IT Strategy Methodology Overview
The IT strategy is a plan of action for an organization. It helps the company to achieve its business objectives using technology. Technology is one of the major drivers for business growth today. Defining the IT strategy helps companies secure a competitive advantage over competitors in the market. A well-designed strategy plan can help optimize technology investments, rationalize costs and gain operational efficiency. It also helps keep the company up-to-date with emerging technologies and leverage them to drive innovation and improve its products, services, and processes.
We deploy a standard six-step methodology for preparing an IT strategy for your company. The IT strategy preparation work is done in collaboration with the company's leadership.
Step 1: ASSESSMENT:
Where we are now
Review and confirm the current status documented in the old IT Strategic Plan.Meet key stakeholders to confirm and collect information on current vision, business needs, and IT _ Business Linkages/alignment
Study Organization's Vision, Mission and Values, Strategy, and Operational Control Documents.
Study the overall organization structure, Organization Structure of the IT Department, and skill sets.
Identify functional area managers, key team members, and additional key stakeholders.
Study existing infrastructure, including H/W, S/W, Applications, LAN, WAN, and Telecom.
Identify/ Define business needs and high-level processes.
Trace the assets, processes, and systems supporting the business needs and processes.
Assess current action plan and key decisions, and understand business drivers & assumptions that support critical key decisions.
Use customer requirements and benchmarking to assess how well the process functions.
Study current security and disaster recovery policies.
Study current documentation standards and quality of documentation.
Study current support levels, SLAs (if any), and efficiency issues.
Step 2: ENVISION:
Where we want to go
Identify key stakeholders and team members to develop future vision and strategy.
Provide an overview of the current technology environment, best practices, and efforts of other similar organizations and their state of maturity – to enable the vision development team to develop a vision for best-of-breed technology and processes.
Prepare instruments for information collection and circulate them to stakeholders. It includes a user satisfaction survey questionnaire.
Hold Interviews/videoconferences/ Workshops/ Focus Groups of stakeholders and seek additional information/ clarifications on instruments or further information.
Study business requirements in detail and seek stakeholders' views.
Prepare goals for future performance.
Develop vision - The vision should be sufficient to guide the selection of products, technologies, and applications to support the vision.
Successful visions address qualitative issues like values and beliefs and quantitative goals regarding cost and prices, market share, growth, and profitability.
Top management should retain custody of the goals throughout the process.
Step 3: GAP ANALYSIS – identity, DEFINE and PRIORITIZE:
Where we fall short
Explore applications and technologies to meet business needs and processes.
Explore H/W, S/W, N/W, and other infrastructure to support the above applications.
Evaluate the IT Department's organizational structure and people's competence levels.
Evaluate the current state and efforts to determine if they are sufficient to reach the vision.
Identify and Define Gaps with Impact - A gap arises when performance improvement is needed and no program is present that will reach that goal.
This process validates current efforts that support the vision, argues for changes for the ones that don't, and points to needed additions to initiatives and projects.
Step 4: RISK ASSESSMENT:
What stands in our way?
Identify, define, and prioritize risks and barriers
Are there institutional, managerial, operational, or technical barriers to strategy development and implementation?
This task determines which barriers are real or not real and what action will circumvent or accommodate the obstacles.
The result is early recognition of obstacles/risks and methods for dealing with them.
Step 5: SOLUTIONS DEFINITION:
What we need to do
Identify strategies, develop solutions, and evaluate options
Develop and finalize to be model:
Consider external inputs
Define phased approach and intermediate models for each phase,
In this step, the core team also establishes the implementation plan. It includes the funding, projects, Initiatives, schedule, and key managers for the implementation program.
The step is complete when all the needed projects are planned, funded, staffed, and underway, and a clear direction ties all the program elements together.
Often this process may tone down the proposed projects to a vital few in a situation where too many projects dilute management time and attention.
Top management may decide to move part of the way toward meeting the goals and objectives rather than undertake to achieve the vision all at once. The ultimate vision should be clear but updated as new business and technology conditions evolve.
Sometimes you may want to conduct a workshop to align business needs and IT Strategy. During the seminar, priorities for each initiative are re-set. (this methodology helps achieve the buy-in of all stakeholders).
Outputs of this phase will include:
Draft IT Strategy Plan
Information Systems – current and required for efficient functioning
High-Level IT Architecture
Draft IT Applications Plan
Draft IT Infrastructure Plan including network (LAN and WAN), Video Conferencing, Telecom, VoIP, etc.
Draft e-Governance Plan
Draft DR and Security Plan
Draft IT, Infrastructure, and Applications R&D Strategy
Draft Manpower Plan and Organization Structure, policies and Procedures Manual
Suggested Performance Measurement Criteria and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
Suggested Outsourcing Strategy
The IT strategy is now presented in presentation format or as a report.
Step 6: ROAD MAP:
How to get there
Prepare an annual plan for implementing the recommendations
Initiate action plans to mobilize projects/programs
Initiate steps to outsource non-core areas
Establish periodic review mechanisms for IT Strategy Plan
Our operating model entails hand-picking the best from the pool of global talent available to us.