Create a Holistic IT Dashboard

Mature your IT department by measuring what matters.

Executive Brief

Analyst Perspective

Measurement alone provides only minimal improvements

It’s difficult for CIOs and other top-level leaders of IT to know if everything within their mandate is being managed effectively. Gaining visibility into what’s happening on the front lines without micromanaging is a challenge most top leaders face.

Understanding Info-Tech’s Management and Governance Framework of processes that need to be managed and being able to measure what’s important to their organization's success can give leaders the ability to focus on their key responsibilities of ensuring service effectiveness, enabling increased productivity, and creating the ability for their teams to innovate.

Even if you know what to measure, the measurement alone will lead to minimal improvements. Having the right methods in place to systematically collect, review, and act on those measurements is the differentiator to driving up the maturity of your IT organization.

The tools in this blueprint can help you identify what to measure, how to review it, and how to create effective plans to improve performance.

Tony Denford

Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

• IT leaders do not have a single holistic view of how their IT processes are operating.
• Expecting any single individual to understand the details of all IT processes is unrealistic.
• Problems in performance only become evident when the process has already failed.

Common Obstacles

• Business changes quickly, and what should be measured changes as a result.
• Most measures are trailing indicators showing past performance.
• Measuring alone does not result in improved performance.
• There are thousands of operational metrics that could be measured, but what are the right ones for an overall dashboard?

Info-Tech's Approach

• Use Info-Tech’s IT Metrics Library to review typical KPIs for each of the process areas and select those that apply to your organization.
• Configure your IT Management Dashboard to record your selected KPIs and start to measure performance.
• Set up the cadence for review of the KPIs and develop action plans to improve low-performing indicators.

Info-Tech Insight

Mature your IT department by aligning your measures with your organizational goals. Acting early when your KPIs deviate from the goals leads to improved performance.

Your challenge

This research is designed to help organizations quickly choose holistic measures, review the results, and devise action plans.

• The sheer number of possible metrics can be overwhelming. Choose metrics from our IT Metrics Library or choose your own, but always ensure they are in alignment with your organizational goals.
• Ensure your dashboard is balanced across all 45 process areas that a modern CIO is responsible for.
• Finding leading indicators to allow your team to be proactive can be difficult if your team is focused on the day-to-day operational tasks.
• It can be time consuming to figure out what to do if an indicator is underperforming.

Build your dashboard quickly using the toolset in this research and move to improvement actions as soon as possible.

Productivity increased by 30%

Fire/smoke incidents decreased by 25% (high priority)

Average work request response time reduced by 64%

Savings of $1.6 million in the first year

(CFI, 2013)

Common obstacles

These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many organizations:

• What should be measured can change over time as your organization matures and the business environment changes. Understanding what creates business value for your organization is critical.
• Organizations almost always focus on past result metrics. While this is important, it will not indicate when you need to adjust something until it has already failed.
• It’s not just about measuring. You also need to review the measures often and act on the biggest risks to your organization to drive performance.

Don’t get overwhelmed by the number of things you can measure. It can take some trial and error to find the measures that best indicate the health of the process.

The importance of frequent review

35% - Only 35% of governing bodies review data at each meeting. (Committee of University Chairs, 2008)

Common obstacles

Analysis paralysis

Poor data can lead to incorrect conclusions, limit analysis, and undermine confidence in the value of your dashboard.

Achieving perfect data is extremely time consuming and may not add much value. It can also be an excuse to avoid getting started with metrics and analytics.

Data quality is a struggle for many organizations. Consider how much uncertainty you can tolerate in your analysis and what would be required to improve your data quality to an acceptable level. Consider cost, technological resources, people resources, and time required.

Info-Tech Insight

Analytics are only as good as the data that informs it. Aim for just enough data quality to make informed decisions without getting into analysis paralysis.

Common obstacles

The problem of surrogation

Tying KPIs and metrics to performance often leads to undesired behavior. An example of this is the now infamous Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal, in which 3.5 million credit card and savings accounts were opened without customers’ consent when the company incented sales staff to meet cross-selling targets.

Although this is an extreme example, it’s an all-too-common phenomenon.

A focus on the speed of closure of tickets often leads to shortcuts and lower-quality solutions.

Tying customer value to the measures can align the team on understanding the objective rather than focusing on the measure itself, and the team will no longer be able to ignore the impact of their actions.

Surrogation is a phenomenon in which a measure of a behavior replaces the intent of the measure itself. People focus on achieving the measure instead of the behavior the measure was intended to drive.

Info-Tech’s thought model

Low-Maturity Metrics Program

Trailing indicators measure the outcomes of the activities of your organization. Hopefully, the initiatives and activities are aligned with the organizational goals.

High-Maturity Metrics Program

The core CIO objectives align with the organizational goals, and teams define leading indicators that show progress toward those goals. KPIs are reviewed often and adjustments are made to improve performance based on the leading indicators. The results are improved outcomes, greater transparency, and increased predictability.

Info-Tech’s approach

Adopt an iterative approach to develop the right KPIs for your dashboard

Periodically: As appropriate, review the effectiveness of the KPIs and adjust as needed.

Frequently: At least once per month, but the more frequent, the more agility your organization will have.

The Info-Tech difference:

1. Quickly identify the KPIs that matter to your organization using the IT Metrics Library.
2. Build a presentable dashboard using the IT Management Dashboard available on the Info-Tech website.
3. When indicators show underperformance, quickly get them back on track using the suggested research in the IT Metrics Library.
4. If your organization’s needs are different, define your own custom metrics using the same format as the IT Metrics Library.
5. Use the action plan tool to keep track of progress

Info-Tech’s methodology for creating a holistic IT dashboard

Insight summary

Mature your IT department by aligning your measures with your organizational goals. Acting early when your KPIs deviate from the goals leads to improved performance.

Don’t just measure things because you can. Change what you measure as your organization becomes more mature.

Select what matters to your organization

Measure things that will resolve pain points or drive you toward your goals.

Look for indicators that show the health of the practice, not just the results.

Review KPIs often

Ease of use will determine the success of your metrics program, so keep it simple to create and review the indicators.

Take action to improve performance

If indicators are showing suboptimal performance, develop an action plan to drive the indicator in the right direction.

Act early and often.

Measure what your customers value

Ensure you understand what’s valued and measure whether the value is being produced. Let front-line managers focus on tactical measures and understand how they are linked to value.

Look for predictive measures

Determine what action will lead to the desired result and measure if the action is being performed. It’s better to predict outcomes than react to them.

Blueprint deliverables

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

IT Metrics Library

Customize the KPIs for your organization using the IT Metrics Library

IT Metrics Library Action Plan

Keep track of the actions that are generated from your KPI review

Key deliverable:

IT Management Dashboard and Scorecard

The IT Overall Scorecard gives a holistic view of the performance of each IT function

Blueprint benefits

IT Benefits

• An IT dashboard can help IT departments understand how well they are performing against key indicators.
• It can allow IT teams to demonstrate to their business partners the areas they are focusing on.
• Regular review and action planning based on the results will lead to improved performance, efficiency, and effectiveness.
• Create alignment of IT teams by focusing on common areas of performance.

Business Benefits

• Ensure alignment and transparency between the business and IT.
• Understand the value that IT brings to the operation and strategic initiatives of your organization.
• Understand the contribution of the IT team to achieving business outcomes.
• Focus IT on the areas that are important to you by requesting new measures as business needs change.

Measure the value of this blueprint

Utilize the existing IT Metrics Library and IT Dashboard tools to quickly kick off your KPI program

• Developing the metrics your organization should track can be very time consuming. Save approximately 120 hours of effort by choosing from the IT Metrics Library.
• The need for a simple method to display your KPIs means either developing your own tool or buying one off the shelf. Use the IT Management Dashboard to quickly get your KPI program up and running. Using these tools will save approximately 480 hours.
• The true value of this initiative comes from using the KPIs to drive performance.

Keeping track of the number of actions identified and completed is a low overhead measure. Tracking time or money saved is higher overhead but also higher value.

Executive Brief Case Study

Using data-driven decision making to drive stability and increase value

Industry: Government Services

Source: Info-Tech analyst experience

Challenge

A newly formed application support team with service desk responsibilities was becoming burned out due to the sheer volume of work landing on their desks. The team was very reactive and was providing poor service due to multiple conflicting priorities.

To make matters worse, there was a plan to add a major new application to the team’s portfolio.

Solution

The team began to measure the types of work they were busy doing and then assessed the value of each type of work.

The team then problem solved how they could reduce or eliminate their low-value workload.

This led to tracking how many problems were being resolved and improved capabilities to problem solve effectively.

Results

Upon initial data collection, the team was performing 100% reactive workload. Eighteen months later slightly more than 80% of workload was proactive high-value activities.

The team not only was able to absorb the additional workload of the new application but also identified efficiencies in their interactions with other teams that led to a 100% success rate in the change process and a 92% decrease in resource needs for major incidents.

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."

Diagnostic and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Phase 1 - Choose the KPIs

Call #1: Scope dashboard and reporting needs.

Call #2: Learn how to use the IT Metrics Library to select your metrics.

Phase 2 – Build the Dashboard

Call #3: Set up the dashboard.

Call #4: Capture data and produce the report.

Phase 3 – Create the Action Plan

Call #5: Review the data and use the metrics library to determine actions.

Call #6: Improve the KPIs you measure.

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

A typical GI is between 5 and 8 calls over the course of 2 to 3 months.

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.

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

Phase 1

Choose the KPIs

Phase 1

1.1 Review Available KPIs

1.2 Select KPIs for Your Org.

1.3 Identify Data Sources and Owners

Phase 2

2.1 Understand the IT Management Dashboard

2.2 Build and Review the KPIs

Phase 3

3.1 Prioritize Low-Performing Indicators

3.2 Review Suggested Actions

3.3 Develop the Action Plan

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Reviewing and selecting the KPIs suggested in the IT Metrics Library.

Identifying the data source for the selected KPI and the owner responsible for data collection.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Step 1.1

Review Available KPIs

Activities

1.1.1 Download the IT Metrics Library and review the KPIs for each practice area.

Choose the KPIs

Step 1.1 – Review Available KPIs

Step 1.2 – Select KPIs for Your Org.

Step 1.3 – Identify Data Sources and owners

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Downloading the IT Metrics Library

Understanding the content of the tool

Reviewing the intended goals for each practice area

This step involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Outcomes of this step

Downloaded tool ready to select the KPIs for your organization

Using the IT Metrics Library

Match the suggested KPIs to the Management and Governance Framework

The “Practice” and “Process” columns relate to each of the boxes on the Info-Tech Management and Governance Framework. This ensures you are measuring each area that needs to be managed by a typical IT department.

Using the IT Metrics Library

Content for each entry

KPI - The key performance indicator to review

CSF - What needs to happen to achieve success for each goal

Goal - The goal your organization is trying to achieve

Owner - Who will be accountable to collect and report the data

Data Source (typical) - Where you plan to get the data that will be used to calculate the KPI

Baseline/Target - The baseline and target for the KPI

Rank - Criticality of this goal to the organization's success

Action - Suggested action if KPI is underperforming

Blueprint - Available research to address typical underperformance of the KPI

Practice/Process - Which practice and process the KPI represents

1.1.1 Download the IT Metrics Library

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• Ideas for which KPIs would be useful to track for each of the practice areas

Materials

• Whiteboard/flip charts

Participants

• IT senior leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

4 hours

1. Click the link below to download the IT Metrics Library spreadsheet.
2. Open the file and select the “Data Entry” tab.
3. The sheet has suggested KPIs for each of the 9 practice areas and 45 processes listed in the Info-Tech Management and Governance Framework. You can identify this grouping in the “Practice” and “Process” columns.
4. For each practice area, review the suggested KPIs and their associated goals and discuss as a team which of the KPIs would be useful to track in your organization.

Download the IT Metrics Library

Step 1.2

Select KPIs for Your Organization

Activities

1.2.1 Select the KPIs that will drive your organization forward

1.2.2 Remove unwanted KPIs from the IT Metrics Library

Choose the KPIs

Step 1.1 – Review Available KPIs

Step 1.2 – Select KPIs for Your Org.

Step 1.3 – Identify Data Sources and Owners

This step will walk you through the following activities:

• Selecting the KPIs for your organization and removing unwanted KPIs from IT Metrics Library

This step involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Outcomes of this step

A shortlist of selected KPIs

1.2.1 Select the KPIs that will drive your organization forward

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• KPIs would be useful to track for each of the practice areas

Materials

• IT Metrics Library

Participants

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

4 hours

1. Review the suggested KPIs for each practice area and review the goal.
2. Some suggested KPIs are similar, so make sure the goal is appropriate for your organization.
3. Pick up to three KPIs per practice.

1.2.2 Remove unwanted KPIs

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• KPIs would be useful to track for each of the practice areas

Materials

• IT Metrics Library

Participants

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

0.5 hours

1. To remove unwanted KPIs from the IT Metric Library Tool, select the unwanted row, right-click on the row, and delete it.
2. The result should be up to three KPIs per practice area left on the spreadsheet.

Step 1.3

Identify data sources and owners

Activities

1.3.1 Document the data source

1.3.2 Document the owner

1.3.3 Document baseline and target

Choose the KPIs

Step 1.1 – Review Available KPIs

Step 1.2 – Select KPIs for Your Org.

Step 1.3 – Identify Data Sources and Owners

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Documenting for each KPI where you plan to get the data, who is accountable to collect and report the data, what the current baseline is (if available), and what the target is

This step involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Outcomes of this step

A list of KPIs for your organization with appropriate attributes documented

1.3 Identify data sources, owners, baseline, and target

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• Completed IT Metrics Library

Materials

• IT Metrics Library

Participants

• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

2 hours

1. For each selected KPI, complete the owner, data source, baseline, and target if the information is available.
2. If the information is not available, document the owner and assign them to complete the other columns.

Phase 2

Build the Dashboard

Phase 1

1.1 Review Available KPIs

1.2 Select KPIs for Your Org.

1.3 Identify Data Sources and Owners

Phase 2

2.1 Understand the IT Management Dashboard

2.2 Build and Review the KPIs

Phase 3

3.1 Prioritize Low-Performing Indicators

3.2 Review Suggested Actions

3.3 Develop the Action Plan

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Understanding the IT Management Dashboard

Configuring the IT Management Dashboard and entering initial measures

Produce thing IT Scorecard from the IT Management Dashboard

Interpreting the results

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Step 2.1

Understand the IT Management Dashboard

Activities

2.1.1 Logging into the IT Management Dashboard

2.1.2 Understanding the “Overall Scorecard” tab

2.1.3 Understanding the “My Metrics” tab

Build the Dashboard

Step 2.1 – Understand the IT Management Dashboard

Step 2.2 – Build and review the KPIs

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Accessing the IT Management Dashboard

Basic functionality of the tool

This step involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Outcomes of this step

Understanding of how to administer the IT Management Dashboard

2.1.1 Logging into the IT Management Dashboard

Input

• Info-Tech membership

Output

• Access to the IT Management Dashboard

Materials

• Web browser

Participants

• Metrics program owners and administrators

0.5 hours

1. Using your web browser, access your membership at infotech.com.
2. Log into your Info-Tech membership account.
3. Select the “My IT Dashboard” option from the menu (circled in red).
4. If you cannot gain access to the tool, contact your membership rep.

2.1.2 Understanding the “Overall Scorecard” tab

0.5 hours

1. Once you select “My IT Dashboard,” you will be in the “Overall Scorecard” tab view.
2. Scrolling down reveals the data entry form for each of the nine practice areas in the Info-Tech Management and Governance Framework, with each section color-coded for easy identification.
3. Each of the section headers, KPI names, data sources, and data values can be updated to fit the needs of your organization.
4. This view is designed to show a holistic view of all areas in IT that are being managed.

2.1.3 Understanding the “My Metrics” tab

0.5 hours

1. On the “My Metrics” tab you can access individual scorecards for each of the nine practice areas.
2. Below the “My Metrics” tab is each of the nine practice areas for you to select from. Each shows a different subset of KPIs specific to the practice.
3. The functionality of this view is the same as the overall scorecard. Each title, KPI, description, and actuals are editable to fit your organization’s needs.
4. This blueprint does not go into detail on this tab, but it is available to be used by practice area leaders in the same way as the overall scorecard.

Step 2.2

Build and review the KPIs

Activities

2.2.1 Entering the KPI descriptions

2.2.2 Entering the KPI actuals

2.2.3 Producing the IT Overall Scorecard

Build the Dashboard

Step 2.1 – Understand the IT Management Dashboard

Step 2.2 – Build and review the KPIs

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Entering the KPI descriptions

Entering the actuals for each KPI

Producing the IT Overall Scorecard

This step involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Outcomes of this step

An overall scorecard indicating the selected KPI performance

2.2.1 Entering the KPI descriptions

Input

• Access to the IT Management Dashboard
• IT Metrics Library with your organization’s KPIs selected

Output

• KPI descriptions entered into tool

Materials

• Web browser

Participants

• Metrics program owners and administrators

1 hour

1. Navigate to the IT Management Dashboard as described in section 2.1.1 and scroll down to the practice area you wish to complete.
2. If needed, modify the section name to match your organization’s needs.
3. Select “Add another score.”

2.2.1 Entering the KPI descriptions

1 hour

1. Select if your metric is a custom metric or a standard metric available from one of the Info-Tech diagnostic tools.
2. Enter the metric name you selected from the IT Metrics Library.
3. Select the value type.
4. Select the “Add Metric” button.
5. The descriptions only need to be entered when they change.

