Creating IT strategy is one of the complicated
task that I know. To create a good IT strategy, you have to use many ingredients
from different types and sources. Those ingredients  should be used
in unique combination that can be cooked and then be served as a delicious Cake
to different customers ( IT workers, IT management, Information workers,
enterprise CxOs and sometimes the board). In this post I'll try to describe
what, and who I manage to create an IT strategy.

Usually I tend to split my work into 6 main work
streams:

1. Collecting as-is data
   
   1. Mapping IT assets: collecting existing IT assets
      to understand what IT manage and to get a hint how.
      1. Information model: information entities and their
         relations. Helps to understand interaction between business units and level of
         integration from business perspective. Information model is also being used as
         an input to Information management.
      2. Applications and products : applications
         (internal development), External products and relations. Will be used for
         different aspects as well as mapping to core-context model.
      3. Technologies, Databases and servers : collect
         data about technical component and their relations. Used to understand what
         stand behind each application/product and to find out if resources are balanced
         (from usage point of view) and if new technologies (such as virtualization) are
         applicable.
      4. Communication infrastructures : same as
         technologies, but focused on communication.
      5. DRP : current design recovery plan.
      6. Information security : what procedures and IT
         assets are in place to support information security.
      7. Information from externals: what type of
         information the enterprise is getting from externals, in what format and how the
         data is being handled by the enterprise.
   2. Information management: how information is
      manage, who own information, who use it, what is each information availability,
      etc'
   3. Program of Work (POW) management : what is the
      current (if exists), how POW is being prepared, who is involved in this effort,
      what are the inputs for the process, is the POW address IT needs or just
      business needs, is it multiyear plan, is the plan enable prioritization and
      control, do we have milestones, deliverables and time tables, etc'
   4. Budget management : who current budget is build
      (centralized or separated between business units), how the process is being
      done, who is involved, what are the inputs, is it multiyear budget, do we have
      breakdown of budget chapters, is the budget structure represent the major areas
      of expanses, is the structure enable management queries regarding budget
      behavior, Can we optimize budget without changing IT deliverables,
      etc'
   5. IT equipment procurement management: are there
      any policies regarding procurement (Tender, predefined suppliers, how the
      process is done, where), what are the relations to other business units (when IT
      purchases), how IT physical assets are managed, any retire principles for IT
      equipment, etc' 
   6. Project management : is there one and uniform
      process for IT project, is the project follow PRINCE2, PMBOK or any other
      project management methodology.
   7. IT infrastructure management (ITIL) : 
      checking who much ITIL is implemented (even if its not ITIL explicitly) .
      Are we implementing any management of Incident, problem, configuration, release,
      change, capacity, financial, availability, continuity and service
      level.
   8. Governance: mapping the IT against governance
      frameworks such as COBIT.
   9. IT organizational structure and Human resources
      management. Existing structure and how it should support current tasks, one shop
      or shop per business unit, duplicated teams, location of teams  in
      hierarchy, are teams located
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