Strategy is creating fit among a company’s activities. The success of a strategy depends on doing many things well – not just a few. The things that are done well must operate within a close-knit system,. If there is not fit among these activities, there is no distinctive strategy and little to sustain the strategic deployment process. Management then reverts to the simpler task of overseeing independent functions. When this occurs, operational effectiveness determines the relative performance of the organizations and the strategic initiatives are lost.
Portfolio Agility– From Elusive Imperative to Practical Reality: Seven Dimens...UMT
More efficient and effective setting and implementing of strategy can be potentially achieved by leveraging a new style of PMO that is more comprehensive than in the past.
Agility is the elusive executive imperative of the day; long term success or failure depends on an organization’s skill at identifying and capturing opportunities faster than rivals do in this volatile and global business environment.
Bridging the gap between strategy and execution and facilitating better decisions and their deployment requires a non-ad-hoc, comprehensive roadmap to laying an enterprise-wide web of information sharing and structural change that is adopted at all levels of the company.
Portfolio Agility– From Elusive Imperative to Practical Reality: Seven Dimens...UMT
More efficient and effective setting and implementing of strategy can be potentially achieved by leveraging a new style of PMO that is more comprehensive than in the past.
Agility is the elusive executive imperative of the day; long term success or failure depends on an organization’s skill at identifying and capturing opportunities faster than rivals do in this volatile and global business environment.
Bridging the gap between strategy and execution and facilitating better decisions and their deployment requires a non-ad-hoc, comprehensive roadmap to laying an enterprise-wide web of information sharing and structural change that is adopted at all levels of the company.
Systemic Management of IT FunctionalityMalcolm Ryder
The search is on for what to call the coordination of management disciplines in the business use of IT. Short of the next big acronym, one argument is already more useful than most and is not even new.
The scope of governance's concern naturally exceeds the scope of production performance, representing a need to protect opportunity above and beyond performance targets. Innovation targets the expansion of opportunity, but inappropriate performance management will hold it back.
Align Information Technology and Business Strategy Salman Memon
Align Information Technology and Business Strategy
The mission critical, long-term IT choices made by a firm.
Commitment to build IT capability
http://phpexecutor.com
Creating A Necessary Dependence - IT Business Alignmentgmwhitfield
In order to achieve the outcome IT Business Alignment, a dependence on IT and the Business must be created. This slide deck presents a brief history of IT business alignment and presents a framework for helping an organization create a necessary dependence for alignment to be achieved
Never before has Information Technology (IT) played a more important role in bringing competitive advantage to an organization. Yet IT has never before been more complex. In the past, the mainframe paradigm provided turnkey solutions to complex business problems. The functionality was provided by
the software vendor, which may have also been the hardware vendor. The business processes were adapted to this functionality. As these processes evolved it was discovered that the systems were not sufficiently flexible or adaptable to meet the new demands of the business. The introduction of distributed processing provided a means to deal with the inflexibility and monolithic nature of these legacy
applications.
Nicholas Carr’s, Does IT Matter? asks the question – “isn’t it enough for IT to enable companies to operate more efficiently or deliver better services, to reduce costs or heighten customer satisfaction?” [1, p. 7]. This question is the infrastructure question. Carr suggests the investments in IT have “gone to waste” after the collapse of the Internet Bubble. While much has been wasted to what were probably poor business choices, IT investment as a strategic initiative still has merit. This merit needs to be connected to the financial performance of the business. The measurement and valuation of these investments must take place in the same way other investment decisions are made. Carr’s thesis is IT has become a commodity service and not the basis of a differentiated strategic advantage. As the costs of IT go down, its power increases the capabilities of IT outstrip the company’s needs. Again this is an infrastructure view of IT. Like the railroads and electric utilities, if is only a “utility” it will have difficulty describing its differentiated advantage.
Systemic Management of IT FunctionalityMalcolm Ryder
The search is on for what to call the coordination of management disciplines in the business use of IT. Short of the next big acronym, one argument is already more useful than most and is not even new.
The scope of governance's concern naturally exceeds the scope of production performance, representing a need to protect opportunity above and beyond performance targets. Innovation targets the expansion of opportunity, but inappropriate performance management will hold it back.
