IT Strategic Plan Paper
It Strategic Plan
IT Strategic Plan
Part One: Background
General Instructions:
The background is the first part of the IT Strategic Plan document. It is an introduction for people who are strangers to the information systems organization. These outside readers need to be given the contextual information they need to fully comprehend the IT Strategic Plan.
Basic Points:
• Length of Part One:
Write no less than two and no more than five double-spaced pages. Content should be clear and concise.
• Narrative Form:
Describe the background of the organization in narrative forms, which is more engaging for outside readers.
• Fictional or Real
The organization may be based on a real one or may be completely fictional. If you have ever …show more content…
considered a start-up, this is a great opportunity to put your ideas to paper!
• Factual:
The background description should include factual information about key aspects of the organization’s global environment, organizational structure, and IT values (see below for complete description and expectations).
Content Will Include:
Global Environment:
In addition to the following items, include anything about the external environment that comes up in the strategic planning process. Such items can include, but are not limited to, competition or possible competition in the market, the need (or pressure) to outsource, whether relating to the given organization or the market (call centers, customer service, manufacturing, etc.). Confine the description to the organization’s unique, local situation in the present global economy. Issues affecting ALL organizations should be ignored.
• Size and Type of Community:
What is the size and type of community in which the information systems organization is located? If the market is global, please do not merely state this fact; give specific details regarding the specifics of the size and type of community (including other businesses) your organization serves.
• Primary Customer:
Who are the information system organization’s primary customers or users?
• Size of Customer Base:
What is the approximate size of the customer or user base? This description should include the number of actual users, not potential users. Add the number of potential customers later if it is important to your plan.
• Demographics:
Provide an overall demographic profile of the customer or user base.
• Communication:
How is the organization’s external communication organized?
• Age of the Organization:
What is the age of your organization?
• Environmental Changes:
Note any important changes that have occurred in the local or global external environment in the past five years. Revisit and revise this as strategic planning unfolds.
Organizational Structure
In addition to the following items, include anything about the internal environment that comes up in the strategic planning process. Issues of note can include, but are not limited to, employee relations, governance and executive decision making, project management, etc.
• Number of Employees:
How many employees do you have?
• Organizational Structure:
What form of governance does the organization use? Which of organizational structures presented in Chapter 3 of the Pearlson and Saunders textbook most closely match how your organization allocates decision rights? Explain how organizational members function together as well as WHO has decision rights and WHO allocates them.
What approach does your organization take with IT? Does your organization operate under a centralized, decentralized, or federal IT approach? How this approach support (or does not support) the organization’s structure and allocation of decision rights?
• Budget:
What is the size of the budget for IT?
• Technology:
What kinds of technology are used in your workplace? How do they support (or do not support) your organization’s business strategy? Provide details as it relates to the overall IT Strategic Plan.
• Communication:
How is the organization’s internal communication organized?
IT Values
In addition to the following items, include anything about the information systems organization surrounding the ethical use of information, responsible computing, corporate social responsibility, privacy, security, accessibility, etc.
• Intellectual Property Rights:
What are the organization’s policies regarding information property rights? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its content.
• Privacy Policy:
What are the organization’s policies regarding privacy? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its contents.
• Usage Policy:
What are the organization’s policies regarding the internal and external use of organizational information technology and systems? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its content.
• Data Accuracy:
How does your organization ensure the accuracy of the data it stores (including customer data)? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its content.
• Accessibility:
How does your organization ensure accessibility to data while restricting unlawful usage (including, but not limited to identity theft)? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its content.
• Information Control:
Which, if any, of the governance processes discussed by Pearlson and Saunders (or other processes known to you) are implemented in your organization?
IT Strategic Plan
Part Two: IT Vision and Mission
Develop an IT Vision Statement:
The IT vision statement summarizes in a few words what the dream or ideal of your information systems organization is. It must not be longer that one sentence or part of a sentence. The goal is for it to be short, snappy, and memorable. It should not be wordy, and it should be in the present tense. It is worth spending time on the wordsmithing to get it right, since refining the language is part of the way the vision becomes refined.
The vision you write must logically fit with how you have described your information systems organization in Part One: Background.
Example:
Organization: U.S. General Services Organization
IT Vision Statement: Information technology that enables excellence in the business of government.
Develop an IT Mission Statement:
The IT mission statement is a translation of the IT vision statement into salient detail. The wording should not be ‘too’ action oriented. Action builds in the planning process when you start to develop strategies and supporting statement for your Strategic Goals.
It is better to convey your mission in one sentence or not more than two or three, otherwise it is very ‘forgettable.’ Although there is some flexibility in how a mission statement can be written, for the purposes of this assignment, you must follow a prescribed pattern:
Be sure your mission statement has the following elements in this order:
• WHO - State the name of your organization
• WHAT – Concisely state what you exist to do
• WHY – Start this part of the statement with ‘in order to’ and then say what you hope to accomplish
• HOW – Start this part of the statement with ‘through or by’ and say what means you will use …show more content…
Example:
Organization: U.S. General Services Organization
IT Mission Statement: We provide high-quality IT solutions and services in support of GSA missions at best value in collaboration with our employees, customers, and stakeholders.
