Planning team and resources

Once the objectives, scope, stakeholders, outputs and high-level approach to the proposed planning engagement are known and agreed with the sponsor, it is necessary to outline the management approach for your team, resources, schedule and communications plan in more detail.

This includes assembling resources and tools required to conduct planning activities from the relevant modules of the digital or ICT planning framework.

This guideline will assist in using an integrated approach with respect to:

• activities and resources that the planning   team has
• processes and procedures to act with integrity   and transparency in line with the planning principles.

Sponsorship for the planning engagement as well as agreement on the planning objectives and outputs should have already been established before you begin. Refer to the Sponsorship, scope and stakeholders guideline for more information.

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
• Workforce planners
• Enterprise architects
• Business analysts.

Practitioners should review the content and expected outputs from each of the recommended modules of the digital and ICT framework and determine their relevance to the overall planning objectives. This includes reviewing and assembling the tools and resources that might be deployed as part of planning activities.

Planning as a project

Large planning engagements may need to be conducted as formal project. In these cases, the initiation and management of the planning engagement should be conducted in accordance with agency or Queensland Government best practice methodologies.

Practitioners should also consider if the appointment of a dedicated project manager is required. See Digital and ICT best practice methodologies and project management templates to help you get started.

Where possible, existing agency processes and procedures for activities such as managing risk, analysing stakeholders, estimating costs or reporting on the progress or status of the planning engagement should be leveraged.

Using a management plan

Regardless of the size and complexity of the planning engagement, how it will be conducted and managed should be documented in a management plan.

You should consider the following as part of planning the engagement and creating your management plan:

• overall stakeholder engagement and planning approach in line with the planning objectives agreed by the sponsor
• the benefits and expected outcomes arising from the planning engagement
• procedures for managing risks and issues
• procedures for managing changes in scope, budget and time frames
• procedures and criteria for approving the planning outputs
• cost estimates including the cost of both internal and external resources
• analysis of both internal and external stakeholders including representatives from the various stakeholder groups who will take part in the planning workshop activities
• a plan for engaging and communicating the progress and outcomes of the planning engagement
• an overarching schedule of the planning activities to be conducted as well as key milestones
• the governance structure and arrangements to be put into place to ensure the planning engagement is delivering the required outcomes and benefits.

By planning the engagement this way, processes and procedures are clearly documented. It also provides a baseline against which the performance of the planning engagement can be measured.

Governance of a planning engagement should clearly document accountabilities and responsibilities of the sponsor and key members of the planning team including the planning lead, project manager or the senior manager in charge of the planning unit.

Using a project board

Where planning engagements are conducted as a project, it may be necessary to appoint a project board to oversee the planning engagement and its outcomes. The role of existing governance boards such as ICT portfolio boards or Executive groups also needs to be considered with respect to endorsing or approving the planning approaches, resources and outputs.

The number and types of human resources required will depend on the nature of the planning work to be conducted.

Working in an integrated way does not mean that the responsibility of a discipline starts and ends with a specific task or activity. All disciplines should be involved in most, if not all planning activities at some point regardless of who is responsible for leading that segment of work.

It is important to consider integrated planning approaches across the disciplines of strategic planning, digital and ICT strategic planning, workforce planning, enterprise architecture as well as investment and portfolio management.

Practitioners should consider the following factors as part of their approach:

• How are planning engagements currently   organised in your agency?
• How could integrated planning approaches   improve the success of future planning engagements?
• Where and how do relationships need to be   established to help ensure you create integrated planning approaches?
• Are there any skills shortages or capability   shortfalls that can be identified?
• Is it more effective to source external   resources from the market to conduct most or the entire planning engagement   or simply supplement skills gaps in the agency’s current planning capability?
• The time and cost required to provide training   or source resources with appropriate capability should be included in the schedule   and budget.

The development of an enterprise-wide strategy may include some, or all of the resources and roles outlined below.

Resources

Strategic planning

This includes anyone responsible for engaging with representatives from the business to determine the overall strategic drivers, vision, objectives, strategies as well as high-level outcomes and benefits. They may assist business representatives with:

• understanding the digital or ICT capability required and how it is used in the transformation of services
• initially prioritise the capability required and helps shape and initial view of the areas in investment required over time.
• develop the overall strategy in collaboration with the business representatives.

Roles to be considered

• Agency and service strategic planners
• Digital and ICT strategic planners
• Business analysts

Technology or digital capability

This role is filled by Enterprise architects who translate the business, digital or ICT capability required into a target state architecture and roadmap.

