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Running Head: Most effective CIO's Strategy for Strategic IT Planning.

Module 2 – Case Assignment

Network Planning & Administration

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Introduction

Developing information technology (IT) plans that work within the scope of the

organization's strategic objectives can be an extremely tedious task. This is so, because IT

decision making is a complex matrix of conflicting goals, organizational politics, cost-benefit

justification, poor communication between IT and other nontechnical staff and the list continues.

And, in the middle of it all is the chief information office (CIO) whose duty is to make it work.

This paper begins by discussing some of the factors that leads to IT success or failure followed

by a discussion on the role of the CIO in the IT strategic planning process.

Factors Affecting Success or Failure: Failing to plan is actually planning to fail. A

planning-based approach looks further into the future and seeks to find a solution to the problem

both as it exists today and into the future (Preis, 2001). Planning for the future of IT in any

organization requires a strategic approach. An organization may outgrow a specific solution but a

strategy is more long-term (Preis, 2001). Some of the factors affecting success or failure in the

IT planning process are: failure to act strategically, scope creep, corporate culture and unrealistic

expectations.

Seventy percent of large companies are currently too busy fighting fires, solving short

term tactical solutions and not developing long-term strategic plans (Preis, 2001). Too often

organizations make the mistake of leaving IT out of the strategic planning process. Instead, many

organizations develop their overall business strategy and then go about implementing IT as

merely a technical solution to the overall business strategy. An effective business/IT strategic

plan allows organizations to developed their IT plans and align them with the business needs.

Development of an information system is often seen as a life cycle, in that it is created,

it goes through testing, it is sold or implemented, it will go through periods of enhancements, it

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will eventually go through a decline, and will eventually be replaced or terminated (Gurlen,

2003). Usually, the first phase in project development is identifying the scope of the project

which defines the parameters for what is to be included in the project and what is to be excluded

from the project. The scope states what the objectives of the project are and what work will be

done to accomplish the project (Gurlen, 2003). If any changes occur that causes the project to

“step out” of its parameters, this is a change in the scope of the project also known as scope

creep. Scope creep can make a project larger or smaller and it can also affect the timeline as well

as the cost of the project. In a Computerworld survey of 160 IT professionals, 80% reported

requirements creep either always or frequently (Gurlen, 2003). This goes to show that regardless

of how good an IT plan is, it is almost impossible to eliminate scope creep. Typically IT

developers work with clients/users to develop an information system. Many times clients are

unable to specify exactly what they want in the beginning until they see the product and this

oftentimes require that changes be made (Gurlen, 2003). In this light, scope creep can be seen as

a good thing, since it helps both the developers and the users to produce the desired outcome.

Therefore, instead of trying to eliminate scope creep, which is impossible to begin with,

developers should try to better manage it.

Corporate culture refers both to the leadership sponsors’ involvement and accessibility in

the project and the recognition of the role the employees play in a successful implementation

(Barton, 2001). Robert Switz, CFO of ADC, suggests that CEOs and CFOs have to visibly

support and monitor the progress of the project, because active business leadership in all project

phases decreases the likelihood of project failure (Barton, 2001). Many IT projects also fail

because the employees do not realize the need and benefit of the projects and will therefore,

resist the changes (Barton, 2001).

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At an unidentified company, the user community wanted a Business Intelligence

application installed in conjunction with the implementation of an Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) system in order to facilitate information from the ERP system. By the
time an outside consulting firm was selected to implement the project, months had
passed. However, the project go-live date had already been communicated to the users
and the company was unwilling to change it. The consulting firm, recognizing that user
expectations would be impossible to meet, declined the project. The firm that was hired
failed to meet user expectations and the project was shelved (Barton, 2001).

To avoid the problem of mismanaging user expectations, the project manager must be able to:

explain what can and can not be achieved; understand the user expectations; prioritize the user

expectations and communicate the priorities to the user community; formally document the user

expectations; and continuously validate project deliverables to expectations (Barton, 2001).

The Role of the CIO: Superior management has a big part to play in whether a project

fails or succeeds or whether or not the strategy of an organization is effectively carried out. As a

senior manager the CIO should assume the role of the IT advocate in the organization. In this

manner he/she will be able to use his/her political powers to obtain needed resources without

scaling many approval layers.

In an organization, the CIO functions at the strategic level, aligning business objectives

with IT. A CIO should possess the ability to foresee the futuristic IT business needs so that

he/she can put strategies in place to meet those needs as they arise. For example, an organization

may use an intranet for employee only however, as the organization grows and the number of

customer increases the organization may see the need to extend the intranet service into an

extranet service by giving its customers and suppliers access to some of its web resources. A

strategic thinking CIO would see this coming and would therefore, put the necessary measures in

place to facilitate it.

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The duty of the CIO is to guide an IT project to it success, which often require him/her to

function as a mediator between the business and the IT community, communicating to either

group the requirements of the other. This role also requires good interpersonal and

communication skills. This “middle man” role is a crucial one since business and IT personnel

often do not see eye-to-eye. Much of this conflict is as a result of business personnel IT

expectations which are often times unrealistic given the constrains (limited time and inadequate

resources) that the IT staff has to work. This therefore means that the CIO must also be able to

manage the expectations of both groups.

Allan Holmes (2005) outlined some principles of managing expectations: define

expectation internally; establishing rules of engagement; and not everything is negotiable

(Holmes, 2005).

Defining expectation internally requires that the CIO ensures that his/her staff understood

why the technology is needed and how they would approach designing, building and deploying

it.

Most users feel strongly that they need everything they want, and they expect the
IT to accommodate them. Rather than debating every idea with every user, the CIO
should develop the IT project through pilots with a subset of representative users.
Whatever functionality was built into the pilots became the basis for the IT requirements.
The pilot users understand what to expect from the system because they had been
involved in deciding what they would get. They could then effectively manage the
expectations of other users by becoming public supporters of the system they helped
build (Holmes, 2005).

When meeting a deadline is critical, it may not be a wise idea to try and facilitate some

user requirements, especially if such requirements may cause the project to delay. Sometimes in
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order to meet the need of customers and other stakeholders some user requirements must be

ignored in order to meet crucial deadlines. In other words such expectations are nonnegotiable.

Conclusion

Planning for the future of IT requires a strategic approach. When developing an IT

strategy, plans should also be put in place to handle scope creep, corporate culture and unrealistic

expectations. In the strategic IT process the CIO has several roll to play. As a senior executive

he/she must become the IT advocate using his/her clout to get things done. Functioning at a

strategic level, anther role of the CIO is to align business objectives with IT. He/She is also

required to function as a mediator between the business and the IT folks communicating to either

group the requirements of the other. And, the CIO is also required to manage IT expectations.
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Reference

Barton P. (2001). Enterprise resource planning: factors affecting success and failure. Retrieved

April 20, 2009 from http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/488_f01_papers/barton.htm

Gurlen, S. (2003). Scope creep. Retrieved April 20, 2009 from

http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/6840_f03_papers/gurlen/

Goulston, M. (2005). How to avoid bumping heads. CIO Magazine. Retrieved April 21, 2009

from http://www.cio.com/archive/110105/career.html

Holmes A. (2005). The four (not three, not five) principles of managing expectations. CIO

Magazine. Retrieved April 21, 2009 from

http://www.cio.com/archive/110105/expectations.html

Preis D. (2002). Information technology enterprise architecture. Retrieved April 20, 2009 from

http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/488_f01_papers/Preis/
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I am running a few minutes late; my previous meeting is running over.