Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

Gender diversity is directly correlated to IT performance.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Technology has never been more important to organizations, and as a result, recruiting and retaining quality IT employees is increasingly difficult.

• IT unemployment rates continue to hover below 2% in the US.
• The IT talent market has evolved into one where the employer is the seller and the employee is the buyer.

Common Obstacles

• While the number of jobs in IT has increased dramatically, the percentage of women in IT has progressed disproportionately, with only 25% of IT jobs being held by women.*
• The challenge is not a lack of talented women with the competencies to excel within IT, but rather organizations lack an effective strategy to recruit and retain women in IT.

Info-Tech’s Approach

To stay competitive, IT leaders need to radically change the way they recruit and retain talent, and women in IT represent one of the largest untapped markets. CIOs need a targeted strategy to attract and retain the best, and this requires a shift in how leaders currently manage the talent lifecycle. Info-Tech offers a targeted solution to help:

• Build a Recruitment Playbook: Leverage Info-Tech tools to effectively sell to, search for, and secure top talent.
• Build a Retention Strategy: Follow Info-Tech’s step-by-step process to identify initiatives and opportunities to retain your top talent.

Info-Tech Insight

Retaining and attracting top women is good business, not personal. Companies with greater gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability.1 In the war on talent, having a strategy around how you will recruit and retain women in IT is Marketing 101. What influences whether women apply for roles and stay at organizations is different than men; traditional models won’t cut it.

*– McKinsey & Company, 2020; 2 – CIO From IDG, 2021

Diversity & inclusion – it’s good business, not personal

Why should organizations care about diversity?

1. The war for talent is real. Every CIO needs a plan of attack. Unemployment rates are dropping and 54% of CIOs report that the skills shortage is holding them up from meeting their strategic objectives.

Source: Harvey Nash and KPMG, 2020

2. Diversity has clear ROI – both in terms of recruitment and retention. Eighty percent of technology managers experienced increased turnover in 2021. Not only are employee tenures decreasing, the competition for talent is fierce and the average cost of turnover is 150% of an IT worker’s salary.

Source: Robert Half, 2021

3. Inability to recruit and retain talent will reduce business satisfaction. Organizations who are continuously losing talent will be unable to meet corporate objectives due to lost productivity, keeping them in firefighting mode. An engaged workforce is a requirement for driving innovation and project success.

ISACA’s 2020 study shows a disconnect between what men and women think is being done to recruit and retain female employees

Key findings from ISACA’s 2020 Tech Workforce survey

65% of men think their employers have a program to encourage hiring women. But only 51% of women agree.

71% of men believe their employers have a program to encourage the promotion or advancement of women. But only 59% of women agree.

49% of women compared to 44% of men in the survey feel they must work harder than their peers.

22% of women compared to 14% of men feel they are underpaid.

66% of women compared to 72% of men feel they are receiving sufficient resources to sustain their career.

30% of women compared to 23% of men feel they have unequal growth opportunities.

74% of women compared to 64% of men feel they lack confidence to negotiate their salaries.

To see ISACA’s full report click here.

Image: Statista, 2021, CC BY-ND 4.0

The chart to the left, compiled by Statista, (based on self-reported company figures) shows that women held between 23% to 25% of the tech jobs at major tech companies.

Women are also underrepresented in leadership positions: 34% at Facebook, 31% at Apple, 29% at Amazon, 28% at Google, and 26% at Microsoft.

(Statista, 2021)

To help support women in tech, 78% of women say companies should promote more women into leadership positions. Other solutions include:

• Providing mentorship opportunities (72%)
• Offering flexible scheduling (64%)
• Conducting unconscious bias training (57%)
• Offering equal maternity and paternity leave (55%)

(HRD America, 2021)

Traditional retention initiatives target the majority – the drivers that impact the retention of women in IT are different

Ranked correlation of impact of engagement drivers on retention

* Recent data stays consistent, but, the importance of compensation and recognition in retaining women in IT is increasing.

Info-Tech Research Group Employee Engagement Diagnostic; N=1,856 IT employees

The majority of organizations take a one-size-fits-all approach to retaining and engaging employees.

However, studies show that women are leaving IT in significantly higher proportions than men and that the drivers impacting men’s and women’s retention are different. Knowing how men and women react differently to engagement drivers will help you create a targeted retention strategy.

In particular, to increase the retention and engagement of women, organizations should develop targeted initiatives that focus on:

• Organizational culture
• Employee empowerment
• Manager relationships

Why organizations need to focus on the recruitment and retention of women in IT

1. Women expand the talent pool. Women represent a vast, untapped talent pool that can bolster the technical workforce. Unfortunately, traditional IT recruitment processes are targeted toward a limited IT profile – the key to closing the IT skills gap is to look for agile learners and expand your search criteria to cast a larger net.
2. Diversity increases innovation opportunities. Groups with greater diversity solve complex problems better and faster than homogenous groups, and the presence of women is more likely to increase the problem-solving and creative abilities of the group.
3. Women increase your ROI. Research shows that companies with the highest representation of women in their management teams have a 34% higher return on investment than those with few or no women. Further, organizations who are unable to retain top women in their organization are at risk for not being able to deliver to SLAs or project expectations and lose the institutional knowledge needed for continuous improvement.

Source: Bureau of Labour Statistics; Info-Tech Research Group/McLean & Company Analysis

Improving the representation of women in your organization requires rethinking recruitment and retention strategies

Info-Tech’s approach to improving gender diversity at your organization

Info-Tech takes a practical, tactical approach to improving gender diversity at organizations, which starts with straightforward tactics that will help you improve the recruitment and retention of women in your organization.

How we can help

1. Leverage Info-Tech’s tools to define your current challenges and opportunities for gender diversity to improve your recruitment and retention issues.
2. Employ straightforward and tested tactics to increase talent acquisition of women in IT by optimizing how you sell to, search for, and secure top female talent.
3. Take a data-driven approach to measure and increase the retention and engagement of women within your IT organization, and know how and when to involve your staff for optimal results.

Leverage Info-Tech’s customizable deliverables to improve the recruitment and retention of women in your organization

RECRUIT Top Women in IT

If you don’t have a targeted recruitment strategy for women, you are missing out on 50% of the candidate pool. Increase the number of viable candidates by leveraging best practices to sell to, search for, and secure top women in IT.

Key metrics to track:

• Average number of female candidates per posting
• Average time to fill position
• Percentage of new hires still at the organization one year later

RETAIN Top Women in IT

The drivers that impact the retention of men and women are different. Take a data-driven approach to improving retention of women in your organization by using best practices to measure and improve employee engagement.

Key metrics to track:

• Voluntary turnover rates of men and women
• Average tenure of men and women
• Percentage of internal promotions going to men and women
• Employee engagement scores

Info-Tech’s methodology for Recruit and Retain More Women in IT

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

Guided Implementation

"Our teams knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

Workshop

"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

Consulting

"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. A typical GI is 6 calls over the course of 1 to 2 months.

1. Tactics to Recruit More Women in IT

Call #1: Develop a strategy to better sell your organization to diverse candidates.

Call #2: Evaluate your candidate search practices to reach a wider audience.

Call #3: Introduce best practices in your interviews to improve the candidate experience and limit bias.

2. Tactics to Retain More Women in IT

Call #4: Launch focus groups to improve performance of key retention drivers.

Call #5: Measure the employee experience and identify key moments that matter to staff.

Call #6: Conduct stay interviews and establish actions to improve retention.

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Phase 1

Enhance Your Recruitment Strategies

Phase 1

• 1.1 Sell
• 1.2 Search
• 1.3 Secure

Phase 2

• 2.1 Engagement
• 2.2 Employee Experience
• 2.3 Stay Interviews

Consider key factors within the recruitment process

Key Talent Pipeline Opportunities:

• In today’s talent landscape IT leaders need to be highly strategic about how they recruit new talent to the organization.
• IT professionals have a huge number of options to choose from when considering their next career.
• IT leaders need to actively market and expand their search to attract top talent. The “where” and “how” to recruit men and women in IT are different and your strategy should reflect this.
• Partnering with your HR department to help you improve the number of applicants, expand your search criteria, and optimize the interview experience will all directly impact your talent pipeline.

1. Sell

How do you position the value of working for your organization and roles in a meaningful way?

2. Search

How can you expand your key search criteria and sourcing strategies to reach more candidates?

3. Secure

How can you reduce bias in your interview process and create positive candidate experiences?

Info-Tech’s Sell-Search-Secure recruitment model

Follow these steps to increase your pool of female candidates.

1. Sell Tactics:

1. Develop an employee value proposition that will attract female candidates.

2. Understand how your job postings may be deterring female candidates.

2. Search Tactics:

3. Identify opportunities to expand your role analysis for job requisitions.

4. Increase your candidate pool by expanding sourcing programs.

3. Secure Tactics:

5. Identify tactics to improve women’s interview experience.

6. Leverage behavioral interview questions to limit bias in interviews.

Please note, this section is not a replacement or a full talent strategy. Rather, this blueprint will highlight key tactics within talent acquisition practices that the IT leadership team can help to influence to drive greater diversity in recruitment.

Understand where leaks exist in your talent pipeline

Start your recruitment enhancement here.

Work with your HR department to track critical metrics around where you need to make improvements and where you can partner with your recruitment team to improve your recruitment process and build a more diverse pipeline. Identify where you have significant drops or variation in diversity or overall need and select where you’d like to focus your recruitment improvement efforts.

Enhance your recruitment strategies

The way you position the organization impacts who is likely to apply to posted positions. Ensure you are putting a competitive foot forward by developing a unique, meaningful, and aspirational employee value proposition and clear job descriptions.

Sell the organization

What is an employee value proposition?

An employee value proposition (EVP) is a unique and clearly defined set of attributes and benefits that capture an employee’s overall work experience within an organization. An EVP is your opportunity to showcase the unique benefits and opportunities of working at your organization, allowing you to attract a wider pool of candidates.

How is an employee value proposition used?

Your EVP should be used internally and externally to promote the unique benefits of working within the department. As a recruiting tool, you can use it to attract candidates, highlighting the benefits of working for your organization. The EVP is often highlighted where you are most likely to reach your target audience, whether that is through social media, in-person events, or in other advertising activities.

Why tailor this to multiple audiences?

While your employee value proposition should remain constant in terms of the unique benefits of working for your organization, you want to ensure that the EVP appeals to multiple audiences and that it is backed up by relevant stories that support how your organization lives your EVP every day. Candidates need to be able to relate to the EVP and see it as desirable, so ensuring that it is relatable to a diverse audience is key.

Develop a strong employee value proposition

Three key steps

1. Build and Assess the EVP

Assess your existing employee value proposition and/or build a forward-looking, meaningful, authentic, aspirational EVP.

2. Test the EVP

Gather feedback from staff to ensure the EVP is meaningful internally and externally.

3. Adopt the EVP

Identify how and where you will leverage the EVP internally and externally, and integrate the EVP into your candidate experience, job ads, and employee engagement initiatives.

As you build your EVP, keep in mind that while it’s important to brand your IT organization as an inclusive workplace to help you attract diverse candidates, be honest about your current level of diversity and your intentions to improve. Otherwise, new recruits will be disappointed and leave.

What is an employee value proposition?

And what are the key components?

The employee value proposition is your opportunity to showcase the unique benefits and opportunities of working at your organization, allowing you to attract a wider pool of candidates.

Creating a compelling EVP that presents a picture of your employee experience, with a focus on diversity, will attract females to your team. This can lead to many internal and external benefits for your organization.

Collect relevant information

Existing Employee Value Proposition: If your organization or IT department has an existing employee value proposition, rather than starting from scratch, we recommend leveraging that and moving to the testing phase to see if the EVP still resonates with staff and external parties.

Employee Engagement Results: If your organization does an employee engagement survey, review the results to identify the areas in which the IT organization is performing well. Identify and document any key comment themes in the report around why employees enjoy working for the organization or what makes your IT department a great place to work.

Social Media Sites. Prepare for the good, the bad, and the ugly. Social media websites like Glassdoor and Indeed make it easier for employees to share their experiences at an organization honestly and candidly. While postings on these sites won’t relate exclusively to the IT department, they do invite participants to identify their department in the organization. You can search these to identify any positive things people are saying about working for the organization and potentially opportunities for improvement (which you can use as a starting point in the retention section of this report).

Step 1.1

Sell – Assess the current state and develop your employee value proposition

Activities

1.1.1 Gather feedback on unique benefits

1.1.2 Build key messages

1.1.3 Test your EVP

1.1.4 Adopt your EVP

1.1.5 Review job postings for gender bias

1.1.1 Gather feedback

1. Hold a series of focus groups with employees to understand what about the organization attracted them to join and to stay at the organization.
2. Start by identifying if you will interview all employees or a subset. If you are going to use a subset, ensure you have at least one male and one female participating from each team and representation of all levels within the department.
3. Print the EVP Interview Guide to focus your conversation, and ask each individual to take 15 minutes and respond to questions 1-3 in the Guide:
4. Draw a quadrant on the board and mark each quadrant with four categories: Day-to-Day Elements, Organizational Elements, Compensation & Benefits, and Working Conditions. Provide each participant with sticky notes and ask them to brainstorm the top five things they value most about working at the organization. Ask them to place each sticky in the appropriate category and identify any key themes.
5. Ask participants to hand in their EVP Interview Guides and document all of the key findings.

Download the EVP Interview Guide

1.1.2 Build key messages

1. Collect all of the information from the various focus groups and begin to build out the employee value proposition statements.
2. Identify the key elements that staff felt were unique and highly valued by employees and group these into common themes.
3. Identify categories that related to one of the five key drivers* of women’s retention in IT and highlight any key elements related to these:

• Culture: The degree to which an employee identifies with the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the organization.
• Company Potential: An employee’s understanding, commitment, and excitement about the organization’s mission and future.
• Employee Empowerment: The degree to which employees have accountability and control over their work within a supported environment.
• Learning and Development: A cooperative and continuous effort to enhance an employee’s skill set and expertise and meet an employee’s career objectives.
• Manager Relationships: The professional and personal relationship an employee has with their manager, including trust, support, and development.

• Examples of great EVPs: L’Oreal, Home Depot

*See Engagement Driver Handout slides for more details on these five drivers.

Quality test your revised EVP

Use Info-Tech’s EVP Scorecard.

Internally and Externally

Use the EVP Scorecard and EVP Scorecard Handout throughout this step to assess your EVP against:

Internal Criteria:

• Accuracy
• Alignment
• Aspirational
• Differentiation

External Criteria:

• Clear
• Compelling
• Concise
• Differentiation

Ensure your EVP resonates with employees and prospects

Test your EVP with internal and external audiences.

1.1.3 Test your EVP

1. Identify the internal and external individuals who you want to gather feedback from about the EVP.
2. For internal candidates, send a copy of the EVP and ask them to complete the Internal Assessment (ensure that you have at least 50% representation of women).
3. For external candidates, identify first how you will reach out to them; popular options are to have team members in key roles reach out to members of their LinkedIn network who are in similar roles to themselves. Request that they look for a diverse group to gather feedback from.
4. Have the external candidates complete the External Assessment.
5. Collect the feedback around the EVP and enter the findings into the EVP Scorecard Tool.
6. If you are dissatisfied with the scorecard results, go back to the employees you interviewed to ask for additional feedback, focusing on the areas that scored low.
7. Incorporate the feedback and present the revised EVP to see if the changes resonate with stakeholders.
8. If you are satisfied with the results, present to the leadership and HR teams for agreement and proceed to adopting the EVP in your organization.

1.1.4 Adopt your EVP

Identify your target audience and marketing channels.

1. Identify the internal and external individuals who you want to gather feedback from about the EVP.

• The target audience for your employee value proposition
• Internal and/or external
• Local, national, international
• Experience
• Applicant pool (e.g. new graduates, professionals, internship)

• Internal: Town hall meetings, fireside chats
• External: Social media, advertising, job postings
• Global: Professional affiliations, head hunters

Case Study

INDUSTRY: Restaurant

SOURCE: McDonald’s Careers, Canadian Business via McLean & Company

McDonald’s saw a divide between employee experience and its vision. McDonald’s set out to reinvent its employer image and create the reputation it wanted.

Challenge

• Historically, McDonald’s has had a challenging employer brand. Founded on the goal of cost effectiveness, a “McJob” was often associated with lower pay and a poor reputation.
• McDonald’s reached out to employees using a global survey and asked, “What is it you love most about working at McDonald’s?”

Solution

• McDonald’s revaluated its employer brand by creating an EVP focused on the three F’s.

1. Future – career growth and development opportunities
2. Flexibility – flexible working hours and job variety
3. Family & Friends – a people-centric work culture

Results

• As a result of developing and promoting its EVP internally, McDonald’s has experienced higher engagement and a steady decrease in turnover.
• Externally, McDonald’s has been recognized numerous times by the Great Place to Work Institute and has been classified by Maclean’s magazine as one of Canada’s top 50 employers for 13 years running.

Make your job descriptions more attractive to female applicants

10 WAYS TO REMOVE GENDER BIAS FROM JOB DESCRIPTIONS – GLASSDOOR – AN EXCERPT

1. USE GENDER-NEUTRAL TITLES: Male-oriented titles can inadvertently prevent women from clicking on your job in a list of search results. Avoid including words in your titles like “hacker,” “rockstar,” “superhero,” “guru,” and “ninja,” and use neutral, descriptive titles like “engineer,” “project manager,” or “developer.
2. CHECK PRONOUNS: When describing the tasks of the ideal candidate, use “they” or “you.” Example: “As Product Manager for XYZ, you will be responsible for setting the product vision and strategy.
3. AVOID (OR BALANCE) YOUR USE OF GENDER-CHARGED WORDS: Analysis from language tool Textio found that the gender language bias in your job posting predicts the gender of the person you’re going to hire. Use a tool like Textio tool or the free Gender Decoder to identify problem spots in your word choices. Examples: “Analyze” and “determine” are typically associated with male traits, while “collaborate” and “support” are considered female. Avoid aggressive language like “crush it.
4. AVOID SUPERLATIVES: Excessive use of superlatives such as “expert,” “superior,” and “world class” can turn off female candidates who are more collaborative than competitive in nature. Research also shows that women are less likely than men to brag about their accomplishments. In addition, superlatives related to a candidate’s background can limit the pool of female applicants because there may be very few females currently in leading positions at “world-class” firms
5. LIMIT THE NUMBER OF REQUIREMENTS: Identify which requirements are “nice to have” versus “must have,” and eliminate the “nice to haves.” Research shows that women are unlikely to apply for a position unless they meet 100 percent of the requirements, while men will apply if they meet 60 percent of the requirements.

For the full article please click here.

