Project Management

 

The office of Information Technology Services coordinates and manages all large IT projects, from initiation, planning and deployment to closure. The Services are also in charge of project intake and the management of priorities within the guidelines established by the University.   ​

What is a project?

There are no hard and fast rules to determine whether a request for ITS implementation resources is best prioritized, evaluated and managed as a project. However, certain characteristics are common to most projects. Checking if your request matches those characteristics is the first step towards deciding how to best handle a request.  ​

A typical project will:​

Have defined deliverable with results that included specific outcomes 

  • Usually these involve an implementation of a product or building of an application 

  • They may include the creation or development of a specific business process 

Require planning with a specific start, end, schedule, and approach. 

  • They are complicated enough to require detailed planning to complete 

  • Usually involve a team of IT and functional members to accomplish 

Utilizes resources specifically allocated to the work.  

  • For ITS, projects normally require at least 40 hours of dedicated IT analyst and developers time  

  • Require resources that will last over the project's duration time 

Project Request

Project requests start with the submission of a Project Idea Submission Form. The IT Project team will review this submission and setup a meeting in order to gather additional information. This is the initial stage in considering projects and will determine if your project idea should become a project request.  Dependent upon a project's scope, a project request will require various approval levels.

The Project Request Lifecycle is threefold:

  • Identify and Define Your Idea and Needs for a Project - Departments should complete the ITS Project Idea Submission form to begin the process. This task is primarily done at your department level, however the IT Project team is available to provide assistance. 
  • Develop the Project Request - The IT Project team will work with your department's functional lead to review your idea and, if appropriate as a project, develop your idea into a request.  This includes flushing out needs, requirements, justifications, and scope of work. 
  • Request Evaluation - Dependent upon a project's scope, resource requirement, and/or cost, requests require differing levels of review, approval, and prioritization.  The IT Project team will work with your project's functional lead to evaluate your department's request as required. 

Project submission workflow: