Predecessors/Before You Begin

The "Four Ps of Strategy" are one technique in IT strategic planning. They are not ITIL's only recommendation on strategy. If this material is interesting please review Service Strategy, especially chapter 3, "Service strategy principles."

The Four Ps of Strategy

The four "P"s of Strategy, as described in Service Strategy, are

1. Perspective: what value should the organization produce?
2. Position: where are the consumers of that value? why is this strategy valuable to these consumers?
3. Plans: how will the strategy be implemented?
4. Patterns: how will the strategy be maintained?

For example, a University IT organization may say "We will ensure students have appropriate technology for their education, and it will be available when they need it." This would be the "perspective."

From that, they may say "We need to provide a wide range of services, and partner with other service providers if we cannot provide a certain level of warranty for these services." This would be their "position"--to provide a wide variety of services and outsource the riskier services.

Then they may draw up plans for an updated service portfolio, and the associated design and transition work needed to result in a new service catalog. This would be their "plans."

As the IT shop develops habits associated with this new strategy, such as by checking the availability of services each month to determine whether they are stable enough to continue offering, those habits become "patterns."

University-specific risks

The "perspective" should tie into the overall University's strategic plans. For example, if the University is a land grant institution, the IT department's direction should probably include outreach.

University IT departments are often "Type I" or "Type II" providers, serving a single client or a single organization. This makes it difficult for IT to think about "positioning" itself--its market stays relatively constant.