| Objectives |
See "Business Objectives". |
| Object Identifiers (OIDs) |
Form of a worldwide unambiguous identification based on a hierarchical tree structure and independent hierarchical registration authorities. |
| Observable Benefit |
By use of agreed criteria, specific stakeholders will decide, based upon their experience or judgement, to what extent the benefit has been realised. A client satisfaction survey is a typical example of an observable means of benefits measurement. |
|
OCC (Online and Communications Council) |
See "Online and Communications Council (OCC)." |
|
O/F (Optical Fibre) |
See "Optical fibre (O/F)". |
| Off-Specification |
Something which should be provided by the project, but currently is not (or is forecast not to be provided). This might be a missing product or a product not meeting its specification. Initiated by the supplier creating the product. |
| Office Application Suite |
An integrated set of office applications including: a word processor, spreadsheet, presentations package and a low-end database. |
| Online |
Use of the Internet for information service delivery and/or collaboration with other government agencies and organizations external to government. |
| Online and Communications Council (OCC) |
The peak ministerial forum across governments for consultation and coordination of information and communication issues of a national strategic importance. |
| Open Source Software (OSS) |
Software whose computer code is available to be inspected. OSS generally has licensing restrictions. |
| Operating system (OS) |
The master set of software that controls the overall operation of the computer and facilitates the running of application software. |
| Operational |
The lowest level of the standard decision-making hierarchy used to categorise the Initial Intention of an Information Asset. It describes decisions made in relation to, or as part of, an activity within a single operational period of typically no more than 12 months.
(See also "Initial Intention") |
| Operational costs - Internal |
The costs resulting from the day-to-day provision of an asset.
For an Information Asset it includes the number of information support staff, operations staff, application and storage costs.
For an Application or Technology, it includes the day-to-day cost of operation of any facility, equipment or asset involved in the running of that Application or Technology, such as electricity, air-conditioning, floor space, technical staff, support and operations staff provided internally by the organisation.
It does not include depreciation, licensing, or maintenance. Operational costs relating to services provided by external parties other than other Queensland Government agencies should be collected as operational costs - external. |
| Operational costs - External |
The costs resulting from the day-to-day provision of an asset provided by external service providers or contractors either on-site or off-site.
For an Information Asset it includes the number of external or contracted information support staff, operations staff, application staff and storage costs.
For an Application or Technology, it includes the day-to-day cost of an operation of any facility, equipment or asset involved in the running of that Application or Tecnology typically covered by a facilities management or service level agreement with a contractor or vendor. |
| Operational Environment |
The information systems are where information processing is carried out. |
| Operational Excellence |
One of the three disciplines in the Treacy-Wiersema Value-Discipline Model in which an organisation may focus its energies. This discipline is characterised by low or lowest price and hassle-free service. Market leaders with this focus maximise the efficiency of their operations. Examples include K-Mart and McDonalds.
(See also "Treacy-Wiersema Value-Discipline Model") |
| Operational Impact |
A dimension in the assessment of the Business Impact of an asset in the Queensland Government ICT Portfolio Assessment Methodology. It deals with the degree of disruption to the delivery of an agency's services caused by the unscheduled failure or inadequacy of an Information asset, Application or Technology.
(See also "ICT Portfolio Assessment Methodology") |
| Operational Performance Grid |
One of the ICT Asset Assessment grid models of the Queensland Government ICT Portfolio Assessment Methodology, which assesses the performance of individual assets based on the reasonableness of the costs associated with delivering and maintaining the asset (Scaled Cost) given the current significance of the asset in terms of the impact of any failure (Business impact).
Assessments fall into the following quadrants in descending order of reasonableness:
- Maintain - high business impact with low costs
- Reengineer - high business impact with high costs
- Tolerate - low business impact with low costs
- Eliminate - low business impact with high costs
(See also "ICT Asset Assessment Grid Model") |
| Optical fibre (O/F) |
Optical fibres carry digital information that has been converted to light at very high speeds, at low error rates and over very long distances. |
| Optimise |
A Generic Asset Management Action for an asset based on its positioning in each of the ICT Asset Assessment Grid Models of the Queensland Government ICT Portfolio Assessment Methodology. This action would be considered for an asset which has high current or future business value but which requires rationalisation of its costs and/or improvement in its Technical Condition to reach its full potential.
(See also "Asset Management Strategy") |
| Optimise Stage |
The third stage of the Asset Lifecycle when there is widespread uptake of the asset across the agency. Business units indicate high degrees of dependencies on the asset and optimisation of the asset is crucial to meeting corporate goals. Strategies are in place for sharing at cross-agency level and possible further exploitation.
(See also "Asset Lifecycle") |
| Organisational Innovation and Growth |
A dimension in the assessment of the Future Business Value of an asset in the Queensland Government ICT Portfolio Assessment Methodology. It deals with the degree to which the asset permits the organisation to respond to changes in the environment and the needs of stakeholders. Also takes into account the immediacy of the response.
(See also "ICT Portfolio Assessment Methodology") |
|
OS (Operating system) |
See "Operating system (OS)". |
|
OSS (Open Source Software) |
See "Open Source Software (OSS)". |
| Other Costs |
The costs associated with the asset that can’t be reasonably identified as operational, depreciation, licensing or development and enhancement costs. |
| Outcome |
The result of change, normally affecting real-world behaviour and/or circumstances. Outcomes are desired when a change is conceived. Outcomes are achieved as a result of projects or activities undertaken to effect the change i.e. on the creation of capability that has been implemented into an operational context. Outcomes differ from benefits in that benefits are the measurable, financial, quantifiable or observable difference between the initial state and the outcome. |
| Outputs |
Outputs are goods, services or conditions produced by projects and activities and are delivered to a recipient within or outside the organisation. Also known as products, they can be physical products: reports, letters, briefing documents, records, magnetic media, notices, and physical objects or the result of service provision. |
| Outsourcing |
The purchase of labour or services from a source outside government. |
Owner
(in the context of Information Assets) |
Information as an asset is owned by the State of Queensland [1].
The term owner in the Strategic Direction is the recognised officer who is identified as having the authority and accountability under legislation, regulation or policy for the collection of information assets on behalf of the State of Queensland. Information owners define the policy which governs the information assets of an agency, for example determining the security classification of information assets.
An owner will often delegate the operational responsibility for information assets to a custodian, who applies controls that reflect the owner’s expectations and instructions such as ensuring proper quality, security, integrity, correctness, consistency, privacy, confidentiality and accessibility of the information assets. /
[1] It is well understood that within government all legal ownership and associated rights and entitlements are vested in the State of Queensland. However, practically, the State can only act through the officers of the legislature, judiciary or the public service. Indeed, at an intellectual property level beneficial use delegations do not apply when the public entity represents the State of Queensland and has the power to deal with assets under its enabling legislation. That is, the public sector owner is deemed to be acting as the State in relation to assets. For this reason the term owner for the purpose of describing the information architecture is deemed to be the officer through whom the State, as the ultimate owner, is acting. |