A technology strategy you can review every quarter

A technology strategy that is written once and reviewed annually tends to drift. Priorities change, budgets move and the assumptions behind the plan stop being true. A quarterly review keeps the strategy useful without turning it into a constant reorganization.

Four questions for each review

• Which business goals did technology support this quarter, and how do we know?
• Which assumptions in the current plan have changed, and what does that mean for sequencing?
• Which initiatives are blocked, and by what: budget, skills, dependencies or decisions?
• What should we stop doing so that next quarter's work can be finished?

Keep the artifacts short

The review needs three artifacts: a one-page target state, a roadmap that shows the next two quarters in detail, and a decision log. Long documents are read once. Short, current artifacts are used in every planning conversation.

The most useful outcome of a quarterly review is often a decision to pause something. Strategy is as much about the work that is not funded as about the work that is.