Information application and technology

This guideline provides practitioners and business representatives participating in planning with an understanding of the current state of the ICT assets and services relevant to the scope of the planning activities.

Undertaking analysis of the current state reveals information about the type, function, level of investment and condition of information, application and technology assets and services.

This information helps to identify opportunities for new capability as well as strategies for optimising the investment and minimising the risks of the current portfolio of assets/services.

Audience

A practitioner in the context of this guideline can include one or more of the following roles:

• Digital and ICT strategic planners
• Agency and service strategic planners
• Enterprise architects
• Business analysts
• Information managers
• ICT costing or pricing specialists
• Investment or portfolio specialists.

Begin by locating any existing documentation on the agency or business unit information, application and technology assets and services.

Useful sources of information that can help you collect this information include:

• ICT related service catalogues
• service agreements used by organisation’s ICT unit
• enterprise architecture documentation
• Configuration Management Database
• Queensland Government ICT Profile submission
• ICT Work plan.

The Queensland Government ICT profiling standard contains a useful list of attributes regarding information, application and technology assets or services including sample registers and ICT profiling templates for information assets, application and technologies.

Using a business register

You can document the information, application and technology assets and services in a register.

Visit Strategy map templates provided by The Strategy Execution Company (ESM) for free strategic templates, including a business direction register.

Managing gaps in information

In an agency where this information is not readily available or is not available at the level required to describe information assets, applications and technologies, it will be necessary to generate it through interviews or workshops with key stakeholders of the business areas. In these circumstances, it may be necessary to engage assistance from the ICT or enterprise architecture unit of the organisation.

Visit the Queensland Government Enterprise Architecture (QGEA) for resources and contact information to help you gather information related to our enterprise architecture.

Estimating costs

Where possible, estimates of the annual estimated cost of operation and the estimated replacement cost should also be collected. This will enhance the analysis conducted related to the current state classification and assessments.

For ICT planning, the dimensions of the Annual estimated total cost of operation are:

• internal and external operational costs
• depreciation costs
• licensing costs
• any other costs that can be directly attributed to the asset or service on an ongoing basis.

To obtain a true picture of the total cost of an application, the costs of the underlying infrastructure, the hardware and software platform (but not any network infrastructure) should be included.

Where several applications share a server, operating system, database or other technologies, the annual estimated cost of operation of these technologies should be divided among the applications. You can use a simple division if detailed usage information is not available.

For outsourced applications (e.g. ICT service provider or an external provider), include the cost of any internal staff involved in providing the service as well as the cost billed to the agency.

Classification provides a way of quickly understating the nature of information used by an organisation as well as the functional capability of an organisation’s applications and technologies. Classification helps identify gap areas or duplication in the information, application and technology assets and services.

It is normal in an organisation that descriptions of similar or like types of information and digital or technology assets can differ greatly. Classification proves a straightforward way of normalising business terminology when referring to information assets, application and technology assets and services.

Work with the business unit representatives or the enterprise architecture representatives to ensure your classifications comply, or are compatible with, any relevant classification frameworks used by the organisation.

Visit Queensland Government Enterprise Architecture for details on currently used classification frameworks. Each agency may also have business specific classification frameworks.

Refer to the Enterprise architecture classification guideline and the and ICT profiling tool for more information.

Mapping is the activity of identifying the relationships between elements either within a layer of an enterprise architecture or across layers of an enterprise architecture. Mapping helps practitioners understand the relationships between the organisation’s services and processes and the information, applications and technologies that support those services.

Mapping also helps identify any gaps and ensures the scope of information collected for the planning process is consistent. Where gaps occur, it may be necessary to adjust the information collected in line with scope of the planning engagement. This will provide greater focus on only those elements that are relevant to the planning engagement and will highlight any true gaps which may represent an opportunity to introduce new capability.

Mapping across layers is generally conducted from one layer to the layer above in an enterprise architecture. The extent to which mapping is conducted depends on the scope of the planning engagement and the information available. For planning purposes, it is recommended applications are mapped to the information they support. Underpinning technology assets and services should also be mapped to applications.

