Align IT Projects With Business Strategy

IT Project Business Strategy Alignment

Why is it critically important to align IT projects with the business strategy?

Any enterprise undertaking that will require substantive expenditure of resources, whether time or labor or materials, or that will impact operations to an important degree should be aligned with the business strategy. The term business strategy is deceptively neutral, implying a list of tactics that can be used by a project manager as a basis for establishing a concrete plan of action complete with checklists. However, business strategy is an organic phenomenon as much as it is a tangible plan for increasing market share or ROI. This is because business strategy can be the target of deep involvement by stakeholders at many levels of the enterprise (Schwalbe, 2010). In the same way that business strategy is not developed and implemented in a vacuum, IT projects must -- if they are to be successful -- be developed in conjunction with a healthy feedback loop by many of the same stakeholders who are invested in THE business strategy (Schwalbe, 2010).

From the perspective of this 20,000-mile fly-over, it is apparent that two very dynamic systems interface whenever an enterprise decides to undertake an IT project. Without an understanding of the potential for the two systems to engage in mutual influence, the outcomes of an IT project can be subject to a number of pitfalls (Haughey, n.d.). The entire project can be co-opted by select stakeholders such that scope creep occurs, or deliverables are radically off the mark (Haughey, n.d.). Project planning is core and it entails consideration of many different variables: Agreement regarding project benefits, allocation of resources, articulation of deliverables, clarification of responsibilities, identification of schedules, establishment of control systems, and definitions of risk and risk management (Haughey, n.d.). Any one of these variables can go sideways absent effective project management (Haughey, n.d.). And any deviation from the IT project plan can result in detrimental impacts on business strategy.

What would be your plan to align future IT projects with business strategy?

A brief plan for aligning future IT projects is presented here, with a focus on preventing feature creep -- a particularly common occurrence that can run counter to business strategy if the magnitude of an instance, or the number of instances, is great (Gube, 2008).

Communication is key to the successful alignment of an IT project and business strategy, and it is foundational to IT project development and management. Evidence in support of this assertion can easily be found in project documentation that addresses the gathering of requirements for the project from stakeholders and decision-makers. A proactive step in project planning is to ensure adequate time for collecting information from stakeholders and requirements from subject matter experts (SMEs) (Gube, 2008). Taking the initial stand that un-scoped changes are not permitted, and arguing against changes by conducting a point-by-point comparison between scoped and un-scoped features, can at least reduce the incidence of un-scoped changes (Gube, 2008). An extension of this position on un-scoped changes is to clearly and concisely outline exactly what the project will entail, and include a caveat about the need to renegotiate terms for requests that outside the defined and agreed upon project scope (Gube, 2008). The development of an IT project scope must include careful research about the context and the enterprise so that estimates are well within the ballpark (Gube, 2008). Stakeholders and decision-makers will be more forgiving when a project is completed within scope than if a string of un-coped changes develops over the project duration (Gube, 2008). Also, it is important to consider the inherent tension between being an agreeable person who makes accommodations for every other nice person -- within the enterprise -- whose actions result in feature creep, and being the master of a project that comes in on-time and under-budget (Gube, 2008). The latter is likely to result in repeat business, the former may only expand one's social circles.