Critical success factors of integrated strategic planning in IT sector: Future scenario

“Tomorrow always arrives. It is always different. And even the mightiest company is in trouble if it has not worked on the future. Being surprised by what happens is a risk that even the largest and richest company cannot afford, and even the smallest business need not run”.

- Peter Drucker

Although the purpose of strategic planning is straightforward—to outline where an organization wants to go and how it's going to get there—its nature is complex and dynamic. Two techniques, the critical success factor (CSF) method and future scenario planning, can augment strategic planning efforts by illuminating an organization's present situation and potential future. This report explores the value of enhancing typical strategic planning techniques with the CSF method and scenario-based planning and presents an integrated framework for helping organizations understand the broad range of interrelated elements that influence strategy development.

Critical success factors are defined as the handful of key areas where an organization must perform well on a consistent basis to achieve its mission. CSFs can be derived through a document review and analysis of the goals and objectives of key management personnel, as well as interviews with those individuals about their specific domain and the barriers they encounter in achieving their goals and objectives.

Future scenarios allow organizations to explore multiple potential futures and generate robust strategies and early warning signs to understand how the future is unfolding. Where a vision articulates a “preferred future,” future scenarios describe how an organization might achieve its mission in different circumstances or environments. Organizations identify a focal issue or major decision the organization faces and the critical uncertainties in the macro environment, such as social, economic, political, environmental, and technical forces. Scenarios are developed based on combinations of these forces and robust strategies are identified to address multiple futures. Finally, indicators are identified to help understand how the future is affecting the organization's decisions. several organizations in using an integrated framework over the past four years. The report synthesizes documented theory and research in strategic planning, CSFs, and scenarios and provides insights and lessons regarding the value and limitations of the integrated strategic planning framework. The report includes considerations for applying this approach in the context of strategic planning for information technology. Suggestions for future work include