Align Information Technology and Business Strategy Salman Memon
Align Information Technology and Business Strategy
The mission critical, long-term IT choices made by a firm.
Commitment to build IT capability
http://phpexecutor.com
Creating A Necessary Dependence - IT Business Alignmentgmwhitfield
In order to achieve the outcome IT Business Alignment, a dependence on IT and the Business must be created. This slide deck presents a brief history of IT business alignment and presents a framework for helping an organization create a necessary dependence for alignment to be achieved
Never before has Information Technology (IT) played a more important role in bringing competitive advantage to an organization. Yet IT has never before been more complex. In the past, the mainframe paradigm provided turnkey solutions to complex business problems. The functionality was provided by
the software vendor, which may have also been the hardware vendor. The business processes were adapted to this functionality. As these processes evolved it was discovered that the systems were not sufficiently flexible or adaptable to meet the new demands of the business. The introduction of distributed processing provided a means to deal with the inflexibility and monolithic nature of these legacy
applications.
Nicholas Carr’s, Does IT Matter? asks the question – “isn’t it enough for IT to enable companies to operate more efficiently or deliver better services, to reduce costs or heighten customer satisfaction?” [1, p. 7]. This question is the infrastructure question. Carr suggests the investments in IT have “gone to waste” after the collapse of the Internet Bubble. While much has been wasted to what were probably poor business choices, IT investment as a strategic initiative still has merit. This merit needs to be connected to the financial performance of the business. The measurement and valuation of these investments must take place in the same way other investment decisions are made. Carr’s thesis is IT has become a commodity service and not the basis of a differentiated strategic advantage. As the costs of IT go down, its power increases the capabilities of IT outstrip the company’s needs. Again this is an infrastructure view of IT. Like the railroads and electric utilities, if is only a “utility” it will have difficulty describing its differentiated advantage.
MIS, STRATEGIC ROLE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS, MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION SYSTEMS, STRATEGIC ROLE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS, INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY, CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMATION SYSTEM STRATEGY, CLASSIFICATION OF STRATEGIC ROLE OF INFORMATION SYSTEM, STRATEGIES TO GAIN COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES,
Ia
n
W
h
ad
co
ck
1808 Kaplan.indd 621808 Kaplan.indd 62 12/5/07 5:31:55 PM12/5/07 5:31:55 PM
NOT LONG AFTER ITS SUCCESSFUL IPO, the Conner Corporation (not its real
name) began to lose its way. The company’s senior executives continued their prac-
tice of holding monthly one-day management meetings, but their focus drifted.
The meetings’ agenda called for a discussion of operational issues in the morn-
ing and strategic issues in the afternoon. But with the company under pressure
to meet quarterly targets, operational items had started to crowd strategy out
of the agenda. Inevitably, the review of actual monthly and forecast quarterly
fi nancial performance revealed revenues to be lower, and expenses to be higher,
than targeted. The worried managers spent hours discussing how to close the
gap through pricing initiatives, capacity downsizing, SG&A staff cuts, and sales
hbr.org | January 2008 | Harvard Business Review 63
Successful strategy execution has two basic rules: understand
the management cycle that links strategy and operations, and know
what tools to apply at each stage of the cycle.
by Robert S. Kaplan
and David P. Norton
the Management
System
1808 Kaplan.indd 631808 Kaplan.indd 63 12/5/07 5:32:05 PM12/5/07 5:32:05 PM
64 Harvard Business Review | January 2008 | hbr.org
LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY | Mastering the Management System
campaigns. One executive noted, “We have no time for
strategy. If we miss our quarterly numbers, we might cease
to exist. For us, the long term is the short term.”
Like Conner, all too many companies – including some
well-established public corporations – have learned how
Gresham’s Law applies to their management meetings:
Discussions about bad operations inevitably drive out dis-
cussions about good strategy implementation. When com-
panies fall into this trap, they soon fi nd themselves limping
along, making or closely missing their numbers each quarter
but never examining how to modify their strategy to gener-
ate better growth opportunities or how to break the pat-
tern of short-term fi nancial shortfalls. Analysts, investors,
and board members start to question the imagination and
commitment of the companies’ management.
