Master the Secrets of Adobe’s Creative Cloud Contracts to Right-Size Your Adobe Spend

Learn the essential steps to avoid overspending and to maximize negotiation leverage with Adobe.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

Only 18% of Adobe licenses are genuine copies: are yours?

"Adobe has designed and executed the most comprehensive evolution to the subscription model of pre-cloud software publishers with Creative Cloud. Adobe's release of Document Cloud (replacement for the Acrobat series of software) is the final nail in the coffin for legacy licensing for Adobe. Technology procurement functions have run out of time in which to act while they still retain leverage, with the exception of some late adopter organizations that were able to run on legacy versions (e.g. CS6) for the past five years. Procuring Adobe software is not the same game as it was just a few years ago. Adopt a comprehensive approach to understanding Adobe licensing, contract, and delivery models in order to accurately forecast your software needs, transact against the optimal purchase plan, and maximize negotiation leverage. "

Scott Bickley

Research Lead, Vendor Practice

Info-Tech Research Group

Our understanding of the problem

This Research is Designed For:

• IT managers scoping their Adobe licensing requirements and compliance position.
• CIOs, CTOs, CPOs, and IT directors negotiating licensing agreements in search of cost savings.
• ITAM/Software asset managers responsible for tracking and managing Adobe licensing.
• IT and business leaders seeking to better understand Adobe licensing options (Creative Cloud).
• Vendor management offices in the process of a contract renewal.

This Research Will Help You:

• Understand and simplify licensing per product to help optimize spend.
• Ensure agreement type is aligned to needs.
• Navigate the purchase process to negotiate from a position of strength.
• Manage licenses more effectively to avoid compliance issues, audits, and unnecessary purchases.

This Research Will Also Assist:

• CFOs and the finance department
• Enterprise architects
• ITAM/SAM team
• Network and IT architects
• Legal
• Procurement and sourcing

This Research Will Help Them:

• Understand licensing methods in order to make educated and informed decisions.
• Understand the future of the cloud in your Adobe licensing roadmap.

Executive summary

Situation

• Adobe’s dominant market position and ownership of the creative software market is forcing customers to refocus the software acquisition process to ensure a positive ROI on every license.
• In early 2017, Adobe announced it would stop selling perpetual Creative Suite 6 products, forcing future purchases to be transitioned to the cloud.

Complication

• Adobe operates in its own niche in the creative space, and Adobe users have grown accustomed to their products, making switching very difficult.
• With transition to a cloud-based subscription model, organizations need to actively manage licenses, software provisioning, and consumption.
• Without a detailed understanding of Adobe’s various purchasing models, overspending often occurs.
• Organizations have experienced issues in identifying commercial licensed packages with their install files, making it difficult to track and assign licenses.

Resolution

• Gain visibility into license deployments and needs with a strong SAM program/tool; this will go a long way toward optimizing spend.
• Number of users versus number of installs are not the same, and confusing the two can result in overspending. Device-based licensing historically would have required two licenses, but now only one may be required.
• Ensure compliance with internal audits. Adobe has a very high rate of piracy stemming from issues such as license overuse, misunderstanding of contract language, using cracks/keygens, virtualized environments, indirect access, and sharing of accounts.
• A handful of products are still sold as perpetual – Acrobat Standard/Pro, Captivate, ColdFusion, Photoshop, and Premiere Elements – but be aware of what is being purchased and used in the organization.
• Beware of products deployed on server, where the number of users accessing that product cannot easily be counted.

Info-Tech Insight

1. Your user-need analysis has shifted in the new subscription-based model. Determine which products are needed versus nice to have to prevent overspending on the Creative Cloud suite.
2. Examine what you need, not what you have. You can no longer mix and match applications.
3. Compliance is not automatic with products that are in the cloud. Shared logins or computers with desktop installs that can be accessed by multiple users can cause noncompliance.

The aim of this blueprint is to provide a foundational understanding of Adobe

Why Adobe

In 2011 Adobe took the strategic but radical move toward converting its legacy on-premises licensing to a cloud-based subscription model, in spite of material pushback from its customer base. While revenues initially dipped, Adobe’s resolve paid off; the transition is mostly complete and revenues have doubled. This was the first enterprise software offering to effect the transition to the cloud in a holistic manner. It now serves as a case study for those following suit, such as Microsoft, Autodesk, and Oracle.

What to know

Adobe elected to make this market pivot in a dramatic fashion, foregoing a gradual transition process. Enterprise clients were temporarily allowed to survive on legacy on-premises editions of Adobe software; however, as the Adobe Creative Cloud functionality was quickly enhanced and new applications were launched, customer capitulation to the new subscription model was assured.

The Future

Adobe is now leveraging the power of connected customers, the availability of massive data streams, and the ongoing digitalization trend globally to supplement the core Creative Cloud products with online services and analytics in the areas of Creative Cloud for content, Marketing Cloud for marketers, and Document Cloud for document management and workflows. This blueprint focuses on Adobe's Creative Cloud and Document Cloud solutions and the enterprise term license agreement (ETLA).

Info-Tech Insight

Beware of your contract being auto-renewed and getting locked into the quantities and product subset that you have in your current agreement. Determining the number of licenses you need is critical. If you overestimate, you're locked in for three years. If you underestimate, you have to pay a big premium in the true-up process.

Learn the “Adobe way,” whether you are reviewing existing spend or considering the purchase of new products

1. Legacy on-premises Adobe Creative Suite products used to be available in multiple package configurations, enabling right-sized spend with functionality. Adobe’s support for legacy Creative Suites CS6 products ended in May 2017.
2. While early ETLAs allowed customer application packaging at a lower price than the full Creative Cloud suite, this practice has been discontinued. Now, the only purchasing options are the full suite or single-application subscriptions.
3. Buyers must now assess alternative Adobe products as an option for non-power users. For example, QuarkXPress, Corel PaintShop Pro, CorelDRAW, Bloom, and Affinity Designer are possible replacements for some Creative Cloud applications.
4. Document Cloud, Adobe’s latest step in creating an Acrobat-focused subscription model, limits the ability to reduce costs with an extended upgrade cycle. These changes go beyond the licensing model.
5. Organizations need to perform a cost-benefit analysis of single app purchases vs. the full suite to right-size spend with functionality.

As Adobe’s dominance continues to grow, organizations must find new ways to maintain a value-added relationship

Adobe estimates the total addressable market for creative and document cloud to be $21 billion. With no sign of growth slowing down, Adobe customers must learn how to work within the current design monopoly.

Source: Adobe, 2017

"Adobe is not only witnessing a steady increase in Creative Cloud subscriptions, but it also gained more visibility into customers’ product usage, which enables it to consistently push out software updates relevant to user needs. The company also successfully transformed its sales organization to support the recurring revenue model."

– Omid Razavi, Global Head of Success, ServiceNow

Consider your route forward

Consider your route forward, as ETLA contract commitments, scope, and mechanisms differ in structure to the perpetual models previously utilized. The new model shortchanges technology procurement leaders in their expectations of cost-usage alignment and opex flexibility (White, 2016).

☑ Implement a user profile to assign licenses by version and limit expenditures. Alternatives can include existing legacy perpetual and Acrobat classic versions that may already be owned by the organization.

☑ Examine the suitability and/or dependency on Document Cloud functions, such as existing business workflows and e-signature integration.

☑ Involve stakeholders in the evaluation of alternate products for use cases where dependency on Acrobat-specific functionality is limited.

☑ Identify not just the installs and active use of the applications but also the depth and breadth of use across the various features so that the appropriate products can be selected.

Use Info-Tech’s Adobe toolkit to prepare for your new purchases or contract renewal

Info-Tech Insight

IT asset management (ITAM) and software asset management (SAM) are critical! An error made in a true-up can cost the organization for the remaining years of the ETLA. Info-Tech worked with one client that incurred a $600k error in the true-up that they were not able to recoup from Adobe.

Apply licensing best practices and examine the potential for cost savings through an unbiased third-party perspective

Establish Licensing Requirements

• Understand Adobe’s product landscape and transition to cloud.
• Analyze users and match to correct Adobe SKU.
• Conduct an internal software assessment.
• Build an effective licensing position.

Evaluate Licensing Options

• Value Incentive Plan (VIP)
• Cumulative Licensing Program (CLP)
• Transactional Licensing Program (TLP)
• Enterprise Term License Agreement (ETLA)

Evaluate Agreement Options

• Price
• Discounts
• Price protection
• Terms and conditions

Purchase and Manage Licenses

• Learn negotiation tactics to enhance your current strategy.
• Control the flow of communication.
• Assign the right people to manage the environment.

Preventive practices can help find measured value ($)

Time and resource disruption to business if audited

Lost estimated synergies in M&A

Cost of new licensing

Cost of software audit, penalties, and back support

Lost resource allocation and time

Third party, legal/SAM partners

Cost of poor negotiation tactics

Lost discount percentage

Terms and conditions improved

Explore Adobe licensing and optimize spend – project overview

PHASE 1

Manage Your Adobe Agreements

Phase 1 outline

Call 1-888-670-8889 or email GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com for more information.

Complete these steps on your own, or call us to complete a guided implementation. A guided implementation is a series of 2-3 advisory calls that help you execute each phase of a project. They are included in most advisory memberships.

Adobe’s Cloud – Snapshot of what has changed

1. Since Adobe has limited the procurement and licensing options with the introduction of Creative Cloud, there are three main choices:
1. Direct online purchase at Adobe.com
2. Value Incentive Plan (VIP): Creative Cloud for teams–based purchase with a volume discount (minimal, usually ~10%); may have some incentives or promotional pricing
3. Enterprise Term License Agreement (ETLA): Creative Cloud for Enterprise (CCE)
2. Adobe has discontinued support for legacy perpetual licenses, with the latest version being CS6, which is steering organizations to prioritize their options for products in the creative and document management space.
3. Document Cloud (DC) is the cloud product replacing the Acrobat perpetual licensing model. DC extends the subscription-based model further and limits options to extend the lifespan of legacy on-premises licenses through a protracted upgrade process.
4. The subscription model, coupled with limited discount options on transactional purchases, forces enterprises to consider the ETLA option. The ETLA brings with it unique term commitments, new pricing structures, and true-up mechanisms and inserts the "land and expand" model vs. license reassignment.

Info-Tech Insight

Adobe’s move from a perpetual license to a per-user subscription model can be positive in some scenarios for organizations that experienced challenges with deployment, management of named users vs. devices, and license tracking.

Core concepts of Adobe agreements: Discounting, pricing, and bundling

ETLA

Adobe has been systematically reducing discounts on ETLAs as they enter the second renewal cycle of the original three-year terms.

Adobe Cloud Bundling

Adobe cloud services are being bundled with ETLAs with a mandate that companies that do not accept the services at the proposed cost have Adobe management’s approval to unbundle the deal, generally with no price relief.

Custom Bundling

The option for custom bundling of legacy Creative Suite component applications has been removed, effectively raising the price across the board for licensees that require more than two Adobe applications who must now purchase the full Creative Cloud suite.

Higher and Public Education

Higher education/public education agreements have been revamped over the past couple of years, increasing prices for campus-wide agreements by double-digit percentages (~10-30%+). While they still receive an 80% discount over list price, IT departments in this industry are not prepared to absorb the budget increase.

Info-Tech Insight

Adobe has moved to an all-or-one bundle model. If you need more than two application products, you will likely need to purchase the full Creative Cloud suite. Therefore, it is important to focus on creating accurate user profiles to identify usage needs.

Use Info-Tech’s Adobe deployment tool for SAM: Track deployment and needs

Use Info-Tech’s Adobe deployment tool for SAM: Audit

Use Info-Tech’s Adobe deployment tool for SAM: Cost

Use Info-Tech’s tools to compare ETLA vs. VIP and to document forecasted costs and benefits

Is the ETLA or VIP option better for your organization?

Use Info-Tech’s Adobe ETLA vs. VIP Pricing Table tool to compare ETLA costs against VIP costs.

Your ETLA contains multiple products and is a multi-year agreement.

Use Info-Tech’s ETLA Forecasted Costs and Benefits tool to forecast your ETLA costs and document benefits.

Adobe’s Creative Cloud Complete offering provides access to all Adobe creative products and ongoing upgrades

Why subscription model?

The subscription model forces customers to an annuity-based pricing model, so Adobe has recurring revenue from a subscription-based product. This increases customer lifetime value (CLTV) for Adobe while providing ongoing functionality updates that are not version/edition dependent.

Key Characteristics:

• Available as a month-to-month or annual subscription license
• Can be purchased for one user, for a team, or for an enterprise
• Subject to annual payment and true-up of license fees
• Can only true-up during lifespan of contract; quantities cannot be reduced until renewal
• May contain auto-renewal clauses – beware!

