Coordinate and Publish

Document the strategic plan and reach consensus approval.

Introduction

This is the last activity in the strategic planning process. The strategy team and key stakeholders have had opportunities to provide input into the previous steps (analyze the situation,  formulate the IT strategic direction, identify the IT initiatives) along the way. This activity compiles all this information and creates the IT Division's strategic plan.

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Activity

To coordinate and publish the plan, the strategy team performs the following activity:

1. Coordinate and Publish the Plan

Purpose: 

The purpose of this activity is create and publish the strategic plan.

Description:

During a previous activity, the strategy team created a draft version of the IT Division's mission statement, vision statement, and guiding principles. During the strategic planning process, the Strategy Team analyzed the situation (internal, external and IT Division) and identified goals, subgoals, initiatives, measures, and critical factors that support the draft version of the mission, vision, and guiding principles.

During this activity, the strategy team compares all the data collected during the strategic planning process to the draft version of the HS IT Division's mission, vision, and guiding principles. Based on the information compiled, the mission, vision, and guiding principles may be adjusted and modified. The Strategy Team Lead designates who will draft the strategic plan. The Model IT Strategic Plan serves as a template and can be modified to fit the needs of the individual IT Division.  The template may contain the following sections:

• HS Agency Business Direction
  • HS Agency Vision Statement
  • HS Agency Mission Statement
  • HS Agency Goals
• HS IT Strategic Plan
  • IT Division's Vision
  • IT Division's Mission
  • IT Guiding Principles
  • IT Division's Goals, Subgoals, and Performance Measures
• Critical Factors
• Initiatives
• Appendices 
• References
• Next Steps

The Strategic Plan needs to accurately document the decisions made. This is validated by allowing the Strategy Team and key stakeholders (IT Division Decision Makers and the HS Agency Decision Makers) to review, comment, and approve the Strategic Plan. This is first time the complete plan can be looked at in context; however, the big decisions have been debated and resolved, so the revisions should be small such as revising wording or clarifying details.  If a significant number of issues is raised, a meeting should be held for the Strategy Team and key stakeholders to discuss the issues and resolve any issues.

A well-prioritized and documented strategic plan will be easier to implement in the next steps.  

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