Tag: Strategy

Reframing cyber costs in education

Schools and colleges need to focus their available funds on teaching and learning, and in the students within their care.   As such it can be difficult to justify significant spending on cyber security.   Investing in cyber security is investing in preventing the possibility, a chance, of a cyber incident occurring.   The challenge therefore is establishing a way to frame the costs in order to identify what represents good value.

Cyber security is all about risk management.   Every risk has a probability of occurring.   This might be a 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 or 1 in 1 million.    This is where the difficulties in justifying spending on cyber security arise.    For the last 10 years an institution may not have suffered any significant incidents.   As such how can the head of their IT justify spending an additional £4000 or £5000 per annum on cyber security?    We are working from the point that it is more likely an incident wont happen that it will.   Viewed from the point of view of past experience, the institution has been fine for 10 years, with the probability of an incident assumed to remaining roughly the same, so is likely to be fine in the next 10 years, excepting for this small probability.    So, stay as is or spend £40,000 – £50,000 over 10 years to provide additional protection just in case?   Viewed from this point it may be difficult to justify the spend especially if the overall budget for the school is low.

Let’s take a more mathematical approach to the problem; If we take approximately 25,000 schools in the UK where I am aware of around 20-25 which have experienced cyber incident this year.   Let’s assume I am aware of only a small number of the schools which actually experience incidents, say 10%.   So, lefts take a probability of 250 incidents per 25,000 schools or 1 in 100.   At this point rather than looking at the chance of an incident occurring, we are assuming that an incident is guaranteed to occur within a given period.  Taking this probability, in 100 years, every school in the UK would likely have been hit.   If hit, let’s make an assumption that the cost would be £250,000 to recover (this is very much a guess figure and would be dependent very much on the size of the school, its type, complexity, infrastructure, etc).   Taking the probability of 1 hit every 100 years, with each hit costing £250,000, this means the approximate annual equivalent cost would be £2500 per annum.   The cost for the additional protection is looking a little better at this point.    All it would take is for the recovery costs to grow to £400,000 or for the probability of a hit to increase to 1 in 62.5 rather than 1 in 100 schools.   

For me the key things is to move from a position of looking at the chance on an incident happening, where we assume it is more likely an incident wont occur and moving to a position of “not if but when.”   At this point we are accepting an incident is guaranteed to occur within a given time period, but we just don’t know when.   With this viewpoint we can start to make a more reasoned judgement on costs.    We can also factor in the schools risk appetitive, with a school with a high risk appetite likely to choose to underestimate the probability of an incident while one with a low appetite for risk likely to overestimate.

We very much need to reframe how cyber risk and cyber security investment is looked at.   Hopefully the above presents at least one possible way to do this in an easy but yet meaningful way.

Sustainability

Prior to covid-19 I attended a CIO event, where presenter after presenter talked about how their organisation was now looking at sustainability and how to be more environmentally concious.   Up until this point, when I considered sustainability in relation to IT my thinking was focussed on the financial and resources implications of IT.    If we purchase a particular service or equipment, will we be able to continue to support it in terms of ongoing replacement, licensing, and also other support costs into the future?   If the answer is yes, then it is a sustainable solution and therefore one we can move forward with.

Having attended the CIO event, I am now thinking a little bit differently.   I am now thinking about the environmental implications of procurement, of continued use and of disposal or recycling.

Procurement

When purchasing IT equipment or services we need to start thinking more about the implications of our decisions on the environment.    If it is hardware, we are looking at we need to consider how the product is created, whether recyclable materials are used, how the product is delivered and the resultant fuel requirements, plus also the packaging which may be used.    We need to start asking our suppliers to prove they are environmentally concious.

In relation to online services, we need to start considering the power implications of running servers and the associated cooling of such servers.   Are online service companies acting responsibly and carbon offsetting for example?

Continued use

The environmental implications of how a service or company operates have recently been highlighted to me in two companies which choose to send me significant piles of invoice documentation in the post.   I found myself wondering about the cost to the environment of the paper used, the ink, the process of printing and then of transporting the documents to me via conventional post.    It struck me that both companies clearly were not very concious of the environmental impact of their decision to post me stacks of invoices rather than providing these documents online.

I have since challenged both companies to re-think their processes, which I hope is something they have taken on board.   I think we all need to do more to challenge where processes have not been designed with minimising their environmental impact in mind.

