Strategic Planning forEnterprise Application Services

Joseph Percoco

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Office of Information Technology

January 15, 2008

Strategic Planning forEnterprise Application Services

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Ellen Law, Eileen Markey and Bill Thompson for their valuable contribution to the EAS strategic planning process. Thanks to Dr. Michael Mundrane for inspiration, motivation and guidance. Thanks to Rose Riccardi for administrative support without which this presentation would not have been possible.

Copyright Joseph G. Percoco and Rutgers University 2007. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

Today’s Discussion

• Introduction

• Strategic Planning and Information Technology

• Rutgers Enterprise Application Services Strategic Planning

• Q & A

“Anybody can plan. Not everybody can be strategic about it.”

- Bart Strong

“Without strategy we stumble along in a state of masked chaos.”

- Bernard Bohr

-

A little food for thought…

Rutgers, The State University of N.J.

• Chartered in 1766 as Queens College

• 8th oldest higher education institution in the U.S.

• AAU member institution

• One of America’s leading public research institutions

• 50,000 students on three campuses

• 9,000 faculty and staff

• 27 degree granting schools and colleges

Rutgers University - Office of Information Technology

OFFICE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

CIO/VP

CAMPUS COMPUTING SERVICES

STRATEGIC PLANNING &OPERATIONS

OFFICE OF INSTRUCTIONAL RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY

ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS & SERVICES

ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS AND OPERATIONS

TELECOMMUNICATIONS INFORMATION PROTECTIONENTERPRISE APPLICATION

SERVICESENTERPRISE SYSTEMS

AND OPERATIONS

Enterprise Application Services

Enterprise Application ServicesJoseph Percoco - Director

Application DevelopmentServices

ApplicationArchitecture & Engineering

Services

Information Management

Application Architecture &

Framework

Identity Management

Services

Business/FinancialServices

Student/Academic Services

NetworkManagement

Services

What They’re Saying about Strategic Planning…

Strategic planning is the means by which an organization coordinates efforts to anticipate, direct and manage change.

Strategic planning is endeavoring to pick the right time, right approach and right situation to maximize the outcome we most desire.

Strategic planning takes into account an organization’s aspirations for the future, its opportunities and choices.

-Strategic Planning In Higher Education (Ruben/Tromp, 2004)

What They’re Saying about Strategic Planning…

Strategic planning provides direction, concentration of effort and consistency of purpose as an organization strives to improve its position.

Strategic planning focuses on what needs to be done now in order to be properly positioned for the future.

Strategic planning identifies future objectives in response to opportunities and threats with an understanding of the organization’s strengths and weaknesses.

- The Art of Strategic Planning (Boar, 1993)

What They’re Saying about Strategic Planning…

At the heart of strategic planning is “strategic flexibility” – the capacity to compete today yet at the same time devote energy to develop capabilities for the future

- Hitting a Moving Target: IT Strategy in a Real-time World

(Voloudakis, 2005)

What They’re Saying about IT Strategic Planning…

The goal of IT strategic planning is to link IT practice with institutional purpose, to align IT plans, investments, priorities and actions with institutional priorities.

- IT Alignment in Higher Education (ECAR, 2004)

What They’re Saying about IT Strategic Planning…

IT strategic planning reveals the fundamental direction in which an organization should move, articulates what the institution can expect from IT and develops a shared understanding of how technology can support institutional needs.

-Planning for IT in Higher Education: It’s Not an Oxymoron (McCredie, 2000)

What They’re Saying about IT Strategic Planning…

Strategic Planning should result in a “foundation for execution” that can enable future activities, and can be leveraged and exploited to respond to new opportunities. An effective foundation for execution depends on tight alignment between business objectives and IT capabilities.

