IT

The purpose of this tool is to forecast the expenditures required to complete IT's strategic initiatives, to encourage IT to think about how the activities of the IT department will be financed and how those financial resources will be used during the period covered by the statement.

This tool helps to answer the following question:   

• How much money (i.e. budget) does IT require?
• Where will the money be spent?

Understanding IT's current workload is an essential element of planning the strategy for the upcoming year. This tool focuses on identifying any and all commitments currently on IT’s plate. The objective of this tool is to create a consolidated record of all current IT projects and to rank and prioritize projects according to continued applicability, importance and alignment with changing business goals. 

In this template, you will copy and paste a variety of information from tools completed earlier in the IT Strategy and Planning module of the OptimizeIT program. Follow the instructions as directed in grey text throughout this template. Generally, you will be required to paste text from the Microsoft Word tools. If Excel tools are mentioned, provide a link of the network path where your audience can view a copy of the spreadsheet file(s).

Some tips and advice to keep in mind when building your Strategic Plan are as follows:

A scope statement is one of the most critical communications in a project. A proper scope statement makes it clear exactly what will, and what will not, be involved in a given project. Setting scope helps determine the money, time, and people required to complete the project. It also serves as an effective tool for measuring whether a project has hit its intended targets. A project that involves the creation of an IT strategic plan should be treated no differently than any other project, thus a scope statement is requisite.

A standard business case template is a key weapon in any IT leader’s arsenal. Once an IT strategy is set, creating a series of business cases is the next step prior to operational plan execution.

To use this template, simply fill in the sections provided.

Not all desktop or laptop PCs are ready for the scrap heap when their end-users need newer, more powerful machines. A well-documented PC cascade policy can ensure that the right machines end up in front of the right end-users.

Typically, many enterprises considering IT projects that carry significant business risk undertake a feasibility study as part of their evaluation process for assessing project viability.

Although undertaking a feasibility study is not a requirement for every business-critical project, it is a valuable tool that helps decision makers take a rigorous and objective view of the project and impartially assess any alternative solutions or approaches that may exist.

To create an effective feasibility study, enterprises need a team of experienced staff that:

The IT department whose role was vaguely described as keeping the lights on must now work with the business to identify exactly whose lights should remain on, and how bright those lights need to shine.

This research note will examine:

Many businesses - of all sizes - are going for good enough. The current economic landscape dictates that IT must find areas in which to reduce costs. Perform a business impact analysis now in order to identify cost reduction opportunities and to future-proof the enterprise's DRP.

To read more, download the attachment...

Like the advent of the personal computer 20 years ago, the Consumerization of IT is an approaching trend that IT managers cannot hope to ignore.

People will bring their own devices to work. They will be Apple and Android, smartphone and tablet, and they will all need to connect securely to the corporate network.

People will work from home, or the neighborhood coffee shop, or their cottage, and they will need anytime, anywhere access to files, email, and data.