ISYS90048 Managing ICT Infrastructure. Assignment A01
Frequently Asked Questions
What is expected in Assignment A01?
The objectives of this assignment are to evaluate the Kent County Council’s ICT and Digital Strategy,
2020-2023. You should investigate the ITIL Service Management governance framework and evaluate
the structure and content of the Kent County Council’s ICT and Digital Strategy, 2020-2023 against the
goals and objectives of the ITIL Service Management governance framework. Specifically, this
assessment has three main parts:
Evaluate the Kent County Council’s ICT and Digital Strategy, 2020-2023 against
relevant criteria and guidelines that are derived from the ITIL Service Management
governance framework.
Make recommendations that you consider relevant to the Kent County Council’s vision in this
ICT Strategy on issues related to the ongoing management of ICT Infrastructure that could
be further pursued by the Kent County Council within the stated context of the ICT Strategy.
Justify those recommendations, based on the outcomes of your analysis of the ICT
Strategy, on principles and guidelines from ITIL, and from references to other
published literature.
Do not simply be critical but consider which principles and guidelines from the ITIL governance
framework are relevant to the objectives, goals and context of the ICT Strategy.
You need to review the Kent County Council’s ICT and Digital Strategy, 2020-2023. To conduct this
review, you should focus on evidence that illustrates the Kent County Council’s approach to the
management of the ICT infrastructure being proposed in the plan.
You should produce an ICT Infrastructure Evaluation Report in the format shown in the supplied
template for assignment A01. Your report should also address the Intended Learning Outcomes for the
assignment (ILO2, ILO3 and ILO4), as detailed in the Subject Outline.
You should restrict your evaluation of the Kent County Council’s ICT and Digital Strategy, 2020-2023
to the context and scope of this plan.
A template has been provided for this assignment, which sets out the following steps and
expectations:
1. State the objective(s) of your report and state any relevant background, assumptions, and
overview of the current situation at the Kent County Council. This includes understanding of
the context, environment and services offered.
2. Provide a brief introduction to the mode of analysis adopted in your report. Namely, that you are
using evidence-based analysis of the ICT Strategy, based on criteria that are derived from the
ITIL governance framework.
3. Provide a statement that indicates your understanding of the use of ITIL as the basis for
developing criteria in the analysis. Present your understanding of the ITIL governance
framework, and briefly justify why you consider it is relevant to the evaluation of this ICT
Strategy.
4. The analysis should take the form of a detailed breakdown of the Kent County Council’s
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ICT Strategy against criteria that have been derived from the ITIL governance
framework. This analysis should be presented in a table that is structured according to
the themes of the ICT Strategy, as stated on page 12-14 of the Kent County Council’s
ICT Strategy.
5. Choose relevant criteria from the ITIL governance framework. For example, you may choose 5
processes from ITIL to form relevant criteria. A criterion should be derived from a relevant
statement or guideline, such as the achievement of a goal in a relevant ITIL process. Note that
the process should not just be stated as a process but should be stated as a criterion or condition
that the Kent County Council should meet. Each section of this analysis table (A,B,C,D and E)
may have multiple rows, with one criterion and one finding in each of these rows. There may be
multiple processes and relevant criteria under each focal area. If you wish to extend the sections
of the analysis table, then please justify this extension.
6. Your analysis should also meet the requirements of the assignment, so that you include
guidelines relevant to each of the requirements in this table and evaluate how well the ICT
Strategy has dealt with each of these issues.
7. Find and cite relevant evidence from the ICT Strategy. This evidence may be direct, in the
form of quotes from the ICT Strategy, or may be derived from the contents of the ICT
Strategy. All evidence should be cited with page numbers, e.g. “p5” for page 5 of the
Plan.
8. In the table in Section 3, develop findings that state specifically whether the cited evidence
does or does not conform to the respective criteria. To be precise, you may use the terms
“Conforms”, “Does Not Conform” or “Partially Conforms”. You also need to provide a short
paragraph that justifies how you have reached this finding, based on your consideration of the
evidence against the respective criteria.
