MSU IT Project Portfolio Prioritization Guidelines

Guidelines for prioritization of MSU IT Projects to meet support and governance needs. This article supports Objective 1.1 - Technology Governance in our MSU IT Strategic Plan.

• TDX is our portfolio management system of record
  • Activities must be made visible in TDX for reporting and counting successes
  • All projects must be updated regularly (minimum monthly)
  • Additional requirements will be added for priority projects as we mature
• Portfolio reviews planned quarterly with ELT
  • Portfolio Dashboard review
  • Top Project Review this quarter
  • Top Project Review next quarter (ELT to revise as needed)
  • EPMO Active Project Review
  • Mature to providing Gantt view of active and upcoming projects
• MSU IT Top Projects
  • Priority activities for IT Staff
  • Must have completed Priority Project Review Form
  • Visible and clear to staff
• Enterprise Project Management Office IT Projects
  • Prioritize as appropriate given Enterprise prioritization
  • Consider when resources overlap with MSU IT Top Project resources
• Department Priority Projects
  • Priorities for ELT members within their Department
    • Campus IT Experience
    • Educational Technology
    • Enterprise Services
    • Information Security
    • Infrastructure
    • Office of the ACIO
  • Includes items being prepared to become MSU IT Top Projects
  • Reviewed and prioritized in monthly meeting with PPMO
    • Review projects
    • Prioritize projects
    • ID tools to improve visibility
    • ID improvements
  • Do not require completed Priority Project Review Form, however, they are highly recommended along with a Resource Plan to ensure project success
• Other IT Projects
  • Best effort activities
  • Lowest priority of project work
  • May be promoted to Department Priority
• Order of Work for staff
  • Mission Critical Service Operations - Continue delivery (including major incident management resolution) for essential IT services that support MSU’s core academic, research, and administrative functions. Leadership prioritizes these because they safeguard MSU’s ability to operate and protect institutional reputation.  This category also includes executive overrides when necessary.
  • EPMO IT Projects & MSU IT Top Projects - Strategic initiatives with the highest institutional impact, aligned with MSU's strategic goals.  Campus and IT leadership prioritize these projects and views them as critical enablers of MSU's long-term competitiveness and compliance posture.  These projects include both MSU IT Top projects & Enterprise PMO projects with significant IT resource requirements.
  • MSU IT Department Priority Projects - Projects addressing critical department initiatives for campus demand, service improvement, or compliance. Department leadership approves and supports these projects to meet campus commitments and maintain operational excellence.
  • Service Operations - Ongoing activities to deliver, maintain, and enhance IT services for the MSU community.  Leadership values these because they sustain service delivery, quality, and reduce risk of outages that affect campus stakeholders.
  • Other Department Projects - Initiatives with lower priority or stakeholder impact managed by teams within departments.  Leadership monitors these to encourage innovation and service delivery while ensuring resource alignment with strategic priorities.
• Considerations:
  • Resource commitments to operations vs projects and managing within IT departments. Tradeoffs may be necessary.
  • Focus on Priority Projects must be pushed top down and bottom up.
  • Clear expectations around operational v project work (allocation).
  • TDX Project Definition
    • Activity that is larger than a ticket and likely to take a minimum of 6 weeks.
    • Activity that manager, AD or Executive would want to know about
    • Activity team or resource would want to take credit for
    • May include larger operational efforts
    • Err on the side of creating and tracking an activity as a project
• Growth and Next Steps
  • Getting all work into TDX
  • Ordering Top Projects – in progress
  • Ensuring visibility of projects and portfolio to all MSU IT staff – available, but not well known/understood
  • Allocations in TDX – start with Top projects
  • Effort Reporting in TDX – start with Top Projects
  • Reporting on Allocations v Actuals on projects