Have you ever wondered how IT projects get done? What happens from the time the request is made to the completion of a useful web app, software implementation, or data integration? There is a process for that! It’s called Information Technology Governance, and it’s how decisions are made that impact which projects are chosen for development.

Here are the five steps that every IT project needs to complete before any coding or configuration takes place:

1. A project is requested

IT Project requests can be generated by all seven divisions of the university and come from many sources such as ideas from staff, output of MU Lean projects, and strategic objectives supported by divisional leadership.  All IT project requests generated are routed to divisional representatives:

• Academic Affairs - Lindsay Carpenter, oswaldlr@miamioh.edu
• EMSS - Interim-Duane Drake, draked@miamioh.edu
• Finance and Business Services - Brad Grimm, grimmbr@miamioh.edu
• IT Services - David Seidl, seidlda@miamioh.edu
• Office of the President - Ted Pickerill, pickerto@miamioh.edu
• Student Life - Tim Kresse, tim.kresse@miamioh.edu
• University Advancement - Tim Jones, joneste@miamioh.edu

In other words, these are the folks to contact if you have an idea for an IT project.

2. Review the requests

The IT Services business relationship management staff members (Dana Miller and Jeffrey Toaddy) meet monthly with the seven divisional representatives to gather their project requests and then work with the divisions to build a business case for each project request.

3. Value engineering

When Miller and Toaddy have the list of projects desired by the divisions and the business case benefits have been developed for these requests, they take them to the value engineering group. This group is composed of IT Services staff members who meet weekly to determine the effort, team assignment, and best path to complete the requested work. There are five solution delivery teams composed of two to five developers.

4. Roadmap planning

Once the value engineering work is completed, the requests then travel to another group called Project Portfolio Roadmap Planning. This group meets every two weeks. These folks determine the best slot on team queues to place the project request in the Miami IT Portfolio Plan. In other words, what timeframe does the project require? Should it be completed before or after other projects currently in the pipeline? How long will it take?

5. And finally...

Once the roadmap planning is done, IT project requests are then brought before a monthly meeting of the Change and Continuous Improvement Committee (CCIC). The CCIC is composed of the seven divisional representatives, and they have final approval of what IT project requests become projects.

And that is the lifecycle of an IT project!