An important component of achieving organizational maturity is creating an effective IT engagement model. The textbook describes three important components needed to develop such a model:
1. Companywide IT Governance: In the example of the healthcare organization, we discussed the ways that its hospitals and clinics purchase, implement, and support technology. If this organization is able to identify a common set of technologies to run all of the component businesses, it is possible to find efficiencies of scale (such as buying in bulk). An organization that purchases many pieces of networking equipment (or many software licenses, or many instances of employee technology training) from just one business partner is likely to get a better price, and be able to support each component more cheaply and more efficiently, than if each component uses a different business partner and its own unique technology. In organizations where the business components are less integrated (for example, a corporation that manufactures diverse products), it is possible that this integration and standardization may be limited to only some of the core activities, like payroll and HR.
The textbook identifies five important areas of effective IT governance:
1.IT Principles - What role does IT play in supporting the business goals of the organization?
2.Enterprise Architecture - How is technology infrastructure designed?
3.IT Architecture - How much is IT centralized and how is it distributed to best support the needs of the organization?
4.Business Application Needs - What applications will best support the needs of the organization?
5.Prioritization and Investment - How will the organization decide where to put their technology dollars, in order to best support their needs?
2. Project Management: It is possible to purchase common technology, without implementing it in a common fashion, and end up with a varying degree of success. By planning and documenting the processes and procedures to be implemented in technology projects, it is possible to develop integrated and standardized practices necessary for an organization to arrive at business modularity. Developing effective project management practices can be like creating a culinary dish-if the cook not only lists all of the ingredients in a recipe, but also documents the order in which the ingredients are added, and the techniques that are used to integrate them.
3. Linking Mechanisms: Effective use of linking mechanisms involves identifying synergies between the business components of the organization. For example, imagine that one business component identifies the need to purchase or develop a new inventory system. When evaluating projects and deciding where to invest in technology, it is often more effective to pursue those initiatives that better support the organization as a whole. Effective linking mechanisms would provide procedures and processes that would evaluate this request for its potential benefit to other components of the organization. An IT steering committee made up of senior staff from each of the organizations, who are charged with evaluating requests prior to investment, is an example of such a linking mechanism.
The organization will need an IT engagement model to support the enterprise architecture over time. Write a short paper in which you do the following:
•Explain recommendations for steps toward developing an effective IT engagement model that addresses company-wide IT governance.
•Explain recommendations for steps toward developing an effective IT engagement model that addresses project management.
•Explain recommendations for steps toward developing an effective IT engagement model that addresses linking mechanisms for projects and IT governance.
•Explain the impact that selection of IT engagement model may have on business partner communications.
•Explain your rationale for the stated recommendations.
•Follow APA style and formatting guidelines for references and citations, and create a document that is clearly written and free of grammatical errors.