Operational Assessment of IT

Operational Assessment of IT presents ideas and concepts of optimization designed to improve an organization’s business processes and assist business units in meeting organizational goals more effectively. Rather than focus on specific technologies, computing environments, enterprise risks, resource programs, or infrastructure, the book focuses on organizational processes. Throughout the book, the author presents concerns and environments encountered throughout his career to demonstrate issues and explain how you, too, can successfully implement the tools presented in the book.

The assessment process reviews the economics as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of the process. Whether your organization is profit-based, not-for-profit, or even governmental, you cannot provide services or products at a continuous loss. For an operational assessment to be of value, the ultimate goal must be to insure that the business unit process is effective and efficient and employs the financial assets and resources appropriately or helps the business unit make adjustments to improve the operation and use resources more efficiently and economically.

After reading this book, you will be able to devise more efficient and economical ways to meet your customers’ requirements, no matter who or where your customers are. You will learn that the goal of any process is to service or supply customers with what they want. The book provides tools and techniques that will assist you in gaining a 360-degree view of the process so that you can help the business unit improve the delivery of a quality product or a service to the customer.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The Organization
Chapter 3: Operational Auditing
Chapter 4: Operational Assessment Planning
Chapter 5: Operational Assessment Fieldwork
Chapter 6: Assessment Reporting
Chapter 7: IT and COBIT
Chapter 8: Epilogue
Appendix A: Risk Assessment/Management
Appendix B: Washington State Audit Report
Appendix C: Typical Swim Lane Diagram