- Enterprise Architecture as Strategy (Ross, 2006)

IT Strategy is…

• Taking in the “big picture”

• Future oriented

• Long-term considerations

• Aligned with broader mission

• Directed towards defined objectives

• High impact

• Synergistic and cohesive

• Coordinated/focused

• Foundational, enabling

• Responsive

• Flexible

• Change & Innovation

• Narrowly focused

• Operational day-to-day

• Quick-turnaround needs

• Divorced from larger mission

• Adhoc

• Low impact, tactical

• Discrete and non-integrated

• Accidental

• Constraining

• Reactive

• Rigid

• Status quo

IT Strategy is not…

Strategy Realization (Mintzberg, 1994)

IntendedStrategy

Unrealized Strategy

EmergentStrategy

DeliberateStrategy

RealizedStrategy

Strategic Planning SpectrumBusiness and IT Alignment (Voloudakis, 2005)

ReactiveModel

AlignmentModel

BlendedModel

BusinessStrategy

ITStrategy

BusinessStrategy

ITStrategy

BusinessStrategy

LeveragingIT

IT Governance

Information Technology Strategy – Our Definition

An IT strategy explains how information technology will be utilized as part of an organization’s overall business strategy and plan.

The strategy should be founded on the reality of the current state and a vision of a future state that is aligned with that of the larger institution.

At it’s core, the strategy should provide a foundation that can be leveraged and exploited to enable future efforts.

The IT strategy should present a roadmap to facilitate movement from current to future state in pursuit of the vision.

EAS Strategic Planning Process

• Pre-planning considerations & early decisions

• Developing a process and crafting a framework

• Definitions and establishing common understanding

• Core process: Assessing, Visioning, Road-mapping

• Modeling the discussion

• Documenting the plan

• Communication, Implementation, Assessment

Pre-planning Considerations

• Why are we doing this? What are we trying to achieve?

• Where do we start?

• Who needs to be involved?

• What do we need to consider?

• What is the scope of the effort?

• What do we even mean by “strategic”? What else do we need to define?

• How do we get our arms around this?

• How do we structure the discussion? How do we break it down so that it is manageable?

• What is the timeframe?

Why are we doing this?

• Put greater focus on strategic initiatives and long-term planning

• Develop and maintain forward-looking perspective and broader-based thinking

• Keep an eye on state-of-the industry and align technical directions with industry technical trends

• Build a foundation for the future

• Ensure alignment with University mission and goals and with IT leadership and stakeholders

• Ensure capabilities are aligned with future expectations and possibilities

• Capture opportunities

• Have greater impact on the university

• Communicate what we do, the value we provide and how technology can support needs

• Remain viable

EAS Strategic Planning – Early Decisions

• Starting point – RU IT Strategic Plan• Need some type of framework and model• Comprehensive scope – all EAS domains• Iterative process - “learn as we go”

• Keep the process simple with low overhead

• “Embrace” the discussion

• Resulting strategic plan should be understandable, actionable and achievable

• Result should support a “two prong” approach – balancing near-term deliverables with longer term initiatives

• Involvement of staff – leadership first, then managers and “grass-roots”

• No formal involvement of stakeholders at the start

• Don’t worry about resources (yet)

• Don’t worry about existing governance structures (yet)

• Organization and project team make-up and resource allocations can change

• 3 month planning effort with 2-3 year implementation horizon

• Think “strategically” – keep an eye out for synergies and enablers

Defining terms for common understanding

• IT Strategy

• Strategic positions, objectives, initiatives

• EAS Mission

• Business Drivers

• Technology Drivers

• Service

• Architecture

• Reference Architecture

• Data Management

• Identity Management

• Legacy

• Evolution vs. Devolution

• Professionalism

Strategic Planning – Core Process

“Assessing” “Visioning” “Road-mapping”

Who are we?

Where are we now?

What do we care about?

Who do we want to be?

Where do we want to go?

What do we need to care about?

How do we get there?

How do we know we have arrived?

Strategic Planning Core Process – Step 1: “Assessing”

• University Strategic Plan & IT Strategic Plan

• EAS team identity and mission

• Core philosophies & guiding principles

• Current environment

• Competencies

• Clients & stakeholders

• Partnerships

• Build initial model and framework

• Document detailed assessments

Rutgers University Strategic Plan

Five Strategic Goals provide a pathway for achieving our two over-arching aspirations of greater academic distinction and more significant service to communities beyond our campus.

