IT strategic planning is not a dark art. It is a business planning process with specific goals and deliverables, which are not driven by IT but which reflect IT’s contribution to the wider business. As such, the planning process should be approached with an understanding of business context, clearly defined objectives, sensible and relevant timeline and resources.

Business Context

Business context is particularly important. Without it, the IT Strategy document will become a piece of paper that someone will look at once and no one else will ever read. The IT Strategy needs input and buy-in from the CEO, executive board and key business leaders. Have I missed anyone? Of course – oddly enough, it needs buy-in from the IT team as well!

The way to achieve this buy-in is to identify what is important to the stakeholders and how IT could make their lives easier. This requires substantial ground work. The best place to carry out this research is through the business relationship management function (BRM). Business Relationship Management often falls either under Service Delivery in operations-driven organisations (as operational support) or under Enterprise Architecture in transformation-driven companies (as strategic engagement).

BRM: Dedicated or Integrated?

I have to say that I am not a great fan of standalone BRMs: I find they often fall into one of the two extremes: some become so focused on technology and IT that business stakeholders are afraid to talk to them due to “jargon overload”, while others become so detached from the IT function, they lose internal IT credibility and risk being disconnected from technology which they need to be evaluating and delivering. It is not always easy getting those two extremes to balance. One of the ways to resolve this is to designate some of the more business-focused technical colleagues as “soft BRMs”.

These “soft BRM” colleagues should be tasked with maintaining a more structured relationship with the business stakeholders. They will work towards identifying key business challenges, while suggesting possible process and technology improvements to address them. All this input will eventually feed into the various stages of the strategic planning process which we will cover in later articles.

Clear Objectives

We need to ask ourselves (and be honest about our answer) about the real reason for IT strategic planning and what we are trying to achieve through this process. Some of the reasons are outlined in the previous article Is there a need to have an IT Strategy at all? but this is the question that needs to be answered honestly by the company – is it just to tick a box or is it for something more?

If it’s a box ticking exercise, it’s not a problem, as long as everyone is honest about it. After all, you cannot do everything from Day 1. If IT strategy development is such an activity, it’s best to make the process very concise and activity-driven. We will cover this in a later article Strategy in a Box.

If, however, the business recognises value in the process, IT Strategic planning needs to base itself on the overall business strategy. Its goal will be to identify how technology can help achieve business objectives through the appropriate use of systems, process, technology and people.

In many ways, an IT Strategy that is joined up with the business ensures that IT is delivering the right level of engagement – including support, service, advice and guidance to the wider organisation.

Delivery of IT Strategy output (including the Vision, Strategy, Roadmap and finally the IT Programme) is the ultimate objective of the strategic planning process.

Timeline and Resources

If we embarked on this initiative, we need to be realistic about what can be achieved in what timescales. It will not be possible to develop a detailed IT Strategy without allocating the right resources and sufficient time for this process.

This includes availability of senior leadership, Business Relationship Managers and other stakeholders. By obtaining buy-in from them, we will encounter a lot less resistance from the wider organisation. Time is a finite resource and we need to be confident that the importance of this task is recognised.