Example of a custom metric

Example of a standard metric

2.2.2 Entering the KPI actuals

Input

• Actual data from each data source identified

Output

• Actuals recorded in tool

Materials

• Web browser

Participants

• Metrics program owners and administrators

1 hour

1. Select the period you wish to create a scorecard for by selecting “Add New Period” or choosing one from the drop-down list.
2. For each KPI on your dashboard, collect the data from the data source and enter the actuals.
3. Select the check mark (circled) to save the data for the period.

2.2.3 Producing the IT Overall Scorecard

Input

• Completed IT Overall Scorecard data collection

Output

• IT Overall Scorecard

Materials

• Web browser

Participants

• Metrics program owners and administrators

0.5 hours

1. Select the period you wish to create a scorecard for by selecting from the drop-down list.
2. Click the “Download as PDF” button to produce the scorecard.
3. Once the PDF is produced it is ready for review or distribution.

Phase 3

Create the Action Plan

Phase 1

1.1 Review Available KPIs

1.2 Select KPIs for Your Org.

1.3 Identify Data Sources and Owners

Phase 2

2.1 Understand the IT Management Dashboard

2.2 Build and Review the KPIs

Phase 3

3.1 Prioritize Low-Performing Indicators

3.2 Review Suggested Actions

3.3 Develop the Action Plan

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Prioritizing low-performing indicators

Using the IT Metrics Library to review suggested actions

Developing your team’s action plan to improve performance

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Step 3.1

Prioritize low-performing indicators

Activities

3.1.1 Determine criteria for prioritization

3.1.2 Identify low-performing indicators

3.1.3 Prioritize low-performing indicators

Create the action plan

Step 3.1 – Prioritize low-performing indicators

Step 3.2 – Review suggested actions

Step 3.3 – Develop the action plan

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Determining the criteria for prioritization of low-performing indicators

Identifying low-performing indicators

Prioritizing the low-performing indicators

This step involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Outcomes of this step

A prioritized list of low-performing indicators that need remediation

3.1.1 Determine criteria for prioritization

Often when metrics programs are established, there are multiple KPIs that are not performing at the desired level. It’s easy to expect the team to fix all the low-performing indicators, but often teams are stretched and have conflicting priorities.

Therefore it’s important to spend some time to prioritize which of your indicators are most critical to the success of your business.

Also consider, if one area is performing well and others have multiple poor indicators, how do you give the right support to optimize the results?

Lastly, is it better to score slightly lower on multiple measures or perfect on most but failing badly on one or two?

3.1.1 Determine criteria for prioritization

Input

• Business goals and objectives
• IT goals and objectives
• IT organizational structure

Output

• Documented scorecard remediation prioritization criteria

Materials

• Whiteboard or flip charts

Participants

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

1 hour

1. Identify any KPIs that are critical and cannot fail without high impact to your organization.
2. Identify any KPIs that cannot fail for an extended period and document the time period.
3. Rank the KPIs from most critical to least critical in the IT Metrics Library.
4. Look at the owner accountable for the performance of each KPI. If there are any large groups, reassess the ownership or rank.
5. Periodically review the criteria to see if they’re aligned with meeting current business goals.

3.1.2 Identify low-performing indicators

Input

• Overall scorecard
• Overall scorecard (previous period)
• IT Metrics Library

Output

• List of low-performing indicators that need remediation
• Planned actions to improve performance

Materials

• Whiteboard or flip charts

Participants

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

1 hour

1. Review the overall scorecard for the current period. List any KPIs that are not meeting the target for the current month in the “Action Plan” tab of the IT Metrics Library.
2. Compare current month to previous month. List any KPIs that are moving away from the long-term target documented in the tool IT Metrics Library.
3. Revise the target in the IT Metrics Library as business needs change.

3.1.3 Prioritize low-performing indicators

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• Prioritized list of planned actions for low-performing indicators

Materials

• IT Metrics Library

Participants

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators
• Task owners

1 hour

1. Look through the list of new and outstanding planned actions in the “Action Plan” tab of the IT Metrics Library, review progress, and prioritize outstanding items.
2. Compare the list that needs remediation with the rank in the data entry tab.
3. Adjust the priority of the outstanding and new actions to reflect the business needs.

Step 3.2

Review suggested actions

Activities

3.2.1 Review suggested actions in the IT Metrics Library

Create the Action Plan

Step 3.1 – Prioritize low-performing indicators

Step 3.2 – Review suggested actions

Step 3.3 – Develop the action plan

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Reviewing the suggested actions in the IT Metrics Library

This step involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Outcomes of this step

An idea of possible suggested actions

Take Action

Knowing where you are underperforming is only half the battle. You need to act!

• So far you have identified which indicators will tell you whether or not your team is performing and which indicators are most critical to your business success.
• Knowing is the first step, but things will not improve without some kind of action.
• Sometimes the action needed to course-correct is small and simple, but sometimes it is complicated and may take a long time.
• Utilize the diverse ideas of your team to find solutions to underperforming indicators.
• If you don’t have a viable simple solution, leverage the IT Metrics Library, which suggests high-level action needed to improve each indicator. If you need additional information, use your Info-Tech membership to review the recommended research.

3.2.1 Review suggested actions in the IT Metrics Library

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• Suggested actions

Materials

• IT Metrics Library

Participants

• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators
• Task owners

0.5 hours

1. For each of your low-performing indicators, review the suggested action and related research in the IT Metrics Library.

Step 3.3

Develop the action plan

Activities

3.3.1 Document planned actions

3.3.2 Assign ownership of actions

3.3.3 Determine timeline of actions

3.3.4 Review past action status

Create the action plan

Step 3.1 – Prioritize low- performing indicators

Step 3.2 – Review suggested actions

Step 3.3 – Develop the action plan

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Using the action plan tool to document the expected actions for low-performing indicators

Assigning an owner and expected due date for the action

Reviewing past action status for accountability

This step involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators

Outcomes of this step

An action plan to invoke improved performance

3.3.1 Document planned actions

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• Planned actions

Materials

• IT Metrics Library

Participants

• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators
• Task owners

1 hour

1. Decide on the action you plan to take to bring the indicator in line with expected performance and document the planned action in the “Action Plan” tab of the IT Metrics Library.

Info-Tech Insight

For larger initiatives try to break the task down to what is likely manageable before the next review. Seeing progress can motivate continued action.

3.3.2 Assign ownership of actions

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• Identified owners for each action

Materials

• IT Metrics Library

Participants

• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators
• Task owners

0.5 hours

1. For each unassigned task, assign clear ownership for completion of the task.
2. The task owner should be the person accountable for the task.

Info-Tech Insight

Assigning clear ownership can promote accountability for progress.

3.3.3 Determine timeline of actions

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• Expected timeline for each action

Materials

• IT Metrics Library

Participants

• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators
• Task owners

0.5 hours

1. For each task, agree on an estimated target date for completion.

Info-Tech Insight

If the target completion date is too far in the future, break the task into manageable chunks.

3.3.4 Review past action status

Input

• IT Metrics Library

Output

• Complete action plan for increased performance

Materials

• IT Metrics Library

Participants

• Process area owners
• Metrics program owners and administrators
• Task owners

0.5 hours

1. For each task, review the progress since last review.
2. If desired progress is not being made, adjust your plan based on your organizational constraints.

Info-Tech Insight

Seek to understand the reasons that tasks are not being completed and problem solve for creative solutions to improve performance.

Measure the value of your KPI program

KPIs only produce value if they lead to action

• Tracking the performance of key indicators is the first step, but value only comes from taking action based on this information.
• Keep track of the number of action items that come out of your KPI review and how many are completed.
• If possible, keep track of the time or money saved through completing the action items.

Keeping track of the number of actions identified and completed is a low overhead measure.

Tracking time or money saved is higher overhead but also higher value.

Establish Baseline Metrics

Baseline metrics will be improved through:

1. Identifying actions needed to remediate poor-performing KPIs
2. Associating time and/or money savings as a result of actions taken

Summary of Accomplishment

Problem Solved

Through this project we have identified typical key performance indicators that are important to your organization’s effective management of IT.

You’ve populated the IT Management Dashboard as a simple method to display the results of your selected KPIs.

You’ve also established a regular review process for your KPIs and have a method to track the actions that are needed to improve performance as a result of the KPI review. This should allow you to hold individuals accountable for improvement efforts.

You can also measure the effectiveness of your KPI program by tracking how many actions are identified as a result of the review. Ideally you can also track the money and time savings.

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech workshop.

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com

1-888-670-8889

Additional Support

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through other phases as part of an Info-Tech Workshop.

Contact your account representative for more information.

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

To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech Workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.

Info-Tech analysts will join you and your team at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.

The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:

Select the KPIs for your organization

Examine the benefits of the KPIs suggested in the IT Metrics Library and help selecting those that will drive performance for your maturity level.

Build an action plan

Discuss options for identifying and executing actions that result from your KPI review. Determine how to set up the discipline needed to make the most of your KPI review program.

Research Contributors and Experts

Valence Howden

Principal Research Director, CIO – Service Management Info-Tech Research Group

• Valence has extensive experience in helping organizations be successful through optimizing how they govern themselves, how they design and execute strategies, and how they drive service excellence in all work.

Tracy-Lynn Reid

Practice Lead, CIO – People & Leadership Info-Tech Research Group

• Tracy-Lynn covers key topics related to People & Leadership within an information technology context.

Fred Chagnon

Practice Lead, Infrastructure & Operations Info-Tech Research Group

• Fred brings extensive practical experience in all aspects of enterprise IT Infrastructure, including IP networks, server hardware, operating systems, storage, databases, middleware, virtualization and security.

Aaron Shum

Practice Lead, Security, Risk & Compliance Info-Tech Research Group

• With 20+ years of experience across IT, InfoSec, and Data Privacy, Aaron currently specializes in helping organizations implement comprehensive information security and cybersecurity programs as well as comply with data privacy regulations.

Cole Cioran

Practice Lead, Applications and Agile Development Info-Tech Research Group

• Over the past twenty-five years, Cole has developed software; designed data, infrastructure, and software solutions; defined systems and enterprise architectures; delivered enterprise-wide programs; and managed software development, infrastructure, and business systems analysis practices.

Barry Cousins

Practice Lead, Applications – Project and Portfolio Mgmt. Info-Tech Research Group

• Barry specializes in Project Portfolio Management, Help/Service Desk, and Telephony/Unified Communications. He brings an extensive background in technology, IT management, and business leadership.

Jack Hakimian

Vice President, Applications Info-Tech Research Group

• Jack has close to 25 years of Technology and Management Consulting experience. He has served multi-billion-dollar organizations in multiple industries, including Financial Services and Telecommunications. Jack also served several large public sector institutions.

Vivek Mehta

Research Director, CIO Info-Tech Research Group

• Vivek publishes on topics related to digital transformation and innovation. He is the author of research on Design a Customer-Centric Digital Operating Model and Create Your Digital Strategy as well as numerous keynotes and articles on digital transformation.

Carlos Sanchez

Practice Lead, Enterprise Applications Info-Tech Research Group

• Carlos has a breadth of knowledge in enterprise applications strategy, planning, and execution.

Andy Neill

Practice Lead, Enterprise Architecture, Data & BI Info-Tech Research Group

• Andy has extensive experience in managing technical teams, information architecture, data modeling, and enterprise data strategy.

Michael Fahey

Executive Counselor Info-Tech Research Group

• As an Executive Counselor, Mike applies his decades of business experience and leadership, along with Info-Tech Research Group’s resources, to assist CIOs in delivering outstanding business results.

Related Info-Tech Research

Develop Meaningful Service Metrics to Ensure Business and User Satisfaction

• Reinforce service orientation in your IT organization by ensuring your IT metrics generate value-driven resource behavior.

Use Applications Metrics That Matter

• It all starts with quality and customer satisfaction.

Take Control of Infrastructure Metrics

• Master the metrics maze to help make decisions, manage costs, and plan for change.

Bibliography

Bach, Nancy. “How Often Should You Measure Your Organization's KPIs?” EON, 26 June 2018. Accessed Jan. 2020.

“The Benefits of Tracking KPIs – Both Individually and for a Team.” Hoopla, 30 Jan. 2017. Accessed Jan. 2020.

Chepul, Tiffany. “Top 22 KPI Examples for Technology Companies.” Rhythm Systems, Jan. 2020. Accessed Jan. 2020.

Cooper, Larry. “CSF's, KPI's, Metrics, Outcomes and Benefits” itSM Solutions. 5 Feb. 2010. Accessed Jan 2020.

“CUC Report on the implementation of Key Performance Indicators: case study experience.” Committee of University Chairs, June 2008. Accessed Jan 2020.

Harris, Michael, and Bill Tayler. “Don’t Let Metrics Undermine Your Business.” HBR, Sep.–Oct 2019. Accessed Jan. 2020.

Hatari, Tim. “The Importance of a Strong KPI Dashboard.” TMD Coaching. 27 Dec. 2018. Accessed Jan. 2020.

Roy, Mayu, and Marian Carter. “The Right KPIs, Metrics for High-performing, Cost-saving Space Management.” CFI, 2013. Accessed Jan 2020.

Schrage, Michael, and David Kiron. “Leading With Next-Generation Key Performance Indicators.” MIT Sloan Management Review, 26 June 2018. Accessed Jan. 2020.

Setijono, Djoko, and Jens J. Dahlgaard. “Customer value as a key performance indicator (KPI) and a key improvement indicator (KII)” Emerald Insight, 5 June 2007. Accessed Jan 2020.

Skinner, Ted. “Balanced Scorecard KPI Examples: Comprehensive List of 183 KPI Examples for a Balanced Scorecard KPI Dashboard (Updated for 2020).” Rhythm Systems, Jan. 2020. Accessed Jan 2020.

Wishart, Jessica. “5 Reasons Why You Need The Right KPIs in 2020” Rhythm Systems, 1 Feb. 2020. Accessed Jan. 2020.

Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback

Drive up CSAT scores by asking the right questions and effectively responding to user feedback.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Collecting feedback is only half the equation.

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Asking your customers for feedback then doing nothing with it is worse than not asking for feedback at all. Your customers may end up more dissatisfied than they were before, if their opinion is sought out and then ignored. It’s valuable to collect feedback, but the true value for both IT and its customers comes from acting on that feedback and communicating those actions back to your users.

Traditional service desk metrics can be misleading

The watermelon effect

When a service desk appears to hit all its targets according to the metrics it tracks, but service delivery is poor and customer satisfaction is low, this is known as the “watermelon effect”. Service metrics appear green on the outside, but under the surface (unmeasured), they’re red because customers are dissatisfied.

Traditional SLAs and service desk metrics (such as time to respond, average resolution time, percentage of SLAs met) can help you understand service desk performance internally to prioritize your work and identify process improvements. However, they don’t tell you how customers perceive the service or how satisfied they are.

Providing good service to your customers should be your end goal. Failing to measure, monitor, and act on customer feedback means you don’t have the whole picture of how your service desk is performing and whether or where improvements are needed to maximize satisfaction.

There is a shift in ITSM to focus more on customer experience metrics over traditional ones

The Service Desk Institute (SDI) suggests that customer satisfaction is the most important indicator of service desk success, and that traditional metrics around SLA targets – currently the most common way to measure service desk performance – may become less valuable or even obsolete in the future as customer experience-focused targets become more popular. (Service Desk Institute, 2021)

SDI conducted a Customer Experience survey of service desk professionals from a range of organizations, both public and private, from January to March 2018. The majority of respondents said that customer experience is more important than other metrics such as speed of service or adherence to SLAs, and that customer satisfaction is more valuable than traditional metrics. (SDI, 2018).

However, many service desk leaders aren’t effectively measuring customer feedback

Not only is it important to measure customer experience and satisfaction levels, but it’s equally important to act on that data and feed it into a service improvement program. However, many IT leaders are neglecting either one or both of those components.

A strong customer feedback program brings many benefits to IT and the business

Take Action on Service Desk Customer Feedback

Info-Tech’s methodology for measuring and acting on service desk customer feedback

Insight Summary

Key Insight:

Asking your customers for feedback then doing nothing with it is worse than not asking for feedback at all. Your customers may end up more dissatisfied than they were before if they’re asked for their opinion then see nothing done with it. It’s valuable to collect feedback, but the true value for both IT and its customers comes from acting on that feedback and communicating those actions back to your users.

Additional insights:

Understand how to measure customer satisfaction

Phase 1

Understand the main types of customer satisfaction surveys, principles for survey design, and best practices for surveying your users.

Three methods of surveying your customers

Pros and cons of the three methods

Which survey method should you choose?

Only relying on one type of survey will leave gaps in your understanding of customer satisfaction. Include both transactional and relationship surveys to provide a holistic picture of customer satisfaction with the service desk.

If you can only start with one type, choose the type that best aligns with your goals and priorities:

Info-Tech Insight

One-off surveys can be useful to assess whether a specific change has impacted satisfaction, or to inform a planned change/initiative. However, as they aren’t typically part of an on-going customer feedback program, the focus of this research will be on transactional and relationship surveys.

3 common customer satisfaction measures

The three most utilized measures of customer satisfaction include CSAT, CES, and NPS.

When to use each satisfaction measure

How to choose which measure(s) to incorporate in your surveys

The best measures are the ones that align with your specific goals for collecting feedback.

• Most companies will use multiple satisfaction measures. For example, NPS can be tracked to monitor the overall customer sentiment, and CSAT used for more targeted feedback.
• For internal-facing IT departments, CSAT is the most popular of the three methods, and NPS may not be as useful.
• Choose your measure and survey types based on what you are trying to achieve and what kind of information you need to make improvements.
• Remember that one measure alone isn’t going to give you actionable feedback; you’ll need to follow up with additional measures (especially for NPS and CES).
• For CSAT surveys, customize the satisfaction measures in as many ways as you need to target the questions toward the areas you’re most interested in.
• Don’t stick to just these three measures or types of surveys – there are other ways to collect feedback. Experiment to find what works for you.
• If you’re designing your own survey, keep in mind the principles on the next slide.

