Developing An ICT Strategy (Part One)

Intro

What is ICT?  Well, simply put, its information, communication, technology.  However, it’s rarely the technology that’s complicated.  The equipment infrastructure needed to produce ‘good ICT’ for small to medium voluntary and community organisations is usually straightforward, the software a little more complicated and usually the people and change issues the most problematic.

There are only two reasons to use ICT:

  1. Doing things better
  2. Doing better things

Or as Glen Duncan put it, "Wisdom is to recognise what can be made better and make it better, and to recognise what can only be made worse and walk away."

Technology in itself is meaningless.

Any ICT development (indeed ICT per se) should provide tangible benefits, to users, to an organisation or to clients. (Sometimes it produces benefits for all three.)  ICT is only as good as its application to people and organisations.  The best specified, most powerful system in the world is useless if it doesn’t meet the needs (human, financial, organisational, customer) of the organisation it belongs to.

Strategic ICT is about leadership, attitude and belief.  New systems take time to bed in, cost money, cause disruption and can cause chaos if not properly managed. Managing change is fundamental to the success of ICT. However bad your current system is, the new one will change the way you work, mean your files could end up in different places and may cause new pressures on how you do your job.

Working together is fundamental.

  • It includes an ICT Vision – what is the point of your ICT?
    High level ownership – it needs to be backed by, and agreed and supported by, both senior management and trustees. You will need money at some point and it’s easier to get that if they’ve agreed the plan
  • Budget and predicted ‘return on investment’ across the organisation – how much will it cost what impact will it have on the bottom line (it’s worth spending money if you can help more people)
  • Team = people. Remember the impact on people. Technology doesn’t work in isolation.
  • Training – it’s no good if you don’t know how to use it. Training one on one (and cascaded training where someone becomes the expert and then trains colleagues informally) often work better than generic training courses. Learning how to do mail merge well may be much more important than a general training course on how to use MS Word.
  • Technology – hardware, software and infrastructure. What do you need to make it all work?
  • What does success look like? How will you know if your ICT is working?

Remember, ICT costs resources.  Your strategy should be:

  • Short (a maximum of five pages but usually less than two)
  • Simple to understand – everyone in the organisation, including the trustees must be able to follow it
  • Able to clearly articulate benefits (people, clients, finance, effectiveness) – it needs to be clear who gets what out of it
  • What you want to do… and why!
  • Not the how (that’s the ‘plan’) – don’t waste people’s time with a 30 page development plan. Most people aren’t interested. Sell the vision and the impact, not the size of the hard drive.
  • Best built in phases – Rome wasn’t built in a day. Plan, engage others, develop and support.
  • Able to support and accommodate change – a three year plan looks great today but might be very different in a year’s time with different funding, fewer/more staff or a chair/director with a passion/hatred of ICT.

The eleven stages in developing an ICT strategy

Here’s a sneak peak at what we’ll be working through over the next few months.

  • Phase One - Who are we and why are we here?
  • Phase Two - People
  • Phase Three - Information and knowledge management
  • Phase Four - Applications and software
  • Phase Five - Communications and connectivity
    Phase Six - Big Grey Boxes
  • Phase Seven - ICT support
  • Phase Eight - The service mix
  • Phase Nine - Governance: security, policies, procedures and risk
  • Phase Ten - Money and return (value?) on investment
  • Phase Eleven - Coping with change

Don’t panic!

Before you panic at the horrors of technology and the volume of work involved, this isn’t as bad as you think.  Any form of planning involves considering the options, consultation, using expert advice and documenting a plan.  It really isn’t as painful as it looks and we’ll be taking you through the process step by step over the next few months.

Some of the changes may be simple.  New PCs will run faster, better computer housekeeping will make your system run smoother and crash less and better information management will help reduce those frustrating ‘I can’t find it’ moments.  It needn’t cost lots of money and we’ll also look at how IT volunteers can support you, where advice and training seminars help and how to build support within your teams (and to find a listening ear and critical friend if you’re feeling isolated).

To be continued next month with a detailed look at Phases One to Four.

Simon Davey
Preponderate.net
simon@preponderate.net

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