Technology has woven itself into nearly every aspect of business today, powering organizations’ productivity and competitiveness. Despite IT’s important role, many organizations never get around to planning a real IT strategy of any kind. And as a result, IT infrastructure becomes hard and costly to maintain, and incapable of adapting to business needs. (We’ve touched on this before in our post, “How Strategic Is Your IT Plan?”.)
Companies avoid making IT plans for all kinds of reasons. To begin with, a lot of smaller and even mid-sized organizations don’t have an executive or manager dedicated to IT. Because that responsibility gets folded into someone’s operational duties, he or she has little time—and no explicit mandate—to think long-term. If you lack an affinity, competency or even strong curiosity for IT, keeping up with trends and new developments quickly slips to the bottom of the pile.
Of course, the speed with which technology changes today becomes an excuse in itself. Rarely does technology progress in a steady, straight line. How can you plan a 5-year IT strategy for something that in all likelihood will radically change by then anyway?
Guiding Principles for Strategic IT Planning
We understand all these reasons. However, none of these represent good arguments for not planning at all. IT still needs a strategy. You just need to be smart about how you devise that plan.
Let’s take a look at a few guiding principles we recommend.
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Align IT to Business
Most traditional strategic planning exercises recommend crafting a vision, mission statement, objectives, goals or all of the above. You don’t need to overdo documenting this or the specific wording, but it is vitally important to ground your plan in a clear idea of the role IT plays in supporting larger business goals. By getting the entire leadership team on side with these objectives, you establish a touchstone for all other decisions.
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Work Quickly
Traditional strategic IT plans take three to four months to draft. These days, that’s just too long. Aim for four to six weeks, or even less, but expect to revisit your plan every six months to a year. You may not have all the answers, but you can at least identify the most important questions and make a plan to learn more.
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Mind the Gaps
A gap analysis, or a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), will form a crucial piece of your IT strategy. What works, what doesn’t, and what could limit your business plans one, three or even five years down the road? Evaluate every aspect of IT in your business, including the operations, planning and procedures, and consider how it could change to better support business goals.
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Set Goals
The act of documenting IT plans, with specific time frames for when initiatives or investments should occur, helps you line up all the pieces and identify prerequisites for success. Will everything go precisely according to plan? Almost certainly not. But with milestones put in place, your organization can keep pushing forward.
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Stay Flexible
Business conditions will change. New demands will arise. And yes, technology capabilities will evolve, especially over five years. But with a plan in place, you have a better opportunity to assess progress, and update it to reflect new conditions. Course corrections are inevitable, even worthwhile.
Bonus: Here is a handy checklist from TechTarget of what you can include in your strategic IT plan.
Get Help If You Need It
IT planning can sometimes raise more questions than answers, but don’t let this deter you. Bringing in IT experts who understand the direction of technology and how it could impact businesses of your size and industry, can offer a fresh perspective and new ideas about how to draw up a practical, affordable plan.
Learn more about our IT Consulting services, or get in touch to discuss your particular situation.