IT Project Request Process Policy

Projects are temporary endeavors with a start and finish, designed to create a unique product, service, or result. Project requests start the project initiation phase and begin communication between the project sponsor and the Division of Information Technology to start planning activities.

All University projects that require IT resources of any kind must be submitted, reviewed, and approved before IT resources are committed. In order to provide the most value throughout the life of a project, a project request should be submitted soon after a need is established. Projects typically require significant involvement of staff from non-IT areas and have one or more of the following criteria:

• Requires some type of expense to implement.
• Introduces a new service.
• Needs more than a few IT staff-hours to complete.
• Include staff from multiple IT departments.

The Division of IT should be formally notified of new project requests by submitting a project request form in the IT client portal. Any University employee may submit a project request, however VP approval is required before any evaluation begins.

The project request process consists of the following steps:

1. Initial Project Definition - This is where we’ll start to identify the goals, scope, expenses, resources, and other aspects of the request with the sponsor and any stakeholders identified. This lays the foundation of the project request and provides basic information to be used and built upon in subsequent steps.
2. Initial IT Approval¹ - The request is reviewed to determine whether or not additional time bringing it through the final definition and approval phases is appropriate. This primarily weeds out any projects with glaring issues that may need to be redefined before moving forward.
3. Initial Budget Approval² - The anticipated project expenses are reviewed to determine how and when funding will be secured. Once at least tentative funding approval is received, the request can proceed. This step helps to pause or reject those project requests without funding approval and ensure the “final” steps are done near the end of the project request process due to the potential for funding to take significant time to be secured.
4. Final Project Definition - This is a key stage during which  any adjustments to the request as result of a deeper review are made. With those details finalized, the score card and plans are built. Final quotes will be obtained and resource plans assembled. This step locks in the details of the project request.
5. Final IT Approval¹ - Changes since the initial IT approval will be reviewed.
6. Final Budget Approval² - Changes since the initial budget approval will be reviewed. At this time, the entire project budget must be fully approved and allocated in order to proceed.
7. Project Scheduling - Projects requests in this phase are prioritized and scheduled based on their scorecard score³, priority, the project request backlog, the project backlog (typically any active projects that were put on hold), resource availability, and other factors to provide the most overall value to the University.
8. Project Staffing - Once project request schedules are approved, they will be staffed with a project manager and resources which converts the project request into a project. This ends the project request process and starts project kickoff preparations. It’s at this point that the Division of IT makes a commitment to provide the resources necessary to deliver the project within the scope, time and cost.

¹ IT Approval steps are reviewed by the IT Leadership Team to address IT concerns as well as risks or issues that could affect the success of the project (such as technical incompatibility) or the University as a whole (such as a security risk). Non-technical concerns that arise are addressed through coordination with the sponsor.

² Budget Approval steps are coordinated through the Department of Enterprise Projects and Planning in coordination with the appropriate divisional leadership, depending on the type of expenses involved.

³ Scorecard score is a combination of strategic goal alignment, effort, impact, risk avoidance, support needs and University mandate status that serves to provide  input to the scheduling and prioritization process using a common indicator across dissimilar projects.