In our experience, however, breakdowns in a company’s
management system, not managers’ lack of ability or effort,
are what cause a company’s underperformance. By manage-
ment system, we’re referring to the integrated set of processes
and tools that a company uses to develop its strategy, translate
it into operational actions, and monitor and improve the effec-
tiveness of both. The failure to balance the tensions between
strategy and operations is pervasive: Various studies done in
the past 25 years indicate that 60% to 80% of companies fall
short of the success predicted from their new strategies.
By creating a closed-loop management system, compa-
nies can avoid such shortfalls. (S ...
Enterprise Information Management Strategy - a proven approachSam Thomsett
Access a proven approach to Enterprise Information Management Strategy - providing a framework for Digital Transformation - by a leader in Information Management Consulting - Entity Group
This report is about combination of various strategic management theories which has explains by different authors with different viewpoints according to the situations which they are looking at.
Strategic management can be basically describe as a process which analysis the current situation and make strategies which will matches to that. Basically strategic management has three main processes which can name as strategic formulation, implementation and evaluation.
First this report explains about what is strategic management and how it has implemented and how if effects for an organization. Compare to that briefing then the report focus on the theories which has found out to be explain in the journals which has selected to review the strategic management theories.
And then the report contains about the strengths and weaknesses of the each selected strategic management theory. After that it contains about a combination of all the theories which has mention in the report, to fill up the gap of each theory using the strength of the other.
Finally, in the conclusion the report shows the final view of the researcher about the finding throughout the research and the assumption which can make about combination of the strategic management theories and the use of this combination for a better performance.
Your Challenge
Infrastructure managers and change managers need to re-evaluate their change management process due to slow change turnaround time, too many unauthorized changes, too many incidents and outages because of poorly managed changes, or difficulty evaluating and prioritizing changes.
IT system owners often resist change management because they see it as slow and bureaucratic.
Infrastructure changes are often seen as “different” from application changes, and two (or more) processes may exist.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
ITIL provides a usable framework for change management, but full process rigor is not appropriate for every change request.
You need to design a process that is flexible enough to meet the demand for change, and strict enough to protect the live environment from change-related incidents.
A mature change management process will minimize review and approval activity. Counterintuitively, with experience in implementing changes, risk levels decline to a point where most changes are “preapproved.”
Impact and Result
Create a unified change management process that reduces risk and takes a balanced approach toward deploying changes, while also maintaining throughput of innovation and enhancements.
Categorize changes based on an industry-standard risk model with objective measures of impact and likelihood.
Establish and empower a change manager and change advisory board with the authority to manage, approve, and prioritize changes.
Establish easy-to-follow intake, assessment, and approval processes, and ensure that there is visibility into changes across the organization.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Strategic Alignment
Tim Campos
IN TODAY’S BUSINESS, CIOs have tremendous opportunity to have a major strategic influence on their businesses. This opportunity arises from the rapid adoption of information technology over the past three decades across nearly every aspect of business. When a company wants to merge with another organization, the IT organization is one of the first corporate departments to be involved. When a new plant or facility is opened, the IT organization must be involved to help connect it to the rest of the company’s systems. Even when a company reaches into a new line of business, the IT organization is involved to help set up the information systems to support the new business.
This opportunity, however, can also be the CIO’s greatest liability if the organization’s focus is diluted. IT has been adopted in nearly every business process, even those that are not very strategic. Nearly all employees at companies have e-mail accounts, and every corporation has a web site, regardless of whether it delivers products or services through that web site. Because all of these technology operations must function in order for the business to operate, CIOs must divide their focus and resources across the entire company.
This breadth of demand creates tremendous challenges for IT organizations. It is not good enough simply to focus on those portions of the business that are strategic, to the detriment of everything else. Although this might work in the short run, over time the neglected business functions become a drain on the success of the business. (This is one of the reasons so many firms reimplement enterprise systems.) Moreover, what is “strategic” depends on whom one asks. A customer portal may not be that important to manufacturing, but it is critical to the strategy of the service organization. The resources allocated to the IT department are finite, yet the demands on the IT organization can at times appear infinite. It is this challenge that separates the mediocre from the exceptional IT organization. The secret to addressing this challenge is to strategically align your organization to the business.