Refer to the Enterprise architecture mapping guideline for more information and resources.

Additional mapping such as information and applications to services or business objectives, can also be helpful to understand the importance of information and applications to support the business of the agency and its strategic intent.

Assessment refers to the scoring and analysis of business impact, future business value and the condition of information, application and technology assets and services.

Assessment helps practitioners and business representatives engaged in planning to understand the risk, potential to deliver future benefit, and comparative cost of services, information, application and technology assets and services within the current environment. Based on assessment results, a number of corrective actions can be proposed and carried forward to planning activities with the business.

Assessments should be conducted using surveys, interviews or workshops with representatives from the business, as well as application and information asset experts and support staff.

Refer to the Enterprise architecture classification guideline for additional information related to the types of assessment and analysis that can be conducted on the current information assets, applications and technologies of the agency or business area.

You can also use the following Business Queensland tools to help assess business risks and impacts:

• Identifying business risk
• The PPRR risk management tool

Analyse the mappings to identify those information, application and technology assets and services that are significant due to how they support many objectives, strategies and key performance indicators.

As part of analysing the classification of the information, application and technology assets and services it is important to identify and document:

• any apparent gaps that may be relevant, as these gaps may represent opportunities to introduce a new capability, particularly if services and processes are not supported by technology
• domains in the classifications where multiple information, application and technology assets and services have been classified to a single domain, these may represent an opportunity for rationalisation.

When conducting planning workshops with an agency or business area, ensure that the agenda results of analysis points for discussion and planning activities have been endorsed by the sponsor.

Preparing a presentation

Presentations of classifications and assessments can include graphs, and summaries of the findings. Grid models that result from assessment activities can be helpful to present your findings to the sponsor and other business representatives. Ensure any graphics you use meet accessibility standards (e.g., provide alt-text for diagrams and images).

Consult a group of executives, portfolio managers or analytics and reporting specialists in your agency to discuss what types of visualisations might be useful. This will help create a repository of useful visualisations that can be re-used.

Presenting your analysis as part of a workshop

Practitioners should discuss the proposed workshop visualisations with the planning sponsor. This will provide you with an understanding of the sponsors expectations around the current state. For example, the sponsor may be particularly interested in application portfolio risks and high- cost applications. This kind of understanding will help guide which visualisations you need to include.

Presenting cost

Practitioners should show the top ten application domains in terms of annual cost of operation and illustrate the number of applications and the total annual cost of operation per domain.

This will help business representatives understand the extent of possible duplication and the cost to the organisation. It may also help the business to understand the level of spend on corporate applications (e.g. human resources or finance applications) versus those that support front line service delivery.

Where the estimated replacement, renewal or replacement cost has been gathered, clearly show the number and cost of applications and technology assets and services that are due, or overdue for replacement or renewal over the planning period.

Presenting mapping

Mappings can be represented as diagrams that demonstrate the relationships between elements or graphs or where there is a high dependency between elements.

This could include a graph or mind map showing the number of information assets or applications supporting the significant or priority services of the agency or business unit. This can help promote a discussion with the business representatives about potential rationalisation or integration of applications.

Include your findings regarding the classification, mapping and assessment of information assets applications and technologies as part of the digital and ICT strategic planning workshops and interviews. This will give the sponsor and the business representatives the opportunity to confirm the analysis and discuss any strategies that need to be included in the Strategic Plan or Operational Plan.

Discuss analysis results with stakeholders

When you share the results of your classification, mapping and analysis with the sponsor or other business stakeholders, ensure you discuss and document all:

• apparent duplication or gaps resulting from the classification of information assets
• identified objectives and strategies required to address rationalisation opportunities and gaps
• management strategies resulting from the assessment
• objectives and strategies required to address; any risks, or to optimise investment through leverage or rationalisation opportunities in terms of cost.

Not all of the objectives and strategies resulting from the analysis of the current state will be strategic in nature. It may be necessary as part of the planning workshops and interviews to agree which objectives and strategies are more operational in nature and need to be considered as part of an operational plan.