Strategy in the making: assessing the execution of a strategic information systems plan

Abstract

Recent research on IT Strategy is in a phase of renewal, after a long period of static formal comprehensive planning. Currently, more importance is given to incremental continuous planning, program implementation and organizational learning, what has been labeled as strategy as practice. However, less attention has been paid to the evaluation of the implementation process and results. In this paper, we introduce an exploratory approach for assessing the implementation of IT Strategic planning, based in the combination and iteration of different methods. It is grounded in an Action Design Research exercise recently made up at a leading on-line European university. The assessment includes three major dimensions (strategy, performance and governance), extracted from the academic and professional research. Its application to this context through a varied scaffolding of methods, tools and techniques, that is summarized in the article, seems robust, able to work out with the business and IT senior stakeholders and allows a quick deployment, even in a complex institutional environment. We propose further research in order to extend and validate this model through its implementation and evaluation in different contexts, selecting new variables and metrics, developing improved maturity frameworks and repeating the exercise on a periodical basis.