1.1.5 Review job postings

To understand potential gender bias

1. Select a job posting that you are looking to fill, review the descriptions, and identify if any of the following apply:

• Are the titles gender neutral? This doesn’t mean you can’t be creative in your naming, but consider if the name really represents the role you are looking to fill.
• Do you use pronouns? If there are instances where the posting says “he” OR “she” change this to “they” or “you.”
• Are you overusing superlatives? Review the posting and ensure that when words like “expert” or “world class” are used that you genuinely need someone who is at that level.
• Are all of the tasks/responsibilities listed the ones that are absolutely essential to the job? Women are less likely to apply if they don’t have direct experience with 100% of the criteria – if it’s a non-essential, consider whether it’s needed in the posting.
• Is there any organization-specific jargon used? Where possible, avoid using organization-specific jargon in order to create an inclusive posting. Avoid using terms/acronyms that are only known to your organization.

Case Study

INDUSTRY: Social Media

SOURCE: Buffer Open blog

When the social media platform Buffer replaced one word in a job posting, it noticed an increase in female candidates.

Challenge

For the social media platform Buffer, all employees were called “hackers.” It had front-end hackers, back-end hackers, Android hackers, iOS hackers, and traction hackers.

As the company began to grow and ramp up hiring, the Chief Technology Officer, Sunil Sadasivan, noticed that Buffer was seeing a very low percentage of female candidates for these “hacker” jobs.

In researching the challenge in lack of female candidates, the Buffer team discovered that the word “hacker” may be just the reason why.

Solution

Understanding that wording has a strong impact on the type of candidates applying to work for Buffer started a great and important conversation on the Buffer team.

Buffer wanted to be as inviting as possible in job listings, especially because it hires for culture fit over technical skill.

Buffer went through a number of wording choices that could replace “hacker,” and ended on the term “developer.” All external roles were updated to reflect this wording change.

Results

By making this slight change to the wording used in their jobs, Buffer went from seeing a less than 2% female representation of applicants for developer jobs to around 12% female representation for the same job.

Step 1.2

Search – Reach more candidates by expanding key search criteria and sourcing strategies

Activities

1.2.1 Complete role analysis

1.2.2 Expand your sourcing pools

Enhance your recruitment strategies

Sourcing shouldn’t start with an open position; it should start with identifying an anticipated need and building and nurturing a talent pipeline. IT participation in this is critical to effectively promote the employee experience and foster relationships before candidates even apply.

Expand your search

What is a candidate sourcing program?

A candidate sourcing program is one element of the overall HR sourcing approach, which consists of the overall process (steps to source talent), the people responsible for sourcing, and the programs (internal talent mobility, social media, employee referral, alumni network, campus recruitment, etc.).

What is a sourcing role analysis?

Part of the sourcing plan will outline how to identify talent for a role, which includes both the role analysis and the market assessment. The market assessment is normally completed by the HR department and consists of analyzing the market conditions as they relate to specific talent needs. The role analysis looks at what is necessary to be successful in a role, including competencies, education, background experience, etc.

How will this enable you to attract female candidates?

Expanding your sourcing programs and supporting deeper role analysis will allow your HR department to reach a larger candidate pool and better understand the type of talent that will be successful in roles within your organization. By expanding from traditional pools and criteria you will open the organization up to a wider variety of talent options.

Minimize bias in sourcing to hire the right talent and protect against risk

Failure to take an inclusive approach to sourcing will limit your talent pool by sidelining entire groups or discouraging applicants from diverse backgrounds. Address bias in sourcing so that diverse candidates are not excluded from the start. Solutions such as removing biographical data from CVs prior to interviews may reduce bias, but they may come too late to impact diversity.

1.2.1 Role analysis

Customize a sourcing plan for key roles to guide talent pipeline creation.

1. Complete a role analysis to understand key role requirements. If you are hiring for an existing role, start by taking an inventory of who your top and low performers are within the role today.
2. Consider your top performers and identify what a successful employee can do better than a less successful one. Start by considering their alignment with job requirements, and identify the education, designations/certifications, and experiences that are necessary for this job. Do not limit yourself; carefully consider if the requirements you are including are actually necessary or just nice to have.

	Required Entry Criteria	Preferred Entry Criteria
Education	University Degree – Bachelors	University Degree – Masters
Experience	5+) years design, or related, experience Experience leading a team	External consulting experience Healthcare industry experience
Designations/Certifications		ITIL Foundations

3. Review Info-Tech’s Job Competency Library in the Workforce Planning Workbook, identify the key competencies that are ideal for this anticipated role, and write a description of how this would manifest in your organization.

Competency	Level of Proficiency	Behavioral Descriptions
Business Analysis	Level 2: Capable	Demonstrates a basic understanding of business roles, processes, planning, and requirements in the organization. Demonstrates a basic understanding of how technologies assist in business processes. Develop basic business cases using internal environment analysis for the business unit level.

4. Hold a meeting with your HR team or recruiter to highlight the types of experience and competencies you are looking for in a hire to expand the search criteria.

Target diverse talent pools through different sources

When looking to diversify your workforce, it’s critical that you look to attract and recruit talent from a variety of different talent pools.

SOURCING APPROACH

INTERNAL MOBILITY PROGRAM

Positioning the right talent in the right place, at the right time, for the right reasons, and supporting them appropriately. Often tied to succession or workforce planning, mentorship, and learning and development.

SOCIAL MEDIA PROGRAM

The widely accessible electronic tools that enable anyone to publish and access information, collaborate on common efforts, and build relationships. Think beyond the traditional and consider niche social media platforms.

EMPLOYEE REFERRAL PROGRAM

Employees recommend qualified candidates. If the referral is hired, the referring employee typically receives some sort of reward.

ALUMNI PROGRAM

An alumni referral program is a formalized way to maintain ongoing relationships with former employees of the organization.

CAMPUS RECRUITING PROGRAM

A formalized means of attracting and hiring individuals who are about to graduate from schools, colleges, or universities.

EVENTS & ASSOCIATION PROGRAM

A targeted approach for participation in non-profit associations and industry events to build brand awareness of your organization and create a forward-looking talent pipeline.

1.2.2 Expand your sourcing pools

Increase the number of female applicants.

1. Identify where your employees are currently being sourced from and identify how many female candidates you have gotten from each channel as a percentage of applicants.

	# of Candidates From Approach	% of Female Candidates From Approach	Target # of Female Candidates
Internal Talent Mobility
Social Media Program
Employee Referral Program
Alumni Program
Campus Recruiting Program
Events & Non-Profit Affiliations
Other (job databases, corporate website, etc.)

2. Work with your HR partner or organization’s recruiter to identify three recruitment channels from the list that you will work on expanding.
3. Review the following two slides and identify key success factors for the implementation. Identify what role IT will play and what role HR will play in implementing the approach.
4. Following implementation, monitor the impact of the tactics on the number of women candidates and determine whether to add additional tactics.

Different talent sources

Benefits and success factors of using different talent sources

Enhance your recruitment strategies

Work with your HR department to influence the recruitment process by taking a data-driven approach to understand the root cause of applicant drop-off and success and take corrective actions.

Secure top candidates

Why does the candidate experience matter?

Until recently it was an employer’s market, so recruiters and hiring managers were able to get good talent without courting top candidates. Today, that’s not the case. You need to treat your IT candidates like customers and be mindful that this is often one of the first experiences future staff will have with the organization. It will give them their first real sense of the culture of the organization and whether they want to work for the organization.

What can IT leaders do if they have limited influence over the interview process?

Work with your HR department to evaluate the existing recruitment process, share challenges you’ve experienced, and offer additional support in the process. Identify where you can influence the process and if there are opportunities to build service-level agreements around the candidate experience.

Take a data-driven approach

Understand opportunities to enhance the talent selection process.

While your HR department likely owns the candidate experience and processes, if you have identified challenges in diversity we recommend partnering with your HR department or recruitment team to identify opportunities for improvement within the process. If you are attracting a good amount of candidates through your sell and search tactics but aren’t finding that this is translating into more women selected, it’s time to take a look at your selection processes.

SIMPLIFIED CANDIDATE SELECTION PROCESS STEPS

1. Application Received
2. Candidate Selected for Interview
3. Offer Extended
4. Offer Accepted
5. Onboarding of Staff

To understand the challenges within your selection process, start by baselining your drop-off rates throughout selection and comparing the differences in male and female candidates. Use this to pin point the issues within the process and complete a root-cause analysis to identify where to improve.

Step 1.3

Secure – reduce bias in your interview process and create positive candidate experiences

Activities

1.3.1 Identify selection challenges

1.3.1 Identify your selection challenges

Review your candidate data.

1. Hold a meeting with your HR partner to identify trends in your selection data. If you have an applicant tracking system, pull all relevant information for analysis.
2. Start by identifying the total number of candidates that move forward in each stage of the process. Record the overall number of applicants for positions (should have this number from your sourcing analysis), overall number of candidates selected for interviews, overall number of offers extended, overall number of offers rejected, and overall number of employees still employed after one year.
3. Identify the number of female and male candidates in each of those categories and as a percentage of the total number of applicants.

Selection Process Step	Total # of Candidates	Male Candidates		Female Candidates		% Difference Male & Female
	#	#	% of total	#	% of total
Applicants for Posted Position	150	115	76.7%	35	23.3%	70% fewer females
Selected for Interview
(Selected for Second Interview)
(Selected for Final Interview)
Offer Extended
Offer Rejected
Employees Retained for One Year

4. Identify where there are differences in the percentages of male and female candidates and where there are significant drop-off rates between steps in the process.

Note: For larger organizations, we highly recommend analyzing differences in specific teams/roles and/or at different seniority levels. If you have that data available, repeat the analysis, controlling for those factors.

Root-cause analysis can be conducted in a variety of ways

Align your root-cause analysis technique with the problem that needs to be solved and leverage the skills of the root-cause analysis team.

Brainstorming/Process of Elimination

After brainstorming, identify which possible causes are not the issue’s root cause by removing unlikely causes.

The Five Whys

Use reverse engineering to delve deeper into a recruitment issue to identify the root cause.

Ishikawa/Fishbone Diagram

Use an Ishikawa/fishbone diagram to identify and narrow down possible causes by categories.

Process of elimination

Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques.

Using the process of elimination can be a powerful tool to determine root causes.

• To use the process of elimination to determine root cause, gather the participants from within your hiring team together once you have identified where your issues are within the recruitment process and brainstorm a list of potential causes.
• Like all brainstorming exercises, remember that the purpose is to gather the widest possible variety of perspectives, so be sure not to eliminate any suggested causes out of hand.
• Once you have an exhaustive list of potential causes, you can begin the process of eliminating unlikely causes to arrive at a list of likely potential causes.

Example

Problem: Women candidates are rejecting job offers more consistently

Potential Causes

• The process took too long to complete
• Lack of information about the team and culture
• Candidates aren’t finding benefits/salary compelling
• Lack of clarity on role expectations
• Lack of fit between candidate and interviewers
• Candidates offered other positions
• Interview tactics were negatively perceived

As you brainstorm, ensure that you are identifying differentiators between male and female candidate experiences and rationale. If you ask candidates their rationale for turning down roles, ensure that these are included in the discussion.

The five whys

Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques

Repeatedly asking “why” might seem overly simplistic, but it has the potential to be useful.

• It can be useful, when confronting a problem, to start with the end result and work backwards.
• According to Olivier Serrat, a knowledge management specialist at the Asian Development Bank, there are three key components that define successful use of the five whys: “(i) accurate and complete statements of problems, (ii) complete honesty in answering the questions, and (iii) the determination to get to the bottom of problems and resolve them.”
• As a group, develop a consensus around the problem statement. Go around the room and have each person suggest a potential reason for its occurrence. Repeat the process for each potential reason (ask “why?”) until there are no more potential causes to explore.
• Note: The total number of “whys” may be more or less than five.

Example

Ishikawa/fishbone diagram

Leveraging root-cause analysis techniques.

Use this technique to sort potential causes by category and match them to the problem.

• The first step in creating a fishbone diagram is agreeing on a problem statement and populating a box on the right side of a whiteboard or a piece of chart paper.
• Draw a horizontal line left from the box and draw several ribs on either side that will represent the categories of causes you will explore.
• Label each rib with relevant categories. In the recruitment context, consider cause categories like technology, interview, process, etc. Go around the room and ask, “What causes this problem to happen?” Every result produced should fit into one of the identified categories. Place it there, and continue to brainstorm sub-causes.

Info-Tech Best Practice

Avoid naming individuals in the fishbone diagram. The goal of the root-cause exercise is not to lay blame or zero in on a guilty party but rather to identify how you can rectify any challenges.

Leverage behavioral interviews

Use Info-Tech’s Behavioral Interview Questions Library.

Reduce bias in your interviews.

In the past, companies were pushing the boundaries of the conventional interview, using unconventional questions to find top talent, e.g. “what color is your personality?” The logic was that the best people are the ones who don’t necessarily show perfectly on a resume, and they were intent on finding the best.

However, many companies have stopped using these questions after extensive statistical analysis revealed there was no correlation between candidates’ ability to answer them and their future performance on the job. Hiring by intuition – or “gut” – is usually dependent on an interpersonal connection being developed over a very short period of time. This means that people who were naturally likeable would be given preferential treatment in hiring decisions whether they were capable of doing the job.

Asking behavioral interview questions based on the competency needs of the role is the best way to uncover if the candidates will be able to execute on the job.

For more information see Info-Tech’s Behavioral Interview Question Library.

Improve the level of diversity in your organization by considering inclusive candidate selection practices

Key action items to create inclusivity in your candidate selection practices:

1. Managers must be aware of how bias can influence hiring. Encourage your HR department to provide diversity training for recruiters and hiring managers. Ensure those responsible for recruitment are using best practices, are aware of the impact of unconscious bias, and are making decisions in alignment with your DEI strategy.
2. Use a variety of interviewers to leverage multiple/diverse perspectives. Hiring decisions made by a group can offer a more balanced perspective. Include interviewers from multiple levels in the organization and both men and women.
3. Hire for distinguished excellence. Be careful not to simply choose the same kind of people over and over, in the name of cultural fit (Source: Recruiter.com, 2015).

Broaden the notion of fit:

• Hire for skill fit: you might still hire certain types for a specific job (e.g. analytical types for analysis positions), but these candidates can still be diverse.
• Hire for fit with your organization’s DEI values, regardless of whether the candidate is from a diverse background or not.
• It can be tempting for hiring managers to hire individuals who are similar to themselves. However, doing so limits the amount of diversity entering your organization, and as a result, limits your organization’s ability to innovate.

Leverage a third-party tool

Ensure recruiting and onboarding programs are effective by surveying your new hires.

For a deeper analysis of your new hire processes Info-Tech’s sister company, McLean & Company, is an HR research and advisory firm that offers powerful diagnostics to measure HR processes effectiveness. If you are finding diversity issues to be systemic within the organization, leveraging a diagnostic can greatly improve your processes.

Use this diagnostic to get vital feedback on:

• Recruiting efforts. Find out if your job marketing efforts are successful, which paths your candidates took to find you, and whether your company is maintaining an attractive profile.
• Interviewing process. Ensure candidates experience an organized, professional, and ethical process that accurately sets their expectations for the job.
• Onboarding process. Make sure your new hires are being trained and integrated into their team effectively.
• Organizational culture. Is your culture welcoming and inclusive? You need to know if top talent enjoy the environment you have to offer.

For more information on the New Hire Survey click here. If you are interested in referring your HR partner please contact your account manager.

Phase 2

Enhance Your Retention Strategies

Phase 1

• 1.1 Sell
• 1.2 Search
• 1.3 Secure

Phase 2

• 2.1 Engagement
• 2.2 Employee Experience
• 2.3 Stay Interviews

Actively engage female staff to retain them

Employee engagement: the measurement of effective management practices that create a positive emotional connection between the employee and the organization.

Engaged employees do what’s best for the organization: they come up with product/service improvements, provide exceptional service to customers, consistently exceed performance expectations, and make efficient use of their time and resources. The result is happy customers, better products/services, and saved costs.

Today, what we find is that 54% of women in IT are not engaged,* but…

…engaged employees are: 39% more likely to stay at an organization than employees who are not engaged.*

Additionally, engaging your female staff also has the additional benefit of increasing willingness to innovate by 30% and performance by 28%. The good news is that increasing employee engagement is not difficult, it just requires dedication and an effective toolkit to monitor, analyze, and implement tactics.*

* Info-Tech and McLean & Company Diagnostics; N=1,308 IT employees

Don’t seek to satisfy; drive IT success through engagement

Engagement drivers that impact retention for men and women are different – tailor your strategy to your audience

Ranked correlation of impact of engagement drivers on retention

* Recent data stays consistent, but the importance of compensation and recognition in retaining women in IT is increasing.

Info-Tech Research Group Employee Engagement Diagnostic; N=1,856 IT employees.

An analysis of the differences between men and women in IT’s drivers indicates that women in IT are significantly less likely than men in IT to agree with the following statements:

Culture:

• They identify well with the organization’s values.
• The organization has a very friendly atmosphere.

Employee Empowerment:

• They are given the chance to fully leverage their talents through their job.

Manager Relationships:

• They can trust their manager.
• Their manager cares about them as a person

Working Environment:

• They have not seen incidents of discrimination at their organization based on age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or ethnicity.

Enhance your retention strategies

Employee engagement is one of the greatest predictors of intention to stay. To retain you need to understand not only engagement but also your employee experience – the moments that matter – and actively work to create a positive experience.

Improve employee engagement

What differentiates an engaged employee?

Engaged employees do what’s best for the organization: they come up with product/service improvements, provide exceptional service to customers, consistently exceed performance expectations, and make efficient use of their time and resources. The result is happy customers, better products/services, and saved costs.

Why measure engagement when looking at retention?

Engaged employees report 39%1 higher intention to stay at the organization than disengaged employees. The cost of losing an employee is estimated to be 150% to 200% of their annual salary.2 Can you afford to not engage your staff?

Why should IT leadership be responsible for their staff engagement?

Engagement happens every day, through every interaction, and needs to be tailored to individual team members to be successful. When engagement is owned by IT leadership, engagement initiatives are incorporated into daily experiences and personalized to their employees based on what is happening in real time. It is this active, dynamic leadership that inspires ongoing employee engagement and differentiates those who talk about engagement from those who succeed in engaging their teams.

Sources: 1 - McLean & Company Employee Engagement Survey, 2 - Gallup, 2019

Step 2.1

Improve employee engagement

Activities

2.1.1 Review employee engagement results and trends

2.1.2 Focus on areas that impact retention of women

Take a data-driven approach

Info-Tech’s employee engagement diagnostics are low-effort, high-impact programs that will give you detailed report cards on the organization’s engagement levels. Use these insights to understand your employees’ engagement levels by a variety of core demographics.

For the purpose of improving retention of women in IT, we encourage you to leverage the EXM tool, which will allow you to track how this demographic group’s engagement changes as you implement new initiatives.

Engagement survey

For a detailed breakdown of staff overall engagement priorities.

Overall Engagement Results

• A clear breakdown of employee engagement results by demographic, gender, and team.
• Detailed engagement breakdown and benchmarking.

Priority Matrix and Driver Scores

• A priority matrix specific to your organization.
• A breakdown of question scores by priority matrix quadrant.
• Know what not to focus your effort on – not all engagement drivers will have a high impact on engagement.

