The selected consultant will be responsible for the following key components:
Develop a 360-degree view of IT by interviewing representatives of all stakeholders: faculty, administration, Board of Governors, students, and IT staff. Through a series of interviews, we want to capture stakeholder expectations of an IT organization, future technology needs, as well as perceived gaps in current services and our extant technology ecosystem. This would include a measure of their satisfaction with IT services and outcomes.
Clarify the role of IT with MacEwan by developing mission, vision, and value statements. Key to this point is ensuring that everyone in ITS can “see” themselves in these statements. To keep this manageable with our aggressive timetable, this can be developed with the leadership team, and we will confirm and validate it with the University after the contract ends. This should be developed through an on-site workshop (up to 1-2 days in length at most).
Consolidate findings from three past studies (2022 assessment, Cloud Impact Assessment and ITS organizational review), audit recommendations from the past four years, enterprise risk management assessment, MacEwan’s strategic vision and the results of the interviews to create a multi-year tactical roadmap looking at all aspects of an IT organization (e.g. people, processes, services, applications, cyber security, infrastructure, technologies, business continuity and data). Special attention given to replacing our current ERP solution. Central to this task will be establishing clear priorities – balancing the operational needs against the University’s needs to expand functionality and update applications. MacEwan is building a cyber security program in parallel with this effort which requires integration into the five-year roadmap.
Other Alberta post-secondary institutions have published their IT roadmaps. An optional task is to review any public documents for their application to this effort. We do not want any proposals to interview or consult other institutions for comparative analysis.
Identify emerging and disruptive technologies that MacEwan should be monitoring, testing, and bringing into our technology ecosystem. While we are aware of three rapidly evolving technologies – AI, quantum computing and augmented/virtual reality, are there other emergent or incubating technologies that we should be monitoring for future application to MacEwan?
Review the University’s IT policies and standards and recommend changes to bring them in alignment with the strategic vision and current needs of the University.
Recommend key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure IT performance and outcomes.
In addition to the roadmap, the five-year plan should include estimated impact on operating and capital budgets and headcount. The roadmap should also include milestone markers to measure our progress.
Recommend an annual planning update process to keep the plan current with University priorities and supply the basis for technology budget planning.
Our goal is to complete 67% of the work by March 31, 2024. We recognize the aggressive timetable and understand that some work may need to be done after March 31.
