What is a technology strategy? Is it just another form of ivory tower architecture that quickly becomes out-of-date and nobody cares about? Or is technology strategy a vision that helps teams in large organisations to stay aligned, making decisions in the best interest of the organisation as a whole instead of becoming locally-optimising silos? And is there any point in strategy now we’re all agile and everything is constantly changing? Proponents argue that, when implemented correctly, a technology strategy improves team autonomy and agility even in constantly-changing, digital environments. They argue that technology strategy clarifies key business capabilities. They argue that technology strategy identifies platform deficiencies that need to be addressed in order for teams to build and manage services at greater speed and with reduced costs. They also argue there are lots of other benefits to technology strategy, but should we believe them? In this talk we’re going to explore technology strategy. We’re going to look at some real examples of tech strategy and understand exactly what it is. After this talk, you’ll know whether technology strategy is something you should be paying more attention to, or whether it’s something you can happily ignore and focus on shipping stuff instead.

1. IT Strategy.
What is it and why you
should care about it.
By
Scott

2. DDD is about context, this is mine….
Developer Developer
That understands the
power of DDD
IT Leader
That understands the
power of IT Strategy

3. During my career I have come across
recurring problems that are a result of
a lack of clear focus and direction

4. Demand management is hard without direction
● Priority is often given to who shouts
loudest, writes the best case or
asks first
● Opportunity costs for focusing on
the wrong things
● Success is the elimination of
ambiguity on what to focus on

5. Effort can be wasted on things that aren’t important
● Success is measured by
outcomes not tech output
● We are trying to solve business
problems, not use tech for tech
sake
● Technology is a means to the
end, not the end itself
● Success is when you are aligned
to the desired outcomes

6. “Technology can bring benefits
if, and only if, it diminishes a limitation.”,
Eli Goldratt

7. Over the top governance kills innovation
● IT are capable of understanding
business constraints and
opportunities. IT have the tools
at their disposal to act on them
● How often have you suggested
something to your business
partners and heard them say
“Oh really, I didn’t know you
could do that?”
Why do we have to wait for a
project sponsor when we know
what to do?

8. XML, blockchain, microservices, IT Strategy can
solve these things…
……. honestly, it really can!
And it’s deceptively easy …...
Luckily for you….

9. Strategy is about
doing the right
things.
Operations is about
doing them right.
● Going back to first principles
● Setting out the Direction and
Focus of Effort
● The Choice of what you will
do and importantly what you
will not do
● It's the What, not the How
What is Strategy?

10. What is IT Strategy?
IT Strategy sets out
what IT will do to
contribute to
business success.
● It's about clarity and direction of
IT effort
● It’s IT’s focus on what to do -
not a decision on how it will
achieve it
● It’s not upfront design or
architecture, its upfront focus

11. Why should you care about IT
Strategy?

12. ● Agility requires alignment which
is gained through shared focus
● Simplifies decision making
enabling team autonomy
● Devs are empowered,
understanding clearly how their
work aligns to business
outcomes
IT Strategy enables agility

13. IT strategy aligns people on what’s important
● IT can’t change the world on
its own, needs buy in and help
from the entire org
● Clear alignment to business
success helps investment
● Importantly gives clarity on
what is not being done

14. IT strategy is business strategy
● Proactively contributing to business
success
● No longer about asking for requirements,
it's about understanding the bigger
context and looking for impact
opportunities
● Moving from a service function to a
strategic partner
Business Strategy
IT Contribution

15. Ok that sounds good, you have
convinced me. But why should I care?
I came here to learn about #DDD!

16. “Always design a thing by considering it in its
next largest context - a chair in a room, a room
in a house, a house in an environment, an
environment in a city plan.”
-- Elliel Saarinen
To succeed with DDD you have to understand about
context...

18. ● Understand the next biggest
context
● Understand how what you do
fits into the overall strategy
● With a greater understanding of
the big picture you can make
better decisions
IT strategy is the bigger picture context
Domain-Driven Design
Focus is application level
Understood within the
context of the...
IT Strategy
Focus is enterprise level

19. The anatomy of a good IT Strategy

20. Business Goals
A good IT Strategy is composed of...
Business
Context
Business Strategies
Business Capabilities
IT Initiatives
● Heavily business driven,
Domain-Driven if you will
● IT Contribution clearly shows
how its aligned to business
goals
● Document is just the end
result of the process

22. If you understand the real motivation to
remove a constraint or capitalize on an
opportunity then you can offer better
solutions

23. ● Understand initiatives within the
bigger picture.
● Contribute to business
architecture
● Like Cyrille said - do more design,
less requirements and co-design
the business
Business Goals
Business
Context
Business Strategies
Business Capabilities
IT Initiatives
Move your influence further up the chain

24. Business Context: What is it?
An analysis map of the environment
in which your business operates.
What is going on in the environment
around you? Political? Competitors?
What could impact our business?
Business Goals
Business
Context
Business Strategies
Business Capabilities
IT Initiatives

25. Understanding about your environment
allows you to make better decisions.
As they say if you don’t know where you
are, a map won’t help.