Disposal

Disposal is a relatively obvious part of the product lifecycle and one we should generally already have in mind.   We need to ensure that equipment which reaches the end of its useful life with us, either can be moved on to be reused or can be, as much as is possible, recycled.

Conclusion

I will admit to not previously giving the environmental impact of my decisions enough consideration.   It may have been that my assumption was that each company should be doing this however now I have come to realise that it is for each of use to challenge the companies we work with, the third party suppliers and services, to ensure that together we are environmentally concious.   Going forward I am therefore going to develop a framework for challenging my third parties in relation to environmental consciousness plus will also be conducting a review of our own practices.

It is for all of us to develop our environmental consciousness with a view to ensuring the sustainability of the planet which supports our lives.

JISC DigiFest: Thoughts from Day 1

I thought I would share some initial thoughts following day one of JISC DigiFest.  The event was launched with a very polished and professional pre-prepared video displayed on screens scattered around the events main hall, focussing on the rate of change in relation to technology and some of the technological implications of technology on the world we live in.   The launch session also included a room height “virtual” event guide introducing the sessions and pointing you in the direction of the appropriate hall.    In terms of the launch of a conference this was the most polished and inspiring launch I have seen albeit on reflection there wasn’t much particularly innovative or technically complex about it.

The keynote speaker addressed the changing viewpoints of different generations of people focussing particularly on Generation Z, the generation which currently are in our sixth forms, colleges and universities.   I took away two key points from the presentation.   The first was how each generations views were shaped by their experiences particularly between the ages of 12 and 20 year old.   Jonah Stillman used thoughts on space as an example showing how Generation X might have positive views focussing on the successes of the moon landing whereas Millennials may have a more cynical view following the Challenger disaster.   Additionally, Jonah mentioned movies as a social influencer and how those in the Harry Potter generation may view cooperation and trying hard, even where unsuccessful, in a positive manner.  Those born later than this may draw on another series of films, in the hunger games, resulting in a greater tendency towards competition and the need to succeed in line with the movies storyline of everyone for themselves and failure results in death.     The second take away point from the session resulted from the questioning at the end of the session around what some saw as the absoluteness of the boundaries between generations.    I think Jonah’s use of the word “tendency” addressed this concern in that the purpose of the labels was for simplicity and to indicate a general trend and tendency rather than to suggest that all people born on certain dates exhibited a certain trait.  It increasing concerns me that this argument keeps coming up when surely it is clear that there is a need to use simplistic models to help clarity of explanation and that no model, not matter how complex will ever truly capture the real complexity of the world we live in.

My 2nd session was actually the delivery of my own session.   I will be sharing some thoughts in relation to my presentation along with my resources in the near future.   For now I will simply say that the session was not one of my best.   I do however hope that my main message, in the need for greater and broader discussion in relation to citizenship within the now digital world we find ourselves living in was clear.

The third session of the day focussed on  digital literacy programme one particular university had developed.   I found it interesting in this and a later presentation, how digital literacy or digital citizenship appeared to often fall to the library in universities in terms of developing and delivering a programme.    In schools I feel the same topics tend to fall on the IT teaching department rather than libraries however it is interesting that something which should be permissive would find itself localised in educational institutions in a single department rather than being supported across the institution.   It was interesting how the programme the university developed had evolved over time, which seems to me to be the correct approach given how quick technology is changing.  I also found it interesting in that student voice suggested needs which then later students indicated they did not find useful.  In other words students themselves were not an accurate judge of their own wants and needs.     Session five followed a similar topic again looking at digital literacy however the presenters made use of a fairy tales as a vehicle to deliver their message of the pros and cons of the digital world we live in.   I must admit I enjoyed this presentation in its novel approach to delivering the concept in hand.

Session four focussed on partnerships between a university, a local council and a number of corporate organisations focusing in particular on data analysis and business intelligence.  I think schools have some way to go in this area as they regularly gather huge amounts of data however little is actually done with it beyond reporting it to school leaders, parents, etc.   I think the challenge is that schools often lack the resources which a college or university may have at their disposal, such as having data scientists as part of the staff body.   That said, the sessions seemed to indicate the potential for schools to leverage partnerships to fill this gap with minimal to no outlay on their own resources.

