Governance
Question 1: Does the CIO report to the CFO, COO or CEO?
Answer 1: CFO
Question 2: Are there internal groups in the IT department like Infrastructure, Applications, Security etc.?
Answer 2: Yes. Applications, Security, Web
Question 3: How is IT governed? Does IT work with business managers and the Executive committee to prioritize projects?
Answer 3: I believe that they have communications at different levels to help them understand business needs. For example, I have a monthly meeting to talk about our needs for the RTD (Requirements Tracking Database) or other web based applications.
Question 4: What are the pros and cons of IT governance?
Answer 4:
Pros: internal web based tools, reasonably good process, good system to track tickets.
Cons: takes a long time to get response, Some engineering tools are partially managed by IT partially not.
Budget Management
Question 1: Who manages the IT budget?
Answer 1: CIO
Question 2: How is the budget allocated to individual projects? What is the allocation criteria?
Answer 2: I am not sure about the internal budget management and allocation within IT.
Question 3: Who makes the decisions on IT projects like determining needs, scoping of time/cost of each project?
Answer 3: I am not sure about project planning and scoping within IT.
Outsourcing
Question 1: Are any of the IT functions outsourced? Which ones?
Answer 1: Yes. They are starting to outsource a good portion of tools development to third parties overseas.
Question 2: Were any project/application development outsourced?
Answer 2: EPM (Engineering Project Management) is a product that was purchased and some training and setup was contracted. EPM is partially managed by IT for example backed up and run on servers. The RTD (Requirements Tracking Database) was developed internally. IT is now looking at outsourcing the enhancements of RTD to third party developers overseas. Web Timeoff (for employees to request and managers to grant vacation) I believe is also a purchased application that is managed by IT.
Question 3: What are the pros and cons of outsourcing any function or project?
Answer 3: Outsourcing is a necessity in the industry today. Pros include the ability to grow the resources on as needed basis. Cons are that in some cases the cost can be higher and in some cases quality can not be managed as easily.
Implementation of Past Projects
Question 1: Please give a brief overview of successful past IT projects? What were the advantages to the company?
Answer 1: I think Web Timeoff has been generally successful. The company had a major problem with filing, tracking and accounting of vacation time. This was a major financial issue as well. This is now all automated and it can be easily tracked as long as employees consistently use it.
Question 2: Overview of any IT projects that failed or did not meet expectations?
Answer 2: I think any IT project needs enough investment to make sure it is executed successfully. In many cases this means projects that have an ongoing cost associated with them. The PCR (Product Change Request) system was introduced and it had been helpful but because of lack of continuous funding certain key enhancements could not be made. It did not meet our expectations.
Question 3: Reasons for failure of the above-mentioned projects?
Answer 3: Due to lack of resources to make additional changes, it is not fully utilized and there is a lot of wasted time elsewhere in other groups because of this. We need some additional ongoing investments to make additional changes to make it match the use cases and make it a fully productive tool.
Forecast of Future Projects
Question 1: What are the IT projects that are being planned for the next two years?
Answer 1: Unfortunately, I do not have much visibility into this.
Question 2: Are these future projects being planned out of necessity or to provide a strategic advantage to the company?
Answer 2: Unfortunately, I do not have much visibility into this.
Key Issues
Question 1: What are the 5 most important IT issues facing the company?
Answer 1: From a user perspective, I think the issues are speed in which regular IT tickets are resolved and the lack of resources to make tools changes necessary for the business.
General
Question1: What do you like and dislike the way IT is governed and managed in the organization?
Answer 1: I like the fact that a lot of tools are web based and many of them have a consistent look and feel. I dislike the fact that they do not get updated and enhanced as business goes forward and changes are required.
Question 1: Does the CIO report to the CFO, COO or CEO?
Answer 1: CFO
Question 2: Are there internal groups in the IT department like Infrastructure, Applications, Security etc.?
Answer 2: Yes. Applications, Security, Web
Question 3: How is IT governed? Does IT work with business managers and the Executive committee to prioritize projects?
Answer 3: I believe that they have communications at different levels to help them understand business needs. For example, I have a monthly meeting to talk about our needs for the RTD (Requirements Tracking Database) or other web based applications.
Question 4: What are the pros and cons of IT governance?
Answer 4:
Pros: internal web based tools, reasonably good process, good system to track tickets.
Cons: takes a long time to get response, Some engineering tools are partially managed by IT partially not.
Budget Management
Question 1: Who manages the IT budget?
Answer 1: CIO
Question 2: How is the budget allocated to individual projects? What is the allocation criteria?
Answer 2: I am not sure about the internal budget management and allocation within IT.
Question 3: Who makes the decisions on IT projects like determining needs, scoping of time/cost of each project?
Answer 3: I am not sure about project planning and scoping within IT.
Outsourcing
Question 1: Are any of the IT functions outsourced? Which ones?
Answer 1: Yes. They are starting to outsource a good portion of tools development to third parties overseas.
Question 2: Were any project/application development outsourced?
Answer 2: EPM (Engineering Project Management) is a product that was purchased and some training and setup was contracted. EPM is partially managed by IT for example backed up and run on servers. The RTD (Requirements Tracking Database) was developed internally. IT is now looking at outsourcing the enhancements of RTD to third party developers overseas. Web Timeoff (for employees to request and managers to grant vacation) I believe is also a purchased application that is managed by IT.
Question 3: What are the pros and cons of outsourcing any function or project?
Answer 3: Outsourcing is a necessity in the industry today. Pros include the ability to grow the resources on as needed basis. Cons are that in some cases the cost can be higher and in some cases quality can not be managed as easily.
Implementation of Past Projects
Question 1: Please give a brief overview of successful past IT projects? What were the advantages to the company?
Answer 1: I think Web Timeoff has been generally successful. The company had a major problem with filing, tracking and accounting of vacation time. This was a major financial issue as well. This is now all automated and it can be easily tracked as long as employees consistently use it.
Question 2: Overview of any IT projects that failed or did not meet expectations?
Answer 2: I think any IT project needs enough investment to make sure it is executed successfully. In many cases this means projects that have an ongoing cost associated with them. The PCR (Product Change Request) system was introduced and it had been helpful but because of lack of continuous funding certain key enhancements could not be made. It did not meet our expectations.
Question 3: Reasons for failure of the above-mentioned projects?
Answer 3: Due to lack of resources to make additional changes, it is not fully utilized and there is a lot of wasted time elsewhere in other groups because of this. We need some additional ongoing investments to make additional changes to make it match the use cases and make it a fully productive tool.
Forecast of Future Projects
Question 1: What are the IT projects that are being planned for the next two years?
Answer 1: Unfortunately, I do not have much visibility into this.
Question 2: Are these future projects being planned out of necessity or to provide a strategic advantage to the company?
Answer 2: Unfortunately, I do not have much visibility into this.
Key Issues
Question 1: What are the 5 most important IT issues facing the company?
Answer 1: From a user perspective, I think the issues are speed in which regular IT tickets are resolved and the lack of resources to make tools changes necessary for the business.
General
Question1: What do you like and dislike the way IT is governed and managed in the organization?
Answer 1: I like the fact that a lot of tools are web based and many of them have a consistent look and feel. I dislike the fact that they do not get updated and enhanced as business goes forward and changes are required.