Chapter 13
The Strategy Pillar of a Growing Organization
As noted in Chapter 7, Parts Two and Three of this book are focused on case studies. More specifically, Part Three covers a case study using a midsize and growing organization as its subject, while Part Two walked through a case study using a large and mature organization as its subject.
As I did in Part Two, I walk through the full process of assessing and optimizing a company's information technology (IT) function over the course of Part Three.
Part Two addressed some aspects that are unique to a large and mature organization; Part Three covers a number of the characteristics unique to a midsize and growing company.
Chapters 12 to 16 walk through the full IT assessment and optimization steps outlined over Chapters 1 to 6 for a midsize and growing company with a mix of both older and more recent systems.
Figure 13.1 illustrates the steps involved in optimizing and assessing IT.
Figure 13.1 Steps for Optimizing and Assessing IT
The case study examined here covers all of the steps shown in Figure 13.1. For the sake of context, the materials covered in Chapters 3 to 5 focused on the second step shown in Figure 13.1, “Assess the Situation,” and Chapter 6 focused on the third step in Figure 13.1, “Quantify the Situation.”
Figure 13.2 presents a view of the Strategy Pillar in the context of the IT Pillars Model (IPM).