9. Develop key findings that summarise the outcomes of your analysis. Provide justification for
the method by which each of these key findings been derived, based on your analysis in
section 3. These key findings are typically deeper and collect together issues that you have
identified in your specific findings in your analysis table. Each of these key findings should be
justified, based on the specific findings in your analysis table.
10. Develop recommendations on how the Kent County Council’s ICT and Digital Strategy,
2020-2023 should be revised to meet the criteria that you have selected from the ICT
governance framework. Each of these recommendations should be formally stated as
“It is recommended that the Kent County Council should [perform an action] in order to address
[some issue(s)].”
Each recommendation should contain a single action, so that the reader can make a clear
choice on whether to accept or reject the recommendation. A compound recommendation, with
multiple actions, cannot be easily evaluated by the reader.
Each recommendation should be justified, based on the outcomes of your analysis, criteria from
the ICT governance framework, and references to published literature.
Recommend revisions to Kent County Council’s ICT and Digital Strategy, 2020-2023 on issues
related to the management of ICT Infrastructure that could be further pursued by the Kent
County Council within the stated context of this ICT Strategy.
If a recommendation cannot be justified, then it should not be included in your report.
Could you please clarify Section 3 of the report template?
You should define the governance framework you will be evaluating, to indicate your understanding of
the ICT governance framework, ITIL, before applying it your analysis. Remember that the reader is a
senior manager in the Kent County Council and therefore all sections and analysis should be directed
to them.
You are required to analyse the Kent County Council’s ICT and Digital Strategy, 2020-2023 against
criteria that you have chosen from the ICT governance framework. This analysis forms the basis of
your recommendations for the revision of the Kent County Council’s ICT Strategy.
How extensive does the analysis of the ICT Strategy need to be?
Your analysis should demonstrate your depth of understanding of the subject material, the
demonstration of learning outcomes, as well as a critical analysis of the Kent County Council’s ICT
Strategy. You do not need to provide a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the Kent County
Council’s ICT Strategy and you do not need to select all processes from ITIL. The purpose of the
detailed analysis selection of the template is to form criteria from the ITIL processes according to the
dimensions of ICT service delivery.
As a guide, your analysis table may be 2 pages in length. For example, it may deal with criteria that
are derived from some of the processes of ITIL, not all the processes. You do not need to address all
ITIL process.
How do I derive criteria from the ITIL governance framework?
Review the dimensions of ICT service delivery, as outlined in the Kent County Council’s ICT and Digital
Strategy, 2020-2023. Then review the relevant processes from ITIL that you may use to develop
appropriate criteria. The scope of the ITIL processes could be those which are strategic in nature, (e.g.
Service Strategy & Service Design). Service Transition is tactical, and Service Operation is operational.
Your criteria can then be derived from the description of these ITIL processes.
Once you have analysed the current situation and the dimensions of ICT service delivery, you should
be ready to make some decisions about where to start and what criteria to select. Also consider the
Kent County Council’s ICT Strategy key objectives. There may be more than one criterion under
each process and focal area.
To identify criteria, clarify the goal(s) of the process. By stating simple requirements of the process
you are just looking at outputs of the process. You have to instead identify the goal(s)of the process
and relate these goals to what the Kent County Council is attempting to achieve to then form criterion
which the Council should attempt to address.
A criterion should be phrased as: “the Kent County Council should...”
Once you have formed criteria you can identify appropriate evidence from the ICT Strategy by which
to assess the criterion against. Identification of appropriate evidence will then allow you to form
relevant findings and key findings.
How many criteria should I include in the analysis table?
The number of criteria you use will depend on your interpretation of the relevant parts of the ICT
governance framework and the alignment with dimensions of service delivery and what the Kent
County Council is attempting to achieve. The guideline of 2 pages for the analysis table is a more
relevant indication of the extent of your analysis. An objective of this assignment is the ability to
navigate through the ICT governance framework and form relevant criteria in regard to the
dimensions of ICT service delivery and the goals of the Kent County Council, as indicated from
evidence from the ICT Strategy. As provided in the A01 template, Section 3 requires the creation of
the following detailed analysis table. Take note of the table format.