Comparing Strategic IT Plans - Essay Example

Comparing Strategic IT Plans I.D. of the Comparing Strategic IT Plans Introduction In this paper, the strategic IT plans of UC Berkeley and UC Boulder will be analyzed. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has devised the Baldrige criteria which help in evaluating, analyzing, and improving organizational performance in various fields. In this essay, prime emphasis will be put on how Baldrige criteria are utilized to analyze the working of educational institutions, particularly in the realm of strategic IT management and planning. Research Question How do UC Berkeley and UC Boulder strategic IT plans compare against the Baldrige criteria and each other for assessing strategic planning? Baldrige criteria: What are they? An intricate description and analysis of Baldrige criteria will show that this systematic performance evaluation scheme is highly diverse (Baldrige Performance Excellence Program 2013). There are seven main categories of Baldrige criteria that can be unswervingly implemented for analysis and organizational research: (1) Leadership; (2) Strategic planning; (3) Customer focus; (4) Measurement, analysis & knowledge management; (5) Workforce focus; (6) Operations focus; and (7) Results. Furthermore, there are several crucial core concepts ranging from agility to systems perspective which can be recombined to create special assessment blocks. (Baldrige Performance Excellence Program 2013) UC Berkeley IT plan and Baldrige criteria UC Berkeley’s (2007) IT plan has been developed in a straight forward manner, where all its chapters are almost directly interconnected with each other in numerous ways. The plan, first of all, seeks to focus on the fundamentals of IT infrastructure management and related service issues. The plan prioritizes delivery of excellent customer service, which expands on customer engagement and governance. In this way, the university seeks to deal with student expectations with a corporate attitude. Contextually, the university plans to improve the security of its IT related data and assets. The university seeks to make special provisions of research support. Enabling campus-wide shared IT services is the prime stepping stone for achieving these aims. The IT plan thus addresses collaboration issues along with a final emphasis on continual improvement of its IT services and applications. UC Berkeley’s attitude of focusing on the basics of IT infrastructure management shows that the IT action plan has a strong strategic grounding. This approach is in accordance with the Baldrige criteria group of Strategic planning. Direct Customer focus criteria can be implemented and further improvised along with the university’s vision on expanding customer engagement. The university also addresses Workforce focus criteria by continuously evaluating its governance system. Core concepts of agility and societal responsibility are implemented as the university seeks to provide research support along with optimal IT security. This same section of the plan can be helpful for implementing Baldrige Measurement, analysis & knowledge management criteria category. Moreover, the concluding section of continual improvement helps in constructing a continuous evaluation system of the university’s general IT management and functionary. The core concept of systems perspective develops into analysis and evaluation of the university’s campus shared services. UC Boulder IT plan and Baldrige criteria The Information Technology Strategic Plan for 2010 has been a very practical and elaborate attempt for revitalizing the university’s working and management as a whole. The plan has some key parts. The chapter on Teaching and Learning (UC Berkeley 2010) is full of its organization-specific emphasis, where the interests of teachers and students are discussed. Next is the section of Shared Resources and Support. After that, the plan describes a roadmap for Collaboration and Partnerships. Lastly, the plan develops into implications for Governance, Budget and Communications (UC Berkeley 2010). Being a strategic IT plan, the emphases on sharing, collaborating, and communicating should be praised. However, those are not all in all according to the Baldrige criteria. Support techniques, tools, and options for the students and the teachers are an evaluation topic where various Baldrige criteria categories must be implemented in a congested combination. The criteria categories of Leadership, Workforce Focus, and Customer Focus must be used together in order to develop a fuller understanding of the university’s Teaching and Learning expectations. However, the Baldrige core concept of student-centered excellence has been emphatically pursued. Also, some more core concepts of Baldrige criteria like systems perspective and focus on the future appear to have been given importance. Next, the IT plan has a section on the intricacies of Collaboration and Partnerships. This section falls directly under the Strategic planning criteria category. In the next section, the IT plan concludes by focusing on governance, budgeting, and communicating techniques. This is according to Baldrige Operations focus criteria category. Importantly, the IT plan does not appear to be giving a comprehensive coverage of the criteria category of Measurement, analysis & knowledge management. What is more, there is no clear indication on what will the university’s management do if they fail to obtain the expected results. UC Berkeley and UC Boulder IT plans The UC Berkeley (2007) created its IT strategic plan as “a living document that guides UC Berkeley’s IT decision making to advance the campus’s mission.” On the other hand, UC Boulder’s (2010) IT strategic plan aimed to decide the course of the “use of information technology in support of the mission for CU-Boulder.” Therefore, as organizations, both of these establishments want to make optimal use of IT. In this pursuit of optimization, the UC Berkeley appears to be hi8hgly successful as per the Baldrige criteria. A prime feature of UC Berkeley’s strategic IT planning is that it mostly identifies its prime stakeholders, those are the students, as customers. This is in line with a tendency of adding more professionalism to the organization’s workforce. Doing this, UC Berkeley vigorously look into its customer service concerns, which possibly ranges from teaching to placement and sports. However, UC Boulder (2010) puts its staff, students, and faculty members in the same context of a collaborative organizational structure. This is understood from its excessive stress for utilization of shared resources, IT support for different stakeholders, and collaboration and partnerships with intricate considerations ranging from information systems to dining services! The Baldrige criteria category of Measurement, analysis & knowledge management has not been sufficiently applied in the context of UC Boulder’s IT strategy. This may culminate as a drawback since important parameters and benchmarks for the working of the university’s IT department are almost missing. The strategic plan does not come up with a generalized or customized performance measurement system that suites the organization’s IT profiling and improvement needs. UC Berkeley’s planning has got more completeness in this regard. It is better tuned to the seven key Baldrige criteria categories. Conclusion Although UC Berkeley appears to have planned more cautiously than UC Boulder, its priorities are highly professional. It has developed a very comprehensive sort of systems perspective for its organizational use. But UC Boulder appears to be just doing that. It has added considerable customization and uniqueness by focusing on an innovative side of modern IT infrastructure maintenance and management. It can be concluded that the UC Berkeley’s (2007) strategic IT plan is typical and comprehensive. On the other hand, UC Boulder’s (2010) IT plan may not be highly comprehensive, but it is innovative and highly detailed in the context of using collaborative technologies. References Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. (2013). 2013-2014 Education Criteria for Performance Excellence. Gaithersburg: National Institute of Standards and Technology. UC Berkeley. (2007). Campuswide Information Technology Strategic Plan. The Regents of the University of California. Retrieved on 8th November 2014 from http://technology.berkeley.edu/panning/strategic UC Boulder. (2010). The University of Colorado at Boulder IT Strategic Planning (ITSP). Retrieved on 8th November 2014 from http://www.colorado.edu/ITplan Read More