Info-Tech Insight

While we focus mainly on traditional survey-based approaches to measuring customer satisfaction in this blueprint, there’s no need to limit yourselves to surveys as your only method. Consider multiple techniques to capture a wider audience, including:

• Customer journey mapping
• Focus groups with stakeholders
• Lunch and learns or workshop sessions
• Interviews – phone, chat, in-person
• Kiosks

Principles for survey design

As you design your satisfaction survey – whether transactional or relational – follow these guidelines to ensure the survey delivers value and gets responses.

1. Focus on your goal

Don’t include unnecessary questions that won’t give you actionable information; it will only waste respondents’ time.

2. Be brief

Keep each question as short as possible and limit the total number of survey questions to avoid survey fatigue.

3. Include open-ended questions

Most of your measures will be close-ended, but include at least one comment box to allow for qualitative feedback.

4. Keep questions clear and concise

Ensure that question wording is clear and specific so that all respondents interpret it the same way.

5. Avoid biased or leading questions

You won’t get accurate results if your question leads respondents into thinking or answering a certain way.

6. Avoid double-barreled questions

Don’t ask about two different things in the same question – it will confuse respondents and make your data hard to interpret.

7. Don’t restrict responses

Response options should include all possible opinions (including “don’t know”) to avoid frustrating respondents.

8. Make the survey easy to complete

Pre-populate information where possible (e.g. name, department) and ensure the survey is responsive on mobile devices.

9. Keep questions optional

If every question is mandatory, respondents may leave the survey altogether if they can’t or don’t want to answer one question.

10. Test your survey

Test your survey with your target audience before launching, and incorporate feedback - they may catch issues you didn’t notice.

Prevent survey fatigue to increase response rates

If it takes too much time or effort to complete your survey – whether transactional or relational – your respondents won’t bother. Balance your need to collect relevant data with users’ needs for a simple and worthwhile task in order to get the most value out of your surveys.

There are two types of survey fatigue:

1. Survey response fatigue

Occurs when users are overwhelmed by too many requests for feedback and stop responding.

2. Survey taking fatigue

Occurs when the survey is too long or irrelevant to users, so they grow tired and abandon the survey.

Fight survey fatigue:

• Make it as easy as possible to answer your survey:
  • Keep the survey as short as possible.
  • For transactional surveys, allow respondents to answer directly from email without having to click a separate link if possible.
  • Don’t make all questions mandatory or users may abandon it if they get to a difficult or unapplicable question.
  • Test the survey experience across devices for mobile users.
• Communicate the survey’s value so users will be more likely to donate their time.
• Act on feedback: follow up on both positive and negative responses so users see the value in responding.
• Consider attaching an incentive to responding (e.g. name entered in a monthly draw).

Design and implement transactional surveys

Phase 2

Learn why and how to design a simple survey to assess satisfaction with individual service desk transactions (tickets) and a methodology for survey delivery that will improve response rates.

Use transactional surveys to collect immediate and actionable feedback

Recall the definition of a transactional survey:

• Survey that is tied to a specific customer interaction with the service desk (i.e. a ticket).
• Assesses how satisfied customers are with how the ticket was handled and resolved.
• Sent immediately after ticket is closed.
• Short – usually 1 to 3 questions.

Info-Tech Insight

While feedback on transactional surveys is specific to a single transaction, even one negative experience can impact the overall perception of the service desk. Pair your transactional surveys with an annual relationship survey to capture broader sentiment toward the service desk.

Transactional surveys serve several purposes:

• Gives end users a mechanism to provide feedback when they want to.
• Provides continual insight into customer satisfaction throughout the year to monitor for trends or issues in between broader surveys.
• Provides IT leaders with actionable insights into areas for improvement in their processes, knowledge and skills, or customer service.
• Gives the service desk the opportunity to address any negative experiences or perceptions with customers, to repair the relationship.
• Feeds into individual or team coaching for service desk staff.

Make key decisions ahead of launching your transactional surveys

If you want to get the most of your surveys, you need to do more than just click a button to enable out-of-the-box surveys through your ITSM tool. Make these decisions ahead of time:

Key decisions, continued

Define the goals of your transactional survey program

Every survey should have a goal in mind to ensure only relevant and useful data is collected.

• Your survey program must be backed by clear and actionable goals that will inform all decisions about the survey.
• Survey questions should be structured around that goal, with every question serving a distinct purpose.
• If you don’t have a clear plan for how you will action the data from a particular question, exclude it.
• Don’t run a survey just for the sake of it; wait until you have a clear plan. If customers respond and then see nothing is done with the data, they will learn to avoid your surveys.

Your survey objectives will also determine how often to send the survey:

Info-Tech Insight

Service Managers often get caught up in running a transactional survey program because they think it’s standard practice, or they need to report a satisfaction metric. If that’s your only objective, you will fail to derive value from the data and will only turn customers away from responding.

Design survey content and length

As you design your survey, keep in mind the following principles:

1. Keep it short. Your customers won’t bother responding if they see a survey with multiple questions or long questions that require a lot of reading, effort, or time.
2. Make it simple. This not only makes it easier for your customers to complete, but easier for you to track and monitor.
3. Tie your survey to your goals. Remember that every question should have a clear and actionable purpose.
4. Don’t measure anything you can’t control. If you won’t be able to make changes based on the feedback, there’s no value asking about it.
5. Include an (optional) open-ended question. This will allow customers to provide more detailed feedback or suggestions.

Q: How many questions should the survey contain?

A: Ideally, your survey will have only one mandatory question that captures overall satisfaction with the interaction.

This question can be followed up with an optional open-ended question prompting the respondent for more details. This will provide a lot more context to the overall rating.

If there are additional questions you need to ask based on your goals, clearly make these questions optional so they don’t deter respondents from completing the survey. For example, they can appear only after the respondent has submitted their overall satisfaction response (i.e. on a separate, thank you page).

Additional (optional) measures may include:

• Customer effort score (how easy or difficult was it to get your issue resolved?)
• Customer service skills of the service desk
• Technical skills/knowledge of the agents
• Speed or response or resolution

Design question wording

Tips for writing survey questions:

• Be clear and concise
• Keep questions as short as possible
• Cut out any unnecessary words or phrasing
• Avoid biasing, or leading respondents to select a certain answer
• Don’t attempt to measure multiple constructs in a single question.

Sample question wording:

How satisfied are you with this support experience?

How would you rate your support experience?

Please rate your overall satisfaction with the way your issue was handled.

Choose response options

Once you’ve written your survey question, you need to design the response options for the question. Put careful thought into balancing ease of responding for the user with what will give you the actionable data you need to meet your goals. Keep the following in mind:

Decide how often to send surveys

There are two common choices for when to send ticket satisfaction surveys:

SDI’s 2018 Customer Experience in ITSM survey of service desk professionals found:

Almost two-thirds (65%) send surveys after every ticket.

One-third (33%) send surveys after randomly selected tickets are closed.

Info-Tech Recommendation:

Send a survey after every ticket so that anyone who has feedback gets the opportunity to provide it – and you always get the chance to act on negative feedback. But, limit how often any one customer receives a ticket to avoid over-surveying them – restrict to anywhere between one survey a week to one per month per customer.

Plan detailed survey logistics

Plan detailed survey logistics

Plan detailed survey logistics

Plan detailed survey logistics

Response rates for transactional surveys are typically low…

Most IT organizations see transactional survey response rates of less than 20%.

… but there are steps you can take to maximize your response rate

It is still difficult to achieve high response rates to transactional surveys, but you can at least increase your response rate with these strategies:

1. Reduce frequency

Don’t over-survey any one user or they will start to ignore the surveys.

2. Send immediately

Ask for feedback soon after the ticket was resolved so it’s fresh in the user’s memory.

3. Make it short and simple

Keep the survey short, concise, and simple to respond to.

4. Make it easy to complete

Minimize effort involved as much as possible. Allow users to respond directly from email and from any device.

5. Change email messaging

Experiment with your subject line or email messaging to draw more attention.

6. Respond to feedback

Respond to customers who provide feedback – especially negative – so they know you’re listening.

7. Act on feedback

Demonstrate that you are acting on feedback so users see the value in responding.

Use Info-Tech’s survey template as a starting point

Once you’ve worked through all the decisions in this step, you’re ready to configure your transactional survey in your ITSM solution or survey tool.

As a starting point, you can leverage Info-Tech’s Transactional Service Desk Survey Templatee to design your templates and wording.

Make adjustments to match your decisions or your configuration limitations as needed.

Refer to the key decisions tables on slides 24 and 25 to ensure you’ve made all the configurations necessary as you set up your survey.

Design and implement relationship surveys

Phase 3

Understand why and how to design a survey to assess overall satisfaction with the service desk across your organization, or use Info-Tech’s diagnostic.

How can we evaluate overall Service Desk service quality?

Evaluating service quality in any industry is challenging for both those seeking feedback and those consuming the service: “service quality is more difficult for the consumer to evaluate than goods quality.”

You are in the position of trying to measure something intangible: customer perception, which “result[s] from a comparison of consumer expectations with actual service performance,” which includes both the service outcome and also “the process of service delivery”

(Source: Parasuraman et al, 1985, 42).

Your mission is to design a relationship survey that is:

• Comprehensive but not too long.
• Easy to understand but complex enough to capture enough detail.
• Able to capture satisfaction with both the outcome and the experience of receiving the service.

Use relationship surveys to measure overall service desk service quality

Recall the definition of a relationship survey:

• Survey that is sent periodically (i.e. semi-annually or annually) to the entire customer base to measure the overall relationship with the service desk.
• Shows you where your customer experience is doing well and where it needs improving.
• Asks customers to rate you based on their overall experience rather than on a specific product or interaction.
• Longer and more comprehensive than transactional surveys, covering multiple dimensions/ topics.

Relationship surveys serve several purposes:

• Gives end users an opportunity to provide overall feedback on a wider range of experiences with IT.
• Gives IT the opportunity to respond to feedback and show users their voices are heard.
• Provides insight into year-over-year trends and customer satisfaction.
• Provides IT leaders the opportunity to segment the results by demographic (e.g. by department, location, or seniority) and target improvements where needed most.
• Feeds into strategic planning and annual reports on user experience and satisfaction

Info-Tech Insight

Annual relationship surveys provide great value in the form of year-over-year internal benchmarking data, which you can use to track improvements and validate the impact of your service improvement efforts.

Understand the gaps that decrease service quality

The Service Quality Model (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1985) shows how perceived service quality is negatively impacted by the gap between expectations for quality service and the perceptions of actual service delivery: Gap 1: Consumer expectation – Management perception gap: Are there differences between your assumptions about what users want from a service and what those users expect? Gap 2: Management perception – Service quality specification gap: Do you have challenges translating user expectations for service into standardized processes and guidelines that can meet those expectations? Gap 3: Service quality specifications – Service delivery gap: Do staff members struggle to carry out the service quality processes when delivering service? Gap 4: Service delivery – External communications gap: Have users been led to expect more than you can deliver? Alternatively, are users unaware of how the organization ensures quality service, and therefore unable to appreciate the quality of service they receive? Gap 5: Expected service – Perceived service gap: Is there a discrepancy between users’ expectations and their perception of the service they received (regardless of any user misunderstanding)?

Your survey questions about service and support should provide insight into where these gaps exist in your organization

Make key decisions ahead of launch

Align the relationship survey with your goals

What is motivating you to launch the survey at this time?

Is there a renewed focus on customer service satisfaction? If so, this survey will track the initiative’s success, so its questions must align with the sponsors’ expectations.

Are you surveying customer satisfaction in order to comply with legislation, or directives to measure customer service quality?

What objectives/outcomes will this survey feed into?

What do you need to report on to your stakeholders? Have they communicated any expectations regarding the data they expect to see?

Does the CIO want the annual survey to measure end-user satisfaction with all of IT?

• Or do you only want to measure satisfaction with one set of processes (e.g. Service Desk)?
• Are you seeking feedback on a project (e.g. implementation of new ERP)?
• Are you seeking feedback on the application portfolio?

In 1993 the U.S. president issued an Executive Order requiring executive agencies to “survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with existing services” and “post service standards and measure results against them.” (Clinton, 1993)

Identify what you’re measuring

Info-Tech Insight

As you compose survey questions, decide whether they are intended to capture user satisfaction or effort: this will influence how the question is worded. Include a mix of both.

Determine a framework for your survey

If your relationship survey covers satisfaction with service support, ensure the questions cover the major aspects of service quality. You may wish to align your questions on support with existing frameworks: for example, the SERVQUAL service quality measurement instrument identifies 5 dimensions of service quality: Reliability, Assurance, Tangibles, Empathy, and Responsiveness (see below). As you design the survey, consider if the questions relate to these five dimensions. If you have overlooked any of the dimensions, consider if you need to revise or add questions.

1-5. Arlen, Chris,2022. Paraphrasing Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry, 1990.

Cover logistical details of the survey

Use the Sample Size Calculator to determine your ideal sample size

Info-Tech’s End-User Satisfaction Diagnostics

If you choose to leverage a third-party partner, an Info-Tech satisfaction survey may already be part of your membership. There are two options, depending on your needs:

Design question wording

Choose answer scales that best fit your questions and reporting needs

Likert scale

Respondents select from a range of statements the position with which they most agree:

E.g. How satisfied are you with how long it generally takes to resolve your issue completely?

E.g. Very dissatisfied/Somewhat dissatisfied/ Neutral/ Somewhat satisfied/ Very satisfied/ NA

Frequency scale

How often does the respondent have to do something, or how often do they encounter something?

E.g. How frequently do you need to re-open tickets that have been closed without being satisfactorily resolved?

E.g. Never/ Rarely/ Sometimes/ Often/ Always/ NA

Numeric scale

By asking users to rate their satisfaction on a numeric scale (e.g., 1-5, 1-10), you can facilitate reporting on averages:

E.g. How satisfied are you with IS’s ability to provide services to allow the organization to meet its goals?

E.g. 1 – Not at all Satisfied to 10 – Fully Satisfied / NA

Forced ranking

Learn more about your users’ priorities by asking them to rank answers from most to least important, or selecting their top choices (Sauro, 2018):

E.g. From the following list, drag and drop the 3 aspects of our service that are most important to you into the box on the right.

Info-Tech Insight

Always include an optional open-ended question, which allows customers to provide more feedback or suggestions.

Test the survey before launching

Review your questions for repetition and ask for feedback on your survey draft to discover if readers interpret the questions differently than you intended.

Test the survey with different stakeholder groups:

• IT staff: To discover overlooked topics.
• Representatives of your end-user population: To discover whether they understand the intention of the questions.
• Executives: To validate whether you are capturing the data they are interested in reporting on.

Testing methodology:

• Ask your test subjects to take the survey in your presence so you can monitor their experience as they take it.
• Ask them to narrate their experience as they take the survey.
• Watch for:
  • The time it takes to complete the survey.
  • Moments when they struggle or are uncertain with the survey’s wording.
  • Questions they find repetitive or pointless.

Info-Tech Insight

In the survey testing phase, try to capture at least a few real-time responses to the survey. If you collect survey feedback only once the test is over, you may miss some key insights into the user experience of navigating the survey.

“Follow the golden rule: think of your audience and what they may or may not know. Think about what kinds of outside pressures they may bring to the work you’re giving them. What time constraints do they have?”

– Sally Colwell, Project Officer, Government of Canada Pension Centre

Monitor and maximize your response rate

Ensure success by staying on top of the survey during the period it is open.

• When will your users complete the survey? You know your own organization’s culture best, but SurveyMonkey found that weekday survey responses peaked at mid-morning and mid-afternoon (Wronski). Ensure you send the communication at a time it will not be overlooked. For example, some studies found Mondays to have higher response rates; however, the data is not consistent (Amaresan, 2021). Send the survey at a time you believe your users are least likely to be inundated with other notifications.
• Have a trusted leader send out the first communication informing the end-user base of the survey. Ensure the recipient understands your motivation and how their responses will be used to benefit them (O’Reardon, 2016). Remind them that participating in the survey benefits them: since IT is taking actions based on their feedback, it’s their chance to improve their employee experience of the IT services and tools they use to do their job.
• In the introductory communication, test different email subject lines and email body content to learn which versions increase respondents’ rates of opening the survey link, and “keep it short and clear” (O’Reardon, 2016).
• If your users tend to mistrust emailed links due to security training, tell them how to confirm the legitimacy of the survey.

“[Send] one reminder to those who haven’t completed the survey after a few days. Don’t use the word ‘reminder’ because that’ll go straight in the bin, better to say something like, ‘Another chance to provide your feedback’”

– David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

Analyze and act on feedback

Phase 4

Measure and analyze the results of both surveys and build a plan to act on both positive and negative feedback and communicate the results with the organization.

Leverage the service recovery paradox to improve customer satisfaction

A service failure or a poor experience isn’t what determines customer satisfaction – it’s how you respond to the issue and take steps to fix it that really matters.

This means one poor experience with the service desk doesn’t necessarily lead to an unhappy user; if you quickly and effectively respond to negative feedback to repair the relationship, the customer may be even happier afterwards because you demonstrated that you value them.

“Every complaint becomes an opportunity to turn a bad IT customer experience into a great one.”

– David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

Collecting feedback is only the first step in the customer feedback loop

Closing the feedback loop is one of the most important yet forgotten steps in the process.

1. Collect Feedback

• Send transactional surveys after every ticket is resolved.
• Send a broader annual relationship survey to all users.

