In today's organizations, CIOs must focus on IT strategies that are more fully aligned with business strategy. Learn how a strategy map can serve as a visual blueprint for the CIO to align IT functions and services to support the overall strategy of the organization.

What Is a Strategy Map?

Strategy maps, originally created by Harvard Business School researchers Dr. Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the founders of the Balanced Scorecard concept, are a technique for helping an organization clearly define and communicate the essential links among different components of its strategy. It involves shrinking strategic complexity to a set of key drivers that are graphically represented to show how they relate to one another. Strategy maps are created at the enterprise level, as well as at a departmental level. The key concept to remember is that your IT strategy map must align with the corporate...