IT Alignment Top Down

By: John Gibert

Workshop Background

To have effective ‘Business - IT Alignment’, requires for IT to be itself aligned. IT alignment means that IT is managed in a consistent way with a single management framework and that all work and activities performed in IT are aligned with one another under that framework, to enable IT to provide a unified front to the business it serves.

The majority of IT functions today do not have an overall management framework. At best they have individual frameworks for parts of IT: software development framework; a project management framework: and a service management framework.

IT lacks end to end processes so these frameworks do not connect and the discontinuity hinders effewctive Business - IT Alignment.

‘IT alignment’ is the target of the planned one or two workshops, each of which has a number of parallel session roundtables that delegates can attend.

Work will have been undertaken before the conference to provide the initial ‘bITa Best Practice Review papers’, which will be the start point for the workshop roundtables. All these papers will be published one week in advance to the delegates to be used at the workshop round table sessions.

The objective of each workshop round table is for the delegates at that roundtable session to disseminate and review the paper, select what is appropriate for their own organisation: and as a group help direct the development of the bITa best practice in that area:

Workshop One – IT Management – Top Down

Delegates can attend any one of the three round table sessions planned at the First Workshop which covers ‘IT’s Big Management Picture’ – the ‘Top Down view’ of IT management:

1. The ‘Business IT Alignment Touch Points’ Stream

This stream will review the ‘Business IT Alignment Touch Point’ paper which will provide the bITa the best practice ‘Business – IT Alignment Touch Point Model’.

2. The ‘IT Control Framework’ Steam

This stream will review the ‘IT Control Framework’ paper that will summarise the end to end IT management control frameworks, IT process models and their domain frameworks, that are available from different sources– including Cobit and provide the bITa best practice ‘IT Control Framework and IT Process Model’.

3. The ‘Integration of Domain Frameworks’ Stream

This stream will review the ‘Domain Framework Integration’ paper that will summarise the issues of operating and integrating inconsistent domain frameworks that are assessed in the second workshop including conflicts, gaps and overlaps of: concepts, processes and terminology.

Workshop Two – The Current Domain Frameworks

The second workshop has four parallel round table sessions dealing with each of the four initial bITa IT domains. It reviews the scope and structure of the domains and the consistencies and inconsistencies of the frameworks within them from a process and information viewpoint:

1. ‘The IT Strategy and Planning Domain Frameworks’ Stream

Dealing with Business and IT Strategy, Business and IT Architectures, Business and IT Change and Operational Planning and Budgeting and Control.

2. ‘The IT Development and Implementation Framework’ Stream

Including project frameworks like PRINCE2, software life cycle frameworks like ASL, infrastructure life cycle frameworks

3. ‘The IT Service Management Framework’ Stream

Including service planning and control, service delivery and service support framework around ITIL and MOF

4. ‘The IT Support and Enabling’ Stream

Including HR, Asset, Finance, Work and Knowledge Management processes and frameworks

Thursday 13 March
9.30-13.00H

English