I recently was speaking on the topic of developing an IT Strategic Plan and the importance of aligning that plan with your business strategies. Time and time again as I work with clients and look at the IT initiatives going on within the organization I find so many orphaned IT projects. What do I mean by that? I mean that the projects have no linkage to some business objective or business strategic priority. The question I always ask then is "Why are you doing this project?" In order to build a sound business case for an IT initiative there has be a business objective you are supporting or enabling.
When I become engaged with an client and asked to structure their IT people, processes and technology, I begin not by looking at the technology first, but rather, I start with an indepth look & understanding at the business. How it operates. What are the key strategic priorities? Who are the major competitors? What does the revenue portfolio look like? A company's business strategies (which are long term) will produce a set of business initiatives year after year. As I begin to develop an IT strategy I make sure that there is an alignment between my IT strategic objectives and the business strategy & initiatives. If my IT strategy is going to produce any value for the company, it must be aligned with what the company has deemed important.
Once my IT strategy has been developed, every initiative needs to fit that model, every initiative needs to support and add value to the business. Initiatives that maintain the base (keep existing infrastructure and applications running smoothly) allow the company to realize value that had been previously accounted for and currently expected. Initiatives that are new projects set the company up to realize new value from IT as it continues to enable the business objectives.
As well, it is important that you develop a set of metrics to measure the success of your IT initiatives and your overall IT plan. As you analyze your ongoing metrics, be sure that you continue to validate your alignment to the business and that your IT initiatives is providing for true bottom line value to the company.
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