My final session of day one focussed on digital transformation, and like the key notes was insightful and inspiring.    Lindsay Herbert discussed the bear in the room, which is similar to the elephant in the room but more dangerous.     I particularly like the way Lindsay stated early on that the world was a “terrible place” citing issues such as the corona virus, fires in Australia, storms across the UK and ongoing technological change.   She then quickly moved on to the fact that we are inherently brave in our attempt to not only exist but to strive to flourish in this world, before then going on to identify various success stories where the bear in the room was tackled.    She left us with 3 main tips, all of which struck a cord with me, in that transformation starts with a worthy cause, requires lots of people and needs to be learned and earned rather than purchased.   The third tip in particular strikes a cord for me as I have encountered change where it has not gone as smoothly as I would have liked, and where significantly more effort was expended than had originally been attended;  In retrospect this may have been the change being earned, plus certainly involved a lot of learning.

Day 1 was useful with the keynote and closing session of the day being my highlights.    Have plenty of notes to digest when I get back home.  Roll on day 2.

 

 

 

Moving to the cloud

The cloud?

In what is my third post looking at aspects of IT Strategy I thought I would write a little about moving to the cloud.   I note that the ISC Digital group recommends schools move to using Office 365 or G-Suite, both of which are cloud based services, as part of their bursars 6 pack advice.

There has a long been worries about security and control over cloud-based solutions.   My feeling is that largely these concerns have decreased with time and as cloud services have matured.  Additionally, understanding of cloud services has developed however I note recently a conversation in relation to a school which hosted its data locally and was building its own solutions for reasons of data security, so the concerns haven’t gone away.    In discussing cloud services, I love the idea of the cloud simply equating to “someone else’s computer”.   This description works for me.  In using cloud services for your solutions you are simply replacing your on-site servers with servers someone else owns, located somewhere out on the internet.   The question though in using cloud services is one of asking whether the someone else you are using can offer something you cannot and whether or not you trust them.

Looking at G-Suite and Office 365 as cloud hosted productivity suites I can see a number of things which are being offered which aren’t available in a locally hosted solution.    Both Microsoft and Google have significant technical support teams plus resiliency and redundancy capabilities way beyond what is possible with a schools IT support staff and on-prem solutions.   They are able to collate threat intelligence from vast numbers of systems and users to help protect all those using their services.      They offer a consistent revenue based costing model rather than the capital heavy costing model associated with on-premise data centres and servers, plus they offer easy scalability in terms of adding users, storage, services, etc.

As with most things this isn’t however a one-sided argument and there are other considerations which need to be taken into account.   The need for internet access is one of the key considerations as if your internet connectivity is unreliable or if your bandwidth is limited then deciding on cloud hosting is likely to be a bad idea.    Access to data may be another concern, as with locally hosted solutions you will have full unfettered access to the databases containing your data whereas in the cloud you may have limited access, through APIs for example, or may have no access other than that provided by a solutions user interface.    Sharing of data may be a concern as your third party, such as Google or Microsoft in the above case, will have access to your data so we must consider how much we trust them to not misuse this access.    Another consideration might be in relation to solutions which don’t need internet access, only requiring local network access, which therefore may be safer kept locally hosted.   It isn’t simply a case of just jumping to the cloud, there are considerations and concerns which need to be weighed up.

One of the main concerns in relation to cloud services is the terms and conditions and understanding your rights and responsibilities under these terms.   The terms and conditions should identify the overall approach to security which a vendor takes including how they may or may not share data, what happens should you cease using the vendor, their approach to breach and vulnerability notification, and any provision allowing for you to audit a vendors activities. Now I am not going to write much on this here as I will share some thoughts on this specific issue in a future post where I can explore it in more detail.  What is key however is the need to carefully check the terms and conditions especially in relation to complying with your data protection/GDPR obligations and also in relation to business continuity and disaster recovery.    It is important to take a risk based approach and weigh up the benefits and potential risks and assure yourself and your organisation that risks are acceptable and that benefits are worth any risk.

I continue to view the use of cloud based solutions or the use of the cloud to host an organisations own solutions positively.   I can see lots of advantages and benefits.  I also so more and more of our systems, data and services moving to the cloud in the coming years however I am also conscious that the cloud is not a silver bullet and is not necessarily appropriate for all situations.   We need to consider moving to the cloud or cloud based solutions carefully.   That said, I am not sure how that is different from normal behaviour as any change or introduction of new solutions should be considered carefully with a view to advantages, drawbacks and risk management.

