Resources and Budget – The availability of tools, people and budget will frame the scope of your planning.
Do you have the needed access to administration and are they behind your efforts? Do you get opportunities to chat or be in senior administration meetings about planning? When you are in these meetings do feel as though admin is behind your efforts? if so, then you stand a better chance of moving toward your IT goals. If not, then it may be harder, but not impossible to move your school toward the next tech milestone.
Without access to the highest level of management that you can interact with, the smaller the scope will be of the plans you make. If you have the ear of the superintendent, you can expand the scope district wide. If you only have access to a few site principals, your scope may be smaller.
Do you know people in the ed tech that can give you insight? If you can, reach out to others in your area that can help you gauge the validity of your targets and the reasonable expectations of reaching them. You should be attending user groups meetings and conferences, and interacting with others.
Can you create communication methods to expand your impact? If there are ways of getting your message out and you can tap into them – that is great. If not – can you create methods of sharing your plan. Newsletters, emails, internal blogs, whatever. You need a PR pipeline.
Can you get approvals on purchases? Knowing the flexibility of the budget is critical. If you can add line items it will help. If you can funnel other funds from one place to another, then that might work also.
Is enrollment going up or down? You need to know what the trends are. Find out the facts. Plans that include saving money are strategic if enrollment is declining. Planning for expansion will be vital if enrollment is trending up.
Are there Grant funds available? If your plan is going to depend on purchasing, make sure you can make the buys. Grants are great if the spending supports items in your plan. If not, then funds may help push toward your goal since spending will have to support grant efforts.
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