IT Strategic Plan
Part Three: SWOT
General Instructions
Strengths (Internal)
Weaknesses (Internal)
Opportunities (External)
Threats (External)
SWOTs help you build a context for exploring strategic outcomes and related strategies. SWOTs are also related to action plans because action plans operationalize strategic outcomes and strategies which flow from the conditions described in SWOTs. Keep the following guidelines in mind:
• A Simple List:
In the Strategic Plan, the SWOT items can simply be listed. If an item is not clear, then add a few words of explanation about why it was listed.
• Number of Items:
Each SWOT section should have no less than 5 items. While there is no specific limit, it is best to not inflate this part for this project. It is designed to be informative and serve as a supporting context for the development of Strategic Outcomes and Action Plans.
• Research:
Investigate the SWOT areas you identified to provide the relevant data and resources to support them. There should be some discussion about what sorts of data and resources you think might be appropriate to locate. Examples of these resources will be listed in Appendix B.
Develop the SWOT
Internal Strengths:
Decide what you feel are the most relevant internal strengths of your information systems organization. You MUST list as an internal strength any internal policy statements that are approved by the Board.
Internal Weaknesses:
Decide what you feel are the most relevant internal weaknesses that you see in your information systems organization at the present time.
External Opportunities:
Decide what you think are the most interesting external opportunities that your information systems organization might consider. Remember, these opportunities can be local, statewide, national, or global in nature.
External Threats:
Decide what you think are the most difficult external threats to your organization. Remember, these threats can be local, statewide, national or global in nature.
IT Strategic Plan
Part Four: Strategic Outcomes and Strategies
In the IT Strategic Plan’s presentation of strategic outcomes and strategies, readers should clearly see what the information systems organization thinks are the key results or impacts that must be achieved in order to maintain a viable organization in current and anticipated markets.
Strategic outcomes and strategies are related to the SWOTs. The Action Plan will take the strategies and their supporting statements and turn them into concrete plans of action.
Strategic Outcomes:
• All strategic outcomes must be about something that encompasses the whole information systems organization.
• They should have a sense of breadth about them. They are “bigger picture” statements.
• They must focus on a change in attitude, behavior, knowledge, skill or life condition of your organization’s customer or usage base.
• They must relate back to the Vision and Mission and must strengthen identified strengths or correct weaknesses.
• Work toward achieving these strategic outcomes will occur through the action plans. The evaluations of the actions in the Action Plans will tell how close the information systems organization is to achieving these
outcomes.
• This section of your strategic plan should contain a minimum of three strategic outcomes.
Strategic outcomes must be written in the following format:
Strategic Outcome: Provide governance and resources that enable the use of technology.
Strategic Outcome: Provide effective and reliable IT systems and solutions.
Strategic outcomes are somewhat like goals or objectives, but they ALWAYS include some change toward improvement for stakeholders and they are NEVER bound by time. You will address issues relating to time in other parts of the plan.
You can ‘test’ to see if you have a strategic outcome by asking whether the outcome you’ve stated is the end result of what you would ideally like to see happen through your organization for the benefit of a particular stakeholder as a result of this strategic plan. If the outcome fails this test, try again.
Strategies and Support Statements:
The strategies you plan to use should flow directly from the strategic outcomes as articulated above. Strategies may support one or more outcomes; each outcome may be supported by one or more strategies. The strategies you develop should be broken into two related elements. For this plan, outline no more than five strategy areas.
First, you must decide on the strategy areas you want to address. Then, you should give them clear, concise names. Under each area, you will write a supporting sentence that describes the overall direction of the strategy you will pursue. Start these supporting statements with ‘we.’ Often, these strategies and statements will be refined as the action plans unfold.
Examples:
Strategy Area: Staff Development
Statement: We will enhance the skills and knowledge of the workforce by fostering collaboration and communication through IT enabled solutions.
Strategy Area: Change Management
Statement: We will embrace new technologies and business process change through the strategic application of new and emerging technologies.
Strategy Area: Customer Relations
Statement: We will identify and understand the needs of our internal and external customers by collaborating with them regarding available and new technologies.
IT Strategic Plan
Part Five: Action Plans
Action plans should be realistic and detailed. They should incorporate the vision of the information systems organization and strive to move the mission forward. Envision this process – action plans flow from the strategies that are developed to meet strategic outcomes. Strategic outcomes develop from parts one, two and three which include the background at the global, organizational and IT levels, the mission and vision statements, and the SWOT list.
At this point, your strategic plan will radically depart from the way a ‘regular strategic plan is done’ in two ways. First, you will have only one or two action plans depending on the breadth of your chosen organization. In a fully developed strategic plan, you may have as many as ten action plans per strategy, and up to ten or so strategies. Strategic planning is a mosaic process, and in the area of action plans, you see this manifest as an action plan can be added at any time. Secondly, your stakeholders will not be involved in the process of developing your action plan for this assignment, when normally they would be in some capacity.
