Requirements Gathering

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The challenge

  • The number reason projects fail because from the outset, what people wanted was not clear.
  • Without proper due diligence, IT will deliver projects that fail to meet business expectations and fail to provide business value.
  • If you failed to accurately capture the needs and desires, your projects are set up for costly rework. That will hurt your business's financial performance and result in damage to your relationship with your business partners.
  • Even with requirements gathering processes in place, your business analysts may not have the required competencies to execute them.

Our advice

Insight

  • You need to gather requirements with your organizations' end-state in mind. That requires IT and business alignment.
  • You would be good to create a set of standard operating procedures around requirements gathering. But many companies fail to do so.
  • Bring standardization and conformity to your requirements gathering processes via a centralized center of excellence. That brings cohesion and uniformity to your practice.
  • It is critical that your business analysts have the necessary competencies to execute your processes and that they ask the right questions.

Impact and results 

  • Better requirements analysis will result in shorter cycle timed and reduced project rework and overhead.
  • You will enjoy better relationships with your business partners, greater stakeholder satisfaction, and gradually a better standing of IT.
  • Most importantly, the applications and systems you deliver will contain all must-haves and some nice-to-haves. Your minimal viable deliverable will start to create business value immediately.

The roadmap

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

Get started.

Read our executive brief to understand why you should invest in optimizing requirements gathering in your company. We show you how we can support you.

Build the target state

Fully understand the target needs of the requirements gathering process.

  • Build a Strong Approach to Business Requirements Gathering – Phase 1: Build the Target State for the Requirements Gathering Process (ppt)
  • Requirements Gathering SOP and BA Playbook (doc)
  • Requirements Gathering Maturity Assessment (xls)
  • Project Level Selection Tool (xls)
  • Business Requirements Analyst (doc)
  • Requirements Gathering Communication Tracking Template (xls)

Develop best practices to gather business requirements

  • Build a Strong Approach to Business Requirements Gathering – Phase 2: Define the Elicitation Process (ppt)
  • Business Requirements Document Template (xls)
  • Scrum Documentation Template (doc)

Analyze and validate requirements

Standardize your frameworks for analysis and validation of the business requirements

  • Build a Strong Approach to Business Requirements Gathering – Phase 3: Analyze and Validate Requirements (ppt)
  • Requirements Gathering Documentation Tool (xls)
  • Requirements Gathering Testing Checklist (doc)

Build your requirements gathering governance action plan

Formalize governance.

  • Build a Strong Approach to Business Requirements Gathering – Phase 4: Create a Requirements Governance Action Plan (ppt)
  • Requirements Traceability Matrix (xls)

 

 

Present Security to Executive Stakeholders

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  • There is a disconnect between security leaders and executive stakeholders on what information is important to present.
  • Security leaders find it challenging to convey the necessary information to obtain support for security objectives.
  • Changes to the threat landscape and shifts in organizational goals exacerbate the issue, as they impact security leaders' ability to prioritize topics to be communicated.
  • Security leaders struggle to communicate the importance of security to a non-technical audience.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Security presentations are not a one-way street. The key to a successful executive security presentation is having a goal for the presentation and ensuring that you have met your goal.

Impact and Result

  • Developing a thorough understanding of the security communication goals.
  • Understanding the importance of leveraging highly relevant and understandable data.
  • Developing and delivering presentations that will keep your audience engaged and build trust with your executive stakeholders.

Present Security to Executive Stakeholders Research & Tools

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Present Security to Executive Stakeholders – A step-by-step guide to communicating security effectively to obtain support from decision makers.

Use this as a guideline to assist you in presenting security to executive stakeholders.

  • Present Security to Executive Stakeholders Storyboard

2. Security Presentation Templates – A set of security presentation templates to assist you in communicating security to executive stakeholders.

The security presentation templates are a set of customizable templates for various types of security presentation including:

  • Present Security to Executive Stakeholders Templates

Infographic

Further reading

Present Security to Executive Stakeholders

Learn how to communicate security effectively to obtain support from decision makers.

Analyst Perspective

Build and deliver an effective security communication to your executive stakeholders.

Ahmad Jowhar

As a security leader, you’re tasked with various responsibilities to ensure your organization can achieve its goals while its most important assets are being protected.

However, when communicating security to executive stakeholders, challenges can arise in determining what topics are pertinent to present. Changes in the security threat landscape coupled with different business goals make identifying how to present security more challenging.

Having a communication framework for presenting security to executive stakeholders will enable you to effectively identify, develop, and deliver your communication goals while obtaining the support you need to achieve your objectives.

Ahmad Jowhar
Research Specialist, Security & Privacy

Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Common Obstacles

Info-Tech’s Approach

  • Many security leaders struggle to decide what to present and how to present security to executive stakeholders.
  • Constant changes in the security threat landscape impacts a security leader’s ability to prioritize topics to be communicated.
  • There is a disconnect between security leaders and executive stakeholders on what information is important to present.
  • Security leaders struggle to communicate the importance of security to a non-technical audience.
  • Developing a thorough understanding of security communication goals.
  • Understanding the importance of leveraging highly relevant and understandable data.
  • Developing and delivering presentations that will keep your audience engaged and build trust with your executive stakeholders.

Info-Tech Insight

Security presentations are not a one-way street. The key to a successful executive security presentation is having a goal for the presentation and verifying that you have met your goal.

Your challenge

As a security leader, you need to communicate security effectively to executive stakeholders in order to obtain support for your security objectives.

  • When it comes to presenting security to executive stakeholders, many security leaders find it challenging to convey the necessary information in order to obtain support for security objectives.
  • This is attributed to various factors, such as an increase in the threat landscape, changes to industry regulations and standards, and new organizational goals that security has to align with.
  • Furthermore, with the limited time to communicate with executive stakeholders, both in frequency and duration, identifying the most important information to address can be challenging.

76% of security leaders struggle in conveying the effectiveness of a cybersecurity program.

62% find it difficult to balance the risk of too much detail and need-to-know information.

41% find it challenging to communicate effectively with a mixed technical and non-technical audience.

Source: Deloitte, 2022

Common obstacles

There is a disconnect between security leaders and executive stakeholders when it comes to the security posture of the organization:

  • Executive stakeholders are not confident that their security leaders are doing enough to mitigate security risks.
  • The issue has been amplified, with security threats constantly increasing across all industries.
  • However, security leaders don’t feel that they are in a position to make themselves heard.
  • The lack of organizational security awareness and support from cross-functional departments has made it difficult to achieve security objectives (e.g. education, investments).
  • Defining an approach to remove that disconnect with executive stakeholders is of utmost importance for security leaders, in order to improve their organization’s security posture.

9% of boards are extremely confident in their organization’s cybersecurity risk mitigation measures.

77% of organizations have seen an increase in the number of attacks in 2021.

56% of security leaders claimed their team is not involved when leadership makes urgent security decisions.

Source: EY, 2021
The image contains a screenshot of an Info-Tech Thoughtmodel titled: Presenting Security to Executive Stakeholders.

Info-Tech’s methodology for presenting security to executive stakeholders

1. Identify communication goals

2. Collect information to support goals

3. Develop communication

4. Deliver communication

Phase steps

  1. Identify drivers for communicating to executives
  2. Define your goals for communicating to executives
  1. Identify data to collect
  2. Plan how to retrieve data
  1. Plan communication
  2. Build a compelling communication document
  1. Deliver a captivating presentation
  2. Obtain/verify goals

Phase outcomes

A defined list of drivers and goals to help you develop your security presentations

A list of data sources to include in your communication

A completed communication template

A solidified understanding of how to effectively communicate security to your stakeholders

Develop a structured process for communicating security to your stakeholders

Security presentations are not a one-way street
The key to a successful executive security presentation is having a goal for the presentation and verifying that you have met your goal.

Identifying your goals is the foundation of an effective presentation
Defining your drivers and goals for communicating security will enable you to better prepare and deliver your presentation, which will help you obtain your desired outcome.

Harness the power of data
Leveraging data and analytics will help you provide quantitative-based communication, which will result in a more meaningful and effective presentation.

Take your audience on a journey
Developing a storytelling approach will help engage with your audience.

Win your audience by building a rapport
Establishing credibility and trust with executive stakeholders will enable you to obtain their support for security objectives.

Tactical insight
Conduct background research on audience members (i.e. professional background) to help understand how best to communicate with them and overcome potential objections.

Tactical insight
Verifying your objectives at the end of the communication is important, as it ensures you have successfully communicated to executive stakeholders.

Project deliverables

This blueprint is accompanied by a supporting deliverable which includes five security presentation templates.

Report on Security Initiatives
Template showing how to inform executive stakeholders of security initiatives.

Report on Security Initiatives.

Security Metrics
Template showing how to inform executive stakeholders of current security metrics that would help drive future initiatives.

Security Metrics.

Security Incident Response & Recovery
Template showing how to inform executive stakeholders of security incidents, their impact, and the response plan.

Security Incident Response & Recovery

Security Funding Request
Template showing how to inform executive stakeholders of security incidents, their impact, and the response plan.

Security Funding Request

Key template:

Security and Risk Update

Template showing how to inform executive stakeholders of proactive security and risk initiatives.

Blueprint benefits

IT/InfoSec benefits

Business benefits

  • Reduce effort and time spent preparing cybersecurity presentations for executive stakeholders by having templates to use.
  • Enable security leaders to better prepare what to present and how to present it to their executive stakeholders, as well as driving the required outcomes from those presentations.
  • Establish a best practice for communicating security and IT to executive stakeholders.
  • Gain increased awareness of cybersecurity and the impact executive stakeholders can have on improving an organization’s security posture.
  • Understand how security’s alignment with the business will enable the strategic growth of the organization.
  • Gain a better understanding of how security and IT objectives are developed and justified.

Measure the value of this blueprint

Phase

Measured Value (Yearly)

Phase 1: Identify communication goals

Cost to define drivers and goals for communicating security to executives:

16 FTE hours @ $233K* =$1,940

Phase 2: Collect information to support goals

Cost to collect and synthesize necessary data to support communication goals:

16 FTE hours @ $233K = $1,940

Phase 3: Develop communication

Cost to develop communication material that will contextualize information being shown:

16 FTE hours @ $233K = $1,940

Phase 4: Deliver communication

Potential Savings:

Total estimated effort = $5,820

Our blueprint will help you save $5,820 and over 40 FTE hours

* The financial figure depicts the annual salary of a CISO in 2022

Source: Chief Information Security Officer Salary.” Salary.com, 2022

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Phase 1

Identify communication goals

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

1.1 Identify drivers for communicating to executives

1.2 Define your goals for communicating to executives

2.1 Identify data to collect

2.2 Plan how to retrieve data

3.1 Plan communication

3.2 Build a compelling communication document

4.1 Deliver a captivating presentation

4.2 Obtain/verify support for security goals

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

  • Understanding the different drivers for communicating security to executive stakeholders
  • Identifying different communication goals

This phase involves the following participants:

  • Security leader

1.1. Identify drivers for communicating to executive stakeholders

As a security leader, you meet with executives and stakeholders with diverse backgrounds, and you aim to showcase your organization’s security posture along with its alignment with the business’ goals.

However, with the constant changes in the security threat landscape, demands and drivers for security could change. Thus, understanding potential drivers that will influence your communication will assist you in developing and delivering an effective security presentation.

39% of organizations had cybersecurity on the agenda of their board’s quarterly meeting.

Source: EY, 2021.

Info-Tech Insight

Not all security presentations are the same. Keep your communication strategy and processes agile.

Know your drivers for security presentations

By understanding the influences for your security presentations, you will be able to better plan what to present to executive stakeholders.

  • These meetings, which are usually held once per quarter, provide you with less than one hour of presentation time.
  • Hence, it is crucial to know why you need to present security and whether these drivers are similar across the other presentations.

Understanding drivers will also help you understand how to present security to executive stakeholders.

  • These drivers will shape the structure of your presentation and help determine your approach to communicating your goals.
  • For example, financial-based presentations that are driven by budget requests might create a sense of urgency or assurance about investment in a security initiative.

Identify your communication drivers, which can stem from various initiatives and programs, including:

  • Results from internal or external audit reports.
  • Upcoming budget meetings.
  • Briefing newly elected executive stakeholders on security.

When it comes to identifying your communication drivers, you can collaborate with subject matter experts, like your corporate secretary or steering committees, to ensure the material being communicated will align with some of the organizational goals.

Examples of drivers for security presentations

Audit
Upcoming internal or external audits might require updates on the organization’s compliance

Organizational restructuring
Restructuring within an organization could require security updates

Merger & Acquisition
An M&A would trigger presentations on organization’s current and future security posture

Cyber incident
A cyberattack would require an immediate presentation on its impact and the incident response plan

Ad hoc
Provide security information requested by stakeholders

1.2. Define your goals for communicating to executives

After identifying drivers for your communication, it’s important to determine what your goals are for the presentation.

  • Communication drivers are mainly triggers for why you want to present security.
  • Communication goals are the potential outcomes you are hoping to obtain from the presentation.
  • Your communication goals would help identify what data and metrics to include in your presentation, the structure of your communication deck, and how you deliver your communication to executive stakeholders.

Identifying your communication goals could require the participation of the security team, IT leadership, and other business stakeholders.

  • As a group, brainstorm the security goals that align with your business goals for the coming year.
    • Aim to have at least two business goals that align with each security goal.
  • Identify what benefits and value the executive stakeholders will gain from the security goal being presented.
    • E.g. Increased security awareness, updates on organization's security posture.
  • Identify what the ask is for this presentation.
    • E.g. Approval for increasing budget to support security initiatives, executive support to implement internal security programs.

Info-Tech Insight

There can be different reasons to communicate security to executive stakeholders. You need to understand what you want to get out of your presentation.

Examples of security presentation goals

Educate
Educate the board on security trends and/or latest risks in the industry

Update
Provide updates on security initiatives, relevant security metrics, and compliance posture

Inform
Provide an incident response plan due to a security incident or deliver updates on current threats and risks

Investment
Request funding for security investments or financial updates on past security initiatives

Ad hoc
Provide security information requested by stakeholders

Phase 2

Collect information to support goals

Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4

1.1 Identify drivers for communicating to executives

1.2 Define your goals for communicating to executives

2.1 Identify data to collect

2.2 Plan how to retrieve data

3.1 Plan communication

3.2 Build a compelling communication document

4.1 Deliver a captivating presentation

4.2 Obtain/verify support for security goals

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

  • Understanding what types of data to include in your security presentations
  • Defining where and how to retrieve data

This phase involves the following participants:

  • Security leader
  • Network/security analyst

2.1 Identify data to collect

After identifying drivers and goals for your communication, it’s important to include the necessary data to justify the information being communicated.

  • Leveraging data and analytics will assist in providing quantitative-based communication, which will result in a more meaningful and effective presentation.
  • The data presented will showcase the visibility of an organization’s security posture along with potential risks and figures on how to mitigate those risks.
  • Providing analysis of the quantitative data presented will also showcase further insights on the figures, allow the audience to better understand the data, and show its relevance to the communication goals.

Identifying data to collect doesn’t need to be a rigorous task; you can follow these steps to help you get started:

  • Work with your security team to identify the main type of data applicable to the communication goals.
    • E.g. Financial data would be meaningful to use when communicating a budget presentation.
  • Identify supporting data linked to the main data defined.
    • E.g. If a financial investment is made to implement a security initiative, then metrics on improvements to the security posture will be relevant.
  • Show how both the main and supporting data align with the communication goals.
    • E.g. Improvement in security posture would increase alignment with regulation standards, which would result in additional contracts being awarded and increased revenue.

Info-Tech Insight

Understand how to present your information in a way that will be meaningful to your audience, for instance by quantifying security risks in financial terms.

Examples of data to present

Educate
Number of organizations in industry impacted by data breaches during past year; top threats and risks affecting the industries

Update
Degree of compliance with standards (e.g. ISO-27001); metrics on improvement of security posture due to security initiatives

Inform
Percentage of impacted clients and disrupted business functions; downtime; security risk likelihood and financial impact

Investment
Capital and operating expenditure for investment; ROI on past and future security initiatives

Ad hoc
Number of security initiatives that went over budget; phishing test campaign results

2.2 Plan how to retrieve the data

Once the data that is going to be used for the presentation has been identified, it is important to plan how the data can be retrieved, processed, and shared.

  • Most of the data leveraged for security presentations are structured data, which are highly organized data that are often stored in a relational and easily searchable database.
    • This includes security log reports or expenditures for ongoing and future security investments.
  • Retrieving the data, however, would require collaboration and cooperation from different team members.
  • You would need to work with the security team and other appropriate stakeholders to identify where the data is stored and who the data owner is.

Once the data source and owner has been identified, you need to plan how the data would be processed and leveraged for your presentation

  • This could include using queries to retrieve the relevant information needed (e.g. SQL, Microsoft Excel).
  • Verify the accuracy and relevance of the data with other stakeholders to ensure it is the most appropriate data to be presented to the executive stakeholders.

Info-Tech Insight

Using a data-driven approach to help support your objectives is key to engaging with your audience.

Plan where to retrieve the data

Identifying the relevant data sources to retrieve your data and the appropriate data owner enables efficient collaboration between departments collecting, processing, and communicating the data and graphics to the audience.

Examples of where to retrieve your data

Data Source

Data

Data Owner

Communication Goal

Audit & Compliance Reports

Percentage of controls completed to be certified with ISO 27001; Number of security threats & risks identified.

Audit Manager;

Compliance Manager;

Security Leader

Ad hoc, Educate, Inform

Identity & Access Management (IAM) Applications

Number of privileged accounts/department; Percentage of user accounts with MFA applied

Network/Security Analyst

Ad hoc, Inform, Update

Security Information & Event Management (SIEM)

Number of attacks detected and blocked before & after implementing endpoint security; Percentage of firewall rules that triggered a false positive

Network/Security Analyst

Ad hoc, Inform, Update

Vulnerability Management Applications

Percentage of critical vulnerabilities patched; Number of endpoints encrypted

Network/Security Analyst

Ad hoc, Inform, Update

Financial & Accounting Software

Capital & operating expenditure for future security investments; Return on investment (ROI) on past and current security investments

Financial and/or Accounting Manager

Ad hoc, Educate, Investments

Phase 3

Develop communication

Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4

1.1 Identify drivers for communicating to executives

1.2 Define your goals for communicating to executives

2.1 Identify data to collect

2.2 Plan how to retrieve data

3.1 Plan communication

3.2 Build a compelling communication document

4.1 Deliver a captivating presentation

4.2 Obtain/verify support for security goals

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

  • Identifying a communication strategy for presenting security
  • Identifying security templates that are applicable to your presentation

This phase involves the following participants:

  • Security leader

3.1 Plan communication: Know who your audience is

  • When preparing your communication, it's important to understand who your target audience is and to conduct background research on them.
  • This will help develop your communication style and ensure your presentation caters to the expected audience in the room.

Examples of two profiles in a boardroom

Formal board of directors

The executive team

  • In the private sector, this will include an appointed board of shareholders and subcommittees external to the organization.
  • In the public sector, this can include councils, commissions, or the executive team itself.
  • In government, this can include mayors, ministers, and governors.
  • The board’s overall responsibility is governance.
  • This audience will include your boss and your peers internal to the organization.
  • This category is primarily involved in the day-to-day operations of the organization and is responsible for carrying out the strategic direction set by the board.
  • The executive team’s overall responsibility is operations.

3.1.1 Know what your audience cares about

  • Understanding what your executive stakeholders value will equip you with the right information to include in your presentations.
  • Ensure you conduct background research on your audience to assist you in knowing what their potential interests are.
  • Your background research could include:
    • Researching the audience’s professional background through LinkedIn.
    • Reviewing their comments from past executive meetings.
    • Researching current security trends that align with organizational goals.
  • Once the values and risks have been identified, you can document them in notes and share the notes with subject matter experts to verify if these values and risks should be shared in the coming meetings.

A board’s purpose can include the following:

  • Sustaining and expanding the organization’s purpose and ability to execute in a competitive market.
  • Determining and funding the organization’s future and direction.
  • Protecting and increasing shareholder value.
  • Protecting the company’s exposure to risks.

Examples of potential values and risks

  • Business impact
  • Financial impact
  • Security and incidents

Info-Tech Insight
Conduct background research on audience members (e.g. professional background on LinkedIn) to help understand how best to communicate to them and overcome potential objections.

Understand your audience’s concerns

  • Along with knowing what your audience values and cares about, understanding their main concerns will allow you to address those items or align them with your communication.
  • By treating your executive stakeholders as your project sponsors, you would build a level of trust and confidence with your peers as the first step to tackling their concerns.
  • These concerns can be derived from past stakeholder meetings, recent trends in the industry, or strategic business alignments.
  • After capturing their concerns, you’ll be equipped with the necessary understanding on what material to include and prioritize during your presentations.

Examples of potential concerns for each profile of executive stakeholders

Formal board of directors

The executive team

  • Business impact (What is the impact of IT in solving business challenges?)
  • Investments (How will it impact organization’s finances and efficiency?)
  • Cybersecurity and risk (What are the top cybersecurity risks, and how is IT mitigating those risks to the business?)
  • Business alignment (How do IT priorities align to the business strategy and goals?)
  • IT operational efficiency (How is IT set up for success with foundational elements of IT’s operational strategy?)
  • Innovation & transformation priorities (How is IT enabling the organization’s competitive advantage and supporting transformation efforts as a strategic business partner?)

Build your presentation to tackle their main concerns

Your presentation should be well-rounded and compelling when it addresses the board’s main concerns about security.

Checklist:

  • Research your target audience (their backgrounds, board composition, dynamics, executive team vs. external group).
  • Include value and risk language in your presentation to appeal to your audience.
  • Ensure your content focuses on one or more of the board’s main concerns with security (e.g. business impact, investments, or risk).
  • Include information about what is in it for them and the organization.
  • Research your board’s composition and skillsets to determine their level of technical knowledge and expertise. This helps craft your presentation with the right amount of technology vs. business-facing information.

Info-Tech Insight
The executive stakeholder’s main concerns will always boil down to one important outcome: providing a level of confidence to do business through IT products, services, and systems – including security.

3.1.2 Take your audience through a security journey

  • Once you have defined your intended target and their potential concerns, developing the communication through a storytelling approach will be the next step to help build a compelling presentation.
  • You need to help your executive stakeholders make sense of the information being conveyed and allow them to understand the importance of cybersecurity.
  • Taking your audience through a story will allow them to see the value of the information being presented and better resonate with its message.
  • You can derive insights for your storytelling presentation by doing the following:
    • Provide a business case scenario on the topic you are presenting.
    • Identify and communicate the business problem up front and answer the three questions (why, what, how).
    • Quantify the problems in terms of business impact (money, risk, value).

Info-Tech Insight
Developing a storytelling approach will help keep your audience engaged and allow the information to resonate with them, which will add further value to the communication.

Identify the purpose of your presentation

You should be clear about your bottom line and the intent behind your presentation. However, regardless of your bottom line, your presentation must focus on what business problems you are solving and why security can assist in solving the problem.

Examples of communication goals

To inform or educate

To reach a decision

  • In this presentation type, it is easy for IT leaders to overwhelm a board with excessive or irrelevant information.
  • Focus your content on the business problem and the solution proposed.
  • Refrain from too much detail about the technology – focus on business impact and risk mitigated. Ask for feedback if applicable.
  • In this presentation type, there is a clear ask and an action required from the board of directors.
  • Be clear about what this decision is. Once again, don’t lead with the technology solution: Start with the business problem you are solving, and only talk about technology as the solution if time permits.
  • Ensure you know who votes and how to garner their support.

Info-Tech Insight
Nobody likes surprises. Communicate early and often. The board should be pre-briefed, especially if it is a difficult subject. This also ensures you have support when you deliver a difficult message.

Gather the right information to include in your boardroom presentation

Once you understand your target audience, it’s important to tailor your presentation material to what they will care about.

Typical IT boardroom presentations include:

  • Communicating the value of ongoing business technology initiatives.
  • Requesting funds or approval for a business initiative that IT is spearheading.
  • Security incident response/Risk/DRP.
  • Developing a business program or an investment update for an ongoing program.
  • Business technology strategy highlights and impacts.
  • Digital transformation initiatives (value, ROI, risk).

Info-Tech Insight
You must always have a clear goal or objective for delivering a presentation in front of your board of directors. What is the purpose of your board presentation? Identify your objective and outcome up front and tailor your presentation’s story and contents to fit this purpose.

Info-Tech Insight
Telling a good story is not about the message you want to deliver but the one the executive stakeholders want to hear. Articulate what you want them to think and what you want them to take away, and be explicit about it in your presentation. Make your story logically flow by identifying the business problem, complication, the solution, and how to close the gap. Most importantly, communicate the business impacts the board will care about.

Structure your presentation to tell a logical story

To build a strong story for your presentation, ensure you answer these three questions:

WHY

Why is this a business issue, or why should the executive stakeholders care?

WHAT

What is the impact of solving the problem and driving value for the company?

HOW

How will we leverage our resources (technology, finances) to solve the problem?

Examples:

Scenario 1: The company has experienced a security incident.

Intent: To inform/educate the board about the security incident.

WHY

The data breach has resulted in a loss of customer confidence, negative brand impact, and a reduction in revenue of 30%.

WHAT

Financial, legal, and reputational risks identified, and mitigation strategies implemented. IT is working with the PR team on communications. Incident management playbook executed.

HOW

An analysis of vulnerabilities was conducted and steps to address are in effect. Recovery steps are 90% completed. Incident management program reviewed for future incidents.

Scenario 2: Security is recommending investments based on strategic priorities.

Intent: To reach a decision with the board – approve investment proposal.

WHY

The new security strategy outlines two key initiatives to improve an organization’s security culture and overall risk posture.

WHAT

Security proposed an investment to implement a security training & phishing test campaign, which will assist in reducing data breach risks.

HOW

Use 5% of security’s budget to implement security training and phishing test campaigns.

Time plays a key role in delivering an effective presentation

What you include in your story will often depend on how much time you have available to deliver the message.

Consider the following:

  • Presenting to executive stakeholders often means you have a short window of time to deliver your message. The average executive stakeholder presentation is 15 minutes, and this could be cut short due to other unexpected factors.
  • If your presentation is too long, you risk overwhelming or losing your audience. You must factor in the time constraints when building your board presentation.
  • Your executive stakeholders have a wealth of experience and knowledge, which means they could jump to conclusions quickly based on their own experiences. Ensure you give them plenty of background information in advance. Provide your presentation material, a brief, or any other supporting documentation before the meeting to show you are well prepared.
  • Be prepared to have deep conversations about the topic, but respect that the executive stakeholders might not be interested in hearing the tactical information. Build an elevator pitch, a one-pager, back-up slides that support your ask and the story, and be prepared to answer questions within your allotted presentation time to dive deeper.

Navigating through Q&A

Use the Q&A portion to build credibility with the board.

  • It is always better to say, “I’m not certain about the answer but will follow up,” than to provide false or inaccurate information on the spot.
  • When asked challenging or irrelevant questions, ensure you have an approach to deflect them. Questions can often be out of scope or difficult to answer in a group. Find what works for you to successfully navigate through these questions:
    • “Let’s work with the sub-committee to find you an answer.”
    • “Let’s take that offline to address in more detail.”
    • “I have some follow-up material I can provide you to discuss that further after our meeting.”
  • And ensure you follow up! Make sure to follow through on your promise to provide information or answers after the meeting. This helps build trust and credibility with the board.

Info-Tech Insight
The average board presentation is 15 minutes long. Build no more than three or four slides of content to identify the business problem, the business impacts, and the solution. Leave five minutes for questions at the end, and be prepared with back-up slides to support your answers.

Storytelling checklist

Checklist:

  • Tailor your presentation based on how much time you have.
  • Find out ahead of time how much time you have.
  • Identify if your presentation is to inform/educate or reach a decision.
  • Identify and communicate the business problem up front and answer the three questions (why, what, how).
  • Express the problem in terms of business impact (risk, value, money).
  • Prepare and send pre-meeting collateral to the members of the board and executive team.
  • Include no more than 5-6 slides for your presentation.
  • Factor in Q&A time at the end of your presentation window.
  • Articulate what you want them to think and what you want them to take away – put it right up front and remind them at the end.
  • Have an elevator speech handy – one or two sentences and a one-pager version of your story.
  • Consider how you will build your relationship with the members outside the boardroom.

3.1.3 Build a compelling communication document

Once you’ve identified your communication goals, data, and plan to present to your stakeholders, it’s important to build the compelling communication document that will attract all audiences.

A good slide design increases the likelihood that the audience will read the content carefully.

  • Bad slide structure (flow) = Audience loses focus
    • You can have great content on a slide, but if a busy audience gets confused, they’ll just close the file or lose focus. Structure encompasses horizontal and vertical logic.
  • Good visual design = Audience might read more
    • Readers will probably skim the slides first. If the slides look ugly, they will already have a negative impression. If the slides are visually appealing, they will be more inclined to read carefully. They may even use some slides to show others.
  • Good content + Good structure + Visual appeal = Good presentation
    • A presentation is like a house. Good content is the foundation of the house. Good structure keeps the house strong. Visual appeal differentiates houses.

Slide design best practices

Leverage these slide design best practices to assist you in developing eye-catching presentations.

  • Easy to read: Assume reader is tight on time. If a slide looks overwhelming, the reader will close the document.
  • Concise and clear: Fewer words = more skim-able.
  • Memorable: Use graphics and visuals or pithy quotes whenever you can do so appropriately.
  • Horizontal logic: Good horizontal logic will have slide titles that cascade into a story with no holes or gaps.
  • Vertical logic: People usually read from left to right, top to bottom, or in a Z pattern. Make sure your slide has an intuitive flow of content.
  • Aesthetics: People like looking at visually appealing slides, but make sure your attempts to create visual appeal do not detract from the content.

Your presentation must have a logical flow

Horizontal logic

Vertical logic

  • Horizontal logic should tell a story.
  • When slide titles are read in a cascading manner, they will tell a logical and smooth story.
  • Title & tagline = thesis (best insight).
  • Vertical logic should be intuitive.
  • Each step must support the title.
  • The content you intend to include within each slide is directly applicable to the slide title.
  • One main point per slide.

Vertical logic should be intuitive

The image contains a screenshot example of a bad design layout for a slide. The image contains a screenshot example of a good design layout for a slide.

The audience is unsure where to look and in what order.

The audience knows to read the heading first. Then look within the pie chart. Then look within the white boxes to the right.

Horizontal and vertical logic checklists

Horizontal logic

Vertical logic

  • List your slide titles in order and read through them.
  • Good horizontal logic should feel like a story. Incomplete horizontal logic will make you pause or frown.
  • After a self-test, get someone else to do the same exercise with you observing them.
  • Note at which points they pause or frown. Discuss how those points can be improved.
  • Now consider each slide title proposed and the content within it.
  • Identify if there is a disconnect in title vs. content.
  • If there is a disconnect, consider changing the title of the slide to appropriately reflect the content within it, or consider changing the content if the slide title is an intended path in the story.

Make it easy to read

The image contains a screenshot that demonstrates an uneasy to read slide. The image contains a screenshot that demonstrates an easy to read slide.
  • Unnecessary coloring makes it hard on the eyes
  • Margins for title at top is too small
  • Content is not skim-able (best to break up the slide)

Increase skim-ability:

  • Emphasize the subheadings
  • Bold important words

Make it easier on the eyes:

  • Declutter and add sections
  • Have more white space

Be concise and clear

  1. Write your thoughts down
    • This gets your content documented.
    • Don’t worry about clarity or concision yet.
  2. Edit for clarity
    • Make sure the key message is very clear.
    • Find your thesis statement.
  3. Edit for concision
    • Remove unnecessary words.
    • Use the active voice, not passive voice (see below for examples).

Passive voice

Active voice

“There are three things to look out for” (8 words)

“Network security was compromised by hackers” (6 words)

“Look for these three things” (5 words)

“Hackers compromised network security” (4 words)

Be memorable

The image contains a screenshot of an example that demonstrates a bad example of how to be memorable. The image contains a screenshot of an example that demonstrates a good example of how to be memorable.

Easy to read, but hard to remember the stats.

The visuals make it easier to see the size of the problem and make it much more memorable.

Remember to:

  • Have some kind of visual (e.g. graphs, icons, tables).
  • Divide the content into sections.
  • Have a bit of color on the page.

Aesthetics

The image contains a screenshot of an example of bad aesthetics. The image contains a screenshot of an example of good aesthetics.

This draft slide is just content from the outline document on a slide with no design applied yet.

  • Have some kind of visual (e.g. graphs, icons, tables) as long as it’s appropriate.
  • Divide the content into sections.
  • Have a bit of color on the page.
  • Bold or italicize important text.

Why use visuals?

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: Management Information Systems Research Center

Presentation format

Often stakeholders prefer to receive content in a specific format. Make sure you know what you require so that you are not scrambling at the last minute.

  • Is there a standard presentation template?
  • Is a hard-copy handout required?
  • Is there a deadline for draft submission?
  • Is there a deadline for final submission?
  • Will the presentation be circulated ahead of time?
  • Do you know what technology you will be using?
  • Have you done a dry run in the meeting room?
  • Do you know the meeting organizer?

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 display the information/data in a concentrated way?
  • Do the visuals illustrate messages and themes from the accompanying text?

3.2 Security communication templates

Once you have identified your communication goals and plans for building your communication document, you can start building your presentation deck.

These presentation templates highlight different security topics depending on your communication drivers, goals, and available data.

Info-Tech has created five security templates to assist you in building a compelling presentation.

These templates provide support for presentations on the following five topics:

  • Security Initiatives
  • Security & Risk Update
  • Security Metrics
  • Security Incident Response & Recovery
  • Security Funding Request

Each template provides instructions on how to use it and tips on ensuring the right information is being presented.

All the templates are customizable, which enables you to leverage the sections you need while also editing any sections to your liking.

The image contains screenshots of the Security Presentation Templates.

Download the Security Presentation Templates

Security template example

It’s important to know that not all security presentations for an organization are alike. However, these templates would provide a guideline on what the best practices are when communicating security to executive stakeholders.

Below is an example of instructions to complete the “Security Risk & Update” template. Please note that the security template will have instructions to complete each of its sections.

The image contains a screenshot of the Executive Summary slide. The image contains a screenshot of the Security Goals & Objectives slide.

The first slide following the title slide includes a brief executive summary on what would be discussed in the presentation. This includes the main security threats that would be addressed and the associated risk mitigation strategies.

This slide depicts a holistic overview of the organization’s security posture in different areas along with the main business goals that security is aligning with. Ensure visualizations you include align with the goals highlighted.

Security template example (continued)

The image contains a screenshot example of the Top Threats & Risks. The image contains a screenshot example of the Top Threats & Risks.

This slide displays any top threats and risks an organization is facing. Each threat consists of 2-3 risks and is prioritized based on the negative impact it could have on the organization (i.e. red bar = high priority; green bar = low priority). Include risks that have been addressed in the past quarter, and showcase any prioritization changes to those risks.

This slide follows the “Top Threats & Risks” slide and focuses on the risks that had medium or high priority. You will need to work with subject matter experts to identify risk figures (likelihood, financial impact) that will enable you to quantify the risks (Likelihood x Financial Impact). Develop a threshold for each of the three columns to identify which risks require further prioritization, and apply color coding to group the risks.

Security template example (continued)

The image contains a screenshot example of the slide, Risk Analysis. The image contains a screenshot example of the slide, Risk Mitigation Strategies & Roadmap.

This slide showcases further details on the top risks along with their business impact. Be sure to include recommendations for the risks and indicate whether further action is required from the executive stakeholders.

The last slide of the “Security Risk & Update” template presents a timeline of when the different initiatives to mitigate security risks would begin. It depicts what initiatives will be completed within each fiscal year and the total number of months required. As there could be many factors to a project’s timeline, ensure you communicate to your executive stakeholders any changes to the project.

Phase 4

Deliver communication

Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4

1.1 Identify drivers for communicating to executives

1.2 Define your goals for communicating to executives

2.1 Identify data to collect

2.2 Plan how to retrieve data

3.1 Plan communication

3.2 Build a compelling communication document

4.1 Deliver a captivating presentation

4.2 Obtain/verify support for security goals

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

  • Identifying a strategy to deliver compelling presentations
  • Ensuring you follow best practices for communicating and obtaining your security goals

This phase involves the following participants:

  • Security leader

4.1 Deliver a captivating presentation

You’ve gathered all your data, you understand what your audience is expecting, and you are clear on the outcomes you require. Now, it’s time to deliver a presentation that both engages and builds confidence.

Follow these tips to assist you in developing an engaging presentation:

  • Start strong: Give your audience confidence that this will be a good investment of their time. Establish a clear direction for what’s going to be covered and what the desired outcome is.
  • Use your time wisely: Odds are, your audience is busy, and they have many other things on their minds. Be prepared to cover your content in the time allotted and leave sufficient time for discussion and questions.
  • Be flexible while presenting: Do not expect that your presentation will follow the path you have laid out. Anticipate jumping around and spending more or less time than you had planned on a given slide.

Keep your audience engaged with these steps

  • Be ready with supporting data. Don’t make the mistake of not knowing your content intimately. Be prepared to answer questions on any part of it. Senior executives are experts at finding holes in your data.
  • Know your audience. Who are you presenting to? What are their specific expectations? Are there sensitive topics to be avoided? You can’t be too prepared when it comes to understanding your audience.
  • Keep it simple. Don’t assume that your audience wants to learn the details of your content. Most just want to understand the bottom line, the impact on them, and how they can help. More is not always better.
  • Focus on solving issues. Your audience members have many of their own problems and issues to worry about. If you show them how you can help make their lives easier, you’ll win them over.

Info-Tech Insight
Establishing credibility and trust with executive stakeholders is important to obtaining their support for security objectives.

Be honest and straightforward with your communication

  • Be prepared. Being properly prepared means not only that your update will deliver the value that you expect, but also that you will have confidence and the flexibility you require when you’re taken off track.
  • Don’t sugarcoat it. These are smart, driven people that you are presenting to. It is neither beneficial nor wise to try to fool them. Be open and transparent about problems and issues. Ask for help.
  • No surprises. An executive stakeholder presentation is not the time or the place for a surprise. Issues seen as unexpected or contentious should always be dealt with prior to the meeting with those most impacted.

Hone presentation skills before meeting with the executive stakeholders

Know your environment

Be professional but not boring

Connect with your audience

  • Your organization has standards for how people are expected to dress at work. Make sure that your attire meets this standard – don’t be underdressed.
  • Think about your audience – would they appreciate you starting with a joke, or do they want you to get to the point as quickly as possible?
  • State the main points of your presentation confidently. While this should be obvious, it is essential. Your audience should be able to clearly see that you believe the points you are stating.
  • Present with lots of energy, smile, and use hand gestures to support your speech.
  • Look each member of the audience in the eye at least once during your presentation. Avoid looking at the ceiling, the back wall, or the floor. Your audience should feel engaged – this is essential to keeping their attention on you.
  • Never read from your slides. If there is text on a slide, paraphrase it while maintaining eye contact.

Checklist for presentation logistics

Optimize the timing of your presentation:

  • Less is more: Long presentations are detrimental to your cause – they lead to your main points being diluted. Keep your presentation short and concise.
  • Keep information relevant: Only present information that is important to your audience. This includes the information that they are expecting to see and information that connects to the business.
  • Expect delays: Your audience will likely have questions. While it is important to answer each question fully, it will take away from the precious time given to you for your presentation. Expect that you will not get through all the information you have to present.

Script your presentation:

  • Use a script to stay on track: Script your presentation before the meeting. A script will help you present your information in a concise and structured manner.
  • Develop a second script: Create a script that is about half the length of the first script but still contains the most important points. This will help you prepare for any delays that may arise during the presentation.
  • Prepare for questions: Consider questions that may be asked and script clear and concise answers to each.
  • Practice, practice, practice: Practice your presentation until you no longer need the script in front of you.

Checklist for presentation logistics (continued)

Other considerations:

  • After the introduction of your presentation, clearly state the objective – don’t keep people guessing and consequently lose focus on your message.
  • After the presentation is over, document important information that came up. Write it down or you may forget it soon after.
  • Rather than create a long presentation deck full of detailed slides that you plan to skip over during the presentation, create a second, compact deck that contains only the slides you plan to present. Send out the longer deck after the presentation.

Checklist for delivering a captivating presentation

Leverage this checklist to ensure you are prepared to develop and deliver an engaging presentation.

Checklist:

  • Start with a story or something memorable to break the ice.
  • Go in with the end state in mind (focus on the outcome/end goal and work back from there) – What’s your call to action?
  • Content must compliment your end goal, filter out any content that doesn’t compliment the end goal.
  • Be prepared to have less time to speak. Be prepared with shorter versions of your presentation.
  • Include an appendix with supporting data, but don’t be data heavy in your presentation. Integrate the data into a story. The story should be your focus.

Checklist for delivering a captivating presentation (continued)

  • Be deliberate in what you want to show your audience.
  • Ensure you have clean slides so the audience can focus on what you’re saying.
  • Practice delivering your content multiple times alone and in front of team members or your Info-Tech counselor, who can provide feedback.
  • How will you handle being derailed? Be prepared with a way to get back on track if you are derailed.
  • Ask for feedback.
  • Record yourself presenting.

4.2 Obtain and verify support on security goals

Once you’ve delivered your captivating presentation, it’s imperative to communicate with your executive stakeholders.

  • This is your opportunity to open the floor for questions and clarify any information that was conveyed to your audience.
  • Leverage your appendix and other supporting documents to justify your goals.
  • Different approaches to obtaining and verifying your goals could include:
    • Acknowledgment from the audience that information communicated aligns with the business’s goals.
    • Approval of funding requests for security initiatives.
    • Written and verbal support for implementation of security initiatives.
    • Identifying next steps for information to communicate at the next executive stakeholder meeting.

Info-Tech Insight
Verifying your objectives at the end of the presentation is important, as it ensures you have successfully communicated to executive stakeholders.

Checklist for obtaining and verify support on security goals

Follow this checklist to assist you in obtaining and verifying your communication goals.

Checklist:

  • Be clear about follow-up and next steps if applicable.
  • Present before you present: Meet with your executive stakeholders before the meeting to review and discuss your presentation and other supporting material and ensure you have executive/CEO buy-in.
  • “Be humble, but don’t crumble” – demonstrate to the executive stakeholders that you are an expert while admitting you don’t know everything. However, don’t be afraid to provide your POV and defend it if need be. Strike the right balance to ensure the board has confidence in you while building a strong relationship.
  • Prioritize a discussion over a formal presentation. Create an environment where they feel like they are part of the solution.

Summary of Accomplishment

Problem Solved

A better understanding of security communication drivers and goals

  • Understanding the difference between communication drivers and goals
  • Identifying your drivers and goals for security presentation

A developed a plan for how and where to retrieve data for communication

  • Insights on what type of data can be leveraged to support your communication goals
  • Understanding who you can collaborate with and potential data sources to retrieve data from

A solidified communication plan with security templates to assist in better presenting to your audience

  • A guideline on how to prepare security presentations to executive stakeholders
  • A list of security templates that can be customized and used for various security presentations

A defined guideline on how to deliver a captivating presentation to achieve your desired objectives

  • Clear message on best practices for delivering security presentations to executive stakeholders
  • Understanding how to verify your communication goals have been obtained

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

Contact your account representative for more information.

workshops@infotech.com

1-888-670-8889

Related Info-Tech Research

Build an Information Security Strategy
This blueprint will walk you through the steps of tailoring best practices to effectively manage information security.

Build a Security Metrics Program to Drive Maturity
This blueprint will assist you in identifying security metrics that can tie to your organizational goals and build those metrics to achieve your desired maturity level.

Bibliography

Bhadauriya, Amit S. “Communicating Cybersecurity Effectively to the Board.” Metricstream. Web.
Booth, Steven, et al. “The Biggest Mistakes Made When Presenting Cyber Security to Senior Leadership or the Board, and How to Fix Them.” Mandiant, May 2019. Web.
Bradford, Nate. “6 Slides Every CISO Should Use in Their Board Presentation.” Security Boulevard, 9 July 2020. Web.
Buckalew, Lauren, et al. “Get the Board on Board: Leading Cybersecurity from the Top Down.” Newsroom, 2 Dec. 2019. Web.
Burg, Dave, et al. “Cybersecurity: How Do You Rise above the Waves of a Perfect Storm?” EY US - Home, EY, 22 July 2021. Web.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Web.
“Chief Information Security Officer Salary.” Salary.com, 2022. Web.
“CISO's Guide to Reporting to the Board - Apex Assembly.” CISO's Guide To Reporting to the Board. Web.
“Cyber Security Oversight in the Boardroom” KPMG, Jan. 2016. Web.
“Cybersecurity CEO: My 3 Tips for Presenting in the Boardroom.” Cybercrime Magazine, 31 Mar. 2020. Web.
Dacri , Bryana. Do's & Don'ts for Security Professionals Presenting to Executives. Feb. 2018. Web.
Froehlich, Andrew. “7 Cybersecurity Metrics for the Board and How to Present Them: TechTarget.” Security, TechTarget, 19 Aug. 2022. Web.
“Global Board Risk Survey.” EY. Web.
“Guidance for CISOs Presenting to the C-Suite.” IANS, June 2021. Web.
“How to Communicate Cybersecurity to the Board of Directors.” Cybersecurity Conferences & News, Seguro Group, 12 Mar. 2020. Web.
Ide, R. William, and Amanda Leech. “A Cybersecurity Guide for Directors” Dentons. Web.
Lindberg, Randy. “3 Tips for Communicating Cybersecurity to the Board.” Cybersecurity Software, Rivial Data Security, 8 Mar. 2022. Web.
McLeod, Scott, et al. “How to Present Cybersecurity to Your Board of Directors.” Cybersecurity & Compliance Simplified, Apptega Inc, 9 Aug. 2021. Web.
Mickle, Jirah. “A Recipe for Success: CISOs Share Top Tips for Successful Board Presentations.” Tenable®, 28 Nov. 2022. Web.
Middlesworth, Jeff. “Top-down: Mitigating Cybersecurity Risks Starts with the Board.” Spiceworks, 13 Sept. 2022. Web.
Mishra, Ruchika. “4 Things Every CISO Must Include in Their Board Presentation.” Security Boulevard, 17 Nov. 2020. Web.
O’Donnell-Welch, Lindsey. “CISOs, Board Members and the Search for Cybersecurity Common Ground.” Decipher, 20 Oct. 2022. Web.

Bibliography

“Overseeing Cyber Risk: The Board's Role.” PwC, Jan. 2022. Web.
Pearlson, Keri, and Nelson Novaes Neto. “7 Pressing Cybersecurity Questions Boards Need to Ask.” Harvard Business Review, 7 Mar. 2022. Web.
“Reporting Cybersecurity Risk to the Board of Directors.” Web.
“Reporting Cybersecurity to Your Board - Steps to Prepare.” Pondurance ,12 July 2022. Web.
Staynings, Richard. “Presenting Cybersecurity to the Board.” Resource Library. Web.
“The Future of Cyber Survey.” Deloitte, 29 Aug. 2022. Web.
“Top Cybersecurity Metrics to Share with Your Board.” Packetlabs, 10 May 2022. Web.
Unni, Ajay. “Reporting Cyber Security to the Board? How to Get It Right.” Cybersecurity Services Company in Australia & NZ, 10 Nov. 2022. Web.
Vogel, Douglas, et al. “Persuasion and the Role of Visual Presentation Support.” Management Information Systems Research Center, 1986.
“Welcome to the Cyber Security Toolkit for Boards.” NCSC. Web.

Research Contributors

  • Fred Donatucci, New-Indy Containerboard, VP, Information Technology
  • Christian Rasmussen, St John Ambulance, Chief Information Officer
  • Stephen Rondeau, ZimVie, SVP, Chief Information Officer

Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management

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  • Parent Category Name: Customer Relationship Management
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  • Technology is a fundamental enabler of an organization’s customer experience management (CXM) strategy. However, many IT departments fail to take a systematic approach when building a portfolio of applications for supporting marketing, sales, and customer service functions.
  • The result is a costly, ineffective, and piecemeal approach to CXM application deployment (including high-profile applications like CRM).

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • IT must work in lockstep with their counterparts in marketing, sales, and customer service to define a unified vision and strategic requirements for enabling a strong CXM program.
  • To deploy applications that specifically align with the needs of the organization’s customers, IT leaders must work with the business to define and understand customer personas and common interaction scenarios. CXM applications are mission critical and failing to link them to customer needs can have a detrimental effect on customer satisfaction and ultimately, revenue.
  • IT must act as a valued partner to the business in creating a portfolio of CXM applications that are cost effective.
  • Organizations should create a repeatable framework for CXM application deployment that addresses critical issues, including the integration ecosystem, customer data quality, dashboards and analytics, and end-user adoption.

Impact and Result

  • Establish strong application alignment to strategic requirements for CXM that is based on concrete customer personas.
  • Improve underlying business metrics across marketing, sales, and service, including customer acquisition, retention, and satisfaction metrics.
  • Better align IT with customer experience needs.

Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a strong technology foundation for CXM, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

1. Drive value with CXM

Understand the benefits of a robust CXM strategy.

  • Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management – Phase 1: Drive Value with CXM
  • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template
  • CXM Strategy Project Charter Template

2. Create the framework

Identify drivers and objectives for CXM using a persona-driven approach and deploy the right applications to meet those objectives.

  • Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management – Phase 2: Create the Framework
  • CXM Business Process Shortlisting Tool
  • CXM Portfolio Designer

3. Finalize the framework

Complete the initiatives roadmap for CXM.

  • Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management – Phase 3: Finalize the Framework
[infographic]

Workshop: Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

1 Create the Vision for CXM Technology Enablement

The Purpose

Establish a consistent vision across IT, marketing, sales, and customer service for CXM technology enablement.

Key Benefits Achieved

A clear understanding of key business and technology drivers for CXM.

Activities

1.1 CXM fireside chat

1.2 CXM business drivers

1.3 CXM vision statement

1.4 Project structure

Outputs

CXM vision statement

CXM project charter

2 Conduct the Environmental Scan and Internal Review

The Purpose

Create a set of strategic requirements for CXM based on a thorough external market scan and internal capabilities assessment.

Key Benefits Achieved

Well-defined technology requirements based on rigorous, multi-faceted analysis.

Activities

2.1 PEST analysis

2.2 Competitive analysis

2.3 Market and trend analysis

2.4 SWOT analysis

2.5 VRIO analysis

2.6 Channel map

Outputs

Completed external analysis

Strategic requirements (from external analysis)

Completed internal review

Channel interaction map

3 Build Customer Personas and Scenarios

The Purpose

Augment strategic requirements through customer persona and scenario development.

Key Benefits Achieved

Functional requirements aligned to supporting steps in customer interaction scenarios.

Activities

3.1 Persona development

3.2 Scenario development

3.3 Requirements definition for CXM

Outputs

Personas and scenarios

Strategic requirements (based on personas)

4 Create the CXM Application Portfolio

The Purpose

Using the requirements identified in the preceding modules, build a future-state application inventory for CXM.

Key Benefits Achieved

A cohesive, rationalized portfolio of customer interaction applications that aligns with identified requirements and allows investment (or rationalization) decisions to be made.

Activities

4.1 Build business process maps

4.2 Review application satisfaction

4.3 Create the CXM application portfolio

4.4 Prioritize applications

Outputs

Business process maps

Application satisfaction diagnostic

Prioritized CXM application portfolio

5 Review Best Practices and Confirm Initiatives

The Purpose

Establish repeatable best practices for CXM applications in areas such as data management and end-user adoption.

Key Benefits Achieved

Best practices for rollout of new CXM applications.

A prioritized initiatives roadmap.

Activities

5.1 Create data integration map

5.2 Define adoption best practices

5.3 Build initiatives roadmap

5.4 Confirm initiatives roadmap

Outputs

Integration map for CXM

End-user adoption plan

Initiatives roadmap

Further reading

Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management

Design an end-to-end technology strategy to enhance marketing effectiveness, drive sales, and create compelling customer service experiences.

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

Technology is the catalyst to create – and keep! – your customers.

"Customers want to interact with your organization on their own terms, and in the channels of their choice (including social media, mobile applications, and connected devices). Regardless of your industry, your customers expect a frictionless experience across the customer lifecycle. They desire personalized and well-targeted marketing messages, straightforward transactions, and effortless service. Research shows that customers value – and will pay more for! – well-designed experiences.

Strong technology enablement is critical for creating customer experiences that drive revenue. However, most organizations struggle with creating a cohesive technology strategy for customer experience management (CXM). IT leaders need to take a proactive approach to developing a strong portfolio of customer interaction applications that are in lockstep with the needs of their marketing, sales, and customer service teams. It is critical to incorporate the voice of the customer into this strategy.

When developing a technology strategy for CXM, don’t just “pave the cow path,” but instead move the needle forward by providing capabilities for customer intelligence, omnichannel interactions, and predictive analytics. This blueprint will help you build an integrated CXM technology roadmap that drives top-line revenue while rationalizing application spend."

Ben Dickie

Research Director, Customer Experience Strategy

Info-Tech Research Group

Framing the CXM project

This Research Is Designed For:

  • IT leaders who are responsible for crafting a technology strategy for customer experience management (CXM).
  • Applications managers who are involved with the selection and implementation of critical customer-centric applications, such as CRM platforms, marketing automation tools, customer intelligence suites, and customer service solutions.

This Research Will Help You:

  • Clearly link your technology-enablement strategy for CXM to strategic business requirements and customer personas.
  • Build a rationalized portfolio of enterprise applications that will support customer interaction objectives.
  • Adopt standard operating procedures for CXM application deployment that address issues such as end-user adoption and data quality.

This Research Will Also Assist:

  • Business leaders in marketing, sales, and customer service who want to deepen their understanding of CXM technologies, and apply best practices for using these technologies to drive competitive advantage.
  • Marketing, sales, and customer service managers involved with defining requirements and rolling out CXM applications.

This Research Will Help Them:

  • Work hand-in-hand with counterparts in IT to deploy high-value business applications that will improve core customer-facing metrics.
  • Understand the changing CXM landscape and use the art of the possible to transform the internal technology ecosystem and drive meaningful customer experiences.

Executive summary

Situation

  • Customer expectations for personalization, channel preferences, and speed-to-resolution are at an all-time high.
  • Your customers are willing to pay more for high-value experiences, and having a strong customer CXM strategy is a proven path to creating sustainable value for the organization.

Complication

  • Technology is a fundamental enabler of an organization’s CXM strategy. However, many IT departments fail to take a systematic approach to building a portfolio of applications to support Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service.
  • The result is a costly, ineffective, and piecemeal approach to CXM application deployment (including high profile applications like CRM).

Resolution

  • IT must work in lockstep with their counterparts in marketing, sales, and customer service to define a unified vision, strategic requirements and roadmap for enabling strong customer experience capabilities.
  • In order to deploy applications that don’t simply follow previously established patterns but are aligned with the specific needs of the organization’s customers, IT leaders must work with the business to define and understand customer personas and common interaction scenarios. CXM applications are mission critical and failing to link them to customer needs can have a detrimental effect on customer satisfaction – and ultimately revenue.
  • IT must act as a valued partner to the business in creating a portfolio of CXM applications that are cost effective.
  • Organizations should create a repeatable framework for CXM application deployment that addresses critical issues, including the integration ecosystem, customer data quality, dashboards and analytics, and end-user adoption.

Info-Tech Insight

  1. IT can’t hide behind the firewall. IT must understand the organization’s customers to properly support marketing, sales, and service efforts.
  2. IT – or Marketing – must not build the CXM strategy in a vacuum if they want to achieve a holistic, consistent, and seamless customer experience.
  3. IT must get ahead of shadow IT. To be seen as an innovator within the business, IT must be a leading enabler in building a rationalized and integrated CXM application portfolio.

Guide to frequently used acronyms

CXM - Customer Experience Management

CX - Customer Experience

CRM - Customer Relationship Management

CSM - Customer Service Management

MMS - Marketing Management System

SMMP - Social Media Management Platform

RFP - Request for Proposal

SaaS - Software as a Service

Customers’ expectations are on the rise: meet them!

Today’s consumers expect speed, convenience, and tailored experiences at every stage of the customer lifecycle. Successful organizations strive to support these expectations.

67% of end consumers will pay more for a world-class customer experience. 74% of business buyers will pay more for strong B2B experiences. (Salesforce, 2018)

5 CORE CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS

  1. More personalization
  2. More product options
  3. Constant contact
  4. Listen closely, respond quickly
  5. Give front-liners more control

(Customer Experience Insight, 2016)

Customers expect to interact with organizations through the channels of their choice. Now more than ever, you must enable your organization to provide tailored customer experiences.

Realize measurable value by enabling CXM

Providing a seamless customer experience increases the likelihood of cross-sell and up-sell opportunities and boosts customer loyalty and retention. IT can contribute to driving revenue and decreasing costs by providing the business with the right set of tools, applications, and technical support.

Contribute to the bottom line

Cross-sell, up-sell, and drive customer acquisition.

67% of consumers are willing to pay more for an upgraded experience. (Salesforce, 2018)

80%: The margin by which CX leaders outperformer laggards in the S&P 500.(Qualtrics, 2017)

59% of customers say tailored engagement based on past interactions is very important to winning their business. (Salesforce, 2018)

Enable cost savings

Focus on customer retention as well as acquisition.

It is 6-7x more costly to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer. (Salesforce Blog, 2019)

A 5% increase in customer retention has been found to increase profits by 25% to 95%. (Bain & Company, n.d.)

Strategic CXM is gaining traction with your competition

Organizations are prioritizing CXM capabilities (and associated technologies) as a strategic investment. Keep pace with the competition and gain a competitive advantage by creating a cohesive strategy that uses best practices to integrate marketing, sales, and customer support functions.

87% of customers share great experiences they’ve had with a company. (Zendesk, n.d.)

61% of organizations are investing in CXM. (CX Network, 2015)

53% of organizations believe CXM provides a competitive advantage. (Harvard Business Review, 2014)

Top Investment Priorities for Customer Experience

  1. Voice of the Customer
  2. Customer Insight Generation
  3. Customer Experience Governance
  4. Customer Journey Mapping
  5. Online Customer Experience
  6. Experience Personalization
  7. Emotional Engagement
  8. Multi-Channel Integration/Omnichannel
  9. Quality & Customer Satisfaction Management
  10. Customer/Channel Loyalty & Rewards Programs

(CX Network 2015)

Omnichannel is the way of the future: don’t be left behind

Get ahead of the competition by doing omnichannel right. Devise a CXM strategy that allows you to create and maintain a consistent, seamless customer experience by optimizing operations within an omnichannel framework. Customers want to interact with you on their own terms, and it falls to IT to ensure that applications are in place to support and manage a wide range of interaction channels.

Omnichannel is a “multi-channel approach to sales that seeks to provide the customer with a seamless transactional experience whether the customer is shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, by telephone, or in a bricks and mortar store.” (TechTarget, 2014)

97% of companies say that they are investing in omnichannel. (Huffington Post, 2015)

23% of companies are doing omnichannel well.

CXM applications drive effective multi-channel customer interactions across marketing, sales, and customer service

The success of your CXM strategy depends on the effective interaction of various marketing, sales, and customer support functions. To deliver on customer experience, organizations need to take a customer-centric approach to operations.

From an application perspective, a CRM platform generally serves as the unifying repository of customer information, supported by adjacent solutions as warranted by your CXM objectives.

CXM ECOSYSTEM

Customer Relationship Management Platform

  • Web Experience Management Platform
  • E-Commerce & Point of Sale Solutions
  • Social Media Management Platform
  • Customer Intelligence Platform
  • Customer Service Management Tools
  • Marketing Management Suite

Application spotlight: Customer experience platforms

Description

CXM solutions are a broad range of tools that provide comprehensive feature sets for supporting customer interaction processes. These suites supplant more basic applications for customer interaction management. Popular solutions that fall under the umbrella of CXM include CRM suites, marketing automation tools, and customer service applications.

Features and Capabilities

  • Manage sales pipelines, provide quotes, and track client deliverables.
  • View all opportunities organized by their current stage in the sales process.
  • View all interactions that have occurred between employees and the customer, including purchase order history.
  • Manage outbound marketing campaigns via multiple channels (email, phone, social, mobile).
  • Build visual workflows with automated trigger points and business rules engine.
  • Generate in-depth customer insights, audience segmentation, predictive analytics, and contextual analytics.
  • Provide case management, ticketing, and escalation capabilities for customer service.

Highlighted Vendors

Microsoft Dynamics

Adobe

Marketo

sprinklr

Salesforce

SugarCRM

Application spotlight: Customer experience platforms

Key Trends

  • CXM applications have decreased their focus on departmental silos to make it easier to share information across the organization as departments demand more data.
  • Vendors are developing deeper support of newer channels for customer interaction. This includes providing support for social media channels, native mobile applications, and SMS or text-based services like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
  • Predictive campaigns and channel blending are becoming more feasible as vendors integrate machine learning and artificial intelligence into their applications.
  • Content blocks are being placed on top of scripting languages to allow for user-friendly interfaces. There is a focus on alleviating bottlenecks where content would have previously needed to go through a specialist.
  • Many vendors of CXM applications are placing increased emphasis on strong application integration both within and beyond their portfolios, with systems like ERP and order fulfillment.

Link to Digital Strategy

  • For many organizations that are building out a digital strategy, improving customer experience is often a driving factor: CXM apps enable this goal.
  • As part of a digital strategy, create a comprehensive CXM application portfolio by leveraging both core CRM suites and point solutions.
  • Ensure that a point solution aligns with the digital strategy’s technology drivers and user personas.

CXM KPIs

Strong CXM applications can improve:

  • Lead Intake Volume
  • Lead Conversion Rate
  • Average Time to Resolution
  • First-Contact Resolution Rate
  • Customer Satisfaction Rate
  • Share-of-Mind
  • Share-of-Wallet
  • Customer Lifetime Value
  • Aggregate Reach/Impressions

IT is critical to the success of your CXM strategy

Technology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences: IT must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the business to develop a technology framework for CXM.

Top 5 Challenges with CXM for Marketing

  1. Maximizing customer experience ROI
  2. Achieving a single view of the customer
  3. Building new customer experiences
  4. Cultivating a customer-focused culture
  5. Measuring CX investments to business outcomes

Top 5 Obstacles to Enabling CXM for IT

  1. Systems integration
  2. Multichannel complexity
  3. Organizational structure
  4. Data-related issues
  5. Lack of strategy

(Harvard Business Review, 2014)

Only 19% of organizations have a customer experience team tasked with bridging gaps between departments. (Genesys, 2018)

IT and Marketing can only tackle CXM with the full support of each other. The cooperation of the departments is crucial when trying to improve CXM technology capabilities and customer interaction and drive a strong revenue mandate.

CXM failure: Blockbuster

CASE STUDY

Industry Entertainment

Source Forbes, 2014

Blockbuster

As the leader of the video retail industry, Blockbuster had thousands of retail locations internationally and millions of customers. Blockbuster’s massive marketing budget and efficient operations allowed it to dominate the competition for years.

Situation

Trends in Blockbuster’s consumer market changed in terms of distribution channels and customer experience. As the digital age emerged and developed, consumers were looking for immediacy and convenience. This threatened Blockbuster’s traditional, brick-and-mortar B2C operating model.

The Competition

Netflix entered the video retail market, making itself accessible through non-traditional channels (direct mail, and eventually, the internet).

Results

Despite long-term relationships with customers and competitive standing in the market, Blockbuster’s inability to understand and respond to changing technology trends and customer demands led to its demise. The organization did not effectively leverage internal or external networks or technology to adapt to customer demands. Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010.

Customer Relationship Management

  • Web Experience Management Platform
  • E-Commerce & Point of Sale Solutions
  • Social Media Management
  • Customer Intelligence
  • Customer Service
  • Marketing Management

Blockbuster did not leverage emerging technologies to effectively respond to trends in its consumer network. It did not optimize organizational effectiveness around customer experience.

CXM success: Netflix

CASE STUDY

Industry Entertainment

Source Forbes, 2014

Netflix

Beginning as a mail-out service, Netflix offered subscribers a catalog of videos to select from and have mailed to them directly. Customers no longer had to go to a retail store to rent a video. However, the lack of immediacy of direct mail as the distribution channel resulted in slow adoption.

The Situation

In response to the increasing presence of tech-savvy consumers on the internet, Netflix invested in developing its online platform as its primary distribution channel. The benefit of doing so was two-fold: passive brand advertising (by being present on the internet) and meeting customer demands for immediacy and convenience. Netflix also recognized the rising demand for personalized service and created an unprecedented, tailored customer experience.

The Competition

Blockbuster was the industry leader in video retail but was lagging in its response to industry, consumer, and technology trends around customer experience.

Results

Netflix’s disruptive innovation is built on the foundation of great CXM. Netflix is now a $28 billion company, which is tenfold what Blockbuster was worth.

Customer Relationship Management Platform

  • Web Experience Management Platform
  • E-Commerce & Point of Sale Solutions
  • Social Media Management Platform
  • Customer Intelligence Platform
  • Customer Service Management Tools
  • Marketing Management Suite

Netflix used disruptive technologies to innovatively build a customer experience that put it ahead of the long-time, video rental industry leader, Blockbuster.

Leverage Info-Tech’s approach to succeed with CXM

Creating an end-to-end technology-enablement strategy for CXM requires a concerted, dedicated effort: Info-Tech can help with our proven approach.

Build the CXM Project Charter

Conduct a Thorough Environmental Scan

Build Customer Personas and Scenarios

Draft Strategic CXM Requirements

Build the CXM Application Portfolio

Implement Operational Best Practices

Why Info-Tech’s Approach?

Info-Tech draws on best-practice research and the experiences of our global member base to develop a methodology for CXM that is driven by rigorous customer-centric analysis.

Our approach uses a unique combination of techniques to ensure that your team has done its due diligence in crafting a forward-thinking technology-enablement strategy for CXM that creates measurable value.

A global professional services firm drives measurable value for CXM by using persona design and scenario development

CASE STUDY

Industry Professionals Services

Source Info-Tech Workshop

The Situation

A global professional services firm in the B2B space was experiencing a fragmented approach to customer engagement, particularly in the pre-sales funnel. Legacy applications weren’t keeping pace with an increased demand for lead evaluation and routing technology. Web experience management was also an area of significant concern, with a lack of ongoing customer engagement through the existing web portal.

The Approach

Working with a team of Info-Tech facilitators, the company was able to develop several internal and external customer personas. These personas formed the basis of strategic requirements for a new CXM application stack, which involved dedicated platforms for core CRM, lead automation, web content management, and site analytics.

Results

Customer “stickiness” metrics increased, and Sales reported significantly higher turnaround times in lead evaluations, resulting in improved rep productivity and faster cycle times.

Components of a persona
Name Name personas to reflect a key attribute such as the persona’s primary role or motivation.
Demographic Include basic descriptors of the persona (e.g. age, geographic location, preferred language, education, job, employer, household income, etc.)
Wants, needs, pain points Identify surface-level motivations for buying habits.
Psychographic/behavioral traits Observe persona traits that are representative of the customers’ behaviors (e.g. attitudes, buying patterns, etc.).

Follow Info-Tech’s approach to build your CXM foundation

Create the Project Vision

  • Identify business and IT drivers
  • Outputs:
    • CXM Strategy Guiding Principles

Structure the Project

  • Identify goals and objectives for CXM project
  • Form Project Team
  • Establish timeline
  • Obtain project sponsorship
  • Outputs:
    • CXM Strategy Project Charter

Scan the External Environment

  • Create CXM operating model
  • Conduct external analysis
  • Create customer personas
  • Outputs:
    • CXM Operating Model
  • Conduct PEST analysis
  • Create persona scenarios
  • Outputs:
    • CXM Strategic Requirements

Assess the Current State of CXM

  • Conduct SWOT analysis
  • Assess application usage and satisfaction
  • Conduct VRIO analysis
  • Outputs:
    • CXM Strategic Requirements

Create an Application Portfolio

  • Map current processes
  • Assign business process owners
  • Create channel map
  • Build CXM application portfolio
  • Outputs:
    • CXM Application Portfolio Map

Develop Deployment Best Practices

  • Develop CXM integration map
  • Create mitigation plan for poor data quality
  • Outputs:
    • Data Quality Preservation Map

Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

  • Create risk management plan
  • Identify work initiative dependencies
  • Create roadmap
  • Outputs:
    • CXM Initiative Roadmap

Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

  • Identify success metrics
  • Create stakeholder communication plan
  • Present CXM strategy to stakeholders
  • Outputs:
    • Stakeholder Presentation

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Build a Strong Technology Foundation for CXM – project overview

1. Drive Value With CXM 2. Create the Framework 3. Finalize the Framework
Best-Practice Toolkit

1.1 Create the Project Vision

1.2 Structure the CXM Project

2.1 Scan the External Environment

2.2 Assess the Current State of CXM

2.3 Create an Application Portfolio

2.4 Develop Deployment Best Practices

3.1 Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

3.2 Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

Guided Implementations
  • Determine project vision for CXM.
  • Review CXM project charter.
  • Review environmental scan.
  • Review application portfolio for CXM.
  • Confirm deployment best practices.
  • Review initiatives rollout plan.
  • Confirm CXM roadmap.
Onsite Workshop Module 1: Drive Measurable Value with a World-Class CXM Program Module 2: Create the Strategic Framework for CXM Module 3: Finalize the CXM Framework

Phase 1 Outcome:

  • Completed drivers
  • Completed project charter

Phase 2 Outcome:

  • Completed personas and scenarios
  • CXM application portfolio

Phase 3 Outcome:

  • Strategic summary blueprint

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4 Workshop Day 5
Activities

Create the Vision for CXM Enablement

1.1 CXM Fireside Chat

1.2 CXM Business Drivers

1.3 CXM Vision Statement

1.4 Project Structure

Conduct the Environmental Scan and Internal Review

2.1 PEST Analysis

2.2 Competitive Analysis

2.3 Market and Trend Analysis

2.4 SWOT Analysis

2.5 VRIO Analysis

2.6 Channel Mapping

Build Personas and Scenarios

3.1 Persona Development

3.2 Scenario Development

3.3 Requirements Definition for CXM

Create the CXM Application Portfolio

4.1 Build Business Process Maps

4.2 Review Application Satisfaction

4.3 Create the CXM Application Portfolio

4.4 Prioritize Applications

Review Best Practices and Confirm Initiatives

5.1 Create Data Integration Map

5.2 Define Adoption Best Practices

5.3 Build Initiatives Roadmap

5.4 Confirm Initiatives Roadmap

Deliverables
  1. CXM Vision Statement
  2. CXM Project Charter
  1. Completed External Analysis
  2. Completed Internal Review
  3. Channel Interaction Map
  4. Strategic Requirements (from External Analysis)
  1. Personas and Scenarios
  2. Strategic Requirements (based on personas)
  1. Business Process Maps
  2. Application Satisfaction Diagnostic
  3. Prioritized CXM Application Portfolio
  1. Integration Map for CXM
  2. End-User Adoption Plan
  3. Initiatives Roadmap

Phase 1

Drive Measurable Value With a World-Class CXM Program

Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management

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.

Guided Implementation 1: Drive Measurable Value With a World-Class CXM Program

Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks

Step 1.1: Create the Project Vision

Start with an analyst kick-off call:

  • Review key drivers from a technology and business perspective for CXM
  • Discuss benefits of strong technology enablement for CXM

Then complete these activities…

  • CXM Fireside Chat
  • CXM Business and Technology Driver Assessment
  • CXM Vision Statement

With these tools & templates:

  • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template

Step 1.2: Structure the Project

Review findings with analyst:

  • Assess the CXM vision statement for competitive differentiators
  • Determine current alignment disposition of IT with different business units

Then complete these activities…

  • Team Composition and Responsibilities
  • Metrics Definition

With these tools & templates:

  • CXM Strategy Project Charter Template

Phase 1 Results & Insights:

  • Defined value of strong technology enablement for CXM
  • Completed CXM project charter

Step 1.1: Create the Project Vision

Phase 1

1.1 Create the Project Vision

1.2 Structure the Project

Phase 2

2.1 Scan the External Environment

2.2 Assess the Current State of CXM

2.3 Create an Application Portfolio

2.4 Develop Deployment Best Practices

Phase 3

3.1 Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

3.2 Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

Activities:

  • Fireside Chat: Discuss past challenges and successes with CXM
  • Identify business and IT drivers to establish guiding principles for CXM

Outcomes:

  • Business benefits of a rationalized technology strategy to support CXM
  • Shared lessons learned
  • Guiding principles for providing technology enablement for CXM

Building a technology strategy to support customer experience isn’t an option – it’s a mission-critical activity

  • Customer-facing departments supply the lifeblood of a company: revenue. In today’s fast-paced and interconnected world, it’s becoming increasingly imperative to enable customer experience processes with a wide range of technologies, from lead automation to social relationship management. CXM is the holistic management of customer interaction processes across marketing, sales, and customer service to create valuable, mutually beneficial customer experiences. Technology is a critical building block for enabling CXM.
  • The parallel progress of technology and process improvement is essential to an efficient and effective CXM program. While many executives prefer to remain at the status quo, new technologies have caused major shifts in the CXM environment. If you stay with the status quo, you will fall behind the competition.
  • However, many IT departments are struggling to keep up with the pace of change and find themselves more of a firefighter than a strategic partner to marketing, sales, and service teams. This not only hurts the business, but it also tarnishes IT’s reputation.

An aligned, optimized CX strategy is:

Rapid: to intentionally and strategically respond to quickly-changing opportunities and issues.

Outcome-based: to make key decisions based on strong business cases, data, and analytics in addition to intuition and judgment.

Rigorous: to bring discipline and science to bear; to improve operations and results.

Collaborative: to conduct activities in a broader ecosystem of partners, suppliers, vendors, co-developers, and even competitors.

(The Wall Street Journal, 2013)

Info-Tech Insight

If IT fails to adequately support marketing, sales, and customer service teams, the organization’s revenue will be in direct jeopardy. As a result, CIOs and Applications Directors must work with their counterparts in these departments to craft a cohesive and comprehensive strategy for using technology to create meaningful (and profitable) customer experiences.

Fireside Chat, Part 1: When was technology an impediment to customer experience at your organization?