FRAMEWORK
Strategic alignment results from structuring the IT organization around the needs of the business. To explain how this is done, let me break the operations of the IT organization down into four basic functions. Two are delivery functions: support delivery and project delivery. The other two are management activities: value attainment and strategic alignment. All activities of the IT organization can be categorized into one of these four functions, although, as we will see later, these functions are typically spread out across multiple teams, which is the source of much of the misalignment IT organizations face (see Figure 8.1).
FIGURE 8.1 IT Strategic Alignment Framework
These functions layer on top of each other such that failure at one level affects everything above it. Strategic alignment is achieved.
Planning projects usually starts with tasks and milestones. The planner gathers this information from the participants – customers, engineers, subject matter experts. This information is usually arranged in the form of activities and milestones. PMBOK defines “project time management” in this manner. The activities are then sequenced according to the projects needs and mandatory dependencies.
Increasing the Probability of Project SuccessGlen Alleman
Risk Management is essential for development and production programs. Information about key cost, performance and schedule attributes are often uncertain or unknown until late in the program.
Risk issues that can be identified early in the program, which may potentially impact the program, termed Known Unknowns, can be alleviated with good risk management. -- Effective Risk Management 2nd Edition, Page 1, Edmund Conrow, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2003
Cost and schedule growth for complex projects is created when unrealistic technical performance expectations, unrealistic cost and schedule estimates, inadequate risk assessments, unanticipated technical issues, and poorly performed and ineffective risk management, contribute to project technical and programmatic shortfalls
From Principles to Strategies for Systems EngineeringGlen Alleman
From Principles to Strategies How to apply Principles, Practices, and Processes of Systems Engineering to solve complex technical, operational,
and organizational problems
Building a Credible Performance Measurement BaselineGlen Alleman
Establishing a credible Performance Measurement Baseline, with a risk adjusted Integrated Master Plan and Integrated Master Schedule, starts with the WBS and connects Technical Measures of progress to Earned Value
Capabilities‒Based Planning the capabilities needed to accomplish a mission or fulfill a business strategy
Only when capabilities are defined can we start with requirements elicitation
Starting with the development of a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) estimate of work and duration, creating the Product Roadmap and Release Plan, the Product and Sprint Backlogs, executing and statusing the Sprint, and informing the Earned Value Management Systems, using Physical Percent Complete of progress to plan.
Program Management Office Lean Software Development and Six SigmaGlen Alleman
Successfully combining a PMO, Agile, and Lean / 6 starts with understanding what benefit each paradigm brings to the table. Architecting a solution for the enterprise requires assembling a “Systems” with processes, people, and principles – all sharing the goal of business improvement.
This resource document describes the Program Governance Road map for product development, deployment, and sustainment of products and services in compliance with CMS guidance, ITIL IT management, CMMI best practices, and other guidance to assure high quality software is deployed for sustained operational success in mission critical domains.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey 2024 by 91mobiles.pdf91mobiles
91mobiles recently conducted a Smart TV Buyer Insights Survey in which we asked over 3,000 respondents about the TV they own, aspects they look at on a new TV, and their TV buying preferences.
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
From Daily Decisions to Bottom Line: Connecting Product Work to Revenue by VP...
Influences on IT strategy
1. InfluencesonITStrategy
HowITStrategyimpactsthe
developmentofsystemsbaseon
Commercial Off The Shelf products
Strategy is creating fit among a company’s activities. The success of a strategy
depends on doing many thing well – not just a few. The things that are done well
must operate within a close nit system,. If there is not fit among these activities,
there is no distinctive strategy and little to sustain the strategic deployment process.
management then reverts to the simpler task of overseeing independent functions.
When this occurs, operational effectiveness determines the relative performance of
the organizations, and the strategic initiatives are lost.
