Key Tactics For IT Recruitment, IT Strategic Planning, And IT Governance Are Essay-worthy.

IT Recruitment: Three Key Tactics for Hiring IT Staff

1.a. It has been noted that there are skills shortages impacting on the recruitment of IT related staff.  Outline three key tactics an IS manager could adopt to ensure this issue doesn’t present too many risks to their organisation.

b. Identify two areas where an internal Service Level Agreement (SLA) might be different from an external SLA (where these SLAs relate to the provision of IT based services).

c. List three things that would be useful for a new CIO to do when arriving in their job.  For each of these things, give a reason as to why it might be useful for the CIO.

d. Identify two performance indicators that could be used for the regular reporting of the performance of the IT Department to the CEO and the executive committee.  Why would each of these indicators that you have chosen be useful for the executive management to know about?

e. Another question similar to the tutorial questions discussed during the semester.

2.a. IT strategic planning (ITSP) is one means of planning and coordinating the provision of IT services to support organisational activities and improve organisational performance.  For the purposes of this exercise, it can be noted that ITSP had been handled poorly at UU, with the latest plan being over 8 years old and having little impact on recent strategic actions at UU.  Despite this history of poor ITSP efforts, UU has some reasonable IT infrastructure.

Given this scenario, do you think it would be appropriate for an organisation the size of UU to implement an ITSP based approach to help with the management of the organisation and its IT infrastructure?  Please provide a rationale to support your views in this matter.

Identify two areas where ITSP may have improved the outcomes for UU with their IT efforts.

b. For this exercise, we can assume that part of the cause of the problems in UU was a failure of governance with little in the way of formal IT governance mechanisms in place.  Outline three key measures (other than the ITSP based measures) that could be taken to implement effective IT governance.  Describe how each of these measures would improve the prospects of a positive outcome with the implementation and management of the IT systems and infrastructure.

3.a. During the semester, it was suggested that it was beneficial for the CIO to understand the value of the IT portfolio.  Outline two of the benefits that could be gained from having this understanding.

b. There are various ways in which an investment in IT can be valued.  At one level, we could look at the actual cost of the various components of the IT artefact. The sum of these costs, less any relevant depreciation could then be seen as one measure of value.  However, the true value of our IT investments lies in the benefits they bring to the organisation.

Assuming you were a new CIO for an organisation, what might be some issues in ascertaining the value of your existing IT infrastructure, noting the comments above?

1a. It has been noted that there are skills shortages impacting on the recruitment of IT related staff.  Outline three key tactics an IS manager could adopt to ensure this issue doesn’t present too many risks to their organisation.

• The three tactics by which the efficiency of the recruitment policy will be maintained in an IT company are the applicant tracking system, video interviewing and taking the advantage of the extensive use of social media.

b. Identify two areas where an internal Service Level Agreement (SLA) might be different from an external SLA (where these SLAs relate to the provision of IT based services).

Note that internal SLAs operate between one or more parts of the organisation and an internal service provider such as the IT department, whereas external SLAs operate between one or more parts of the organisation and an external service provider, such as a firm providing outsourced IT services.

Internal SLA	External SLA
· Management of expectations and boosting productivity is achieved with the help of internal SLA.	· External business processes such as the vendor can be managed with the help of external SLA.
· Employee morale can be significantly improved with the help of internal SLA.	· Restrictions are source of concern for the employees of an IT organisation.

Table 1: Difference between internal and external SLA

(Source: Created by the author)

c. List three things that would be useful for a new CIO to do when arriving in their job.  For each of these things, give a reason as to why it might be useful for the CIO.

• Checking the mission and vision of the strategic goals of the organisation.
• Checking the available resources used for different projects.
• Monitoring the activities of the CSOs (Allen et al. 2015).

d. Identify two performance indicators that could be used for the regular reporting of the performance of the IT Department to the CEO and the executive committee.  Why would each of these indicators that you have chosen be useful for the executive management to know about?