1.1.1 30 minutes

Input

  • Past experiences of the team

Output

  • Lessons learned

Materials

  • Whiteboard
  • Markers

Participants

  • Core Team

Instructions

  1. Think about a time when technology was an impediment to a positive customer experience at your organization. Reflect on the following:
    • What frustrations did the application or the technology cause to your customers? What was their reaction?
    • How did IT (and the business) identify the challenge in the first place?
    • What steps were taken to mitigate the impact of the problem? Were these steps successful?
    • What were the key lessons learned as part of the challenge?

Fireside Chat, Part 2: What customer success stories has your organization created by using new technologies?

1.1.2 30 minutes

Input

  • Past experiences of the team

Output

  • Lessons learned

Materials

  • Whiteboard
  • Markers

Participants

  • Core Team

Instructions

  1. Think about a time when your organization successfully leveraged a new application or new technology to enhance the experience it provided to customers. Reflect on this experience and consider:
    • What were the organizational drivers for rolling out the new application or solution?
    • What obstacles had to be overcome in order to successfully deploy the solution?
    • How did the application positively impact the customer experience? What metrics improved?
    • What were the key lessons learned as part of the deployment? If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?

Develop a cohesive, consistent, and forward-looking roadmap that supports each stage of the customer lifecycle

When creating your roadmap, consider the pitfalls you’ll likely encounter in building the IT strategy to provide technology enablement for customer experience.

There’s no silver bullet for developing a strategy. You can encounter pitfalls at a myriad of different points including not involving the right stakeholders from the business, not staying abreast of recent trends in the external environment, and not aligning sales, marketing, and support initiatives with a focus on the delivery of value to prospects and customers.

Common Pitfalls When Creating a Technology-Enablement Strategy for CXM

Senior management is not involved in strategy development.

Not paying attention to the “art of the possible.”

“Paving the cow path” rather than focusing on revising core processes.

Misalignment between objectives and financial/personnel resources.

Inexperienced team on either the business or IT side.

Not paying attention to the actions of competitors.

Entrenched management preferences for legacy systems.

Sales culture that downplays the potential value of technology or new applications.

IT is only one or two degrees of separation from the end customer: so take a customer-centric approach

IT →Marketing, Sales, and Service →External Customers

Internal-Facing Applications

  • IT enables, supports, and maintains the applications used by the organization to market to, sell to, and service customers. IT provides the infrastructural and technical foundation to operate the function.

Customer-Facing Applications

  • IT supports customer-facing interfaces and channels for customer interaction.
  • Channel examples include web pages, mobile device applications and optimization, and interactive voice response for callers.

Info-Tech Insight

IT often overlooks direct customer considerations when devising a technology strategy for CXM. Instead, IT leaders rely on other business stakeholders to simply pass on requirements. By sitting down with their counterparts in marketing and sales, and fully understanding business drivers and customer personas, IT will be much better positioned to roll out supporting applications that drive customer engagement.

A well-aligned CXM strategy recognizes a clear delineation of responsibilities between IT, sales, marketing, and service

  • When thinking about CXM, IT must recognize that it is responsible for being a trusted partner for technology enablement. This means that IT has a duty to:
    • Develop an in-depth understanding of strategic business requirements for CXM. Base your understanding of these business requirements on a clear conception of the internal and external environment, customer personas, and business processes in marketing, sales, and customer service.
    • Assist with shortlisting and supporting different channels for customer interaction (including email, telephony, web presence, and social media).
    • Create a rationalized, cohesive application portfolio for CXM that blends different enabling technologies together to support strategic business requirements.
    • Provide support for vendor shortlisting, selection, and implementation of CXM applications.
    • Assist with end-user adoption of CXM applications (i.e. training and ongoing support).
    • Provide initiatives that assist with technical excellence for CXM (such as data quality, integration, analytics, and application maintenance).
  • The business (marketing, sales, customer service) owns the business requirements and must be responsible for setting top-level objectives for customer interaction (e.g. product and pricing decisions, marketing collateral, territory management, etc.). IT should not take over decisions on customer experience strategy. However, IT should be working in lockstep with its counterparts in the business to assist with understanding business requirements through a customer-facing lens. For example, persona development is best done in cross-functional teams between IT and Marketing.

Activity: Identify the business drivers for CXM to establish the strategy’s guiding principles

1.1.3 30 minutes

Input

  • Business drivers for CXM

Output

  • Guiding principles for CXM strategy

Materials

  • Whiteboard
  • Markers

Participants

  • Project Team

Instructions

  1. Define the assumptions and business drivers that have an impact on technology enablement for CXM. What is driving the current marketing, sales, and service strategy on the business side?
Business Driver Name Driver Assumptions, Capabilities, and Constraints Impact on CXM Strategy
High degree of customer-centric solution selling A technically complex product means that solution selling approaches are employed – sales cycles are long. There is a strong need for applications and data quality processes that support longer-term customer relationships rather than transactional selling.
High desire to increase scalability of sales processes Although sales cycles are long, the organization wishes to increase the effectiveness of rep time via marketing automation where possible. Sales is always looking for new ways to leverage their reps for face-to-face solution selling while leaving low-level tasks to automation. Marketing wants to support these tasks.
Highly remote sales team and unusual hours are the norm Not based around core hours – significant overtime or remote working occurs frequently. Misalignment between IT working only core hours and after-hours teams leads to lag times that can delay work. Scheduling of preventative sales maintenance must typically be done on weekends rather than weekday evenings.

Activity: Identify the IT drivers for CXM to establish the strategy’s guiding principles

1.1.4 30 minutes

Input

  • IT drivers for CXM

Output

  • Guiding principles for CXM strategy

Materials

  • Whiteboard
  • Markers

Participants

  • Project Team

Instructions

  1. Define the assumptions and IT drivers that have an impact on technology enablement for CXM. What is driving the current IT strategy for supporting marketing, sales, and service initiatives?
IT Driver Name Driver Assumptions, Capabilities, and Constraints Impact on CXM Strategy
Sales Application Procurement Methodology Strong preference for on-premise COTS deployments over homebrewed applications. IT may not be able to support cloud-based sales applications due to security requirements for on premise.
Vendor Relations Minimal vendor relationships; SLAs not drafted internally but used as part of standard agreement. IT may want to investigate tightening up SLAs with vendors to ensure more timely support is available for their sales teams.
Development Methodology Agile methodology employed, some pockets of Waterfall employed for large-scale deployments. Agile development means more perfective maintenance requests come in, but it leads to greater responsiveness for making urgent corrective changes to non-COTS products.
Data Quality Approach IT sees as Sales’ responsibility IT is not standing as a strategic partner for helping to keep data clean, causing dissatisfaction from customer-facing departments.
Staffing Availability Limited to 9–5 Execution of sales support takes place during core hours only, limiting response times and access for on-the-road sales personnel.

Activity: Use IT and business drivers to create guiding principles for your CXM technology-enablement project

1.1.5 30 minutes

Input

  • Business drivers and IT drivers from 1.1.3 and 1.1.4

Output

  • CXM mission statement

Materials

  • Whiteboard
  • Markers

Participants

  • Core Team

Instructions

1. Based on the IT and business drivers identified, craft guiding principles for CXM technology enablement. Keep guiding principles in mind throughout the project and ensure they support (or reconcile) the business and IT drivers.

Guiding Principle Description
Sales processes must be scalable. Our sales processes must be able to reach a high number of target customers in a short time without straining systems or personnel.
Marketing processes must be high touch. Processes must be oriented to support technically sophisticated, solution-selling methodologies.

2. Summarize the guiding principles above by creating a CXM mission statement. See below for an example.

Example: CXM Mission Statement

To ensure our marketing, sales and service team is equipped with tools that will allow them to reach out to a large volume of contacts while still providing a solution-selling approach. This will be done with secure, on-premise systems to safeguard customer data.

Ensure that now is the right time to take a step back and develop the CXM strategy

Determine if now is the right time to move forward with building (or overhauling) your technology-enablement strategy for CXM.

Not all organizations will be able to proceed immediately to optimize their CXM technology enablement. Determine if the organizational willingness, backbone, and resources are present to commit to overhauling the existing strategy. If you’re not ready to proceed, consider waiting to begin this project until you can procure the right resources.

Do not proceed if:

  • Your current strategy for supporting marketing, sales, and service is working well and IT is already viewed as a strategic partner by these groups. Your current strategy is well aligned with customer preferences.
  • The current strategy is not working well, but there is no consensus or support from senior management for improving it.
  • You cannot secure the resources or time to devote to thoroughly examining the current state and selecting improvement initiatives.
  • The strategy has been approved, but there is no budget in place to support it at this time.

Proceed if:

  • Senior management has agreed that technology support for CXM should be improved.
  • Sub-divisions within IT, sales, marketing, and service are on the same page about the need to improve alignment.
  • You have an approximate budget to work with for the project and believe you can secure additional funding to execute at least some improvement initiatives.
  • You understand how improving CXM alignment will fit into the broader customer interaction ecosystem in your organization.

If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

  • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
  • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

1.1.3; 1.1.4; 1.1.5 - Identify business and IT drivers to create CXM guiding principles

The facilitator will work with stakeholders from both the business and IT to identify implicit or explicit strategic drivers that will support (or pose constraints on) the technology-enablement framework for the CXM strategy. In doing so, guiding principles will be established for the project.

Step 1.2: Structure the Project

Phase 1

1.1 Create the Project Vision

1.2 Structure the Project

Phase 2

2.1 Scan the External Environment

2.2 Assess the Current State of CXM

2.3 Create an Application Portfolio

2.4 Develop Deployment Best Practices

Phase 3

3.1 Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

3.2 Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

Activities:

  • Define the project purpose, objectives, and business metrics
  • Define the scope of the CXM strategy
  • Create the project team
  • Build a RACI chart
  • Develop a timeline with project milestones
  • Identify risks and create mitigation strategies
  • Complete the strategy project charter and obtain approval

Outcomes:

CXM Strategy Project Charter Template

  • Purpose, objectives, metrics
  • Scope
  • Project team & RACI
  • Timeline
  • Risks & mitigation strategies
  • Project sponsorship

Use Info-Tech’s CXM Strategy Project Charter Template to outline critical components of the CXM project

1.2.1 CXM Strategy Project Charter Template

Having a project charter is the first step for any project: it specifies how the project will be resourced from a people, process, and technology perspective, and it clearly outlines major project milestones and timelines for strategy development. CXM technology enablement crosses many organizational boundaries, so a project charter is a very useful tool for ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Sections of the document:

  1. Project Drivers, Rationale, and Context
  2. Project Objectives, Metrics, and Purpose
  3. Project Scope Definition
  4. Project Team Roles and Responsibilities (RACI)
  5. Project Timeline
  6. Risk Mitigation Strategy
  7. Project Metrics
  8. Project Review & Approvals

INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

CXM Strategy Project Charter Template

Populate the relevant sections of your project charter as you complete activities 1.2.2-1.2.8.

Understand the roles necessary to complete your CXM technology-enablement strategy

Understand the role of each player within your project structure. Look for listed participants on the activities slides to determine when each player should be involved.

Title Role Within Project Structure
Project Sponsor
  • Owns the project at the management/C-suite level
  • Responsible for breaking down barriers and ensuring alignment with organizational strategy
  • CIO, CMO, VP of Sales, VP of Customer Care, or similar
Project Manager
  • The IT individual(s) that will oversee day-to-day project operations
  • Responsible for preparing and managing the project plan and monitoring the project team’s progress
  • Applications or other IT Manager, Business Analyst, Business Process Owner, or similar
Business Lead
  • Works alongside the IT PM to ensure that the strategy is aligned with business needs
  • In this case, likely to be a marketing, sales, or customer service lead
  • Sales Director, Marketing Director, Customer Care Director, or similar
Project Team
  • Comprised of individuals whose knowledge and skills are crucial to project success
  • Responsible for driving day-to-day activities, coordinating communication, and making process and design decisions. Can assist with persona and scenario development for CXM.
  • Project Manager, Business Lead, CRM Manager, Integration Manager, Application SMEs, Developers, Business Process Architects, and/or similar SMEs
Steering Committee
  • Comprised of C-suite/management level individuals that act as the project’s decision makers
  • Responsible for validating goals and priorities, defining the project scope, enabling adequate resourcing, and managing change
  • Project Sponsor, Project Manager, Business Lead, CFO, Business Unit SMEs and similar

Info-Tech Insight

Do not limit project input or participation to the aforementioned roles. Include subject matter experts and internal stakeholders at particular stages within the project. Such inputs can be solicited on a one-off basis as needed. This ensures you take a holistic approach to creating your CXM technology-enablement strategy.

Activity: Kick-off the CXM project by defining the project purpose, project objectives, and business metrics

1.2.2 30 minutes

Input

  • Activities 1.1.1 to 1.1.5

Output

  • Drivers & rationale
  • Purpose statement
  • Business goals
  • Business metrics
  • CXM Strategy Project Charter Template, sections 1.0, 2.0, and 2.1

Materials

  • Whiteboard
  • Markers

Participants

  • Project Sponsor
  • Project Manager
  • Business Lead
  • Steering Committee

Instructions

Hold a meeting with IT, Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations, and any other impacted business stakeholders that have input into CXM to accomplish the following:

  1. Discuss the drivers and rationale behind embarking on a CXM strategy.
  2. Develop and concede on objectives for the CXM project, metrics that will gauge its success, and goals for each metric.
  3. Create a project purpose statement that is informed by decided-upon objectives and metrics from the steps above. When establishing a project purpose, ask the question, “what are we trying to accomplish?”
  • Example: Project Purpose Statement
    • The organization is creating a CXM strategy to gather high-level requirements from the business, IT, and Marketing, Sales, and Service, to ensure that the selection and deployment of the CXM meets the needs of the broader organization and provides the greatest return on investment.
  • Document your project drivers and rationale, purpose statement, project objectives, and business metrics in Info-Tech’s CXM Strategy Project Charter Template in sections 1.0 and 2.0.
  • Info-Tech Insight

    Going forward, set up a quarterly review process to understand changing needs. It is rare that organizations never change their marketing and sales strategy. This will change the way the CXM will be utilized.

    Establish baseline metrics for customer engagement

    In order to gauge the effectiveness of CXM technology enablement, establish core metrics:

    1. Marketing Metrics: pertaining to share of voice, share of wallet, market share, lead generation, etc.
    2. Sales Metrics: pertaining to overall revenue, average deal size, number of accounts, MCV, lead warmth, etc.
    3. Customer Service Metrics: pertaining to call volumes, average time to resolution, first contact resolution, customer satisfaction, etc.
    4. IT Metrics: pertaining to end-user satisfaction with CXM applications, number of tickets, contract value, etc.
    Metric Description Current Metric Future Goal
    Market Share 25% 35%
    Share of Voice (All Channels) 40% 50%
    Average Deal Size $10,500 $12,000
    Account Volume 1,400 1,800
    Average Time to Resolution 32 min 25 min
    First Contact Resolution 15% 35%
    Web Traffic per Month (Unique Visitors) 10,000 15,000
    End-User Satisfaction 62% 85%+
    Other metric
    Other metric
    Other metric

    Understand the importance of setting project expectations with a scope statement

    Be sure to understand what is in scope for a CXM strategy project. Prevent too wide of a scope to avoid scope creep – for example, we aren’t tackling ERP or BI under CXM.

    In Scope

    Establishing the parameters of the project in a scope statement helps define expectations and provides a baseline for resource allocation and planning. Future decisions about the strategic direction of CXM will be based on the scope statement.

    Scope Creep

    Well-executed requirements gathering will help you avoid expanding project parameters, drawing on your resources, and contributing to cost overruns and project delays. Avoid scope creep by gathering high-level requirements that lead to the selection of category-level application solutions (e.g. CRM, MMS, SMMP, etc.), rather than granular requirements that would lead to vendor application selection (e.g. Salesforce, Marketo, Hootsuite, etc.).

    Out of Scope

    Out-of-scope items should also be defined to alleviate ambiguity, reduce assumptions, and further clarify expectations for stakeholders. Out-of-scope items can be placed in a backlog for later consideration. For example, fulfilment and logistics management is out of scope as it pertains to CXM.

    In Scope
    Strategy
    High-Level CXM Application Requirements CXM Strategic Direction Category Level Application Solutions (e.g. CRM, MMS, etc.)
    Out of Scope
    Software Selection
    Vendor Application Review Vendor Application Selection Granular Application System Requirements

    Activity: Define the scope of the CXM strategy

    1.2.3 30 minutes

    Input

    • N/A

    Output

    • Project scope and parameters
    • CXM Strategy Project Charter Template, section 3.0

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Sponsor
    • Project Manager
    • Business Lead

    Instructions

    1. Formulate a scope statement. Decide which people, processes, and functions the CXM strategy will address. Generally, the aim of this project is to develop strategic requirements for the CXM application portfolio – not to select individual vendors.
    2. Document your scope statement in Info-Tech’s CXM Strategy Project Charter Template in section 3.0.

    To form your scope statement, ask the following questions:

    • What are the major coverage points?
    • Who will be using the systems?
    • How will different users interact with the systems?
    • What are the objectives that need to be addressed?
    • Where do we start?
    • Where do we draw the line?

    Identify the right stakeholders to include on your project team

    Consider the core team functions when composing the project team. Form a cross-functional team (i.e. across IT, Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations) to create a well-aligned CXM strategy.

    Required Skills/Knowledge Suggested Project Team Members
    IT
    • Application development
    • Enterprise integration
    • Business processes
    • Data management
    • CRM Application Manager
    • Business Process Manager
    • Integration Manager
    • Application Developer
    • Data Stewards
    Business
    • Understanding of the customer
    • Departmental processes
    • Sales Manager
    • Marketing Manager
    • Customer Service Manager
    Other
    • Operations
    • Administrative
    • Change management
    • Operations Manager
    • CFO
    • Change Management Manager

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t let your project team become too large when trying to include all relevant stakeholders. Carefully limiting the size of the project team will enable effective decision making while still including functional business units such as marketing, sales, service, and finance, as well as IT.

    Activity: Create the project team

    1.2.4 45 minutes

    Input

    • Scope Statement (output of Activity 1.2.3).

    Output

    • Project Team
    • CXM Strategy Project Charter Template, section 4.0

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Manager
    • Business Lead

    Instructions

    1. Review your scope statement. Have a discussion to generate a complete list of key stakeholders that are needed to achieve the scope of work.
    2. Using the previously generated list, identify a candidate for each role and determine their responsibilities and expected time commitment for the CXM strategy project.
    3. Document the project team in Info-Tech’s CXM Strategy Project Charter Template in section 4.0.

    Define project roles and responsibilities to improve progress tracking

    Build a list of the core CXM strategy team members, and then structure a RACI chart with the relevant categories and roles for the overall project.

    Responsible - Conducts work to achieve the task

    Accountable - Answerable for completeness of task

    Consulted - Provides input for the task

    Informed - Receives updates on the task

    Info-Tech Insight

    Avoid missed tasks between inter-functional communications by defining roles and responsibilities for the project as early as possible.

    Benefits of Assigning RACI Early:

    • Improve project quality by assigning the right people to the right tasks.
    • Improve chances of project task completion by assigning clear accountabilities.
    • Improve project buy-in by ensuring that stakeholders are kept informed of project progress, risks, and successes.

    Activity: Build a RACI chart

    1.2.5 30 minutes

    Input

    • Project Team (output of Activity 1.2.4)

    Output

    • RACI chart
    • CXM Strategy Project Charter Template, section 4.2

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Manager
    • Business Lead

    Instructions

    1. Identify the key stakeholder teams that should be involved in the CXM strategy project. You should have a cross-functional team that encompasses both IT (various units) and the business.
    2. Determine whether each stakeholder should be responsible, accountable, consulted, and/or informed with respect to each overarching project step.
    3. Confirm and communicate the results to relevant stakeholders and obtain their approval.
    4. Document the RACI chart in Info-Tech’s CXM Strategy Project Charter Template in section 4.2.
    Example: RACI Chart Project Sponsor (e.g. CMO) Project Manager (e.g. Applications Manager) Business Lead (e.g. Marketing Director) Steering Committee (e.g. PM, CMO, CFO…) Project Team (e.g. PM, BL, SMEs…)
    Assess Project Value I C A R C
    Conduct a Current State Assessment I I A C R
    Design Application Portfolio I C A R I
    Create CXM Roadmap R R A I I
    ... ... ... ... ... ...

    Activity: Develop a timeline in order to specify concrete project milestones

    1.2.6 30 minutes

    Input

    • N/A

    Output

    • Project timeline
    • CXM Strategy Project Charter Template, section 5.0

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Manager
    • Business Lead

    Instructions

    1. Assign responsibilities, accountabilities, and other project involvement to each project team role using a RACI chart. Remember to consider dependencies when creating the schedule and identifying appropriate subtasks.
    2. Document the timeline in Info-Tech’s CXM Strategy Project Charter Template in section 5.0.
    Key Activities Start Date End Date Target Status Resource(s)
    Structure the Project and Build the Project Team
    Articulate Business Objectives and Define Vision for Future State
    Document Current State and Assess Gaps
    Identify CXM Technology Solutions
    Build the Strategy for CXM
    Implement the Strategy

    Assess project-associated risk by understanding common barriers and enablers

    Common Internal Risk Factors

    Management Support Change Management IT Readiness
    Definition The degree of understanding and acceptance of CXM as a concept and necessary portfolio of technologies. The degree to which employees are ready to accept change and the organization is ready to manage it. The degree to which the organization is equipped with IT resources to handle new systems and processes.
    Assessment Outcomes
    • Is CXM enablement recognized as a top priority?
    • Will management commit time to the project?
    • Are employees resistant to change?
    • Is there an organizational awareness of the importance of customer experience?
    • Who are the owners of process and content?
    • Is there strong technical expertise?
    • Is there strong infrastructure?
    • What are the important integration points throughout the business?
    Risk
    • Low management buy-in
    • Lack of funding
    • Lack of resources
    • Low employee motivation
    • Lack of ownership
    • Low user adoption
    • Poor implementation
    • Reliance on consultants

    Activity: Identify the risks and create mitigation strategies

    1.2.7 45 minutes

    Input

    • N/A

    Output

    • Risk mitigation strategy
    • CXM Strategy Project Charter Template, section 6.0

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Manager
    • Business Lead
    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Brainstorm a list of possible risks that may impede the progress of your CXM project.
    2. Classify risks as strategy based (related to planning) or systems based (related to technology).
    3. Brainstorm mitigation strategies to overcome each risk.
    4. On a scale of 1 to 3, determine the impact of each risk on project success and the likelihood of each risk occurring.
    5. Document your findings in Info-Tech’s CXM Strategy Project Charter Template in section 6.0.

    Likelihood:

    1 - High/Needs Focus

    2 - Can Be Mitigated

    3 - Unlikely

    Impact

    1 - High Impact

    2 - Moderate Impact

    3 - Minimal Impact

    Example: Risk Register and Mitigation Tactics

    Risk Impact Likelihood Mitigation Effort
    Cost of time and implementation: designing a robust portfolio of CXM applications can be a time consuming task, representing a heavy investment for the organization 1 1
    • Have a clear strategic plan and a defined time frame
    • Know your end-user requirements
    • Put together an effective and diverse strategy project team
    Availability of resources: lack of in-house resources (e.g. infrastructure, CXM application developers) may result in the need to insource or outsource resources 1 2
    • Prepare a plan to insource talent by hiring or transferring talent from other departments – e.g. marketing and customer service

    Activity: Complete the project charter and obtain approval

    1.2.8 45 minutes

    Input

    • N/A

    Output

    • Project approval
    • CXM Strategy Project Charter Template, section 8.0

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Manager
    • Business Lead
    • Project Team

    Instructions

    Before beginning to develop the CXM strategy, validate the project charter and metrics with senior sponsors or stakeholders and receive their approval to proceed.

    1. Schedule a 30-60 minute meeting with senior stakeholders and conduct a live review of your CXM strategy project charter.
    2. Obtain stakeholder approval to ensure there are no miscommunications or misunderstandings around the scope of the work that needs to be done to reach a successful project outcome. Final sign-off should only take place when mutual consensus has been reached.
      • Obtaining approval should be an iterative process; if senior management has concerns over certain aspects of the plan, revise and review again.

    Info-Tech Insight

    In most circumstances, you should have your CXM strategy project charter validated with the following stakeholders:

    • Chief Information Officer
    • IT Applications Director
    • CFO or Comptroller (for budget approval)
    • Chief Marketing Office or Head of Marketing
    • Chief Revenue Officer or VP of Sales
    • VP Customer Service

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    1.2.2 Define project purpose, objectives, and business metrics

    Through an in-depth discussion, an analyst will help you prioritize corporate objectives and organizational drivers to establish a distinct project purpose.

    1.2.3 Define the scope of the CXM strategy

    An analyst will facilitate a discussion to address critical questions to understand your distinct business needs. These questions include: What are the major coverage points? Who will be using the system?

    1.2.4; 1.2.5; 1.2.6 Create the CXM project team, build a RACI chart, and establish a timeline

    Our analysts will guide you through how to create a designated project team to ensure the success of your CXM strategy and suite selection initiative, including project milestones and team composition, as well as designated duties and responsibilities.

    Phase 2

    Create a Strategic Framework for CXM Technology Enablement

    Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management

    Phase 2 outline: Steps 2.1 and 2.2

    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.

    Guided Implementation 2: Create a Strategic Framework for CXM Technology Enablement

    Proposed Time to Completion: 4 weeks

    Step 2.1: Scan the External Environment

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Discuss external drivers
    • Assess competitive environment
    • Review persona development
    • Review scenarios

    Then complete these activities…

    • Build the CXM operating model
    • Conduct a competitive analysis
    • Conduct a PEST analysis
    • Build personas and scenarios

    With these tools & templates:

    CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template

    Step 2.2: Assess the Current State for CRM

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review SWOT analysis
    • Review VRIO analysis
    • Discuss strategic requirements for CXM

    Then complete these activities…

    • Conduct a SWOT analysis
    • Conduct a VRIO analysis
    • Inventory existing applications

    With these tools & templates:

    CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template

    Phase 2 outline: Steps 2.3 and 2.4

    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.

    Guided Implementation 2: Create a Strategic Framework for CXM Technology Enablement

    Proposed Time to Completion: 4 weeks

    Step 2.3: Create an Application Portfolio

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Discuss possible business process maps
    • Discuss strategic requirements
    • Review application portfolio results

    Then complete these activities…

    • Build business maps
    • Execute application mapping

    With these tools & templates:

    CXM Portfolio Designer

    CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template

    CXM Business Process Shortlisting Tool

    Step 2.4: Develop Deployment Best Practices

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review possible integration maps
    • Discuss best practices for end-user adoption
    • Discuss best practices for customer data quality

    Then complete these activities…

    • Create CXM integration ecosystem
    • Develop adoption game plan
    • Create data quality standards

    With these tools & templates:

    CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template

    Phase 2 Results & Insights:

    • Application portfolio for CXM
    • Deployment best practices for areas such as integration, data quality, and end-user adoption

    Step 2.1: Scan the External Environment

    Phase 1

    1.1 Create the Project Vision

    1.2 Structure the Project

    Phase 2

    2.1 Scan the External Environment

    2.2 Assess the Current State of CXM

    2.3 Create an Application Portfolio

    2.4 Develop Deployment Best Practices

    Phase 3

    3.1 Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

    3.2 Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

    Activities:

    • Inventory CXM drivers and organizational objectives
    • Identify CXM challenges and pain points
    • Discuss opportunities and benefits
    • Align corporate and CXM strategies
    • Conduct a competitive analysis
    • Conduct a PEST analysis and extract strategic requirements
    • Build customer personas and extract strategic requirements

    Outcomes:

    • CXM operating model
      • Organizational drivers
      • Environmental factors
      • Barriers
      • Enablers
    • PEST analysis
    • External customer personas
    • Customer journey scenarios
    • Strategic requirements for CXM

    Develop a CXM technology operating model that takes stock of needs, drivers, barriers, and enablers

    Establish the drivers, enablers, and barriers to developing a CXM technology enablement strategy. In doing so, consider needs, environmental factors, organizational drivers, and technology drivers as inputs.

    CXM Strategy

    • Barriers
      • Lack of Resources
      • Cultural Mindset
      • Resistance to Change
      • Poor End-User Adoption
    • Enablers
      • Senior Management Support
      • Customer Data Quality
      • Current Technology Portfolio
    • Business Needs (What are your business drivers? What are current marketing, sales, and customer service pains?)
      • Acquisition Pipeline Management
      • Live Chat for Support
      • Social Media Analytics
      • Etc.
    • Organizational Goals
      • Increase Profitability
      • Enhance Customer Experience Consistency
      • Reduce Time-to-Resolution
      • Increase First Contact Resolution
      • Boost Share of Voice
    • Environmental Factors (What factors that affect your strategy are out of your control?)
      • Customer Buying Habits
      • Changing Technology Trends
      • Competitive Landscape
      • Regulatory Requirements
    • Technology Drivers (Why do you need a new system? What is the purpose for becoming an integrated organization?)
      • System Integration
      • Reporting Capabilities
      • Deployment Model

    Understand your needs, drivers, and organizational objectives for creating a CXM strategy

    Business Needs Organizational Drivers Technology Drivers Environmental Factors
    Definition A business need is a requirement associated with a particular business process (for example, Marketing needs customer insights from the website – the business need would therefore be web analytics capabilities). Organizational drivers can be thought of as business-level goals. These are tangible benefits the business can measure such as customer retention, operation excellence, and financial performance. Technology drivers are technological changes that have created the need for a new CXM enablement strategy. Many organizations turn to technology systems to help them obtain a competitive edge. External considerations are factors taking place outside of the organization that are impacting the way business is conducted inside the organization. These are often outside the control of the business.
    Examples
    • Web analytics
    • Live chat capabilities
    • Mobile self-service
    • Social media listening
    • Data quality
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Branding
    • Time-to-resolution
    • Deployment model (i.e. SaaS)
    • Integration
    • Reporting capabilities
    • Fragmented technologies
    • Economic factors
    • Customer preferences
    • Competitive influencers
    • Compliance regulations

    Info-Tech Insight

    A common organizational driver is to provide adequate technology enablement across multiple channels, resulting in a consistent customer experience. This driver is a result of external considerations. Many industries today are highly competitive and rapidly changing. To succeed under these pressures, you must have a rationalized portfolio of enterprise applications for customer interaction.

    Activity: Inventory and discuss CXM drivers and organizational objectives

    2.1.1 30 minutes

    Input

    • Business needs
    • Exercise 1.1.3
    • Exercise 1.1.4
    • Environmental factors

    Output

    • CXM operating model inputs
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Info-Tech examples
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Brainstorm the business needs, organizational drivers, technology drivers, and environmental factors that will inform the CXM strategy. Draw from exercises 1.1.3-1.1.5.
    2. Document your findings in the CXM operating model template. This can be found in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    The image is a graphic, with a rectangle split into three sections in the centre. The three sections are: Barriers; CXM Strategy; Enablers. Around the centre are 4 more rectangles, labelled: Business Needs; Organizational Drivers; Technology Drivers; Environmental Factors. The outer rectangles are a slightly darker shade of grey than the others, highlighting them.

    Understand challenges and barriers to creating and executing the CXM technology-enablement strategy

    Take stock of internal challenges and barriers to effective CXM strategy execution.

    Example: Internal Challenges & Potential Barriers

    Understanding the Customer Change Management IT Readiness
    Definition The degree to which a holistic understanding of the customer can be created, including customer demographic and psychographics. The degree to which employees are ready to accept operational and cultural changes and the degree to which the organization is ready to manage it. The degree to which IT is ready to support new technologies and processes associated with a portfolio of CXM applications.
    Questions to Ask
    • As an organization, do we have a true understanding of our customers?
    • How might we achieve a complete understanding of the customer throughout different phases of the customer lifecycle?
    • Are employees resistant to change?
    • Are there enough resources to drive an CXM strategy?
    • To what degree is the existing organizational culture customer-centric?
    • Is there strong technical expertise?
    • Is there strong infrastructure?
    Implications
    • Uninformed creation of CXM strategic requirements
    • Inadequate understanding of customer needs and wants
    • User acceptance
    • Lack of ownership
    • Lack of accountability
    • Lack of sustainability
    • Poor implementation
    • Reliance on expensive external consultants
    • Lack of sustainability

    Activity: Identify CXM challenges and pain points

    2.1.2 30 minutes

    Input

    • Challenges
    • Pain points

    Output

    • CXM operating model barriers
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Info-Tech examples
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Brainstorm the challenges and pain points that may act as barriers to the successful planning and execution of a CXM strategy.
    2. Document your findings in the CXM operating model template. This can be found in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    The image is the same graphic from a previous section. In this instance, the Barriers sections is highlighted.

    Identify opportunities that can enable CXM strategy execution

    Existing internal conditions, capabilities, and resources can create opportunities to enable the CXM strategy. These opportunities are critical to overcoming challenges and barriers.

    Example: Opportunities to Leverage for Strategy Enablement

    Management Buy-In Customer Data Quality Current Technology Portfolio
    Definition The degree to which upper management understands and is willing to enable a CXM project, complete with sponsorship, funding, and resource allocation. The degree to which customer data is accurate, consistent, complete, and reliable. Strong customer data quality is an opportunity – poor data quality is a barrier. The degree to which the existing portfolio of CXM-supporting enterprise applications can be leveraged to enable the CXM strategy.
    Questions to Ask
    • Is management informed of changing technology trends and the subsequent need for CXM?
    • Are adequate funding and resourcing available to support a CXM project, from strategy creation to implementation?
    • Are there any data quality issues?
    • Is there one source of truth for customer data?
    • Are there duplicate or incomplete sets of data?
    • Does a strong CRM backbone exist?
    • What marketing, sales, and customer service applications exist?
    • Are CXM-enabling applications rated highly on usage and performance?
    Implications
    • Need for CXM clearly demonstrated
    • Financial and logistical feasibility
    • Consolidated data quality governance initiatives
    • Informed decision making
    • Foundation for CXM technology enablement largely in place
    • Reduced investment of time and money needed

    Activity: Discuss opportunities and benefits

    2.1.3 30 minutes

    Input

    • Opportunities
    • Benefits

    Output

    • Completed CXM operating model
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Info-Tech examples
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Brainstorm opportunities that should be leveraged or benefits that should be realized to enable the successful planning and execution of a CXM strategy.
    2. Document your findings in the CXM operating model template. This can be found in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    The image is the same graphic from earlier sections, this time with the Enablers section highlighted.

    Ensure that you align your CXM technology strategy to the broader corporate strategy

    A successful CXM strategy requires a comprehensive understanding of an organization’s overall corporate strategy and its effects on the interrelated departments of marketing, sales, and service, including subsequent technology implications. For example, a CXM strategy that emphasizes tools for omnichannel management and is at odds with a corporate strategy that focuses on only one or two channels will fail.

    Corporate Strategy

    • Conveys the current state of the organization and the path it wants to take.
    • Identifies future goals and business aspirations.
    • Communicates the initiatives that are critical for getting the organization from its current state to the future state.

    CXM Strategy

    • Communicates the company’s budget and spending on CXM applications and initiatives.
    • Identifies IT initiatives that will support the business and key CXM objectives, specific to marketing, sales, and service.
    • Outlines staffing and resourcing for CXM initiatives.

    Unified Strategy

    • The CXM implementation can be linked, with metrics, to the corporate strategy and ultimate business objectives.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your organization’s corporate strategy is especially important in dictating the direction of the CXM strategy. Corporate strategies are often focused on customer-facing activity and will heavily influence the direction of marketing, sales, customer service, and consequentially, CXM. Corporate strategies will often dictate market targeting, sales tactics, service models, and more.

    Review sample organizational objectives to decipher how CXM technologies can support such objectives

    Identifying organizational objectives of high priority will assist in breaking down CXM objectives to better align with the overall corporate strategy and achieve buy-in from key stakeholders.

    Corporate Objectives Aligned CXM Technology Objectives
    Increase Revenue Enable lead scoring Deploy sales collateral management tools Improve average cost per lead via a marketing automation tool
    Enhance Market Share Enhance targeting effectiveness with a CRM Increase social media presence via an SMMP Architect customer intelligence analysis
    Improve Customer Satisfaction Reduce time-to-resolution via better routing Increase accessibility to customer service with live chat Improve first contact resolution with customer KB
    Increase Customer Retention Use a loyalty management application Improve channel options for existing customers Use customer analytics to drive targeted offers
    Create Customer-Centric Culture Ensure strong training and user adoption programs Use CRM to provide 360-degree view of all customer interaction Incorporate the voice of the customer into product development

    Activity: Review your corporate strategy and validate its alignment with the CXM operating model

    2.1.4 30 minutes

    Input

    • Corporate strategy
    • CXM operating model (completed in Activity 2.1.3)

    Output

    • Strategic alignment between the business and CXM strategies

    Materials

    • Info-Tech examples
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Brainstorm and create a list of organizational objectives at the corporate strategy level.
    2. Break down each organizational objective to identify how CXM may support it.
    3. Validate CXM goals and organizational objectives with your CXM operating model. Be sure to address the validity of each with the business needs, organizational drivers, technology drivers, and environmental factors identified as inputs to the operating model.

    Amazon leverages customer data to drive decision making around targeted offers and customer experience

    CASE STUDY

    Industry E-Commerce

    Source Pardot, 2012

    Situation

    Amazon.com, Inc. is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company. It is the largest e-commerce retailer in the US.

    Amazon originated as an online book store, later diversifying to sell various forms of media, software, games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and more.

    By taking a data-driven approach to marketing and sales, Amazon was able to understand its customers’ needs and wants, penetrate different product markets, and create a consistently personalized online-shopping customer experience that keeps customers coming back.

    Technology Strategy

    Use Browsing Data Effectively

    Amazon leverages marketing automation suites to view recent activities of prospects on its website. In doing so, a more complete view of the customer is achieved, including insights into purchasing interests and site navigation behaviors.

    Optimize Based on Interactions

    Using customer intelligence, Amazon surveys and studies standard engagement metrics like open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribes to ensure the optimal degree of marketing is being targeted to existing and prospective customers, depending on level of engagement.

    Results

    Insights gained from having a complete understanding of the customer (from basic demographic characteristics provided in customer account profiles to observed psychographic behaviors captured by customer intelligence applications) are used to personalize Amazon’s sales and marketing approaches. This is represented through targeted suggestions in the “recommended for you” section of the browsing experience and tailored email marketing.

    It is this capability, partnered with the technological ability to observe and measure customer engagement, that allows Amazon to create individual customer experiences.

    Scan the external environment to understand your customers, competitors, and macroenvironmental trends

    Do not develop your CXM technology strategy in isolation. Work with Marketing to understand your STP strategy (segmentation, targeting, positioning): this will inform persona development and technology requirements downstream.

    Market Segmentation

    • Segment target market by demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics
    • What does the competitive market look like?
    • Who are the key customer segments?
    • What segments are you going to target?

    Market Targeting

    • Evaluate potential and commercial attractiveness of each segment, considering the dynamics of the competition
    • How do you target your customers?
    • How should you target them in the future?
    • How do your products/services differ from the competition?

    Product Positioning

    • Develop detailed product positioning and marketing mixes for selected segments
    • What is the value of the product/service to each segment of the market?
    • How are you positioning your product/service in the market?

    Info-Tech Insight

    It is at this point that you should consider the need for and viability of an omnichannel approach to CXM. Through which channels do you target your customers? Are your customers present and active on a wide variety of channels? Consider how you can position your products, services, and brand through the use of omnichannel methodologies.

    Activity: Conduct a competitive analysis to understand where your market is going

    2.1.5 1 hour

    Input

    • Scan of competitive market
    • Existing customer STP strategy

    Output

    • Strategic CXM requirements
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team
    • Marketing SME

    Instructions

    1. Scan the market for direct and indirect competitors.
    2. Evaluate current and/or future segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies by answering the following questions:
    • What does the competitive market look like?
    • Who are the key customer segments?
    • What segments are you going to target?
    • How do you target your customers?
    • How should you target them in the future?
    • How do your products/services differ from the competition?
    • What is the value of the product/service to each segment of the market?
    • How are you positioning your product/service in the market?
    • Other helpful questions include:
      • How formally do you target customers? (e.g. through direct contact vs. through passive brand marketing)
      • Does your organization use the shotgun or rifle approach to marketing?
        • Shotgun marketing: targets a broad segment of people, indirectly
        • Rifle marketing: targets smaller and more niche market segments using customer intelligence
  • For each point, identify CXM requirements.
  • Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.
  • Activity: Conduct a competitive analysis (cont’d)

    2.1.5 30 minutes

    Input

    • Scan of competitive market

    Output

    • Competitive analysis
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team
    • Marketing SME (e.g. Market Research Stakeholders)

    Instructions

    1. List recent marketing technology and customer experience-related initiatives that your closest competitors have implemented.
    2. For each identified initiative, elaborate on what the competitive implications are for your organization.
    3. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Competitive Implications

    Competitor Organization Recent Initiative Associated Technology Direction of Impact Competitive Implication
    Organization X Multichannel E-Commerce Integration WEM – hybrid integration Positive
    • Up-to-date e-commerce capabilities
    • Automatic product updates via PCM
    Organization Y Web Social Analytics WEM Positive
    • Real-time analytics and customer insights
    • Allows for more targeted content toward the visitor or customer

    Conduct a PEST analysis to determine salient political, economic, social, and technological impacts for CXM

    A PEST analysis is a structured planning method that identifies external environmental factors that could influence the corporate and IT strategy.

    Political - Examine political factors, such as relevant data protection laws and government regulations.

    Economic - Examine economic factors, such as funding, cost of web access, and labor shortages for maintaining the site(s).

    Technological - Examine technological factors, such as new channels, networks, software and software frameworks, database technologies, wireless capabilities, and availability of software as a service.

    Social - Examine social factors, such as gender, race, age, income, and religion.

    Info-Tech Insight

    When looking at opportunities and threats, PEST analysis can help to ensure that you do not overlook external factors, such as technological changes in your industry. When conducting your PEST analysis specifically for CXM, pay particular attention to the rapid rate of change in the technology bucket. New channels and applications are constantly emerging and evolving, and seeing differential adoption by potential customers.

    Activity: Conduct and review the PEST analysis

    2.1.6 30 minutes

    Input

    • Political, economic, social, and technological factors related to CXM

    Output

    • Completed PEST analysis

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Identify your current strengths and weaknesses in managing the customer experience.
    2. Identify any opportunities to take advantage of and threats to mitigate.

    Example: PEST Analysis

    Political

    • Data privacy for PII
    • ADA legislation for accessible design

    Economic

    • Spending via online increasing
    • Focus on share of wallet

    Technological

    • Rise in mobile
    • Geo-location based services
    • Internet of Things
    • Omnichannel

    Social

    • Increased spending power by millennials
    • Changing channel preferences
    • Self-service models

    Activity: Translate your PEST analysis into a list of strategic CXM technology requirements to be addressed

    2.1.7 30 minutes

    Input

    • PEST Analysis conducted in Activity 2.1.6.

    Output

    • Strategic CXM requirements
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    For each PEST quadrant:

    1. Document the point and relate it to a goal.
    2. For each point, identify CXM requirements.
    3. Sort goals and requirements to eliminate duplicates.
    4. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Parsing Requirements from PEST Analysis

    Technological Trend: There has been a sharp increase in popularity of mobile self-service models for buying habits and customer service access.

    Goal: Streamline mobile application to be compatible with all mobile devices. Create consistent branding across all service delivery applications (e.g. website, etc.).

    Strategic Requirement: Develop a native mobile application while also ensuring that resources through our web presence are built with responsive design interface.

    IT must fully understand the voice of the customer: work with Marketing to develop customer personas

    Creating a customer-centric CXM technology strategy requires archetypal customer personas. Creating customer personas will enable you to talk concretely about them as consumers of your customer experience and allow you to build buyer scenarios around them.

    A persona (or archetypal user) is an invented person that represents a type of user in a particular use-case scenario. In this case, personas can be based on real customers.

    Components of a persona Example – Organization: Grocery Store
    Name Name personas to reflect a key attribute such as the persona’s primary role or motivation Brand Loyal Linda: A stay-at-home mother dedicated to maintaining and caring for a household of 5 people
    Demographic Include basic descriptors of the persona (e.g. age, geographic location, preferred language, education, job, employer, household income, etc.) Age: 42 years old Geographic location: London Suburbia Language: English Education: Post-secondary Job: Stay-at-home mother Annual Household Income: $100,000+
    Wants, needs, pain points Identify surface-level motivations for buying habits

    Wants: Local products Needs: Health products; child-safe products

    Pain points: Fragmented shopping experience

    Psychographic/behavioral traits Observe persona traits that are representative of the customers’ behaviors (e.g. attitudes, buying patterns, etc.)

    Psychographic: Detail-oriented, creature of habit

    Behavioral: Shops at large grocery store twice a week, visits farmers market on Saturdays, buys organic products online

    Activity: Build personas for your customers

    2.1.8 2 hours

    Input

    • Customer demographics and psychographics

    Output

    • List of prioritized customer personas
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Info-Tech examples
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    Project Team

    Instructions

    1. In 2-4 groups, list all the customer personas that need to be built. In doing so, consider the people who interact with your organization most often.
    2. Build a demographic profile for each customer persona. Include information such as age, geographic location, occupation, annual income, etc.
    3. Augment the persona with a psychographic profile of each customer. Consider the goals and objectives of each customer persona and how these might inform buyer behaviors.
    4. Introduce your group’s personas to the entire group, in a round-robin fashion, as if you are introducing your persona at a party.
    5. Summarize the personas in a persona map. Rank your personas according to importance and remove any duplicates.

    Info-Tech Insight

    For CXM, persona building is typically used for understanding the external customer; however, if you need to gain a better understanding of the organization’s internal customers (those who will be interacting with CXM applications), personas can also be built for this purpose. Examples of useful internal personas are sales managers, brand managers, customer service directors, etc.

    Sample Persona Templates

    Fred, 40

    The Family Man

    Post-secondary educated, white-collar professional, three children

    Goals & Objectives

    • Maintain a stable secure lifestyle
    • Progress his career
    • Obtain a good future for his children

    Behaviors

    • Manages household and finances
    • Stays actively involved in children’s activities and education
    • Seeks potential career development
    • Uses a cellphone and email frequently
    • Sometimes follows friends Facebook pages

    Services of Interest

    • SFA, career counselling, job boards, day care, SHHS
    • Access to information via in-person, phone, online

    Traits

    General Literacy - High

    Digital Literacy - Mid-High

    Detail-Oriented - High

    Willing to Try New Things - Mid-High

    Motivated and Persistent - Mid-High

    Time Flexible - Mid-High

    Familiar With [Red.] - Mid

    Access to [Red.] Offices - High

    Access to Internet - High

    Ashley, 35

    The Tourist

    Single, college educated, planning vacation in [redacted], interested in [redacted] job opportunities

    Goals & Objectives

    • Relax after finishing a stressful job
    • Have adventures and try new things
    • Find a new job somewhere in Canada

    Behaviors

    • Collects information about things to do in [redacted]
    • Collects information about life in [redacted]
    • Investigates and follows up on potential job opportunities
    • Uses multiple social media to keep in touch with friends
    • Shops online frequently

    Services of Interest

    • SFA, job search, road conditions, ferry schedules, hospital, police station, DL requirements, vehicle rental
    • Access to information via in-person, phone, website, SMS, email, social media

    Traits

    General Literacy - Mid

    Digital Literacy - High

    Detail-Oriented - Mid

    Willing to Try New Things - High

    Motivated and Persistent - Mid

    Time Flexible - Mid-High

    Familiar With [Red.] - Low

    Access to [Red.] Offices - Low

    Access to Internet - High

    Bill, 25

    The Single Parent

    15-year resident of [redacted], high school education, waiter, recently divorced, two children

    Goals & Objectives

    • Improve his career options so he can support his family
    • Find an affordable place to live
    • Be a good parent
    • Work through remaining divorce issues

    Behaviors

    • Tries to get training or experience to improve his career
    • Stays actively involved in his children’s activities
    • Looks for resources and supports to resolve divorce issues
    • Has a cellphone and uses the internet occasionally

    Services of Interest

    • Child care, housing authority, legal aid, parenting resources
    • Access to information via in person, word-of mouth, online, phone, email

    Traits

    General Literacy - Mid

    Digital Literacy - Mid-Low

    Detail-Oriented - Mid-Low

    Willing to Try New Things - Mid

    Motivated and Persistent - High

    Time Flexible - Mid

    Familiar With [Red.] - Mid-High

    Access to [Red.] Offices - High

    Access to Internet - High

    Marie, 19

    The Regional Youth

    Single, [redacted] resident, high school graduate

    Goals & Objectives

    • Get a good job
    • Maintain ties to family and community

    Behaviors

    • Looking for work
    • Gathering information about long-term career choices
    • Trying to get the training or experience that can help her develop a career
    • Staying with her parents until she can get established
    • Has a new cellphone and is learning how to use it
    • Plays videogames and uses the internet at least weekly

    Services of Interest

    • Job search, career counselling
    • Access to information via in-person, online, phone, email, web applications

    Traits

    General Literacy - Mid

    Digital Literacy - Mid

    Detail-Oriented - Mid-Low

    Willing to Try New Things - Mid-High

    Motivated and Persistent - Mid-Low

    Time Flexible - High

    Familiar With [Red.] - Mid-Low

    Access to [Red.] Offices - Mid-Low

    Access to Internet - Mid

    Build key scenarios for each persona to extract strategic requirements for your CXM application portfolio

    A scenario is a story or narrative that helps explore the set of interactions that a customer has with an organization. Scenario mapping will help parse requirements used to design the CXM application portfolio.

    A Good Scenario…

    • Describes specific task(s) that need to be accomplished
    • Describes user goals and motivations
    • Describes interactions with a compelling but not overwhelming amount of detail
    • Can be rough, as long as it provokes ideas and discussion

    Scenarios Are Used To…

    • Provide a shared understanding about what a user might want to do, and how they might want to do it
    • Help construct the sequence of events that are necessary to address in your user interface(s)

    To Create Good Scenarios…

    • Keep scenarios high level, not granular in nature
    • Identify as many scenarios as possible. If you’re time constrained, try to develop 2-3 key scenarios per persona
    • Sketch each scenario out so that stakeholders understand the goal of the scenario

    Activity: Build scenarios for each persona and extract strategic requirements for the CXM strategy

    2.1.9 1.5 hours

    Input

    • Customer personas (output of Activity 2.1.5)

    Output

    • CX scenario maps
    • Strategic CXM requirements
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. For each customer persona created in Activity 2.1.5, build a scenario. Choose and differentiate scenarios based on the customer goal of each scenario (e.g. make online purchase, seek customer support, etc.).
    2. Think through the narrative of how a customer interacts with your organization, at all points throughout the scenario. List each step in the interaction in a sequential order to form a scenario journey.
    3. Examine each step in the scenario and brainstorm strategic requirements that will be needed to support the customer’s use of technology throughout the scenario.
    4. Repeat steps 1-3 for each persona. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Scenario Map

    Persona Name: Brand Loyal Linda

    Scenario Goal: File a complaint about in-store customer service

    Look up “[Store Name] customer service” on public web. →Reach customer support landing page. →Receive proactive notification prompt for online chat with CSR. →Initiate conversation: provide order #. →CSR receives order context and information. →Customer articulates problem, CSR consults knowledgebase. →Discount on next purchase offered. →Send email with discount code to Brand Loyal Linda.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    2.1.1; 2.1.2; 2.1.3; 2.1.4 - Create a CXM operating model

    An analyst will facilitate a discussion to identify what impacts your CXM strategy and how to align it to your corporate strategy. The discussion will take different perspectives into consideration and look at organizational drivers, external environmental factors, as well as internal barriers and enablers.

    2.1.5 Conduct a competitive analysis

    Calling on their depth of expertise in working with a broad spectrum of organizations, our facilitator will help you work through a structured, systematic evaluation of competitors’ actions when it comes to CXM.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    2.1.6; 2.1.7 - Conduct a PEST analysis

    The facilitator will use guided conversation to target each quadrant of the PEST analysis and help your organization fully enumerate political, economic, social, and technological trends that will influence your CXM strategy. Our analysts are deeply familiar with macroenvironmental trends and can provide expert advice in identifying areas of concern in the PEST and drawing strategic requirements as implications.

    2.1.8; 2.1.9 - Build customer personas and subsequent persona scenarios

    Drawing on the preceding exercises as inputs, the facilitator will help the team create and refine personas, create respective customer interaction scenarios, and parse strategic requirements to support your technology portfolio for CXM.

    Step 2.2: Assess the Current State of CXM

    Phase 1

    1.1 Create the Project Vision

    1.2 Structure the Project

    Phase 2

    2.1 Scan the External Environment

    2.2 Assess the Current State of CXM

    2.3 Create an Application Portfolio

    2.4 Develop Deployment Best Practices

    Phase 3

    3.1 Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

    3.2 Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

    Activities:

    • Conduct a SWOT analysis and extract strategic requirements
    • Inventory existing CXM applications and assess end-user usage and satisfaction
    • Conduct a VRIO analysis and extract strategic requirements

    Outcomes:

    • SWOT analysis
    • VRIO analysis
    • Current state application portfolio
    • Strategic requirements

    Conduct a SWOT analysis to prepare for creating your CXM strategy

    A SWOT analysis is a structured planning method that evaluates the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats involved in a project.

    Strengths - Strengths describe the positive attributes that are within your control and internal to your organization (i.e. what do you do better than anyone else?)

    Weaknesses - Weaknesses are internal aspects of your business that place you at a competitive disadvantage; think of what you need to enhance to compete with your top competitor.

    Opportunities - Opportunities are external factors the project can capitalize on. Think of them as factors that represent reasons your business is likely to prosper.

    Threats - Threats are external factors that could jeopardize the project. While you may not have control over these, you will benefit from having contingency plans to address them if they occur.

    Info-Tech Insight

    When evaluating weaknesses of your current CXM strategy, ensure that you’re taking into account not just existing applications and business processes, but also potential deficits in your organization’s channel strategy and go-to-market messaging.

    Activity: Conduct a SWOT analysis

    2.2.1 30 minutes

    Input

    • CXM strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

    Output

    • Completed SWOT analysis

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Identify your current strengths and weaknesses in managing the customer experience. Consider marketing, sales, and customer service aspects of the CX.
    2. Identify any opportunities to take advantage of and threats to mitigate.

    Example: SWOT Analysis

    Strengths

    • Strong customer service model via telephony

    Weaknesses

    • Customer service inaccessible in real-time through website or mobile application

    Opportunities

    • Leverage customer intelligence to measure ongoing customer satisfaction

    Threats

    • Lack of understanding of customer interaction platforms by staff could hinder adoption

    Activity: Translate your SWOT analysis into a list of requirements to be addressed

    2.2.2 30 minutes

    Input

    • SWOT Analysis conducted in Activity 2.2.1.

    Output

    • Strategic CXM requirements
    • CXM Stakeholder Presentation Template

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    For each SWOT quadrant:

    1. Document the point and relate it to a goal.
    2. For each point, identify CXM requirements.
    3. Sort goals and requirements to eliminate duplicates.
    4. Document your outputs in the CXM Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Parsing Requirements from SWOT Analysis

    Weakness: Customer service inaccessible in real-time through website or mobile application.

    Goal: Increase the ubiquity of access to customer service knowledgebase and agents through a web portal or mobile application.

    Strategic Requirement: Provide a live chat portal that matches the customer with the next available and qualified agent.

    Inventory your current CXM application portfolio

    Applications are the bedrock of technology enablement for CXM. Review your current application portfolio to identify what is working well and what isn’t.

    Understand Your CXM Application Portfolio With a Four-Step Approach

    Build the CXM Application Inventory →Assess Usage and Satisfaction →Map to Business Processes and Determine Dependencies →Determine Grow/Maintain/ Retire for Each Application

    When assessing the CXM applications portfolio, do not cast your net too narrowly; while CRM and MMS applications are often top of mind, applications for digital asset management and social media management are also instrumental for ensuring a well-integrated CX.

    Identify dependencies (either technical or licensing) between applications. This dependency tracing will come into play when deciding which applications should be grown (invested in), which applications should be maintained (held static), and which applications should be retired (divested).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Shadow IT is prominent here! When building your application inventory, ensure you involve Marketing, Sales, and Service to identify any “unofficial” SaaS applications that are being used for CXM. Many organizations fail to take a systematic view of their CXM application portfolio beyond maintaining a rough inventory. To assess the current state of alignment, you must build the application inventory and assess satisfaction metrics.

    Understand which of your organization’s existing enterprise applications enable CXM

    Review the major enterprise applications in your organization that enable CXM and align your requirements to these applications (net-new or existing). Identify points of integration to capture the big picture.

    The image shows a graphic titled Example: Integration of CRM, SMMP, and ERP. It is a flow chart, with icons defined by a legend on the right side of the image

    Info-Tech Insight

    When assessing the current application portfolio that supports CXM, the tendency will be to focus on the applications under the CXM umbrella, relating mostly to marketing, sales, and customer service. Be sure to include systems that act as input to, or benefit due to outputs from, CRM or similar applications. Examples of these systems are ERP systems, ECM (e.g. SharePoint) applications, and more.

    Assess CXM application usage and satisfaction

    Having a portfolio but no contextual data will not give you a full understanding of the current state. The next step is to thoroughly assess usage patterns as well as IT, management, and end-user satisfaction with each application.

    Example: Application Usage & Satisfaction Assessment

    Application Name Level of Usage IT Satisfaction Management Satisfaction End-User Satisfaction Potential Business Impact
    CRM (e.g. Salesforce) Medium High Medium Medium High
    CRM (e.g. Salesforce) Low Medium Medium High Medium
    ... ... ... ... ... ...

    Info-Tech Insight

    When evaluating satisfaction with any application, be sure to consult all stakeholders who come into contact with the application or depend on its output. Consider criteria such as ease of use, completeness of information, operational efficiency, data accuracy, etc.

    Use Info-Tech’s Application Portfolio Assessment to gather end-user feedback on existing CXM applications

    2.2.3 Application Portfolio Assessment: End-User Feedback

    Info-Tech’s Application Portfolio Assessment: End-User Feedback diagnostic is a low-effort, high-impact program that will give you detailed report cards on end-user satisfaction with an application. Use these insights to identify problems, develop action plans for improvement, and determine key participants.

    Application Portfolio Assessment: End-User Feedback is an 18-question survey that provides valuable insights on user satisfaction with an application by:

    • Performing a general assessment of the application portfolio that provides a full view of the effectiveness, criticality, and prevalence of all relevant applications.
    • Measuring individual application performance with open-ended user feedback surveys about the application, organized by department to simplify problem resolution.
    • Providing targeted department feedback to identify end-user satisfaction and focus improvements on the right group or line of business.

    INFO-TECH DIAGNOSTIC

    Activity: Inventory your CXM applications, and assess application usage and satisfaction

    2.2.4 1 hour

    Input

    • List of CXM applications

    Output

    • Complete inventory of CXM applications
    • CXM Stakeholder Presentation Template

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. List all existing applications that support the creation, management, and delivery of your customer experience.
    2. Identify which processes each application supports (e.g. content deployment, analytics, service delivery, etc.).
    3. Identify technical or licensing dependencies (e.g. data models).
    4. Assess the level of application usage by IT, management, and internal users (high/medium/low).
    5. Assess the satisfaction with and performance of each application according to IT, management, and internal users (high/medium/low). Use the Info-Tech Diagnostic to assist.

    Example: CXM Application Inventory

    Application Name Deployed Date Processes Supported Technical and Licensing Dependencies
    Salesforce June 2018 Customer relationship management XXX
    Hootsuite April 2019 Social media listening XXX
    ... ... ... ...

    Conduct a VRIO analysis to identify core competencies for CXM applications

    A VRIO analysis evaluates the ability of internal resources and capabilities to sustain a competitive advantage by evaluating dimensions of value, rarity, imitability, and organization. For critical applications like your CRM platform, use a VRIO analysis to determine their value.

    Is the resource or capability valuable in exploiting an opportunity or neutralizing a threat? Is the resource or capability rare in the sense that few of your competitors have a similar capability? Is the resource or capability costly to imitate or replicate? Is the organization organized enough to leverage and capture value from the resource or capability?
    NO COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE
    YES NO→ COMPETITIVE EQUALITY/PARITY
    YES YES NO→ TEMPORARY COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
    YES YES YES NO→ UNUSED COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
    YES YES YES YES LONG-TERM COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

    (Strategic Management Insight, 2013)

    Activity: Conduct a VRIO analysis on your existing application portfolio

    2.2.5 30 minutes

    Input

    • Inventory of existing CXM applications (output of Activity 2.2.4)

    Output

    • Completed VRIO analysis
    • Strategic CXM requirements
    • CXM Stakeholder Presentation Template

    Materials

    • VRIO Analysis model
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Evaluate each CXM application inventoried in Activity 2.2.4 by answering the four VRIO questions in sequential order. Do not proceed to the following question if “no” is answered at any point.
    2. Record the results. The state of your organization’s competitive advantage, based on each resource/capability, will be determined based on the number of questions with a “yes” answer. For example, if all four questions are answered positively, then your organization is considered to have a long-term competitive advantage.
    3. Document your outputs in the CXM Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide your through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    2.2.1; 2.2.2 Conduct a SWOT Analysis

    Our facilitator will use a small-team approach to delve deeply into each area, identifying enablers (strengths and opportunities) and challenges (weaknesses and threats) relating to the CXM strategy.

    2.2.3; 2.2.4 Inventory your CXM applications, and assess usage and satisfaction

    Working with your core team, the facilitator will assist with building a comprehensive inventory of CXM applications that are currently in use and with identifying adjacent systems that need to be identified for integration purposes. The facilitator will work to identify high and low performing applications and analyze this data with the team during the workshop exercise.

    2.2.5 Conduct a VRIO analysis

    The facilitator will take you through a VRIO analysis to identify which of your internal technological competencies ensure, or can be leveraged to ensure, your competitiveness in the CXM market.

    Step 2.3: Create an Application Portfolio

    Phase 1

    1.1 Create the Project Vision

    1.2 Structure the Project

    Phase 2

    2.1 Scan the External Environment

    2.2 Assess the Current State of CXM

    2.3 Create an Application Portfolio

    2.4 Develop Deployment Best Practices

    Phase 3

    3.1 Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

    3.2 Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

    Activities

    • Shortlist and prioritize business processes for improvement and reengineering
    • Map current CXM processes
    • Identify business process owners and assign job responsibilities
    • Identify user interaction channels to extract strategic requirements
    • Aggregate and develop strategic requirements
    • Determine gaps in current and future state processes
    • Build the CXM application portfolio

    Outcomes

    CXM application portfolio map

    • Shortlist of relevant business processes
    • Current state map
    • Business process ownership assignment
    • Channel map
    • Complete list of strategic requirements

    Understand business process mapping to draft strategy requirements for marketing, sales, and customer service

    The interaction between sales, marketing, and customer service is very process-centric. Rethink sales and customer-centric workflows and map the desired workflow, imbedding the improved/reengineered process into the requirements.

    Using BPM to Capture Strategic Requirements

    Business process modeling facilitates the collaboration between the business and IT, recording the sequence of events, tasks performed, who performed them, and the levels of interaction with the various supporting applications.

    By identifying the events and decision points in the process and overlaying the people that perform the functions, the data being interacted with, and the technologies that support them, organizations are better positioned to identify gaps that need to be bridged.

    Encourage the analysis by compiling an inventory of business processes that support customer-facing operations that are relevant to achieving the overall organizational strategies.

    Outcomes

    • Operational effectiveness
    • Identification, implementation, and maintenance of reusable enterprise applications
    • Identification of gaps that can be addressed by acquisition of additional applications or process improvement/ reengineering

    INFO-TECH OPPORTUNITY

    Refer to Info-Tech’s Create a Comprehensive BPM Strategy for Successful Process Automation blueprint for further assistance in taking a BPM approach to your sales-IT alignment.

    Leverage the APQC framework to help define your inventory of sales, marketing, and service processes

    APQC’s Process Classification Framework is a taxonomy of cross-functional business processes intended to allow the objective comparison of organizational performance within and among organizations.

    OPERATING PROCESSES
    1.0 Develop Vision and Strategy 2.0 Develop and Manage Products and Services 3.0 Market and Sell Products and Services 4.0 Deliver Products and Services 5.0 Manage Customer Service
    MANAGEMENT AND SUPPORT SERVICES
    6.0 Develop and Manage Human Capital
    7.0 Manage Information Technology
    8.0 Manage Financial Resources
    9.0 Acquire, Construct, and Manage Assets
    10.0 Manage Enterprise Risk, Compliance, and Resiliency
    11.0 Manage External Relationships
    12.0 Develop and Manage Business Capabilities

    (APQC, 2011)

    MORE ABOUT APQC

    • APQC serves as a high-level, industry-neutral enterprise model that allows organizations to see activities from a cross-industry process perspective.
    • Sales processes have been provided up to Level 3 of the APQC framework.
    • The APQC Framework can be accessed through APQC’s Process Classification Framework.
    • Note: The framework does not list all processes within a specific organization, nor are the processes that are listed in the framework present in every organization.

    Understand APQC’s “Market and Sell Products and Services” framework

    3.0 Market and Sell Products

    3.1 Understand markets, customers, and capabilities

    • 3.1.1 Perform customer and market intelligence analysis
    • 3.1.2 Evaluate and prioritize market opportunities

    3.2 Develop marketing strategy

    • 3.2.1 Define offering and customer value proposition
    • 3.2.2 Define pricing strategy to align to value proposition
    • 3.2.3 Define and manage channel strategy

    3.3 Develop sales strategy

    • 3.3.1 Develop sales forecast
    • 3.3.2 Develop sales partner/alliance relationships
    • 3.3.3 Establish overall sales budgets
    • 3.3.4 Establish sales goals and measures
    • 3.3.5 Establish customer management measures

    3.4 Develop and manage marketing plans

    • 3.4.1 Establish goals, objectives, and metrics by products by channels/segments
    • 3.4.2 Establish marketing budgets
    • 3.4.3 Develop and manage media
    • 3.4.4 Develop and manage pricing
    • 3.4.5 Develop and manage promotional activities
    • 3.4.6 Track customer management measures
    • 3.4.7 Develop and manage packaging strategy

    3.5 Develop and manage sales plans

    • 3.5.1 Generate leads
    • 3.5.2 Manage customers and accounts
    • 3.5.3 Manage customer sales
    • 3.5.4 Manage sales orders
    • 3.5.5 Manage sales force
    • 3.5.6 Manage sales partners and alliances

    Understand APQC’s “Manage Customer Service” framework

    5.0 Manage Customer Service

    5.1 Develop customer care/customer service strategy

    • 5.1.1 Develop customer service segmentation
      • 5.1.1.1 Analyze existing customers
      • 5.1.1.2 Analyze feedback of customer needs
    • 5.1.2 Define customer service policies and procedures
    • 5.1.3 Establish service levels for customers

    5.2 Plan and manage customer service operations

    • 5.2.1 Plan and manage customer service work force
      • 5.2.1.1 Forecast volume of customer service contacts
      • 5.2.1.2 Schedule customer service work force
      • 5.2.1.3 Track work force utilization
      • 5.2.1.4 Monitor and evaluate quality of customer interactions with customer service representatives

    5.2 Plan and 5.2.3.1 Receive customer complaints 5.2.3.2 Route customer complaints 5.2.3.3 Resolve customer complaints 5.2.3.4 Respond to customer complaints manage customer service operations

    • 5.2.2 Manage customer service requests/inquiries
      • 5.2.2.1 Receive customer requests/inquiries
      • 5.2.2.2 Route customer requests/inquiries
      • 5.2.2.3 Respond to customer requests/inquiries
    • 5.2.3 Manage customer complaints
      • 5.2.3.1 Receive customer complaints
      • 5.2.3.2 Route customer complaints
      • 5.2.3.3 Resolve customer complaints
      • 5.2.3.4 Respond to customer complaints

    Leverage the APQC framework to inventory processes

    The APQC framework provides levels 1 through 3 for the “Market and Sell Products and Services” framework. Level 4 processes and beyond will need to be defined by your organization as they are more granular (represent the task level) and are often industry-specific.

    Level 1 – Category - 1.0 Develop vision and strategy (10002)

    Represents the highest level of process in the enterprise, such as manage customer service, supply chain, financial organization, and human resources.

    Level 2 – Process Group - 1.1 Define the business concept and long-term vision (10014)

    Indicates the next level of processes and represents a group of processes. Examples include perform after sales repairs, procurement, accounts payable, recruit/source, and develop sales strategy.

    Level 3 – Process - 1.1.1 Assess the external environment (10017)

    A series of interrelated activities that convert input into results (outputs); processes consume resources and require standards for repeatable performance; and processes respond to control systems that direct quality, rate, and cost of performance.

    Level 4 – Activity - 1.1.1.1 Analyze and evaluate competition (10021)

    Indicates key events performed when executing a process. Examples of activities include receive customer requests, resolve customer complaints, and negotiate purchasing contracts.

    Level 5 – Task - 12.2.3.1.1 Identify project requirements and objectives (11117)

    Tasks represent the next level of hierarchical decomposition after activities. Tasks are generally much more fine grained and may vary widely across industries. Examples include create business case and obtain funding, and design recognition and reward approaches.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Define the Level 3 processes in the context of your organization. When creating a CXM strategy, concern yourself with the interrelatedness of processes across existing departmental silos (e.g. marketing, sales, customer service). Reserve the analysis of activities (Level 4) and tasks (Level 3) for granular work initiatives involved in the implementation of applications.

    Use Info-Tech’s CXM Business Process Shortlisting Tool to prioritize processes for improvement

    2.3.1 CXM Business Process Shortlisting Tool

    The CXM Business Process Shortlisting Tool can help you define which marketing, sales, and service processes you should focus on.

    Working in concert with stakeholders from the appropriate departments, complete the short questionnaire.

    Based on validated responses, the tool will highlight processes of strategic importance to your organization.

    These processes can then be mapped, with requirements extracted and used to build the CXM application portfolio.

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    The image shows a screenshot of the Prioritize Your Business Processes for Customer Experience Management document, with sample information filled in.

    Activity: Define your organization’s top-level processes for reengineering and improvement

    2.3.2 1 hour

    Input

    • Shortlist business processes relating to customer experience (output of Tool 2.3.1)

    Output

    • Prioritized list of top-level business processes by department

    Materials

    • APQC Framework
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Inventory all business processes relating to customer experience.
    2. Customize the impacted business units and factor weightings on the scorecard below to reflect the structure and priorities of your organization.
    3. Using the scorecard, identify all processes essential to your customer experience. The scorecard is designed to determine which processes to focus on and to help you understand the impact of the scrutinized process on the different customer-centric groups across the organization.

    The image shows a chart with the headings Factor, Check If Yes, repeated. The chart lists various factors, and the Check if Yes columns are left blank.

    This image shows a chart with the headings Factor, Weights, and Scores. It lists factors, and the rest of the chart is blank.

    Current legend for Weights and Scores

    F – Finance

    H – Human Resources

    I – IT

    L – Legal

    M – Marketing

    BU1 – Business Unit 1

    BU2 – Business Unit 2

    Activity: Map top-level business processes to extract strategic requirements for the CXM application portfolio

    2.3.3 45 minutes

    Input

    • Prioritized list of top-level business processes (output of Activity 2.3.2)

    Output

    • Current state process maps
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • APQC Framework
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers
    • Sticky notes

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. List all prioritized business processes, as identified in Activity 2.3.2. Map your processes in enough detail to capture all relevant activities and system touchpoints, using the legend included in the example. Focus on Level 3 processes, as explained in the APQC framework.
    2. Record all of the major process steps on sticky notes. Arrange the sticky notes in sequential order.
    3. On a set of different colored sticky notes, record all of the systems that enable the process. Map these system touchpoints to the process steps.
    4. Draw arrows in between the steps to represent manual entry or automation.
    5. Identify effectiveness and gaps in existing processes to determine process technology requirements.
    6. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    INFO-TECH OPPORTUNITY

    Refer to Info-Tech’s Create a Comprehensive BPM Strategy for Successful Process Automation blueprint for further assistance in taking a BPM approach to your sales-IT alignment.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Analysis of the current state is important in the context of gap analysis. It aids in understanding the discrepancies between your baseline and the future state vision, and ensures that these gaps are documented as part of the overall requirements.

    Example: map your current CXM processes to parse strategic requirements (customer acquisition)

    The image shows an example of a CXM process map, which is formatted as a flow chart, with a legend at the bottom.

    Activity: Extract requirements from your top-level business processes

    2.3.4 30 minutes

    Input

    • Current state process maps (output of Activity 2.3.3)

    Output

    • Requirements for future state mapping

    Materials

    • Info-Tech examples
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Discuss the current state of priority business processes, as mapped in Activity 2.3.3.
    2. Extract process requirements for business process improvement by asking the following questions:
    • What is the input?
    • What is the output?
    • What are the underlying risks and how can they be mitigated?
    • What conditions should be met to mitigate or eliminate each risk?
    • What are the improvement opportunities?
    • What conditions should be met to enable these opportunities?
    1. Break business requirements into functional and non-functional requirements, as outlined on this slide.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The business and IT should work together to evaluate the current state of business processes and the business requirements necessary to support these processes. Develop a full view of organizational needs while still obtaining the level of detail required to make informed decisions about technology.

    Establish process owners for each top-level process

    Identify the owners of the business processes being evaluated to extract requirements. Process owners will be able to inform business process improvement and assume accountability for reengineered or net-new processes going forward.

    Process Owner Responsibilities

    Process ownership ensures support, accountability, and governance for CXM and its supporting processes. Process owners must be able to negotiate with business users and other key stakeholders to drive efficiencies within their own process. The process owner must execute tactical process changes and continually optimize the process.

    Responsibilities include the following:

    • Inform business process improvement
    • Introduce KPIs and metrics
    • Monitor the success of the process
    • Present process findings to key stakeholders within the organization
    • Develop policies and procedures for the process
    • Implement new methods to manage the process

    Info-Tech Insight

    Identify the owners of existing processes early so you understand who needs to be involved in process improvement and reengineering. Once implemented, CXM applications are likely to undergo a series of changes. Unstructured data will multiply, the number of users may increase, administrators may change, and functionality could become obsolete. Should business processes be merged or drastically changed, process ownership can be reallocated during CXM implementation. Make sure you have the right roles in place to avoid inefficient processes and poor data quality.

