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strategic IT planning.
In today's complex and changing IT landscape, Strategic Planning is crucial for maximizing return-on-investment and ensuring the greatest possible benefit to the organization. Tactical implementations without a master plan often end up costing more and performing less than a well-planned deployment that is the result of a strategic plan. SDI has helped many large organizations determine their strategic direction using a process that has been developed from some of the world's most successful strategic planning efforts. The following stages are among the highlights of this process:
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Establish The Vision: The vision of the organization's future state encompasses the goals, values, and mission of the organization.
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Determine Future State: This is a description of the organization after it has completed its transformation. The Future State description describes how the organization functions, what specific metrics it meets, and characteristics of its daily operation.
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Documenting the Current State: Gathering information through analysis of documentation and systems and interviewing staff, we determine where the organization is today.
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SWOT Analysis of the Current State: The Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats matrix is a mainstay in process consulting that originated with the Harvard Policy Model in the 1920's. It is an effective way of quickly understanding the current profile of an organization.
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Gap Analysis: After understanding the current and future states, we map the gap that exists between them. From this, we generate the list of specific elements and needs that must be addressed.
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Strategic Plan: The plan describes the major changes that need to take place from a high level, including major systems or program recommendations.
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Tactical Steps: The tactical approach provides more detail than the strategic plan, and details specific system costs, implementation considerations, risks, schedules, and costs.
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Costing (ROI) and Benefit Analysis: This step analyzes each of the recommended tactical steps and determines what the specific ROI or cost/benefit relationship will exist for the organization.