Strategic landscape

Digital and ICT strategic planning is part of a continuous cycle of policy, planning, implementation, evaluation and improvement. Assessment of the current strategic landscape should ideally be conducted at the same time or as close to the agency’s business planning.

Where this is not possible or the agency has already finalised its business strategic plan, it is necessary to understand the agency’s strategic direction against which the digital or ICT strategy or plan should be aligned.

Audience

A practitioner in the context of this guideline can include one or more of the following roles:

• Digital and ICT strategic planners
• Agency and service strategic planners
• Workforce planners
• Enterprise architects
• Business analysts.

Information related to the agency’s vision, objectives, strategies and key performance indicators may already exist and can be documented or generated from business planning activities. If this is the case, documenting these strategic elements may be a simple transcription exercise.

Locate any existing documentation on the agency or business area, vision, goals, objectives and strategies. The following documents may be useful in identifying objectives as they contain the formal measurements on which the agency is required to report:

• Agency Annual Report
• Agency Ministerial Portfolio Statement
• Agency Strategic Plan
• Agency business plans
• Whole-of-government strategies and plans.

It can be helpful to use a hierarchical diagram to organise and evaluate an agency or business unit’s strategic documents.

In large agencies where there are many strategic business documents to be considered, it may be necessary to extract and analyse only those elements of the business’s strategic direction relevant to the business area conducting the planning activity, or those elements specifically within the scope of the planning activity.

Managing gaps in information

If strategic documentation is not readily available or is not available at the level required to describe the business’s strategic direction, it will be necessary to generate it through interviews or workshops. The information should then be validated with key stakeholders of the business areas. In these circumstances, it may be also necessary to engage the strategic planning unit within the agency for help and advice.

Using a business register

You should identify the vision for the agency or business area and record and map the relevant objectives, key performance indicators and strategies in a register or diagram.

Suggested attributes for a business direction register to support the digital or ICT planning process include:

• planning unit name
• vision
• objectives
• Strategies
• key performance indicator
• name of source document.

See the resources section of this page for a link to free strategic templates.

Classification of objectives and strategies is useful to better understand the strategic direction of the agency or business area and ensure objectives address many areas of strategic intent (e.g. an intent to focus on customer experience versus a focus on efficiency or financial performance).

Many organisations adopt a balanced scorecard approach. The Treacy-Wiersema value-discipline classification model can also be used to analyse overall strategic intent of the agency or business area.

Use the websites below to learn more about how to use the Tracey & Wiersema model:

• The enterprise advocate
• Toolshero.

Mapping identifies the relationship between the objectives, strategies and key performance indicators.

Before conducting any mapping activities, practitioners should engage with the business planning unit, the enterprise architecture unit or other business stakeholders within the organisation to identify which elements relevant to the planning engagement may have already been mapped.

At the strategy layer, recommended mappings include:

• Objectives to key performance indicators
• Objectives to strategies
• Strategies to key performance indicators.

It can be helpful to use mapping tools to document the relationships between the strategic elements. Alternatively, tables can be used, however diagrams may be more effective when presenting information to business representatives. Any diagrams or tables used must meet Queensland Government accessibility standards.

Refer to the Enterprise architecture mapping guideline for more information and resources to help you map objectives, key performance indicators and strategies.

Practitioners will need to analyse the mappings to identify those objectives that are significant (e.g., supported by many strategies and key performance indicators) as well as identify any gaps.

This includes analysis of:

• the classification of the business objectives and strategies
• the level of consistency between the classification of objectives and the classification of strategies.
• whether strategies align or reflect the overall strategic intent of the organisation identified through the classification of the various elements.

Discuss any strong strategic themes and apparent gaps in the mapping of business objectives, strategies and key performance indicators with the business planning unit and other business representatives.

Practitioners should consider if an agency or business area’s strategic intent has a strong focus on the customer experience, and whether its strategies also demonstrate a customer focus that will enable achievement of that objective.  For example, a focus on customer experience versus efficiency or financial performance.

Identify any objectives or strategies that may directly impact or relate to the digital or ICT planning engagement or its outputs. Redefine the scope of the planning activity choosing the objectives, strategies and key performance indicators that are most relevant. This will support a more focused data collection activity.

After completing mapping, classification and analysis, confirm the findings with the planning engagement sponsor or include your findings as part of the digital and ICT strategic planning workshops and interviews. This will give the sponsor and the business representatives the opportunity to confirm the strategic direction of the business.

Present your findings

Providing a summary of the strategic intent of the organisation is an effective way to set the scene for the digital and ICT strategic planning workshops. Practitioners should consider engaging marketing and communications unit or strategic planners in your organisation to develop a simple but engaging model for presenting the strategic intent of the organisation or business area.

Use the resources below to support your analysis:

• Strategy map templates provided by The Strategy Execution Company (ESM)
• Balanced scorecard Australia
• Coggle mind mapping and relationship tools.