    Use Info-Tech’s Process Owner Assignment Guide to aid you in choosing the right candidates

    2.3.5 Process Owner Assignment Guide

    The Process Owner Assignment Guide will ensure you are taking the appropriate steps to identify process owners for existing and net-new processes created within the scope of the CXM strategy.

    The steps in the document will help with important considerations such as key requirements and responsibilities.

    Sections of the document:

    1. Define responsibilities and level of commitment
    2. Define job requirements
    3. Receive referrals
    4. Hold formal interviews
    5. Determine performance metrics

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    Activity: Assign business process owners and identify job responsibilities

    2.3.6 30 minutes

    Input

    • Current state map (output of Activity 2.3.3)

    Output

    • Process owners assigned
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Using Info-Tech’s Process Owner Assignment Guide, assign process owners for each process mapped out in Activity 2.3.3. To assist in doing so, answer the following questions
    • What is the level of commitment expected from each process owner?
    • How will the process owner role be tied to a formal performance appraisal?
    • What metrics can be assigned?
    • How much work will be required to train process owners?
    • Is there support staff available to assist process owners?
  • Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.
  • Choose the channels that will make your target customers happy – and ensure they’re supported by CXM applications

    Traditional Channels

    Face-to-Face is efficient and has a positive personalized aspect that many customers desire, be it for sales or customer service.

    Telephony (or IVR) has been a mainstay of customer interaction for decades. While not fading, it must be used alongside newer channels.

    Postal used to be employed extensively for all domains, but is now used predominantly for e-commerce order fulfillment.

    Web 1.0 Channels

    Email is an asynchronous interaction channel still preferred by many customers. Email gives organizations flexibility with queuing.

    Live Chat is a way for clients to avoid long call center wait times and receive a solution from a quick chat with a service rep.

    Web Portals permit transactions for sales and customer service from a central interface. They are a must-have for any large company.

    Web 2.0 Channels

    Social Media consists of many individual services (like Facebook or Twitter). Social channels are exploding in consumer popularity.

    HTML5 Mobile Access allows customers to access resources from their personal device through its integrated web browser.

    Dedicated Mobile Apps allow customers to access resources through a dedicated mobile application (e.g. iOS, Android).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your channel selections should be driven by customer personas and scenarios. For example, social media may be extensively employed by some persona types (i.e. Millennials) but see limited adoption in other demographics or use cases (i.e. B2B).

    Activity: Extract requirements from your channel map

    2.3.7 30 minutes

    Input

    • Current state process maps (output of Activity 2.3.3)

    Output

    • Channel map
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Info-Tech examples
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Inventory which customer channels are currently used by each department.
    2. Speak with the department heads for Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service and discuss future channel usage. Identify any channels that will be eliminated or added.
    3. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Business Unit Channel Use Survey

    Marketing Sales Customer Service
    Current Used? Future Use? Current Used? Future Use? Current Used? Future Use?
    Email Yes Yes No No No No
    Direct Mail Yes No No No No No
    Phone No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
    In-Person No No Yes Yes Yes No
    Website Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
    Social Channels No Yes Yes Yes No Yes

    Bring it together: amalgamate your strategic requirements for CXM technology enablement

    Discovering your organizational requirements is vital for choosing the right business-enabling initiative, technology, and success metrics. Sorting the requirements by marketing, sales, and service is a prudent mechanism for clarification.

    Strategic Requirements: Marketing

    Definition: High-level requirements that will support marketing functions within CXM.

    Examples

    • Develop a native mobile application while also ensuring that resources for your web presence are built with responsive design interface.
    • Consolidate workflows related to content creation to publish all brand marketing from one source of truth.
    • Augment traditional web content delivery by providing additional functionality such as omnichannel engagement, e-commerce, dynamic personalization, and social media functionality.

    Strategic Requirements: Sales

    Definition: High-level requirements that will support sales functions within CXM.

    Examples

    • Implement a system that reduces data errors and increases sales force efficiency by automating lead management workflows.
    • Achieve end-to-end visibility of the sales process by integrating the CRM, inventory, and order processing and shipping system.
    • Track sales force success by incorporating sales KPIs with real-time business intelligence feeds.

    Strategic Requirements: Customer Service

    Definition: High-level requirements that will support customer service functions within CXM.

    Examples

    • Provide a live chat portal that connects the customer, in real time, with the next available and qualified agent.
    • Bridge the gap between the source of truth for sales with customer service suites to ensure a consistent, end-to-end customer experience from acquisition to customer engagement and retention.
    • Use customer intelligence to track customer journeys in order to best understand and resolve customer complaints.

    Activity: Consolidate your strategic requirements for the CXM application portfolio

    2.3.8 30 minutes

    Input

    • Strategic CXM requirements (outputs of Activities 2.1.5, 2.1.6, and 2.2.2)

    Output

    • Aggregated strategic CXM requirements
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Aggregate strategic CXM requirements that have been gathered thus far in Activities 2.1.5, 2.1.6, and 2.2.2, 2.3.5, and 2.3.7.
    2. Identify and rectify any obvious gaps in the existing set of strategic CXM requirements. To do so, consider the overall corporate and CXM strategy: are there any objectives that have not been addressed in the requirements gathering process?
    3. De-duplicate the list. Prioritize the aggregated/augmented list of CXM requirements as “high/critical,” “medium/important,” or “low/desirable.” This will help manage the relative importance and urgency of different requirements to itemize respective initiatives, resources, and the time in which they need to be addressed. In completing the prioritization of requirements, consider the following:
    • Requirements prioritization must be completed in collaboration with all key stakeholders (across the business and IT). Stakeholders must ask themselves:
      • What are the consequences to the business objectives if this requirement is omitted?
      • Is there an existing system or manual process/workaround that could compensate for it?
      • What business risk is being introduced if a particular requirement cannot be implemented right away?
  • Document your outputs in the CXM Strategic Stakeholder Presentation Template.
  • Info-Tech Insight

    Strategic CXM requirements will be used to prioritize specific initiatives for CXM technology enablement and application rollout. Ensure that IT, the business, and executive management are all aligned on a consistent and agreed upon set of initiatives.

    Burberry digitizes the retail CX with real-time computing to bring consumers back to the physical storefront

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Consumer Goods, Clothing

    Source Retail Congress, 2017

    Burberry London

    Situation

    Internally, Burberry invested in organizational alignment and sales force brand engagement. The more the sales associate knew about the brand engagement and technology-enabled strategy, the better the store’s performance. Before the efforts went to building relationships with customers, Burberry built engagement with employees.

    Burberry embraced “omnichannel,” the hottest buzzword in retailing to provide consumers the most immersive and intuitive brand experience within the store.

    Technology Strategy

    RFID tags were attached to products to trigger interactive videos on the store’s screens in the common areas or in a fitting room. Consumers are to have instant access to relevant product combinations, ranging from craftsmanship information to catwalk looks. This is equivalent to the rich, immediate information consumers have grown to expect from the online shopping experience.

    Another layer of Burberry’s added capabilities includes in-memory-based analytics to gather and analyze data in real-time to better understand customers’ desires. Burberry builds customer profiles based on what items the shoppers try on from the RFID-tagged garments. Although this requires customer privacy consent, customers are willing to provide personal information to trusted brands.

    This program, called “Customer 360,” assisted sales associates in providing data-driven shopping experiences that invite customers to digitally share their buying history and preferences via their tablet devices. As the data is stored in Burberry’s customer data warehouse and accessed through an application such as CRM, it is able to arm sales associates with personal fashion advice on the spot.

    Lastly, the customer data warehouse/CRM application is linked to Burberry’s ERP system and other custom applications in a cloud environment to achieve real-time inventory visibility and fulfillment.

    Burberry digitizes the retail CX with real-time computing to bring consumers back to the physical storefront (cont'd)

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Consumer Goods, Clothing

    Source Retail Congress, 2017

    Burberry London

    Situation

    Internally, Burberry invested in organizational alignment and sales force brand engagement. The more the sales associate knew about the brand engagement and technology-enabled strategy, the better the store’s performance. Before the efforts went to building relationships with customers, Burberry built engagement with employees.

    Burberry embraced “omnichannel,” the hottest buzzword in retailing to provide consumers the most immersive and intuitive brand experience within the store.

    The Results

    Burberry achieved one of the most personalized retail shopping experiences. Immediate personal fashion advice using customer data is only one component of the experience. Not only are historic purchases and preference data analyzed, a customer’s social media posts and fashion industry trend data is proactively incorporated into the interactions between the sales associate and the customer.

    Burberry achieved CEO Angela Ahrendts’ vision of “Burberry World,” in which the brand experience is seamlessly integrated across channels, devices, retail locations, products, and services.

    The organizational alignment between Sales, Marketing, and IT empowered employees to bring the Burberry brand to life in unique ways that customers appreciated and were willing to advocate.

    Burberry is now one of the most beloved and valuable luxury brands in the world. The brand tripled sales in five years, became one of the leading voices on trends, fashion, music, and beauty while redefining what top-tier customer experience should be both digitally and physically.

    Leverage both core CRM suites and point solutions to create a comprehensive CXM application portfolio

    The debate between best-of-breed point solutions versus comprehensive CRM suites is ongoing. There is no single best answer. In most cases, an effective portfolio will include both types of solutions.

    • When the CRM market first evolved, vendors took a heavy “module-centric” approach – offering basic suites with the option to add a number of individual modules. Over time, vendors began to offer suites with a high degree of out-of-the-box functionality. The market has now witnessed the rise of powerful point solutions for the individual business domains.
    • Point solutions augment, rather than supplant, the functionality of a CRM suite in the mid-market to large enterprise context. Point solutions do not offer the necessary spectrum of functionality to take the place of a unified CRM suite.
    • Point solutions enhance aspects of CRM. For example, most CRM vendors have yet to provide truly impressive social media capabilities. An organization seeking to dominate the social space should consider purchasing a social media management platform to address this deficit in their CRM ecosystem.

    Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

    Social Media Management Platform (SMMP)

    Field Sales/Service Automation (FSA)

    Marketing Management Suites

    Sales Force Automation

    Email Marketing Tools

    Lead Management Automation (LMA)

    Customer Service Management Suites

    Customer Intelligence Systems

    Don’t adopt multiple point solutions without a genuine need: choose domains most in need of more functionality

    Some may find that the capabilities of a CRM suite are not enough to meet their specific requirements: supplementing a CRM suite with a targeted point solution can get the job done. A variety of CXM point solutions are designed to enhance your business processes and improve productivity.

    Sales

    Sales Force Automation: Automatically generates, qualifies, tracks, and contacts leads for sales representatives, minimizing time wasted on administrative duties.

    Field Sales: Allows field reps to go through the entire sales cycle (from quote to invoice) while offsite.

    Sales Compensation Management: Models, analyzes, and dispenses payouts to sales representatives.

    Marketing

    Social Media Management Platforms (SMMP): Manage and track multiple social media services, with extensive social data analysis and insight capabilities.

    Email Marketing Bureaus: Conduct email marketing campaigns and mine results to effectively target customers.

    Marketing Intelligence Systems: Perform in-depth searches on various data sources to create predictive models.

    Service

    Customer Service Management (CSM): Manages the customer support lifecycle with a comprehensive array of tools, usually above and beyond what’s in a CRM suite.

    Customer Service Knowledge Management (CSKM): Advanced knowledgebase and resolution tools.

    Field Service Automation (FSA): Manages customer support tickets, schedules work orders, tracks inventory and fleets, all on the go.

    Info-Tech Insight

    CRM and point solution integration is critical. A best-of-breed product that poorly integrates with your CRM suite compromises the value generated by the combined solution, such as a 360-degree customer view. Challenge point solution vendors to demonstrate integration capabilities with CRM packages.

    Refer to your use cases to decide whether to add a dedicated point solution alongside your CRM suite

    Know your end state and what kind of tool will get you there. Refer to your strategic requirements to evaluate CRM and point solution feature sets.

    Standalone CRM Suite

    Sales Conditions: Need selling and lead management capabilities for agents to perform the sales process, along with sales dashboards and statistics.

    Marketing or Communication Conditions: Need basic campaign management and ability to refresh contact records with information from social networks.

    Member Service Conditions: Need to keep basic customer records with multiple fields per record and basic channels such as email and telephony.

    Add a Best-of-Breed or Point Solution

    Environmental Conditions: An extensive customer base with many different interactions per customer along with industry specific or “niche” needs. Point solutions will benefit firms with deep needs in specific feature areas (e.g. social media or field service).

    Sales Conditions: Lengthy sales process and account management requirements for assessing and managing opportunities – in a technically complex sales process.

    Marketing Conditions: Need social media functionality for monitoring and social property management.

    Customer Service Conditions: Need complex multi-channel service processes and/or need for best-of-breed knowledgebase and service content management.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The volume and complexity of both customers and interactions have a direct effect on when to employ just a CRM suite and when to supplement with a point solution. Check to see if your CRM suite can perform a specific business requirement before deciding to evaluate potential point solutions.

    Use Info-Tech’s CXM Portfolio Designer to create an inventory of high-value customer interaction applications

    2.3.9 CXM Portfolio Designer

    The CXM Portfolio Designer features a set of questions geared toward understanding your needs for marketing, sales, and customer service enablement.

    These results are scored and used to suggest a comprehensive solution-level set of enterprise applications for CXM that can drive your application portfolio and help you make investment decisions in different areas such as CRM, marketing management, and customer intelligence.

    Sections of the tool:

    1. Introduction
    2. Customer Experience Management Questionnaire
    3. Business Unit Recommendations
    4. Enterprise-Level Recommendations

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    Understand the art of the possible and how emerging trends will affect your application portfolio (1)

    Cloud

    • The emergence and maturation of cloud technologies has broken down the barriers of software adoption.
    • Cloud has enabled easy-to-implement distributed sales centers for enterprises with global or highly fragmented workforces.
    • Cloud offers the agility, scalability, and flexibility needed to accommodate dynamic, evolving customer requirements while minimizing resourcing strain on IT and sales organizations.
    • It is now easier for small to medium enterprises to acquire and implement advanced sales capabilities to compete against larger competitors in a business environment where the need for business agility is key.
    • Although cost and resource reduction is a prominent view of the impact of cloud computing, it is also seen as an agile way to innovate and deliver a product/service experience that customers are looking for – the key to competitive differentiation.

    Mobile

    • Smartphones and other mobile devices were adopted faster than the worldwide web in the late 1990s, and the business and sales implications of widespread adoption cannot be ignored – mobile is changing how businesses operate.
      • Accenture’s Mobility Research Report states that 87% of companies in the study have been guided by a formal mobility strategy – either one that spans the enterprise or for specific business functions.
    • Mobile is now the first point of interaction with businesses. With this trend, gaining visibility into customer insights with mobile analytics is a top priority for organizations.
    • Enterprises need to develop and optimize mobile experiences for internal salespeople and customers alike as part of their sales strategy – use mobile to enable a competitive, differentiated sales force.
    • The use of mobile platforms by sales managers is becoming a norm. Sales enablement suites should support real-time performance metrics on mobile dashboards.

    Understand the art of the possible and how emerging trends will affect your application portfolio (2)

    Social

    • The rise of social networking brought customers together. Customers are now conversing with each other over a wide range of community channels that businesses neither own nor control.
      • The Power Shift: The use of social channels empowered customers to engage in real-time, unstructured conversations for the purpose of product/service evaluations. Those who are active in social environments come to wield considerable influence over the buying decisions of other prospects and customers.
    • Organizations need to identify the influencers and strategically engage them as well as developing an active presence in social communities that lead to sales.
    • Social media does have an impact on sales, both B2C and B2B. A study conducted in 2012 by Social Centered Selling states that 72.6% of sales people using social media as part of their sales process outperformed their peers and exceeded their quota 23% more often (see charts at right).

    The image shows two bar graphs, the one on top titled Achieving Quota: 2010-2012 and the one below titled Exceeding Quota: 2010-2012.

    (Social Centered Learning, n.d.)

    Understand the art of the possible and how emerging trends will affect your application portfolio (3)

    Internet of Things

    • Definition: The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects accessed through the internet. These objects contain embedded technology to interact with internal states or the external environment.
    • Why is this interesting?
      • IoT will make it possible for everybody and everything to be connected at all times, processing information in real time. The result will be new ways of making business and sales decisions supported by the availability of information.
      • With ubiquitous connectivity, the current product design-centric view of consumers is changing to one of experience design that aims to characterize the customer relationship with a series of integrated interaction touchpoints.
      • The above change contributes to the shift in focus from experience and will mean further acceleration of the convergence of customer-centric business functions. IoT will blur the lines between marketing, sales, and customer service.
      • Products or systems linked to products are capable of self-operating, learning, updating, and correcting by analyzing real-time data.
      • Take for example, an inventory scale in a large warehouse connected to the company’s supply chain management (SCM) system. When a certain inventory weight threshold is reached due to outgoing shipments, the scale automatically sends out a purchase requisition to restock inventory levels to meet upcoming demand.
    • The IoT will eventually begin to transform existing business processes and force organizations to fundamentally rethink how they produce, operate, and service their customers.

    The image shows a graphic titled The Connected Life by 2020, and shows a number of statistics on use of connected devices over time.

    For categories covered by existing applications, determine the disposition for each app: grow it or cut it loose

    Use the two-by-two matrix below to structure your optimal CXM application portfolio. For more help, refer to Info-Tech’s blueprint, Use Agile Application Rationalization Instead of Going Big Bang.

    1

    0

    Richness of Functionality

    INTEGRATE RETAIN
    1
    REPLACE REPLACE OR ENHANCE

    0

    Degree of Integration

    Integrate: The application is functionally rich, so spend time and effort integrating it with other modules by building or enhancing interfaces.

    Retain: The application satisfies both functionality and integration requirements, so it should be considered for retention.

    Replace/Enhance: The module offers poor functionality but is well integrated with other modules. If enhancing for functionality is easy (e.g. through configuration or custom development), consider enhancement or replace it.

    Replace: The application neither offers the functionality sought nor is it integrated with other modules, and thus should be considered for replacement.

    Activity: Brainstorm the art of the possible, and build and finalize the CXM application portfolio

    2.3.10 1-2 hours

    Input

    • Process gaps identified (output of Activity 2.3.9)

    Output

    • CXM application portfolio
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Review the complete list of strategic requirements identified in the preceding exercises, as well as business process maps.
    2. Identify which application would link to which process (e.g. customer acquisition, customer service resolution, etc.).
    3. Use Info-Tech’s CXM Portfolio Designer to create an inventory of high-value customer interaction applications.
    4. Define rationalization and investment areas.
    5. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Brainstorming the Art of the Possible

    Application Gap Satisfied Related Process Number of Linked Requirements Do we have the system? Priority
    LMA
    • Lead Generation
    • Social Lead Management
    • CRM Integration
    Sales 8 No Business Critical
    Customer Intelligence
    • Web Analytics
    • Customer Journey Tracking
    Customer Service 6 Yes Business Enabling
    ... ... ... ... ... ...

    Use Info-Tech’s comprehensive reports to make granular vendor selection decisions

    Now that you have developed the CXM application portfolio and identified areas of new investment, you’re well positioned to execute specific vendor selection projects. After you have built out your initiatives roadmap in phase 3, the following reports provide in-depth vendor reviews, feature guides, and tools and templates to assist with selection and implementation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Not all applications are created equally well for each use case. The vendor reports help you make informed procurement decisions by segmenting vendor capabilities among major use cases. The strategic requirements identified as part of this project should be used to select the use case that best fits your needs.

    If you want additional support, have our analyst guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    2.3.2; 2.3.3 Shortlist and map the key top-level business processes

    Based on experience working with organizations in similar verticals, the facilitator will help your team map out key sample workflows for marketing, sales, and customer service.

    2.3.6 Create your strategic requirements for CXM

    Drawing on the preceding exercises, the facilitator will work with the team to create a comprehensive list of strategic requirements that will be used to drive technology decisions and roadmap initiatives.

    2.3.10 Create and finalize the CXM application portfolio

    Using the strategic requirements gathered through internal, external, and technology analysis up to this point, a facilitator will assist you in assembling a categorical technology application portfolio to support CXM.

    Step 2.4: Develop Deployment Best Practices

    Phase 1

    1.1 Create the Project Vision

    1.2 Structure the Project

    Phase 2

    2.1 Scan the External Environment

    2.2 Assess the Current State of CXM

    2.3 Create an Application Portfolio

    2.4 Develop Deployment Best Practices

    Phase 3

    3.1 Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

    3.2 Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

    Activities:

    • Develop a CXM integration map
    • Develop a mitigation plan for poor quality customer data
    • Create a framework for end-user adoption of CXM applications

    Outcomes:

    • CXM application portfolio integration map
    • Data quality preservation plan
    • End-user adoption plan

    Develop an integration map to specify which applications will interface with each other

    Integration is paramount: your CXM application portfolio must work as a unified face to the customer. Create an integration map to reflect a system of record and the exchange of data.

    • CRM
      • ERP
      • Telephony Systems (IVR, CTI)
      • Directory Services
      • Email
      • Content Management
      • Point Solutions (SMMP, MMS)

    The points of integration that you’ll need to establish must be based on the objectives and requirements that have informed the creation of the CXM application portfolio. For instance, achieving improved customer insights would necessitate a well-integrated portfolio with customer interaction point solutions, business intelligence tools, and customer data warehouses in order to draw the information necessary to build insight. To increase customer engagement, channel integration is a must (i.e. with robust links to unified communications solutions, email, and VoIP telephony systems).

    Info-Tech Insight

    If the CXM application portfolio is fragmented, it will be nearly impossible to build a cohesive view of the customer and deliver a consistent customer experience. Points of integration (POIs) are the junctions between the applications that make up the CXM portfolio. They are essential to creating value, particularly in customer insight-focused and omnichannel-focused deployments. Be sure to include enterprise applications that are not included in the CXM application portfolio. Popular systems to consider for POIs include billing, directory services, content management, and collaboration tools.

    After identifying points of integration, profile them by business significance, complexity, and investment required

    • After enumerating points of integration between the CRM platform and other CXM applications and data sources, profile them by business significance and complexity required to determine a rank-ordering of priorities.
    • Points of integration that are of high business significance with low complexity are your must do’s – these are your quick wins that deliver maximum value without too much cost. This is typically the case when integrating a vendor-to-vendor solution with available native connectors.
    • On the opposite end of the spectrum are your POIs that will require extensive work to deliver but offer negligible value. These are your should not do’s – typically, these are niche requests for integration that will only benefit the workflows of a small (and low priority) group of end users. Only accommodate them if you have slack time and budget built into your implementation timeline.

    The image shows a square matrix with Point of Integration Value Matrix in the centre. On the X-axis is Business Significance, and on the Y-axis is POI complexity. In the upper left quadrant is Should Not Do, upper right is Should Do, lower left is Could Do, and lower right is Must do.

    "Find the absolute minimum number of ‘quick wins’ – the POIs you need from day one that are necessary to keep end users happy and deliver value." – Maria Cindric, Australian Catholic University Source: Interview

    Activity: Develop a CXM application integration map

    2.4.1 1 hour

    Input

    • CXM application portfolio (output of Activity 2.3.10)

    Output

    • CXM application portfolio integration map
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. On sticky notes, record the list of applications that comprise the CXM application portfolio (built in Activity 2.3.10) and all other relevant applications. Post the sticky notes on a whiteboard so you can visualize the portfolio.
    2. Discuss the key objectives and requirements that will drive the integration design of the CXM application portfolio.
    3. As deemed necessary by step 2, rearrange the sticky notes and draw connecting arrows between applications to reflect their integration. Allow the point of the arrow to indicate direction of data exchanges.
    4. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Mapping the Integration of CXM Applications

    The image shows several yellow rectangles with text in them, connected by arrows.

    Plug the hole and bail the boat – plan to be preventative and corrective with customer data quality initiatives

    Data quality is king: if your customer data is garbage in, it will be garbage out. Enable strategic CXM decision making with effective planning of data quality initiatives.

    Identify and Eliminate Dead Weight

    Poor data can originate in the firm’s system of record, which is typically the CRM system. Custom queries, stored procedures, or profiling tools can be used to assess the key problem areas.

    Loose rules in the CRM system lead to records of no significant value in the database. Those rules need to be fixed, but if changes are made before the data is fixed, users could encounter database or application errors, which will reduce user confidence in the system.

    • Conduct a data flow analysis: map the path that data takes through the organization.
    • Use a mass cleanup to identify and destroy dead weight data. Merge duplicates either manually or with the aid of software tools. Delete incomplete data, taking care to reassign related data.
    • COTS packages typically allow power users to merge records without creating orphaned records in related tables, but custom-built applications typically require IT expertise.

    Create and Enforce Standards & Policies

    Now that the data has been cleaned, protect the system from relapsing.

    Work with business users to find out what types of data require validation and which fields should have changes audited. Whenever possible, implement drop-down lists to standardize values and make programming changes to ensure that truncation ceases.

    • Truncated data is usually caused by mismatches in data structures during either one-time data loads or ongoing data integrations.
    • Don’t go overboard on assigning required fields – users will just put key data in note fields.
    • Discourage the use of unstructured note fields: the data is effectively lost unless it gets subpoenaed.
    • To specify policies, use Info-Tech’s Master Data Record Tool.

    Profile your customer and sales-related data

    Applications are a critical component of how IT supports Sales, but IT also needs to help Sales keep its data current and accurate. Conducting a sales data audit is critical to ensure Sales has the right information at the right time.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Data is king. More than ever, having accurate data is essential for your organization to win in hyper-competitive marketplaces. Prudent current state analysis looks at both the overall data model and data architecture, as well as assessing data quality within critical sales-related repositories. As the amount of customer data grows exponentially due to the rise of mobility and the Internet of Things, you must have a forward-looking data model and data marts/customer data warehouse to support sales-relevant decisions.

    • A current state analysis for sales data follows a multi-step process:
      • Determine the location of all sales-relevant and customer data – the sales data inventory. Data can reside in applications, warehouses, and documents (e.g. Excel and Access files) – be sure to take a holistic approach.
    • For each data source, assess data quality across the following categories:
      • Completeness
      • Currency (Relevancy)
      • Correctness
      • Duplication
    • After assessing data quality, determine which repositories need the most attention by IT and Sales. We will look at opportunities for data consolidation later in the blueprint.

    INFO-TECH OPPORTUNITY

    Refer to Info-Tech’s Develop a Master Data Management Strategy and Roadmap blueprint for further reference and assistance in data management for your sales-IT alignment.

    Activity: Develop a mitigation plan for poor quality customer data

    2.4.2 30 minutes

    Input

    • List of departments involved in maintenance of CXM data

    Output

    • Data quality preservation plan
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Inventory a list of departments that will be interacting directly with CXM data.
    2. Identify data quality cleansing and preservation initiatives, such as those in previous examples.
    3. Assign accountability to an individual in the department as a data steward. When deciding on a data steward, consider the following:
    • Data stewards are designated full-time employees who serve as the go-to resource for all issues pertaining to data quality, including keeping a particular data silo clean and free of errors.
    • Data stewards are typically mid-level managers in the business (not IT), preferably with an interest in improving data quality and a relatively high degree of tech-savviness.
    • Data stewards can sometimes be created as a new role with a dedicated FTE, but this is not usually cost effective for small and mid-sized firms.
    • Instead, diffuse the steward role across several existing positions, including one for CRM and other marketing, sales, and service applications.
  • Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.
  • Example: Data Steward Structure

    Department A

    • Data Steward (CRM)
    • Data Steward (ERP)

    Department B

    • Data Steward (All)

    Department C

    • Data Steward (All)

    Determine if a customer data warehouse will add value to your CXM technology-enablement strategy

    A customer data warehouse (CDW) “is a subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, non-volatile collection of data used to support the strategic decision-making process across marketing, sales, and service. It is the central point of data integration for customer intelligence and is the source of data for the data marts, delivering a common view of customer data” (Corporate Information Factory, n.d.).

    Analogy

    CDWs are like a buffet. All the food items are in the buffet. Likewise, your corporate data sources are centralized into one repository. There are so many food items in a buffet that you may need to organize them into separate food stations (data marts) for easier access.

    Examples/Use Cases

    • Time series analyses with historical data
    • Enterprise level, common view analyses
    • Integrated, comprehensive customer profiles
    • One-stop repository of all corporate information

    Pros

    • Top-down architectural planning
    • Subject areas are integrated
    • Time-variant, changes to the data are tracked
    • Non-volatile, data is never over-written or deleted

    Cons

    • A massive amount of corporate information
    • Slower delivery
    • Changes are harder to make
    • Data format is not very business friendly

    Activity: Assess the need for a customer data warehouse

    2.4.3. 30 minutes

    Input

    • List of data sources
    • Data inflows and outflows

    Output

    • Data quality preservation plan
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Create a shortlist of customer data sources.
    2. Profile the integration points that are necessary to support inflows and outflows of customer data.
    3. Ask the following questions around the need for a CDW based on these data sources and points of integration:
    • What is the volume of customer information that needs to be stored? The greater the capacity, the more likely that you should build a dedicated CDW.
    • How complex is the data? The more complex the data, the greater the need for a CDW.
    • How often will data interchange happen between various applications and data sources? The greater and more frequent the interchange, the greater the need for a CDW.
    • What are your organizational capabilities for building a CDW? Do you have the resources in-house to create a CDW at this time?
  • Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.
  • INFO-TECH OPPORTUNITY

    Refer to Info-Tech’s Build an Agile Data Warehouse blueprint for more information on building a centralized and integrated data warehouse.

    Create a plan for end-user training on new (or refocused) CXM applications and data quality processes

    All training modules will be different, but some will have overlapping areas of interest.

    – Assign Project Evangelists – Analytics Training – Mobile Training

    Application Training

    • Customer Service - Assign Project Evangelists – Analytics Training – Mobile Training
      • Focus training on:
        • What to do with inbound tickets.
        • Routing and escalation features.
        • How to use knowledge management features effectively.
        • Call center capabilities.
    • Sales – Assign Project Evangelists – Analytics Training – Mobile Training
      • Focus training on:
        • Recording of opportunities, leads, and deals.
        • How to maximize sales with sales support decision tree.
    • Marketing - Assign Project Evangelists – Analytics Training
      • Focus training on:
        • Campaign management features.
        • Social media monitoring and engagement capabilities.
    • IT
      • Focus training on:
        • Familiarization with the software.
        • Software integration with other enterprise applications.
        • The technical support needed to maintain the system in the future.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Train customers too. Keep the customer-facing sales portals simple and intuitive, have clear explanations/instructions under important functions (e.g. brief directions on how to initiate service inquiries), and provide examples of proper uses (e.g. effective searches). Make sure customers are aware of escalation options available to them if self-service falls short.

    Ensure adoption with a formal communication process to keep departments apprised of new application rollouts

    The team leading the rollout of new initiatives (be they applications, new governance structures, or data quality procedures) should establish a communication process to ensure management and users are well informed.

    CXM-related department groups or designated trainers should take the lead and implement a process for:

    • Scheduling application platform/process rollout/kick-off meetings.
    • Soliciting preliminary input from the attending groups to develop further training plans.
    • Establishing communication paths and the key communication agents from each department who are responsible for keeping lines open moving forward.

    The overall objective for inter-departmental kick-off meetings is to confirm that all parties agree on certain key points and understand alignment rationale and new sales app or process functionality.

    The kick-off process will significantly improve internal communications by inviting all affected internal IT groups, including business units, to work together to address significant issues before the application process is formally activated.

    The kick-off meeting(s) should encompass:

    • Target business-user requirements
    • The high-level application overview
    • Tangible business benefits of alignment
    • Special consideration needs
    • Other IT department needs
    • Target quality of service (QoS) metrics

    Info-Tech Insight

    Determine who in each department will send out a message about initiative implementation, the tone of the message, the medium, and the delivery date.

    Construct a formal communication plan to engage stakeholders through structured channels

    Tangible Elements of a Communications Plan

    • Stakeholder Group Name
    • Stakeholder Description
    • Message
    • Concerns Relative to Application Maintenance
    • Communication Medium
    • Role Responsible for Communication
    • Frequency
    • Start and End Date

    Intangible Elements of a Communications Plan

    • Establish biweekly meetings with representatives from sales functional groups, who are tasked with reporting on:
      • Benefits of revised processes
      • Metrics of success
      • Resource restructuring
    • Establish a monthly interdepartmental meeting, where all representatives from sales and IT leadership discuss pressing bug fixes and minor process improvements.
    • Create a webinar series, complete with Q&A, so that stakeholders can reference these changes at their leisure.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Every piece of information that you give to a stakeholder that is not directly relevant to their interests is a distraction from your core message. Always remember to tailor the message, medium, and timing accordingly.

    Carry the CXM value forward with linkage and relationships between sales, marketing, service, and IT

    Once the sales-IT alignment committees have been formed, create organizational cadence through a variety of formal and informal gatherings between the two business functions.

    • Organizations typically fall in one of three maturity stages: isolation, collaboration, or synergy. Strive to achieve business-technology synergy at the operational level.
    • Although collaboration cannot be mandated, it can be facilitated. Start with a simple gauge of the two functions’ satisfaction with each other, and determine where and how inter-functional communication and synergy can be constructed.

    Isolation

    The image shows four shapes, with the words IT, Sales, Customer Service, and Marketing in them.

    • Point solutions are implemented on an ad-hoc basis by individual departments for specific projects.
    • Internal IT is rarely involved in these projects from beginning to end.

    Collaboration

    The image features that same four shapes and text from the previous image, but this time they are connected by dotted lines.

    • There is a formal cross-departmental effort to integrate some point solutions.
    • Internal IT gets involved to integrate systems and then support system interactions.

    Synergy

    The image features the same shapes and text from previous instances, except the shapes are now connect by solid lines and the entire image is surrounded by dotted lines.

    • Cross-functional, business technology teams are established to work on IT-enabled revenue generation initiatives.
    • Team members are collocated if possible.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    2.4.1 Develop a CXM application integration map

    Using the inventory of existing CXM-supporting applications and the newly formed CXM application portfolio as inputs, your facilitator will assist you in creating an integration map of applications to establish a system of record and flow of data.

    2.4.2 Develop a mitigation plan for poor quality customer data

    Our facilitator will educate your stakeholders on the importance of quality data and guide you through the creation of a mitigation plan for data preservation.

    2.4.3 Assess the need for a customer data warehouse

    Addressing important factors such as data volume, complexity, and flow, a facilitator will help you assess whether or not a customer data warehouse for CXM is the right fit for your organization.

    Phase 3

    Finalize the CXM Framework

    Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management

    Phase 3 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.

    Guided Implementation 3: Finalize the CXM Framework

    Proposed Time to Completion: 1 week

    Step 3.1: Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Discuss strategic requirements and the associated application portfolio that has been proposed.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Initiatives prioritization

    With these tools & templates:

    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template

    Step 3.2: Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Discuss roadmap and next steps in terms of rationalizing and implementing specific technology-centric initiatives or rollouts.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Confirm stakeholder strategy presentation

    With these tools & templates:

    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template

    Phase 3 Results & Insights:

    • Initiatives roadmap

    Step 3.1: Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

    Phase 1

    1.1 Create the Project Vision

    1.2 Structure the Project

    Phase 2

    2.1 Scan the External Environment

    2.2 Assess the Current State of CXM

    2.3 Create an Application Portfolio

    2.4 Develop Deployment Best Practices

    Phase 3

    3.1 Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

    3.2 Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

    Activities:

    • Create a risk management plan
    • Brainstorm initiatives for CXM roadmap
    • Identify dependencies and enabling projects for your CXM roadmap
    • Complete the CXM roadmap

    Outcomes:

    • Risk management plan
    • CXM roadmap
      • Quick-win initiatives

    A CXM technology-enablement roadmap will provide smooth and timely implementation of your apps/initiatives

    Creating a comprehensive CXM strategy roadmap reduces the risk of rework, misallocation of resources, and project delays or abandonment.

    • People
    • Processes
    • Technology
    • Timeline
    • Tasks
    • Budget

    Benefits of a Roadmap

    1. Prioritize execution of initiatives in alignment with business, IT, and needs.
    2. Create clearly defined roles and responsibilities for IT and business stakeholders.
    3. Establish clear timelines for rollout of initiatives.
    4. Identify key functional areas and processes.
    5. Highlight dependencies and prerequisites for successful deployment.
    6. Reduce the risk of rework due to poor execution.

    Implement planning and controls for project execution

    Risk Management

    • Track risks associated with your CXM project.
    • Assign owners and create plans for resolving open risks.
    • Identify risks associated with related projects.
    • Create a plan for effectively communicating project risks.

    Change Management

    • Brainstorm a high-level training plan for various users of the CXM.
    • Create a communication plan to notify stakeholders and impacted users about the tool and how it will alter their workday and performance of role activities.
    • Establish a formal change management process that is flexible enough to meet the demands for change.

    Project Management

    • Conduct a post-mortem to evaluate the completion of the CXM strategy.
    • Design the project management process to be adaptive in nature.
    • Communication is key to project success, whether it is to external stakeholders or internal project team members..
    • Review the project’s performance against metrics and expectations.

    INFO-TECH OPPORTUNITIES

    Optimize the Change Management Process

    You need to design a process that is flexible enough to meet demand for change and strict enough to protect the live environment from change-related incidents.

    Create Project Management Success

    Investing time up front to plan the project and implementing best practices during project execution to ensure the project is delivered with the planned outcome and quality is critical to project success.

    Activity: Create a risk management plan

    3.1.1 45 minutes

    Input

    • Inventory of risks

    Output

    • Risk management plan
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Create a list of possible risks that may hamper the progress of your CXM project.
    2. Classify risks as strategy-based, related to planning, or systems-based, related to technology.
    3. Brainstorm mitigation strategies to overcome each listed risk.
    4. On a score of 1 to 3, determine the impact of each risk on the success of the project.
    5. On a score of 1 to 3, determine the likelihood of the occurrence for each risk.
    6. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Constructing a Risk Management Plan

    Risk Impact Likelihood Mitigation Effort
    Strategy Risks Project over budget
    • Detailed project plan
    • Pricing guarantees
    Inadequate content governance
    System Risks Integration with additional systems
    • Develop integration plan and begin testing integration methods early in the project
    .... ... ... ...

    Likelihood

    1 – High/ Needs Focus

    2 – Can Be Mitigated

    3 - Unlikely

    Impact

    1 - High Risk

    2 - Moderate Risk

    3 - Minimal Risk

    Prepare contingency plans to minimize time spent handling unexpected risks

    Understanding technical and strategic risks can help you establish contingency measures to reduce the likelihood that risks will occur. Devise mitigation strategies to help offset the impact of risks if contingency measures are not enough.

    Remember

    The biggest sources of risk in a CXM strategy are lack of planning, poorly defined requirements, and lack of governance.

    Apply the following mitigation tips to avoid pitfalls and delays.

    Risk Mitigation Tips

    • Upfront planning
    • Realistic timelines
    • Resource support
    • Change management
    • Executive sponsorship
    • Sufficient funding
    • Expectation setting
    1. Project Starts
    • Expectations are high
  • Project Workload Increases
    • Expectations are high
  • Pit of Despair
    • Why are we doing this?
  • Project Nears Close
    • Benefits are being realized
  • Implementation is Completed
    • Learning curve dip
  • Standardization & Optimization
    • Benefits are high
  • Identify factors to complete your CXM initiatives roadmap

    Completion of initiatives for your CXM project will be contingent upon multiple variables.

    Defining Dependencies

    Initiative complexity will define the need for enabling projects. Create a process to define dependencies:

    1. Enabling projects: complex prerequisites.
    2. Preceding tasks: direct and simplified assignments.

    Establishing a Timeline

    • Assign realistic timelines for each initiative to ensure smooth progress.
    • Use milestones and stage gates to track the progress of your initiatives and tasks.

    Defining Importance

    • Based on requirements gathering, identify the importance of each initiative to your marketing department.
    • Each initiative can be ranked high, medium, or low.

    Assigning Ownership

    • Owners are responsible for on-time completion of their assigned initiatives.
    • Populate a RACI chart to ensure coverage of all initiatives.

    Complex....Initiative

    • Enabling Project
      • Preceding Task
      • Preceding Task
    • Enabling Project
      • Preceding Task
      • Preceding Task

    Simple....Initiative

    • Preceding Task
    • Preceding Task
    • Preceding Task

    Activity: Brainstorm CXM application initiatives for implementation in alignment with business needs

    3.1.2 45 minutes

    Input

    • Inventory of CXM initiatives

    Output

    • Prioritized and quick-win initiatives
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. As a team, identify and list CXM initiatives that need to be addressed.
    2. Plot the initiatives on the complexity-value matrix to determine priority.
    3. Identify quick wins: initiatives that can realize quick benefits with little effort.
    4. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Importance-Capability Matrix

    The image shows a matrix, with Initiative Complexity on the X-axis, and Business Value on the Y-axis. There are circle of different sizes in the matrix.

    Pinpoint quick wins: high importance, low effort initiatives.

    The size of each plotted initiative must indicate the effort or the complexity and time required to complete.
    Top Right Quadrant Strategic Projects
    Top Left Quadrant Quick Wins
    Bottom Right Quadrant Risky Bets
    Bottom Left Quadrant Discretionary Projects

    Activity: Identify any dependencies or enabling projects for your CXM roadmap

    3.1.3 1 hour

    Input

    • Implementation initiatives
    • Dependencies

    Output

    • CXM project dependencies

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Using sticky notes and a whiteboard, have each team member rank the compiled initiatives in terms of priority.
    2. Determine preceding tasks or enabling projects that each initiative is dependent upon.
    3. Determine realistic timelines to complete each quick win, enabling project, and long-term initiative.
    4. Assign an owner for each initiative.

    Example: Project Dependencies

    Initiative: Omnichannel E-Commerce

    Dependency: WEM Suite Deployment; CRM Suite Deployment; Order Fulfillment Capabilities

    Activity: Complete the implementation roadmap

    3.1.4 30 minutes

    Input

    • Implementation initiatives
    • Dependencies

    Output

    • CXM Roadmap
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Establish time frames to highlight enabling projects, quick wins, and long-term initiatives.
    2. Indicate the importance of each initiative as high, medium, or low based on the output in Activity 3.1.2.
    3. Assign each initiative to a member of the project team. Each owner will be responsible for the execution of a given initiative as planned.
    4. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Example: Importance-Capability Matrix

    Importance Initiative Owner Completion Date
    Example Projects High Gather business requirements. Project Manager MM/DD/YYYY
    Quick Wins
    Long Term Medium Implement e-commerce across all sites. CFO & Web Manager MM/DD/YYYY

    Importance

    • High
    • Medium
    • Low

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.1.1 Create a risk management plan

    Based on the workshop exercises, the facilitator will work with the core team to design a priority-based risk mitigation plan that enumerates the most salient risks to the CXM project and addresses them.

    3.1.2; 3.1.3; 3.1.4 Identify initiative dependencies and create the CXM roadmap

    After identifying dependencies, our facilitators will work with your IT SMEs and business stakeholders to create a comprehensive roadmap, outlining the initiatives needed to carry out your CXM strategy roadmap.

    Step 3.2: Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

    Phase 1

    1.1 Create the Project Vision

    1.2 Structure the Project

    Phase 2

    2.1 Scan the External Environment

    2.2 Assess the Current State of CXM

    2.3 Create an Application Portfolio

    2.4 Develop Deployment Best Practices

    Phase 3

    3.1 Create an Initiative Rollout Plan

    3.2 Confirm and Finalize the CXM Blueprint

    Activities:

    • Identify success metrics
    • Create a stakeholder power map
    • Create a stakeholder communication plan
    • Complete and present CXM strategy stakeholder presentation

    Outcomes:

    • Stakeholder communication plan
    • CXM strategy stakeholder presentation

    Ensure that your CXM applications are improving the performance of targeted processes by establishing metrics

    Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

    Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable measures that demonstrate the effectiveness of a process and its ability to meet business objectives.

    Questions to Ask

    1. What outputs of the process can be used to measure success?
    2. How do you measure process efficiency and effectiveness?

    Creating KPIs

    Specific

    Measurable

    Achievable

    Realistic

    Time-bound

    Follow the SMART methodology when developing KPIs for each process.

    Adhering to this methodology is a key component of the Lean management methodology. This framework will help you avoid establishing general metrics that aren’t relevant.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Metrics are essential to your ability to measure and communicate the success of the CXM strategy to the business. Speak the same language as the business and choose metrics that relate to marketing, sales, and customer service objectives.

    Activity: Identify metrics to communicate process success

    3.2.1 1 hour

    Input

    • Key organizational objectives

    Output

    • Strategic business metrics
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Recap the major functions that CXM will focus on (e.g. marketing, sales, customer service, web experience management, social media management, etc.)
    2. Identify business metrics that reflect organizational objectives for each function.
    3. Establish goals for each metric (as exemplified below).
    4. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.
    5. Communicate the chosen metrics and the respective goals to stakeholders.

    Example: Metrics for Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service Functions

    Metric Example
    Marketing Customer acquisition cost X% decrease in costs relating to advertising spend
    Ratio of lifetime customer value X% decrease in customer churn
    Marketing originated customer % X% increase in % of customer acquisition driven by marketing
    Sales Conversion rate X% increase conversion of lead to sale
    Lead response time X% decrease in response time per lead
    Opportunity-to-win ratio X% increase in monthly/annual opportunity-to-win ratio
    Customer Service First response time X% decreased time it takes for customer to receive first response
    Time-to-resolution X% decrease of average time-to-resolution
    Customer satisfaction X% improvement of customer satisfaction ratings on immediate feedback survey

    Use Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Power Map Template to identify stakeholders crucial to CXM application rollouts

    3.2.2 Stakeholder Power Map Template

    Use this template and its power map to help visualize the importance of various stakeholders and their concerns. Prioritize your time according to the most powerful and most impacted stakeholders.

    Answer questions about each stakeholder:

    • Power: How much influence does the stakeholder have? Enough to drive the project forward or into the ground?
    • Involvement: How interested is the stakeholder? How involved is the stakeholder in the project already?
    • Impact: To what degree will the stakeholder be impacted? Will this significantly change how they do their job?
    • Support: Is the stakeholder a supporter of the project? Neutral? A resistor?

    Focus on key players: relevant stakeholders who have high power, should have high involvement, and are highly impacted.

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    Stakeholder Power Map Template

    Use Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Communication Planning Template to document initiatives and track communication

    3.2.3 Stakeholder Communication Planning Template

    Use the Stakeholder Communication Planning Template to document your list of initiative stakeholders so you can track them and plan communication throughout the initiative.

    Track the communication methods needed to convey information regarding CXM initiatives. Communicate how a specific initiative will impact the way employees work and the work they do.

    Sections of the document:

    1. Document the Stakeholder Power Map (output of Tool 3.2.2).
    2. Complete the Communicate Management Plan to aid in the planning and tracking of communication and training.

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    Activity: Create a stakeholder power map and communication plan

    3.2.4 1 hour

    Input

    • Stakeholder power map

    Output

    • Stakeholder communication plan
    • CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation

    Materials

    • Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Communication Planning Template
    • Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Power Map Template

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Using Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Power Map Template, identify key stakeholders for ensuring the success of the CXM strategy (Tool 3.2.2).
    2. Using Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Communication Plan Template, construct a communication plan to communicate and track CXM initiatives with all CXM stakeholders (Tool 3.2.3).
    3. Document your outputs in the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template.

    Use Info-Tech’s CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template to sell your CXM strategy to the business

    3.2.5 CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template

    Complete the presentation template as indicated when you see the green icon throughout this deck. Include the outputs of all activities that are marked with this icon.

    Info-Tech has designed the CXM Strategy Stakeholder Presentation Template to capture the most critical aspects of the CXM strategy. Customize it to best convey your message to project stakeholders and to suit your organization.

    The presentation should be no longer than one hour. However, additional slides can be added at the discretion of the presenter. Make sure there is adequate time for a question and answer period.

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    After the presentation, email the deck to stakeholders to ensure they have it available for their own reference.

    Activity: Determine the measured value received from the project

    3.2.6 30 minutes

    Input

    • Project Metrics

    Output

    • Measured Value Calculation

    Materials

    • Workbook

    Participants

    • Project Team

    Instructions

    1. Review project metrics identified in phase 1 and associated benchmarks.
    2. After executing the CXM project, compare metrics that were identified in the benchmarks with the revised and assess the delta.
    3. Calculate the percentage change and quantify dollar impact (i.e. as a result of increased customer acquisition or retention).

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.2.4 Create a stakeholder power map and communication plan

    An analyst will walk the project team through the creation of a communication plan, inclusive of project metrics and their respective goals. If you are planning a variety of CXM initiatives, track how the change will be communicated and to whom. Determine the employees who will be impacted by the change.

    Insight breakdown

    Insight 1

    • IT must work in lockstep with Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service to develop a comprehensive technology-enablement strategy for CXM.
    • As IT works with its stakeholders in the business, it must endeavor to capture and use the voice of the customer in driving strategic requirements for CXM portfolio design.
    • IT must consider the external environment, customer personas, and internal processes as it designs strategic requirements to build the CXM application portfolio.

    Insight 2

    • The cloud is bringing significant disruption to the CXM space: to maintain relevancy, IT must become deeply involved in ensuring alignment between vendor capabilities and strategic requirements.
    • IT must serve as a trusted advisor on technical implementation challenges related to CXM, such as data quality, integration, and end-user training and adoption.
    • IT is responsible for technology enablement and is an indispensable partner in this regard; however, the business must ultimately own the objectives and communication strategy for customer engagement.

    Insight 3

    • When crafting a portfolio for CXM, be aware of the art of the possible: capabilities are rapidly merging and evolving to support new interaction channels. Social, mobile, and IoT are disrupting the customer experience landscape.
    • Big data and analytics-driven decision making is another significant area of value. IT must allow for true customer intelligence by providing an integration framework across customer-facing applications.

    Summary of accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    • Voice of the Customer for CXM Portfolio Design
    • Understanding of Strategic Requirements for CXM
    • Customer Personas and Scenarios
    • Environmental Scan
    • Deployment Considerations
    • Initiatives Roadmap Considerations

    Processes Optimized

    • CXM Technology Portfolio Design
    • Customer Data Quality Processes
    • CXM Integrations

    Deliverables Completed

    • Strategic Summary for CXM
    • CXM Project Charter
    • Customer Personas
    • External and Competitive Analysis
    • CXM Application Portfolio

    Bibliography

    Accenture Digital. “Growing the Digital Business: Accenture Mobility Research 2015.” Accenture. 2015. Web.

    Afshar, Vala. “50 Important Customer Experience Stats for Business Leaders.” Huffington Post. 15 Oct. 2015. Web.

    APQC. “Marketing and Sales Definitions and Key Measures.” APQC’s Process Classification Framework, Version 1.0.0. APQC. Mar. 2011. Web.

    CX Network. “The Evolution of Customer Experience in 2015.” Customer Experience Network. 2015. Web.

    Genesys. “State of Customer Experience Research”. Genesys. 2018. Web.

    Harvard Business Review and SAS. “Lessons From the Leading Edge of Customer Experience Management.” Harvard Business School Publishing. 2014. Web.

    Help Scout. “75 Customer Service Facts, Quotes & Statistics.” Help Scout. n.d. Web.

    Inmon Consulting Services. “Corporate Information Factory (CIF) Overview.” Corporate Information Factory. n.d. Web

    Jurevicius, Ovidijus. “VRIO Framework.” Strategic Management Insight. 21 Oct. 2013. Web.

    Keenan, Jim, and Barbara Giamanco. “Social Media and Sales Quota.” A Sales Guy Consulting and Social Centered Selling. n.d. Web.

    Malik, Om. “Internet of Things Will Have 24 Billion Devices by 2020.” Gigaom. 13 Oct. 2011. Web.

    McGovern, Michele. “Customers Want More: 5 New Expectations You Must Meet Now.” Customer Experience Insight. 30 July 2015. Web.

    McGinnis, Devon. “40 Customer Service Statistics to Move Your Business Forward.” Salesforce Blog. 1 May 2019. Web.

    Bibliography

    Reichheld, Fred. “Prescription for Cutting Costs”. Bain & Company. n.d. Web.

    Retail Congress Asia Pacific. “SAP – Burberry Makes Shopping Personal.” Retail Congress Asia Pacific. 2017. Web.

    Rouse, Margaret. “Omnichannel Definition.” TechTarget. Feb. 2014. Web.

    Salesforce Research. “Customer Expectations Hit All-Time High.” Salesforce Research. 2018. Web.

    Satell, Greg. “A Look Back at Why Blockbuster Really Failed and Why It Didn’t Have To.” Forbes. 5 Sept. 2014. Web.

    Social Centered Learning. “Social Media and Sales Quota: The Impact of Social Media on Sales Quota and Corporate Review.” Social Centered Learning. n.d. Web.

    Varner, Scott. “Economic Impact of Experience Management”. Qualtrics/Forrester. 16 Aug. 2017. Web.

    Wesson, Matt. “How to Use Your Customer Data Like Amazon.” Salesforce Pardot Blog. 27 Aug. 2012. Web.

    Winterberry Group. “Taking Cues From the Customer: ‘Omnichannel’ and the Drive For Audience Engagement.” Winterberry Group LLC. June 2013. Web.

    Wollan, Robert, and Saideep Raj. “How CIOs Can Support a More Agile Sales Organization.” The Wall Street Journal: The CIO Report. 25 July 2013. Web.

    Zendesk. “The Impact of Customer Service on Customer Lifetime Value 2013.” Z Library. n.d. Web.

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

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    • Writing SOPs is the last thing most people want to do, so the work gets pushed down the priority list and the documents become dated.
    • Most organizations know it is good practice to have SOPs as it improves consistency, facilitates process improvement, and contributes to efficient operations.
    • Though the benefits are understood, many organizations don't have SOPs and those that do don't maintain them.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Create visual documents, not dense SOP manuals.
    • Start with high-impact SOPs, and identify the most critical undocumented SOPs and address them first.
    • Integrate SOP creation into project requirements and create SOP approval steps to ensure documentation is reviewed and completed in a timely fashion.

    Impact and Result

    • Create visual documents that can be scanned. Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams are quicker to create, take less time to update, and are ultimately more usable than a dense manual.
    • Use simple but effective document management practices.
    • Make SOPs part of your project deliverables rather than an afterthought. That includes checking documentation status as part of your change management process.

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind – Make SOPs work for you with visual documents that are easier to create and more effective for process management and optimization.

    Learn best practices for creating, maintaining, publishing, and managing effective SOP documentation.

    • Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind – Phases 1-3

    2. Standard Operating Procedures Workbook and Document Management Checklist – Prioritize, optimize, and document critical SOPs.

    Identify required documentation and prioritize them according to urgency and impact.

    • Standard Operating Procedures Workbook
    • Document Management Checklist

    3. Process Templates and Examples – Review and assess templates to find samples that are fit for purpose.

    Review the wide variety of samples to see what works best for your needs.

    • Standard Operating Procedures Project Roadmap Tool
    • System Recovery Procedures Template
    • Application Development Process – AppDev Example (Visio)
    • Application Development Process – AppDev Example (PDF)
    • Network Backup for Atlanta Data Center – Backups Example
    • DRP Recovery Workflow Template (PDF)
    • DRP Recovery Workflow Template (Visio)
    • Employee Termination Process Checklist – IT Security Example
    • Sales Process for New Clients – Sales Example (Visio)
    • Sales Process for New Clients – Sales Example (PDF)
    • Incident and Service Management Procedures – Service Desk Example (Visio)
    • Incident and Service Management Procedures – Service Desk Example (PDF)
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

    Change your focus from satisfying auditors to driving process optimization, consistent IT operations, and effective knowledge transfer.

    Project Outline

    Two flowcharts are depicted. The first is labelled 'Executive Brief' and the second is labelled 'Tools and Templates Roadmap'. Both outline the following project.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    Do your SOPs drive process optimization?

    "Most organizations struggle to document and maintain SOPs as required, leading to process inconsistencies and inefficiencies. These breakdowns directly impact the performance of IT operations. Effective SOPs streamline training and knowledge transfer, improve transparency and compliance, enable automation, and ultimately decrease costs as processes improve and expensive breakdowns are avoided. Documenting SOPs is not just good practice; it directly impacts IT efficiency and your bottom line."

    Frank Trovato, Senior Manager, Infrastructure Research Info-Tech Research Group

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • IT Process Owners
    • IT Infrastructure Managers
    • IT Service Managers
    • System Administrators
    • And more…

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Identify, prioritize, and document SOPs for critical business processes.
    • Discover opportunities for overall process optimization by documenting SOPs.
    • Develop documentation best practices that support ongoing maintenance and review.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • CTOs
    • Business unit leaders

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Understand the need for and value of documenting SOPs in a usable format.
    • Help set expectations around documentation best practices.
    • Extend IT best practices to other parts of the business.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • Most organizations know it is good practice to have SOPs as it improves consistency, facilitates process improvement, and contributes to efficient operations.
    • Though the benefits are understood, many organizations don't have SOPs and those that do don't maintain them.

    Complication

    • Writing SOPs is the last thing most people want to do, so the work gets pushed down the priority list and the documents become dated.
    • Promoting the use of SOPs can also face staff resistance as the documentation is seen as time consuming to develop and maintain, too convoluted to be useful, and generally out of date.

    Resolution

    • Overcome staff resistance while implementing a sustainable SOP documentation approach by doing the following:
      • Create visual documents that can be scanned. Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams are quicker to create, take less time to update, and are ultimately more usable than a dense manual.
      • Use simple, but effective document management practices.
      • Make SOPs part of your project deliverables rather than an afterthought. That includes checking documentation status as part of your change management process.
    • Extend these principles to other areas of IT and business processes. The survey data and examples in this report include application development and business processes as well as IT operations.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Create visual documents, not dense SOP manuals.
    2. Start with high-impact SOPs. Identify the most critical undocumented SOPs and document them first.
    3. Integrate SOP creation into project requirements and create SOP approval steps to ensure documentation is reviewed and completed in a timely fashion.

    Most organizations struggle to create and maintain SOP documents, especially in North America, despite the benefits

    North American companies are traditionally more technology focused than process focused, and that is reflected in the approach to documenting SOPs.

    • An ad hoc approach to SOPs almost certainly means documents will be out of date and ineffective. The same is also true when updating SOPs as part of periodic concerted efforts to prepare for an audit, annual review, or certification process, and this makes the task more imposing.
    • Incorporating SOP updates as part of regular change management processes ensures documents are up to date and usable. This can also make reviews and audits much more manageable.

    'It isn’t unusual for us to see infrastructure or operations documentation that is wildly out of date. We’re talking months, even years. Often it was produced as one big effort and then not reliably maintained.'

    – Gary Patterson, Consultant, Quorum Resources

    Organizations are most likely to update documents on an ad hoc basis or via periodic formal reviews. Less than 25% keep SOPs updated as needed.

    Graph depicting North America versus Asia and Europe practices of document updates

    Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N=104

    Document SOPs to improve knowledge transfer, optimize processes, and ultimately save money

    Benefits of documented SOPs Impact of undocumented/undefined SOPs
    Improved training and knowledge transfer: Routine tasks can be delegated to junior staff (freeing senior staff to work on higher priority tasks). Without documented SOPs: Tasks will be difficult to delegate, key staff become a bottleneck, knowledge transfer is inconsistent, and there is a longer onboarding process for new staff.
    IT automation, process optimization, and consistent operations: Defining, documenting, and then optimizing processes enables IT automation to be built on sound processes, so consistent positive results can be achieved. Without documented SOPs: IT automation built on poorly defined, unoptimized processes leads to inconsistent results.
    Compliance: Compliance audits are more manageable because the documentation is already in place. Without documented SOPs: Documenting SOPs to prepare for an audit becomes a major time-intensive project.
    Transparency: Visually documented processes answer the common business question of “why does that take so long?” Without documented SOPs: Other areas of the organization may not understand how IT operates, which can lead to confusion and unrealistic expectations.
    Cost savings: Work can be assigned to the lowest level of support cost, IT operations achieve greater efficiency, and expensive breakdowns are avoided. Without documented SOPs: Work may be distributed uneconomically, money may be wasted through inefficient processes, and the organization is vulnerable to costly disruptions.

    COBIT, ISO, and ITIL aren’t a complete solution

    "Being ITIL and ISO compliant hasn’t solved our documentation problem. We’re still struggling."

    – Vendor Relationship Manager, Financial Services Industry

    • Adopting a framework such as ITIL, COBIT, or ISO doesn’t always mean that SOP documents are accurate, effective, or up to date.
    • Although these frameworks emphasize the importance of documenting processes, they tend to focus more on process development and requirements than on actual documentation. In other words, they deal more with what needs to be done than with how to do it.
    • This research will focus more on the documentation process itself – so how to go about creating, updating, optimizing, managing, and distributing SOP documents.

    Inadequate SOPs lead to major data loss and over $99,000 in recovery costs

    CASE STUDY 1

    Company A mid-sized US organization with over 1,000 employees

    Source Info-Tech Interview

    Situation

    • IT supports storage nodes replicated across two data centers. SOPs for backup procedures did not include an escalation procedure for failed backups or a step to communicate successful backups. Management was not aware of the issue and therefore could not address it before a failure occurred.

    Incident

    • Primary storage had a catastrophic failure, and that put pressure on the secondary storage, which then also failed. All active storage failed and the data corrupted. Daily backups were failing due to lack of disk space on the backup device. The organization had to resort to monthly tape backups.

    Impact

    • Lost 1 month of data (had to go back to the last tape backup).
    • Recovery also took much longer because recovery procedures were also not documented.
    • Key steps such as notifying impacted customers were overlooked. Customers were left unhappy not only with the outage and data loss but also the lack of communication.
    Hard dollar recovery costs
    Backup specialist (vendor) to assist with restoring data from tape $12,000
    Temps to re-enter 1 month of data $5,000
    Weekend OT for 4 people (approximately 24 hours per person) $5,538
    Productivity cost for affected employees for 1 day of downtime $76,923
    Total $99,462

    Intangible costs

    High “goodwill” impact for internal staff and customers.

    "The data loss pointed out a glaring hole in our processes – the lack of an escalation procedure. If I knew backups weren’t being completed, I would have done something about that immediately."

    – Senior Division Manager, Information Technology Division

    IT services company optimizes its SOPs using “Lean” approach

    CASE STUDY 2

    Company Atrion

    SourceInfo-Tech Interview

    Lean and SOPs

    • Standardized work is important to Lean’s philosophy of continuous improvement. SOPs allow for replication of the current best practices and become the baseline standard for member collaboration toward further improvements.
    • For more on Lean’s approach to SOPs, see “Lean Six Sigma Quality Transformation Toolkit (LSSQTT) Tool #17.”

    Atrion’s approach

    • Atrion is focused on documenting high-level processes that improve the client and employee experience or which can be used for training.
    • Cross-functional teams collaborate to document a process and find ways to optimize that SOP.
    • Atrion leverages visual documentation as much as possible: flowcharts, illustrations, video screen captures, etc.

    Outcomes

    • Large increase in usable, up-to-date documentation.
    • Process and efficiency improvements realized and made repeatable.
    • Success has been so significant that Atrion is planning to offer SOP optimization training and support as a service for its clients in the future.

    Atrion

    • Atrion provides IT services, solutions, and leadership to clients in the 250+ user range.
    • After adopting the Lean framework for its organization, it has deliberately focussed on optimizing its documentation.

    When we initiated a formal process efficiency program a little over a year ago and began striving towards a culture of continuous improvement, documenting our SOPs became key. We capture how we do things today and how to make that process more efficient. We call it current state and future state mapping of any process.

    – Michelle Pope, COO, Atrion Networking Corp.

    Strategies to overcome common documentation challenges

    Use Info-Tech’s methodology to streamline the SOP documentation process.

    Common documentation challenges Info-Tech’s methodology
    Where to start. For organizations with very few (if any) documented SOPs, the challenge is where to start. Apply a client focus to prioritize SOPs. Start with mission-critical operations, service management, and disaster recovery.
    Lack of time. Writing SOPs is viewed as an onerous task, and IT staff typically do not like to write documentation or lack the time. Use flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams over traditional dense manuals. Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams take less time to create and maintain, and the output is far more usable than traditional manuals.
    Inconsistent document management. Documents are unorganized, e.g. hard to find documents, or you don’t know if you have the correct, latest version. Keep it simple. You don’t need a full-time SOP librarian if you stick to a simple, but consistent approach to documentation management. Simple is easier to follow (therefore, be consistent).
    Documentation is not maintained. More urgent tasks displace documentation efforts. There is little real motivation for staff to keep documents current. Ensure accountability at the individual and project level. Incorporate documentation requirements into performance evaluations, project planning, and change control procedures.

    Use this blueprint as a building block to complete these other Info-Tech projects

    Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA

    Understand business requirements, clarify capabilities, and close gaps.

    Standardize the Service Desk – Module 2 & 3

    Improve reporting and management of incidents and build service request workflows.

    Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan

    Define appropriate objectives for DR, build a roadmap to close gaps, and document your incident response plan.

    Extend the Service Desk to the Enterprise

    Position IT as an innovator.

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Create Visual SOP Documents – project overview

    1. Prioritize, optimize, and document critical SOPs 2. Establish a sustainable documentation process 3. Identify a content management solution
    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Identify and prioritize undocumented/outdated critical processes

    1.2 Reduce effort and improve usability with visual documentation

    1.3 Optimize and document critical processes

    2.1 Establish guidelines for identifying and organizing SOPs

    2.2 Write an SOP for creating and maintaining SOPs

    2.3 Plan SOP working sessions to put a dent into your documentation backlog

    3.1 Understand the options when it comes to content management solutions

    3.2 Use Info-Tech’s evaluation tool to determine the right approach for you

    Guided Implementations
    • Identify undocumented critical SOPs.
    • Understand the benefits of a visual approach.
    • Work through a tabletop exercise to document two visual SOP documents.
    • Establish documentation information guidelines.
    • Identify opportunities to create a culture that fosters SOP creation.
    • Address outstanding undocumented SOPs by working through process issues together.
    • Review your current approach to content management and discuss possible alternatives.
    • Evaluate options for a content management strategy, in the context of your own environment.
    Onsite Workshop Module 1:

    Identify undocumented critical processes and review the SOP mapping process.

    Module 2:

    Review and improve your documentation process and address your documentation backlog.

    Module 3:

    Evaluate strategies for publishing and managing SOP documentation.

    Phase 1 Outcome:
      Review and implement the process for creating usable SOPs.
    Phase 2 Outcome:
      Optimize your SOP maintenance processes.
    Phase 3 Outcome:
      Choose a content management solution that meets your needs.

    Workshop overview

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Workshop Prep Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4
    Activities Scope the SOP pilot and secure resources
    • Identify the scope of the pilot project.
    • Develop a list of processes to document.
    • Ensure required resources are available.
    Prioritize SOPs and review methodology

    1.1 Prioritize undocumented SOPs.

    1.2 Review the visual approach to SOP planning.

    1.3 Conduct a tabletop planning exercise.

    Review SOPs and identify process gaps

    2.1 Continue the tabletop planning exercise with other critical processes.

    2.2 Conduct a gap analysis to identify solutions to issues discovered during SOP mapping.

    Identify projects to meet process gaps

    3.1 Develop a prioritized project roadmap to address gaps.

    3.2 Define a process for documenting and maintaining SOPs.

    3.3 Identify and assign actions to improve SOP management and maintenance.

    Set next steps and put a dent in your backlog

    4.1 Run an SOP working session with experts and process owners to put a dent in the documentation backlog.

    4.2 Identify an appropriate content management solution.

    Deliverables
    1. Defined scope for the workshop.
    2. A longlist of key processes.
    1. Undocumented SOPs prioritized according to business criticality and current state.
    2. One or more documented SOPs.
    1. One or more documented SOPs.
    2. Gap analysis.
    1. SOP Project Roadmap.
    2. Publishing and Document Management Solution Evaluation Tool.
    1. Multiple documented SOPs.
    2. Action steps to improve SOP management and maintenance.

    Measured value for Guided Implementations (GIs)

    Engaging in GIs doesn’t just offer valuable project advice, it also results in significant cost savings.

    GI Measured Value
    Phase 1: Prioritize, optimize, and document critical SOPs
    • Time, value, and resources saved using Info-Tech’s methodology to prioritize and document SOPs in the ideal visual format.
    • For example, 4 FTEs*4 days*$80,000/year = $5,120
    Phase 2: Establish a sustainable documentation process
    • Time, value, and resources saved using our tools and methodology to implement a process to ensure SOPs are maintained, accessible, and up to date.
    • For example: 4 FTEs*5 days*$80,000/year = $6,400
    Phase 3: Identify a content management solution
    • Time, value, and resources saved using our best-practice guidance and tools to select an approach and solution to manage your organization’s SOPs.
    • For example: 2 FTEs*5 days*$80,000/year = $3,200
    Total Savings $14,720

    Note: Documenting SOPs provides additional benefits that are more difficult to quantify: reducing the time spent by staff to find or execute processes, improving transparency and accountability, presenting opportunities for automation, etc.

    Phase 1

    Prioritize, Optimize, and Document Critical SOPs

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

    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.

    Guided Implementation 1: Prioritize, optimize, and document critical SOPs

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 2 weeks

    Step 1.1: Prioritize SOPs

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Apply a client focus to critical IT services.
    • Identify undocumented, critical SOPs.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Rank and prioritize your SOP documentation needs.

    With this template:

    Standard Operating Procedures Workbook

    Step 1.2: Develop visual documentation

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Understand the benefits of a visual approach.
    • Review possibilities for visual documentation.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Identify formats that can improve your SOP documentation.

    With these templates:

    • Example DRP Process Flows
    • Example App Dev Process And more…

    Step 1.3: Optimize and document critical processes

    Finalize phase deliverable:

    • Two visual SOP documents, mapped using a tabletop exercise.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Create the visual SOP.
    • Review and optimize the process.

    With this tool:

    SOP Project Roadmap Tool

    Phase 1 Results & Insights:

    Identify opportunities to deploy visual documentation, and follow Info-Tech’s process to capture steps, gaps, and opportunities to improve IT processes.

    Focus first on client-facing and high-impact SOPs

    IT’s number one obligation to internal and external customers is to keep critical services running – that points to mission-critical operations, service management, and disaster recovery.

    Topic Description
    Mission-critical operations
    • Maintenance processes for mission-critical systems (e.g. upgrade procedures, batch processing, etc.).
    • Client-facing services with either formal or informal SLAs.
    • Change management – especially for mission-critical systems, change management is more about minimizing risk of downtime than expediting change.
    Service management
    • Service desk procedures (e.g. ticket assignment and issue response).
    • Escalation procedures for critical outages.
    • System monitoring.
    Disaster recovery procedures
    • Management-level incident response plans, notification procedures, and high-level failover procedures (e.g. which systems must come up first, second, third).
    • Recovery or failover procedures for individual systems.
    • Backup and restore procedures – to ensure backups are available if needed.

    Understand what makes an application or service mission critical

    When email or a shared drive goes down, it may impact productivity, but may not be a significant impact to the business. Ask these questions when assessing whether an application or service is mission critical.

    Criteria Description
    Is there a hard-dollar impact from downtime?
    • For example, when an online catalog system goes down, it impacts sales and therefore revenue. Without determining the actual financial impact, you can make an immediate assessment that this is a Gold system.
    • By contrast, loss of email may impact productivity but may not affect revenue streams, depending on your business. A classification of Silver is most likely appropriate.
    Impact on goodwill/customer trust?
    • If downtime means delays in service delivery or otherwise impacts goodwill, there is an intangible impact on revenue that may make the associated systems Gold status.
    Is regulatory compliance a factor?
    • If a system requires redundancy and/or high availability due to legal or regulatory compliance requirements, it may need to be classified as a Gold system.
    Is there a health or safety risk?
    • For example, police and medical organizations have systems that are mission critical due to their impact on health and safety rather than revenue or cost, and therefore are classified as Gold systems. Are there similar considerations in your organization?

    "Email and other Windows-based applications are important for our day-to-day operations, but they aren’t critical. We can still manufacture and ship clothing without them. However, our manufacturing systems, those are absolutely critical"

    – Bob James, Technical Architect, Carhartt, Inc.

    Create a high-level risk and benefit scale

    1.1a

    15 minutes

    Define criteria for high, medium, and low risks and benefits, as shown in the example below. These criteria will be used in the upcoming exercises to rank SOPs.

    Note: The goal in this section is to provide high-level indicators of which SOPs should be documented first, so a high-level set of criteria is used. To conduct a detailed business impact analysis, see Info-Tech’s Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan.

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    Risk to the business Score
    Low: Affects ad hoc activities or non-critical data. 1
    Moderate: Impacts productivity and internal goodwill. 2
    High: Impacts revenue, safety, and external goodwill. 3
    Benefit (e.g. productivity improvement) Score
    Low: Minimal impact. 1
    Moderate: Items with short-term or occasional applicability, so limited benefit. 2
    High: Save time for common or ongoing processes, and extensive improvement to training/knowledge transfer. 3

    Identify and prioritize undocumented mission-critical operations

    1.1b

    15 minutes

    1. To navigate to this exercise, open Info-Tech’s Standard Operating Procedures Workbook.
    2. List your top three–five mission critical applications or services.
    3. Identify relevant SOPs that support those applications or services.
    4. Indicate SOP status: Green = up to date and complete, Yellow = out-of-date or incomplete, Red = undocumented.
    5. Assign risk and benefit scores (3=high, 1=low) to Yellow and Red SOPs based on potential impact if those processes failed (risk) and opportunity for process improvement (benefit).

