Tools/Best Practices

Tools/Best Practices for IT Strategy

Here are a few tools/best practices to use when talking about IT strategy. Using theses in the professional workplace can help you be more successful and create a more strategic plan for your company.

Scorecard

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system used to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organizational performance against strategic goals. -Rohm

ITIL
The ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) framework is designed to standardize the selection, planning, delivery and support of IT services to a business. The goal is to improve efficiency and achieve predictable service levels. The ITIL framework enables IT to be a business service partner, rather than just back-end support. ITIL guidelines and best practices align IT actions and expenses to business needs and change them as the business grows or shifts direction.

Mission Statement

The mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making. It provides "the framework or context within which the company's strategies are formulated." It is like a goal for what the company wants to do for the world.

SWOT

SWOT Analysis is a useful technique for understanding your Strengths and Weaknesses, and for identifying both the Opportunities open to you and the Threats you face.

Strengths

What advantages does your organization have?
What do you do better than anyone else?
What unique or lowest-cost resources can you draw upon that others can't?
What do people in your market see as your strengths?
What factors mean that you "get the sale"?

Weaknesses

What could you improve?
What should you avoid?
What are people in your market likely to see as weaknesses?
What factors lose you sales?

Opportunities

What good opportunities can you spot?
What interesting trends are you aware of?

Useful opportunities can come from such things as:

Changes in technology and markets on both a broad and narrow scale.
Changes in government policy related to your field.
Changes in social patterns, population profiles, lifestyle changes, and so on.
Local event

Threats

What obstacles do you face?
What are your competitors doing?
Are quality standards or specifications for your job, products or services changing?
Is changing technology threatening your position?
Do you have bad debt or cash-flow problems?
Could any of your weaknesses seriously threaten your business?