Glen B. Alleman
Niwot Ridge
www.niwotridge.com
In Association with
Nilan-Sanders Associates
www.nilan-sanders.com
2. LIGHT WEIGHT PROCESS DEFINITION
= ii
TableofContents
Table of Contents.................................................................................................................. ii
Introduction...........................................................................................................................3
THE THEMES OF IT STRATEGY...................................................................................................3
What is Strategy?...................................................................................................................4
WHAT IS SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE AND WHY DOWE CARE?.............................................................5
Framework for the IT Strategy.................................................................................................6
VERTICAL VERSUS HORIZONTAL APPROACHES TO IT STRATEGY.......................................................8
Influences on IT Strategy........................................................................................................9
METHODOLOGY OF THE IT INFLUENCES DESCRIPTION...................................................................11
FOUR ELEMENTS OF THE STRATEGY.........................................................................................12
WHAT’S INFLUENCE ON WHY...................................................................................................13
WHY’S INFLUENCE ON WHO....................................................................................................13
WHO’S INFLUENCE ON HOW....................................................................................................14
HOW’S INFLUENCE ON WHAT...................................................................................................14
WHAT’S INFLUENCE ON HOW...................................................................................................15
HOW’S INFLUENCE ON WHO....................................................................................................15
WHO’S INFLUENCE ON WHY ....................................................................................................16
WHY’S INFLUENCE ON WHAT...................................................................................................16
WHY’S INFLUENCE ON HOW ....................................................................................................16
HOW’S INFLUENCE ON WHY ....................................................................................................17
WHO’S INFLUENCE ON WHAT...................................................................................................17
WHAT’S INFLUENCE ON WHO...................................................................................................18
Conclusion..........................................................................................................................18
11. INLFUENCES ON IT STRATEGY
= 11
MethodologyoftheITInfluencesDescription
The following narrative describes the details of the IT Strategy Framework. Each
Framework component described in the diagram influences the other three (3)
components in ways described below. The individual lettered influences originate from the
four (4) results produced by the intersection of the attributes and components of each
What, Why, How, and Who. The individual descriptions follow in clockwise manner around
the intersection matrix, starting in the upper left corner.
Components
Attributes
B, K, R, Z
DD,V,O,F
HH,LL,PP,TT
D, I, T, BB
FF,X,M,H
II,MM,QQ,UU
C, J, S, AA
EE,W,N,G
JJ,NN,RR,VV
A, L, Q, Y
CC,U,P,E
GG,KK,OO,SS
Figure 3 – Legend of the IT Influences Diagram
The Influence diagram contains the following elements:
n Components – of the business strategy.
n Attributes – or characteristics of the organization.
Four interacting elements of the strategy are:
n Organizational Strategy – describes the organizational structure of the various
business units, how they interact, the named participants in each organization and the
informal behind the scenes participants
n Information System (IS) Strategy – describes the behavioral aspects of the system
which support, promote, or enhance the business activities.
n Information Technology (IT) Strategy – describes the actual computing systems, their
architectures, operation and maintenance. Although focused on the physical
technology, the acquisition, installation and deployment of these technologies and a
critical component of the IT Strategy.
n Information Management (IM) Strategy – describes the creation, management and
use of information. This information is usually in the form of database contents and the
work processes built around them.
12. INLFUENCES ON IT STRATEGY
= 12
FourElementsoftheStrategy
In each of the four strategy elements the components and attributes are organized in the
following manner:
n Organizational Strategy – WHY (the wherefore and rationale for the strategy)
Components of WHY
n Organizational components – chose the organizational structure or design,
management control systems and formal policies.
n Business components – the corporate strategy is concerned with mission. The
strategic business unit strategy is concerned with competitive positioning.
Attributes of WHY
n Intent – forces a crystallization of purpose, an operational orientation, in making
choices.
n Content – is the context of the Strategy. The influences of the Organizational
Strategy on the other three strategy elements.
n Information Systems Strategy – WHAT (the components of the strategy)
Components of WHAT
n Alignment – identifying the applications required to support the business
strategy.
n Opportunity – searching for innovative uses of technology which can be
exploited to enable business to be performed better.
Attributes of WHAT
Strategic Business Unit – the individual business unit.
Corporate or Group – the highest level of the business organization in which the
individual business units operate.
n Information Technology Strategy – HOW (the mechanisms of the strategy)
Components of HOW
n Scope – which technologies are to be formally included in the information
strategy
n Architecture – the technology framework which drives, shapes, and control the
Information Technology Strategy.
