Planning Your IT Strategy
Posted on Fri, Nov 19, 2010 @ 01:52 PM
Whether a long trip or short one the process of taking a journey is usually the same:
Step 1: Know the destination.
Step 2: Know the starting point.
Step 3: Build a roadmap that will get you successfully from the starting point to the destination in the most efficient, predictable, and practical way.
Believe it or not, these apply to your IT environment as well.
Roadmapping Your IT Strategy
Do you know the strategic goals of your organization? Do you know your company’s vision for the next one, three or five years? Do your daily tasks line up with your organization’s larger plan? Is your information technology group achieving what the business requires of it?
Before embarking on a new IT project, or when planning your department strategy, it’s imperative to understand how it fits in with your organization’s larger business goals, and how you plan to achieve and measure its success along the way.
A strategic roadmap should define the end goal (destination), the current state (starting point), and the appropriate path and timeline required. There can be a number of “via points” along the way, but the high-level conceptual view should be established in the roadmap itself, which will provide a foundation for the project ahead and ensure that everyone in the organization is on the same path to both short- and long-term success.
What a Roadmap Is and Is Not
A strategic roadmap is not a tactical project plan. Tactical project plans will be a key part of the roadmap, but it’s important to keep in mind that they’re the means to an end. Tactics are used to get from one point to another on the roadmap, but the roadmap itself should remain a looking glass for the larger business picture.
A strategic roadmap also is not a document that is chiseled into granite and then unwaveringly stuck to, no matter what is discovered during the journey. It must allow for change and be dynamic enough to welcome new and innovative ways of doing things.
No roadmap is perfect because there will inevitably be unforeseen challenges along the way. Perhaps in a particular project your budget will get cut, or you’ll find an issue integrating an ideal solution with current systems in your environment. When obstacles arise, you must stick to the overall plan, but be willing to adjust elements of the roadmap to best achieve your goals.
However, a roadmap should not be so dynamic that it changes with every new direction of the wind. The framework defined in the roadmap should be used to separate the noise from the good ideas.
In short: a strategic roadmap provides a high-level view of goals and objectives (for both the short and long term), and provides a starting point for the long journey to the realization of your organization’s vision and strategy.
Have you developed a strategic roadmap at your organization? What have you learned?
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Jason Dell is a Converged Network Solution Consultant at MCPc, and is responsible for developing and programming custom solutions for clients. His expertise includes network security and security for mobile devices in the enterprise. Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.
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