The strategic planning of information systems

The strategic planning of information systems , or equivalently the drafting of the information systems master plan , has as its purpose the review of the current state of the organization, the identification of the desired strategic situation and the planning of projects and changes in the organization needed to achieve that desired state, typically over a 3-5 year period.

Although the process of creating the systems plan is not trivial, nor is its subsequent deployment, the objective can be defined in a simple way: it is about analyzing the current state of the three basic dimensions of information systems , identify your desired future situation and determine the actions necessary to achieve that future situation.

The proposed phases for the drafting of a strategic systems plan are:

1.            Determine the strategy and current context of the organization

2.            Identify business requirements for information systems

3.            Determine the current state of information systems

4.            Analysis of information systems

5.            Define the information systems strategy and plan

6.            Develop the deployment schedule

Determine the strategy and current context of the organization

The first phase of the project is to ensure that it will effectively meet the needs of the organization , and to know it sufficiently to be able to determine its information systems requirements later.

First, the project plan must be validated, to ensure that its objectives meet the expectations and needs of the organization, and also ensure that the planning and organization of the project will be effective.

Once the project has started, the necessary information of the organization must be accessed that allows to know:

1.            Your strategy

2.            Planning of the different areas

3.            Market and competition vision, etc.

Identify business requirements for information systems

The second phase of the project, once the context and the organization's strategy have been identified, is to determine the specific business requirements to which the information systems can contribute. To identify these requirements with a broad and strategic vision, business needs must be reviewed from various levels of analysis.

Moving from the most strategic level to the most focused on the organization, we have the following analysis models:

1.            SWOT Model (Weaknesses, Threats, Strengths and Opportunities)

2.            Context and operational requirements

3.            Business component model

The business component model is a concept that was created by IBM and offers a simple and integrated view of business activities, on a single page. This vision allows knowing, evaluating and identifying development needs at the business and information systems level. The columns represent the organization's competencies, while the rows represent its levels.

Each component has a purpose for the organization and provides services to the rest of the components . To do this, it carries out a series of activities, consumes resources and requires a government for its proper development. By reviewing the result obtained from each component, necessary improvements can be identified in any of its dimensions, which can be developed as requirements for information systems.