Do we need a strategy
IT Manager walks in to CEO Office to discuss the IT Strategy:
CEO: I’m glad you’re here, I have lots of important things to discuss with you
ITM: Oh, fantastic – I too have lots of ideas, having spent lots of time with all the Service Areas – I have a great understanding on how to move us forward – ensuring we make better us of what we have and spend less on what we buy – obtaining good value and establishing us as market leaders.
CEO: emm, yes – good. But before all that – can we discuss why it takes me so long to log into the my computer? Why the internet access is so slow? and what’s all this I hear about the not being able to fix my PA’s computer because of licences?
ITM: errr ……
The IT strategy is important and should marry up your road-map of future IT services while aligning with the direction the business. Although without getting the basics right you’ll never leave the starting-blocks.
Many organisation produce their strategy as tick-box exercise and never check or revisit it – in the present climate the strategy should leans towards an organic document – constantly shifting and changing.
It surprises me that no thought is given to the fact that members of staff are also public citizens who use IT Services in their private lives and as such utilise much more powerful, collaborative and productive IT services outside work than inside. We really need to understand a little more about anthropology rather than bleeding-edge technology.
One final thought that occurred to me was the concept of the triage of focus: Business as usual activities, Growing & moving the business forward and Transforming or making the business competitive in the future.
Without equal focus of the three in your strategy (and some of the elements mentioned above) you to may be in front of the CEO muttering ’emm … errr…’
Photo credit: Don Fulano / Foter.com / CC BY-SA