1. Develop a Strategic Workforce Plan for IT
Get the right skills at the right time to keep up with shifting technologies.

2. Introduction
Future-proof the organization with strategic workforce planning essentials.
This Research Is Designed For:
This Research Will Help You:
CIOs who want to align the IT workforce with corporate and IT strategy.
Managers of groups within IT.
Leaders responsible for workforce planning and organizational design in fast-changing technology environments.
Anticipate how technology trends – mobility, cloud, big data, social media, and security – will affect your future IT workforce needs.
Identify which skills to focus on acquiring and developing.
Assess the sufficiency of your current IT workforce.
Identify skill gaps.
Align IT strategic workforce planning with corporate and IT strategy.

3. Executive Summary Situation
Technology is causing IT’s focus to shift: mobility, the cloud, big data, social media, and security trends require different responsibilities, skills, and roles in IT.
For example, mobility has created demands on IT to manage and develop for a growing volume and variety of consumer devices, which in turn demand new skills for staff responsible for data access, networking, and security.
Similarly, the cloud is forcing IT – especially infrastructure – to shift its core competency from asset management to service and relationship management.
IT leaders must plan their IT organization’s workforce strategically so they are not unprepared for these technology changes. Fifty-two percent of survey respondents who don’t forecast demand for skills report that project work is usually delayed, compared to only 31% for those who do forecast demand for skills.
Challenge
IT needs to make time and resources available for strategic workforce planning, but it is in an impossible situation: there is already too much work, and not enough resources to do it. IT needs resources, and to attain them, IT leaders must make a case, but this requires planning, which takes more time.
Recommendation
To get the most value for the least effort, Info-Tech recommends a demand-oriented approach to workforce gaps, organized around the three “Ts”: targets, tools, and talent:
First, identify what your goals are as an IT organization for the next 1-3 years.
Then, assess the skills and responsibilities required to achieve those goals.
Finally, define the roles and positions that embody those requirements.
The first option for closing workforce gaps is redeployment: look for under-allocated roles with skills that overlap with over- allocated roles. Failing that, your second option is outsourcing, third is contracting, and fourth is hiring.

4. Where this set fits: when faced with a skills gap, the hiring manager faces multiple possibilities
Strategic workforce planning is the first step; it will help identify gaps so you can get to decisions to close them with the fewest costs and most benefits.
When there is a need for new skills in IT, the CIO or IT manager has three options (in the left-hand column):
Redeploy or reallocate internal resources whose skill sets are adequate to meet the new need.
Bring new skills into the organization from an outside source, either by hiring, contracting, or outsourcing.
Train internal resources to fill the skills gap.
The two sets in the right-hand column deal with downsizing:
Downsize IT Staff for Future Gain with Minimal Pain
Deliver Maximum Value with Limited Staff
Strategic Workforce Planning Essentials
Redeploy IT Resources
Downsize IT Staff for Future Gain with Minimal Pain
Acquire New IT Skills
Deliver Maximum Value with Limited Staff
Develop IT Staff Capabilities
This set focuses on starting the planning and decision-making process.

5. Overview: Understand Strategic Workforce Planning
What strategic workforce planning is and why you need it.
Avoid costs of poor strategic workforce planning.
Overcome the barriers to strategic workforce planning.
Visualize the strategic workforce planning process.
Overview
Tie Planning to Strategy
Estimate Demand for Skills
Identify and Close Gaps
Appendix I: Brainstorming Tools
Appendix II: Workforce Planning Priorities Breakdown

6. Address emerging needs before they become a problem
Strategic Workforce Planning involves forecasting future requirements for knowledge and skills to ensure you have the right people, in the right place, at the right time, and for the right cost.
Right now that means forecasting the skills and roles you need to navigate the changes driven by mobile, cloud, big data, social media, and security trends.
Trends/Drivers
IT Skills Required
Related Research
Mobility
Already in high demand: skills to securely support, manage, and develop for a growing volume and variety of consumer- oriented devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry).
Understand and Develop a Mobile Management Strategy
Cloud
The cloud is deeply transforming IT’s core infrastructure stance from asset management to service and relationship management.
Prepare IT for Increased Cloud Adoption
Big Data
Business units will increasingly push IT to manage the exploding volume, variety, and velocity of data – beyond SQL to unstructured data requiring new tools and skills.
Big Data Strategy
Social Media
New interaction patterns (both externally and internally) require increased understanding from IT to securely integrate social technologies and behaviors into enterprise systems.
Formulate a Social Analytics Strategy
Security
All the preceding trends directly affect the state of business security by raising new concerns and threats to which IT must be able to respond.
Build a Security Architecture and Roadmap

