Strategic IT Planning and Management Background
The Strategic IT Planning and Management guide describes a customizable process that can be used to help position the IT organization to better serve the overall HS Agency's mission. Key principles and concepts upon which the process is based are described in this background. The first portion reviews the overall characteristics of strategic planning. The second portion investigates the central concept of alignment. Lastly, the interpretation of strategic planning within the context of the State HS Agency IT organization is reviewed.
Top
Characteristics of Strategic Planning
In essence, strategic planning means clarifying an organization's main purpose, aligning its priorities and resources with that purpose, and identifying how to judge success in fulfilling that purpose. The strategic planning process therefore leads to the definition of the IT organization's mission, the formulation of IT-specific goals, and the development of actions that will be implemented to meet those goals.
Strategic planning can be conducted in anticipation of, or in reaction to change outside or inside the HS Agency (the external and internal environments, respectively). Change in the world outside the HS Agency can be triggered by changes in regulations or funding, the need to be in compliance with statutes, or in preparation for growth. Changes inside the HS Agency may be triggered by a redefinition of roles and responsibilities, a change in administration and program priorities, or policy and other requirement changes. The planning process itself and the strategies that result impact the whole IT organization and its relationships with other organizations within and external to the HS Agency.
Four elements are basic to any strategic planning process:
-
Deals with an enterprise's interaction with its environments, necessitating a thorough and complete understanding of the entities in that environment, and the nature of the interactions.
-
Addresses the allocation of significant resources, such as large amounts of capital, labor, and capacity.
-
Concentrates on long-term issues; however, increasingly, strategic planning also concentrates on short-term issues that have long-term consequence
-
Becomes the primary responsibility of middle-to-top-level management and executive decision makers; however, the planning process engages decision makers at all levels.
In State agencies, strategic planning is typically supported by a group that includes HS Agency-level executives having influence over key HS Agency-level decisions and responsibility for the HS Agency's general direction and key results. In the process framework, the IT strategic planning activities are performed by the Strategy Team, in close cooperation with the HS Agency Decision Makers and IT Decision Makers.
Top
Strategic Versus Tactical Planning
Through strategic planning, managers establish the general view of their organization's purpose, courses of action, and allocations of resources. To implement the Strategic Plan, managers tactically plan, focusing on short-term decisions and actions, including budgeting and operational improvement Tactical planning deals with the HS Agency's internal capability and capacity to perform and addresses resource allocation in a more detailed way concentrating on short-term decisions concerning what to do, who will do it, and how it will be done.
This level of planning is the primary responsibility of first-line or higher-level management depending on the scope of the area being managed. Strategic planning typically addresses subjective risk and uncertainty, tactical planning typically addresses risk and uncertainty that is more objective. Strategic planning is done primarily to ensure overall mission success and organizational survival; tactical planning is done primarily as a means of implementing the Strategic Plan.
Detailed tactical planning and oversight is done by the activities described in the Planning and Managing the Technical Evolution Guide.
Top
Organizational Levels of Strategic Planning
Organizations develop multiple levels of strategy. These are aligned toward the same basic desired results:
-
Enterprise-level plan -- This level consists of the following two sub levels, the second of which supports the first:
- The commonly used business term for this level is the "corporate" level. Within the context of the Strategic IT Planning and Management Guide, this is the State executive branch. The executive branch level guides the activities of the State agencies and influences the pattern of resource allocation across the agencies.
- The commonly used business term for this level is the "line of business" or "business-unit" level. This management level directs the operations and performance of a single organization that provides a particular product or service, develops responses to changing environmental conditions, and controls the pattern of resource allocation within that product/service area. Within the context of this guide, this is the State HS Agency.
-
Functional-level plan -- This level of planning fleshes out strategy as it applies to a specific functional area. Within the context of the process framework, this is the State HS Agency program context, such as the TANF program. This management level creates guidelines for managing each area, determines how each area will contribute to the Enterprise-level goals and strategies, and initiates plans to support successful execution of strategy.
-
Program-and-control-level plan -- This level of planning is responsible for developing detailed plans for carrying out the day-to-day requirements of the higher-level plans. These are the IT Evolution Plan and individual project plans. The It Evolution Plan coordinates the interdependencies between all the IT-related activities, such as projects to build new application systems or migrate portions of existing application systems. Projects are the lowest-level organizational concept, responsible for specific, IT-related development, deployment, or operation goals.