• Improve the quality of Rutgers academic programs

• Enhance the effectiveness of student services

• Improve Rutgers services to, and reputation among, all relevant internal and external constituencies

• Increase Rutgers resources to the levels of peer AAU public universities and manage resources more strategically and effectively

• Continue to develop an administration that will provide leadership for achieving RU strategic goals

Rutgers IT Strategic Plan

Vision: Rutgers will use Information Technology effectively and efficiently to

facilitate the University vision for instruction, research and service.

Strategic Goals:

– IT Governance structure

– IT tools for teaching and learning

– Central support for distributed research computing

– Integrated systems for enhanced decision-making, community

– building and service

– Secure, robust, reliable IT infrastructure

Enterprise Application Services Mission

The Enterprise Application Services team mission is to provide state-of-the-industry application and information management services founded on a philosophy of excellence in architecture and excellence in service.

At the core of our mission is support for the central administrative offices of the University, the business process owner’s (BPO’s) affiliated with those offices, and the constituency that we in partnership with our BPO’s serve.

Core Philosophy: Service Excellence

• High quality solutions

• Aligned with business needs

• Meeting end-user and BPO expectations for performance and functionality

• Cost-effective

• Appropriate “time-to-market”

• Collaboration with our business partners

• Continuous improvement in service provisioning

• Foster awareness of technology “opportunities”

• Technical skills and capabilities

• Functional subject matter expertise

• Management of technology projects

Core Philosophy: Architectural Excellence

• State-of-the-industry

• Scalability

• Flexibility

• Security

• Integration

• Interoperability

• Availability

• Stability

• Reliability

• Founded on architectural principles

Architectural Guiding Principles

• Achieve application integration and interoperability via open standards and a loosely-coupled architecture

• Investigate and evolve service oriented designs to expose services in an open standards way, decoupling architecture layers and enabling service delivery independent of browser, device or platform

• Manage complexity via “economy of mechanism”

• Implement a modular, layered architecture for “separation of concerns”

• Enable “delegation of authority” for BPO empowerment, elimination of manual intervention, and process automation across system and departmental boundaries

• Employ a “least privileged access” approach for data security

• Design information repositories to minimize data redundancy, optimize data sharing and support both central and distributed needs

• Utilize an iterative, stepwise approach to evolve an architecture built for flexibility, maintainability and future evolution

“Up-front” Considerations

• Support for business process efficiency• Business/Financial ERP• Data access and information delivery• Identity management• Enterprise Portal• Process automation and integration• Legacy platform complexities and maintenance burden• Disparate technologies• Leveraging legacy platform while “devolving”• Evolving Java and open-source platform

Legacy Platform

& Services

Adhoc IDM Architecture

Adhoc DM Architecture

Enterprise Portal

State of the IndustryPlatform

& Services

Legacy Platform & Services

Simplification & Devolution

Mature IDM Architecture

Mature DM Architecture

Next GenerationEnterprise Portal

State of the Industry Platform & Services

Evolution

Excellence In Architecture

Excellence in Service

Strategic Planning Working Model (first iteration)

Assessment

Roadmap

Vision

Strategic Planning Framework (domain model)

Student/Academic Administrative Services Business/Financial Administrative Services

Identity ManagementmyRutgers PortalInformation Management

Legacy Platform Devolution

Application Framework & Infrastructure

Service Management

Organization Structure & Capabilities

Excellence in Service Excellence in Architecture

Partnerships & Collaboration

Strategic Planning Core Process – Step 2: “Visioning”

• Business drivers

• Technical drivers

• Other internal and external forces

• Opportunities and constraints

• Already committed assumptions

• Future State Evolution model

• Domain decomposition and evolution models

• Strategic positions and objectives

• Synergies

Business Drivers

• Cost containment and cost-effective solutions to meet budget constraints

• Easy access to information for effective and efficient business decisions

• Integrated services

• Expectations for ubiquitous computing

• Flexibility to support institutional evolution

• Continued compliance with regulatory and legal requirements

• Solutions with appropriate “time-to-market”