Developing Action Plans:
Each action plan must have several elements that are well integrated. These include:
Rationale:
Describe a rational for the action plan you are proposing. How does it fit within the IT Strategic Plan of your organization? Why should it be approved for funding? This description should be no longer that two to three concise and informative paragraphs. If there are data documents that will accompany your plan, you should list them here. For this assignment, you do not have to provide actual documents, as you would in a real world situation.
Steps/Timeline/Responsibility:
This part of your plan needs to be done in a specific format. Read the instructions below for each step, and then collapse them into units, as shown further below.
Steps: Describe the steps that will be taken to accomplish the action you’ve chosen. The number of steps will vary, but it will likely be somewhere between five to eight steps.
Timeline: Determine an overall timeline for carrying out the action plan. Be sure you are not trying to compress events into too short a timeframe. Your schedule of activities MUST be matched to the individual steps articulated above.
Responsibility: Name the people or organizations that will be responsible for each step you will take to accomplish the action. Be sure that your list of responsible parties matches the individual steps articulated above.
Unified Format:
Step # 1
Timeline:
Responsibility:
Step # 2
Timeline:
Responsibility:
And so on…
Budget:
Develop a budget for carrying out your action, allocating for supplies, personnel, training, and equipment. The budget section of your action plan must also include the following information in this order:
• List the source for the revenue for this action.
• Explain how the budget for this action fits with the rest of the organization’s budget.
• Explain how you arrived at the estimate for your items and where you got them from.
NOTE: The budget does not have to be ‘exactly right,’ but you need to use real world resources to try to arrive at plausible ball park figures.
Evaluation:
State a mean by which you will evaluate the results of your action. This section should address internal and external evaluation, as deemed appropriate. If standards are involved, they should be clearly disclosed and explained.
Documentation:
You must list the background documents or information used in developing your action plan. Telling me that it ‘came from your head’ is NOT enough. Use APA format as required for resources in Appendix A.
IT Strategic Plan
Part Six: Appendices
The appendices are an important part of an IT Strategic Plan. Appendices A, B, and C will provide the definitive connection to the plan’s developmental resources. Appendices D and E will articulate how the plan will be presented to and justified for the Board of Directors, as well as provide a list of whoever has a stake in the activities of the information systems organization and projected outcomes of the Action Plan(s).
Appendix A: IT Strategic Plan Resources
Appendix B: Resources that Provide Evidence of Support for SWOTs
Appendix C: Action Plan Resources
Appendix D: Presentation Plan
This appendix contains two parts that deal with “selling” the plan to the Board of Directors: The presentation plan and the justification of the IT strategic plan.
The Presentation Plan: This plan is a description of the ideal way the IT Strategic Plan will be presented to the Board of Directors or Trustees. It should cover both how the IT Strategic Plan will be presented in document form and how it will be presented in face-to-face (or virtual) situations. The details should include such things as format, web posting, multimedia and human resources to support the presentation, as well as charts, and data presentations needed.
Justification of IT Strategic Plan: This item is written to justify to the Board why the IT Strategic Planning process was undertaken. It should describe why the information systems organization undertook the project and what projected, positive outcomes will be for the organization as a whole.
Appendix E: Stakeholders
This appendix contains a list of all stakeholders who should be involved in either data collection or Action Plan development. The final list should also include all persons who will have an interest in the end result of the plan. You should list stakeholders’ titles and where appropriate, append a brief comment about the nature of their stake.
Ism 5014 Final
NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Assignment for Course: ISM 5014 – Enterprise Information Systems
Submitted to: Dr. Steve Kramer
Submitted by:
Date of Submission: September 2, 2012
Title of Assignment: Final - Individual Case
CERTIFICATION OF AUTHORSHIP: We certify that we are the author of this paper and that any assistance I received in its preparation is fully acknowledged and disclosed in the paper. We have also cited any sources from which we used data, ideas of words, whether quoted directly or paraphrased. We also certify that this paper was prepared by us specifically for this course.
Student Signatures: Barbara Alfaro
____________________________________
******************************************
Instructor’s Grade on Assignment:
Instructor’s Comments:
The purpose of this case study is to evaluate and identify objectives, assess the current situation, identify root causes, define options, and select an optimal solution for the Department of Corrections.
Identify Objectives
The state Department of Corrections (DOC) is currently upgrading their information system to interact with new federal government’s system. The DOC has hired Robin a senior consultant for a large consulting firm to perform such upgrades that cost $100 million and is partially being funded by the federal government (case). While many are opposed to the idea for various reasons the project is underway.
