The IT Strategic Planning is broken.

I recall working for multinational consulting firms and executing standard IT strategic planning engagements for global corporations. When I say traditional, I mean the standard top-down 10- to 12-week approach overseen by a small group of executives within the client and executed by a team of 4-6 external consultants. First, the consultants gather information on the company's goals, objectives, and plans and a baseline of IT management practices, data, applications, and infrastructure. This information is then used to design a comprehensive 3- to 5-year plan with 50+ initiatives describing how IT should be transformed to help the company achieve its objectives.

This is an excellent academic exercise, and all involved parties, especially consultants, learn a lot about the entire IT environment and the trends associated with the client's technologies.

However, this conventional approach has various disadvantages. First of all, it takes a long time, as such an exercise can take months or even quarters to be completed. Second, it is expensive, especially because hiring an entire external team of consultants can be prohibitively costly for many organizations or only allowed on rare occasions. Third, it is frequently separated from business reality, given that most consultants know about best practices but lack a deeper understanding of the daily issues required to engage with business stakeholders properly. Furthermore, by the time the strategy is completed, let alone implemented, the business will have evolved dramatically.

A Different (Better?) Approach

After performing this kind of engagement for clients of various sizes and industries in more than 30 countries, I want to introduce a different approach using a bottom-up perspective called "The Decoupled IT Plan." This strategy, in contrast to the one previously mentioned, should be carried out by a multidisciplinary team of internal employees with the help of knowledgeable external mentors. This approach is quicker, more cost-effective, and more aligned with business reality.

This strategy starts with a series of 4–8-hour workshops that are dedicated to a single topic, during which internal staff members discuss business goals and needs, present the current state of the topic, propose a target state and a list of specific milestones to be achieved over the following 12 months, and, with the assistance of subject matter experts, discuss and come to an understanding of how IT can help. These workshops are run by a facilitation team encompassing a group dynamics and process management expert plus one or more subject matter experts with practical expertise who can offer an outside viewpoint on the discussed topic.

The final number and length of workshops depend entirely on factors like industry, lines of business, geographies, IT management maturity, IT infrastructure and organization size, Applications landscape, Sourcing arrangements, etc. However, for illustrative purposes, I suggest organizing at least one workshop on the following topics: enterprise architecture; IT-driven innovation; portfolio, program, and project management; data governance; software development life cycle; IT service; IT infrastructure and operations; application maintenance and operations; IT sourcing and procurement; IT finance; IT talent and skills; IT marketing and communications; cybersecurity and disaster recovery; IT audit and compliance; and IT knowledge. In addition, depending on the company, it'd be necessary to organize specific sessions about things like ERP, CRM, OT, Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence, etc.

Following the conclusion of the workshops, the facilitation team compiles the data and drafts a high-level IT strategic plan. The business stakeholders are then given a copy of the draft plan for comments. The senior leadership team accepts the final plan once the suggestions have been taken into account. Only initiatives that have been approved are characterized in detail in terms of resources, time, and effort. Ultimately, the plan should include 10-15 initiatives to be implemented in the next 12 months; all additional ideas beyond one year can be listed but not specified in detail.

The Four Moments within each workshop

Moment 1: Business Strategy and Goals

The first moment is all about clarifying the business strategy and goals. This includes identifying key stakeholders, understanding the business vision and objectives, and defining the topic’s potential and constraints.

Key insight: even when the technology and data potential are massive, some (most?) areas don’t require a detailed and formal analysis if you have the right team involved in the workshop.

Moment 2: Current Situation and Quick Wins

The second moment is all about gathering as-is information and defining quick wins. This includes discussing trends and research, knowing stakeholders’ needs and expectations, and developing a list of pain points and potential initiatives to tackle them, focusing on those that can be delivered in the short term.

Key insight: It’s a great idea to show some results as quickly as possible to gain credibility and get executive sponsorship for this endeavor.

Moment 3: Target Vision and Milestones

The third moment is all about creating the target vision and subsequent milestones. This includes developing a vision for the future of the topic and defining specific milestones that must be achieved. Each milestone should be linked to one or more objectives and, simultaneously, to one or more initiatives.

Key insight: It’s always better to strengthen the team's morale to have fewer initiatives that can be done than many wish lists that never will happen because of a lack of resources or support.

Moment 4: Nimble Plan and Socialization

The fourth moment is all about crafting and agreeing on a nimble plan with stakeholders. This includes prioritizing all the ideas to develop a detailed implementation plan for the initiatives to be covered in the next 12 months. Finally, this plan should be socialized and bought in by the key stakeholders, especially the teams involved in its implementation.

Key insight: Concentrate more on the outcome than the procedure during the implementation stage. Give autonomy to implementation teams and be flexible about how they can organize themselves to achieve the goals.

Benefits of the Decoupled IT Planning Approach

This approach to IT strategic planning has several benefits over the traditional system. It is:

• Shorter. The entire process can be completed in a few weeks. This is much shorter than the traditional approach, which can take 10–12 weeks or more.
• More affordable. It only requires part of the team of full-time external consultants. This can save the business a lot of money.
• More connected to the reality and culture of the business. It's led by internal employees who deeply understand the business and internal dynamics. This ensures that the plan is aligned with the business goals and culture and is feasible to implement.
• More Agile. It's more agile than the traditional approach. This is because it is iterative and incremental. The plan is developed in small steps and constantly updated as new information becomes available. This makes it more adaptable to change, which is essential in today's rapidly changing business environment.

Conclusion

The decoupled IT planning approach is a more effective and efficient way to develop an IT strategic plan. It is shorter, more affordable, more connected to the reality of the business, and more agile. If you want to develop an IT strategic plan for your business, I encourage you to consider the bottom-up approach. If you have any thoughts, feel free to comment here or continue the conversation on Twitter @jorgelozanom.