IT training and risk management at North Lincolnshire Council

¶ … North Lincolnshire Council Case: Successful Project Management Strategies and Practices at Work

Summary of the Case

The North Lincolnshire Council operates over a fairly wide geographic area (eighty-five thousand hectares) and provides a wide array of services to the public out of more than one-hundred different locations, and with a staff of more than seven thousand individuals (Case Study). Given the size and scope of the North Lincolnshire Council and its operations, the organization has a high degree of dependency on IT utilization and management, and depends on the ongoing maintenance and development of its IT systems in order to operate efficiently and effectively (Case Study). To this end, the Council has long partnered with Fox IT, which provides the Council with support and consultancy services on both technical and strategic IT issues, helping the Council to grow, to integrate its various parts and offices, and to control risks associated with the use of IT system (Case Study).

One of the key ways in which Fox IT has provided support to the North Lincolnshire Council's IT development and risk control is through the provision of training courses to staff and management at the Council (Case Study). Through these educational programs and ongoing practical applications of the knowledge and skills acquired, the North Lincolnshire Council has developed a broader awareness of potential IT risks and methods for managing these risks (Case Study). The circumstances of this case and the principles of project management they illuminate will be examined in greater detail in the following paragraphs.

Proposing a Solution

Just as there is no real problem in this case, there is no explicit need for a solution other than what is described in the case. In order to ensure that their IT system is properly maintained, developed, and utilized, the North Lincolnshire Council maintains a strong and ongoing relationship with Fox IT, which enables it to achieve proper planning, procurement, communications, risk control, and development in all areas of IT management (Bainey, 2004; Case Study). Maintaining the current educational programs and the other support and consultancy services provided by Fox IT should continue to serve the Council well.

Learning Application

This case and the above analysis clearly demonstrate the importance of IT management and education in all areas of modern endeavor, not just in for-profit businesses or organizations involved in technical pursuits (Phillips, 2004; Bainey, 2004). Identifying all of the areas of concern in IT project development and ongoing operations and maintaining appropriate assessment and control procedures in all of these areas is essential to organizational success, and must be accomplished through a variety of means (Bainey, 2004). This case and supporting literature also make it clear that partnerships with IT-focused organizations can lead to more efficient and cost effective means of achieving the necessary levels of IT integration, development, and maintenance, allowing organizations to achieve the necessary levels of IT knowledge, skills, and hardware/software components with a lower level of resource and time expenditure (Phillips, 2004).

Human resource development is also a highly important feature of reaching and maintaining the needed IT knowledge, skills, and practices, and the use of Fox IT to develop and provide such educational support to the North Lincolnshire Council is indicative of this (Bainey, 204; Phillips, 2004; Case Study). Of all learning apparent in this case, this point should be the most salient. If the individuals that are actually tasked with responsibilities involving the IT systems in place do not have the proper knowledge, no amount of risk analysis or control will be effective (Bainey, 2004).