    OUTPUT

    • Analysis of SOPs supporting mission-critical operations

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    Application SOPs Status Risk Benefit
    Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
    • System administration (user administration, adding projects, etc.).
    Red 1 2
    • System upgrades (including OS upgrades and patches).
    Red 2 2
    • Report generation.
    Green n/a n/a
    Network services
    • Network monitoring (including fault detection).
    Yellow 3 2
    • Network upgrades.
    Red 2 1
    • Backup procedures.
    Yellow 3 1

    Identify and prioritize undocumented service management procedures

    1.1c

    15 minutes

    1. To navigate to this exercise, open Info-Tech’s Standard Operating Procedures Workbook.
    2. Identify service management SOPs.
    3. Indicate SOP status: Green = up to date and complete, Yellow = out-of-date or incomplete, Red = undocumented.
    4. Assign risk and benefit scores (3=high, 1=low) to Yellow and Red SOPs based on potential impact if those processes failed (risk) and opportunity for process improvement (benefit).

    OUTPUT

    • Analysis of SOPs supporting service management

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    Service Type SOPs Status Risk Benefit
    Service Request
    • Software install
    Red 3 1
    • Software update
    Yellow 3 1
    • New hardware
    Green n/a n/a
    Incident Management
    • Ticket entry and triage
    Yellow 3 2
    • Ticket escalation
    Red 2 1
    • Notification for critical issues
    Yellow 3 1

    Identify and prioritize undocumented DR procedures

    1.1d

    20 minutes

    1. To navigate to this exercise, open Info-Tech’s Standard Operating Procedures Workbook.
    2. Identify DR SOPs.
    3. Indicate SOP status: Green = up to date and complete, Yellow = out-of-date or incomplete, Red = undocumented.
    4. Assign risk and benefit scores (3=high, 1=low) to Yellow and Red SOPs based on potential impact if those processes failed (risk) and opportunity for process improvement (benefit).

    OUTPUT

    • Analysis of SOPs supporting DR

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    DR Phase SOPs Status Risk Benefit
    Discovery and Declaration
    • Initial detection and escalation
    Red 3 1
    • Notification procedures to Emergency Response Team (ERT)
    Yellow 3 1
    • Notification procedures to staff
    Green n/a n/a
    Recover Gold Systems
    • ERP recovery procedures
    Red 2 2
    • Corporate website recovery procedures
    Yellow 3 2
    Recover Silver Systems
    • MS Exchange recovery procedures
    Red 2 1

    Select the SOPs to focus on for the first round of documentation

    1.1e

    20 minutes

    1. Identify two significantly different priority 1 SOPs to document during this workshop. It’s important to get a sense of how the Info-Tech templates and methodology can be applied to different types of SOPs.
    2. Rank the remaining SOPs that you still need to address post-workshop by priority level within each topic area.

    INPUT

    • SOP analysis from activities 1.1 and 1.2

    OUTPUT

    • A shortlist of critical, undocumented SOPs to review later in this phase

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs
    Category Area SOPs Status Risk Benefit
    Disaster Recovery Procedures Discovery and Declaration
    • Initial detection and escalation
    Red 3 1
    • Notification procedures to ERT
    Yellow 3 1
    Mission-Critical Operations Network Services
    • Network monitoring (including fault detection)
    Yellow 3 2
    Service Management Procedures Incident Management
    • Ticket entry and triage
    Yellow 3 2

    Change the format of your documentation

    Which document is more effective? Which is more likely to be used?

    "The end result for most SOPs is a 100-page document that makes anyone but the author want to stab themselves rather than read it. Even worse is when you finally decide to waste an hour of your life reading it only to be told afterwards that it might not be quite right because Bob or Stan needed to make some changes last year but never got around to it."

    – Peter Church, Solutions Architect

    Create visual-based documentation to improve usability and effectiveness

    "Without question, 300-page DRPs are not effective. I mean, auditors love them because of the detail, but give me a 10-page DRP with contact lists, process flows, diagrams, and recovery checklists that are easy to follow."

    – Bernard Jones, MBCI, CBCP, CORP, Manager Disaster Recovery/BCP, ActiveHealth Management

    SOPs, including those that support your disaster recovery plan (DRP), are often created to meet certification requirements. However, this often leads to lengthy overly detailed documentation that is geared to auditors and business leaders, not IT staff trying to execute a procedure in a high-pressure, time-sensitive scenario.

    Staff don’t have time to flip through a 300-page manual, let alone read lengthy instructions, so organizations are transforming monster manuals into shorter, visual-based documentation. Benefits include:

    • Quicker to create than lengthy manuals.
    • Easier to be absorb, so they are more usable.
    • More likely to stay up to date because they are easier to maintain.

    Example: DRPs that include visual SOPs are easier to use — that leads to shorter recovery times and fewer mistakes.

    Chart is depicted showing the success rates of traditional manuals versus visual documentation.

    Use flowcharts for process flows or a high-level view of more detailed procedures

    • Flowcharts depict who does what and when; they provide an at-a-glance view that is easy to follow and makes task ownership clear.
    • Use swim lanes, as in this example, to indicate process stages and task ownership.
    • For experienced staff, a high-level reminder of process flows or key steps is sufficient.
    • Where more detail is required, include links to supporting documentation (which could include checklists, vendor documentation, other flowcharts, etc.).

    See Info-Tech’s Incident and Service Management Procedures – Service Desk Example.

    "Flowcharts are more effective when you have to explain status and next steps to upper management."

    – Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry

    Example: SOP in flowchart format

    A flowchart is depicted as an example flowchart. This one is an SOP flowchart labelled 'Triage Process - Incidents'

    Review your options for diagramming software

    Many organizations look for an option that easily integrates with the MS Office suite. The default option is often Microsoft Visio.

    Pros:

    • Easy to learn and use.
    • Has a wide range of features and capabilities.
    • Comes equipped with a large collection of stencils and templates.
    • Offers the convenience of fluid integration with the MS Office Suite.

    Cons:

    • Isn’t included in any version of the MS Office Suite and can be quite expensive to license.
    • Not available for Mac or Linux environments.

    Consider the options below if you’re looking for an alternative to Microsoft Visio:

    Desktop Solutions

    • Dia Diagram Editor
    • Diagram Designer
    • LibreOffice Draw
    • Pencil Project
    • yEd Graph Editor

    • Draw.io
    • Creately
    • Gliffy
    • LucidChart

    Note: No preference or recommendation is implied from the ordering of the options above.

    This list is not intended to be comprehensive.

    Evaluate different solutions to identify one that works for you

    Use the criteria below to identify a flowchart software that fits your needs.

    Criteria Description
    Platform What platform(s) can run the software?
    Description What use cases are identified by the vendor – and do these cover your needs for documenting your SOPs? Is the software open source?
    Features What are the noteworthy features and characteristics?
    Usability How easy is the program to use? What’s the learning curve like? How intuitive is the design?
    Templates and Stencils Availability of templates and stencils.
    Portability Can the solution integrate with other pieces of software? Consider whether other tools can view, open, and/or edit documents; what file formats can be published, etc.
    Cost Cost of the software to purchase or license.

    Use checklists to streamline step-by-step procedures

    • Checklists are ideal when staff just need a reminder of what to do, not how to do it.
    • Remember your audience. You aren’t pulling in a novice to run a complex procedure, so all you really need here are a series of reminders.
    • Where more detail is required, include links to supporting documentation.
    • Note that a flowchart can often be used instead of a checklist, depending on preference.

    For two different examples of a checklist template, see:

    Image depicting an example checklist. This checklist depicts an employee termination checklist

    Use topology diagrams to capture network layout, integrations, and system information

    • Organizations commonly have network topology diagrams for reference purposes, so this is just a re-use of existing resources.
    • Physically label real world equipment to correspond to topology diagrams. While these labels will be redundant for most IT employees, they help give clarity and confidence when changes are being made.
    • If your topology diagrams are housed in a tool such as a systems management product, then export the diagrams so they can be included in your SOP documentation suite.

    "Our network engineers came to me and said our standard SOP template didn't work for them. They're now using a lot of diagrams and flowcharts, and that has worked out better for them."

    The image shows a topology organization diagram as an example network layout

    Use screen captures and tutorials to facilitate training for applications and SOPs

    • Screen capture tutorials or videos are effective for training staff on applications. For example, create a screen capture tutorial to train staff on the use of a help desk application and your company’s specific process for using that tool.
    • Similarly, create tutorials to train end users on straightforward “technical” tasks (e.g. setting up their VPN connection) to reduce the demand on IT staff.
    • Tutorials can be created quickly and easily with affordable software such as Snag-It, ScreenHunter Pro, HyperSnap, PicPick, FastStone, Ashampoo Snap 6, and many others.

    "When contractors come onboard, they usually don't have a lot of time to learn about the organization, and we have a lot of unique requirements. Creating SOP documents with screenshots has made the process quicker and more accurate."

    – Susan Bellamore, Business Analyst, Public Guardian and Trustee of British Columbia

    The image is an example of a screen caption tutorial, depicting desktop icons and a password login

    Example: Disaster recovery notification and declaration procedure

    1. Swim lanes indicate task ownership and process stages.
    2. Links to supporting documentation (which could include checklists, vendor documentation, other flowcharts, etc.) are included where necessary.
    3. Additional DR SOPs are captured within the same spreadsheet for convenient, centralized access.

    Review Info-Tech’s Incident Response and Recovery Process Flows – DRP Example.

    Example: DRP flowchart with links to supporting documents

    The image is an example of an DRP flowchart labelled 'Initial Discovery/Notification and Declaration Procedures'

    Establish flowcharting standards

    If you don’t have existing flowchart standards, then keep it simple and stick to basic flowcharting conventions as described below.

    Start, End, and Connector. Traditional flowcharting standards reserve this shape for connectors to other flowcharts or other points in the existing flowchart. Unified Modeling Language (UML) also uses the circle for start and end points.

    Start, End. Traditional flowcharting standards use this for start and end. However, Info-Tech recommends using the circle shape to reduce the number of shapes and avoid confusion with other similar shapes.

    Process Step. Individual process steps or activities (e.g. create ticket or escalate ticket). If it’s a series of steps, then use the sub-process symbol and flowchart the sub-process separately.

    Sub-Process. A series of steps. For example, a critical incident SOP might reference a recovery process as one of the possible actions. Marking it as a sub-process, rather than listing each step within the critical incident SOP, streamlines the flowchart and avoids overlap with other flowcharts (e.g. the recovery process).

    Decision. Represents decision points, typically with Yes/No branches, but you could have other branches depending on the question (e.g. a “Priority?” question could branch into separate streams for Priority 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 issues).

    Document/Report Output. For example, the output from a backup process might include an error log.

    Conduct a tabletop planning exercise to build an SOP

    1.3a

    20 minutes

    Tabletop planning is a paper-based exercise where your team walks through a particular process and maps out what happens at each stage.

    1. For this exercise, choose one particular process to document.
    2. Document each step of the process using cue cards, which can be arranged on the table in sequence.
    3. Be sure to include task ownership in your steps.
    4. Map out the process as it currently happens – we’ll think about how to improve it later.
    5. Keep focused. Stay on task and on time.

    OUTPUT

    • Steps in the current process for one SOP

    Materials

    • Tabletop, pen, and cue cards

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t get weighed down by tools. Relying on software or other technological tools can detract from the exercise. Use simple tools such as cue cards to record steps so that you can easily rearrange steps or insert steps based on input from the group.

    The image depicts three cue cards labelled steps 3 to 5. The cue cards are examples of the tabletop planning exercise.

    Collaborate to optimize the SOP

    1.3b

    20 minutes

    Review the tabletop exercise. What gaps exist in current processes?

    How can the process be made better? What are the outputs and checkpoints?

    The image depicts five cue cards, two of which are examples on how to improve the process. This is an example of the tabletop exercise.

    OUTPUT

    • Identify steps to optimize the SOP

    Materials

    • Tabletop, pen, and cue cards

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    A note on colors: Use white cards to record steps. Record gaps on yellow cards (e.g. a process step not documented) and risks on red cards (e.g. only one person knows how to execute a step) to highlight your gaps/to-dos and risks to be mitigated or accepted.

    If it’s necessary to clarify complex process flows during the exercise, also use green cards for decision diamonds, purple for document/report outputs, and blue for sub-processes.

    Capture opportunities to improve processes in the Standard Operating Procedures Project Roadmap Tool

    1.3

    Rank and track projects to close gaps you discover in your processes.

    1. As a group, identify potential solutions to close the gaps in your processes that you’ve uncovered through the tabletop mapping exercise.
    2. Add these project names to the Standard Operating Procedures Project Roadmap Tool on the “Project Scoring” tab.
    3. Review and adjust the criteria for evaluating the benefits and costs of different projects on the “Scoring Criteria” tab.
    4. Return to the “Project Scoring” tab, and assign weights at the top of each scoring column. Use the drop-down menus to adjust the scores for each project category. The tool will automatically rank the projects based on your input, but you can adjust the ranks as needed.
    5. Assign dates and descriptions to the projects on the “Implementation Schedule” tab, below.
    The image depicts a graph showing an example of ranked and tracked projects.

    Identify gaps to improve process performance and make SOP documentation a priority

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Government (700+ FTEs)
    Source Info-Tech Workshop

    Challenge

    • Tabletop planning revealed a 77-hour gap between current and desired RTO for critical systems.
    • Similarly, the current achievable RPO gap was up to one week, but the desired RPO was one hour.
    • A DR site was available but not yet set up with the necessary equipment.
    • Lack of documented standard operating procedures (SOPs) was identified as a risk since that increased the dependence on two or three key SMEs.

    Solution

    • Potential projects to close RTO/RPO gaps were identified, including:
      • Deploy servers that were decommissioned (as a result of a server refresh) to the DR site as warm standby servers.
      • Implement site-to-site data replication.
      • Document SOPs to enable tasks to be delegated and minimize resourcing risks.

    Results

    • A DR project implementation schedule was defined.
    • Many of the projects required no further investment, but rather deployment of existing equipment that could function as standby equipment at the DR site.
    • The DR risk from a lack of SOPs enabled SOPs to be made a priority. An expected side benefit is the ability to review and optimize processes and improve consistency in IT operations.

    Document the SOPs from the tabletop exercise

    1.3c

    20 minutes

    Document the results from the tabletop exercise in the appropriate format.

    1. Identify an appropriate visual format for the high-level SOP as well as for any sub-processes or supporting documentation.
    2. Break into groups of two or three.
    3. Each group will be responsible for creating part of the SOP. Include both the high-level SOP itself and any supporting documentation such as checklists, sign-off forms, sub-processes, etc.
    4. Once your document is complete, exchange it with that of another group. Review each other’s documents to check for clarity and completeness.

    OUTPUT

    • Output from activities 1.4 and 1.5

    Materials

    • Flowcharting software, laptops

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    This image has four cue cards, and an arrow pointing to a flowchart, depicting the transfer of the information on the cue cards into a flowchart software

    Repeat the tabletop exercise for the second process

    Come back together as a large group. Choose a process that is significantly different from the one you’ve just documented, and repeat the tabletop exercise.

    As a reminder, the steps are:

    1. Use the tabletop exercise to map out a current SOP.
    2. Collaborate to optimize the SOP.
    3. Decide on appropriate formats for the SOP and its supporting documents.
    4. Divide into small groups to create the SOP and its supporting documents.
    5. Repeat the steps above as needed for your initial review of critical processes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If you plan to document more than two or three SOPs at once, consider making it an SOP “party” to add momentum and levity to an otherwise dry process. Review section 2.3 to find out how.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    1.1a-e

    Get started by prioritizing SOPs

    Ensure the SOP project remains business focused, and kick off the project by analyzing critical business services. Identify key IT services that support the relevant business services. Conduct a benefit/risk analysis to prioritize which SOPs should become the focus of the workshop.

    1.3a-c

    Document the SOPs from the tabletop exercise

    Leverage a tabletop planning exercise to walk the team through the SOP. During the exercise, focus on identifying timelines, current gaps, and potential risks. Document the steps via que cards first and transpose the hard copies to an electronic version.

    Phase 2

    Establish a Sustainable Documentation Process

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

    Phase 2 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.

    Guided Implementation 2: Establish a sustainable SOP documentation process

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4 weeks

    Step 2.1: Establish guidelines for identifying and organizing SOPs

    Start with an analyst call:

    • Establish documentation information guidelines.
    • Review version control best practices.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Implement best practices to identify and organize your SOPs.

    With these tools & templates:

    • SOP Workbook

    Step 2.2: Define a process to document and maintain SOPs

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Identify opportunities to create a culture that fosters SOP creation.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Create a plan to address SOP documentation gaps.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Document Management Checklist

    Step 2.3: Plan time with experts to put a dent in your documentation backlog

    Finalize phase deliverable:

    • Address outstanding undocumented SOPs by working through process issues together.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Organize and run a working session to document and optimize processes.

    With these tools & templates:

    • SOP Workbook
    • SOP Project Roadmap Tool

    Phase 2 Results & Insights:

    Improve the process for documenting and maintaining your SOPs, while putting a dent in your documentation backlog and gaining buy-in with staff.

    Identify current content management practices and opportunities for improvement

    DISCUSS

    What is the current state of your content management practices?

    Are you using a content management system? If not, where are documents kept?

    Are your organizational or departmental SOPs easy to find?

    Is version control a problem? What about file naming standards?

    Get everyone on the same page on the current state of your SOP document management system, using the questions above as the starting point.

    Keep document management simple for better adoption and consistency

    If there is too much complexity and staff can’t easily find what they need, you won’t get buy-in and you won’t get consistency.

    Whether you store SOPs in a sophisticated content management system (CMS) or on a shared network drive, keep it simple and focus on these primary goals:

    • Enable staff to find the right document.
    • Know if a document is the latest, approved version.
    • Minimize document management effort to encourage buy-in and consistency.

    If users can’t easily find what they need, it leads to bad practices. For example:

    • Users maintain their own local copies of commonly used documents to avoid searching for them. The risk is that local copies will not be automatically updated when the SOP changes.
    • Separate teams will implement their own document management system and repository. Now you have duplication of effort and company resources, multiple copies of documents (where each group needs their own version), and no centralized control over potentially sensitive documents.
    • Users will ignore documented SOPs or ask a colleague who might also be following the above bad practices.

    Insert a document information block on the first page of every document to identify key attributes

    Include a document information block on the first page of every document to identify key attributes. This strategy is as much about minimizing resistance as it is ensuring key attributes are captured.

    • A consistent document information block saves time (e.g. vs. customized approaches per document). If some fields don’t apply, enter “n/a.”
    • It provides key information about the document without having to check soft copy metadata, especially if you work with hard copies.
    • It’s a built-in reminder of what to capture and easier than updating document properties or header/footer information or entering metadata into a CMS.

    Note: The Info-Tech templates in this blueprint include a copy of the document information block shown in this example. Add more fields if necessary for your organization’s needs.

    For an example of a completed document information block, see Network Backup for Atlanta Data Center – Backups Example

    Info-Tech Insight

    For organizations with more advanced document management requirements, consider more sophisticated strategies (e.g. using metadata) as described in Info-Tech’s Use SharePoint for Enterprise Content Management and Reintroduce the Information Lifecycle to the Content Management Strategy. However, the basic concepts above still apply: establish standard attributes you need to capture and do so in a consistent manner.

    Modify the Info-Tech document information block to meet your requirements

    2.1a

    15 minutes

    1. Review “Guidelines and Template for the Document Information Block” in the Standard Operating Procedures Workbook. Determine if any changes are required, such as additional fields.
    2. Identify which fields you want to standardize and then establish standard terms. Balance the needs for simplicity and consistency – don’t force consistency where it isn’t a good fit.
    3. Pre-fill the document information block with standard terms and examples and add it to an SOP template that’s stored in your content management system.

    Educate staff by pre-filling the document

    • Providing examples built into the templates provides in-context, just-in-time training which is far more effective and easier than formal education efforts.
    • Focus your training on communicating when the template or standard terms change so that staff know to obtain the new version. Otherwise, the tendency for many staff will be to use one of their existing documents as their template.

    OUTPUT

    • Completed document information block

    Materials

    • Laptop
    • Projector

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    Leverage the document information block to create consistent filenames that facilitate searching

    Use the following filename format to create consistent, searchable, and descriptive filenames:

    Topic – Document Title – Document Type – Version Date

    Filename Component Purpose
    Topic
    • Functions as a filename prefix to group related documents but is also a probable search term. For project work, use a project name/number.
    Document Title
    • The title should be fairly descriptive of the content (if it isn’t, it’s not a good title) so it will help make the file easily identifiable and will include more probable search terms.
    Document Type Further distinguishes similar files (e.g. Maintenance SOP vs. a Maintenance Checklist).
    Version Date (for local files or if not using a CMS)
    • If it’s necessary to work on a file locally, include the version date at the end of the filename. The date is a more recognizable indicator of whether it’s the latest version or an old copy.
    • Establish a standard date format. Although MM-DD-YY is common in the US, the format YYYY-MM-DD reduces confusion between the month and day.

    For example:

    • ERP – System Administration Monthly Maintenance Tasks – Checklist – 2016-01-15.docx
    • ERP – System Administration Monthly Maintenance Tasks – SOP – 2017-01-10.docx
    • Backups – Network Backup Procedure for Atlanta Data Center – SOP – 2017-03-06.docx
    • PROJ437 – CRM Business Requirements – BRD – 2017-02-01.xlsx
    • DRP – Notification Procedures – SOP – 2016-09-14.docx
    • DRP – Emergency Response Team Roles and Responsibilities – Reference – 2018-03-10.xlsx

    Apply filename and document information block guidelines to existing SOPs

    2.1b

    15 minutes

    1. Review the SOPs created during the earlier exercises.
    2. Update the filenames and document information block based on guidelines in this section.
    3. Apply these guidelines to other select existing SOPs to see if additional modifications are required (e.g. additional standard terms).

    INPUT

    • Document Information Block

    OUTPUT

    • Updated filenames and document information blocks

    Materials

    • Laptop and projector

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    Implement version control policies for local files as well as those in your content management system (CMS)

    1. Version Control in Your CMS

    2. Always keep one master version of a document:

    • When uploading a new copy of an existing SOP (or any other document), ensure the filenames are identical so that you are just adding a new version rather than a separate new file.
    • Do not include version information in the filename (which would create a new separate file in your CMS). Allow your CMS to handle version numbering.
  • Version Control for Local Files

  • Ideally, staff would never keep local copies of files. However, there are times when it is practical or preferable to work from a local copy: for example, when creating or updating an SOP, or when working remotely if the CMS is not easily accessible.

    Implement the following policies to govern these circumstances:

    • Add the version date to the end of the filename while the document is local, as shown in the slide on filenames.
    • Remove the date when uploading it to a CMS that tracks date and version. If you leave the date in the filename, you will end up with multiple copies in your CMS.
    • When distributing copies for review, upload a copy to the CMS and send the link. Do not attach a physical file.
  • Minimize the Need for Version Updates

  • Reduce the need for version updates by isolating volatile information in a separate, linked document. For example:

    • Use Policy documents to establish high-level expectations and goals, and use SOPs to capture workflow, but put volatile details in a separate reference document. For example, for Backup procedures, put offsite storage vendor details such as contact information, pick up times, and approved couriers in a separate document.
    • Similarly, for DRP Notification procedures, reference a separate contacts list.

    Modify the Info-Tech Document Management Checklist to meet your requirements

    2.1c

    15 minutes

    1. Review the Info-Tech Document Management Checklist.
    2. Add or remove checklist items.
    3. Update the document information block.

    OUTPUT

    • Completed document management checklist

    Materials

    • Laptop, projector

    Participants

    • Process Owners
    • SMEs

    See Info-Tech’s Document Management Checklist.

    If you aren’t going to keep your SOPs current, then you’re potentially doing more harm than good

    An outdated SOP can be just as dangerous as having no SOP at all. When a process is documented, it’s trusted to be accurate.

    • Disaster recovery depends as much on supporting SOPs – such as backup and restore procedures – as it does on a master incident response plan.
    • For disaster scenarios, the ability to meet recovery point objectives (i.e. minimize data loss) and recovery time objectives (i.e. minimize downtime) depends on smoothly executed recovery procedures and on having well-defined and up-to-date DR documentation and supporting SOPs. For example:
      • Recovery point (data loss) objectives are directly impacted by your backup procedures.
      • Recovery time is minimized by a well-defined restore procedure that reduces the risk of human error during recovery which could lead to data loss or a delay in the recovery.
      • Similarly, a clearly documented configuration procedure will reduce the time to bring a standby system online.
    A graph depicting the much faster recovery time of up-to-date SOPs versus out-of-date SOPs.

    Follow Info-Tech best practices to keep SOPs current and drive consistent, efficient IT operations

    The following best practices were measured in this chart, and will be discussed further in this section:

    1. Identify documentation requirements as part of project planning.
    2. Require a manager or supervisor to review and approve SOPs.
    3. Check documentation status as part of change management.
    4. Hold staff accountable.
    Higher adoption of Info-Tech best practices leads to more effective SOPs and greater benefits in areas such as training and process improvement.

    Graph depicting the efficiency of adopting Info-Tech practices regarding SOPs. Four categories of 'Training', 'process improvement', 'IT automation', and 'consistent IT operations' are shown increasing in efficiency with a high adoption of Info-Tech strategies.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Audits for compliance requirements have little impact on getting SOPs done in a timely manner or the actual usefulness of those SOPs, because the focus is on passing the audit instead of creating SOPs that improve operations. The frantic annual push to complete SOPs in time for an audit is also typically a much greater effort than maintaining documents as part of ongoing change management.

    Identify documentation requirements as part of project planning

    DISCUSS

    When are documentation requirements captured, including required changes to SOPs?

    Make documentation requirements a clearly defined deliverable. As with any other task, this should include:

    • Owner: The person ultimately responsible for the documentation.
    • Assigned resource: The person who will actually put pen to paper. This could be the same person as the owner, or the owner could be a reviewer.
    • Deadlines: Include documentation deliverables in project milestones.
    • Verification process: Validate completion and accuracy. This could be a peer review or management review.
    Example: Implement a new service desk application.
    • Service desk SOP documentation requirements: SOP for monitoring and managing tickets will require changes to leverage new automation features.
    • Owner: Service Desk Lead.
    • Assigned resource: John Smith (service desk technician).
    • Deadline: Align with “ready for QA testing.”
    • Verification process: Service Desk Lead document review and signoff.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Realistically, documentation will typically be a far less urgent task than the actual application or system changes. However, if you want the necessary documentation to be ultimately completed, even if it’s done after more urgent tasks, it must be tracked.

    Implement document approval steps at the individual and project level

    DISCUSS

    How do you currently review and validate SOP documents?

    Require a manager or supervisor to review and approve SOPs.

    • Avoid a bureaucratic review process involving multiple parties. The goal is to ensure accuracy and not just provide administrative protection.
    • A review by the immediate supervisor or manager is often sufficient. Their feedback and the implied accountability improve the quality and usefulness of the SOPs.

    Check documentation status as part of change management.

    • Including a documentation status check holds the project leaders and management accountable.
    • If SOPs are not critical to the project deliverable, then realistically the deliverable is not held back. However, keep the project open until relevant documents are updated so those tasks can’t be swept under the rug until the next audit.

    SOP reviews, change management, and identifying requirements led to benefits such as training and process improvement.

    A chart depicting the impact and benefits of SOP reviews, change management and identifying requirements. The chart is accompanied by a key for the grey to blue colours depicted

    "Our directors and our CIO have tied SOP work to performance evaluations and SOP status is reviewed during management meetings. People have now found time to get this work done."

    – Assistant Director-IT Operations, Healthcare Industry

    Review SOPs regularly and assign a process owner to avoid reinforcing silos

    CASE STUDY

    Industry

    Public service organization

    Source

    Info-Tech client engagement

    Situation

    • The organization’s IT department consists of five heavily siloed units.
    • Without communication or workflow accountability across units, each had developed incompatible workflows, making estimates of “time to resolution” for service requests difficult.
    • The IT service manager purchases a new service desk tool, attempting to standardize requests across IT to improve efficiency, accountability, and transparency.

    Complication

    • The IT service manager implements the tool and creates standardized workflows without consulting stakeholders in the different service units.
    • The separate units immediately rebel against the service manager and try to undermine the implementation of the new tool.

    Results

    • Info-Tech analysts helped to facilitate a solution between experts in the different units.
    • In order to develop a common workflow and ticket categorization scheme, Info-Tech recommended that each service process should have a single approver.

    The bottom line: ensure that there’s one approver per process to drive process efficiency and accountability and avoid problems down the road.

    Hold staff accountable to encourage SOP work to be completed in a timely manner

    DISCUSS

    Are SOP updates treated as optional or “when I have time” work?

    Hold staff directly accountable for SOP work.

    Holding staff accountable is really about emphasizing the importance of ensuring SOPs stay current. If management doesn’t treat SOPs as a priority, then neither will your staff. Strategies include:

    • Include SOP work in performance appraisals.
    • Keep relevant tickets open until documentation is completed.
    • Ensure documents are reviewed, as discussed earlier.
    • Identify and assign documentation tasks as part of project planning efforts, as discussed earlier.

    Holding staff accountable minimizes procrastination and therefore maintenance effort.

    Chart depicting the impact on reducing SOP maintenance effort followed by a key defining the colours on the chart

    Info-Tech Insight

    Holding staff accountable does not by itself make a significant impact on SOP quality (and therefore the typical benefits of SOPs), but it minimizes procrastination, so the work is ultimately done in a more timely manner. This ensures SOPs are current and usable, so they can drive benefits such as consistent operations, improved training, and so on.

    Assign action items to address SOP documentation process challenges

    2.2

    1. Discuss the challenges mentioned at the start of this section, and other challenges highlighted by the strategies discussed in this section. For example:
    • Are documentation requirements included in project planning?
    • Are SOPs and other documentation deliverables reviewed?
    • Are staff held accountable for documentation?
  • Document the challenges in your copy of the Standard Operating Procedures Workbook and assign action items to address those challenges.
  • Challenge Action Items Action Item Owner
    Documentation requirements are identified at the end of a project.
    • Modify project planning templates and checklists to include “identify documentation requirements.”
    Bob Ryan
    SOPs are not reviewed.
    • When assigning documentation tasks, also assign an owner who will be responsible for reviewing and approving the deliverable.
    • Create a mechanism for officially signing off on the document (e.g. email approval or create a signoff form).
    Susan Jones

    An “SOP party” fosters a collaborative approach and can add some levity to an otherwise dry exercise

    What is an SOP party?

    • An SOP party is a working session, bringing together process owners and key staff to define current SOPs and collaborate to identify optimization opportunities.
    • The party aspect is really just about how you market the event. Order in food or build in a cooking contest (e.g. a chilli cook-off or dessert bake-off) to add some fun to what can be a dry activity.

    Why does this work?

    • Process owners become so familiar with their tasks that many of the steps essentially live in their heads. Questions from colleagues draw out those unwritten steps and get them down on paper so another sufficiently qualified employee could carry out the same steps.
    • Once the processes are defined (e.g. via a tabletop exercise), input from colleagues can help identify risks and optimization opportunities, and process questions can be quickly answered because the key people are all present.
    • The group approach also promotes consistency and enables you to set expectations (e.g. visual-based approach, standards, level of detail, etc.).

    When is collaboration necessary (e.g. via tabletop planning)?

    • Tabletop planning is ideal for complex processes as well as processes that span multiple tasks, people, and/or systems.
    • For processes with a narrow focus (e.g. recovery steps for a specific server), assign these to the SME to document. Then ensure the SOP is reviewed to draw out the unwritten steps as described above.
    • For example, if you use tabletop planning to document a high-level DR plan, sub-processes might include recovery procedures for individual systems; those SOPs can then be assigned to individual SMEs.

    Schedule SOP working sessions until critical processes are documented

    Ultimately, it’s more efficient to create and update SOPs as needed but dedicated working sessions will help address immediate critical needs.

    Organize the working session:
    1. Book a full-day meeting in an out of the way meeting room, invite key staff (system and process owners who ultimately need to be SOP owners), and order in lunch so no one has to leave.
    2. Prioritize SOPs (see Phase 1) and set goals (e.g. complete the top 6 SOPs during this session).
    3. Alternate between collaborative efforts and documenting the SOPs. For example:
      1. Tabletop or flowchart the current SOP. Take a picture of the current state for reference purposes.
      2. Look for process improvements. If you have the authority in the room to enable process changes, then modify the tabletop/flowchart accordingly and capture this desired future state (e.g. take a picture). Otherwise, identify action items to follow up on proposed changes.
      3. Identify all related documentation deliverables (e.g. sub-processes, checklists, approval forms, etc.).
      4. Create the identified documentation deliverables (divide the work among the team). Then repeat the above.
    4. Repeat these working sessions on a monthly or quarterly basis, depending on your requirements, until critical SOPs are completed.
    5. When the SOP backlog is cleared, conduct quarterly or semi-annual refreshers for ongoing review and optimization of key processes.

    Assign action items to capture next steps after SOP working sessions

    2.3

    1. Review the SOPs documented during this workshop. Identify action items to complete and validate those SOPs and related documents. For example, do the SOPs require further approval or testing?
    2. Similarly, review the document management checklist and identify action items to complete, expand, and/or validate proposed standards.
    3. For SOP working sessions, decide on a date, time, and who should be there based on the guidelines in this section. If the SOP party approach does not meet your requirements, then at the very least assign owners for the identified critical SOPs and set deadlines for completing those SOPs. Document these extra action items in your copy of the Standard Operating Procedures Workbook.
    SOP or Task Action Items Action Item Owner
    Ticket escalation SOP
    • Debrief the rest of the Service Desk team on the new process.
    • Modify the SOP further based on feedback, if warranted.
    • Implement the new SOP. This includes communicating visible changes to business users and other IT staff.
    Jeff Sutter
    SOP party
    • Contact prospective attendees to communicate the purpose of the SOP party.
    • Schedule the SOP party.
    Bob Smith

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with out Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    2.1

    Identify current content management practices

    As a group, identify current pain points and opportunities for improvement in your current content management practices.

    2.2

    Assign action items to address documentation process challenges

    Develop a list of action items to address gaps in the SOP documentation and maintenance process.

    Phase 3

    Identify a Content Management Solution

    Create Visual SOP Documents that Drive Process Optimization, Not Just Peace of Mind

    Phase 3 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.

    Guided Implementation 3: Decide on a content management solution for your SOPs

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1 week

    Step 3.1: Understand the options for CM solutions

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Review your current approach to content management and discuss possible alternatives.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Evaluate the pros and cons of different approaches to content management.
    • Discuss approaches for fit with your team.

    Step 3.2: Identify the right solution for you

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Identify 2–3 possible options for a content management strategy.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Identify the best solution based on portability, maintainability, cost, and implementation effort.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Publishing and Document Management Solution Evaluation Tool
    • SOP Project Roadmap
    • SOP Workbook

    Phase 3 Results & Insights:

    Choose an approach to content management that will best support your organization’s SOP documentation and maintenance process.

    Decide on an appropriate publishing and document management strategy for your organization

    Publishing and document management considerations:

    • Portability/External Access: At the best of times, portability is nice because it enables flexibility, but at the worst of times (such as in a disaster recovery situation) it is absolutely essential. If your primary site is down, can you still access your documentation? As shown in this chart, traditional storage strategies still dominate DRP documentation, but these aren’t necessarily the best options.
    • Maintainability/Usability: How easy is it to create, update, and use the documentation? Is it easy to link to other documents? Is there version control? The easier the system is to use, the easier it is to get employees to use it.
    • Cost/Effort: Is the cost and effort appropriate? For example, a large enterprise may need a formal solution like SharePoint or a Content Management System. For smaller organizations, the cost of these tools might be harder to justify.

    Consider these approaches:

    This section reviews the following approaches, their pros and cons, and how they meet publishing and document management requirements:

    • SOP tools.
    • Cloud-based content management software.
    • In-house solutions combining SharePoint and MS Office (or equivalent).
    • Wiki site.
    • “Manual” approaches such as storing documents on a USB drive.
    Chart depicting the portable strategy popularity, followed by a key defining the colours on the graph

    Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N=118

    Note: Percentages total more than 100% due to respondents using more than one portability strategy.

    Develop a content management strategy and process to reduce organizational risk

    CASE STUDY

    Segment

    Mid-market company

    Source

    Info-Tech Interview

    Situation

    • A mid-sized company hired a technical consultancy to manage its network.
    • As part of this move, the company’s network administrator was fired.
    • Over time, this administrator had become a “go-to” person for several other IT functions.

    Complication

    • The consulting team realizes that the network administrator kept critical documentation on his local hard drive.
    • This includes configs, IP addresses, passwords, logins to vendor accounts, and more.
    • It becomes clear the administrator was able to delete some of this information before leaving, which the consultants are required to retrieve and re-document.

    Result

    • Failing to implement effective SOPs for document management and terminating key IT staff exposed the organization to unnecessary risk and additional costs.
    • Allowing a local content management system to develop created a serious security risk.
    • The bottom line: create a secure, centralized, and backed-up location and establish SOPs around using it to help keep the company’s data safe.

    Info-Tech offers a web-based policy management solution with process management capabilities

    Role How myPolicies helps you
    Policy Sponsors
    • CEO
    • Board of Directors

    Reduced Corporate Risk

    Avoid being issued a regulatory fine or sanction that could jeopardize operations or hurt brand image.

    Policy Reviewers
    • Internal Audit
    • Compliance
    • Risk
    • Legal

    A Culture of Compliance

    Adherence with regulatory requirements as well as documented audit trail of all critical policy activities.

    Policy Owners
    • HR
    • IT
    • Finance
    • Operations

    Less Administrative Burden

    Automation and simplification of policy creation, distribution, and tracking.

    Policy Users
    • Employees
    • Vendors
    • Contractors

    Policy Clarity

    Well-written policies are stored in one reliable, easy to navigate location.

    About this Approach:

    myPolicies is a web-based solution to create, distribute, and manage corporate policies, procedures, and forms, built around best practices identified by our research.

    Contact your Account Manager today to find out if myPolicies is right for you.

    SOP software and DR planning tools can help, but they aren’t a silver bullet

    Portability/External Access:
    • Pros: Typically have a SaaS option, providing built-in external access with appropriate security and user administration to vary access rights.
    • Cons: Dependent on the vendor to ensure external access, but this is typically not an issue.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: Built-in templates encourage consistency as well as guide initial content development by indicating what details need to be captured.
    • Pros: Built-in document management (e.g. version control, metadata support, etc.), centralized access/navigation to required documents, and some automation (e.g. update contacts throughout the system).
    • Cons: Not a silver bullet. You still have to do the work to define and capture your processes.
    • Cons: Requires end-user and administrator training.
    • Cons: Often modules of larger software suites. If you use the entire suite, it may make sense to use the SOP tool, but otherwise probably not.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: For large enterprises, the convenience of built-in document management and templates can outweigh the cost.
    • Cons: SOP tools can be costly. Expect to pay at least $3,000-7,000 for software licensing, plus additional per user and hosting fees.
    About this Approach:

    SOP tools such as Princeton Center’s SOP ExpressTM and SOP Tracks or MasterControl’s SOP Management and eSOP allow organizations to create, manage, and access SOPs. These programs typically offer a range of SOP templates and formats, electronic signatures, version control, and review options and training features such as quizzes and monitoring.

    Similarly, DR planning solutions (e.g. eBRP, Recovery Planner, LDRPS, etc.) provide templates, tools, and document management to create DR documentation including SOPs.

    Consider leveraging SharePoint to provide document management capabilities

    Portability/External Access:
    • Pros: SharePoint is commonly web-enabled and supports external access with appropriate security and user administration.
    • Cons: Must be installed at redundant sites or be cloud-based to be effective in the event of a worst-case scenario disaster recovery situation in which the primary data center is down.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: Built-in document management (e.g. version control, metadata support, etc.) as well as centralized access to required documents.
    • Pros: No tool learning curve – SharePoint and MS Office would be existing solutions already used on a daily basis.
    • Cons: No built-in automated updates (e.g. automated updates to contacts throughout the system).
    • Cons: Consistency depends on creating templates and implementing processes for document updates, review, and approval.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: Using existing tools, so this is a sunk cost in terms of capex.
    • Cons: Additional effort required to create templates and manage the documentation library.

    For more information on SharePoint as a content management solution, see Info-Tech’s Use SharePoint for Enterprise Content Management.

    About this Approach:

    Most SOP documents start as MS Office documents, even if there is an SOP tool available (some SOP tools actually run within MS Office on the desktop). For organizations that decide to bypass a formal SOP tool, the biggest gap they have to overcome is document management.

    Many organizations are turning to SharePoint to meet this need. For those that already have SharePoint in place, it makes sense to further leverage SharePoint for SOP documentation.

    For SharePoint to be a practical solution, the documentation must still be accessible if the primary data center is down, e.g. by having redundant SharePoint instance at multiple in-house locations or using a cloud-based SharePoint solution.

    As an alternative to SharePoint, SaaS tools such as Power DMS, NetDocuments, Xythos on Demand, Knowledge Tree, Spring CM, and Zoho Docs offer cloud-based document management, authoring, and distribution services that can work well for SOPs. Some of these, such as Power DMS and Spring CM, are geared specifically toward workflows.

    A wiki may be all you need

    Portability/External Access:
    • Pros: Wiki sites can support external access as with any web solution.
    • Cons: May lack more sophisticated content management features.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: Built-in document management (e.g. version control, metadata support, etc.) as well as centralized access to required information.
    • Pros: Authorized users can make updates dynamically, depending on how much restriction you have on the site.
    • Cons: No built-in automation (e.g. automated updates to contacts throughout the system).
    • Cons: Consistency depends on creating templates and implementing processes for document updates, review, and approval.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: An inexpensive option compared to traditional content management solutions such as SharePoint.
    • Cons: Learning curve if wikis are new to your organization.
    About this Approach:

    Wiki sites are websites where users collaborate to create and edit the content. Wikipedia is an example.

    While wiki sites are typically used for collaboration and dynamic content development, the traditional collaborative authoring model can be restricted to provide structure and an approval process.

    Several tools are available to create and manage wiki sites (and other collaboration solutions), as outlined in the following research:

    An approach that I’ve seen work well is to consult the wiki for any task, activity, job, etc. Is it documented? If not, then document it there and then. Sure, this led to 6-8 weeks of huge effort, but the documentation grew in terms of volume and quality at an alarming but pleasantly surprising rate. Providing an environment to create the documentation is important and a wiki is ideal. Fast, lightweight, in-browser editing leads to little resistance in creating documents.

    - Lee Blackwell, Global IT Operation Services Manager, Avid Technology

    Managing SOPs on a shared network drive involves major challenges and limitations

    Portability/External Access:
    • Cons: Must be hosted at redundant sites in order to be effective in a worst-case scenario that takes down your data center.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: Easy to implement and no learning curve.
    • Pros: Access can be easily managed.
    • Cons: Version control, standardization, and document management can be significant challenges.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: Little to no cost and no tool management required.
    • Cons: Managing documents on a shared network drive requires strict attention to process for version control, updates, approvals, and distribution.
    About this Approach:

    With this strategy, SOP documents are stored and managed locally on a shared network drive. Only process owners and administrators have read-write permissions on documents on the shared drive.

    The administrator grants access and manages security permissions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    For small organizations, the shared network drive approach can work, but this is ultimately a short-term solution. Move to an online library by creating a wiki site. Start slow by beginning with a particular department or project, then evaluate how well your staff adapt to this technology as well as its potential effectiveness in your organization. Refer to the Info-Tech collaboration strategy research cited on the previous slide for additional guidance.

    Avoid extensive use of paper copies of SOP documentation

    SOP documents need to be easy to update, accessible from anywhere, and searchable. Paper doesn’t meet these needs.

    Portability/External Access:
    • Pros: Does not rely on technology or power.
    • Cons: Not adequate for disaster recovery situations; would require all staff to have a copy and to have it with them at all times.
    Maintainability/Usability:
    • Pros: In terms of usability, again there is no dependence on technology.
    • Cons: Updates need to be printed and distributed to all relevant staff every time there is a change to ensure staff have access to the latest most accurate documentation.
    • Cons: Navigation to other information is manual – flipping through pages etc. No searching or hyperlinks.
    Cost/Effort:
    • Pros: No technology system to maintain, aside from what you use for printing.
    • Cons: Printing expenses are actually among the highest incurred by organizations and this adds to it.
    • Cons: Labor-intensive due to need to print and physically distribute documentation updates.
    About this Approach

    Traditionally, SOPs were printed and kept somewhere in a large binder (or several large binders). This isn’t adequate to the needs of most organizations and typically results in documents that aren’t up to date or effective.

    Use Info-Tech’s solution evaluation tool to decide on a publishing and document management strategy

    All organizations have existing document management methodologies, even if it’s simply storing documents on a network drive.

    Use Info-Tech’s solution evaluation tool to decide whether your existing solution meets the portability/external access, maintainability/usability, and cost/effort criteria, or whether you need to explore a different option.

    Note: This tool was originally built to evaluate DRP publishing options, so the tool name and terminology refers to DR. However, the same tool can be used to evaluate general SOP publishing and document management solutions.

    The image is a screenshot of Info-Tech's evaluation tool
    Consider using Info-Tech’s DRP Publishing and Document Management Solution Evaluation Tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    There is no absolute ranking for possible solutions. The right choice will depend on factors such as current in-house tools, maturity around document management, the size of your IT department, and so on. For example, a small shop may do very well with the USB drive strategy, whereas a multi-national company will need a more formal strategy to ensure consistent application of corporate guidelines.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.1

    Decide on a publishing and document management strategy

    Review the pros and cons of different strategies for publishing and document management. Identify needs, priorities, and limitations of your environment. Create a shortlist of options that can meet your organization’s needs and priorities.

    3.2

    Complete the solution evaluation tool

    Evaluate solutions on the shortlist to identify the strongest option for your organization, based on the criteria of maintainability, affordability, effort to implement, and accessibility/portability.

    Insight breakdown

    Create visual documents, not dense SOP manuals.

    • Visual documents that can be scanned are more usable and easier to update.
    • Flowcharts, checklists, and diagrams all have their place in visual documentation.

    Start with high-impact SOPs.

    • It can be difficult to decide where to start when faced with a major documentation backlog.
    • Focus first on client facing and high-impact SOPs, i.e. mission-critical operations, service management, and disaster recovery procedures.

    Integrate SOP creation into project requirements and hold staff accountable.

    • Holding staff accountable does not provide all the benefits of a well documented and maintained SOP, but it minimizes procrastination, so the work is ultimately done in a more timely manner.

    Summary of accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    SOPs may not be exciting, but they’re very important to organizational consistency, efficiency, and improvement.

    This blueprint outlined how to:

    • Prioritize and execute SOP documentation work.
    • Establish a sustainable process for creating and maintaining SOP documentation.
    • Choose a content management solution for best fit.

    Processes Optimized

    • Multiple processes supporting mission-critical operations, service management, and disaster recovery were documented. Gaps in those processes were uncovered and addressed.
    • In addition, your process for maintaining process documents was improved, including adding documentation requirements and steps requiring documentation approval.

    Deliverables Completed

    As part of completing this project, the following deliverables were completed:

    • Standard Operating Procedures Workbook
    • Standard Operating Procedures Project Roadmap Tool
    • Document Management Checklist
    • Publishing and Document Management Solution Evaluation Tool

    Project step summary

    Client Project: Create and maintain visual SOP documentation.

    1. Prioritize undocumented SOPs.
    2. Develop visual SOP documentation.
    3. Optimize and document critical processes.
    4. Establish guidelines for identifying and organizing SOPs.
    5. Define a process for documenting and maintaining SOPs.
    6. Plan time with experts to put a dent in your documentation backlog.
    7. Understand the options for content management solutions.
    8. Identify the right content management solution for your organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This project has the ability to fit the following formats:

    • Onsite workshop by Info-Tech Research Group consulting analysts.
    • Do-it-yourself with your team.
    • Remote delivery (Info-Tech Guided Implementation).

    Bibliography

    Anderson, Chris. “What is a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)?” Bizmanualz, Inc. No date. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. https://www.bizmanualz.com/save-time-writing-procedures/what-are-policies-and-procedures-sop.html

    Grusenmeyer, David. “Developing Effective Standard Operating Procedures.” Dairy Business Management. 1 Feb. 2003. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/36910

    Mosaic. “The Value of Standard Operating Procedures.” 22 Oct. 2012. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. ttp://www.mosaicprojects.com.au/WhitePapers/WP1086_Standard_Operating_Procedures.pdf

    Sinn, John W. “Lean, Six Sigma, Quality Transformation Toolkit (LSSQTT) Tool #17 Courseware Content – Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) For Lean and Six Sigma: Infrastructure for Understanding Process.” Summer 2006. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. https://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/BGSU/college-of-technology/documents/LSSQTT/LSSQTT%20Toolkit/toolkit3/LSSQTT-Tool-17.pdf

    United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Guidance for Preparing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).” April 2007. Web. 25 Jan. 2016. http://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents/g6-final.pdf

    Modernize the Network

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    • Parent Category Name: Network Management
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    • Business units, functions, and processes are inextricably intertwined with less and less tolerance for downtime.
    • Business demands change rapidly but the refresh horizon for infrastructure remains 5-7 years.
    • The number of endpoint devices the network is expected to support is growing geometrically but historic capacity planning grew linearly.
    • The business is unable to clearly define requirements, paralyzing planning.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Build for your needs. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming what works for your neighbor, your peer, or your competitor will work for you.
    • Deliver on what your business knows it needs as well as what it doesn’t yet know it needs. Business leaders have business vision, but this vision won’t directly demand the required network capabilities to enable the business. This is where you come in.
    • Modern technologies are hampered by vintage processes. New technologies demand new ways of accomplishing old tasks.

    Impact and Result

    • Use a systematic approach to document all stakeholder needs and rely on the network technical staff to translate those needs into design constraints, use cases, features, and management practices.
    • Spend only on those emerging technologies that deliver features offering direct benefits to specific business goals and IT needs.
    • Solidify the business case for your network modernization project by demonstrating and quantifying the hard dollar value it provides to the business.

    Modernize the Network Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should modernize the enterprise network, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess the network

    Identify and prioritize stakeholder and IT/networking concerns.

    • Modernize the Network – Phase 1: Assess the Network
    • Network Modernization Workbook

    2. Envision the network of the future

    Learn about emerging technologies and identify essential features of a modernized network solution.

    • Modernize the Network – Phase 2: Envision Your Future Network
    • Network Modernization Technology Assessment Tool

    3. Communicate and execute the plan

    Compose a presentation for stakeholders and prepare the RFP for vendors.

    • Modernize the Network – Phase 3: Communicate and Execute the Plan
    • Network Modernization Roadmap
    • Network Modernization Executive Presentation Template
    • Network Modernization RFP Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Modernize the Network

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess the Network

    The Purpose

    Understand current stakeholder and IT needs pertaining to the network.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Prioritized lists of stakeholder and IT needs.

    Activities

    1.1 Assess and prioritize stakeholder concerns.

    1.2 Assess and prioritize design considerations.

    1.3 Assess and prioritize use cases.

    1.4 Assess and prioritize network infrastructure concerns.

    1.5 Assess and prioritize care and control concerns.

    Outputs

    Current State Register

    2 Analyze Emerging Technologies and Identify Features

    The Purpose

    Analyze emerging technologies to determine whether or not to include them in the network modernization.

    Identify and shortlist networking features that will be part of the network modernization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of what emerging technologies are suitable for including in your network modernization.

    A prioritized list of features, aligned with business needs, that your modernized network must or should have.

    Activities

    2.1 Analyze emerging technologies.

    2.2 Identify features to support drivers, practices, and pain points.

    Outputs

    Emerging technology assessment

    Prioritize lists of modernized network features

    3 Plan for Future Capacity

    The Purpose

    Estimate future port, bandwidth, and latency requirements for all sites on the network.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Planning for capacity ensures the network is capable of delivering until the next refresh cycle and beyond.

    Activities

    3.1 Estimate port, bandwidth, and latency requirements.

    3.2 Group sites according to capacity requirements.

    3.3 Create standardized capacity plans for each group.

    Outputs

    A summary of capacity requirements for each site in the network

    4 Communicate and Execute the Plan

    The Purpose

    Create a presentation to pitch the project to executives.

    Compose key elements of RFP.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Communication to executives, summarizing the elements of the modernization project that business decision makers will want to know, in order to gain approval.

    Communication to vendors detailing the network solution requirements so that proposed solutions are aligned to business and IT needs.

    Activities

    4.1 Build the executive presentation.

    4.2 Compose the scope of work.

    4.3 Compose technical requirements.

    Outputs

    Executive Presentation

    Request for Proposal/Quotation

    Implement and Mature Your User Experience Design Practice

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    • Parent Category Name: Requirements & Design
    • Parent Category Link: /requirements-and-design

    Many organizations want to get to market quickly and on budget but don’t know the steps to get the right product/service to satisfy the users and business. This may be made apparent through uninformed decisions leading to lack of adoption of your product or service, rework due to post-implementation user feedback, or the competition discovering new approaches that outshine yours.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Ensure your practice has a clear understanding of the design problem space – not just the solution. An understanding of the user is critical to this.

    Impact and Result

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

    Implement and Mature Your User Experience Design Practice Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement an experience design practice, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four dimensions we recommend using to mature your practice.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Build the foundation

    Motivate your team with a common vision, mission, and goals.

    • Design Roadmap Workbook
    • User Experience Practice Roadmap

    2. Review the design dimensions

    Examine your practice – from the perspectives of organizational alignment, business outcomes, design perspective, and design integration – to determine what it takes to improve your maturity.

    3. Build your roadmap and communications

    Bring it all together – determine your team structure, the roadmap for the practice maturity, and communication plan.

    [infographic]

    Workshop: Implement and Mature Your User Experience Design Practice

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Answer “So What?”

    The Purpose

    Make the case for UX. Bring the team together with a common mission, vision, and goals.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Mission, vision, and goals for design

    Activities

    1.1 Define design practice goals.

    1.2 Generate the vision statement.

    1.3 Develop the mission statement.

    Outputs

    Design vision statement

    Design mission statement

    Design goals

    2 Examine Design Dimensions

    The Purpose

    Review the dimensions that help organizations to mature, and assess what next steps make sense for your organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Develop initiatives that are right-sized for your organization.

    Activities

    2.1 Examine organizational alignment.

    2.2 Establish priorities for initiatives.

    2.3 Identify business value sources.

    2.4 Identify design perspective.

    2.5 Brainstorm design integration.

    2.6 Complete UCD-Canvas.

    Outputs

    Documented initiatives for design maturity

    Design canvas framework

    3 Create Structure and Initiatives

    The Purpose

    Make your design practice structure right for you.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Examine patterns and roles for your organization.

    Activities

    3.1 Structure your design practice.

    Outputs

    Design practice structure with patterns

    4 Roadmap and Communications

    The Purpose

    Define the communications objectives and audience for your roadmap.

    Develop your communication plan.

    Sponsor check-in.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days.

    Set up review time for workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.

    Activities

    4.1 Define the communications objectives and audience for your roadmap.

    4.2 Develop your communication plan.

    Outputs

    Communication Plan and Roadmap

    Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics

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    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
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    • Continuous and disruptive database design updates while trying to have one design pattern to fit all use cases.
    • Sub-par performance while loading, retrieving, and querying data.
    • You want to shorten time-to-market of the projects aimed at data delivery and consumption.
    • Unnecessarily complicated database design limits usability of the data and requires knowledge of specific data structures for their effective use.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Evolve your data architecture. Data pipeline is an evolutionary break away from the enterprise data warehouse methodology.
    • Avoid endless data projects. Building centralized all-in-one enterprise data warehouses takes forever to deliver a positive ROI.
    • Facilitate data self-service. Use-case optimized data delivery repositories facilitate data self-service.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand your high-level business capabilities and interactions across them – your data repositories and flows should be just a digital reflection thereof.
    • Divide your data world in logical verticals overlaid with various speed data progression lanes, i.e. build your data pipeline – and conquer it one segment at a time.
    • Use the most appropriate database design pattern for a given phase/component in your data pipeline progression.

    Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Build your data pipeline using the most appropriate data design patterns.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand data progression

    Identify major business capabilities, business processes running inside and across them, and datasets produced or used by these business processes and activities performed thereupon.

    • Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics – Phase 1: Understand Data Progression

    2. Identify data pipeline components

    Identify data pipeline vertical zones: data creation, accumulation, augmentation, and consumption, as well as horizontal lanes: fast, medium, and slow speed.

    • Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics – Phase 2: Identify Data Pipeline Components

    3. Select data design patterns

    Select the right data design patterns for the data pipeline components, as well as an applicable data model industry standard (if available).

    • Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics – Phase 3: Select Data Design Patterns
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand Data Progression

    The Purpose

    Identify major business capabilities, business processes running inside and across them, and datasets produced or used by these business processes and activities performed thereupon.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Indicates the ownership of datasets and the high-level data flows across the organization.

    Activities

    1.1 Review & discuss typical pitfalls (and their causes) of major data management initiatives.

    1.2 Discuss the main business capabilities of the organization and how they interact.

    1.3 Discuss the business processes running inside and across business capabilities and the datasets involved.

    1.4 Create the Enterprise Business Process Model (EBPM).

    Outputs

    Understanding typical pitfalls (and their causes) of major data management initiatives.

    Business capabilities map

    Business processes map

    Enterprise Business Process Model (EBPM)

    2 Identify Data Pipeline Components

    The Purpose

    Identify data pipeline vertical zones: data creation, accumulation, augmentation, and consumption, as well as horizontal lanes: fast, medium, and slow speed.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Design the high-level data progression pipeline.

    Activities

    2.1 Review and discuss the concept of a data pipeline in general, as well as the vertical zones: data creation, accumulation, augmentation, and consumption.

    2.2 Identify these zones in the enterprise business model.

    2.3 Review and discuss multi-lane data progression.

    2.4 Identify different speed lanes in the enterprise business model.

    Outputs

    Understanding of a data pipeline design, including its zones.

    EBPM mapping to Data Pipeline Zones

    Understanding of multi-lane data progression

    EBPM mapping to Multi-Speed Data Progression Lanes

    3 Develop the Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Select the right data design patterns for the data pipeline components, as well as an applicable data model industry standard (if available).

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Use of appropriate data design pattern for each zone with calibration on the data progression speed.

    Activities

    3.1 Review and discuss various data design patterns.

    3.2 Discuss and select the data design pattern selection for data pipeline components.

    3.3 Discuss applicability of data model industry standards (if available).

    Outputs

    Understanding of various data design patterns.

    Data Design Patterns mapping to the data pipeline.

    Selection of an applicable data model from available industry standards.

    Create an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach

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    • Organizations often apply gating and governance to IT projects to ensure resources are being used efficiently and effectively.
    • Agile project teams often complain that traditional project gating and governance interfere with their ability to delivery because traditional gating and governance were designed for Waterfall delivery methods.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Imposing a traditional gating and governance approach on an Agile project can eliminate the advantages that Agile delivery methods offer. Make sure to rework your traditional project gating and governance approach to be Agile friendly.

    Impact and Result

    • Create a project gating and governance approach that is Agile friendly and helps your organization realize the most benefit from its Agile transformation.
    • Oversee your Agile projects with confidence by adjusting the level of support and oversight they receive based on their Agilometer score.
    • Define a revised set of project gating artifacts that support Agile delivery methods.
    • Adopt a “trust but verify” approach to Agile project gating that will reduce risk and help ensure value delivery.

    Create an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Create an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach Deck – A step-by-step guide to creating an Agile-friendly project gating and governance approach that will support Agile delivery methods in your organization.

    This deck is a guide to creating your own Agile-friendly project gating and governance approach using Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework.

    • Create an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach – Phases 1-3

    2. Your Gates 3 and 3A Checklists – The Gates 3 and 3A Checklists are used to determine when a project is ready to enter and exit the Risk Reduction & Value Confirmation phase.

    Modify Info-Tech’s Gates 3 and 3A Checklists to meet your organization’s needs, and then use them to determine when Agile projects are ready to enter and exit the RRVC phase.

    • Gates 3 and 3A Checklists

    3. Your Agilometer – The Agilometer is used to determine a project’s readiness to use an Agile delivery method.

    Modify Info-Tech’s Agilometer to meet your organization’s needs, and then use it to determine the level of support and oversight the project will need.

    • Agilometer

    4. Your Agile Project Status Report – An Agile Status Report will be used to monitor project progress.

    Modify Info-Tech’s Agile Project Status Report to meet your organization’s needs, and then use it to monitor in-flight Agile projects.

    • Agile Project Status Report

    5. Project Burndown Chart – A tool to let you monitor project burndown over time.

    Use Info-Tech’s Project Burndown Chart to monitor the progress of your in-flight Agile projects.

    • Project Burndown Chart

    6. Traditional to Agile Gating Artifact Mapping – A tool to help you rework your project gating artifacts to be Agile-friendly.

    Use Info-Tech’s Traditional to Agile Gating Artifact Mapping tool to modify your gating artifacts for Agile projects.

    • Traditional to Agile Gating Artifact Mapping
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Create an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach

    Use Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework as a guide to gating your Agile projects using a “trust but verify” approach.

    Table of Contents

    Analyst Perspective

    Executive Summary

    Phase 1: Establish Your Gating and Governance Purpose

    Phase 2: Understand and Adapt Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework

    Phase 3: Complete Your Agile Gating Framework

    Where Do I Go Next?

    Bibliography

    Facilitator Slides

    Analyst Perspective

    Make your gating and governance process Agile friendly by following a “trust but verify” approach

    Most project gating and governance approaches are designed for traditional (Waterfall) delivery methods. However, Agile delivery methods call for a different way of working that doesn’t align well with these approaches.

    Applying traditional project gating and governance to Agile projects is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Not only will it make Agile project delivery less efficient, but in the extreme, it can lead to outright project failure and even derail your organization’s Agile transformation.

    If you want Agile to successfully take root in your organization, be prepared to rethink your current gating and governance practices. This document presents a framework that you can use to rework your approach to provide both effective oversight and support for your Agile projects.

    Photo of Alex Ciraco, Principal Research Director, Application Delivery and Management, Info-Tech Research Group. Alex Ciraco
    Principal Research Director,
    Application Delivery and Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge
    • Many government organizations are adopting Agile project delivery methods because they have proven to be more effective than traditional delivery approaches at responding to today’s fast pace of change.
    • Government organizations have an obligation to govern projects to ensure effective use of public resources, regardless of the delivery method being used.
    Common Obstacles
    • Most government gating and governance frameworks were designed around traditional (often called “Waterfall”) delivery methods.
    • Agile and Waterfall work in completely different ways, so imposing traditional gating and governance frameworks on Agile projects will stifle progress and can even lead to project failure.
    • Government organizations must adjust their gating and governance frameworks to accommodate Agile delivery methods.
    Info-Tech’s Approach
    • Begin by understanding the fundamental purpose of project gating and governance.
    • Next, understand the major differences between Agile and Waterfall delivery methods.
    • Then, armed with this knowledge, use Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework to redefine your gating and governance approach to be Agile friendly.
    Info-Tech Insight

    Imposing a traditional governance approach on an Agile project can eliminate the advantages that Agile delivery methods offer. Make sure to rework your project gating and governance approach to be Agile friendly.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for Creating an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach

    1. Establish Your Gating and Governance Purpose 2. Understand and Adapt Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework 3. Complete your Agile Gating Framework
    Phase Steps

    1.1 Understand How We Gate and Govern Projects

    1.2 Compare Traditional to Agile Delivery

    1.3 Realize What Traditional Gating Looks Like and Why

    2.1 Understand How Agile Manages Risk and Ensures Value Delivery

    2.2 Introducing Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework

    2.3 Create Your Agilometer

    2.4 Create an Agile-Friendly Project Status Report

    2.5 Select Your Agile Health Check Tool

    3.1 Map Your Traditional Gating Artifacts to Agile Delivery

    3.2 Determine Your Now, Next, Later Roadmap for Implementation

    Phase Outcomes
    1. Your gating/governance purpose statement
    2. A fundamental understanding of the difference between traditional and Agile delivery methods.
    1. An understanding of Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework
    2. Your Gates 3 and 3A checklists
    3. Your Agilometer tool
    4. Your Agile project status report template
    5. Your Agile health check tool
    1. Artifact map for your Agile gating framework
    2. Roadmap for Agile gating implementation

    Key Deliverables

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

    Agilometer Tool

    Create your customized Agilometer tool to determine project support and oversight needs.
    Sample of the 'Agilometer Tool' deliverable.

    Gates 3 and 3A Checklists

    Create your customized checklists for projects at Gates 3 and 3A.
    Sample of the 'Gates 3 and 3A Checklists' deliverable.

    Agile-Friendly Project Status Report

    Create your Agile-friendly project status report to monitor progress.
    Sample of the 'Agile-Friendly Project Status Report' deliverable.

    Artifact Mapping Tool

    Map your traditional gating artifacts to their Agile replacements.
    Sample of the 'Artifact Mapping Tool' deliverable.

    Create an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach

    Phase 1

    Establish your gating and governance purpose

    Phase 1

    1.1 Understand How We Gate and Govern Projects

    1.2 Compare Traditional to Agile Delivery

    1.3 Realize What Traditional Gating Looks Like And Why

    Phase 2

    2.1 Understand How Agile Manages Risk and Ensures Value Delivery

    2.2 Introducing Info-Tech’s Agile Gating Framework

    2.3 Create Your Agilometer

    2.4 Create Your Agile-Friendly Project Status Report

    2.5 Select Your Agile Health Check Tool

    Phase 3

    3.1 Map Your Traditional Gating Artifacts to Agile Delivery

    3.2 Determine Your Now, Next, Later Roadmap for Implementation

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand why gating and governance are so important to your organization.
    • Compare and contrast traditional to Agile delivery.
    • Identify what form traditional gating takes in your organization.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • PMO/Gating Body
    • Delivery Managers
    • Delivery Teams
    • Other Interested Parties

    Agile gating–related facts and figures

    73% of organizations created their project gating framework before adopting or considering Agile delivery practices. (Athens Journal of Technology and Engineering)

    71% of survey respondents felt an Agile-friendly gating approach improves both productivity and product quality. (Athens Journal of Technology and Engineering)

    Moving to an Agile-friendly gating approach has many benefits:
    • Faster response to change
    • Improved productivity
    • Higher team morale
    • Better product quality
    • Faster releases
    (Journal of Product Innovation Management)

    Traditional gating approaches can undermine an Agile project

    • Most existing gating and governance frameworks (often referred to as phase-gate) impose requirements on projects that are anti-patterns to an Agile delivery approach
    • For example, any gating approach that requires a project to deliver a detailed requirements document before coding can begin will make it difficult or impossible for the project to use an Agile delivery method.
    • The same can be said for other common phase-gate requirements including:
      • Imposing a formal (and onerous) change control process on project requirements.
      • Requiring a detailed design document and/or detailed user acceptance test plan at the beginning of the project.
      • Asking the project to produce a detailed project plan.
    (DZone)
    Don’t make the mistake of asking an Agile project to follow a traditional phase-gate approach to project delivery!

    Before reworking your gating approach, you need to consider two important questions

    Answering these questions will help guide your new gating process to both be Agile friendly and meet your organization’s needs

    1. What is the fundamental purpose of gating? By examining the fundamental purpose of gating, you will be better able to adjust your approach to achieve the desired outcomes in an Agile context.
    2. How does Agile delivery differ from traditional? By understanding how Agile delivery differs from traditional, you will be better able to adjust your gating approach to support Agile delivery methods.

    Stock image of speech bubbles hanging on string with a question mark and lightbulb drawn on them.

    10 Secrets for Successful Disaster Recovery in the Cloud

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}419|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 10.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $12,096 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 20 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
    • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
    • The pay-per-use pricing structure of cloud services make it a cheaper DR option, but there are gotchas you need to avoid, ranging from unexpected licensing costs to potential security vulnerabilities.
    • You likely started on the path to cloud DR with consideration of cloud storage for offsite retention of backups. Systems recovery in the cloud can be a real value-add to using cloud as a backup target.
    • Your cloud-based DR environment has to be secure and compliant, but performance also has to be “good enough” to operate the business.
    • Location still matters, and selecting the DR site that optimizes latency tolerance and geo-redundancy can be difficult.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Keep your systems dormant until disaster strikes. Prepare as much of your environment as possible without tapping into compute resources. Enjoy the low at-rest costs, and leverage the reliability of the cloud in your failover.
    • Avoid failure on the failback! Bringing up your systems in the cloud is a great temporary solution, but an expensive long-term strategy. Make sure you have a plan to get back on premises.
    • Leverage cloud DR as a start for cloud migration. Cloud DR provides a gateway for broader infrastructure lift and shift to cloud IaaS, but this should only be the first phase of a longer-term roadmap that ends in multi-service hybrid cloud.

    Impact and Result

    • Calculate the cost of your DR solution with a cloud vendor. Test your systems often to build out more accurate budgets and to define failover and failback action plans to increase confidence in your capabilities.
    • Define “good enough” performance by consulting with the business and setting correct expectations for the recovery state.
    • Dig deeper into the various flavors of cloud-based DR beyond backup and restore, including pilot light, warm standby, and multi-site recovery. Each of these has unique benefits and challenges when done in the cloud.

    10 Secrets for Successful Disaster Recovery in the Cloud Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out the 10 secrets for success in cloud-based DR deployment, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    [infographic]

    Business Value

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}7|cart{/j2store}
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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
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    • Parent Category Name: Financial Management
    • Parent Category Link: /financial-management
    Maximize your ROI on IT through benefits realization

    CIO Priorities 2022

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    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
    • Parent Category Link: /innovation
    • Understand how to respond to trends affecting your organization.
    • Determine your priorities based on current state and relevant internal factors.
    • Assign the right amount of resources to accomplish your vision.
    • Consider what new challenges outside of your control will demand a response.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    A priority is created when external factors hold strong synergy with internal goals and an organization responds by committing resources to either avert risk or seize opportunity. These are the priorities identified in the report:

    1. Reduce Friction in the Hybrid Operating Model
    2. Improve Your Ransomware Readiness
    3. Support an Employee-Centric Retention Strategy
    4. Design an Automation Platform
    5. Prepare to Report on New Environmental, Social, and Governance Metrics

    Impact and Result

    Update your strategic roadmap to include priorities that are critical and relevant for your organization based on a balance of external and internal factors.

    CIO Priorities 2022 Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. CIO Priorities 2022 – A report on the key priorities for competing in the digital economy.

    Discover Info-Tech’s five priorities for CIOs in 2022.

    • CIO Priorities Report for 2022

    2. Listen to the podcast series

    Hear directly from our contributing experts as they discuss their case studies with Brian Jackson.

    • Frictionless hybrid working: How the Harvard Business School did it
    • Close call with ransomware: A CIO recounts a near security nightmare
    • How a financial services company dodged "The Great Resignation"
    • How Allianz took a blockchain platform from pilot to 1 million transactions
    • CVS Health chairman David Dorman on healthcare's hybrid future

    Infographic

    Further reading

    CIO Priorities 2022

    A jumble of business-related words. Info-Tech’s 2022 Tech Trends survey asked CIOs for their top three priorities. Cluster analysis of their open-ended responses shows four key themes:
    1. Business process improvements
    2. Digital transformation or modernization
    3. Security
    4. Supporting revenue growth or recovery

    Info-Tech’s annual CIO priorities are formed from proprietary primary data and consultation with our internal experts with CIO stature

    2022 Tech Trends Survey CIO Demographic N=123

    Info-Tech’s Tech Trends 2022 survey was conducted between August and September 2021 and collected a total of 475 responses from IT decision makers, 123 of which were at the C-level. Fourteen countries and 16 industries are represented in the survey.

    2022 IT Talent Trends Survey CIO Demographic N=44

    Info-Tech’s IT Talent Trends 2022 survey was conducted between September and October 2021 and collected a total of 245 responses from IT decision makers, 44 of which were at the C-level. A broad range of countries from around the world are represented in the survey.

    Internal CIO Panels’ 125 Years Of Combined C-Level IT Experience

    Panels of former CIOs at Info-Tech focused on interpreting tech trends data and relating it to client experiences. Panels were conducted between November 2021 and January 2022.

    CEO-CIO Alignment Survey Benchmark Completed By 107 Different Organizations

    Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment program helps CIOs align with their supervisors by asking the right questions to ensure that IT stays on the right path. It determines how IT can best support the business’ top priorities and address the gaps in your strategy. In 2021, the benchmark was formed by 107 different organizations.

    Build IT alignment

    IT Management & Governance Diagnostic Benchmark Completed By 320 Different Organizations

    Info-Tech’s Management and Governance Diagnostic helps IT departments assess their strengths and weaknesses, prioritize their processes and build an improvement roadmap, and establish clear ownership of IT processes. In 2021, the benchmark was formed by data from 320 different organizations.

    Assess your IT processes

    The CIO priorities are informed by Info-Tech’s trends research reports and surveys

    Priority: “The fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important than others.” (Lexico/Oxford)

    Trend: “A general direction in which something is developing or changing.” (Lexico/Oxford)

    A sequence of processes beginning with 'Sensing', 'Hypothesis', 'Validation', and ending with 'Trends, 'Priorities'. Under Sensing is Technology Research, Interviews & Insights, Gathering, and PESTLE. Under Hypothesis is Near-Future Probabilities, Identify Patterns, Identify Uncertainties, and Identify Human Benefits. Under Validation is Test Hypothesis, Case Studies, and Data-Driven Insights. Under Trends is Technology, Talent, and Industry. Under Priorities is CIO, Applications, Infrastructure, and Security.

    Visit Info-Tech’s Trends & Priorities Research Center

    Image called 'Defining the CIO Priorities for 2022'. Image shows 4 columns, Implications, Resource Investment, Amplifiers, and Actions and Outcomes, with 2 dotted lines, labeled External Context and Internal Context, running through all 4 columns and leading to bottom-right label called CIO Priorities Formed

    The Five Priorities

    Priorities to compete in the digital economy

    1. Reduce Friction in the Hybrid Operating Model
    2. Improve Your Ransomware Readiness
    3. Support an Employee-Centric Retention Strategy
    4. Design an Automation Platform
    5. Prepare to Report on New Environmental, Social, and Governance Metrics

    Reduce friction in the hybrid operating model

    Priority 01 | APO07 Human Resources Management

    Deliver solutions that create equity between remote workers and office workers and make collaboration a joy.

    Hybrid work is here to stay

    CIOs must deal with new pain points related to friction of collaboration

    In 2020, CIOs adapted to the pandemic’s disruption to offices by investing in capabilities to enable remote work. With restrictions on gathering in offices, even digital laggards had to shift to an all-remote work model for non-essential workers.