EXM dashboard

Reporting to track engagement in real time.

EXM Dashboard

• Leverage Info-Tech’s real-time Employee Experience Monitor dashboard to track your team’s engagement levels over time.
• Track changes in the number of supporters and detractors and slice the data by roles, teams, and gender.

Time Series Trends

• As you implement new initiatives to improve the engagement and retention of staff, track their impact and continuously course correct.
• Empower your leaders to actively manage their team culture to drive innovation, retention, and productivity.

Start your diagnostic now

Leverage your Info-Tech membership to seamlessly launch your employee engagement survey.

Info-Tech’s dedicated team of program managers will facilitate this diagnostic program remotely, providing you with a convenient, low-effort, high-impact experience.

We will guide you through the process with your goals in mind to deliver deep insight into your successes and areas to improve.

Start Now

2.1.1 Review employee engagement results

Identify trends

1. In a call with one of Info-Tech’s executive advisors, review the results of your employee engagement survey.
2. Identify which departments are most and least engaged and brainstorm some high-level reasons.
3. Review the demographic information and highlight any inconsistencies or areas with high levels of variance. Document which demographics have the most and least engaged, disengaged, and indifferent employees.
4. With help from the Info-Tech executive advisor, identify and document any dramatic differences in the demographic data, particularly around gender.
5. Identify if the majority of issues effecting engagement are at an organization or department level and which stakeholders you need to engage to support the process moving forward.
6. Identify next steps.

2.1.2 Focus on areas that impact retention of women

Hold focus groups with IT staff and focus on the five areas with the greatest impact on women’s retention.

1. Review the handout slides on the following pages to get a better understanding of the definition of each of the top five drivers impacting women’s retention. Depending on your team’s size, pick one to three drivers to focus on for your first focus group.
2. Divide the participants into teams and on flip chart paper or using sticky notes have the teams brainstorm what you can stop/start/continue doing to help you improve on your assigned driver.

• Continue: actions that work for the team related to this driver and should proceed.
• Start: actions/initiatives that the team would like to begin.
• Stop: actions/initiatives that the team would like to stop.

Culture

Engagement driver handout

Culture: The degree to which an employee identifies with the beliefs, values, and attitudes of the organization.

Questions:

• I identify well with the organization’s values.
• This organization has a collaborative work environment.
• This organization has a very friendly atmosphere.
• I am a fit for the organizational culture.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #1
• Men in IT: #2

Company Potential

Engagement driver handout

Company Potential: An employee’s understanding of and commitment to the organization’s mission, and the employee’s excitement about the organization’s mission and future.

Questions:

• This organization has a bright future.
• I am impressed with the quality of people at this organization.
• People in this organization are committed to doing high-quality work.
• I believe in the organization’s overall business strategy.
• This organization encourages innovation.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #2
• Men in IT: #1

Employee Empowerment

Engagement driver handout

Employee Empowerment: The degree to which employees have accountability and control over their work within a supported environment.

Questions:

• I am not afraid of trying out new ideas in my job.
• If I make a suggestion to improve something in my department I believe it will be taken seriously.
• I am empowered to make decisions about how I do my work.
• I clearly understand what is expected of me on the job.
• I have all the tools I need to do a great job.
• I am given the chance to fully leverage my talents through my job.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #3
• Men in IT: #6

Learning and Development

Engagement driver handout

Learning and Development: A cooperative and continuous effort between an employee and the organization to enhance an employee’s skill set and expertise and meet an employee’s career objectives and the organization’s needs.

Questions:

• I can advance my career in this organization.
• I am encouraged to pursue career development activities.
• In the last year, I have received an adequate amount of training.
• In the last year, the training I have received has helped me do my job better.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #4
• Men in IT: #5

Manager Relationships

Engagement driver handout

Manager Relationships: The professional and personal relationship an employee has with their manager. Manager relationships depend on the trust that exists between these two individuals and the extent that a manager supports and develops the employee.

Questions:

• My manager inspires me to improve.
• My manager provides me with high-quality feedback.
• My manager helps me achieve better results.
• I trust my manager.
• My manager cares about me as a person.
• My manager keeps me well informed about decisions that affect me.

Ranked Correlation of Impact of Engagement Driver on Retention:

• Women in IT: #5
• Men in IT: #11

Step 2.2

Examine employee experience

Activities

2.2.1 Identify moments that matter

Understand why and when employees plan to depart

Leverage “psychology of quitting” expertise.

Train your managers to provide them with the skills and expertise to recognize the warning signs of an employee’s departure and know how to re-engage and retain them.

• The majority of resignations are not spur of the moment. They are the result of a compilation of events over a period of time. Normally, these instances are magnified by a stimulant. The final straw or the breaking point drives the employee to make a change. In fact, it has been estimated that a shock jumpstarts 65% of departures.*
  • These shocks could be a lack of promotion, loss of privilege or development opportunity, or a quarrel with a manager.
• Employees rarely leave right away. Most wait until they have confirmed a new job opportunity before leaving. This creates a window in which you can reengage and retain them.
• The majority of employees show signs that they are beginning to think of leaving. Whether that is leaving immediately, putting in the bare minimum of effort, or job searching online at work. Train your managers to know the signs and to keep an eye out for potentially dissatisfied and searching employees.*
• It is easier and less costly to reengage an employee than to start the hiring process from the beginning.

*Source: The Career Café, 2017

Examine employee experience (EX)

Look beyond engagement drivers to drive retention.

Employee experience (EX) is the employee’s perception of their cumulative lived experiences with the organization. It is gauged by how well the employee’s expectations are met within the parameters of the workplace, especially by the “moments that matter” to them. Individual employee engagement is the outcome of a strong overall EX.

Drive a positive employee experience

Identify moments that matter.

Moments that matter are defining pieces or periods in an employee’s experience that create a critical turning point or memory that is of significant importance to them.

These are moments that dramatically change the path of the emotional journey, influence the quality of the final outcome, or end the journey prematurely.

To identify the moment that matters look for significant drops in the emotional journey that your organization needs to improve or significant bumps that your organization can capitalize on. Look for these drops or bumps in the journey and take stock of everything you have recorded at that point in the process. To improve the experience, analyze the hidden needs and how they are or aren’t being met.

Info-Tech Insight

The moment that matters is key and it could be completely separate from organizational life, like the death of a family member. Leaders can more proactively address these moments that matter by identifying them and determining how to make the touchpoint at that moment more impactful.

2.2.1 Identify moments that matter

1. Review your Employee Experience Monitor weekly trends by logging into your dashboard and clicking on “Time Series Trends.”
2. With your management team, identify any weekly trends where your Employee Experience Score has seen changes in the number of detractor, passive, or promoter responses.
3. For each significant change identify:

• Increase in promoters or decrease in detractors:
• What can we do to duplicate positive moments that occurred this week?
• What did I do as a leader to create positive employee experiences?
• What happened in the organization that created a positive employee experience?
• Increase in detractors or decrease in promoters:
• What difficult change was delivered this week?
• What about this change was negatively perceived?
• During the difficult situation how did we as a leadership team support our staff?
• Who did we engage and recognize during the difficult situation?
• Was this situation a one-off issue or is this likely to occur again?

• How did you promote a positive culture and friendly atmosphere?
• How did you empower female staff to leverage their talents?
• How did you interact with staff?
• How did you promote a positive work environment? Where did you see bias in decisions?

Measured benefits of positive employee experience

Positive employee experiences lead to engaged employees, and engaged employees are eight times more likely to recommend the organization (McLean & Company Employee Engagement Database, 2017; N=74,671).

Retention

Employees who indicate they are having a positive experience at work have a 52% higher level of intent to stay (Great Place To Work Institute, 2021)

The bottom line

Organizations that make employee experience a focus have: 23% higher profitability 10% higher customer loyalty (Achievers, 2021)

Case Study

INDUSTRY: Post-Secondary Education

SOURCE: Adam Grant, “Impact and the Art of Motivation Maintenance: The Effects of Contact with Beneficiaries on Persistence Behavior”

The future is here! Is your data architecture practice ready?

Challenge

A university call center, tasked with raising scholarship money from potential donors, had high employee turnover and low morale.

Solution

A study led by Grant arranged for a test group of employees to meet and interact with a scholarship recipient. In the five-minute meeting, employees learned what the student was studying.

Results

Demonstrating the purpose behind their work had significant returns. Employees who had met with the student demonstrated:

More than two times longer “talk time” with potential donors.

A productivity increase of 400%: the weekly average in donations went from $185.94 to $503.22 for test-group employees.

Enhance your retention strategies

Do not wait until employees leave to find out what they were unhappy with or why they liked the organization. Instead, perform stay interviews with top and core talent to create a holistic understanding of what they are perceiving and feeling.

Conduct stay interviews

What is a stay interview?

A stay interview is a conversation with current employees. It should be performed on a yearly basis and is an informal discussion to generate deeper insight into the employee’s opinions, perspectives, concerns, and complaints. Stay interviews can have a multitude of uses. In this project they will be used to understand why top and core talent chose to stay with the organization to ensure that organizations understand and build upon their current strengths.

When should you do stay interviews?

We recommend completing stay interviews at least on an annual, if not quarterly, basis to truly understand how staff are feeling about the organization and their job, why they stay at the organization, and what would cause them to leave. Couple the outcomes of these interviews with employee engagement action planning to ensure that you are able to address talent needs.

Step 2.3

Conduct stay interviews and learn why employees stay

Activities

2.3.1 Conduct stay interviews

Conduct regular “stay” or “retention” interviews

Build stay interviews into the regular routine. By incorporating stay interviews into your schedule, they are more likely to stick. This regularity provides several advantages:

1. Ensures that retention issues do not take you by surprise. With a finger on the pulse of the organization you will be aware of potential issues.
2. Acts as a supplement to the engagement survey by providing additional information and context for the current level of emotion within the organization.
3. Begins to build a wealth of information that can be analyzed to identify themes and trends. This can be used to track whether the reasons why individuals stay are consistent or if are they changing. This will ensure that the retention strategy remains up to date.

Stay interview best practices:

• Ideally is performed by managers, but can be performed by HR.
• Ideally completed by managers as they are more familiar with their employees, have a greater reach, can hold meetings in a more informal setting, and will receive information first hand.
• If conducted by managers, it’s a best practice to ensure that there is a central repository of themes so that you can identify if there are any trends in the responses, that consistent questions are asked, and that all of the information is in one place
• Should be an informal conversation.
• Should be conducted in a non-critical time in the business year.
• Ask three types of questions:
• What do you enjoy about working here?
• What would you change about your working environment?
• What would encourage or force you to leave the organization?
• Interview a diverse employee base:
• Demographics
• Role
• Performance level
• Location

Source: Talent Management & HT, 2013

Leverage stay interviews

Use Info-Tech’s Stay Interview Guide.

Proactively identify opportunities to drive retention.

The Stay Interview Guide helps managers conduct interviews with current employees, enabling the manager to understand:

• The employee's current engagement level.
• The employee's satisfaction with current role and responsibilities.
• Suggestions for potential improvements.
• An employee's intent to stay with the organization.

Use this template to help you understand how you can best engage your employees and identify any challenges, in terms of moments that mattered, that negatively impacted their intention to stay at the organization.

2.3.1 Conduct stay interviews

1. If you are using the Employee Experience Monitor, prepare for your stay interviews by reviewing your results and identifying if there have been any changes in the results over the previous six weeks. Identify which demographics have the highest and lowest engagement levels – and identify any changes in experience between different demographics.
2. Identify a meeting schedule and cadence that seems appropriate for your stay interviews. For example, you likely will not do all staff at the same time and it may be beneficial to space out your meetings throughout the year. Select a candidate for your first stay interview and invite them for a one-on-one meeting. If it’s unusual for you to meet with this employee, we recommend providing some light context around the rationale, such as that you are looking for opportunities to strengthen the organizational culture and better understand how you can improve retention and engagement at the organization.
3. Download the Stay Interview Template, review all of the questions beforehand, and identify the key questions that you want to ask in the meeting.

• TIP: Even though this is called a “stay interview,” really it should be more of a conversation, and certainly not an interrogation. Know the questions you want to ask, and ask your staff member if it’s ok if you jot down some notes. It may even be beneficial to have the meeting outside of the office, over lunch, or out for coffee.

Download the Stay Interview Guide

Ten tips for best managing stay interviews

Although stay interviews are meant to be informal, you should schedule them as you would any other meeting. Simply invite the employee for a chat.

1. Step out of the office if possible. Opt for your local coffee shop, a casual lunch destination, or another public but informal location.
2. Keep the conversation short, no more than 15 to 20 minutes. If there are any areas of concern that you think warrant action, ask the employee if they would like to discuss them another time. Suggest another meeting to delve deeper into specific issues.
3. Be clear about the purpose of the conversation. Stay interviews are not performance reviews.
4. Focus on what you can do for them. Ask about the employee’s preferences when it comes to feedback and communication (frequency, method, etc.) as well as development (preferences around methods, e.g. coaching or rotations, and personal goals).
5. Be positive. Ask your employee what they like about their job and use positively framed questions.
6. Ask about what they like doing. People enjoy talking about what they like to do. Ask employees about the talents and skills they would like to incorporate into their work duties.
7. Show that you’re listening – paraphrase, ask for clarification, and use appropriate gestures.
8. Refrain from taking notes during the meeting to preserve a conversational atmosphere.
9. Pay attention to the employee’s body language and tone. If it appears that they are uncomfortable talking to you, stop the interview or pause to let them collect themselves.
10. Be open to suggestions, but remember that you can’t control everything. If the employee brings up issues that are beyond your control, tell them that you will do all you can to improve the situation but can’t guarantee anything.

Related Info-Tech Research

Recruit and Retain People of Color in IT

• To stay competitive, IT leaders need to be more involved and commit to a plan to recruit and retain people of color in their departments and organizations. A diverse team is an answer to innovation that can differentiate your company.
• Treat recruiting and retaining a diverse team as a business challenge that requires full engagement. Info-Tech offers a targeted solution that will help IT leaders build a plan to attract, recruit, engage, and retain people of color.

Recruit Top IT Talent

• Changing workforce dynamics and increased transparency have shifted the power from employers to job seekers, stiffening the competition for talent.
• Candidate expectations match high consumer expectations and affect the employer brand, the consumer brand, and overall organizational reputation. Delivering a positive candidate experience (CX2) is no longer optional.

Acquire the Right Hires with Effective Interviewing

• Talk is cheap. Hiring isn’t.
• Gain insight into and understand the need for a strong interview process.
• Strategize and plan your interview process.
• Understand various hiring scenarios and how an interview process may be modified to reflect your organization’s scenario.

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Initiate Digital Accessibility For IT

Make accessibility accessible.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Accessibility is a practice, not a project.

Accessibility is an organizational directive; however, IT plays a fundamental role in its success. As business partners require support and expertise to assist with their accessibility requirements IT needs to be ready to respond. Even if your organization hasn't fully committed to an accessibility standard, you can proactively get ready by planting the seeds to change the culture. By building understanding and awareness of the significant impact technology has on accessibility, you can start to change behaviors.

Implementing an accessibility program requires many considerations: legal requirements; international guidelines, such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG); training for staff; ongoing improvement; and collaborating with accessibility experts and people with disabilities. It can be overwhelming to know where to start. The tendency is to start with compliance, which is a fantastic first step. For a sustained program use, change management practices are needed to change behaviors and build inclusion for people with disabilities.

15% of the world's population identify as having some form of a disability (not including others that are impacted, e.g. caretakers, family). Why would anyone want to alienate over 1.1 billion people?

Heather Leier-Murray
Senior Research Analyst, People & Leadership
Info-Tech Research Group

Disability is part of being human

Merriam-Webster defines disability as a "physical, mental, cognitive, or developmental condition that impairs, interferes with, or limits a person's ability to engage in certain tasks or actions or participate in typical daily activities and interactions."(1)

The World Health Organization points out that a crucial part of the definition of disability is that it's not just a health problem, but the environment impacts the experience and extent of disability. Inaccessibility creates barriers for full participation in society.(2)

The likelihood of you experiencing a disability at some point in your life is very high, whether a physical or mental disability, seen or unseen, temporary or permanent, severe or mild.(2)

Many people acquire disabilities as they age yet may not identify as "a person with a disability."3 Where life expectancies are over 70 years of age, 11.5% of life is spent living with a disability. (4)

"Extreme personalization is becoming the primary difference in business success, and everyone wants to be a stakeholder in a company that provides processes, products, and services to employees and customers with equitable, person-centered experiences and allows for full participation where no one is left out."
– Paudie Healy, CEO, Universal Access

(1.) Merriam-Webster
(2.) World Health Organization, 2022
(3.) Digital Leaders, as cited in WAI, 2018
(4.) Disabled World, as cited in WAI, 2018

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

You know the push for accessibility is coming in your organization. You might even have a program started or approval to build one. But you're not sure if you and your team are ready to support and enable the organization on its accessibility journey.

Common Obstacles

Understanding where to start, where accessibility lives, and if or when you're done can be overwhelmingly difficult. Accessibility is an organizational initiative that IT enables; being able to support the organization requires a level of understanding of common obstacles.

• Determining IT requirements (legal and business needs) is overwhelming.
• Prioritizing people in the process is often overlooked.
• Mandating changes instead of motivating change isn't sustainable.

Info-Tech's Approach

Prepare your people for accessibility and inclusion, even if your organization doesn't have a formal standard yet. Take your accessibility from mandate to movement, i.e. from Phase 1 - focused on compliance to Phase 2 - driven by experience for sustained change.

• Use this blueprint to build your accessibility plan while prioritizing the necessary culture change.
• Use change management and communication practices to elicit the behavior shift needed to sustain accessibility.

Info-Tech Insight

Accessibility is a practice, not a project. Therefore, accessibility is an organizational initiative; however, IT support is critical. Use change management theory to guide the new behaviors, processes, and thinking to adopt accessibility beyond compliance. Determining where to start is challenging because the tendency is to start with tech or compliance; however, starting with the people is key. It must be a change in organizational culture.

Your challenge

This research is designed to help IT leaders who are looking to:

• Determine accessibility requirements of IT based on the business' needs and priorities, and the existing standards and regulations.
• Prepare the IT leaders to implement and sustain accessibility and prepare for the behavior shift that is necessary.
• Build the plan for IT as it pertains to accessibility, including a list of business needs and priorities, and prioritization of accessibility initiatives that IT is responsible for.
• Ensure that accessibility is sustained in the IT department by following phase 2 of this blueprint on using change management and communication to impact behavior and change the culture.

90% of companies claim to prioritize diversity.
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2020

Over 30% of those that claim to prioritize diversity are focused on compliance.
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2022

Accessibility is an organizational initiative

Is IT ready and capable to enable it?

• With increasing rates of lawsuits related to digital accessibility, more organizations are prioritizing initiatives to support increased accessibility. About 68% of Applause's survey respondents indicated that digital accessibility is a higher priority for their organization than it was last year.
• This increase in priority will trickle into IT's tasks – get ahead and start working toward accessibility proactively so you're ready when business requests start coming in.

