TABLE OF CONTENTS In Chapter 2 you began some of the first steps in IT planning. There a series of tables and relationships were developed between business processes and business objectives, vision, strategy, and issues. The importance of relating IT to the business through business processes was also presented as a major successful method of not only building the IT strategic plan, but also the alignment between IT and the business.
Why create a strategic IT plan? Many organizations have developed plans that then sit on the shelf and are never used. So why go through the effort? There are several reasons, including:
Without a strategic plan, IT is subject to external forces and technologies that can create disruption in the work.
In the absence of a plan, management may begin to question the direction of IT. Then IT appears to management like a group just working on various projects without focus.
A critical element today in IT is the successful alignment of IT with the business. It is very difficult to do without having a strategic IT plan.
IT tends to be more reactive without a plan. That is, it tends to just respond to the next problem that arises.
A strategic IT plan provides a vehicle for management and business units to understand IT and be more supportive of IT initiatives.
It is difficult to gain support for infrastructure improvements since you have to show overall longer term impact. To get these approved without...
