Technical planning should include

Only you can think through who can carry out different aspects of the plan and when they will do it. Technology planning is not quick or simple. There is no magic formula for success.

In order to make informed decisions, you will need access to technology expertise. You may also want some guidance just managing the planning process. Whether or not you can do your planning on your own depends on the technology expertise you have on staff already. Most nonprofits do not have enough know-how to complete the whole planning process, including deciding which type of network they need, or how best to connect to the Internet. In most cases, TechSoup recommends that you do draw on outside resources.

However, you may be able to save money by seeking help on some aspects of technology planning while doing others on your own. For instance, only you can define what it is that you want your organization to gain from technology use.

Taking your hardware and software inventory may be the most well-defined part of technology planning. As a result, you have more options for how to get it done. If someone on staff has even a minimal knowledge of hardware and software vocabulary, you may well be able to do it in-house.

Is there someone who knows how to find out the processor speed of a computer? How to find out the full version number of a software application? Have your most technical person look at the hardware and software inventory worksheets to see if she or he understands all of the columns.

Your other options include hiring a consultant or finding a volunteer. Planning technology solutions can require much more in-depth technology understanding. In some cases, if there is already an experienced IT person on staff, some nonprofits find that with web research and phone calls, a technology team can complete the plan on its own.

However, if you do not have an experienced IT person on staff, it will be hard for someone to learn enough to make a reliable judgment call. Whether or not you seek outside help, however, educating your own technology team is crucial to a successful plan. In order to understand the options a consultant presents to you, you need vocabulary and basic concepts. The content areas of TechSoup are a good place to start.

Ready to look for help? Don't despair! Help is available. Technology planning is no simple matter, but it is a rich, powerful process. In the long term, it can reduce your headaches tenfold, and lead you to use technology to further your mission in ways you never dreamed of. Organizational Leadership. Resource Type: Article. Skip to main content. Establish leadership and support Assess your resources Define your needs Explore solutions Write the plan Get funding Implement the plan Effective technology planning is an involved process.

Establish leadership and support. Get funding. Setting up a technology team and ensuring management and staff buy-in will allow you to get started with the whole organization behind you. Technology Team. It is crucial that the technology plan be a product of the whole organization, not just one staff person's brainchild. Nonprofit technology experts all recommend that you set up a technology team to lead your technology planning process, if you do not have a team already.

A technology team should be made up of a wide range of staff members. It is very important to have your executive director or another person in management involved. Your team might be composed of a board member, the executive director, a project manager, an administrative assistant, an accountant and a development director, as well as your system administrator, if you have one. Set up a regular meeting schedule to review progress on the plan. Make sure to distribute responsibilities and set clear expectations so that each person is involved in the process.

Lead Person. It is crucial to have one person who is designated to lead the technology team and coordinate the whole process.

That person need not be someone who is already in a management position, but should be someone with leadership capabilities and relative comfort with technology. Management Support. It is next to impossible to do a technology plan and carry it out without active support from management.

Management is key to financial support and funding for the plan. It also makes a huge difference if you can convince your management to stand up and talk to staff about the plan. One strategy for convincing management is to describe the current costs of not doing a plan. Let them know how many hours of staff time are wasted, and how much money is lost trying to make the current system work.

If your organization requires a major technology overhaul, management will appreciate a plan which is broken into implementation phases, so that they are not faced with funding the entire initiative in one budget year. Even if management is reluctant, they should be consulted and informed at every major step. Technology Organizational Assessment Worksheet Define your needs. The following are two examples of the kind of language you might use: "We are a disability advocacy organization that does media campaigns and workplace training sessions to raise awareness of the needs of people with disabilities.

We need to connect to the Internet in order to coordinate the planning of regional conferences and training sessions with our partners in other states who use email. We also need to communicate by email with corporations who are considering bringing us in to do training sessions. Our referral staff need to share information about clients with our job counseling staff. TechSoup's content areas are a good place to start for background information and further resources to answer overarching technology questions: What type of network do you need?

What hardware purchases or upgrades should you make? Figure 1 below shows the SEMP and integrated plans.