Attributes of HOW
n Capability – is the set of skills, knowledge assets and activities needed to be
competent in the market place
n Powers – are required to implement and monitor the architecture. Powers are
used to exercise technology stewardship.
n Information Management Strategy – WHO (the participants in the strategy)
Components of WHO
13. INLFUENCES ON IT STRATEGY
= 13
n Roles – who has responsibility for information resource policies and actions
n Relationships – how are relationships built between he CIO and others to
assure success over time.
Attributes of WHO
n Formal – the intent of roles and relationships
n Informal – the context of roles and relationships
The following sections describe the details of the influences between Why, What, How,
and Who.
What’sInfluenceonWhy
The influences between What and Why include:
A – Focus on procedural forms of planning using Critical Success Factors – The
enterprise–wide management of data demands an enterprise–wide data and process
management planning horizon. The uniformity of the procedural focus encompasses
all participants rather than individuals.
B – Pursue new themes in IS strategy and the search for intent across the highest
level of the organization – Pursuing intent across the enterprise consolidates the
operational choices for all participants. Acting as one origination can now be facilitated
through the IT Strategy.
C – Concerned with global capabilities, new ways of organizing or with the search for
synergy and added group value – The consolidation of the product vision can now
cross business unit boundaries. This impacts the organizational aspects of the
decision making process, since participants are now impacted as a collective rather
than in isolation
D – Product–Market Strategies are not complete without consideration of the IT
Needs – Economies of scale can now be applied to each business unit, while reusing
their existing infrastructure. The consolidation of this infrastructure demands that the
participants share in the infrastructure vision as well as provide for its management.
Why’sInfluenceonWho
The influences between Why and Who include:
I – The Ethos of the organization, the management style of the culture. How
management is put into Information Management, Information technology, and
Information Systems – The collective vision of the enterprise-wide IT system must be
propagated throughout the organization. This can not be done by simply starting at
the top and working down. A bottom-up and top-down approach is required to assure
all participants share in the same vision at the same time
J – The formulation and implementation of business strategy – The creation of the
components of strategy must take place through the collaborative process of
consensus building. The resulting system is not a sum of all opinions but is built on an
architectural foundation, which meets the needs of all participants.
K – Forms the operational orientation, focus or criteria for making business choices–
The participants in the IT Strategy process must be focused on the operational
aspects of the decision making activities. As such, they must have a detailed
14. INLFUENCES ON IT STRATEGY
= 14
understanding the operational processes and the consequences of the various IT
Strategy options.
L – The formal definitions, configurations and instruments of structure and control –
The integration of the various individual organizations can not be based on a shared
organization chart. However, some form of consistency between each participant’s
business structure is needed to assure uniform reporting paths. As a result, the IT
Strategy must assume a uniform reporting and deployment structure as well as
consistent deployment metrics throughout the organization.
Who’sInfluenceonHow
The influences between Who and How include:
Q – Describes the documented roles of the organization – The creation of a formal
organization chart and job description will form the basis for documenting the various
roles within the IT organization and the organizations it serves.
R – Describes the formal relationships between the organizations – The relationships
between the various participants can be formally described. The roles and
responsibilities document is one tool for this description. Service Level Agreements
are another mechanism through which relationships and the associated performance
metrics can be described.
S – Describes the informal relationships between the participants in the CIO domain –
The deployment of operational systems will depend on the informal relationships
between the IT providers and the IT consumers. These relationships can be
established and maintained through the support environment.
T – Describes the informal or actual roles played in the organization – The skill sets
necessary to successfully deploy, operate, and maintain the system must be broader
than the formal job description. The compartmentalization of roles must be avoided.
Generalist must be recruited, trained, and deployed throughout the IT provider’s
organization
How’sInfluenceonWhat
The influences between How and What include:
Y – Skill sets are based on the architectural foundation, not on the available resources
– The skill set availability directly impacts what functions can be performed by the
deployment and operational teams. The demand for skill sets must be met with the
supply of skill sets. This in turn will influence which technologies can be deployed
within the scheduled timeframes.
Z – Control the infrastructure, metadata, and metaprocesses within the architecture –
The guidelines for controlling the infrastructure will influence what technologies are
deployed in the operational environment. The mechanism for controlling this
infrastructure is usually defined within the IT Strategy and the operational departments
in the IT Organization.
