Developing a More Strategic Perspective

Many health IT managers move into leadership roles with a strong understanding of their area and the work their teams are responsible for. They are already planning ahead, balancing priorities, managing resources, and making decisions that affect future work. Strategic thinking builds on those skills by helping them look at those decisions from a broader perspective.

This is rarely something managers are formally taught. Strategic awareness often develops through experience, but it can also be built more intentionally by paying closer attention to what is happening, what may be connected, and what the implications could be. Day-to-day work provides many opportunities to practice this. The important part is taking what you are seeing a step further and considering what it may mean beyond the individual task, request, or decision.

Looking beyond the current situation

Strategic thinking is not the same as strategic planning. Planning is usually more formal and structured, while thinking strategically happens continuously. It involves asking questions, making connections, and considering what current activities may be telling you about future needs or broader direction.

That may include:

• Realizing that a recurring workaround points to a larger workflow or system issue
• Noticing that repeated requests for the same application change may point to a broader design or process need
• Recognizing that a support model that works today may not scale as new clinics or service lines are added

Health IT managers are well positioned to notice these signals. They see the friction points that slow down progress, the concerns users raise, and the feedback from staff that may not be visible at more senior levels. The strategic part comes from considering whether what you are seeing is isolated or whether it has implications for capacity, priorities, technology decisions, or future work.

The same applies to information coming from elsewhere in the organization. A new clinical program, technology decision, regulatory requirement, or expansion plan may change how you interpret something that is already happening within your own area. A support concern can look quite different when you know volumes are expected to increase, just as a staffing challenge may take on more significance when several major projects are approaching at the same time.

Using regular work to build the habit

Developing a strategic perspective does not require turning strategy into another meeting on the calendar. Regular conversations and activities throughout the week can provide opportunities to think beyond the immediate work.

Some of those opportunities may already be part of your routine:

➡️ One-on-ones: Include a forward-looking question alongside current priorities. Ask "What's getting harder?" or "Is there anything you are seeing repeatedly that we should be paying more attention to?"

➡️ Team meetings: Occasionally ask a question that looks beyond the current task. For example, "What do we need to reconsider if this expands to another area?"

➡️ Weekly reflection: Take a few minutes to think about what stood out during the week, what came up more than once, or what may deserve a closer look.

➡️ Peer and leadership conversations: Pay attention to what other teams and leaders are focused on and consider whether it changes how you view something within your own area.

The value is not simply in gathering more information. It comes from making connections between different pieces of information and considering whether they change what you need to pay attention to.

Over time, this becomes less about deliberately stopping to 'think strategically' and more about becoming accustomed to asking a few additional questions as part of normal decision-making.

Bringing that thinking into the conversation

Strategic thinking is most useful it changes what you are able to contribute to a conversation. Instead of only describing what is happening, you can help explain why it may be significant, what else it could affect, or what may need to be considered before a decision is made.

If you have already been paying attention to what is happening within your team and across the organization, you are in a better position to bring that kind of perspective forward. Depending on the situation, that could mean identifying something that is working well and should be protected, pointing out an area that is becoming harder to manage, or raising something the team may not be ready for yet.

In everyday conversations, this may sound like:

"We are starting to see a delay in onboarding because our documentation is not longer keeping pace with the tools."

"Our support tickets are increasing in areas where we used to be steady. We may need to look more closely at recent changes or whether there are training gaps."

"The way we manage device inventory works at our current volume, but we may need a different approach when the new units open later this year."

These statements do more than report what is happening. They add enough context to help others understand why something may deserve attention. Sometimes that will lead to a recommendation or further investigation. Other times, it may simply help shape a decision by making sure the right considerations are on the table.

The way you think starts to shift

Strategic thinking is not a once-a-year activity or something reserved for people with director titles. It develops through repeated practice as you become more deliberate about the questions you ask, the information you connect, and then context you bring to decisions.

For health IT managers, that can be particularly valuable because so much of the work crosses technical, clinical, operational, and organizational boundaries. A decision that appears fairly contained within one area may affect another team, create a future support need, or become more significant as operational priorities change.

The goal is not to make every decision or observation strategic. It is to become better at recognizing when something may have broader implications and bringing the right context into the conversation when it does.