Glossary

A

Acquisition – A corporate action in which a company buys most, if not all, of the target company’s ownership stakes in order to assume control of the target firm. Acquisitions are often made as part of a company’s growth strategy whereby it is more beneficial to take over an existing firm’s operations and niche compared to expanding on its own (Investopedia, n.d.).

Audit – A planned and documented activity performed by qualified personnel to determine by investigation, examination, or evaluation of objective evidence, the adequacy and compliance with established procedures, or applicable documents, and the effectiveness of implementation (Wikipedia, Auditing).

B

Balanced scorecard – A strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals (Balanced Scorecard Institute, n.d.).

Best Practice – A method of technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark (Wikipedia, Best Practice).

C

Competitive Advantage – A business concept that describes factors that allow an organization to perform better than its competitors in order to get a strategic market position, leading to higher returns (CFI, 2015).

COBIT – COBIT enables clear policy development and good practice for IT control throughout organizations. COBIT emphasizes regulatory compliance, helps organizations to increase the value attained from IT, enables alignment and simplifies implementation of the enterprises’ IT governance and control framework (COBIT, n.d.).

COSO – A model for evaluating internal controls from the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. It includes guidelines on many functions, including human resource management, inbound and outbound logistics, external resources, information technology, risk, legal affairs, the enterprise, marketing and sales, operations, all financial functions, procurement and reporting (Garcia, 2019).

D

Database – An organized collection of data. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality in a way that supports processes requiring this information (Wikipedia, Database).

Defense in Depth – An Information Assurance term aimed at delaying an attack, with the use of multiple security countermeasures to reduce the risk of unauthorized information access when a particular security control is compromised or fail (Forcepoint, 2021).

E

Earned Value Management (EVM) – A project performance measurement technique that integrates scope, time, and cost data (Schwalbe, 2015).

F

Framework – A framework defines the essential elements of the IT overall strategy and how those elements should interact and grow to produce continued valued and further the business goals (Lutkevich, 2019-2021).

G

Green Computing – Developing and using computer resources in an efficient way to improve economic viability, social responsibility, and environmental impact . (Schwalbe, 2015).

H

Half-Duplex - The ability for data to be transmitted back and forth between devices, but not at the same time (Olivia).

I

IT audit – The technique aimed at the identification and evaluation of risks associated with IT infrastructure, policies and operations of an organization (CioWiki, 2021).

IT risk – The “business related risk caused by the use of IT within the organization. IT risk is the combination of events related to IT and the business consequences they bring and the frequency of these events occurring. In reality, IT risk is business risk (Nibusinessinfo).

IT Governance - Guides activities to follow strategy and ensures policies are followed. Addresses the authority in organizations, including IT infrastructure, IT use, and project management (Schwalbe, 2015).

IT Policy – A set of procedures and rules that define what should and shouldn’t be done in daily operations. Most IT policies are created with the IT strategy in mind as a guide in how to achieve certain strategic goals.

IT Professional – Someone who has acquired the education, training and skills needed to perform duties of an IT job. The duties of an IT Professional can vary depending on the area of IT and the previous background experience/education. Typically an IT Professional has knowledge in more than more area of IT; however, they may specialize in one particular area and, thus, have a job title and duties centered on that specialization (CIPS, 2021).

IT Strategy – The overall plan which consist of objective(s), principles and tactics relating to use of the technologies within a particular organization (Wikipedia, Strategy).

J

Joint Application Design (JAD) – Using highly organized and intensive workshops to bring together project stakeholders- the sponsor, users, business analysts, programmers, and so on- to jointly define and design information systems (Rottman, MSIS488).

K

KPI – Performance measures that indicate progress toward a desirable outcome. Strategic KPIs monitor the implementation and effectiveness of an organization’s strategies, determine the gap between actual and targeted performance and determine organization effectiveness and operational efficiency.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) – Help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals. Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand, that reflect the critical success factors of an organization (Schwalbe, 2015).

L

LEAN - The core idea is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources (Anon).

M

Mission Statement – A statement of the purpose of a company, organization or person, its reason for existing. The goal of the mission statement is to state in plain language how the workforce computing strategy relates to business objectives (Johnson, 2012).

N

Network Diagram – A schematic display of the logical relationships or sequencing of project activities activities (Schwalbe, 2015).

O

Organizational breakdown structure (OBS) – A specific type of organizational chart that shows which organizational units are responsible for which work items (Chron, 2021).

P

Performance measurement – A process by which an organization tracks and monitor project completion, resource usage and products/services along with their process performance in order to accomplish mission and goals (Wikipedia, Performance measurement).

Program Manager – A person who provides leadership and direction for the project managers heading the projects within a program (Schwalbe, 2015).

Project Acquisition – The last two phases in a project (implementation and close-up) that focus on delivering the actual work (Schwalbe, 2015).

Project Management – The application of knowledge, skills and techniques to execute projects effectively and efficiently. It’s a strategic competency for organizations, enabling them to tie project results to business goals thus better compete in their markets program (PMI, n.d.).

Q

Quality Control – Monitoring specific project results to ensure that they comply with the relevant quality standards and identifying ways to improve overall quality (Schwalbe, 2015).

R

Request for Proposal (RFP) – A document used to solicit proposals from prospective suppliers (Schwalbe, 2015).

Return on Investment (ROI) – Benefits minus cost divided by costs (Schwalbe, 2015).

Risk Management – The process of identification, analysis and either acceptance or mitigation of uncertainty in investment decision-making (Kenton, 2021).

S

SWOT Analysis – A structured planning method used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in a project or in a business venture. A SWOT analysis can be carried out for a product, place, industry or person. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective (Wikipedia, SWOT).

Strategic alignment – A method that ensures that the IT strategy plan is designed according to the overall business vision for the future in order to achieve the agreed benefits (Choice, 2021).

Strategies – Coordinate the organization by defining mission, vision and goals in order to ensure profit, development, and sustainability (Horwath, 2020).

T

Tuckman model – Describes five stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Schwalbe, 2015).

U

Use Case Modeling – A process for identifying and modeling business events, who initiated them, and how the system should respond to them (Schwalbe, 2015).

V

Virtualization – Hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources from their users, such as making a single server, operating system, application, or storage device appear to function as multiple virtual resources (Schwalbe, 2015).

W

Work breakdown structure (WBS) – A deliverable-oriented grouping of the work involved in a project that defines the total scope of the project (Schwalbe, 2015).

X

Y

Yield – The number of units handled correctly through the development process (Schwalbe, 2015).

Z