7. Workforce Planning Priorities
Focus your workforce planning priorities on retaining and acquiring skills for the greatest benefits
To keep up with trends, you must acquire new skills at the right time while retaining a solid base of experience.
Workforce Planning Priorities
for IT Leaders
Benefits of strategic workforce planning:
Streamline and define consistent talent lifecycles:
Improve loyalty and morale with valid estimates of what employees can expect their career paths to be.
Improve motivation and productivity by setting goals within a consistent framework of expectations.
Create value and help drive corporate strategy:
Increase corporate confidence in IT by having valuable knowledge and skills available – both proactively and when needed.
Highlight the ROI of acquiring talent:
Increase success when submitting staff budget forecasts and requests by appealing directly to corporate strategy.
Improve relationships with the business:
The above benefits help to position IT managers as trusted advisors and partners of the business.
Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N = 56

8. Avoid these immediate and long-term costs of poor workforce planning
Short-Term Costs
Delays in strategic initiatives due to lack of key skills and knowledge at the right time.
Project bottlenecks where projects must pass through critical, work-intensive phases (e.g. QA testing).
Failure to meet operational SLAs; low satisfaction levels among end users and corporate stakeholders.
Shorter windows for recruiting talent and engaging contractors results in smaller pools of candidates and possible failure to acquire any suitable candidates.
Less power to negotiate contracts because of the shorter recruiting window; paying premium costs to outsource or hire on short notice.
Poorly defined roles as responsibilities are shifted informally to react to emerging needs.
Long-Term Costs
Increased costs for IT and the organization caused by downtime and inefficiency.
Failure to invest in strategically valuable knowledge and skills; failure to develop for key roles that require both technical expertise and knowledge of the business.
Increased payroll and outsourcing costs due to:
Outsourcing in the short term for skills you could have developed internally.
Hiring for the long term, continuing to pay high salaries (or creating layoff costs) after demand for skills and capacity diminishes.
Poor allocation of responsibilities to people who were most available at the time, rather than to those best suited for a particular role.
Corporate perception that IT is a barrier and cost center – or at best a reactive functionary – rather than an enabler of value creation.

9. Take time to tie roles to strategy; it will save time overall
IT departments that routinely forecast demand for skills report less delayed project work.
Info-Tech’s survey results show that forecasting demand for specific skills and positions helps reduce
work delays.
In environments where demand planning doesn’t happen – where projects are more reactive, where IT is basically responding – hiring becomes a “dodgier” exercise; you run a greater risk of hiring someone you may not need down the road.
Chris Larsen,
Managing Director of Enterprise Applications,
IT Evolution

10. Overcome barriers to strategic workforce planning by focusing on the ones you can overcome
Be realistic:
Don’t launch an ambitious process if your department is small, turnover is low, things change too fast, and you don’t have resources to spare.
Focus what you can overcome:
Strategy development knowledge is learned with practice. Build your knowledge through small, achievable goals: choose a narrowly defined problem to solve – like planning around a few key initiatives first. Think of it as a trial or proof of concept.
Leadership interest and buy-in will come after you demonstrate the value in your narrow trial or proof of concept.
Things you can change
Things that are harder to change
Percent of respondents asked to select all barriers that apply
Source: Info-Tech Research Group, N=61

11. Visualize the phases in strategic workforce planning: Targets, Tools, and Talent
To get the most value for the least effort:
Start by identifying your goals in the organization (especially those affected by trends).
Then assess the responsibilities and skills required to achieve those goals.
Finally, define who you need to have those responsibilities and skills.
Targets. Identify strategic and operational goals:
“What results will our workforce achieve?”
Identify your goals
Tools. Assess responsibilities and skills required:
“What will we do – how will we hit those targets?”
Assess skill requirements
Talent. Define roles and positions in the organization:
“Who will have those responsibilities and skills?”
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12. Info-Tech Research Group Helps IT Professionals To:
Quickly get up to speed with new technologies
Make the right technology purchasing decisions – fast
Deliver critical IT projects, on time and within budget
Manage business expectations
Justify IT spending and prove the value of IT
Train IT staff and effectively manage an IT department
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