Computing Services



Technology Project Categories and Assessment Criteria



How Projects are Defined and Proposed:


Projects definitions and proposals are co-developed by a project sponsor (a faculty person, staff member, or student) and the Assistant Director that supports the project sponsor. Projects are defined by scheduling an interview with the project sponsor, principal investigator, the HCS Assistant Director, and others as deemed appropriate by the project sponsor and the HCS Assistant Director. During the interview, the project is defined through negotiation and agreement by all parties, by accurately describing all major deliverables, and by creating a general timeline. Each major deliverable description includes functional requirements, scope and limitations, and a target delivery date. Any issues that arise from the discussion are captured, assigned an owner, and given a due date. The resulting document created at the interview is the Project Proposal.


How Projects are Categorized:


A project is categorized as either a Customer Application project, or an Infrastructure project.


Customer Application projects typically come from the faculty, staff, or students, and provide a specific service. Examples include database projects, simulations, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, etc.


Infrastructure projects serve as a foundation for providing access to customer applications and services, provide a platform from which customer applications and services are hosted, or ensure the security and operations in the datacenter. Examples include network and server upgrades, enterprise portals, intrusion detection and security monitoring, disaster recovery, etc.


Project Assessment Process:


Project Proposals are submitted to the project sponsor's computing committee by the HCS Assistant Director. The committee reviews each project proposal and forwards favorably reviewed proposals to the Technology Advisor Committees for approval and funding.


The Technology Advisor Committees scores each recommended project proposal using Project Assessment Criteria that determine the project's priority for funding and implementation. All proposed projects go into the HCS Project Portfolio, but only those projects that meet or exceed a minimum assessment score are funded and developed. Those that do not meet the minimum score fall below the cut line in the project portfolio and are reconsidered during the next assessment cycle.


Project Assessment Criteria:


The Technology Advisor Committees uses the following six criteria to determine a project's score:

- Advances Haas Technology Goals: Project will advance one of the technology goals specifically delineated in the Haas School's Technology Vision Statement

- Enhances Service Quality: Project will improve convenience, timeliness, and performance of systems and support for the customer

- Promotes Reliability and Availability: Project will provide measurable or quantifiable improvement in service up-time, robustness or stability, resulting in error reductions or cost avoidance

- Improves Productivity: Project will provide enhanced efficiency that results in savings of time or money

- Likely to Succeed: Project has a high probability of being completed on-time, within budget, and meeting objectives. (Factors include: clear goals, strong sense of ownership, stays within estimated resource consumption, uses established technology)

- Prerequisite to Other Planned Projects: Project provides necessary foundation for subsequent high priority project(s)
The HCS Project Portfolio is accessible on-line and is located within this web site.

last update April 16, 2007 - zc