How to Solve the Number 1 Problem of an IT Manager

Problem:  Every IT Manager needs to have a 5 year roadmap of projects to support the company’s strategy. 

Job Security, aka Moore’s law.  It's a constant battle each year to justify your budget. With a steady stream of IT projects in the works, say a critical system project pipeline that stretches out 5 years, protecting your budget becomes a whole lot easier.

With the constantly changing capabilities of computers, the evolution of both business and business models, an IT roadmap, which is frequently updated, say at 6 months intervals, is of critical importance. 

Steps to Developing Your 5 Year Strategy:

• Review the company’s existing business strategy.
  
  
• Develop an existing systems IT landscape document.
  
  
• Perform (on an on-going basis) a survey of the technology market.
  
  
• Develop a list of potential projects.
  
  
• Projects should first focus on Low-hanging fruit.
  
  
• Estimate their Cost and benefits.
  
  
• Establish a Value Management Framework.
  
  
• Align them to the 5 Year strategy.
  
  

Benefits:

A typical Fortune 500 company may have 500 or more IT projects in the pipeline.  By aligning the IT Projects to the Business Strategy, the IT Manager can align the required funding to the project.  Having done this a few times, we've developed a simple guidebook you can get, "  

People who read this article also read:

• 7 Questions typically answered by a BI Strategy
• 10 Critical Chain Project Manager Tips