"IT Planning: A Corporate Mantra"

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"As any organization evolves, their original business plans and strategy change. Our strategic planning initiatives provide the context for an ongoing dialog to refine their objectives going forward with their business. "
Source: Estrella Partners Group LLC

Resources Related to IT Planning: A Corporate Mantra:

• Information Technology (IT) (Wikipedia)

IT Planning: A Corporate Mantra

IT Planning – The Goal and the Challenges

IT planning and integrated business alignment has long been a mantra of corporate directives but there is a history of organizations falling short of publishing quality documents and assembling plans that meet business needs, not to mention providing the necessary details that insures the thorough infrastructure planning necessary to meet overall corporate goals in a timely manner..

• What are the identifiers of an organization that is misaligned?
• What are some of the negative impacts of an organization not aligned?
• Who should take the leading role, IT or Business?
• Who makes the final decisions?
• Who covers budgetary costs?

Focusing on What is Important

Organizations where a central IT group services many business entities puts a significant burden on IT management to allocate resources in the most business effective manner.

Too much of a focus on technology may result in a state of the art infrastructure but leaving insufficient resources to address business needs.

Similarly an overemphasis on optimally addressing specific business requests results in too diverse a technical environment that does not allow for easy integration of information across entities and often results in a less stable, more difficult and expensive environment to support.

Starting the Planning Process

The IT planning process is particularly difficult in organizations that lack a thorough business planning process. The IT people ask “What am I going to base my IT plan on? We do not have a business plan”. Even in this extreme situation adequate IT planning and business alignment can occur.

Initiative needs to be taken by the IT individual who best understands the current Business and Enterprise needs and directives. Typically this is a person who sits in the various meetings and committees involved in setting software maintenance and development priorities. This person hears all the requests for IT resources from the Business Unit representatives – they work closely with their Business Unit counterparts. The initial draft of a planning document can come from a summary of the initiatives that are currently scheduled and being discussed in these meetings.

The relationship between the IT person and the business representatives is critical to developing a mutually agreeable document.

Congruence once obtained at the grass roots level must then be reviewed with Business Executives. This step often uncovers a difference between the working activities of change control meetings and the true priorities executives have for future direction.

Keeping All Stakeholders Focused

This process must be replicated across all Business Segments. Discussions must be coordinated between the software personnel and their infrastructure counterparts so the data center, communications and other infrastructure requirements necessary to support the various plans are understood. The infrastructure personnel must then develop their own plans clarifying the processing, storage and facility requirements necessary to support the aggregate needs of the business plans.

Ultimately, the specific IT / Business Unit plans can be combined with the infrastructure plans in a consolidated document. Prose needs to be put around this material to ensure its use and readability by diverse groups: business management, infrastructure providers, potential vendors and internal project review committees.

Centrally run IT groups have a significant burden to take the initiative to establish effective plans and obtain concurrence with business entities on their direction. This burden is increased by being held to budget constraints sometimes imposed without regard to requested business initiatives. The plan can become an effective tool for providing the rationale necessary to obtain adequate funding.

Keeping Alignment with Business Goals

Alignment for technologically driven businesses is essential to competitiveness and is the primary ingredient of profitability.

While Business and IT congruence is the overarching goal, well done IT plans have many ancillary benefits.

IT plans motivate IT staff giving them an assurance that the organization has a direction and a rationale.

These plans improve relationships between software and infrastructure personnel and improve the overall project delivery and timeliness. A well articulated plan minimizes excuses such as “I did not know we were undertaking this initiative – I have to build another data center to accommodate this need”.

Vendor solicitation and understanding of corporate needs is greatly enhanced. When the plans are shared with vendors, the vendors are better able to match their capabilities to their clients needs.

Internal IT Challenges

The value proposition for thorough planning is clear. Below are some points that underscore why there are so few quality plans being created?

Getting started is difficult.

