The Enterprise Technology Strategist is a leading-edge development opportunity designed for both IT and business executives who are challenged to optimize the overall performance of their enterprise technology portfolios. It delves into all aspects of IT and organizational alignment—from strategy and infrastructure issues to those surrounding external alliances and partnerships. This unique program will help participants better understand, plan, and implement the alignment of their IT strategies and infrastructure with those of the enterprise for better business results.

This program is for CIOs, COOs, chief information architects, enterprise architects, directors and VPs of information technology or information management, business strategists, and other professionals who rely on IT for success.

Decision makers should make informed decisions about where to invest resources, where to realign organizational goals and processes, and what policies and procedures will support core missions or business functions. This program provides a unique platform for individuals from both IT and business functions to come together in a collaborative process to ensure that strategy and investments are aligned for a flexible, agile enterprise architecture.

The business participant will understand the technological impact of decisions and ways that a strong enterprise architecture can add value to the organization. The IT participant will learn how to articulate strategy in terms of the business. Together, participants will:

•  Create an effective enterprise architecture
    discipline to drive higher IT value

•  Form a common architecture vision between
    lines of business and IT

•  Demonstrate the value of enterprise architecture
    to organizational leadership

•  Create processes for the management and
    governance of IT in relation to business strategy

•  Gain insight into far-reaching technological and
    business changes that are transforming
    inter-business relationships

Using top faculty leaders from Penn State as well as business-technology experts from Gartner, this program focuses on:

Strategic IT Leadership: Assessing Your Challenge
      •  The organizational challenge
      •  Organizational culture and competitiveness
      •  Life cycle dimensions of organizational culture

Strategic Alignment of Business and IT
      •  Global strategy formulation and implementation
      •  Understanding organizational architectures
          needed for the Information Age
      •  Aligning organizational and IT strategy
    
Core Ideas of Adaptive Enterprise Architecture
      •  The role of IT decision making
      •  Exploiting opportunities while managing risk
      •  Strategic alignment and change management

Designing Effective Business Architectures
      •  Identifying the organization’s competitive
          imperatives
      •  Leveraging resources to capture and
          deliver value
      •  Enabling business processes through IT

Enterprise Portfolio and Program Management
      •  IT portfolio management and prioritization
      •  Developing business cases
      •  Assessing program performance and value

Roundtable Issues Session
This program features a Roundtable Issues Session where participants can bring their own workplace challenges to the forum for open discussion and solutions.

View a more detailed program brochure

"The right mix of theoretical and practical application."

Kathy Swain
Assistant Vice President-Enterprise Applications
Allstate Insurance Companies

Scott Bittler
Research Vice President
Business of IT Research Division
Gartner

Richard Buchanon
Managing Vice President
Business of IT Research Division
Gartner

Brian H. Cameron
Faculty Director and Professor of Practice
College of Information Sciences and Technology
Penn State

Joseph L. Cavinato
Executive Director
Center for Strategic Supply Leadership
Professor of Supply Chain Management
Thunderbird

James B. Thomas
Faculty Director and Dean
Smeal College of Business
Penn State

Albert A. Vicere
Executive Education Professor of Strategic Leadership
Smeal College of Business
Penn State

About Penn State Executive Programs

Since 1954, organizations and individuals around the world have turned to Penn State Executive Programs to meet their leadership development needs. Drawing on the vast resources of one of the nation's top universities and the internationally ranked Smeal College of Business, executives and senior managers develop capabilities that translate into strategic creativity, effective leadership, innovation, and efficient business processes. We are currently ranked among the very best executive education providers by major publications including The Economist and BusinessWeek.

About the Society for Information Management

Since 1968, the Society for Information Management (SIM) has inspired the minds of the most prestigious IT leaders in the industry. Highly regarded as the premier network for IT leadership, SIM is a community of thought leaders who share experiences and rich intellectual capital, and who explore future IT direction.

About the Association of Open Group Enterprise Architects

The Association of Open Group Enterprise Architects (AOGEA) is the definitive professional association for Enterprise Architects. Its goals are to increase job opportunities for all of its members and increase their market value by advancing professional excellence, and to raise the status of the profession as a whole.