A survey of nearly 1,800 respondents conducted by Applause found that:

• 79% of respondents rated digital accessibility either a top priority or important for their organizations.
• 42% of respondents indicated they have limited or no in-house expertise or resources to test accessibility.
  Source: Business Wire, May 2022

How organizations prioritize digital accessibility

• 43% rated accessibility as a top priority.
• 36% rated accessibility as important.
• Fewer than 5% rated accessibility as either low priority or not even on the radar.
• More than 65% agreed or strongly agreed that accessibility is a higher priority than last year.

Source: Angel Business Communications, 2022

Why organizations address accessibility

Top three reasons:

1. 61% To comply with laws
2. 62% To provide the best user experience
3. 78% To include people with disabilities
   Source: Level Access, 2022

Still, most businesses aren't meeting compliance standards. Even though legislation has been in place for over 30 years, a 2022 study by WebAIM of 1,000,000 homepages returned a 96.8% WCAG 2.0 failure rate.

Source: Institute for Disability Research, Policy, and Practice, 2022

Info-Tech's approach to Initiate Digital Accessibility

The Info-Tech difference:

1. Phase 1 of this blueprint gets you started and helps you build a plan to get you to the initial compliance driven maturity level. It's focused more on standards and regulations than on the user and employee experience.
2. Phase 2 takes you further in maturity and helps you become experience driven in your efforts. It focuses on building your accessibility maturity into the developing, defined, and managed levels, as well as balancing mandate and movement of the accessibility maturity continuum.

Determining conformance seems overwhelming

Unfortunately, it's the easier part.

• Focus on local regulations and what corporate leaders are setting as accessibility standards for the organization. This will narrow down the scope of what compliance looks like for your team.
• Look to best practices like WCAG guidelines to ensure digital assets are accessible and usable for all users. WCAG's international guideline outlines principles that can also aid in scoping.
• In phase 1 of this blueprint, use the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Toolto prioritize criteria and legislation for which IT is responsible.
• Engage with business partners and other areas of the organization to figure out what is needed from IT. Accessibility is an organizational initiative; it shouldn't be on IT to figure it all out. Determine what your team is specifically responsible for before tackling it all.

Motivating behavior change

This is the hard part.

Changing behaviors and mindsets is necessary to be experience driven and sustain accessibility.

• Compliance is the minimum when it comes to accessibility, much like employment or labor regulations.
• Making accessibility an organizational imperative is an iterative process. Managing the change is hard. People, culture, and behavior change matures accessibility from compliance driven to experience driven, increasing the benefits of accessibility.
• Focus accessibility initiatives on improving the experience of everyone and improving engagement (customer and employee).
• Being people focused and experience driven enables the organization to provide the best user experience and realize the benefits of accessibility.

"Compliance is the minimum. And when we look at web tech, people are still arguing about their positioning on the standards that need to be enforced in order to comply, forgetting that it isn't enough to comply."
-- Jordyn Zimmerman, M.Ed., Director of Professional Development, The Nora Project, and Appointee, President's Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities.

To see more on the Info-Tech Accessibility Maturity Framework:

The Accessibility Business Case for IT

Think of accessibility like you think of IT security

Use IT security concepts to build your accessibility program.

• Risk management: identify and prioritize accessibility risks and implement controls to mitigate those risks.
• Compliance: use an IT security-style compliance approach to ensure that the accessibility program is compliant with the many accessibility regulations and standards.
• Defense in depth: implement multiple layers of accessibility controls to address different types of accessibility risks and issues.
• Response and recovery: quickly and effectively respond to accessibility issues, minimizing the potential impact on the organization and its users.
• End-user education: educate end users about accessibility best practices, such as how to use assistive technologies and how to report accessibility issues.
• Monitor and audit: use monitoring and auditing tools to ensure that accessibility remains over time and to identify and address issues that arise.
• Collaboration: ensure the accessibility program is effective and addresses the needs of all users by collaborating with accessibility experts and people with disabilities.

"As an organization matures, the impact of accessibility shifts. A good company will think of security at the very beginning. The same needs to be applied to accessibility thinking. At the peak of accessibility maturity an organization will have people with disabilities involved at the outset."
-- Cam Beaudoin, Owner, Accelerated Accessibility

Info-Tech's methodology for Initiate Digital Accessibility for IT

Insight summary

Overarching insight

Accessibility is a practice, not a project. Therefore, accessibility is an organizational initiative; however, IT support is critical. Use change management theory to guide the new behaviors, processes, and thinking to adopt accessibility beyond compliance. Determining where to start is challenging. The tendency is to start with tech or compliance; however, starting with the people is key. It must be a change in organizational culture.

Insight 1

Compliance is the minimum; people and behavior changes are the hardest part and have the largest impact on accessibility. Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility makes the necessary behavior changes easier. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.

Insight 2

Think about accessibility like you think about IT security. Use IT security concepts that you and your team are already familiar with to initiate the accessibility program.

Insight 3

People are learning a new way to behave and think; this can be an unsettling period. Patience, education, communication, support, and time are keys for success of the implementation of accessibility. There is a transition period needed; people will gradually change their practices and attitudes. Celebrate small successes as they arise.

Insight 4

Accessibility isn't a project as there is no end. Effective planning and continuous reinforcement of "the new way of doing things" is necessary to enable accessibility as the new status quo.

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals.

IT Manager Meeting Template
Use this meeting slide deck to work with IT managers to build out the accessibility remediation plan and commitment statement.

Departmental Meeting Template
Use this meeting slide deck to introduce the concept of accessibility and communicate IT goals and objectives.

Accessibility Quick Cards
Using the Info-Tech IT Management and Governance Framework to identify key activities to help improve and maintain the accessibility of your organization and your core IT processes.

Key deliverable:

Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool
This tool will assist you in identifying remediation priorities applicable to your organization.

Blueprint benefits

Measure the value of this blueprint

Improve IT effectiveness and employee buy-in to change.

Measuring the effectiveness of your program helps contribute to a culture of continuous improvement. Having consistent measures in place helps to inform decisions and enables your plan to be iterative to take advantage of emerging opportunities.

Monitor employee engagement, overall stakeholder satisfaction with IT, and the overall end-customer satisfaction.

Remember, accessibility is not a project – just because measures are positive does not mean your work is done.

In phase 1 of this blueprint, we will help you establish metrics for your organization.
In phase 2, we will help you develop a sustainment for achieving those metrics.

Info-Tech's IT Metrics Library

Executive brief case study

INDUSTRY: Technology

SOURCE: Microsoft.com
https://blogs.microsoft.com/accessibility/accessib...

Microsoft

Microsoft's accessibility journey starts with the goal of building a culture of accessibility and disability inclusion. They recognize that the starting point for the magnitude of organizational change is People.

"Accessibility in Action Badge"

Every employee at Microsoft is trained on accessibility to build understanding of why and how to be inclusive using accessibility. The program entails 90 minutes of virtual content.

Microsoft treats accessibility and inclusion like a business, managing and measuring it to ensure sustained growth and success. They have worked over the years to bust systemic bias company-wide and to build a program with accessibility criteria that works for their business.

Results

The program Microsoft has built allows them to shift the accessibility lens earlier in their processes and listen to its users' needs. This allows them to continuously mature their accessibility program, which means continuously improving its users' experience.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided implementation

What does a typical guided implementation (GI) on this topic look like?

A GI is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is eight to ten calls over the course of four to six months.

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Phase 1

Planning IT's Accessibility Requirements.

Initiate Digital Accessibility For IT

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Analyzing stakeholders to determine accessibility needs of business for IT.
• Determining accessibility compliance requirements of IT.
• Build a manager communication deck.
• Assess current accessibility compliance and mitigation.
• Prioritize and assign timelines.
• Build a sunrise diagram to visualize your accessibility roadmap.
• Write an IT accessibility commitment statement.

This phase involves the following participants:

• CIO
• IT leadership team
• Business partners in other areas of the organization (e.g., HR, finance, communications)

Step 1.1

Determine the accessibility requirements of IT.

Activities

1.1.1 Determine what the business needs from IT
1.1.2 Complete the Accessibility Maturity Assessment (optional)
1.1.3 Determine IT compliance requirements
1.1.4 Define target state
1.1.5 Create a list of goals and objectives
1.1.6 Finalize key metrics
1.1.7 Prepare a meeting for IT managers

Prepare to support the organization with accessibility

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO
• IT senior leaders
• IT managers
• Business partners in other areas of the organization (e.g., HR, finance, communications)

Outcomes of this step

• Stakeholder analysis with business needs listed
• Defined target future state
• List of goals and objectives
• Key metrics
• Communication deck for IT management rollout meeting

While defining future state, consider your drivers

The Info-Tech Accessibility Maturity Framework identifies three key strategic drivers: compliance, experience, and incorporation.

• Over 30% of organizations are focused on compliance, according to a 2022 survey by Harvard Business Review and Slack's Future Forum. The survey asked more than 10,000 workers in six countries about their organizations' approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).(2)
• Even though 90% of companies claim to prioritize diversity, over 30% are focused on compliance.(1)

1. Harvard Business Review, 2020
2. Harvard Business Review, 2022

Info-Tech accessibility maturity framework

Info-Tech Insight

IT typically works through maturity frameworks from the bottom to the top, progressing at each level until they reach the end. When it comes to IT accessibility initiatives, being especially thorough, thoughtful, and collaborative is critical to success. This will mean spending more time in the Developing, Defined, and Managed levels of maturity rather than trying to reach Optimized as quickly as you can. This may feel contrary to what IT historically considers as a successful implementation.

After initially ensuring your organization is compliant with regulations and standards, you will progress to building disciplined process and consistent standardized processes. Eventually you will build the ability for predictable process, and lastly, you'll optimize by continuously improving.

Depending on the level of maturity you are trying to achieve, it could take months or even years to implement. The important thing to understand, however, is that accessibility work is never done.

At all levels of the maturity framework, you must consider the interconnected aspects of people, process, and technology. However, as the organization progresses, the impact will shift from largely being focused on process and technology improvement to being focused on people.

Align the benefits of program drivers to organizational goals or outcomes

Although there will be various motivating factors, aligning the drivers of your accessibility program provides direction to the program. Connecting the advantages of program drivers to organizational goals builds the confidence of senior leaders and decision makers, increasing the continued commitment to invest in accessibility programming.

Accessibility maturity levels

Cheat sheet: Identify stakeholders

Ask stakeholders, "Who else should I be talking to?" to discover additional stakeholders and ensure you don't miss anyone.

Categorize your stakeholders with a stakeholder prioritization map

A stakeholder prioritization map help teams categorize their stakeholders by their level of influence and ownership.

There are four areas in the map, and the stakeholders within each area should be treated differently.

Players – Players have a high interest in the initiative and high influence to affect change over the initiative. Their support is critical, and a lack of support can cause significant impediment to the objectives. Mediators – Mediators have a low interest but significant influence over the initiative. They can help to provide balance and objective opinions to issues that arise. Noisemakers – Noisemakers have low influence but high interest. They tend to be very vocal and engaged, either positively or negatively, but have little ability to enact their wishes. Spectators – Generally, spectators are apathetic and have little influence over or interest in the initiative.

Strategize to engage stakeholders by type

Each group of stakeholders draws attention and resources away from critical tasks.

By properly identifying your stakeholder groups, you can develop corresponding actions to manage stakeholders in each group. This can dramatically reduce wasted effort trying to satisfy spectators and noisemakers while ensuring the needs of the mediators and players are met.

1.1.1 Determine what the business needs from IT (stakeholder analysis)

1.5 hours

1. Consider all the potential individuals or groups of individuals who will be impacted or influence the accessibility needs of IT.
2. List each of the stakeholders you identify. If in person, use sticky notes to define the target audiences. The individuals or group of individuals that potentially have needs from IT related to accessibility before, during, or after the initiative.
3. As you list each stakeholder, consider how they perceive IT. This perception could impact how you choose to interact with them.
4. For each stakeholder identified as potentially having a business need requirement for IT related to accessibility, conduct an analysis to understand their degree of influence or impact.
5. Based on the stakeholder, the influence or impact of the business need can inform the interaction and prioritization of IT requirements.
6. Update slide 9 of the IT Manager Meeting Template.

Input

• The change
• Why the change is needed
• Key stakeholder map from activity 2.1.1 of The Accessibility Business Case for IT (optional)

Output

• The degree of influence or impact each stakeholder has on accessibility needs from IT

Materials

• Stakeholder Management Analysis Tool (optional)

Participants

• CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
• Business partners

Proactively consider how accessibility could be received

Think about the positive and negative reactions you could face about implementing accessibility.

It's likely individuals will have an emotional reaction to change and may have different emotions at different times during the change process.
Plan for how to leverage support and deal with resistance to change by assessing people's emotional responses:

• What are possible questions, objections, suggestions, and concerns that might arise.
• How will you respond to the possible questions and concerns.
• Include proactive messaging in your communications that address possible objections.
• Express an understanding for others point of views by re-positioning objections and suggestions as questions.

Determine your level of maturity

Use Info-Tech's Accessibility Maturity Assessment.

On the accessibility questionnaire, tab 2, choose the amount you agree or disagree with each statement. Answer the questions based on your knowledge of your current state organizationally.

Once you've answered all the questions, see the results on the tab 3, Accessibility Results. You can see your overall maturity level and the maturity level for each of six dimensions that are necessary to increase the success of an accessibility program.

Click through to tab 4, Recommendations, to see specific recommendations based on your results and proven research to progress through the maturity levels. Keep in mind that not all organizations will or should aspire to the "Optimize" maturity level.

Download the Accessibility Maturity Assessment

1.1.2 Complete the Accessibility Maturity Assessment (optional)

1. Download the Accessibility Maturity Assessment and save it with the date so that as you work on your accessibility program, you can reassess later and track your progress.
2. Once you have saved the assessment, select the appropriate answer for each statement on tab 2, Accessibility Questions, based on your knowledge of the organization's approach.
3. After reviewing all the accessibility statements, see your maturity level results on tab 3, Accessibility Results. Then see tab 4, Recommendations, for suggestions based on your answers.
4. Document your accessibility maturity results on slides 12 and 13 of the IT Manager Meeting Template and slide 17 of the Departmental Meeting Template.
5. Use the maturity assessment results in activity 1.1.3.

Input

• Assess your current state of accessibility by choosing all the statements that apply to your organization

Output

• Identified accessibility maturity level

Materials

• Accessibility Maturity Assessment
• Accessibility Business Case Template

Participants

• Project leader/sponsor
• IT leadership team

1.1.3 Determine IT compliance responsibilities

1-3 hours

Before you start this activity, you may need to discuss with your organization's legal counsel to determine the legislation that applies to your organization.

1. Determine which controls apply to your organization based on your knowledge of the organization goals, stakeholders, and accessibility maturity target. If you haven't determined your current and future state maturity model, use the Info-Tech resource from the Accessibility Business Case for IT(see previous two slides).
2. Using the drop down in column J – Applies to My Org., select "Yes" or "No" for each control on each of the data entry tabs of the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool.
3. For each control you have selected "Yes" for in column J, identify the control owner in column I.
4. Update slide 10 in the IT Manager Meeting Template and slide 13 in the IT Departmental Meeting Template.

Input

• Local, regional, and/or global legislation and guidelines applicable to your organization
• Organizational accessibility standard
• Business needs list
• Completed Accessibility Maturity Assessment (optional)

Output

• List of legislation and standards requirements that are narrowed based on organization need

Materials

• Accessibility Maturity Assessment
• Accessibility Business Case Template

Participants

• CIO/ head of IT/ CAO/ initiative leader
• Legal counsel

Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

1.1.4 Conduct future-state analysis*

Identify your target state of maturity.

1. Provide the group with the accessibility maturity levels to review as well as the slides on the framework and drivers (slides 27-29).
2. Ask the group to brainstorm pain points created by inaccessibility (e.g. challenges related to stakeholders, process issues).
3. Next, discuss opportunities to be gained from improving these practices.
4. Then, have everyone look at the accessibility maturity levels and, based on the descriptions, determine as a group the current maturity level of accessibility in your organization .
5. Next, review the benefits listed on the accessibility maturity levels slide to those that you named in step 3 and determine which maturity level best describes your target state. Discuss as a group and agree on one desired maturity level to reach.
6. Document your current and target states on slide 14 of the IT Manager Meeting Template.

*Note: If you've completed the Accessibility Business Case for IT blueprint you may already have this information compiled. Refer to activities 2.1.2 and 2.1.3.

Input

• Accessibility maturity levels chart, framework, and drivers slides
• Maturity level assessment results (optional)

Output

• Target maturity level documented

Materials

• Paper and pens
• Handouts of maturity levels

Participants

• CIO
• IT senior leaders

What does a good goal look like?

SMART is a common framework for setting effective goals. Make sure your goals satisfy these criteria to ensure you can achieve real results.

Use the SMART framework to build effective goals.

1.1.5 Create a list of goals and objectives*

Use the outcomes from activity 1.2.1.

1. Using the information from activity 1.2.1, develop goals.
2. Remember to use the SMART goal framework to build out each goal (see the previous slide for more information on SMART goals).
3. Ensure each goal supports departmental and organizational goals to ensure it is meaningful.
4. Document your goals and objectives on slides 6 and 9 in your IT Manager Meeting Template.

*Note: If you've completed the Accessibility Business Case for IT blueprint you may already have this information compiled. Refer to activity 2.2.1.

Input

• Outcomes of activity 1.2.1
• Organizational and departmental goals

Output

• Accessibility goals and objectives identified

Materials

• n/a

Participants

• CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
• IT senior leaders

Establish baseline metrics

Baseline metrics will be improved through:

1. Progressing through the accessibility maturity model.
2. Addressing accessibility earlier in processes with input from people with disabilities.
3. Motivating behavior changes and culture that supports accessibility and disability inclusion.
4. Ensuring compliance with regulations and standards.
5. Focusing on experience and building a disability inclusive culture.

1.1.6 Finalize key metrics*

Finalize key metrics the organization will use to measure accessibility success.

1. Brainstorm how you will measure the success of each goal you identified in the previous activity, based on the benefits, challenges, and risks you previously identified.
2. Write each of the metric ideas down and finalize three to five key metrics which you will track. The metrics you choose should relate to the key challenges or risks you have identified and match your desired maturity level and driver.
3. Document your key metrics on slide 15 of your IT Manager Meeting Templateand slide 23 of the Departmental Meeting Template.

Input

• Accessibility challenges and benefits
• Goals from activity 1.2.2

Output

• Three to five key metrics to track

Materials

• n/a

Participants

• IT leadership team
• Project lead/sponsor

*Note: If you've completed the Accessibility Business Case for IT blueprint you may already have this information compiled. Refer to activity 2.2.2.

Use Info-Tech's template to communicate with IT managers

Cascade messages down to IT managers next. This ensures they will have time to internalize the change before communicating it to others.

Communicate with and build the accessibility plan with IT managers by customizing Info-Tech's IT Manager Meeting Template, which is designed to effectively convey your key messages. Tailor the template to suit your needs.

