Today I’d like to talk a little about IT strategy. You can get a good overview of NYU IT’s strategy here. I’d like to explain how we developed this strategy and how it should be used. When Stern teaches undergrads about strategy, the context is businesses competing against each other. This makes sense—business adopted the idea of developing a long-range plan that prioritizes resources from military thinkers. In this competition, a company can focus on any one of three areas: efficiency, customer service, or product. Companies that don’t prioritize generally don’t have an effective strategy and usually don’t succeed.
NYU IT isn’t competing. We are striving to support NYU as it competes with other universities. The true test of our strategy is NYU’s success. However, we can and must monitor our efforts in more specific ways to keep us on track. NYU is a very complex institution. If we assume that each unit of NYU has its own strategy that is aligned with NYU’s overall strategy, then NYU IT’s strategy must also be aligned with each of those strategies. I have been at institutions that formalized this approach. Central IT’s goals and objectives had to be compared and adjusted to align with over 50 other sets of goals and objectives. The outcome was good, but as the saying goes, I’m not sure the juice was worth the squeeze.
Strategy—and specifically IT strategy—has three purposes. First, it is a long-term plan. Strategy should not change frequently. I like to relook at strategy annually, making incremental changes so that there is not a major impact on the organization. Second, it has to provide priorities. We can’t do everything that we want or need to. A strategy provides guidance on what we should focus on. When we talk about resources, we not only mean money and time, but also the skills of our team, the impact on our stakeholders, political will, etc. Finally, a good strategy provides a framework for the thousands of decisions made throughout the entire organization. Everyone makes decisions all the time, and the more those decisions are aligned, the more effective we will be.
So what I ask of you is that you are familiar with the strategy of your unit (if you are not in NYU IT) as well as NYU IT’s. As you go about your work, keep those strategies in mind and try to align your decisions to those. We won’t all follow the same path, but as long as we are moving in the same direction we can move NYU farther forward.
Yesterday was International Woman’s Day. We’ve come a long way even in my lifetime, but there is still more to do. NYU IT has a long history of empowering girls and women, either through participation in K-12 STEM programs or through professional organizations like Women in Technology. In fact, our first CIO was a woman, Marilyn McMillan, who helped establish the organization that would become today’s NYU IT. I encourage you to think about how you can contribute.
Finally, Pi Day is next Tuesday while Friday is St. Patrick’s Day. So bake a green pie next week! (spinach pie?)