Scan HS Agency External Environment

By analyzing the HS Agency's external environment, the Strategy Team develops insight into the external factors that influence the IT Division.

Introduction

These activities deal with the State HS Agency's external environment, the world outside the State HS Agency. This environment includes external entities such as Federal and State agencies, locally elected officials, community-based organizations, contractors, and technology vendors. When scanning the external environment, consider  both the current and future situation. This includes potential changes coming from external sources, such as Federal and State initiatives that can affect HS Agency operations. This also includes technology innovations that may impact the IT Division in the short or long term, such as ASP or peer-to-peer architectures. This outside world continually poses new challenges and opportunities to the IT Division's ability to support the HS Agency across all of its programs.

Scanning the environment outside the State HS Agency involves researching a variety of information sources in an attempt to spot emerging trends and conditions that may eventually impact the IT Division's operations and strategic plans. This scanning process is by nature broad-ranging and mind-stretching -- an effort to identify and interpret prominent events and patterns. Scanning is conducted on an ongoing basis, formally and/or informally, primarily by the Strategy Team. The team reviews the results of the analysis with both the HS Agency Decision Makers and IT Decision Makers. 

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Activities

To scan the external environment, the Strategy Team performs the following activities:

1. Plan Collection of HS Agency External Environment Information

Purpose:

The purpose of this activity is to prepare a plan for collecting impact data from the external environment, and document this information in the External Environment Data Collection Plan Worksheet. This plan serves as a guide through the subsequent collection and analysis activities.

Description:

In this activity, the Strategy Team determines what type of information is needed and the basic documents to review, such as contractor business processes, legal mandates, and predictions of political and IT-industry changes. The Strategy Team considers any key influences and IT interfaces between the HS Agency and entities in the external environment. These interactions may have significant impact on the success of the HS Agency. For example, consider the following:

• What are the key services that the HS Agency provides?  Are they external, and how are they accessed?
• For essential systems, what are the key external interfaces and the vendor's technology plans?
• Are the political priorities of a new administrative and legislative branch understood? How are they currently changing?
• Is there impending Federal or State legislation that could alter significantly the way the HS Agency operates?
• Is there impending Federal or State legislation that could alter significantly the information that the HS Agency must provide, such as new or different reporting requirements?
• Are there potential changes to the operations of other Federal, interstate, intrastate, or county agencies or other partners that will impact the way the HS Agency obtains, processes, or exchanges information with these other entities?
• Which external information systems interface with the HS Agency currently or in the future, and what information is or will be exchanged?

Next, the Strategy Team, categorizes the impact these factors may have as near or long term. Consider these Sources of Strategic Information, if needed.

Once the Strategy Team considers the key influences and determines what type of information is needed, they complete the following:  

• Identifies all the key external stakeholders (those who can provide reliable information on the current and future state of the external environment)

• Schedules interview meetings with the external stakeholders

• Requests that stakeholders provide any readily available documentation for the Strategy Team to review prior to the meeting

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2. Collect and Analyze HS Agency External Environment Information

Purpose:

The purpose of this activity is to collect, categorize, and analyze the data according to the collection plan created above, revising the collection plan as necessary. Prioritize any conclusions and, when appropriate, communicate them to the HS Agency Decision Makers  and IT Decision Makers through briefings or other means. The External Interface Strengths and Weaknesses Worksheet helps the Strategy Team determine actions needed to modify or update existing interfaces.  The  External Scanning Worksheet provides insight into collecting, organizing, and analyzing this information.

Description:

External entities (such as stakeholders, advocacy groups, and the legislative branch) can affect the HS Agency directly and indirectly. Identify the types of outside forces and areas of strengths and weaknesses in order to understand how they affect the HS Agency. Information about external forces generally can be categorized  as follows:

• Political forces. This includes political agendas of chief executives and legislators and changes in political parties such as Governor, Legislature, Local Officials, and Federal Government. 
• Legal forces.  This includes requirements and influences such as Federal and State statutes, executive orders, court decrees, HS Agency rules and regulations, and any impending legislation. 
• Economic forces.  This includes the overall State economy, the possibility of increasing or decreasing funding, changes in computer equipment or network infrastructure costs, outsourcing costs, vendor economic health, and other economic issues that the HS Agency should consider.
• Social forces.  This may include the influences of client advocacy groups or interactions with faith-based providers. 
• Technological forces.  This includes influences such as product life spans (e.g., rate of obsolescence, computer processor, and memory growth), standards, and interoperability considerations. Opportunities might include a new standard that facilitates interagency interoperability, such as XML or peer-to-peer networking. Threats might include a changing standard that hastens the obsolescence of a critical application or a vendor's product market share.

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