• Calculate satisfaction scores.
• Read open-ended comments.
• Analyze for trends, categories, common issues and priorities.

• Respond to users who provided feedback.
• Make improvements based on feedback.

• Communicate feedback results and improvements made to respondents and to service desk staff.
• Summarize results and actions to key stakeholders and business leaders.

Act on feedback to get the true value of your satisfaction program

SDI (2018) survey data shows that the majority of service desk professionals are using their customer satisfaction data to feed into service improvements. However, 30% still aren’t doing anything with the feedback they collect. Collecting feedback is only one half of a good customer feedback program. Acting on that feedback is critical to the success of the program. Using feedback to make improvements not only benefits the service desk but shows users the value of responding and will increase future response rates.

“Your IT service desk’s CSAT survey should be the means of improving your service (and the employee experience), and something that encourages people to provide even more feedback, not just the means for understanding how well it’s doing” – Joe the IT Guy, SysAid

Assign responsibility for acting on feedback

If collecting and analyzing customer feedback is something that happens off the side of your desk, it either won’t get done or won’t get done well.

• Formalize the customer satisfaction program. It’s not a one-time task, but an ongoing initiative that requires significant time and dedication.
• Be clear on who is accountable for the program and who is responsible for all the tasks involved for both transactional and relationship survey data collection, analysis, and communication.

Assign accountability for the customer feedback program to one person (i.e. Service Desk Manager, Service Manager, Infrastructure & Operations Lead, IT Director), who may take on or assign responsibilities such as:

• Designing surveys, including survey questions and response options.
• Configuring survey(s) in ITSM or survey tool.
• Sending relationship surveys and subsequent reminders to the organization.
• Communicating results of both surveys to internal staff, business leaders, and end users.
• Analyzing results.
• Feeding results into improvement plans, coaching, and training.
• Creating reports and dashboards to monitor scores and trends.

Info-Tech Insight

While feedback can feed into internal coaching and training, the goal should never be to place blame or use metrics to punish agents with poor results. The focus should always be on improving the experience for end users.

Determine how and how often to analyze feedback data

• Analyze and report scores from both transactional and relationship surveys to get a more holistic picture of satisfaction across the organization.
• Determine how you will calculate and present satisfaction ratings/scores, both overall and for individual questions. See tips on the right for calculating and presenting NPS and CSAT scores.
• A single satisfaction score doesn’t tell the full story; calculate satisfaction scores at multiple levels to determine where improvements are most needed.
  • For example, satisfaction by service desk tier, team or location, by business department or location, by customer group, etc.
• Analyze survey data regularly to ensure you communicate and act on feedback promptly and avoid further alienating dissatisfied users. Transactional survey feedback should be reviewed at least weekly, but ideally in real time, as resources allow.

Calculating NPS Scores

Categorize respondents into 3 groups:

• 9-10 = Promoters, 7-8 = Neutral, 1-6 = Detractors

Calculate overall NPS score:

• % Promoters - % Detractors

Calculating CSAT Scores

• CSAT is usually presented as a percentage representing the average score.
• To calculate, take the total of all scores, divide by the maximum possible score, then multiply by 100. For example, a satisfaction rating of 80% means on average, users gave a rating of 4/5 or 8/10.
• Note that some organizations present CSAT as the percentage of “satisfied” users, with satisfied being defined as either “yes” on a two-point scale or a score of 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale. Be clear how you are defining your satisfaction rating.

Don’t neglect qualitative feedback

While it may be more difficult and time-consuming to analyze, the reward is also greater in terms of value derived from the data.

Define a process to respond to both negative and positive feedback

Successful customer satisfaction programs respond effectively to both positive and negative outcomes. Late or lack of responses to negative comments may increase customer frustration, while not responding at all to the positive comments may give the perception of indifference.

1. Define what qualifies as a positive vs negative score

E.g. Scores of 1 to 2 out of 5 are negative, scores of 4 to 5 out of 5 are positive.

2. Define process to respond to negative feedback

• Negative responses should go directly to the Service Desk Manager or whoever is accountable for feedback.
• Set an SLO for when the user will be contacted. It should be within 24h but ideally much sooner.
• Investigate the issue to understand exactly what happened and get to the root cause.
• Identify remediation steps to ensure the issue does not occur again.
• Communicate to the customer the action you have taken to improve.

• Positive responses should also be reviewed by the person accountable for feedback, but the timeline to respond may be longer.
• Show respondents that you value their time by thanking them for responding. Showing appreciate helps to build a long-term relationship with the user.
• Share positive results with the team to improve morale, and as a coaching/training mechanism.
• Consider how to use positive feedback as an incentive or reward.

Build a plan to communicate results to various stakeholders

Regular communication about your feedback results and action plan tied to those results is critical to the success of your feedback program. Build your communication plan around these questions:

Communication to your users impacts both response rates and satisfaction

Based on the Customer Communication Cycle by David O’Reardon, 2018

Ask users to provide feedback through transactional and relationship surveys. Thank them for completing the survey – show that you value their time, regardless of the type of feedback they submitted. Be transparent and summarize the results of the survey(s). Make it easy to digest with simple satisfaction scores and a summary of the main insights or priorities revealed. Before asking for feedback, explain how you will use feedback to improve the service. After collecting feedback, share your plan for making improvements based on what the data told you. After you’ve made changes, communicate again to share the results with respondents. Make it clear that their feedback had a direct result on the service they receive. Communicating this before running another survey will also increase the likelihood of respondents providing feedback again.

Info-Tech Insight

Focus your communications to users around them, not you. Demonstrate that you need feedback to improve their experience, not just for you to collect data.

Translate feedback into actionable improvements

Taking action on feedback is arguably the most important step of the whole customer feedback program.

“Without converting feedback into actions, surveys can become just a pointless exercise in number watching.”

– David O’Reardon, Founder & CEO of Silversix

Info-Tech Insight

Outline exactly what you plan to do to address customer feedback in an action plan, and regularly review that action plan to select and prioritize initiatives and monitor progress.

For more guidance on tracking and prioritizing ongoing improvement initiatives, see the blueprints Optimize the Service Desk with a Shift Left Strategy and Build a Continual Improvement Plan for the Service Desk.

Leverage Info-Tech resources to guide your improvement efforts

Map your identified improvements to the relevant resource that can help:

Map process for acting on relationship survey feedback

Use Info-Tech’s Relationship Satisfaction Survey Review Process workflow as a template to define your own process.

Map process for acting on transactional survey feedback

Use Info-Tech’s Transactional Satisfaction Survey Review Process workflow as a template to define your own process.

Related Info-Tech Research

Standardize the Service Desk

This project will help you build and improve essential service desk processes, including incident management, request fulfillment, and knowledge management to create a sustainable service desk.

Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy

This project will help you build a strategy to shift service support left to optimize your service desk operations and increase end-user satisfaction.

Build a Continual Improvement Plan

This project will help you build a continual improvement plan for the service desk to review key processes and services and manage the progress of improvement initiatives.

Deliver a Customer Service Training Program to Your IT Department

This project will help you deliver a targeted customer service training program to your IT team to enhance their customer service skills when dealing with end users, improve overall service delivery and increase customer satisfaction.

Sources Cited

Amaresan, Swetha. “The best time to send a survey, according to 5 studies.” Hubspot. 15 Jun 2021. Accessed October 2022.
Arlen, Chris. “The 5 Service Dimensions All Customers Care About.” Service Performance Inc. n.d. Accessed October 2022.
Clinton, William Jefferson. “Setting Customer Service Standards.” (1993). Federal Register, 58(176).
“Understanding Confidentiality and Anonymity.” The Evergreen State College. 2022. Accessed October 2022.
"Highlights of the 2017 U.S. PIAAC Results Web Report" (NCES 2020-777). U.S. Department of Education. Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics.
Joe the IT Guy. “Are IT Support’s Customer Satisfaction Surveys Their Own Worst Enemy?” Joe the IT Guy. 29 August 2018. Accessed October 2022.
O’Reardon, David. “10 Ways to Get the Most out of your ITSM Ticket Surveys.” LinkedIn. 2 July 2019. Accessed October 2022.
O'Reardon, David. "13 Ways to increase the response rate of your Service Desk surveys".LinkedIn. 8 June 2016. Accessed October 2022.
O’Reardon, David. “IT Customer Feedback Management – A Why & How Q&A with an Expert.” LinkedIn. 13 March 2018. Accessed October 2022.
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). "A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research." Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 41–50.
Quantisoft. "How to Increase IT Help Desk Customer Satisfaction and IT Help Desk Performance.“ Quantisoft. n.d. Accessed November 2022.
Rumberg, Jeff. “Metric of the Month: Customer Effort.” HDI. 26 Mar 2020. Accessed September 2022.
Sauro, Jeff. “15 Common Rating Scales Explained.” MeasuringU. 15 August 2018. Accessed October 2022.
SDI. “Customer Experience in ITSM.” SDI. 2018. Accessed October 2022.
SDI. “CX: Delivering Happiness – The Series, Part 1.” SDI. 12 January 2021. Accessed October 2022.
Wronski, Laura. “Who responds to online surveys at each hour of the day?” SurveyMonkey. n.d. Accessed October 2022.

Research contributors

Sally Colwell

Project Officer

Government of Canada Pension Centre

Choose Your Mobile Platform and Tools

Maximize the value of your mobile investments by prioritizing technology decisions on user experience, business priorities, and system quality.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Mobile is the way of working.

Workers require access to enterprise products, data, and services anywhere at anytime on any device. Give them the device-specific features, offline access, desktop-like interfaces, and automation capabilities they need to be productive.

To be successful, you need to instill a collaborative business-IT partnership. Only through this partnership will you be able to select the right mobile platform and tools to balance desired outcomes with enterprise security, performance, integration, quality, and other delivery capacity concerns.

Andrew Kum-Seun
Senior Research Analyst,
Application Delivery and Application Management
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

• Organizations see the value of mobile applications in improving productivity and reach of day-to-day business and IT operations. This motivates leaders to begin the planning of their first application.
• However, organizations often lack the critical foundational knowledge and skills to deliver and maintain high quality and valuable applications that meet business and user priorities and technical requirements.
• Mobile technologies and trends are continually evolving and maturing. It is hard to predict which trends will make a significant impact and to prepare current mobile investments to harness the value of these trends.

Common Obstacles

• Mobile applications can stress the stability, reliability and overall quality of your enterprise systems and services. They will also increase your security risks because of the exposure of your enterprise technology assets to unsecured networks and devices.
• High costs of entry may restrict what native features your users can have in their mobile experience. Workarounds may not be sufficient to offset the costs of certain native feature needs.
• Many operating models do not enable or encourage the collaboration required to fully understand user needs and behaviors and evaluate mobile opportunities and underlying operational systems from multiple perspectives.

Info-Tech's Approach

• Establish the right expectations. Understand your mobile users by learning their needs, challenges, and behaviors. Discuss the current state of your systems and your high priority non-functional requirements to determine what to expect from your mobile applications.
• Choose the right mobile platform approach and shortlist your mobile delivery solutions. Obtain a thorough view of the business and technical complexities of your mobile opportunities, including current mobile delivery capabilities and system compatibilities.
• Create your mobile roadmap. Describe the gradual rollout of your mobile technologies through minimal valuable products (MVPs).

Insight Summary

Overarching Info-Tech Insight

Treat your mobile applications as digital products. Digital products are continuously modernized to ensure they are fit-for-purpose, secured, accessible, and immersive. A successful mobile experience involves more than just the software and supporting system. It involves good training and onboarding, efficient delivery turnaround, and a clear and rational vision and strategy.

Phase 1: Set the Mobile Context

• Build applications your users need and desire – Design the right mobile application that enables your users to address their frustrations and productivity challenges.
• Maximize return on your technology investments – Build your mobile applications with existing web APIs, infrastructure, and services as much as possible.
• Prioritize mobile security, performance and integration requirements – Understand the unique security, performance, and integration influences has on your desired mobile user experience. Find the right balance of functional and non-functional requirements through business and IT collaboration.

Phase 2: Define Your Mobile Approach

• Start with a mobile web platform - Minimize disruptions to your existing delivery process and technical stack by building against common web standards. Select a hybrid platform or cross-platform if you need device hardware access or have complicated non-functional requirements.
• Focus your mobile solution decision on vendor support and functional complexity – Verify that your solution is not only compatible with the architecture, data, and policies of existing business systems, but satisfies IT's concerns with access to restricted technology and data, and with IT's ability to manage and operate your applications.
• Anticipate changes, defects & failures in your roadmap - Quickly shift your mobile roadmaps according to user feedback, delivery challenges, value, and stability.

Mobile is how the business works today

Mobile adoption continues to grow in part due to the need to be a mobile workforce, and the shift in customer behaviors. This reality pushed the industry to transform business processes and technologies to better support the mobile way of working.

Mobile Builds Interests
61%
Mobile devices drove 61% of visits to U.S. websites
Source: Perficient, 2021

Mobile Maintains Engagement
54%
Mobile devices generated 54.4% of global website traffic in Q4 2021.
Source: Statista, 2022

Mobile Drives Productivity
82%
According to 82% of IT executives, smartphones are highly important to employee productivity
Source: Samsung and Oxford Economics, 2022

Mobile applications enable and drive your digital business strategy

Organizations know the criticality of mobile applications in meeting key business and digital transformation goals, and they are making significant investments. Over half (58%) of organizations say their main strategy for driving application adoption is enabling mobile access to critical enterprise systems (Enterprise CIO, 2016). The strategic positioning and planning of mobile applications are key for success.

Mobile Can Motivate, Support and Drive Progress in Key Activities Underpinning Digital Transformation Goals

Goal: Enhance Customer Experience

• A shift from paper to digital communications
• Seamless, omni-channel client experiences across devices
• Create Digital interactive documents with sections that customers can customize to better understand their communications

Goal: Increase Workflow Throughput & Efficiency

• Digitized processes and use of data to improve process efficiency
• Modern IT platforms
• Automation through robotic process automation (RPA) where possible
• Use of AI and machine learning for intelligent automation

Source: Broadridge, 2022

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Define Your Digital Business Strategy blueprint.

Well developed mobile applications bring unique opportunities to drive more value

Info-Tech Insight

If you build it, they may not come. Design and build the applications your user wants and needs, and ensure users are properly onboarded and trained. Learn how your applications are leveraged, capture feedback from the user and system dashboards, and plan for enhancements, fixes, and modernizations.

Workers expect IT to deliver against their high mobile expectations

Workers want sophisticated mobile applications like what they see their peers and competitors use.

Why is IT considering building their own applications?

• Complex and Unique Workflows: Canned templates and shells are viewed as incompatible to the workflows required to complete worker responsibilities outside the office, with the same level of access to corporate data as on premise.
• Supporting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD): Developing your own mobile applications around your security protocols and standards can help mitigate the risks with personal devices that are already in your workforce.
• Long-Term Architecture Misalignment: Outsourcing mobile development risks the mobile application misaligned with your quality standards or incompatible with other enterprise and third-party systems.

Continuously meeting aggressive user expectations will not be easy

Value Quickly Wears Off
39.9% of users uninstall an application because it is not in use.
40%
Source: n=2,000, CleverTap, 2021

Low Tolerance to Waiting
Keeping a user waiting for 3 seconds is enough to dissatisfy 43% of users.
43%
Source: AppSamurai, 2018

Quick Fixes Are Paramount
44% of defects are found by users
44%
Source: Perfecto Mobile, 2014

Mobile emphasizes the importance of good security, performance, and integration

Today's mobile workers are looking for new ways to get more work done quickly. They want access to enterprise solutions and data directly on their mobile devices, which can reside on multiple legacy systems and in the cloud and third-party infrastructure. This presents significant performance, integration, and security risks.

Accept change as the norm

IT is challenged with keeping up with disruptive technologies, such as mobile, which are arriving and changing faster and faster.

What is the issue? Mobile priorities, concepts, and technologies do not remain static. For example, current Google's Pixels benefit from at least three versions of Android updates and at least three years of monthly security patches after their release (NextPit, 2022). Keeping up to date with anything mobile is difficult if you do not have the right delivery and product management practices in place.

What is the impact on IT? Those who fail to prepare for changing requirements and technologies will quickly run into maintainability, extensibility, and flexibility issues. Mobile applications will quickly become stale and misaligned with the maturity of other enterprise infrastructure and applications.

Continuously look at the trends, vendor roadmaps, and your user's feedback to envision where your mobile applications should be. Learning from your past attempts gives you insights on the opportunities and impacts changes will have on your people, process, and technology.

How do I address this issue? A well-defined mobile vision and roadmap ensures your initiatives are aligned with your holistic business and technology strategies, the right problem is being solved, and resources are available to deliver high priority changes.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision blueprint.

Address the difficulties in managing enterprise mobile technologies

Adaptability During Development

Teams must be ready to alter their mobile approach when new insights and issues arise during and after the delivery of your mobile application and its updates.

High Cybersecurity Standards

Cybersecurity should be a top priority given the high security exposure of mobiles and the sensitive data mobile applications need to operate. Role-based access, back-up systems, advanced scanning, and protection software and encryption should all be implemented.

Integration with Other Systems

Your application will likely be integrated with other systems to expand service offerings and optimize performance and user experience. Your enterprise integration strategy ensures all systems connect against a common pattern with compatible technologies.

Finding the Right Mobile Developers

Enterprise mobile delivery requires a broad skillset to build valuable applications against extensive non-functional requirements in complex and integration environments. The right resources are even harder to find when native applications are preferred over web-based ones.

Source: Radoslaw Szeja, Netguru, 2022.