Key things to know:

1. Applications can be purchased individually if users require only one specific product. A few products continue to have on-premises licensing options, but most are offered by per-user subscriptions.
2. At the end of the subscription period, the organization no longer has any rights to the software and would have to return to a previously owned version.
3. True-downs are not possible (in contrast to Microsoft’s Office 365).
4. Downgrade rights are not included or are limited by default.

Which products are in the Creative Cloud bundle?

Adobe Acrobat® XI Pro

Adobe After Effects® CC

Adobe Audition® CC

Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, Single Edition

Adobe InDesign® CC

Adobe Dreamweaver® CC

Adobe Edge Animate

Adobe Edge Code preview

Adobe Edge Inspect

Adobe Photoshop CC

Adobe Edge Reflow preview

Adobe Edge Web Fonts

Adobe Extension Manager

ExtendScript Toolkit

Adobe Fireworks® CS6

Adobe Flash® Builder® 4.7 Premium Edition

Adobe Flash Professional CC

Adobe Illustrator® CC

Adobe Prelude® CC

Adobe Premiere® Pro CC

Adobe Scout

Adobe SpeedGrade® CC

Adobe Muse CC

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6

Adobe offers different solutions for teams vs. enterprise licensing

Evaluate the various options for Creative Cloud, as they can be purchased individually, for teams, or for enterprise.

For further information on specific functionality differences, reference Adobe’s comparison table.

A Cloud-ish solution: Considerations and implications for IT organizations

☑ True cloud products are typically service-based, scalable and elastic, shared resources, have usage metering, and rely upon internet technologies. Currently, Adobe’s Creative Cloud and Document Cloud products lack these characteristics. In fact, the core products are still downloaded and physically installed on endpoint devices, then anchored to the cloud provisioning system, where the software can be automatically updated and continuously verified for compliance by ensuring the subscription is active.

☑ Adobe Cloud allows Adobe to increase end-user productivity by releasing new features and products to market faster, but the customer will increase lock-in to the Adobe product suite. The fast-release approach poses a different challenge for IT departments, as they must prepare to test and support new functionality and ensure compatibility with endpoint devices.

☑ There are options at the enterprise level that enable IT to exert more granular control over new feature releases, but these are tied to the ETLA and the provided enterprise portal and are not available on other subscription plans. This is another mechanism by which Adobe has been able to spur ETLA adoption.

☑ Not all CIOs consider SaaS/subscription applications their first choice, but the Adobe’s dominant position in the content and document management marketplace is forcing the shift regardless. It is significant that Adobe bypassed the typical hybrid transition model by effectively disrupting the ability to continue with perpetual licensing without falling behind the functionality curve.

☑ VIP plans do allow for annual terms and payment, but you lose the price elasticity that comes with multi-year terms.

Download Info-Tech’s Adobe ETLA vs. VIP Pricing Table tool to compare ETLA costs against VIP costs.

When moving to Adobe cloud, validate that license requirements meet organizational needs, not a sales quota

Follow these steps in your transition to Creative Cloud.

Step 1: Make sure you have a software asset management (SAM) tool to determine Adobe installs and usage within your environment.

Step 2: Look at the current Adobe install base and usage. We recommend reviewing three months’ worth of reliable usage data to decide which users should have which licenses going forward.

Step 3: Understand the changes in Adobe packages for Creative Cloud (CC). Also, take into account that the license types are based on users, not devices.

Step 4: Identify those users who only need a single license for a single application (e.g. Photoshop, InDesign, Muse).

Step 5: Identify the users who require CC suites. Look at their usage of previous Adobe suites to get an idea of which CC suite they require. Did they have Design Suite Standard installed but only use one or two elements? This is a good way to ensure you do not overspend on Adobe licenses.

Source: The ITAM Review

Download Info-Tech’s Adobe ETLA Deployment Forecast tool to track Adobe installs within your environment and to determine usage needs.

Acquiring Adobe Software

Adobe offers four common licensing methods, which are reviewed in detail in the following slides.

"Customers are not even obliged to manage all the licenses themselves. The reseller partners have access to the cloud console and can manage licenses on behalf of their customers. Even better, they can seize cross and upsell opportunities and provide good insight into the environment. Additionally, Adobe itself provides optimization services."

– B-lay

CLP and TLP

The CLP and TLP are transactional agreements generally used for the purchase of perpetual licenses. For example, they could be used for making Acrobat purchases if Creative Suite products are purchased on the ETLA.

Source: “Adobe Buying Programs Comparison Guide for Commercial and Government Organizations”

VIP and ETLA

The Value Incentive Plan is aimed at small- to medium-sized organizations with no minimum quantity required. However, there is limited flexibility to reduce licenses and limited price protection for future purchases. The ETLA is aimed at large organizations who wish to have new functionality as it comes out, license management portal, services, and security/IT control aspects.

Source: “Adobe Buying Programs Comparison Guide for Commercial and Government Organizations”

ETLA commitments risk creating “shelfware-as-a-service”

The Adobe ETLA’s rigid contract parameters, true-up process, and unique deployment/provisioning mechanisms give technology/IT procurement leaders fewer options to maximize cost-usage alignment and to streamline opex costs.

☑ No ETLA price book is publicly published; pricing is controlled by the Adobe enterprise sales team.

☑ Adobe's retail pricing is a good starting point for negotiating discounted pricing.

☑ ETLA commitments are usually for three years, and the lack of a true-down option increases the risk involved in overbuying licenses should the organization encounter a business downturn or adverse event.

☑ Pricing discounts are the highest at the initial ETLA signing for the upfront volume commitment. The true-up pricing is discounted from retail but still higher than the signing cost per license.

☑ Technical support is included in the ETLA.

☑ While purchases typically go through value-added resellers (VARs), procurement can negotiate directly with Adobe.

"For cloud products, it is less complex when it comes to purchasing and pricing. If larger quantities are purchased on a longer term, the discount may reach up to 15%. As soon as you enroll in the VIP program, you can control all your licenses from an ‘admin console’. Any updates or new functionalities are included in the original price. When the licenses expire, you may choose to renew your subscriptions or remove them. Partial renewal is also accepted. Of course, you can also re-negotiate your price if more subscriptions are added to your console."

– B-lay

ETLA recommendations

1. Assess the end-user requirements with a high degree of scrutiny. Perform an analysis that matches the licensee with the correct Adobe product SKU to reduce the risk of overspending.

• Leverage metering data that identifies actual usage and lack thereof, match to user profile functional requirements, and then determine end users’ actual license requirements.

• Demand price transparency and granularity in the proposal process.
• Validate that volume discounts are appropriate and show through to the true-up line item pricing.

INFO-TECH TIP: For further guidance on ETLAs and pricing, contact your Info-Tech representative to set up a call with an analyst.

Use Info-Tech’s Adobe ETLA Deployment Forecast tool to match licensees with Adobe product SKUs.

Prepare for Adobe’s true-up process

How the true-up process works

When adding a license, the true-up price will be prorated to 50% of the license cost for previous year’s usage plus 100% of the license cost for the next year. This back-charging adds up to 150% of the overall true-up license cost. In some rare cases, Adobe has provided an “unlimited” quantity for certain SKUs; these Unlimited ETLAs generally align with FTE counts and limit FTE increases to about 5%. Procurement must monitor and work with SAM/ITAM and stakeholder groups to restrain unnecessary growth during the term of an Unlimited ETLA to avoid the risk of cost escalation at renewal time.

Higher-education specific

Higher-education clients can license under the ETLA based on a prescribed number of user and classroom/lab devices and/or on a FTE basis. In these cases, the combination of Creative Cloud and Acrobat Pro volume must equal the FTE total, creating an enterprise footprint. FTE calculations establish the full-time faculty plus one-third of part-time faculty plus one-half of part-time staff.

Info-Tech Insight

Compliance takes a different form in terms of the ETLA true-up process. The completion of Adobe's transition to cloud-based licensing and verification has improved compliance rates via phone home telemetry such that pirated software is less available and more easily detected. Adobe has actually decommissioned its audit arm in the Americas and EMEA.

Audits and software asset management with Adobe

Watch out for:

• Virtual desktops, freeware, and test and trial licenses
• Adobe products that may be bundled into a suite; a manual check will be needed to ensure the suite isn’t recognized as a standalone license
• Pirated licenses with a “crack” built into the software

Simplify your process – from start to finish – with these steps:

Determine License Entitlements

Obtain documentation from internal records and Adobe to track licenses and upgrades to determine what licenses you own and have the right to use.

Gather Deployment Information

Leverage a software asset management tool or process to determine what software is deployed and what is/is not being used.

Determine Effective License Position

Compare license entitlements with deployment data to uncover surpluses and deficits in licensing. Look for opportunities.

Plan Changes to License Position

Meet with IT stakeholders to discuss the enterprise license program (ELP), short- and long-term project plans, and budget allocation. Plan and document licensing requirements.

Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Service

• This service was started in 2014 to combat non-genuine software sold by non-authorized resellers.
• The service works hand in hand with the cloud movement to reduce piracy.
• Every Adobe product now contains an executable file that will scan your machine for non-genuine software.
• If non-genuine software is detected, the user will be notified and directed to the official Adobe website for next steps.

Detailed list of Adobe licensing contract types

The table below describes Adobe contract types beyond the four typical purchasing models explained in the previous slides:

Insight breakdown

Insight 1

Adobe operates in its own niche in the creative space, and Adobe users have grown accustomed to their products, making switching very difficult.

Insight 2

Adobe has transitioned the vast majority of its software offerings to the cloud-based subscription model. Active management of licenses, software provisioning, and consumption of cloud services is now an ongoing job.

Insight 3

With the vendor lock-in process nearly complete via the transition to a SaaS subscription model, Adobe is raising prices on an annual basis. Advance planning and strategic use of the ETLA is key to avoid budget-breaking surprises.

Summary of accomplishment

Knowledge Gained

• The key pieces of licensing information that should be gathered about the current state of your own organization.
• An in-depth understanding of the required licenses across all of your products.
• Clear methodology for selecting the most effective contract type.
• Development of measurable, relevant metrics to help track future project success and identify areas of strength and weakness within your licensing program.

Processes Optimized

• Understanding of the importance of licensing in relation to business objectives.
• Understanding of the various licensing considerations that need to be made.
• Contract negotiation.

Deliverables Completed

• Adobe ETLA Deployment Forecast
• Adobe ETLA Forecasted Cost and Benefits
• Adobe ETLA vs. VIP Pricing Table

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Bibliography

“Adobe Buying Programs: At-a-glance comparison guide for Commercial and government organizations.” Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2014. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

“Adobe Buying Programs Comparison Guide for Commercial and Government Organizations.” Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2018. Web.

“Adobe Buying Programs Comparison Guide for Education.” Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2018. Web. 1 Feb 2018.

“Adobe Education Enterprise Agreement: Give your school access to the latest industry-leading creative tools.” Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2014. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

“Adobe Enterprise Term License Agreement for commercial and government organizations.” Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2016. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

Adobe Investor Presentation – October 2017. Adobe Systems Incorporated, 2017. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

Cabral, Amanda. “Students react to end of UConn-Adobe contract.” The Daily Campus (Uconn), 5 April 2017. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

de Veer, Patrick and Alecsandra Vintilescu. “Quick Guide to Adobe Licensing.” B-lay, Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

“Find the best program for your organization.” Adobe, Web. 1 Feb 2018.

Foxen, David. “Adobe Upgrade Simplified.” Snow Software, 7 Oct. 2016. Web.

Frazer, Bryant. “Adobe Stops Reporting Subscription Figures for Creative Cloud.” Studio Daily. Access Intelligence, LLC. 17 March 2016. Web.

“Give your students the power to create bright futures.” Adobe, Web. 1 Feb 2018.

Jones, Noah. “Adobe changes subscription prices, colleges forced to pay more.” BG Falcon Media. Bowling Green State University, 18 Feb. 2015. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

Mansfield, Adam. “Is Your Organization Prepared for Adobe’s Enterprise Term License Agreements (ETLA)?” UpperEdge,30 April 2013. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

Murray, Corey. “6 Things Every School Should Know About Adobe’s Move to Creative Cloud.” EdTech: Focus on K-12. CDW LLC, 10 June 2013. Web.

“Navigating an Adobe Software Audit: Tips for Emerging Unscathed.” Nitro, Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

Razavi, Omid. “Challenges of Traditional Software Companies Transitioning to SaaS.” Sand Hill, 12 May 2015. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

Rivard, Ry. “Confusion in the Cloud.” Inside Higher Ed. 22 May 2013. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

Sharwood, Simon. “Adobe stops software licence audits in Americas, Europe.” The Register. Situation Publishing. 12 Aug. 2016. Web. 1 Feb. 2018.

“Software Licensing Challenges Faced In The Cloud: How Can The Cloud Benefit You?” The ITAM Review. Enterprise Opinions Limited. 20 Nov. 2015. Web.

