IS Applications Planning 16/17 to 18/19
Overview of IS Applications 16/17 to 18/19
What is the IS Applications planning process? This is an annual process to identify the needs of the University community and determine which IT and business change projects to support from centrally funded IS Applications resources for the next 3 years. The process also allows engagement with the wider University planning process where additional funding may be required to meet these priorities.
What does planning involve? A strategic information gathering exercise, focussing on reviewing and updating 3-year directional statements and strategic priorities, with resulting proposal suggestions for enhancing business processes and supporting IT systems. We will work with you to capture as much information as possible to enable us to plan the work.
The process is made up of the following stages:
- Identification of major initiatives that will progress via the University planning process
- Consultation with Colleges and Support Groups to review and update 3-year directional statements and proposal suggestions
- Produce initial list of prioritised 3-year proposal suggestions using templates
- Estimation of proposal suggestions based on simplified categorisation
- Prioritisation of proposal suggestions carried out at programme level
- Independent scoring of all proposal suggestions carried out at portfolio level
- Further consultation with Colleges and Support Groups
- Completion of Mid-Year Review to confirm carry over projects and resubmissions
- Prioritisation of proposal suggestions, carry over projects and resubmissions carried out at portfolio level
- Production of draft prioritised list of projects
- Feedback and review of draft prioritised list by an IT Governance Group
- Production and publication of Start of Year list of prioritised projects for 2016/17 to 2018/19
Please refer to the "Activities and Timetable" page for more detailed information on the process.
Note that the new "Blended Day Rate" for professional services across IS for 2016/17 will be £310/day for the majority of our services.
CURRENT POSITION:
We have now produced our Start of Year Plan for 16/17 as part of our ongoing planning for enterprise systems development for the period 2016-19. We would like to thank colleagues for their input and support during this process.
The Plan is available at the link below:
The Start of Year Plan takes account of the latest position regarding current priorities and confirmed funding (we will make a further adjustment to individual programme and portfolio budgets to account for existing sponsor funded projects that continue over year-end).
As with all plans we would expect some change throughout the year and we are continuing our discussions with partners around additional priorities and funding in areas such as Service Excellence and Digital Transformation.
If you have any questions or comments at this stage, please direct these to the "Planning Contacts" listed in the Documention menu on the left-hand side of this page.
February 2015
Enterprise IT Services Plan 2016-19 - Version Two
We circulated our first draft plan to update our enterprise systems development for the period 2016-19 at the start of December.
At that time, we advised that we were reviewing our charging “day rate” for sponsor funded proposals and would communicate the outcome in due course.
We have now completed this review and can advise that IS will now use a rate of £310 per day for the majority of our professional services across all divisions.
This updated “day rate” has been calculated as a “blended rate” to cover the costs for both existing IS staff and external contractors and means that we are able to offer sponsor funded resources for the majority of our work at a much lower cost that the initial planning estimate of £500 per day.
When we identify major new initiatives, such as Digital Transformation, where the resources required are likely exceed 500 days, we will review these with our partners on a case-by-case basis to determine the most appropriate “mix” of staff and contractors and this will determine the resulting cost for this work.
We have adjusted our plan/resources, based on this £310 rate and to take account of changes that have been provided as part of the Mid-Year Review. This change in rate only applies to funded work, the "red line" for work funded from IS "flat cash" is unchanged from the previous version.
There are a number of projects which we now think will be included in the Digital Transformation of core services that is being put forward in the Support Group plans. These are still included in the list of sponsor funded projects, but we have highlighted them to show the potential impact from Digital Transformation.
An updated copy of the plan is available at the link below:
SECOND DRAFT PLAN 2016/17 to 18/19*
An extract from the plan is being issued to each Portfolio Owner to request their input and to allow them to propose further changes by the end of February.
As in previous years we expect that this current version will be broadly indicative of the final outcomes but there may be a need for adjustments as the funding position becomes clearer in the overall planning process.
If you have any other questions or comments, please direct these to the "Planning Contacts" listed in the Documention menu on the left-hand side of this page.
December 2015
We have produced our first draft to update our enterprise systems development. It rolls forward the 2015-18 plan from this year to cover the period 2016-19. A copy of the plan is available at the link below:
FIRST DRAFT PLAN 2016/17 to 18/19*
The proposals have been created in partnership with our programme and portfolio owners and we thank them for their contribution. We are still working on the detail, however, there is unlikely to be any substantial changes unless existing proposals are withdrawn and/or new ones brought forward.
The plan indicates that our capacity to the “red line” will be consumed by proposals for compliance work. Compliance is used to describe project work that has to be done to IT systems to meet legislative demands or because there is no practical alternative solution and without the work there is a significant risk to the University’s business.
With regards to sponsor funded proposals, we are currently reviewing the charging “day rate”. We expect that it will be less that the £500/day we are using in our current estimation processes. We will adjust this figure as we understand our costs better and will communicate this as soon as we have an agreed position.
If you have any other questions or comments, please direct these to the "Planning Contacts" listed in the Documention menu on the left-hand side of this page.
October 2015
The planning for our 3 year cycle 2016 – 19 is now underway.
The purpose of this process is:
- Identify the IT systems needs of the University community including major initiatives
- Prioritise the use of the centrally funded resources allocated to IS Applications and our business partners
Major initiatives, such as Shared Academic Timetabling and Research Management and Administration System, are beyond the capacity of centrally funded resources allocated to IS Applications so that additional funding has to be made available for them. Where there are large changes needed IS Apps staff will work with our partners to develop ideas into proposals that can be submitted through the Knowledge Strategy Committee and into the University’s financial planning. Such proposals may be owned by either IS or the partner support group as appropriate.
The budget allocated to small and medium projects in IS Apps is approximately £2.25m of which typically approximately £1m is available to be prioritised after compliance work has been covered. The planning process identifies the necessary compliance and prioritises the work to be done against the £1m budget. It is a rolling process so that when we reach the end of year 1, we take stock and plan for the subsequent 3 years – using what was years 2 and 3 as our starting point.
The following document provides further information on the 2016/17 and 2017/18 proposals identified last year. These proposals are a good starting point for our discussions with partners and the drafting of our revised 3 year plan.
INITIAL PLANNING VERSION*
In the initial stage of our planning we aim to get an overview of where our partners would like their business processes and supporting IT systems to be in 3 years’ time. This will help us with identifying major initiatives earlier and with prioritising subsequent work. Last year we worked with our partners to produce a short strategy document, or ‘directional statement’, linking project proposals to the direction in which the business unit wished to move. These are available in the Documentation section at the link below:
https://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/planning