World Learning and AKCG – Technology for Business and Development
WASHINGTON DC, USA – World Learning is a complex global operation with three corporate offices, a university campus, over 4000 staff and projects and offices in over sixty countries around the world. And when they needed to bring their corporate technology architecture into line with their 21st century strategy and operations, they called AKCGlobal to help.
Over the course of three months, AKCG’s technical team developed an action plan to improve information technology (IT) services and support for its US offices and global operations, including:
- Evaluation of the existing IT environment for the organization’s three line-management centres – Corporate, Academic, and NGO;
- Evaluation of the existing IT staffing structure and capability to deliver the organization’s operational and management requirements;
- Generation of recommendations of an IT architecture and staffing model fit for the organization’s current and future operational requirements;
- Generation of an action plan to migrate the organization from the current state of IT architecture and staffing to the future state.
Given the sheer scale of World Learning’s operations, and the diversity of its staff, infrastructure and systems, AKCGlobal had to conduct an extensive analysis not only of the hardware, network and software requirements, but also the business requirements and processes that the technology should enable and extend. Overall, the AKCG team:
- Reviewed approximately 1200 pages of technical documents related to World Learning’s IT software, hardware, personnel, procedures, systems and strategy;
- Conducted approximately 40 hours of admin/root-level review of actual server, system, interface and software configuration; and
- Spent over 100 hours interviewing key stakeholders, staff and users in Vermont, Washington and the field on IT requirements, systems, support and priorities.
The final report identified and recommended over 150 specific actions to close the gap between the ‘current state’ and desired ‘future state’ of technology within World Learning’s global offices, specifically to move the organization to the 60th percentile of technology standards within the market – better than the average by a measured amount, but not so advanced that resources are cannibalized from its Mission. In recognition of the complex nature of these technology systems, the Action Plan was designed as both interdependent (balancing priority with cost and impact) as well as linear (setting out an order for implementation, both sequential and parallel) across seven sections including a proposed global architecture, staffing and implementation plans.
For more information about World Learning, technology and other wicked projects, contact us at: [email protected]