6 free IT strategic planning templates for CIOs

SOURCE: Gartner Inc.
OFFERING: Strategic Planning and Budgeting Essentials: 2019 Step-This is a comprehensive, in-depth strategic planning guide from IT consultancy Gartner — replete with “tools, templates and lessons learned from clients.” The target audience is “progressive CIOs” who have moved past the “wait and respond” approach to IT strategic planning. These IT leaders see their jobs as helping the business to understand how IT can optimize the “business capabilities that drive success.” Adopting a “strategic mindset,” Gartner said, will keep CIOs from being distracted The nine-step guide is laid out in three parts, and each part has three steps. (Parts one and two are free and can be downloaded just SOURCE: CEB Global (now Gartner)
OFFERING: Strategy on a Page

CEB is now part of Gartner. Created SOURCE: Info-Tech Research Group
OFFERING: SME IT Strategic Plan Template

This free IT strategic plan template spells out simple yet effective procedures for aligning IT strategy with your company’s strategic objectives and initiatives. It is designed for small and midsized enterprises. (Registration is required.)

The template includes the following sections:

• Purpose of plan
• Corporate strategy
• Business initiatives to support corporate strategy
• IT strategy
• IT strategic plan to support business initiatives
• IT strategic plan — Gantt Chart

SOURCE: CIO Index
OFFERING: IT Strategy Template

This IT strategic planning template lists 21 questions aimed at helping IT executives develop a plan that reflects business pain points and objectives. (Registration required.)

The 21 questions are grouped in five categories:

1. Baseline
This section is designed to establish a baseline for IT and the business leaders 2. Business Analysis
This category deals with your company’s customers, products and competition. Questions include: “Who is your customer?” “What is your current business model?” “What is each products’ profitability, market and channel?” This section includes a SWOT chart to analyze the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

3. IT Strategy Analysis
This section of the IT strategy template digs into factors that thwart business success. Questions include: “What is in the way of achieving business imperatives?” (The template offers examples of several possible complications that hinder success.) “Can IT help achieve your business imperatives?” “What will we gain 4. Environment Trend Analysis
The two questions in this category ask you to think about the five top business trends and the five top technology trends, then assess which of the five in each area will affect your business and how.

5. Current IT Capability Analysis
This section asks you to analyze how much you spend on IT, where you spend it and why. Questions include: “What is your technology ROI?” “Does your business plan include a technology plan?”

SOURCE: Business 2 Community
OFFERING: Strategic Plan Template

Clive Keyte, managing director of strategy at mapping consultancy Intrafocus, shared his expertise on developing strategic plans. “The mistake that is often made in strategic planning is to jump straight to initiatives or projects without considering business impact carefully,” Keyte said. His editable template, which uses the balanced scorecard methodology, has an eight-part structure, starting with a vision statement and ending with an outline of the costs and benefits of the strategic plan.

SOURCE: Apptio
OFFERING: Essential KPIs for the IT Strategic Planning Process

Apptio’s guide to developing an effective IT strategic plan lays out the 10 key performance indicators (KPIs) deemed essential for delivering business value. “Without KPIs, an IT strategic plan is a governance exercise that has a point-in-time value. The business has to continually align to market changes and the IT strategic plan needs to be just as agile,” the guide states. For example, a three- to five-year timeline for a strategic IT plan is unworkable, according to Apptio, because “the rate of business change is now too fast to be encapsulated in a static 3-year plan.”(Registration required.)