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4 pages/β‰ˆ1100 words
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5 Sources
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APA
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Technology
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Essay
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English (U.S.)
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Topic:

Most Effective CIO Strategy for Effective Strategic IT Planning

Essay Instructions:

This module is about the problems of creating information technology plans that work within the scope of the organization's strategic objectives. It is also about all the reasons why this is a very difficult thing to do, particularly when the process gets down to specifics. Like all organizational decision-making, information technology planning is often a complex muddle of conflicting goals, interests, unclear reasons and payoffs, and poor communication. This indictment is presented without apology, because it is in fact typical. This is not to say that there are not exceptions, and occasionally planning is actually done well. But almost everything in the organization mitigates against this, and we generally fight at best a rearguard action against all the forces that work routinely in favor of chaos.
By way of introduction to the process, consider Doug Frese's discussion paper on IT Enterprise (http://www(dot)umsl(dot)edu/~sauterv/analysis/488_f01_papers/Preis/). Architecture and Pat Barton's on Enterprise Resource Planning: Factors Affecting Success and Failure. (http://www(dot)umsl(dot)edu/~sauterv/analysis/488_f01_papers/barton.htm) both talk about the process of creating IT enterprise systems from a relatively positive and more or less rational perspective, and both make perfect sense. But Stephanie Gurlen's discussion paper on http://www(dot)umsl(dot)edu/~sauter/analysis/6840_f03_papers/gurlen/ is perhaps more to the point; the phenomenon that she describes and categorizes with that memorable phrase is a more or less constant fact of organizational life.
Structural, professional, and personal forces all work in combination to make the IT service/planning interface problematical. Organizational politics alone would make the job difficult; add in communication difficulties, jargon and expression differences, differing frames of professional reference, and just plain personality conflicts and you have a recipe for a serious misalignment. The person at the center of all this swirling chaos tends to be the chief information officer (CIO) of the organization. There's no doubt that superior management can make a big difference in achieving or not achieving planning alignment, or at least in making clear when and why alignment is less than perfect. Much of what the CIO does is to explain to both sides why the other is as it is. Here are two articles describing how CIOs play this key middle-ground role:

Lannon, R. (2009). 7 Steps to Kick-Start your Strategic Planning Process. Retrieved from http://www(dot)legacybowes(dot)com/latest-blog-posts/entry/7-steps-to-kick-start-your-strategic-planning-process.html
Scott, J. (2011, April 21). How to craft actionable business strategy from the bottom up. CIO. Retrieved from http://www(dot)cio(dot)com/article/680163/How_to_Craft_Actionable_Business_Strategy_from_the_Bottom_Up
Demand Media. (2011). Sources for business strategies. Business Strategy Examples. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness(dot)chron(dot)com/business-strategy-examples/
Assignment
When you've had a chance to read through these articles, and look through the background material for additional information regarding this phenomenon and other parts of the IT planning process, and consult any other resources that seem helpful to you on this matter, then please compose a 4- to 5-page paper on the topic:
•Most effective CIO strategy for effective strategic IT planning
Submit your paper upon completion.
Use information from the modular background readings as well as any good quality resource you can find. Please cite all sources and provide a reference list at the end of your paper.

Essay Sample Content Preview:

IT Planning
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Introduction
Information technology as a department in an organization can be responsible for making valuable and important decisions when it comes to how data is managed in regard to the organization’s goals. This being the case, any strategy that is implemented to work towards creating an IT department that is both competitive and flexible needs to follow some basic but very important steps that will help focus on the objectives of the strategy and its effectiveness in relation to the organization’s goals. There are quite a number of strategies that revolve around IT planning but all these strategies have one thing in common. They all focus on formulating an effective strategy that will benefit the organization and make profits in the long run. This paper will discuss the roles that an effective IT strategy should be able to accomplish based on its strategic planning and how the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of an organization can help create effective strategic IT plans that fall in line with the organization’s targets (Barton, 2001).
The CIO is the person responsible for the management and transformation of the entire Information Technology department of an organization. Looking at the way technology is evolving and the mobility, analytics, and security of cloud technologies in this decade, CIOs need to be conversant with the different needs of their organizations’ systems as they strive to evolve and embrace the digital era. Before creating or coming up with a strategy that involves creating or transforming the Information Technology department of an organization, it is important that the CIO first understands the customer’s preferences when it comes to their online interaction with the organization (Scott, 2011).
Based on other strategies that have been formulated by CIO s all over the world, the most effective IT planning strategy must first consider how it will work hand in hand with the organization’s mission and vision. Through the clear understanding of what a specific organization desires to achieve, the CIO can then create a framework that will outline the road to such achievements within the Information Technology strategic plan. Strategic plans dealing with Information technology mostly focus on the attractiveness of the company. As most business people and CEOs would advise, the attractiveness of an organization in the market is the main determinant of its success, which is in the form of profits earned. Strategic business-planning and strategic IT planning may seem like different concepts in terms of business, but they go hand in hand when it comes to securing competitive advantage.
Basically, if a CIO put together business strategy and incorporated this strategy into the IT planning process, the chances of success are quite high. In Richard Lannon’s article, he defines strategic planning as an achievable process but successful only if it incorporates, tactical reality and strategic agenda. This is why regardless of being responsible for the IT department, the CIO must first be able to design a system that acknowledges, supports, and actualizes the organization’s mission statem...
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