White, Stephen. “Understanding the Impacts of Adobe’s Cloud Strategy and Subscriptions Before Negotiating an ETLA.” Gartner, 22 Feb. 2016. Web.

Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics

Spend less time struggling with visuals and more time communicating about what matters to your executives.

Analyst Perspective

A dashboard is a communication tool that helps executives make data-driven decisions

CIOs naturally gravitate toward data and data analysis. This is their strength. They lean into this strength, using data to drive decisions, track performance, and set targets because they know good data drives good decisions.

However, when it comes to interpreting and communicating this complex information to executives who may be less familiar with data, CIOs struggle, often falling back on showing IT activity level data instead of what the executives care about. This results in missed opportunities to tell IT’s unique story, secure funding, reveal important trends, or highlight key opportunities for the organization.

Break through these traditional barriers by using Info-Tech’s ready-made IT dashboards. Spend less time agonizing over visuals and layout and more time concentrating on delivering IT information that moves the organization forward.

Diana MacPherson
Senior Research Analyst, CIO
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

The purpose of a dashboard is to drive decision making. A well designed dashboard presents relevant, clear, concise insights that help executives make data-driven decisions.

Your challenge

CIOs struggle to select the right metrics and dashboards to communicate IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress to their executives. CIOs:

• Fail to tailor metrics to their audience, often presenting graphs that are familiar and useful to them, but not their executives. This results in dashboards full of IT activities that executives neither understand nor find valuable.
• Do not consider the timeliness of their metrics, which has the same effect as not tailoring their metrics: the executives do not care about the metrics they are shown.
• Present too many metrics, which not only clutters the board but also dilutes the message the CIO needs to communicate.
• Do not act on the results of their metrics and show progress, which makes metrics meaningless. Why measure something if you won’t act on the results?

The bottom line: CIOs often communicate to the wrong audience, about the wrong things, in the wrong amount, using the wrong metrics, at the wrong time.

In a survey of 500 executives, organizations that struggled with dashboards identified the reasons as:
61% Inadequate context
54% Information overload

— Source: Exasol

CXOs and CIOs agree that IT performance metrics need improvement

When asked which performance indicators should be implemented in your business, CXOs and CIOs both agree that IT needs to improve its metrics across several activity areas: technology performance, cost and salary, and risk.

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards center key metrics around these activities ensuring you align your metrics to the needs of your CXO audience.

Info-Tech CEO/CIO Alignment Survey Benchmark Report n=666

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by the top CIO priorities

The top six areas that a CIO needs to prioritize and measure outcomes, no matter your organization or industry, are:

• Managing to a budget: Reducing operational costs and increasing strategic IT spend
• Customer/constituent satisfaction: Directly and indirectly impacting customer experience.
• Risk management: Actively knowing and mitigating threats to the organization.
• Delivering on business objectives: Aligning IT initiatives to the vision of the organization.
• Employee engagement: Creating an IT workforce of engaged and purpose-driven people.
• Business leadership relations: Establishing a network of influential business leaders.

Deliver High-Value IT Dashboards to Your Executives

Info-Tech’s approach

Deliver High-Value Dashboards to Your Executives

Executives recognize the benefits of dashboards:
87% of respondents to an Exasol study agreed that their organization’s leadership team would make more data-driven decisions if insights were presented in a simpler and more understandable way
(Source: Exasol)

The Info-Tech difference:

We created dashboards for you so you don’t have to!

1. Eliminate 80% of the dashboard design work by selecting from our ready-made Info-Tech IT Dashboards.
2. Use our IT Dashboard Workbook to adjust the dashboards to your audience and organization.
3. Follow our blueprint and IT Dashboard Workbook tool to craft, and deliver your dashboard to your CXO team, then action feedback from your audience to continuously improve.

Info-Tech’s methodology for establishing high-value dashboards

1. Test Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs

Phase Steps

1. Validate Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for Your Audience
2. Identify and Document Your Audience’s Needs

Phase Outcomes

1. Initial impressions of Info-Tech IT Dashboards
2. Completed Tabs 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook

2. Translate Audience Needs into Metrics

Phase Steps

1. Review Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for Your Audience
2. Derive Metrics from Audience Needs
3. Associate metrics to Dashboards

Phase Outcomes

1. Completed IT Tab 3 of IT Dashboard Workbook

3. Ready Your Data for Dashboards

Phase Steps

1. Assess Data Inventory
2. Assess Data Quality
3. Assess Data Readiness
4. Assess Data Frequency

Phase Outcomes

1. Assessed Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience’s needs
2. Completed Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook
3. Finalized dashboards

4. Build and Deliver Your Dashboards

Phase Steps

1. Design Your Dashboard
2. Update Your Dashboards
3. Craft Your Story and Deliver Your Dashboards

Phase Outcomes

1. Completed IT Tab 5 and 6 of IT Dashboard Workbook and finalized dashboards

5. Plan, Record, and Action Your Metrics

Phase Steps

1. Plan How to Record Metrics
2. Record and Action Metrics

Phase Outcomes

1. Completed IT Dashboards tailored to your organization
2. Completed IT Dashboard Workbook

How to Use This Blueprint

Choose the path that works for you

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards address several needs:

1. New to dashboards and metrics and not sure where to begin? Let the phases in the blueprint guide you in using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards to create your own dashboards.
2. Already know who your audience is and what you want to show? Augment the Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards framework with your own data and visuals.
3. Already have a tool you would like to use? Use the Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards as a design document to customize your tool.

Insight Summary

The need for easy-to-consume data is on the rise making dashboards a vital data communication tool.

70%: Of employees will be expected to use data heavily by 2025, an increase from 40% in 2018.
— Source: Tableau

Overarching insight

A dashboard’s primary purpose is to drive action. It may also serve secondary purposes to update, educate, and communicate, but if a dashboard does not drive action, it is not serving its purpose.

Insight 1

Start with the audience. Resist the urge to start with the data. Think about who your audience is, what internal and external environmental factors influence them, what problems they need to solve, what goals they need to achieve, then tailor the metrics and dashboards to suit.

Insight 2

Avoid showing IT activity-level metrics. Instead use CIO priority-based metrics to report on what matters to the organization. The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by the CIO priorities: risks, financials, talent, and strategic initiatives.

Insight 3

Dashboards show the what not the why. Do not assume your audience will draw the same conclusions from your graphs and charts as you do. Provide the why by interpreting the results, adding insights and calls to action, and marking key areas for discussion.

Insight 4

A dashboard is a communication tool and should reflect the characteristics of good communication. Be clear, concise, consistent, and relevant.

Insight 5

Action your data. Act and report progress on your metrics. Gathering metrics has a cost, so if you do not plan to action a metric, do not measure it.

Blueprint deliverables

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

Blueprint benefits

CIO Benefits

• Reduces the burden of figuring out what metrics to show executives and how to categorize and arrange the visuals.
• Increases audience engagement through tools and methods that guide CIOs through tailoring metrics and dashboards to audience needs.
• Simplifies CIO messages so executives better understand IT needs and value.
• Provides CIOs with the tools to demonstrate transparency and competency to executive leaders.
• Provides tools and techniques for regular review and action planning of metrics results, which leads to improved performance, efficiency, and effectiveness.

Business Benefits

• Provides a richer understanding of the IT landscape and a clearer connection of how IT needs and issues impact the organization.
• Increases understanding of the IT team’s contribution to achieving business outcomes.
• Provides visibility into IT and business trends.
• Speeds up decision making by providing insights and interpretations to complex situations.

Measure the value of this blueprint

Realize measurable benefits after using Info-Tech’s approach:

Determining what you should measure, what visuals you should use, and how you should organize your visuals, is time consuming. Calculate the time it has taken you to research what metrics you should show, create the visuals, figure out how to categorize the visuals, and layout your visuals. Typically, this takes about 480 hours of time. Use the ready-made Info-Tech IT Dashboards and the IT Dashboard Workbook to quickly put together a set of dashboards to present your CXO. Using these tools will save approximately 480 hours.

A study at the University of Minnesota shows that visual presentations are 43% more effective at persuading their audiences (Bonsignore). Estimate how persuasive you are now by averaging how often you have convinced your audience to take a specific course of action. After using the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and visual story telling techniques described in this blueprint, average again. You should be 43% more persuasive.

Further value comes from making decisions faster. Baseline how long it takes, on average, for your executive team to make a decision before using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards then time how long decisions take when you use your Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. Your audience should reach decisions 21% faster according to studies at Stanford University and the Wharton School if business (Bonsignore).

Case Study

Visuals don’t have to be fancy to communicate clear messages.

• Industry: Construction
• Source: Anonymous interview participant

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 are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

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 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Workshop overview

Day 1: Test Info-tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs and Translate Audience Needs Into Metrics

Activities
1.1 Review the info-Tech IT Dashboards and document impressions for your organization.
1.2 Identify your audience’s attributes.
1.3 Identify timeline and deadlines for dashboards.
1.4 Identify and prioritize audience needs and desired outcomes.
1.5 Associate metrics to each need.
1.6 Identify a dashboard for each metric.

Deliverables
1. Initial impressions of Info-Tech IT Dashboards.
2. Completed Tabs 2 and 3 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Day 2: Inventory Your Data; Assess Data Quality and Readiness

Activities
2.1 Complete a data inventory for each metric on each dashboard: determine how you will measure the metric, the KPI, any observation biases, the location of the data, the type of source, and the owner and security/compliance requirements.
2.2 Assess data quality for availability, accuracy, and standardization.
2.3 Assess data readiness and frequency of measurement and reporting.

Deliverables
1. Completed Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Day 3: Design and Build Your Dashboards

Activities
3.1 Revisit the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and use the identified metrics to determine what should change on the dashboards.
3.2 Build your dashboards by editing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with your changes as planned in Step 3.1.

Deliverables
1. Assessed Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience’s needs.
2. Completed Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
3. Finalized dashboards.

Day 4: Deliver Your Dashboard and Plan to Action Metrics

Activities
4.1 Craft your story.
4.2 Practice delivering your story.
4.3 Plan to action your metrics.
4.4 Understand how to record and address your results.

Deliverables
1. Completed Tabs 6 and 7 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Day 5: Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

Activities
5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days
5.2 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

Deliverables
1. Completed IT Dashboards tailored to your organization.
2. Completed IT Dashboard Workbook.

Contact your account representative for more information.

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

What is an IT dashboard?

An IT dashboard is…
a visual representation of data, and its main purpose is to drive actions. Well-designed dashboards use an easy to consume presentation style free of clutter. They present their audience with a curated set of visuals that present meaningful metrics to their audience.

Dashboards can be both automatically or manually updated and can show information that is dynamic or a snapshot in time.

Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Review the Info-Tech IT Dashboards

We created dashboards so you don’t have to.

Use the link below to download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and consider the following:

1. What are your initial reactions to the dashboards?
2. Are the visuals appealing? If so, what makes them appealing?
3. Can you use these dashboards in your organization? What makes them usable?
4. How would you use these dashboards to speak your own IT information to your audience?

Download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Why Use Dashboards When We Have Data?

How graphics affect us

Cognitively

• Engage our imagination
• Stimulate the brain
• Heighten creative thinking
• Enhance or affect emotions

Emotionally

• Enhance comprehension
• Increase recollection
• Elevate communication
• Improve retention

Visual clues

• Help decode text
• Attract attention
• Increase memory

Persuasion

• 43% more effective than text alone

— Source: (Vogel et al.)

Phase 1

Test Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Documenting impressions for using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for your audience.
• Documenting your audience and their needs and metrics for your IT dashboards

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Info-Tech IT Dashboard organization and audience

We created a compelling way to organize IT dashboards so you don’t have to. The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO Priorities, and these are consistent irrespective of industry or organization. This is a constant that you can organize your metrics around.

Dashboard Customization

The categories represent a constant around which you can change the order; for example, if your CXO is more focused on Financials, you can switch the Financials dashboard to appear first.

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards are aimed at a CXO audience so if your audience is the CXO, then you may decide to change very little, but you can customize any visual to appeal to your audience.

Phase 1 will get you started with your audience.

Always start with the audience

…and not the data!

Reliable, accurate data plays a critical role in dashboards, but data is only worthwhile if it is relevant to the audience who consumes it, and dashboards are only as meaningful as the data and metrics they represent.

Instead of starting with the data, start with the audience. The more IT understands about the audience, the more relevant the metrics will be to their audience and the more aligned leadership will be with IT.

Don’t forget yourself and who you are. Your audience will have certain preconceived notions about who you are and what you do. Consider these when you think about what you want your audience to know.

Resist the Data-First Temptation

If you find yourself thinking about data and you haven’t thought about your audience, pull yourself back to the audience.

Meaningful measures rely on understanding your audience and their needs

It is crucial to think about who your audience is so that you can translate their needs into metrics and create meaningful visuals for your dashboards.