26. What could impact your business?
Political
Brexit?
Legal
GDPR?
Tech
Lowering
barriers to
entry?
Market
New
entrants?
Use techniques like PESTLE Analysis to model the
environment that you are trading within

27. Nick Tune’s Widget Co. Business Context
Business Context
Political Economics Competitors Technology
Brexit affecting
consumer confidence
which has has
highlighted our
dependency on the
local market
……
UK Market is soft,
growth flat for the 2nd
year, in order to grow
we will need to take
market share
European Market is
showing strong year
on year growth
…...
New entrant to
market with strong
digital offering,
already has 3% of
the share
……
Suppliers now
offering direct access
API access, so very
quick to be able to
sell for new entrants
and non-industry
players
……

28. Business Goals: What are they?
How your business will win and how
you will measure success.
Do we drive sales online? Open up in
new markets? Launch a new business
model?
Business Goals
Business
Context
Business Strategies
Business Capabilities
IT Initiatives

29. Don’t accept generic business goals
● Ask, How will the business
win? Capture specific goals
● How will we “delight
customers”? → Offer
delivery within 2 hours.
● How will we “be more
efficient? → move to home
assembly model like IKEA

30. Nick Tune’s Widget Co. Business Goals
● Market is not
growing
● Brexit/UK
Dependency risk
● Risk from new
entrant
● Supplier lowering
bar to entry
“We will win by expanding into territories, while growing loyalty and taking market
share.”
Objective
Increase customer loyalty
Measure
● Increase repeat sales by 7%
Measure
● Grow market share by 5%
Goals
Objective
Take Market share from
competitors
Measure
● Launch into 2 new european
countries
Objective
Expand geographically
Business Context

31. Business Strategy: What is it?
The approach the business will take
to achieve its goals
What strategies would I consider if
my goal was to cross a river? What
would I focus on? What strategy
would I choose?
Business Goals
Business
Context
Business Strategies
Business Capabilities
IT Initiatives

32. Nick Tune’s Widget Co.
Business Strategy
Expand geographically
● Launch into 2 new european countries
Strategies
● “Never be beaten on price” - Price
parity with competitors
Goals
Take Market share from competitors
● Grow market share by 5%
Increase customer loyalty
● Increase repeat sales by 7%
● Acquire UK competitor
● Exclusive rewards for customers
● Launch into two new countries
and grow customer base
organically

33. Business Capabilities: What are they?
The things a business does, not
how it does them. The abilities
required to deliver value.
If your strategy is to dig a tunnel to
cross the river what capabilities
would you need? What is critical?
Business Goals
Business
Context
Business Strategies
Business Capabilities
IT Initiatives

34. Distill a business into a capability map
Retail
Manufacturer
Domain
High Level Capabilities
Distilled into
Product
Development
● Rearch
● Production
● …..
Sales
● Lead Mgmt
● Warehouse
● ….
Fulfilment
● Shipping
● Warehouse
● Returns
● ….
Sourcing
● Vendor Mgt
● Warehouse
● ….
Marketing
● Email
● Online Ads
● …..
Customer
Services
● Complaints
● Warehouse
● ….
HR
● Training
● Hiring
● ….
Finance
● MI
● Accounting
● ….

35. Avoid capabilities that scrape burnt toast
● I am good at scraping burnt toast, but I
don’t want to automate it, I want a better
toaster!
● Tease out the real capabilities that are
required, don’t just take requirements
verbatim
● Don’t fix the symptom, fix the root cause
● E.g. “Do we need a capability to manage
the call center better or do we need
customer self help capability?”

36. Nick Tune’s Widget Co.
Business Capabilities
Discount Management
Strategies
Competitor Price Analysis
Loyalty Program
Capability
● “Never be beaten on price” -
Price parity with competitors
● Exclusive rewards for customers
● Acquire UK competitor
● Launch into two new countries
….
….