It includes:

• Project scope and objectives
• Current state analysis
• Compliance planning
• Commitment statement drafting

Download the IT Manager Meeting Template

Info-Tech Insight

Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility make the necessary behavior changes easier.

1.1.7 Prepare a meeting for IT managers

Now that you understand your current and desired accessibility maturity, the next step is to communicate with IT managers and begin planning your initiatives.

Know your audience:

1. Consider who will be included in your presentation audience.
2. You want your presentation to be succinct and hard-hitting. Managers are under huge demands and time is tight, they will lose interest if you drag out the delivery.
3. Contain the presentation and planning activities to no more than an afternoon. You want to ensure adequate time for questions and answers, as well as the planning activities necessary to inform the roll out to the larger IT department later.
4. Schedule a meeting with the IT managers.

Download the IT Manager Meeting Template

Input

• Activity results

Output

• A completed presentation to communicate your accessibility initiatives to IT managers

Materials

• IT Manager Meeting Template

Participants

• CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
• IT senior leaders
• IT managers

Step 1.2

Build the IT accessibility action plan.

Activities

1.2.1 Assess current accessibility compliance and mitigation

1.2.2 Decide on your priorities

1.2.3 Add priorities to the roadmap

1.2.4 Write an IT accessibility commitment statement

Planning IT's accessibility requirements

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
• IT senior leaders
• IT managers

Outcomes of this step

• Priority controls and mitigation list with identified control owners.
• IT accessibility commitment statement.
• Draft visualization of roadmap/sunrise diagram.

Involve managers in assessing current compliance

To know what work needs to happen you need to know what's already happening.

Use the spreadsheet from activity 1.1.3 where you identified which controls apply to your organization.

Have managers work in groups to identify which controls (of the applicable ones) are currently being met and which ones have an existing mitigation plan.

Info-Tech Insight

Based on EN 301 549 V3.2.1 (2021-03) as a basis for digital accessibility conformance. This tool is designed to assist you in building a priorities list of requirements that are applicable to your organization. EN 301 549 is currently the most robust accessibility regulation and encompasses other regulations within it. Although EN 301 549 is the European Standard, other countries are leaning on it as the standard they aspire to as well.

1.2.1 Assess current accessibility compliance and mitigation

1-3 hours

1. Share the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool with the IT leaders and managers during the meeting with IT management that you scheduled in activity 1.1.7.
2. Break into smaller groups (or if too small, continue as a single group):
   1. Divide up the controls between the small groups to work on assessing current compliance and mitigation plans.
   2. For each control that is identified as applying to your organization, identify if there currently is compliance by selecting "yes" from the drop-down. For controls where the organization is not compliant, select "no" and identify if there is a mitigation plan in place by selecting "yes" or "no" in column L.
   3. Use the comments column to add any pertinent information regarding the control.

Input

• List of IT compliance requirements applicable to the org. from activities 1.1.2 and 1.1.3

Output

• List of IT compliance requirements that have current compliance or mitigation plans

Materials

• Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

Participants

• CIO
• IT senior leaders
• IT managers

Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

Involve managers in building accountability into the accessibility plan

Building accountability into your compliance tracking will help ensure accessibility is prioritized.

Use the spreadsheet from activity 1.3.1.

Have managers work in the same groups to prioritize controls by assigning a quarterly timeline for compliance.

1.2.2 Decide on your priorities

1-3 hours

1. In the same groups used in activity 1.2.1, prioritize the list of controls that have no compliance and no mitigation plan.
2. As you work through the spreadsheet again, assign a timeline using the drop-down menu in column M for each control that applies to the organization and has no current compliance. Consider the following in your prioritization:
   1. Does the control impact customers or is it public-facing?
   2. What are the business needs related to accessibility?
   3. Does the team currently have the skills and knowledge needed to address the control?
   4. What future state accessibility maturity are you targeting?
3. Be prepared to review with the larger group.

Input

• List from activity 1.2.1
• Business needs from activity 1.1.1

Output

• List of IT compliance requirements with accountability timelines

Materials

• Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

Participants

• CIO
• IT senior leaders
• IT managers

Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

Review your timeline

Don't overload your team. Make sure the timelines assigned in the breakout groups make sense and are realistic.

Download the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Tool

Empty roadmap template

1.2.3 Add priorities to the roadmap

1 hour

1. Using the information entered in the compliance tracking spreadsheet during activities 1.2.1 and 1.2.2, build a visual representation to capture your strategic initiatives over time, using themes and timelines. Consider group initiatives in four categories, technology, people, process, and other.
2. Copy and paste the controls onto the roadmap from the Accessibility Compliance Tracking Toolto the desired time quadrant on the roadmap.
3. Set your desired timelines by changing the Q1-Q4 blocks (set the timelines that make sense for your situation).

Input

• Output of activity 1.2.2
• Roadmap template
• Other departmental project plans and timelines

Output

• Visual roadmap of accessibility compliance controls

Materials

• n/a

Participants

• CIO
• IT senior leaders
• IT managers

Communicate commitment

Support people leaders in leading by example with an accessibility commitment statement.

A commitment statement communicates why accessibility and disability inclusion are important and guides behaviors toward the ideal state. The statement will guide and align work, build accountability, and acknowledge the dedication of the leadership team to accessibility and disability inclusion. The statement will:

• Publicly commit the team to fostering disability inclusivity.
• Highlight related values and goals of the team or organization.
• Set expectations.
• Help build trust and increase feelings of belonging.
• Connect the necessary changes (people, process, and technology related) to organization strategy.

Take action! Writing the statement is only the first step. It takes more than words to build accessibility and make your work environment more disability inclusive.

Info-Tech Insight

Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility make the necessary behavior changes easier.

Sample accessibility commitment statements

theScore

"theScore strives to provide products and services in a way that respects the dignity and independence of persons with disabilities. We are committed to giving persons with disabilities the same opportunity to access our products and services and allowing them to benefit from the same services, in the same place and in a similar way as other clients. We are also committed to meeting the needs of persons with disabilities in a timely manner, and we will meet applicable legislative requirements for preventing and removing barriers."(1)

Apple Canada

"Apple Canada is committed to ensuring equal access and participation for people with disabilities. Apple Canada is committed to treating people with disabilities in a way that allows them to maintain their dignity and independence. Apple Canada believes in integration and is committed to meeting the needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner. Apple Canada will do so by removing and preventing barriers to accessibility and meeting accessibility requirements under the AODA and provincial and federal laws across Canada." (2)

Google Canada

"We are committed to meeting the accessibility needs of people with disabilities in a timely manner, and will do so by identifying, preventing and removing barriers to accessibility, and by meeting the accessibility requirements under the AODA." (3)

Source 1: theScore
Source 2: Apple Canada
Source 3: Google Canada.

1.2.4 Write an IT accessibility commitment statement

45 minutes

1. As a group, brainstorm the key reasons and necessity for disability inclusion and accessibility for your organization, and the drivers and behaviors required. Record the ideas brainstormed by the group.
2. Break into smaller groups or pairs (or if too small, continue as a single group):
   • Each group uses the brainstormed ideas to draft an accessibility commitment statement.
3. Each smaller group shares their statement with the larger group and receives feedback. Smaller groups redraft their statements based on the feedback.
4. Post each redrafted statement and provide each person two dot stickers to place on the two statements that resonate the most with them.
5. Using the two statements with the highest number of dot votes, write the final accessibility commitment statement.
6. Add the commitment statement to slide 18 of the Departmental Meeting Template.

Input

• Business objectives
• Risks related to accessibility
• Target future accessibility maturity

Output

• IT accessibility commitment statement

Materials

• Whiteboard/flip charts
• Dot stickers or other voting mechanism

Participants

• CIO
• IT senior leaders
• IT managers

Phase 2

Change Enablement for Accessibility.

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Clarifying key messages
• IT department accessibility presentation
• Establishing a frequency and timeframe for communications
• Obtaining feedback
• Sustainment plan

This phase involves the following participants:

• CIO
• IT senior leaders
• IT managers
• Other key business stakeholders
• Marketing and communications team

Be experience driven

Building awareness and focusing on experience helps move along the accessibility maturity framework. Shifting from mandate to movement.

In this phase, start to move beyond compliance. Build the IT team's understanding of accessibility, disability inclusion, and their role.
Communicate the following messages to your team:

• The motivation behind the change.
• The reasons for the change.
• And encourage feedback.

Info-Tech Accessibility Maturity Framework

Info-Tech Insight

Compliance is the minimum; the people and behavior changes are the harder part and have the largest impact on accessibility. Preparing for and building awareness of the reasons for accessibility make the necessary behavior changes easier. Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more.

What is an organizational change?

Before communicating, understand the degree of change.

Consider the various impacts of the change

Invest time at the start to develop a detailed understanding of the impact of the change. This will help to create a plan that will simplify the change and save time. Evaluate the impact from a people, process, and technology perspective.

Leverage a design thinking principle: Empathize with the stakeholder – what will change?

Change depends on how well people understand it

Help people internalize what they can do to make the organization more inclusive.

Anticipate responses to change:

1. Emotional reaction – different people require different styles of management to guide them through the change. Individual's may have different emotions at different times during the change process. The more easily you can identify persona characteristics, the better you can manage them.
2. Level of impact – the higher level of change on an individual's day-to-day, the more difficult it will be to adjust to the change. The more impactful the change, the more time focused on people management.

Quickly assess the size of change by answering these questions:

1. Will the change affect your staff's daily work?
2. Is the change high urgency?
3. Is there a change in reporting relationships?
4. Is there a change in skills required for staff to be successful?
5. Will the change modify entrenched cultural practices?
6. Is there a change in the mission or vision of the role?

If you answered "Yes" to two or more questions, the change is bigger than you think. Your staff will feel the impact.

Ensure effective communication by focusing on four key elements

1. Audience

• Stakeholders (either groups or individuals) who will receive the communication.

• Person who delivers the communication to the audience. The communicator and owner are two different things.

Step 2.1

Build awareness and define key messages for IT.

This step involves the following participants:

• IT leadership team
• Marketing/communications (optional)

Outcomes of this step

• Key accessibility messages

Determine the desired outcome of communicating within IT

This phase is focused on communicating within IT. All communication has an overall goal. This outcome or purpose of communicating is often dependent on the type of influence the stakeholder wields within the organization as well as the type of impact the change will have on them. Consider each of the communication outcomes listed below.

Communicating within IT

• Obtain buy-in
• Inform about the IT change
• Create a training plan
• Inform about department changes
• Inform about organization changes
• Inform about a crisis
• Obtain adoption related to the change
• Distribute key messages to change agents

Departmental Meeting Template

Accessibility Quick Cards

Establish and define key messages based on organizational objectives

What are key messages?

1. Key messages guide all internal communications to ensure they are consistent, unified, and straightforward.
2. Distill key messages down from organizational objectives and use them to reinforce the organization's strategic direction. Key messages should inspire employees to act in a way that will help the organization reach its objectives.

How to establish key messages

Ground key messages in organizational strategy and culture. These should be the first places you look to determine the organization's key messages:

• Refer to organizational strategy documents. What needs to be reinforced in internal communications to ensure the organization can achieve its strategy? This is a key message.
• Look at the organization's values. How do values guide how work should be done? Do employees need to behave in a certain way or keep a certain value top of mind? This is a key message.

The intent of key messages is to convey important information in a way that is relatable and memorable, to promote reinforcement, and ultimately, to drive action.

Info-Tech Insight

Empathizing with the audience is key to anticipating and addressing objections as well as identifying benefits. Customize messaging based on audience attributes such as work model (e.g. hybrid), anticipated objections, what's in it for me?, and specific expectations.

2.1.1 Clarify the key messages

30 minutes

1. Brainstorm the key stakeholders and target audiences you will likely need to communicate with to sustain the accessibility initiative (depending on the size of your group, you might break into pairs or smaller groups and each work on one target audience).
2. Based on the outcome expected from engaging the target audience in communications, define one to five key messages that should be expressed about accessibility.
3. The key messages should highlight benefits anticipated, concerns anticipated, details about the change, plan of action, or next steps. The goal here is to ensure the target audience is included in the communication process.
4. The key messages should be focused on how the target audience receives a consistent message, especially if different communication messengers are involved.
5. Document the key messages on Tab 3 of the Communications Planner Tool.

Download the Communications Planner Tool

Input

• The change
• Target audience
• Communication outcomes

Output

• Key messages to support a consistent approach

Materials

• Communications Planner Tool
• Sticky notes
• Whiteboard

Participants

• IT leadership team
• Marketing/communications partner (optional)

Step 2.2

Support new behaviors.

Activities

2.2.1 Prepare for IT department meeting

2.2.2 Practice delivery of your presentation

2.2.3 Hold department meeting

This step involves the following participants:

• Entire IT department

Outcomes of this step

• IT departmental meeting slides
• Accessibility quick cards
• Task list of how each IT team will support the accessibility roadmap

Key questions to answer with change communication

To effectively communicate change, answer questions before they're asked, whenever possible. To do this, outline at each stage of the change process what's happening next for the audience, as well as answer other anticipated questions. Pair key questions with core messages.

Examples of key questions by change stage include:

2.2.1 Prepare for the IT departmental meeting

2 hours

1. Download the IT Department Presentation Template and follow the instructions on each slide to update for your organization.
2. Insert information on the current accessibility maturity level. If you haven't determined your current and future state maturity level, use the Info-Tech resource from The Accessibility Business Case for IT.
3. Review the presentation with the information added.
4. Consider what could be done to make the presentation better:
   1. Concise: Identify opportunities to remove unnecessary information.
   2. Clear: It uses only terms or language the target audience would understand.
   3. Relevant: It matters to the target audience and the problems they face.
   4. Consistent: The message could be repeated across audiences.
5. Schedule a departmental meeting or add the presentation to an existing departmental meeting.

Download the Departmental Presentation Template

Input

• Organizational accessibility risks
• Accessibility maturity current state
• Outputs from manager presentation
• Key messages

Output

• Prepared presentation to introduce accessibility to the entire IT department

Materials

• Departmental Presentation Template

Participants

• CIO/ head of IT/ CAO/ initiative leader

Hone presentation skills before meeting with key stakeholders

Using voice and body

Think about the message you are trying to convey and how your body can support that delivery. Hands, stance, frame – all have an impact on what might be conveyed.

If you want your audience to lean in and be eager about your next point, consider using a pause or softer voice and volume.

Be professional and confident

State the main points of your presentation confidently. While this should be obvious, it is essential. Your audience should be able to clearly see that you believe the points you are stating.

Present in a way that is genuine to you and your voice. Whether you have an energetic personality or calm and composed personality, the presentation should be authentic to you.

Connect with your audience

Look each member of the audience in the eye at least once during your presentation. Avoid looking at the ceiling, the back wall, or the floor. Your audience should feel engaged – this is essential to keeping their attention.

Avoid reading from your slides. If there is text on a slide, paraphrase it while maintaining eye contact.

Info-Tech Insight

You are responsible for the response of your audience. If they aren't engaged, it is on you as the communicator.

2.2.2 Practice delivery of your presentation and schedule department meeting

45 minutes

1. Take ten minutes to think about how to deliver your presentation. Where will you emphasize words, speak louder, softer, lean in, stand tall, make eye contact, etc.?
2. Set a timer on your phone or watch. Record yourself if possible.
3. Take a few seconds to center yourself and prepare to deliver your pitch.
4. Practice delivery of your presentation out loud. Don't forget to use your body language and your voice to deliver.
5. Listen to the recording. Are the ideas communicated correctly? Are you convinced?
6. Review and repeat.

Input

• Presentation deck from activity 2.2.1
• Best practices for delivering

Output

• An ability to deliver the presentation in a clear and concise manner that creates understanding

Materials

• Recorder
• Timer

Participants

• CIO/ head of IT/ initiative leader

2.2.3 Lead the IT department meeting

1–2 hours

1. Gather the IT department in a manner appropriate for your organization and facilitate the meeting prepared in activity 2.2.1.
2. Within the meeting, capture all key action items and outcomes from the Quick Cards Development and Roadmap Planning.
3. Following the meeting, review the quick cards that everyone built and share these with all IT participants.
4. Update your sunrise diagram to include any initiatives that came up in the team meetings to support moving to experiential.

Input

• Presentation deck from activity 2.2.1

Output

• A shared understanding of accessibility at your organization and everyone's role
• Area task list (including behavior change needs)
• Accessibility quick cards

Materials

• Accessibility Quick Cards template

Participants

• CIO/ head of IT/ initiative leader

Download the Accessibility Quick Cards template

Step 2.3

Continuous reinforcement – keep the conversation going – sustain the change.

Activities

2.3.1 Establish a frequency and timeframe for communications

2.3.2 Obtain feedback and improve

2.3.3 Sustainment plan

This step involves the following participants:

• CIO/ head of IT/ initiative lead
• IT leadership team

Outcomes of this step

• Assigned roles for ongoing program monitoring
• Communication plan
• Accessibility maturity monitoring plan
• Program evaluation

Communication is ongoing before, during, and after implementing a change initiative

Just because you've rolled out the plan doesn't mean you can stop talking about it.

Don't forget: Cascade messages down through the organization to ensure those who need to deliver messages have time to internalize the change before communicating it to others. Include a mix of personal and organizational messages, but where possible, separate personal and organizational content into different communications.

2.3.1 Establish a frequency and timeframe

30 minutes

1. For each row in Tab 3, determine how frequently that communication needs to take place and when that communication needs to be completed by.
   • Frequency: How often the communication will be delivered to the audience (e.g. one-time, monthly, as needed).
   • Timeframe: When the communication will be delivered to the audience (e.g. a planned period or a specific date).
2. When selecting the timeframe, consider what dependencies need to take place prior to that communication. For example, IT employees should not be communicated with on anything that has not yet been approved by the CEO. Also consider when other communications might be taking place so that the message is not lost in the noise.
3. For frequency, the only time that a communication needs to take place once is when presenting up to senior leaders of the organizations. And even then, it will sometimes require more than one conversation. Be mindful of this.

Input

• The change
• Target audience
• Communication outcome
• Communication channel

Output

• Frequency and timeframe of the communication

Materials

• Communications Planner Tool
• Sticky notes
• Whiteboard

Participants

• Changes based on those who would be relevant to your initiative

Download the Communications Planner Tool

Ensure feedback mechanisms are in place

Soliciting and acting on feedback involves employees in the decision-making process and demonstrates to them that their contributions matter.

Make sure you have established feedback mechanisms to collect feedback on both the messages delivered and how they were delivered. Some ways to collect feedback include:

• Evaluating intranet comments and interactions (e.g. likes, etc.) if this function is enabled.
• Measuring comprehension and satisfaction through surveys and polls.
• Looking for themes in the feedback and questions employees bring forward to managers during in-person briefings.

Feedback Mechanisms:

• CIO business vision survey
• Engagement surveys
• Focus groups
• Suggestion boxes
• Team meetings
• Random sampling
• Informal feedback
• Direct feedback
• Audience body language
• Repeating the message back

Gather feedback on plan and iterate

Who

The project team gathers feedback from:

• As many members of impacted groups as possible, as it helps build broad buy-in for the plan.
• All levels (e.g. frontline employees, managers, directors).

