IT Strategy and Planning - 3 Role Model

Our research over many years shows that CEOs (and by extension the Board) have three ‘simple’ requirements of their IT functions:

Deliver IT without fuss, get involved improving business results, and provide appropriate leadership from a unique IT perspective.

This is the most logical "IT Strategy" to pursue but, while the requirement is apparently simple, of course delivering IT ‘without fuss’, being truly ‘involved’ and focused on business results, and providing ‘appropriate’ leadership is difficult. Our research also shows that 76% of IT effort is expended in just delivering IT, while 22% of effort is directed towards responding to business demands and requirements. Finally a mere 2% of IT effort is focused on leadership. Compare that with the generic requirement of CEOs of 20% effort on delivering IT (CEOs regard this IT role as keeping the lights on background activity), 60% business involvement, and 20% leadership focus.
 
This mismatch in effort and expectations is the primary cause of concern of the Board about their IT governance responsibilities. That and the fact that the Board struggles to understand IT and what IT actually does.
 
King III requires that, not only must the Board understand what’s happening in IT, they must also provide leadership and guidance, they must also monitor and measure IT performance, investment, risks, and sustainability.
 
Our 3 Role Model© (3RM), not only helps the Board to do this, but also helps the IT Function to manage its activities and report to the Board in a way that makes sense to all stakeholders.
 
The three roles of IT are:
  • Deliver IT without fuss (ITWF)
  • Help improve business results (IBR)
  • Provide appropriate Information Leadership (IL)
These roles cover every activity that IT performs, and create the platform for understanding IT activity, performance, risk and investment. Importantly the three roles are business concepts, not IT concepts and are readily understood and adopted by the Board. The 3RM© provides a Board-level tool for discharging most, if not all, of their King III responsibilities with respect to IT in their companies.
 
Contact Us for business-like IT Management - it's a commercial problem, rather than a technology one!
 

Are you spending too much on IT?

The report you will receive upon completing this questionnaire will indicate where your IT spend is in relation to organisations of a similar size in your industry.