School Roadmaps

[discoveranother]

Hi all,

 

I look after a few primary schools and very small businesses. I'm trying to look ahead and see how I can budget things per year for these customers and provide some sort of a roadmap. One of the schools also asked for a 5 year roadmap. All the customers use onsite servers, email is via O365 or M365 as it now is, backups are cloud-based. I'm hoping to get them to move onsite SIMS \ FMS to the cloud overtime and apart from the usual onsite hardware that needs replacing, I just wondered if there was any 'sort of' roadmap 'check sheet' or diagram that I could get some guidance from. Obviously it depends on schools budgets anyway, but I would like to see where it may be possible to take these schools within the next 5 years.

 

Thanks all for any feedback

[Chrisbf1]

Have u thought intune, moving schools/businesses serverless. Getting internet connection to fftp/leased line

[paulkerton]

Thing is a) It all depends where they are now, and b) It assumes that in 5 years things won't be drastically different in regards to hardware/services that are available.

If you'd have done a 5 year roadmap in 2008, by 2013 everyone suddenly wanted tablets and they wouldn't have been in your roadmap - for example.

[TechMonkey]

First question you should ask is where is their 5 year plan? The IT development plan should support the School development plan. If they don't have one, or won't let you have access, your plan will be a generic replacement plan.

[simpsonj]

Thing is a) It all depends where they are now, and b) It assumes that in 5 years things won't be drastically different in regards to hardware/services that are available.

If you'd have done a 5 year roadmap in 2008, by 2013 everyone suddenly wanted tablets and they wouldn't have been in your roadmap - for example.

 

True, but there are things that will stay the same, or will need a budget (MIS, ISP, Firewall, Filtering etc) and there may be projects that you know will need a budget for in the next 5 years (hardware refreshes, WiFi, Classroom AV, Anti-Virus etc).

Yes, things will change as new technology appears and old ones retire, but having a baseline prediction for the next 5 years can be helpful.

[TechMonkey]

Baseline is a good word. Anything over 5 years gets a bit hazy, but you know you should be replacing hardware at certain points and if contracts are up for renewal, etc. A development plan or roadmap shouldn't be set in stone, it needs to be a dynamic, living document that changes based on the school and the general environment. Extra funding is sometimes found so future plans can be initiated earlier or, the reverse, funding needs to be redirected so it is nice to show what things can be delayed, by how long and what the consequences are.

[discoveranother]

Thanks all, very good answers here and more or less along the same lines what I was thinking, just wanted some feedback to confirm.