Strategic planning is a process exercise where it is important to gather whatever strategic collateral the rest of the company has generated to understand what the CEO and board hope to do in the future through the enterprise-level strategy to see the priorities of the business units and functional heads through their divisional strategies. When speaking to executives, it is important to ask business rather than technology questions, as you do not want to devolve into a conversation about solutions they want. They should be encouraged to articulate how they see the world evolving, the opportunities that are ahead, and the threats they foresee. This input from the rest of the organization is the most important driver of IT strategy, but there are other sources that are necessary. Most companies have a portfolio of vendor partners that include infrastructure partners, software partners, managed services partners, and staff augmentation partners. These companies and individuals are also great sources of insight as they likely serve a variety of companies in your industry among others.

Prepare a description of the process for an Information Technology Executive in preparing a strategic IT Plan. The emphasis here is on the process of preparing the plan and how this process results in commitment to the plan.