Top
The Product of Strategic Planning
A Strategic Plan should be viewed as an evolving tool a guide to help in developing other plans and in allocating resources. The Strategic Plan should be scrutinized and updated as often as necessary to stay current with changing circumstances that impact the IT Division's main purpose in some way. It should be a well-articulated and doable definition of the steps necessary to accomplish the IT vision, portraying a realistic "road map" for reaching that vision.
Strategic plans must bring about the desired results--they represent the means to an end, not the end itself. Effective strategic planning helps managers to assess and mitigate uncertainty and risk. It stimulates new ideas, entrepreneurship, and novel approaches. Ineffective planning emphasizes routine activities and short-term solutions to immediate problems.
A Strategic Plan should describe the essential elements of the IT organization from the IT organization"s perspective, including the following:
- Mission (purpose, duty)
- Vision (desired future state)
- Guiding principles (shared values)
- Significant goals (long-term objectives)
- General strategies and policies
- Client base (target population) and their needs
- Product/service mix (offerings such as immunization, child-care)
- Value created for clients by the organization
- Program portfolio (initiatives such as well babies, welfare-to-work)
- "What if" scenarios, risk profiles, and financial stability
Additional items that can be provide included or referenced as the basis of the above components includes:
-
Client access, service levels, and utilization history
-
Legal mandates, pending legislation, compliance requirements, and implications of government restructuring
-
Identify the broad stakeholder base
-
Organizational fit (such as correlation, alignment)
-
Executive, managerial, or staff capabilities and commitment
-
Program benefits, risks, major tasks, timeframes, responsibilities, and charts for monitoring progress
-
Interorganizational cooperation (alliance) and competition (rivalry) for resources
-
Funding mechanisms and schedules
-
Key internal/external communication and dependencies
-
Facilities and sites
-
Support services
-
Knowledge and information management systems
-
Critical linkages
Top
Alignment 
The performance of any system is a function of how well its parts fit and work together--that is, how well they are aligned. Likewise, the HS Agency and its constituent elements can be viewed of as a complex system. If the HS Agency wants to succeed in meeting its purpose in an effective and efficient way, all its major components should be aimed toward the same targets. This means that decision makers throughout all organizational levels should prioritize their allocations of resources and efforts based on a clear understanding of a consistent HS Agency-wide strategy. This strategy begins with the IT Division's understanding of how its vision, mission, guiding principles, critical success factors, goals, and strategies fit with those of other parts of the HS Agency.
Top
Strategies Are Linked Hierarchically
As the organization's basic statement of purpose, scope, and goals, the Strategic Plan shapes the organization. In a hierarchy of organizations, the organization at the top shapes the essential purpose, scope, and objectives for each of the organizations beneath it. Thus, Strategic Plans are hierarchically linked, each one addressing the set of requirements delegated to it by the organization(s) above. The hierarchy assumed by the guides is in the Roles Model.
The graphic illustrates such hierarchical relationships in the public sector. IT Evolution Plans and the projects they coordinate need to align with the requirements of the State Agencies they support (and/or county agencies, as appropriate). Likewise, State (and county) HS Agency plans need to be in line with Federal mandates and budgets. Requirements at each of the levels range from, for example, statutes, executive orders, court decrees, regulations, policies, strategic and tactical plans, budgets, and standards. At the State level they can include, as appropriate, Strategic Plans for the State-wide IT department, for the State HS Agency, for other State agencies, and for the State HS IT Division. All of the organizations' plans should be pointed toward the same general objectives.
Thus, to clearly understand the strategic requirements of the IT Division, first one must understand the strategic imperatives of the State IT Division of which it may be a part. To understand the roles and responsibilities of the HS IT Division, one must clarify the requirements that flow down from higher-level organizations. In some states, counties provide the IT support to HS Agencies, adding an additional organizational layer to consider.
Without understanding the context and the drivers of HS Agency business needs, small technology-related decisions can add up to large misdirection of technological resources and to results having little to do with the highest priority objectives of HS Agencies.
Top
Two-Way and Complex Linkages
In addition to requirements being passed down the hierarchy of organizations, important information that affects those requirements also gets passed up the hierarchy. In this way, the higher-level organizations can stay apprised of what is happening "on the ground," track progress against expectations, and adjust their plans as needed. Acknowledging and incorporating such feedback enable plans to remain current and valuable.
