The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), a non-profit consortium dedicated to increasing businesses’ use of open-source software, has developed an interoperability roadmap and announced its first major project. The interoperability roadmap outlines the specific interoperability problems the consortium expects to address and provides a timeline. The end result for each issue will be a document describing standards and best practices that the open-source community can use as a guide for building and deploying interoperable software. A companion project has the OSA creating prototypes of working code to show that the interoperability principles work in practice. The first prototype is the Common Customer View, which will bring together information held in different members’ applications including CRM (customer relationship management), ERP (enterprise resource planning) and business intelligence software and legacy point-of-sale applications. Once complete, when a user updates information about a customer in an ERP application, they will be able to see that new information as they access the same customer’s record held in their CRM software.

For more on the Open Solutions Alliance:
- read the article at LinuxWorld

Here are my next 6 things to address in managing an IT department. Again they are not necessarily in any order of importance. This will be a series of postings until I have completed the total, which stands at about 36 at the moment. Please feed back any comments.

7.Define the department structure
Document the department structure and communicate it. Look at structuring on functional needs and look at the number of reports to each person. Somewhere I heard it should be no more than 7 but also worry of it is one to one.

8. Create job descriptions
This means make sure everybody knows what they are supposed to be doing. Create a job description for each person and look at using sensible industry standard job titles. Job descriptions should be updated regularly and reviewed at appraisal time.

9. Establish an appraisal structure and object setting
Regular appraisals are essential and not just the once a year ‘tick in the box’ kind. Consider object setting and roll this down from the IT Director so that there is some cohesion across the department. Make time for appraisals and do them properly.

10. Set up a skills matrix
Find out what everybody’s skills and skill levels are. Create a matrix of required skills and get people to mark themselves against that using a scoring system to reflect level of skill (i.e. 5 equals expert) Review that with their supervisor to ensure accuracy. Use in conjunction with appraisal, project resourcing and training programmes to bring skill levels up and assign the right people to tasks.

11. Define measurements
They say you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Determine the measurements needed to ensure IT is delivering value, meeting key performance indicators and service levels. Consider using a balanced score card approach. Measurements may be at monthly and other intervals such as quarterly and annual. Communicate them to your team and within the business.

12. Create a budget and budget process
You need a budget to manage IT and act as a guideline to the business on likely costs. A budget is not an authority to spend and you will still need an approval process to acquire the items within the budget. The budget is the framework and each year a key task is to define recurring and new project costs. New project costs should be referenced against the strategy. The budget process within a business will normally be defined, as it is not IT specific. It will include an approval process where you may need to justify what you have included.

According to a survey by market research firm AMR Research, CIOs aren’t taking an active enough role in their companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Often, the data and information needed to prioritize CSR investments and measure its impact are spread across organizations in disparate systems and databases. It’s the CIO’s responsibility to take ownership of this problem. For example, a successful CSR initiative would include information accessed from a company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system–something CIOs should recognize and incorporate. But as companies realize the business benefits, CSR is becoming a front-of-mind issue for many organizations. That should change the way that CIOs view CSR over time.

For more about the importance of CSR:
- read the article at ZDNet