To optimize the use of information, you must manage a wide range of elements to ensure that all aspects of your IT organization and infrastructure are assessed, built and managed in a comprehensive and logical manner. The Information Technology Dimension of the Mozart Unification Frameworkä provides a way to organize and structure your IT organization. It is one of three dimensions that link business, services and information technology to achieve desired business outcomes.
With this view, the Information Technology Dimension comprises six domains that capture the key elements of IT services, policies, technologies, facilities, processes, and organization to ensure they are well planned, well deployed, integrated and systematically evaluated for improvement. Knowledge of the Information Technology Dimension will help you understand key areas that must be managed in an effective IT organization - one that contributes to desired business outcomes.
IT Services
IT is a service organization. The types of services provided by the IT organization are defined in the IT Services Domain along with other key IT drivers such as growth projections, opportunities, risks and control objectives. Quality of service is another important driver that affects processes, organization and technology. The success of your organization depends on creating a high-quality user experience that enables people to drive the business. In order to differentiate itself, your IT organization must provide higher levels of service in the future. High-quality services play a major role in achieving desired business outcomes. It is essential that all aspects of IT (i.e., architectures, processes and organization) be closely aligned with well-defined service level agreements. To manage an effective IT organization you need to start with the following elements in the IT Service domain:
- IT service definitions
- IT service levels
- growth projections
- Critical IT assets
- opportunities and risks
- IT control and design objectives
IT Policies
Policies, both internal IT and external, have a major impact on your IT organization and its services. In general policies provide guidance in building and managing IT processes and technology architectures. You need to understand procurement, asset management, change control, problem management and security policies, among others, because they affect the way you manage your IT organization. The key elements you need to consider in the IT Policy domain are:
- IT management polices
- Security policies
- Acceptable use policies
Technology Architectures
Keeping up with all the technology innovations is always a challenge. To manage an effective IT organization you need a way to determine the real impact technologies have on business results, as well as the true costs: to assess, build and operate comprehensive and integrated technology architectures that have an impact on desired business outcomes; and to cost-effectively improve availability, performance and security.
The Technology Architecture domain focuses on all the technical aspects of providing IT services ensuring they are well planned, well deployed and well managed. Covering applications, database, and network layers, the IT Architecture domain comprises logical and physical designs with special provisions to ensure performance, availability and scalability are adequate to meet committed SLAs. Key technologies include infrastructure services, n-tier architectures, local and wide area network, storage, security, management systems, continuous service strategies and key components configurations.
The Technology Architecture domain captures the technical elements you need to understand and manage:
- Service architecture
- Logical architecture
- Applications architecture
- Database architecture
- Network architecture
- Storage architecture
- Continuous and resilient service strategies
- Security architecture
- Management systems architecture
- Standards
Facilities
With the emphasis on technology in many IT organizations, it is easy to forget about facilities and environmentals. The Facilities domain covers all the physical aspects of providing IT services including space, power, cooling, fire suppression and physical security. They have to be planned and managed too. Facilities and environmentals are essential if you want to sustain adequate levels of availability.
IT Processes
IT processes are the number one source of issues - more so than technology. IT processes have the greatest impact on the ability of IT to contribute to the business. To manage an effective IT organization you need to give serious consideration to your IT processes and the way you manage new requirements, changes, performance, capacity, problems, configurations, assets, software versions, disasters and security. With well-defined processes you can address many high-priority IT management initiatives. For example, you can implement effective controls, ensure IT works closely with business units to define project requirements, align the system development and infrastructure development lifecycles, and formalize a system for making continuous improvements to IT services.
The IT Process domain provides a way to manage your IT infrastructure in a planned, controlled and repeatable manner. It provides a comprehensive and integrated way to structure and organize your IT processes to ensure that system performance and availability are aligned with IT service commitments. To manage your IT organization you need to ensure that procedures, tools, roles and reporting are well planned, deployed and managed for the following elements of the IT Process domain:
- IT process architecture.
- IT value management
- IT outsourcing management
- IT service management
- Production acceptance management
- Change management
- Capacity planning management
- Performance management
- Problem management
- Security management
- User access management
- Backup and recovery management
- Disaster recovery management
- Configuration management
- Release management
- Production operations management
- Auditing
IT Organization
Your IT infrastructure is only as good as the people who build and operate it. Good IT staff are difficult to employ and retain, and the gap between the demand and supply of IT skills is increasing. You need a way to manage your staff with productivity and job satisfaction in mind, and to evaluate and implement alternate staffing and training solutions. The IT Organization domain focuses on the people-related issues in providing IT services. It covers the following organizational elements you need to manage:
- IT functional descriptions
- IT training and awareness programs
Conclusion
To be an effective IT organization and optimize the use of information in your business, you need a comprehensive way to architect, implement and manage IT architectures, processes and organization. This article outlines the six key IT areas you need to take care of.
Knowledge of the Information Technology Dimension of the three-dimensional Mozart Unification Frameworkä will help you capture and understand all the elements of IT services, policies, technologies, facilities, processes, and organization to ensure they are well planned, well deployed, integrated and systematically evaluated for improvement.
In future articles we will describe each IT element in greater detail. We will describe not only what needs to be done and why, but more importantly, we'll show you how, with intelligent, practical plans of action.
The Harris Kern Enterprise Computing Institute is a consortium of leading industry experts responsible for the design and implementation of 'world-class' IT organizations. The underlying objective of the Harris Kern Enterprise Computing Institute is to be the world's foremost source of information on building the ideal IT organization. Organizations that master our approach and techniques will ensure that their IT initiatives are closely aligned with their business objectives. Surprisingly, technology is the easy part. The key is in taking a comprehensive approach that includes people, process, and organization.
Our approach and techniques are proven. Placing special emphasis on organization, people, process, and technology, we have assisted numerous companies to assess, build, and manage complex computing environments. The companies include, among others, The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, Standard & Poors, Twentieth Century Fox, U.S. Satellite Broadcasting, The Weather Channel, GE Capital, several Time Warner companies, TransAmerica Corporation, and Fannie Mae. Over the next few months we will describe our approach, methodologies, processes, organizational structures, and technology architectures in a series of exciting articles that will allow you to build a world-class IT organization. |
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