Background

In January 2008, Don Montabana, Anne Denna and Rob Smyser began a series of Friday weekly meetings dubbed the "CSS HQ Strategy Group".  The charter in FY2008 is to get CSS Lines of Business onto sound management footing. 

Board notes from the 1/25/2008 meeting give a view of what lines of business we mean to study, what we want to accomplish, what work products we want to create, and a sense of some goals to reach by the end of the effort.

Lines of Business to Study

1. DITR businesses
   1. SLA
   2. Admin Desktop
   3. Admin IT
   4. Athena, including Laptop Loaner Program
2. PC Service
3. Software Licensing
4. Training
5. Mobile Device Services

Issues to Raise

• Do LOBs have databases, and if so, what are they, where are they, who can get in, etc, what's  tracked, how does reporting occur, etc.)  Issues of Inventory, Client-to-Computer matching, overall asset management.
• How much hidden work goes on in addition to the unhidden work, and if not zero then for whom, by whom, how long does it all take?  how much rework happens?
• Definition of Workflows -- how carefully is work tracked as it's done.  Is it countable? Reportable?  is it repeatable? (are there process checklists, for instance, for SLA visits to client computers)
• Succession planning / cross-training / understudies
• Performance standards / measures / business drivers
• Mechanisms for oversight (trust by verify) by folks external to the team
• What do we need to bill per LOB in order to break even?  are we losing our shirts by even being in the business (and maybe that's okay).  What are all the true costs being piled onto the recovery model, including FTE, related costs, indirect costs, etc.)

How We Plan to Go About It

1. Anne will create DCAD-style Rate Models in Excel.  These include detailed costs (specific FTE, etc.), units of work produced and fte allocated per line of business, etc.  Revenue potential is computed, costs are tabulated, and then we can decide how much needs to be charged to actually recover costs from revenue-generating businesses.
2. Rob will draw Process / Workflow Diagrams of how the work occurs.
3. The team will meet with team leaders and managers from each area and see about getting the information out.
4.  

Desired Outcomes

1. A suite of work documents that provide tangible proof we know what we are about and could impart it to future versions of ourselves in a reliable way.