Step 1.1

Review and Validate Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards for Your Audience

Activities:
1.1.1 Examine Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Info-Tech dashboards reviewed for your organization’s audience.

1.1.1 Examine the Info-Tech IT Dashboards

30 minutes

1. If you haven’t already downloaded the Info-Tech IT Dashboards, click the link below to download.
2. Complete a quick review of the dashboards and consider how your audience would receive them.
3. Document your thoughts, with special emphasis on your audience in the Info-Tech Dashboard Impressions slide.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Reviewing visuals can help you think about how your audience will respond to them

Jot down your thoughts below. You can refer to this later as you consider your audience.

Consider:

• Who is your dashboard audience?
• Are their needs different from the Info-Tech IT Dashboard audience’s? If so, how?
• Will the visuals work for your audience on each dashboard?
• Will the order of the dashboards work for your audience?
• What is missing?

Step 1.2

Identify and Document Your Audience’s Needs

Activities:
1.2.1 Document your audience’s needs in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Audience details documented in IT Dashboard Workbook

Identify Your Audience and dig deeper to understand their needs

Connect with your audience

• Who is your audience?
• What does your audience care about? What matters to them?
• How is their individual success measured? What are their key performance indicators (KPIs)?
• Connect the challenges and pain points of your audience to how IT can help alleviate those pain points:
  • For example, poor financial performance could be due to a lack of digitization. Identify areas where IT can help alleviate this issue.
  • Try to uncover the root cause behind the need. Root causes are often tied to broad organizational objectives, so think about how IT can impact those objectives.

Validate the needs you’ve uncovered with the audience to ensure you have not misinterpreted them and clarify the desired timeline and deadline for the dashboard.

Document audiences and needs on Tab 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook

Prioritize and select audience needs that your dashboard will address

Prioritize needs by asking:

• Which needs represent the largest value to the entire organization (i.e. needs that impact more of the organization than just the audience)?
• Which needs will have the largest impact on the audience’s success?
• Which needs are likely to drive action (e.g. if supporting a decision, is the audience likely to be amenable to changing the way they make that decision based on the data)?

Select three to five of the highest priority needs for each audience to include on a dashboard.

Prioritize needs on Tab 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook

1.2.1 Document Your Audience Needs in the IT Dashboard Workbook

1 hour

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 2. The workbook contains pre-populated text that reflects information about Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the pre-populated text as reference as you identify your own audience then remove after you have completed your updates.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Phase 2

Translate Audience Needs Into Metrics

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Revisiting the Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience.
• Documenting your prioritized audience’s needs and the desired outcome of each in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Linking audience needs to metrics has positive outcomes

When you present metrics that your audience cares about, you:

• Deliver real value and demonstrate IT’s value as a trusted partner.
• Improve the relationship between the business and IT.
• Enlighten the business about what IT does and how it is connected to the organization.

29% of respondents to The Economist Intelligence Unit survey cited inadequate collaboration between IT and the business as one of the top barriers to the organization’s digital objectives.
— Source: Watson, Morag W., et al.

Dashboard Customization

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards use measures for each dashboard that correspond with what the audience (CXO) cares about. You can find these measures in the IT Dashboard Workbook. If your audience is the CXO, you may have to change a little but you should still validate the needs and metrics in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Phase 2 covers the process of translating needs into metrics.

Once you know what your audience needs, you know what to measure

Step 2.1

Document Desired Outcomes for Each Prioritized Audience Need

Activities:
2.1.1 Compare the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with your audience’s needs.
2.1.2 Document prioritized audience needs and the desired outcome of each in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Understanding of how well Info-Tech IT Dashboards address audience needs.
• Documented desired outcomes for each audience need.

2.1.1 Revisit Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards and Review for Your Audience

30 minutes

1. If you haven’t already downloaded the Info-Tech IT Dashboards, click the link below to download.
2. Click the link below to download the Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook.
3. Recall your first impressions of the dashboards that you recorded on earlier in Phase 1 and open up the audience and needs information you documented in Tab 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
4. Compare the dashboards with your audience’s needs that you documented on Tab 2.
5. Record any updates to your thoughts or impressions on the next slide. Think about any changes to the dashboards that you would make so that you can reference it when you build the dashboards.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

The Info-Tech IT Dashboards contain a set of monthly metrics tailored toward a CXO audience.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Knowing what your audience needs, do the metrics the visuals reflect address them?

Any changes to the Info-Tech IT Dashboards?

Consider:

• Are your audience’s needs already reflected in the visuals in each of the dashboards? If so, validate this in the next activity by reviewing the prioritized needs, desired outcomes, and associated metrics already documented in the IT Dashboard Workbook.
• Are there any visuals your audience would need that you don’t see reflected in the dashboards? Write them here to use in the next exercise.

Desired outcomes make identifying metrics easier

When it’s not immediately apparent what the link between needs and metrics is, brainstorm desired outcomes.

2.1.2 Document your audience’s desired outcome per prioritized need

Now that you’ve examined the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and considered the needs of your audience, it is time to understand the outcomes and goals of each need so that you can translate your audience’s needs into metrics.

1 hour

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 3. The workbook contains pre-populated text that reflects information about Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the pre-populated text as reference as you identify your own audience then remove it after you have completed your updates.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Deriving Meaningful Metrics

Once you know the desired outcomes, you can identify meaningful metrics

Common Metrics Mistakes

Avoid the following oversights when selecting your metrics.

Step 2.2

Derive Metrics From Audience Needs

Activities:
2.2.1 Derive metrics using the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and the IT Dashboard Workbook.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented metrics for audience needs.

2.2.1 Derive metrics from desired outcomes

Now that you have completed the desired outcomes, you can determine if you are meeting those desired outcomes. If you struggle with the metrics, revisit the desired outcomes. It could be that they are not measurable or are not specific enough.

2 hours

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 3. The workbook contains pre-populated text that reflects information about Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the pre-populated text as reference as you identify your own audience then remove it after you have completed your updates.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Download IT Metrics Library

Download HR Metrics Library

Step 2.3

Associate Metrics to Dashboards

Activities:
2.3.1 Review the metrics and identify which dashboard they should appear on.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Metrics associated to each dashboard.

2.3.1 Associate metrics to dashboards

30 minutes

Once you have identified all your metrics from Step 2.2, identify which dashboard they should appear on. As with all activities, if the Info-Tech IT Dashboard meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information.

Phase 3

Ready Your Data for Dashboards

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Inventorying your data
• Assessing your data quality
• Determining data readiness
• Determining data measurement frequency

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Can you measure your metrics?

Once appropriate service metrics are derived from business objectives, the next step is to determine how easily you can get your metric.

Make sure you select data that your audience trusts

40% of organizations say individuals within the business do not trust data insights.
— Source: Experian, 2020

Phase 3 covers the process of identifying data for each metric, creating a data inventory, assessing the readiness of your data, and documenting the frequency of measuring your data. Once complete, you will have a guide to help you add data to your dashboards.

Step 3.1

Assess Data Inventory

Activities:
3.1.1 Download the IT Dashboard Workbook and complete the data inventory section on Tab 4.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented data inventory for each metric.

3.1.1 Data Inventory

1 hour

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 4. The pre-populated text is arranged into the tables according to the dashboard they appear on; you may need to scroll down to see all the dashboard tables.

Create a data inventory by placing each metric identified on Tab 3 into the corresponding dashboard table. Complete each column as described below.

Metrics Libraries: Use the IT Metrics Library and HR Metrics Library for ideas for metrics to use and how to measure them.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 3.2

Assess Data Quality

Activities:
3.2.1 Use the IT Dashboard Workbook to complete an assessment of data quality on Tab 4.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented data quality assessment for each metric.

3.2.1 Assess Data Quality

1 hour

Document the data quality on Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook by filling in the data availability, data accuracy, and data standardization columns as described below.

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

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 3.3

Assess Data Readiness

Activities:
3.3.1 Use the IT Dashboard Workbook to determine the readiness of your data.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented data readiness for each metric

3.3.1 Determine Data Readiness

1 hour

Once the data quality has been documented and examined, complete the Data Readiness section of Tab 4 in the Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook. Select a readiness classification using the definitions below. Use the readiness of your data to determine the level of effort required to obtain the data and consider the constraints and cost/ROI to implement new technology or revise processes and data gathering to produce the data.

Remember: Although in most cases, simple formulas that can be easily understood are the best approach, both because effort is lower and data that is not manipulated is more trustworthy, do not abandon data because it is not perfect but instead plan to make it easier to obtain.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 3.4

Assess Data Frequency

Activities:
3.4.1 Use the IT Dashboard Workbook to determine the readiness of your data and how frequently you will measure your data.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented frequency of measurement for each metric.

3.4.1 Document Planned Frequency of measurement

10 minutes

Document the planned frequency of measurement for all your metrics on Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

For each metric, determine how often you will need to refresh it on the dashboard and select a frequency from the drop down. The Info-tech IT Dashboards assume a monthly refresh.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Phase 4

Build and Deliver Your Dashboards

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Designing your dashboards
• Updating your dashboards
• Crafting your story
• Delivering your dashboards

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Using your dashboard to tell your story with visuals

Now that you have linked metrics to the needs of your audience and you understand how to get your data, it is time to start building your dashboards.

Using visual language

• Shortens meetings by 24%
• Increases the ability to reach consensus by 21%
• Strengthens persuasiveness by 43%

— Source: American Management Association

Phase 4 guides you through using the Info-Tech IT Dashboard visuals for your audience’s needs and your story.

Step 4.1

Design Your Dashboard

Activities:
4.1.1 Plan and validate dashboard metrics, data, level of effort and visuals.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Identified and validated metrics, data, and visuals for your IT dashboards.

Use clear visuals that avoid distracting the audience

Which visual is better to present?

Sample A:

Sample B:

Select the appropriate visuals

Identify the purpose of the visualization. Determine which of the four categories below aligns with the story and choose the appropriate visual to display the data.

Relationship

Scatterplots

• Used to show relationships between two variables.
• Can be difficult to interpret for audiences that are not familiar with them.

Distribution

Histogram

• Use a histogram to show spread of a given numeric variable.
• Can be used to organize groups of data points.
• Requires continuous data.
• Can make comparisons difficult.

Scatterplot

• Can show correlation between variables.
• Show each data plot, making it easier to compare.

Composition

Pie chart

• Use pie charts to show different categories.
• Avoid pie charts with numerous slices.
• Provide numbers alongside slices, as it can be difficult to compare slices based on size alone.

Table

• Use tables when there are a large number of categories.
• Presents information in a simple way.

Comparison

Bar graph

• Use to compare categories.
• Easy to understand, familiar format.

Line chart

• Use to show trends or changes over time.
• Clear and easy to analyze.

(Calzon)

Examples of data visualization

To compare categories, use a bar chart:

Conclusion: Visualizing the spend in various areas helps prioritize.

To show trends, use a line graph:

Conclusion: Overlaying a trend line on revenue per employee helps justify headcount costs.

To show simple results, text is sometimes more clear:

Conclusion: Text with meaningful graphics conveys messages quickly.

To display relative percentages of values, use a pie chart:

Conclusion: Displaying proportions in a pie chart gives an at-a-glance understanding of the amount any area uses.

Choose effective colors and design

Select colors that will enhance the story

• Use color strategically to help draw the audience’s attention and highlight key information.
• Choose two to three colors to use consistently throughout the dashboard, as too many colors will be distracting to the audience.
• Use colors that connect with the audience (e.g., organization or department colors).
• Don’t use colors that are too similar in shade or brightness level, as those with colorblindness might have difficulty discerning them.

Keep the design simple and clear

• Leave white space to separate sections and keep the dashboard simple.
• Don’t measure everything; show just enough to address the audience’s needs.
• Use blank space between data points to provide natural contrast (e.g., leaving space between each bar on a bar graph). Don’t rely on contrast between colors to separate data (Miller).
• Label each data point directly instead of using a separate key, so anyone who has difficulty discerning color can still interpret the data (Miller).

Example

Checklist to build compelling visuals in your presentation

Leverage this checklist to ensure you are creating the perfect visuals and graphs for your presentation.

Checklist:

• Do the visuals grab the audience’s attention?
• Will the visuals mislead the audience/confuse them?
• Do the visuals facilitate data comparison or highlight trends and differences in a more effective manner than words?
• Do the visuals present information simply, cleanly, and accurately?
• Do the visuals illustrate messages and themes from the accompanying text?

4.1.1 Plan and validate your dashboard visuals

1 hour

Click the links below to download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and the IT Dashboard Workbook. Open the IT Dashboard Workbook and select Tab 5. For each dashboard, represented by its own table, open the corresponding Info-Tech IT Dashboard as reference.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 4.2

Update Your Dashboards

Activities:
4.2.1 Update the visuals on the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with data and visuals identified in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Dashboards updated with your visuals, metrics, and data identified in the IT Dashboard Workbook.

