Strategies should be aligned to the objectives and benefits already identified as part of the previous digital or ICT planning activities.
Refer to the Vision guideline activities and the business changes identified in the Benefits, business change and enablers guideline dependency networks or an investment logic mapping. These will help practitioners and participants in planning workshops to identify and define strategies.
Align strategies with objectives
Where the method of directly aligning the digital or ICT strategic objectives to the business objectives has been used, it is relatively easy to continue the process of direct alignment and align or map the underpinning digital or ICT strategies to the digital or ICT objectives.
Where the concept of planning horizons has been used, strategies will also need to be structured around the planning horizons and the digital or ICT objectives across those planning horizons (e.g., horizons of 1 year, 3 years, and 5 years).
Strategic themes
Themes can be an effective way of ensuring the strategies have been defined across a range of areas and considerations such as governance, business changes and workforce capability have been considered.
Depending on the context on the related objective it may be necessary to consider strategies across several themes. In some cases, themes may form focus areas or pillars for the strategy. Examples of potential strategic themes are provided in the table below.
Example 1 Business-related themes | Example 2 Technology related themes |
---|
- Customer service
- Information
- Workforce capability
- Innovation
- Information security
- Governance
| - Digital or ICT foundations
- Information
- Digital or ICT optimisation
- Digital or ICT transformation
- Security
- Business change
- Governance
|
Create a strategic document
A strategic document is about setting a future direction for the organisation, devising objectives and identifying a range of strategies so the organisation might achieve its objectives. A strategic document is higher level, more strategic in nature, and may span longer time periods than operational strategies. Strategic documents focus on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of the strategy being proposed.
Once created, a strategic document can then be translated into operational actions and activities through the agency’s operational planning process. An operational plan provides more detailed information and strategies required to run the agency. These plans may be more exact and provide greater detail about the how, who and when strategies will apply.
Visit Digital and ICT best practice methodologies for more resources and information to help inform the development of digital and ICT strategies.