An organization sometimes has multiple parent organizations. For instance, an IT Division might report both to the state's HS Agency and to a State-wide IT department. In such a case, the child support organization must resolve and incorporate oftentimes disparate requirements into its Strategic Plan.
Top
Beyond the Hierarchy
An organization must incorporate requirements that are posed by other entities (noted in the as Environment), for example, its own set of clients, service providers, employees, partner organizations, rival organizations, and regulating organizations (see the Roles). These specific entities may or may not be the same set with which the parent organization deals. Furthermore, external forces, such as political, economic, legal, technological, and social change, can significantly impact what an organization should incorporate into its Strategic Plan.
Top
Availability of Strategic Requirements
In a perfect world, consistent Strategic Plans are prepared at the HS Agency level and the IT Division level. At times, however, the higher-level plans are unavailable, ambiguous, outdated, or do not focus on strategic priorities. The processes for Strategic Management of HS IT describe the planning activities, information artifacts, and roles that are essential to implementing a strategically aligned Program. In situations where the higher-level Strategic Plans are not manifest, then assumptions on the types of inputs will have to be made. Feedback from the lower-level plans can be used to provide information to seed the higher-level plans.
Top
Applying Strategic Planning in the IT Organizational Context
The Overarching Issue
The overarching issue that must be addressed is:
How to evolve information systems and technology to
best meet the State's HS responsibilities?
However, this question might be better restated as:
How to align the IT Evolution plans with the HS Agency's strategy?
Or simply:
What technologies are needed most to be put in place first ?
The concept behind the approach is shown in the issues diagram.
To answer this question, organizations must first clearly define three things:
-
What are the organization's mission-critical responsibilities?
-
What guides the performance of organizational responsibilities?
-
What technologies are most vital to fulfilling these responsibilities?
The challenge is that, to define the above parameters, you must first answer another set of questions:
-
What are the organization's most basic roles and corresponding set of responsibilities? In particular:
-
What is the mission of the parent organization and of other organizations that the IT organization supports? In essence, what value do these organizations create from their stakeholders perspectives ?
-
What factors, both internal and external, are critical to the success of these parent or support organizations, both now and in the foreseeable future?
-
What roles has the IT organization been assigned by the parent organization to help achieve these missions and manage these critical success factors?
-
What factors are critical to the success of the IT organization in performing its roles?
-
What performance measures help to manage the IT organization's roles? That is to say, how exactly would one know whether the IT organization is meeting its responsibilities? It is necessary to gauge the degree to which the IT organization is actually contributing toward the success of the higher-level organizations (e.g., HS Agency and/or TANF). Measures will establish the means to regulate the IT Organization's performance.
-
What technologies are needed most to be put in place first to successfully play the roles assigned to IT? Specifically, what technical competencies are essential for the IT organization to manage its own critical success factors and live up to its responsibilities?
Top
Addressing the Issues
Strategic Management of the HS Agency's IT results in the preparation and use of the HS IT Strategic Plan. That plan is the means to align the HS IT Division responsibilities, obligations, and technology decisions with those of the HS Agency. The plan establishes a basis for the Technical Architecture and IT program-specific plans, such that they respond to HS Agency-wide needs. This enables the HS IT Division to fully support the mission of the State HS Agency. For additional perspective on the many environments of interest and the entities involved, also see the consolidated roles discussion.
The IT Planning and Management Guides therefore assume a broad context; that is, the IT Division may be responsible for technology decisions for one or more programs within the State HS Agency internal environment, as well as special relationships with others outside this context (such as other service providers). The descriptions in the guides are written to address this overarching context: the State HS Agency concerns.
The strategic planning process can lead to a deep understanding of the IT Division and its role in helping achieve HS Agency objectives. It is critical to have the appropriate individuals associated with this exploration and be able to build consensus in the chosen direction. Strategic management may touch many parts of the HS Agency, not only the IT Division, but all stakeholders. For this reason, key teams are defined to help ensure buy-in and establish the conviction to formulate and implement the strategy. These are the Strategy Team, and the ultimate co-owners of the strategy, the IT Decision Makers, and the HS Agency Decision Makers. The activities defined in this guide are highly dependent on their commitment and leadership.
Top
