7. IT/IS Strategy Flashcards
Is the IS strategy demand or supply oriented?
Demand!
What 10 things should the IS strategy contain?
- Reason and purpose of the IS strategy - leading to the application portfolio
- Summary of business strategy
- Reasons for 1) new opportunities and 2) critical areas for improvements
- Prioritization of the applications
- Review of the existing application portfolio
- Future application portfolio with priorities and required resources
- Review existing infrastructure as architecture
- Plan future infrastructure as architecture
- Overview and evaluate the total project portfolio (to develop applications and infrastructure).
- Other
Is the IT strategy oriented towards supply or demand?
Supply (in technology and technical services)
This strategy is only relevant for IT.
What 6 parts does the IT strategy contain?
- Design of the application portfolio
- The IT-architecture
- The mngmt of information resource and to information services
- The organization of IT, mngmt of resources and admin.
- The mgnmt of application development
- The mngmt of technology
What is the outline (1-7) of an information management strategy?
This is the link to the governance parts
- Scope and justification of IM strategy
- Tasks, organization, financing and responsibilities of the IM incl steering committees.
- Policies for investment and prioritization (for each portfolio field)
- Policies for selection of suppliers and procurement
- Policies for mngmt of staff incl training
- Policies for assurance of acceptance (in collab with the work council)
- Policies for pricing and billing of IT services.
Development of the IS/IT Strategy in the IS/IT model:
First we have the external and internal business environment as well as the external and internal IS/IT environment that all affects the IS/IT strategy process. They also go into the current application portfolio.
Then the IS/IT strategy delivers multiple business IS strategies (different in demand in different parts of the business, ex in diff regions). The strategy also set the supply side - IT strategy (only one).
And the last deliverable is the IS/IT management strategy. These three, together with the current application portfolio form the future application portfolio.
The 6 steps within the framework for IS/IT strategy formulation and planning process:
- Initiate strategy process
- Understand he current situation and interpret business needs
- Define/Update information and systems architecture
- Determine business IS strategy
- Formulate IT strategy
- Prepare migration plan and business case
Is the interpretation a pure analytical process?
No it’s a combination of analytical and creative process.
The analyzing part is concentrated in analyzing the business objectives, CSFs, activities and information needs.
The creative part is future oriented where one should identify innovative and potential applications of IS/IT
Should business activities and entities vs the current portfolio be addressed bottom-up or top-down?
Business activities should be analyzed top-down and current portfolio should be evaluated bottom-up, and then they both lead to the systems and information architecture.
How does the strategy process management structure look like? (the hierarchy)
At the top we have the management sponsor, those in charge of decisions. Then we have a steering committee. Under then is the team leader that steer the business executives and IS executives.
Mention some parts of the initiating step of the process. What do you do at this step?
- set definitions of purpose, goals, scope, desired results etc (both for understanding and internal marketing!)
- definition pf procedures and tools
- identify members, assemble and train the strategy team
- define sources of inout (interviews, workshops, documents etc)
- develop work schedule with deadlines etc.
What do we do in the second step - understand the current situation?
- Identify business strategy
- Derive requirements for IS/IT
- Modeling of relevant (1) functions, processes, org units, data etc.
- Analyze the current application portfolio
- Analyzing the current IS/IT strategy
What is the outcomes of the analysis of the current application portfolio?
- -> inventory of the application portfolio, what do we have in each quadrant?
- -> how robust and efficient are these applications?
- -> how integrateable are they?
- -> how good are they in relation to CSFs?
- -> how risky are they for the business?
The typical results it that we see many in support end KO, but few in HP and strategic.
4 things we do to analyse the current situation of IS/IT
We analyse 1) the current IS/IT strategy, 2) current IS/IT organization, 3) current IS/IT methods, and 4) analyzing the IS/IT from the perspective of the user.
What do we do in the third step of defining/updating information and systems architecture?
We do what we learned in the architecture lecture regarding the TOGAF cycle.
