There are 5 major sections provided in this comprehensive planning methodology. Below is a description of what’s included in each section.

The Comprehensive Research and Tools in This Innovative Methodology Guide You Through These 5 Crucial Steps to Strategic IT Planning:

I — Understand, Assess and Plan IT and Business Alignment

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II — Understand, Assess and Plan Application Direction

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III — Understand, Assess and Plan Technical Infrastructure Direction

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IV — Understand, Assess and Plan Organizational Direction

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V — Document and Present Detailed IT Strategic Plan to Stakeholders

You Will Receive Detailed Instruction on Each Step and More Than 45 Tools and Templates in Total

Click here for Detailed Information on Contents

1 – IT and Business Alignment
Always start with IT and Business Alignment. This critical initial section provides all the tools and instruction you need to get business goals and IT plans on the same page. Detailed instructions will walk you through the following 11 tools and templates:

1. Stakeholder Guidelines and Analysis
2. IT Strategy and Roadmap Scope Statement
3. Kickoff Meeting Agenda and Template
4. Technology Monitor Worksheet – Scan for Potentially Enabling Technologies
5. Business Executive Interview Guide
6. Assessing Enterprise Strategy
7. Enterprise Strategy and Goals Statement
8. Key Success Factors Analysis Tool
9. IT Imperatives Template
10. IT Vision Meeting Agenda
11. IT Vision and Mission Statement Template

2 – Application Direction
This section helps you assess your existing application portfolio, identify new enabling technologies and provides a migration plan that meets your long-term business objectives. The following 4 tools support this effort:

1. Business Function and Application Assessment Worksheet
2. Application Topology Guidance Document
3. Application Improvement Opportunity Template
4. Application Direction and Migration Strategy Template

3 – Technical Infrastructure Direction
This section will walk you through the critical steps of assessing your existing infrastructure including internal hardware and virtual components. From there, you will identify the gaps you need to fill to align to your organizations long-term goals. Finally, you will create a detailed direction for your infrastructure strategy. The following 7 tools are provided to aid you in this effort:

1. Infrastructure Components Inventory Worksheet
2. Network Diagram Primer
3. Network Diagram Template
4. Infrastructure Assessment Worksheet
5. Technical Infrastructure Direction Template
6. Infrastructure Improvement Opportunity Template
7. Infrastructure Prioritization Template

4 – IT Organization Direction
In this section, you’ll take an in-depth look at your staffing and overall organization. The first step will be to identify weaknesses in your current organization in terms of readiness to support the current and future strategic objectives of the company. From there, you will create a long-term staffing plan that aligns to the future objectives of the business. The following 9 tools are provided to aid you in this effort:

1. IT Staffing Worksheet
2. IT Skills Inventory
3. Irregular IT Staff Inventory (consultants, contractors, etc.)
4. Staff Level Allocation Worksheet
5. IT-Business Interaction Model
6. IT Service Model Alignment
7. IT organizational Gaps Worksheet
8. Statement of Organization and Capability Direction Template
9. Organization and Capability Improvement Opportunity Template

5 – IT Strategic Investment and Value Roadmap
This is where it all comes together. Now that you have assessed your application, technical infrastructure and organization portfolio, you can turn those opportunities into action and describe the practical steps that now need to take place. The overall objective of this section is to create a fully documented and supported strategic plan for the IT organization. There are 14 supporting tools and templates in this section:

1. Analysis of Available Options
2. Optional Evaluation Tool
3. Assessment of Current IT Projects
4. IT Strategy and Roadmap Scope Statement
5. Initiative Description Template
6. Initiative Prioritization Template
7. Guide to Documenting Your Strategic Roadmap
8. IT Strategy Budget Impact Worksheet
9. Business Case Template
10. Communications Plan Template
11. Strategic Plan Presentation (PowerPoint)
12. Strategic Plan Template (Word Doc)
13. Executive Meeting Agenda Template
14. IT Strategic Roadmap Maintenance Guidelines Template

Filed under: Architecture, Design, Reference Tagged: Agile, Analysis, Application, Arch, Architect, CMM, Design, Diagrams, Documents, Downloads, Evaluation, General, Guidance, Images, Infrastructure, IT, Kickoff, Models, Plan, Planning, PowerPoint, Prioritization, Project, Refer, Schedule, Scrum, SEI, Six Sigma, Tasks, Technology, Templates, Tools, Worksheets, XP

The Microsoft Update site in Vista has been replaced by a Control Panel applet. To automate the reminder in Vista, you’ll need to set up two automated processes: one for patching Windows, and another for launching a browser showing the Secunia Software Inspector.

Follow these steps to run Windows Update once a month after Patch Tuesday:

Step 1: Choose Start, type Task Scheduler, and press Enter. Click to confirm User Account Control.

Step 2: In the far right pane, click Create Basic Task.

Step 3: In the Create Basic Task Wizard, type the name of your task and (optionally) a description. Click Next.
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schedule, scheduled tasks, vista, Windows, windows vista

You can make Scheduled Tasks run a script that launches Internet Explorer 7 with Microsoft Update in one tab and Secunia Software Inspector in another. I use IE 7 in this example because Microsoft Update won’t run in most other browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox. The technique shown below is adapted from a Windows Scripting Host script published by Tony Schreiner in his MSDN blog.

Step 1. Open your favorite text editor, such as Notepad. Type or paste in the following five lines:

var navOpenInBackgroundTab = 0×1000;
var oIE = new ActiveXObject(”InternetExplorer.Application”);
oIE.Navigate2(”http://update.microsoft.com”);
oIE.Navigate2(”http://secunia.com/software_inspector/”, navOpenInBackgroundTab);
oIE.Visible = true;
(more…)

schedule, scheduled tasks, Windows, Windows XP, xp