    Most popular technologies already invested in to facilitate better collaboration

    • 24% Web Conferencing
    • 23% Instant Messaging
    • 20% Document Collaboration

    In 2022, the focus shifts to solving problems created by the new hybrid operating model where some employees are in the office and some are working remotely. Without the ease of collaborating in a central hub, technology can play a role in reducing friction in several areas:

    • Foster more connections between employees. Remote workers are less likely to collaborate with people outside of their department and less likely to spontaneously collaborate with their peers. CIOs should provide a digital employee experience that fosters collaboration habits and keeps workers engaged.
    • Prevent employee attrition. With more workers reevaluating their careers and leaving their jobs, CIOs can help employees feel connected to the overall purpose of the organization. Finding a way to maintain culture in the new context will require new solutions. While conference room technology can be a bane to IT departments, making hybrid meetings effortless to facilitate will be more important.
    • Provide new standards for mediated collaboration. Meeting isn’t as easy as simply gathering around the same table anymore. CIOs need to provide structure around how hybrid meetings are conducted to create equity between all participants. Business continuity processes must also consider potential outages for collaboration services so employees can continue the work despite a major outage.

    Three in four organizations have a “hybrid” approach to work. (Tech Trends 2022 Survey)

    In most organizations, a hybrid model is being implemented. Only 14.9% of organizations are planning for almost everyone to return to the office, and only 9.9% for almost everyone to work remotely.

    Elizabeth Clark

    CIO, Harvard Business School

    "I want to create experiences that are sticky. That keep people coming back and engaging with their colleagues."

    Photo of Elizabeth Clark, CIO, Harvard Business School.

    Listen to the Tech Insights podcast:
    Frictionless hybrid working: How the Harvard Business School did it

    Internal interpretation: Harvard Business School

    • March 2020
      The pandemic disrupts in-class education at Harvard Business School. Their case study method of instruction that depends on in-person, high-quality student engagement is at risk. While students and faculty completed the winter semester remotely, the Dean and administration make the goal to restore the integrity of the classroom experience with equity for both remote and in-person students.
    • May 2020
      A cross-functional task force of about 100 people work intensively, conducting seven formal experiments, 80 smaller tests, and hundreds of polling data points, and a technology and facilities solution is designed: two 4K video cameras capturing both the faculty and the in-class students, new ceiling mics, three 85-inch TV screens, and students joining the videoconference from their laptops. A custom Zoom room, combining three separate rooms, integrated all the elements in one place and integrated with the lecture capture system and learning management system.
    • October 2020
      Sixteen classrooms are renovated to install the new solution. Students return to the classroom but in lower numbers due to limits on in-room capacity, but students rotate between the in-person and remote experience.
    • September 2021
      Renovations for the hybrid solution are complete in 26 classrooms and HBS has determined this will be its standard model for the classroom. The case method of teaching is kept alive and faculty and students are thrilled with the results.
    • November 2021
      HBS is adapting its solution for the classroom to its conference rooms and has built out eight different rooms for a hybrid experience. The 4K cameras and TV screens capture all participants in high fidelity as well as the blackboard.

    Photo of a renovated classroom with Zoom participants integrated with the in-person students.
    The renovated classrooms integrate all students, whether they are participating remotely or in person. (Image courtesy of Harvard Business School.)

    Implications: Organization, Process, Technology

    External

    • Organization – About half of IT practitioners in the Tech Trends 2022 survey feel that IT leaders, infrastructure and operations teams, and security teams were “very busy” in 2021. Capacity to adapt to hybrid work could be constrained by these factors.
    • Process – Organizations that want employees to benefit from being back in the office will have to rethink how workers can get more value out of in-person meetings that also require videoconference participation with remote workers.
    • Technology – Fifty-four percent of surveyed IT practitioners say the pandemic raised IT spending compared to the projections they made in 2020. Much of that investment went into adapting to a remote work environment.

    Internal

    • Organization – HBS added 30 people to its IT staff on term appointments to develop and implement its hybrid classroom solutions. Hires included instructional designers, support technicians, coordinators, and project managers.
    • Process – Only 25 students out of the full capacity of 95 could be in the classroom due to COVID-19 regulations. On-campus students rotated through the classroom seats. An app was created to post last-minute seat availability to keep the class full.
    • Technology – A Zoom room was created that combines three rooms to provide the full classroom experience: a view of the instructor, a clear view of each student that enlarges when they are speaking, and a view of the blackboard.

    Resources Applied

    Appetite for Technology

    CIOs and their direct supervisors both ranked internal collaboration tools as being a “critical need to adopt” in 2021, according to Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Benchmark Report.

    Intent to Invest

    Ninety-seven percent of IT practitioners plan to invest in technology to facilitate better collaboration between employees in the office and outside the office by the end of 2022, according to Info-Tech’s 2022 Tech Trends survey.

    “We got so many nice compliments, which you don’t get in IT all the time. You get all the complaints, but it’s a rare case when people are enthusiastic about something that was delivered.” (Elizabeth Clark, CIO, Harvard Business School)

    Harvard Business School

    • IT staff were reassigned from other projects to prioritize building a hybrid classroom solution. A cloud migration and other portfolio projects were put on pause.
    • The annual capital A/V investment was doubled. The amount of spend on conference rooms was tripled.
    • Employees were hired to the media services team at a time when other areas of the organization were frozen.

    Outcomes at Harvard Business School

    The new normal at Harvard Business School

    New normal: HBS has found its new default operating model for the classroom and is extending its solution to its operating environment.

    Improved CX: The high-quality experience for students has helped avoid attrition despite the challenges of the pandemic.

    Engaged employees: The IT team is also engaged and feels connected to the mission of the school.

    Photo of a custom Zoom room bringing together multiple view of the classroom as well as all remote students.
    A custom Zoom room brings together multiple different views of the classroom into one single experience for remote students. (Image courtesy of Harvard Business School.)

    From Priorities to Action

    Make hybrid collaboration a joy

    Align with your organization’s goals for collaboration and customer interaction, with the target of high satisfaction for both customers and employees. Invest in capital projects to improve the fidelity of conference rooms, develop and test a new way of working, and increase IT capacity to alleviate pressure points.

    Foster both asynchronous and synchronous collaboration approaches to avoid calendars filling up with videoconference meetings to get things done and to accommodate workers contributing from across different time zones.

    “We’ll always have hybrid now. It’s opened people’s eyes and now we’re thinking about the future state. What new markets could we explore?” (Elizabeth Clark, CIO, Harvard Business School)

    Take the next step

    Run Better Meetings
    Hybrid, virtual, or in person – set meeting best practices that support your desired meeting norms.

    Prepare People Leaders for the Hybrid Work Environment
    Set hybrid work up for success by providing people leaders with the tools they need to lead within the new model.

    Hoteling and Hot-Desking: A Primer
    What you need to know regarding facilities, IT infrastructure, maintenance, security, and vendor solutions for desk hoteling and hot-desking.

    “Human Resources Management” gap between importance and effectiveness
    Info-Tech Research Group Management and Governance Diagnostic Benchmark 2021

    A bar chart illustrating the Human Resources Management gap between importance and effectiveness. The difference is marked as Delta 2.3.

    Improve your ransomware readiness

    Priority 02 | APO13 Security Strategy

    Mitigate the damage of successful ransomware intrusions and make recovery as painless as possible.

    The ransomware crisis threatens every organization

    Prevention alone won’t be enough against the forces behind ransomware.

    Cybersecurity is always top of mind for CIOs but tends to be deprioritized due to other demands related to digital transformation or due to cost pressures. That’s the case when we examine our data for this report.

    Cybersecurity ranked as the fourth-most important priority by CIOs in Info-Tech’s 2022 Tech Trends survey, behind business process improvement, digital transformation, and modernization. Popular ways to prepare for a successful attack include creating offline backups, purchasing insurance, and deploying new solutions to eradicate ransomware.

    CIOs and their direct supervisors ranked “Manage IT-Related Security” as the third-most important top IT priority on Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Benchmark for 2021, in support of business goals to manage risk, comply with external regulation, and ensure service continuity.

    Most popular ways for organizations to prepare for the event of a successful ransomware attack:

    • 25% Created offline backups
    • 18% Purchased cyberinsurance
    • 19% New tech to eradicate ransomware

    Whatever priority an organization places on cybersecurity, when ransomware strikes, it quickly becomes a red alert scenario that disrupts normal operations and requires all hands on deck to respond. Sophisticated attacks executed at wide scale demonstrate that security can be bypassed without creating an alert. After that’s accomplished, the perpetrators build their leverage by exfiltrating data and encrypting critical systems.

    CIOs can plan to mitigate ransomware attacks in several constructive ways:

    • Business impact analysis. Determine the costs of an outage for specific periods and the system and data recovery points in time.
    • Engage a partner for 24/7 monitoring. Gain real-time awareness of your critical systems.
    • Review your identity access management (IAM) policies. Use of multi-factor authentication and limiting access to only the roles that need it reduces ransomware risk.

    50% of all organizations spent time and money specifically to prevent ransomware in the past year. (Info-Tech Tech Trends 2022 Survey)

    John Doe

    CIO, mid-sized manufacturing firm in the US

    "I want to create experiences that are sticky. That keep people coming back and engaging with their colleagues."

    Blank photo.

    Listen to the Tech Insights podcast:
    Close call with ransomware: a CIO recounts a near security nightmare

    Internal interpretation: US-based, mid-sized manufacturing firm

    • May 1, 2021
      A mid-sized manufacturing firm (“The Firm”) CIO gets a call from his head of security about odd things happening on the network. A call is made to Microsoft for support. Later that night, the report is that an unwanted crypto-mining application is the culprit. But a couple of hours later, that assessment is proven wrong when it’s realized that hundreds of systems are staged for a ransomware attack. All the attacker has to do is push the button.
    • May 2, 2021
      The Firm disconnects all its global sites to cut off new pathways for the malware to infect. All normal operations cease for 24 hours. It launches its cybersecurity insurance process. The CIO engages a new security vendor, CrowdStrike, to help respond. Employees begin working from home if they can so they can make use of their own internet service. The Firm has cut off its public internet connectivity and is severed from cloud services such as Azure storage and collaboration software.
    • May 4, 2021
      The hackers behind the attack are revealed by security forensics experts. A state-sponsored agency in Russia set up the ransomware and left it ready to execute. It sold the staged attack to a cybercriminal group, Doppel Spider. According to CrowdStrike, the group uses malware to run “big game hunting operations” and targets 18 different countries including the US and multiple industries, including manufacturing.
    • May 10, 2021
      The Firm has totally recovered from the ransomware incident and avoided any serious breach or paying a ransom. The CIO worked more hours than at any other point in his career, logging an estimated 130 hours over the two weeks.
    • November 2021
      The Firm never previously considered itself a ransomware target but has now reevaluated that stance. It has hired a service provider to run a security operations center on a 24/7 basis. It's implemented a more sophisticated detection and response model and implemented multi-factor authentication. It’s doubled its security spend in 2021 and will invest more in 2022.

    “Now we take the approach that if someone does get in, we're going to find them out.” (John Doe, CIO, “The Firm”)

    Implications: Organization, Process, Technology

    External

    • Organization – Organizations must consider how their employees play a role in preventing ransomware and plan for training to recognize phishing and other common traps. They must make plans for employees to continue their work if systems are disrupted by ransomware.
    • Process – Backup processes across multiple systems should be harmonized to have both recent and common points to recover from. Work with the understanding IT will have to take systems offline if ransomware is discovered and there is no time to ask for permission.
    • Technology – Organizations can benefit from security services provided by a forensics-focused vendor. Putting cybersecurity insurance in place not only provides financial protection but also guidance in what to do and which vendors to work with to prevent and recover from ransomware.

    Internal

    • Organization – The Firm was prepared with a business continuity plan to allow many of its employees to work remotely, which was necessary because the office network was incapacitated for ten days during recovery.
    • Process – Executives didn’t seek to assign blame for the security incident but took it as a signal there were some new costs involved to stay in business. It initiated new outsource relationships and hired one more full-time employee to shore up security resources.
    • Technology – New ransomware eradication software was deployed to 2,000 computers. Scripted processes automated much of the work, but in some cases full system rebuilds were required. Backup systems were disconnected from the network as soon as the malware was discovered.

    Resources Applied

    Consider the Alternative

    Organizations should consider how much a ransomware attack on critical systems would cost them if they were down for a minimum of 24-48 hours. Plan to invest an amount at least equal to the costs of that downtime.

    Ask for ID

    Implementing across-the-board multi-factor authentication reduces chances of infection and is cheap, with enterprise solutions ranging from $2 to $5 per user on average. Be strict and deny access when connections don’t authenticate.

    “You'll never stop everything from getting into the network. You can still focus on stopping the bad actors, but then if they do make it in, make sure they don't get far.” (John Doe, CIO, “The Firm”)

    “The Firm” (Mid-Sized Manufacturer)

    • During the crisis, The Firm paused all activities and focused solely on isolating and eliminating the ransomware threat.
    • New outsourcing relationship with a vendor provides a 24/7 Security Operations Center.
    • One more full-time employee on the security team.
    • Doubled investment in security in 2021 and will spend more in 2022.

    Outcomes at “The Firm” (Mid-Sized Manufacturer)

    The new cost of doing business

    Real-time security: While The Firm is still investing in prevention-based security, it is also developing its real-time detection and response capabilities. When ransomware makes it through the cracks, it wants to know as soon as possible and stop it.

    Leadership commitment: The C-suite is taking the experience as a wake-up call that more investment is required in today’s threat landscape. The Firm rates security more highly as an overall organizational goal, not just something for IT to worry about.

    Stock photo of someone using their phone while sitting at a computer, implying multi-factor authentication.
    The Firm now uses multi-factor authentication as part of its employee sign-on process. For employees, authenticating is commonly achieved by using a mobile app that receives a secret code from the issuer.

    From Priorities to Action

    Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility

    In Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Benchmark for 2021, the business goal of “Manage Risk” was the single biggest point of disagreement between CIOs and their direct supervisors. CIOs rank it as the second-most important business goal, while CEOs rank it as sixth-most important.

    Organizations should align on managing risk as a top priority given the severity of the ransomware threat. The threat actors and nature of the attacks are such that top leadership must prepare for when ransomware hits. This includes halting operations quickly to contain damage, engaging third-party security forensics experts, and coordinating with government regulators.

    Cybersecurity strategies may be challenged to be effective without creating some friction for users. Organizations should look beyond multi-layer prevention strategies and lean toward quick detection and response, spending evenly across prevention, detection, and response solutions.

    Take the next step

    Create a Ransomware Incident Response Plan
    Don’t be the next headline. Determine your current readiness, response plan, and projects to close gaps.

    Simplify Identity and Access Management
    Select and implement IAM and produce vendor RFPs that will contain the capabilities you need, including multi-factor authentication.

    Cybersecurity Series Featuring Sandy Silk
    More from Info-Tech’s Senior Workshop Director Sandy Silk in this video series created while she was still at Harvard University.

    Gap between CIOs and CEOs in points allocated to “Manage risk” as a top business goal

    A bar chart illustrating the gap between CIOs and CEOs in points allocated to 'Manage risk' as a top business goal. The difference is marked as Delta 1.5.

    Support an employee-centric retention strategy

    Priority 03 | ITRG02 Leadership, Culture & Values

    Avoid being a victim of “The Great Resignation” by putting employees at the center of an experience that will engage them with clear career path development, purposeful work, and transparent feedback.

    Defining an employee-first culture that improves retention

    The Great resignation isn’t good for firms

    In 2021, many workers decided to leave their jobs. Working contexts were disrupted by the pandemic and that saw non-essential workers sent home to work, while essential workers were asked to continue to come into work despite the risks of COVID-19. These disruptions may have contributed to many workers reevaluating their professional goals and weighing their values differently. At the same time, 2021 saw a surging economy and many new job opportunities to create a talent-hungry market. Many workers could have been motivated to take a new opportunity to increase their salary or receive other benefits such as more flexibility.

    Annual turnover rate for all us employees on the rise

    • 20% – Jan.-Aug. 2020, Dipped from 22% in 2019
    • 25% Jan.-Aug. 2021, New record high
    • Data from Visier Inc.

    When you can’t pay them, develop them

    IT may be less affected than other departments by this trend. Info-Tech’s 2022 IT Talent Trends Report shows that on average, estimated turnover rate in IT is lower than the rest of the organization. Almost half of respondents estimated their organization’s voluntary turnover rate was 10% or higher. Only 30% of respondents estimate that IT’s voluntary turnover rate is in the same range. However, CIOs working in industries with the highest turnover rates will have to work to keep their workers engaged and satisfied, as IT skills are easily transferred to other industries.

    49% ranked “enabling learning & development within IT” as high priority, more than any other single challenge. (IT Talent Trends 2022 Survey, N=227)

    A bar chart of 'Industries with highest turnover rates (%)' with 'Leisure and Hospitality' at 6.4%, 'Trade, Transportation & Utilities' at 3.6%, 'Professional and Business' at 3.3%, and 'Other Services' at 3.1%. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022.

    Jeff Previte

    Executive Vice-President of IT, CrossCountry Mortgage

    “We have to get to know the individual at a personal level … Not just talking about the business, but getting to know the person."

    Photo of Jeff Previte, Executive Vice-President of IT, CrossCountry Mortgage.

    Listen to the Tech Insights podcast:
    How a financial services company dodged ‘The Great Resignation’

    Internal interpretation: CrossCountry Mortgage

    • May 2019
      Jeff Previte joins Cleveland, Ohio-based CrossCountry Mortgage in the CIO role. The company faces a challenge with employee turnover, particularly in IT. The firm is a sales-focused organization and saw its turnover rate reach as high as 60%. Yet Previte recognized that IT had some meaningful goals to achieve and would need to attract – and retain – some higher caliber talent. His first objective in his new role was to meet with IT employees and business leadership to set priorities.
    • July 2019
      Previte takes a “people-first” approach to leadership and meets his staff face-to-face to understand their personal situations. He sets to work on defining roles and responsibilities in the organization, spending about a fifth of his time on defining the strategy.
    • June 2020
      Previte assigned his leadership team to McLean & Company’s Design an Impactful Employee Development Program. From there, the team developed a Salesforce tool called the Career Development Workbook. “We had some very passionate developers and admins that wanted to build a home-grown tool,” he says. It turns McLean & Company’s process into a digital tool employees can use to reflect on their careers and explore their next steps. It helps facilitate development conversations with managers.
    • January 2021
      CrossCountry Mortgage changes its approach to career development activities. Going to external conferences and training courses is reduced to just 30% of that effort. The rest is by doing hands-on work at the company. Previte aligned with his executives and road-mapped IT projects annually. Based on employee’s interests, opportunities are found to carve out time from usual day-to-day activities to spend time on a project in a new area. When there’s a business need, someone internally can be ready to transition roles.
    • June 2021
      In the two years since joining the company, Previte has reduced the turnover rate to just 12%. The IT department has grown to more adequately meet the needs of the business and employees are engaged with more opportunities to develop their careers. Instead of focusing on compensation, Previte focused more on engaging employees with a developmentally dedicated environment and continuous hands-on learning.

    “It’s come down to a culture shift. Folks have an idea of where we’re headed as an organization, where we’re headed as an IT team, and how their role contributes to that.” (Jeff Previte, EVP of IT, CrossCountry Mortgage)

    Implications: Organization, Process, Technology

    External

    • Organization – A high priority is being placed on improving IT’s maturity through its talent. Enabling learning and development in IT, enabling departmental innovation, and recruiting are the top three highest priorities according to IT Talent Trends 2022 survey responses.
    • Process – Recruiting is more challenging for industries that operate primarily onsite, according to McLean & Company's 2022 HR Trends Report. They face more challenges attracting applications, more rejected offers, and more candidate ghosting compared to remote-capable industries.
    • Technology – Providing a great employee experience through digital tools is more important as many organizations see a mix of workers in the office and at home. These tools can help connect colleagues, foster professional development, and improve the candidate experience.

    Internal

    • Organization – CrossCountry Mortgage faced a situation where IT employees did not have clarity on their roles and responsibilities. In terms of salary, it wasn’t offering at the high end compared to other employers in Cleveland.
    • Process – To foster a culture of growth and development, CrossCountry Mortgage put in place a performance assessment system that encouraged reflection and goal setting, aided by collaboration with a manager.
    • Technology – The high turnover rate was limiting CrossCountry Mortgage from achieving the level of maturity it needed to support the company’s goals. It ingrained its new PA process with a custom build of a Salesforce tool.

    Resources Applied

    Show me the money

    Almost six in ten Talent Trends survey respondents identified salary and compensation as the reason that employees resigned in the past year. Organizations looking to engage employees must first pay a fair salary according to market and industry conditions.

    Build me up

    Professional development and opportunity for innovative work are the next two most common reasons for resignations. Organizations must ensure they create enough capacity to allow workers time to spend on development.

    “Building our own solution created an element of engagement. There was a sense of ownership that the team had in thinking through this.” (Jeff Previte, CrossCountry Mortgage)

    CrossCountry Mortgage

    • Executive time: CIO spends 10-20% of his time on activities related to designing the approach.
    • Leveraged memberships with Info-Tech Research Group and McLean & Company to define professional development process.
    • Internal IT develops automated workflow in Salesforce.
    • Hired additional IT staff to build out overall capacity and create time for development activities.

    Outcomes at CrossCountry Mortgage

    Engaged IT workforce

    The Great Maturation: IT staff turnover rate dropped to 10-12% and IT talent is developing on the job to improve the department’s overall skill level. More IT staff on hand and more engaged workers mean IT can deliver higher maturity level results.

    Alignment achieved: Connecting IT’s initiatives to the vision of the C-suite creates a clear purpose for IT in its initiatives. Staff understand what they need to achieve to progress their careers and can grow while they work.

    Photo of employees from CrossCountry Mortgage assisting with a distribution event.
    Employees from CrossCountry Mortgage headquarters assist with a drive-thru distribution event for the Cleveland Food Bank on Dec. 17, 2021. (Image courtesy of CrossCountry Mortgage.)

    From Priorities to Action

    Staff retention is a leadership priority

    The Great Resignation trend is bringing attention to employee engagement and staff retention. IT departments are busier than ever during the pandemic as they work overtime to keep up with a remote workforce and new security threats. At the same time, IT talent is among the most coveted on the market.

    CIOs need to develop a people-first approach to improve the employee experience. Beyond compensation, IT workers need clarity in terms of their career paths, a direct connection between their work and the goals of the organization, and time set aside for professional development.

    Info-Tech’s 2021 benchmark for “Leadership, Culture & Values” shows that most organizations rate this capability very highly (9) but see room to improve on their effectiveness (6.9).

    Take the next step

    IT Talent Trends 2022
    See how IT talent trends are shifting through the pandemic and understand how themes like The Great Resignation has impacted IT.

    McLean & Company’s Modernize Performance Management
    Customize the building blocks of performance management to best fit organizational needs to impact individual and organizational performance, productivity, and engagement.

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure
    Define future-state work units, roles, and responsibilities that will enable the IT organization to complete the work that needs to be done.

    “Leadership, Culture & Values” gap between importance and effectiveness
    Info-Tech Research Group Management and Governance Diagnostic Benchmark 2021

    A bar chart illustrating the 'Leadership, Culture & Values' gap between importance and effectiveness. The difference is marked as Delta 2.1.

    Design an automation platform

    Priority 04 | APO04 Innovation

    Position yourself to buy or build a platform that will enable new automation opportunities through seamless integration.

    Build it or buy it, but platform integration can yield great benefits

    Necessity is the mother of innovation

    When it’s said that digital transformation accelerated during the pandemic, what’s really meant is that processes that were formerly done manually became automated through software. In responses to the Tech Trends survey, CIOs say digital transformation was more of a focus during the pandemic, and eight in ten CIOs also say they shifted more than 20% of their organization’s processes to digital during the pandemic. Automating tasks through software can be called digitalization.

    Most organizations became more digitalized during the pandemic. But how they pursued it depends on their IT maturity. For digital laggards, partnering with a technology services platform is the path of least resistance. For sophisticated innovators, they can consider building a platform to address the specific needs of their business process. Doing so requires the foundation of an existing “digital factory” or innovation arm where new technologies can be tested, proofs of concept developed, and external partnerships formed. Patience is key with these efforts, as not every investment will yield immediate returns and some will fail outright.

    Build it or buy it, platform participants integrate with their existing systems through application programming interfaces (APIs). Organizations should determine their platform strategies based on maturity, then look to integrate the business processes that will yield the most gains.

    What role should you play in the platform ecosystem?

    A table with levels on the maturity ladder laid out as a sprint. Column headers are maturity levels 'Struggle', 'Support', 'Optimize', 'Expand', and 'Transform', row headers are 'Maturity' and 'Role'. Roles are assigned to one or many levels. 'Improve' is solely under Struggle. 'Integrate' spans from Support to Transform. 'Buy' spans Support to Expand. 'Build' begins midway through Expand and all of Transform. 'Partner' spans from Optimize to halfway through Transform.

    68% of CIOs say digital transformation became much more of a focus for their organization during the pandemic (Info-Tech Tech Trends 2022 Survey)

    Bob Crozier

    Chief Architect, Allianz Technology & Global Head of Blockchain, Allianz Technology SE

    "Smart contracts are really just workflows between counterparties."

    Photo of Bob Crozier, Chief Architect, Allianz Technology & Global Head of Blockchain, Allianz Technology SE.

    Listen to the Tech Insights podcast:
    How Allianz took a blockchain platform from pilot to 1 million transactions

    Internal interpretation: Allianz Technology

    • 2015
      After smart contracts are demonstrated on the Ethereum blockchain, Allianz and other insurers recognize the business value. There is potential to use the capability to administer a complex, multi-party contract where the presence of the reinsurer in the risk transfer ecosystem is required. Manual contracts could be turned into code and automated. Allianz organized an early proof of concept around a theoretical pandemic excessive loss contract.
    • 2018
      Allianz Chief Architect Bob Crozier is leading the Global Blockchain Center of Competence for Allianz. They educate Allianz on the value of blockchain for business. They also partner with a joint venture between the Technology University of Munich and the state of Bavaria. A cohort of Masters students is looking for real business problems to solve with open-source distributed ledger technology. Allianz puts its problem statement in front of the group. A student team presents a proof of concept for an international motor insurance claims settlement and it comes in second place at a pitch day competition.
    • 2019
      Allianz brings the concept back in-house, and its business leaders return to the concept. Startup Luther Systems is engaged to build a minimum-viable product for the solution, with the goal being a pilot involving three or four subsidiaries in different countries. The Blockchain Center begins communicating with 25 Allianz subsidiaries that will eventually deploy the platform.
    • 2020
      Allianz is in build mode on its international motor insurance claims platform. It leverages its internal Dev/SecOps teams based in Munich and in India.
    • May 2021
      Allianz goes live with its new platform on May 17, decommissioning its old system and migrating all live claims data onto the new blockchain platform. It sees 400 concurrent users go live across Europe.
    • January 2022
      Allianz mines its one-millionth block to its ledger on Jan. 19, with each block representing a peer-to-peer transaction across its 25 subsidiaries in different countries. The platform has settled hundreds of millions of dollars.

    Stock photo of two people arguing over a car crash.

    Implications: Organization, Process, Technology

    External

    • Organization – To explore emerging technologies like blockchain, organizations need staff that are accountable for innovation and have leeway to develop proofs of concept. External partners are often required to bring in fresh ideas and move quickly towards an MVP.
    • Process – According to the Tech Trends 2022 survey, 84% of CIOs consider automation a high-value digital capability, and 77% say identity verification is a high-value capability. A blockchain platform using smart contracts can deliver those.
    • Technology – The Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source blockchain technology that’s become popular in the financial industry for its method of forming consensus and its modular architecture. It’s been adopted by USAA, MasterCard, and PayPal. It also underpins the IBM Blockchain Platform and is supported by Azure Blockchain.

    Internal

    • Organization – Allianz is a holding company that owns Allianz Technology and 25 operating entities across Europe. It uses the technology arm to innovate on the business process and creates shared platforms that its entities can integrate with to automate across the value chain.
    • Process – Initial interest in smart contracts on blockchain were funneled into a student competition, where a proof of concept was developed. Allianz partnered with a startup to develop an MVP, then developed the platform while aligning with its business units ahead of launch.
    • Technology – Allianz built its blockchain platform on Hyperledger Fabric because it was a permissioned system, unlike other public permissionless blockchains such as Ethereum, and because its mining mechanism was much more energy efficient compared to other blockchains using Proof of Work consensus models.

    Resources Applied

    Time to innovate

    Exploring emerging technology for potential use cases is difficult for staff tasked with running day-to-day operations. Organizations serious about innovation create a separate team that can focus on “moonshot” projects and connect with external partners.

    Long-term ROI

    Automation of new business processes often requires a high upfront initial investment for a long-term efficiency gain. A proof of concept should demonstrate clear business value that can be repeated often and for a long period.

    “My next project has to deliver in the tens of millions of value in return. The bar is high and that’s what it should be for a business of our size.” (Bob Crozier, Allianz)

    Allianz

    • Several operating entities from different countries supplied subject matter expertise and helped with the testing process.
    • Allianz Technology team has eight staff members. It is augmented by Luther Systems and the team at industry group B3i.
    • Funding of less than $5 million to develop. Dev team continues to add improvements.
    • Operating requires just one full-time employee plus infrastructure costs, mostly for public cloud hosting.

    Outcomes at Allianz

    From insurer to platform provider

    Deliver your own SaaS: Allianz Technology built its blockchain-based claims settlement platform and its subsidiaries consume it as software as a service. The platform runs on a distributed architecture across Europe, with each node running the same version of the software. Operating entities can also integrate their own systems to the platform via APIs and further automate business processes such as billing.

    Ready to scale: After processing one million transactions, the international claims settlement platform is proven and ready to add more participants. Crozier sees auto repair shops and auto manufacturers as the next logical users.

    Stock photo of Blockchain.
    Allianz is a shareholder of the Blockchain Insurance Industry Initiative (B3i). It is providing a platform used by a group of insurance companies in the commercial and reinsurance space.

    When should we use blockchain? THREE key criteria:

    • Redundant processes
      Different entities follow the same process to achieve the desired outcome.
    • Audit trail
      Accountability in the decision making must be documented.
    • Reconciliation
      Parties need to be able to resolve disputes by tracing back to the truth.

    From Priorities to Action

    It’s a build vs. buy question for platforms

    Allianz was able to build a platform for its group of European subsidiaries because of its established digital factory and commitment to innovation. Allianz Technology is at the “innovate” level of IT maturity, allowing it to create a platform that subsidiaries can integrate with via APIs. For firms that are lower on the IT maturity scale, buying a platform solution is the better path to automation. These firms will be concerned with integrating their legacy systems to platforms that can reduce the friction of their operating environments and introduce modern new capabilities.

    From Info-Tech’s Build a Winning Business Process Automation Playbook

    An infographic comparing pros and cons of Build versus Buy. On the 'Build: High Delivery Capacity & Capability' side is 'Custom Development', 'Data Integration', 'AI/ML', 'Configuration', 'Native Workflow', and 'Low & No Code'. On the 'Buy: Low Delivery Capacity & Capability' side is 'Outsource Development', 'iPaaS', 'Chatbots', 'iBPMS & Rules Engines', 'RPA', and 'Point Solutions'.

    Take the next step

    Accelerate Your Automation Processes
    Integrate automation solutions and take the first steps to building an automation suite.

    Build Effective Enterprise Integration on the Back of Business Process
    From the backend to the frontlines – let enterprise integration help your business processes fly.

    Evolve Your Business Through Innovation
    Innovation teams are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that their organizations are in the best position to succeed while the world is in a period of turmoil, chaos, and uncertainty.

    “Innovation” gap between importance and effectiveness Info-Tech Research Group Management and Governance Diagnostic Benchmark 2021

    A bar chart illustrating the 'Innovation' gap between importance and effectiveness. The difference is marked as Delta 2.1.

    Prepare to report on new environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics

    Priority 05 | ITRG06 Business Intelligence and Reporting

    Be ready to either lead or support initiatives to meet the criteria of new ESG reporting mandates and work toward disclosure reporting solutions.

    Time to get serious about ESG

    What does CSR or ESG mean to a CIO?

    Humans are putting increasing pressure on the planet’s natural environment and creating catastrophic risks as a result. Efforts to mitigate these risks have been underway for the past 30 years, but in the decade ahead regulators are likely to impose more strict requirements that will be linked to the financial value of an organization. Various voluntary frameworks exist for reporting on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) or corporate social responsibility (CSR) metrics. But now there are efforts underway to unify and clarify those standards.

    The most advanced effort toward a global set of standards is in the environmental area. At the United Nations’ COP26 summit in Scotland last November, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) announced its headquarters (Frankfurt) and three other international office locations (Montreal, San Francisco, and London) and its roadmap for public consultations. It is working with an array of voluntary standards groups toward a consensus.

    In Info-Tech’s 2022 Tech Trends survey, two-thirds of CIOs say their organization is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, yet only 40% say their organizational leadership is very concerned with reducing those emissions. CIOs will need to consider how to align organizational concern with internal commitments and new regulatory pressures. They may investigate new real-time reporting solutions that could serve as a competitive differentiator on ESG.

    Standards informing the ISSB’s global set of climate standards

    A row of logos of organizations that inform ISSB's global set of climate standards.

    67% of CIOs say their organization is committed to reducing greenhouse gases, with one-third saying that commitment is public. (Info-Tech Tech Trends 2022 Survey)

    40% of CIOs say their organizational leadership is very concerned with reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    David W. Dorman

    Chairman of the board, CVS Health

    “ESG is a question of what you do in the microcosm of your company to make sure there is a clear, level playing field – that there is a color-blind, gender-blind meritocracy available – that you are aware that not in every case can you achieve that without really focusing on it. It’s not going to happen on its own. That’s why our commitments have real dollars behind them and real focus behind them because we want to be the very best at doing them.”

    Photo of David W. Dorman, Chairman of the Board, CVS Health.

    Listen to the Tech Insights podcast:
    CVS Health chairman David Dorman on healthcare's hybrid future

    Internal interpretation: CVS Health

    CVS Health established a new steering committee of senior leaders in 2020 to oversee ESG commitments. It designs its corporate social responsibility strategy, Transform Health 2030, by aligning company activities in four key areas: healthy people, healthy business, healthy planet, and healthy community. The strategy aligns with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In alignment with these goals, CVS identifies material topics where the company has the most ability to make an impact. In 2020, its top three topics were:

    1. Access to quality health care
    2. Patient and customer safety
    3. Data protection and privacy
    Material Topic
    Access to quality health care
    Material Topic
    Patient and customer safety
    Material Topic
    Data protection and privacy
    Technology Initiative
    MinuteClinic’s Virtual Collaboration for Nurses

    CVS provided Apple iPads compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to clinics in a phased approach, providing training to more than 700 providers in 26 states by February 2021. Nurses could use the iPads to attend virtual morning huddles and access clinical education. Nurses could connect virtually with other healthcare experts to collaborate on delivering patient care in real-time. The project was able to scale across the country through a $50,000 American Nurses Credentialing Center Pathway Award. (Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

    Technology Initiative
    MinuteClinic’s E-Clinic

    MinuteClinics launched this telehealth solution in response to the pandemic, rolling it out in three weeks. The solution complemented video visits delivered in partnership with the Teladoc platform. Visits cost $59 and are covered by Aetna insurance plans, a subsidiary of CVS Health. It hosted more than 20,000 E-Clinic visits through the end of 2020. CVS connected its HealthHUBs to the solution to increase capacity in place of walk-in appointments and managed patients via phone for medication adherence and care plans. CVS also helped behavioral health providers transition patients to virtual visits. (CVS Health)

    Technology Initiative
    Next Generation Authentication Platform

    CVS patented this solution to authenticate customers accessing digital channels. It makes use of the available biometrics data and contextual information to validate identity without the need for a password. CVS planned to extend the platform to voice channels as well, using voiceprint technology. The solution prevents unauthorized access to sensitive health data while providing seamless access for customers. (LinkedIn)

    Implications: Organization, Process, Technology

    External

    • Organization – Since the mid-2010s, younger investors have demonstrated reliance on ESG data when making investment decisions, resulting in the creation of voluntary standards that offered varied approaches. Organizations in ESG exchange-traded funds are outperforming the overall S&P 500 (S&P Global Market Intelligence).
    • Process – Organizations are issuing ESG reports today despite the absence of clear rules to follow for reporting results. With regulators expected to step in to establish more rigid guidelines, many organizations will need to revisit their approach to ESG reports.
    • Technology – Real-time reporting of ESG metrics will become a competitive advantage before 2030. Engineering a solution that can alert organizations to poor performance on ESG measures and allow them to respond could avert losing market value.

    Internal

    • Organization – CVS Health established an ESG Steering Committee in 2020 composed of senior leaders including its chief governance officers, chief sustainability officer, chief risk officer, and controller and SVP of investor relations. It is supported by the ESG Operating Committee.
    • Process – CVS conducts a materiality assessment in accordance with Global Reporting Initiative standards to determine the most significant ESG impacts it can make and what topics most influence the decisions of stakeholders. It engages with various stakeholder groups on CSR topics.
    • Technology – CVS technology initiatives during the pandemic focused on supporting patients and employees in collaborating on health care delivery using virtual solutions, providing rich digital experiences that are easily accessible while upholding high security and privacy standards.

    Resources Applied

    Lack of commitment

    While 83% of businesses state support for the Sustainable Development Goals outlined by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), only 40% make measurable commitments to their goals.

    Show your work

    The GRI recommends organizations not only align their activities with sustainable development goals but also demonstrate contributions to specific targets in reporting on the positive actions they carry out. (GRI, “State of Progress: Business Contributions to the SDGS.”)

    “We end up with a longstanding commitment to diversity because that’s what our customer base looks like.” (David Dorman, CVS Health)

    CVS Health

    • The MinuteClinic Virtual Collaboration solution was piloted in Houston, demonstrated success, and won additional $50,000 funding from the Pathway to Excellence Award to scale the program across the country (Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.).
    • The Next-Gen Authentication solution is provided by the vendor HYPR. It is deployed to ten million users and looking to scale to 30 million more. Pricing for enterprises is quoted at $1 per user, but volume pricing would apply to CVS (HYPR).

    Outcomes at CVS Health

    Delivering on hybrid healthcare solutions

    iPads for collaboration: Healthcare practitioners in the MinuteClinic Virtual Collaboration initiative agreed that it improved the use of interprofessional teams, working well virtually with others, and improved access to professional resources (Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

    Remote healthcare: Saw a 400% increase in MinuteClinic virtual visits in 2020 (CVS Health).

    Verified ID: The Next Generation Authentication platform allowed customers to register for a COVID-19 vaccination appointment. CVS has delivered more than 50 million vaccines (LinkedIn).

    Stock photo of a doctor with an iPad.
    CVS Health is making use of digital channels to connect its customers and health practitioners to a services platform that can supplement visits to a retail or clinic location to receive diagnostics and first-hand care.

    From Priorities to Action

    Become your organization’s ESG Expert

    The risks posed to organizations and wider society are becoming more severe, driving a transition from voluntary frameworks for ESG goals to a mandatory one that’s enforced by investors and governments. Organizations will be expected to tie their core activities to a defined set of ESG goals and maintain a balance sheet of their positive and negative impacts. CIOs should become experts in ESG disclosure requirements and recommend the steps needed to meet or exceed competitors’ efforts. If a leadership vacuum for ESG accountability exists, CIOs can either seek to support their peers that are likely to become accountable or take a leadership role in overseeing the area. CIOs should start working toward solutions that deliver real-time reporting on ESG goals to make reporting frictionless.

    “If you don’t have ESG oversight at the highest levels of the company, it won’t wind up getting the focus. That’s why we review it at the Board multiple times per year. We have an annual report, we compare how we did, what we intended to do, where did we fall short, where did we exceed, and where we can run for daylight to do more.” (David Dorman, CVS Health)

    Take the next step

    ESG Disclosures: How Will We Record Status Updates on the World We Are Creating?
    Prepare for the era of mandated environmental, social, and governance disclosures.

    Private Equity and Venture Capital Growing Impact of ESG Report
    Learn about how the growing impact of ESG affects both your organization and IT specifically, including challenges and opportunities, with expert assistance.

    “Business Intelligence and Reporting” gap between importance and effectiveness
    Info-Tech Research Group Management and Governance Diagnostic Benchmark 2021

    A bar chart illustrating the 'BI and Reporting' gap between importance and effectiveness. The difference is marked as Delta 2.4.

    The Five Priorities

    Priorities to compete in the digital economy

    1. Reduce Friction in the Hybrid Operating Model
    2. Improve Your Ransomware Readiness
    3. Support an Employee-Centric Retention Strategy
    4. Design an Automation Platform
    5. Prepare to Report on New Environmental, Social, and Governance Metrics

    Contributing Experts

    Elizabeth Clark

    CIO, Harvard Business School
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    Jeff Previte

    Executive Vice-President of IT, CrossCountry Mortgage
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    Bob Crozier

    Chief Architect, Allianz Technology & Global Head of Blockchain, Allianz Technology SE
    Photo of Bob Crozier, Chief Architect, Allianz Technology & Global Head of Blockchain, Allianz Technology SE.

    David W. Dorman

    Chairman of the Board, CVS Health
    Photo of David W. Dorman, Chairman of the Board, CVS Health.

    Info-Tech’s internal CIO panel contributors

    • Bryan Tutor
    • John Kemp
    • Mike Schembri
    • Janice Clatterbuck
    • Sandy Silk
    • Sallie Wright
    • David Wallace
    • Ken McGee
    • Mike Tweedie
    • Cole Cioran
    • Kevin Tucker
    • Angelina Atkins
    • Yakov Kofner
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    Thank you for your support

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    Bibliography – CIO Priorities 2022

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    “Adversary: Doppel Spider - Threat Actor.” Crowdstrike Adversary Universe, 2021. Accessed 29 Dec. 2021.

    “Aetna CVS Health Success Story.” HYPR, n.d. Accessed 6 Feb. 2022.

    Baig, Aamer. “The CIO agenda for the next 12 months: Six make-or-break priorities.” McKinsey Digital, 1 Nov. 2021. Web.

    Ball, Sarah, Kristene Diggins, Nairobi Martindale, Angela Patterson, Anne M. Pohnert, Jacinta Thomas, Tammy Todd, and Melissa Bates. “2020 ANCC Pathway Award® winner.” Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc., 2021. Accessed 6 Feb. 2022.

    “Canadian Universities Propose Designs for a Central Bank Digital Currency.” Bank of Canada, 11 Feb. 2021. Accessed 14 Dec. 2021.

    “Carbon Sequestration in Wetlands.” MN Board of Water and Soil Resources, n.d. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021.

    “CCM Honored as a NorthCoast 99 Award Winner.” CrossCountry Mortgage, 1 Dec. 2021. Web.

    Cheek, Catherine. “Four Things We Learned About the Resignation Wave–and What to Do Next.” Visier Inc. (blog), 5 Oct. 2021. Web.

    “Companies Using Hyperledger Fabric, Market Share, Customers and Competitors.” HG Insights, 2022. Accessed 25 Jan. 2022.

    “IFRS Foundation Announces International Sustainability Standards Board, Consolidation with CDSB and VRF, and Publication of Prototype Disclosure Requirements.” IFRS, 3 Nov. 2021. Web.

    “IT Priorities for 2022: A CIO Report.” Mindsight, 28 Oct. 2021. Web.

    “Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.” Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022. Accessed 9 Feb. 2022.

    Kumar, Rashmi, and Michael Krigsman. “CIO Planning and Investment Strategy 2022.” CXOTalk, 13 Sept. 2021. Web.

    Leonhardt, Megan. “The Great Resignation Is Hitting These Industries Hardest.” Fortune, 16 Nov. 2021. Accessed 7 Jan. 2022.

    “Most companies align with SDGs – but more to do on assessing progress.” Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), 17 Jan. 2022. Web.

    Navagamuwa, Roshan. “Beyond Passwords: Enhancing Data Protection and Consumer Experience.” LinkedIn, 15 Dec. 2020.

    Ojo, Oluwaseyi. “Achieving Digital Business Transformation Using COBIT 2019.” ISACA, 19 Aug. 2019. Web.

    “Priority.” Lexico.com, Oxford University Press, 2021. Web.

    Riebold, Jan, and Yannick Bartens. “Reinventing the Digital IT Operating Model for the ‘New Normal.’” Capgemini Worldwide, 3 Nov. 2020. Web.

    Samuels, Mark. “The CIO’s next priority: Using the tech budget for growth.” ZDNet, 1 Sept. 2021. Accessed 1 Nov. 2021.

    Sayer, Peter. “Exclusive Survey: CIOs Outline Tech Priorities for 2021-22.” CIO, 5 Oct. 2021. Web.

    Shacklett, Mary E. “Where IT Leaders Are Likely to Spend Budget in 2022.” InformationWeek, 10 Aug. 2021. Web.

    “Table 4. Quits Levels and Rates by Industry and Region, Seasonally Adjusted - 2021 M11 Results.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic News Release, 1 Jan. 2022. Accessed 7 Jan. 2022.

    “Technology Priorities CIOs Must Address in 2022.” Gartner, 19 Oct. 2021. Accessed 1 Nov. 2021.

    Thomson, Joel. Technology, Talent, and the Future Workplace: Canadian CIO Outlook 2021. The Conference Board of Canada, 7 Dec. 2021. Web.

    “Trend.” Lexico.com, Oxford University Press, 2021. Web.

    Vellante, Dave. “CIOs signal hybrid work will power tech spending through 2022.” SiliconANGLE, 25 Sept. 2021. Web.

    Whieldon, Esther, and Robert Clark. “ESG funds beat out S&P 500 in 1st year of COVID-19; how 1 fund shot to the top.” S&P Global Market Intelligence, April 2021. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}197|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: IT Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /it-governance-risk-and-compliance
    • Business leaders, driven by the need to make more risk-informed decisions, are putting pressure on IT to provide more timely and consistent risk reporting.
    • IT risk managers need to balance the emerging threat landscape with not losing sight of the risks of today.
    • IT needs to strengthen IT controls and anticipate risks in an age of disruption.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    A common understanding of risks, threats, and opportunities gives organizations the flexibility and agility to adapt to changing business conditions and drive corporate value.

    Impact and Result

    • Use this blueprint as a baseline to build a customized IT risk taxonomy suitable for your organization.
    • Learn about the role and drivers of integrated risk management and the benefits it brings to enterprise decision-makers.
    • Discover how to set up your organization up for success by understanding how risk management links to organizational strategy and corporate performance.

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Build an IT Risk Taxonomy – Develop a common approach to managing risks to enable faster, more effective decision making.

    Learn how to develop an IT risk taxonomy that will remain relevant over time while providing the granularity and clarity needed to make more effective risk-based decisions.

    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy – Phases 1-3

    2. Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Guideline and Template – A set of tools to customize and design an IT risk taxonomy suitable for your organization.

    Leverage these tools as a starting point to develop risk levels and definitions appropriate to your organization. Take a collaborative approach when developing your IT risk taxonomy to gain greater acceptance and understanding of accountability.

    • IT Risk Taxonomy Committee Charter Template
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Guideline
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Definitions
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template

    3. IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook – A place to complete activities and document decisions that may need to be communicated.

    Use this workbook to document outcomes of activities and brainstorming sessions.

    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook

    4. IT Risk Register – An internal control tool used to manage IT risks. Risk levels archived in this tool are instrumental to achieving an integrated and holistic view of risks across an organization.

    Leverage this tool to document risk levels, risk events, and controls. Smaller organizations can leverage this tool for risk management while larger organizations may find this tool useful to structure and define risks prior to using a risk management software tool.

    • Risk Register Tool

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build an IT Risk Taxonomy

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Review IT Risk Fundamentals and Governance

    The Purpose

    Review IT risk fundamentals and governance.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Learn how enterprise risk management and IT risk management intersect and the role the IT taxonomy plays in integrated risk management.

    Activities

    1.1 Discuss risk fundamentals and the benefits of integrated risk.

    1.2 Create a cross-functional IT taxonomy working group.

    Outputs

    IT Risk Taxonomy Committee Charter Template

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook

    2 Identify Level 1 Risk Types

    The Purpose

    Identify suitable IT level 1 risk types.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Level 1 IT risk types are determined and have been tested against ERM level one risk types.

    Activities

    2.1 Discuss corporate strategy, business risks, macro trends, and organizational opportunities and constraints.

    2.2 Establish level 1 risk types.

    2.3 Test soundness of IT level 1 types by mapping to ERM level 1 types.

    Outputs

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook

    3 Identify Level 2 and Level 3 Risk Types

    The Purpose

    Define level 2 and level 3 risk types.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Level 2 and level 3 risk types have been determined.

    Activities

    3.1 Establish level 2 risk types.

    3.2 Establish level 3 risk types (and level 4 if appropriate for your organization).

    3.3 Begin to test by working backward from controls to ensure risk events will aggregate consistently.

    Outputs

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template

    Risk Register Tool

    4 Monitor, Report, and Respond to IT Risk

    The Purpose

    Test the robustness of your IT risk taxonomy by populating the risk register with risk events and controls.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Your IT risk taxonomy has been tested and your risk register has been updated.

    Activities

    4.1 Continue to test robustness of taxonomy and iterate if necessary.

    4.2 Optional activity: Draft your IT risk appetite statements.

    4.3 Discuss communication and continual improvement plan.

    Outputs

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template

    Risk Register Tool

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook

    Further reading

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy

    If integrated risk is your destination, your IT risk taxonomy is the road to get you there.

    Analyst Perspective

    Donna Bales.

    The pace and uncertainty of the current business environment introduce new and emerging vulnerabilities that can disrupt an organization’s strategy on short notice.

    Having a long-term view of risk while navigating the short term requires discipline and a robust and strategic approach to risk management.

    Managing emerging risks such as climate risk, the impact of digital disruption on internal technology, and the greater use of third parties will require IT leaders to be more disciplined in how they manage and communicate material risks to the enterprise.

    Establishing a hierarchical common language of IT risks through a taxonomy will facilitate true aggregation and integration of risks, enabling more effective decision making. This holistic, disciplined approach to risk management helps to promote a more sustainable risk culture across the organization while adding greater rigor at the IT control level.

    Donna Bales
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    IT has several challenges when managing and responding to risk events:

    • Business leaders, driven by the need to make more risk-informed decisions, are putting pressure on IT to provide more timely and consistent risk reporting.
    • Navigating today’s ever-evolving threat landscape is complex. IT risk managers need to balance the emerging threat landscape while not losing sight of the risks of today.
    • IT needs to strengthen IT controls and anticipate risks in an age of disruption.

    Many IT organizations encounter obstacles in these areas:

    • Ensuring an integrated, well-coordinated approach to risk management across the organization.
    • Developing an IT risk taxonomy that will remain relevant over time while providing sufficient granularity and definitional clarity.
    • Gaining acceptance and ensuring understanding of accountability. Involving business leaders and a wide variety of risk owners when developing your IT risk taxonomy will lead to greater organizational acceptance.

    .

    • Take a collaborative approach when developing your IT risk taxonomy to gain greater acceptance and understanding of accountability.
    • Spend the time to fully analyze your current and future threat landscape when defining your level 1 IT risks and consider the causal impact and complex linkages and intersections.
    • Recognize that the threat landscape will continue to evolve and that your IT risk taxonomy is a living document that must be continually reviewed and strengthened.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A common understanding of risks, threats, and opportunities gives organizations the flexibility and agility to adapt to changing business conditions and drive corporate value.

    Increasing threat landscape

    The risk landscape is continually evolving, putting greater pressure on the risk function to work collaboratively throughout the organization to strengthen operational resilience and minimize strategic, financial, and reputational impact.

    Financial Impact

    Strategic Risk

    Reputation Risk

    In IBM’s 2021 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the Ponemon Institute found that data security breaches now cost companies $4.24 million per incident on average – the highest cost in the 17-year history of the report.

    58% percent of CROs who view inability to manage cyber risks as a top strategic risk.

    EY’s 2022 Global Bank Risk Management survey revealed that Chief Risk Officers (CROs) view the inability to manage cyber risk and the inability to manage cloud and data risk as the top strategic risks.

    Protiviti’s 2023 Executive Perspectives on Top Risks survey featured operational resilience within its top ten risks. An organization’s failure to be sufficiently resilient or agile in a crisis can significantly impact operations and reputation.

    Persistent and emerging threats

    Organizations should not underestimate the long-term impact on corporate performance if emerging risks are not fully understood, controlled, and embedded into decision-making.

    Talent Risk

    Sustainability

    Digital Disruption

    Protiviti’s 2023 Executive Perspectives on Top Risks survey revealed talent risk as the top risk organizations face, specifically organizations’ ability to attract and retain top talent. Of the 38 risks in the survey, it was the only risk issue rated at a “significant impact” level.

    Sustainability is at the top of the risk agenda for many organizations. In EY’s 2022 Global Bank Risk Management survey, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks were identified as a risk focus area, with 84% anticipating it to increase in priority over the next three years. Yet Info-Tech’s Tech Trends 2023 report revealed that only 24% of organizations could accurately report on their carbon footprint.

    Source: Info-Tech 2023 Tech Trends Report

    The risks related to digital disruption are vast and evolving. In the short term, risks surface in compliance and skills shortage, but Protiviti’s 2023 Executive Perspectives survey shows that in the longer term, executives are concerned that the speed of change and market forces may outpace an organization’s ability to compete.

    Build an IT risk taxonomy: As technology and digitization continue to advance, risk management practices must also mature. To strengthen operational and financial resiliency, it is essential that organizations move away from a siloed approach to IT risk management wart an integrated approach. Without a common IT risk taxonomy, effective risk assessment and aggregation at the enterprise level is not possible.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    Business Benefits

    • Simple, customizable approach to build an IT risk taxonomy
    • Improved satisfaction with IT for senior leadership and business units
    • Greater ability to respond to evolving threats
    • Improved understanding of IT’s role in enterprise risk management (ERM)
    • Stronger, more reliable internal control framework
    • Reduced operational surprises and failures
    • More dynamic decision making
    • More proactive risk responses
    • Improve transparency and comparability of risks across silos
    • Better financial resilience and confidence in meeting regulatory requirements
    • More relevant risk assurance for key stakeholders

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    IT Risk Taxonomy Committee Charter Template

    Create a cross-functional IT risk taxonomy committee.

    The image contains a screenshot of the IT risk taxonomy committee charter template.

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Guideline

    Use IT risk taxonomy as a baseline to build your organization’s approach.

    The image contains a screenshot of the build an it risk taxonomy guideline.

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template

    Use this template to design and test your taxonomy.

    The image contains a screenshot of the build an IT risk taxonomy design template.

    Risk Register Tool

    Update your risk register with your IT risk taxonomy.

    The image contains a screenshot of the risk register tool.

    Key deliverable:

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook

    Use the tools and activities in each phase of the blueprint to customize your IT risk taxonomy to suit your organization’s needs.

    The image contains a screenshot of the build an IT risk taxonomy workbook.

    Benefit from industry-leading best practices

    As a part of our research process, we used the COSO, ISO 31000, and COBIT 2019 frameworks. Contextualizing IT risk management within these frameworks ensures that our project-focused approach is grounded in industry-leading best practices for managing IT risk.

    COSO’s Enterprise Risk Management —Integrating with Strategy and Performance addresses the evolution of enterprise risk management and the need for organizations to improve their approach to managing risk to meet the demands of an evolving business environment.

    ISO 31000 – Risk Management can help organizations increase the likelihood of achieving objectives, improve the identification of opportunities and threats, and effectively allocate and use resources for risk treatment.

    COBIT 2019’s IT functions were used to develop and refine the ten IT risk categories used in our top-down risk identification methodology.

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

    Call #1: Review risk management fundamentals.

    Call #2: Review the role of an IT risk taxonomy in risk management.

    Call #3: Establish a cross-functional team.

    Calls #4-5: Identify level 1 IT risk types. Test against enterprise risk management.

    Call #6: Identify level 2 and level 3 risk types.

    Call #7: Align risk events and controls to level 3 risk types and test.

    Call #8: Update your risk register and communicate taxonomy internally.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series

    of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    A typical GI is 6 to 8 calls over the course of 3 to 6 months.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

    Review IT Risk Fundamentals and Governance

    Identify Level 1 IT Risk Types

    Identify Level 2 and Level 3 Risk Types

    Monitor, Report, and Respond to IT Risk

    Next Steps and
    Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    1.1 Discuss risk fundamentals and the benefits of integrated risk.

    1.2 Create a cross-functional IT taxonomy working group.

    2.1 Discuss corporate strategy, business risks, macro trends, and organizational opportunities and constraints.

    2.2 Establish level 1 risk types.

    2.3 Test soundness of IT level 1 types by mapping to ERM level 1 types.

    3.1 Establish level 2 risk types.

    3.2 Establish level 3 risk types (and level 4 if appropriate for your organization).

    3.3 Begin to test by working backward from controls to ensure risk events will aggregate consistently.

    4.1 Continue to test robustness of taxonomy and iterate if necessary.

    4.2 Optional activity: Draft your IT risk appetite statements.

    4.3 Discuss communication and continual improvement plan.

    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. T Risk Taxonomy Committee Charter Template
    2. Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    1. Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    1. IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template
    2. Risk Register
    1. IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template
    2. Risk Register
    3. Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    1. Workshop Report

    Phase 1

    Understand Risk Management Fundamentals

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    • Governance, Risk, and Compliance
    • Enterprise Risk Management
    • Enterprise Risk Appetite
    • Risk Statements and Scenarios
    • What Is a Risk Taxonomy?
    • Functional Role of an IT Risk Taxonomy
    • Connection to Enterprise Risk Management
    • Establish Committee
    • Steps to Define IT Risk Taxonomy
    • Define Level 1
    • Test Level 1
    • Define Level 2 and 3
    • Test via Your Control Framework

    Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC)

    Risk management is one component of an organization’s GRC function.

    GRC principles are important tools to support enterprise management.

    Governance sets the guardrails to ensure that the enterprise is in alignment with standards, regulations, and board decisions. A governance framework will communicate rules and expectations throughout the organization and monitor adherence.

    Risk management is how the organization protects and creates enterprise value. It is an integral part of an organization’s processes and enables a structured decision-making approach.

    Compliance is the process of adhering to a set of guidelines; these could be external regulations and guidelines or internal corporate policies.

    GRC principles are tightly bound and continuous

    The image contains a screenshot of a continuous circle that is divided into three parts: risk, compliance, and governance.

    Enterprise risk management

    Regardless of size or structure, every organization makes strategic and operational decisions that expose it to uncertainties.

    Enterprise risk management (ERM) is a strategic business discipline that supports the achievement of an organization’s objectives by addressing the full spectrum of its risks and managing the combined impact of those risks as an interrelated risk portfolio (RIMS).

    An ERM is program is crucial because it will:

    • Help shape business objectives, drive revenue growth, and execute risk-based decisions.
    • Enable a deeper understanding of risks and assessment of current risk profile.
    • Support forward-looking risk management and more constructive dialogue with the board and regulatory agencies.
    • Provide insight on the robustness and efficacy of risk management processes, tools, and controls.
    • Drive a positive risk culture.

    ERM is supported by strategy, effective processes, technology, and people

    The image contains a screenshot that demonstrates how ERM is supported by strategy, effective processes, technology, and people.

    Risk frameworks

    Risk frameworks are leveraged by the industry to “provide a structure and set of definitions to allow enterprises of all types and sizes to understand and better manage their risk environments.” COSO Enterprise Risk Management, 2nd edition

    • Many organizations lean on the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations’ Enterprise Risk Management framework (COSO ERM) and ISO 31000 to view organizational risks from an enterprise perspective.
    • Prior to the introduction of standardized risk frameworks, it was difficult to quantify the impact of a risk event on the entire enterprise, as the risk was viewed in a silo or as an individual risk component.
    • Recently, the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) published guidance on developing an enterprise risk management approach. The guidance helps to bridge the gap between best practices in enterprise risk management and processes and control techniques that cybersecurity professionals use to meet regulatory cybersecurity risk requirements.

    The image contains a screenshot of NIST ERM approach to strategic risk.

    Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology

    New NIST guidance (NISTIR 8286) emphasizes the complexity of risk management and the need for the risk management process to be carried out seamlessly across three tiers with the overall objective of continuous improvement.

    Enterprise risk appetite

    “The amount of risk an organization is willing to take in pursuit of its objectives”

    – Robert R. Moeller, COSO ERM Framework Model
    • A primary role of the board and senior management is to balance value creation with effectively management of enterprise risks.
    • As part of this role, the board will approve the enterprise’s risk appetite. Placing this responsibility with the board ensures that the risk appetite is aligned with the company’s strategic objectives.
    • The risk appetite is used throughout the organization to assess and respond to individual risks, acting as a constant to make sure that risks are managed within the organization’s acceptable limits.
    • Each year, or in reaction to a risk trigger, the enterprise risk appetite will be updated and approved by the board.
    • Risk appetite will vary across organizations for several reasons, such as industry, company culture, competitors, the nature of the objectives pursued, and financial strength.

    Change or new risks » adjust enterprise risk profile » adjust risk appetite

    Risk profile vs. risk appetite

    Risk profile is the broad parameters an organization considers in executing its business strategy. Risk appetite is the amount of risk an entity is willing to accept in pursuit of its strategic objectives. The risk appetite can be used to inform the risk profile or vice versa. Your organization’s risk culture informs and is used to communicate both.

    Risk Tolerant

    Moderate

    Risk Averse

    • You have no compliance requirements.
    • You have no sensitive data.
    • Customers do not expect you to have strong security controls.
    • Revenue generation and innovative products take priority and risk is acceptable.
    • The organization does not have remote locations.
    • It is likely that your organization does not operate within the following industries:
      • Finance
      • Healthcare
      • Telecom
      • Government
      • Research
      • Education
    • You have some compliance requirements, such as:
      • HIPAA
      • PIPEDA
    • You have sensitive data and are required to retain records.
    • Customers expect strong security controls.
    • Information security is visible to senior leadership.
    • The organization has some remote locations.
    • Your organization most likely operates within the following industries:
      • Government
      • Research
      • Education
    • You have multiple strict compliance and/or regulatory requirements.
    • You house sensitive data, such as medical records.
    • Customers expect your organization to maintain strong and current security controls.
    • Information security is highly visible to senior management and public investors.
    • The organization has multiple remote locations.
    • Your organization operates within the following industries:
      • Finance
      • Healthcare
      • Telecom

    Where the IT risk appetite fits into the risk program

    • Your organization’s strategy and associated risk appetite cascade down to each business department. Overall strategy and risk appetite also set a strategy and risk appetite for each department.
    • Both risk appetite and risk tolerances set boundaries for how much risk an organization is willing or prepared to take. However, while appetite is often broad, tolerance is tactical and focused.
    • Tolerances apply to specific objectives and provide guidance to those executing on a day-to-day basis. They measure the variation around performance expectations that the organization will tolerate.
    • Ideally, they are incorporated into existing governance, risk, and compliance systems and are also considered when evaluated business cases.
    • IT risk appetite statements are based on IT level 1 risk types.

    The risk appetite has a risk lens but is also closely linked to corporate performance.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram that demonstrates how risk appetite has a risk lens, and how it is linked to corporate performance.

    Statements of risk

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram of the risk landscape.

    Risk Appetite

    Risk Tolerance

    • The general amount of risk an organization is willing to accept while pursuing its objectives.
    • Proactive, future view of risks that reflects the desired range of enterprise performance.
    • Reflects the longer-term strategy of what needs to be achieved and the resources available to achieve it, expressed in quantitative criteria.
    • Risk appetites will vary for several reasons, such as the company culture, financial strength, and capabilities.
    • Risk tolerance is the acceptable deviation from the level set by the risk appetite.
    • Risk tolerance is a tactical tool often expressed in quantitative terms.
    • Key risk indicators are often used to align to risk tolerance limits to ensure the organization stays within the set risk boundary.

    Risk scenarios

    Risk scenarios serve two main purposes: to help decision makers understand how adverse events can affect organizational strategy and objectives and to prepare a framework for risk analysis by clearly defining and decomposing the factors contributing to the frequency and the magnitude of adverse events.

    ISACA
    • Organizations’ pervasive use of and dependency on technology has increased the importance of scenario analysis to identify relevant and important risks and the potential impacts of risk events on the organization if the risk event were to occur.
    • Risk scenarios provide “what if” analysis through a structured approach, which can help to define controls and document assumptions.
    • They form a constructive narrative and help to communicate a story by bringing in business context.
    • For the best outcome, have input from business and IT stakeholders. However, in reality, risk scenarios are usually driven by IT through the asset management practice.
    • Once the scenarios are developed, they are used during the risk analysis phase, in which frequency and business impacts are estimated. They are also a useful tool to help the risk team (and IT) communicate and explain risks to various business stakeholders.

    Top-down approach – driven by the business by determining the business impact, i.e. what is the impact on my customers, reputation, and bottom line if the system that supports payment processing fails?

    Bottom-up approach – driven by IT by identifying critical assets and what harm could happen if they were to fail.

    Example risk scenario

    Use level 1 IT risks to derive potential scenarios.

    Risk Scenario Description

    Example: IT Risks

    Risk Scenario Title

    A brief description of the risk scenario

    The enterprise is unable to recruit and retain IT staff

    Risk Type

    The process or system that is impacted by the risk

    • Service quality
    • Product and service cost

    Risk Scenario Category

    Deeper insight into how the risk might impact business functions

    • Inadequate capacity to support business needs
    • Talent and skills gap due to inability to retain talent

    Risk Statement

    Used to communicate the potential adverse outcomes of a particular risk event and can be used to communicate to stakeholders to enable informed decisions

    The organization chronically fails to recruit sufficiently skilled IT workers, leading to a loss of efficiency in overall technology operation and an increased security exposure.

    Risk Owner

    The designated party responsible and accountable for ensuring that the risk is maintained in accordance with enterprise requirements

    • Head of Human Resources
    • Business Process Owner

    Risk Oversight

    The person (role) who is responsible for risk assessments, monitoring, documenting risk response, and establishing key risk indicators

    CRO/COO

    Phase 2

    Set Your Organization Up for Success

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    • Governance, Risk, and Compliance
    • Enterprise Risk Management
    • Enterprise Risk Appetite
    • Risk Statements and Scenarios
    • What Is a Risk Taxonomy?
    • Functional Role of an IT Risk Taxonomy
    • Connection to Enterprise Risk Management
    • Establish Committee
    • Steps to Define IT Risk Taxonomy
    • Define Level 1
    • Test Level 1
    • Define Level 2 and 3
    • Test via Your Control Framework

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • How to set up a cross-functional IT risk taxonomy committee

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • CISO
    • CRO
    • IT Risk Owners
    • Business Leaders
    • Human Resources

    What is a risk taxonomy?

    A risk taxonomy provides a common risk view and enables integrated risk

    • A risk taxonomy is the (typically hierarchical) categorization of risk types. It is constructed out of a collection of risk types organized by a classification scheme.
    • Its purpose is to assist with the management of an organization’s risk by arranging risks in a classification scheme.
    • It provides foundational support across the risk management lifecycle in relation to each of the key risks.
    • More material risk categories form the root nodes of the taxonomy, and risk types cascade into more granular manifestations (child nodes).
    • From a risk management perspective, a taxonomy will:
      • Enable more effective risk aggregation and interoperability.
      • Provide the organization with a complete view of risks and how risks might be interconnected or concentrated.
      • Help organizations form a robust control framework.
      • Give risk managers a structure to manage risks proactively.

    Typical Tree Structure

    The image contains a screenshot of the Typical Tree Structure.

    What is integrated risk management?

    • Integrated risk management is the process of ensuring all forms of risk information, including risk related to information and technology, are considered and included in the organization’s risk management strategy.
    • It removes the siloed approach of classifying risks related to specific departments or areas of the organization, recognizing that each risk is a potential threat to the overarching enterprise.
    • By aggregating the different threats or uncertainty that might exist within an organization, integrated risk management enables more informed decisions to be made that align to strategic goals and continue to drive value back to the business.
    • By holistically considering the different risks, the organization can make informed decisions on the best course of action that will reduce any negative impacts associated with the uncertainty and increase the overall value.

    The image contains a screenshot of the ERM.

    Integrated risk management: A strategic and collaborative way to manage risks across the organization. It is a forward-looking, business-specific outlook with the objective of improving risk visibility and culture.

    Drivers and benefits of integrated risk

    Drivers for Integrated Risk Management

    • Business shift to digital experiences
    • The breadth and number of risks requiring oversight
    • The need for faster risk analysis and decision making

    Benefits of Integrated Risk Management

    • Enables better scenario planning
    • Enables more proactive risk responses
    • Provides more relevant risk assurance to key stakeholders
    • Improves transparency and comparability of risks across organizational silos
    • Supports better financial resilience

    Business velocity and complexity are making real-time risk management a business necessity.

    If integrated risk is the destination, your taxonomy is your road to get you there

    Info-Tech’s Model for Integrated Risk

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's Model for Integrated Risk.

    How the risk practices intersect

    The risk taxonomy provides a common classification of risks that allows risks to roll up systematically to enterprise risk, enabling more effective risk responses and more informed decision making.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram that demonstrates how the risk practices intersect.

    ERM taxonomy

    Relative to the base event types, overall there is an increase in the number of level 1 risk types in risk taxonomies

    Oliver Wyman
    • The changing risk profile of organizations and regulatory focus in some industries is pushing organizations to rethink their risk taxonomies.
    • Generally, the expansion of level 1 risk types is due to the increase in risk themes under the operational risk umbrella.
    • Non-financial risks are risks that are not considered to be traditional financial risks, such as operational risk, technology risk, culture, and conduct. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk is often referred to as a non-financial risk, although it can have both financial and non-financial implications.
    • Certain level 1 ERM risks, such as strategic risk, reputational risk, and ESG risk, cover both financial and non-financial risks.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram of the Traditional ERM Structure.

    Operational resilience

    • The concept of operational resiliency was first introduced by European Central Bank (ECB) in 2018 as an attempt to corral supervisory cooperation on operational resiliency in financial services.
    • The necessity for stronger operational resiliency became clear during the early stages of COVID-19 when many organizations were not prepared for disruption, leading to serious concern for the safety and soundness of the financial system.
    • It has gained traction and is now defined in global supervisory guidance. Canada’s prudential regulator, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), defines it as “the ability of a financial institution to deliver its operations, including its critical operations, through disruption.”
    • Practically, its purpose is to knit together several operational risk management categories such as business continuity, security, and third-party risk.
    • The concept has been adopted by information and communication technology (ICT) companies, as technology and cyber risks sit neatly under this risk type.
    • It is now not uncommon to see operational resiliency as a level 1 risk type in a financial institution’s ERM framework.

    Operational resilience will often feature in ERM frameworks in organizations that deliver critical services, products, or functions, such as financial services

    Operational Resilience.

    ERM level 1 risk categories

    Although many organizations have expanded their enterprise risk management taxonomies to address new threats, most organizations will have the following level 1 risk types:

    ERM Level 1

    Definition

    Definition Source

    Financial

    The ability to obtain sufficient and timely funding capacity.

    Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP)

    Non-Financial

    Non-financial risks are risks that are not considered to be traditional financial risks such as operational risk, technology risk, culture and conduct.

    Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI)

    Reputational

    Potential negative publicity regarding business practices regardless of validity.

    US Federal Reserve

    Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP)

    Strategic

    Risk of unsuccessful business performance due to internal or external uncertainties, whether the event is event or trend driven. Actions or events that adversely impact an organizations strategies and/or implementation of its strategies.

    The Risk Management Society (RIMS)

    Sustainability (ESG)

    This risk of any negative financial or reputational impact on an organizations stemming from current or prospective impacts of ESG factors on its counterparties or invested assets.

    Open Risk Manual

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Talent and Risk Culture

    The widespread behaviors and mindsets that can threaten sound decision-making, prudent risk-taking, and effective risk management and can weaken an institution’s financial and operational resilience.

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Different models of ERM

    Some large organizations will elevate certain operational risks to level 1 organizational risks due to risk materiality.

    Every organization will approach its risk management taxonomy differently; the number of level 1 risk types will vary and depend highly on perceived impact.

    Some of the reasons why an organization would elevate a risk to a level 1 ERM risk are:

    • The risk has significant impact on the organization's strategy, reputation, or financial performance.
    • The regulator has explicitly called out board oversight within legislation.
    • It is best practice in the organization’s industry or business sector.
    • The organization has structured its operations around a particular risk theme due to its potential negative impact. For example, the organization may have a dedicated department for data privacy.

    Level 1

    Potential Rationale

    Industries

    Risk Definition

    Advanced Analytics

    Use of advanced analytics is considered material

    Large Enterprise, Marketing

    Risks involved with model risk and emerging risks posed by artificial intelligence/machine learning.

    Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Fraud

    Risk is viewed as material

    Financial Services, Gaming, Real Estate

    The risk of exposure to financial crime and fraud.

    Conduct Risk

    Sector-specific risk type

    Financial Services

    The current or prospective risk of losses to an institution arising from inappropriate supply of financial services including cases of willful or negligent misconduct.

    Operational Resiliency

    Sector-specific risk type

    Financial Services, ICT

    Organizational risk resulting from an organization’s failure to deliver its operations, including its critical operations, through disruption.

    Privacy

    Board driven – perceived as material risk to organization

    Healthcare, Financial Services

    The potential loss of control over personal information.

    Information Security

    Board driven – regulatory focus

    All may consider

    The people, processes, and technology involved in protecting data (information) in any form – whether digital or on paper – through its creation, storage, transmission, exchange, and destruction.

    Risk and impact

    Mapping risks to business outcomes happens within the ERM function and by enterprise fiduciaries.

    • When mapping risk events to enterprise risk types, the relationship is rarely linear. Rather, risk events typically will have multiple impacts on the enterprise, including strategic, reputational, ESG, and financial impacts.
    • As risk information is transmitted from lower levels, it informs the next level, providing the appropriate information to prioritize risk.
    • In the final stage, the enterprise portfolio view will reflect the enterprise impacts according to risk dimensions, such as strategic, operational, reporting, and compliance.