The single most important objective in this case is the concern for the system errors that may arise from such technology. Employees fear that possible system errors can lead to the release of inmates. Additionally, many employees, such as Donna for example, prefer to do work the old fashioned way and do not seem to accept the changes brought upon by technology. Moreover, the governor does not agree with the decision to continue spending more money on information systems for the DOC even though the decision was made prior to his election (case). Additionally, the senior consultant that was hired, Robin, has never worked for the state government and is not familiar with the legal system which is highly important given that vital information must be included in the new upgrades in order to have both systems linked.
Assess Current Situation
Currently the expectations and needs for the project are not being clearly understood by the hired consultant, Robin. While Robin has worked with such projects in the past, she has never worked for the government and knows very little about the state legal system. Developing software that will be linked to the federal government’s system can be challenging since certain legal ramifications need to be taken into consideration. Additionally, many employees are not keen with having to switch over to the new technology and prefer their traditional old fashioned ways which they are accustomed to. This may poses a problem to the DOC given that their software will now be updated and more technologically advanced and some workers may be against these changes.
Short Term Goals
• Have the information systems upgraded immediately.
• Interact with Robin and advise of all the needs and expectations of the DOC.
• Make sure that the DOC and the new federal system properly interact with one another.
• Make sure that there are no system errors that can cause to potential inmate releases due to system errors.
Long Term Goals
• Adequately train all personnel on the new software and the benefits of implementing technology to their work.
• Continue updates on software in order not to spend a lump sum of money for such outdated equipment.
• Compose an internal IT department that will provide the necessary updates to all software and answer all employee questions and problems regarding technology.
Identify Root Causes
The root cause for the Department of Corrections is the lack of information systems provided to employees. This has led to employees such as Donna to continue doing work the old fashioned way and not properly adapt to the emergence of technology. This has led to employees not trusting the new information systems project because of their lack of knowledge for technology which has also led them to fear this change. According to Richard Grimes, “very often it is hard for the more experienced members of a department to make a transition from the comfortable habits and success to which they have become accustomed to the new (and self-image threatening) tools and practices of change.”
Define Options
Clearly the DOC could have turned to other options that could have improved the situation they were currently facing. For starters, DOC could have adequately trained their personnel on technology usage and implemented such technology in order to minimize the fear of system errors. The positive impact is that personnel would be willing to accept and adapt to changes brought about by technology. The negative impact would be the amount of money, time and resources that DOC would have to invest in such a project. Additionally, many of the older employees will not want to engage in these training tools since they are not familiar with technology.
A second option would be to have Jim, Donna’s technology savvy assistant help with the new project. Jim is very familiar with technology and is familiar with the way DOC functions, aiding in the project would be essential given that he is a DOC employee. Having a DOC employee be involved in the project would give DOC an advantage if anything happens with the software, Jim can always be of support. The negative impact that this may have is that Jim may not be too familiar with the procedures and regulations for the DOC and the implementation of the software given such regulations may not function as it is supposed to.
Furthermore, DOC would be at an advantage if they hire adequate IT personnel to implement new software as opposed to hiring elsewhere. Creating a skilled knowledgeable IT department within would save the headaches of looking for a company that will understand the needs and wants of the DOC. An internal department already is familiar with the rules and regulations of the DOC and the expectations that the department requires. Moreover, having an internal IT department administer the project would be great since they will always be at hand if a problem arises with the new system. The negative impact that this option may have would be that the IT personnel may not be familiar with implementing and creating new software that will be linked, such as this instance, with the federal government’s system or may not be as safe given the lack of experience.
The last option is for DOC to do nothing at all. The positive impact that this would have on the DOC is that the project will go as planned and large sums of money will continue being used for all updates to software. However, the negative impact on the DOC is the continuous hiring of outside firms for all of their software upgrades which will continue to be extremely costly and such changes may not necessarily be approved while also trying to have employees adapt to last minute technological changes that they are not familiar with or are not willing to accept.
Select Optimal
Option one, adequately train their personnel on technology usage and implemented such technology in order to minimize the fear of system error (short term = employees may not understand, long term = ease of workload). Option two consists of having Jim, Donna’s technology savvy assistant help with the new project (short term = provide knowledge of DOC regulations and system). Option three hiring adequate IT personnel to implement new software as opposed to hiring elsewhere (short term = may be costly to hire knowledgeable staff and train on the regulations of the DOC, long term = less money to spend in a lump sum for large software upgrades).
The best option for DOC is option one to adequately train their personnel on the changes of technology and how it will affect software. Advising personnel that these software will make their jobs easier. Moreover, properly training personnel on the use of technology will minimize the fear of system error. While the system can cause an error, implementing a manual check afterwards is essential. For example, if the system states that an inmate is free to be released it is the staff’s responsibility to go over the inmates file and guarantee that the information provided for his/her release corresponds to that of their file. If the staff notices an error then there should be a chain of command to which the employee can turn to for further assistance and/or instructions.