Planning for Resiliency

This is my second post related to IT Strategy, following up on the previous post regarding “Seeking Value” but this time looking at the resiliency of systems and infrastructure particularly around when things inevitably do go wrong.

Resiliency: Keeping it all working

I recently heard Mark Steed speaking at the EdTech Conversations event in London where he referred to his approach to the use of Educational Technology at JESS in Dubai.

In his speech, he talked about a “no excuses” approach to systems and the infrastructure on which educational technology solutions rely. His view was that if the foundations on which EdTech use are built are not solid, and if things such as Wi-Fi or the wider network don’t work or are intermittent then users of educational technology, be it the students or teachers, will simply turn off and seek non-technology solutions. Winning them back in the event of reliability issues being extremely difficult or near impossible. As such building strong technology foundations, a resilient infrastructure, is therefore key. Planning for when things might go wrong is a must.

As with most things building resiliency isn’t simple. In a world of infinite resources we would simply double up (N x 2), or even double up plus add spares;  So in the case of our Internet provider we would require two separate diversely routed fibres so that, in the event one fibre was damaged, we would be able to run off the 2nd fibre. We might then have a third redundant backup solution, possibly with lower capacity, and again diversely routed. All of this sounds good and minimises potential downtime from fibre damage within the incoming internet services however this all comes with a cost, first in terms of financial costs of additional lines and also in terms of additional hardware and support costs. We don’t live in a world of infinite resources and therefore decisions need to be taken as to how much resiliency we build in. This is where the usual risk assessment and management processes must kick in.

Let’s consider the key pieces of infrastructure which may exist and issues around each:

  • Internet Service Provision, Firewalls and Core Switches

As we use more and more cloud services, internet access and school internet provision becomes critically important. Due to the critical nature of internet access, when looking at Internet service provision, firewalls and core switches, the two main focal areas I would consider are doubling up where finances allow or carefully examining the service level agreement along with any penalties proposed for where service levels are not met. In the case of firewalls and core switches, cold spares with a lower specification may also be an option to minimize cost but allow for quick recovery in the event of any issue. When looking at the SLAs of providers in terms of their support offering for when things go wrong consider, is it next business day on-site support or return to base for example and how long their anticipated recovery period is.

  • Edge Switches and Wi-Fi

In the case of edge switches and Wi-Fi Access Points we are likely to have large numbers especially for larger sites. I would suggest that heat mapping for Wi-Fi is key at the outset of a Wi-Fi deployment, in making sure Wi-Fi will work across the site. In looking at resiliency for when things go wrong my view is an N+1 approach. This involves establishing a spare or quantity of spares based on the total number of units in use and the level of risk which is deemed acceptable. High levels of risk acceptance mean fewer spares, whereas a low level of risk acceptance may lead to a greater number of spares.

  • Cabling / Routing

Cables break plus various small animals love to chew on cables given half a chance.

As a result, it is important to examine your overall network layout with a view to any weak points where a single failure might impact on large areas or large numbers of users within the school.  Where possible plan for redundant routes such that any single failure can be quickly resolved by using an alternative route thereby minimising downtime while you wait for repairs.

  • School Management Solutions (SMS) /Management Information Systems (MIS)

I include the schools MIS system given its criticality in relation to parental contact info, student registration, etc. It is a critical system within a school. As such it is important to consider how it is backed up and how recovery would be undertaken. It is also important to test the processes. I have conducted tests in the past which have shown the recovery process did not perform as expected; Had I not tested, the first I would have known about difficulties would have been when I needed to recover the MIS for real, which is a time when the last thing you want is for things to not go as planned.

 

I note that the above is not an extensive or comprehensive list and I might have included classroom display technology, Mobile Device Management (MDM), Network Access Control (NAC), CCTV, access control and a whole manner of other solutions which may exist, however in the interest of keeping this post brief and to the point I have left these off.

For me, the key in relation to resiliency is a risk-based assessment of your systems and infrastructure.

We need to know the risks and their impact on the school. Armed with this information we can prioritise our available resources towards the aspects of our infrastructure where the greatest level of resiliency is required. The other key consideration is transparency and ensuring school leaders are aware of the risks which exist, where the available resources have been prioritised and where decisions have been taken not to deploy resources, plus the reasons why.