Build and manage the right experience by treating mobile as digital products

Digital products are continuously modernized to ensure they are fit-for-purpose, secured, insightful, accessible, and interoperable. A good experience involves more than just technology.

First, deliver the experience end users want and expect by designing the application against digital application principles.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Modernize Your Applications blueprint.

Then, deliver a long-lasting experience by supporting your applications with key governance and management capabilities.

• Product Strategy and Roadmap
• External Relationships
• User Adoption and Organizational Change Management
• Funding
• Knowledge Management
• Stakeholder Management
• Product Governance
• Maintenance & Enhancement
• User Support
• Managing and Governing Data
• Requirements Analysis and Design
• Research & Development

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Make the Case for Product Delivery blueprint.

Choose Your Mobile Platform and Tools

Maximize the value of your mobile investments by prioritizing technology decisions on user experience, business priorities, and system quality.

	WORKFLOW
1. Capture Your User Personas and Journey
2. Select Your Platform
3. Shortlist Your Solutions

Make user experience (UX) the standard

User experience (UX) focuses on a user's emotions, beliefs, and physical and psychological responses that occur before, during, or after interacting with a service or product.

For a mobile application to be meaningful, the functions, aesthetics and content must be:

• Usable
  • Users can intuitively navigate through your mobile application and complete their desired tasks.
• Desirable
  • The application elements are used to evoke positive emotions and appreciation.
• Accessible
  • Users can easily use your mobile application, including those with disabilities.
• Valuable
  • Users find the content useful, and it fulfills a need.

Enable a greater experience with UX-driven thinking

Designing for a high-quality experience requires more than just focusing on the UI. It also requires the merging of multiple business, technical, and social disciplines in order to create an immersive, practical, and receptive application. The image on the right explains the disciplines involved in UX. This is critical for ensuring users have a strong desire to use the mobile application, it is adequately supported technically, and it supports business objectives.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Implement and Mature Your User Experience Design Practice blueprint.

Source: Marky Roden, Xomino, 2018

Define the mobile experience your end users want

• Anytime, Anywhere
  • The user can access, update and analyze data and corporate products and services whenever they want, in all networks, and on any device.
• Hands-Off and Automated
  • The application can perform various workflows and tasks without the user's involvement and notify the user when specific triggers are hit.
• Personalized and Insightful
  • Content presentation and subject are tailored for the user based on specific inputs from the user, device hardware, or predicted actions.
• Integrated Ecosystem
  • The application supports a seamless experience across various third-party and enterprise applications and services the user needs.
• Visually Pleasing and Fulfilling
  • The UI is intuitive and aesthetically gratifying, with little security and performance trade-offs to use the full breadth of its functions and services.

Each mobile platform has its own take on the mobile native experience. The choice ultimately depends on whether the costs and effort are worth the anticipated value.

Mobile value is dependent on the platform you choose

What is a platform?

"A platform is a set of software and a surrounding ecosystem of resources that helps you to grow your business. A platform enables growth through connection: its value comes not only from its own features, but from its ability to connect external tools, teams, data, and processes." (Source: Emilie Nøss Wangen, 2021) In the mobile context, applications in a platform execute and communicate through a loosely-coupled API architecture, whether the supporting system is managed and supported by your organization or by third-party providers.

Web

Mobile web applications are deployed and executed within the mobile web browser. They are often developed with a combination of web and scripting languages, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Web often takes two forms on mobile:

• Progressive Web Applications (PWA)
• Mobile Web Sites

Hybrid

Hybrid applications are developed with web technologies but are deployed as native applications. The code is wrapped using a framework so that it runs locally within a native container. It uses the device's browser runtime engine to support more sophisticated designs and features than to the web approach.

Cross-Platform

Cross-platform applications are developed within a distinct programming or scripting environment that uses its own scripting language (often like web languages) and APIs. The solution compiles the code into device-specific builds for native deployment.

Native

Native applications are developed and deployed to specific devices and OSs using platform-specific software development kits (SDKs) provided by the operating system vendors. The programming language and framework are dictated by the targeted device, such as Java for Android.

Start mobile development on a mobile web platform

Start with what you have: begin with a mobile web platform to minimize impacts to your existing delivery skill sets and technical stack while addressing business needs. Resort to a hybrid first. Then consider a cross-platform application if you require device access or need to meet specific non-functional requirements.

Why choose a mobile web platform?

Other Notable Benefits with Web Languages

• Modern browsers in most mobile devices can execute and render many mobile features developed in web languages, allowing for greater portability and sophistication of code across multiple devices. However, this flexibility comes at the cost of performance since the browser's runtime engine will not perform as well as a native engine.
• Web languages are well known by developers, minimizing skills and resourcing impacts. Consequently, changes can be quickly accommodated and updated uniformly across all end users.

Select your mobile platform

Drive your mobile platform selection against user-centric needs (e.g. device access, aesthetics) and enterprise-centric needs (e.g. security, system performance).

Understand the common attributes of a mobile delivery solution

• Source Code Management – Built-in or having the ability to integrate with code management solutions for branching, merging, and versioning. Debugging and coding assistance capabilities may be available.
• Single Code Base – Capable of programming in a standard coding and scripting language for deployment into several platforms and devices. This code base is aligned to a common industry framework (e.g. AngularJS, Java) or a vendor-defined one.
• Out-of-the-Box Connectors & Plug-ins – Pre-built APIs enhance the solution's capabilities with third-party tools and systems to deliver and manage high quality and valuable mobile applications.
• Emulators – Ability to virtualize an application's execution on a target platform and device.
• Support for Native Features – Supports plug-ins and APIs for access to device-specific features.

What are mobile delivery solutions?

A mobile delivery solution provides the tools, resources, and support to enable or build your mobile application. It can provide pre-built applications, vendor supported components to allow some configurations, or resources for full stack customizations. Solutions can be barebone software development kits (SDKs), or comprehensive suites offering features to support the entire software delivery lifecycle, such as:

• Mobile application management
• Testing and publishing to app stores
• Content management
• Cloud hosting
• Application performance management

Info-Tech Insight

Mobile enablement and development capabilities are already embedded in many common productivity tools and enterprise applications, such as Microsoft PowerApps and ERP modules. They can serve as a starting point in the initial rollout of new management and governance practices without the need to acquire new tools.

Select your mobile delivery solutions

1. Set the scope of your framework.

• The initial context of this framework is based on the mobile functions needed to support your desired mobile experience and on the current state of your enterprise and 3rd party systems.

Optimize your software delivery process

Mobile brings new delivery and management challenges that are often difficult for organizations that are tied to legacy systems, hindered by rigid and slow delivery lifecycles, and are unable to adopt leading-edge technologies. Many of these challenges stem from the fact that mobile is a significant shift from desktop development:

• Mobile devices and operating systems are heavily fragmented, especially in the Android space.
• Test coverage is significantly expanded to include physical environments and multiple network connections.
• Mobile devices do not have the same performance capabilities and memory storage as their desktop counterparts.
• The user interface must be strategically designed to accommodate the limited screen size.
• Mobile applications are highly susceptible to security breaches.
• Mobile users often expect quick turnaround time on fixes and enhancements due to continuously changing technology, business priorities, and user needs.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Modernize Your SDLC blueprint.

How should the process change?

• Cross-functional collaboration – Bringing business and IT together at the most opportune times to clarify user needs and business priorities, and set realistic expectations given technology and capacity constraints. The appropriate tactics and techniques are used to improve decision making and delivery effectiveness according to the type of work.
• Iterative delivery – Frequent delivery of progressive changes minimizes the risk of low-quality features by containing and simplifying scope, and enables responsive turnarounds of fixes, enhancements, and priority changes.
• Feedback loops –Mobile application owners constantly review, update and refine their backlog of mobile features and changes to reflect user feedback and system performance metrics. Delivery teams proactively prepare the application for future scaling based on lessons and feedback learned from earlier releases.

Achieve mobile success with MVPs

By delivering mobile capabilities in small iterations, teams recognize value sooner and reduce accumulated risk. Both benefits are realized as the iteration enters validation testing and release.

An MVP focuses on a small set of functions, involves minimal possible effort to deliver a working and valuable solution, and is designed to satisfy a specific user group. Its purpose is to:

• Maximize learning.
• Evaluate the value and acceptance of mobile applications.
• Inform the building of a mobile delivery practice.

The build-measure-learn loop suggests mobile delivery teams should perpetually take an idea and develop, test, and validate it with the mobile development solution, then expand on the MVP using the lessons learned and evolving ideas. In this sense the MVP is just the first iteration in the loop.

Gauge the value with the right metrics

Metrics are a powerful way to drive behavior change in your organization. But metrics are highly prone to creating unexpected outcomes so they must be used with great care. Use metrics judiciously to avoid gaming or ambivalent behavior, productivity loss, and unintended consequences.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively blueprint.

What should I measure?

1. Mobile Application Engagement, Retention and User Satisfaction
   1. The activeness of users on the applications, the number of returning users, and the happiness of the users.
   2. Example: Number of tasks completed, number of active and returning users, session length and intervals, user satisfaction
2. Value Driven from Mobile Applications
   1. The business value that the user directly or indirectly receives with the mobile application.
   2. Example: Mobile application revenue, business operational costs, worker productivity, business reputation and image
3. Delivery Throughput and Quality
   1. The health and quality of your mobile applications throughout their lifespan and the speed to deliver working applications that meet stakeholder expectations.
   2. Example: Frequency of release, lead time, request turnaround, escaped defects, test coverage.

Use Info-Tech's diagnostic to evaluate the reception of your mobile applications

Info-Tech's Application Portfolio Assessment (APA) Diagnostic is a canned end-user satisfaction survey used to evaluate your application portfolio health to support data-driven decisions.

USE THE PROGRAM DIAGNOSTIC TO:

• Assess the importance and satisfaction of enterprise applications.
• Solicit feedback from your end users on applications being used.
• Understand the strengths and weaknesses of your current applications.
• Perform a high-level application rationalization initiative.

INTEGRATE DIAGNOSTIC RESULTS TO:

• Target which applications to analyze in greater detail.
• Expand on the initial application rationalization results with a more comprehensive and business-value-focused criteria.

Grow your mobile delivery practice

Level 1: Mobile Delivery Foundations

You understand the opportunities and impacts mobile has on your business operations and its disruptive nature on your enterprise systems. Your software delivery lifecycle was optimized to incorporate the specific practices and requirements needed for mobile. A mobile platform was selected based on stakeholder needs that are weighed against current skillsets, high priority non-functional requirements, the available capacity and scalability of your stack, and alignment to your current delivery process.

Level 2: Scaled Mobile Delivery

New features and mobile use cases are regularly emerging in the industry. Ensuring your mobile platform and delivery process can easily scale to incorporate constantly changing mobile features and technologies is key. This can help minimize the impact these changes will have on your mobile stack and the resulting experience.

Achieving this state requires three competencies: mobile security, performance optimization, and integration practices.

Level 3: Leading-Edge Mobile Delivery

Many of today's mobile trends involve, in one form or another, hardware components on the mobile device (e.g., NFC receivers, GPS, cameras). You understand the scope of native features available on your end user's mobile device and the required steps and capabilities to enable and leverage them.

Hit a home run with your stakeholders

Use a data-driven approach to select the right tooling vendor for your needs – fast.

Investing time improving your software selection methodology has big returns.

Info-Tech Insight

Not all software selection projects are created equal – some are very small, some span the entire enterprise. To ensure that IT is using the right framework, understand the cost and complexity profile of the application you're looking to select. Info-Tech's Rapid Application Selection Framework approach is best for commodity and mid-tier enterprise applications; selecting complex applications is better handled by the methodology in Info-Tech's Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process.

Pitch your mobile delivery approach with Info-Tech's template

Communicate the justification of your approach to mobile applications with Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template:

• Level set your mobile application goals and objectives by weighing end user expectations with technical requirements.
• Define the high priority opportunities for mobile applications.
• Educate decision makers of the limitations and challenges of delivering specific mobile experiences with the various mobile platform options.
• Describe your framework to select the right mobile platform and delivery tools.
• Lay out your mobile delivery roadmap and initiatives.

INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

Info-Tech's methodology for mobile platform and delivery solution selection

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 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 to 9 calls over the course of 2 to 3 months.

Workshop Overview

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

Phase 1

Set the Mobile Context

Choose Your Mobile Platform and Tools

This phase will walk you through the following steps:

• Step 1.1 – Build Your Mobile Backlog
• Step 1.2 – Identify Your Technical Needs
• Step 1.3 – Define Your Non-Functional Requirements

This phase involves the following participants:

• Applications Manager
• Product and Platform Owners
• Software Delivery Teams
• Business and IT Leaders

Step 1.1

Build Your Mobile Backlog

Activities

1.1.1 Generate user personas with empathy maps

1.1.2 Build your mobile application canvas

1.1.3 Build your mobile backlog

Set the Mobile Context

This step involves the following participants:

• Applications Manager
• Product and Platform Owners
• Software Delivery Teams
• Business and IT Leaders

Outcomes of this step

• User personas
• Mobile objectives and metrics
• Mobile opportunity backlog

Users expect your organization to support their mobile way of working

Today, users expect sophisticated and personalized features, immersive interactions, and cross-platform capabilities from their mobile applications and be able to access information and services anytime, anywhere and on any device. These demands are pushing organizations to become more user-driven, placing greater importance on user experience (UX) with enterprise-grade technologies.

How has technologies evolved to easily enable mobile capabilities?

• Desktop-Like Features
  • Native-like features, such as geolocation and local caching, are supported through web language or third-party plugins and extensions.
• Extendable & Scalable
  • Plug-and-play architecture is designed to allow software delivery teams to explore new use cases and mobile capabilities with out-of-the-box connectors and/or customizable REST APIs.
• Low Barrier to Entry
  • Low- and no-code development tools, full-stack solutions, and plug-and-play architectures allow non-technical users to easily build and implement applications without direct IT involvement.
• Templates & Shells
  • Vendors provide UI templates and application shells that contain pre-built native features and multiple aesthetic layouts in a publishing-friendly and configurable way.
• Personalized Content
  • Content can be uniquely tailored to a user's preference or be automatically generated based on the user's profile or activity history.
• Hands-Off Operations
  • Many mobile solutions operate in a as-a-service model where the underlying and integrated technologies are managed by the vendor and abstracted away.

Make user experience (UX) the standard

User experience (UX) focuses on a user's emotions, beliefs, and physical and psychological responses that occur before, during, or after interacting with a service or product.

For a mobile application to be a meaningful experience, the functions, aesthetics and content must be:

• Usable
  • Users can intuitively navigate through your mobile application and complete their desired tasks.
• Desirable
  • The application elements are used to evoke positive emotions and appreciation.
• Accessible
  • Users can easily use your mobile application, including those with disabilities.
• Valuable
  • Users find the content useful, and it fulfills a need.

Enable a greater experience with UX-driven thinking

Designing for a high-quality experience requires more than just focusing on the UI. It also requires the merging of multiple business, technical, and social disciplines in order to create an immersive, practical, and receptive application. The image on the right explains the disciplines involved in UX. This is critical for ensuring users have a strong desire to use the mobile application, it is adequately supported technically, and it supports business objectives.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Implement and Mature Your User Experience Design Practice blueprint.

Source: Marky Roden, Xomino, 2018

UX-driven mobile apps bring together a compelling UI with valuable functionality

Info-Tech Insight

Organizations often over-rotate on the UI. Receptive and satisfying applications require more than just pretty pictures, bold colors, and flashy animations. UX-driven mobile applications require the seamless merging of enticing design elements and valuable functions that are specifically tailored to the behaviors of the users. Take a deep look at how each design element and function is used and perceived by the user, and how your application can sufficiently support user needs.

UI-Function Balance to Achieve Highly Satisfying Mobile Applications

An application's UI and function both contribute to UX, but they do so in different ways.

• The UI generates the visual, audio, and vocal cues to draw the attention of users to key areas of the application while stimulating the user's emotions.
• Functions give users the means to satisfy their needs effortlessly.

Finding the right balance of UI and function is dependent on the organization's understanding of user emotions, needs, and tendencies. However, these factors are often left out of an application's design. Having the right UX competencies is key in assuring user behaviors are appropriately accommodated early in the delivery process.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Modernize Your Corporate Website to Drive Business Value blueprint.

Focus your efforts on all items that drive high user experience and satisfaction

UX-driven mobile applications involve all interaction points and system components working together to create an immersive experience while being actively supported by delivery and operations teams. Many organizations commonly focus on visual and content design to improve the experience, but this is only a small fraction of the total UX design. Look beyond the surface to effectively enhance your application's overall UX.

Use personas to envision who will be using your mobile application

What Are Personas?

Personas are detailed descriptions of the targeted audience of your mobile application. It represents a type of user in a particular scenario. Effective personas:

• Express and focus on the major needs and expectations of the most important user groups.
• Give a clear picture of the typical user's behavior.
• Aid in uncovering critical features and functionalities.
• Describe real people with backgrounds, goals, and values.

Why Are Personas Important to UX?

They are important because they help:

• Focus the development of mobile application features on the immediate needs of the intended audience.
• Detail the level of customization needed to ensure content is valuable to and resonates with the user.
• Describe how users may behave when certain audio and visual stimulus are triggered from the mobile application.
• Outline the special design considerations required to meet user accessibility needs.

Key Elements of a Persona:

• Professional and Technical Skills and Experiences (e.g., knowledge of mobile applications, area of expertise)
• Persona Group (e.g., executives)
• Technological Environment of User (e.g., devices, browsers, network connection)
• Demographics (e.g., nationality, age, language spoken)
• Typical Behaviors and Tendencies (e.g., goes to different website when cannot find information in 20 seconds)
• Purpose of Using the Mobile Application (e.g., search for information, submit registration form)

Create empathy maps to gain a deeper understanding of stakeholder personas

Empathy mapping draws out the characteristics, motivations, and mannerisms of a potential end user.

