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Seven project and programme managers contributed to a recent online discussion that covered good practice, processes, metrics, and handling the results of post project reviews.

• A common issue is that feedback is captured on a project-by-project basis with no central repository. This results in a lack of consistency in the way feedback is captured and often prevents subsequent projects benefiting from the feedback.
• Have processes in place to capture post-project feedback. Two main mechanisms for feedback are Post- Implementation Review (PIR) and Lessons Learned. Aim for this to be part of the embedded culture.
• There is no set time after project closure for gathering feedback. Decide at project closure when the feedback will be gathered.
• A key to success is keeping the relationship open. Project size influences the size of the project review. The degree of formality is the same regardless of project size
• A key message is ‘Create documentation during the project life cycle for PIR and Lessons Learned.’

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Creating “a single point of truth”
Accurate and effective IT service reporting provides an organisation with a complete picture of service delivery, so IT can align with business objectives. Organisations striving to ‘create a single point of truth’ in order to improve service reporting should consider the following action points and recommendations.

• Minimise the number of fields by Identifying important and unnecessary fields
• Wherever possible, make fields drop downs rather than free text fields • Motivate supplier and support teams, for example by introducing ‘league tables’
• Carry out ‘spot checks’ to regularly monitor data quality
• Hold regular meetings with business customers to understand requirements and address problems • Define requirements and expectations more accurately and introduce targets with quality levels in SLAs
• Use ‘human judgement’ approach rather than ‘formula based’ approach where measuring business impact proves difficult or time consuming
• Aim to ‘manage the outcome’ rather than ‘micro manage the supplier’
• Define and agree a ‘near miss’ and ‘partial’ & full outages’ with stakeholders
• Produce different reports to meet the needs of different audiences
• Do not over complicate reports and keep information provided to a minimum
• Establish what report content is relevant and how much is required through conversations with audiences
• Accurate service reporting enables better decision making and improves the credibility of the IT department

Reports are free to organisations subscribing to the Corporate IT Forum - Want to know more?

The theme of this Year’s Real IT Awards will be “Pride in Achievement” recognising the tremendous achievements of IT teams in supporting the business and ensuring that organisations operate at maximum efficiency, despite the dire economic climate over the past year.
 
This year’s Awards will reflect the changing priorities of IT departments with a number of new categories including;

• Rapid Response projects - 9 months or under, from funding to delivery
• Best User Awareness / Security Education programme
• Working Smarter: Improving ways of working through IT
• Corporate Social Responsibility in IT

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In a tough economic climate, the IT department must review all its costs - of which a substantial amount is invested in applications. Offshoring of IT support and software development has become a prominent and proven approach towards lowering IT spend, but to where and how do you offshore?

This was the second in a programme of discussions offering participants the opportunity to share and discuss aspects of offshoring practice and experience. 9 delegates from 6 organisations representing various industry sectors participated in electronic roundtable discussions. [Read more →]

The Corporate IT Forum’s Information Security Service has been supporting its members on challenges presented by PCI compliance since issues were raised through its Q&A service. When one large retail organisation struggling with the standard raised a question, it resulted in an influx of support from other members facing similar issues.

Members have been meeting since 2005 and have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge on the subject. This is a unique opportunity to share in that experience and meet some of the leading suppliers in the field.

What you will get from attending PCI DSS

• An opportunity to talk to multiple suppliers in one place.
• An opportunity for end users to network and interact with other end users facing similar challenges
• Suppliers can gain a better understanding of their user’s needs and improve the delivery of their services
• For organisations not currently subscribed to the Corporate IT Forum this is a unique opportunity to experience the Forum’s structured ‘sharing and facilitated debate’ approach to problem solving and solution implementation.

For more information and to book your place - click here.