4.2.1 Update visuals with your own data

2 hours

1. Get the data that you identified in Tab 4 and Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.
2. Click the link below to go to the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and follow the instructions to update the visuals.

Do not worry about the Key Insights or Calls to Action; you will create this in the next step when you plan your story.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

Step 4.3

Craft Your Story and Deliver Your Dashboards

Activities:
4.3.1 Craft Your Story
4.3.2 Finalize Your Dashboards
4.3.3 Practice Delivering Your Story With Your Dashboards

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Documented situations, key insights, and calls to action for each dashboard/visual.
• A story to tell for each dashboard.
• Understanding of how to practice delivering the dashboards using stories.

Stories are more easily understood and more likely to drive decisions

IT dashboards are valuable tools to provide insights that drive decision making.

• Monitor: Track and report on strategic areas IT supports.
• Provide insights: sPresent important data and information to audiences in a clear and efficient way.

“Data storytelling is a universal language that everyone can understand – from people in STEM to arts and psychology.” — Peter Jackson, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Exasol

Storytelling provides context, helping the audience understand and connect with data and metrics.

• 93% of respondents (business leaders and data professionals) agreed that decisions made as a result of successful data storytelling have the potential to help increase revenue.
• 92% of respondents agreed that data storytelling was critical to communicate insights effectively.
• 87% percent of respondents agreed that leadership teams would make more data-driven decisions if insights gathered from data were presented more simply.

— Exasol

For more visual guidance, download the IT Dashboard Guide

Include all the following pieces in your message for an effective communication

Info-Tech Insight

Time is a non-renewable resource. The message crafted must be considered a value-adding communication to your audience.

Enable good communication with these components

Be Consistent

• The core message must be consistent regardless of audience, channel, or medium.
• Test your communication with your team or colleagues to obtain feedback before delivering to a broader audience.
• A lack of consistency can be interpreted as an attempt at deception. This can hurt credibility and trust.

Be Clear

• Say what you mean and mean what you say.
• Choice of language is important: “Do you think this is a good idea? I think we could really benefit from your insights and experience here.” Or do you mean: “I think we should do this. I need you to do this to make it happen.”
• Avoid jargon.

Be Relevant

• Talk about what matters to the audience.
• Tailor the details of the message to the audience’s specific concerns.
• IT thinks in processes but wider audiences focus mostly on results; talk in terms of results.
• IT wants to be understood, but this does not matter to stakeholders. Think: “What’s in it for them?”
• Communicate truthfully; do not make false promises or hide bad news.

Be Concise

• Keep communication short and to the point so key messages are not lost in the noise.
• There is a risk of diluting your key message if you include too many other details.
• If you provide more information than necessary, the clarity and consistency of the message can be lost.

Draft the core messages to communicate

1. Hook your audience: Use a compelling introduction that ensures your target audience cares about the message. Start with a story or metaphor and then support with the data on your dashboard. Avoid rushing in with data first.
2. Demonstrate you can help: Let the audience know that based on the unique problem, you can help. There is value in engaging and working with you further.
3. Write for the ear: Use concise and clear sentences, avoid technological language, and when you read it aloud ensure it sounds like how you would normally speak.
4. Interpret visuals for your audience: Do not assume they will reach the same conclusions as you. For example, walk them through what a chart shows even if the axes are labeled, tell them what a trend line indicates or what the comparison between two data points means.
5. Identify a couple of key insights: Think about one or two key takeaways you want your audience to leave with.
6. Finish with a call to action: Your concluding statement should not be a thank-you but a call to action that ignites how your audience will behave after the communication. Dashboards exist to drive decisions, so if you have no call to action, you should ask if you need to include the visual.

4.3.1 Craft Your Story

1 hour

Click the link below to download the IT Dashboard Workbook and open the file. Select Tab 6. The workbook contains grey text that reflects a sample story about the Info-Tech IT Dashboards. You may want to keep the sample text as reference, then remove after you have entered your information.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

4.3.2 Finalize Your Dashboards

30 minutes

1. Take the Key Insights and Calls to Action that you documented in Tab 6 of the IT Dashboard Workbook and place them in their corresponding dashboard.
2. Add any text to your dashboard as necessary but only if the visual requires more information. You can add explanations more effectively during the presentation.

Tip: Aim to be brief and concise with any text. Dashboards simplify information and too much text can clutter the visuals and obscure the message.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

4.3.3 Practice Delivering Your Story With Your Dashboards

1 hour

Ideally you can present your dashboard to your audience so that you are available to clarify questions and add a layer of interpretation that would crowd out boards if added as text.

1. To prepare to tell your story, consult the Situation, Key Insights, and Call to Action sections that you documented for each dashboard in Tab 6 of the Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook.
2. Practice your messages as you walk through your dashboards. The next two slides provide delivery guidance.
3. Once you deliver your dashboards, update Tab 6 with audience feedback. Often dashboards are iterative and when your audience sees them, they are usually inspired to think about what else they would like to see. This is good and shows your audience is engaged!

Don’t overwhelm your audience with information and data. You spent time to craft your dashboards so that they are clear and concise, so spend time practicing delivering a message that matches your clear, concise dashboards

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Hone presentation skills before meeting with key stakeholders

Using voice and body

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

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

Be professional and confident

State the main points of your dashboard confidently. While this should be obvious, it needs to be stated explicitly. Your audience should be able to clearly see that you believe the points you are stating.

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

Connect with your audience

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

Avoid reading the text from your dashboard, and instead paraphrase it while maintaining eye/camera contact.

Info-Tech Insight

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

Communication Delivery Checklist

• Have you practiced delivering the communication to team members or coaches?
• Have you practiced delivering the communication to someone with little to no technology background?
• Are you making yourself open to feedback and improvement opportunities?
• If the communication is derailed from your plan, are you prepared to handle that change?
• Can you deliver the communication without reading your notes word for word?
• Have you adapted your voice throughout the communication to highlight specific components you want the audience to focus on?
• Are you presenting in a way that is genuine to you and your personality?
• Can you communicate the message within the time allotted?
• Are you moving in an appropriate manner based on your communication (e.g., toward the screen, across the stage, hand gestures)
• Do you have room for feedback on the dashboards? Solicit feedback with your audience after the meeting and record it in Tab 6 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

Phase 5

Plan, record, and action your metrics

This phase will walk you through the following:

• Planning to track your metrics
• Recording your metrics
• Actioning your metrics

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Actioning your metrics to drive results

To deliver real value from your dashboards, you need to do something with the results.

Don’t fail on execution! The whole reason you labor to create inviting visuals and meaningful metrics is to action those metrics. The metrics results inform your entire story! It’s important to plan and do, but everything is lost if you fail to check and act.

70%: of survey respondents say that managers do not get insights from performance metrics to improve strategic decision making.
60%: of survey respondents say that operational teams do not get insights to improve operation decision making.

(Bernard Marr)

“Metrics aren’t a passive measure of progress but an active part of an organization’s everyday management….Applying the “plan–do–check–act” feedback loop…helps teams learn from their mistakes and identify good ideas that can be applied elsewhere”

(McKinsey)

Step 5.1

Plan How to Record Metrics

Activities:
5.1.1 For each dashboard, add a baseline and target to existing metrics and KPIs.

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Baselines and targets identified and recorded for each metric.

5.1.1 Identify Baselines and Targets

1 hour

To action your metrics, you must first establish what your baselines and targets are so that you can determine if you are on track.

To establish baselines:
If you do not have a baseline. Run your metric to establish one.

To establish targets:

• Use historical data and trends of performance.
• If you do not have historical data, establish an initial target based on stakeholder-identified requirements and expectations.
• You can also run the metrics report over a defined period of time and use the baseline level of achievement to establish an initial target.
• The target may not always be a number – it could be a trend. The initial target may be changed after review with stakeholders.

Actions for Success:
How will you ensure you can get this metric? For example, if you would like to measure delivered value, to make sure the metric is measurable, you will need to ensure that measures of success are documented for an imitative and then measured once complete.

• If you need help with Action plans, the IT Metrics Library includes action plans for all of its metrics that may help

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Step 5.2

Record and Action Metrics

Activities:
5.2.1 Record and Action Results

• Note, the Info-Tech IT Dashboards are organized by CIO priorities – Risk, Financials, Talent, and Strategic Initiatives – and address the needs of the CXO audience. The IT Dashboard Workbook is pre-populated with this information.
• If this meets your audience’s needs, you do not have to edit this content and can instead use the pre-populated information. You may wish to review the information to ensure it is still valid for your audience.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Senior IT leadership
• Dashboard SMEs

Outcomes of this step:

• Understanding of what and where to record metrics once run.

5.2.1 Record and Action Results

1 hour

After analyzing your results, use this information to update your dashboards. Revisit Tab 6 of the IT Dashboard Workbook to update your story. Remember to record any audience feedback about the dashboards in the Audience Feedback section.

Action your measures as well as your metrics

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. If metrics need to be changed, record metrics actions under Identified Actions on Tab 7. A metric will need to be addressed in one of the following ways:

• Added: A new metric is required or an existing metric needs large-scale changes (example: calculation method or scope).
• Changed: A minor change is required to the presentation format or data. Note: a major change in a metric would be performed through the Add option.
• Removed: The metric is no longer required, and it needs to be removed from reporting and data gathering. A final report date for that metric should be determined.
• Maintained: The metric is still useful and no changes are required to the metric, its measurement, or how it’s reported.

Don’t be discouraged if you need to update your metrics a few times before you get it right. It can take some trial and error to find the measures that best indicate the health of what you are measuring.

Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

Tips for actioning results

Sometimes actioning your metrics results requires more analysis

If a metric deviates from your target, you may need to analyze how to correct the issue then run the metric again to see if the results have improved.

Identify Root Cause
Root Cause Analysis can include problem exploration techniques like The 5 Whys, fishbone diagrams, or affinity mapping.

Select a Solution
Once you have identified a possible root cause, use the same technique to brainstorm and select a solution then re-run your metrics.

Consider Tension Metrics
Consider tension metrics when selecting a solution. Will improving one area affect another? A car can go faster but it will consume more fuel – a project can be delivered faster but it may affect the quality.

Summary of Accomplishment

Problem Solved

1. Using this blueprint and the IT Dashboard Workbook, you validated and customized the dashboards for your audience and organization, which reduced or eliminated time spent searching for and organizing your own visuals.
2. You documented your dashboards’ story so you are ready to present them to your audience.
3. You assessed the data for your dashboards and you built a metrics action-tracking plan to maintain your dashboards’ metrics.

If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through an Info-Tech workshop or Guided Implementation.

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.

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.

Contact your account representative for more information.

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

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

Review the Info-Tech IT Dashboards
Determine how you can use the Info-Tech IT Dashboards in your organization and the anticipated level of customization.

Plan your dashboards
Complete the IT Dashboard Workbook to help plan your dashboards using Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards.

Research Contributors and Experts

John Corrado
Head of IT
X4 Pharmaceuticals

As head of IT, John is charged with the creation of strategic IT initiatives that align with X4s vision, mission, culture, and long-term goals and is responsible for the organization’s systems, security, and infrastructure. He works closely developing partnerships with X4tizens across the organization to deliver value through innovative programs and services.

Grant Frost
Chief Information & Security Officer
Niagara Catholic School Board

Grant Frost is an experienced executive, information technologist and security strategist with extensive experience in both the public and private sector. Grant is known for, and has extensive experience in, IT transformation and the ability to increase capability while decreasing cost in IT services.

Nick Scozzaro
CEO and Co-Founder of MobiStream and ShadowHQ
ShadowHQ

Nick got his start in software development and mobility working at BlackBerry where he developed a deep understanding of the technology landscape and of what is involved in both modernizing legacy systems and integrating new ones. Working with experts across multiple industries, he innovated, learned, strategized, and ultimately helped push the boundaries of what was possible.

Joseph Sanders
Managing Director of Technology/Cyber Security Services
Kentucky Housing Corporation

In his current role Joe oversees all IT Operations/Applications Services that are used to provide services and support to the citizens of Kentucky. Joe has 30+ years of leadership experience and has held several executive roles in the public and private sector. He has been a keynote speaker for various companies including HP, IBM, and Oracle.

Jochen Sievert
Director Performance Excellence & IT
Zeon Chemicals

Jochen moved to the USA from Duesseldorf, Germany in 2010 to join Zeon Chemicals as their IT Manager. Prior to Zeon, Jochen has held various technical positions at Novell, Microsoft, IBM, and Metro Management Systems.

