Top Level IT Strategy

When I started getting involved with business architects, I was excited, because I thought - this is it, this is what ties what I've been doing (product development) with what I haven't been doing (running a company).

Eyes bright with wonder & enlightenment, there is still the question: why hasn't someone gone down this path before? Why is it that we think of IT (in the broadest sense) as only a business unit that supports the implementation of a company strategy, in terms of technology, or else as a unit that supports a sales/marketing strategy, in terms of delivering products & services?

Why is there rarely a top level strategy that sees IT units as an implementation of board decisions in themselves? Let me give you some examples.

If you're a non-IT enterprise (manufacturing, services, utilities, ...) there is an understanding of the IT needs of the business supported by an enterprise architecture & a plan to implement changes to the IT infrastructure to support financial strategies (say). Is there, however, a strategy governing the infrastructure that the financial strategy must align with? If not, then, as is often the case, each new implementation is a distinct & unrelated solution to an isolated problem.

If you're an IT enterprise, then your strategies are often around the deliverables of engineering departments - product releases, product strategy to compete, etc, but are there processes within engineering that directly support those strategies? If so, how do you ensure that they align - that they have the measurable outcomes that you expect, from a business point of view, to support the objectives of the company?

The short answer is that, without some form of business architecture - an understanding of how your business functions & the inter-relatedness of all units that contribute to the company's success - then not only can you not measure the impact of strategic decisions, but it is much harder to define strategies.

Right now, you're in one of two camps - "Great, I need a business architecture - where can I get one?" or else "My company is too small for that kind of stuff". The next step is the same, regardless. If your company has strategies & expects them to be implemented, then you need a framework to ensure that they are - across the organisation. If you don't have a framework, then your strategies are written in the sand & you hope that you're above the high tide mark.

I'm not going to say what framework you need, or even whether it needs to be a formal one, but without an approach to your IT/engineering departments that incorporates decision making into company strategy, you have an unmitigated board-level risk to deal with.