    Rolling Up Risks to a Portfolio View

    The image contains a screenshot to demonstrate rolling up risks to a portfolio view.

    1. A risk event within IT will roll up to the enterprise via the IT risk register.
    2. The impact of the risk on cash flow and operations will be aggregated and allocated in the enterprise risk register by enterprise fiduciaries (e.g. CFO).
    3. The impacts are translated into full value exposures or modified impact and likelihood assessments.

    Common challenges

    How to synthesize different objectives between IT risk and enterprise risk

    Commingling risk data is a major challenge when developing a risk taxonomy, but one of the underlying reasons is that the enterprise and IT look at risk from different dimensions.

    • The role of the enterprise in risk management is to provide and preserve value, and therefore the enterprise evaluates risk on an adjusted risk-return basis.
    • To do this effectively, the enterprise must break down silos and view risk holistically.
    • ERM is a top-down process of evaluating risks that may impact the entity. As part of the process, ERM must manage risks within the enterprise risk framework and provide reasonable assurances that enterprise objectives will be met.
    • IT risk management focuses on internal controls and sits as a function within the larger enterprise.
    • IT takes a bottom-up approach by applying an ongoing process of risk management and constantly identifying, assessing, prioritizing, and mitigating risks.
    • IT has a central role in risk mitigation and, if functioning well, will continually reduce IT risks, simplifying the role for ERM.

    Establish a team

    Cross-functional collaboration is key to defining level 1 risk types.

    Establish a cross-functional working group.

    • Level 1 IT risk types are the most important to get right because they are the root nodes that all subtypes of risk cascade from.
    • To ensure the root nodes (level 1 risk types) address the risks of your organization, it is vital to have a strong understanding or your organization’s value chain, so your organizational strategy is a key input for defining your IT level 1 risk types.
    • Since the taxonomy provides the method for communicating risks to the people who need to make decisions, a wide understanding and acceptance of the taxonomy is essential. This means that multiple people across your organization should be involved in defining the taxonomy.
    • Form a cross-functional tactical team to collaborate and agree on definitions. The team should include subject matter experts and leaders in key risk and business areas. In terms of governance structure, this committee might sit underneath the enterprise risk council, and members of your IT risk council may also be good candidates for this tactical working group.
    • The committee would be responsible for defining the taxonomy as well as performing regular reviews.
    • The importance of collaboration will become crystal clear as you begin this work, as risks should be connected to only one risk type.

    Governance Layer

    Role/ Responsibilities

    Enterprise

    Defines organizational goals. Directs or regulates the performance and behavior of the enterprise, ensuring it has the structure and capabilities to achieve its goals.

    Enterprise Risk Council

    • Approve of risk taxonomy

    Strategic

    Ensures business and IT initiatives, products, and services are aligned to the organization’s goals and strategy and provide expected value. Ensures adherence to key principles.

    IT Risk Council

    • Provide input
    • May review taxonomy ahead of going to the enterprise risk council for approval

    Tactical

    Ensures key activities and planning are in place to execute strategic initiatives.

    Subcommittee

    • Define risk types and definitions
    • Establish and maintain taxonomy
    • Recommend changes
    • Advocate and communicate internally

    2.1 Establish a cross-functional working group

    2-3 hours

    1. Consider your organization’s operating model and current governance framework, specifically any current risk committees.
    2. Consider the members of current committees and your objectives and begin defining:
      1. Committee mandate, goals, and success factors.
      2. Responsibility and membership.
      3. Committee procedures and policies.
    3. Make sure you define how this tactical working group will interact with existing committees.

    Download Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook

    Input Output
    • Organization chart and operating model
    • Corporate governance framework and existing committee charters
    • Cross-functional working group charter
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    • IT Taxonomy Committee Charter
    • CISO
    • Human resources
    • Corporate communications
    • CRO or risk owners
    • Business leaders

    Phase 3

    Structure Your IT Risk Taxonomy

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    • Governance, Risk, and Compliance
    • Enterprise Risk Management
    • Enterprise Risk Appetite
    • Risk Statements and Scenarios
    • What Is a Risk Taxonomy?
    • Functional Role of an IT Risk Taxonomy
    • Connection to Enterprise Risk Management
    • Establish Committee
    • Steps to Define IT Risk Taxonomy
    • Define Level 1
    • Test Level 1
    • Define Level 2 and 3
    • Test via Your Control Framework

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Establish level 1 risk types
    • Test level 1 risk types
    • Define level 2 and level 3 risk types
    • Test the taxonomy via your control framework

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • CISO
    • CRO
    • IT Risk Owners
    • Business Leaders
    • Human Resources

    Structuring your IT risk taxonomy

    Do’s

    • Ensure your organization’s values are embedded into the risk types.
    • Design your taxonomy to be forward looking and risk based.
    • Make level 1 risk types generic so they can be used across the organization.
    • Ensure each risk has its own attributes and belongs to only one risk type.
    • Collaborate on and communicate your taxonomy throughout organization.

    Don’ts

    • Don’t develop risk types based on function.
    • Don’t develop your taxonomy in a silo.

    A successful risk taxonomy is forward looking and codifies the most frequently used risk language across your organization.

    Level 1

    Parent risk types aligned to organizational values

    Level 2

    Subrisks to level 1 risks

    Level 3

    Further definition

    Steps to define your IT risk taxonomy

    Step 1

    Leverage Info-Tech’s Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Guideline and identify IT level 1 risk types. Consider corporate inputs and macro trends.

    Step 2

    Test level 1 IT risk types by mapping to your enterprise's ERM level 1 risk types.

    Step 3

    Draft your level 2 and level 3 risk types. Be mutually exclusive to the extent possible.

    Step 4

    Work backward – align risk events and controls to the lowest level risk category. In our examples, we align to level 3.

    Step 5

    Add risk levels to your risk registry.

    Step 6

    Optional – Add IT risk appetite statements to risk register.

    Inputs to use when defining level 1

    To help you define your IT risk taxonomy, leverage your organization’s strategy and risk management artifacts, such as outputs from risk assessments, audits, and test results. Also consider macro trends and potential risks unique to your organization.

    Step 1 – Define Level 1 Risk Types

    Use corporate inputs to help structure your taxonomy

    • Corporate Strategy
    • Risk Assessment
    • Audit
    • Test Results

    Consider macro trends that may have an impact on how you manage IT risks

    • Geopolitical Risk
    • Economic Downturn
    • Regulation
    • Competition
    • Climate Risk
    • Industry Disruption

    Evaluate from an organizational lens

    Ask risk-based questions to help define level 1 IT risks for your organization.

    IT Risk Type

    Example Questions

    Technology

    How reliant is our organization on critical assets for business operations?

    How resilient is the organization to an unexpected crisis?

    How many planned integrations do we have (over the next 24 months)?

    Talent Risk

    What is our need for specialized skills, like digital, AI, etc.?

    Does our culture support change and innovation?

    How susceptible is our organization to labor market changes?

    Strategy

    What is the extent of digital adoption or use of emerging technologies in our organization?

    How aligned is IT with strategy/corporate goals?

    How much is our business dependent on changing customer preferences?

    Data

    How much sensitive data does our organization use?

    How much data is used and stored aggregately?

    How often is data moved? And to what locations?

    Third-party

    How many third-party suppliers do we have?

    How reliant are we on the global supply chain?

    What is the maturity level of our third-party suppliers?

    Do we have any concentration risk?

    Security

    How equipped is our organization to manage cyber threats?

    How many security incidents occur per year/quarter/day?

    Do we have regulatory obligations? Is there risk of enforcement action?

    Level 1 IT taxonomy structure

    Step 2 – Consider your organization’s strategy and areas where risks may manifest and use this guidance to advance your thinking. Many factors may influence your taxonomy structure, including internal organizational structure, the size of your organization, industry trends and organizational context, etc.

    Most IT organizations will include these level 1 risks in their IT risk taxonomy

    IT Level 1

    Definition

    Definition Source

    Technology

    Risk arising from the inadequacy, disruption, destruction, failure, damage from unauthorized access modifications, or malicious use of information technology assets, people or processes that enable and support business needs, and can result in financial loss and/or reputational damage.

    Open Risk Manual

    Note how this definition by OSFI includes cyber risk as part of technology risk. Smaller organizations and organizations that do not use large amounts of sensitive information will typically fold cyber risks under technology risks. Not all organizations will take this approach. Some organizations may elevate security risk to level 1.

    “Technology risk”, which includes “cyber risk”, refers to the risk arising from the inadequacy, disruption, destruction, failure, damage from unauthorized access, modifications, or malicious use of information technology assets, people or processes that enable and support business needs, and can result in financial loss and/or reputational damage.

    Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI)

    Talent

    The risk of not having the right knowledge and skills to execute strategy.

    Info-Tech Research Group/McLean & Company

    Human capital challenges including succession challenges and the ability to attract and retain top talent are considered the most dominant risk to organizations’ ability to meet their value proposition (Protiviti, 2023).

    Strategic

    Risks that threaten IT’s ability to deliver expected business outcomes.

    Info-Tech Research Group

    IT’s role as strategic enabler to the business has never been so vital. With the speed of disruptive innovation, IT must be able to monitor alignment, support opportunities, and manage unexpected crises.

    Level 1 IT taxonomy structure cont'd

    Step 2 – Large and more complex organizations may have more level 1 risk types. Variances in approaches are closely linked to the type of industry and business in which the organization operates as well as how they view and position risks within their organization.

    IT Level 1

    Definition

    Definition Source

    Data

    Data risk is the exposure to loss of value or reputation caused by issues or limitations to an organization’s ability to acquire, store, transform, move, and use its data assets.

    Deloitte

    Data risk encompasses the risk of loss value or reputation resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems or from external events impacting on data.

    Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) CPG 235 -2013)

    Data is increasingly being used for strategic growth initiatives as well as for meeting regulatory requirements. Organizations that use a lot of data or specifically sensitive information will likely have data as a level 1 IT risk type.

    Third-Party

    The risk adversely impacting the institutions performance by engaging a third party, or their associated downstream and upstream partners or another group entity (intragroup outsourcing) to provide IT systems or related services.

    European Banking Association (EBA)

    Open Risk Manual uses EBA definition

    Third-party risk (supply chain risk) received heightened attention during COVID-19. If your IT organization is heavily reliant on third parties, you may want to consider elevating third-party risk to level 1.

    Security

    The risk of unauthorized access to IT systems and data from within or outside the institution (e.g., cyber-attacks). An incident is viewed as a series of events that adversely affects the information assets of an organization. The overall narrative of this type of risk event is captured as who, did what, to what (or whom), with what result.

    Open Risk Manual

    Some organizations and industries are subject to regulatory obligations, which typically means the board has strict oversight and will elevate security risk to a level 1.

    Common challenges

    Considerations when defining level 1 IT risk types

    • Ultimately, the identification of a level 1 IT risk type will be driven by the potential for and materiality of vulnerabilities that may impede an organization from delivering successful business outcomes.
    • Senior leaders within organizations play a central role in protecting organizations against vulnerabilities and threats.
    • The size and structure of your organization will influence how you manage risk.
    • The following slide shows typical roles and responsibilities for data privacy.
    • Large enterprises and organizations that use a lot of personal identifiable information (PII) data, such as those in healthcare, financial services, and online retail, will typically have data as a level 1 IT risk and data privacy as a level 2 risk type.
    • However, smaller organizations or organizations that do not use a lot of data will typically fold data privacy under either technology risk or security risk.

    Deciding placement in taxonomy

    Deciding Placement in Taxonomy.

    • In larger enterprises, data risks are managed within a dedicated functional department with its own governance structure. In small organizations, the CIO is typically responsible and accountable for managing data privacy risk.

    Global Enterprise

    Midmarket

    Privacy Requirement

    What Is Involved

    Accountable

    Responsible

    Accountable & Responsible

    Privacy Legal and Compliance Obligations

    • Ensuring the relevant Accountable roles understand privacy obligations for the jurisdictions operated in.

    Privacy Officer (Legal)

    Privacy Officer (Legal)

    Privacy Policy, Standards, and Governance

    • Defining polices and ensuring they are in place to ensure all privacy obligations are met.
    • Monitoring adherence to those policies and standards.

    Chief Risk Officer (Risk)

    Head of Risk Function

    Data Classification and Security Standards and Best-Practice Capabilities

    • Defining the organization’s data classification and security standards and ensuring they align to the privacy policy.
    • Designing and building the data security standards, processes, roles, and technologies required to ensure all security obligations under the privacy policy can be met.
    • Providing oversight of the effectiveness of data security practices and leading resolution of data security issues/incidents.

    Chief Information Security Officer (IT)

    Chief Information Security Officer (IT)

    Technical Application of Data Classification, Management and Security Standards

    • Ensuring all technology design, implementation, and operational decisions adhere to data classification, data management, and data security standards.

    Chief Information Officer (IT)

    Chief Data Architect (IT)

    Chief Information Officer (IT)

    Data Management Standards and Best-Practice Capabilities

    • Defining the organization’s data management standards and ensuring they align to the privacy policy.
    • Designing and building the data management standards, processes, roles, and technologies required to ensure data classification, access, and sharing obligations under the privacy policy can be met.
    • Providing oversight of the effectiveness of data classification, access, and sharing practices and leading resolution of data management issues/incidents.

    Chief Data Officer

    Where no Head of Data Exists and IT, not the business, is seen as de facto owner of data and data quality

    Execution of Data Management

    • Ensuring business processes that involve data classification, sharing, and access related to their data domain align to data management standards (and therefore privacy obligations).

    L1 Business Process Owner

    L2 Business Process Owner

    Common challenges

    Defining security risk and where it resides in the taxonomy

    • For risk management to be effective, risk professionals need to speak the same language, but the terms “information security,” “cybersecurity,” and “IT security” are often used interchangeably.
    • Traditionally, cyber risk was folded under technology risk and therefore resided at a lower level of a risk taxonomy. However, due to heightened attention from regulators and boards stemming from the pervasiveness of cyber threats, some organizations are elevating security risks to a level 1 IT risk.
    • Furthermore, regulatory cybersecurity requirements have emphasized control frameworks. As such, many organizations have adopted NIST because it is comprehensive, regularly updated, and easily tailored.
    • While NIST is prescriptive and action oriented, it start with controls and does not easily integrate with traditional ERM frameworks. To address this, NIST has published new guidance focused on an enterprise risk management approach. The guidance helps to bridge the gap between best practices in enterprise risk management and processes and control techniques that cybersecurity professionals use to meet regulatory cybersecurity risk requirements.

    Definitional Nuances

    “Cybersecurity” describes the technologies, processes, and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs, and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized access.

    “IT security” describes a function as well as a method of implementing policies, procedures, and systems to defend the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of any digital information used, transmitted, or stored throughout the organization’s environment.

    “Information security” defines the people, processes, and technology involved in protecting data (information) in any form – whether digital or on paper – through its creation, storage, transmission, exchange, and destruction.

    3.1 Establish level 1 risk types

    2-3 hours

    1. Consider your current and future corporate goals and business initiatives, risk management artifacts, and macro industry trends.
    2. Ask questions to understand risks unique to your organization.
    3. Review Info-Tech’s IT level 1 risk types and identify the risk types that apply to your organization.
    4. Add any risk types that are missing and unique to your organization.
    5. Refine the definitions to suit your organization.
    6. Be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive to the extent possible.

    Download Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Organization's strategy
    • Other organizational artifacts if available (operating model, outputs from audits and risk assessments, risk profile, and risk appetite)
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Guideline
    • IT Risk Taxonomy Definitions
    • Level 1 IT risk types customized to your organization
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    • CISO
    • Human resources
    • Corporate communications
    • CRO or risk owners
    • Business leaders

    3.2 Map IT risk types against ERM level 1 risk types

    1-2 hours

    1. Using the output from Activity 3.1, map your IT risk types to your ERM level 1 risk types.
    2. Record in the Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook.

    Download Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook

    InputOutput
    • IT level 1 risk types customized to your organization
    • ERM level 1 risk types
    • Final level 1 IT risk types
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    • CISO
    • Human resources
    • Corporate communications
    • CRO or risk owners
    • Business leaders

    Map IT level 1 risk types to ERM

    Test your level 1 IT risk types by mapping to your organization’s level 1 risk types.

    Step 2 – Map IT level 1 risk types to ERM

    The image contains two tables. 1 table is ERM Level 1 Risks, the other table is IT Level 1 Risks.

    3.3 Establishing level 2 and 3 risk types

    3-4 hours

    1. Using the level 1 IT risk types that you have defined and using Info-Tech’s Risk Taxonomy Guideline, first begin to identify level 2 risk types for each level 1 type.
    2. Be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive to the extent possible.
    3. Once satisfied with your level 2 risk types, break them down further to level 3 risk types.

    Note: Smaller organizations may only define two risk levels, while larger organizations may define further to level 4.

    Download Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template

    InputOutput
    • Output from Activity 3.1, Establish level 1 risk types
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Guideline
    • Level 2 and level 3 risk types recorded in Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    • CISO
    • Human resources
    • Corporate communications
    • CRO or risk owners
    • Business leaders

    Level 2 IT taxonomy structure

    Step 3 – Break down your level 1 risk types into subcategories. This is complicated and may take many iterations to reach a consistent and accepted approach. Try to make your definitions intuitive and easy to understand so that they will endure the test of time.

    The image contains a screenshot of Level 2 IT taxonomy Structure.

    Security vulnerabilities often surface through third parties, but where and how you manage this risk is highly dependent on how you structure your taxonomy. Organizations with a lot of exposure may have a dedicated team and may manage and report security risks under a level 1 third-party risk type.

    Level 3 IT taxonomy structure

    Step 3 – Break down your level 2 risk types into lower-level subcategories. The number of levels of risk you have will depend on the size of and magnitude of risks within your organization. In our examples, we demonstrate three levels.

    The image contains a screenshot of Level 3 IT taxonomy Structure.

    Risk taxonomies for smaller organizations may only include two risk levels. However, large enterprises or more complex organizations may extend their taxonomy to level 3 or even 4. This illustration shows just a few examples of level 3 risks.

    Test using risk events and controls

    Ultimately risk events and controls need to roll up to level 1 risks in a consistent manner. Test the robustness of your taxonomy by working backward.

    Step 4 – Work backward to test and align risk events and controls to the lowest level risk category.

    • A key function of IT risk management is to monitor and maintain internal controls.
    • Internal controls help to reduce the level of inherent risk to acceptable levels, known as residual risk.
    • As risks evolve, new controls may be needed to upgrade protection for tech infrastructure and strengthen connections between critical assets and third-party suppliers.

    Example – Third Party Risk

    Third Party Risk example.

    3.4 Test your IT taxonomy

    2-3 hours

    1. Leveraging the output from Activities 3.1 to 3.3 and your IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template, begin to test the robustness of the taxonomy by working backward from controls to level 1 IT risks.
    2. The lineage should show clearly that the control will mitigate the impact of a realized risk event. Refine the control or move the control to another level 1 risk type if the control will not sufficiently reduce the impact of a realized risk event.
    3. Once satisfied, update your risk register or your risk management software tool.

    Download Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template

    InputOutput
    • Output from Activities 3.1 to 3.3
    • IT risk taxonomy documented in the IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • IT risk register
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    • CISO
    • Human resources
    • Corporate communications
    • CRO or risk owners
    • Business leaders

    Update risk register

    Step 5 – Once you are satisfied with your risk categories, update your risk registry with your IT risk taxonomy.

    Use Info-Tech’s Risk Register Tool or populate your internal risk software tool.

    Risk Register.

    Download Info-Tech’s Risk Register Tool

    Augment the risk event list using COBIT 2019 processes (Optional)

    Other industry-leading frameworks provide alternative ways of conceptualizing the functions and responsibilities of IT and may help you uncover additional risk events.

    1. Managed IT Management Framework
    2. Managed Strategy
    3. Managed Enterprise Architecture
    4. Managed Innovation
    5. Managed Portfolio
    6. Managed Budget and Costs
    7. Managed Human Resources
    8. Managed Relationships
    9. Managed Service Agreements
    10. Managed Vendors
    11. Managed Quality
    12. Managed Risk
    13. Managed Security
    14. Managed Data
    15. Managed Programs
    16. Managed Requirements Definition
    17. Managed Solutions Identification and Build
    18. Managed Availability and Capacity
    19. Managed Organizational Change Enablement
    20. Managed IT Changes
    21. Managed IT Change Acceptance and Transitioning
    22. Managed Knowledge
    23. Managed Assets
    24. Managed Configuration
    25. Managed Projects
    26. Managed Operations
    27. Managed Service Requests and Incidents
    28. Managed Problems
    29. Managed Continuity
    30. Managed Security Services
    31. Managed Business Process Controls
    32. Managed Performance and Conformance Monitoring
    33. Managed System of Internal Control
    34. Managed Compliance with External Requirements
    35. Managed Assurance
    36. Ensured Governance Framework Setting and Maintenance
    37. Ensured Benefits Delivery
    38. Ensured Risk Optimization
    39. Ensured Resource Optimization
    40. Ensured Stakeholder Engagement

    Example IT risk appetite

    When developing your risk appetite statements, ensure they are aligned to your organization’s risk appetite and success can be measured.

    Example IT Risk Appetite Statement

    Risk Type

    Technology Risk

    IT should establish a risk appetite statement for each level 1 IT risk type.

    Appetite Statement

    Our organization’s number-one priority is to provide high-quality trusted service to our customers. To meet this objective, critical systems must be highly performant and well protected from potential threats. To meet this objective, the following expectations have been established:

    • No appetite for unauthorized access to systems and confidential data.
    • Low appetite for service downtime.
      • Service availability objective of 99.9%.
      • Near real-time recovery of critical services – ideally within 30 minutes, no longer than 3 hours.

    The ideal risk appetite statement is qualitative and supported by quantitative measures.

    Risk Owner

    Chief Information Officer

    Ultimately, there is an accountable owner(s), but involve business and technology stakeholders when drafting to gain consensus.

    Risk Oversight

    Enterprise Risk Committee

    Supporting Framework(s)

    Business Continuity Management, Information Security, Internal Audit

    The number of supporting programs and frameworks will vary with the size of the organization.

    3.5 Draft your IT risk appetite statements

    Optional Activity

    2-3 hours

    1. Using your completed taxonomy and your organization’s risk appetite statement, draft an IT risk appetite statement for each level 1 risk in your workbook.
    2. Socialize the statements and gain approval.
    3. Add the approved risk appetite statements to your IT risk register.

    Download Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook

    Input Output
    • Organization’s risk appetite statement
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    • IT Risk Taxonomy Design Template
    • IT risk appetite statements
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    • CISO, CIO
    • Human resources
    • Corporate communications
    • CRO or risk owners
    • Business leaders

    Key takeaways and next steps

    • The risk taxonomy is the backbone of a robust enterprise risk management program. A good taxonomy is frequently used and well understood.
    • Not only is the risk taxonomy used to assess organizational impact, but it is also used for risk reporting, scenarios analysis and horizon scanning, and risk appetite expression.
    • It is essential to capture IT risks within the ERM framework to fully understand the impact and allow for consistent risk discussions and meaningful aggregation.
    • Defining an IT risk taxonomy is a team sport, and organizations should strive to set up a cross-functional working group that is tasked with defining the taxonomy, monitoring its effectiveness, and ensuring continual improvement.
    • The work does not end when the taxonomy is complete. The taxonomy should be well socialized throughout the organization after inception through training and new policies and procedures. Ultimately, it should be an activity embedded into risk management practices.
    • The taxonomy is a living document and should be continually improved upon.

    3.6 Prepare to communicate the taxonomy internally

    1-2 hours

    To gain acceptance of your risk taxonomy within your organization, ensure it is well understood and used throughout the organization.

    1. Consider your audience and agree on the key elements you want to convey.
    2. Prepare your presentation.
    3. Test your presentation with a smaller group before communicating to senior leadership or the board.

    Coming soon: Look for our upcoming research Communicate Any IT Initiative.

    InputOutput
    • Build an IT Risk Taxonomy Workbook
    • Upcoming research: Communicate Any IT Initiative
    • Presentation
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Upcoming research: Communicate Any IT Initiative
    • Internal communication templates
    • CISO, CIO
    • Human resources
    • Corporate communications
    • CRO or risk owners
    • Business leaders

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Build an IT Risk Management Program

    • Use this blueprint to transform your ad hoc risk management processes into a formalized ongoing program and increase risk management success.
    • Learn how to take a proactive stance against IT threats and vulnerabilities by identifying and assessing IT’s greatest's risks before they occur.

    Integrate IT Risk Into Enterprise Risk

    • Use this blueprint to understand gaps in your organization’s approach to risk management.
    • Learn how to integrate IT risks into the foundational risk practice

    Coming Soon: Communicate Any IT initiative

    • Use this blueprint to compose an easy-to-understand presentation to convey the rationale of your initiative and plan of action.
    • Learn how to identify your target audience and tailor and deliver the message in an authentic and clear manner.

    Risk definitions

    Term Description
    Emergent Risk Risks that are poorly understood but expected to grow in significance.
    Residual Risk The amount of risk you have left after you have removed a source of risk or implemented a mitigation approach (controls, monitoring, assurance).
    Risk Acceptance If the risk is within the enterprise's risk tolerance or if the cost of otherwise mitigating the risk is higher than the potential loss, the enterprise can assume the risk and absorb any losses.
    Risk Appetite An organization’s general approach and attitude toward risk; the total exposed amount that an organization wishes to undertake on the basis of risk-return trade-offs for one or more desired and expected outcomes.
    Risk Assessment The process of estimating and evaluating risk.
    Risk Avoidance The risk response where an organization chooses not to perform a particular action or maintain an existing engagement due to the risk involved.
    Risk Event A risk occurrence (actual or potential) or a change of circumstances. Can consist of more than one occurrence or of something not happening. Can be referred to as an incident or accident.
    Risk Identification The process of finding, recognizing, describing, and documenting risks that could impact the achievement of objectives.
    Risk Management The capability and related activities used by an organization to identify and actively manage risks that affect its ability to achieve goals and strategic objectives. Includes principles, processes, and framework.
    Risk Likelihood The chance of a risk occurring. Usually measured mathematically using probability.
    Risk Management Policy Expresses an organization’s commitment to risk management and clarifies its use and direction.
    Risk Mitigation The risk response where an action is taken to reduce the impact or likelihood of a risk occurring.
    Risk Profile A written description of a set of risks.

    Risk definitions

    Term Description
    Risk Opportunity A cause/trigger of a risk with a positive outcome.
    Risk Owner The designated party responsible and accountable for ensuring that the risk is maintained in accordance with enterprise requirements.
    Risk Register A tool used to identify and document potential and active risks in an organization and to track the actions in place to manage each risk.
    Risk Response How you choose to respond to risk (accept, mitigate, transfer, or avoid).
    Risk Source The element that, alone or in combination, has potential to give rise to a risk. Usually this is the root cause of the risk.
    Risk Statement A description of the current conditions that may lead to the loss, and a description of the loss.
    Risk Tolerance The amount of risk you are prepared or able to accept (in terms of volume or impact); the amount of uncertainty an organization is willing to accept in the aggregate (or more narrowly within a certain business unit or for a specific risk category). Expressed in quantitative terms that can be monitored (such as volatility or deviation measures), risk tolerance often is communicated in terms of acceptable/unacceptable outcomes or as limited levels of risk. Risk tolerance statements identify the specific minimum and maximum levels beyond which the organization is unwilling to accept variations from the expected outcome.
    Risk Transfer The risk response where you transfer the risk to a third party.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    LynnAnn Brewer
    Director
    McLean & Company

    Sandi Conrad
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Valence Howden
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    John Kemp
    Executive Counsellor – Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Brittany Lutes
    Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Carlene McCubbin
    Practice Lead – CIO Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Frank Sargent
    Senior Workshop Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Frank Sewell
    Advisory Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Ida Siahaan
    Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Steve Willis
    Practice Lead – Data Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

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    Get Started With Customer Advocacy

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}565|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
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    Getting started with customer advocacy (CA) is no easy task. Many customer success professionals carry out ad hoc customer advocacy activities to address immediate needs but lack a more strategic approach.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Customer success leaders must reposition their CA program around growth; the recognition that customer advocacy is a strategic growth initiative is necessary to succeed in today’s competitive market.
    • Get key stakeholders on board early – especially Sales!
    • Always link your CA efforts back to retention and growth.
    • Make building genuine relationships with your advocates the cornerstone of your CA program.

    Impact and Result

    • Enable the organization to identify and develop meaningful relationships with top customers and advocates.
    • Understand the concepts and benefits of CA and how CA can be used to improve marketing and sales and fuel growth and competitiveness.
    • Follow SoftwareReviews’ methodology to identify where to start to apply CA within the organization.
    • Develop a customer advocacy proof of concept/pilot program to gain stakeholder approval and funding to get started with or expand efforts around customer advocacy.

    Get Started With Customer Advocacy Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Get Started With Customer Advocacy Executive Brief – An overview of why customer advocacy is critical to your organization and the recommended approach for getting started with a pilot program.

    Understand the strategic benefits and process for building a formal customer advocacy program. To be successful, you must reposition CA as a strategic growth initiative and continually link any CA efforts back to growth.

    • Get Started With Customer Advocacy Storyboard

    2. Define Your Advocacy Requirements – Assess your current customer advocacy efforts, identify gaps, and define your program requirements.

    With the assessment tool and steps outlined in the storyboard, you will be able to understand the gaps and pain points, where and how to improve your efforts, and how to establish program requirements.

    • Customer Advocacy Maturity Assessment Tool

    3. Win Executive Approval and Launch Pilot – Develop goals, success metrics, and timelines, and gain approval for your customer advocacy pilot.

    Align on pilot goals, key milestones, and program elements using the template and storyboard to effectively communicate with stakeholders and gain executive buy-in for your customer advocacy pilot.

    • Get Started With Customer Advocacy Executive Presentation Template

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Get Started With Customer Advocacy

    Develop a customer advocacy program to transform customer satisfaction into revenue growth.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst perspective

    Customer advocacy is critical to driving revenue growth

    The image contains a picture of Emily Wright.

    Customer advocacy puts the customer at the center of everything your organization does. By cultivating a deep understanding of customer needs and how they define value and by delivering positive experiences throughout the customer journey, organizations inspire and empower customers to become evangelists for their brands or products. Both the client and solution provider enjoy satisfying and ongoing business outcomes as a result.

    Focusing on customer advocacy is critical for software solutions providers. Business-to-business (B2B) buyers are increasingly looking to their peers and third-party resources to arm themselves with information on solutions they feel they can trust before they choose to engage with solution providers. Your satisfied customers are now your most trusted and powerful resource.

    Customer advocacy helps build strong relationships with your customers, nurtures brand advocacy, gives your marketing messaging credibility, and differentiates your company from the competition; it’s critical to driving revenue growth. Companies that develop mature advocacy programs can increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) by 16% (Wharton Business School, 2009), increase customer retention by 35% (Deloitte, 2011), and give themselves a strong competitive advantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

    Emily Wright
    Senior Research Analyst, Advisory
    SoftwareReviews

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge

    Ad hoc customer advocacy (CA) efforts and reference programs, while still useful, are not enough to drive growth. Providers increase their chance for success by assessing if they face the following challenges:

    • Lack of referenceable customers that can turn into passionate advocates, or a limited pool that is at risk of burnout.
    • Lack of references for all key customer types, verticals, etc., especially in new growth segments or those that are hard to recruit.
    • Lack of a consistent program for gathering customer feedback and input to make improvements and increase customer satisfaction.
    • Lack of executive and stakeholder (e.g. Sales, Customer Success, channel partners, etc.) buy-in for the importance and value of customer advocacy.

    Building a strong customer advocacy program must be a high priority for customer service/success leaders in today’s highly competitive software markets.

    Common Obstacles

    Getting started with customer advocacy is no easy task. Many customer success professionals carry out ad hoc customer advocacy activities to address immediate needs but lack a more strategic approach. What separates them from success are several nagging obstacles:

    • Efforts lack funding and buy-in from stakeholders.
    • Senior management doesn’t fully understand the business value of a customer advocacy program.
    • Duplicate efforts are taking place between Sales, Marketing, product teams, etc., because ownership, roles, and responsibilities have not been determined.
    • Relationships are guarded/hoarded by those who feel they own the relationship (e.g. Sales, Customer Success, channel partners, etc.).
    • Customer-facing staff often lack the necessary skills to foster customer advocacy.

    SoftwareReviews’ Approach

    This blueprint will help leaders of customer advocacy programs get started with developing a formalized pilot program that will demonstrate the value of customer advocacy and lay a strong foundation to justify rollout. Through SoftwareReviews’ approach, customer advocacy leaders will:

    • Enable the organization to identify and develop meaningful relationships with top customers and advocates.
    • Understand the concepts and benefits of CA and how CA can be used to improve marketing and sales and fuel growth and competitiveness.
    • Follow SoftwareReviews’ methodology to identify where to start to apply CA within the organization.
    • Develop a customer advocacy proof of concept/pilot program to gain stakeholder approval and funding to get started with or expand efforts around customer advocacy.

    What is customer advocacy?

    “Customer advocacy is the act of putting customer needs first and working to deliver solution-based assistance through your products and services." – Testimonial Hero, 2021

    Customer advocacy is designed to keep customers loyal through customer engagement and advocacy marketing campaigns. Successful customer advocacy leaders experience decreased churn while increasing return on investment (ROI) through retention, acquisition, and cost savings.

    Businesses that implement customer advocacy throughout their organizations find new ways of supporting customers, provide additional customer value, and ensure their brands stand unique among the competition.

    Customer Advocacy Is…

    • An integral part of any marketing and/or business strategy.
    • Essential to improving and maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.
    • Focused on delivering value to customers.
    • Not only a set of actions, but a mindset that should be fostered and reinforced through a customer-centric culture.
    • Mutually beneficial relationships for both company and customer.

    Customer Advocacy Is Not…

    • Only referrals and testimonials.
    • Solely about what you can get from your advocates.
    • Brand advocacy. Brand advocacy is the desired outcome of customer advocacy.
    • Transactional. Brand advocates must be engaged.
    • A nice-to-have.
    • Solved entirely by software. Think about what you want to achieve and how a software solution can you help you reach those goals.

    SoftwareReviews Insight

    Customer advocacy has evolved into being a valued company asset versus a simple referral program – success requires an organization-wide customer-first mindset and the recognition that customer advocacy is a strategic growth initiative necessary to succeed in today’s competitive market.

    Customer advocacy: Essential to high retention

    When customers advocate for your company and products, they are eager to retain the value they receive

    • Customer acts of advocacy correlate to high retention.
    • Acts of advocacy won’t happen unless customers feel their interests are placed ahead of your company’s, thereby increasing satisfaction and customer success. That’s the definition of a customer-centric culture.
    • And yet your company does receive significant benefits from customer advocacy:
      • When customers advocate and renew, your costs go down and margins rise because it costs less to keep a happy customer than it does to bring a new customer onboard.
      • When renewal rates are high, customer lifetime value increases, also increasing profitability.

    Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer (Huify, 2018).

    Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95% (Bain & Company, cited in Harvard Business Review, 2014).

    SoftwareReviews Insight

    Don’t overlook the value of customer advocacy to retention! Despite the common knowledge that it’s far easier and cheaper to sell to an existing customer than to sell to a new prospect, most companies fail to leverage their customer advocacy programs and continue to put pressure on Marketing to focus their budgets on customer acquisition.

    Customer advocacy can also be your ultimate growth strategy

    In your marketing and sales messaging, acts of advocacy serve as excellent proof points for value delivered.

    Forty-five percent of businesses rank online reviews as a top source of information for selecting software during this (top of funnel) stage, followed closely by recommendations and referrals at 42%. These sources are topped only by company websites at 54% (Clutch, 2020).

    With referrals coming from customer advocates to prospects via your lead gen engine and through seller talk tracks, customer advocacy is central to sales, marketing, and customer experience success.

    ✓ Advocates can help your new customers learn your solution and ensure higher adoption and satisfaction.
    ✓ Advocates can provide valuable, honest feedback on new updates and features.

    The image contains a picture to demonstrate the cycle of customer advocacy. The image has four circles, with one big circle in the middle and three circles surrounding with arrows pointing in both directions in between them. The middle circle is labelled customer advocacy. The three circles are labelled: sales, customer success, marketing.

    “A customer advocacy program is not just a fancy buzz word or a marketing tool that’s nice to have. It’s a core discipline that every major brand needs to integrate into their overall marketing, sales and customer success strategies if they expect to survive in this trust economy. Customer advocacy arguably is the common asset that runs throughout all marketing, sales and customer success activities regardless of the stage of the buyer’s journey and ties it all together.” – RO Innovation, 2017

    Positive experience drives acts of advocacy

    More than price or product, experience now leads the way in customer advocacy and retention

    Advocacy happens when customers recommend your product. Our research shows that the biggest drivers of likeliness to recommend and acts of customer advocacy are the positive experiences customers have with vendors and their products, not product features or cost savings. Customers want to feel that:

    1. Their productivity and performance is enhanced and the vendor is helping them to innovate and grow as a company.
    2. Their vendor inspires them and helps them to continually improve.
    3. They can rely on the vendor and the product they purchased.
    4. They are respected by the vendor.
    5. They can trust that the vendor will be on their side and save them time.

    The image contains a graph to demonstrate the correlation of likeliness to recommend a satisfaction driver. Where anything above a 0.5 indicates a strong driver of satisfaction.

    Note that anything above 0.5 indicates a strong driver of satisfaction.
    Source: SoftwareReviews buyer reviews (based on 82,560 unique reviews).

    SoftwareReviews Insight

    True customer satisfaction comes from helping customers innovate, enhancing their performance, inspiring them to continually improve, and being reliable, respectful, trustworthy, and conscious of their time. These true drivers of satisfaction should be considered in your customer advocacy and retention efforts. The experience customers have with your product and brand is what will differentiate your brand from competitors, drive advocacy, and ultimately, power business growth. Talk to a SoftwareReviews advisor to learn how users rate your product on these satisfaction drivers in the SoftwareReviews Emotional Footprint Report.

    Yet challenges exist for customer advocacy program leaders

    Customer success leaders without a strong customer advocacy program feel numerous avoidable pains:

    • Lack of compelling stories and proof points for the sales team, causing long sales cycles.
    • Heavy reliance on a small pool of worn-out references.
    • Lack of references for all needed customer types, verticals, etc.
    • Lack of a reliable customer feedback process for solution improvements.
    • Overspending on acquiring new customers due to a lack of customer proof points.
    • Missed opportunities that could grow the business (customer lifetime value, upsell/cross-sell, etc.).

    Marketing, customer success, and sales teams experiencing any one of the above challenges must consider getting started with a more formalized customer advocacy program.

    Obstacles to customer advocacy programs

    Leaders must overcome several barriers in developing a customer advocacy program:

    • Stakeholders are often unclear on the value customer advocacy programs can bring and require proof of benefits to invest.
    • Efforts are duplicated among sales, marketing, product, and customer success teams, given ownership and collaboration practices are ill-defined or nonexistent.
    • There is a culture of guarding or hoarding customer relationships by those who feel they own the relationship, or there’s high turnover among employees who own the customer relationships.
    • The governance, technology, people, skills, and/or processes to take customer advocacy to the next level are lacking.
    • Leaders don’t know where to start with customer advocacy, what needs to be improved, or what to focus on first.

    A lack of customer centricity hurts organizations

    12% of people believe when a company says they put customers first. (Source: HubSpot, 2019)

    Brands struggle to follow through on brand promises, and a mismatch between expectations and lived experience emerges. Customer advocacy can help close this gap and help companies live up to their customer-first messaging.

    42% of companies don’t conduct any customer surveys or collect feedback. (Source: HubSpot, 2019)

    Too many companies are not truly listening to their customers. Companies that don’t collect feedback aren’t going to know what to change to improve customer satisfaction. Customer advocacy will orient companies around their customer and create a reliable feedback loop that informs product and service enhancements.

    Customer advocacy is no longer a nice-to-have but a necessity for solution providers

    B2B buyers increasingly turn to peers to learn about solutions:

    “84% of B2B decision makers start the buying process with a referral.” (Source: Influitive, Gainsight & Pendo, 2020)

    “46% of B2B buyers rely on customer references for information before purchasing.” (Source: RO Innovation, 2017)

    “91% of B2B purchasers’ buying decisions are influenced by word-of-mouth recommendations.” (Source: ReferralRock, 2022)

    “76% of individuals admit that they’re more likely to trust content shared by ‘normal’ people than content shared by brands.” (Source: TrustPilot, 2020)

    By ignoring the importance of customer advocacy, companies and brands are risking stagnation and missing out on opportunities to gain competitive advantage and achieve growth.

    Getting Started With Customer Advocacy: SoftwareReviews' Approach

    1 BUILD
    Build the business case
    Identify your key stakeholders, steering committee, and working team, understand key customer advocacy principles, and note success barriers and ways to overcome them as your first steps.

    2 DEVELOP
    Develop your advocacy requirements
    Assess your current customer advocacy maturity, identify gaps in your current efforts, and develop your ideal advocate profile.

    3 WIN
    Win executive approval and implement pilot
    Determine goals and success metrics for the pilot, establish a timeline and key project milestones, create advocate communication materials, and finally gain executive buy-in and implement the pilot.

    SoftwareReviews Insight
    Building and implementing a customer advocacy pilot will help lay the foundation for a full program and demonstrate to executives and key stakeholders the impact on revenue, retention, and CLV that can be achieved through coordinated and well-planned customer advocacy efforts.

    Customer advocacy benefits

    Our research benefits customer advocacy program managers by enabling them to:

    • Explain why having a centralized, proactive customer advocacy program is important.
    • Clearly communicate the benefits and business case for having a formalized customer advocacy program.
    • Develop a customer advocacy pilot to provide a proof of concept (POC) and demonstrate the value of customer advocacy.
    • Assess the maturity of your current customer advocacy efforts and identify what to improve and how to improve to grow your customer advocacy function.

    "Advocacy is the currency for business and the fuel for explosive growth. Successful marketing executives who understand this make advocacy programs an essential part of their go-to-market strategy. They also know that advocacy isn't something you simply 'turn on': ... ultimately, it's about making human connections and building relationships that have enduring value for everyone involved."
    - Dan Cote, Influitive, Dec. 2021

    Case Study: Advocate impact on sales at Genesys

    Genesys' Goal

    Provide sales team with compelling customer reviews, quotes, stories, videos, and references.

    Approach to Advocacy

    • Customers were able to share their stories through Genesys' customer hub GCAP as quotes, reviews, etc., and could sign up to host reference forum sessions for prospective customers.
    • Content was developed that demonstrated ROI with using Genesys' solutions, including "top-tier logos, inspiring quotes, and reference forums featuring some of their top advocates" (Influitive, 2021).
    • Leveraged customer advocacy-specific software solution integration with the CRM to easily identify reference recommendations for Sales.

    Advocate Impact on Sales

    According to Influitive (2021), the impacts were:

    • 386% increase in revenue influences from references calls
    • 82% of revenue has been influence by reference calls
    • 78 reference calls resulted in closed-won opportunities
    • 250 customers and prospects attended 7 reference forums
    • 112 reference slides created for sales enablement
    • 100+ quotes were collect and transformed into 78 quote slides

    Who benefits from getting started with customer advocacy?

    This Research Is Designed for:

    • Customer advocacy leaders and marketers who are looking to:
      • Take a more strategic, proactive, and structured approach to customer advocacy.
      • Find a more effective and reliable way to gather customer feedback and input on products and services.
      • Develop and nurture a customer-oriented mindset throughout the organization.
      • Improve marketing credibility both within the company and outside to prospective customers.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Explain why having a centralized, proactive customer advocacy program is important.
    • Clearly communicate the benefits and business case for having a formalized customer advocacy program.
    • Develop a customer advocacy pilot to provide a proof of concept (POC) and demonstrate the value of customer advocacy.
    • Assess the maturity of your current customer advocacy efforts and identify what to improve and how to improve to grow your customer advocacy function.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Customer success leaders and sales directors who are responsible for:
      • Gathering customer references and testimonials.
      • Referral or voice of the customer (VoC) programs.

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Align stakeholders on an overall program of identifying ideal advocates.
    • Coordinate customer advocacy efforts and actions.
    • Gather and make use of customer feedback to improve products, solutions, and service provided.
    • Provide an amazing customer experience throughout the entirety of the customer journey.

    SoftwareReviews’ methodology for getting started with customer advocacy

    Phase Steps

    1. Build the business case

    1. Identify your key stakeholders, steering committee, and working team
    2. Understand the concepts and benefits of customer advocacy as they apply to your organization
    3. Outline barriers to success, risks, and risk mitigation tactics

    2. Develop your advocacy requirements

    1. Assess your customer advocacy maturity using the SoftwareReviews CA Maturity Assessment Tool
    2. Identify gaps/pains in current CA efforts and add tasks to your action plan
    3. Develop ideal advocate profile/identify target advocate segment(s)

    3. Create implementation plan and pitch CA pilot

    1. Determine pilot goals and success metrics
    2. Establish timeline and create advocate communication materials
    3. Gain executive buy-in and implement pilot

    Phase Outcomes

    1. Common understanding of CA concepts and benefits
    2. Buy-in from CEO and head of Sales
    3. List of opportunities, risks, and risk mitigation tactics
    1. Identification of gaps in current customer advocacy efforts and/or activities
    2. Understanding customer advocacy readiness
    3. Identification of ideal advocate profile/target segment
    4. Basic actions to bridge gaps in CA efforts
    1. Clear objective for CA pilot
    2. Key metrics for program success
    3. Pilot timelines and milestones
    4. Executive presentation with business case for CA

    Insight summary

    Customer advocacy is a critical strategic growth initiative
    Customer advocacy (CA) has evolved into being a highly valued company asset as opposed to a simple referral program, but not everyone in the organization sees it that way. Customer success leaders must reposition their CA program around growth instead of focusing solely on retention and communicate this to key stakeholders. The recognition that customer advocacy is a strategic growth initiative is necessary to succeed in today’s competitive market.

    Get key stakeholders on board early – especially Sales!
    Work to bring the CEO and the head of Sales on your side early. Sales is the gatekeeper – they need to open the door to customers to turn them into advocates. Clearly reposition CA for growth and communicate that to the CEO and head of Sales; wider buy-in will follow.

    Identify the highest priority segment for generating acts of advocacy
    By focusing on the highest priority segment, you accomplish a number of things: generating growth in a critical customer segment, proving the value of customer advocacy to key stakeholders (especially Sales), and setting a strong foundation for customer advocacy to build upon and expand the program out to other segments.

    Always link your CA efforts back to retention and growth
    By clearly demonstrating the impact that customer advocacy has on not only retention but also overall growth, marketers will gain buy-in from key stakeholders, secure funding for a full CA program, and gain the resources needed to expand customer advocacy efforts.

    Focus on providing value to advocates
    Many organizations take a transactional approach to customer advocacy, focusing on what their advocates can do for them. To truly succeed with CA, focus on providing your advocates with value first and put them in the spotlight.

    Make building genuine relationships with your advocates the cornerstone of your CA program
    "57% of small businesses say that having a relationship with their consumers is the primary driver of repeat business" (Factory360).

    Guided Implementation

    What does our GI on getting started with building customer advocacy look like?

    Build the Business Case

    Call #1: Identify key stakeholders. Map out motivations and anticipate any concerns or objections. Determine steering committee and working team. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #2: Discuss concepts and benefits of customer advocacy as they apply to organizational goals. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #3: Discuss barriers to success, risks, and risk mitigation tactics. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #4: Finalize CA goals, opportunities, and risks and develop business case. Plan next call – 2 weeks.

    Develop Your Advocacy Requirements

    Call #5: Review the SoftwareReviews CA Maturity Assessment Tool. Assess your current level of customer advocacy maturity. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #6: Review gaps and pains in current CA efforts. Discuss tactics and possible CA pilot program goals. Begin adding tasks to action plan. Plan next call – 2 weeks.

    Call #7: Discuss ideal advocate profile and target segments. Plan next call – 2 weeks.

    Call #8: Validate and finalize ideal advocate profile. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Win Executive Approval and Implement Pilot

    Call #9: Discuss CA pilot scope. Discuss performance metrics and KPIs. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #10: Determine timeline and key milestones. Plan next call –2 weeks.

    Call #11: Develop advocate communication materials. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #12: Review final business case and coach on executive presentation. Plan next call – 1 week.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst. Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.


    Customer Advocacy Workshop

    Pre-Workshop Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Post-Workshop
    Activities Identify Stakeholders & CA Pilot Team Build the Business Case Assess Current CA Efforts Develop Advocacy Goals & Ideal Advocate Profile Develop Project Timelines, Materials, and Exec Presentation Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite) Pitch CA Pilot
    0.1 Identify key stakeholders to involve in customer advocacy pilot and workshop; understand their motivations and anticipate possible concerns. 1.1 Review key CA concepts and identify benefits of CA for the organization.
    1.2 Outline barriers to success, risks, and risk mitigation tactics.
    2.1 Assess your customer advocacy maturity using the SoftwareReviews CA Maturity Assessment Tool.
    2.2 Identify gaps/pains in current CA efforts.
    2.3 Prioritize gaps from diagnostic and any other critical pain points.
    3.1 Identify and document the ideal advocate profile and target customer segment for pilot.
    3.2 Determine goal(s) and success metrics for program pilot.
    4.1 Develop pilot timelines and key milestones.
    4.2 Outline materials needed and possible messaging.
    4.3 Build the executive buy-in presentation.
    5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from the previous four days. 6.1 Present to executive team and stakeholders.
    6.2 Gain executive buy-in and key stakeholder approval.
    6.3 Execute CA pilot.
    Deliverables
    1. Rationale for CA pilot; clear benefits, and how they apply to the organization.
    2. Documented barriers to success, risks, and risk mitigation tactics.
    1. CA Maturity Assessment results.
    2. Identification of gaps in current customer advocacy efforts and/or activities.
    1. Documented ideal advocate profile/target customer segment.
    2. Clear goal(s) and success metrics for CA pilot.
    1. Documented pilot timelines and key milestones.
    2. Draft/outlines of advocate materials.
    3. Draft executive presentation with business case for CA.
    1. Finalized implementation plan for CA pilot.
    2. Finalized executive presentation with business case for CA.
    1. Buy-in from decision makers and key stakeholders.

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

    Get started!

    Know your target market and audience, deploy well-designed strategies based on shared values, and make meaningful connections with people.

    Phase 1
    Build the Business Case

    Phase 2
    Develop Your Advocacy Requirements

    Phase 3
    Win Executive Approval and Implement Pilot

    Phase 1: Build the Business Case

    Steps
    1.1 Identify your key stakeholders, steering committee, and working team
    1.2 Understand the concepts and benefits of customer advocacy as they apply to your organization
    1.3 Outline barriers to success, risks, and risk mitigation tactics

    Phase Outcome

    • Common understanding of CA concepts and benefits
    • Buy-in from CEO and head of Sales
    • List of barriers to success, risks, and risk mitigation tactics

    Build the business case

    Step 1.1 Identify your key stakeholders, steering committee, and working team

    Total duration: 2.5-8.0 hours

    Objective
    Identify, document, and finalize your key stakeholders to know who to involve and how to get them onboard by truly understanding the forces of influence.

    Output

    • Robust stakeholder list with key stakeholders identified.
    • Steering committee and working team decided.

    Participants

    • Customer advocacy lead
    • Identified stakeholders
    • Workstream leads

    MarTech
    None

    Tools

    1.1.1 Identify Stakeholders
    (60-120 min.)

    Identify
    Using the guidance on slide 28, identify all stakeholders who would be involved or impacted by your customer advocacy pilot by entering names and titles into columns A and B on slide 27 "Stakeholder List Worksheet."

    Document
    Document as much information about each stakeholder as possible in columns C, D, E, and F into the table on slide 27.

    1.1.2 Select Steering Committee & Working Team
    (60-90 min.)

    Select
    Using the guidance on slides 28 and 29 and the information collected in the table on slide 27, identify the stakeholders that are steering committee members, functional workstream leads, or operations; document in column G on slide 27.

    Document
    Open the Executive Presentation Template to slides 5 and 6 and document your final steering committee and working team selections. Be sure to note the Executive Sponsor and Program Manager on slide 5.

    Tips & Reminders

    1. It is critical to identify "key stakeholders"; a single missed key stakeholder can disrupt an initiative. A good way to ensure that nobody is missed is to first uncover as many stakeholders as possible and later decide how important they are.
    2. Ensure steering committee representation from each department this initiative would impact or that may need to be involved in decision-making or problem-solving endeavors.

    Consult Info-Tech's Manage Stakeholder Relations blueprint for additional guidance on identifying and managing stakeholders, or contact one of our analysts for more personalized assistance and guidance.

    Stakeholder List Worksheet

    *Possible Roles
    Executive Sponsor
    Program Manager
    Workstream Lead
    Functional Lead
    Steering Committee
    Operations
    A B C D E F G
    Name Position Decision Involvement
    (Driver / Approver / Contributor / Informe
    Direct Benefit?
    (Yes / No)
    Motivation Concerns *Role in Customer Advocacy Pilot
    E.g. Jane Doe VP, Customer Success A N
    • Increase customer retention
    • Customer advocate burnout
    Workstream Lead

    Customer advocacy stakeholders

    What to consider when identifying stakeholders required for CA:
    Customer advocacy should be done as a part of a cross-functional company initiative. When identifying stakeholders, consider:

    • Who can make the ultimate decision on approving the CA program?
    • Who are the senior leadership members you need buy-in from?
    • Who do you need to support the CA program?
    • Who is affected by the CA program?
    • Who will help you build the CA program?
    • Where and among who is there enthusiasm for customer advocacy?
    • Consider stakeholders from Customer Success, Marketing, Sales, Product, PR & Social, etc.
    Key Roles Supporting an Effective Customer Advocacy Pilot
    Executive Sponsor
    • Owns the function at the management/C-suite level
    • Responsible for breaking down barriers and ensuring alignment with organizational strategy
    • CMO, VP of Marketing, and in SMB providers, the CEO
    Program Manager
    • Typically, a senior member of the marketing team
    • Responsible for organizing the customer advocacy pilot, preparing summary executive-level communications, and approval requests
    • Program manages the customer advocacy pilot, and in many cases, the continued formal program
    • Product Marketing Director, or other Marketing Director, who has strong program management skills, has run large-scale marketing or product programs, and is familiar with the stakeholder roles and enabling technologies
    Functional / Workstream Leads
    • Works alongside the Program Manager on planning and implementing the customer advocacy pilot and ensures functional workstreams are aligned with pilot objectives
    • Typical customer advocacy pilots will have a team comprised of representatives from Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success
    Steering Committee
    • Comprised of C-suite/management-level individuals that guide key decisions, approve requests, and mitigate any functional conflicts
    • Responsible for validating goals and priorities, enabling adequate resourcing, and critical decision making
    • CMO, CRO/Head of Sales, Head of Customer Success
    Operations
    • Comprised of individuals whose application and tech tools knowledge and skills support integration of customer advocacy functions into existing tech stack/CRM (e.g. adding custom fields into CRM)
    • Responsible for helping select technology that enables customer advocacy program activities
    • CRM, Marketing Applications, and Analytics Managers, IT Managers

    Customer advocacy working team

    Consider the skills and knowledge required for planning and executing a customer advocacy pilot.

    Workstream leads should have strong project management and collaboration skills and deep understanding of both product and customers (persona, journeys, satisfaction, etc.).

    Required Skills Suggested Functions
    • Project management
    • CRM knowledge
    • Marketing automation experience
    • MarTech knowledge
    • Understanding of buyer persona and journey
    • Product knowledge
    • Understanding of executive-level goals for the pilot
    • Content creation
    • Customer advocacy experience, if possible
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Email and event marketing experience
    • Customer Success
    • Marketing
    • Sales
    • Product
    • PR/Corporate Comms.

    Build the business case

    Step 1.2 Understand key concepts and benefits of customer advocacy

    Total duration: 2.0-4.0 hours

    Objective
    Understand customer advocacy and what benefits you seek from your customer advocacy program, and get set up to best communicate them to executives and decision makers.

    Output

    • Documented customer advocacy benefits

    Participants

    • Customer advocacy lead

    MarTech
    None

    Tools

    1.2.1 Discuss Key Concepts
    (60-120 min.)

    Envision
    Schedule a visioning session with key stakeholders and share the Get Started With Customer Advocacy Executive Brief (slides 3-23 in this deck).

    Discuss how key customer advocacy concepts can apply to your organization and how CA can contribute to organizational growth.

    Document
    Determine the top benefits sought from the customer advocacy program pilot and record them on slides 4 and 12 in the Executive Presentation Template.

    Finalize
    Work with the Executive Sponsor to finalize the "Message from the CMO" on slide 4 in the Executive Presentation Template.

    Tips & Reminders

    Keep in mind that while we're starting off broadly, the pilot for your customer advocacy program should be narrow and focused in scope.

    Build the business case

    Step 1.3 Understand barriers to success, risks, and risk mitigation tactics

    Total duration: 2.0-8.0 hours

    Objective
    Anticipate threats to pilot success; identify barriers to success, any possible risks, and what can be done to reduce the chances of a negative pilot outcome.

    Output

    • Awareness of barriers
    • Tactics to mitigate risk

    Participants

    • Customer advocacy lead
    • Key stakeholders

    MarTech
    None

    Tools

    1.3.1 Brainstorm Barriers to Success & Possible Risks
    (60-120 min.)

    Identify
    Using slide 7 of the Executive Presentation Template, brainstorm any barriers to success that may exist and risks to the customer advocacy program pilot success. Consider the people, processes, and technology that may be required.

    Document
    Document all information on slide 7 of the Executive Presentation Template.

    1.3.2 Develop Risk Mitigation Tactics
    (60-300 min.)

    Develop
    Brainstorm different ways to address any of the identified barriers to success and reduce any risks. Consider the people, processes, and technology that may be required.

    Document
    Document all risk mitigation tactics on slide 7 of the Executive Presentation Template.

    Tips & Reminders
    There are several types of risk to explore. Consider the following when brainstorming possible risks:

    • Damage to brand (if advocate guidance not provided)
    • Legal (compliance with regulations and laws around contact, incentives, etc.)
    • Advocate burnout
    • Negative advocate feedback

    Phase 2: Develop Your Advocacy Requirements

    Steps
    2.1 Assess your customer advocacy maturity
    2.2 Identify and document gaps and pain points
    2.3 Develop your ideal advocate profile

    Phase Outcome

    • Identification of gaps in current customer advocacy efforts or activities
    • Understanding of customer advocacy readiness and maturity
    • Identification of ideal advocate profile/target segment
    • Basic actions to bridge gaps in CA efforts

    Develop your advocacy requirements

    Step 2.1 Assess your customer advocacy maturity

    Total duration: 2.0-8.0 hours

    Objective
    Use the Customer Advocacy Maturity Assessment Tool to understand your organization's current level of customer advocacy maturity and what to prioritize in the program pilot.

    Output

    • Current level of customer advocacy maturity
    • Know areas to focus on in program pilot

    Participants

    • Customer advocacy lead
    • Key stakeholders

    MarTech
    None

    Tools

    2.1.1 Diagnose Current Customer Advocacy Maturity
    (60-120 min.)

    Diagnose
    Begin on tab 1 of the Customer Advocacy Maturity Assessment Tool and read all instructions.

    Navigate to tab 2. Considering the current state of customer advocacy efforts, answer the diagnostic questions in the Diagnostic tab of the Customer Advocacy Maturity Assessment Tool.

    After completing the questions, you will receive a diagnostic result on tab 3 that will identify areas of strength and weakness and make high-level recommendations for your customer advocacy program pilot.

    2.1.2 Discuss Results
    (60-300 min.)

    Discuss
    Schedule a call to discuss your customer advocacy maturity diagnostic results with a SoftwareReviews Advisor.

    Prioritize the recommendations from the diagnostic, noting which will be included in the program pilot and which require funding and resources to advance.

    Transfer
    Transfer results into slides 8 and 11 of the Executive Presentation Template.

    Tips & Reminders
    Complete the diagnostic with a handful of key stakeholders identified in the previous phase. This will help provide a more balanced and accurate assessment of your organization’s current level of customer advocacy maturity.

    Develop your advocacy requirements

    Step 2.2 Identify and document gaps and pain points

    Total duration: 2.5-8.0 hours

    Objective
    Understand the current pain points within key customer-related processes and within any current customer advocacy efforts taking place.

    Output

    • Prioritized list of pain points that could be addressed by a customer advocacy program.

    Participants

    • Customer advocacy lead
    • Key stakeholders

    MarTech
    None

    Tools

    2.2.1 Identify Pain Points
    (60-120 min.)

    Identify
    Identify and list current pain points being experienced around customer advocacy efforts and processes around sales, marketing, customer success, and product feedback.

    Add any gaps identified in the diagnostic to the list.

    Transfer
    Transfer key information into slide 9 of Executive Presentation Template.

    2.2.2 Prioritize Pain Points
    (60-300 min.)

    Prioritize
    Indicate which pains are the most important and that a customer advocacy program could help improve.

    Schedule a call to discuss the outputs of this step with a SoftwareReviews Advisor.

    Document
    Document priorities on slide 9 of Executive Presentation Template.

    Tips & Reminders

    Customer advocacy won't solve for everything; it's important to be clear about what pain points can and can't be addressed through a customer advocacy program.

    Develop your advocacy requirements

    Step 2.3 Develop your ideal advocate profile

    Total duration: 3.0-9.0 hours

    Objective
    Develop an ideal advocate persona profile that can be used to identify potential advocates, guide campaign messaging, and facilitate advocate engagement.

    Output

    • Ideal advocate persona profile

    Participants

    • Customer advocacy lead
    • Key stakeholders
    • Sales lead
    • Marketing lead
    • Customer Success lead
    • Product lead

    MarTech
    May require the use of:

    • CRM or marketing automation platform
    • Available and up-to-date customer database

    Tools

    2.3.1 Brainstorm Session Around Ideal Advocate Persona
    (60-150 min.)

    Brainstorm
    Lead the team to prioritize an initial, single, most important persona and to collaborate to complete the template.

    Choose your ideal advocate for the pilot based on your most important audience. Start with firmographics like company size, industry, and geography.

    Next, consider satisfaction levels and behavioral attributes, such as renewals, engagement, usage, and satisfaction scores.

    Identify motivations and possible incentives for advocate activities.

    Document
    Use slide 10 of the Executive Presentation Template to complete this exercise.

    2.3.2 Review and Refine Advocate Persona
    (60-300 min.)

    Review & Refine
    Place the Executive Presentation Template in a shared drive for team collaboration. Encourage the team to share persona knowledge within the shared drive version.

    Hold any necessary follow-up sessions to further refine persona.

    Validate
    Interview advocates that best represent your ideal advocate profile on their type of preferred involvement with your company, their role and needs when it comes to your solution, ways they'd be willing to advocate, and rewards sought.

    Confirm
    Incorporate feedback and inputs into slide 10 of the Executive Presentation Template. Ensure everyone agrees on persona developed.

    Tips & Reminders

    1. When identifying potential advocates, choose based on your most important audience.
    2. Ensure you're selecting those with the highest satisfaction scores.
    3. Ideally, select candidates that have, on their own, advocated previously such as in social posts, who may have acted as a reference, or who have been highly visible as a positive influence at customer events.
    4. Knowing motivations will determine the type of acts of advocacy they would be most willing to perform and the incentives for participating in the program.

    Consider the following criteria when identifying advocates and developing your ideal advocate persona:

    Demographics Firmographics Satisfaction & Needs/Value Sought Behavior Motivation
    Role - user, decision-maker, etc. Company size: # of employees Satisfaction score Purchase frequency & repeat purchases (renewals), upgrades Career building/promotion
    Department Company size: revenue NPS score Usage Collaboration with peers
    Geography CLV score Engagement (e.g. email opens, response, meetings) Educate others
    Industry Value delivered (outcomes, occasions used, etc.) Social media interaction, posts Influence (on product, service)
    Tenure as client Benefits sought
    Account size ($) Minimal and resolved service tickets, escalations
    1. When identifying potential advocates, choose based on your most important audience/segments. 2. Ensure you're selecting those with the highest satisfaction, NPS, and CLV scores. 3. When identifying potential advocates, choose based on high engagement and interaction, regular renewals, and high usage. 4. Knowing motivations will determine the type of acts of advocacy they would be most willing to perform and incentives for participating in the program.

    Phase 3: Win Executive Approval and Implement Pilot

    Steps
    3.1 Determine pilot goals and success metrics
    3.2 Establish timeline and create advocate communication materials
    3.3 Gain executive buy-in and implement pilot

    Phase Outcome

    • Clear objective for CA pilot
    • Key metrics for program success
    • Pilot timelines and milestones
    • Executive presentation with business case for CA

    Win executive approval and implement pilot

    Step 3.1 Determine pilot goals and success metrics

    Total duration: 2.0-4.0 hours

    Objective
    Set goals and determine the scope for the customer advocacy program pilot.

    Output

    • Documented business objectives for the pilot
    • Documented success metrics

    Participants

    • Customer advocacy lead
    • Key stakeholders
    • Sales lead
    • Marketing lead
    • Customer Success lead
    • Product lead

    MarTech
    May require to use, set up, or install platforms like:

    • Register to a survey platform
    • CRM or marketing automation platform

    Tools

    3.1.1 Establish Pilot Goals
    (60-120 min.)

    Set
    Organize a meeting with department heads and review organizational and individual department goals.

    Using the Venn diagram on slide 39 in this deck, identify customer advocacy goals that align with business goals. Select the highest priority goal for the pilot.

    Check that the goal aligns with benefits sought or addresses pain points identified in the previous phase.

    Document
    Document the goals on slides 9 and 16 of the Executive Presentation Template.

    3.1.2 Establish Pilot Success Metrics
    (60-120 min.)

    Decide
    Decide how you will measure the success of your program pilot using slide 40 in this document.

    Document
    Document metrics on slide 16 of the Executive Presentation Template.

    Tips & Reminders

    1. Don't boil the ocean. Pick the most important goal that can be achieved through the customer advocacy pilot to gain executive buy-in and support or resources for a formal customer advocacy program. Once successfully completed, you'll be able to tackle new goals and expand the program.
    2. Keep your metrics simple, few in number, and relatively easy to track

    Connect customer advocacy goals with organizational goals

    List possible customer advocacy goals, identifying areas of overlap with organizational goals by taking the following steps:

    1. List organizational/departmental goals in the green oval.
    2. List possible customer advocacy program goals in the purple oval.
    3. Enter goals that are covered in both the Organizational Goals and Customer Advocacy Goals sections into the Shared Goals section in the center.
    4. Highlight the highest priority goal for the customer advocacy program pilot to tackle.
    Organizational Goals Shared Goals Customer Advocacy Goals
    Example Example: Gain customer references to help advance sales and improve win rates Example: Develop pool of customer references
    [insert goal] [insert goal] Example: Gather customer feedback
    [insert goal] [insert goal] [insert goal]
    [insert goal] [insert goal] [insert goal]

    Customer advocacy success metrics for consideration

    This table provides a starting point for measuring the success of your customer advocacy pilot depending on the goals you've set.

    This list is by no means exhaustive; the metrics here can be used, or new metrics that would better capture success measurement can be created and tracked.

    Metric
    Revenue influenced by reference calls ($ / % increase)
    # of reference calls resulting in closed-won opportunities
    # of quotes collected
    % of community growth YoY
    # of pieces of product feedback collected
    # of acts of advocacy
    % membership growth
    % product usage amongst community members
    # of social shares, clicks
    CSAT score for community members
    % of registered qualified leads
    # of leads registered
    # of member sign-ups
    # of net-new referenceable customers
    % growth rate of products used by members
    % engagement rate
    # of published third-party reviews
    % increase in fulfilled RFPs

    When selecting metrics, remember:
    When choosing metrics for your customer advocacy pilot, be sure to align them to your specific goals. If possible, try to connect your advocacy efforts back to retention, growth, or revenue.

    Do not choose too many metrics; one per goal should suffice.

    Ensure that you can track the metrics you select to measure - the data is available and measuring won't be overly manual or time-consuming.

    Win executive approval and implement pilot

    Step 3.2 Establish timeline and create advocate communication materials

    Total duration: 2.5-8.0 hours

    Objective
    Outline who will be involved in what roles and capacities and what tasks and activities need to completed.

    Output

    • Timeline and milestones
    • Advocate program materials

    Participants

    • Customer advocacy lead
    • Key stakeholders
    • Sales lead
    • Marketing lead
    • Customer Success lead
    • Product lead

    MarTech
    None

    Tools

    3.2.1 Establish Timeline & Milestones
    (30-60 min.)

    List & Assign
    List all key tasks, phases, and milestones on slides 13, 14, and 15 in the Executive Presentation Template.

    Include any activities that help close gaps or address pain points from slide 9 in the Executive Presentation Template.

    Assign workstream leads on slide 15 in the Executive Presentation Template.

    Finalize all tasks and activities with working team.

    3.2.2 Design & Build Advocate Program Materials
    (180-300 min.)

    Decide
    Determine materials needed to recruit advocates and explain the program to advocate candidates.

    Determine the types of acts of advocacy you are looking for.

    Determine incentives/rewards that will be provided to advocates, such as access to new products or services.

    Build
    Build out all communication materials.

    Obtain incentives.

    Tips & Reminders

    1. When determining incentives, use the validated ideal advocate profile for guidance (i.e. what motivates your advocates?).
    2. Ensure to leave a buffer in the timeline if the need to adjust course arises.

    Win executive approval and implement pilot

    Step 3.3 Implement pilot and gain executive buy-in

    Total duration: 2.5-8.0 hours

    Objective
    Successfully implement the customer advocacy pilot program and communicate results to gain approval for full-fledged program.

    Output

    • Deliver Executive Presentation
    • Successful customer advocacy pilot
    • Provide regular updates to stakeholders, executives

    Participants

    • Customer advocacy lead
    • Workstream leads

    MarTech
    May require the use of:

    • CRM or Marketing Automation Platform
    • Available and up-to-date customer database

    Tools

    3.3.1 Complete & Deliver Executive Presentation
    (60-120 min.)

    Present
    Finalize the Executive Presentation.

    Hold stakeholder meeting and introduce the program pilot.

    3.3.2 Gain Executive Buy-in
    (60-300 min.)

    Pitch
    Present the final results of the customer advocacy pilot using the Executive Presentation Template and gain approval.

    3.3.3 Implement the Customer Advocacy Program Pilot
    (30-60 min.)

    Launch
    Launch the customer advocacy program pilot. Follow the timelines and activities outlined in the Executive Presentation Template. Track/document all advocate outreach, activity, and progress against success metrics.

    Communicate
    Establish a regular cadence to communicate with steering committee, stakeholders. Use the Executive Presentation Template to present progress and resolve roadblocks if/as they arise.

    Tips & Reminders

    1. Continually collect feedback and input from advocates and stakeholders throughout the process.
    2. Don't be afraid to make changes on the go if it helps to achieve the end goal of your pilot.
    3. If the pilot program was successful, consider scaling it up and rolling it out to more customers.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Mission Accomplished

    • You successfully launched your customer advocacy program pilot and demonstrated clear benefits and ROI. By identifying the needs of the business and aligning those needs with key customer advocacy activities, marketers and customer advocacy leaders can prioritize the most important tasks for the pilot while also identifying potential opportunities for expansion pending executive approval.
    • SoftwareReviews' comprehensive and tactical approach takes you through the steps to build the foundation for a strategic customer advocacy program. Our methodology ensures that a customer advocacy pilot is developed to deliver the desired outcomes and ROI, increasing stakeholder buy-in and setting up your organization for customer advocacy success.

    If you would like additional support, contact us and we'll make sure you get the professional expertise you need.

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    info@softwarereviews.com
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    Measure and Manage the Customer Satisfaction Metrics That Matter the Most
    Understand what truly keeps your customer satisfied. Measure what matters to improve customer experience and increase satisfaction and advocacy.

    • Understand the true drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among your customer segments.
    • Establish process and cadence for effective satisfaction measurement and monitoring.
    • Know where resources are needed most to improve satisfaction levels and increase retention.

    Develop the Right Message to Engage Buyers
    Sixty percent of marketers find it hard to produce high-quality content consistently. SaaS marketers have an even more difficult job due to the technical nature of content production.

    • Create more compelling and relevant content that aligns with a buyer's needs and journey.
    • Shrink marketing and sales cycles.
    • Increase the pace of content production.

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey
    Get deeper buyer understanding and achieve product-market fit, with easier access to market and sales.

    • Reduce time and resources wasted chasing the wrong prospects.
    • Increase open and click-through rates.
    • Perform more effective sales discovery.
    • Increase win rate.

    Bibliography

    "15 Award-Winning Customer Advocacy Success Stories." Influitive, 2021. Accessed 8 June 2023.

    "Advocacy Marketing." Influitive, June 2016. Accessed 26 Oct. 2021.

    Andrews, Marcus. "42% of Companies Don’t Listen to their Customers. Yikes." HubSpot, June 2019. Accessed 2 Nov. 2021.

    "Before you leap! Webcast." Point of Reference, Sept. 2019. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

    "Brand Loyalty: 5 Interesting Statistics." Factory360, Jan. 2016. Accessed 2 Nov. 2021.

    Brenner, Michael. "The Data Driven Guide to Customer Advocacy." Marketing Insider Group, Sept. 2021. Accessed 3 Feb. 2022.

    Carroll, Brian. "Why Customer Advocacy Should Be at the Heart of Your Marketing." Marketing Insider Group, Sept. 2017. Accessed 3 Feb. 2022.

    Cote, Dan. "Advocacy Blooms and Business Booms When Customers and Employees Engage." Influitive, Dec. 2021. Accessed 3 Feb. 2022.

    "Customer Success Strategy Guide." ON24, Jan. 2021. Accessed 2 Nov. 2021.

    Dalao, Kat. "Customer Advocacy: The Revenue-Driving Secret Weapon." ReferralRock, June 2017. Accessed 7 Dec. 2021.

    Frichou, Flora. "Your guide to customer advocacy: What is it, and why is it important?" TrustPilot, Jan. 2020. Accessed 26 Oct. 2021.

