5. Create a Technology Plan
We have now arrived at the final step of the IT planning process, creating your actual Technology Plan.
Take a look back at the knowledge you’ve gained through the first four steps:
- You should now know what it means for your organization to be successful and how IT supports your goals and objectives
- You’ve assessed your current IT resources to know where you are versus where you want to be
- Business needs have been defined and you have an idea of how to meet them
- You’ve explored potential IT solutions to help meet your needs, overall goals, and get your resources to where you want them
Having all of these items aligned and knowing your needs ahead of time makes creating the detailed, strategic implementation portion much less daunting. Your plan should include the benefits, tasks and costs of implementation. Also include any risks that may need to be addressed.
Start by creating a timeline with long and short term goals. A long term plan puts the organization in a proactive state rather than a reactive one while short term goals allow for flexibility in the event of an unforeseen situation. Your long term plan can be broken up into phases, starting with highest priorities.
Next draft a budget. Take into consideration your timeline and priorities. Include:
- New equipment or an end-of-life upgrade/replacement plan. It may cost to replace equipment upfront but it could save on physical labor and continued maintenance any out of date machine may require.
- New software or cloud services (Saas)
- New employees, support services or training you may have designated as a need.
Consider not only the cost of the purchase, but also the time it will take to learn new software, perform backups, monthly updates, frequent security patches, and the potential for hiring experts to manage it all. Scheduled maintenance should be part of any organization’s technology plan. At a minimum this will perform critical patches and updates on all equipment – hardware and software – and check that procedures are being properly maintained. A good maintenance program will also include remote network monitoring, providing economical 24×7 real-time analysis of all of your critical devices and services.
By taking the time to prepare an IT Plan and strategy, your organization may decrease spending and increase productivity if implemented correctly. A consultant may be able to offer cost-saving strategies and recommendations for your current infrastructure that could also result in improved efficiency.
Monitor performance of this plan allowing for small changes to be made as necessary and include evaluation criteria so you know when something is working and when it’s not. You may break up your timeline by quarters and check in after each to analyze where you are in the implementation process. Is equipment in place and support team trained? Are you seeing increased productivity and measurable results as far as reaching the organizations overall goals? Hopefully the answer is yes!
With the rate of change in technology, repeating this process often is becoming a necessity. Knowing the state of your IT infrastructure can make all the difference – even things as little as how your emails are configured! It’s never a bad idea to get a second or outside opinion.
Feedback or comments on the IT Planning Process? We’d love to hear from you!
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