What

Gather feedback on:

• How to implement tactics successfully.
• The timing of implementation (helps inform the next slide).
• The resources required (helps inform the next slide).
• Potential unforeseen impacts, questions, and concerns.

How

• Use focus groups to gather feedback.
• Adjust sustainment plan based on feedback.

Use Info-Tech's Standard Focus Group Guide

2.3.2 Obtain feedback and improve

20 minutes

1. Evenly distribute the number of rows in the communication plan to all those involved. Consider a metric that would help inform whether the communication outcome was achieved.
2. For each row, identify a feedback mechanism (slide 75) that could be used to enable the collection and confirm a successful outcome.
3. Come back as a group and validate the feedback mechanisms selected.
4. The important aspect here is not just to measure if the desired outcome was achieved. If the desired outcome is not achieved, consider what you might do to change or enable better communication to that target audience.
5. Every communication can be better. Feedback, whether it be tactical or strategic, will help inform methods to improve future communication activities.

Input

• Communication outcome
• Target audience
• Communication channel

Output

• A mechanism to measure communication feedback and adjust future communications when necessary

Materials

• Communications Planner Tool
• Sticky notes
• Whiteboard

Participants

• Changes based on those who would be relevant to your initiative

Download the Communications Planner Tool

Identify owners and assign other roles

• Eventually there needs to be a hand off to leaders to sustain accessibility. Senior leaders continue to play the role of guide and facilitator, helping the team identify owners and transfer ownership.
• Guide the team to work with owners to assign roles to other stakeholders. Spread responsibility across multiple people to avoid overload.

Identify required resources and secure budget

Sustainment is critical to success of accessibility

• This step (i.e. sustainment) often gets overlooked because leaders are focused on the implementation. It takes resources and budget to sustain a plan and change as well.
• Resorting to the old way is more likely to occur when you don't plan to support sustainment with ongoing resources and budget that's required.

Resources

Identify resources required for sustainment components using metrics and input from implementation owners, subject matter experts, and frontline managers.

For example:

• Inventory
• Collateral for communications
• Technology
• Physical space
• People resources (FTE)

Budget

Estimate the budget required for resources based on past projects that used similar resources, and then estimate the time it will take until the change evolves into "business as usual" (e.g. 6 months, 12 months).

Monitor accessibility maturity

If you haven't already performed the Accessibility Maturity Assessment, complete it in the wake of the accessibility initiative to assess improvements and progress toward target future accessibility maturity.
As your accessibility program starts to scale out over a range of projects, revisit the assessment on a quarterly or bi-annual basis to help focus your improvement efforts across the six accessibility categories.

• Vendor relations
• Products and services
• Policy and process
• Support and accommodation
• Communication
• People and culture

Info-Tech Insight

To drive continual improvement of your organizational accessibility and disability inclusion, continue to share progress, wins, challenges, feedback, and other accessibility related concerns with stakeholders. At the end of the day, IT's efforts to become a change leader and support organizational accessibility will come down to stakeholder perceptions based upon employee morale and benefits realized.

Download the Accessibility Maturity Assessment

Evaluate and iterate the program on an ongoing basis

1. Continually monitor the results of project metrics.
   • Track progress toward goals and metrics set at the beginning of the initiative to gauge the success of the program.
   • Analyze metrics at the work-unit level to highlight successes and challenges in accessibility and disability inclusion and the parameters around it for each impacted unit.
2. Regularly gather feedback on program effectiveness using questions such as:
   • Has the desired culture been effectively communicated and leveraged, or has the culture changed?
   • Collect feedback through regular channels (e.g. manager check-ins) and set up a cadence to survey employees on the program (e.g. three months after rollout and then annually).
3. Determine if changes to the program structure are needed.
   • Revisit the accessibility maturity framework and the compliance requirements of IT. Understand what is being experienced; it may be necessary to select a different target or adjust the parameters to mitigate the common challenges.
   • Evaluate the effectiveness of current internal processes to determine if the program would benefit from a dedicated resource.

2.3.3 Sustain the change

1. Identify who will own what pieces of the program going forward and assign roles to transition the initiative from implementation to the new normal.
2. Continue to communicate with stakeholders about accessibility and disability inclusion initiatives, controls, and requirements.
3. Identify required resources and secure any budget that will be needed to support the accessibility program. Think about employee training, consulting needs, assistive technology requirements, human resources (FTE), etc.
4. Continue to monitor your accessibility maturity. Use the Accessibility Maturity Assessment tool to periodically evaluate progress on goals and targets. Also, use this tool to communicate progress with senior leaders and executives.
5. Strive for continuous improvement by evaluating and iterating the program on an ongoing basis.

Input

• Activity outputs from this blueprint

Output

• Ongoing continuous improvement and progress related to accessibility
• Demonstrable results

Materials

• n/a

Participants

• CIO/ head of IT/ initiative Lead
• IT senior leaders
• IT managers

Related Info-Tech Research

The Accessibility Business Case for IT

• Take away the overwhelm that many feel when they hear "accessibility" and make the steps for your organization approachable.
• Clearly communicate why accessibility is critical and how it supports the organization's key objectives and initiatives.
• Understand your current state related to accessibility and identify areas for key initiatives to become part of the IT strategic roadmap.

Lead Staff through Change

• Anticipate and respond to staff questions about the change in order to keep messages consistent, organized, and clear.
• Manage staff based on their specific concerns and change personas to get the best out of your team during the transition through change.
• Maintain a feedback loop between staff, executives, and other departments in order to maintain the change momentum and reduce angst throughout the process.

IT Diversity and Inclusion Tactics

• Although inclusion is key to the success of a diversity and inclusion (D&I) strategy, the complexity of the concept makes it a daunting pursuit.
• This is further complicated by the fact that creating inclusion is not a one-and-done exercise. Rather, it requires the ongoing commitment of employees and managers to reassess their own behaviors and to drive a cultural shift.

Implement and Mature Your User Experience Design Practice

• Create a practice that is focused on human outcomes; it starts and ends with the people you are designing for. This includes:
• Establishing a practice with a common vision.
• Enhancing the practice through four design factors.
• Communicating a roadmap to improve your business through design.

Works cited

"2021 State of Digital Accessibility." Level Access, n.d. Accessed 10 Aug. 2022
"Apple Canada Accessibility Policy & Plan." Apple Canada, 11 March 2019. .
Casey, Caroline. "Do Your D&I Efforts Include People With Disabilities?" Harvard Business Review, 19 March 2020. Accessed 28 July 2022.
Digitalisation World. "Organisations failing to meet digital accessibility standards." Angel Business Communications, 19 May 2022. Accessed Oct. 2022.
"disability." Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, . Accessed 10 Aug. 2022.
"Disability." World Health Organization, 2022. Accessed 10 Aug 2022.
"Google Canada Corporation Accessibility Policy and Multi Year Plan." Google Canada, June 2020. .
Hypercontext. "The State of High Performing Teams in Tech 2022." Hypercontext. 2022..
Lay-Flurrie, Jenny. "Accessibility Evolution Model: Creating Clarity in your Accessibility Journey." Microsoft, 2023. <https://blogs.microsoft.com/accessibility/accessibility-evolution-model/>.
Maguire, Jennifer. "Applause 2022 Global Accessibility Survey Reveals Organizations Prioritize Digital Accessibility but Fall Short of Conformance with WCAG 2.1 Standards." Business Wire, 19 May 2022. . Accessed 2 January 2023.
"The Business Case for Digital Accessibility." W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), 9 Nov. 2018. Accessed 4 Aug. 2022.
"THESCORE's Commitment to Accessibility." theScore, May 2021. .
"The WebAIM Million." Web AIM, 31 March 2022. Accessed 28 Jul. 2022.
Washington, Ella F. "The Five Stages of DEI Maturity." Harvard Business Review, November - December 2022. Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.
Web AIM. "The WebAIM Million." Institute for Disability Research, Policy, and Practice, 31 March 2022. Accessed 28 Jul. 2022.

Deliver Digital Products at Scale

Deliver value at the scale of your organization through defining enterprise product families.

Analyst Perspective

Product families align enterprise goals to product changes and value realization.

Our world is changing faster than ever, and the need for business agility continues to grow. Organizations are shifting from long-term project delivery to smaller, iterative product delivery models to be able to embrace change and respond to challenges and opportunities faster.

Unfortunately, many organizations focus on product delivery at the tactical level. Product teams may be individually successful, but how well are their changes aligned to division and enterprise goals and priorities?

Grouping products into operationally aligned families is key to delivering the right value to the right stakeholders at the right time.

Product families translate enterprise goals, constraints, and priorities down to the individual product level so product owners can make better decisions and more effectively manage their roadmaps and backlogs. By scaling products into families and using product family roadmaps to align product roadmaps, product owners can deliver the capabilities that allow organizations to reach their goals.

In this blueprint, we’ll provide the tools and guidance to help you define what “product” means to your organization, use scaling patterns to build product families, align product and product family roadmaps, and identify impacts to your delivery and organizational design models.

Banu Raghuraman, Ari Glaizel, and Hans Eckman

Applications Practice

Info-Tech Research Group

Deliver Digital Products at Scale

Deliver value at the scale of your organization through defining enterprise product families.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

• Products are the lifeblood of an organization. They deliver the capabilities needed to deliver value to customers, internal users, and stakeholders.
• The shift to becoming a product organization is intended to continually increase the value you provide to the broader organization as you grow and evolve.
• You need to clearly convey the direction and strategy of your product portfolio to gain alignment, support, and funding from your organization.

Common Obstacles

• IT organizations are traditionally organized to deliver initiatives in specific periods of time. This conflicts with product delivery, which continuously delivers value over the lifetime of a product.
• Delivering multiple products together creates additional challenges because each product has its own pedigree, history, and goals.
• Product owners struggle to prioritize changes to deliver product value. This creates a gap and conflict between product and enterprise goals.

Info-Tech’s Approach

Info-Tech’s approach will guide you through:

• Understanding the importance of product families in scaling product delivery.
• Defining products in your context and organizing products into operational families.
• Using product family roadmaps to align product roadmaps to enterprise goals and priorities.
• Evaluating the different approaches to improve your product family delivery pipelines and milestones.

Info-Tech Insight

Changes can only be made at the individual product or service level. To achieve enterprise goals and priorities, organizations needed to organize and scale products into operational families. This structure allows product managers to translate goals and constraints to the product level and allows product owners to deliver changes that support enabling capabilities. In this blueprint, we’ll help you define your products, scale them using the best patterns, and align your roadmaps and delivery models to improve throughput and value delivery.

Info-Tech’s approach

Operationally align product delivery to enterprise goals

The Info-Tech difference:

1. Start by piloting product families to determine which approaches work best for your organization.
2. Create a common definition of what a product is and identify products in your inventory.
3. Use scaling patterns to build operationally aligned product families.
4. Develop a roadmap strategy to align families and products to enterprise goals and priorities.
5. Use products and families to evaluate delivery and organizational design improvements.

Deliver Digital Products at Scale via Enterprise Product Families

Product does not mean the same thing to everyone

Do not expect a universal definition of products.

Every organization and industry has a different definition of what a product is. Organizations structure their people, processes, and technologies according to their definition of the products they manage. Conflicting product definitions between teams increase confusion and misalignment of product roadmaps.

“A product [is] something (physical or not) that is created through a process and that provides benefits to a market.”

- Mike Cohn, Founding Member of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance

“A product is something ... that is created and then made available to customers, usually with a distinct name or order number.”

- TechTarget

“A product is the physical object ... , software or service from which customer gets direct utility plus a number of other factors, services, and perceptions that make the product useful, desirable [and] convenient.”

- Mark Curphey

Organizations need a common understanding of what a product is and how it pertains to the business. This understanding needs to be accepted across the organization.

“There is not a lot of guidance in the industry on how to define [products]. This is dangerous because what will happen is that product backlogs will be formed in too many areas. All that does is create dependencies and coordination across teams … and backlogs.”

– Chad Beier, "How Do You Define a Product?” Scrum.org

What is a product?

“A tangible solution, tool, or service (physical or digital) that enables the long-term and evolving delivery of value to customers and stakeholders based on business and user requirements.”

Info-Tech Insight

A proper definition of product recognizes three key facts:

1. Products are long-term endeavors that don’t end after the project finishes.
2. Products are not just “apps” but can be software or services that drive the delivery of value.
3. There is more than one stakeholder group that derives value from the product or service.

Products and services share the same foundation and best practices

For the purpose of this blueprint, product/service and product owner/service owner are used interchangeably. Product is used for consistency but would apply to services as well.

Product = Service

“Product” and “service” are terms that each organization needs to define to fit its culture and customers (internal and external). The most important aspect is consistent use and understanding of:

• External products
• Internal products
• External services
• Internal services
• Products as a service (PaaS)
• Productizing services (SaaS)

Recognize the different product owner perspectives

Business:

• Customer facing, revenue generating

Technical:

• IT systems and tools

Operations:

• Keep the lights on processes

Info-Tech Best Practice

Product owners must translate needs and constraints from their perspective into the language of their audience. Kathy Borneman, Digital Product Owner at SunTrust Bank, noted the challenges of finding a common language between lines of business and IT (e.g. what is a unit?).

Info-Tech Insight

Recognize that product owners represent one of three primary perspectives. Although all share the same capabilities, how they approach their responsibilities is influenced by their perspective.

“A Product Owner in its most beneficial form acts like an Entrepreneur, like a 'mini-CEO'. The Product Owner is someone who really 'owns' the product.”

– Robbin Schuurman, “Tips for Starting Product Owners”

Identify the differences between a project-centric and a product-centric organization

Info-Tech Insight

Product delivery requires significant shifts in the way you complete development work and deliver value to your users. Make the changes that support improving end-user value and enterprise alignment.

Projects can be a mechanism for delivering product changes and improvements

Projects within products

Regardless of whether you recognize yourself as a product-based or project-based shop, the same basic principles should apply. The purpose of projects is to deliver the scope of a product release. The shift to product delivery leverages a product roadmap and backlog as the mechanism for defining and managing the scope of the release. Eventually, teams progress to continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) where they can release on demand or as scheduled, requiring org change management.

Define product value by aligning backlog delivery with roadmap goals

In each product plan, the backlogs show what you will deliver. Roadmaps identify when and in what order you will deliver value, capabilities, and goals.

Product roadmaps guide delivery and communicate your strategy

In Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision, we demonstrate how the product roadmap is core to value realization. The product roadmap is your communicated path, and as a product owner, you use it to align teams and changes to your defined goals while aligning your product to enterprise goals and strategy.

Adapted from: Pichler, "What Is Product Management?""

Info-Tech Insight

The quality of your product backlog – and your ability to realize business value from your delivery pipeline – is directly related to the input, content, and prioritization of items in your product roadmap.

Use Agile DevOps principles to expedite product-centric delivery and management

Delivering products does not necessarily require an Agile DevOps mindset. However, Agile methods facilitate the journey because product thinking is baked into them.

Based on: Ambysoft, 2018

Organizations start with Waterfall to improve the predictable delivery of product features.

Iterative development shifts the focus from delivery of features to delivery of user value.

Agile further shifts delivery to consider ROI. Often, the highest-value backlog items aren’t the ones with the highest ROI.

Lean and DevOps improve your delivery pipeline by providing full integration between product owners, development teams, and operations.

CI/CD reduces time in process by allowing release on demand and simplifying release and support activities.

Although teams will adopt parts of all these stages during their journey, it isn’t until you’ve adopted a fully integrated delivery chain that you’ve become product centric.

Scale products into related families to improve value delivery and alignment

Defining product families builds a network of related products into coordinated value delivery streams.

“As with basic product management, scaling an organization is all about articulating the vision and communicating it effectively. Using a well-defined framework helps you align the growth of your organization with that of the company. In fact, how the product organization is structured is very helpful in driving the vision of what you as a product company are going to do.”

– Rich Mironov, Mironov Consulting

Product families translate enterprise goals into value-enabling capabilities

Info-Tech Insight

Your organizational goals and strategy are achieved through capabilities that deliver value. Your product hierarchy is the mechanism to translate enterprise goals, priorities, and constraints down to the product level where changes can be made.

Arrange product families by operational groups, not solely by your org chart

1. To align product changes with enterprise goals and priorities, you need to organize your products into operational groups based on the capabilities or business functions the product and family support.

2. Product managers translate these goals, priorities, and constraints into their product families, so they are actionable at the next level, whether that level is another product family or products implementing enhancements to meet these goals.

3. The product family manager ensures that the product changes enhance the capabilities that allow you to realize your product family, division, and enterprise goals.

4. Enabling capabilities realize value and help reach your goals, which then drives your next set of enterprise goals and strategy.

Approach alignment from both directions, validating by the opposite way

Defining your product families is not a one-way street. Often, we start from either the top or the bottom depending on our scaling principles. We use multiple patterns to find the best arrangement and grouping of our products and families.

It may be helpful to work partway, then approach your scaling from the opposite direction, meeting in the middle. This way you are taking advantage of the strengths in both approaches.

Once you have your proposed structure, validate the grouping by applying the principles from the opposite direction to ensure each product and family is in the best starting group.

As the needs of your organization change, you may need to realign your product families into your new business architecture and operational structure.

When to use: You have a business architecture defined or clear market/functional grouping of value streams.

When to use: You are starting from an Application Portfolio Management application inventory to build or validate application families.

Leverage patterns for scaling products

Organizing your products and families is easier when leveraging these grouping patterns. Each is explained in greater detail on the following slides

Leverage the product family roadmap for alignment

It’s more than a set of colorful boxes. It’s the map to align everyone to where you are going.

Your product family roadmap

✓ Lays out a strategy for your product family.

✓ Is a statement of intent for your family of products.

✓ Communicates direction for the entire product family and product teams.

✓ Directly connects to the organization’s goals.

However, it is not:

x Representative of a hard commitment.

x A simple combination of your current product roadmaps.

Before connecting your family roadmap to products, think about what each roadmap typically presents

Info-Tech Insight

Your product family roadmap and product roadmap tell different stories. The product family roadmap represents the overall connection of products to the enterprise strategy, while the product roadmap focuses on the fulfillment of the product’s vision.

Product family roadmaps are more strategic by nature

While individual product roadmaps can be different levels of tactical or strategic depending on a variety of market factors, your options are more limited when defining roadmaps for product families.

Product

TACTICAL

A roadmap that is technical, committed, and detailed.

Product Family

STRATEGIC

A roadmap that is strategic, goal based, high level, and flexible.

Info-Tech Insight

Roadmaps for your product family are, by design, less detailed. This does not mean they aren’t actionable! Your product family roadmap should be able to communicate clear intentions around the future delivery of value in both the near and long term.

Consider volatility when structuring product family roadmaps

There is no such thing as a roadmap that never changes.

Your product family roadmap represents a broad statement of intent and high-level tactics to get closer to the organization’s goals.