Source: XPLANE, 2017

Empathy mapping focuses on identifying the problems, ambitions, and frustrations they are looking to resolve and describes their motivations for wanting to resolve them. This analysis helps your teams:

• Better understand the reason behind the struggles, frustrations and motivators through a user's perspective.
• Verify the accuracy of assertions made about the user.
• Pinpoint the specific problem the mobile application will be designed to solve and the constraints to its successful adoption and on-going use.
• Read more about empathy mapping and download the empathy map PDF template here.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Use Experience Design to Drive Empathy with the Business blueprint.

1.1.1 Generate user personas with empathy maps

1-3 hours

1. Download the Empathy Map Canvas and draw the map on a whiteboard or project it on the screen.
2. Choose an end user to be the focus of your empathy map. Using sticky notes, fill out the sections of the empathy map in the following order:
   1. Start by filling out the goals section. State who the subject of the empathy map will be and what activity or task you would like them to do.
      1. Focus on activities and tasks that may benefit from mobile.
   2. Next, complete the outer sections in clockwise order (see, say, do, hear). The purpose of this is to think in terms of what the subject of your empathy map is observing, sensing, and experiencing.
      1. Indicate the mobile devices and OS users will likely use and the environments they will likely be in (e.g., places with poor connections)
      2. Discuss accessibility needs and how user prefer to consume content.
   3. Last, complete the inner circle of the empathy map (pains and gains). Since you spent the last step of the exercise thinking about the external influences on your stakeholder, you can think about how those stimuli affect their emotions.
3. Document your end user persona into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

1.1.1 cont'd

Download the Empathy Map Canvas

Many business priorities are driving mobile

Mobile Applications

• Product Roadmap
  • Upcoming enterprise technology releases and updates offer mobile capabilities to expand its access to a broader userbase.
• Cost Optimization
  • Maximizing business value in processes and technologies through disciplined and strategic cost and spending reduction practices with mobile applications.
• Competitive Differentiation
  • Developing and optimizing your organization's distinct products and services quickly with mobile applications.
• Digital Transformation
  • Transitioning processes, data and systems to a digital environment to broaden access to enterprise data and services anywhere at anytime.
• Operational Efficiency
  • Improving software delivery and business process throughput by increasing worker productivity with mobile applications.
• Other Business Priorities
  • New corporate products and services, business model changes, application rationalization and other priorities may require modernization, innovation and a mobile way of working.

Focus on the mobile business and end user problem, not the solution

People are naturally solution-focused. The onus isn't on them to express their needs in the form of a problem statement!

When refining your mobile problem statement, attempt to answer the following four questions:

• Who is impacted?
• What is the (user or organizational) challenge that needs to be addressed?
• Where does it happen?
• Why does it matter?

There are many ways of writing problem statements, a clear approach follows the format:

• "Our (who) has the problem that (what) when (where). Our solution should (why)."
• Example: "Our system analysts has the problem that new tickets take too long to update when working on user requests. Our approach should enable the analyst to focus on working with customers and not on administration."

Adapted from: "Design Problem Statements – What and How to Frame Them"

How to write a vision statement

It's ok to dream a little!

When thinking about a vision statement, think about:

• Who is it for?
• What does the customer need?
• What can we do for them?
• And why is this special?

There are different statement templates available to help form your vision statements. Some include:

1. For [our target customer], who [customer's need], the [product] is a [product category or description] that [unique benefits and selling points]. Unlike [competitors or current methods], our product [main differentiators]. (Crossing the Chasm)
2. "We believe (in) a [noun: world, time, state, etc.] where [persona] can [verb: do, make, offer, etc.], for/by/with [benefit/goal].
3. To [verb: empower, unlock, enable, create, etc.] [persona] to [benefit, goal, future state].
4. Our vision is to [verb: build, design, provide], the [goal, future state], to [verb: help, enable, make it easier to...] [persona]."

(Numbers 2-4 from: How to define a product vision)

Info-Tech Best Practice

A vision shouldn't be so far out that it doesn't feel real and so short term that it gets bogged down in minutiae and implementation details. Finding that right balance will take some trial and error and will be different depending on your organization.

Ensure mobile supports ongoing value delivery and stakeholder expectations

Success hinges on your team's ability to deliver business value. Well-developed mobile applications instill stakeholder confidence in ongoing business value delivery and stakeholder buy-in, provided proper expectations are set and met.

Business value defines the success criteria of an organization, and it is interpreted from four perspectives:

• Profit Generation – The revenue generated from a business capability with mobile applications.
• Cost Reduction – The cost reduction when performing business capabilities with mobile applications.
• Service Enablement – The productivity and efficiency gains of internal business operations with mobile applications.
• Customer and Market Reach – Metrics measuring the improved reach and insights of the business in existing or new markets.

See our Build a Value Measurement Framework blueprint for more information about business value definition.

Set realistic mobile goals

Mobile applications enables the exploration of new and different ways to improve worker productivity and deliver business value. However, the realities of mobile applications may limit your ability to meet some of your objectives:

• On the day of installation, the average retention rate for public-facing applications was 25.3%. By day 30, the retention rate drops to 5.7%. (Source: Statista, 2020)
• 63% of 3,335 most popular Android mobile applications on the Google Play Store contained open-source components with known security vulnerabilities and other pervasive security concerns including exposing sensitive data (Source: Synopsys, 2021)
• 62% of users would delete the application because of performance issues, such as crashes, freezes and other errors (Source: Intersog, 2021).

These realities are not guaranteed to occur or impede your ability to deliver valuable mobile applications, but they can lead to unachievable expectations. Ensure your stakeholders are not oversold on advertised benefits and hold you accountable for unrealistic objectives. Recognize that the organization must also change how it works and operates to see the full benefit and adoption of mobile applications and overcome the known and unknown challenges and hurdles that often come with mobile delivery.

Benchmarks present enticing opportunities, but should be used to set reasonable expectations

66%
Improve Market Reach
66% of the global population uses a mobile device
Source: DataReportal, 2021

20%
Connected Workers are More Productive
Nearly 20 percent of mobile professionals estimate they miss more than three hours of working time a week not being able to get connected to the internet
Source: iPass, 2017

80%
Increase Brand Recognition
80% of smartphone users are more likely to purchase from companies whose mobile sites of apps help them easily find answers to their questions
Source: Google, 2018

Gauge the value with the right metrics

Metrics are a powerful way to drive behavior change in your organization. But metrics are highly prone to creating unexpected outcomes so they must be used with great care. Use metrics judiciously to avoid gaming or ambivalent behavior, productivity loss, and unintended consequences.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively blueprint.

What should I measure?

1. Mobile Application Engagement, Retention and User Satisfaction
   • The activeness of users on the applications, the number of returning users, and the happiness of the users.
   • Example: Number of tasks completed, number of active and returning users, session length and intervals, user satisfaction
2. Value Driven from Mobile Applications
   • The business value that the user directly or indirectly receives with the mobile application.
   • Example: Mobile application revenue, business operational costs, worker productivity, business reputation and image
3. Delivery Throughput and Quality
   • The health and quality of your mobile applications throughout their lifespan and the speed to deliver working applications that meet stakeholder expectations.
   • Example: Frequency of release, lead time, request turnaround, escaped defects, test coverage.

Use Info-Tech's diagnostic to evaluate the reception of your mobile applications

Info-Tech's Application Portfolio Assessment (APA) Diagnostic is a canned end user satisfaction survey used to evaluate your application portfolio health to support data-driven decisions.

USE THE PROGRAM DIAGNOSTIC TO:

• Assess the importance and satisfaction of enterprise applications.
• Solicit feedback from your end users on applications being used.
• Understand the strengths and weaknesses of your current applications.
• Perform a high-level application rationalization initiative.

INTEGRATE DIAGNOSTIC RESULTS TO:

• Target which applications to analyze in greater detail.
• Expand on the initial application rationalization results with a more comprehensive and business-value-focused criteria.

Use a canvas to define key elements of your mobile initiative

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision blueprint.

1.1.2 Build your mobile application canvas

1-3 hours

1. Complete the following fields to build your mobile application canvas:
   • Mobile application initiative name
   • Mobile application owner
   • Parent initiative name
   • Problem that mobile applications are intending to solve and your vision. See the outcome from the previous exercise.
   • Mobile application business goals and metrics.
   • Capabilities, processes and application systems involved
   • Primary customers/users (For additional help with your product personas, download and complete to Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision.)
2. Stakeholders
3. Document your findings and discussions into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

Download the Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template

1.1.2 cont'd

Create your mobile backlog

Your backlog gives you a holistic understanding of the demand for mobile applications across your organization.

Find your mobile opportunities

Modern mobile technologies enable users to access, analyze and change data anywhere with native device features, which opens the door to enhanced processes and new value sources.

Examples of Mobile Opportunities:

• Mobile Payment
  • Cost alternative to credit card transaction fees.
  • Loyalty systems are updated upon payment without need of a physical card.
  • Quicker completion of transactions.
• Inventory Management
  • Update inventory database when shipments arrive or deliveries are made.
  • Inform retailers and consumers of current stock on website.
  • Alert staff of expired or outdated products.
• Quick and Small Data Transfer
  • Embed tags into posters to transfer URIs, which sends users to sites containing product or location information.
  • Replace entry tags, fobs, or smart cards at doors.
  • Exchange contact details.
• Location Sensitive Information
  • Proactively send promotions and other information (e.g. coupons, event details) to users within a defined area.
  • Inform employees of nearby prospective clients.
• Supply Chain Management
  • Track the movement and location of goods and delivery trucks.
  • Direct drivers to the most optimal route.
  • Location-sensitive billing apps such as train and bus ticket purchases.
• Education and Learning
  • Educate users about real-world objects and places with augmented books and by pushing relevant learning materials.
  • Visualize theories and other text with dynamic 3D objects.
• Augmented Reality (AR)
  • Provide information about the user's surroundings and the objects in the environment through the mobile device.
  • Interactive and immersive experiences with the inclusion of virtual reality.
• Architecture and Planning
  • Visualize historic buildings or the layout of structural projects and development plans.
  • Develop a digital tour with location-based audio initiated with location-based services or a camera.
• Navigation
  • Provide directions to users to navigate and provide contextual travelling instructions.
  • Push traffic notifications and route changes to travelling users.
• Tracking User Movement
  • Predict the future location of users based on historic information and traffic modelling.
  • Proactively push information to users before they reach their destination.

1.1.3 Build your mobile backlog

1-3 hours

1. As a group, discuss the use and value mobile already has within your organization for each persona.
   1. What are some of the apps being used?
   2. What enterprise systems and applications are already exposed to the web and accessible by mobile devices?
   3. How critical is mobile to business operations, marketing campaigns, etc.?
2. Discuss how mobile can bring additional business value to other areas of your organization for each persona.
   1. Can mobile enhance your customer reach? Do your customers care that your services are offered through mobile?
   2. Are employees asking for better access to enterprise systems in order to improve their productivity?
3. Write your mobile opportunities in the following form: As a [end user persona], I want to [process or capability to enable with mobile applications], so that [organizational benefit]. Prioritize each opportunity against feasibility, desirability, and viability.
4. Document your findings and discussions into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

Manage your mobile backlog

Your backlog stores and organizes your mobile opportunities at various stages of readiness. It must be continuously refined to address new requests, maintenance and changing priorities.

3 – IDEAS
Composed of raw, vague, and potentially large ideas that have yet to go through any formal valuation.

2 – QUALIFIED
Researched and qualified opportunities awaiting refinement.

1 READY
Discrete, refined opportunities that are ready to be placed in your team's delivery plans.

Adapted from Essential Scrum

A well-formed backlog can be thought of as a DEEP backlog

• Detailed Appropriately: opportunities are broken down and refined as necessary
• Emergent: The backlog grows and evolves over time as opportunities are added and removed.
• Estimated: The effort an opportunity requires is estimated at each tier.
• Prioritized: The opportunity's value and priority are determined at each tier.

(Source Perforce, 2018)

See our Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision for more information on backlog practices.

Step 1.2

Identify Your Technical Needs

Activities

1.2.1 Discuss your mobile needs

1.2.2 Conduct a technical assessment

Set the Mobile Context

This step involves the following participants:

• Applications Manager
• Product and Platform Owners
• Software Delivery Teams
• Business and IT Leaders

Outcomes of this step

• List of mobile features to enable the desired mobile experience
• System current assessment

Describe your desired mobile experiences with journey maps

A journey map tells the story of the user's experience with an existing or prospective product or service, starting with a trigger, through the process of engagement, to create an outcome. Journey maps can focus on a particular part of the user's or the entire experience with your organization's products or services. All types of maps capture key interactions and motivations of the user in chronological order.

Why are journey maps an important for mobile application delivery?

Everyone has their own preferred method for completing their tasks on mobile devices – often, what differentiates one persona from another has to do with how users privately behave. Understand that the activities performed outside of IT's purview develop context for your persona's pain points and position IT to meet their needs with the appropriate solution.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Use Experience Design to Drive Empathy with the Business blueprint.

Pinpoint specific mobile needs in your journey map

Realize that mobile applications may not precisely fit with your personas workflow or align to their expectations due to device and system limitations and restrictions. Flag the mobile opportunities that require significant modifications to underlying systems.

Consider these workflow scenarios that can influence your persona's desire for mobile:

Define the mobile experience your end users want

Anytime, Anywhere
The user can access, update and analyze data, and corporate products and services whenever they want, in all networks, and on any device.

Hands-Off & Automated
The application can perform various workflows and tasks without the user's involvement and notify the user when specific triggers are hit.

Personalized & Insightful
Content presentation and subject are tailored for the user based on specific inputs from the user, device hardware or predicted actions.

Integrated Ecosystem
The application supports a seamless experience across various 3rd party and enterprise applications and services the user needs.

Visually Pleasing & Fulfilling
The UI is intuitive and aesthetically gratifying with little security and performance trade-offs to use the full breadth of its functions and services.

Each mobile platform has its own take on the mobile native experience. The choice ultimately depends on whether the costs and effort are worth the anticipated value.

1.2.1 Discover your mobile needs

1-3 hours

1. Define the workflow of a high priority opportunity in your mobile backlog. This workflow can be pertaining to an existing mobile application or a workflow that can benefit with a mobile application.
   1. Indicate the trigger that will initiate the opportunity and the desired outcome.
   2. Break down the persona's desired outcome into small pieces of value that are realized in each workflow step.
2. Identify activities and touchpoints the persona will need to complete to finish each step in the workflow. Indicate the technology used to complete the activity or to facilitate the touchpoint.
3. Indicate which activities and touchpoints can be satisfied, complimented or enhanced with mobile.

1.2.1 cont'd

Legend:

Bold – Touchpoint

* – Activities or Touchpoints That Can Benefit with Mobile

1.2.1 cont'd

1-3 hours

1. Analyze persona expectations. Identify the persona's must-haves, then nice-to-haves, and then hidden needs to effectively complete the workflow.
   1. Must-haves. The necessary outcomes, qualities, and features of the workflow step.
   2. Nice-to-haves. Desired outcomes, qualities, or features that your persona is able to articulate or express.
   3. Hidden needs. Outcomes, qualities, or features that your persona is not aware they have a desire for; benefits that they are pleasantly surprised to receive. These will usually be unknown for your first-iteration journey map.
2. Indicate which persona expectations can be satisfied with mobile. Discuss what would the desired mobile experience be.
3. Discuss feedback and experiences your team has heard from the personas they engage with regularly.
4. Document your findings and discussions into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

Download the Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template

1.2.1 cont'd

Example

1.2.1 cont'd

Template:

If you need more than four steps in the workflow, duplicate this slide.

Understand how mobile fits with your current system

Evaluate the risks and impacts of your desired mobile features by looking at your enterprise system architecture from top to bottom. Is your mobile vision and needs compatible with your existing business capabilities and technologies?

An architecture is usually represented by one or more architecture views that together provide a coherent description of the application system, including demonstrating the full impact mobile will have. A single, comprehensive model is often too complex to be understood and communicated in its most detailed form, and a model too high level hides the underlying complexity of an application's structure and deployment (The Open Group, TOGAF 8.1.1 - Developing Architecture Views). Obtain a complete understanding of your architecture by assessing it through multiple levels of views to reveal different sets of concerns:

Application Architecture Views

1. Use Case View

• How does your business operate, and how will users interact with your mobile applications?

• What is the user workflow impacted by mobile, and how will it change?

• How are my existing applications structured? What are its various components? How will mobile expand the costs of the existing technical debt?

• What is the relationship of the data and information consumed, analyzed, and transmitted? Will mobile jeopardize the quality and reliability of the data?

• In what environment are your mobile application components deployed? How will the existing systems operate with your mobile applications?

See our Enhance Your Solution Architecture for more information.

Ask key questions in your current system assessment

• How do the various components of your system communicate with each other (e.g., web APIs, middleware, and point to point)?
• What information is exchanged during the conversation?
• How does the data flow from one component to the next? Is the data read-only or can application and users edit and modify it?
• What are the access points to your mid- and back-tier systems (e.g., user access through web interface, corporate networks and third-party application access through APIs)?
• Who has access to your enterprise systems?
• Which components are managed and operated by third-party providers? What is your level of control?
• What are the security protocols currently enforced in your system?
• How often are your databases updated? Is it real-time or periodic extract, transfer, and load (ETL)?
• What are the business rules?
• Is your mobile stack dependent on other systems?
• Is a mobile middleware, web server, or API gateway needed to help facilitate the integration between devices and your back-end support?

