I’ve made really good progress and have now completed the first draft. I haven’t updated the WBS with the swap of the WBS work with the other documentation work as I had issues with dependencies
Year: 2020
Week 4 – Draft underway
In developing the proposal I decided to review some literature on how to undertake literature reviews. There’s so much more to it than what is normally given credit. I’m taking on the approach provided by Fred Pyrczak’s book, Evaluating research in academic journals: a practical guide to realistic evaluation which I feel works well with the outcome I’m attempting to achieve.
I’ve broken down my document pretty much in line with the template provided in the Subject Outline, which is:
- Title
- Rationale
- Problem Domain
- Purpose and Justification
- Supervisor Approval
- Research Challenges / Questions
- Conceptual or Theoretical Framework
- Methodology
- Analysis of sources of information
- Research Method
- Data collection method
- Ethical Issues
- Compliance Requirements
- Project Plan
- Duration
- Deliverables
- Work Breakdown Structure
- Gantt Chart
- Risk Analysis
- References
Week 3 – Project proposal development
Today I started the project proposal. My project plan had me starting the template for this on the 26th, but given it was so minimal I’m not too worried, particularly because I’ve realised in my project plan that I’d put the WBS & Gantt development after development of the document. Either way I’m on track to finalising everything I need for the assessment.
Week 3 – Gantt you see the problem
In putting together the WBS, I neglected to see a few overlaps. Luckily, and now understandably, we needed to put together a Gantt chart. Doing this second part of the of the task for the project proposal highlighted areas around timing that I had overlooked. I’ve now reworked the WBS and have the Gantt chart all good to go so that I can move onto development of the actual proposal document.
Week 3 – Work Breakdown
I’ve spent the last few days completing a work breakdown structure using MS Project. I realised when opening the application, that I haven’t used it for some time, luckily not much has changed.
I haven’t undertaken any formal training as a project manager, so putting the WBS together has involved a fair amount of research, which like everything has so many mixed opinions. I feel the structure I’ve put together fits the need to deliver the final assessment for the subject.
Week 2 Progress Report
This week, I have finalised the project blog site and submitted Task 1 for Assessment 1. Additionally, I have started collating material to use for my review and research later in the session.
There is a lot of material talking about Zero-Trust, SASE, and most importantly SOAR; however, most of it turns out to be sales oriented white papers. This is all further complicated due to my target of the Australian Government using a shared services like model for cyber security.
This coming week, I will put together my project plan together
Project Synopsis
Project Problem Domain and Background
Australian Government departments are undergoing significant transformation to leverage cloud hosted services and to “deliver world-leading digital services for the benefit of all Australians” (Digital Transformation Agency, 2018). With the advent of COVID-19, departments have needed to expedite transformation activities to allow for increased remote workers. They have simultaneously had to balance a reducing information technology (IT) workforce due to department wide budget cuts whilst undergoing an increase in identified cyber-attacks. The budget cuts have also resulted in a decrease in department wide training causing an inability for staff to maintain or increase their knowledge of current and emerging technologies and threats. Conversely, in the midst of the increased attacks and COVID-19, the Federal Government announced a boost to funding for Australian cybersecurity over the next ten years with the aim to improve our security capabilities and provide jobs to some 500 people.
Unfortunately, opportunities for transformation to secure architectures are complicated due to departments needing to maintain legacy systems because of non-standard customisations for business operations or due the costs involved in upgrading or replacing the technologies. Coupled with traditional Australian Government requirements for security controls, such as use of a Secure Internet Gateway (SIG), Departments are facing a tug-of-war between meeting their obligations versus uplifting capabilities and modernising their businesses.
Project Aim and Objectives
This project will investigate new technologies and capabilities provided by Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and zero trust architectures, with a focus on Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) solutions. SOAR enables organisations the ability to streamline cybersecurity operations in the areas of threat and vulnerability management, incident response, and automation of security operations.
Deliverables and Outcomes
Research for this Project will explore the feasibility of SOAR across multiple Federal Government departments with varying Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) security classifications. If deemed appropriate, it will investigate the practicality of such a joint implementation including the potential risks, architecture, and departmental changes necessary to enable this functionality.
The Project will provide a project schedule, weekly project updates, and weekly blog posts. The final deliverable for the project will be a research paper and seminar presentation. All materials created by the project will be available on this website.
Resources
SOAR is a relatively new concept and capability. As such, access to traditional research material may prove difficult. This project will therefore use peer-reviewed publications where possible, whitepapers, conference papers, publicly accessible government documents, books, and documentaries.
References
Digital Transformation Agency. (2018, November). Digital Transformation Strategy 2015 – 2025. Retrieved from https://www.dta.gov.au/digital-transformation-strategy