Having a game plan when entering any organization will help you quickly improve productivity and show strategic value. You will be able to focus more on core business issues, rather than operational disruptions.
Here are 6 items that should be include in any CIO tactical plan:
- Assess – Assess your company’s current IT architecture to determine its state as-is. Familiarize yourself with the existing environment to understand the current issues and architecture.
- Locate – Locate where the problems are, understand the issues, and if something is broken identify solutions.
- Determine – Determine current and future business requirements for the IT organization. Understand expectations. Expectations will be driven by your company’s corporate goals and visions. Know what the priorities are.
- Evaluate – Evaluate the possibilities for the target environment, based on your company’s business objectives and needs. The initial analysis should be broad and unconstrained; the goal is to define a long-range plan that will be constrained.
- Analyze – Conduct an analysis of the gap between the current state and future state to determine the optimal future environment.
- Present – Present your management team with alternative approaches for transforming the IT environment. These alternatives must be stated in business terms and specify the ways in which they will enable the company to accomplish its goals, such as increasing revenue, improving productivity, or improving customer satisfaction.
A CIO's Voice 