Information Systems Strategy and Services Lecture Program Outline


IT Service Fundamentals

Week 1.

Lecture 1. Introduction. The changing nature of Information Systems in organizations. Familiarisation, Commodisation and Globalisation. Understanding the role of IT services within an organizations. Some key themes and concepts. What is ITIL. ITIL V3.


Week 2.

Lecture 2. IT as a Service Industry. Exploring the concepts of a service and relating them to the delivery of IT within an organization.

 


Week 3.

 Lecture 3. IT Service Innovation. Planning and Developing new IT services. Concepts, Frameworks, Practice.

 



Week 4

Lecture 4. .IT Service Quality. Understanding the differences between product and service quality. Application of models for investigating service quality to IT services. 

 


Week 5

Lecture 5.  IT Service Marketing. Creating awareness of IT services inside and outside the organization. Identifying stakeholders. Applying marketing concepts to IT services. Communication within IT services.

 


IT Service Strategy

Week 6

Lecture 6. Strategic Issues in Information Systems and Services. What systems and services should IT services be delivering?  Identifying core products and processes. Importance of alignment. 

 

Lecture 7. Why Information Systems are Strategic. How IS can give organizational advantage. Strategic Information Systems (SIS). Finding SIS and maintaining the competitive advantage.

 


Week 7.

Lecture 8. Identifying and Managing the Application Portfolio. Assessing the current IT situation as a portfolio. Value Chain and other approaches.

 



Week 8

Lecture 9. Using the Resource-Based View of the Firm in IT Services. IT as resources. The RBV Model. Implications of RBVF for IT Services.

 


Week 9

Lecture 10. IT Service Strategy. The difference between information systems strategy and IT service strategy. An IT service strategy process.

Lecture 11. Chaos Theory. Concepts and application to IT Services and Strategy. 

 


Week 10

Lecture 12. Using Critical Success Factors (CSFs)  in IT strategy and Services. Classification of CSFs. Service CSFs as a basis for IT Service Operations.

 


Week 11

Lecture 13. IT Service Outsourcing. Approaches to outsourcing. The make or buy decision. Implementing IT outsourcing. Outsourcing and IT Services.

 


Week 15

Lecture 14. IT Service Relationships with Employees. Managing IT staff. Recruiting. Motivation. Retention. Appraisal. Emotional  Labour. Communities of Practice. 

IT Service Operations

Lecture 15. IT Service Helpdesks. Role of helpdesk. Problems. Being Proactive. Scripting Critical Incidents.


Week 16

Lecture 16. Service level management. Creating SLAs. SLA structure. Why use SLAs to manage IT services.

 

Lecture 17. Incident Management and Problem Management. The call life cycle. Problem management. Form find and repair to predict and prevent. Problem management and customer education.  Service research concepts.


Week 17

Lecture 18. Information requirements for IT service operations. Information models. How information might be used. The service catalogue.

Lecture 19. Availability Management. Guaranteeing consistent, predictable access to data and applications. Key issues. Dealing with planned downtime. Availability design.


Week 18

Lecture 20. IT Service continuity. Backups. Disaster recovery. Remote strategies. Planning, implementation, Testing.

Lecture 21. Configuration Management. Basic steps Granularity. Identifying configuration items. Open source configuration management.


Week 19

Lecture 22. Capacity Management. Computer capacity planning. IT asset management. Service capacity issues. Model for linking asset management to procurement.

Lecture 23. Release and Change Management. Principles and overview. Change management processes and procedures.

 


Week 20

Lecture 24. IT services and security. Technical and managerial security. Second order security. Risk Management. CRAMMS. BS7799 Code of Practice. E-Commerce security issues.

IT Service Governance

Lecture 25. IT Service structure. IT Governance. Accountability and Responsibility. IT Structures. Centralised, Decentralised, Federal. IT Chargeback.


Week 21

Lecture 26. Cobit and CMM. Cobit – background, structure, processes. Relation to ITIL and BS15000. Capability Maturity Model (CMM). Evolution. Development of a services CMM. Comparison with BS15000.


IT Service Context

Week 22

Lecture 27. End User Computing Catalysts. History. Who are the end-users? Activities matrix: depth of involvement versus scope of involvement. Advantages and Disadvantages. Approaches to managing EUC. The concept of Management Developed Systems. Why managers want to develop their own systems. Advantages of their doing so. Managing EUC. Direction, support and control. Roles and responsibilities. The concept of user-oriented EUC.


Week 23

Lecture 28. IT Services in Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Characteristics of SMEs. Issues and problems in SMEs. Approached to IT strategy in SMEs, . Adapting ITIL to SMEs. Use of the Internet in SMEs.

 


Week 24

Lecture 29. IT Service Culture. What is Culture? Elements of Service Management Culture. Service Culture and BS15000


Week 25

Lecture 30. Supplier Management. The Supplier lifecycle. Approaches to procurement. Managing IT supplier relationships.

Lecture 31. Sarbanes-Oxley. History. Organisational demand. IT service implications.

 

 


Last Updated: 28/09/07  By Neil McBride