Week 6

For this week’s HIT reflection, I’d like to stray a bit from the usual format and instead relate this week’s topic of IT strategic plans to this week’s class discussion about the election. In class we openly discussed our feelings about the outcome of the election, our fears for the future, our goals as individuals, and our hopes for society. We learned how we could support others in our cohort moving forward. We slowly came to a conclusion about what we could do outside of the classroom to combat the changes we have already begun to see. In essence, we came up with a strategic plan to help us achieve the unity we hope for despite the pending challenges of a Trump reign. If we view this plan as being similar to an organizational strategic plan, we could view our individual plans as comparative to IT strategic plans.

An IT strategic plan must align with the organizational strategic plan. Organizations have long-term plans for their future and IT can be an integral piece of achieving those goals. By creating an IT strategic plan, we are identifying the areas in which we feel that IT can enhance processes and are determining what steps we must take so that organizational goals can be realized. Similarly, after our class discussion, many of us walked away with individual plans. We recognized some of the ways that we, as individuals, may be able to contribute to broader, societal goals of unity. Having a strategic approach to overcoming obstacles is essential, but we must remember that there are a variety of tools at our disposal that should also be used strategically. Whether it is our individual contribution to societal improvement or the benefits that IT can bring to an organization, we must always use a strategic approach to ensure that proper actions are being taken to achieve our long-term goals.