• Continuous enhancement of business processes to improve effectiveness and

efficiency

Technical Drivers

• Current architecture

• Future architectural direction

• Product lifecycle requirements

• New innovations and new IT capabilities

• Component interoperability requirements

• Performance requirements

• Security and compliance

• Architectural Principles

Future State Evolution (high level strategic positions)

Current State Future State

Heterogeneous, non-standardized technology platform with disparate technologies

Standardized technology platform with manageable set of technologies

Complex “monolithic” technical architecture with “stove-pipe”applications/processes, embedded business rules and centralized model for business rule maintenance

Simplified, flexible, easily maintained layered architecture with integrated applications/processes, modular, reusable services, de-coupledbusiness rules and distributed model for business rule maintenance

Legacy maintenance and evolutionLegacy devolution with component replacement with state-of-the-industrytechnologies

Business/Financial services bound by legacy constraints withlimited process integration

Business/Financial services founded on integrated Oracle e-businesssuite supporting business process efficiency

Student/Academic services bound by legacy constraints withlimited process integration

Student/Academic services founded on a standardized, open, modularapplication model supporting integrated service delivery

“Adhoc” information management environment, tightly coupled OLTP and DSS and limited information provisioning

Complex, non-integrated identity management structures and processes serving parochial needs

Mature information management environment, loosely coupled OLTP andDSS, “data warehousing” capabilities and expanded information provisioning

Simplified, integrated and standardized identity management structuresand processes suitable for University-wide deployment

Informal service management frameworkFormalized service management framework with alignment of servicecreation, delivery and management

Existing organizational capabilities focused on tactical andoperational activities

Expanded organizational capabilities and partnershipsfocusing on strategic initiatives

Adhoc Identity ManagementArchitecture

Mature IdentityManagementArchitecture

Future State Evolution (domain specific strategic positions) Identity Management Domain

-Authentication service (CAS) with remediation needs

-Authentication service supporting mainly parochial needs

-No formal model for authorization service

-Informal data model for identity management

-Directory (LDAP) supporting parochial needs & running in “unsupported” environment

-Centralized user/access management

-Limited directory services (applications utilizing directory)

-Little/no consideration for federation to support cross-institution needs

-Authentication service with increased reliability & stability

-Expanded use of authentication service for University needs

-Formal model for authorization service

-Formal data model for identity management

-Creation of LDAP directory service in supported environment supporting University needs

-Distributed user/access management (including authorization model)

-Expanded directory services

-Federation where necessary

Strategic Planning Matrix Domain Decomposition: Identity Management

Strategic Planning Core Process – Step 3: “Road-mapping”

• Translate strategic positions/objectives to initiatives and projects

• Look for synergies and dependencies

• High level roadmap and then domain specific

• Assess time & resources

Strategy Realization - Moving From Current to Future States

Current State

Strategic Objectives

Strategic Initiatives

Future State

Strategic “Positions”

Defining Key Initiatives

• Use decomposition matrices to derive specific initiatives

• Use evolution diagrams to help assess synergies

• Determine priorities

• Define dependencies

• High level timeline

• Domain specific timelines

• “Position Papers”

