About GITA     Statutes and Rules     Contact GITA

FY09 Group 1 IT Planning Instructions

Background

Annual submission of an agency IT plan is required of all state executive agencies by Arizona Revised Statutes on or before September 1stof each year. In addition, A.R.S § 41-3504(A (1(f)) gives GITA responsibility for review, “evaluation and either approval or disapproval of all budget unit IT plans” submitted. This statute goes on to mention that “IT plans include quality assurance plans and disaster recovery plans”. To that end, GITA has developed web applications for agencies to report their IT plans online.

All agencies are required to complete an IT plan as referenced by the Statewide Policy P136 on IT planning. Streamlined IT plans and compliance reporting are available for the Group 2 agencies, boards and commissions using the Technology Infrastructure & Standards Assessment (TISA) application at www.azgita.gov/planning/. The Group 1 agencies, those with major IT expenditures and/or possessing essential business processes, use Planning Application for Reporting IT Strategy (PARIS) for their strategic IT planning located at the website location mentioned above. A list of Group 1 agencies can be found in both the aforementioned Planning Policy (P136) and Appendix A of the Statewide Strategic IT Plan or by clicking on hot links at the above website.

Purpose of Strategic IT Planning

The purpose of strategic IT planning is to establish strategic IT goals and a process to improve business goals for each agency. The vision is to move all agencies toward an overall integrated, efficient and effective statewide IT infrastructure that focuses on Business and program needs. The agency IT plan should support the statewide IT direction by:

• Addressing the statewide strategic IT goals as elaborated in the Statewide Strategic IT Plan;
• Leveraging shared statewide IT resources;
• Ensuring IT implementations follow Statewide Architecture standards at www.azgita.gov/policies_standards/ [P700 and 800 series, and S700 and 800 series]
• Maintaining a positive standards compliance position
• Reducing known risks and vulnerabilities.

IT plans should be focused on:

• Ensuring that the agency’s IT direction supports its business direction;
• Improving integration between the agency’s Information Technology tools and its business;
• Communicating among the agency’s constituents, employees, and stakeholders about the capabilities of IT to add value to both agency products and services.

For FY2009 IT Planning, GITA is continuing to focus on more measurable strategic IT plans. Emphasis on agency adherence to statewide policies and standards produces statistics allowing GITA to track statewide trends across agencies and, hence develop a more cohesive policy based on the current status of agencies and their technology needs. For a precise definition of trends, issues, goals and objectives, refer to the Governor’s Office for Strategic Planning and Budgeting’s Managing for Results - Strategic Planning and Performance Measurement Handbook located at www.ospb.state.az.us/handbook.htm 

Getting Started

A username and password is required for access to the GITA online web applications supporting IT planning, PARIS and/or TISA. An agency may obtain a username and password from GITA by contacting the GITA IT Planning Manager at either (602) 364-4784 or ITplanning@azgita.gov.

Entry to either of the online planning tools is located at www.azgita.gov/planning/. TISA is a compliance questionnaire dealing with IT security, IT quality assurance and IT infrastructure/ architecture as propounded by the statewide standards located at www.azgita.gov/policies_standards/ and is part of the annual IT plan submittal. Instructions for both applications are located at bullets beside the entry icons.

Group 1 uses both PARIS and TISA for their IT planning while Group 2 only uses TISA. Once the user logs onto the appropriate application, the IT plan for their agency will be displayed ready for updating. For Group 1 agencies, last year’s IT plan has been rolled over and is ready for the completion of this year’s target performance measures. In addition, once the self-assessment of IT standards survey is taken in TISA, the agency may need to include gap closure plans as part of next year’s IT goals and objectives in PARIS.

For Group 2 agencies, the TISA abbreviated IT plan is all that needs to be completed. The first section consists of multiple choice questions regarding trends, issues, goals and objectives while the second section deals with IT privacy and security questions requiring an explanation, if the agency is not currently compliant.

Completing the IT Plan

Once the IT Plan is completed, the status at the top needs to be changed to SUBMITTED, which locks the plan from further input. If the status is accidentally changed, a phone call to GITA can unlock the plan. Upon submission, the IT Plan is reviewed against the parameters described in Appendix B of the P136 policy and either APPROVED or MODIFICATION REQUESTED as indicated by a further change of IT Plan status. Status is often available online within a week of submission. Following completion of all agency IT plans, the state CIO sends a letter to each agency’s CEO noting either plan approval or disapproval, usually around the beginning of the calendar year.

Pointers

Goals are targets for the agency over multiple years while objectives refer to the activities taken to reach these goals. As such there may be multiple objectives for the same goal. Each objective needs a measure of progress towards achieving its endpoint. These performance measures are projected forward for five years in the future. Performance measures fall into five different categories as defined in the OSPB Handbook mentioned above; namely efficiency, input, outcome, output and quality. In addition, there are four possible statuses of a particular performance measure: completed, unfunded, in process or on hold.

Depending upon agency size, at least four goals are expected in the strategic IT plan which may correspond to that year’s statewide IT goals as described in the Statewide Strategic IT Plan located at the www.azgita.gov/planning web page.

Last year’s IT plan is rolled over for updating in late May or early June so that agencies can perform their planning prior to the close of the fiscal year when many reports are due.
 

Top

Privacy Statement | Accessibility

Copyright 2003 Government Information Technology Agency, All Rights Reserved.