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Computer Resource Management Review (CRMR)
Current State of Resource Utilization
- Organization
- Identify overall organization with chart and job descriptions;
- Identify key departmental and ‘power users’ of system resources;
- Identify senior IT managers and determine respective job functions;
- Determine size, skill level and organizational distribution of IT staff;
- Identify linkages between staff and business, operations counterparts;
- Identify location of IT departments;
- Analyze product/service support structure and identify key personnel;
- Identify succession planning for key department personnel.
- Training
- Ongoing Professional Development within IT organization;
- User facility training and continuing development;
- Application based training and development;
- Enhancement request preparation and presentation training and development.
- Infrastructure
- Compile hardware inventory;
- Document and analyze network infrastructure and topology;
- Document and analyze telecommunications/communications infrastructure and topology (voice & video, fax, data);
- Document and analyze data center(s) infrastructure and support;
- Document external data links to computing resources;
- Document Internet based access, infrastructure and control;
- Identify customer support/contact/integration by means of Internet web interfaces.
- Systems
- Compile manifest of operating systems, databases, languages and development platforms;
- Compile manifest of deployed application systems, determine level of integration and supporting entity;
- Review and analyze excerpts of internally developed code and assess compliance to best practices in documentation, procedures, testing and deployment;
- Evaluate company's web site for customer experience, interface design, usability and performance;
- Conduct surveys and/or interviews with internal and external users of IT services to determine level of satisfaction.
- Project Control – Development and Change
- Concept Definition and Budgeting;
- Change control methodology
- Project Initiation,
- Feasibility,
- Design,
- Development & Implementation,
- Operations & Maintenance,
- Post Implementation Review;
- Resource allocation and prioritization.
- Budget
- Review budget and authorization for expenditure (AFE) process;
- Review and analyze current budget allocations;
- Compare budget to current consumption;
- Review consulting and/or outsourcing contracts;
- Identify any excess capacity, redundant resources and their potential uses;
- Review IT projects and milestone progress reports for ongoing projects.
Business Relationships
- Business Partners
- Identify Business Partner agreements and tenure;
- Identify any fiduciary responsibilities between Business Partners;
- Identify records organization, retention and disposal procedures;
- Identify transaction and data interchange between Business Partners;
- Determine effective use of IT resources in ongoing business transaction processing.
- Vendors
- Identify Vendors and agreements;
- Identify transaction and data interchange between Vendors;
- Determine the effective use of IT resources in ongoing business transaction processing.
Initiatives and Planning
- Corporate Business Growth and Development Plans
- Identify short term growth demands on IT resources (6 to 12 months);
- Identify mid-term growth demands on IT resources (13 to 36 months);
- Identify long term growth demands on IT resources (36 to 60 months).
- Planned systems
- Review development projects currently underway;
- Determine timeliness, viability, staffing and cost of each;
- Review development and implementation plans, project control and implementation planning;
- Review pending proposals to ensure requirements and specifications are well documented.
- Existing Systems
- Review capacity planning and support for hardware and software systems;
- Identify future migration and strategic plans for hardware, operating systems and other infrastructure;
- Identify growth and expansion plans for infrastructure.
- Budget
- Review and compare proposed budget with analysis of current budget;
- Review current and planned capital budget requirements;
- Evaluate opportunities for cost savings such as data center, server, project consolidation;
- Ensure the inclusion of required future support and service contracts.
Risk Profile
- Business Continuity
- Review data backup/recover practices;
- Determine whether practices are well documented, implemented and tested;
- Review disaster recovery plan and identify potential vulnerabilities or omissions;
- Examine relationships with third-party vendors to identify potential sources of risk in case of catastrophe.
- Data Security
- Analyze data security measures and determine vulnerabilities:
- Network security measures;
- Database security measures;
- Platform security measures;
- Application security measures;
- Employee permissions, password policies;
- Physical access to critical assets.
- Analyze change management policies and procedures.
- Personnel
- Determine key resources which must be retained;
- Determine vulnerabilities to attack by displaced personnel.
- Regulatory and Compliance
- Identify applicable regulatory oversight as applicable to the business;
- Determine broad measure of compliance with applicable regulatory statutes (E.g. Sarbanes-Oxley).
For additional information on this service, please email: SkipStein@msc-inc.net
