Mapping IT Strategy Goals That Actually Deliver: How CIOs Can Align, Prioritize, and Execute (Part 3)

From People to Platforms: Building an Actionable and Aligned Multi-Year IT Strategic Plan

Setting your goals

So, you have worked with your stakeholders. You have worked with your team. You were involved in the organization’s strategic planning (or you read the plan and worked out areas to concentrate on). You now have a lot of information that will help you identify the goals for your IT strategic plan. Time to map it out.

First you will want to review the information that you gathered and decide what are the priorities that align with the organization’s strategic plan. Then you will want to review what the priorities within your department are that you have to do – what is non-negotiable within our department? (For example: is anything approaching end of life and needs to be replaced?). See if the organization’s goals’ technical requirements depend on anything that you need to do within your department and see how they compare on a timeline. You don’t want to discover too late that you created a self-inflicted bottleneck by skipping this analysis. As we know: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance (7Ps).

Now, take your primary goals—both those required to achieve organizational outcomes and those required to keep your department running—and lay them out within a realistic 4-year window. Then take a breath. Because you’re not done yet.

You also have legacy goals that you have been planning prior to developing this 4-year strategic masterpiece. Where do they fit in? You figure that out now.

IT Goals: More Than Just Tech

Let’s be honest: most people think IT goals = technical goals. But, not all goals in the IT department are technical goals. Yes, there are a lot of technical goals. Our job is to provide a secure, stable, modern infrastructure that powers the business. The other part of the job is to enhance the technical operations within the organization and work hand in hand with the business to provide technical guidance and strategy to enhance business operations.

So, beyond the technical goals what else is there? The soft skill goals.

Don’t Forget About Your Staff

One of the goals that I put into my IT Strategic Plan deals with enhancing the IT operations through the encouragement of continuous learning, recruiting the best possible candidate, creating an environment that allows diverse thought and discussion, and creating the best possible place to work.

Happy, empowered, well-trained teams move faster and with better outcomes. It’s just that simple.

Don’t Forget About Your Business Partners

I call them partners, not customers. Many CIOs call the business-side of the house their customers, I used to, but I think that creates a dichotomy in the organization that is not warranted. We are all business partners, if we call them customers then you (IT) are automatically a support function for the organization and not a forward-thinking business partner that enhances the operations of the organization. However, no matter how you want to position yourself in the organization, you can’t forget about your business partners.

Focus on partner experience, success management, and service monitoring. How you will you partner with them over time to identify areas of technological enhancement.

Don’t Forget About the Mandates

This is also the time that you reflect on your discussions with your boss (the CEO, Organizational Head, Agency Head…etc) and fit in any mandates that may have been provided to you. They can be technical or non-technical.

Perhaps the CEO is concerned about the network and wants to ensure that the network is strong, stable, without latency or maybe the mandate is data-transparency. This is where you put in a goal or identify it as an objective of one of your larger goals. This not only shows the organization (and CEO) that you know that this is something that you must manage and monitor but also identifies it as an area for your team to put forth the time and resources to accomplish the objective.

Backwards Planning: Your Secret Weapon

Putting all these goals together can be difficult.

Some things will naturally align and the soft skill goals will be crosscutting and may not need a lot of manipulation on the timeline. But, the technical goals/objectives that are added to the plan will most likely require some backwards planning so that you know what has to happen when and by how much before it is completed. This is where comparing milestones and process KPIs come into play. This is the piece that turns a nice-sounding list of goals into an actual strategy.

Next week Part 4 – KPIs

Stay tuned as we dive deeper into tracking progress and defining return on investment—two areas that make your strategic plan not just a document, but a powerful tool to manage performance and advocate for IT.

Read the How to Develop Your IT Strategic Plan series from the beginning