Application Integration w/zdirect & SWS Replacement

C/S Applicaton Re-engineering

Financier Implementation

S/A Legacy Devolution Plan Development

Research and Development of Application Model Extension

S/A Legacy Devolution/Replacement - Peripheral Processes

S/A Legacy Devolution/Replacement - Core Processes

Implementation of OGL/FDW

FDW Evolution

B/F Service Efficiencies

Refinement of Oracle Roadmap

B/F Legacy Devolution Plan Development

B/F Legacy Devolution

Future Phase of Oracle Apps Rollout

EAS Strategic Planning Roadmap

Future Phase of Oracle Apps Rollout

Application Re-engineering/Integration w/Oracle Applications

DB Architecture

Data Security

Data Provisioning Web-Service

Data Transfer Service

CAS Rollout

Authentication Model

Authorization Model & Implementation

Data Architecture, Data Classification Scheme Security Model

Implementaton of LDAP Service

LDAP Operational Enhancements

myRutgers Distributed Management Model

myRutgers Evolution to uportal 3.0

EAS Strategic Planning Roadmap

Documenting the Strategic Plan: Format

• Overview

• EAS mission

• Current State

• Future State

• Roadmap

• 10 Domains w/strategic objectives

• Summary & Next Steps

• Appendices

Documenting the Strategic Plan: Content

• Discuss purpose of the document

• Highlight EAS mission, core philosophy and guiding principles

• Use Strategic Planning Framework for context

• Describe current state, “undesirable” elements, opportunities

• Describe future state vision and long term benefits of moving towards this vision

• Describe roadmap and synergies among initiatives

• Stress alignment with University mission and goals

• Even emphasis across 10 domains

• Issue caveats

• Put in context of “full compliment” of activities

• Stress resource constraints

• Stress flexibility and probable change/evolution of plan

• Be careful - implications of tone and content - staff sensitivities, political correctness

Student/Academic Administrative Services

• Evolution of state-of-the-industry application model

• Leverage legacy systems with application integration solutions

• Component-based approach

• Legacy devolution via near-term “surround strategy” and longer-term turn down of “core” processes

• Near-term opportunities for simplification and automation

Business/Financial Administrative Services

• Oracle e-business suite at center of strategy

• Near-term implementation of Oracle General Ledger and re-engineered Financial Data Warehouse

• Longer-term planning for subsequent phases of Oracle e-business suite

• Evolution of Financial Data Warehouse over time

• Turn down of “core” and “peripheral” legacy processes over time

• Near term opportunities for efficiency gains

Legacy Devolution

• Greater emphasis to be put on the continued de-commissioning of legacy technologies over time

• Development of integrated strategies and plans for devolution of the Student/Academic services area initially based on a “surround” strategy and replacement of “peripheral” processes

• Development of integrated strategies and plans for devolution of the Business/Financial services are based on the Oracle e-business suite implementation roadmap

• Devolution supported by initiatives in other strategic areas

Information Management

• Conduct detailed Information Management review

• Ongoing data security enhancements

• Architectural considerations to best support transaction processing, data integration and reporting needs

• Flexible solutions for data access, provisioning and data transfer

• Support for legacy environment devolution

• Longer-term consideration for enterprise data model, data classification schema and data integration policy

Identity Management

• Continue capability assessment and validate

• Ownership of end-to-end IdM stack

• Development of enterprise authentication model and university-wide Central Authentication Service (CAS) roll-out

• Development of enterprise authorization model

• Longer-tem development of Identify Management architecture

myRutgers Enterprise Portal

• Continue to ensure growth and popularity of myRutgers

• Evolution to uportal 3.0

• Development of distributed model for content and layout management

• Empowering University service providers

• Expanded services and service delivery mechanisms

• Expanding the myRutgers user base

Application Framework

• Continued proactive management of our application environment

• Evolution of Oracle application environment

• Emphasis on Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technologies and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) based solutions

• Extending our standard application model with flexible workflow, business rules, and notification capabilities

• Continued emphasis on network management services

• Development of architectural principles and formal reference architecture

Service Management

• Renewed emphasis on service management and service quality

• Assessment of current service management methods, procedures and paradigms

• Assessment of staff roles and responsibilities pertaining to service management

• Enhanced alignment of EAS and ESO teams for service management

• Investigate adoption of Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) paradigms for enhanced service management

Service Management ModelService Oriented Approach to Provisioning IT Solutions

ServiceCreation

Service Delivery And Management

• Adoption of a process for proactive application management

• Develop applications in the context of service delivery & support

• Building “manageability” into solutions

• Consider “non-functional” requirements up-front and anticipate operational aspects of deployed applications