AA – Control the centralized versus decentralized boundary between users and
specialist – The mechanism for controlling the boundary between centralized and
decentralized environments and the user and specialist domain is defined in the IT
Strategy. This control focuses on the operational aspects of the applications.
Infrastructure elements are separated from the application elements. The
15. INLFUENCES ON IT STRATEGY
= 15
infrastructure elements are usually centralized while the application elements are
nearer the end user domain.
BB – Driven by the business needs and the skill sets. Alignment of these two items is
a Critical Success Factor – The scope of the deployment mechanism is controlled by
the available skill sets. Each business unit’s needed will place a specific burden on the
available resources for installation, startup and operations of the various application
suites.
What’sInfluenceonHow
CC – Focus on procedural forms of planning using Critical Success Factors – these
Critical Success Factors must be traceable to the architectural components. Each
architectural component can be used to support a CSF using metrics. By building on
the businesses Critical Success Factors, the IS Strategy can directly support the
measurable outcomes.
DD – Pursue new themes in IS strategy and the search for intent across the highest
level of the organization – the coupling of product and market strategies with the IT
Strategy provides a directly measurable benefit for both the product organization and
the IT organization. By supporting the production environment with enabling
technology, the IS Strategy can be developed around the business needs, while
maintaining its architectural foundations.
EE – Concerned with global capabilities, new ways of organizing or with the search for
synergy and added group value – The Globalization of the IT Strategy is actually
based in the concept of removing the boundaries of operation from the system.
Localization’s must be avoided, while still provided sufficient flexibility to meet specific
business process needs. This can be accomplished through an architectural
foundation strategy in which system components are tailored to meet specific needs.
The foundation of these tailored components forms the basis of the modifications.
This is the primary role of object technology. New behaviors are derived from existing
objects, through new or altered methods, while maintaining the standard behaviors
and interfaces for all other users.
FF – Product–Market Strategies are not complete without consideration of the IT
Needs – The individual product / market strategies must be owned by the operational
unit managers. Using the foundation architecture, the IT system will be deployed to
meet these strategies. Any localization will be managed in isolation (using the tools of
the system).
How’sInfluenceonWho
U – Skill sets are based on the architectural foundation, not on the available resources
– The skill set requirements directly influence the personnel being deployed.
V – Control the infrastructure, metadata, and metaprocesses within the architecture –
The controlling personal are responsible for implementing the infrastructure need to
understand the metadata and metaprocesses for the organization. This understanding
should be based on a specific model of the data and processes, which is maintained
in the IT Organization.
W – Control the centralized versus decentralized boundary between users and
specialist – The assignment of the personnel for controlling the centralized versus
decentralized boundaries must understand both the meta data and processes issues
as well as the computing infrastructure.
16. INLFUENCES ON IT STRATEGY
= 16
X– Driven by the business needs and the skill sets. Alignment of these two items is a
Critical Success Factor – The personnel responsible for aligning the centralized and
decentralized application domains must have the skill sets to deal with the individual
business processes.
Who’sInfluenceonWhy
P – Describes the documented roles of the organization – The organizational
description need to be clearly defined so that responsibilities and man loading
requirements can be
O – Describes the formal relationships between the organizations – The formal
relationships for the organizational components are necessary in order to define who
does what. This organization chart only defines the formal lines of communication, the
informal lines are also necessary to actually make the organization function.
N – Describes the informal relationships between the participants in the CIO domain –
These informal relationships form the basis of the real work within the organization.
Based on the formal aspects of the business, the knowledge of where and how to get
something done is usually held in locations outside the formal repositories – simply
because of the tribal knowledge and job movement.
M – Describes the informal or actual roles played in the organization – The informal
roles played by the participants is as important as the formal roles. Mentoring, external
advise, historical knowledge, and outside opinions all add to the value of the IT
Strategy and its supporting processes.
Why’sInfluenceonWhat
E – The Ethos of the organization, the management style of the culture. How
management is put into Information Management, Information technology, and
Information Systems – The culture of the organization influences what the IT Strategy
delivers through the design and deployment of the business systems. What is
important to the organization is conveyed in the level of detail, business process
control, support systems, performance and capital expenditure levels.
