IT Strategy delivery projects for a national trade unions body

Building on Success

Following Acert’s strategic consultancy report for the TUC in Summer 2016, the senior executive team were keen to establish the IT steering group and appoint a part-time (virtual) Chief Information Officer, as well as to commission work on the IT risk register.  Earlier analysis having revealed some onerous service agreements no longer fit for purpose, there was also an appetite to negotiate early savings where possible.

Practical Support

We established four concurrent and related projects to address the required deliverables.

First we prepared a Charter for the Steering Group, negotiating its constitution and recruiting its members.

Next we wrote a brief for the role of part-time Chief Information Officer (vCIO), researched suitable candidates, invited applications and facilitated the short-listing process for final interview by the TUC senior management team.

To manage some of the risks we identified in the earlier consultancy work, we developed an IT risk register and led the first Steering Group meeting to assign ownership of risk management and mitigation tasks to individuals.  To identify and drive savings, we met with suppliers responsible for the highest spend to discuss the options and begin the process of renegotiation.

Enduring Benefits

The vCIO was appointed and is providing clear direction and leadership for all core initiatives.  The Steering Group is functioning well as the IT change agency, with strong programme management underpinning its strategic and tactical decisions.  The Risk Register remains at the heart of programme prioritisation and is contributing significantly to readiness for the GDPR deadline of May 2018.  In-year savings were obtained from targeted key suppliers, all of whom were also invited to participate in the comprehensive managed service and Office 365 procurement resulting from another workstream in the strategic proposals.