Anticlue

Strategic Planning for IT

Let’s face it, we need to plan. If we don’t plan on an organizational level about how IT is utilized, we end up with an enterprise architecture that resembles playing lego as a child. Remember playing with legos, the first thing we did was to spread the contents of the lego box out on the floor, so we could see what we have. We have started building something all over the place. There were some lego pieces that are just out of our sight – hidden away by a sibling because it is a valued piece. Finally, there may even be some pieces in the box, because they didn’t make the first dump. Without any planning your enterprise architecture will begin to resemble this layout.

So what needs to be in place to plan?

First, there really needs to be C-level commitment to the concept. (Many C’s not just one lone wolf)

An organization needs to have a current strategic plan. The organization needs to have organizational leadership. The organizational culture has to be accepting of change and its management.

There needs to be in place a clear, concise decision making process that leaves a history of why this decision was reached and followed, based on information at the time.

When an organization starts planning, the first time there will be a lot of proposals. So before hand, have well established criteria for sorting through them.

There also needs to be strong communication, with both parties listening and contributing. Communication isn’t the bearded guy in the room talking and everyone else looking off into space. A way to share knowledge on the main concepts, advantages, and disadvantages of the proposals is a main part of the communication.

Establish an office with dedicated individuals (even if it is a 50% of their day job) to reseach, discuss, and review the proposals and issues. This office should be comprised of a technology it person, and an applications IT person. There should be members of the business community too. The new conceptual proposals that will radically have an effect on the bottom line or workflow and are costly, can be piloted by this office and the findings summarized and documented. For example if there is a proposal for the providers to start using a PDA system in Neurology. A pilot can tell you the hardware, software and support costs of a PDA deployment, and the needed integration with other systems the mail system, the clinical data repository, and maybe even the physician order entry system.