Strategic IT Planning for Public Organizations: A Toolkit - UNU-IIST ...

Strategic IT Planning Toolkit – Section 1: Introduction
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1 Introduction
This section contextualizes the IT strategy process in the overall development and application of IT in
government organizations. It begins with an explanation of the business of government and nature of
public values as a basis for characterizing the use of IT in the public sector. Next, the section
discusses why IT requirements for public sector are different from those of private organizations. The
importance of strategic planning in general and strategic IT planning in particular is later explained.
The section also explains the relationship between IT and organizational strategies, before closing
with an explanation of the usage scenarios for the toolkit - by individual government agencies and the
whole-of-government.
1.1 IT and Public Organizations
The business of government broadly covers the development of public policies (laws and regulations),
delivery of public services and infrastructure (common good) and maintenance of social order and
security [6]. The performance or effectiveness of a government organization is linked to how well
public values or benefits are delivered in the social, political and economic spheres. It also measured
in terms of the degree to which the core mission and organizational goals are met. The production of
public value entails the conversion of core resources – human, information (or IT), organizational and
financial; to support the internal processes, direct delivery of services to the public and general
interactions with stakeholders [1][8]. We expect that appropriate use of resources in carrying out
internal processes should produce concrete results for the public (e.g. increased customer satisfaction
and fewer complaints from public) and the organization itself (e.g. better control, oversight and
planning capabilities). Customer results in particular should lead to the attainment of some strategic or
policy outcomes - for instance, improved home security or more responsive government. Figure 1
below outlines the value chain for a typical public organization. Detailed discussion on public value
generation can be found in [7].
Figure 1: Value Creation Process in Public Organizations
Report No. 417, May 2009
UNU-IIST, P. O. Box 3058, Macao