IT manager

What do I have at the beginning...

  • Only high level overview about my teams, their operational duties and engagements in projects.

  • I always have to ask more detailed information from my subordinates.

  • I lack an overview of what my people are working on just now, what they worked in the past and how much effort did it take and what projects they are planned in future in order to ensure required activities (both operational and project ones).

  • In certain cases I need to see the course of solving particular task, in order I could react to incomplete or untrue information and justify job that my people did or, the other way around, immediately identify, when somebody made a mistake.

What am I going to have at the end…

  • I know how many incidents were solved after the target time.

  • I know what priorities do my people have.

  • I have an overview of all the projects, requirements that they solve, what tasks associated with them were issued, what is the status of these tasks, what is the status of testing, what was the course of particular task, how much time did a solver spend on the task, what are the overall capacities spent on particular projects, what was the original plan.

IT Architect

What do I have at the beginning...

  • Particular documents about preferred technologies and ways how to integrate them.

  • I have to get more detailed information about particular systems repeatedly.

What am I going to have at the end…

  • What is the share of technologies we use

  • How do systems communicate each to another (interfaces)

  • When does support of particular systems end (End of Life)

Project manager

What do I have at the beginning...

  • I am recording tasks and cooperation agreed on with employees in Excel. I have confirmation about task assignment and its outputs in my emails.

  • I lack breakdown of projects in particular phases, change requests, testing and ability to get fast from the project level to particular tasks and status of their solving.

  • We need to better plan resources and see their following use in a project.

What am I going to have at the end…

  • Projects are structured into logical units, I can issue tasks and easily see their fulfilment. All this in a single environment ensuring automatic notifications at the time of creating the task or handing over to another solver, at the time of approaching or exceeding target time (escallation).

  • I have a good overview about testing, test scenarios that were performed, bugs that were reported and status of these bugs solving. I can see wheather or not my project is colliding with another projects from the perspective of planned changes or planned resources.

  • I can plan resources on the project, solve collisions (resource overallocation) with other project colleagues and have an overview about resource utilization (time spent by solvers on tasks that I have issued).

Administrator

What do I have at the beginning...

  • I am bothered that we keep information about systems and applications in an isolated way in many documents. I miss a consolidated view and determination who is responsible for what.

  • I miss keeping records about changes, that would help when identifying subsequent problems and proving what was actually changed.

  • I miss e.g. overview of certificate validity, maintenance or support contracts and timely reminder that they need to be renewed.

What am I going to have at the end…

  • A single central system for covering all the aspects of information systems (from the datacenter, over hardware, applications to processes, system operation and system change management). We can agree extent of detail in keeping the information in our team in order it corresponds with our organization needs.

  • When it comes to an operational incident or I should assess impact of a planned change, I have overviews of previous incidents, performed changes, dependencies on other configurations items, relevant knowledge base articles etc. at disposal for all configuration items.

  • Elementary operational tasks like certificate, hardware service contract or software maintenance renewal are centrally registered and I am receiving notifications from the system about need to solve their renewal.

Solver

What do I have at the beginning...

  • I receive tasks verbally or by email. I can hard orientate myself in the history associated with solution and changes in the task or priorities.

  • Customers and managers retroactively claim that we had another agreement at the beginning. I have problems to support the facts because it means going through emails if they exist at all.

  • There are no rules for the necessary completion date (guaranteed times for standard tasks and agreed terms for more sophisticated tasks).

What am I going to have at the end…

  • I have tasks in a single central system no matter if it is operational incident, catalogue request, testing, client complaint etc. Changes are provable – we do not spend time any more on discussions who and when delivered, said or added what.

  • The planned date of task completion is driven by clear rules.

Key user / business architect

What do I have at the beginning...

  • I have a number of ideas for improvement of current applications or creation of new ones that would replace Excel files, but my ideas are not realized due to the volume of another changes.

  • I would like to participate more in the change process of applications I work with.

  • I would like to influence more how our applications support our processes and business opportunities.

What am I going to have at the end…

  • I can design my application in a user interface that I can understand including screens, data referencing and process logic (workflow).

  • My colleagues can test my proposal and confirm my vision or bring new initiatives for improvement.

  • After approval within our team I can hand over my solution to IT maintenance in order to ensure separation of access to data (work in the application - business) and data administration (back up, access management – IT).

Business manager

What do I have at the beginning...

  • I miss an overview about planned application outages.

  • I miss an overview about incidents in applications critical for my department.

  • I miss an overview of changes planned in applications that are critical for my department and engagement of my employees in projects (particular tasks and time that they spent on them).

What am I going to have at the end…

  • I can see planned application outages in my dashboard.

  • I can see an overview of incidents that violated functioning of applications that are important for me. I can see how fast were they solved and if SLA was kept. I have summary overviews/charts and history of particular incidents at disposal.

  • I have overview of changes in my applications at disposal - those planned/prepared, those ongoing and also those already finished. I can see what my people work on and how much time it cost.

Process manager

What do I have at the beginning...

  • Processes are described but we miss clear link to applications that support them.

  • I need to know which processes are supported by particular application.

  • I need a system that will support performing Business Impact Analysis in the company.

What am I going to have at the end…

  • Linking application repository with processes repository enables to find out which applications are supported by which processes and compare application availability with required process availability.

  • I have an up to date overview of applications with inadequate RTO from the perspective of processes that they support.

  • I have a tool for a regular assessment of process criticality (BIA questionnaire).

Usual employee

What do I have at the beginning...

  • I am often managing my data in Excel or Word documents. The fact the information is not in a central system is often a blocking issue when it comes to day to day operations.

  • I have to do a lot of things manually even if they could be automated. My initiatives for improvement are difficult to be carried through.

  • We often have to write again the data to another systems.

What am I going to have at the end…

  • A single central system with a transparent menu available according to the access rights. All the changes are logged.

  • Routine processes are automated. I can materialize my ideas in a test environment and let them transfer into production system.

  • Data transfers are automated and save my time.

HR manager

What do I have at the beginning...

  • I am working on descreasing fluctuation and keeping key employees.

  • I help managers to motivate people to high performance.

  • I want to create such an environment where employess come themselves with initiatives and ideas and enjoy putting helpful projects into practise.

What am I going to have at the end…

  • ObjectGears brings clarity into processes and activities associated with information systems. People appreciate when their job is well organized.

  • Employees can design their system environment themselves and replace unstructured data in Excel or Word.

Auditor

What do I have at the beginning...

  • I get information about systems by means of interviewing application administrators.

  • Users store number of data in Excel or other systems that do not held information about data originator (audit trail) and manage access on data.

What am I going to have at the end…

Two types of benefits:

  1. Information about systems.

    • Application administrators maintain data about systems in a single central environment.

    • I have summary overviews from the whole information system about used technologies, system end of life, ensuring administrator back up, support from vendor, RTO, DRP and all that in relation to significance of the application (Business Impact Analysis).

  2. Business has its critical data, that were up to now in applications like Excel, in a central database accessible via web interface with managed data and audit trail.

Is any of these roles, starting points or needs familiar to you? Ask for ObjectGears!