role. For example, if no one has explicit responsibility for the Technical Architecture, then assign that responsibility to an individual.
- Each role and associated responsibilities can be mapped to one or more individuals.
- An individual can have more than one role.
- For some key roles, such as the Architecture Team or IT Project Manager, a mechanism to formally grant authority and responsibilities may be necessary, such as a charter.
- Add individuals to the role model if they are key to the way the organization plans and manages IT resources.
- Remove roles only after careful consideration that the responsibility is not needed in a particular context. For example, if you determine that contractors will not be used, then you can remove the role representing contractors.
- Consult the activity descriptions in the process framework for details on how the roles interact and what individuals taking on those roles are expected to know and do.
- Training or orientation may be necessary to ensure that individuals understand their roles and have the prerequisite skills and knowledge.
Customizing the artifacts
The IT Planning and Management Guides describe two types of information artifacts : formal products that have suggested content (e.g., the HS IT Strategic Plan and placeholders for general categories of information that are usually context-dependent (e.g., External Conditions ). Consider these types of artifacts when customizing the guides.
Formal products represent key work items that individuals produce or use. Activities in the technical guide describe how the work product and its content are used or manipulated. Templates or examples provide the suggested content. These templates can be adapted to the needs of the states.
General categories of information will vary for each context in which the processes are executed. This information is usually embodied in items found in the HS internal or external environment. These items can be recorded in any physical form such as memos, informal meeting notes, conversations, presentations, plans, laws or mandates, or formal documentation. Those items should be collected and identified as inputs into the activities that use them.
Customizing the activities
The activities described in the process framework describe the key actions that should be performed. Roles and artifacts interact within these activities, which include:
- Creating or transforming a product, such as producing or updating a plan.
- Analyzing a situation to provide information for a subsequent activity, such as an analysis of the external operating environment.
- Reviewing and approving the result of an activity, such as reviewing and endorsing the Technical Architecture implemented by an IT project.
- Monitoring activity results and making decisions, exercising control over a set of activities. Activities such as formal or in-process reviews can be used.
- Providing resources to the activities, such as training individuals, providing automated tools, and office facilities.
You should customize the activity descriptions to reflect how the activities are to be performed within each context. When customizing each set of activities, consider the following:
- The activities described in the guides represent "key" actions. It may be necessary to add, modify, or drop an activity from the list, depending on the circumstances.
- Reference the resources cataloged for the activities and compare them against current organizational practices. Determine how to best use the resources, or substitute another means of achieving the activity's purpose.
- Identify the required skill levels and/or training needs of individuals fulfilling the roles based on the role descriptions provided.
- If the artifacts used or produced by the activities are customized, you may need to adjust the dependencies between the activities (i.e., inputs and outputs).
- To help with managing the activities, identify objective criteria to determine when activities should begin and whether activities are completed.