The Accidental CIO

11IT Strategic Contribution

Technology can bring benefits if, and only if, it diminishes a limitation.

—Eli Goldratt

If everything is important, then nothing is important.

—Patrick Lencioni

Strategy is essentially an intent, rather than a plan.

—Steven Bungay, author of The Art of Action

As introduced in Chapter 10, “Understanding Your Business,” the business strategy explicitly lays out the choices the organization will take to achieve its business goals and objectives. The organization will require the combined efforts of its major capabilities (IT, marketing, etc.) to work together to agree on a set of strategic initiatives that will deliver on those strategic choices. The contributions to the strategy represent each department's own strategy. However, conceptually there is only one strategy, and the strategic actions of IT, just like the marketing or finance departments, are embedded within it. The IT strategic contribution should not only be aligned to supporting the actions of other departments, but it should also inform the strategy itself, through a process of consensus and feedback based on the technical art of the possible. This is a shift from creating an IT strategy that merely supports the rest of the business to one that is integral and shapes the business model and strategic outlook itself through a focus on digitalization.

There is a myth that you don't need strategy if you have agility. Unsurprisingly, this is simply not the case. Agility cannot replace ...