Strategy
Technical Strategy
Technology is important and a huge asset in almost every business.
Without a plan and direction, it can quickly turn into a liability. Technology is moving fast, really fast and without a technology strategy, plan or roadmap you are going to get left behind.
Why have a Business Technology Strategy?
Technology is important and a huge asset in almost every business. Without a plan and direction, it can quickly turn into a liability.
Technology is moving fast, really fast and without a technology strategy, plan or roadmap you are going to get left behind.
In a fast growing business, the classic “what got you here won’t get you there” phrase springs to mind and with established and enterprise organisations, standing still will make you perish.
What should a technical strategy include?
The result is a plan and clear direction of where we are going. The end form can be in various forms depending on the granularity required. When a broad and long term view is needed, a roadmap is the right mechanism to describe the strategy. It will describe the blocks or initiatives that need to be in place by when and in what order. The roadmap clearly articulates the “rocks” to be delivered and understands the impact and effort required. Everyone has a clear long term vision.
When detail is needed, usually when there are specific technology challenges such as modernisation of a platform a more granular and detailed technical strategy is needed.
The technical strategy details the current state, what the future needs to look like, principles to help make decisions quickly and a clear step by step plan of what needs to be done and in what order.
When done well, both of these outputs should be succinct and easy to understand.
If you have a technical strategy that is reams and reams, there is a lack of clarity and understanding and nobody will read it or worse still implement it.
How do you create a Technology Strategy Framework?
First we have to understand. We ask many questions and focus on firstly understanding the organisational goals and strategies. We observe, uncover and look.
We measure, challenge and push to get the answers we need.
We can do this in isolation and sometimes that is necessary, but we get the best results when we work together.
To be done well, there has to be a deep understanding of the commercial goals and technology. You have to know what makes an organisation tick and what makes it successful and you have to know how technology works and goes together at a nuts and bolts level.
What are the benefits of a technical strategy?
Technical strategy done wrong is when people with limited technical knowledge and experience make big bold decisions such as getting best of breed for all problem areas and hoping it will all work. It seldom does.
To have an unfair advantage, you have to have a strategy and plan from the technical unicorns who both understand how it works commercially, have deep technical knowledge and can be creative to produce something that works perfectly for your organisation. Razor is that technical unicorn.