Task planning identifies the specific work products, deliverables, and success criteria for systems engineering efforts in support of integrated planning and project objectives. The success criteria are defined in terms of cost, schedule, and technical performance at identified project milestones.

Detailed task planning identifies specific resource requirements e. SE planning is accomplished by both the acquirer acquirer and supplier supplier and the activities for SE planning are performed in the context of the respective enterprise.

Plans are updated and refined throughout the development process based on status updates and evolving project requirements SEI The project planning process is closely coupled with the measurement , assessment and control , decision management , and risk management processes.

The measurement process provides inputs for estimation models. Estimates and other products from planning are used in decision management. SE assessment and control processes use planning results for setting milestones and assessing progress.

Risk management uses the planning cost models, schedule estimates, and uncertainty distributions to support quantitative risk analysis as desired. Additionally, planning needs to use the outputs from assessment and control as well as risk management to ensure corrective actions have been accounted for in planning future activities. The planning may need to be updated based on results from technical reviews from assessment and control addressing issues pertaining to: measurement, problems that were identified during the performance of risk management activities, or decisions made as a result of the decision management activities INCOSE , sec.

Some of the key pitfalls encountered in planning and performing SE planning are listed in Table 1. To the user, these virtual servers appear to operate just like a single, dedicated server.

But the virtual servers are actually running on many different dedicated servers. The user does not know what hardware his or her server is currently using. Cloud hosting requires no installation. Once a virtual server is created on the cloud, the user can access it within a matter of few minutes, says Thoke. Monthly cost for dedicated web-hosting servers may vary. Cloud hosting customers are charged for the amount of storage they use and the time it takes to transfer data.

The best part about cloud storage is that there are no storage caps, says Thoke. This means that scaling up is easy. Nor do they have to reinvest in new or additional servers because they can never outgrow the capacity of a cloud server. As a result, cloud storage yields significant savings for the organization, especially because the cost of cloud hosting has been declining over the past few years. The performance of dedicated servers and cloud computing are comparable, says Thoke.

Dedicated servers are as fast as their cloud counterparts. But, Thoke warns that computers on a dedicated sever may slow down over a period of time due to the presence of unwanted programs and temporary files. This can occur with cloud servers too, but cloud customers can correct the situation more easily, says Thoke.

The biggest difference between a dedicated server and cloud computing is reliability, says Thoke. Data is stored on and retrieved from multiple servers on the cloud. So, even if one server crashes unexpectedly, it is unlikely that a hosted website or web app will crash, says Thoke.

So when the server crashes, the website or web app stops working until the server is repaired. No interim solution is available until the server is up-and-running again, says Thoke. Thoke recommends virtual private servers VPS , which he says offer a mid-way solution between these two extremes. A VPS is a virtual machine sold as a service by a hosting service provider.

A VPS runs its own copy of an operating system. Customers can install almost any software that runs on that operating system. This means that an attack on one application or website does not put all the applications or sites hosted on that shared server at risk. Health care and aging services organizations are driven by high service standards and are seeking to transform themselves by providing higher quality care, becoming safer and more efficient, and providing better experiences for consumers, families and staff.

Network infrastructure has always played a critical, yet inconspicuous, role as the highway over which data flows within an organization and between organizations. Software applications must run efficiently on this network highway using data in countless ways to give care providers the tools they need to improve the quality of care. It is important to understand the factors that support critical business applications in both data centers and campus environments.

Important network properties include redundancy, scalability, manageability and maintainability. Redundancy is an important property in bigger networks, according to Ondrej Kiss, a network consulting engineer at Cisco Systems. A failure of a single device or a link could make the network unavailable for hundreds of users in a local area network LAN or millions of users in a Wide Area Network WAN.

Implementing redundancy in networks within health care settings is a very important task to achieve required reliability, says Kiss. Kiss points out that there is no redundancy in the Line, Bus, Tree and Star topologies presented below.

Hierarchical network models represent the easiest solution for designing redundancy, says Kiss. This model creates a systematic and structural template that is deployed when designing the network. The model divides the traffic handling devices into three layers. It is a desirable property in a network. Networks that are based on a hierarchical model are more scalable because of their defined roles, performance requirements, and throughput, says Kiss.