1.2.2 Conduct a technical assessment

1-3 hours

1. Evaluate your current systems that will support the journey map of your mobile opportunities based on two categories: system quality and system management. Use the tables on the following slides and modify the questions if needed.
2. Discuss if the current state of your system will impede your ability to succeed with mobile. Use this discussion to verify the decision to continue with mobile applications in your current state.
3. Document your findings and discussions into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

Download the Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template

1.2.2 cont'd

Current State System Quality Assessment

1.2.2 cont'd

Current State System Management Assessment

Step 1.3

Define Your Non-Functional Requirements

Activities

1.3.1 Define mobile application quality

1.3.2 Verify your decision to deliver mobile applications

Set the Mobile Context

This step involves the following participants:

• Applications Manager
• Product and Platform Owners
• Software Delivery Teams

Outcomes of this step

• Mobile application quality definition
• Readiness for mobile delivery

Build a strong foundation of mobile application quality

Functionality and aesthetics often take front seats in mobile application delivery. Applications are then frequently modified and changed, not because they are functionally deficient or visually displeasing, but because they are difficult to maintain or scale, too slow, vulnerable or compromised. Implementing clear quality principles (i.e., non-functional requirements) and strong quality assurance practices throughout delivery are critical to minimize the potential work of future maintenance and to avoid, mitigate and manage IT risks.

What is Mobile Application Quality?

• Quality requirements (i.e., non-functional requirements) are properties of a system or product that dictate how it should behave at runtime and how it should be designed, implemented, and maintained.
• These requirements should be involved in decision making around architecture, UI and functional design changes.
• Functionality should not dictate the level of security, availability, or performance of a product, thereby risking system quality. Functionality and quality are viewed orthogonally, and trade-offs are discussed when one impacts the other.
• Quality attributes should never be achieved in isolation as one attribute can have a negative or positive impact on another (e.g. security and availability).

Why is Mobile Quality Assurance Critical?

• Quality assurance (QA) is a necessity for the validation and verification of mobile delivery, whether you are delivering applications in an Agile or Waterfall fashion. Effective QA practices implemented across the software development lifecycle (SDLC) are vital, as all layers of the mobile stack need to readily able to adjust to suddenly evolving and changing business and user needs and technologies without risking system stability and breaking business standards and expectations.
• However, investments in QA optimizations are often afterthoughts. QA is commonly viewed as a lower priority compared to other delivery capabilities (e.g., design and coding) and is typically the first item cut when delivery is under pressure.

See our Build a Software Quality Assurance Program for more information.

Mobile emphasizes the importance of good security, performance and integration

Today's mobile workforce is looking for new ways to get more work done quickly. They want access to enterprise solutions and data directly on their mobile device, which can reside on multiple legacy systems and in the cloud and third-party infrastructure. This presents significant performance, integration, and security risks.

Mobile risks opening and widening existing security gaps

New mobile technologies and the continued expansion of the enterprise environment increase the number of entry points attackers to your corporate data and networks. The ever-growing volume, velocity, and variety of new threats puts significant pressure on mobile delivery teams who are responsible for implementing mobile security measures and maintaining alignment to your security policies and those of app stores.

Mobile attacks can come from various vectors:

Understand the top web security risks and vulnerabilities seen in the industry

Recognize mobile applications are exposed to the same risks and vulnerabilities as web applications. Learn of OWASP's top 10 web security risks.

• Broken Access Control
  • Failures typically lead to unauthorized information disclosure, modification, or destruction of all data or performing a business function outside the user's limits.
• Cryptographic Failures
  • Improper and incorrect protection of data in transit and at rest, especially proprietary and confidential data and those that fall under privacy laws.
• Injection
  • Execution of malicious code and injection of hostile or unfiltered data on the mobile device via the mobile application.
• Insecure Design
  • Missing or ineffective security controls in the application design. An insecure design cannot be fixed by a perfect implementation,. Needed security controls were never created to defend against specific attacks.
• Security Misconfiguration
  • The security settings in the application are not securely set or configured, including poor security hardening and inadequate system upgrading practices.
• Vulnerable and Outdated Components
  • System components are vulnerable because they are unsupported, out of date, untested or not hardened against current security concerns.
• Identification and Authentication Failures
  • Improper or poor protection against authentication-related attacks, particularly to the user's identity, authentication and session management.
• Software and Data Integrity Failures
  • Failures related to code and infrastructure that does not protect against integrity violations, such as an application relying upon plugins, libraries, or modules from untrusted sources, repositories, and content delivery networks
• Security Logging and Monitoring Failures
  • Insufficient logging, detection, monitoring, and active response that hinders the ability to detect, escalate, and respond to active breaches.
• Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF)
  • SSRF flaws occur whenever a web application is fetching a remote resource without validating the user-supplied URL.

Good mobile application performance drives satisfaction and value delivery

Underperforming mobile applications can cause your users to be unproductive. Your mobile applications should always aim to satisfy the productivity requirements of your end users.

Users quickly notice applications that are slow and difficult to use. Providing a seamless experience for the user is now heavily dependent on how well your application performs. Optimizing your mobile application's processing efficiency can help your users perform their jobs properly in various environment conditions.

Productive Users Need
Performant Mobile Applications

Enhance the performance of the entire mobile stack

Due to frequently changing mobile hardware, users' high performance expectations and mobile network constraints, mobile delivery teams must focus on the entire mobile stack for optimizing performance.

Fine tune your enterprise mobile applications using optimization techniques to improve performance across the full mobile stack.

Info-Tech Insight

Some user performance expectations can be managed with clever UI design (e.g., spinning pinwheels to indicate loading in progress and directing user focus to quick loading content) and operational choices (e.g. graceful degradation and progressive enhancements).

Create an API-centric integration strategy

Mobile delivery teams are tasked to keep up with the changing needs of end users and accommodate the evolution of trending mobile features. Ensuring scalable APIs is critical in quickly releasing changes and ensuring availability of corporate services and resources.

As your portfolio of mobile applications grows, and device platforms and browsers diversify, it will become increasingly complex to provide all the data and service capabilities your mobile apps need to operate. It is important that your APIs are available, reliable, reusable, and secure for multiple uses and platforms.

Take an API-centric approach to retain control of your mobile development and ensure reliability.

APIs are the underlying layer of your mobile applications, enabling remote access of company data and services to end users. Focusing design and development efforts on the maintainability, reliability and scalability of your APIs enables your delivery teams to:

• Reuse tried-and-tested APIs to deliver, test and harden applications and systems quicker by standardizing on the use and structure of REST APIs.
• Ensure a consistent experience and performance across different applications using the same API.
• Uniformly apply security and access control to remain compliant to security protocols, industry standards and regulations.
• Provide reliable integration points when leveraging third-party APIs and services.

See our Build Effective Enterprise Integration on the Back of Business Process for more information.

Guide your integration strategy with principles

Craft your principles around good API management and integration practices

Expose Enterprise Data And Functionality in API-Friendly Formats
Convert complex on-premises application services into developer-friendly RESTful APIs

Protect Information Assets Exposed Via APIs to Prevent Misuse
Ensure that enterprise systems are protected against message-level attack and hijack

Authorize Secure, Seamless Access for Valid Identities
Deploy strong access control, identity federation and social login functionality

Optimize System Performance and Manage the API Lifecycle
Maintain the availability of backend systems for APIs, applications and end users

Engage, Onboard, Educate and Manage Developers
Give developers the resources they need to create applications that deliver real value

Source: 5 Pillars of API Management, Broadcom, 2021

Clarify your definition of mobile quality

Quality does not mean the same thing to everyone

Do not expect a universal definition of mobile quality. Each department, person and industry standard will have a different interpretation of quality, and they will perform certain activities and enforce policies that meet those interpretations. Misunderstanding of what is defined as a high quality mobile application within business and IT teams can lead to further confusion behind governance, testing priorities and compliance.

Each interpretation of quality can lead to endless testing, guardrails and constraints, or lack thereof. Be clear on the priority of each interpretation and the degree of effort needed to ensure they are met.

For example:

Mobile Application Owner
What does an accessible mobile application mean?

Persona: Customer
I can access it on mobile phones, tablets and the web browser

Persona: Developer
I have access to each layer of the mobile stack including the code & data

Persona: Operations
The mobile application is accessible 24/7 with 95% uptime

Example: A School Board's Quality Definition

1.3.1 Define mobile application quality

1-3 hours

1. List 5 quality attributes that your organization sees as important for a successful mobile application.
2. List the core personas that will support mobile delivery and that will consume the mobile application. Start with development, operations and support, and end user.
3. Describe each quality attributes from the perspective of each persona by asking, "What does quality mean to you?".
4. Review each description from each persona to come to an acceptable definition.
5. Document your findings and discussions into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

Download the Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template

1.3.1 cont'd

Example: Info-Tech Guided Implementation with a Legal and Professional Services Organization

1.3.2 Verify your decision to deliver mobile applications

1-3 hours

1. Review the various end user, business and technical expectations for mobile its achievability given the current state of your system and non-functional requirements.
2. Complete the list of questions on the following slide as an indication for your readiness for mobile delivery.

1.3.2 cont'd

Phase 2

Define Your Mobile Approach

Choose Your Mobile Platform and Tools

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Step 2.1 – Choose Your Platform Approach
• Step 2.2 – Shortlist Your Mobile Delivery Solution
• Step 2.3 – Create a Roadmap for Mobile Delivery

This phase involves the following participants:

• Applications Manager
• Product and Platform Owners
• Software Delivery Teams
• Business and IT Leaders

Step 2.1

Choose Your Platform Approach

Activities

2.1.1 Select your platform approach

Define Your Mobile Approach

This step involves the following participants:

• Applications Manager
• Product and Platform Owners
• Software Delivery Teams
• Business and IT Leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Desired mobile platform approach

Mobile value is dependent on the platform you choose

What is a platform?

"A platform is a set of software and a surrounding ecosystem of resources that helps you to grow your business. A platform enables growth through connection: its value comes not only from its own features, but from its ability to connect external tools, teams, data, and processes." (Source: Emilie Nøss Wangen, 2021) In the mobile context, applications in a platform execute and communicate through a loosely coupled API architecture whether the supporting system is managed and supported by your organization or by 3rd party providers.

Web

The mobile web often takes on one of the following two approaches:

• Responsive websites – Content, UI and other website elements automatically adjusts itself according to the device, creating a seamless experience regardless of the device.
• Progressive web applications (PWAs) – PWAs uses the browser's APIs and features to offer native-like experiences.

Mobile web applications are often developed with a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript languages.

Hybrid

Hybrid applications are developed with web technologies but are deployed as native applications. The code is wrapped using a framework so that it runs locally within a native container, and it uses the device's browser runtime engine to support more sophisticated designs and features compared to the web approach. Hybrid mobile solutions allows teams to code once and deploy to multiple platforms.

Some notable examples:

• Gmail
• Instagram

Cross-Platform

Cross-platform applications are developed within a distinct programming or scripting environment that uses its own scripting language (often like web languages) and APIs. Then the solution will compile the code into device-specific builds for native deployment.

Some notable examples:

• Facebook
• Skype
• Slack

Native

Native applications are developed and deployed to specific devices and OSs using platform-specific software development kits (SDKs) provided by the operating system vendors. The programming language and framework are dictated by the targeted device, such as Java for Android.

With this platform, developers have direct access to local device features allowing customized operations. This enables the use of local resources, such as memory and runtime engines, which will achieve a higher performance than hybrid and cross-platform applications.

Each platform offers unique pros and cons depending on your mobile needs

Start mobile development on a mobile web platform

Start with what you have: begin with a mobile web platform to minimize impacts to your existing delivery skill sets and technical stack while addressing business needs. Resort to a hybrid first and then consider a cross-platform application if you require device access or the need to meet specific non-functional requirements.

Why choose a mobile web platform?

Pros

The latest versions of the most popular web languages (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript) abstract away from the granular, physical components of the application, simplifying the development process. HTML5 offer some mobile features (e.g., geolocation, accelerometer) that can meet your desired experience without the need for native development skills. Native look-and-feel, high performance, and full device access are just a few tradeoffs of going with web languages.

Cons

Native mobile platforms depend on device-specific code which follows specific frameworks and leverages unique programming libraries, such as Objective C for iOS and Java for Android. Each language requires a high level of expertise in the coding structure and hardware of specific devices requiring resources with specific skillsets and different tools to support development and testing.

Other Notable Benefits with Web Languages

• Modern browsers in most mobile devices are capable of executing and rendering many mobile features developed in web languages, allowing for greater portability and sophistication of code across multiple devices. However, this flexibility comes at the cost of performance since the browser's runtime engine will not perform as well as a native engine.
• Web languages are well known by developers, minimizing skills and resourcing impacts. Consequently, changes can be quickly accommodated and updated uniformly across all end users.

Do you need a native platform?

Consider web workarounds if you choose a web platform but require some native experiences.

The web platform does not give you direct access or sophisticated customizations to local device hardware and services, underlying code and integrations. You may run into the situation where you need some native experiences, but the value of these features may not offset the costs to undertake a native, hybrid or cross-platform application. When developing hybrid and cross-platform applications with a mobile delivery solution, only the APIs of the commonly used device features are available. Note that some vendors may not offer a particular native feature across all devices, inhibiting your ability to achieve feature parity or exploiting device features only available in certain devices. Workarounds are then needed.

Consider the following workarounds to address the required native experiences on the web platform:

Info-Tech Insight

In many cases, workarounds are available when evaluating the gaps between web and native applications. For example, not having application-level access to the camera does not negate the user option to upload a picture taken by the camera through a web form. Tradeoffs like this will come down to assessing the importance of each platform gap for your organization and whether a workaround is good enough as a native-like experience.

Architect and configure your entire mobile stack with a plan

• Assess your existing technology stack that will support your mobile platform. Determine if it has the capacity to handle mobile traffic and the necessary integration between devices and enterprise and 3rd party systems are robust and reliable. Reach out to your IT teams and vendors if you are missing key mobile components, such as:
• The acquisition and provisioning of physical or virtual mobile web servers and middleware from existing vendors.
• Cloud services [e.g., Mobile Back-end as a Service (mBaaS)] that assists in the mobilization of back-end data sources with API SDKs, orchestration of data from multiple sources, transformation of legacy APIs to mobile formats, and satisfaction of other security, integration and performance needs.
• Configure the services of your web server or middleware to facilitate the translation, transformation, and transfer of data between your mobile front-end and back-end. If your plan involves scripts, maintenance and other ongoing costs will likely increase.
• Leverage the APIs or adapters provided by your vendors or device manufacturers to integrate your mobile front-end and back-end support to your web server or middleware. If you are reusing a web server, the back-end integration should already be in place. Remember, APIs implement business rules to maintain the integrity of data exchange within your mobile stack.
• See Appendix A for examples of reference architectures of mobile platforms.

See our Enhance Your Solution Architecture for more information.

Do Not Forget Your Security and Performance Requirements

Security: New threats from mobile put organizations into a difficult situation beyond simply responding to them in a timely matter. Be careful not to take the benefits of security out of the mobile context. You need to make security a first-order citizen during the scoping, design, and optimization of your systems supporting mobile. It must also be balanced with other functional and non-functional requirements with the right roles taking accountability for these decisions.

See our Strengthen the SSDLC for Enterprise Mobile Applications for more information.

Performance: Within a distributed mobile environment, performance has a risk of diminishing due to limited device capacity, network hopping, lack of server scalability, API bottlenecks, and other device, network and infrastructure issues. Mobile web APIs suffer from the same pain points as traditional web browsing and unplanned API call management in an application will lead to slow performance.

See our Develop Enterprise Mobile Applications With Realistic and Relevant Performance for more information.

Enterprise platform selection requires a shift in perspective

Your mobile platform selection must consider both user and enterprise (i.e., non-functional) needs. Use a two-step process for your analysis:

Begin Platform Selection with a User-Centric Approach

Organizations appealing to end users place emphasis on the user experience: the look and appeal of the user interface, and the satisfaction, ease of use, and value of its functionalities. In this approach, IT concerns and needs are not high priorities, but many functions are completed locally or isolated from mission critical corporate networks and sensitive data. Some needs include:

• Performance: quick execution of tasks and calculations made on the device or offloaded to web servers or the cloud.
• User Interface: cross-platform compatibility and feature-rich design and functionality. The right native experience is critical to the user adoption and satisfaction.
• Device Access: use of local device hardware and software to complete app use cases, such as camera, calendar, and contact lists.

Refine Platform Selection with an Enterprise-Centric Approach

From the enterprise perspective, emphasis is on security, system performance, integration, reuse and other non-functional requirements as the primary motivations in the selection of a mobile platform. User experience is still a contributing factor because of the mobile application's need to drive value but its priority is not exclusive. Some drivers include:

• Openness: agreed-upon industry standards and technologies that can be applied to serve enterprise needs which support business processes.
• Integration: increase the reuse of legacy investments and existing applications and services with integration capabilities.
• Flexibility: support for multiple data types from applications such as JSON format for mobile.
• Capacity: maximize the utilization of your software delivery resources beyond the initial iteration of the mobile application.

Info-Tech Insight

Selecting a mobile platform should not solely be made on business requirements. Key technical stakeholders should be at the table in this discussion to provide insight on the implementation and ongoing costs and benefits of each platform. Both business and technical requirements should be considered when deciding on a final platform.

Select your mobile platform

Drive your mobile platform selection against user-centric needs (e.g. device access, aesthetics) and enterprise-centric needs (e.g. security, system performance).

When does a platform makes sense to use?

Web

• Desire to maximize current web technologies investments (people, process, and technologies).
• Use cases do not require significant computational resources on the device or are tightly constrained by non-functional requirements.
• Limited budget to acquire mobile development resources.
• Access to device hardware is not a high priority.

