3 year plan/Bigger picture thinking.....

[Little-Miss]

My Line Manager wants to sit and discuss a 3 year+ plan for finance reasons (big change going on in school) and just for the bigger picture of where we want to be.

 

Apart from the usual replacement cycle of hardware...what else do you guys have on yours? as he wants more than that....

[localzuk]

I did one of these at BLC when I was in Bristol - covered 5 years, plus extra years to give a 'big picture'.

 

It covered hardware replacements, covered potential changes in the IT world (eg. moving from suites to 1 to 1 devices, thin clients, increased VLE usage etc...), software life expectancy (ie. moving to a replacement cycle for software!).

 

I never got round to it, but I was also going to include a schedule for important things such as data recovery testing, exam periods where devices were in high demand and how to cope with it etc...

 

Before you can do all this though, you need a higher level 'vision' providing first, covering the same period - what does the school want to achieve with IT in that time period?

[tmcd35]

I have a spreadsheet that I update each year. It shows projected budget costs over a five year cycle (I sometimes produce longer 8yr versions for "what if" scenarios). It contains the following budget lines for each year:

 

Core: Broadband, Consumables, ICT Repair, ICT Department

Replacement: Projectors, Bulbs, Printers, Hard Drives, UPS, Monitors, IWBs

Upgrades: Server/Switches, Staff Laptops, ICT Suites

Software: EES Licencing, Select Licencing, Eclipse, SIMS, Papercut, Yosemite

 

The current sheets I'm working on include an addition subsection for "New Investments/Developments" where I'm doing various what-if calculations looking at iPads, student laptops and managed wireless. Seeing how much various combinations would cost us over that time.

[pcstru]

Mine includes everything I can reasonably foresee! So the basics of computer replacements and software licences, server refreshes and/or extended warranties, printing costs, copier leases, telephony. Strategically we review things like DR/Backup every three years and back end storage, so we get spikes which co-incide with those review points. We are replacing wireless and network infrastructure (Meru across the site and 10G to various edge cabinets). The cost of those strategic upgrades is such that they are spread over years (we are now two years into a 4 year network upgrade plan).

[hardtailstar]

Well, on this years plan Ive got.....

 

New server

New admin and classroom computers with Win 7

New gigabit switch

Virtualisation

Repairing of dead network ports

Scale down of software used in school (money saving as some of software hasnt been used for years and still paying for it)

General tidy up.

 

In our 3 year plan after this years one, we are just going to be replacing some laptops as this year should tide us over for a few years.

[maark]

I know you are in primary but for secondary the changes to curriculum - scrapping GCSE , moving IT towards programming etc. will impact on different department needs. Also tablets will become more prevalent as developers focus on apps rather than traditional software.

[CyberNerd]

I've done 3yr and 5yr plans.

I use a spreadsheet that lists ongoing hardware renewals that is subdivided into Desktop, Server, Network, Thin Clients categories.

I have another page that lists ongoing software maintenance costs and another for ongoing printing costs.

 

For long term thinking it doesn't just stop at renewals - you really need to link everything to the whole school plan. ie - what is the school ICT vision, what are the expected outcomes and what ICT resources need to be put in place to achieve this. You can then start working out what extra needs to be fitted (wireless, byod etc) and what doesn't need to be renewed (eg less it suites etc)

[Roberto]

Before you can do all this though, you need a higher level 'vision' providing first, covering the same period - what does the school want to achieve with IT in that time period?

 

At the risk of doing a good captain obvious impression, this comment is key.

It's impossible to formulate a 5 year goal/strategic plan for any support department without understanding the 5 year goal and/or strategic plans of the organisation - the organisation should have an overall strategic direction which your strategic planning has to enable and support. For example, if the goal of the organisation is to become a centre of excellence for media/film courses then you need to ensure your plans don't involve moving everyone to a VDI infrastructure that won't support video editing software...

Edited November 16, 2012 by Roberto

[Little-Miss]

Well i wrote the IT part of the SDP.

 

As SLT im sure he'll bring the whole school plan.