References
Department of Corrections case provided by ISM 5014
Grimes, R. Employees fearing change? Let 's party!. Ezinarticles. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?Employees-Fearing-Change?-Lets-Party!&id=6947096
IT Strategic Plan
Part One: Background
General Instructions:
The background is the first part of the IT Strategic Plan document. It is an introduction for people who are strangers to the information systems organization. These outside readers need to be given the contextual information they need to fully comprehend the IT Strategic Plan.
Basic Points:
• Length of Part One:
Write no less than two and no more than five double-spaced pages. Content should be clear and concise.
• Narrative Form:
Describe the background of the organization in narrative forms, which is more engaging for outside readers.
• Fictional or Real
The organization may be based on a real one or may be completely fictional. If you have ever …show more content…
considered a start-up, this is a great opportunity to put your ideas to paper!
• Factual:
The background description should include factual information about key aspects of the organization’s global environment, organizational structure, and IT values (see below for complete description and expectations).
Content Will Include:
Global Environment:
In addition to the following items, include anything about the external environment that comes up in the strategic planning process. Such items can include, but are not limited to, competition or possible competition in the market, the need (or pressure) to outsource, whether relating to the given organization or the market (call centers, customer service, manufacturing, etc.). Confine the description to the organization’s unique, local situation in the present global economy. Issues affecting ALL organizations should be ignored.
• Size and Type of Community:
What is the size and type of community in which the information systems organization is located? If the market is global, please do not merely state this fact; give specific details regarding the specifics of the size and type of community (including other businesses) your organization serves.
• Primary Customer:
Who are the information system organization’s primary customers or users?
• Size of Customer Base:
What is the approximate size of the customer or user base? This description should include the number of actual users, not potential users. Add the number of potential customers later if it is important to your plan.
• Demographics:
Provide an overall demographic profile of the customer or user base.
• Communication:
How is the organization’s external communication organized?
• Age of the Organization:
What is the age of your organization?
• Environmental Changes:
Note any important changes that have occurred in the local or global external environment in the past five years. Revisit and revise this as strategic planning unfolds.
Organizational Structure
In addition to the following items, include anything about the internal environment that comes up in the strategic planning process. Issues of note can include, but are not limited to, employee relations, governance and executive decision making, project management, etc.
• Number of Employees:
How many employees do you have?
• Organizational Structure:
What form of governance does the organization use? Which of organizational structures presented in Chapter 3 of the Pearlson and Saunders textbook most closely match how your organization allocates decision rights? Explain how organizational members function together as well as WHO has decision rights and WHO allocates them.
What approach does your organization take with IT? Does your organization operate under a centralized, decentralized, or federal IT approach? How this approach support (or does not support) the organization’s structure and allocation of decision rights?
• Budget:
What is the size of the budget for IT?
• Technology:
What kinds of technology are used in your workplace? How do they support (or do not support) your organization’s business strategy? Provide details as it relates to the overall IT Strategic Plan.
• Communication:
How is the organization’s internal communication organized?
IT Values
In addition to the following items, include anything about the information systems organization surrounding the ethical use of information, responsible computing, corporate social responsibility, privacy, security, accessibility, etc.
• Intellectual Property Rights:
What are the organization’s policies regarding information property rights? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its content.
• Privacy Policy:
What are the organization’s policies regarding privacy? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its contents.
• Usage Policy:
What are the organization’s policies regarding the internal and external use of organizational information technology and systems? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its content.
• Data Accuracy:
How does your organization ensure the accuracy of the data it stores (including customer data)? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its content.
• Accessibility:
How does your organization ensure accessibility to data while restricting unlawful usage (including, but not limited to identity theft)? Is there a written policy? If so, summarize its content.
• Information Control:
Which, if any, of the governance processes discussed by Pearlson and Saunders (or other processes known to you) are implemented in your organization?
IT Strategic Plan
Part Two: IT Vision and Mission
Develop an IT Vision Statement:
The IT vision statement summarizes in a few words what the dream or ideal of your information systems organization is. It must not be longer that one sentence or part of a sentence. The goal is for it to be short, snappy, and memorable. It should not be wordy, and it should be in the present tense. It is worth spending time on the wordsmithing to get it right, since refining the language is part of the way the vision becomes refined.
The vision you write must logically fit with how you have described your information systems organization in Part One: Background.
Example:
Organization: U.S. General Services Organization
IT Vision Statement: Information technology that enables excellence in the business of government.
Develop an IT Mission Statement:
The IT mission statement is a translation of the IT vision statement into salient detail. The wording should not be ‘too’ action oriented. Action builds in the planning process when you start to develop strategies and supporting statement for your Strategic Goals.
It is better to convey your mission in one sentence or not more than two or three, otherwise it is very ‘forgettable.’ Although there is some flexibility in how a mission statement can be written, for the purposes of this assignment, you must follow a prescribed pattern:
Be sure your mission statement has the following elements in this order:
• WHO - State the name of your organization
• WHAT – Concisely state what you exist to do
• WHY – Start this part of the statement with ‘in order to’ and then say what you hope to accomplish
• HOW – Start this part of the statement with ‘through or by’ and say what means you will use …show more content…
Example:
Organization: U.S. General Services Organization
IT Mission Statement: We provide high-quality IT solutions and services in support of GSA missions at best value in collaboration with our employees, customers, and stakeholders.