My concern with resiliency is that it is often something which people don’t worry about until things go wrong. Then come the difficult discussions as to why preventative measures or recovery plans hadn’t been put in place. Better to consider resiliency regularly and ensure that the state of play, including the risks, are all made clear to all. At my school, we approach this as part of an annual IT risk assessment process including risks related to resiliency. If you don’t have a risk assessment which includes a discussion of resiliency, it would be my strong advice to create one.

 

IT Strategy: Seeking value

I have been planning to post on IT strategy in relation to some of the areas which I believe need to be considered.  Initially my thought was for a single post covering a number of different points, some being obvious and some less so obvious, however as soon as I started writing it became clear that each point could be a post in itself or would result in a really long single post.   As such I decided to undertake a number of separate posts of which this is the first:

Seeking Value

I remember someone telling me that IT is the 3rd most expensive thing in a school after staffing costs and the cost of the building and school estate.  With such a large part of a schools finances invested in technology it is important to make sure that we are getting value.   Now I note my use of the word “value” as opposed to impact; This is due to impact being often associated with examination outcomes.   In my view this is a narrow view on technologies potential within education.  Exam results, for example, don’t provide a measure of the positive effect which technology can have to a student with Asperger’s who previously found it difficult to interact with the classroom discussion but now can do so easily via an online chat facility.    For me value suggests a broader classification which might include using technology to engage a particular student who previously wouldn’t or couldn’t access learning, like in the above example, it might include introducing new experiences to students which were either difficult, dangerous or costly without tech or it might be using technology to bring about new more efficient processes for teachers such as dictation of feedback, etc.   Value is much more diverse and also context specific than exam results.  Seeking value in our technology should be a key objective in all technology decision making but mustn’t be confused with cost cutting.

I have often heard about how technology should be led by teaching and learning needs.   I agree with this to an extent in that technology shouldn’t dictate what is done in the classroom, however we must be careful that whatever technology we are considering using brings about value.   It is all too easy to fall for the salesman’s spiel regarding the potential or to focus on a particularly nice feature and not appreciate the wider implications of a technologies use.  I remember VLEs being heralded for the potential they had to change learning giving students access to resources and allowing teachers to set homework and provide feedback, etc.  Sadly, in my view, they never really provided value as first there was the cost of the software, then the resource cost of training and of creating, posting and updating content, then the limited ways that content could be organised and presented which stifled the creativity inherent in good teaching.  The cost versus the benefits never added up for me, and with this I didn’t see the value.    I can name a couple of other technologies which have been rolled out due to their potential to impact teaching and learning, but where the costs and resultant value is doubtful at best.

A discussion of value in relation to an educational technology project is never an easy one given the concept of value is potentially so broad and all encompassing.  Important things, such as a detailed consideration of value, are seldom easy.   Judgements on value are also often subject to the different perspectives of the people involved in the project.   To that my answer is to look to the schools values and what it stands for and to see if the proposed technology fits with the schools wider aims.   If it doesn’t then the project should be dropped.  If, however it does then a trial or pilot study may help surface the value or lack of in the technology being examined.   Discussions with other schools may also help to establish value.    Assuming value can be established from such a trial a wider roll-out, either to a bigger pilot group, to a specific group or even whole school can be considered and planned.

I have now added “Seeking value” as one of the value statements for my IT Services team, as a reminder and key focus in supporting IT across the school.   It is my belief that it is important that we all have a similar reminder as we explore the many different and emerging technologies and technology solutions which might be considered for use in our schools.   Before proceeding we need to ask ourselves: Does this add value?

 

 

 

 

Westminster Education Forum

Tuesday marked a very early start, setting off at 4:30am for the 40min drive to the train station before hopping on a 2 ½ hour train journey down to London.    Am sure for many this would just be part of the normal run of the average week however after almost 8 years in the Middle East during which time I never set foot on public transport, I consider it to be something new.     Mind you, some may consider Etihad and Emirates airways which are both UAE air carriers to be “public” transport at least within a Middle East context.

The overall purpose of the trip was an #edTech event being held in central London focusing on initiatives and ideas for the use of technology in education, in schools and in learning.    The event was titled “Digital Technologies and Innovative Teaching practice in the classroom: Latest thinking and policy options”.

It was nice one again to hear Stephen Heppell present and to have a brief chat with him and it was also good to hear Bob Harrison present although sadly I never had the opportunity to say hello in person.

