ABSTRACT
How fast can you plan? Strategic planning as a process isn’t that complex. However, in a readyaim-fi re, culture it’s not easy to do. One person’s template is another person’s track over the edge. Just read the reviews of any strategic planning book and try to fi nd consistent agreement about its effi cacy and usefulness. We’ve watched a strategic planning process that makes perfect sense to an IT security professional absolutely lose every single other security leader in the room. Th e IT professional had worked for a year with the entire security group and, yet they abandoned the planning process wholesale because it was too IT and technical. Th e strategic planning process didn’t make sense to the heads of the other departments, and most of them hadn’t had much experience in strategic planning. As the security group continued on without much strategic direction and even less fi duciary accountability, soon strategic direction was imposed by the new vice president of the division. After a long and diffi cult year, the department as a whole began to master the art of strategic planning. Within a couple of years, strategic planning grew easier for the entire security department even as targets got more diffi cult to achieve. Practice, focus, and a basic strategic planning model go a long way toward garnering enterprise support for a security group.
