There are three terms that cause a lot of confusion, especially in the world of Information Technology strategic planning: Vision, Strategy and Roadmap.

Probably the best way to alleviate this misunderstanding is to state that they are not the same thing. Sure, you can have these three in one document but the process of developing them differs a lot and trying to come up with the deliverables in the wrong order ends up in a situation where the tail is wagging the dog.

In this series, I am going to focus primarily on Information Technology / Digital Strategy, but the principles of strategy development are very similar across the entire strategic planning spectrum.

IT Vision

An IT Vision is a high-level statement on the role of Information Technology within the company, together with a small list of objectives (not more than 5). Typically, the Vision statement will be driven by the role of IT function within the company, and the objectives will be derived from the CIO’s list of personal objectives as set by the CEO as their immediate line manager. This is a lightweight document and should not be more than a third of an A4 piece of paper when produced.

IT Strategy

An IT Strategy is a comprehensive document outlining the method of delivering IT as a service, together with a set of approaches on meeting the visionary objectives. Input for the IT Strategy should come from the Chief Information Officer, the IT Senior Leadership Team, but also possibly key stakeholders within the rest of the company and within IT itself.

IT Roadmap

Finally, an IT Roadmap is effectively a high-level implementation plan on delivering the IT Strategy. This is typically developed by the Head of Architecture and the EA team together with the Head of the PMO function.

Broadly speaking, the relationship between those three looks like this: