Creating an IT Strategy: Information gathering

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IT Sstrategy Formulation

My 2 cents:

To formulate an IT strategy you need to be aware of:

1. Basics: Organization mission and vision

2. The business strategy (and it's not always about growth, there are other things like improving efficiency, improving customer service, cutting costs, improving products/brands, focusing on certain market segments etc).

3. Current IT Portfolio in that organization

4. Your IT Portfolio Maturity

5. How the portfolio is aligned to the business strategy.

6. Organizatinal Constraints & politics (you covered these quite well)

Based on this information, you can formulate a plan to:

1. "enhance the good", "retire the bad" for current systems. You can get some quick wins here - but be ready for change management issues as you question some long established beliefs!

2. Identify and Acquire technology that supports the business strategy (e.g. helps achieve the strategy much faster).

3. Propose changes to the business strategy to compound the benefits or introduce some new advantage offered by technology - within the constraints you identified (financial health /pollitics/ etc).

You then Identify your quick wins. What can you deliver in the shortest time possible (3 months or less) with some visible benefits to the business?

Then you identify your medium-term and long-term deliverables. Appraise your projects by looking at their Net present value. You must be aware of the implication of each in terms of viabilty, relevance, timing and ROI.

Then you put your draft IT Strategy together and present it to the board or senior management.

Once its approved, remember to review it constantly in light of changing business environment. Sooner or later, you will find IT capabilities starting to shape the business strategy.

Final word: Easier said than done.

Posted: 11/04/2008 @ 07:35 AM (PST)

pmaina2000@...: Job Role: Development Project Management; Location: Doha, Qatar; Member since: 07/23/2004

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IT Sstrategy Formulationpmaina2000@... | 11/04/2008 @ 07:35 AM (PST)

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