Project Management and Operational Planning

Appropriate policies and protocols can convert the often adversarial department-IT relationship into a partnership of shared goals

Agile project management (APM) is an approach to system design, development, and improvement intended to increase project success rates through incremental and iterative processes. Because the benefits of APM are tied to operational flexibility, understanding and support throughout the organization is required. In this presentation, some techniques for achieving organizational coherence with APM will be explored and illustrated.

Far too often, IT tasks that should be treated as projects creep into the realm of operations with no definable start or finish. This session will clearly define the difference between a project and an operation and will detail a formal project management model tailored to the higher education environment.

Like many institutions, St. Olaf College continues to find that regardless of how many staff are employed in the IT office, there's never enough staff to do everything that needs to be done. IT staff are challenged by increasing demands from users for consulting, assistance and troubleshooting, skyrocketing demand for assistance with classroom technologies, to a hardware and software market that demands continual research and review. The staffing challenge is exacerbated by budget restrictions and a college-wide FTE cap. Requests for new staff positions has evolved into a highly competitive process that demands a well-documented need statement. The very competitive nature of the process also demands that IT be prepared with an alternative plan to reallocate existing staff resources to new demands if the FTE increase is denied.

This research bulletin is the work of a strategic project team participating in the IT Leaders Program, a leadership development initiative facilitated by MOR Associates of Watertown, Massachusetts. It strives to answer the question, What must a central IT organization in an academic environment do to increase its value to its clients and its institution? It is not a cookbook for how to create a successful IT organization but rather a discussion of considerations for increasing value.