Info-Tech Contributors

Ibrahim Abdel-Kader, Research Analyst
Donna Bales, Principal Research Director
Shashi Bellamkonda, Principal Research Director
John Burwash, Executive Counselor
Tony Denford, Research Lead
Jody Gunderman, Senior Executive Advisor
Tom Hawley, Managing Partner
Mike Higginbotham, Executive Counselor
Valence Howden, Principal Research Director
Dave Kish, Practice Lead
Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead
Jennifer Perrier, Principal Research Director
Gary Rietz, Executive Counselor
Steve Schmidt, Senior Managing Partner
Aaron Shum, Vice President, Security & Privacy
Ian Tyler-Clarke, Executive Counselor

Plus, an additional four contributors who wish to remain anonymous.

Related Info-Tech Research

Bibliography

“10 Signs You Are Sitting on a Pile of Data Debt.” Experian, n.d. Web.

“From the What to the Why: How Data Storytelling Is Key to Success.” Exasol, 2021. Web.

Bonsignore, Marian. “Using Visual Language to Create the Case for Change.” Amarican Management Association. Accessed 19 Apr. 2023.

Calzon, Bernardita. “Top 25 Dashboard Design Principles, Best Practices & How To’s.” Datapine, 5 Apr. 2023.

“Data Literacy.” Tableau, n.d. Accessed 3 May 2023.

“KPIs Don’t Improve Decision-Making In Most Organizations.” LinkedIn, n.d. Accessed 2 May 2023.

Miller, Amanda. “A Comprehensive Guide to Accessible Data Visualization.” Betterment, 2020. Accessed May 2022.

“Performance Management: Why Keeping Score Is so Important, and so Hard.” McKinsey. Accessed 2 May 2023.

Vogel, Douglas, et al. Persuasion and the Role of Visual Presentation Support: The UM/3M Study. Management Information Systems Research Center School of Management University of Minnesota, 1986.

Watson, Morag W., et al. ”IT’s Changing Mandate in an Age of Disruption.” The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited, 2021.

Contents

Create a Data Management Roadmap

Ensure the right capabilities to support your data strategy.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Establish a data management program to realize the data strategy vision and data-driven organization.

Data is one of the most valuable organizational assets, and data management is the foundation – made up of plans, programs, and practices – that delivers, secures, and enhances the value of those assets.

Digital transformation in how we do business and innovations like artificial intelligence and automation that deliver exciting experiences for our customers are all powered by readily available, trusted data. And there’s so much more of it.

A data management roadmap designed for where you are in your business journey and what’s important to you provides tangible answers to “Where do we start?” and “What do we do?”

This blueprint helps you build and enhance data management capabilities as well as identify the next steps for evaluating, strengthening, harmonizing, and optimizing these capabilities, aligned precisely with business objectives and data strategy.

Frame the problem

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Use value streams and business capabilities to develop a prioritized and practical data management plan that provides the highest business satisfaction in the shortest time.

Data Management Capabilities

Data is a business asset and needs to be treated like one

Data management is an enabler of the business and therefore needs to be driven by business goals and objectives. For data to be a strategic asset of the business, the business and IT processes that support its delivery and management must be mature and clearly executed.

Industry spotlight: Risk management in the financial services sector

Industry spotlight: Operational excellence in the public sector

Industry spotlight: Operational excellence and client intimacy in major league sports

Industry spotlight: Operational excellence and service delivery within manufacturing and supply chain services

Industry spotlight: Intelligent product innovation and strong product portfolios differentiate consumer retailers and CPGs

Changes in business and technology are changing how organizations use and manage data

To differentiate and remain competitive in today’s marketplace, organizations are becoming more data-driven

	Analytic Competitor “Given the unforgiving competitive landscape, organizations have to transform now, and correctly. Winning requires an outcome-focused analytics strategy.” (Ramya Srinivasan, Forbes, 2021)
Data and the use of data analytics has become a centerpiece to effective modern business. Top-performing organizations across a variety of industries have been cited as using analytics five times more than lower performers (MIT Sloan).

The strategic value of data

Power intelligent and transformative organizational performance through leveraging data.

Despite investments in data initiatives, organizations are carrying high levels of data debt

Data debt is the accumulated cost that is associated with the suboptimal governance of data assets in an enterprise, like technical debt.

(Source: Experian, 2020)

Build a right-sized roadmap

Formulate an actionable roadmap that is right-sized to deliver value in your organization.

• When building your data management roadmap, ensure you do so through an enterprise lens. Be cognizant of other initiatives that might be coming down the pipeline that may require you to align your data governance milestones accordingly.
• Apart from doing your planning with consideration for other big projects or launches that might be in-flight and require the time and attention of your data management partners, also be mindful of the more routine yet still demanding initiatives.
• When doing your roadmapping, consider factors like the organization’s fiscal cycle, typical or potential year-end demands, and monthly/quarterly reporting periods and audits. Initiatives such as these are likely to monopolize the time and focus of personnel key to delivering on your data management milestones

Insight summary

Overarching insight

Tactical insight

Data management is the program and environment we build once we have direction, i.e. a data strategy, and we have formed an ongoing channel with the guiding voice of the business via data governance. Without an ultimate goal in a strategy or the real requirements of the business, what are we building data systems and processes for? We are used to tech buzz words and placing our hope in promising innovations like artificial intelligence. There are no shortcuts, but there are basic proven actions we can take to meet the digital revolution head on and let our data boost our journey.

Measure the value of this blueprint

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

Create a Data Management Roadmap project overview

Guided Implementation

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 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

What is the current situation?

Info-Tech’s Data Management Framework

What Is Data Management?

“Data management is the development, execution, and supervision of plans, policies, programs and practices that deliver, control, protect and enhance the value of data and information assets throughout their lifecycles.” (DAMA International, 2017)

Adapted from DAMA-DMBOK and Advanced Knowledge Innovations Global Solutions

Info-Tech’s Approach

Info-Tech’s Data Management Framework is designed to show how an organization’s business model sits as the foundation of its data management practice. Drawing from the requirements of the underpinning model, a practice is designed and maintained through the creation and application of the enablers and dimensions of data management.

Build a data management practice that is centered on supporting the business and its use of key data assets

Business Resources Data subject areas provide high-level views of the data assets that are used in business processes and enable an organization to perform its business functions. Classified by specific subjects, these groups reflect data elements that, when used effectively, are able to support analytical and operational use cases of data. This layer is representative of the delivery of the data assets and the business’ consumption of the data. Data is an integral business asset that exists across all areas of an organization

For a data management practice to be effective it ultimately must show how its capabilities and operations better support the business in accessing and leveraging its key data assets.* *This project focuses on building capabilities for data management. Leverage our data quality management research to support you in assessing the performance of this model.

Information dimensions support the different types of data present within an organization’s environment

Information Dimensions Components at the Information Dimensions layer manage the different types of data and information present with an environment. At this layer, data is managed based on its type and how the business is looking to use and access the data. Custom capabilities are developed at this level to support: Structured data Semi-structured data Unstructured data The types, formats, and structure of the data are managed at this level using the data management enablers to support their successful execution and performance.

Build a data management practice with strong process capabilities

Use Info-Tech’s assessment framework to support your organization’s data management planning

Create a Data Management Roadmap

Phase 1

Build Business Context and Drivers for the Data Management Program

Step 1.1

Review the Data Management Framework

Activities

1.1.1 Walk through the main parts of the best-practice Data Management Framework

Data Management Capabilities

Build a Robust & Comprehensive Data Strategy

Info-Tech’s Data Governance Framework

Info-Tech’s Reporting and Analytics Framework

Formulating an enterprise reporting and analytics strategy requires the business vision and strategies to first be substantiated. Any optimization to the data warehouse, integration, and source layers is in turn driven by the enterprise reporting and analytics strategy. The current states of your integration and warehouse platforms determine what data can be used for BI and analytics.

Your enterprise reporting and analytics strategy is driven by your organization’s vision and corporate strategy.

Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Framework

Info-Tech’s methodology: Prioritize your core business objectives and identify your business driver. Learn how business drivers apply to specific tiers of Info-Tech’s five-tier data architecture model. Determine the appropriate tactical pattern that addresses your most important requirements.
Select the areas of the five-tier architecture to focus on. Measure your current state. Set the targets of your desired optimized state.
Roadmap your tactics. Manage and communicate change.

Info-Tech’s Enterprise Content Management Framework

Metadata management/Data cataloging

Info-Tech’s Data Integration Framework

On one hand… Data has massive potential to bring insight to an organization when combined and analyzed in creative ways. On the other hand… It is difficult to bring data together from different sources to generate insights and prevent stale data. How can these two ideas be reconciled? Answer: Info-Tech’s Data Integration Onion Framework summarizes an organization’s data environment at a conceptual level and is used to design a common data-centric integration environment.

Info-Tech’s Data Integration Onion Framework

Data-centric integration is the solution you need to bring data together to break down data silos.

Info-Tech’s Master Data Management Framework

Master data management (MDM) “entails control over Master Data values and identifiers that enable consistent use, across systems, of the most accurate and timely data about essential business entities” (DAMA, 2017). Fundamental objective of MDM: Enable the business to see one view of critical data elements across the organization.

Data architecture and modeling processes

Info-Tech Insight

The Conceptual data model adds relationships to your business data glossary terms and is the first step of the modeling journey.

Data operations

Objectives of Data Operations Management Implement and follow policies and procedures to manage data at each stage of its lifecycle. Maintain the technology supporting the flow and delivery of data (applications, databases, systems, etc.). Control the delivery of data within the system environment. Indicators of Successful Data Operations Management Effective delivery of data assets to end users. Successful maintenance and performance of the technical environment that collects, stores, delivers, and purges organizational data.

Step 1.2

Understand and Align to Business Drivers

Activities

1.2.1 Define your value streams

1.2.2 Identify your business capabilities

1.2.3 Categorize your organization’s key business capabilities

1.2.4 Develop a strategy map tied to data management

Build Business Context and Drivers

Identifying value streams

1.2.1 Define value streams

Input: Business strategy/goals, Financial statements, Info-Tech’s industry-specific business architecture

Output: List of organization-specific value streams, Detailed value stream definition(s)

Materials: Whiteboard/kanban board, Info-Tech’s Reference Architecture Template – contact your Account Representative for details, Other industry standard reference architecture models: BIZBOK, APQC, etc., Info-Tech’s Archimate models

Participants: Enterprise/Business Architect, Business Analysts, Business Unit Leads, CIO, Departmental Executive & Senior managers

Unify the organization’s perspective on how it creates value.

1. Write a short description of the value stream that includes a statement about the value provided and a clear start and end for the value stream. Validate the accuracy of the descriptions with your key stakeholders.
2. Consider:
   • How does the organization deliver those benefits?
   • How does the customer receive the benefits?
   • What is the scope of your value stream? What will trigger the stream to start and what will the final value be?
3. Avoid:
   • Don’t start with a blank page. Use Info-Tech’s business architecture models for sample value streams.

Contact your Account Representative for access to Info-Tech’s Reference Architecture Template

Define or validate the organization’s value streams

Example of value streams – Retail Banking

Example value stream descriptions for: Retail Banking

Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Retail Banking.

Example of value streams – Higher Education

Example value stream descriptions for: Higher Education

Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Higher Education.

Example of value streams – Local Government

Example value stream descriptions for: Local Government

Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Local Government.

Example of value streams – Manufacturing

Example value stream descriptions for: Manufacturing

Value streams enable the organization to create or capture value in the market in which it operates by engaging in a set of interconnected activities.

For this value stream, download Info-Tech’s Industry Reference Architecture for Manufacturing.

Define the organization’s business capabilities in a business capability map

1.2.2 Identify your business capabilities

Input: List of confirmed value streams and their related business capabilities

Output: Business capability map with value streams for your organization

Materials: Your existing business capability map, Business Alignment worksheet provided in the Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool, Info-Tech’s Document Your Business Architecture blueprint

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards, Data custodians, Data leads and administrators

Confirm your organization's existing business capability map or initiate the formulation of a business capability map:

• If you have an existing business capability map, meet with the relevant business owners/stakeholders to confirm that the content is accurate and up to date. Confirm the value streams (how your organization creates and captures value) and their business capabilities reflect the organization’s current business environment.
• If you do not have an existing business capability map, complete this activity to initiate the formulation of a map (value streams and related business capabilities):
  1. Define the organization’s value streams. Meet with senior leadership and other key business stakeholders to define how your organization creates and captures value.
  2. Define the relevant business capabilities. Meet with senior leadership and other key business stakeholders to define the business capabilities.

Note: A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation. Business capabilities are business terms defined using nouns such as “Marketing” or “Research and Development.” They represent stable business functions, are unique and independent of one another, and typically will have a defined business outcome.

1.2.3 Categorize your organization’s key capabilities

Input: Strategic insight from senior business stakeholders on the business capabilities that drive value for the organization

Output: Business capabilities categorized and prioritized (e.g. cost advantage creators, competitive advantage differentiators, high value/high risk) See next slide for an example

Materials: Your existing business capability map or the business capability map derived in Activity 1.2.2

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards, Data custodians, Data governance working group

Determine which capabilities are considered high priority in your organization.

