Business Unit or Departmental Goals

When the vision or 50,000-foot view is defined, additional discussions should reveal the goals of the different departments and the executives who run them. Theoretically, they should add up to the highest-level goals, but the findings might be surprising. Whatever the case turns out to be, the results will start to reveal the complexity of the organization and the primary concerns of the different stakeholders.

The high-level goals of the organization also paint the picture of which departments carry the most weight in the organization, and will most likely get budgets approved, which will assist in the design process. Logically, the goals of the IT department play an important role in a Lync Server 2013 deployment project, but the other key departments shouldn’t be forgotten.

In the process of clarifying the goals, the features of the collaboration system and network applications that are most important to the different departments and executives should be apparent. It is safe to assume that access to collaboration and presentation tools as well as the capability to rapidly communicate with one another will affect the company’s ability to meet its various business goals.

The sales department most likely has goals that require a specific type of communication to be supported and will likely push hard for an optimal conferencing experience. The IT department has its key technologies that support the applications in use, store and maintain the company’s data, and manage key servers and network devices, and these need to be taken into consideration to ensure that Lync Server 2013 follows practices similar to those of existing systems.

It is also worth looking for the holes in the goals and objectives presented. Some of the less-glamorous objectives, such as a stable network, data-recovery capabilities, and protection from the hostile outside world, are often neglected.

A byproduct of these discussions will ideally be a sense of excitement over the possibilities presented by the new technologies that will be introduced, and will convey to the executives and key stakeholders that they are involved in helping to define and craft a solution that takes into account the varied needs of the company. Many executives look for this high-level strategy, thinking, and discussions to reveal the maturity of the planning and implementation process in action.