Of particular note from the event was Stephen Heppell’s discussion of policy disconnect in which he suggested teachers being innovative charge ahead trying new ideas and new technologies, taking with them parents who see the impact of these new ideas and technologies.    The centralized policies which are determined at a governmental or similar high level however are unable to keep pace leading to a disconnect between what teachers and parents want and the policies which govern what should be happening in schools.   I can identify with this as I see so many examples of teachers trying new ideas, sharing tips, etc. with new and exciting suggestions appearing on the likes of twitter and other online media on a daily basis.     From this point of view it is important to keep innovating and Stephen even made the point of stating teachers should just “do it” and be the driving force.

Peter Twining however put across a slightly different viewpoint during one of the panel discussions where he suggested that success couldn’t be achieved purely through this bottom up process, and that it was equally important to have some top down leadership of educational technology usage.   He suggested that should the government or OFSTED indicate an expectation then schools would adjust accordingly in order to comply in order to avoid unsatisfactory inspection results.   As such for educational technology use to be truly successful we need to have both the grassroots leadership of educational technology, leading from the bottom up, but also the top down leadership setting out the framework and expectations.

I can see the merit in both approaches, top down and bottom up, however have always been quick to suggest that it is important to have both in place to make the best things happen.     That being said, in more recent months I have found myself prioritizing the grassroots bottom up approach over top down.   Good things can happen in lessons despite poor leadership however I am not as convinced good things can happen where grassroots teaching is poor.

Overall it was a productive day and well worth the early rise.    I hope to have the opportunity to attend further similar events in the future.

 

 

Thoughts on developing an IT Strategy

I am in the process of developing a 4 to 5 year IT strategy however how do we create a strategy for IT when we cannot predict what new technologies and Apps may exist?     Technology is evolving at a fast paced rate with iOS 9 recently being released along with Windows 10 to name just 2 major software releases.     iPads continue to be very popular for use in classrooms however the Google Chromebook is making significant inroads.   Windows Surface tablets are still relatively expensive and therefore uncommon however this may change over time as new technologies and devices become cheaper as they always do.

3D projection technology currently is, as far as I am concerned, a little bit of a gimmick with limited usefulness other than in specific subjects.     A nice thing for the limited student engagement during its initial deployment or for impressing parents on school tours however questionable in terms of impact in the wider context of the academic teaching year and versus the purchasing cost of the required devices.

Gamification merits a mention however I may be raising here due to my own sons love for Minecraft.   In fact I believe, as other do, that gamification is not limited to software and IT but extends beyond to turning learning into a game even if this is a physical board, counter or ball game.      As such I am not sure Gamification would need including in an IT strategy as it may actually be better placed in the overall teaching pedagogy strategy.

3D Printing is another newer technology often making an appearance in discussions of educational technology.    I feel there may be significant opportunities here in terms of IT strategy in engaging students in Makerspaces where they make use of technology to produce solutions to real problems.   As such ongoing development and exploration of how 3D printing technologies can be used may merit a place in the IT Strategy I am developing.

It is very difficult to judge what technologies will be available to us over the next 4 or 5 years, what the costs will be, what new uses will have been discovered and overall how the IT technology world will develop.   Given this it is clear that a focus on the technologies isn’t going to work.

In reality the question is not what technologies we are going to use as technology is but a tool.   What really matters is how we use this tool.    Given this my IT strategy doesn’t focus on what we will use but on what we hope to gain from the use of technology.   We want to develop students that are collaborative, communicative, solvers of problems, critical thinkers, resilient individuals, individuals of character, members of a global and local society as well as being tolerant plus possessing a growth mindset.   We want to deliver great learning experiences both within and beyond the classroom that stimulate and engage students.    We want teachers that are confident in using technology where appropriate to redefine how they teach.   We want to use technology to engage parents in the learning journey of their children and the engage the local community and wider world in the work of the school.   We also want technology that is safe, reliable, resilient and flexible.

It is the above which is the strategy and not the technologies we will eventually use.   It is the above which paints the picture of what we hope to achieve through the use of IT as a tool.    From the above we can then create our initial operational plan for the year ahead and initial outlines for the coming year or and beyond confident in the fact that the operational plan may change as new technologies, ideas and approaches become available however we will forever continue working towards the originally developed strategic outcomes.

 

Image courtesy of basketman at FreeDigitalPhotos.net