IT Strategic Plan
Part Three: SWOT
General Instructions
Strengths (Internal)
Weaknesses (Internal)
Opportunities (External)
Threats (External)
SWOTs help you build a context for exploring strategic outcomes and related strategies. SWOTs are also related to action plans because action plans operationalize strategic outcomes and strategies which flow from the conditions described in SWOTs. Keep the following guidelines in mind:
• A Simple List:
In the Strategic Plan, the SWOT items can simply be listed. If an item is not clear, then add a few words of explanation about why it was listed.
• Number of Items:
Each SWOT section should have no less than 5 items. While there is no specific limit, it is best to not inflate this part for this project. It is designed to be informative and serve as a supporting context for the development of Strategic Outcomes and Action Plans.
• Research:
Investigate the SWOT areas you identified to provide the relevant data and resources to support them. There should be some discussion about what sorts of data and resources you think might be appropriate to locate. Examples of these resources will be listed in Appendix B.
Develop the SWOT
Internal Strengths:
Decide what you feel are the most relevant internal strengths of your information systems organization. You MUST list as an internal strength any internal policy statements that are approved by the Board.
Internal Weaknesses:
Decide what you feel are the most relevant internal weaknesses that you see in your information systems organization at the present time.
External Opportunities:
Decide what you think are the most interesting external opportunities that your information systems organization might consider. Remember, these opportunities can be local, statewide, national, or global in nature.
External Threats:
Decide what you think are the most difficult external threats to your organization. Remember, these threats can be local, statewide, national or global in nature.
IT Strategic Plan
Part Four: Strategic Outcomes and Strategies
In the IT Strategic Plan’s presentation of strategic outcomes and strategies, readers should clearly see what the information systems organization thinks are the key results or impacts that must be achieved in order to maintain a viable organization in current and anticipated markets.
Strategic outcomes and strategies are related to the SWOTs. The Action Plan will take the strategies and their supporting statements and turn them into concrete plans of action.
Strategic Outcomes:
• All strategic outcomes must be about something that encompasses the whole information systems organization.
• They should have a sense of breadth about them. They are “bigger picture” statements.
• They must focus on a change in attitude, behavior, knowledge, skill or life condition of your organization’s customer or usage base.
• They must relate back to the Vision and Mission and must strengthen identified strengths or correct weaknesses.
• Work toward achieving these strategic outcomes will occur through the action plans. The evaluations of the actions in the Action Plans will tell how close the information systems organization is to achieving these
outcomes.
• This section of your strategic plan should contain a minimum of three strategic outcomes.
Strategic outcomes must be written in the following format:
Strategic Outcome: Provide governance and resources that enable the use of technology.
Strategic Outcome: Provide effective and reliable IT systems and solutions.
Strategic outcomes are somewhat like goals or objectives, but they ALWAYS include some change toward improvement for stakeholders and they are NEVER bound by time. You will address issues relating to time in other parts of the plan.
You can ‘test’ to see if you have a strategic outcome by asking whether the outcome you’ve stated is the end result of what you would ideally like to see happen through your organization for the benefit of a particular stakeholder as a result of this strategic plan. If the outcome fails this test, try again.
Strategies and Support Statements:
The strategies you plan to use should flow directly from the strategic outcomes as articulated above. Strategies may support one or more outcomes; each outcome may be supported by one or more strategies. The strategies you develop should be broken into two related elements. For this plan, outline no more than five strategy areas.
First, you must decide on the strategy areas you want to address. Then, you should give them clear, concise names. Under each area, you will write a supporting sentence that describes the overall direction of the strategy you will pursue. Start these supporting statements with ‘we.’ Often, these strategies and statements will be refined as the action plans unfold.
Examples:
Strategy Area: Staff Development
Statement: We will enhance the skills and knowledge of the workforce by fostering collaboration and communication through IT enabled solutions.
Strategy Area: Change Management
Statement: We will embrace new technologies and business process change through the strategic application of new and emerging technologies.
Strategy Area: Customer Relations
Statement: We will identify and understand the needs of our internal and external customers by collaborating with them regarding available and new technologies.
IT Strategic Plan
Part Five: Action Plans
Action plans should be realistic and detailed. They should incorporate the vision of the information systems organization and strive to move the mission forward. Envision this process – action plans flow from the strategies that are developed to meet strategic outcomes. Strategic outcomes develop from parts one, two and three which include the background at the global, organizational and IT levels, the mission and vision statements, and the SWOT list.
At this point, your strategic plan will radically depart from the way a ‘regular strategic plan is done’ in two ways. First, you will have only one or two action plans depending on the breadth of your chosen organization. In a fully developed strategic plan, you may have as many as ten action plans per strategy, and up to ten or so strategies. Strategic planning is a mosaic process, and in the area of action plans, you see this manifest as an action plan can be added at any time. Secondly, your stakeholders will not be involved in the process of developing your action plan for this assignment, when normally they would be in some capacity.