37. IT Initiatives: What are they?
The IT investment themes that will
bridge the capability gaps
What is the tech vision that will enable
the capability? What is IT going to do
to contribute? What outcome will IT
provide?
Business Goals
Business
Context
Business Strategies
Business Capabilities
IT Initiatives

38. Focus on enabling critical business capabilities
● What capabilities are critical to
support the chosen strategy?
● What is the gap between
desired and current capability”?
● How well does IT support the
capability?
Focus Effort
Here
Needs to be
good enough

39. Business capability is the link to IT initiatives
● Business strategy is high level, business
capabilities enable the connection to IT
contribution
● What a business does changes very
infrequently - it is how the business does
what it does that is subject to change
● Business capabilities make great starting
subdomains

40. Measure IT initiatives
● Use metrics to show how IT
initiatives will contribute to the
business outcomes
● E.g. “We will adjust our prices every
20 mins by scraping our top 5
competitors."

41. Avoid Bikeshedding and don’t get distracted
● The Law of Triviality
● Don’t spend time on
relatively unimportant but
easy-to-grasp issues
● Focus only on what is critical
to enable the capability

42. Focus on the core IT initiatives only
● No need to show everything you
are doing
● Ignore business as usual activities
such as service desk, security,
scalability as these are assumed
● Focus on the critical initiatives only

43. Nick Tune’s Widget Co. IT Initiatives
Discount Management
Competitor Price Analysis
Loyalty Program
Capability
Real Time Pricing Engine
Customer Rewards
System
IT Initiative
….
IT Metric
● % of key competitors price
catalogue captured
● Frequency of competitor
price checking
● % of customers claiming
rewards

44. Nick Tune’s Widget Co. IT Initiative Vision
Initiative
Real Time Pricing Engine
Outcome and Improvements
• Scrape key competitors catalogue for prices
• Automatically adjust prices based on competitors
and publish to all sales channels
• Remove need for manual competitor analysis
• ……..

45. Common Mistakes with IT Strategy

46. Don’t develop IT strategy in a bunker
● You need empathy with
business colleagues to
really understand
motivations and needs
● Don’t sit in the IT bunker
and try and guess on the
constraints and
opportunities
● You need clarity on how
IT contribution aligns to
business value

47. Don’t be overly technical
● Think about your audience -
it's about the outcomes you
are going to enable
● It's about the focus not the
technology
● It’s about the investment
themes, not the frameworks

48. Don’t write too much
● Keep it concise and memorable
● Make it catchy, snappy and easy for
anyone to quickly read and understand
what IT is doing.
● Use simple business focused language

49. Don’t leave it on a shelf
● Don’t treat it as a static
document
● The document is not the
point
● It's about the
conversations and
actions and knowledge

50. Using IT Strategy

51. The elevator pitch… or IT Strategy in a lift
“To enable Nick Tune’s Widget Co. to win IT will
focus effort in these areas:
1. Localising the platform for global expansion
and scaling to enable an acquisition
2. Pricing automation to ensure we are never
beaten on price
3. Driving customer loyalty by developing a
rewards engine.”
- Nick Tune’s Widget Co.
IT Contribution pitch

52. The one pager
● Distill your strategy doc into a
single page or poster
● Use at IT townhalls
● Use in interviews
● Use to explain IT strategy to
other departments

53. Tell stories to bring the strategy to life, sex it up!
“Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.”
- Dr. Emmett
Brown, Back to the future

54. So How do You become a Strategist?

55. DDD is teaching you to think outside of
the technical domain. IT Strategy is just
applying it at a higher level of
abstraction.
Duh?!! DDD you’re already doing it!

56. ● ⅘ of an IT Strategy is about
business needs
● IT Strategy is about modelling the
domain at its highest level
Business Goals
Business
Context
Business Strategies
Business Capabilities
IT Initiatives
Looks like a Model to me....

57. The Business Context looks like
Context Mapping to me….
...An analysis map of the environment in which
your business operates…. Identifies factors that
could impact your business…..

58. ...distill the business capabilities critical to
enabling the business strategies….
Capturing Critical Business Capabilities
looks like Distillation and Core Domains
to me….

59. Looks like a Ubiquitous Language to
me...
...communicate IT contribution
in a business
focused language…..

60. <corny>Apply the patterns, principles
and practices of DDD that you are
learning today when you are the
leaders of tomorrow ;0)</corny>
When you think IT Strategy think
Domain-Driven Strategy

61. @ScottMillett
Finding out more about IT Strategy

62. Thanks
for listening
@ScottMillett