STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR INFORMATION SYSTEM

fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question.

These are the list of questions:

• Does your company use Modeling techniques to facilitate IT planning? Why?

In a Strategic planning, it is important to create a reference model and methodologies because it captures and characterize the enterprise which shortens the response cycle form Information Systems employment and deployment. This is in order to achieve competitiveness among other companies. It also establishes the relationship between the overall organizational
plan and the IT plan.

• Why do you think that strategic planning for information systems is essential to your organization?

Strategic planning is essential because it process your organization to establish priorities that a company would use in its future endeavor. For organizational success, strategic planning is moreover very important especially in times of increasingly rapid change in technology. Also the organization must also consider that Strategic Plans cannot succeed without people, time, money, and other key resources

• Does your company identify tools and methodology for your Information Technology planning? Why?

During strategic planning, several tools and methodologies have been used to ease the development of Information Technology planning within the organization. Thus, methods existed to help the organizations to align their business strategies with the organizational strategies. It is an aid to identify the opportunities for the company to utilize Information Technology for competitive advantage. And in analyzing the internal processes of an organization, these methodologies start with the evaluation of the strategies that check the industry, competition and competitiveness. Other methodologies have been used to help create and rationalize the new uses of Information Technology to the company.

• Does your organization prepare for an approach for Critical Success Factors? Why?

Critical Success Factors is an approach to Information Technology Planning that has been developed to help identify the information needs of managers. It is a must to be used in order to ensure the organization’s survival and success across its very competitive marketplace. There also a lot of basic statement that an every organization shall possess which are the three to six factors that will eventually result to an organization’s success if only been used very well. Therefore, through Critical Success Factors approach, the company could continuously determine their performance in different areas especially during the stage of strategic IT planning.

• What is the mission, vision, goals of your company? Does it support your business needs? Why?

In every strategic planning, it is important for an organization to identify their vision, mission and goals. An organization should assure that the plan they have been establishing aligns what the organization really need. These capture the essence why an organization still exists. This also has a reference to the organization company profile. It also explains fundamental needs of the organization need to suffice. It basically conveys the core values of an organization towards its clients. It tries to express the unique nature of your company among others. On the other hand, a vision of an organization wanted to perceive what would be their organization look like in the future. How successful they would be someday. It is use to show the desire of the organization towards an end state. It definitely challenges every people in the company to reach something higher and something significant for the success of everyone in the compelling future. Since every organization has this vision, it affords a long-term focus for the entire organization to achieve. The goals and objectives of the company also describe the desired outcome of the organization that mainly sympathize the company’s mission and vision. It is very needed to clear the choices of the organizations about the future. All of these things should be flexible enough to easily adopt form the fast-emerging changes of technology towards the environment.

• What are the principles and values does your company have been using? Why is it necessary?

It is very important for an organization to be guided with a standard set of values and belief in order for their company to follow certain viewpoint in life that could be use for the success of the company. They provide an underlying structure for the decision making of the company which later on is a part of the organization’s culture. These values and beliefs should be applicable to the entire organization for them to understand each other within the organization. Values may be appropriate for the sake of the management, for the quality of service and for the customer’s exceptional treatment.

• Does your company develop an Action Plan? Why?

An action plan is an immediate stroke from the organizations goals and objectives. It is very important for a strategic planning to identify the explicit steps that should be followed to achieve the initiatives and strategic objectives for the plan. Each step just before the strategic planning has been associated with these action plans that geared towards the organizations processes, operations and procedures that been aligned to its business. The action plans illustrated who does what, when does a strategic planning be completed and how will an organization know that the steps they are doing are already completed. Action plans require the supervision of the progress of the objectives for evaluating the performance needed just like what initiatives does.

These are the following questions that I would like to us if ever I would be hired and be invited to develop an organization strategic planning for information systems.