1. Categorize or heatmap the organization’s key capabilities. Consult with senior and other key business stakeholders to categorize and prioritize the business’ capabilities. This will aid in ensuring your data governance future-state planning is aligned with the mandate of the business. One approach to prioritizing capabilities with business stakeholders is to examine them through the lens of cost advantage creators, competitive advantage differentiators, and/or by high value/high risk.
2. Identify cost advantage creators. Focus on capabilities that drive a cost advantage for your organization. Highlight these capabilities and prioritize programs that support them.
3. Identify competitive advantage differentiators. Focus on capabilities that give your organization an edge over rivals or other players in your industry.

This categorization/prioritization exercise helps highlight prime areas of opportunity for building use cases, determining prioritization, and the overall optimization of data and data governance.

For more information, refer to Info-Tech’s Document Your Business Architecture.

1.2.4 Develop a strategy map tied to data management

Input: Strategic objectives as outlined by the organization’s business strategy and confirmed by senior leaders

Output: A strategy map that maps your organizational strategic objectives to value streams, business capabilities, and ultimately data programs

Materials: Your existing business capability map or the one created in Activity 1.2.2, Business strategy (see next slide for an example)

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards, Data custodians, Data governance working group

Identify the strategic objectives for the business. Knowing the key strategic objectives will drive business–data governance alignment. It’s important to make sure the right strategic objectives of the organization have been identified and are well understood.

1. Meet with senior business leaders and other relevant stakeholders to help identify and document the key strategic objectives for the business.
2. Leverage their knowledge of the organization’s business strategy and strategic priorities to visually represent how these map to value streams, business capabilities, and ultimately data and data governance needs and initiatives. Tip: Your map is one way to visually communicate and link the business strategy to other levels of the organization.
3. Confirm the strategy mapping with other relevant stakeholders.

Step 1.3

Build High-Value Use Cases for Data Management

Activities

1.3.1 Build high-value use cases

Build Business Context and Drivers

1.3.1 Build high-value use cases

Input: Value streams and business capabilities as defined by business leaders, Business stakeholders’ subject area expertise, Data custodian systems, integration, and data knowledge

Output: Use cases that articulate data-related challenges, needs, or opportunities that are tied to defined business capabilities and hence, if addressed, will deliver measurable value to the organization

Materials: Your business capability map from Activity 1.2.2, Info-Tech’s Data Use Case Framework Template, Whiteboard or flip charts (or shared screen if working remotely), Markers/pens

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data stewards and business SMEs, Data custodians, Data leads and administrators

This business needs gathering activity will highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities that are clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owner, stewards, SMEs) from a particular line of business as well the relevant data custodian(s) to build cases for their units. Leverage the business capability map you created for facilitating this act.
2. Leverage Info-Tech’s Data Use Case Framework Template as seen on the next slide.
3. Have the stakeholders move through each breakout session outlined in the use case worksheet. Use flip charts or a whiteboard to brainstorm and document their thoughts.
4. Debrief and document results in the Data Use Case Framework Template.
5. Repeat this exercise with as many lines of the business as possible, leveraging your business capability map to guide your progress and align with business value.

Tip: Don’t conclude these use case discussions without substantiating what measures of success will be used to demonstrate the business value of the effort to produce the desired future state, as relevant to each particular use case.

Download Info-Tech’s Data Use Case Framework Template

The following is the list of use cases as articulated by key stakeholders at [Organization Name].

The stakeholders see these as areas that are relevant and highly valuable for delivering strategic value to [Organization Name].

Use Case 1: Customer/Student/Patient/Resident 360 View

Use Case 2: Project/Department Financial Performance

Use Case 3: Vendor Lifecycle Management

Use Case 4: Project Risk Management

Prioritization of use cases

Problem statement:

• We are not realizing our full growth potential because we do not have a unified 360 view of our customers/clients/[name of external stakeholder].
• This impacts: our cross-selling; upselling; talent acquisition and retention; quality of delivery; ability to identify and deliver the right products, markets, and services...

If we could solve this:

• We would be able to better prioritize and position ourselves to meet evolving customer needs.
• We would be able to optimize the use of our limited resources.

1. What is the number one risk you need to alleviate?
   • Loss of potential revenue, whether from existing or net new customers.
     • How?
       • By not maximizing opportunities with customers or even by losing customers; by not understanding or addressing their greatest needs
       • By not being able to win potential new customers because we don’t understand their needs
2. What is the number one opportunity you wish to see happen?
   • The ability to better understand and anticipate the needs of both existing and potential customers.
3. What is the number one pain point you have when working with data?
   • I can’t do my job with confidence because it’s not based on comprehensive, sound, reliable data. My group spends significant time reconciling data sets with little time left for data use and analysis.
4. What are your challenges in performing the activity today?
   • I cannot pull together customer data in a timely manner due to having a high level of dependence on specific individuals with institutional knowledge rather than having easy access to information.
   • It takes too much time and effort to pull together what we know about a customer.
   • The necessary data is not consolidated or readily/systematically available for consumption.
   • These challenges are heightened when dealing with customers across markets.

5. What does “amazing” look like if we solve this perfectly?
   • Employees have immediate, self-service access to necessary information, leading to better and more timely decisions. This results in stronger business and financial growth.
6. What other business unit activities/processes will be impacted/improved if we solve this?
   • Marketing/bid and proposal, staffing, procurement, and contracting strategy
7. What compliance/regulatory/policy concerns do we need to consider in any solution?
   • PII, GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, etc.
8. What measures of success/change should we use to prove the value of the effort (KPIs/ROI)?
   • Win rate, number of services per customer, gross profit, customer retention, customer satisfaction scores, brand awareness, and net promoter score
9. What are the steps in the process/activity today?
   • Manual aggregation (i.e. pull data from systems into Excel), reliance on unwritten knowledge, seeking IT support, canned reports

10. What are the applications/systems used at each step?
    • Salesforce CRM, Excel, personal MS Access databases, SharePoint
11. What data elements (domains) are involved, created, used, or transformed at each step?
    • Bid and proposal information, customer satisfaction, forecast data, list of products, corporate entity hierarchy, vendor information, key staffing, recent and relevant news, and competitor intelligence

Use case worksheet

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Use case worksheet (cont’d.)

Objective: This business needs gathering activity will help you highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities. They should be clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organization.

Step 1.4

Create a Vision and Guiding Principles for Data Management

Activities

1.4.1 Craft a vision

1.4.2 Create guiding principles

Build Business Context and Drivers

1.4.1 Craft a vision

Input: Organizational vision and mission statements, Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data capability map

Output: Vision and mission statements

Materials: Markers and pens, Whiteboard, Online whiteboard, Vision samples and templates

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data managers, Data owners, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor

Complete the vision statement to set the direction, the “why,” for the changes we’re making. The vision is a reference point that should galvanize everyone in the organization and set guardrails for technical and process decisions to follow.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (content owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to craft a data management vision statement.
2. Start by brainstorming keywords, such as customer-focused, empower the business, service excellence, findable and manageable, protected, accessible, paperless.
3. Highlight the keywords that resonate most with the group. Refer to example vision statements for ideas.

Create compelling vision and mission statements for the organization’s future data management practice

Data Management Vision and Mission Statements: Draft

Information management framework

The information management framework is a way to organize all the ECM program’s guidelines and artifacts

The vision is a statement about the organization’s goals and provides a basis to guide decisions and rally employees toward a shared goal. The principles or themes communicate the organization’s priorities for its information management program. Policies are a set of official guidelines that determine a course of action. For example: Company is committed to safety for its employees. Procedures are a set of actions for doing something. For example: Company employees will wear protective gear while on the production floor.

Craft your vision

Use the insights you gathered from users and stakeholders to develop a vision statement The beginning of a data management practice is a clear set of goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). A good set of goals takes time and input from senior leadership and stakeholders. The data management program lead is selling a compelling vision of what is possible. The vision also helps set the scope and expectations about what the data management program lead is and is not doing. Be realistic about what you can do and how long it will take to see a difference. Example vision statements: The organization is dedicated to creating an enabling structure that helps the organization get the right information to the right people at the right time. The organization is dedicated to creating a program that recognizes data as an asset, establishing a data-centric culture, and ensuring data quality and accessibility to achieve service excellence.

The vision should be short, memorable, inspirational and draw a clear picture of what that future-state data management experience looks like. Is it modern and high end, with digital self-service? Is it a trusted and transparent steward of customer assets?

1.4.2 Create guiding principles

Input: Sample data management guiding principles, Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data capability map

Output: Data management guiding principles

Materials: Markers and pens, Whiteboard, Online whiteboard, Guiding principles samples and templates

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Data managers, Data owners, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor

Draft a set of guiding principles that express your program’s values as a framework for decisions and actions and keep the data strategy alive.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to craft a set of data management guiding principles.
2. Refer to industry sample guiding principles for data management.
3. Discuss what’s important to stakeholders and owners, e.g. security, transparency, integrity. Good guiding principles address real challenges.
4. A helpful tip: Craft principles as “We will…” statements for the problems you’ve identified.

Create a Data Management Roadmap

Phase 2

Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

Step 2.1

Assess Your Data Management Capabilities

Activities

2.1.1 Define current state of data management capabilities

2.1.2 Set target state and identify gaps

Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

2.1.1 Define current state

Input: Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data management capability map

Output: Current-state data management capabilities

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Assign a maturity level value from 1 to 5 for each question in the assessment tool, organized into capabilities, e.g. Data Governance, Data Quality, Risk.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to assign current-state maturity levels in each question of the worksheet.
2. Remember that there is more distance between levels 4 and 5 than there is between 1 and 2 – the distance between levels is not even throughout.
3. To help assign values, think of the higher levels as representing cross-enterprise standardization, monitored for continuous improvement, formalized and standardized, while the lower levels mean applied within individual units, not formalized or tracked for performance.
4. In tab 4, “Current State Assessment,” populate a current-state value for each item in the Data Management Capabilities worksheet.
5. Once you’ve entered values in tab 4, a visual and summary report of the results will be generated on tab 5, “Current State Results.”

2.1.2 Set target state and identify gaps

Input: Stakeholder survey results and elicitation findings, Use cases, Business and data management capability map to identify priorities

Output: Target-state data management capabilities, Gaps identification and analysis

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Assign a maturity level value from 1 to 5 for each question in the assessment tool, organized into capabilities, e.g., Data Governance, Data Quality, Risk.

1. Bring together key business stakeholders (data owners, SMEs, and relevant IT custodians) to assign target-state maturity levels in each question of the worksheet.
2. Remember that there is more distance between levels 4 and 5 than there is between 1 and 2 – the distance between levels is not even throughout.
3. To help assign values, think of the higher levels as representing cross-enterprise standardization, monitored for continuous improvement, formalized and standardized, while the lower levels mean applied within individual units, not formalized or tracked for performance.
4. In tab 6, “Target State & Gap Analysis,” enter maturity values in each item of the Capabilities worksheet in the Target State column.
5. Once you’ve assigned both target-state and current-state values, the tool will generate a gap analysis chart on tab 7, “Gap Analysis Results,” where you can start to decide first- and second-line priorities.

Step 2.2

Build Your Data Management Roadmap

Activities

2.2.1 Describe gaps

2.2.2 Define gap initiatives

2.2.2 Build a data management roadmap

Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

2.2.1 Describe gaps

Input: Target-state maturity level

Output: Detail and context about gaps to lead planners to specific initiatives

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Based on the gaps result, describe the nature of the gap, which will lead to specific initiatives for the data management plan:

1. In tab 6, “Target State & Gap Analysis,” the same tab where you entered your target-state maturity level, enter additional context about the nature and extent of each gap in the Gap Description column.
2. Based on the best-practices framework we walked through in Phase 1, note the specific areas that are not fully developed in your organization; for example, we don’t have a model of our environment and its integrations, or there isn’t an established data quality practice with proactive monitoring and intervention.

2.2.2 Define gap initiatives

Input: Gaps analysis, Gaps descriptions

Output: Data management initiatives

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Based on the gap analysis, start to define the data management initiatives that will close the gaps and help the organization achieve its target state.

1. In tab 6, “Target State & Gap Analysis,” the same tab where you entered your target-state maturity level, note in the Gap Initiative column what actions you can take to address the gap for each item. For example, if we found through diagnostics and use cases that users didn’t understand the meaning of their data or reports, an initiative might be, “Build a standard enterprise business data catalog.”
2. It’s an opportunity to brainstorm, to be creative, and think about possibilities. We’ll use the roadmap step to select initiatives from this list.
3. There are things we can do right away to make a difference. Acknowledge the resources, talent, and leadership momentum you already have in your organization and leverage those to find activities that will work in your culture. For example, one company held a successful Data Day to socialize the roadmap and engage users.