Maintainability is defined as the ease with which a network can be modified to correct faults, improve performance or other attributes, or adapt to a changed environment, says Kiss.

Manageability is defined as how efficiently and easily a network can be monitored and maintained to keep it working and secure, says Kiss. Because modern networking devices are highly configurable, they offer the user freedom to choose the best solution to meet all requirements.

Networks can also be categorized by the area they cover. Different technologies and protocols are used for different-sized coverage areas, says Kiss. Ethernet technology is most commonly used for wired technologies using both copper wire and optical fiber. Wi-Fi technology is most commonly used for wireless communication.

Kiss describes Ethernet as the most efficient solution for wired network technologies. Ethernet meets the bandwidth, reliability, and implementation cost requirements of single-site senior living organizations.

Optical fiber may be used to connect the single site to other sites or to the cloud. Wi-Fi could meet the requirements of wireless technologies deployed in hospitals and other health care settings as long as certain requirements are satisfied during implementation, says Kiss.

Bandwidth in the local area network varies from tens of megabits per second Mbps to tens of gigabits per second Gbps , says Kiss. Bandwidth-intensive devices and applications tend to use fiber optic links. Historically, the fiber optic technology has provided faster data transfer than copper wires.

This compares favorably with the optical fiber solution. A real-time, high-definition, video-based telemedicine application is an example of applications that need large data transfers and require a high bandwidth. The world around us is increasingly going wireless, according to Steve Evans, a writer with Computer Weekly. But many offices remain wired. A wireless network, on the other hand, adds mobility, flexibility and location tracking to an organization, says Evans.

Employees working in a wireless environment can bring their own devices to work. An organization that allows these devices to access the corporate network will have more productive workers, says Evans. Can wireless networks for the business, residents and guests co-exist without compromising the security and performance of the business network? For more on health care wireless networks, see this whitepaper from HP. Wireless connectivity is far from becoming the norm in the business setting.

In many organizations, there is simply too much legacy infrastructure in place. It would be too difficult to discard this infrastructure and replace it with a wireless set-up. A combination of wired and wireless connectivity seems to be the way forward, at least for now. This combination allows a business or provider to satisfy the needs of its mobile workers while ensuring that it is meeting security, control and reliability requirements.

Maintaining a mixed environment does not need to be a management nightmare. Juniper Networks integrates wireless LANs with existing wired infrastructure.

These types of technology allow the organization to manage wireless connections on top of an existing wired infrastructure. This means that businesses will see the benefit of having both while, hopefully, reducing the negatives associated with either installation.

The Federal Communications Commission FCC recommends the following minimum bandwidth speeds for different health care settings: Bandwidth Factors to Consider The Health Resources and Services Administration shares these factors to consider when carrying out the complex task of estimating bandwidth requirements:.

These are just general guidelines indicating the minimum bandwidth requirements. The IT and network infrastructure in senior living provides connectivity to staff and residents, and serves as the foundation and the highway for a broad array of technologies applications. These applications support:. These separate systems should ideally be on a unified network to simplify integration, monitoring and management. As mentioned in section 6. The reduced cost and simplified management associated with cloud-based applications makes them viable and appealing options for senior living organizations.

Data analytics, management dashboards and reporting capabilities are also gaining significant importance in senior living. Administrative and back-office application systems support core business services and basic communication. They include applications to support:. Electronic health record EHR and charting systems help organizations document clinical and care services.

Many EHRs interface with point-of-care devices like touch screens, laptops and tablets. These devices allow the documentation of assessments, vitals and medication administration at the point of care. Several EHRs offer advanced functions like clinical decision support systems, quality tracking and reporting, and health information exchange.

Like other businesses, aging services providers generate large amounts of data. These data files change throughout the workday. Data can be lost, corrupted, compromised or stolen through hardware failure, human error, hacking and malware.

