The BSC Portfolio Group – previously known as the BSC Prioritisation Group – has been in place for over 12 months.
Who is in the BSC Portfolio Group?
The group is facilitated by the Project Office and Business Partnering.
Senior Officers (or their delegates) from across the University and the College Directors of Operations (DoOps) attend the group meetings.
What does the Group do?
This group challenges all new projects so that we can gain a better understanding of what different business areas across the University are doing. The group aims to move away from silo solutions, understand key drivers, and consider how an existing or single solution might address multiple business needs.
Long term, this will help us develop greater technology efficiencies both within IT Services and across the University as a whole.
How are IT projects prioritised?
IT related projects across the organisation are prioritised using a scoring framework. This enables the Project Office to produce and maintain the prioritisation chart which feeds into project and demand planning as well as the Business Partners’ Rolling 8 Quarter Plan.
Members of the BSC Portfolio Group have a good understanding of the current demand and capacity challenges across IT Services. They report into the Business Systems Committee (BSC), an IT Oversight Committee which is chaired by University Registrar and Secretary, Lee Sanders, in order that final business decisions can be made.
Most recently, that has resulted in BSC’s approval of a bid for additional funding to support the ongoing increased demand from IT Services following the New Core extension, news of which was emailed to all IT Services colleagues on 8 April 2019.
Future Strategy
The in-development Digital Strategy includes a number of key objectives to align to the University’s 2026 vision:
- The intention is to remove over-allocation of staff.
- Enable and initiate a focus on automation and improvement activities designed to avoid increases in “business as usual” demand.
- Ensure capacity is available and understand the total ownership cost and impact before agreeing to any new project initiative.
The Project Office provides bi-monthly updates by email to IT Services colleagues after each BSC Portfolio Group meeting and regular Spotlight on Projects article in the ITS newsletter. You can also subscribe to the monthly Business Partnering In Brief newsletter for key project highlights and updates.