What is an IT Roadmap?
And Why Your Credit Union Should Have One
By Teresa Brent, Product Manager, Alloya Corporate FCU
The importance of having a strategic plan is clear, but how many times does that strategic plan get communicated internally so that all team members understand the goals and can ensure that supporting tactics are in place?
Information technology is a great resource that enables your credit union to achieve its desired outcomes. All aspects of your business are affected by, related to or dependent upon your credit union’s technology capabilities. So, what does a technology roadmap have to do with achieving your credit unions’ strategic plan. Short answer… maybe everything!
Getting Started: Implementing a Technology Committee
Information technology (IT) should never “run the show!” Credit unions should have a member and business first mindset. Begin by focusing on improvements in business processes, operations and capabilities that can assist your organization in achieving its strategic goals. If you don’t already have one in place, create a technology committee. A technology committee’s purpose is to help prioritize, fund, evaluate execution options and make recommendations to management or your board of directors on the best IT solutions available to assist in meeting your credit union’s strategic plans.
Recommendations from your technology committee should be focused on optimizing outcomes. Credit union management or the board should review the recommendations for a go/no go decision. The success or failure of those initiatives should be a shared organizational fate.
Next Step: Set the Course
An IT roadmap is the governing document that dictates specifically how technology will support the business strategy and help drive priorities over the next three to five years.
What should be included in your IT roadmap?
- A list of IT initiatives/projects and a reason for how each will specifically assist you in achieving the strategic goal.
- A timeline for each initiative/project that will occur over the next several years with approximate start and end dates, durations and resources required to achieve them.
- Full details for each initiative/project for the next budget cycle, and simpler statements for projects beyond the next budget cycle.
- Estimated cost for each project. Include detailed amounts for the upcoming budget cycle and a range of costs for those beyond the current budget cycle.
- Identify owner(s) for each initiative/project. This should include the management personnel directly overseeing the project, but not necessarily an IT manager. For any projects in the next year, identify the specific person, and for projects beyond that, note the owning managerial department.
Follow Your Compass
The following documents should be prepared and readily available for your technology committee, board of directors and management. These documents can be very helpful in determining where technology initiatives and projects might be most effective in supporting your credit union’s specific strategic goals:
- Systems architecture diagrams of the whole enterprise, including interfaces, manual data movements and platforms. (Try to keep this product or process related versus IT infrastructure related. This will help to identify specific IT areas for improvement and enhancement.)
- A systems inventory that is periodically updated and contains end-of-life dates, basic statements on usage, number of users and the system owner who can help identify areas where enhancements or upcoming changes for efficiencies might be needed.
- A running list of emerging problems the IT support staff is seeing (help desk software should be able to track this for you). This is a great way to identify processes that may need revamping for additional capabilities or increased efficiencies.
Important Questions
Finally, an IT Roadmap should assist you in looking at what additional options may be available to achieve your strategic plan, beyond your own organization. Consider the following:
- Are there ways to share resources with other organizations?
- Have you looked at outsourcing IT services through opportunities, such as those offered by Alloya Corporate’s IT Services?
- Are you aware of the options available in cloud services today?
- Did you know that cloud services can not only save your IT staff time and money, but it can also increase your IT capabilities and efficiencies, freeing up your IT staff for projects that can better meet your strategic goals?
- Did you know that cloud services can increase your data security?
For more information, please contact either your Senior Business Consultant or Teresa Brent (teresa.brent@alloyacorp.org).