Think Scenario/Event Conditional Plans for 2011

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Strategy  

Every year around the May to June timeframe many companies begin their planning process for the coming year--in this case, 2011.  This is the time when SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Risks) analyses are done, business objectives developed, budgets and business plans prepared.  For most it is a very painful time, filled with tons of detailed analysis, number crunching and administrivia.  CIOs are no exception to this process, except that they must factor into their plans the information technology needs and expectations of the entire enterprise.  Thus the CIO must become intimate with the plans and objectives of every business group within the company.  If those plans are vague, the process becomes all the more frustrating.  Heap on a giant helping of uncertainty about future events and you have a recipe for potential disaster.

What CIOs all too often fail to do in building their business plans is to develop a set of assumption-based scenarios that have built into them the criteria by which the plan would activate over other plans developed.  By approaching the planning process in this manner, the CIO demonstrates that they understand the complexities, challenges and uncertain events confronting the organization and the roadmap IT will follow should such events manifest themselves. 

There are three basic …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.