The two performance indicators can be forwarded to CEO and executive Committee are as followings:

• KPI: Key performance indicators
• Cash Flow forecasting tool

e. Another question similar to the tutorial questions discussed during the semester.

The applications of this tools are described below:

KPI: The measurement of the performance can be achieved with the help of KPI.

Cash Flow forecasting tool: The parameters of the employee performance can also be quantified with the help of this tool.

2. The University of Uriarra (UU) is a fictitious organisation similar in size to the University of Canberra that will be used as a case study for Question 2.

a.. IT strategic planning (ITSP) is one means of planning and coordinating the provision of IT services to support organisational activities and improve organisational performance.  For the purposes of this exercise, it can be noted that ITSP had been handled poorly at UU, with the latest plan being over 8 years old and having little impact on recent strategic actions at UU.  Despite this history of poor ITSP efforts, UU has some reasonable IT infrastructure.

Given this scenario, do you think it would be appropriate for an organisation the size of UU to implement an ITSP based approach to help with the management of the organisation and its IT infrastructure?  Please provide a rationale to support your views in this matter.

• The management of UU must be helped with a new approach of ITSP approach as it would be having a direct long term impact on the existing IT infrastructure with the help of new technologies that would boost the overall growth of the organisation.

Identify two areas where ITSP may have improved the outcomes for UU with their IT efforts.

b. For this exercise, we can assume that part of the cause of the problems in UU was a failure of governance with little in the way of formal IT governance mechanisms in place.  Outline three key measures (other than the ITSP based measures) that could be taken to implement effective IT governance.  Describe how each of these measures would improve the prospects of a positive outcome with the implementation and management of the IT systems and infrastructure.

The three different types of methods can be extensively used for the effective implementation of the IT governance are discussed below:

Outline: The services offered by this organisation to its clients should be outlined for having a complete area so that the IT governance plans can be implemented (Bailey, Minto-Coy and Thakur 2017).  The total area with will come under the plan will be helping to make the plan.

Plan: Positive outcome can be achieved with the help of the long-term term strategies. The long term strategies should be checked for the planning.

Goals: The short term goals should be checked and achieved that would be beneficial for the implementation of the governance plan. The short term goal should be set in such a way so that it is actually achievable.

3a. During the semester, it was suggested that it was beneficial for the CIO to understand the value of the IT portfolio.  Outline two of the benefits that could be gained from having this understanding.

• Effective communication is one of the key aspects of the values of the IT portfolio.
• The right metrics can be focussed with the help of the values of the IT portfolio (Jansen 2017).

b. There are various ways in which an investment in IT can be valued.  At one level, we could look at the actual cost of the various components of the IT artefact. The sum of these costs, less any relevant depreciation could then be seen as one measure of value.  However, the true value of our IT investments lies in the benefits they bring to the organisation.

Assuming you were a new CIO for an organisation, what might be some issues in ascertaining the value of your existing IT infrastructure, noting the comments above?

The following issues should be highlighted by me as a CIO in the new IT organisation:

• IoT Security: The anxieties due to the security reasons should be removed to a significant extent (Laudon and Laudon 2016).
• The issues related to the overload of data into the severs should be solved purposefully.
• The cyber security polices of the existing organisation should be revised as the technologies used by the server criminals are getting advanced each day.

Reference

Allen, J.H., Crabb, G., Curtis, P.D., Fitzpatrick, B., Mehravari, N. and Tobar, D., 2015. Structuring the chief information security officer organization (No. CMU/SEI-2015-TN-007). CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA PITTSBURGH United States.

Bailey, A., Minto-Coy, I. and Thakur, D., 2017. IT Governance in E-Government Implementations in the Caribbean: Key Characteristics and Mechanisms. In Information Technology Governance in Public Organizations (pp. 201-227). Springer, Cham.

Jansen, W., 2017. New business models for the knowledge economy. Routledge.

Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education India.