All good product family roadmaps embrace change!

Your strategic intentions are subject to volatility, especially those planned further in the future. The more costs you incur in planning, the more you leave yourself exposed to inefficiency and waste if those plans change.

Info-Tech Insight

A good product family roadmap is intended to manage and communicate the inevitable changes as a result of market volatility and changes in strategy.

Product delivery realizes value for your product family

While planning and analysis are done at the family level, work and delivery are done at the individual product level.

Typical elements of a product family roadmap

While there are others, these represent what will commonly appear across most family-based roadmaps.

GROUP/CATEGORY: Groups are collections of artifacts. In a product family context, these are usually product family goals, value streams, or products.

ARTIFACT: An artifact is one of many kinds of tangible by-products produced during the delivery of products. For a product family, the artifacts represented are capabilities or value streams.

MILESTONE: Points in the timeline when established sets of artifacts are complete. This is a critical tool in the alignment of products in a given family.

TIME HORIZON: Separated periods within the projected timeline covered by the roadmap.

Connecting your product family roadmaps to product roadmaps

Your product and product family roadmaps should be connected at an artifact level that is common between both. Typically, this is done with capabilities, but it can be done at a more granular level if an understanding of capabilities isn’t available.

Multiple roadmap views can communicate differently, yet tell the same truth

Your communication objectives are linked to your audience; ensure you know your audience and speak their language

Assess the impacts of product-centric delivery on your teams and org design

Product delivery can exist within any org structure or delivery model. However, when making the shift toward product management, consider optimizing your org design and product team structure to match your capacity and throughput needs.

Determine which delivery team structure best fits your product pipeline

Weigh the pros and cons of IT operating models to find the best fit

There are many different operating models. LoB/Product Aligned and Hybrid Functional align themselves most closely with how products and product families are typically delivered.

1. LoB/Product Aligned – Decentralized Model: Line of Business, Geographically, Product, or Functionally Aligned

A decentralized IT operating model that embeds specific functions within LoBs/product teams and provides cross-organizational support for their initiatives.

2. Hybrid Functional: Functional/Product Aligned

A best-of-both-worlds model that balances the benefits of centralized and decentralized approaches to achieve both customer responsiveness and economies of scale.

3. Hybrid Service Model: Product-Aligned Operating Model

A model that supports what is commonly referred to as a matrix organization, organizing by highly related service categories and introducing the role of the service owner.

4. Centralized: Plan-Build-Run

A highly typical IT operating model that focuses on centralized strategic control and oversight in delivering cost-optimized and effective solutions.

5. Centralized: Demand-Develop-Service

A centralized IT operating model that lends well to more mature operating environments. Aimed at leveraging economies of scale in an end-to-end services delivery model.

Consider how investment spending will differ in a product environment

Reward for delivering outcomes, not features

Adapted from Bain, 2019

Info-Tech Insight

Changes to funding require changes to product and Agile practices to ensure product ownership and accountability.

Why is having a common value measure important?

CIO-CEO Alignment Diagnostic

Over 700 Info-Tech members have implemented the Balanced Value Measurement Framework.

“The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

– Oscar Wilde

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

– Warren Buffett

Understanding where you derive value is critical to building solid roadmaps.

Measure delivery and success

Metrics and measurements are powerful tools to drive behavior change and decision making in your organization. However, metrics are highly prone to creating unexpected outcomes, so use them with great care. Use metrics judiciously to uncover insights but avoid gaming or ambivalent behavior, productivity loss, and unintended consequences.

Build good practices in your selection and use of metrics:

• Choose the metrics that are as close to measuring the desired outcome as possible.
• Select the fewest metrics possible and ensure they are of the highest value to your team, the safest from gaming behaviors and unintended consequences, and the easiest to gather and report.
• Never use metrics for reward or punishment; use them to develop your team.
• Automate as much metrics gathering and reporting as possible.
• Focus on trends rather than precise metrics values.
• Review and change your metrics periodically.

Executive Brief Case Study

INDUSTRY: Public Sector & Financial Services

SOURCE: Info-Tech Interviews

A tale of two product transformations

Two of the organizations we interviewed shared the challenges they experienced defining product families and the impact these challenges had on their digital transformations.

A major financial services organization (2,000+ people in IT) had employed a top-down line of business–focused approach and found itself caught in a vicious circle of moving applications between families to resolve cross-LoB dependencies.

A similarly sized public sector organization suffered from a similar challenge as grouping from the bottom up based on technology areas led to teams fragmented across multiple business units employing different applications built on similar technology foundations.

Results

Both organizations struggled for over a year to structure their product families. This materially delayed key aspects of their product-centric transformation, resulting in additional effort and expenditure delivering solutions piecemeal as opposed to as a part of a holistic product family. It took embracing a hybrid top-down and bottom-up approach and beginning with pilot product families to make progress on their transformation.

Cole Cioran

Practice Lead,

Applications Practice

Info-Tech Research Group

There is no such thing as a perfect product-family structure. There will always be trade-offs when you need to manage shifting demand from stakeholder groups spanning customers, business units, process owners, and technology owners.

Focusing on a single approach to structure your product families inevitably leads to decisions that are readily challenged or are brittle in the face of changing demand.

The key to accelerating a product-centric transformation is to build a hybrid model that embraces top-down and bottom-up perspectives to structure and evolve product families over time. Add a robust pilot to evaluate the structure and you have the key to unlocking the potential of product delivery in your organization.

Info-Tech’s methodology for Deliver Digital Products at Scale

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook

Use this supporting workbook to document interim results from a number of exercises that will contribute to your overall strategy.

Deliver Digital Products at Scale Readiness Assessment

Your strategy needs to encompass your approaches to delivery. Understand where you need to focus using this simple assessment.

Key deliverable:

Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook

Record the results from the exercises to help you define, detail, and deliver digital products at scale.

Blueprint benefits

Measure the value of this blueprint

Align product family metrics to product delivery and value realization.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

Guided Implementation

"Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keeps us on track."

Workshop

"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

Consulting

"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Phase 1

Become a Product-Centric Organization

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

1.1.1 Understand your drivers for product-centric delivery

1.1.2 Identify the differences between project and product delivery

1.1.3 Define the goals for your product-centric organization

1.2.1 Define “product” in your context

1.2.2 Identify and establish a pilot list of products

This phase involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Step 1.1

Understand the organizational factors driving product-centric delivery

Activities

1.1.1 Understand your drivers for product-centric delivery

1.1.2 Identify the differences between project and product delivery

1.1.3 Define the goals for your product-centric organization

This phase involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Outcomes of this step

• Organizational drivers to move to product-centric delivery
• List of differences between project and product delivery
• Goals for product-centric delivery

1.1.1 Understand your drivers for product-centric delivery

30-60 minutes

1. Identify your pain points in the current delivery model.
2. What is the root cause of these pain points?
3. How will a product-centric delivery model fix the root cause?
4. Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Output

• Organizational drivers to move to product-centric delivery.

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

1.1.2 Identify the differences between project and product delivery

30-60 minutes

1. Consider project delivery and product delivery.
2. Discuss what some differences are between the two.

Note: This exercise is not about identifying the advantages and disadvantages of each style of delivery. This is to identify the variation between the two.

3. Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Output

• List of differences between project and product delivery

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Identify the differences between a project-centric and a product-centric organization

Info-Tech Insight

Product delivery requires significant shifts in the way you complete development work and deliver value to your users. Make the changes that support improving end-user value and enterprise alignment.

Projects can be a mechanism for funding product changes and improvements

Projects within products

Regardless of whether you recognize yourself as a product-based or project-based shop, the same basic principles should apply.

The purpose of projects is to deliver the scope of a product release. The shift to product delivery leverages a product roadmap and backlog as the mechanism for defining and managing the scope of the release.

Eventually, teams progress to continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) where they can release on demand or as scheduled, requiring org change management.

Use Agile DevOps principles to expedite product-centric delivery and management

Delivering products does not necessarily require an Agile DevOps mindset. However, Agile methods facilitate the journey because product thinking is baked into them.

Based on: Ambysoft, 2018

Organizations start with Waterfall to improve the predictable delivery of product features.

Iterative development shifts the focus from delivery of features to delivery of user value.

Agile further shifts delivery to consider ROI. Often, the highest-value backlog items aren’t the ones with the highest ROI.

Lean and DevOps improve your delivery pipeline by providing full integration between product owners, development teams, and operations.

CI/CD reduces time in process by allowing release on demand and simplifying release and support activities.

Although teams will adopt parts of all these stages during their journey, it isn’t until you’ve adopted a fully integrated delivery chain that you’ve become product centric.

1.1.3 Define the goals for your product-centric organization

30 minutes

1. Review your list of drivers from exercise 1.1.1 and the differences between project and product delivery from exercise 1.1.2.
2. Define your goals for achieving a product-centric organization.

Note: Your drivers may have already covered the goals. If so, review if you would like to change the drivers based on your renewed understanding of the differences between project and product delivery.

Output

• Goals for product-centric delivery

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Step 1.2

Establish your organization’s product inventory

Activities

1.2.1 Define “product” in your context

1.2.2 Identify and establish a pilot list of products

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Outcomes of this step

• Your organizational definition of products and services
• A pilot list of active products

Product does not mean the same thing to everyone

Do not expect a universal definition of products.

Every organization and industry has a different definition of what a product is. Organizations structure their people, processes, and technologies according to their definition of the products they manage. Conflicting product definitions between teams increase confusion and misalignment of product roadmaps.

“A product [is] something (physical or not) that is created through a process and that provides benefits to a market.”

- Mike Cohn, Founding Member of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance

“A product is something ... that is created and then made available to customers, usually with a distinct name or order number.”

- TechTarget

“A product is the physical object ... , software or service from which customer gets direct utility plus a number of other factors, services, and perceptions that make the product useful, desirable [and] convenient.”

- Mark Curphey

Organizations need a common understanding of what a product is and how it pertains to the business. This understanding needs to be accepted across the organization.

“There is not a lot of guidance in the industry on how to define [products]. This is dangerous because what will happen is that product backlogs will be formed in too many areas. All that does is create dependencies and coordination across teams … and backlogs.”

– Chad Beier, "How Do You Define a Product?” Scrum.org

Products and services share the same foundation and best practices

For the purpose of this blueprint, product/service and product owner/service owner are used interchangeably. Product is used for consistency but would apply to services as well.

Product = Service

“Product” and “service” are terms that each organization needs to define to fit its culture and customers (internal and external). The most important aspect is consistent use and understanding of:

• External products
• Internal products
• External services
• Internal services
• Products as a service (PaaS)
• Productizing services (SaaS)

Recognize the different product owner perspectives

Business:

• Customer facing, revenue generating

Technical:

• IT systems and tools

Operations

• Keep the lights on processes

Info-Tech Best Practice

Product owners must translate needs and constraints from their perspective into the language of their audience. Kathy Borneman, Digital Product Owner at SunTrust Bank, noted the challenges of finding a common language between lines of business and IT (e.g. what is a unit?).

Info-Tech Insight

Recognize that product owners represent one of three primary perspectives. Although all share the same capabilities, how they approach their responsibilities is influenced by their perspective.

“A Product Owner in its most beneficial form acts like an Entrepreneur, like a 'mini-CEO'. The Product Owner is someone who really 'owns' the product.”

– Robbin Schuurman, “Tips for Starting Product Owners”

Your product definition should include everything required to support it, not just what users see.

Establish where product management would be beneficial in the organization

What does not need product ownership?

• Individual features
• Transactions
• Unstructured data
• One-time solutions
• Non-repeatable processes
• Solutions that have no users or consumers
• People or teams

Characteristics of a discrete product

• Has end users or consumers
• Delivers quantifiable value
• Evolves or changes over time
• Has predictable delivery
• Has definable boundaries
• Has a cost to produce and operate

Product capabilities deliver value!

These are the various facets of a product. As a product owner, you are responsible for managing these facets through your capabilities and activities.

It is easy to lose sight of what matters when we look at a product from a single point of view. Despite what The Agile Manifesto says, working software is not valuable without the knowledge and support that people need in order to adopt, use, and maintain it. If you build it, they will not come. Product leaders must consider the needs of all stakeholders when designing and building products.

Define product value by aligning backlog delivery with roadmap goals

In each product plan, the backlogs show what you will deliver. Roadmaps identify when and in what order you will deliver value, capabilities, and goals.

Product roadmaps guide delivery and communicate your strategy

In Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision, we demonstrate how the product roadmap is core to value realization. The product roadmap is your communicated path, and as a product owner, you use it to align teams and changes to your defined goals while aligning your product to enterprise goals and strategy.

Info-Tech Insight

The quality of your product backlog – and your ability to realize business value from your delivery pipeline – is directly related to the input, content, and prioritization of items in your product roadmap.

What is a product?

Not all organizations will define products in the same way. Take this as a general example:

“A tangible solution, tool, or service (physical or digital) that enables the long-term and evolving delivery of value to customers and stakeholders based on business and user requirements.”

Info-Tech Insight

A proper definition of product recognizes three key facts:

1. Products are long-term endeavors that don’t end after the project finishes.
2. Products are not just “apps” but can be software or services that drive the delivery of value.

There is more than one stakeholder group that derives value from the product or service.

1.2.1 Define “product” in your context

30-60 minutes

1. Discuss what “product” means in your organization.
2. Create a common, enterprise-wide definition for “product.”
3. Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

For example:

• An application, platform, or application family.
• Discrete items that deliver value to a user/customer.

Output

• Your enterprise/organizational definition of products and services

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

1.2.2 Identify and establish a pilot list of products

1-2 hours

1. Review any current documented application inventory. If you have these details in an existing document, share it with the team. Select the group of applications for your family scaling pilot.
2. List your initial application inventory on the Product List tab of the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

• If you previously completed an application inventory using one of our application portfolio management (APM) resources, you can paste values here. Do not paste cells, as Excel may create a cell reference or replace the current conditional formatting.
• Application Portfolio Snapshot service – Fast alignment of applications to capabilities/departments
• Application Portfolio Management for Small Enterprises – Simplified APM journey in one blueprint
• Discover Your Applications – First step in our three-step approach to managing applications in use
• Implement Software Asset Management – Go beyond tracking licenses to proactively managing software throughout its lifecycle

Output

• A pilot list of active products

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Phase 2

Organize Products Into Product Families

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

2.1.1 Define your scaling principles and goals

2.1.2 Define your pilot product family areas and direction

2.2.1 Arrange your applications and services into product families

2.2.2 Define enabling and supporting applications

2.2.3 Build your product family canvas

This phase involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Step 2.1

Determine your approach to scale product families

Activities

2.1.1 Define your scaling principles and goals

2.1.2 Define your pilot product family areas and direction

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Outcomes of this step

• List of product scaling principles
• Scope of product scaling pilot and target areas
• Scaling approach and direction

Use consistent terminology for product and service families

In this blueprint, we refer to any grouping of products or services as a “family.” Your organization may prefer other terms, such as product/service line, portfolio, group, etc. The underlying principles for grouping and managing product families are the same, so define the terminology that fits best with your culture. The same is true for “products” and “services,” which may also be referred to in different terms.

A product family is a logical and operational grouping of related products or services. The grouping provides a scaled hierarchy to translate goals, priorities, strategy, and constraints down the grouping while aligning value realization upwards.

Group product families by related purpose to improve business value

Families should be scaled by how the products operationally relate to each other, with clear boundaries and common purpose.

A product family contains...

• Vision
• Goals
• Cumulative roadmap of the products within the family

A product family can be grouped by...

• Function
• Value stream and capability
• Customer segments or end-user group
• Strategic purpose
• Underlying architecture
• Common technology or support structures
• And many more

Scale products into related families to improve value delivery and alignment

Defining product families builds a network of related products into coordinated value delivery streams.

“As with basic product management, scaling an organization is all about articulating the vision and communicating it effectively. Using a well-defined framework helps you align the growth of your organization with that of the company. In fact, how the product organization is structured is very helpful in driving the vision of what you as a product company are going to do.”

– Rich Mironov, Mironov Consulting

Product families translate enterprise goals into value-enabling capabilities

Info-Tech Insight

Your organizational goals and strategy are achieved through capabilities that deliver value. Your product hierarchy is the mechanism to translate enterprise goals, priorities, and constraints down to the product level where changes can be made.

Arrange product families by operational groups, not solely by your org chart

1. To align product changes with enterprise goals and priorities, you need to organize your products into operational groups based on the capabilities or business functions the product and family support.

2. Product managers translate these goals, priorities, and constraints into their product families, so they are actionable at the next level, whether that level is another product family or products implementing enhancements to meet these goals.

3. The product family manager ensures that the product changes enhance the capabilities that allow you to realize your product family, division, and enterprise goals.

4. Enabling capabilities realize value and help reach your goals, which then drives your next set of enterprise goals and strategy.

Product families need owners with a more strategic focus

Product Owner

(More tactical product delivery focus)

• Backlog management and prioritization
• Product vision and product roadmap
• Epic/story definition, refinement in conjunction with business stakeholders
• Sprint planning with Scrum Master and delivery team
• Working with Scrum Master to minimize disruption to team velocity
• Ensuring alignment between business and Scrum teams during sprints
• Profit and loss (P&L) product analysis and monitoring

Product Manager

(More strategic product family focus)

• Product strategy, positioning, and messaging
• Product family vision and product roadmap
• Competitive analysis and positioning
• New product innovation/definition
• Release timing and focus (release themes)
• Ongoing optimization of product-related marketing and sales activities
• P&L product analysis and monitoring

Info-Tech Insight

“Product owner” and “product manager” are terms that should be adapted to fit your culture and product hierarchy. These are not management relationships but rather a way to structure related products and services that touch the same end users. Use the terms that work best in your culture.

Download Build a Better Product Owner for role support.

2.1.1 Define your scaling principles and goals

30-60 minutes

1. Discuss the guiding principles for your product scaling model. Your guiding principles should consider key business priorities, organizational culture, and division/team objectives, such as improving:

• Business agility and ability to respond to changes and needs.
• Alignment of product roadmaps to enterprise goals and priorities.
• Collaboration between stakeholders and product delivery teams.
• Resource utilization and productivity.
• The quality and value of products.
• Coordination between related products and services.

Output

• List of product scaling principles

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Start scaling with a pilot

You will likely use a combination of patterns that work best for each product area. Pilot your product scaling with a domain, team, or functional area before organizing your entire portfolio.

Learn more about each pattern.

Discuss the pros and cons of each.

Select a pilot product area.

Select a pattern.

Approach alignment from both directions, validating by the opposite way

Defining your product families is not a one-way street. Often, we start from either the top or the bottom depending on our scaling principles. We use multiple patterns to find the best arrangement and grouping of our products and families.

It may be helpful to work partway, then approach your scaling from the opposite direction, meeting in the middle. This way you are taking advantage of the strengths in both approaches.

Once you have your proposed structure, validate the grouping by applying the principles from the opposite direction to ensure each product and family is in the best starting group.

As the needs of your organization change, you may need to realign your product families into your new business architecture and operational structure.