Information management

These roles support business representatives to identify potential information gaps, improvement opportunities and risks. They also works with enterprise architects to develop an information target state architecture and roadmap in line with the digital or ICT roadmap.

Roles to be considered

• Information managers
• Strategic information managers

Information security

These roles help the business identify risks to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information and information assets.

Roles to be considered

• Information security managers
• Security architects

Workforce planning

These roles help business representatives identify potential workforce gaps as well as future roles that might be in demand.

They work with strategic planning specialists to identify:

• future trends in workforce transformation as a   result of technology transformation.
• future roles and skills that will be   increasingly important to the organisation
• the strategies required to take advantage of   opportunities in the workforce.

Roles to be considered

• Human resource specialists
• Workforce planners

ICT investment and portfolio

Works with the business and other streams in the planning team to shape the strategy and required capability into initiatives.

Helps the business refine the benefits and assists them to navigate the governance pathways for funding.

Roles to be considered

• Investment specialists
• Benefits specialists
• Business analysts
• Portfolio specialists

Marketing and communications

These roles support the planning team with editorial reviews and help present planning outputs, and the strategy or plan in new and interesting ways that are meaningful to stakeholders.

Roles to be considered

• Marketing and communications specialists
• Graphic artists
• Editorial reviewers

It’s recommended to include a formal communication plan to ensure you keep stakeholders informed of the planning activities, objectives and outcomes and their participation in the planning process including workshops and consultation.

Using a communication plan

This plan should take into consideration the results of the stakeholder analysis and define in detail the communication, co-design, consultation and approval approaches to engage stakeholders, approve deliverables and communicate the planning progress and outcomes.

Recommended elements of an effective communication plan include, but are not limited to:

• stakeholders
• communication objectives
• key messages
• communication activities for each channel (e.g., social media, web content or events)
• frequency of communication
• roles and responsibilities (e.g., using the Responsible, Accountable, Consult and Inform [RACI] method)
• criteria for success or key performance indicators to measure or evaluate the effectiveness of communication activities (e.g., user engagement via enrolment in training or Google analytics data of website visitors).

If you need help developing your plan, we recommend engaging with the marketing and communications specialists in your agency.

Awareness training, interviews and workshops

It’s important to create a sense of anticipation or excitement around the upcoming planning opportunity and what it might mean for the business

You can do this by providing awareness training sessions to all business and technical stakeholders you intend to interview or invite to workshops. These should not only sell the value of planning, but also explain the critical information provision, analysis and verification role of the attendees as individual contributors to the process.

Practitioners will require input from all members of the proposed planning team to schedule planning activities. Initially you may rely on the expertise and experience of representatives from the team to provide realistic estimates of the work to be conducted.

There are other key tools and sources of tools and information you can use to schedule engagement planning activities effectively.

Existing knowledge

You can also use learnings from previous planning engagements such as patterns and verified timeframes to build knowledge and help plan your schedule.

Agile

An agile approach to conducting the planning engagement could also be considered, working within a series of short sprints to achieve specific objectives and outcomes, evaluating what was successful and what could be improved in future iterations or sprints and adjusting the approach where required.

Best practices

You can adopt tools such as product descriptions and work packages from best practice project management methodologies outside of Agile to help better define the work to be undertaken and the outputs required. These may also provide more accurate estimates of time to complete the work and will give practitioners a basis for measuring the quality of the planning outputs.

See the Digital and ICT best practice methodologies for additional support and planning resources.

Once all necessary management elements have been considered, a formal management plan for the planning engagement can be assembled for presentation to the sponsor and key stakeholders.

For smaller planning engagements it may be possible present the plan on a double-sided page. Include the objectives, stakeholders and risk, issues and scope escalation on the first page with the schedule and outcomes on the reverse page.

Consider using diagrams and picture to illustrate your ideas rather than writing large quantities of text. Any visual elements used by practitioners must meet accessibility guidelines, for example including alt-text and transcripts for any video or animated content.

Once the management and communication plans are complete, the practitioner should:

• gain agreement on the management plan with the sponsor, including a formal sign off on all governance arrangements, resources, timeframes, processes and procedures, and the communications plan
• ensure all team resources and the sponsor are aware of their obligations related to the management of the engagement (e.g. scope, budget, risk, quality and acceptance of deliverables, records management).
• ensure all supporting tools are in place for managing scope, budget, risk, quality and acceptance of deliverables and records).