Task And Risk Management

8 Pages 2049 Words

Introduction:
The overall needs of the agency are an important factor in the benefits identification process. Before determining that the most cost-effective way to support staff is to buy new PCs every 4 to 5 years, evaluate the cost of that life cycle against the agency budget and overall priorities. The cost effectiveness of the life cycle is important, but a critical part of evaluating cost effectiveness is how much it allows you to support direct accomplishment of the agency's goals. Technology supports an agency's mission, and management policies must reflect that role. The development of policy for desktop and laptop technology acquisition should be centralized under the authority of the Information Resources Managers (IRM). Decentralized decisions about PC purchases can lead to the proliferation of multiple platforms and models that the agency must support. If separate divisions can order PCs without involving the technology staff tasked with supporting the equipment, it will not be possible to develop an effective life cycle policy or process. Developing PC life cycles gives agencies the chance to assess their current processes and identify potential areas of improvement. To set a life cycle for commodity equipment such as desktop and laptop computers, a preliminary step is to understand the current situation, so areas where improvement is most needed, can be base lined and quantified. This justification is important to acquiring management support.
Tasks and Milestones:
Acquisition involves not only evaluating the new and existing technologies but also the procurement methods that may be utilized to obtain the product. Deployment of the hardware into the agency environment is also critical to the success of utilizing technology in the work place. Procurement is often an obvious part of the decision process, however, deployment of the hardware to the actual desktop of an end-user can easily be overlooked until well after al...