MBA 640 Project 2 Conducting an Audit of Your Organization

Appendix A1

Instructions for Appendix A (A1 A2): Business Objectives Each organization will have its own business objectives, although many look similar. However, for-profit organizations will likely differ in their objectives than educational entities or non-profits. Business objectives may be written as a verb, "Increase Profit" or "Increase Service Level", or may only identify the business area, "Profit" or "Service Level" as the goal statements typically define the direction and scope of the activity, ie., "increase profit by 5% in next 12 months", or "provide all new clients job training classes". You must identify a minimum of three objectives and at least one goal for each objective for each of the two timeframes identified in Appendix A1 and A2. If your organization uses different timeframes, then you may change the timeframes from the templates to your actual planning phases, but please ensure that you have near term and long term goals. The goals may remain the same or be different in some of the timeframes.

Appendix A2

Instructions for Appendix A (A1 A2): Business Objectives Use instructions in Appendix A1

Appendix B

Instructions for Appendix B: Organizational Effectiveness There are several methods of evaluating organizational effectiveness, and for this project we will be using a goal focused method. This template uses 12 universal effectiveness criteria as identified by Wesley A. Martz (Martz, Wesley A., "Evaluating Organizational Effectiveness" (2008). Dissertations. 793. http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/793). You may adapt these criteria for your own organization. The effectiveness criteria you use should be clear, concise, measurable, and tied to organizational performance. The suggested measures offer some ideas as to how that criteria can be measured. Organizations should define what makes the criteria poor or excellent so that the measures are evaluated as consistently as possible. As you fill out this checklist for your organization, see if you can get help from executives in your organization. Evaluate a minimum of three organizational effectiveness criteria for your organization, providing your description of how that criteria is being measured, your score, and a one to two sentence explanation of your score.

Appendix C

Instructions for Appendix C: Department Effectiveness Organizations have different departments that support their business functions. Often business functions may be combined within a single department that represents several functions, such as Sales & Marketing, or Distribution & Logistics, or Finance & Accounting. Select two departments from your organization and perform your assessment of their effectiveness. You should explain your evaluation with one or two sentences that describe how the department is effective or ineffective in meeting business goals or where potential weaknesses have been uncovered.

Appendix D

Instructions for Appendix D: Technology Inventory Provide an inventory of the technology and tools currently used in your organization. Identify what business function they provide. In some instances, you may find that one tool provides capability to several business functions, such as enterprise systems for financial bookkeeping, timekeeping, and inventory. In other instances, you may find that a single business function is managed by using multiple pieces of technology, including software programs, databases, networks, and hand-held tools. For example, inventory systems may depend on hand-held scanners, supplier databases, transportation networks, and in-house inventory optimization programs. Provide detail for those business processes that you feel are most critical to your organization's performance.

Appendix E

Instructions for Appendix E: Information Technology Assessment This Information Technology assessment template is significant to the technology audit as it is the foundation of your IT needs assessment. As you think about the business functions in your organization identified in Appendix D, you will now evaluate how well the existing IT infrastructure supports each business function. The business functions listed in the template are fairly standard and should capture most of the functions that IT services in your organization. Again, provide your score along with an explanation of how IT could be used more effectively in support of that business function. After filling out the template, you will write a detailed description (one to two paragraphs) that address where existing technologies are not meeting the business needs, where customer support is not being met, where there are ineffiencies or redundancies, and where potential vulnerabilities exist.

Appendix F

Instructions for Appendix F: Risk Assessment Use the information that you gathered in Appendix E and identify where you have found BUSINESS RISKS while reviewing the business functions and their IT capabilities. Identify at least 10 business risks and then assess them in terms of how likely they are to occur. Using the risk definitions in Appendix G, first assign a LIKELIHOOD score to the risk. Second, assess how great the impact or consequence would be if the risk occurred and assign a CONSEQUENCE score to the risk. Then use these two numbers to identify the RISK RATING using the risk matrix in Appendix G. Enter the risk rating into the table along with any notes on mitigation strategies that are in place that will help to decrease the likelihood or consequence of the risk. Feel free to record any notes that will help you communicate your evaluations.

Appendix G