    Gallo, Amy. "The Value of Keeping the Right Customers." Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2014. Accessed 10 March 2022.

    Huhn, Jessica. "61 B2B Referral Marketing Statistics and Quotes." ReferralRock, March 2022. Accessed 10 March 2022.

    Kemper, Grayson. "B2B Buying Process: How Businesses Purchase B2B Services and Software." Clutch, Feb. 2020. Accessed 6 Jan. 2022.

    Kettner, Kyle. "The Evolution of Ambassador Marketing." BrandChamp.io, Oct. 2018. Accessed 2 Nov. 2021.

    Landis, Taylor. "Customer Retention Marketing vs. Customer Acquisition Marketing." OutboundEngine, April 2022. Accessed 23 April 2022.

    Miels, Emily. "What is customer advocacy? Definition and strategies." Zendesk Blog, June 2021. Accessed 27 Oct. 2021.

    Mohammad, Qasim. "The 5 Biggest Obstacles to Implementing a Successful B2B Customer Advocacy Program." HubSpot, June 2018. Accessed 6 Jan. 2022.

    Murphy, Brandon. "Brand Advocacy and Social Media - 2009 GMA Conference." Deloitte, Dec. 2009. Accessed 8 June 2023.

    Patel, Neil. "Why SaaS Brand Advocacy is More Important than Ever in 2021." Neil Patel, Feb. 2021. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

    Pieri, Carl. "The Plain-English Guide to Customer Advocacy." HubSpot, Apr. 2020. Accessed 27 Oct. 2021.

    Schmitt, Philipp; Skiera, Bernd; Van den Bulte, Christophe. "Referral Programs and Customer Value." Wharton Journal of Marketing, Jan. 2011. Accessed 8 June 2023.

    "The Complete Guide to Customer Advocacy." Gray Group International, 2020. Accessed 15 Oct. 2021.

    "The Customer-powered Enterprise: Playbook." Influitive, Gainsight & Pendo. 2020. Accessed 26 Oct. 2021.

    "The Winning Case for a Customer Advocacy Solution." RO Innovation, 2017. Accessed 26 Oct. 2021.

    Tidey, Will. "Acquisition vs. Retention: The Importance of Customer Lifetime Value." Huify, Feb. 2018. Accessed 10 Mar. 2022.

    "What a Brand Advocate Is and Why Your Company Needs One." RockContent, Jan. 2021. Accessed 7 Feb. 2022.

    "What is Customer Advocacy? A Definition and Strategies to Implement It." Testimonial Hero, Oct. 2021. Accessed 26 Jan. 2022.

    Modernize Enterprise Storage

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    • Parent Category Name: Storage & Backup Optimization
    • Parent Category Link: /storage-and-backup-optimization
    • Current storage solutions are nearing end of life, performance or capacity limits.
    • Data continues to grow at an exponential rate, and management complexity is growing even faster. Some kinds of data, like unstructured data, are leading factors in the exponential growth of data.
    • Emerging storage technologies and storage software/automation are disrupting the market and redefining the role of disk arrays, including how storage aligns with people and process.
    • Storage infrastructure budgets are not satisfying the exponential growth of data.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Start with the data, not storage. Answer what is being stored and why before investigating the where and how of storage solutions.
    • Governance and archiving are not IT projects. These can have tremendous benefits for managing data growth but must involve the larger business.
    • More capacity is not a long-term solution. Data is growing faster than decreasing storage costs. Data and capacity mitigation strategies will help in more effective and efficient infrastructure utilization and cost reduction.

    Impact and Result

    • It’s about the data. Start with what is being supported and why. Decide on what and how data is stored before you decide on where. Let the needs of your workloads and governance requirements of your business drive your storage infrastructure decisions and the technologies you adopt.
    • Identify current and future capacity needs for current and future data drivers. Evaluating the ability of current infrastructure to meet these needs will help you discover necessary additions to meet these requirements.
    • Identify governance requirements and constraints that exist across the organization and are specific to workloads. Technology has to conform to these requirements and constraints, not the other way around.
    • Align people and process with technology changes. To effectively utilize the changes in storage, appropriate changes must be made to existing people and process.

    Modernize Enterprise Storage Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should modernize enterprise storage, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Build the case for storage modernization

    Develop the business case for modernizing storage and assess your existing infrastructure for meeting data needs.

    • Modernize Enterprise Storage – Phase 1: Build the Case for Storage Modernization
    • Modernize Enterprise Storage Workbook

    2. Develop your storage technology needs and goals

    Review data governance, explore emerging storage technologies, and identify current and future storage needs.

    • Modernize Enterprise Storage – Phase 2: Develop Your Storage Technology Needs and Goals
    • Evaluate Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Your Infrastructure Roadmap
    • Evaluate Software-Defined Storage Solutions for Your Infrastructure Roadmap
    • Evaluate All Flash in Primary Storage for Your Infrastructure Roadmap
    • Infrastructure Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool

    3. Develop and communicate the roadmap, TCO, and RFP

    Communicate the roadmap with people, process, and technology initiatives, develop an RFP, and conduct a TCO.

    • Modernize Enterprise Storage – Phase 3: Develop and Communicate the Roadmap and RFP
    • Modernize Enterprise Storage Communications Report
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Modernize Enterprise Storage

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Identify Business Case and Assess Current State

    The Purpose

    Identify a business case and need for storage modernization by assessing current and future storage needs.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A clear understanding of the business expectations and needs of storage infrastructure.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify current storage pain points.

    1.2 Discuss storage modernization drivers.

    1.3 Identify data growth drivers.

    1.4 Determine relative growth burden.

    Outputs

    Alignment of storage modernization with organizational pain points

    Desired outcomes of storage modernization

    An understanding of growth impact across drivers

    An understanding of capacity and expansion needs

    2 Review Governance and Emerging Technologies

    The Purpose

    Review existing data governance.

    Explore emerging technologies and trends in the storage space.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Review data governance objectives that must be met.

    Identify a shortlist of storage technologies and trends that may be of interest.

    Activities

    2.1 Shortlist interest in storage technologies.

    2.2 Prioritize shortlist of storage technologies.

    2.3 Identify solutions that meet data and governance needs.

    Outputs

    A starting point for research into new and emerging storage technologies

    Expressed interest in adopting storage technologies

    A list of storage solutions needed to deliver on future data and governance needs

    3 Identify Storage Needs and Develop Initiatives

    The Purpose

    Identify the people, process, and technology initiatives required to adopt new storage technologies.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Align your organizational people and process with new and disruptive technologies to best take advantage of what these new technologies have to offer.

    Activities

    3.1 Complete future storage structure planning tool.

    3.2 Identify storage modernization technology initiatives.

    3.3 Identify storage modernization people initiatives.

    3.4 Identify storage modernization process initiatives.

    Outputs

    A understanding of the future state of your storage infrastructure

    Technology initiatives needed to adopt storage structure

    People initiatives needed to adopt storage structure

    Process initiatives needed to adopt storage structure

    4 Build a Roadmap and RFP, Calculate TCO

    The Purpose

    Develop an executive communications report.

    Conduct a TCO analysis comparing on-premises and cloud storage solutions.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Communicate storage modernization goals and plans to stakeholders.

    Activities

    4.1 Prioritize storage modernization initiatives.

    4.2 Complete project timeline and build roadmap.

    4.3 Compare TCO of on-premises and cloud storage solutions.

    Outputs

    Alignment of people, process, and technology with storage adoption

    Communicate storage modernization goals and plans to stakeholders and executives

    Compare cost of on-premises and cloud storage alternatives

    Develop a Security Operations Strategy

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}264|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Security Processes & Operations
    • Parent Category Link: /security-processes-and-operations
    • There is an onslaught of security data – generating information in different formats, storing it in different places, and forwarding it to different locations.
    • The organization lacks a dedicated enterprise security team. There is limited resourcing available to begin or mature a security operations center.
    • Many organizations are developing ad hoc security capabilities that result in operational inefficiencies, the misalignment of resources, and the misuse of security technology investments.
    • It is difficult to communicate the value of a security operations program when trying to secure organizational buy-in to gain the appropriate resourcing.
    • There is limited communication between security functions due to a centralized security operations organizational structure.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    1. Security operations is no longer a center, but a process. The need for a physical security hub has evolved into the virtual fusion of prevention, detection, analysis, and response efforts. When all four functions operate as a unified process, your organization will be able to proactively combat changes in the threat landscape.
    2. Functional threat intelligence is a prerequisite for effective security operations – without it, security operations will be inefficient and redundant. Eliminate false positives by contextualizing threat data, aligning intelligence with business objectives, and building processes to satisfy those objectives.
    3. If you are not communicating, you are not secure. Collaboration eliminates siloed decisions by connecting people, processes, and technologies. You leave less room for error, consume fewer resources, and improve operational efficiency with a transparent security operations process.

    Impact and Result

    • A unified security operations process actively transforms security events and threat information into actionable intelligence, driving security prevention, detection, analysis, and response processes, addressing the increasing sophistication of cyberthreats, and guiding continuous improvement.
    • This blueprint will walk through the steps of developing a flexible and systematic security operations program relevant to your organization.

    Develop a Security Operations Strategy Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should enhance your security operations program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess your current state

    Assess current prevention, detection, analysis, and response capabilities.

    • Develop a Security Operations Strategy – Phase 1: Assess Operational Requirements
    • Security Operations Preliminary Maturity Assessment Tool

    2. Develop maturity initiatives

    Design your optimized state of operations.

    • Develop a Security Operations Strategy – Phase 2: Develop Maturity Initiatives
    • Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool
    • Concept of Operations Maturity Assessment Tool

    3. Define operational interdependencies

    Identify opportunities for collaboration within your security program.

    • Develop a Security Operations Strategy – Phase 3: Define Operational Interdependencies
    • Security Operations RACI Chart & Program Plan
    • Security Operations Program Cadence Schedule Template
    • Security Operations Collaboration Plan
    • Security Operations Metrics Summary Document
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Develop a Security Operations Strategy

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess Operational Requirements

    The Purpose

    Determine current prevention, detection, analysis, and response capabilities, operational inefficiencies, and opportunities for improvement.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Determine why you need a sound security operations program.

    Understand Info-Tech’s threat collaboration environment.

    Evaluate your current security operation’s functions and capabilities.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand the benefits of refining your security operations program.

    1.2 Gauge your current prevention, detection, analysis, and response capabilities.

    Outputs

    Security Operations Preliminary Maturity Assessment Tool

    2 Develop Maturity Initiatives

    The Purpose

    Begin developing and prioritizing gap initiatives in order to achieve the optimal state of operations.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Establish your goals, obligations, scope, and boundaries.

    Assess your current state and define a target state.

    Develop and prioritize gap initiatives.

    Define the cost, effort, alignment, and security benefits of each initiative.

    Develop a security strategy operational roadmap.

    Activities

    2.1 Assess your current security goals, obligations, and scope.

    2.2 Design your ideal target state.

    2.3 Prioritize gap initiatives.

    Outputs

    Information Security Strategy Requirements Gathering Tool

    Security Operations Maturity Assessment Tool

    3 Define Operational Interdependencies

    The Purpose

    Identify opportunities for collaboration.

    Formalize your operational process flows.

    Develop a comprehensive and actionable measurement program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand the current security operations process flow.

    Define the security operations stakeholders and their respective deliverables.

    Formalize an internal information-sharing and collaboration plan.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify opportunities for collaboration.

    3.2 Formalize a security operations collaboration plan.

    3.3 Define operational roles and responsibilities.

    3.4 Develop a comprehensive measurement program.

    Outputs

    Security Operations RACI & Program Plan Tool

    Security Operations Collaboration Plan

    Security Operations Cadence Schedule Template

    Security Operations Metrics Summary

    Further reading

    INFO-TECH RESEARCH GROUP

    Develop a Security Operations Strategy

    Transition from a security operations center to a threat collaboration environment.

    Info-Tech Research Group, Inc. is a global leader in providing IT research and advice. Info-Tech’s products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns.
    © 1997-2017 Info-Tech Research Group Inc.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    “A reactive security operations program is no longer an option. The increasing sophistication of threats demands a streamlined yet adaptable mitigation and remediation process. Protect your assets by preparing for the inevitable; unify your prevention, detection, analysis, and response efforts and provide assurance to your stakeholders that you are making information security a top priority.”

    Phot of Edward Gray, Consulting Analyst, Security, Risk & Compliance, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Edward Gray,
    Consulting Analyst, Security, Risk & Compliance
    Info-Tech Research Group



    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:
    • Chief Information Officer (CIO)
    • Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
    • Chief Operating Officer (COO)
    • Security / IT Management
    • Security Operations Director / Security Operations Center (SOC)
    • Network Operations Director / Network Operations Center (NOC)
    • Systems Administrator
    • Threat Intelligence Staff
    • Security Operations Staff
    • Security Incident Responders
    • Vulnerability Management Staff
    • Patch Management
    This Research Will Help You:
    • Enhance your security program by implementing and streamlining next-generation security operations processes.
    • Increase organizational situational awareness through active collaboration between core threat teams, enriching internal security events with external threat intelligence and enhancing security controls.
    • Develop a comprehensive threat analysis and dissemination process: align people, process, and technology to scale security to threats.
    • Identify the appropriate technological and infrastructure-based sourcing decisions.
    • Design a step-by-step security operations implementation process.
    • Pursue continuous improvement: build a measurement program that actively evaluates program effectiveness.
    This Research Will Also Assist:
    • Board / Chief Executive Officer
    • Information Owners (Business Directors/VP)
    • Security Governance and Risk Management
    • Fraud Operations
    • Human Resources
    • Legal and Public Relations
    This Research Will Help Them
    • Aid decision making by staying abreast of cyberthreats that could impact the business.
    • Increase visibility into the organization’s threat landscape to identify likely targets or identify exposed vulnerabilities.
    • Ensure the business is compliant with regularity, legal, and/or compliance requirements.
    • Understand the value and return on investment of security operations offerings.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • Current security practices are disjointed, operating independently with a wide variety of processes and tools to conduct incident response, network defense, and threat analysis. These disparate mitigations leave organizations vulnerable to the increasing number of malicious events.
    • Threat management has become resource intensive, requiring continuous monitoring, collection, and analysis of massive volumes of security event data, while juggling business, compliance, and consumer obligations.

    Complication

    • There is an onslaught of security data – generating information in different formats, storing it in different places, and forwarding it to different locations.
    • The organization lacks a dedicated enterprise security team. There is limited resourcing available to begin or mature a security operations center.
    • Many organizations are developing ad hoc security capabilities that result in operational inefficiencies, the misalignment of resources, and the misuse of their security technology investments.
    • It is difficult to communicate the value of a security operations program when trying to secure organizational buy-in to gain the appropriate resourcing.
    • There is limited communication between security functions due to a centralized security operations organizational structure.

    Resolution

    • A unified security operations process actively transforms security events and threat information into actionable intelligence, driving security prevention, detection, analysis, and response processes, addressing the increasing sophistication of cyberthreats, and guiding continuous improvement.
    • This blueprint will walk through the steps of developing a flexible and systematic security operations program relevant to your organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Security operations is no longer a center, but a process. The need for a physical security hub has evolved into the virtual fusion of prevention, detection, analysis, and response efforts. When all four functions operate as a unified process, your organization will be able to proactively combat changes in the threat landscape.
    2. Functional threat intelligence is a prerequisite for effective security operations – without it, security operations will be inefficient and redundant. Eliminate false positives by contextualizing threat data, aligning intelligence with business objectives, and building processes to satisfy those objectives.
    3. If you are not communicating, you are not secure. Collaboration eliminates siloed decisions by connecting people, processes, and technologies. You leave less room for error, consume fewer resources, and improve operational efficiency with a transparent security operations process.

    Data breaches are resulting in major costs across industries

    Horizontal bar chart of 'Per capita cost by industry classification of benchmarked companies', with the highest cost attributed to 'Health', 'Pharmaceutical', 'Financial', 'Energy', and 'Transportation'.

    Average data breach costs per compromised record hit an all-time high of $217 (in 2015); $74 is direct cost (e.g. legal fees, technology investment) and $143 is indirect cost (e.g. abnormal customer churn). (Source: Ponemon Institute, “2015 Cost of Data Breach Study: United States”)

    '% of systems impacted by a data breach', '1% No Impact', '19% 1-10% impacted', '41% 11-30% impacted', '24% 31-50% impacted', '15% more than 50% impacted
    Divider line.
    '% of customers lost from a data breach', '61% Lost <20%', '21% Lost 20-40%', '8% Lost 40-60%', '6% Lost 60-80%', '4% Lost 80-100%'.
    Divider line.
    '% of business opportunity lost from a data breach', '58% Lost <20%', '25% Lost 20-40%', '9% Lost, 40-60%', '5% Lost 60-80%', '4% Lost 80-100%'.
    (Source: The Network, “ Cisco 2017 Security Capabilities Benchmark Study”)

    Persistent issues

    • Organizational barriers separating prevention, detection, analysis, and response efforts.
      Siloed operations limit collaboration and internal knowledge sharing.
    • Lack of knowledgeable security staff.
      Human capital is transferrable between roles and functions and must be cross-trained to wear multiple hats.
    • Failure to evaluate and improve security operations.
      The effectiveness of operations must be frequently measured and (re)assessed through an iterative system of continuous improvement.
    • Lack of standardization.
      Pre-established use cases and policies outlining tier-1 operational efforts will eliminate ad hoc remediation efforts and streamline operations.
    • Failure to acknowledge the auditor as a customer.
      Many compliance and regulatory obligations require organizations to have comprehensive documentation of their security operations practices.

    60% Of organizations say security operation teams have little understanding of each other’s requirements.

    40% Of executives report that poor coordination leads to excessive labor and IT operational costs.

    38-100% Increase in efficiency after closing operational gaps with collaboration.
    (Source: Forbes, “The Game Plan for Closing the SecOps Gap”)

    The solution

    Bar chart of the 'Benefits of Internal Collaboration' with 'Increased Operational Efficiency' and 'Increased Problem Solving' having the highest percentage.

    “Empower a few administrators with the best information to enable fast, automated responses.”
    – Ismael Valenzuela, IR/Forensics Technical Practice Manager, Foundstone® Services, Intel Security)

    Insufficient security personnel resourcing has been identified as the most prevalent challenge in security operations…

    When an emergency security incident strikes, weak collaboration and poor coordination among critical business functions will magnify inefficiencies in the incident response (IR) process, impacting the organization’s ability to minimize damage and downtime.

    The solution: optimize your SOC. Info-Tech has seen SOCs with five analysts outperform SOCs with 25 analysts through tools and process optimization.

    Sources:
    Ponemon. "2016 State of Cybersecurity in Small & Medium-Sized Businesses (SMB).”
    Syngress. Designing and Building a Security Operations Center.

    Maintain a holistic security operations program

    Legacy security operations centers (SOCs) fail to address gaps between data sources, network controls, and human capital. There is limited visibility and collaboration between departments, resulting in siloed decisions that do not support the best interests of the organization.
    Venn diagram of 'Next-Gen Security Operations' with four intersecting circles: 'Prevent', 'Detect', 'Analyze', and 'Respond'.

    Security operations is part of what Info-Tech calls a threat collaboration environment, where members must actively collaborate to address cyberthreats affecting the organization’s brand, business operations, and technology infrastructure on a daily basis.

    Prevent: Defense in depth is the best approach to protect against unknown and unpredictable attacks. Diligent patching and vulnerability management, endpoint protection, and strong human-centric security (amongst other tactics) are essential. Detect: There are two types of companies – those who have been breached and know it and those who have been breached and don’t know it. Ensure that monitoring, logging, and event detection tools are in place and appropriate to your organizational needs
    Analyze: Raw data without interpretation cannot improve security and is a waste of time, money, and effort. Establish a tiered operational process that not only enriches data but also provides visibility into your threat landscape. Respond: Organizations can’t rely on an ad hoc response anymore – don’t wait until a state of panic. Formalize your response processes in a detailed incident runbook in order to reduce incident remediation time and effort.

    Info-Tech’s security operations blueprint ties together various initiatives

    Stock image 1.

    Design and Implement a Vulnerability Management Program

    Vulnerability Management
    Vulnerability management revolves around the identification, prioritization, and remediation of vulnerabilities. Vulnerability management teams hunt to identify which vulnerabilities need patching and remediating.
    Deliverables
    • Vulnerability Tracking Tool
    • Vulnerability Scanning Tool RFP Template
    • Penetration Test RFP Template
    • Vulnerability Mitigation Process Template
    Stock image 2.

    Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations

    Threat Intelligence
    Threat intelligence addresses the collection, analysis, and dissemination of external threat data. Analysts act as liaisons to their peers, publishing actionable threat alerts, reports, and briefings. Threat intelligence proactively monitors and identifies whether threat indicators are impacting your organization.
    • Maturity Assessment Tool
    • Threat Intelligence RACI Tool
    • Management Plan Template
    • Threat Intelligence Policy Template
    • Alert Template
    • Alert and Briefing Cadence Schedule
    Stock image 3.

    Develop Foundational Security Operations Processes

    Operations
    Security operations include the real-time monitoring and analysis of events based on the correlation of internal and external data sources. This also includes incident escalation based on impact. Analysts are constantly tuning and tweaking rules and reporting thresholds to further help identify which indicators are most impactful during the analysis phase of operations.
    • Maturity Assessment Tool
    • Event Prioritization Tool
    • Efficiency Calculator
    • SecOps Policy Template
    • In-House vs. Outsourcing Decision-Making Tool
    • SecOps RACI Tool
    • TCO & ROI Comparison Calculator
    Stock image 4.

    Develop and Implement a Security Incident Management Program

    Incident Response
    Effective and efficient management of incidents involves a formal process of analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, and post-incident activities. IR teams coordinate root-cause analysis and incident gathering while facilitating post-incident lessons learned. Incident response can provide valuable threat data that ties specific indicators to threat actors or campaigns.
    • Incident Management Policy
    • Maturity Assessment Tool
    • Incident Management RACI Tool
    • Incident Management Plan
    • Incident Runbook Prioritization Tool
    • Various Incident Management Runbooks

    This blueprint will…

    …better protect your organization with an interdependent and collaborative security operations program.

    Phase 01

    Assess your operational requirements.

    Phase 02

    Optimize and further mature your security operations processes

    Phase 3a

    Develop the process flow and specific interaction points between functions

    Phase 3b

    Test your current capabilities with a table top exercise
    Briefly assess your current prevention, detection, analysis, and response capabilities.
    Highlight operational weak spots that should be addressed before progressing.
    Develop a prioritized list of security-focused operational initiatives.
    Conduct a holistic analysis of your operational capabilities.
    Define the operational interaction points between security-focused operational departments.
    Document the results in comprehensive operational interaction agreement.
    Test your operational processes with Info-Tech’s security operations table-top exercise.

    Info-Tech integrates several best practices to create a best-of-breed security framework

    Legend for the 'Information Security Framework' identifying blue best practices as 'In Scope' and white best practices as 'Out of Scope'. Info-Tech's 'Information Security Framework' of best practices with two main categories 'Governance' and 'Management', each with subcategories such as 'Context & Leadership' and 'Prevention', each with a group of best practices color-coded to the associated legend identifying them as 'In Scope' or 'Out of Scope'.

    Benefits of a collaborative and integrated operations program

    Effective security operations management will help you do the following:

    • Improve efficacy
      Develop structured processes to automate activities and increase process consistency across the security program. Expose operational weak points and transition teams from firefighting to an innovator role.
    • Improve threat protection
      Enhance network controls through the hardening of perimeter defenses, an intelligence-driven analysis process, and a streamlined incident remediation process.
    • Improve visibility and information sharing
      Promote both internal and external information sharing to enable good decision making.
    • Create and clarify accountability and responsibility
      Security operations management practices will set a clear level of accountability throughout the security program and ensure role responsibility for all tasks and processes involved in service delivery.
    • Control security costs
      Security operations management is concerned with delivering promised services in the most efficient way possible. Good security operations management practices will provide insight into current costs across the organization and present opportunities for cost savings.
    • Identify opportunities for continuous improvement
      Increased visibility into current performance levels and the ability to accurately identify opportunities for continuous improvement.

    Impact

    Short term:

    • Streamlined security operations program development process.
    • Completed comprehensive list of operational gaps and initiatives.
    • Formalized and structured implementation process.
    • Standardized operational use cases that predefine necessary operational protocol.

    Long term:

    • Enhanced visibility into immediate threat environment.
    • Improved effectiveness of internal defensive controls.
    • Increased operational collaboration between prevention, detection, analysis, and response efforts.
    • Enhanced security pressure posture.
    • Improved communication with executives about relevant security risks to the business.

    Understand the cost of not having a suitable security operations program

    A practical approach, justifying the value of security operations, is to identify the assets at risk and calculate the cost to the company should the information assets be compromised (i.e. assess the damage an attacker could do to the business).

    Cost Structure Cost Estimation ($) for SMB
    (Small and medium-sized business)
    Cost Estimation ($) for LE
    (Large enterprise)
    Security controls Technology investment: software, hardware, facility, maintenance, etc.
    Cost of process implementation: incident response, CMBD, problem management, etc.
    Cost of resource: salary, training, recruiting, etc.
    $0-300K/year $200K-2M/year
    Security incidents
    (if no security control is in place)
    Explicit cost:
    1. Incident response cost:
      • Remediation costs
      • Productivity: (number of employees impacted) × (hours out) × (burdened hourly rate)
      • Extra professional services
      • Equipment rental, travel expenses, etc.
      • Compliance fine
      • Cost of notifying clients
    2. Revenue loss: direct loss, the impact of permanent loss of data, lost future revenues
    3. Financial performance: credit rating, stock price
      Hidden cost:
      • Reputation, customer loyalty, etc.
    $15K-650K/year $270K-11M/year

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4 Workshop Day 5
    Activities
    • Kick-off and introductions.
    • High-level overview of weekly activities and outcomes.
    • Activity: Define workshop objectives and current state of knowledge.
    • Understand the threat collaboration environment.
    • Understand the benefits of an optimized security operations.
    • Activity: Review preliminary maturity level.
    • Activity: Assess current people, processes, and technology capabilities.
    • Activity: Assess workflow capabilities.
    • Activity: Begin deep-dive into maturity assessment tool.
    • Discuss strategies to enhance the analysis process (ticketing, automation, visualization, use cases, etc.).
    • Activity: Design ideal target state.
    • Activity: Identify security gaps.
    • Build initiatives to bridge the gaps.
    • Activity: Estimate the resources needed.
    • Activity: Prioritize gap initiatives.
    • Activity: Develop dashboarding and visualization metrics.
    • Activity: Plan for a transition with the security roadmap and action plan.
    • Activity: Define and assign tier 1, 2 & 3 SOC roles and responsibilities.
    • Activity: Assign roles and responsibilities for each security operations initiative.
    • Activity: Develop a comprehensive measurement program.
    • Activity: Develop specific runbooks for your top-priority incidents (e.g. ransomware).
      • Detect the incident.
      • Analyze the incident.
      • Contain the incident.
      • Eradicate the root cause.
      • Recover from the incident.
      • Conduct post-incident analysis and communication.
    • Activity:Conduct attack campaign simulation.
    • Finalize main deliverables.
    • Schedule feedback call.
    Deliverables
    1. Security Operations Maturity Assessment Tool
    1. Target State and Gap Analysis (Security Operations Maturity Assessment Tool)
    1. Security Operations Role & Process Design
    2. Security Operations RACI Chart
    3. Security Operations Metrics Summary
    4. Security Operations Phishing Process Runbook
    5. Attack Campaign Simulation PowerPoint

    All Final Deliverables

    Develop a Security Operations Strategy

    PHASE 1

    Assess Operational Requirements

    1

    Assess Operational Requirements

    2

    Develop Maturity Initiatives

    3

    Define Interdependencies

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Determine why you need a sound security operations program.
    • Understand Info-Tech’s threat collaboration environment.
    • Evaluate your current security operation’s functions and capabilities.

    Outcomes of this step

    • A defined scope and motive for completing this project.
    • Insight into your current security operations capabilities.
    • A prioritized list of security operations initiatives based on maturity level.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Security operations is no longer a center, but a process. The need for a physical security hub has evolved into the virtual fusion of prevention, detection, analysis, and response efforts. When all four functions operate as a unified process, your organization will be able to proactively combat changes in the threat landscape.

    Warm-up exercise: Why build a security operations program?

    Estimated time to completion: 30 minutes

    Discussion: Why are we pursuing this project?

    What are the objectives for optimizing and developing sound security operations?

    Stakeholders Required:

    • Key business executives
    • IT leaders
    • Security operations team members

    Resources Required

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Dry-erase markers
    1. Briefly define the scope of security operations
      What people, processes, and technology fall within the security operations umbrella?
    2. Brainstorm the implications of not acting
      What does the status quo have in store? What are the potential risks?
    3. Define the goals of the project
      Clarify from the outset: what exactly do you want to accomplish from this project?
    4. Prioritize all brainstormed goals
      Classify the goals based on relevant prioritization criteria, e.g. urgency, impact, cost.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Don’t develop a security operations program with the objective of zero incidents. This reliance on prevention results in over-engineered security solutions that cost more than the assets being protected.

    Decentralizing the SOC: Security as a function

    Before you begin, remember that no two security operation programs are the same. While the end goal may be similar, the threat landscape, risk tolerance, and organizational requirements will differ from any other SOC. Determine what your DNA looks like before you begin to protect it.

    Security operations must provide several fundamental functions:
    • Real-time monitoring, detecting, and triaging of data from both internal and external sources.
    • In-depth analysis of indicators and incidents, leveraging malware analysis, correlation and rule tweaking, and forensics and eDiscovery techniques.
    • Network/host scanning and vulnerability patch management.
    • Incident response, remediation, and reporting. Security operations must disseminate appropriate information/intelligence to relevant stakeholders.
    • Comprehensive logging and ticketing capabilities that document and communicate events throughout the threat collaboration environment.
    • Tuning and tweaking of technologies to ingest collected data and enhance the analysis process.
    • Enhance overall organizational situational awareness by reporting on security trends, escalating incidents, and sharing adversary tools, tactics, and procedures.
    Venn diagram of 'Security Operations' with four intersecting circles: 'Prevent', 'Detect', 'Analyze', and 'Respond'.
    At its core, a security operations program is responsible for the prevention, detection, analysis, and response of security events.

    Optimized security operations can seamlessly integrate threat and incident management processes with monitoring and compliance workflows and resources. This integration unlocks efficiency.

    Understand the levels of security operations

    Take the time to map out what you need and where you should go. Security operations has to be more than just monitoring events – there must be a structured program.

    Foundational Arrow with a plus sign pointing right. Operational Arrow with a plus sign pointing right. Strategic
    • Intrusion Detection Management
    • Active Device and Event Monitoring
    • Log Collection and Retention
    • Reporting and Escalation Management
    • Incident Management
    • Audit Compliance
    • Vendor Management
    • Ticketing Processes
    • Packet Capture and Analysis
    • SIEM
    • Firewall
    • Antivirus
    • Patch Management
    • Event Analysis and Incident Triage
    • Security Log Management
    • Vulnerability Management
    • Host Hardening
    • Static Malware Analysis
    • Identity and Access Management
    • Change Management
    • Endpoint Management
    • Business Continuity Management
    • Encryption Management
    • Cloud Security (if applicable)
    • SIEM with Defined Use Cases
    • Big Data Security Analytics
    • Threat Intelligence
    • Network Flow Analysis
    • VPN Anomaly Detection
    • Dynamic Malware Analysis
    • Use-Case Management
    • Feedback and Continuous Improvement Management
    • Visualization and Dashboarding
    • Knowledge Portal Ticket Documentation
    • Advanced Threat Hunting
    • Control and Process Automation
    • eDiscovery and Forensics
    • Risk Management
    ——Security Operations Capabilities—–›

    Understand security operations: Establish a unified threat collaboration environment

    Stock image 1.

    Design and Implement a Vulnerability Management Program

    Security operations is part of what Info-Tech calls a threat collaboration environment, where members must actively collaborate to address threats impacting the organization’s brand, operations, and technology infrastructure.
    • Managing incident escalation and response.
    • Coordinating root-cause analysis and incident gathering.
    • Facilitating post-incident lessons learned.
    • Managing system patching and risk acceptance.
    • Conducting vulnerability assessment and penetration testing.
    • Monitoring in real-time and triaging of events.
    • Escalating events to incident management team.
    • Tuning and tweaking rules and reporting thresholds.
    • Gathering and analyzing external threat data.
    • Liaising with peers, industry, and government.
    • Publishing threat alerts, reports, and briefings.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Ensure that information flows freely throughout the threat collaboration environment – each function should serve to feed and enhance the next.

    Stock image 2.

    Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations

    Stock image 3.

    Develop Foundational Security Operations Processes

    Stock image 4.

    Develop and Implement a Security Incident Management Program

    The threat collaboration environment is comprised of three core elements

    Info-Tech Insight

    The value of a SOC can be achieved with fewer prerequisites than you think. While it is difficult to cut back on process and technology requirements, human capital is transferrable between roles and functions and can be cross-trained to satisfy operational gaps.

    Three hexes fitting together with the words 'People', 'Process', and 'Technology'. People. Effective human capital is fundamental to establishing an efficient security operations program, and if enabled correctly, can be the driving factor behind successful process optimization. Ensure you address several critical human capital components:
    • Who is responsible for each respective threat collaboration environment function?
    • What are the required operational roles, responsibilities, and competencies for each employee?
    • Are there formalized training procedures to onboard new employees?
    • Is there an established knowledge transfer and management program?
    Processes. Formal and informal mechanisms that bridge security throughout the collaboration environment and organization at large. Ask yourself:
    • Are there defined runbooks that clearly outline critical operational procedures and guidelines?
    • Is there a defined escalation protocol to transfer knowledge and share threats internally?
    • Is there a defined reporting procedure to share intelligence externally?
    • Are there formal and accessible policies for each respective security operations function?
    • Is there a defined measurement program to report on the performance of security operations?
    • Is there a continuous improvement program in place for all security operations functions?
    • Is there a defined operational vendor management program?
    Technology. The composition of all infrastructure, systems, controls, and tools that enable processes and people to operate and collaborate more efficiently. Determine:
    • Are the appropriate controls implemented to effectively prevent, detect, analyze, and remediate threats? Is each control documented with an assigned asset owner?
    • Can a solution integrate with existing controls? If so, to what extent?
    • Is there a centralized log aggregation tool such as a SIEM?
    • What is the operational cost to effectively manage each control?
    • Is the control the most up-to-date version? Have the most recent patches and configuration changes been applied? Can it be consolidated with or replaced by another control?

    Conduct a preliminary maturity assessment before tackling this project

    Stock image 1.

    Design and Implement a Vulnerability Management Program

    Sample of Info-Tech's Security Operations Preliminary Maturity Assessment

    At a high level, assess your organization’s operational maturity in each of the threat collaboration environment functions. Determine whether the foundational processes exist in order to mature and streamline your security operations.

    Stock image 2.

    Integrate Threat Intelligence Into Your Security Operations

    Stock image 3.

    Develop Foundational Security Operations Processes

    Stock image 4.

    Develop and Implement a Security Incident Management Program

    Assess the current maturity of your security operations program

    Prioritize the component most important to the development of your security operations program.

    Screenshot of a table from the Security Operations Preliminary Maturity Assessment presenting the 'Impact Sub-Weightings' of 'People', 'Process', 'Technology', and 'Policy'.
    Screenshot of a table from the Security Operations Preliminary Maturity Assessment assessing the 'Current State' and 'Target State' of different 'Security Capabilities'.
    Each “security capability” covers a component of the overarching “security function.” Assign a current and target maturity score to each respective security capability. (Note: The CMMI maturity scores are further explained on the following slide.) Document any/all comments for future Info-Tech analyst discussions.

    Assign each security capability a reflective and desired maturity score.

    Your current and target state maturity will be determined using the capability maturity model integration (CMMI) scale. Ensure that all participants understand the 1-5 scale.
    Two-way vertical arrow colored blue at the top and green at the bottom. Ad Hoc
    1 Arrow pointing right. Initial/Ad Hoc: Activity is not well defined and is ad hoc, e.g. no formal roles or responsibilities exist, de facto standards are followed on an individual-by-individual basis.
    2 Arrow pointing right. Developing: Activity is established and there is moderate adherence to its execution, e.g. while no formal policies have been documented, content management is occurring implicitly or on an individual-by-individual basis.
    3 Arrow pointing right. Defined: Activity is formally established, documented, repeatable, and integrated with other phases of the process, e.g. roles and responsibilities have been defined and documented in an accessible policy, however, metrics are not actively monitored and managed.
    4 Arrow pointing right. Managed and Measurable: Activity execution is tracked by gathering qualitative and quantitative feedback, e.g. metrics have been established to monitor the effectiveness of tier-1 SOC analysts.
    5 Arrow pointing right. Optimized: Qualitative and quantitative feedback is used to continually improve the execution of the activity, e.g. the organization is an industry leader in the respective field; research and development efforts are allocated in order to continuously explore more efficient methods of accomplishing the task at hand.
    Optimized

    Notes: Info-Tech seldom sees a client achieve a CMMI score of 4 or 5. To achieve a state of optimization there must be a subsequent trade-off elsewhere. As such, we recommend that organizations strive for a CMMI score of 3 or 4.

    Ensure that your threat collaboration environment is of a sufficient maturity before progressing

    Example report card from the maturity assessment. Functions are color-coded green, yellow, and red. Review the report cards for each of the respective threat collaboration environment functions.
    • A green function indicates that you have exceeded the operational requirements to proceed with the security operations initiative.
    • A yellow function indicates that your maturity score is below the recommended threshold; Info-Tech advises revisiting the attached blueprint. In the instance of a one-off case, the client can proceed with this security operations initiative.
    • A red function indicates that your maturity score is well below the recommended threshold; Info-Tech strongly advises to not proceed with the security operations initiative. Revisit the recommended blueprint and further mature the specific function.

    Are you ready to move on to the next phase?

    Self-Assessment Questions

    • Have you clearly defined the rationale for refining your security operations program?
    • Have you clearly defined and prioritized the goals and outcomes of optimizing your security operations program?
    • Have you assessed your respective people, process, and technological capabilities?
    • Have you completed the Security Operations Preliminary Maturity Assessment Tool?
    • Were all threat collaboration environment functions of a sufficient maturity level?

    If you answered “yes” to the questions, then you are ready to move on to Phase 2: Develop Maturity Initiatives

    Develop a Security Operations Strategy

    PHASE 2

    Develop Maturity Initiatives

    1

    Assess Operational Requirements

    2

    Develop Maturity Initiatives

    3

    Define Interdependencies

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Establish your goals, obligations, scope, and boundaries.
    • Assess your current state and define a target state.
    • Develop and prioritize gap initiatives.
    • Define cost, effort, alignment, and security benefit of each initiative.
    • Develop a security strategy operational roadmap.

    Outcomes of this step

    • A formalized understanding of your business, customer, and regulatory obligations.
    • A comprehensive current and target state assessment.
    • A succinct and consolidated list of gap initiatives that will collectively achieve your target state.
    • A formally documented set of estimated priority variables (cost, effort, business alignment).
    • A fully prioritized security roadmap that is in alignment with business goals and informed by the organization’s needs and limitations.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Functional threat intelligence is a prerequisite for effective security operations – without it, security operations will be inefficient and redundant. Eliminate false positives by contextualizing threat data, aligning intelligence with business objectives, and building processes to satisfy those objectives

    Align your security operations program with corporate goals and obligations

    A common challenge for security leaders is learning to express their initiatives in terms that are meaningful to business executives.

    Frame the importance of your security operations program to
    align with that of the decision makers’ over-arching strategy.

    Oftentimes resourcing and funding is dependent on the
    alignment of security initiatives to business objectives.

    Corporate goals and objectives can be categorized into three major buckets:
    1. BUSINESS OBLIGATIONS
      The primary goals and functions of the organization at large. Examples include customer retention, growth, innovation, customer experience, etc.
    2. CONSUMER OBLIGATIONS
      The needs and demands of internal and external stakeholders. Examples include ease of use (external), data protection (external), offsite access (internal), etc.
    3. COMPLIANCE OBLIGATIONS
      The requirements of the organization to comply with mandatory and/or voluntary standards. Examples include HIPAA, PIPEDA, ISO 27001, etc.
    *Do not approach the above list with a security mindset – take a business perspective and align your security efforts accordingly.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Developing a security operations strategy is a proactive activity that enables you to get in front of any upcoming business projects or industry trends rather than having to respond reactively later on. Consider as many foreseeable variables as possible!

    Determine your security operations program scope and boundaries

    It is important to define all security-related areas of responsibility. Upon completion you should clearly understand what you are trying to secure.

    Ask yourself:
    Where does the onus of responsibility stop?

    The organizational scope and boundaries and can be categorized into four major buckets:
    1. PHYSICAL SCOPE
      The physical locations that the security operations program is responsible for. Examples include office locations, remote access, clients/vendors, etc.
    2. IT SYSTEMS
      The network systems that must be protected by the security operations program. Examples include fully owned systems, IaaS, PaaS, remotely hosted SaaS, etc.
    3. ORGANIZATIONAL SCOPE
      The business units, departments, or divisions that will be affected by the security operations program. Examples include user groups, departments, subsidiaries, etc.
    4. DATA SCOPE
      The data types that the business handles and the privacy/criticality level of each. Examples include top secret, confidential, private, public, etc.

    This also includes what is not within scope. For some outsourced services or locations you may not be responsible for security. For some business departments you may not have control of security processes. Ensure that it is made explicit at the outset, what will be included and what will be excluded from security considerations.

    Reference Info-Tech’s security strategy: goals, obligations, and scope activities

    Explicitly understanding how security aligns with the core business mission is critical for having a strategic plan and fulfilling the role of business enabler.

    Download and complete the information security goals, obligations and scope activities (Section 1.3) within the Info-Tech security strategy research publication. If previously completed, take the time to review your results.

    GOALS and OBLIGATIONS
    Proceed through each slide and brainstorm the ways that security operations supports business, customer, and compliance needs.

    Goals & Obligations
    Screenshots of slides from the information security goals, obligations and scope activities (Section 1.3) within the Info-Tech security strategy research publication.

    PROGRAM SCOPE & BOUNDARIES
    Assess your current organizational environment. Document current IT systems, critical data, physical environments, and departmental divisions.

    If a well-defined corporate strategy does not exist, these questions can help pinpoint objectives:

    • What is the message being delivered by the CEO?
    • What are the main themes of investments and projects?
    • What are the senior leaders measured on?
    Program Scope & Boundaries
    Screenshots of slides from the information security goals, obligations and scope activities (Section 1.3) within the Info-Tech security strategy research publication.

    INFO-TECH OPPORTUNITY

    For more information on how to complete the goals & obligations activity please reference Section 1.3 of Info-Tech’s Build an Information Security Strategy blueprint.

    Complete the Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool

    On tab 1. Goals and Obligations:
    • Document all business, customer, and compliance obligations. Ensure that each item is reflective of the over-arching business strategy and is not security focused.
    • In the second column, identify the corresponding security initiative that supports the obligation.
    Screenshot from tab 1 of Info-Tech's Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool. Columns are 'Business obligations', 'Security obligations to support the business (optional)', and 'Notes'.
    On tab 2. Scope and Boundaries:
    • Record all details for what is in and out of scope from physical, IT, organizational, and data perspectives.
    • Complete the affiliated columns for a comprehensive scope assessment.
    • As a discussion guide, refer to the considerations slides prior to this in phase 1.3.
    Screenshot from tab 2 of Info-Tech's Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool. Title is 'Physical Scope', Columns are 'Environment Name', 'Highest data criticality here', 'Is this in scope of the security strategy?', 'Are we accountable for security here?', and 'Notes'.
    For the purpose of this security operations initiative please IGNORE the risk tolerance activities on tab 3.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    A common challenge for security leaders is expressing their initiatives in terms that are meaningful to business executives. This exercise helps make explicit the link between what the business cares about and what security is trying to do.

    Conduct a comprehensive security operations maturity assessment

    The following slides will walk you through the process below.

    Define your current and target state

    Self-assess your current security operations capabilities and determine your intended state.

    Create your gap initiatives

    Determine the operational processes that must be completed in order to achieve the target state.

    Prioritize your initiatives

    Define your prioritization criteria (cost, effort, alignment, security benefit) based on your organization

    Build a Gantt chart for your upcoming initiatives
    The final output will be a Gantt to action your prioritized initiatives

    Info-Tech Insight

    Progressive improvements provide the most value to IT and your organization. Leaping from pre-foundation to complete optimization is an ineffective goal. Systematic improvements to your security performance delivers value to your organization, each step along the way.

    Optimize your security operations workflow

    Info-Tech consulted various industry experts and consolidated their optimization advice.

    Dashboards: Centralized visibility, threat analytics, and orchestration enable faster threat detection with fewer resources.

    Adding more controls to a network never increases resiliency. Identify technological overlaps and eliminate unnecessary costs.

    Automation: There is shortfall in human capital in contrast to the required tools and processes. Automate the more trivial processes.

    SOCs with 900 employees are just as efficient as those with 35-40. There is an evident tipping point in marginal value.

    There are no plug-and-play technological solutions – each is accompanied by a growing pain and an affiliated human capital cost.

    Planning: Narrow the scope of operations to focus on protecting assets of value.

    Cross-train employees throughout different silos. Enable them to wear multiple hats.

    Practice: None of the processes happen in a vacuum. Make the most of tabletop exercises and other training exercises.

    Define appropriate use cases and explicitly state threat escalation protocol. Focus on automating the tier-1 analyst role.

    Self-assess your current-state capabilities and determine the appropriate target state

    1. Review:
    The heading in blue is the security domain, light blue is the subdomain and white is the specific control.
    2. Determine and Record:
    Ask participants to identify your organization’s current maturity level for each control. Next, determine a target maturity level that meets the requirements of the area (requirements should reflect the goals and obligations defined earlier).
    3.
    In small groups, have participants answer “what is required to achieve the target state?” Not all current/target state gaps will require additional description, explanation, or an associated imitative. You can generate one initiative that may apply to multiple line items.

    Screenshot of a table for assessing the current and target states of capabilities.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    When customizing your gap initiatives consider your organizational requirements and scope while remaining realistic. Below is an example of lofty vs. realistic initiatives:
    Lofty: Perform thorough, manual security analysis. Realistic: Leverage our SIEM platform to perform more automated security analysis through the use of log information.

    Consolidate related gap initiatives to simplify and streamline your roadmap

    Identify areas of commonality between gap initiative in order to effectively and efficiently implement your new initiatives.

    Steps:
    1. After reviewing and documenting initiatives for each security control, begin sorting controls by commonality, where resources can be shared, or similar end goals and actions. Begin by copying all initiatives from tab 2. Current State Assessment into tab 5. Initiative List of the Security Operations Maturity Assessment Tool and then consolidating them.
    2. Initiatives Consolidated Initiatives
      Document data classification and handling in AUP —› Document data classification and handling in AUP Keep urgent or exceptional initiatives separate so they can be addressed appropriately.
      Document removable media in AUP —› Define and document an Acceptable Use Policy Other similar or related initiatives can be consolidated into one item.
      Document BYOD and mobile devices in AUP —›
      Document company assets in Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) —›

    3. Review grouped initiatives and identify specific initiatives should be broken out and defined separately.
    4. Record your consolidated gap initiatives in the Security Operations Maturity Assessment Tool, tab 6. Initiative Prioritization.

    Understand your organizational maturity gap

    After inputting your current and target scores and defining your gap initiatives in tab 2, review tab 3. Current Maturity and tab 4. Maturity Gap in Info-Tech’s Security Operations Maturity Assessment Tool.

    Automatically built charts and tables provide a clear visualization of your current maturity.

    Presenting these figures to stakeholders and management can help visually draw attention to high-priority areas and contextualize the gap initiatives for which you will be seeking support.

    Screenshot of tabs 3 and 4 from Info-Tech's Security Operations Maturity Assessment Tool. Bar charts titled 'Planning and Direction', 'Vulnerability Management', 'Threat Intelligence', and 'Security Maturity Level Gap Analysis'.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Communicate the value of future security projects to stakeholders by copying relevant charts and tables into an executive stakeholder communication presentation (ask an Info-Tech representative for further information).

    Define cost, effort, alignment, and security benefit

    Define low, medium, and high resource allocation, and other variables for your gap initiatives in the Concept of Operations Maturity Assessment Tool. These variables include:
    1. Define initial cost. One-time, upfront capital investments. The low cut-off would be a project that can be approved with little to no oversight. Whereas the high cut-off would be a project that requires a major approval or a formal capital investment request. Initial cost covers items such as appliance cost, installation, project based consulting fees, etc.
    2. Define ongoing cost. This includes any annually recurring operating expenses that are new budgetary costs, e.g. licensing or rental costs. Do not account for FTE employee costs. Generally speaking you can take 20-25% of initial cost as ongoing cost for maintenance and service.
    3. Define initial staffing in hours. This is total time in hours required to complete a project. Note: It is not total elapsed time, but dedicated time. Consider time required to research, document, implement, review, set up, fine tune, etc. Consider all staff hours required (2 staff at 8 hours means 16 hours total).
    4. Define ongoing staffing in hours. This is the ongoing average hours per week required to support that initiative. This covers all operations, maintenance, review, and support for the initiative. Some initiatives will have a week time commitment (e.g. perform a vulnerability scan using our tool once a week) versus others that may have monthly, quarterly, or annual time commitments that need to averaged out per week (e.g. perform annual security review requiring 0.4 hours/week (20 hours total based on 50 working weeks per year).
    Table relating the four definitions on the left, 'Initial Cost', 'Ongoing Cost (annual)', 'Initial Staffing in Hours', and 'Ongoing Staffing in Hours/Week'. Each row header is a definition and has four sub-rows 'High', 'Medium', 'Low', and 'Zero'.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    When considering these parameters, aim to use already existing resource allocations.

    For example, if there is a dollar value that would require you to seek approval for an expense, this might be the difference between a medium and a high cost category.

    Define cost, effort, alignment, and security benefit

    1. Define Alignment with Business. This variable is meant to capture how well the gap initiative aligns with organizational goals and objectives. For example, something with high alignment usually can be tied to a specific organization initiative and will receive senior management support. You can either:
      • Set low, medium, and high based on levels of support the organization will provide (e.g. High – senior management support, Medium – VP/business unit head support, IT support only)
      • Attribute specific corporate goals or initiatives to the gap initiative (e.g. High – directly supports a customer requirement/key contract requirement; Medium – indirectly support customer requirement/key contract OR enables remote workforce; Low – security best practice).
    2. Define Security Benefit. This variable is meant to capture the relative security benefit or risk reduction being provided by the gap initiative. This can be represented through a variety of factors, such as:
      • Reduces compliance or regulatory risk by meeting a control requirement
      • Reduces availability and operational risk
      • Implements a non-existent control
      • Secures high-criticality data
      • Secures at-risk end users
    Table relating the two definitions on the left, 'Alignment with Business', and 'Security Benefit'. Each row header is a definition and has three sub-rows 'High', 'Medium', and 'Low'.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Make sure you consider the value of AND/OR. For either alignment with business or security benefit, the use of AND/OR can become useful thresholds to rank similar importance but different value initiatives.

    Example: with alignment with business, an initiative can indirectly support a key compliance requirement OR meet a key corporate goal.

    Info-Tech Insight

    You cannot do everything – and you probably wouldn’t want to. Make educated decisions about which projects are most important and why.

    Apply your variable criteria to your initiatives

    Identify easy-win tasks and high-value projects worth fighting for.
    Categorize the Initiative
    Select the gap initiative type from the down list. Each category (Must, Should, Could, and Won’t) is considered to be an “execution wave.” There is also a specific order of operations within each wave. Based on dependencies and order of importance, you will execute on some “must-do” items before others.
    Assign Criteria
    For each gap initiative, evaluate it based on your previously defined parameters for each variable.
    • Cost – initial and ongoing
    • Staffing – initial and ongoing
    • Alignment with business
    • Security benefit
    Overall Cost/Effort Rating
    An automatically generated score between 0 and 12. The higher the score attached to the initiative, the more effort required. The must-do, low-scoring items are quick wins and must be prioritized first.
    Screenshot of a table from Info-Tech's Concept of Operations Maturity Assessment Tool with all of the previous table row headers as column headers.

    A financial services organization defined its target security state and created an execution plan

    CASE STUDY
    Industry: Financial Services | Source: Info-Tech Research Group
    Framework Components
    Security Domains & Accompanied Initiatives
    (A portion of completed domains and initiatives)
    CSC began by creating over 100 gap initiatives across Info-Tech’s seven security domains.
    Current-State Assessment Context & Leadership Compliance, Audit & Review Security Prevention
    Gap Initiatives Created 12
    Initiatives
    14
    Initiatives
    45
    Initiatives
    Gap Initiative Prioritization
    Planned Initiative(s)* Initial Cost Ongoing Cost Initial Staffing Ongoing Staffing
    Document Charter Low - ‹$5K Low - ‹$1K Low - ‹1d Low - ‹2 Hour
    Document RACI Low - ‹$5K Low - ‹$1K Low - ‹1d Low - ‹2 Hour
    Expand IR processes Medium - $5K-$50K Low - ‹$1K High - ›2w Low - ‹2 Hour
    Investigate Threat Intel Low - ‹$5K Low - ‹$1K Medium - 1-10d Low - ‹2 Hour
    CSC’s defined low, medium, and high for cost and staffing are specific to the organization.

    CSC then consolidated its initiatives to create less than 60 concise tasks.

    *Initiatives and variables have been changed or modified to maintain anonymity

    Review your prioritized security roadmap

    Review the final Gantt chart to review the expected start and end dates for your security initiatives as part of your roadmap.

    In the Gantt chart, go through each wave in sequence and determine the planned start date and planned duration for each gap initiative. As you populate the planned start dates, take into consideration the resource constraints or dependencies for each project. Go back and revise the granular execution wave to resolve any conflicts you find.

    Screenshot of a 'Gantt Chart for Initiatives', a table with planned and actual start times and durations for each initiative, and beside it a roadmap with the dates from the Gantt chart plugged in.
    Review considerations
    • Does this roadmap make sense for our organization?
    • Do we focus too much on one quarter over others?
    • Will the business be going through any significant changes during the upcoming years that will directly impact this project?
    This is a living management document
    • You can use the same process on a per-case basis to decide where this new project falls in the priority list, and then add it to your Gantt chart.
    • As you make progress, check items off of the list, and periodically use this chart to retroactively update your progress towards achieving your overall target state.

    Consult an Info-Tech Analyst

    To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If a Guided Implementation isn’t enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to successfully complete your project.
    Photo of TJ Minichillo, Senior Director – Security, Risk & Compliance, Info-Tech Research Group. TJ Minichillo
    Senior Director – Security, Risk & Compliance
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Edward Gray, Consulting Analyst – Security, Risk & Compliance, Info-Tech Research Group. Edward Gray
    Consulting Analyst – Security, Risk & Compliance
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Photo of Celine Gravelines, Research Manager – Security, Risk & Compliance, Info-Tech Research Group. Celine Gravelines
    Research Manager – Security, Risk & Compliance
    Info-Tech Research Group
    If you are not communicating, then you are not secure.

    Call 1-888-670-8889 or email workshops@infotech.com for more information.

    Are you ready to move on to the next phase?

    Self-Assessment Questions

    • Have you identified your organization’s corporate goals along with your obligations?
    • Have you defined the scope and boundaries of your security program?
    • Have you determined your organization’s risk tolerance level?
    • Have you considered threat types your organization may face?
    • Are the above answers documented in the Security Requirements Gathering Tool?
    • Have you defined your maturity for both your current and target state?
    • Do you have clearly defined initiatives that would bridge the gap between your current and target state?
    • Are each of the initiatives independent, specific, and relevant to the associated control?
    • Have you indicated any dependencies between your initiatives?
    • Have you consolidated your gap initiatives?
    • Have you defined the parameters for each of the prioritization variables (cost, effort, alignment, and security benefit)?
    • Have you applied prioritization parameters to each consolidated initiative?
    • Have you recorded your final prioritized roadmap in the Gantt chart tab?
    • Have you reviewed your final Gantt chart to ensure it aligns to your security requirements?

    If you answered “yes” to the questions, then you are ready to move on to Phase 3: Define Operational Interdependencies

    Develop a Security Operations Strategy

    PHASE 3

    Define Operational Interdependencies

    1

    Assess Operational Requirements

    2

    Develop Maturity Initiatives

    3

    Define Interdependencies

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand the current security operations process flow.
    • Define the security operations stakeholders and their respective deliverables.
    • Formalize an internal information sharing and collaboration plan.

    Outcomes of this step

    • A formalized security operations interaction agreement.
    • A security operations service and product catalog.
    • A structured operations collection plan.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If you are not communicating, you are not secure. Collaboration eliminates siloed decisions by connecting people, processes, and technologies. You leave less room for error, consume fewer resources, and improve operational efficiency with a transparent security operations process.

    Tie everything together with collaboration

    If you are not communicating, you are not secure. Collaboration eliminates siloed decisions by connecting people, processes, and technologies. You leave less room for error, consume fewer resources, and improve operational efficiency with a transparent security operations process.

    Define Strategic Needs and Requirements Participate in Information Sharing Communicate Clearly
    • Establish a channel to communicate management needs and requirements and define important workflow activities. Focus on operationalizing those components.
    • Establish a feedback loop to ensure your actions satisfied management’s criteria.
    • Consolidate critical security data within a centralized portal that is accessible throughout the threat collaboration environment, reducing the human capital resources required to manage that data.
    • Participate in external information sharing groups such as ISACs. Intelligence collaboration allows organizations to band together to decrease risk and protect one another from threat actors.
    • Disseminate relevant information in clear and succinct alerts, reports, or briefings.
    • Security operations analysts must be able to translate important technical security issues and provide in-depth strategic insights.
    • Define your audience before presenting information; various stakeholders will interpret information differently. You must present it in a format that appeals to their interests.
    • Be transparent in your communications. Holding back information will only serve to alienate groups and hinder critical business decisions.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Simple collaborative activities, such as a biweekly meeting, can unite prevention, detection, analysis, and response teams to help prevent siloed decision making.

    Understand the security operations process flow

    Process standardization and automation is critical to the effectiveness of security operations.

    Process flow for security operations with column headers 'Monitoring', 'Preliminary Analysis (Tier 1)', 'Triage', 'Investigation & Analysis (Tier 2)', 'Response', and 'Advanced Threat Detection (Tier 3)'. All processes begin with elements in the 'Monitoring' column and end up at 'Visualization & Dashboarding'.

    Document your security operations’ capabilities and tasks

    Table of capabilities and tasks for security operations.
    Document your security operations’ functional capabilities and operational tasks to satisfy each capability. What resources will you leverage to complete the specific task/capability? Identify your internal and external collection sources to satisfy the individual requirement. Identify the affiliated product, service, or output generated from the task/capability. Determine your escalation protocol. Who are the stakeholders you will be sharing this information with?
    Capabilities

    The major responsibilities of a specific function. These are the high-level processes that are expected to be completed by the affiliated employees and/or stakeholders.

    Tasks

    The specific and granular tasks that need to be completed in order to satisfy a portion of or the entire capability.

    Download Info-Tech’s Security Operations RACI Chart & Program Plan.

    Convert your results into actionable process flowcharts

    Map each functional task or capability into a visual process-flow diagram.

    • The title should reflect the respective capability and product output.
    • List all involved stakeholders (inputs and threat escalation protocol) along the left side.
    • Ensure all relevant security control inputs are documented within the body of the process-flow diagram.
    • Map out the respective processes in order to achieve the desired outcome.
    • Segment each process within its own icon and tie that back to the respective input.
    Example of a process flow made with sticky notes.

    Title: Output #1 Example of a process flow diagram with columns 'Stakeholders', 'Input Processes', 'Output Processes', and 'Threat Escalation Protocol'. Processes are mapped by which stakeholder and column they fall to.

    Download Info-Tech’s Security Operations RACI Chart & Program Plan.

    Formalize the opportunities for collaboration within your security operations program

    Security Operations Collaboration Plan

    Security operations provides a single pane of glass through which the threat collaboration environment can manage its operations.

    How to customize

    The security operations interaction agreement identifies opportunities for optimization through collaboration and cross-training. The document is composed of several components:

    • Security operations program scope and objectives
    • Operational capabilities and outputs on a per function basis
    • A needs and requirements collection plan
    • Escalation protocol and respective information-sharing guidance (i.e. a detailed cadence schedule)
    • A security operations RACI chart
    Sample of Info-Tech's Security Operations Collaboration Plan.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Understand the operational cut-off points. While collaboration is encouraged, understand when the onus shifts to the rest of the threat collaboration environment.

    Assign responsibilities for the threat management process

    Security Operations RACI Chart & Program Plan

    Formally documenting roles and responsibilities helps to hold those accountable and creates awareness as to everyone’s involvement in various tasks.

    How to customize
    • Customize the header fields with applicable stakeholders.
    • Identify stakeholders that are:
      • Responsible: The person(s) who does the work to accomplish the activity; they have been tasked with completing the activity and/or getting a decision made.
      • Accountable: The person(s) who is accountable for the completion of the activity. Ideally, this is a single person and is often an executive or program sponsor.
      • Consulted: The person(s) who provides information. This is usually several people, typically called subject matter experts (SMEs).
      • Informed: The person(s) who is updated on progress. These are resources that are affected by the outcome of the activities and need to be kept up to date.
    Sample of Info-Tech's Security Operations Collaboration Plan.

    Download Info-Tech’s Security Operations RACI Chart & Program Plan.

    Identify security operations consumers and their respective needs and requirements

    Ensure your security operations program is constantly working toward satisfying a consumer need or requirement.

    Internal Consumers External Consumers
    • Business Executives & Management (CIO, CISO, COO):
      • Inform business decisions regarding threats and their association with future financial risk, reputational risk, and continuity of operations.
    • Human Resources:
      • Security operations must directly work with HR to enforce tight device controls, develop processes, and set expectations.
    • Legal:
      • Security operations is responsible to notify the legal department of data breaches and the appropriate course of action.
    • Audit and Compliance:
      • Work with the auditing department to define additional audits or controls that must be measured.
    • Public Relations/Marketing Employees:
      • Employees must be educated on prevalent threats and how to avoid or mitigate them.

    Note: Your organization might not be the final target, but it could be a primary path for attackers. If you exist as a third-party partner to another organization, your responsibility in your technology ecosystem extends beyond your own product or service offerings.

    • Third-Party Contractors:
      • Identify relevant threats across industries – security operations is responsible for protecting more than just itself.
    • Commercial Vendors:
      • Identify commercial vendors of control failures and opportunities for operational improvement.
    • Suppliers:
      • Provide or maintain a certain level of security delivery.
      • Meet the same level of security that is expected of business units.
    • All End Users:
      • Be notified of any data breaches and potential violations of privacy.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    “In order to support a healthy constituency, network operations and security operations should be viewed as equal partners, rather than one subordinate to the other.” (Mitre world-class CISO)

    Define the stakeholders, their respective outputs, and the underlying need

    Security Operations Program Service & Product Catalog

    Create an informal security operations program service and product catalog. Work your way backwards – map each deliverable to the respective stakeholders and functions.

    Action/Output Arrow pointing right. Frequency Arrow pointing right. Stakeholders/Function
    Document the key services and outputs produced by the security operations program. For example:
    • Real-time monitoring
    • Event analysis and incident coordination
    • Malware analysis
    • External information sharing
    • Published alerts, reports, and briefings
    • Metrics
    Define the frequency for which each deliverable or service is produced or conducted. Leverage this activity to establish a state of accountability within your threat collaboration environment. Identify the stakeholders or groups affiliated with each output. Remember to include potential MSSPs.
    • Vulnerability Management
    • Threat Intelligence
    • Tier 1, 2, and 3 Analysts
    • Incident Response
    • MSSP
    • Network Operations
    Remember to include any target-state outputs or services identified in the maturity assessment. Use this exercise as an opportunity to organize your security operations outputs and services.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Develop a central web/knowledge portal that is easily accessible throughout the threat collaboration environment.

    Internal information sharing helps to focus operational efforts

    Organizations must share information internally and through secure external information sharing and analysis centers (ISACs).

    Ensure information is shared in a format that relates to the particular end user. Internal consumers fall into two categories:

    • Strategic Users — Intelligence enables strategic stakeholders to better understand security trends, minimize risk, and make more educated and informed decisions. The strategic intelligence user often lacks technical security knowledge; bridge the communication gap between security and non-technical decision makers by clearly communicating the underlying value and benefits.
    • Operational Users — Operational users integrate information and indicators directly into their daily operations and as a result have more in-depth knowledge of the technical terms. Reports help to identify escalated alerts that are part of a bigger campaign, provide attribution and context to attacks, identify systems that have been compromised, block malicious URLs or malware signatures in firewalls, IDPS systems, and other gateway products, identify patches, reduce the number of incidents, etc.
    Collaboration includes the exchange of:
    • Contextualized threat indicators, threat actors, TTPs, and campaigns.
    • Attribution of the attack, motives of the attacker, victim profiles, and frequent exploits.
    • Defensive and mitigation strategies.
    • Best-practice incident response procedures.
    • Technical tools to help normalize threat intelligence formats or decode malicious network traffic.
    Collaboration can be achieved through:
    • Manual unstructured exchanges such as alerts, reports, briefings, knowledge portals, or emails.
    • Automated centralized platforms that allow users to privately upload, aggregate, and vet threat intelligence. Current players include commercial, government, and open-source information-sharing and analysis centers.
    Isolation prevents businesses from learning from each others’ mistakes and/or successes.

    Define the routine of your security operations program in a detailed cadence schedule

    Security Operations Program Cadence Schedule Template

    Design your meetings around your security operations program’s outputs and capabilities

    How to customize

    Don’t operate in a silo. Formalize a cadence schedule to develop a state of accountability, share information across the organization, and discuss relevant trends. A detailed cadence schedule should include the following:

    • Activity, output, or topic being discussed.
    • Participants and stakeholders involved.
    • Value and purpose of meeting.
    • Duration and frequency of each meeting.
    • Investment per participant per meeting.
    Sample of Info-Tech's Security Operations Program Cadence Schedule Template.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Schedule regular meetings composed of key members from different working groups to discuss concerns, share goals, and communicate operational processes pertaining to their specific roles.

    Apply a strategic lens to your security operations program

    Frame the importance of optimizing the security operations program to align with that of the decision makers’ overarching strategy.

    Strategies
    1. Bridge the communication gap between security and non-technical decision makers. Communicate concisely in business-friendly terms.
    2. Quantify the ROI for the given project.
    3. Educate stakeholders – if stakeholders do not understand what a security operations program encompasses, it will be hard for them to champion the initiative.
    4. Communicate the implications, value, and benefits of a security operations program.
    5. Frame the opportunity as a competitive advantage, e.g. proactive security measures as a client acquisition strategy.
    6. Address the increasing prevalence of threat actors. Use objective data to demonstrate the impact, e.g. through case studies, recent media headlines, or statistics.

    Defensive Strategy diagram with columns 'Adversaries', 'Defenses', 'Assets', and priority level.
    (Source: iSIGHT, “ Definitive Guide to Threat Intelligence”)

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Refrain from using scare tactics such as fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). While this may be a short-term solution, it limits the longevity of your operations as senior management is not truly invested in the initiative.

    Example: Align your strategic needs with that of management.

    Identify assets of value, current weak security measures, and potential adversaries. Demonstrate how an optimized security operations program can mitigate those threats.

    Develop a comprehensive measurement program to evaluate the effectiveness of your security operations

    There are three types of metrics pertaining to security operations:

    1) Operations-focused

    Operations-focused metrics are typically communicated through a centralized visualization such as a dashboard. These metrics guide operational efforts, identifying operational and control weak points while ensuring the appropriate actions are taken to fix them.

    Examples include, but are not limited to:

    • Ticketing metrics (e.g. average ticket resolution rate, ticketing status, number of tickets per queue/analyst).
    • False positive percentage per control.
    • Incident response metrics (e.g. mean time to recovery).
    • CVSS scores per vulnerability.

    2) Business-focused

    The evaluation of operational success from a business perspective.

    Example metrics include:

    • Return on investment.
    • Total cost of ownership (can be segregated by function: prevent, detect, analyze, and respond).
    • Saved costs from mitigated breaches.
    • Security operations budget as a percentage of the IT budget.

    3) Initiative-focused

    The measurement of security operations project progress. These are frequently represented as time, resource, or cost-based metrics.

    Note: Remember to measure end-user feedback. Asking stakeholders about their current expectations via a formal survey is the most effective way to kick-start the continuous improvement process.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Operational metrics have limited value beyond security operations – when communicating to management, focus on metrics that are actionable from a business perspective.

    Download Info-Tech’s Security Operations Metrics Summary Document.Sample of Info-Tech's Security Operations Metrics Summary Document.

    Identify the triggers for continual improvement

    Continual Improvement

    • Audits: Check for performance requirements in order to pass major audits.
    • Assessments: Variances in efficiency or effectiveness of metrics when compared to the industry standard.
    • Process maturity: Opportunity to increase efficiency of services and processes.
    • Management reviews: Routine reviews that reveal gaps.
    • Technology advances: For example, new security architecture/controls have been released.
    • Regulations: Compliance to new or changed regulations.
    • New staff or technology: Disruptive technology or new skills that allow for improvement.

    Conduct tabletop exercises with Info-Tech’s onsite workshop

    Assess your security operations capabilities

    Leverage Info-Tech’s Security Operations Tabletop Exercise to guide simulations to validate your operational procedures.

    How to customize
    • Use the templates to document actions and actors.
    • For each new injection, spend three minutes discussing the response as a group. Then spend two minutes documenting each role’s contribution to the response. After the time limit, proceed to the following injection scenario.
    • Review the responses only after completing the entire exercise.
    Sample of Info-Tech's Security Operations Tabletop Exercise.

    This tabletop exercise is available through an onsite workshop as we can help establish and design a tabletop capability for your organization.

    Are you ready to implement your security operations program?

    Self-Assessment Questions

    • Is there a formalized security operations collaboration plan?
    • Are all key stakeholders documented and acknowledged?
    • Have you defined your strategic needs and requirements in a formalized collection plan?
    • Is there an established channel for management to communicate needs and requirements to the security operation leaders?
    • Are all program outputs documented and communicated?
    • Is there an accessible, centralized portal or dashboard that actively aggregates and communicates key information?
    • Is there a formalized threat escalation protocol in order to facilitate both internal and external information sharing?
    • Does your organization actively participate in external information sharing through the use of ISACs?
    • Does your organization actively produce reports, alerts, products, etc. that feed into and influence the output of other functions’ operations?
    • Have you assigned program responsibilities in a detailed RACI chart?
    • Is there a structured cadence schedule for key stakeholders to actively communicate and share information?
    • Have you developed a structured measurement program on a per function basis?
    • Now that you have constructed your ideal security operations program strategy, revisit the question “Are you answering all of your objectives?”

    If you answered “yes” to the questions, then you are ready to implement your security operations program.

    Summary

    Insights

    1. Security operations is no longer a center, but a process. The need for a physical security hub has evolved into the virtual fusion of prevention, detection, analysis, and response efforts. When all four functions operate as a unified process, your organization will be able to proactively combat changes in the threat landscape.
    2. Functional threat intelligence is a prerequisite for effective security operations – without it, security operations will be inefficient and redundant. Eliminate false positives by contextualizing threat data, aligning intelligence with business objectives, and building processes to satisfy those objectives
    3. If you are not communicating, then you are not secure. Collaboration eliminates siloed decisions by connecting people, processes, and technologies. You leave less room for error, consume fewer resources, and improve operational efficiency with a transparent security operations process.

    Best Practices

    • Have a structured plan of attack. Define your unique threat landscape, as well as business, regulatory, and consumer obligations.
    • Foster both internal and external collaboration.
    • Understand the operational cut-off points. While collaboration is encouraged, understand when the onus shifts to the rest of the threat collaboration environment.
    • Do not bite off more than you can chew. Identify current people, processes, and technologies that satisfy immediate problems and enable future expansion.
    • Leverage threat intelligence to create a predictive and proactive security operations analysis process.
    • Formalize escalation procedures with logic and incident management flow.
    • Don’t develop a security operations program with the objective of zero incidents. This reliance on prevention results in over-engineered security solutions that cost more than the assets being protected.
    • Ensure that information flows freely throughout the threat collaboration environment – each function should serve to feed and enhance the next.
    • Develop a central web/knowledge portal that is easily accessible throughout the threat collaboration environment
    Protect your organization with an interdependent and collaborative security operations program.

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    “Security Operations Centers — Helping You Get Ahead of Cybercrime Contents.” EY, 2014. Web. 6 Nov. 2016.

    Sheikh, Shah. “DTS Solution - Building a SOC (Security Operations Center).” LinkedIn, 4 May 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.

    Soto, Carlos. “ Security Operations Center (SOC) 101.” Tom's IT Pro, 28 Oct. 2015. Web. 14 Dec. 2016.

    “Standardizing and Automating Security Operations.” National Institute of Standards and Technology, 3 Sept. 2006. Web.

    “Strategy Considerations for Building a Security Operations Center.” IBM, Dec. 2013. Web. 5 Nov. 2016.

    “Summary of Key Findings.” Carnegie Mellon University, 03 Oct. 2016. Web. 03 Oct. 2016.

    “Sustainable Security Operations.” Intel, 2016. Web. 20 Nov. 2016.

    “The Cost of Malware Containment.” Ponemon Institute, Jan. 2015. Web.

    “The Game Plan for Closing the SecOps Gap.” BMC. Forbes Magazine, Jan. 2016. Web. 10 Jan. 2017.

    Veerappa Srinivas, Babu. “Security Operations Centre (SOC) in a Utility Organization.” GIAC, 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 5 Nov. 2016.

    Wang, John. “Anatomy of a Security Operations Center.” NASA, 2015. Web. 2 Nov. 2016.

    Weiss, Errol. “Statement for the Record.” House Financial Services Committee, 1 June 2012. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.

    Wilson, Tim. “SOC 2.0: A Crystal-Ball Glimpse of the Next-Generation Security Operations Center.” Dark Reading, 22 Nov. 2010. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.

