Creating the IT Strategy

Here are some of my thoughts on how to create the IT Strategy.

Obviously the strategy will depend very much on where you are as a business and where you are with your supporting technology.

Is this your first strategy? Are you new to the company/business? Is the business new? Has there been a lack of investment? Has there been a merger or buy out? Etc.
All or any of these may have an impact on the strategy.
Because I cannot answer these for you and don't know your business or where your technology stands I can only give some general guidelines for creating the strategy.

The first task is to take stock. What have you got at the moment in terms of IT software applications, Infrastructure (The Hardware, System software and networks that support the IT environment) People (the IT department structure) and governance (the Management of IT including Help desks, Disaster recovery, Policies, Process etc.)?
What is the state of what you have? Is it out of date, are there known problems (look at help desk records, interview IT staff and operational staff to identify shortcomings).
How is it integrated? Do you have islands of information?
What projects are underway or planned? What do you measure at the moment? What are the costs associated with IT. What is this as a percentage of turnover? Have you or can you benchmark your IT costs against your competitors?

Then do a bit of market research, what are other players in your space up to? What technology developments are likely to open up some opportunities for you? Speak to IT suppliers, your peers at other companies and any professional organisations you are involved with.

Next I investigate the business. Get hold of business plans at central and/or departmental level and extract key directional statements such as 'seeking efficiency' or 'new product' creation. Armed with this knowledge interview senior executives (make sure you discuss in business terms and use detail from their business plans and try to avoid IT speak) to ascertain how IT can help them achieve their goals and also where it may be falling down today. Talk about some of the market research work to see if that stirs up any new interest.
Talk to clients and find out what they are looking for from you or your industry and what direction they are going in. Seek to identify what added value you could bring to clients through technology.

The above activities don’t necessarily need to be done in sequence

You should now start to get an idea of what the business wants and be able to map that against current capability and start to show any gaps.

The formulation of your strategy should now start to become clear but to be sure create a working party that you can run your findings and directional statements against to make sure you are going in the right direction before producing the first draft.

Once you have done this work once it should be easier in future years to update your strategy.

Strategy is essential

Without a strategy it is like going on an unfamiliar journey without a map (or Sat Nav!).
I believe an IT strategy is essential and that it must be understood and agreed by the senior executives of the business. It provides the road map and directional statements for the use of Information Technology within the business.
The other key thing about the IT Strategy is that it must be aligned to the business.
It should cover a 3 to 5 year period with the first year described in some detail and the 2nd year onwards providing some likely directional or review statements. This is because the further you go out in years the more difficult it becomes to predict directions in a business world that is constantly changing.
That means that the strategy must be a living document and reviewed, updated and agreed annually. It will also be an input document to the budget and any programme planning plus a communication document within the IT team so everybody knows the plan.
You should include the following:-
Executive summary
Recommendations
1st year plan
Subsequent years
Costs for 1st year(illustrative - It is not a budget)
Alignment- how it aligns to the business
Appendices - any supporting documents

Now you know that it is essential, in a later post I will talk about how you go about creating one.

2007 Predictions for Information Technology

The last few months have seen many predictions for 2007 so I thought why not add my own but of course depending on how radical they are they could come back and bite you (if anybody remembers what you said). Anyway here are my thoughts and in no particular order of importance: -
* Electronic Data exchange will continue to grow as Companies seek ways to streamline process and move towards the paperless office
* Efficiency will continue to figure and as a result Business Process Re-engineering/Improvement will grow coupled with the use of BPM (Business Process Management) tools to deliver the gains identified
* Microsoft SharePoint will finally come of age with the 2007 version and will start to be used more for business process portals both internally and externally
* Governance and Best Practice will remain centre stage with Companies introducing best practice frameworks such as ITIL in the UK
* Collaboration tools such as Wikis, Blogs and Podcasting will be used more and more as companies look for a differentiator but I don't think they will break into the mainstream this year, as there are still difficulties with the technology (some networks block the content type, edit issues in Wikis, Blog abuse etc)
* Online communication will become more and more important again based on the efficiency element but also service. Lack of common exchange standards for extranets will be a problem as companies are faced with different solutions for each different business partner. Push technologies and Instant Messaging will be explored further with some companies experimenting in this area.
* Outsourcing won't go away but smaller more flexible contracts are likely to be the norm.
* Windows Vista will be important but take up may be slower than expected
* Wireless technology will grow further particularly in the public domain but also with companies as concern over security eases
* Software licences will remain complicated
* Remote/ flexible working will grow as more people work from home.

Marketing is the Issue

One thing I struggle with is Marketing IT within the business.
Getting the right message in the right medium at the right time is the challenge.
Also making sure the wording is business speak as opposed to tech speak and it is just enough.
Thought about posters (possible with the right design), IT Intranet (but not sure people naturally go there unless they are looking for something specific) but we do try and use the general Intranet notice board now and again but not for sustained marketing, Email newsletters (maybe but there is too much email around so why would they open it), attending department meetings and getting 10 min slot (think that is worth it), elevator pitches when you meet people (yes but people could start avoiding you!), getting everybody in IT to wear 'IT is Cool' T Shirts.(clothing could be a major budget item), Annual mouse mats with this years goals/ direction/ strategy (yes that could be cool)
Maybe it's a combination of these and others. I know we do a great job and want to get everyone else to know. Do I need one of these so called spin-doctors? but perhaps not as I do want it to be close to the truth. Ideas gratefully received.

The beginning

I have started this blog for a number of reasons.

• To understand how blogging works so I can appear knowledgable when asked by the business
• To share thoughts, issues, concerns with the management of IT and hopefully (if anybody reads it) to get some feedback and discussion that is helpful to all.
• To get used to writing articles so that maybe (one day) I can progress onto magazines or books
• Oh and of course to increase my profile and network

Hope you find it useful and look forward to communicating with you