A Management Environment for CSS
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One objective developed by the css-managers during operational planning for FY07 is to make better use of collaborative tools to manage important management artifacts such as the Strategic and Operating Plans, the Resource Model, etc.
We need to do it using tools that are simple extensions of the ones already use, and build on existing server and process architectures.===
Opportunities
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'''Budgets and Forecasts''' are now stored away in Anne Denna's laptop and on the IST-VP server, neither of which are readily accessible to managers seeking to do financial planning. The proposal is to distribute access to working copies of the budget and other financial documents in a way that preserves the security of sensitive information and compatibilty with the delicate processes by which individual financial plans are rolled up into the CSS and ultimately IS&T budgets.
'''Resource Allocation Models''' are now stored only in a complicated system of Excel workbook pages filled with pivot tables. Moves, adds and changes to this information is not easy for the uninitiated in the current system. We propose to distribute access to the artifacts of the model, and change something about the tool's architecture to make it more successful in a group-collaborative environment. At the same time we need to keep the needs of the other groups that actively use the model very much in mind.
'''Operating Plans''' are Word documents currently passed around for editing via email, will all the problems of tracking changes and keeping track of who has the authoritative version. Updates to the plan throughout the year are not done because no one knows who "owns" it and no one refers to it except at quarterly report time. We need to improve our ability to manage collaborative construction of this document, along with updates throughout the yeat to make it a living record, and still accomodate the need to link the intentions stated in the document with the other tools one would use to actually achieve results.
'''An Activity Architecture''' is implied by the resource model and operating plans components of our work. We need to use a common language for dividing up our time along meaningful lines when reporting out to others, such as senior management or to our client communities. This architecture is the foundation for grouping and summarizing the ends to which we are investing the resources of time and treasure that we are given.===
Draft Solutions
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