online master in technology management la salle campus barcelona

Online Master of Science in Technology Management and Digital Innovation

Decode digital transformation with strategic vision, innovative thinking, and artificial intelligence

IT Strategic Planning

Description
In the business context, General Management defines the corporate strategy, which seeks to ensure that the company generates a competitive advantage in the markets in which it competes or will compete. This subject aims, in a global way, for the student to be able to understand different business strategies and to be able to identify how to transfer them to the IT field, playing the leadership role expected of a person who occupies the role of Technological Management. The mechanism that transfers the business strategy to the IT area is the IT Strategic Plan, which encompasses all the actions to be executed within the area in the next strategic cycle. The course aims for the student to know how to formulate, structure and what an IT strategic plan and its sections should contain.
Type Subject
Optativa
Semester
First
Credits
5.00
Previous Knowledge

No specific prior knowledge is necessary

Objectives

- Understand the different levels of a company, and separate the strategic from the operational level.

- Perform internal and external analysis to help position a company in the market where it competes.

- Identify the key areas of analysis to understand an area of technology.

- Understand the role that an IT area should play in a company depending on the business or market context.

- Identify key competencies of digital organisations, and possible actions to develop them.

- Be clear about the role of the CIO in the strategic planning cycle.

- How to measure the degree of alignment between a technology area and the business, as well as how to align IT strategic projects with the company's overall objectives.

Have frameworks to see how companies capture value, and how they contribute to this from the technology area.

Identify the key aspects that a strategic plan should have, section by section.

Develop follow-up mechanisms for monitoring a plan.

Contents

- Business strategy

- Business vision and expectations

- The role of the CIO

- IT strategic planning

- IT-Business alignment

- The IT Strategic Plan

Methodology

On-site modality:

Combination of theoretical classes with presentation and discussion of practical cases based on own experiences and academic case studies.

All sessions will be conducted in an interactive way, seeking at all times the participation of students to promote the emergence of new ideas and to obtain different points of view and experiences from them.

Individual evaluable exercises will be carried out on those key aspects that are very relevant to strategic planning.

The case study dynamics include a time for individual reflection and sharing, so that students can present unconditioned reflections and see their validity, while at the same time being enriched by the individual contributions of other students.

Online modality:

The teaching methodology used in the online modality is based on a proprietary methodology developed by La Salle URL called SDBL (Self Directed Based Learning). SDBL is an active methodology based on situational learning and self-directed learning. With situational learning, the student is taught, through challenges, to address real problems and situations of the company with which he/she can consolidate the new knowledge acquired. With self-directed learning, the student decides how to advance in their training based on their previous experience.
On a weekly basis, the LMS (Learning Management System) platform releases the content of a new topic. The way the week works is as follows:

Synchronous kick-off session:
- The teacher gives an overview of the contents and tasks that the student will encounter during the week. The objective of this meeting is to try to discover and reveal on a personal level which aspects of the week's topics may be more difficult for the individual student.
- The teacher resolves possible doubts of the students about the previous week's topic.

Between synchronous connections:
- The student visualizes the content of the sessions and develops the tasks given to him/her about the week's topic to consolidate knowledge and identify doubts.

Synchronous check point session:
- The teacher solves any doubts the students may have about the contents of the current week.
- The teacher presents additional content or case studies that are of interest to the students.
- The teacher generates debate and discussion among the students about the contents of the week in course with the objective of helping the students in their assimilation, therefore, improving their learning.
- The teacher provides oral feedback on the deliverables recorded by the students in the previous week's feedback well, emphasizing the difficulties and errors encountered. This instance is for feedback only and not for grading. The feedback wells are an instrument for the students to validate with the mentor, in general terms, the resolution of the tasks set. In this way, the feedback wells are created to give the mentee an opportunity to test the answers with the mentor. Based on the feedback provided by the mentor, the student will be able to finish developing the task and present it as a final deliverable, with the advantage of having had previous advice from the teacher.

Rest of the week. The objective is to finish the development of the tasks of the current week based on the clarifications received in the synchronous check point session to overcome the exercises, tasks and/or deliverables of the topic. It is worth mentioning that most of the time dedicated during this last part of the week should be spent on solving the tasks and deliverables, rather than on assimilating content (an aspect that should have been resolved between the kick-off and check point sessions).

