Cutter Consortium

The Backend of IT Strategic Planning -- Ranking Projects through the Ongoing Planning Process

Length of workshop:
Two days

General Overview:
What can you do when the business's reach exceeds its grasp - when the sum of IT opportunities, qualified projects, and ongoing requirements exceed the available IT resources required for their simultaneous pursuit? Much has been written about ensuring proposed IT projects support the business strategy, identify initiatives that pursue the IT vision, and complete the applications portfolio. But given all the identified IT initiatives and projects the organization would pursue, how is IT to rank those projects for attention and arrange them into a logical, balanced IT strategic plan?

Leader:

Workshop Goals:
Participants in this two-day workshop will learn a consistent method for evaluating projects that allows for comparison, ranking and prioritization of multiple projects. You will explore and discuss techniques and tools for evaluating projects against multiple criteria, then apply them in practical exercises. Attendees will learn strategies for gaining management commitment to the resulting project prioritization and methods for engineering projects into a time-phased IT long-range project plan. Finally, you will learn how to employ the same techniques used for evaluating and ranking projects in order to establish an ongoing planning process that refreshes and maintains the plan's viability going forward.

Intended Audience:
  • CIOs and CTOs
  • Members of the IT Steering Committee/Governance Council
  • IT and Business Staff responsible for strategic planning
  • IT Line Managers and Staff
  • IT Project Managers, Project Teams and User Representatives involved with the IT Strategic Planning Program

Prerequisites:
Basic understanding of IT strategic planning and the strategic planning processes.

Outline/At a Glance:
  1. Introduction and Course Overview
  2. The Importance of a Multi-Criteria Approach to Ranking IT Projects
  3. Techniques for Estimating Project Cost
  4. Estimating Project Benefits and Determining Return on Investment
  5. Estimating Project Risk and Uncertainty
  6. Estimating the Impact of a Project on Business Strategy
  7. Estimating the Business Need for a Project
  8. Other Criteria for Ranking Projects
  9. Creating the Prioritized List of Projects and Techniques for Gaining Management Commitment
  10. Engineering the IT Strategic Plan
    1. Precedent Considerations
    2. Load Balancing
    3. Risk Mitigation
  12. Cost Considerations and Funding Scenarios
  13. Establishing the On-Going IT Strategic Planning Process
    1. Handling the Insertion of New Projects into the Plan
    2. Periodic Reviews and Updates of the IT Strategic Plan
  15. Seminar Summary and Close


For more information on bringing this workshop to your organization, contact Dennis Crowley by phone at +1 781 641 5125, by fax at +1 781 648 1950, or by e-mail at sales@cutter.com.
The Backend of IT Strategic Planning -- Ranking Projects through the Ongoing Planning Process