Establish Overarching Strategic Management Plan
Establish and use the Strategy Project Plan to communicate and coordinate strategic planning activities and results.
| Introduction |
| Activities |
Introduction
These activities establish the project plan for the strategy project and track activities against it. Results are reviewed with those having oversight of the project, the HS Agency Decision Makers and the IT Division Makers, as needed.
Activities
To plan and track the strategic planning project activities, the Strategy Team performs the following activities.
1. Establish Strategy Project Plan
Purpose:
The purpose of this activity is to prepare an overarching project plan to coordinate the management of the actions for developing the HS IT Strategic Plan. This ensures that the Strategy Team has appropriate resources and that any coordination between the Strategy Team, the HS Agency Decision Makers, IT Decision Makers, or others is addressed at the beginning of the strategy project.
Description:
In this activity, the Strategy Team produces the Strategy Project Plan for the HS IT Strategic Plan. When completing the project plan, the Strategy Team should consider the following:
- Defining the activities for which the Strategy Team is responsible. Detailed plans, such as those needed for scanning the different environments (see Analyze the Situation) may be produced as needed.
- Establishing expected start and completion periods for each activity.
- Identifying risks to successfully generating an HS IT Strategic Plan should be identified. This may include obtaining access to data sources (e.g., documents or individuals), resources, and coordination with other external groups.
- Adequately training the Strategy Team members.
- Determining necessary resources to complete each of the activities, such as special data collection or analysis tools, or access to individuals or services for specific information, such as technology watches or trends.
- Showing uncertainty in any estimates, noting critical dependencies between activities, when necessary.
2. Track and Make Adjustments
Purpose:
The purpose of this activity is to analyze and document the status of strategy project activities against the Strategic Project Plan, noting where the expected results deviate and making adjustments to the project plan or the performance of the activities (e.g., additional resources). Those having oversight of the strategy project receive periodic insight into this status.
Description:
The Strategy Team Lead is responsible for collecting and analyzing status against the Strategy Project Plan, making adjustments to the performance of the activities or revising the project plan. Status addresses cost, schedule, and results of the strategic activities. Some items to consider for this tracking include the following:
- Actual schedule (start/completed) compared against estimates.
- Actual costs, by appropriate categories, compared against estimates.
- Results expected from the activities compared with what was achieved (e.g., interviews with all stakeholders could not be performed as intended if they were not available).
- Risks to collecting and analyzing the essential information to determine a realistic strategy.
- Issues that may affect the Strategy Team performing their activities; must be dealt with at higher levels of HS Agency management.
Periodically, appropriate reports or briefings are provided to the HS Agency Decision Makers and IT Decision Makers on the status of the strategic planning activities. These reports summarize the overall progress and note any difficulties that those having oversight need to address (e.g., coordination with others within or external to the HS Agency).