The individuals most knowledgeable and technically capable often do not have the writing and requisite skills necessary.

IT organizations are typically overworked and understaffed so taking the time to think through assembling thorough written documents often falls by the wayside.

The iterative process between business personnel and IT personnel can be facilitated by a person knowledgeable and experienced in the IT planning process.

Obtaining competent outside assistance is often the critical element necessary to achieving a professionally done IT plan.

Skills and time for developing, deploying, and reporting the proper metrics to demonstrate the benefits realized may not be resident within the IT group.

Getting the Right Solution

Developing a well articulated plan and maintaining its integrity, while soliciting concurrence from Business and IT Units stakeholders, requires organizational skills not always available in the IT Unit. It involves being able to identify current and potential resources to meet both the tactical and strategic goals and then persuading the IT and Business Units this approach is in their and the enterprise’s best interests.

How can we, Estrella Partners, assist clients in aligning efforts, for example through the use of a Program Office for the office of the CIO with the charter of establishing and maintain that business / IT alignment

 EPG has an experienced staff with deep background and experience in Program Management and performance measurement. Our staff has a track record of aligning IT resources with Enterprise Strategic Goals and influencing Executive Management to buy into the plans.

Estrella Partners’ professionals can provide your firm with Executive Coaching and “hands on” planning, coordinating, and performance metrics to help you succeed.

About Estrella Partners Group

Estrella Partners Group LLC is a consortium of proven, senior-level executives who possess the ability to understand their clients’ complex business problems, develop creative solutions to these problems, and effectively help them implement these solutions. Each member of the Estrella team contributes a unique combination of skills and style to Estrella Partners. Each was selected not only because of his or her abilities and openness to collaboration, but above all, because of their inherent commitment to client service and dedication to client success.

Estrella Partners is focused on assisting clients identify revenue opportunities and increase operational efficiency through the use of Organization Change Management, Program Management, Risk Management, and Green Advisory Services.

We are an organization that treats its clients with the utmost respect, honesty, and professionalism - all with better than competitive rates. Our resources have the hands-on experience necessary to lead client teams or manage projects that are beyond our client’s internal team’s comfort level.

We are supported by a dynamic group of professionals that encompass both deep industry and functional subject matter expertise with a proven track record of providing exceptional value as trusted advisors.

About the Author

John Scopaz holds a Chemical Engineering Degree from Manhattan College and an MBA from New York University. He has broad experience managing large technology, back office operations and construction initiatives.

John has strong coaching and educating skills and works well with company owners and senior executives in developing strategy, management practices and organizing project management and governance oversight. He possesses a keen awareness of the essential components of effective outsourcing from both the client and provider perspective and he personally has structured and negotiated numerous outsourcing engagements.

John has lectured at the University of Yunnan, China on Offshore Outsourcing and co-presented a Lawline.com video on Legal Issues in Outsourcing. As an executive John conceptualized the consolidation of global technology operations of a financial services entity and oversaw the implementation of global software and centralized computer operations significantly increasing the reliability of corporate data and reducing cost.

He acted as CIO for Republic National Bank for 18 years. John currently acts as a Senior Advisor to the owners of a computer manufacturing / parts supplier and an offshore knowledge processing outsourcing company.

For further information, Contact:

Al Uretsky, Managing Partner
Estrella Partners Group, LLC
Tel.: (623) 594-9283
auretsky@estrellapartners.com
Web site: www.estrellapartners.com

Table of Contents

• IT PLANNING – THE GOAL AND THE CHALLENGES
• FOCUSING ON WHAT IS IMPORTANT
• STARTING THE PLANNING PROCESS
• KEEPING ALL STAKEHOLDERS FOCUSED
• KEEPING ALIGNMENT WITH BUSINESS GOALS
• INTERNAL IT CHALLENGES
• GETTING THE RIGHT SOLUTION
• ABOUT ESTRELLA PARTNERS GROUP
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• FOR FURTHER INFORMATION