projectdoc Toolbox

Functions are specialized organizational units to support business processes.

Categories
ID
it-function
Suite
Since
1.0

While processes describe how a series of activities is executed, a function shows all resources required to actually execute activities to produce a desired outcome and impact. Furthermore the processes and activities are assigned to an organizational unit.

Properties

The document type it-function provides the following properties:

 

Please note that only information about specific properties is provided here. Common document property used by all document types are documented by Document Properties.

Superordinate Function

Functions may be composed. This is a reference to the superordinate function.

The value is typically automatically provided by the parent document.

Type

Specify the type of the function to organize them.

Use the IT Function Type to define types of functions.

Organization

Add a reference to the organization or organizational unit that is associated with this IT function.

This way the day to day information, like members (stakeholder) and address information can be separated from the description of the IT function.

Roles

List the roles that take part in running this IT function.

IT Processes

Add links to processes this IT function is responsible for.

Processes will be rendered within a document section.

IT Activities

Add links to activities this IT function is responsible for.

This is the case if the function does not own a whole process, but is only responsible for specific activities of one or several processes.

Activities will be rendered within a document section.

Sections

Description

Describe the IT function.

This may include the purpose and reason for existence. It may only be a brief summary and have the strategic information documented separately by a subdocument of type strategy.

Area of Expertise

Describe the special area of expertise or special knowledge this IT function provides.

Strategy

The IT function adheres to this strategy to fulfill its responsibilities.

This section is automatically displayed if this document has a subordinate document of type strategy.

 

The blueprint uses a Content Marker Macro in combination with the Transclude Documents Macro instead of a Section Macro and the Transclusion Macro.

Typically there is only one strategy, but the Transclusion Macro cannot reference that document in advance of its existence. The Transclude Documents Macro can, but does so assuming that there is more than one strategy document. Since more than one strategies may be encountered the name of the document is used as the title of the section.

Therefore we recommend to use Strategy for the name of the strategy document. You may need to make the title of that document unique (for instance by "Strategy for XYZ") if you are documenting more than one IT function.

If you happen to use more than one strategy document, then you should consider to replace the Content Marker Macro with a Section Macro and set the title of that macro to Strategy or Strategies.

Also note that the doctype is available as source on Bitbucket in case you want to define your approach in your own version of this doctype.

Tools

List tools required by the IT function to adhere to their responsibilities.

Required Resources

List resources and assets required by the IT function to fulfill their responsibilities.

List of IT Processes

List processes and their properties this IT function is responsible for.

The processes specified by the IT Processes property are automatically listed here.

List of IT Activities

List activities and their properties this IT function is responsible for.

The activities specified by the IT Activities property are automatically listed here.

Services

Automatically lists services using this function.

Services are selected by the IT Function property.

Notes

These are internal notes that are usually not exported and only visible to team members with write access.

But this is not a safe place to store sensible information. It is just a convenience for the reader to not be bothered with notes stored here for the authors for later use. The security level is about suppressing the representation by a CSS style. Therefore consider this as a convenience for the reader, not as a security tool.

 

The text of notes sections is also indexed.

References

For a document the references section contains pointers to resources that prove the statements of the document.

Often these proofs are not easily distinguishable from further information. In this case you may want to skip the reference section in favour for the resource list.

 

For further information please refer to References and Resources.

Resources

The resources section provides references to further information to the topic of the document.

This may be information on the internet provided by the resource or information in the team's information systems. Anything the reader of the resource might want to know, may be listed here.

 

For further information please refer to References and Resources.