Cambridge
Academy
In London

Introduction

IT Directors must balance innovation with reliability, manage complex portfolios, oversee cyber risk, and deliver high-quality services that enable the business. This advanced program equips IT leaders with practical frameworks to govern IT investments, strengthen cyber risk oversight, and build service excellence operating rhythms that improve performance, resilience, and stakeholder trust.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

·        Design and govern an IT portfolio aligned to business strategy and value outcomes

·        Strengthen cyber risk oversight, accountability, and resilience practices

·        Improve IT service management performance using practical service excellence principles

·        Establish metrics, dashboards, and governance cadences for executive decision-making

·        Enhance vendor and third-party governance across technology services

·        Lead cross-functional alignment and drive continuous improvement across IT

Target Audience

This course is designed for:

·        IT Directors, Heads of IT, and senior technology managers

·        IT PMO, portfolio, and program leaders

·        Cybersecurity, risk, and compliance leaders supporting IT governance

·        Service management leaders (ITSM), operations, and infrastructure managers

·        Vendor management and sourcing leaders responsible for IT services

Course Outlines

Day 1: IT Portfolio Foundations & Strategic Alignment

·        Defining the IT portfolio: run, grow, transform investments

·        Aligning IT demand to business priorities and capability roadmaps

·        Intake and prioritization: demand management and decision criteria

·        Portfolio governance: decision rights, steering committees, and approval thresholds

·        Activity: Portfolio health check (pipeline, spend mix, and value alignment review)

Day 2: Portfolio Prioritization, Funding & Value Realization

·        Prioritization methods: scoring models, WSJF concepts, dependency sequencing

·        Funding models: capex/opex, product funding, and rolling planning

·        Benefits and value tracking: outcomes, KPIs, and value hypotheses

·        Managing constraints: capacity planning, change saturation, and technical debt

·        Workshop: Build a prioritization model + value tracking plan for a sample portfolio

Day 3: Cyber Risk Oversight for IT Leaders

·        Cyber risk basics for directors: threat landscape, controls, and accountability

·        Risk governance: roles, reporting, risk appetite, and escalation thresholds

·        Core cyber domains: identity, patching, vulnerability, logging, backups, and incident response

·        Third-party cyber risk: due diligence, contract clauses, and ongoing monitoring

·        Practical activity: Cyber risk scenario tabletop (decision-making under incident pressure)

Day 4: Service Excellence & ITSM Performance

·        Service excellence principles: reliability, user experience, and continuous improvement

·        ITSM essentials for leaders: incident, problem, change, and service level management

·        Operational metrics: SLA/XLAs, MTTR, availability, backlog, and trend analysis

·        Service improvement planning: root cause, prioritization, and execution tracking

·        Case study: Reducing major incidents and improving service satisfaction

Day 5: Executive Reporting, Vendor Governance & Operating Rhythm

·        Executive dashboards and board reporting: what to report and how to frame decisions

·        Operating rhythm: QBRs/MBRs, governance cadences, and performance reviews

·        Vendor and contract governance: SLAs, performance reviews, penalties, and renewals

·        Building a high-performing IT leadership culture: accountability, communication, and coaching