Developing Action Plans:
Each action plan must have several elements that are well integrated. These include:
Rationale:
Describe a rational for the action plan you are proposing. How does it fit within the IT Strategic Plan of your organization? Why should it be approved for funding? This description should be no longer that two to three concise and informative paragraphs. If there are data documents that will accompany your plan, you should list them here. For this assignment, you do not have to provide actual documents, as you would in a real world situation.
Steps/Timeline/Responsibility:
This part of your plan needs to be done in a specific format. Read the instructions below for each step, and then collapse them into units, as shown further below.
Steps: Describe the steps that will be taken to accomplish the action you’ve chosen. The number of steps will vary, but it will likely be somewhere between five to eight steps.
Timeline: Determine an overall timeline for carrying out the action plan. Be sure you are not trying to compress events into too short a timeframe. Your schedule of activities MUST be matched to the individual steps articulated above.
Responsibility: Name the people or organizations that will be responsible for each step you will take to accomplish the action. Be sure that your list of responsible parties matches the individual steps articulated above.
Unified Format:
Step # 1
Timeline:
Responsibility:
Step # 2
Timeline:
Responsibility:
And so on…
Budget:
Develop a budget for carrying out your action, allocating for supplies, personnel, training, and equipment. The budget section of your action plan must also include the following information in this order:
• List the source for the revenue for this action.
• Explain how the budget for this action fits with the rest of the organization’s budget.
• Explain how you arrived at the estimate for your items and where you got them from.
NOTE: The budget does not have to be ‘exactly right,’ but you need to use real world resources to try to arrive at plausible ball park figures.
Evaluation:
State a mean by which you will evaluate the results of your action. This section should address internal and external evaluation, as deemed appropriate. If standards are involved, they should be clearly disclosed and explained.
Documentation:
You must list the background documents or information used in developing your action plan. Telling me that it ‘came from your head’ is NOT enough. Use APA format as required for resources in Appendix A.
IT Strategic Plan
Part Six: Appendices
The appendices are an important part of an IT Strategic Plan. Appendices A, B, and C will provide the definitive connection to the plan’s developmental resources. Appendices D and E will articulate how the plan will be presented to and justified for the Board of Directors, as well as provide a list of whoever has a stake in the activities of the information systems organization and projected outcomes of the Action Plan(s).
Appendix A: IT Strategic Plan Resources
Appendix B: Resources that Provide Evidence of Support for SWOTs
Appendix C: Action Plan Resources
Appendix D: Presentation Plan
This appendix contains two parts that deal with “selling” the plan to the Board of Directors: The presentation plan and the justification of the IT strategic plan.
The Presentation Plan: This plan is a description of the ideal way the IT Strategic Plan will be presented to the Board of Directors or Trustees. It should cover both how the IT Strategic Plan will be presented in document form and how it will be presented in face-to-face (or virtual) situations. The details should include such things as format, web posting, multimedia and human resources to support the presentation, as well as charts, and data presentations needed.
Justification of IT Strategic Plan: This item is written to justify to the Board why the IT Strategic Planning process was undertaken. It should describe why the information systems organization undertook the project and what projected, positive outcomes will be for the organization as a whole.
Appendix E: Stakeholders
This appendix contains a list of all stakeholders who should be involved in either data collection or Action Plan development. The final list should also include all persons who will have an interest in the end result of the plan. You should list stakeholders’ titles and where appropriate, append a brief comment about the nature of their stake.
Ism 5014 Final
NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship
Assignment for Course: ISM 5014 – Enterprise Information Systems
Submitted to: Dr. Steve Kramer
Submitted by:
Date of Submission: September 2, 2012
Title of Assignment: Final - Individual Case
CERTIFICATION OF AUTHORSHIP: We certify that we are the author of this paper and that any assistance I received in its preparation is fully acknowledged and disclosed in the paper. We have also cited any sources from which we used data, ideas of words, whether quoted directly or paraphrased. We also certify that this paper was prepared by us specifically for this course.
Student Signatures: Barbara Alfaro
____________________________________
******************************************
Instructor’s Grade on Assignment:
Instructor’s Comments:
The purpose of this case study is to evaluate and identify objectives, assess the current situation, identify root causes, define options, and select an optimal solution for the Department of Corrections.
Identify Objectives
The state Department of Corrections (DOC) is currently upgrading their information system to interact with new federal government’s system. The DOC has hired Robin a senior consultant for a large consulting firm to perform such upgrades that cost $100 million and is partially being funded by the federal government (case). While many are opposed to the idea for various reasons the project is underway.