The LMS platform makes the gradual opening of content (week by week) so that the whole group follows the same academic itinerary. In other words, the sequential opening of topics is done so that all students in the program are working on the same subjects simultaneously.

Evaluation

On-site modality:

- 10% Class participation
- 20% Prioritization of demand and action plan
- 20% IT alignment
- 10% Final test exam
- 40% IT Strategic Plan (group work)

Online modality:

Subject Note:

Deliverables Sessions: Each student must deposit in the delivery well on the date indicated at the latest.

- Spanish Oil Company.
- StarBank.
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Final evaluation: Students will work in groups to solve an exercise proposed by the professor. This exercise will be defended by each group during the evaluation weeks.

- IT strategic plan.

The professor will publish the grades in the eStudy and, if any student needs more information about it, he/she can contact the professor directly by email.

In both cases:

Demonstrate academic integrity in the totality of their work.

If the student is caught cheating in any type of exam, plagiarism or rehashing of exercises, activities, assignments, presentations or delivering a team work in which he/she has not collaborated, it will be considered fraud, penalizing the final grade of the course or even being considered as not delivered.

The student and the group must ensure that the work they submit is their own. The student is responsible for citing all sources relied upon in their submissions, using quotation marks when language is taken directly from other sources.

Use of Artificial Intelligence tools

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help in the learning process, but its use must be acknowledged. If you have used any AI tools, include a paragraph at the end of any assignment that uses AI explaining what you used the AI for and what prompts you used to obtain the results. Failure to do so will be considered as an action that tends to falsify or defraud the academic evaluation systems and, therefore, the copying policy of La Salle Campus Barcelona - Copying Policy | La Salle | Campus Barcelona (salleurl.edu) will be applied.

In those subjects or teaching activities in which the academic guide indicates the prohibition of using AI tools, the use of these tools by students will be considered fraud and will entail the application of the copying policy of La Salle Campus Barcelona.

Evaluation Criteria

On-site modality:

- In the resolution of exercises and coursework, the criteria to be taken into account are:
- Understanding of the situation posed
- Definition and analysis of the problems posed by the case.
- Recording of the main issues
- Proposed solutions
- Realism and adequacy of the proposed solution(s)
- Argumentation in defence of the proposed solution(s)
- Strengths and benefits of the proposed solution(s)
- Implications of the proposal(s) (economic and management)

Online modality:

The following list conforms the evaluation criteria for the deliverables of the subject:

Deliverable Topic 1
- Field of work offer 1
- Field of job offer 2
- Field of job offer 3
- Field of job offer 4

Deliverable Topic 2
- Degree of maturity of each key area
- Project 1
- Project 2
- Project 3

Deliverable Theme 3
- Mission and vision
- IT strategic axes
- IT strategic projects

Final Deliverable
- Strategic formulation
- Analysis of the current model
- Design of the future model
- Elaboration of the IT strategic plan

Basic Bibliography

Aral, S., & Weill, P. (2007). IT assets, organizational capabilities, and firm performance: How resource allocations and organizational differences explain performance variation. Organization Science, 18(5), 763–780. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1070.0303

Deloitte. (2022). TechTrends 2022. Deloitte Insights. https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/technology/articles/tech-trend...

Fujitsu. (2022). Fujitsu digital transformation survey. Fujitsu Global. https://www.fujitsu.com/global/innovation/digital-survey

Harvard Business Review. (2020). Strategy (Harvard Business Review Collections). Harvard Business Review Press.

IBM. (2018). IBM C-suite study: 19th edition. IBM Institute for Business Value. https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/c-suite-...

Luftman, J., & Kempaiah, R. (2007). An update on business-IT alignment: A line has been drawn. MIS Quarterly Executive, 6(3), 165–177. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429286790-4

Penteo, & ESADE. (2013). Las tecnologías de la información en la empresa española 2012. Penteo & ESADE Business School.

Stratopoulos, T. C. (2010). IT innovation persistence and firm's market value. Journal of Information Systems, 24(2), 39-57. https://doi.org/10.2308/jis.2010.24.2.39

Additional Material

No additional materials are required

List of Professors
Aleix Sivera Calatayud