F – The formulation and implementation of business strategy – By articulating the
business strategy is terms of system behaviors (the external behavior as seen by
customers and clients), the business units are creating a vision of their operations.
G – Forms the operational orientation, focus or criteria for making business choices –
By defining the measurable behaviors of the system, through the operational metrics
the software components become embedded in the culture of the business. We do it
this way because that’s the way we do it – becomes the rational for the underlying
systems. The organization then takes on the culture of the software systems.
H – The formal definitions, configurations and instruments of structure and control –
The formal model of the organization is held in the software system. The Metadata
and Metaprocesses come to represent the business operations. The users of the
system then drive to software system directly, which in turn drives the underlying
business processes indirectly.
Why’sInfluenceonHow
SS – The Ethos of the organization, the management style of the culture. How
management is put into Information Management, Information technology, and
Information Systems – By setting down the cultural aspects of the IT Strategy, the
17. INLFUENCES ON IT STRATEGY
= 17
implementation boundaries can be defined. What methods, technologies,
expectations, and personnel behaviors are expected can be used to form the
underpinnings of the planning process.
TT – The formulation and implementation of business strategy – By formulating the
clear and concise business strategy the implementation plans can be aligned with the
business plans. Without this alignment the metrics needed to verify the business goals
can not be determined.
UU – Forms the operational orientation, focus or criteria for making business choices
– Defining the intentions of each business in their use the IT technology and its
operational behaviors resulting is a clear set of goals and objectives by which the
resulting system can be measured
VV – The formal definitions, configurations and instruments of structure and control –
The formal definitions of the organization’s expectations can be translated into actual
project plan details.
How’sInfluenceonWhy
KK – Skill sets are based on the architectural foundation, not on the available
resources – The development of skill sets facilitates the development of the
underlying technology. In many cases the addition of new skill sets brings new ideas
into the organization that would not have normally been found in the static
maintenance and operation of the legacy system.
LL – Control the infrastructure, metadata, and metaprocesses within the architecture –
By controlling the infrastructure the delivery of IT Systems can be provided in a
uniform manner. A single face of the system can be presented. The result of this
uniform delivery process can be seen as dial tone to the end user community
MM – Control the centralized versus decentralized boundary between users and
specialist – By defining the boundaries between infrastructure and end user
applications the common components of the system can be syndicated across the
organization. The specialized components of the system can then be isolated to
minimize their effect.
NN – Driven by the business needs and the skill sets. Alignment of these two items is
a Critical Success Factor – The skill set inventory must be maintained throughout the
life cycle of the system. These skills are driven by both the technology and the
business needs.
Who’sInfluenceonWhat
OO – Describes the documented roles of the organization – Each role in the IT
Organization must be mapped to the various levels of the operational business units.
Some roles span the entire organization, while others are targeted to specific
business activities within an individual business unit.
PP – Describes the formal relationships between the organizations – The formal
mapping of these roles defines the boundaries of the organization chart.
QQ – Describes the informal relationships between the participants in the CIO domain
– The informal relationships that exist between the providers of technology and
business applications and the end user must be capable of adapting to the ongoing
needs of the user community.
18. INLFUENCES ON IT STRATEGY
= 18
RR – Describes the informal or actual roles played in the organization – By providing
multi–talented individuals, knowledge not normally found in a structured organization
can be provided with no extra cost or effort.
What’sInfluenceonWho
GG – Individual project managers and the IT Information System organizational
planning process must be facilitated by individuals with the proper skills and
motivations.
HH – By creating and holding a vision of the IT System, the architectural aspects of
the system will drive the business and technical components. It’s the vision thing
should be the watchword of the IT Organization.
II – Using IT as a strategic weapon the organization can add value to the business
operations. Continuous improvement of IT based processes is no different than
continuous improvement of all other manufacturing processes.
JJ – By providing both technology and business expertise within the IT Organization,
the product and market strategies will be on equal footing with the software, hardware,
cost and operational strategies.
Conclusion
Without some understanding of the activities that influence IT Strategy, the management
of such a strategy is becomes difficult is not impossible. By understanding what the
influences are on the strategy, direct actions can be taken to mange these influences as
well as direct resources to intervene when the management process fail to produce the
desired result.