Loss or corruption of data could result in significant business disruption. Ready recommends that organizations begin the planning process by identifying data that must be backed up. This includes data on network servers, desktop computers, laptop computers and wireless devices. Backups should be stored with the same level of security as the original data, says Ready. You can use a variety of backup media:. Back up your data as frequently as necessary. Your goal should be to ensure that business can recover easily from a data loss.

Ready suggests that organizations conduct a business impact analysis to evaluate the potential for lost data and outline recovery strategies. As health care and aging services providers move toward the adoption of electronic health records EHRs and become dependent on electronic data systems, the need for solid backup procedures and disaster recovery planning DRP becomes more important, according to TechTarget Editor Anne Steciw.

An information technology disaster recovery plan IT DRP should be developed in conjunction with the business continuity plan. During the business impact analysis, be sure to develop priorities and recovery time objectives. Outline how you will restore hardware, applications and data in time to meet the needs of the business recovery.

Recovery strategies should be developed for information technology IT systems, applications and data. This includes networks, servers, desktops, laptops, wireless devices, data and connectivity. Priorities for IT recovery should be consistent with the priorities for recovery of business functions and processes that were developed during the business impact analysis. The time between the disaster and your RTO represents your downtime.

Information technology systems require hardware, software, data and connectivity. Therefore, says Ready, recovery strategies should be developed to anticipate the loss of one or more of the following:.

Ready warns that some applications cannot tolerate any downtime. Larger companies avoid this downtown by implementing an expensive solution involving dual data centers that run in parallel to avoid data loss. Ready suggests that small- to medium-sized businesses might protect critical business applications and data by using less expensive applications that can work offline when Internet or network connectivity is lost.

These applications sync when nonworking systems are restored. Businesses that have more than one site may have another option to avoid losing data in a disaster.

The business can configure hardware at the alternate facility so it will run critical applications when needed.

This will work, says Ready, as long as data is backed up off-site or data is mirrored between the two sites. When data is restored at the alternate site, the systems can be synced. These data centers have commonly used hardware and software products that can handle the data needs of subscribers in an emergency.

Subscribers can provide their unique equipment or software, either when the disaster occurs or beforehand so it is ready to use when disaster strikes. Organizations can also seek out vendors to host and manage data streams, data security services and applications.

Ready explains that subscribers to this type of service can access information either at the primary business site or they can use a web browser to access information from an alternate site. Vendors can also provide data filtering and detection of malware threats. This enhances cyber security. Ready advises that you include the IT disaster recovery in the business continuity plan. Test the plan periodically to make sure that it works. Some organizations are turning to virtualized disaster recovery to restore access to health care data in the event of system downtime.

There are many benefits to using virtualized disaster recovery. In a virtual setting, disaster recovery planning should also include procedures for restoring backups to virtual hardware.

Be sure to specify the conditions for using virtual machines. IT can be performed either in-house or outsourced to a vendor. AhelioTech, a Columbus, OH, IT firm, suggests that it might seem counterintuitive for a company to outsource highly visible or important services like IT. AhelioTech illustrates its point by listing the myriad tasks involved in providing in-house services:.

A AhelioTech blog weighs a variety of pros and cons to determine if it makes sense for businesses to hire full-time IT professionals or outsource their IT needs. CAST believes that it is best to outsource to a local IT service provider that has significant understanding, expertise and clients in aging services. Jennifer Bresnick of HealthIT Analytics suggests that health care organizations face a daunting task when they attempt to develop an interoperable health IT infrastructure that meets the data exchange needs of post-acute care providers.

During a recent interview with Bresnick, Mark Crandall, chief information officer at Consulate Health Care, a large post-acute care provider in Maitland, FL, provided these salient points about interconnectivity, interoperability and exchange of information:. Remember that HIE is not just about exchanging information. It also involves working on communications to reach agreement about critical data elements to be exchanged, workflows, protocols and expectations regarding follow up.

If you need outside expertise, consider reaching out to the following LeadingAge CAST Supporters, Patrons and Associates as resources for your strategic planning needs:. Audience General readership, including Executive Leadership, and Team leaders and members.

