Getting your IT strategy right is more important than ever. Not just to act as a support function, but to drive innovation and growth. But how do organisations ensure their IT strategy aligns perfectly with business goals and delivers real impact?
David McKean’s IT Strategy and Tech Innovation lays out a clear, step-by-step approach for building and executing a successful IT strategy, divided into six practical phases. Let’s take a quick look at these six phases:
1. Understanding the Business Context
Before anything else, it’s essential to understand the business environment and how IT fits within it. This means analysing the company’s market position, competitive landscape, and overall corporate goals to ensure your IT strategy will support the bigger picture.
2. Setting IT Objectives
With the business context established, the next phase is defining IT objectives that align with business goals. McKean recommends focusing on four key areas: users and business sponsors, IT processes, people and organisation, and financial metrics.
Objectives should be SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound - and can be business-driven, IT-specific, compliance-related, or focused on risk reduction. For example, increasing online sales or reducing IT support costs by 10%.
3. Planning Projects and Activities
Next, compile all current and proposed projects, grouping related activities by the objective they support. “Make sure the activities within each group are sequenced correctly – for example, only scheduling the new sales training when the product is ready for launch and the IT systems are fully working”, Mckean emphasises. Prioritise initiatives carefully, keeping only those aligned with strategy and resources.
4. Optimising Innovation and Technology
McKean highlights the power of scenario planning in this phase. By imagining a range of plausible future business conditions - both positive and negative - teams can test and refine their IT strategy to ensure resilience and uncover new opportunities. This step transforms a good plan into a great one through creative thinking, technology roadmaps, and risk assessment.
5. Summarise Your Strategy
Senior leaders want to see your vision with clarity. Create simple, visual summaries like high-level project plans, strategic statements, or ‘plot on a page’ diagrams that show the big picture at a glance.
6. Communicate and Govern
Finally, develop a communication plan that speaks to everyone involved - from executives to employees to external partners. Be clear about objectives, projects, budgets, and timelines. Make sure there’s a governance structure, so someone is always keeping things on track.
Your IT strategy doesn’t have to be complicated – it has to be clear, aligned, and actionable.
If you’re looking to get serious about your IT strategy and want to learn how to build a tech strategy that truly drives business forward, check out David McKean’s IT Strategy and Tech Innovation.
