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Information Technology plays a crucial role in enabling your overall business strategy. Effective IT strategic planning is an essential component to the success of the enterprise. IT strategic planning allows an organization to prioritize IT projects optimizes resource allocation, monitor performance and manage the value of its IT systems. In this course, you gain the knowledge and skills necessary to establish an IT strategic plan that aligns with your organization's business objectives and core values.

The effective use of information and technology (IT) is critical to the success of commercial and public organizations. Organizations need to invest wisely in information, applications and technology in support of their overall business strategy. This can be achieved by developing a strategic plan for the use and management of IT, based on an organization’s business strategy. An Information and Information Technology Strategic Plan will help an organization maximize the effectiveness of IT, minimize the risk associated with IT initiatives, increase system integration and flexibility, gain competitive advantage through the use of IT, and set a clear direction for the ongoing implementation and management of IT.

By the end of this course, delegates will be able to:

 

· Develop a business-driven IT strategic plan that aligns with the needs of your organization

· Assess the enterprise environment to determine business goals and core values

· Analyze your current IT assets to prioritize investments and allocate resources

· Make informed decisions to focus your IT strategic initiatives

· Socialize and communicate your strategic IT vision effectively

· Apply a continuous improvement process to monitor and update your IT strategic plan

· Derive key business objectives and core values

· Justify the need for an IT strategic plan

· Prioritize business objectives with the schema template

· Conduct a SWOT analysis & assess risks for IT initiatives

· Apply filtering tools to select the top strategic initiatives

· Calculate total cost of ownership

· Compile and presenting the IT strategic plan

· Quantify results using a balanced scorecard approach

IT and business managers, senior IT personnel and executives, enterprise architects and anyone involved in IT strategic planning, directors of IT, MIS and IS managers, management consultants, corporate planners, user management, project managers, anyone involved in the development of information management and technology strategy

IT Planning Introduction

· Technology and Business

· Definition of Strategic Planning

· Principles of IT Strategic Planning

 

Project Planning

· Definition of objectives/scope

· Data gathering techniques

 

Business Analysis

· The Business Environment

· Business Process Models

· Review of Business Goals & Strategies

· Analysis Models

· Review of Industry & Technology Trends

 

Analyze Current IT Strategy

· Applications

· Data

· Technology

· Organization

 

Definition of Requirements

· Ideas Generation

· Action Statements

 

Application Architecture Definition

· Applications that support the Business

· Integration Considerations

· Application Trends

 

Technology / Infrastructure Architecture Definition

· Technology Trends & Considerations

· Technology Standards and Policy

· Technology Trends

 

Organization / Governance Architecture Definition

· Define Development

· Procurement, Operation, Support and Management Approaches

· Organization Trends

 

Strategy Construction

· IT Vision

· Applications/Data/ Technology/ Organization Strategies

· Develop Tactical IT Plans

· Interim Improvement Projects

· Project Specification

· Migration planning

 

Establishing the Rationale

· Managing IT as a business

· Benefits of strategic planning for IT

· Making IT strategic planning a priority

 

Structuring the Strategic Planning Process

· Key components of an IT strategic plan, Defining the process

· Engaging stakeholders in the planning process

· Adhering to management best practices

 

Identifying the Mission and Competencies of Your Organization

· Detecting internal sources of information

· Recognizing external constraints and drivers

 

Assigning Value and Weight to Enterprise Objectives

· Filtering strategic from tactical initiatives

· Ranking objectives for maximum impact

 

Reviewing Established IT Portfolios

· Categorizing current projects and services

· Appraising the IT asset inventories

· Assessing current risks and performance

· The role of enterprise architecture

 

Measuring Your IT Governance Maturity

· Employing a structured governance model

· Identifying skills, roles and responsibilities

· Controlling regulatory elements

· Conducting a SWOT analysis

 

Aligning IT to Your Business Objectives

· Comparing IT portfolios and governance against business objectives

· Isolating misaligned projects and services

 

Detecting Candidate Solutions and Refining Critical Success Factors (CSF)

· Taking advantage of analysis techniques

· Leveraging your assessment results

· Mapping CSFs to business goals

 

Selecting the Strategic Initiatives

· Categorizing initiatives against core values, Managing costs and risks

· Addressing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

 

Establishing Governance Requirements

· Validating the alignment with the enterprise strategy

· Researching applicable compliance requirements

· Defining the decision and accountability framework

 

Mapping Initiatives to the Goals of Your Organization

· Fine-tuning the proposed initiatives

· Establishing business cases and technology opportunities

 

Defining an IT Vision

· Establishing the IT mission

· Defining guiding principles

· Analyzing technology opportunities

 

Budgeting the Investment

· Estimating initiative resources

· Considering total cost of ownership (TCO)

 

Solidifying Final Decisions

· Employing decision matrices to help rationalize the candidate initiative prioritization

· Selecting the final strategic initiatives

· Producing the final plan

 

Communicating Your Plan

· Soliciting feedback from stakeholders, Socializing the plan

· Getting support from senior management

· Achieving formal acceptance and commitment to the plan

 

Providing Input to Other Activities

· Enabling implementation of key initiatives

· Developing tactical plans

· Updating project portfolios

 

Monitoring and Improving the Plan

· Establishing metrics to measure the efficiency of the portfolio

· Implementing an IT balanced scorecard

· Taking corrective actions and maintaining the plan in a timely manner