Most organizations will not have project planners who are experienced or certified. Successful implementation of IT depends on having a wide array of stakeholders represented on the project team. Be sure that the team has a clear set of goals, timelines, resource requirements and deliverables. The goals of the planning process should reflect the mission, vision, values and goals of the organization as it relates to the specific project and expected project outcomes.

Define a business case for the project and be sure the expectations of the team are in sync with that business case. All stakeholders in the strategic IT planning process must identify and commit to achieving specific, measurable goals.

Many organizations recognize the importance of S. These issues are actually part of the problem, not a reason for inaction. Cultivating a culture of quality measurement, reporting and improvement is often more important than implementing IT.

End-user engagement after IT implementation will help to ensure project success. It can also help the organization identify additional opportunities for continuous quality improvement. Consider using the home health template from the Stratis Health Toolkit to help write goal statements.

The Stratis Health Toolkit suggests that organizations start out with a general goal statement. Then, the toolkit says, take these steps:. When you change any process, it often changes the way work is done. This will minimize risk and increase staff acceptance and successful implementation. Workflow is the step-by-step process of how the job is currently being performed.

A complete understanding of workflow is needed to evaluate the impact of system changes on the current process. Managing change will help individuals overcome their concerns about the technology and successfully adopt that technology. It will also help ensure that the change brought about by the technology is the right change for the organization, says the toolkit. Specifically, the toolkit suggests that:. The Stratis Health Toolkit recommends that organizations demonstrate the quality efficiencies and patient safety of computer systems and engage users in making their own changes.

Process mapping is a fairly well defined science, says the Stratis Health Toolkit. A number of tools and techniques can be deployed to understand current workflows and processes, and identify opportunities for improvement. The following steps should be used to map current workflow and processes, according to the Stratis Health Toolkit:. The Stratis Health Toolkit suggests that organizations map how workflows and processes will be performed with IT. Identify potential problems in current workflows and processes and determine their root cause.

Look for:. Various tools may be helpful in identifying root cause for these problems. Be sure to check out the process flow chart template and a sample systems flow chart from the Stratis Health Toolkit, which wasdeveloped for LeadingAge Minnesota.

This exercise will help you clarify what features and functionality are most important, and identify which functionality and features may need to be eliminated due to budget constraints. For each technology application, identify key desired functionality and features needs and also identify the less desired functionality and features wants.

By prioritizing and listing, your purchasing-decision process and vendor evaluation will be more focused and efficient. Using the prioritized list of needs and requirements, review and compare multiple product offerings. Identify products that meet those needs. LeadingAge CAST has developed online selection tools to help organizations create a shortlist of vendors based on the organization's most important and required features and functionality.

CAST regularly updates these tools and adds more tools. It is important to research the vendors on the shortlist to understand each company, its strengths and weaknesses. It is important to develop an objective method of selecting a vendor.

The resulting technology plan serves as the roadmap for satisfying the gaps over time to achieve the end-state. These relationships are depicted in Figure 1. A technology plan is a key enabler for the systems engineering function. Based on the future mission or business needs, it defines a desired technical end-state to evolve toward. Because that end-state may not be achievable with current technology, it is important to determine which technologies are available now; which technologies are in development, including their maturity levels see the SEG's Assessing Technical Maturity article and which technologies do not yet exist.

This helps influence an investment strategy that can focus on and push the state of the art, and it helps identify requirements that are not achievable at all or may be cost prohibitive. Technologies requiring further investment and maturation should be assessed as part of the technical planning process. Appropriate risk should be assigned to technologies assessed as immature, with the need for concomitant mitigation plans.

At a minimum, the plan should include identification of all technology being brought to bear for the solutions, the maturation and trend of applicable technologies forecast , insertion points, required investments, and dependencies. The process of developing and implementing a technology plan should include the following activities [4]:.

Evaluate the environment for innovative uses of technology. What is changing in the environment that needs to be taken into account or can be exploited?

Where is industry headed and what are its technology roadmaps? Define desired results. Where does the organization want to be within a planning horizon, usually years? Envision the future as if it were today, and then work back to the present. Identify the core technologies needed for meeting the vision and focus on those first. Assess the risks for maturation and focus on investment and mitigation.