Improvement needs a vision – if an ICT department does not have a formally documented and approved strategy and an associated roadmap it will struggle to engage in sufficient levels of proactive management. Instead the available resources will be consumed leveraging a fire fighting mentality which leads to increased levels of risk, operating inefficiencies and ultimately poor outcomes for the business.
Symptoms of poor, or absent, IT planning include:

• Reactionary rather than pro-active attitude towards problem fixing;
• Ongoing infrastructure capacity constraints;
• Inefficient use of capital and operational funds;
• Inability to deliver on business requirements in a timely manner;
• Inappropriate use of resources;
• Defensive attitude of IT help desk staff;
• Allow business users to commission services without ICT involvement and therefore sacrificing reliability, security, compliance and governance standards; and
• Loss of management support in IT service delivery.

A good quality IT strategy however will help management to find the right balance between business usual activities, planned projects and innovation that delivers competitive advantages. Having a vision also supports the obtaining of funding to enables key IT initiatives that would otherwise remain underfunded.

agility specialises in aligning business requirements to technology solutions - creating realistic ICT strategies and roadmaps support this process. We tailor each project to exact requirements as ICT strategies are as unique as our clients.