2.2.3 Build a data management roadmap

Input: Gap initiatives, Target state and current-state assessment

Output: Data management initiatives and roadmap

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Start to list tangible actions you will take to address gaps and achieve data objectives and business goals along with timelines and responsibility:

1. With an understanding of your priority areas and specific gaps, and referring back to your use cases, draw up specific initiatives that you can track, measure, and align with your original goals.
2. For example, in data governance, initiatives might include:
   • Assign data owners and stewards for all data assets.
   • Consolidate disparate business data catalogs.
   • Create a data governance charter or terms of reference.
3. Alongside the initiatives, fill in other detail, especially who is responsible and timing (start and end dates). Assigning responsibility and some time markers will help to keep momentum alive and make the work projects real.

Step 2.3

Organize Business Data Domains

Activities

2.3.1 Define business data domains and assign owners

Assess Data Management and Build Your Roadmap

2.3.1 Define business data domains

Input: Target-state maturity level

Output: Detail and context about gaps to lead planners to specific initiatives

Materials: Data Management Assessment and Planning Tool

Participants: Key business stakeholders, Business leads and SMEs, Project team, Project sponsor, Data leads, Data custodians

Identify the key data domains for each line of business, where the data resides, and the main contact or owner.

1. We have an understanding of what the business wants to achieve, e.g. build customer loyalty or comply with privacy laws. But where is the data that can help us achieve that? What systems is that data moving and living in and who, if anyone, owns it?
2. Define the main business data domains apart from what system it may be spread over. Use the worksheet on the next slide as an example.
3. Examples of business data domains: Customer, Product, Vendor.
4. Each domain should have owners and associated business processes. Assign data domain owners, application owners, and business process owners.

Related Info-Tech Research

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	Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics Data architecture best practices to prepare data for reporting and analytics.

Research Contributors

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Accelerate Business Growth and Valuation By Building Brand Awareness

Develop and deploy comprehensive, multi-touchpoint brand awareness strategies to become the trusted brand that buyers think of first.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst perspective

Building brand awareness

Achieving high brand awareness in a given market and becoming the benchmark for buyers

is what every brand wants to achieve, as it is a guarantee of success. Building brand awareness,

even though its immediate benefits are often difficult to see and measure, is essential for companies that want to stand out from their competitors and continue to grow in a sustainable way. The return on investment (ROI) may take longer, but the benefits are also greater than those achieved through short-term initiatives with the expectation of immediate, albeit often limited, results.

Brands that are familiar to their target market have greater credibility, generate more sales,

and have a more loyal customer base. CMOs that successfully execute brand awareness programs

build brand equity and grow company valuation.

Nathalie Vezina
Marketing Research Director
SoftwareReviews Advisory

Executive summary

Brand leaders know that brand awareness is essential to the success of all marketing and sales activities. Brands that fail to invest in brand awareness are likely to face some, if not all these problems:

• Lack of brand visibility and compelling storytelling.
• Inability to reach the target audience.
• Low engagement on digital platforms and with ads.
• Difficulties generating and converting leads, or closing/winning sales/deals, and facing a high cost per acquisition.
• Low/no interest or brand recognition, trust level, and customer retention rate.
• Inability to justify higher pricing.

Convincing stakeholders of the benefits of strong brand awareness can be difficult when the positive outcomes are hard to quantify, and the return on investment (ROI) is often long-term. Among the many obstacles brand leaders must overcome are:

• Lack of longer-term corporate vision, focusing all efforts and resources on short-term growth strategies for a quick ROI.
• Insufficient market and target buyers' information and understanding of the brand's key differentiator.
• Misalignment of brand message, and difficulties creating compelling content that resonates with the target audience, generates interest, and keeps them engaged.
• Limited or no resources dedicated to the development of the brand.

Inspired by top-performing businesses and best practices, this blueprint provides the guidance and tools needed to successfully build awareness and help businesses grow. By following these guidelines, brand leaders can expect to:

• Gain market intelligence and a clear understanding of the buyer's needs, your competitive advantage, and key differentiator.
• Develop a clear and compelling value proposition and a human-centric brand messaging driven by the brand's values.
• Increase online presence and brand awareness to attract and engage with buyers.
• Develop a long-term brand strategy and execution plan.

"A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to choose one product or service over another."

– Seth Godin

What is brand awareness?

The act of making a brand visible and memorable.

Brand awareness is the degree to which buyers are familiar with and recognize the attributes and image of a particular brand, product, or service. The higher the level of awareness, the more likely the brand is to come into play when a target audience enters the " buying consideration" phase of the buyer's journey.

Brand awareness also plays an important role in building equity and increasing business valuation. Brands that are familiar to their target market have greater credibility, drive more sales and have a more loyal customer base.
Building brand awareness allows increasing:

• Brand visibility, perception, recognition, and reputation
• Interactions and engagement with the target audience
• Digital advertising performance and ROI
• Conversion rates and sales wins
• Revenue and profitability
• Market share and share of voice (SOV)
• Talents, partners, and investors attraction and retention
• Brand equity, business growth, and market valuation

"Products are made in a factory, but brands are created in the mind."
Source: Walter Landor

Capitalizing on a powerful brand

A longer-term approach for an increased and more sustainable ROI.

Market leader position

Developing brand awareness is essential to increase the visibility and traction of a brand.

Several factors may cause a brand to be not well-known. One reason might be that the brand recently launched, such as a startup. Another reason could be that the brand has rebranded or entered a new market.

To become the trusted brand that buyers think of first in their target markets, it is critical for these brands to develop and deploy comprehensive, multi-touchpoint brand awareness strategies.

A relationship leading to loyalty

A longer-term brand awareness strategy helps build a strong relationship between the brand and the buyer, fostering a lasting and rewarding alliance.

It also enables brands to reach and engage with their target audience effectively by using compelling storytelling and meaningful content.

Adopting a more human-centric approach and emphasizing shared values makes the brand more attractive to buyers and can drive sales and gain loyalty.

Sustainable business growth

For brands that are not well established in their target market, short-term tactics that focus on immediate benefits can be ineffective. In contrast, long-term brand awareness strategies provide a more sustainable ROI (return on investment).

Investing in building brand awareness can impact a business's ability to interact with its target audience, generate leads, and increase sales. Moreover, it can significantly contribute to boosting the business's brand equity and market valuation.

"Quick wins may work in the short term, but they're not an ideal substitute for long-term tactics and continued success."
Source: Forbes

Impacts of low brand awareness on businesses

Unfamiliar brands, despite their strong potential, won't thrive unless they invest in their notoriety.

Brands that choose not to invest in longer-term awareness strategies and rely solely on short-term growth tactics in hopes of an immediate gain will see their ability to grow diminished and their longevity reduced due to a lack of market presence and recognition.

Symptoms of a weakening brand include:

• High marketing spending and limited result
• Low market share or penetration
• Low sales, revenue, and gross margin
• Weak renewal rate, customer retention, and loyalty
• Difficulties delivering on the brand promise, low/no trust in the brand
• Limited brand equity, business valuation, and sustainability
• Unattractive brand to partners and investors

"Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business."
Source: Steve Forbes

Most common obstacles to increasing brand awareness

Successfully building brand awareness requires careful preparation and planning.

• Limited market intelligence
• Unclear competitive advantage/key differentiator
• Misaligned and inconsistent messaging and storytelling
• Lack of long-term vision
• and low prioritization
• Limited resources to develop and execute brand awareness building tactics
• Unattractive content that does not resonate, generates little or no interest and engagement

Investing in the notoriety of the brand

Become the top-of-mind brand in your target market.

To stand out, be recognized by their target audience, and become major players in their industry, brands must adopt a winning strategy that includes the following elements:

• In-depth knowledge and understanding of the market and audience
• Strengthening digital presence and activities
• Creating and publishing content relevant to the target audience
• Reaching out through multiple touchpoints
• Using a more human-centric approach
• Ensure consistency in all aspects of the brand, across all media and channels

How far are you from being the brand buyers think of first in your target market?

Brand awareness pyramid

Based on David Aaker's brand loyalty pyramid

Tactics for building brand awareness

Focus on effective ways to gain brand recognition in the minds of buyers.

Brand recognition requires in-depth knowledge of the target market, the creation of strong brand attributes, and increased presence and visibility.

Understand the market and audience you're targeting

Be prepared. Act smart.

To implement a winning brand awareness-building strategy, you must:

• Be aware of your competitor's strengths and weaknesses, as well as yours.
• Find out who is behind the keyboard, and the user experience they expect to have.
• Plan and continuously adapt your tactics accordingly.
• Make your buyer the hero.

Identify the brands' uniqueness

Find your "winning zone" and how your brand uniquely addresses buyers' pain points.

Focus on your key differentiator

A brand has found its "winning zone" or key differentiator when its value proposition clearly shows that it uniquely solves its buyers' specific pain points.

Align with your target audience's real expectations and successfully interact with them by understanding their persona and buyer's journey. Know:

• How you uniquely address their pain points.
• Their values and what motivates them.
• Who they see as authorities in your field.
• Their buying habits and trends.
• How they like brands to engage with them.

Give your brand a voice

Define and present a consistent voice across all channels and assets.

The voice reflects the personality of the brand and the emotion to be transmitted. That's why it's crucial to establish strict rules that define the language to use when communicating through the brand's voice, the type of words, and do's and don'ts.

To be recognizable it is imperative to avoid inconsistencies. No matter how many people are behind the brand voice, the brand must show a unique, distinctive personality. As for the tone, it may vary according to circumstances, from lighter to more serious.

Up to 80% Increased customer recognition when the brand uses a signature color scheme across multiple platforms
Source: startup Bonsai
23% of revenue increase is what consistent branding across channels leads to.
Source: Harvard Business Review

When we close our eyes and listen, we all recognize Ella Fitzgerald's rich and unique singing voice.

We expect to recognize the writing of Stephen King when we read his books. For the brand's voice, it's the same. People want to be able to recognize it.

Adopt a more human-centric approach

If your brand was a person, who would it be?

Human attributes

Physically attractive

• Brand identity
• Logo and tagline
• Product design

Intellectually stimulating

• Knowledge and ideas
• Continuous innovation
• Thought leadership

Sociable

• Friendly, likeable and fun
• Confidently engage with audience through multiple touchpoints
• Posts and shares meaningful content
• Responsive

Emotionally connected

• Inspiring
• Powerful influencer
• Triggers emotional reactions

Morally sound

• Ethical and responsible
• Value driven
• Deliver on its promise

Personable

• Honest
• Self-confident and motivated
• Accountable

0.05 Seconds is what it takes for someone to form an opinion about a website, and a brand.
Source: 8ways

90% of the time, our initial gut reaction to products is based on color alone.
Source: startup Bonsai

56% of the final b2b purchasing decision is based on emotional factors.
Source: B@B International

Put values at the heart of the brand-buyers relationship

Highlight values that will resonate with your audience.

Brands that focus on the values they share with their buyers, rather than simply on a product or service, succeed in making meaningful emotional connections with them and keep them actively engaged.

Shared values such as transparency, sustainability, diversity, environmental protection, and social responsibility become the foundation of a solid relationship between a brand and its audience.

The key is to know what motivates the target audience.

86% of consumers claim that authenticity is one of the key factors they consider when deciding which brands they like and support.
Source: Business Wire

56% of the final decision is based on having a strong emotional connection with the supplier.
Source: B2B International

64% of today's customers are belief-driven buyers; they want to support brands that "can be a powerful force for change."
Source: Edelman

"If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand."
– Howard Schultz
Source: Lokus Design

Double-down on digital

Develop your digital presence and reach out to your target audiences through multiple touchpoints.

Beyond engaging content, reaching the target audience requires brands to connect and interact with their audience in multiple ways so that potential buyers can form an opinion.

With the right message consistently delivered across multiple channels, brands increase their reach, create a buzz around their brand and raise awareness.

73% of today's consumers confirm they use more than one channel during a shopping journey
Source: Harvard Business Review

Platforms

• Website and apps
• Social media
• Group discussions

Multimedia

• Webinars
• Podcasts
• Publication

Campaign

• Ads and advertising
• Landing pages
• Emails, surveys drip campaigns

Network

• Tradeshows, events, sponsorships
• Conferences, speaking opportunities
• Partners and influencers

Use social media to connect

Reach out to the masses with a social media presence.

Social media platforms represent a cost-effective opportunity for businesses to connect and influence their audience and tell their story by posting relevant and search-engine-optimized content regularly on their account and groups. It's also a nice gateway to their website.

Building a relationship with their target buyer through social media is also an easy way for businesses to:

• Understand the buyers.
• Receive feedback on how the buyers perceive the brand and how to improve it.
• Show great user experience and responsiveness.
• Build trust.
• Create awareness.

75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-Suite executives use social media when considering a purchase
Source: LinkedIn Business