Making the case

Years ago, when I served as the senior manager for enterprise IT for a university, I realized the university needed to change how we managed enterprise storage across the university. Until then, "big storage" systems were reserved only for "enterprise" systems, which meant that departments who managed their own systems often purchased their own "big storage" systems. Those department needs weren't as large as the enterprise needs, so often they had spare capacity when the enterprise storage was approaching our limits.

We needed a better way to manage storage, and that meant including academic department needs in our new storage strategy. I charged a team of managers under me to work with the colleges and other departments to identify their needs, and look ahead to our own enterprise storage needs, and propose a strategy for the next generation of enterprise storage services.

The storage strategy document made a compelling argument to continue investing in our storage and backup infrastructure. The strategy included management recommendations and provided a roadmap for how to continually invest in enterprise storage. This storage strategy document was well received by senior leadership, who "greenlit" the project. I am proud to look back on that work we did, all those years ago.

Creating a strategy document like this is a typical task for anyone, at any level in an organization. Staff need to know how to pitch a new idea, and managers may want to sell an idea to a leadership team. No matter where you are in an organization, I recommend you use the lessons learned from building this storage strategy as a model when making your case for something.

A strategy document should be able to stand on its own, without relying on you (in person) to frame the information in the document. For best "sticking" power, frame your narrative as a kind of "story." In many cases, strategy documents might follow this general flow:

1. Describe how we got here (the "history")
2. Talk about where we are (the "as-is")
3. Define any issues we may have (the "gaps")
4. Present your idea for what to do about it (the "vision" or "fit-gap")
5. Estimate the costs to get there

Additionally, to have greater impact:

• For that professional look, use a cover page with the document's title and authors.
• Add an executive summary, so it's easy for a reader to pick up your document and get a general idea of what the document is about.
• Your strategy should not be too long, or you will lose your audience. Resist the temptation to add material just to "pad out" the document.
• If you must include extra material, consider adding it to the end in an Appendix. For very long documents, you may wish to move the Appendices into a separate "Supplemental Materials" document.