Prospectus

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ICT Strategy and Planning

Course
2009-2010

part I

The impact and role of information and communication technology (ICT) within organisations has developed over the years towards a major strategic issue. ICT enables organisation not only to do things more efficiently, but also to do things in a completely different way or to reshape the complete scope of the business itself. This course aims at providing a deeper understanding of these strategic issues. The course emphasizes on the organisational, managerial and strategic approach to ICT, and the relationship with the overall strategy of an organisation. The course also focuses on management tools that support information planning and the most important technological developments.

This objective of this course is to understand these strategic issues and to be able to translate them into a strategic information plan. The course emphasizes the relationship between the business strategy and the ICT Strategy of an organization, the management tools that support the information planning proces and the most important technological developments. Each student will develop a Strategic Information Plan for an organization of his/her choice, to get a better understanding of the practical application of the theory presented in the lectures. This is also the individual assignment that will be graded.

Learning objectives

By the end of the course, the student should be able to:

  • Understand the process and products of information planning and their relationship with the overall strategy of an organization

  • Apply the presented frameworks and management tools to a practical situation (a case description)

  • Understand the specific role and goals of an enterprise architecture

  • Understand the most important technological developments and how these technologies may affect corporate strategy

Grading

Exam: 75%
Individual assignment: 25%
Attendance and active class participation is required to pass this course.

Part II

Managers and IT professionals continue to talk past each other. Scenario thinking, in which managers and technologists work together to construct plausible strategic scenarios around uncertain developments, is a method aimed at overcoming this problem. Scenario thinking involves challenging old assumptions and developing new ones, allowing the two sides to create a shared strategic language. It is this shared language that enables organisations to deal with the strategic challenges of an uncertain environment. The purpose of this part of the course is to introduce the participants to scenario thinking as a collaborative process, including elements from systems thinking, from soft systems methodology and from organisational learning. As part of the course, students will create scenarios involving strategic ICT developments.

Course objectives

The purpose of this course is to introduce the participants to scenario thinking, organisational learning and its role facilitating more robust ICT infrastructure, services, solutions, and products in organisations.

Organization & teaching methods

Scenario thinking is a practitioner’s art. The course will therefore focus on combining theory and practice. The basic theoretical concepts will
be presented and the students expected to use them within a workshop context.

Course assessment

The students are expected to in a group develop a scenario set at the end of the course. This scenario set will address a practical strategic
dilemma and use the theoretical material discussed during the course. In addition individuals are expected to keep a learning log of their
learning no more than 2000 words through the course. This learning log contains a reflection on academic (literature), professional (your
experience inside organisations) and personal level (own learning and group interaction). Grading the course is based on 3 components:

  1. Groupwork (final scenarios) 50%
  2. Individual work (survey, learning log, driving forces (technology brief), strategic challenge) 35%
  3. Class participation (virtual and physical) 15%