• Link application development with IT service level objectives

Partnership & Collaboration

• Further develop collaborative capabilities

• Afford staff opportunities for engagement in collaborative activities with external partners

• Leverage partnerships in pursuit of common goals

• Achieve long-term efficiency gains via near-term investments

• Establish/maintain our “voice at the table” in key collaborative initiatives

Organizational Capabilities

• Assessment of current organizational structures, processes and capabilities

• Balance strategic, tactical and operational initiatives

• Adjustments for new service management paradigms

• In-house programs for mentoring and professional development

• Consideration for long-term “re-tooling” of staff skills

• Foster and strengthen internal and external partnerships

• Dimensions of Professionalism

EAS Dimensions of Professionalism Model

Personal Effectiveness

Organizational Effectiveness

Cha

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Com

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Org

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Wor

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Out

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Subsequent Steps

• Communication

• Roadmap refinement

• Prioritization and re-prioritization of initiatives

• Resource allocation and re-allocation

• Initiative decomposition into targeted deliverables

• Continued balance of strategic & operational initiatives

• Assess progress

Progress

• Good progress in the Financial Services domain – major implementation upcoming; gearing up for future initiative

• Slow progress in the Student Services domain

• Completed foundational work in the Data Management domain

• Making strides in local IdM projects while positioning for larger university-wide initiatives

• Steady progress in the Application Framework domain

• myRutgers seeing record usage and popularity

• Slow progress in Legacy Platform Devolution

• Positioning for key partnerships and collaborations

• Ongoing focus on organizational capabilities

• Modeling collaborative service management; investigating ITIL

Next Steps

• Continue with current strategic initiatives

• Annual formal review and leadership “retreat” upcoming

• Re-assess our strategy and plan against current conditions

• Address areas that need additional focus

• Look for additional opportunities

• More formal involvement of stakeholders

• Integrate with IT governance

Don’t value strategic planning only for its results, the plan. The greater value is in the process – the thinking and conversation.

- Strong

The goals of a strategic planning process should not be to make strategy but to build prepared minds that are capable of making sound strategic decisions.

- Kaplan/Beinhocker

Final thoughts…

References and Additional Resources:

• Rutgers Enterprise Application Services Strategic Plan v1.0 (2007)• A Report on the EDUCAUSE Information Technology Governance Summit (2007)

• Top 10 IT Issues (EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee, 2007)

• Strategic IT Planning in Higher Education (EDUCAUSE conference seminar, 11/2007)

• Using Information Technology to Achieve the Strategic Goals of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (2006)

• Enterprise Architecture as Strategy (Ross, 2006)

• Strategic Planning – What’s So Strategic About It? (Strong, 2005)

• Hitting a Moving Target – IT Strategy in a Real-Time World (Voloudakis, 2005)

• Strategic Planning In Higher Education (Tromp/Ruben, 2004)

• IT Alignment in Higher Education (ECAR, 2004)

• Pursuing Excellence in Higher Education (Ruben, 2004)

• Connecting IT Possibilities and Institutional Priorities (Hitt, 2001)

• Planning for IT in Higher Education: It’s Not an Oxymoron (McCredie 2000)

• Is Strategic Planning for Technology an Oxymoron? (Ringle/Updegrove, 1998)

• Excellence in Higher Education (Ruben/Lehr 1997)

• The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (Mintzberg, 1994)

• The Art of Strategic Planning for Information Technology (Boar, 1993)

EDUCAUSE Mid-Atlantic Conference 2008

• Strategic Planning for Enterprise Application Services

• Session Details

• Track 2Tuesday, January 15, 20082:30 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.Harborside Ballroom C

• Speaker

• Joseph Percoco, Director, OIT, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

• Session convener: David Houle, Senior Consultant, Berry, Dunn, McNeil & Parker

• Abstract

• This presentation will discuss the strategic planning process the Rutgers University Enterprise Application Services leadership team followed in developing a multiyear strategic plan. Along with the process, a discussion on the strategic plan deliverable and next steps will be discussed. Introductory Level