Hybrid / Cross-Platform

• The need to quickly spin up native-like applications for multiple platforms and devices.
• Desire to leverage existing web development skills, but also a need for device access and meeting specific non-functional requirements.
• Vendor support is needed for the entire mobile delivery process.

Native

• Developers are experts in the target programming language and with the device's hardware.
• Strong need for high performance, security and device-specific access and customizations.
• Application use cases requiring significant computing resources.

2.1.1 Select your platform approach

1-3 hours

1. Review your mobile objectives, end user needs and non-functional requirements.
2. Determine which mobile platform is appropriate for each mobile opportunity or use case by answering the following questions on the following slides against two factors: user-centric and enterprise-centric needs.
3. Calculate an average score for user-centric and one for enterprise-centric. Then, map them on the matrix to indicate possible platform options. Consider all options around the plotted point.
4. Further discuss which platforms should be the preferred choice.
5. Document your findings and discussions into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

Download the Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template

2.1.1 cont'd

User-Centric Needs: Functional Requirements

2.1.1 cont'd

User-Centric Needs: Native User Experience Factors

2.1.1 cont'd

Enterprise-Centric Needs: Non-Functional Requirements

2.1.1 cont'd

Enterprise-Centric Needs: Delivery Capacity

2.1.1 cont'd

Example:

Build a scalable and manageable platform

Long-term mobile success depends on the efficiency and reliability of the underlying operational platform. This platform must support the computational and performance demands in a changing business environment, whether it is composed of off-the-self or custom-developed solutions, or a single vendor or best-of-breed.

• Application
  • The UI design and content language is standardized and consistently applied
  • All mobile configurations and components are automatically versioned
  • Controlled administration and tooling access, automation capabilities, and update delivery
  • Holistic portfolio management
• Data
  • Automated data management to preserve data quality (e.g. removal of duplications)
  • Defined single source of truth
  • Adherence to data governance, and privacy and security policies
  • Good content management practices, governance and architecture
• Infrastructure
  • Containers and sandboxes are available for development and testing
  • Self-healing and self-service environments
  • Automatic system scaling and load balancing
  • Comply to budgetary and licensing constraints
• Integration
  • Backend database and system updates are efficient
  • Loosely coupled architecture to minimize system regressions and delivery effort
  • Application, system and data monitoring

Step 2.2

Shortlist Your Mobile Delivery Solution

Activities

2.2.1 Shortlist your mobile delivery solution

2.2.2 Build your feature and service lists

Define Your Mobile Approach

This step involves the following participants:

• Applications Manager
• Product and Platform Owners
• Software Delivery Teams
• Business and IT Leaders

Outcomes of this step

• Shortlisted mobile delivery solutions
• Desired list of vendor features and services

Ask yourself: should I build or buy?

Weigh the pros and cons of mobile enablement versus development

Understand the common attributes of a mobile delivery solution

• Source Code Management – Built-in or having the ability to integrate with code management solutions for branching, merging, and versioning. Debugging and coding assistance capabilities may be available.
• Single Code Base – Capable of programming in a standard coding and scripting language for deployment into several platforms and devices. This code base is aligned to a common industry framework (e.g., AngularJS, Java) or a vendor-defined one.
• Out-of-the-Box Connectors & Plug-ins – Pre-built APIs enhance the solution's capabilities with 3rd party tools and systems to deliver and manage high quality and valuable mobile applications.
• Emulators – Ability to virtualize an application's execution on a target platform and device.
• Support for Native Features – Supports plug-ins and APIs for access to device-specific features.

What are mobile delivery solutions?

A mobile delivery solution gives you the tools, resources and support to enable or build your mobile application. They can provide pre-built applications, vendor supported components to allow some configurations, or resources for full stack customizations. Some solutions can be barebone software development kits (SDKs) or comprehensive suites offering features to support the entire software delivery lifecycle, such as:

• Mobile application management
• Testing and publishing to app stores
• Content management
• Cloud hosting
• Application performance management

Info-Tech Insight

Mobile enablement and development capabilities are already embedded in many common productivity tools and enterprise applications, such as Microsoft PowerApps and ERP modules. They can serve as a starting point in the initial rollout of new management and governance practices without the need of acquiring new tools.

Select your mobile delivery solutions

1. Set the scope of your framework.

• The initial context of this framework is based on the mobile functions needed to support your desired mobile experience and on the current state of your enterprise and 3rd party systems.

Explore the various solution options

Vendor Hosted Mobile Platform

• Cloud Services (Mobile Backend-as-a-Service) (Amazon Amplify, Kinvey, Back4App, Google Firebase, Apache Usergrid)
• Low Code Mobile Platforms (Outsystems, Mendix, Zoho Creator, IBM Mobile Foundation, Pega Mobile, HCL Volt MX, Appery)
• Mobile Development via Enterprise Application (SalesForce Heroku, Oracle Application Accelerator MAX, SAP Mobile Development Kit, NetSuite Mobile)
• Mobile Development via Business Process Automation (PowerApps, Appian, Nintex, Quickbase)

Cross-Platform Development SDKs

React Native, NativeScript, Xamarin Forms, .NET MAUI, Flutter, Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile, jQuery Mobile, Telerik, Temenos Quantum

Custom Native Development Solutions

• Native Development Languages and Environments (Swift, Java, Objective-C, Kotlin, Xcode, NetBeans, Android Studio, AppCode, Microsoft Visual Studio, Eclipse, DriodScript, Compose, Atom)
• Mobile Application Utilities (Unity, MonoGame, Blender, 3ds Max Design, Maya, Unreal Engine, Amazon Lumberyard, Oculus)

Commercial-Off-the-Shelf Solutions

• No Code Mobile Platforms (Swiftic, Betty Blocks, BuildFire, Appy Pie, Plant an App, Microsoft Power Apps, AppSheet, Wix, Quixy)
• Mobile Application Point Solutions and Enablement via Enterprise Applications

Hybrid Development SDKs

Cordova Project, Sencha Touch, Electron, Ionic, Capacitor, Monaca, Voltbuilder

Custom Web Development Solutions

Web Development Frameworks (React, Angular, Vue, Express, Django, Rails, Spring, Ember, Backbone, Bulma, Bootstrap, Tailwind CSS, Blade)

Get the most out of your solutions by understanding their core components

While most of the heavy lifting is handled by the vendor or framework, understanding how the mobile application is built and operates can identify where further fine-tuning is needed to increase its value and quality.

Platform Runtime

Automatic provisioning, configurations, and tuning of organizational and 3rd party infrastructure for high availability, performance, security and stability. This can include cloud management and non-production environments.

Extensions

• Mobile delivery solutions can be extended to allow:
• Custom development of back-end code
• Customizable integrations and hooks where needed
• Integrations with CI/CD pipelines and administrative services
• Integrations with existing databases and authentication services

Platform Services

The various services needed to support mobile delivery and enable continuous delivery, such as:

• Configuration & Change Management – Verifies, validates, and monitors builds, deployments and changes across all components.
• Code Generator – Transforms UI and data models into native application components that are ready to be deployed.
• Deployment Services – Deploys application components consistently across all target environments and app stores.
• Application Services – Manages the mobile application at runtime, including executing scheduled tasks and instrumentation.

Application Architecture

Fundamentally, mobile application architecture is no different than any other application architecture so much of your design standards still applies. The trick is tuning it to best meet your mobile functional and non-functional needs.

Source: "HCL Volt MX", HCL.

Build your shortlist decision criteria

The decision on which type of mobile delivery solution to use is dependent on several key questions?

Who is the Mobile Delivery Team?

• Is it a worker, business or IT?
• What skills and knowledge does this person have?
• Who is supporting mobile delivery and management?
• Are other skills and tools needed to support, extend or mature mobile delivery adoption?

What are the Use Cases?

• What is the value and priority of the use cases?
• What native features do we need?
• Who is the audience of the output and who is impacted?
• What systems, data and services do I need access?
• Is it best to build it or buy it?
• What are the quality standards?
• How strategic is the use case?

How Complex is the System?

• Is the mobile application a standalone or integrated with enterprise systems?
• What is the system's state and architecture?
• What 3rd party services do we need integrated?
• Are integrations out-of-the-box or custom?
• Is the data standardized and who can edit its definition?
• Is the system monolithic or loosely coupled?

How Much Can We Tolerate?

• Risks: What are the business and technical risks involved?
• Costs: How much can we invest in implementation, training and operations?
• Change: What organizational changes am I expecting to make? Will these changes be accepted and adopted?

2.2.1 Shortlist your mobile delivery solution

1-3 hours

1. Determine which mobile delivery solutions is appropriate for each mobile opportunity or use case by answering the following questions on the following slides against two factors: complexity of mobile workflows and native features and management of the mobile stack.
   1. Take the average of the enterprise-centric and user-centric scores from step 2.1 for your complexity of mobile workflows and native features scores.
2. Calculate an average score for the management of the mobile stack. Then, map them on the matrix to indicate possible solution options alongside your user-centric scores. Consider all options around the plotted point.
3. Further discuss which solution should be the preferred choice and compare those options with your selected platform approach.
4. Document your findings and discussions into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

Download the Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template

2.2.1 cont'd

Stack Management

2.2.1 cont'd

Example:

Consider the following in your solution selection and implementation

• Vendor lock in – Each solution has its own approach, frameworks, and data schemas to convert designs and logic into an executable build that is stable in the targeted environment. Consequently, moving application artifacts (e.g., code and designs) from one solution or environment to another may not be easily accomplished without significant modifications or the use of application modernization or migration services.
• Conflicting priorities and viewpoints of good delivery practices – Mobile delivery solutions are very particular on how they generate applications from designs and configurations. The solution's approach may not accommodate your interpretation of high-quality code (e.g., scalability, maintainability, extensibility, security). Technical experts should be reviewing and refactoring the generated code.
• Incompatibility with enterprise applications and systems – The true benefit of mobile delivery solutions is their ability to connect your mobile application to enterprise and 3rd party technologies and services. This capability often requires enterprise technologies and services to be architected in a way that is compatible with your delivery solution while ensuring data, security protocols and other standards and policies are consistently enforced.
• Integration with current application development and management tools – Mobile delivery solutions should be extensions from your existing application development and management tools that provides the versioning, testing, monitoring, and deployment capabilities to sustain a valuable application portfolio. Without this integration, IT will be unable to:
  • Root cause issues found on IT dashboards or reported to help desk.
  • Rollback defective applications to a previous stable state.
  • Obtain a complete application portfolio inventory.
  • Execute comprehensive testing for high-risk applications.
  • Trace artifacts throughout the development lifecycle.
  • Generate reports of the status of releases.

Enhance your SDLC to support mobile delivery

What is the SDLC?

The software development lifecycle (SDLC) is a process that ensures valuable software products are efficiently delivered to customers. It contains a repeatable set of activities needed to intake and analyze requirements to design, build, test, deploy, and maintain software products.

How will mobile delivery influence my SDLC?

• Cross-functional collaboration – Bringing business and IT together at the most opportune times to clarify user needs and business priorities, and set realistic expectations given technology and capacity constraints. The appropriate tactics and techniques are used to improve decision making and delivery effectiveness according to the type of work.
• Iterative delivery – Frequent delivery of progressive changes minimizes the risk of low-quality features by containing and simplifying scope, and enables responsive turnarounds of fixes, enhancements, and priority changes.
• Feedback loops –Mobile application owners constantly review, update and refine their backlog of mobile features and changes to reflect user feedback and system performance metrics. Delivery teams proactively prepare the application for future scaling based on lessons and feedback learned from earlier releases.

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Modernize Your SDLC blueprint.

Example: Low- & No-Code Mobile Delivery Pipeline

Use Info-Tech's research to address your delivery gaps

Mobile success requires more than a set of good tools.

Overcome the Common Challenges Faced with Building Mobile Applications

Source: DronaHQ, 2021

Learn the differentiators of mobile delivery solutions

• Native Program Languages – Supports languages other than web (Java, Ruby, C/C++/C#, Objective-C).
• IDE Integration – Available plug-ins for popular development suites and editors.
• Debugging Tools – Finding and eliminating bugs (breakpoints, single stepping, variable inspection, etc.).
• Application Packaging via IDE – Digitally sign applications through the IDE for it to be packaged and published in app stores.
• Automated Testing Tools – Native or integration with automated functional and unit testing tools.
• Low- and No- Code Designer – Tools for designing graphical user interfaces and features and managing data with drag-and-drop functionalities.
• Publishing and Deployment Capabilities – Automated deployment to mobile device management (MDM) systems, mobile application management (MAM) systems, mobile application stores, and web servers.
• Third-Party and Open-Source Integration – Integration with proprietary and open-source third-party modules, development tools, and systems.
• Developer Marketplace – Out-of-the-box plug-ins, templates, and integration are available through a marketplace.
• Mobile Application Support Capabilities – Ability to gather, manage, and address application issues and defects.
• API Gateway, Monitoring, and Management – Services that enable the creation, publishing, maintenance, monitoring, and securing of APIs through a common interface.
• Mobile Analytics and Monitoring – View the adoption, usage, and performance of deployed mobile applications through graphical dashboards.
• Mobile Content Management – Publish and manage mobile content through a centralized system.
• Mobile Application Security – Supports the securing of application access and usage, data encryption, and testing of security controls.

Define your mobile delivery vendor selection criteria

Focus on the key vendor attributes and capabilities that enable mobile delivery scaling and growth in your organization

Build your features list

Incorporate different perspectives when defining the list of mandatory and desired features of your target solution.

Appendix B contains a list of features for low- and no-code solutions that can be used as a starting point.

Visit Info-Tech's Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process blueprint.

Mobile Developer

• Visual, drag-and-drop models to define data models, business logic, and user interfaces.
• One-click deployment.
• Self-healing capabilities.
• Vendor-managed infrastructure.
• Active community and marketplace.
• Pre-built templates and libraries.
• Optical character recognition and natural language processing.
• Knowledgebase and document management.
• Business value, operational costs, and other KPI monitoring.
• Business workflow automation.

Mobile IT Professional

• Audit and change logs.
• Theme and template builder.
• Template management.
• Role-based access.
• Regulatory compliance.
• Consistent design and user experience across applications.
• Application and system performance monitoring.
• Versioning and code management.
• Automatic application and system refactoring and recovery.
• Exception and error handling.
• Scalability (e.g. load balancing) and infrastructure management.
• Real-time debugging.
• Testing capabilities.
• Security management.
• Application integration management.

2.2.2 Build your feature and service lists

1-3 hours

Review the key outcomes in the previous exercises to help inform the features and vendor support you require to support your mobile delivery needs:

End user personas and desired mobile experience

Objectives and expectations

Desired mobile features and platform

Mobile delivery solutions

Brainstorm a list of features and functionalities you require from your ideal solution vendors. Prioritize these features and functionalities. See our Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process blueprint for more information on vendor procurement.

Document your findings and discussions into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

Download the Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template

Hit a home run with your stakeholders

Use a data-driven approach to select the right tooling vendor for your needs – fast.

Investing time improving your software selection methodology has big returns.

Info-Tech Insight

Not all software selection projects are created equal – some are very small, some span the entire enterprise. To ensure that IT is using the right framework, understand the cost and complexity profile of the application you're looking to select. Info-Tech's Rapid Application Selection Framework approach is best for commodity and mid-tier enterprise applications; selecting complex applications is better handled by the methodology in Info-Tech's Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process.

Step 2.3

Create a Roadmap for Mobile Delivery

Activities

2.3.1 Define your MVP release

2.3.2 Build your roadmap

Define Your Mobile Approach

This step involves the following participants:

• Applications Manager
• Product and Platform Owners
• Software Delivery Teams
• Business and IT Leaders

Outcomes of this step

• MVP design
• Mobile delivery roadmap

Achieve mobile success with MVPs

By delivering mobile capabilities in small iterations, teams recognize value sooner and reduce accumulated risk. Both benefits are realized as the iteration enters validation testing and release.

An MVP focuses on a small set of functions, involves minimal possible effort to deliver a working and valuable solution, and is designed to satisfy a specific user group. Its purpose is to:

• Maximize learning.
• Evaluate the value and acceptance of mobile applications.
• Inform the building of a mobile delivery practice.

The build-measure-learn loop suggests mobile delivery teams should perpetually take an idea and develop, test, and validate it with the mobile development solution, then expand on the MVP using the lessons learned and evolving ideas. In this sense the MVP is just the first iteration in the loop.

Leverage a canvas to detail your MVP

Use the release canvas to organize and align the organization around your MVP!

2.3.1 Define your MVP release

1-3 hours

1. Create a list of high priority use cases slated for mobile application delivery. Brainstorm the various supporting activities required to implement your use cases including the shortlisting of mobile delivery tools.
2. Prioritize these use cases based on business priority (from your canvas). Size the effort of these use cases through collaboration.
3. Define your MVPs using a release canvas as shown on the following slide.
4. Document your findings and discussions into Info-Tech's Mobile Application Delivery Communication Template.

2.3.1 cont'd

Build your mobile roadmap

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

Your mobile roadmap

• Lays out a strategy for your mobile application, platform and practice implementation and scaling.
• Is a statement of intent for your mobile adoption.
• Communicates direction for the implementation and use of mobile delivery tools, mobile applications and supporting technologies.
• Directly connects to the organization's goals

However, it is not:

• Representative of a hard commitment.
• A simple combination of your current product roadmaps

Roadmap your MVPs against your milestones and release dates

To learn more, visit Info-Tech's Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision blueprint.

Understand what is communicated in your roadmap

WHY is the work being done?

Explains the overarching goal of work being done to a specific audience.

WHO is doing the work?