The single most important objective in this case is the concern for the system errors that may arise from such technology. Employees fear that possible system errors can lead to the release of inmates. Additionally, many employees, such as Donna for example, prefer to do work the old fashioned way and do not seem to accept the changes brought upon by technology. Moreover, the governor does not agree with the decision to continue spending more money on information systems for the DOC even though the decision was made prior to his election (case). Additionally, the senior consultant that was hired, Robin, has never worked for the state government and is not familiar with the legal system which is highly important given that vital information must be included in the new upgrades in order to have both systems linked.
Assess Current Situation
Currently the expectations and needs for the project are not being clearly understood by the hired consultant, Robin. While Robin has worked with such projects in the past, she has never worked for the government and knows very little about the state legal system. Developing software that will be linked to the federal government’s system can be challenging since certain legal ramifications need to be taken into consideration. Additionally, many employees are not keen with having to switch over to the new technology and prefer their traditional old fashioned ways which they are accustomed to. This may poses a problem to the DOC given that their software will now be updated and more technologically advanced and some workers may be against these changes.
Short Term Goals
• Have the information systems upgraded immediately.
• Interact with Robin and advise of all the needs and expectations of the DOC.
• Make sure that the DOC and the new federal system properly interact with one another.
• Make sure that there are no system errors that can cause to potential inmate releases due to system errors.
Long Term Goals
• Adequately train all personnel on the new software and the benefits of implementing technology to their work.
• Continue updates on software in order not to spend a lump sum of money for such outdated equipment.
• Compose an internal IT department that will provide the necessary updates to all software and answer all employee questions and problems regarding technology.
Identify Root Causes
The root cause for the Department of Corrections is the lack of information systems provided to employees. This has led to employees such as Donna to continue doing work the old fashioned way and not properly adapt to the emergence of technology. This has led to employees not trusting the new information systems project because of their lack of knowledge for technology which has also led them to fear this change. According to Richard Grimes, “very often it is hard for the more experienced members of a department to make a transition from the comfortable habits and success to which they have become accustomed to the new (and self-image threatening) tools and practices of change.”
Define Options
Clearly the DOC could have turned to other options that could have improved the situation they were currently facing. For starters, DOC could have adequately trained their personnel on technology usage and implemented such technology in order to minimize the fear of system errors. The positive impact is that personnel would be willing to accept and adapt to changes brought about by technology. The negative impact would be the amount of money, time and resources that DOC would have to invest in such a project. Additionally, many of the older employees will not want to engage in these training tools since they are not familiar with technology.
A second option would be to have Jim, Donna’s technology savvy assistant help with the new project. Jim is very familiar with technology and is familiar with the way DOC functions, aiding in the project would be essential given that he is a DOC employee. Having a DOC employee be involved in the project would give DOC an advantage if anything happens with the software, Jim can always be of support. The negative impact that this may have is that Jim may not be too familiar with the procedures and regulations for the DOC and the implementation of the software given such regulations may not function as it is supposed to.
Furthermore, DOC would be at an advantage if they hire adequate IT personnel to implement new software as opposed to hiring elsewhere. Creating a skilled knowledgeable IT department within would save the headaches of looking for a company that will understand the needs and wants of the DOC. An internal department already is familiar with the rules and regulations of the DOC and the expectations that the department requires. Moreover, having an internal IT department administer the project would be great since they will always be at hand if a problem arises with the new system. The negative impact that this option may have would be that the IT personnel may not be familiar with implementing and creating new software that will be linked, such as this instance, with the federal government’s system or may not be as safe given the lack of experience.
The last option is for DOC to do nothing at all. The positive impact that this would have on the DOC is that the project will go as planned and large sums of money will continue being used for all updates to software. However, the negative impact on the DOC is the continuous hiring of outside firms for all of their software upgrades which will continue to be extremely costly and such changes may not necessarily be approved while also trying to have employees adapt to last minute technological changes that they are not familiar with or are not willing to accept.
Select Optimal
Option one, adequately train their personnel on technology usage and implemented such technology in order to minimize the fear of system error (short term = employees may not understand, long term = ease of workload). Option two consists of having Jim, Donna’s technology savvy assistant help with the new project (short term = provide knowledge of DOC regulations and system). Option three hiring adequate IT personnel to implement new software as opposed to hiring elsewhere (short term = may be costly to hire knowledgeable staff and train on the regulations of the DOC, long term = less money to spend in a lump sum for large software upgrades).
The best option for DOC is option one to adequately train their personnel on the changes of technology and how it will affect software. Advising personnel that these software will make their jobs easier. Moreover, properly training personnel on the use of technology will minimize the fear of system error. While the system can cause an error, implementing a manual check afterwards is essential. For example, if the system states that an inmate is free to be released it is the staff’s responsibility to go over the inmates file and guarantee that the information provided for his/her release corresponds to that of their file. If the staff notices an error then there should be a chain of command to which the employee can turn to for further assistance and/or instructions.
References
Department of Corrections case provided by ISM 5014
Grimes, R. Employees fearing change? Let 's party!. Ezinarticles. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?Employees-Fearing-Change?-Lets-Party!&id=6947096