When to use: You have a business architecture defined or clear market/functional grouping of value streams.

When to use: You are starting from an Application Portfolio Management application inventory to build or validate application families.

Top-down examples: Start with your enterprise structure or market grouping

Examples:

Bottom-up examples: Start with your inventory

Based on your current inventory, start organizing products and services into related groups using one of the five scaling models discussed in the next step.

Examples:

2.1.2 Define your pilot product family areas and direction

30-60 minutes

1. Using your inventory of products for your pilot, consider the top-down and bottom-up approaches.
2. Identify areas where you will begin arranging your product into families.
3. Prioritize these pilot areas into waves:
1. First pilot areas
2. Second pilot areas
3. Third pilot areas
4. Discuss and decide whether a top-down or bottom-up approach is the best place to start for each pilot group.
5. Prioritize your pilot families in the order in which you want to organize them. This is a guide to help you get started, and you may change the order during the scaling pattern exercise.

Output

• Scope of product scaling pilot and target areas

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Step 2.2

Define your product families

Activities

2.2.1 Arrange your applications and services into product families

2.2.2 Define enabling and supporting applications

2.2.3 Build your product family canvas

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers’
• Business analysts

Outcomes of this step

• Product family mapping
• Product families
• Enabling applications
• Dependent applications
• Product family canvas

Use three perspectives to guide scaling pattern selection

Leverage patterns for scaling products

Organizing your products and families is easier when leveraging these grouping patterns. Each is explained in greater detail on the following slides

Select the best family pattern to improve alignment

Use scenarios to help select patterns

Pattern: Value Stream – Capability

Grouping products into capabilities defined in your business architecture is recommended because it aligns people/processes (services) and products (tools) into their value stream and delivery grouping. This requires an accurate capability map to implement.

Example:

• Healthcare is delivered through a series of distinct value streams (top chevrons) and shared services supporting all streams.
• Diagnosing Health Needs is executed through the Admissions, Testing, Imaging, and Triage capabilities.
• Products and services are needed to deliver each capability.
• Shared capabilities can also be grouped into families to better align capability delivery and maturity to ensure that the enterprise goals and needs are being met in each value stream the capabilities support.

Sample business architecture/ capability map for healthcare

Your business architecture maps your value streams (value delivered to your customer or user personas) to the capabilities that deliver that value. A capability is the people, processes, and/or tools needed to deliver each value function.

Defining capabilities are specific to a value stream. Shared capabilities support multiple value streams. Enabling capabilities are core “keep the lights on” capabilities and enterprise functions needed to run your organization.

See Info-Tech’s industry coverage and reference architectures.

Download Document Your Business Architecture

Pattern: Value Stream – Market

Market/Customer Segment Alignment focuses products into the channels, verticals, or market segments in the same way customers and users view the organization.

Example:

• Customers want one stop to solve all their issues, needs, and transactions.
• Banking includes consumer, small business, and enterprise.
• Consumer banking can be grouped by type of financial service: deposit accounts (checking, savings, money market), revolving credit (credit cards, lines of credit), term lending (mortgage, auto, installment).
• Each group of services has a unique set of applications and services that support the consumer product, with some core systems supporting the entire relationship.

Pattern: Value Stream – Line of Business (LoB)

Line of Business Alignment uses the operational structure as the basis for organizing products and services into families that support each area.

Example:

• LoB alignment favors continuity of services, tools, and skills based on internal operations over unified customer services.
• A hospital requires care and services from many different operational teams.
• Emergency services may be internally organized by the type of care and emergency to allow specialized equipment and resources to diagnose and treat the patients, relying on support teams for imaging and diagnostics to support care.
• This model may be efficient and logical from an internal viewpoint but can cause gaps in customer services without careful coordination between product teams.

Pattern: Enterprise Applications

A division or group delivers enabling capabilities, and the team’s operational alignment maps directly to the modules/components of an enterprise application and other applications that support the specific business function.

Example:

• Human resources is one corporate function. Within HR, however, there are subfunctions that operate independently.
• Each operational team is supported by one or more applications or modules within a primary HR system.
• Even though the teams work independently, the information they manage is shared with or ties into processes used by other teams. Coordination of efforts helps provide a higher level of service and consistency.

For additional information about HRMS, please download Get the Most Out of Your HRMS.

Pattern: Shared Services

Grouping by service type, knowledge area, or technology allows for specialization while families align service delivery to shared business capabilities.

Example:

• Recommended for governance, risk, and compliance; infrastructure; security; end-user support; and shared platforms (workflow, collaboration, imaging/record retention). Direct hierarchies do not necessarily exist within the shared service family.
• Service groupings are common for service owners (also known as support managers, operations managers, etc.).
• End-user ticketing comes through a common request system, is routed to the team responsible for triage, and then is routed to a team for resolution.
• Collaboration tools and workflow tools are enablers of other applications, and product families might support multiple apps or platforms delivering that shared capability.

Pattern: Technical

Technical grouping is used in Shared Services or as a family grouping method within a Value Stream Alignment (Capability, Market, LoB) product family.

Example:

• Within Shared Services, Technical product grouping focuses on domains requiring specific experience and knowledge not common to typical product teams. This can also support insourcing so other product teams do not have to build their own capacity.
• Within a Market or LoB team, these same technical groups support specific tools and services within that product family only while also specializing in the business domain.
• Alignment into tool, platform, or skill areas improves delivery capabilities and resource scalability.

Pattern: Organizational Alignment

Eventually in your product hierarchy, the management structure functions as the product management team.

• When planning your product families, be careful determining when to merge product families into the management team structure.
• Since the goal of scaling products into families is to align product delivery roadmaps to enterprise goals and enable value realization, the primary focus of scaling must be operational.
• Alignment to the organizational chart should only occur when the product families report into an HR manager who has ownership for the delivery and value realization for all product and services within that family.

Download Build a Better Product Owner for role support.

2.2.1 Arrange your applications and services into product families

1-4 hours

1. (Optional but recommended) Define your value streams and capabilities on the App Capability List tab in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.
2. On the Product Families tab, build your product family hierarchy using the following structure:

• Value Stream > Capability > Family 3 > Family 2 > Family 1 > Product/Service.
• If you are not using a Value Stream > Capability grouping, you can leave these blank for now.

• Application Portfolio Snapshot service – Fast alignment of applications to capabilities/departments
• Application Portfolio Management for Small Enterprises – Simplified APM journey in one blueprint
• Discover Your Applications – First step in our three-step approach to manage applications in use
• Implement Software Asset Management – Go beyond tracking licenses to proactively managing software throughout its lifecycle

Output

• Product family mapping

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

2.2.2 Define enabling and supporting applications

1-4 hours

1. Review your grouping from the reverse direction or with different patterns to validate the grouping. Consider each grouping.

• Does it operationally align the products and families to best cascade enterprise goals and priorities while validating enabling capabilities?
• In the next phase, when defining your roadmap strategy, you may wish to revisit this phase and adjust as needed.

Output

• Product families
• Enabling applications
• Dependent applications

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Use a product canvas to define key elements of your product family

A product canvas is an excellent tool for quickly providing important information about a product family.

Product owners/managers

Provide target state to align child product and product family roadmaps.

Stakeholders

Communicate high-level concepts and key metrics with leadership teams and stakeholders.

Strategy teams

Use the canvas as a tool for brainstorming, scoping, and ideation.

Operations teams

Share background overview to align operational team with end-user value.

Impacted users

Refine communication strategy and support based on user impacts and value realization.

Download Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision.

Product Family Canvas: Define your core information

Problem Statement: The problem or need the product family is addressing

Business Goals: List of business objectives or goals for the product

Personas/Customers/Users: List of groups who consume the product/service

Vision: Vision, unique value proposition, elevator pitch, or positioning statement

Child Product Families or Products: List of product families or products within this family

Stakeholders: List of key resources, stakeholders, and teams needed to support the product or service

Download Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision.

2.2.3 Build your product family canvas

30-60 minutes

1. Complete the following fields to build your product family canvas in your Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook:
1. Product family name
2. Product family owner
3. Parent product family name
4. Problem that the family is intending to solve (For additional help articulating your problem statement, refer to Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision.)
5. Product family vision/goals (For additional help writing your vision, refer to Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision..)
6. Child product or product family name(s)
7. Primary customers/users (For additional help with your product personas, download and complete Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision..)
8. Stakeholders (If you aren’t sure who your stakeholders are, fill this in after completing the stakeholder management exercises in phase 3.)

Output

• Product family canvas

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Development team leads
• Portfolio managers
• Business analysts

Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

Phase 3

Ensure Alignment Between Products and Families

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• 3.1.1 Evaluate your current approach to product family communication
• 3.2.1 Visualize interrelationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers
• 3.2.2 Group stakeholders into categories
• 3.2.3 Prioritize your stakeholders
• 3.3.1 Define the communication objectives and audience of your product family roadmaps
• 3.3.2 Identify the level of detail that you want your product family roadmap artifacts to represent
• 3.4.1 Validate business value alignment between products and their product families

This phase involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Portfolio managers
• Business analysts

Step 3.1

Leverage product family roadmaps

Activities

3.1.1 Evaluate your current approach to product family communication

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Portfolio managers
• Business analysts

Outcomes of this step

• Understanding of what a product family roadmap is
• Comparison of Info-Tech’s position on product families to how you currently communicate about product families

Aligning products’ goals with families

Without alignment between product family goals and their underlying products, you aren’t seeing the full picture.

Adapted from: Pichler," What Is Product Management?"

• Aligning product strategy to enterprise goals needs to happen through the product family.
• A product roadmap has traditionally been used to express the overall intent and visualization of the product strategy.
• Connecting the strategy of your products with your enterprise goals can be done through the product family roadmap.

Leveraging product family roadmaps

It’s more than a set of colorful boxes.

✓ Lays out a strategy for your product family.

✓ Is a statement of intent for your family of products.

✓ Communicates direction for the entire product family and product teams.

✓ Directly connects to the organization’s goals.

However, it is not:

x Representative of a hard commitment.

x A simple combination of your current product roadmaps.

x A technical implementation plan.

Product family roadmaps

There is no such thing as a roadmap that never changes.

Your product family roadmap represents a broad statement of intent and high-level tactics to get closer to the organization’s goals.

All good product family roadmaps embrace change!

Your strategic intentions are subject to volatility, especially those planned further in the future. The more costs you incur in planning, the more you leave yourself exposed to inefficiency and waste if those plans change.

Info-Tech Insight

A good product family roadmap is intended to manage and communicate the inevitable changes as a result of market volatility and changes in strategy.

Product family roadmaps are more strategic by nature

While individual product roadmaps can be different levels of tactical or strategic depending on a variety of market factors, your options are more limited when defining roadmaps for product families.

Info-Tech Insight

Roadmaps for your product family are, by design, less detailed. This does not mean they aren’t actionable! Your product family roadmap should be able to communicate clear intentions around the future delivery of value in both the near and long term.

Reminder: Your enterprise vision provides alignment for your product family roadmaps

Not knowing the difference between enterprise vision and goals will prevent you from both dreaming big and achieving your dream.

Your enterprise vision represents your “north star” – where you want to go. It represents what you want to do.

• Your enterprise goals represent what you need to achieve in order to reach your enterprise vision.
• A key element of operationalizing your vision.
• Your strategy, initiatives, and features will align with one or more goals.

Download Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision for support.

Multiple roadmap views can communicate differently, yet tell the same truth

Typical elements of a product family roadmap

While there are others, these represent what will commonly appear across most family-based roadmaps.

GROUP/CATEGORY: Groups are collections of artifacts. In a product family context, these are usually product family goals, value streams, or products.

ARTIFACT: An artifact is one of many kinds of tangible by-products produced during the delivery of products. For a product family, the artifacts represented are capabilities or value streams.

MILESTONE: Points in the timeline when established sets of artifacts are complete. This is a critical tool in the alignment of products in a given family.

TIME HORIZON: Separated periods within the projected timeline covered by the roadmap.

3.1.1 Evaluate your current approach to product family communication

1-2 hours

1. Write down how you currently communicate your intentions for your products and family of products.
2. Compare and contrast this to how this blueprint defines product families and product family roadmaps.
3. Consider the similarities and the key gaps between your current approach and Info-Tech’s definition of product family roadmaps.

Output

• Your documented approach to product family communication

Participants

• Product owners
• Stakeholders

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Step 3.2

Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication

Activities

3.2.1 Visualize interrelationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers

3.2.2 Group stakeholders into categories

3.2.3 Prioritize your stakeholders

Info-Tech Note

If you have done the stakeholder exercises in Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision or Build a Better Product Owner u don’t need to repeat the exercises from scratch.

You can bring the results forward and update them based on your prior work.

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Portfolio managers
• Business analysts

Outcomes of this step

• Relationships among stakeholders and influencers
• Categorization of stakeholders and influencers
• Stakeholder and influencer prioritization

Reminder: Not everyone is a user!

USERS

Individuals who directly obtain value from usage of the product.

STAKEHOLDERS

Represent individuals who provide the context, alignment, and constraints that influence or control what you will be able to accomplish.

FUNDERS

Individuals both external and internal that fund the product initiative. Sometimes they are lumped in as stakeholders. However, motivations can be different.

For more information, see Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision.

A stakeholder strategy is a key part of product family attainment

A roadmap is only “good” when it effectively communicates to stakeholders. Understanding your stakeholders is the first step in delivering great product family roadmaps.

Create a stakeholder network map for product roadmaps and prioritization

Follow the trail of breadcrumbs from your direct stakeholders to their influencers to uncover hidden stakeholders.

Legend

Black arrows: indicate the direction of professional influence

Dashed green arrows: indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships

Info-Tech Insight

Your stakeholder map defines the influence landscape your product family operates in. It is every bit as important as the teams who enhance, support, and operate your product directly.

Use connectors to determine who may be influencing your direct stakeholders. They may not have any formal authority within the organization, but they may have informal yet substantial relationships with your stakeholders.

3.2.1 Visualize interrelationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers

60 minutes

1. List direct stakeholders for your product.
2. Determine the stakeholders of your stakeholders and consider adding each of them to the stakeholder list.
3. Assess who has either formal or informal influence over your stakeholders; add these influencers to your stakeholder list.
4. Construct a diagram linking stakeholders and their influencers together.

• Use black arrows to indicate the direction of professional influence.
• Use dashed green arrows to indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships.

Output

• Relationships among stakeholders and influencers

Participants

• Product owners
• Stakeholders

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Categorize your stakeholders with a prioritization map

A stakeholder prioritization map helps product leaders categorize their stakeholders by their level of influence and ownership in the product and/or teams.

There are four areas in the map, and the stakeholders within each area should be treated differently.

Players – players have a high interest in the initiative and the influence to effect change over the initiative. Their support is critical, and a lack of support can cause significant impediment to the objectives.

Mediators – mediators have a low interest but significant influence over the initiative. They can help to provide balance and objective opinions to issues that arise.

Noisemakers – noisemakers have low influence but high interest. They tend to be very vocal and engaged, either positively or negatively, but have little ability to enact their wishes.

Spectators – generally, spectators are apathetic and have little influence over or interest in the initiative.

3.2.2 Group stakeholders into categories

30-60 minutes

1. Identify your stakeholders’ interest in and influence on your product as high, medium, or low by rating the attributes below.
2. Map your results to the model below to determine each stakeholder’s category.

Output

• Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

Participants

• Product owners
• Stakeholders

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Prioritize your stakeholders

There may be too many stakeholders to be able to manage them all. Focus your attention on the stakeholders that matter most.

Consider the three dimensions for stakeholder prioritization: influence, interest, and support. Support can be determined by answering the following question: How likely is it that this stakeholder would recommend your product?

These parameters are used to prioritize which stakeholders are most important and should receive your focused attention.

3.2.3 Prioritize your stakeholders

30 minutes

1. Identify the level of support of each stakeholder by answering the following question: How likely is it that this stakeholder would endorse your product?
2. Prioritize your stakeholders using the prioritization scheme on the previous slide.

Output

• Stakeholder and influencer prioritization

Participants

• Product owners
• Stakeholders

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

Define strategies for engaging stakeholders by type

Info-Tech Insight

Each group of stakeholders draws attention and resources away from critical tasks. By properly identifying your stakeholder groups, the product owner can develop corresponding actions to manage stakeholders in each group. This can dramatically reduce wasted effort trying to satisfy Spectators and Noisemakers, while ensuring the needs of Mediators and Players are met.

Step 3.3

Configure your product family roadmaps

Activities

3.3.1 Define the communication objectives and audience of your product family roadmaps

3.3.2 Identify the level of detail that you want your product family roadmap artifacts to represent

Info-Tech Note

If you are unfamiliar with product roadmaps, Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision contains more detailed exercises we recommend you review before focusing on product family roadmaps.

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Portfolio managers
• Business analysts

Outcomes of this step

• An understanding of the key communication objectives and target stakeholder audience for your product family roadmaps
• A position on the level of detail you want your product family roadmap to operate at

Your communication objectives are linked to your audience; ensure you know your audience and speak their language

3.3.1 Define the communication objectives and audience of your product family roadmaps

30-60 minutes

1. Explicitly state the communication objectives and audience of your roadmap.

• Think of finishing this sentence: This roadmap is designed for … in order to …

Output

• Roadmap list with communication objectives and audience

Participants

• Product owners and product managers
• Application leaders
• Stakeholders

Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.

The length of time horizons on your roadmap depend on the needs of the underlying products or families

Info-Tech Insight

Given the relationship between product and product family roadmaps, the product family roadmap needs to serve the time horizons of its respective products.

This translates into product family roadmaps with timelines that, at a minimum, cover the full scope of the respective product roadmaps.

Based on your communication objectives, consider different ways to visualize your product family roadmap

Swimlane/Stream-Based – Understanding when groups of items intend to be delivered.

Now, Next, Later – Communicate an overall plan with rough intentions around delivery without specific date ranges.

Sunrise Roadmap – Articulate the journey toward a given target state across multiple streams.

Before connecting your family roadmap to products, think about what each roadmap typically presents

Info-Tech Insight

Your product family roadmap and product roadmap tell different stories. The product family roadmap represents the overall connection of products to the enterprise strategy, while the product roadmap focuses on the fulfillment of the product’s vision.

Example: Connecting your product family roadmaps to product roadmaps

Your roadmaps should be connected at an artifact level that is common between both. Typically, this is done with capabilities, but you can do it at a more granular level if an understanding of capabilities isn’t available.

3.3.2 Identify the level of detail that you want your product family roadmap artifacts to represent

30-60 minutes

1. Consider the different available artifacts for a product family (goals, value stream, capabilities).
2. List the roadmaps that you wish to represent.
3. Based on how you currently articulate details on your product families, consider:

• What do you want to use as the level of granularity for the artifact? Consider selecting something that has a direct connection to the product roadmap itself (for example, capabilities).
• For some roadmaps you will want to categorize your artifacts – what would work best in those cases?

Output

• Details on your roadmap granularity

Participants

• Product owners
• Product managers
• Portfolio managers