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Strategic Planning for IT Organizations (Strategic Thinking)

 

Annotation and Learning Objectives 

Today, many professionals need sufficient knowledge and skills to be able to identify, implement and measure effectively initiatives and tasks that are synchronized with the vision, mission and strategies of a higher level. 

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC), as a methodology for strategic planning and management, helps the organization to transform its ideas and strategy into measurable goals, to effectively update its structures against the strategy and to measure its progress against the strategic goals. The organization achieves better results in the long run and sustainably improves its efficiency. It is also important to introduce and maintain measurable indicators and their synchronization with the life cycle of the overall strategy as a key factor for effectiveness from the moment of strategy formulation, through the implementation of the strategy, to the phase of monitoring, measurement, analysis and control. This synchronization is a key factor in the success of the strategy.

This course covers the classic perspectives of BSC, developed by Kaplan and Norton, focusing on their use in the organization, taking into account good practices in the field, such as Palladium Execution Premium Process (XPP), Niven’s Step by Step approach and others. Moreover, the course links the strategic perspectives with the modern operational management though introduction of the Objective and Key Results, described by John Doerr in his book “Measure What Matters,” and implemented by companies such as Google. 

The course is practically focused with many examples, exercises and development of projects by the students. 

Topics included in the training:

  • Strategic thinking;
  • Strategy development/adaptation;
  • Transforming the strategy into operational terms that motivate stakeholders and manage the implementation of tasks;
  • Development of a plan for bringing the organizational structure in line with the strategy;
  • Development of a long-term action plan for the implementation of the strategy;
  • Effective prioritization of initiatives and projects
  • Execution and continuous alignment with the strategy using  OKRs

Knowledge

  • Main features of strategic thinking
  • What is a strategy and how does it relate to the plan, operational management, project management and so on
  • ICT relation to the strategy both at the centralized level and at the level of service units
  • Mission, vision, strategic intent, value gap and how do they affect the quality and implementation of the strategy
  • Strategy map
  • Strategic plan and its relationship to the Balanced Scorecard
  • Key characteristics of good strategic measures, goals and initiatives and how are they prioritized
  • Objective and key results OKRs

Skills

  • Use of strategic thinking techniques;
  • Formulation of a basic strategy and transformation into operational goals;
  • Creating a strategy map and strategic plan;
  • Determination of measurements and objectives;
  • Planning initiatives;
  • Effective prioritization of initiatives and projects;
  • Definition and usage of objective and key results;
  • How to use OKRs to manage the strategy
  • Planning, implementation and control of the strategy.
  • Strategic risk management

Delivery 

Ivaylo Gueorguiev designed the course. He delivers it as a practicum in an executive IT Project Management Master Program jointly organized by the New Bulgarian University and the Institute on Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Science.