    Zimmerman, Carson. “Ten Strategies of a World-Class Cybersecurity Operations Center.” Mitre, 2014. Web. 24 Aug. 2016.

    Release management

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    Today's world requires frequent and fast deployments. Stay in control with release management.

    Advisory Call Outline: Software Selection Engagement

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    • Parent Category Name: Selection & Implementation
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    • Selection takes forever. Traditional software selection drags on for years, sometimes in perpetuity.
    • IT is viewed as a bottleneck and the business has taken control of software selection.
    • “Gut feel” decisions rule the day. Intuition, not hard data, guides selection, leading to poor outcomes.
    • Negotiations are a losing battle. Money is left on the table by inexperienced negotiators.
    • Overall: Poor selection processes lead to wasted time, wasted effort, and applications that continually disappoint.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Adopt a formal methodology to accelerate and improve software selection results.
    • Improve business satisfaction by including the right stakeholders and delivering new applications on a truly timely basis.
    • Kill the “sacred cow” requirements that only exist because “it’s how we’ve always done it.”
    • Forget about “RFP” overload and hone in on the features that matter to your organization.
    • Skip the guesswork and validate decisions with real data.
    • Take control of vendor “dog and pony shows” with single-day, high-value, low-effort, rapid-fire investigative interviews.
    • Master vendor negotiations and never leave money on the table.

    Impact and Result

    • Improving software selection is a critical project that will deliver huge value.
    • Hit a home run with your business stakeholders: use a data-driven approach to select the right application vendor for their needs – fast.
    • Shatter stakeholder expectations with truly rapid application selections.
    • Boost collaboration and crush the broken telephone with concise and effective stakeholder meetings.
    • Lock in hard savings and do not pay list price by using data-driven tactics.

    Advisory Call Outline: Software Selection Engagement Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Advisory Call Outline

    Info-Tech's expert analyst guidance will help you save money, align stakeholders, and speed up the application selection process.

    • Advisory Call Outline: Software Selection Engagement Deck

    2. Workshop Overview

    Info-Tech's workshop will help you implement a repeatable, data-driven approach that accelerates software selection efforts.

    • Rapid Software Selection Workshop Overview
    [infographic]

    Considerations for a Hub and Spoke Model When Deploying Infrastructure in the Cloud

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    • The organization is planning to move resources to cloud or devise a networking strategy for their existing cloud infrastructure to harness value from cloud.
    • The right topology needs to be selected to deploy network level isolation, design the cloud for management efficiencies and provide access to shared services on cloud.
    • A perennial challenge for infrastructure on cloud is planning for governance vs flexibility which is often overlooked.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Don’t wait until the necessity arises to evaluate your networking in the cloud. Get ahead of the curve and choose the topology that optimizes benefits and supports organizational needs in the present and the future.

    Impact and Result

    • Define organizational needs and understand the pros and cons of cloud network topologies to strategize for the networking design.
    • Consider the layered complexities of addressing the governance vs. flexibility spectrum for your domains when designing your networks.

    Considerations for a Hub and Spoke Model When Deploying Infrastructure in the Cloud Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Considerations for a Hub and Spoke Model When Deploying Infrastructure in the Cloud Deck – A document to guide you through designing your network in the cloud.

    What cloud networking topology should you use? How do you provide access to shared resources in the cloud or hybrid infrastructure? What sits in the hub and what sits in the spoke?

    • Considerations for a Hub and Spoke Model When Deploying Infrastructure in the Cloud Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Considerations for a Hub and Spoke Model When Deploying Infrastructure in the Cloud

    Don't revolve around a legacy design; choose a network design that evolves with the organization.

    Analyst Perspective

    Cloud adoption among organizations increases gradually across both the number of services used and the amount those services are used. However, network builders tend to overlook the vulnerabilities of network topologies, which leads to complications down the road, especially since the structures of cloud network topologies are not all of the same quality. A network design that suits current needs may not be the best solution for the future state of the organization.

    Even if on-prem network strategies were retained for ease of migration, it is important to evaluate and identify the cloud network topology that can not only elevate the performance of your infrastructure in the cloud, but also that can make it easier to manage and provision resources.

    An "as the need arises" strategy will not work efficiently since changing network designs will change the way data travels within your network, which will then need to be adopted to existing application architectures. This becomes more complicated as the number of services hosted in the cloud grows.

    Keep a network strategy in place early on and start designing your infrastructure accordingly. This gives you more control over your networks and eliminates the need for huge changes to your infrastructure down the road.

    This is a picture of Nitin Mukesh

    Nitin Mukesh
    Senior Research Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    The organization is planning to move resources to the cloud or devise a networking strategy for their existing cloud infrastructure to harness value from the cloud.

    The right topology needs to be selected to deploy network level isolation, design the cloud for management efficiencies, and provide access to shared services in the cloud.

    A perennial challenge for infrastructure in the cloud is planning for governance vs. flexibility, which is often overlooked.

    Common Obstacles

    The choice of migration method may result in retaining existing networking patterns and only making changes when the need arises.

    Networking in the cloud is still new, and organizations new to the cloud may not be aware of the cloud network designs they can consider for their business needs.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Define organizational needs and understand the pros and cons of cloud network topologies to strategize for the networking design.

    Consider the layered complexities of addressing the governance vs. flexibility spectrum for your domains when designing your networks.

    Insight Summary

    Don't wait until the necessity arises to evaluate your networking in the cloud. Get ahead of the curve and choose the topology that optimizes benefits and supports organizational needs in the present and future.

    Your challenge

    Selecting the right topology: Many organizations migrate to the cloud retaining a mesh networking topology from their on-prem design, or they choose to implement the mesh design leveraging peering technologies in the cloud without a strategy in place for when business needs change. While there may be many network topologies for on-prem infrastructure, the network design team may not be aware of the best approach in cloud platforms for their requirements, or a cloud networking strategy may even go overlooked during the migration.

    Finding the right cloud networking infrastructure for:

    • Management efficiencies
    • Network-level isolation of resources
    • Access to shared services

    Deciding between governance and flexibility in networking design: In the hub and spoke model, if a domain is in the hub, the greater the governance over it, and if it sits in the spoke, the higher the flexibility. Having a strategy for the most important domains is key. For example, some security belongs in the hub and some security belongs in the spoke. The tradeoff here is if it sits completely in the spoke, you give it a lot of freedom, but it becomes harder to standardize across the organization.

    Mesh network topology

    A mesh is a design where virtual private clouds (VPCs) are connected to each other individually creating a mesh network. The network traffic is fast and can be redirected since the nodes in the network are interconnected. There is no hierarchical relationship between the networks, and any two networks can connect with each other directly.

    In the cloud, this design can be implemented by setting up peering connections between any two VPCs. These VPCs can also be set up to communicate with each other internally through the cloud service provider's network without having to route the traffic via the internet.

    While this topology offers high redundancy, the number of connections grows tremendously as more networks are added, making it harder to scale a network using a mesh topology.

    Mesh Network on AWS

    This is an image of a Mesh Network on AWS

    Source: AWS, 2018

    Constraints

    The disadvantages of peering VPCs into a mesh quickly arise with:

    • Transitive connections: Transitive connections are not supported in the cloud, unlike with on-prem networking. This means that if there are two networks that need to communicate, a single peering link can be set up between them. However, if there are more than two networks and they all need to communicate, they should all be connected to each other with separate individual connections.
    • Cost of operation: The lack of transitive routing requires many connections to be set up, which adds up to a more expensive topology to operate as the number of networks grows. Cloud providers also usually limit the number of peering networks that can be set up, and this limit can be hit with as few as 100 networks.
    • Management: Mesh tends to be very complicated to set up, owing to the large number of different peering links that need to be established. While this may be manageable for small organizations with small operations, for larger organizations with robust cybersecurity practices that require multiple VPCs to be deployed and interconnected for communications, mesh opens you up to multiple points of failure.
    • Redundancy: With multiple points of failure already being a major drawback of this design, you also cannot have more than one peered connection between any two networks at the same time. This makes designing your networking systems for redundancy that much more challenging.
    Number of virtual networks 10 20 50 100
    Peering links required
    [(n-1)*n]/2
    45 190 1225 4950

    Proportional relationship of virtual networks to required peering links in a mesh topology

    Case study

    INDUSTRY: Blockchain
    SOURCE: Microsoft

    An organization with four members wants to deploy a blockchain in the cloud, with each member running their own virtual network. With only four members on the team, a mesh network can be created in the cloud with each of their networks being connected to each other, adding up to a total of 12 peering connections (four members with three connections each). While the members may all be using different cloud accounts, setting up connections between them will still be possible.

    The organization wants to expand to 15 members within the next year, with each new member being connected with their separate virtual networks. Once grown, the organization will have a total of 210 peering connections since each of the virtual networks will then need 14 peering connections. While this may still be possible to deploy, the number of connections makes it harder to manage and would be that much more difficult to deploy if the organization grows to even 30 or 40 members. The new scale of virtual connections calls for an alternative networking strategy that cloud providers offer – the hub and spoke topology.

    This is an image of the connections involved in a mesh network with four participants.

    Source: Microsoft, 2017

    Hub and spoke network topology

    In hub and spoke network design, each network is connected to a central network that facilitates intercommunication between the networks. The central network, also called the hub, can be used by multiple workloads/servers/services for hosting services and for managing external connectivity. Other networks connected to the hub through network peering are called spokes and host workloads.

    Communications between the workloads/servers/services on spokes pass in or out of the hub where they are inspected and routed. The spokes can also be centrally managed from the hub with IT rules and processes.

    A hub and spoke design enable a larger number of virtual networks to be interconnected as each network only needs one peered connection (to the hub) to be able to communicate with any other network in the system.

    Hub and Spoke Network on AWS

    This is an image of the Hub and Spoke Network on AWS

    What hub and spoke networks do better

    1. Ease of connectivity: Hub and spoke decreases the liabilities of scale that come from a growing business by providing a consistent connection that can be scaled easily. As more networks are added to an organization, each will only need to be connected once – to the hub. The number of connections is considerably lower than in a mesh topology and makes it easier to maintain and manage.
    2. Business agility and scalability: It is easier to increase the number of networks than in mesh, making it easier to grow your business into new channels with less time, investment, and risk.
    3. Data collection: With a hub and spoke design, all data flows through the hub – depending on the design, this includes all ingress and egress to and from the system. This makes it an excellent central network to collect all business data.
    4. Network-level isolation: Hub and spoke enables separation of workloads and tiers into different networks. This is particularly useful to ensure an issue affecting a network or a workload does not affect the rest.
    5. Network changes: Changes to a separated network are much easier to carry out knowing the changes made will not affect all the other connected networks. This reduces work-hours significantly when systems or applications need to be altered.
    6. Compliance: Compliance requirements such as SOC 1 and SOC 2 require separate environments for production, development, and testing, which can be done in a hub and spoke model without having to re-create security controls for all networks.

    Hub and spoke constraints

    While there are plenty of benefits to using this topology, there are still a few notable disadvantages with the design.

    Point-to-point peering

    The total number of total peered connections required might be lower than mesh, but the cost of running independent projects is cheaper on mesh as point-to-point data transfers are cheaper.

    Global access speeds with a monolithic design

    With global organizations, implementing a single monolithic hub network for network ingress and egress will slow down access to cloud services that users will require. A distributed network will ramp up the speeds for its users to access these services.

    Costs for a resilient design

    Connectivity between the spokes can fail if the hub site dies or faces major disruptions. While there are redundancy plans for cloud networks, it will be an additional cost to plan and build an environment for it.

    Leverage the hub and spoke strategy for:

    Providing access to shared services: Hub and spoke can be used to give workloads that are deployed on different networks access to shared services by placing the shared service in the hub. For example, DNS servers can be placed in the hub network, and production or host networks can be connected to the hub to access it, or if the central network is set up to host Active Directory services, then servers in other networks can act as spokes and have full access to the central VPC to send requests. This is also a great way to separate workloads that do not need to communicate with each other but all need access to the same services.

    Adding new locations: An expanding organization that needs to add additional global or domestic locations can leverage hub and spoke to connect new network locations to the main system without the need for multiple connections.

    Cost savings: Apart from having fewer connections than mesh that can save costs in the cloud, hub and spoke can also be used to centralize services such as DNS and NAT to be managed in one location rather than having to individually deploy in each network. This can bring down management efforts and costs considerably.

    Centralized security: Enterprises can deploy a center of excellence on the hub for security, and the spokes connected to it can leverage a higher level of security and increase resilience. It will also be easier to control and manage network policies and networking resources from the hub.

    Network management: Since each spoke is peered only once to the hub, detecting connectivity problems or other network issues is made simpler in hub and spoke than on mesh. A network manager deployed on the cloud can give access to network problems faster than on other topologies.

    Hub and spoke – mesh hybrid

    The advantages of using a hub and spoke model far exceed those of using a mesh topology in the cloud and go to show why most organizations ultimately end up using the hub and spoke as their networking strategy.

    However, organizations, especially large ones, are complex entities, and choosing only one model may not serve all business needs. In such cases, a hybrid approach may be the best strategy. The following slides will demonstrate the advantages and use cases for mesh, however limited they might be.

    Where it can be useful:

    An organization can have multiple network topologies where system X is a mesh and system Y is a hub and spoke. A shared system Z can be a part of both systems depending on the needs.

    An organization can have multiple networks interconnected in a mesh and some of the networks in the mesh can be a hub for a hub-spoke network. For example, a business unit that works on data analysis can deploy their services in a spoke that is connected to a central hub that can host shared services such as Active Directory or NAT. The central hub can then be connected to a regional on-prem network where data and other shared services can be hosted.

    Hub and spoke – mesh hybrid network on AWS

    This is an image of the Hub and spoke – mesh hybrid network on AWS

    Why mesh can still be useful

    Benefits Of Mesh

    Use Cases For Mesh

    Security: Setting up a peering connection between two VPCs comes with the benefit of improving security since the connection can be private between the networks and can isolate public traffic from the internet. The traffic between the networks never has to leave the cloud provider's network, which helps reduce a class of risks.

    Reduced network costs: Since the peered networks communicate internally through the cloud's internal networks, the data transfer costs are typically cheaper than over the public internet.

    Communication speed: Improved network latency is a key benefit from using mesh because the peered traffic does not have to go over the public internet but rather the internal network. The network traffic between the connections can also be quickly redirected as needed.

    Higher flexibility for backend services: Mesh networks can be desirable for back-end services if egress traffic needs to be blocked to the public internet from the deployed services/servers. This also helps avoid having to set up public IP or network address translation (NAT) configurations.

    Connecting two or more networks for full access to resources: For example, consider an organization that has separate networks for each department, which don't all need to communicate with each other. Here, a peering network can be set up only between the networks that need to communicate with full or partial access to each other such as finance to HR or accounting to IT.

    Specific security or compliance need: Mesh or VPC peering can also come in handy to serve specific security needs or logging needs that require using a network to connect to other networks directly and in private. For example, global organizations that face regulatory requirements of storing or transferring data domestically with private connections.

    Systems with very few networks that do not need internet access: Workloads deployed in networks that need to communicate with each other but do not require internet access or network address translation (NAT) can be connected using mesh especially when there are security reasons to keep them from being connected to the main system, e.g. backend services such as testing environments, labs, or sandboxes can leverage this design.

    Designing for governance vs. flexibility in hub and spoke

    Governance and flexibility in managing resources in the cloud are inversely proportional: The higher the governance, the less freedom you have to innovate.

    The complexities of designing an organization's networks grow with the organization as it becomes global and takes on more services and lines of business. Organizations that choose to deploy the hub and spoke model face a dilemma in choosing between governance and flexibility for their networks. Organizations need to find that sweet spot to find the right balance between how much they want to govern their systems, mainly for security- and cost-monitoring, and how much flexibility they want to provide for innovation and other operations, since the two usually tend to have an inverse relationship.

    This decision in hub and spoke usually means that the domains chosen for higher governance must be placed in the hub network, and the domains that need more flexibility in a spoke. The key variables in the following slide will help determine the placement of the domain and will depend entirely on the organization's context.

    The two networking patterns in the cloud have layered complexities that need to be systematically addressed.

    Designing for governance vs. flexibility in hub and spoke

    If a network has more flexibility in all or most of these domains, it may be a good candidate for a spoke-heavy design; otherwise, it may be better designed in a hub-centric pattern.

    • Function: The function the domain network is assigned to and the autonomy the function needs to be successful. For example, software R&D usually requires high flexibility to be successful.
    • Regulations: The extent of independence from both internal and external regulatory constraints the domain has. For example, a treasury reporting domain typically has high internal and external regulations to adhere to.
    • Human resources: The freedom a domain has to hire and manage its resources to perform its function. For example, production facilities in a huge organization have the freedom to manage their own resources.
    • Operations: The freedom a domain has to control its operations and manage its own spending to perform its functions. For example, governments usually have different departments and agencies, each with its own budget to perform its functions.
    • Technology: The independence and the ability a domain has to manage its selection and implementation of technology resources in the cloud. For example, you may not want a software testing team to have complete autonomy to deploy resources.

    Optimal placement of services between the hub and spoke

    Shared services and vendor management

    Resources that are shared between multiple projects or departments or even by the entire organization should be hosted on the hub network to simplify sharing these services. For example, e-learning applications that may be used by multiple business units to train their teams, Active Directory accessed by most teams, or even SAAS platforms such as O365 and Salesforce can leverage buying power and drive down the costs for the organization. Shared services should also be standardized across the organization and for that, it needs to have high governance.

    Services that are an individual need for a network and have no preexisting relationship with other networks or buying power and scale can be hosted in a spoke network. For example, specialized accounting software used exclusively by the accounting team or design software used by a single team. Although the services are still a part of the wider network, it helps separate duties from the shared services network and provides flexibility to the teams to customize and manage their services to suit their individual needs.

    Network egress and interaction

    Network connections, be they in the cloud or hybrid-cloud, are used by everyone to either connect to the internet, access cloud services, or access the organization's data center. Since this is a shared service, a centralized networking account must be placed in the hub for greater governance. Interactions between the spokes in a hub and spoke model happens through the hub, and providing internet access to the spokes through the hub can help leverage cost benefits in the cloud. The network account will perform routing duties between the spokes, on-prem assets, and egress out to the internet.

    For example, NAT gateways in the cloud that are managed services are usually charged by the hour, and deploying NAT on each spoke can be harder to manage and expensive to maintain. A NAT gateway deployed in a central networking hub can be accessed by all spokes, so centralizing it is a great option.

    Note that, in some cases, when using edge locations for data transfers, it may be cost effective to deploy a NAT in the spoke, but such cases usually do not apply to most organizational units.

    A centralized network hub can also be useful to configure network policies and network resources while organizational departments can configure non-network resources, which helps separate responsibilities for all the spokes in the system. For example, subnets and routes can be controlled from the central network hub to ensure standardized network policies across the network.

    Security

    While there needs to be security in the hub and the spokes individually, finding the balance of operation can make the systems more robust. Hub and spoke design can be an effective tool for security when a principal security hub is hosted in the hub network. The central security hub can collect data from the spokes as well as non-spoke sources such as regulatory bodies and threat intelligence providers, and then share the information with the spokes.

    Threat information sharing is a major benefit of using this design, and the hub can take actions to analyze and enrich the data before sharing it with spokes. Shared services such as threat intelligence platforms (TIP) can also benefit from being centralized when stationed in the hub. A collective defense approach between the hub and spoke can be very successful in addressing sophisticated threats.

    Compliance and regulatory requirements such as HIPAA can also be placed in the hub, and the spokes connected to it can make use of it instead of having to deploy it in each spoke individually.

    Cloud metering

    The governance vs. flexibility paradigm usually decides the placement of cloud metering, i.e. if the organization wants higher control over cloud costs, it should be in the central hub, whereas if it prioritizes innovation, the spokes should be allowed to control it. Regardless of the placement of the domain, the costs can be monitored from the central hub using cloud-native monitoring tools such as Azure Monitor or any third-party software deployed in the hub.

    For ease of governance and since resources are usually shared at a project level, most cloud service providers suggest that an individual metering service be placed in the spokes. The centralized billing system of the organization, however, can make use of scale and reserved instances to drive down the costs that the spokes can take advantage of. For example, billing and access control resources are placed in the lower levels in GCP to enable users to set up projects and perform their tasks. These billing systems in the lower levels are then controlled by a centralized billing system to decide who pays for the resources provisioned.

    Don't get stuck with your on-prem network design. Design for the cloud.

    1. Peering VPCs into a mesh design can be an easy way to get onto the cloud, but it should not be your networking strategy for the long run.
    2. Hub and spoke network design offers more benefits than any other network strategy to be adopted only when the need arises. Plan for the design early on and keep a strategy in place to deploy it as early as possible.
    3. Hybrid of mesh and hub and spoke will be very useful in connecting multiple large networks especially when they need to access the same resources without having to route the traffic over the internet.
    4. Governance vs. flexibility should be a key consideration when designing for hub and spoke to leverage the best out of your infrastructure.
    5. Distribute domains across the hub or spokes to leverage costs, security, data collection, and economies of scale, and to foster secure interactions between networks.

    Cloud network design strategy

    This is an image of the framework for developing a Cloud Network Design Strategy.

    Bibliography

    Borschel, Brett. "Azure Hub Spoke Virtual Network Design Best Practices." Acendri Solutions, 13 Jan. 2022. Web.
    Singh, Garvit. "Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Connectivity Options." AWS, January 2018. Web.
    "What Is the Hub and Spoke Information Sharing Model?" Cyware, 16 Aug. 2021. Web.
    Youseff, Lamia. "Mesh and Hub-and-Spoke Networks on Azure." Microsoft, Dec. 2017. Web.

    Service Management

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    The challenge

    • We have good, holistic practices, but inconsistent adoption leads to chaotic service delivery and low customer satisfaction.
    • You may have designed your IT services with little structure, formalization, or standardization.
    • That makes the management of these services more difficult and also leads to low business satisfaction.

    Register to read more …

    Build a Data Warehouse

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    • Parent Category Name: Big Data
    • Parent Category Link: /big-data
    • Relational data warehouses, although reliable, centralized repositories for corporate data, were not built to handle the speed and volume of data and analytics today.
    • IT is under immense pressure from business units to provide technology that will yield greater agility and insight.
    • While some organizations are benefitting from modernization technologies, the majority of IT departments are unfamiliar with the technologies and have not yet defined clear use cases.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The vast majority of your corporate data is not being properly leveraged. Modernize the data warehouse to get value from the 80% of unstructured data that goes unused.
    • Avoid rip and replace. Develop a future state that complements your existing data warehouse with emerging technologies.
    • Be flexible in your roadmap. Create an implementation roadmap that’s incremental and adapts to changing business priorities.

    Impact and Result

    • Establish both the business and IT perspectives of today’s data warehouse environment.
    • Explore the art-of-the-possible. Don’t get stuck trying to gather technical requirements from business users who don’t know what they don’t know. Use Info-Tech’s interview guide to discuss the pains of the current environment, and more importantly, where stakeholders want to be in the future.
    • Build an internal knowledgebase with respect to emerging technologies. The technology landscape is constantly shifting and often difficult for IT staff to keep track of. Use Info-Tech’s Data Warehouse Modernization Technology Education Deck to ensure that IT is able to appropriately match the right tools to the business’ use cases.
    • Create a compelling business case to secure investment and support.

    Build a Data Warehouse Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should be looking to modernize the relational data warehouse, review Info-Tech’s framework for identifying modernization opportunities, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess the current data warehouse environment

    Review the business’ perception and architecture of the current data warehouse environment.

    • Drive Business Innovation With a Modernized Data Warehouse Environment – Phase 1: Assess the Current Data Warehouse Environment
    • Data Warehouse Maturity Assessment Tool

    2. Define modernization drivers

    Collaborate with business users to identify the strongest motivations for data warehouse modernization.

    • Drive Business Innovation With a Modernized Data Warehouse Environment – Phase 2: Define Modernization Drivers
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Stakeholder Interview Guide
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Technology Education Deck
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Initiative Building Tool

    3. Create the modernization future state

    Combine business ideas with modernization initiatives and create a roadmap.

    • Drive Business Innovation With a Modernized Data Warehouse Environment – Phase 3: Create the Modernization Future State
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Technology Architectural Template
    • Data Warehouse Modernization Deployment Plan
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Data Warehouse

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess the Current Data Warehouse Environment

    The Purpose

    Discuss the general project overview for data warehouse modernization.

    Establish the business and IT perspectives of the current state.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Holistic understanding of the current data warehouse.

    Business user engagement from the start of the project.

    Activities

    1.1 Review data warehouse project history.

    1.2 Evaluate data warehouse maturity.

    1.3 Draw architecture diagrams.

    1.4 Review supporting data management practices.

    Outputs

    Data warehouse maturity assessment

    Data architecture diagrams

    2 Explore Business Opportunities

    The Purpose

    Conduct a user workshop session to elicit the most pressing needs of business stakeholders.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Modernization technology selection is directly informed by business drivers.

    In-depth IT understanding of the business pains and opportunities.

    Activities

    2.1 Review general trends and drivers in your industry.

    2.2 Identify primary business frustrations, opportunities, and risks.

    2.3 Identify business processes to target for modernization.

    2.4 Capture business ideas for the future state.

    Outputs

    Business ideas for modernization

    Defined strategic direction for data warehouse modernization

    3 Review the Technology Landscape

    The Purpose

    Educate IT staff on the most common technologies for data warehouse modernization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Improved ability for IT to match technology with business ideas.

    Activities

    3.1 Appoint Modernization Advisors.

    3.2 Hold an open education and discussion forum for modernization technologies.

    Outputs

    Modernization Advisors identified

    Modernization technology education deck

    4 Define Modernization Solutions

    The Purpose

    Consolidate business ideas into modernization initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Refinement of the strategic direction for data warehouse modernization.

    Activities

    4.1 Match business ideas to technology solutions.

    4.2 Group similar ideas to create modernization initiatives.

    4.3 Create future-state architecture diagrams.

    Outputs

    Identified strategic direction for data warehouse modernization

    Defined modernization initiatives

    Future-state architecture for data warehouse

    5 Establish a Modernization Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Validate and build out initiatives with business users.

    Define benefits and costs to establish ROI.

    Identify enablers and barriers to modernization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Completion of materials for a compelling business case and roadmap.

    Activities

    5.1 Validate use cases with business users.

    5.2 Define initiative benefits.

    5.3 Identify enablers and barriers to modernization.

    5.4 Define preliminary activities for initiatives.

    5.5 Evaluate initiative costs.

    5.6 Determine overall ROI.

    Outputs

    Validated modernization initiatives

    Data warehouse modernization roadmap

    Initiate Your Service Management Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Management
    • Parent Category Link: /service-management
    • IT organizations continue attempting to implement service management, often based on ITIL, with limited success and without visible value.
    • More than half of service management implementations have failed beyond simply implementing the service desk and the incident, change, and request management processes.
    • Organizational structure, goals, and cultural factors are not considered during service management implementation and improvement.
    • The business lacks engagement and understanding of service management.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Service management is an organizational approach. Focus on producing successful and valuable services and service outcomes for the customers.
    • All areas of the organization are accountable for governing and executing service management. Ensure that you create a service management strategy that improves business outcomes and provides the value and quality expected.

    Impact and Result

    • Identified structure for how your service management model should be run and governed.
    • Identified forces that impact your ability to oversee and drive service management success.
    • Mitigation approach to restraining forces.

    Initiate Your Service Management Program Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand why service management implementations often fail and why you should establish governance for service management.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Identify the level of oversight you need

    Use Info-Tech’s methodology to establish an effective service management program with proper oversight.

    • Service Management Program Initiation Plan
    [infographic]

    Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management

    Moreso than any other time, our world is changing. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their strategic plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level.

    A new global change will impact your organizational strategy at any given time. So, make sure your plans are flexible enough to manage the inevitable consequences.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Identifying and managing a vendor’s potential strategic impact on your organization requires multiple people in the organization across several functions. Those people all need coaching on the potential changes in the market and how these changes affect strategic plans.
    • Organizational leadership is often taken unaware during crises, and their plans lack the flexibility needed to adjust to significant market upheavals.

    Impact and Result

    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.
    • Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.
    • Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your strategic plan with our Strategic Risk Impact Tool.

    Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts to Your Organization Deck – Use the research to better understand the negative impacts of vendor actions on your strategic plans.

    Use this research to identify and quantify the potential strategic impacts caused by vendors. Use Info-Tech’s approach to look at the strategic impact from various perspectives to better prepare for issues that may arise.

    • Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization Storyboard

    2. What If Vendor Strategic Impact Tool – Use this tool to help identify and quantify the strategic impacts of negative vendor actions

    By playing the “what if” game and asking probing questions to draw out – or eliminate – possible negative outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.

    • Strategic Risk Impact Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    The world is in a perpetual state of change. Organizations need to build adaptive resiliency into their strategic plans to adjust to ever-changing market dynamics.

    Analyst perspective

    Organizations need to build flexible resiliency into their strategic plans to be able to adjust to ever-changing market dynamics.

    This is a picture of Frank Sewell, Research Director, Vendor Management at Info-Tech Research Group

    Like most people, organizations are poor at assessing the likelihood of risk. If the past few years have taught us anything, it is that the probability of a risk occurring is far more flexible in the formula Risk = Likelihood * Impact than we ever thought possible. The impacts of these risks have been catastrophic, and organizations need to be more adaptive in managing them to strengthen their strategic plans.

    Frank Sewell,
    Research Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Moreso than any other time, our world is changing. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their strategic plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level.

    A new global change will impact your organizational strategy at any given time. So, make sure your plans are flexible enough to manage the inevitable consequences.

    Common Obstacles

    Identifying and managing a vendor’s potential strategic impact on your organization requires multiple people in the organization across several functions. Those people all need coaching on the potential changes in the market and how these changes affect strategic plans.

    Organizational leadership is often taken unaware during crises, and their plans lack the flexibility needed to adjust to significant market upheavals.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.

    Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.

    Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.

    Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your strategic plan with our Strategic Impacts Tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Organizations must evolve their strategic risk assessments to be more adaptive to respond to global changes in the market. Ongoing monitoring of the market and the vendors tied to company strategies is imperative to achieving success.

    Info-Tech’s multi-blueprint series on vendor risk assessment

    There are many individual components of vendor risk beyond cybersecurity.

    This image depicts a cube divided into six different coloured sections. The sections are labeled: Financial; Reputational; Operational; Strategic; Security; Regulatory & Compliance.

    This series will focus on the individual components of vendor risk and how vendor management practices can facilitate organizations’ understanding of those risks.

    Out of Scope:

    This series will not tackle risk governance, determining overall risk tolerance and appetite, or quantifying inherent risk.

    Strategic risk impacts

    Potential losses to the organization due to risks to the strategic plan

    • In this blueprint, we’ll explore strategic risks (risks to the Strategic Plans of the organization) and their impacts.
    • Identify potentially disruptive events to assess the overall impact on organizations and implement adaptive measures to correct strategic plans.
    This image depicts a cube divided into six different coloured sections. The section labeled Strategic is highlighted.

    The world is constantly changing

    The IT market is constantly reacting to global influences. By anticipating changes, leaders can set expectations and work with their vendors to accommodate them.

    When the unexpected happens, being able to adapt quickly to new priorities ensures continued long-term business success.

    Below are some things no one expected to happen in the last few years:

    62%

    of IT professionals are more concerned about being a victim of ransomware than they were a year ago.

    82%

    of Microsoft’s non-essential employees shifted to working from home in 2020, joining the 18% already remote.

    89%

    of organizations invested in web conferencing technology to facilitate collaboration.

    Source: Info-Tech Tech Trends Survey 2022

    Strategic risks on a global scale

    Odds are at least one of these is currently affecting your strategic plans

    • Vendor Acquisitions
    • Global Pandemic
    • Global Shortages
    • Gas Prices
    • Poor Vendor Performance
    • Travel Bans
    • War
    • Natural Disasters
    • Supply Chain Disruptions
    • Security Incidents

    Make sure you have the right people at the table to identify and plan to manage impacts.

    Identify & manage strategic risks

    Global Pandemic

    Very few people could have predicted that a global pandemic would interrupt business on the scale experienced today. Organizations should look at their lessons learned and incorporate adaptable preparations into their strategic planning moving forward.

    Vendor Acquisitions

    The IT market is an ever-shifting environment. Larger companies often gobble up smaller ones to control their sectors. Incorporating plans to manage those shifts in ownership will be key to many strategic plans that depend on niche vendor solutions for success. Be sure to monitor the potentially affected markets on an ongoing cadence.

    Global Shortages

    Organizations need to accept that shortages will recur periodically and that preparing for them will significantly increase the success potential of long-term strategic plans. Understand what your business needs to stock for project needs and where those supplies are located, and plan how to rapidly access and distribute them as required if supply chain disruptions occur.

    What to look for in vendors

    Identify strategic risk impacts

    • A vendor acquires many smaller, seemingly irrelevant IT products. Suddenly their revenue model includes aggressive license compliance audits.
      • Ensure that your installed software meets license compliance requirements with good asset management practices.
      • Monitor the market for such acquisitions or news of audits hitting companies.
    • A vendor changes their primary business model from storage and hardware to becoming a self-proclaimed “professional services guru,” relying almost entirely on their name recognition to build their marketing.
      • Be wary of self-proclaimed experts and review their successes and failures with other organizations before adopting them into your business strategy.
      • Review the backgrounds their “experts” have and make sure they have the industry and technical skill sets to perform the services to the required level.

    Not preparing for your growth can delay your goals

    Why can’t I get a new laptop?

    For example:

    • An IT professional services organization plans to take advantage of the growing work-from-home trend to expand its staff by 30% over the coming year.
    • Logically, this should include a review of the necessary tasks involved, including onboarding.
      • Suppose the company does not order enough equipment in preparation to cover the new staff plus routine replacement. In that case, this will delay the output of the new team members immeasurably as they wait for their company equipment and will delay existing staff whose equipment breaks, preventing them from getting back to work efficiently.

    Sometimes an organization has the right mindset to take advantage of the changes in the market but can fail to plan for the particulars.

    When your strategic plan changes, you need to revisit all the steps in the processes to ensure a successful outcome.

    Strategic risks

    Poor or uninformed business decisions can lead to organizational strategic failures

    • Supply chain disruptions and global shortages
      • Geopolitical disruptions and natural disasters have caused unprecedented interruptions to business. Incorporate forecasting of product and ongoing business continuity planning into your strategic plans to adapt as events unfold.
    • Poor vendor performance
      • Consider the impact of a vendor that fails to perform midway through the implementation. Organizations need to be able to manage the impact of replacing that vendor and cutting their losses rather than continuing to throw good money away after bad performance.
    • Vendor acquisitions
      • A lot of acquisition is going on in the market today. Large companies are buying competitors and either imposing new terms on customers or removing the competing products from the market. Prepare options for any strategy tied to a niche product.

    It is important to identify potential risks to strategic plans to manage the risk and be agile enough in planning to adapt to the changing environments.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Few organizations are good at identifying risks to their strategic plan. As a result, almost none realistically plan to monitor, manage, and adapt their strategies to those risks.

    Prepare your strategic risk management for success

    Due diligence will enable successful outcomes

    1. Obtain top-level buy-in; it is critical to success.
    2. Build enterprise risk management (ERM) through incremental improvement.
    3. Focus initial efforts on the “big wins” to prove the process works.
    4. Use existing resources.
    5. Build on any risk management activities that already exist in the organization.
    6. Socialize ERM throughout the organization to gain additional buy‑in.
    7. Normalize the process long term with ongoing updates and continuing education for the organization.

    (Adapted from COSO)

    How to assess strategic risk

    1. Review Organizational Strategy
      Understand the organizational strategy to prepare for the “What If” game exercise.
    2. Identify & Understand Potential Strategic Risks
      Play the “What If” game with the right people at the table.
    3. Create a Risk Profile Packet for Leadership
      Pull all the information together in a presentation document.
    4. Validate the Risks
      Work with leadership to ensure that the proposed risks are in line with their thoughts.
    5. Plan to Manage the Risks
      Lower the overall risk potential by putting mitigations in place.
    6. Communicate the Plan
      It is important not only to have a plan but also to socialize it in the organization for awareness.
    7. Enact the Plan
      Once the plan is finalized and socialized, put it in place with continued monitoring for success.

    Insight summary

    Insight 1

    Organizations build portions of their strategies around chosen vendors and should protect those plans against the risks of unforeseen acquisitions in the market.
    Is your vendor solvent? Does it have enough staff to accommodate your needs? Has its long-term planning been affected by changes in the market? Is it unique in its space?

    Insight 2

    Organizations’ strategic plans need to be adaptable to avoid vendors’ negative actions causing an expedited shift in priorities.
    For example, Philip's recall of ventilators impacted its products and the availability of its competitor’s products as demand overwhelmed the market.

    Insight 3

    Organizations need to become better at risk assessment and actively manage the identified risks to their strategic plans.
    Few organizations are good at identifying risks to their strategic plan. As a result, almost none realistically plan to monitor, manage, and adapt their strategies to those risks.

    Strategic risk impacts are often unanticipated, causing unforeseen downstream effects. Anticipating the potential changes in the global IT market and continuously monitoring vendors’ risk levels can help organizations modify their strategic alignment with the new norms.

    Identifying strategic risk

    Who should be included in the discussion

    • While it is true that executive-level leadership defines the strategy for an organization, it is vital for those making decisions to make informed decisions.
    • Getting input from operational experts at your organization will enhance the long-term potential for success of your strategies.
    • Involving those who directly manage vendors and understand the market will aid operational experts in determining the forward path for relationships with your current vendors and identifying new emerging potential strategic partners.

    Review your strategic plans for new risks and evolving likelihood on a regular basis.

    Keep in mind Risk = Likelihood x Impact (R=L*I).

    Impact (I) tends to remain the same, while Likelihood (L) is a very flexible variable.

    See the blueprint Build an IT Risk Management Program

    Managing strategic risk impacts

    What can we realistically do about the risks?

    • Review business continuity plans and disaster recovery testing.
    • Institute proper contract lifecycle management.
    • Re-evaluate corporate policies frequently.
    • Develop IT governance and change control.
    • Ensure strategic alignment in contracts.
    • Introduce continual risk assessment to monitor the relevant vendor markets.
      • Regularly review your strategic plans for new risks and evolving likelihood.
      • Risk = Likelihood x Impact (R=L*I)
        • Impact (I) tends to remain the same and be well understood, while Likelihood (L) turns out to be highly variable.
    • Be adaptable and allow for innovations that arise from the current needs.
      • Capture lessons learned from prior incidents to improve over time, and adjust your strategy based on the lessons.

    Organizations need to be reviewing their strategic risk plans considering the likelihood of incidents in the global market.

    Pandemics, extreme weather, and wars that affect global supply chains are a current reality, not unlikely scenarios.

    Ongoing Improvement

    Incorporating lessons learned

    • Over time, despite everyone’s best observations and plans, incidents will catch us off guard.
    • When it happens, follow your incident response plans and act accordingly.
    • An essential step is to document what worked and what did not – collectively known as the “lessons learned.”
    • Use the lessons learned document to devise, incorporate, and enact a better risk management process.

    Sometimes disasters occur despite our best plans to manage them.

    When this happens, it is important to document the lessons learned and improve our plans going forward.

    The “what if” game

    1-3 hours

    Vendor management professionals are in an excellent position to help senior leadership identify and pull together resources across the organization to determine potential risks. By playing the "what if" game and asking probing questions to draw out – or eliminate – possible adverse outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.

    1. Break into smaller groups (or if too small, continue as a single group).
    2. Use the Strategic Risk Impact Tool to prompt discussion on potential risks. Keep this discussion flowing organically to explore all potentials but manage the overall process to keep the discussion pertinent and on track.
    3. Collect the outputs and ask the subject matter experts (SMEs) for management options for each one in order to present a comprehensive risk strategy. You will use this to educate senior leadership so that they can make an informed decision to accept or reject the solution.

    Download the Strategic Risk Impact Tool

    Input Output
    • List of identified potential risk scenarios scored by likelihood and financial impact
    • List of potential management of the scenarios to reduce the risk
    • Comprehensive strategic risk profile on the specific vendor solution
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Strategic Risk Impact Tool to help drive discussion
    • Vendor Management – Coordinator
    • Organizational Leadership
    • Operations Experts (SMEs)
    • Legal/Compliance/Risk Manager

    Case Study

    Airline Industry Strategic Adaptation

    Industry: Airline

    Impact categories: Pandemic, Lockdowns, Travel Bans, Increased Fuel Prices

    • In 2019 the airline industry yielded record profits of $35.5 billion.
    • In 2020 the pandemic devastated the industry with losses around $371 billion.
    • The industry leaders engaged experts to conduct a study on how the pandemic impacted them and propose measures to ensure the survival of their industry in the future after the pandemic.
    • They determined that “[p]recise decision-making based on data analytics is essential and crucial for an effective Covid-19 airline recovery plan.”

    Results

    The pandemic prompted systemic change to the overall strategic planning of the airline industry.

    Summary

    Be vigilant and adaptable to change

    • Organizations need to learn how to assess the likelihood of potential risks in the changing global world.
    • Those organizations that incorporate adaptive risk management processes can prepare their strategic plans for greater success.
    • Bring the right people to the table to outline potential risks in the market.
    • Socialize the risk management process throughout the organization to heighten awareness and enable employees to help protect the strategic plan.
    • Incorporate lessons learned from incidents into your risk management process to build better plans for future issues.

    Organizations must evolve their strategic risk assessments to be more adaptive to respond to global changes in the market.

    Ongoing monitoring of the market and the vendors tied to company strategies is imperative to achieving success.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization.
    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential financial impacts that vendors may incur and suggest systems to help manage them.
    • Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.
    • Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage financial impacts with our Financial Risk Impact Tool.

    Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk

    This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk
    • Customer maturity levels with Agile are low, with 67% of organizations using Agile for less than five years.
    • Customer competency levels with Agile are also low, with 84% of organizations stating they are below a high level of competency.
    • Contract disputes are the number one or two types of disputes faced by organizations across all industries.

    Build an IT Risk Management Program

    This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Build an IT Risk Management Program
    • Transform your ad hoc IT risk management processes into a formalized, ongoing program, and increase risk management success.
    • Take a proactive stance against IT threats and vulnerabilities by identifying and assessing IT’s greatest risks before they occur.
    • Involve key stakeholders including the business senior management team to gain buy-in and to focus on IT risks most critical to the organization.

    Bibliography

    Olaganathan, Rajee. “Impact of COVID-19 on airline industry and strategic plan for its recovery with special reference to data analytics technology.” Global Journal of Engineering and Technology Advances, vol 7, no 1, 2021, pp. 033-046.

    Tonello, Matteo. “Strategic Risk Management: A Primer for Directors.” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, 23 Aug. 2012.

    Frigo, Mark L., and Richard J. Anderson. “Embracing Enterprise Risk Management: Practical Approaches for Getting Started.” COSO, 2011.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    • Frank Sewell
      Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Steven Jeffery
      Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Scott Bickley
      Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Donna Glidden
      Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Phil Bode
      Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group
    • David Espinosa
      Senior Director, Executive Services, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Rick Pittman
      Vice President, Research, Info-Tech Research Group
    • Patrick Philpot
      CISSP
    • Gaylon Stockman
      Vice President, Information Security
    • Jennifer Smith
      Senior Director

    Implement Lean Management Practices That Work

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    • Parent Category Name: Performance Measurement
    • Parent Category Link: /performance-measurement
    • Service delivery teams do not measure, or have difficulty demonstrating, the value they provide.
    • There is a lack of continuous improvement.
    • There is low morale within the IT teams leading to low productivity.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Create a problem-solving culture. Frequent problem solving is the differentiator between sustaining Lean or falling back to old management methods.
    • Commit to employee growth. Empower teams to problem solve and multiply your organizational effectiveness.

    Impact and Result

    • Apply Lean management principles to IT to create alignment and transparency and drive continuous improvement and customer value.
    • Implement huddles and visual management.
    • Build team capabilities.
    • Focus on customer value.
    • Use metrics and data to make better decisions.
    • Systematically solve problems and improve performance.
    • Develop an operating rhythm to promote adherence to Lean.

    Implement Lean Management Practices That Work Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how a Lean management system can help you increase transparency, demonstrate value, engage your teams and customers, continuously improve, and create alignment.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand Lean concepts

    Understand what a Lean management system is, review Lean philosophies, and examine simple Lean tools and activities.

    • Implement Lean Management Practices That Work – Phase 1: Understand Lean Concepts
    • Lean Management Education Deck

    2. Determine the scope of your implementation

    Understand the implications of the scope of your Lean management program.

    • Implement Lean Management Practices That Work – Phase 2: Determine the Scope of Your Implementation
    • Lean Management Scoping Tool

    3. Design huddle board

    Examine the sections and content to include in your huddle board design.

    • Implement Lean Management Practices That Work – Phase 3: Design Huddle Board
    • Lean Management Huddle Board Template

    4. Design Leader Standard Work and operating rhythm

    Determine the actions required by leaders and the operating rhythm.

    • Implement Lean Management Practices That Work – Phase 4: Design Leader Standard Work and Operating Rhythm
    • Leader Standard Work Tracking Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Implement Lean Management Practices That Work

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand Lean Concepts

    The Purpose

    Understand Lean management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gain a common understanding of Lean management, the Lean management thought model, Lean philosophies, huddles, visual management, team growth, and voice of customer.

    Activities

    1.1 Define Lean management in your organization.

    1.2 Create training materials.

    Outputs

    Lean management definition

    Customized training materials

    2 Understand Lean Concepts (Continued) and Determine Scope

    The Purpose

    Understand Lean management.

    Determine the scope of your program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand metrics and performance review.

    Understand problem identification and continuous improvement.

    Understand Kanban.

    Understand Leader Standard Work.

    Define the scope of the Lean management program.

    Activities

    2.1 Develop example operational metrics

    2.2 Simulate problem section.

    2.3 Simulate Kanban.

    2.4 Build scoping tool.

    Outputs

    Understand how to use operational metrics

    Understand problem identification

    Understand Kanban/daily tasks section

    Defined scope for your program

    3 Huddle Board Design and Huddle Facilitation Coaching

    The Purpose

    Design the sections and content for your huddle board.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Initial huddle board design.

    Activities

    3.1 Design and build each section in your huddle board.

    3.2 Simulate coaching conversations.

    Outputs

    Initial huddle board design

    Understanding of how to conduct a huddle

    4 Design and Build Leader Standard Work

    The Purpose

    Design your Leader Standard Work activities.

    Develop a schedule for executing Leader Standard Work.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standard activities identified and documented.

    Sample schedule developed.

    Activities

    4.1 Identify standard activities for leaders.

    4.2 Develop a schedule for executing Leader Standard Work.

    Outputs

    Leader Standard Work activities documented

    Initial schedule for Leader Standard Work activities

    Master Organizational Change Management Practices

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    • Parent Category Name: Program & Project Management
    • Parent Category Link: /program-and-project-management
    • Organizational change management (OCM) is often an Achilles’ heel for IT departments and business units, putting projects and programs at risk – especially large, complex, transformational projects.
    • When projects that depend heavily on users and stakeholders adopting new tools, or learning new processes or skills, get executed without an effective OCM plan, the likelihood that they will fail to achieve their intended outcomes increases exponentially.
    • The root of the problem often comes down to a question of accountability: who in the organization is accountable for change management success? In the absence of any other clearly identifiable OCM leader, the PMO – as the organizational entity that is responsible for facilitating successful project outcomes – needs to step up and embrace this accountability.
    • As PMO leader, you need to hone an OCM strategy and toolkit that will help ensure not only that projects are completed but also that benefits are realized.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The root of poor stakeholder adoption on change initiatives is twofold:
      • Project planning tends to fixate on technology and neglects the behavioral and cultural factors that inhibit user adoption;
      • Accountabilities for managing change and helping to realize the intended business outcomes post-project are not properly defined in advance.
    • Persuading people to change requires a “soft,” empathetic approach to keep them motivated and engaged. But don’t mistake “soft” for easy. Managing the people part of change is amongst the toughest work there is, and it requires a comfort and competency with uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict.
    • Transformation and change are increasingly becoming the new normal. While this normality may help make people more open to change in general, specific changes still need to be planned, communicated, and managed. Agility and continuous improvement are good, but can degenerate into volatility if change isn’t managed properly.

    Impact and Result

    • Plan for human nature. To ensure project success and maximize benefits, plan and facilitate the non-technical aspects of organizational change by addressing the emotional, behavioral, and cultural factors that foster stakeholder resistance and inhibit user adoption.
    • Make change management as ubiquitous as change itself. Foster a project culture that is proactive about OCM. Create a process where OCM considerations are factored in as early as project ideation and where change is actively managed throughout the project lifecycle, including after the project has closed.
    • Equip project leaders with the right tools to foster adoption. Effective OCM requires an actionable toolkit that will help plant the seeds for organizational change. With the right tools and templates, the PMO can function as the hub for change, helping the business units and project teams to consistently achieve project and post-project success.

    Master Organizational Change Management Practices Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how implementing an OCM strategy through the PMO can improve project outcomes and increase benefits realization.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Prepare the PMO for change leadership

    Assess the organization’s readiness for change and evaluate the PMO’s OCM capabilities.

    • Drive Organizational Change from the PMO – Phase 1: Prepare the PMO for Change Leadership
    • Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment
    • Project Level Assessment Tool

    2. Plant the seeds for change during project planning and initiation

    Build an organic desire for change throughout the organization by developing a sponsorship action plan through the PMO and taking a proactive approach to change impacts.

    • Drive Organizational Change from the PMO – Phase 2: Plant the Seeds for Change During Project Planning and Initiation
    • Organizational Change Management Impact Analysis Tool

    3. Facilitate change adoption throughout the organization

    Ensure stakeholders are engaged and ready for change by developing effective communication, transition, and training plans.

    • Drive Organizational Change from the PMO – Phase 3: Facilitate Change Adoption Throughout the Organization
    • Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
    • Transition Plan Template
    • Transition Team Communications Template

    4. Establish a post-project benefits attainment process

    Determine accountabilities and establish a process for tracking business outcomes after the project team has packed up and moved onto the next project.

    • Drive Organizational Change from the PMO – Phase 4: Establish a Post-Project Benefits Attainment Process
    • Portfolio Benefits Tracking Tool

    5. Solidify the PMO’s role as change leader

    Institute an Organizational Change Management Playbook through the PMO that covers tools, processes, and tactics that will scale all of the organization’s project efforts.

    • Drive Organizational Change from the PMO – Phase 5: Solidify the PMO's Role as Change Leader
    • Organizational Change Management Playbook
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Master Organizational Change Management Practices

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess OCM Capabilities

    The Purpose

    Assess the organization’s readiness for change and evaluate the PMO’s OCM capabilities.

    Estimate the relative difficulty and effort required for managing organizational change through a specific project.

    Create a rough but concrete timeline that aligns organizational change management activities with project scope.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A better understanding of the cultural appetite for change and of where the PMO needs to focus its efforts to improve OCM capabilities.

    A project plan that includes disciplined organizational change management from start to finish.

    Activities

    1.1 Assess the organization’s current readiness for change.

    1.2 Perform a change management SWOT analysis to assess the PMO’s capabilities.

    1.3 Define OCM success metrics.

    1.4 Establish and map out a core OCM project to pilot through the workshop.

    Outputs

    Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment

    A diagnosis of the PMO’s strengths and weaknesses around change management, as well as the opportunities and threats associated with driving an OCM strategy through the PMO

    Criteria for implementation success

    Project Level Assessment

    2 Analyze Change Impacts

    The Purpose

    Analyze the impact of the change across various dimensions of the business.

    Develop a strategy to manage change impacts to best ensure stakeholder adoption.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Improved planning for both your project management and organizational change management efforts.

    A more empathetic understanding of how the change will be received in order to rightsize the PMO’s OCM effort and maximize adoption.

    Activities

    2.1 Develop a sponsorship action plan through the PMO.

    2.2 Determine the relevant considerations for analyzing the change impacts of a project.

    2.3 Analyze the depth of each impact for each stakeholder group.

    2.4 Establish a game plan to manage individual change impacts.

    2.5 Document the risk assumptions and opportunities stemming from the impact analysis.

    Outputs

    Sponsorship Action Plan

    Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment

    Risk and Opportunity Assessment

    3 Establish Collaborative Roles and Develop an Engagement Plan

    The Purpose

    Define a clear and compelling vision for change.

    Define roles and responsibilities of the core project team for OCM.

    Identify potential types and sources of resistance and enthusiasm.

    Create a stakeholder map that visualizes relative influence and interest of stakeholders.

    Develop an engagement plan for cultivating support for change while eliciting requirements.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Begin to communicate a compelling vision for change.

    Delegate and divide work on elements of the transition plan among the project team and support staff.

    Begin developing a communications plan that appeals to unique needs and attitudes of different stakeholders.

    Cultivate support for change while eliciting requirements.

    Activities

    3.1 Involve the right people to drive and facilitate change.

    3.2 Solidify the vision of change to reinforce and sustain leadership and commitment.

    3.3 Proactively identify potential skeptics in order to engage them early and address their concerns.

    3.4 Stay one step ahead of potential saboteurs to prevent them from spreading dissent.

    3.5 Find opportunities to empower enthusiasts to stay motivated and promote change by encouraging others.

    3.6 Formalize the stakeholder analysis to identify change champions and blockers.

    3.7 Formalize the engagement plan to begin cultivating support while eliciting requirements.

    Outputs

    RACI table

    Stakeholder Analysis

    Engagement Plan

    Communications plan requirements

    4 Develop and Execute the Transition Plan

    The Purpose

    Develop a realistic, effective, and adaptable transition plan, including:Clarity around leadership and vision.Well-defined plans for targeting unique groups with specific messages.Resistance and contingency plans.Templates for gathering feedback and evaluating success.

    Clarity around leadership and vision.

    Well-defined plans for targeting unique groups with specific messages.

    Resistance and contingency plans.

    Templates for gathering feedback and evaluating success.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Execute the transition in coordination with the timeline and structure of the core project.

    Communicate the action plan and vision for change.

    Target specific stakeholder and user groups with unique messages.

    Deal with risks, resistance, and contingencies.

    Evaluate success through feedback and metrics.

    Activities

    4.1 Sustain changes by adapting people, processes, and technologies to accept the transition.

    4.2 Decide which action to take on enablers and blockers.

    4.3 Start developing the training plan early to ensure training is properly timed and communicated.

    4.4 Sketch a communications timeline based on a classic change curve to accommodate natural resistance.

    4.5 Define plans to deal with resistance to change, objections, and fatigue.

    4.6 Consolidate and refine communication plan requirements for each stakeholder and group.

    4.7 Build the communications delivery plan.

    4.8 Define the feedback and evaluation process to ensure the project achieves its objectives.

    4.9 Formalize the transition plan.

    Outputs

    Training Plan

    Resistance Plan

    Communications Plan

    Transition Plan

    5 Institute an OCM Playbook through the PMO

    The Purpose

    Establish post-project benefits tracking timeline and commitment plans.

    Institute a playbook for managing organizational change, including:

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A process for ensuring the intended business outcomes are tracked and monitored after the project is completed.

    Repeat and scale best practices around organizational change to future PMO projects.

    Continue to build your capabilities around managing organizational change.

    Increase the effectiveness and value of organizational change management.

    Activities

    5.1 Review lessons learned to improve organizational change management as a core PM discipline.

    5.2 Monitor capacity for change.

    5.3 Define roles and responsibilities.

    5.4 Formalize and communicate the organizational change management playbook.

    5.5 Regularly reassess the value and success of organizational change management.

    Outputs

    Lessons learned

    Organizational Change Capability Assessment

    Organizational Change Management Playbook

    Further reading

    Master Organizational Change Management Practices

    PMOs, if you don't know who is responsible for org change, it's you.

    Analyst Perspective

    Don’t leave change up to chance.

    "Organizational change management has been a huge weakness for IT departments and business units, putting projects and programs at risk – especially large, complex, transformational projects.

    During workshops with clients, I find that the root of this problem is twofold: project planning tends to fixate on technology and neglects the behavioral and cultural factors that inhibit user adoption; further, accountabilities for managing change and helping to realize the intended business outcomes post-project are not properly defined.

    It makes sense for the PMO to be the org-change leader. In project ecosystems where no one seems willing to seize this opportunity, the PMO can take action and realize the benefits and accolades that will come from coordinating and consistently driving successful project outcomes."

    Matt Burton,

    Senior Manager, Project Portfolio Management

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research is Designed For:

    • PMO Directors who need to improve user adoption rates and maximize benefits on project and program activity.
    • CIOs who are accountable for IT’s project spend and need to ensure an appropriate ROI on project investments.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Define change management roles and accountabilities among project stakeholders.
    • Prepare end users for change impacts in order to improve adoption rates.
    • Ensure that the intended business outcomes of projects are more effectively realized.
    • Develop an organizational change management toolkit and best practices playbook.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Project managers and change managers who need to plan and execute changes affecting people and processes.
    • Project sponsors who want to improve benefits attainment.
    • Business analysts who need to analyze the impact of change.

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Develop communications and training plans tailored to specific audiences.
      • Identify strategies to manage cultural and behavioral change.
    • Maximize project benefits by ensuring changes are adopted.
    • Capitalize upon opportunities and mitigate risks.

    Drive organizational change from the PMO

    Situation

    • As project management office (PMO) leader, you oversee a portfolio of projects that depend heavily on users and stakeholders adopting new tools, complying with new policies, following new processes, and learning new skills.
    • You need to facilitate the organizational change resulting from these projects, ensuring that the intended business outcomes are realized.

    Complication

    • While IT takes accountability to deliver the change, accountability for the business outcomes is opaque with little or no allocated resourcing.
    • Project management practices focus more on the timely implementation of projects than on the achievement of the desired outcomes thereafter or on the behavioral and cultural factors that inhibit change from taking hold in the long term.

    Resolution

    • Plan for human nature. To ensure project success and maximize benefits, plan and facilitate the non-technical aspects of organizational change by addressing the emotional, behavioral, and cultural factors that foster stakeholder resistance and inhibit user adoption.
    • Make change management as ubiquitous as change itself. Foster a project culture that is proactive about OCM. Create a process where OCM considerations are factored in as early as project ideation and change is actively managed throughout the project lifecycle, including after the project has closed.
    • Equip project leaders with the right tools to foster adoption. Effective OCM requires an actionable toolkit that will help plant the seeds for organizational change. With the right tools and templates, the PMO can function as a hub for change, helping business units and project teams to consistently achieve project and post-project success.
    Info-Tech Insight

    Make your PMO the change leader it’s already expected to be. Unless accountabilities for organizational change management (OCM) have been otherwise explicitly defined, you should accept that, to the rest of the organization – including its chief officers – the PMO is already assumed to be the change leader.

    Don’t shy away from or neglect this role. It’s not just the business outcomes of the organization’s projects that will benefit; the long-term sustainability of the PMO itself will be significantly strengthened by making OCM a core competency.

    Completed projects aren’t necessarily successful projects

    The constraints that drive project management (time, scope, and budget) are insufficient for driving the overall success of project efforts.

    For instance, a project may come in on time, on budget, and in scope, but

    • …if users and stakeholders fail to adopt…
    • …and the intended benefits are not achieved…

    …then that “successful project” represents a massive waste of the organization’s time and resources.

    A supplement to project management is needed to ensure that the intended value is realized.

    Mission (Not) Accomplished

    50% Fifty percent of respondents in a KPMG survey indicated that projects fail to achieve what they originally intended. (Source: NZ Project management survey)

    56% Only fifty-six percent of strategic projects meet their original business goals. (Source: PMI)

    70% Lack of user adoption is the main cause for seventy percent of failed projects. (Source: Collins, 2013)

    Improve project outcomes with organizational change management

    Make “completed” synonymous with “successfully completed” by implementing an organizational change management strategy through the PMO.

    Organizational change management is the practice through which the PMO can improve user adoption rates and maximize project benefits.

    Why OCM effectiveness correlates to project success:

    • IT projects are justified because they will make money, save money, or make people happier.
    • Project benefits can only be realized when changes are successfully adopted or accommodated by the organization.

    Without OCM, IT might finish the project but fail to realize the intended outcomes.

    In the long term, a lack of OCM could erode IT’s ability to work with the business.

    The image shows a bar graph, titled Effective change management correlates with project success, with the X-axis labelled Project Success (Percent of respondents that met or exceeded project objectives), and the Y-axis labelled OCM-Effectiveness, with an arrow pointing upwards. The graph shows that with higher OCM-Effectiveness, Project Success is also higher. The source is given as Prosci’s 2014 Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking report.

    What is organizational change management?

    OCM is a framework for managing the introduction of new business processes and technologies to ensure stakeholder adoption.

    OCM involves tools, templates, and processes that are intended to help project leaders analyze the impacts of a change during the planning phase, engage stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle, as well as train and transition users towards the new technologies and processes being implemented.

    OCM is a separate body of knowledge, but as a practice it is inseparable from both project management or business analysis.

    WHEN IS OCM NEEDED?

    Anytime you are starting a project or program that will depend on users and stakeholders to give up their old way of doing things, change will force people to become novices again, leading to lost productivity and added stress.

    CM can help improve project outcomes on any project where you need people to adopt new tools and procedures, comply with new policies, learn new skills and behaviors, or understand and support new processes.

    "What is the goal of change management? Getting people to adopt a new way of doing business." – BA, Natural Resources Company

    The benefits of OCM range from more effective project execution to improved benefits attainment

    82% of CEOs identify organizational change management as a priority. (D&B Consulting) But Only 18% of organizations characterize themselves as “Highly Effective” at OCM. (PMI)

    On average, 95% percent of projects with excellent OCM meet or exceed their objectives. (Prosci) VS For projects with poor OCM, the number of projects that meet objectives drops to 15%. (Prosci)

    82% of projects with excellent OCM practices are completed on budget. (Prosci) VS For projects with poor OCM, the number of projects that stay on budget drops to 51%. (Prosci)

    71% of projects with excellent OCM practices stay on schedule. (Prosci) VS For projects with poor OCM practices, only 16% stay on schedule. (Prosci)

    While critical to project success, OCM remains one of IT’s biggest weaknesses and process improvement gaps

    IT Processes Ranked by Effectiveness:

    1. Risk Management
    2. Knowledge Management
    3. Release Management
    4. Innovation
    5. IT Governance
    6. Enterprise Architecture
    7. Quality Management
    8. Data Architecture
    9. Application Development Quality
    10. Data Quality
    11. Portfolio Management
    12. Configuration Management
    13. Application Portfolio Management
    14. Business Process Controls Internal Audit
    15. Organizational Change Management
    16. Application Development Throughput
    17. Business Intelligence Reporting
    18. Performance Measurement
    19. Manage Service Catalog

    IT Processes Ranked by Importance:

    1. Enterprise Application Selection & Implementation
    2. Organizational Change Management
    3. Data Architecture
    4. Quality Management
    5. Enterprise Architecture
    6. Business Intelligence Reporting
    7. Release Management
    8. Portfolio Management
    9. Application Maintenance
    10. Asset Management
    11. Vendor Management
    12. Application Portfolio Management
    13. Innovation
    14. Business Process Controls Internal Audit
    15. Configuration Management
    16. Performance Measurement
    17. Application Development Quality
    18. Application Development Throughput
    19. Manage Service Catalog

    Based on 3,884 responses to Info-Tech’s Management and Governance Diagnostic, June 2016

    There’s no getting around it: change is hard

    While the importance of change management is widely recognized across organizations, the statistics around change remain dismal.

    Indeed, it’s an understatement to say that change is difficult.

    People are generally – in the near-term at least – resistant to change, especially large, transformational changes that will impact the day-to-day way of doing things, or that involve changing personal values, social norms, and other deep-seated assumptions.

    "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." – Niccolo Machiavelli

    70% - Change failure rates are extremely high. It is estimated that up to seventy percent of all change initiatives fail – a figure that has held steady since the 1990s. (McKinsey & Company)

    25% - In a recent survey of 276 large and midsize organizations, only twenty-five percent of respondents felt that the gains from projects were sustained over time. (Towers Watson)

    22% - While eighty-seven percent of survey respondents trained their managers to “manage change,” only 22% felt the training was truly effective. (Towers Watson)

    While change is inherently difficult, the biggest obstacle to OCM success is a lack of accountability

    Who is accountable for change success? …anyone?...

    To its peril, OCM commonly falls into a grey area, somewhere in between project management and portfolio management, and somewhere in between being a concern of IT and a concern of the business.

    While OCM is a separate discipline from project management, it is commonly thought that OCM is something that project managers and project teams do. While in some cases this might be true, it is far from a universal truth.

    The end result: without a centralized approach, accountabilities for key OCM tasks are opaque at best – and the ball for these tasks is, more often than not, dropped altogether.

    29% - Twenty-nine percent of change initiatives are launched without any formal OCM plan whatsoever.

    "That’s 29 percent of leaders with blind faith in the power of prayer to Saint Jude, the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes." – Torben Rick

    Bring accountability to org-change by facilitating the winds of change through the PMO

    Lasting organizational change requires a leader. Make it the PMO.

    #1 Organizational resistance to change is cited as the #1 challenge to project success that PMOs face. (Source: PM Solutions)

    90% Companies with mature PMOs that effectively manage change meet expectations 90% of the time. (Source: Jacobs-Long)

    Why the PMO?

    A centralized approach to OCM is most effective, and the PMO is already a centralized project office and is already accountable for project outcomes.

    What’s more, in organizations where accountabilities for OCM are not explicitly defined, the PMO will likely already be assumed to be the default change leader by the wider organization.

    It makes sense for the PMO to accept this accountability – in the short term at least – and claim the benefits that will come from coordinating and consistently driving successful project outcomes.

    In the long term, OCM leadership will help the PMO to become a strategic partner with the executive layer and the business side.

    Short-term gains made by the PMO can be used to spark dialogues with those who authorize project spending and have the implicit fiduciary obligation to drive project benefits.

    Ultimately, it’s their job to explicitly transfer that obligation, along with the commensurate resourcing and authority for OCM activities.

    More than a value-added service, OCM competencies will soon determine the success of the PMO itself

    Given the increasingly dynamic nature of market conditions, the need for PMOs to provide change leadership on projects large and small is becoming a necessity.

    "With organizations demanding increasing value, PMOs will need to focus more and more on strategy, innovation, agility, and stakeholder engagement. And, in particular, developing expertise in organizational change management will be essential to their success." – PM Solutions, 2014

    28% PMOs that are highly agile and able to respond quickly to changing conditions are 28% more likely to successfully complete strategic initiatives (69% vs. 41%). (PMI)

    In other words, without heightened competencies around org-change, the PMO of tomorrow will surely sink like a stone in the face of increasingly unstable external factors and accelerated project demands.

    Use Info-Tech’s road-tested OCM toolkit to transform your PMO into a hub of change management leadership

    With the advice and tools in Info-Tech’s Drive Organizational Change from the PMO blueprint, the PMO can provide the right OCM expertise at each phase of a project.

    The graphic has an image of a windmill at centre, with PMO written directly below it. Several areas of expertise are listed in boxes emerging out of the PMO, which line up with project phases as follows (project phase listed first, then area of expertise): Initiation - Impact Assessment; Planning - Stakeholder Engagement; Execution - Transition Planning; Monitoring & Controlling - Communications Execution; Closing - Evaluation & Monitoring.

    Info-Tech’s approach to OCM is a practical/tactical adaptation of several successful models

    Business strategy-oriented OCM models such as John Kotter’s 8-Step model assume the change agent is in a position of senior leadership, able to shape corporate vision, culture, and values.

    • PMO leaders can work with business leaders, but ultimately can’t decide where to take the organization.
    • Work with business leaders to ensure IT-enabled change helps reinforce the organization’s target vision and culture.

    General-purpose OCM frameworks such as ACMP’s Standard for Change Management, CMI’s CMBoK, and Prosci’s ADKAR model are very comprehensive and need to be configured to PMO-specific initiatives.

    • Tailoring a comprehensive, general-purpose framework to PMO-enabled change requires familiarity and experience.

    References and Further Reading

    Info-Tech’s organizational change management model adapts the best practices from a wide range of proven models and distills it into a step-by-step process that can be applied to any IT-enabled project.

    Info-Tech’s OCM research is COBIT aligned and a cornerstone in our IT Management & Governance Framework

    COBIT Section COBIT Management Practice Related Blueprint Steps
    BAI05.01 Establish the desire to change. 1.1 / 2.1 / 2.2
    BAI05.02 Form an effective implementation team. 1.2
    BAI05.03 Communicate the desired vision. 2.1 / 3.2
    BAI05.03 Empower role players and identify short-term wins. 3.2 / 3.3
    BAI05.05 Enable operation and use. 3.1
    BAI05.06 Embed new approaches. 4.1 / 5.1
    BAI05.07 Sustain changes. 5.1

    COBIT 5 is the leading framework for the governance and management of enterprise IT.

    Screenshot of Info-Tech’s IT Management & Governance Framework.

    The image is a screenshot of Info-Tech's IT Management & Governance Framework (linked above). There is an arrow emerging from the screenshot, which offers a zoomed-in view of one of the sections of the framework, which reads BAI05 Organizational Change Management.

    Consider Info-Tech’s additional key observations

    Human behavior is largely a blind spot during the planning phase.

    In IT especially, project planning tends to fixate on technology and underestimate the behavioral and cultural factors that inhibit user adoption. Whether change is project-specific or continuous, it’s more important to instill the desire to change than to apply specific tools and techniques. Accountability for instilling this desire should start with the project sponsor, with direct support from the PMO.

    Don’t mistake change management for a “soft” skill.

    Persuading people to change requires a “soft,” empathetic approach to keep them motivated and engaged. But don’t mistake “soft” for easy. Managing the people part of change is amongst the toughest work there is, and it requires a comfort and competency with uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict. If a change initiative is going to be successful (especially a large, transformational change), this tough work needs to be done – and the more impactful the change, the earlier it is done, the better.

    In “continuous change” environments, change still needs to be managed.

    Transformation and change are increasingly becoming the new normal. While this normality may help make people more open to change in general, specific changes still need to be planned, communicated, and managed. Agility and continuous improvement are good, but can degenerate into volatility if change isn’t managed properly. People will perceive change to be volatile and undesirable if their expectations aren’t managed through communications and engagement planning.

    Info-Tech’s centralized approach to OCM is cost effective, with a palpable impact on project ROI

    Info-Tech’s Drive Organizational Change from the PMO blueprint can be implemented quickly and can usually be done with the PMO’s own authority, without the need for additional or dedicated change resources.

    Implementation Timeline

    • Info-Tech’s easy-to-navigate OCM tools can be employed right away, when your project is already in progress.
    • A full-scale implementation of a PMO-driven OCM program can be accomplished in 3–4 weeks.

    Implementation Personnel

    • Primary: the PMO director (should budget 10%–15% of her/his project capacity for OCM activities).
    • Secondary: other PMO staff (e.g. project managers, business analysts, etc.).

    OCM Implementation Costs

    15% - The average costs for effective OCM are 10%–15% of the overall project budget. (AMR Research)

    Average OCM Return-on-Investment

    200% - Small projects with excellent OCM practices report a 200% return-on-investment. (Change First)

    650% - Large projects with excellent OCM practices report a 650% return-on-investment. (Change First)

    Company saves 2–4 weeks of time and $10,000 in ERP implementation through responsible OCM

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Manufacturing

    Source Info-Tech Client

    Situation

    A medium-sized manufacturing company with offices all over the world was going through a consolidation of processes and data by implementing a corporate-wide ERP system to replace the fragmented systems that were previously in place. The goal was to have consistency in process, expectations, and quality, as well as improve efficiency in interdepartmental processes.

    Up to this point, every subsidiary was using their own system to track data and sharing information was complicated and slow. It was causing key business opportunities to be compromised or even lost.

    Complication

    The organization was not very good in closing out projects. Initiatives went on for too long, and the original business benefits were usually not realized.

    The primary culprit was recognized as mismanaged organizational change. People weren’t aware early enough, and were often left out of the feedback process.

    Employees often felt like changes were being dictated to them, and they didn’t understand the wider benefits of the changes. This led to an unnecessary number of resistors, adding to the complexity of successfully completing a project.

    Resolution

    Implementing an ERP worldwide was something that the company couldn’t gamble on, so proper organizational change management was a focus.

    A thorough stakeholder analysis was done, and champions were identified for each stakeholder group throughout the organization.

    Involving these champions early gave them the time to work within their groups and to manage expectations. The result was savings of 2–4 weeks of implementation time and $10,000.

    Follow Info-Tech’s blueprint to transform your PMO into a hub for organizational change management

    Prepare the PMO for Change Leadership

    • Assess the organization’s readiness for change.
      • Perform an OCM capabilities assessment.
      • Chart an OCM roadmap for the PMO.
      • Undergo a change management SWOT analysis.
      • Define success criteria.
      • Org. Change Capabilities Assessment
    • Define the structure and scope of the PMO’s pilot OCM initiative.
      • Determine pilot OCM project.
      • Estimate OCM effort.
      • Document high-level project details.
      • Establish a timeline for org-change activities.
      • Assess available resources to support the PMO’s OCM initiative.
      • Project Level Assessment

    Plant the Seeds for Change During Project Planning and Initiation

    • Foster OCM considerations during the ideation phase.
      • Assess leadership support for change
      • Highlight the goals and benefits of the change
      • Refine your change story
      • Define success criteria
      • Develop a sponsorship action plan
      • Transition Team Communications Template
    • Perform an organizational change impact assessment.
      • Perform change impact survey.
      • Assess the depth of impact for the stakeholder group.
      • Determine overall adoptability of the OCM effort.
      • Review risks and opportunities.
      • Org. Change Management Impact Analysis Tool

    Facilitate Change Adoption Throughout the Organization

    • Ensure stakeholders are engaged and ready for change.
      • Involve the right people in change and define roles.
      • Define methods for obtaining stakeholder input.
      • Perform a stakeholder analysis.
      • Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
    • Develop and execute the transition plan.
      • Establish a communications strategy for stakeholder groups.
      • Define the feedback and evaluation process.
      • Assess the full range of support and resistance to change.
      • Develop an objections handling process.
      • Transition Plan Template
    • Establish HR and training plans.
      • Assess training needs. Develop training plan.
      • Training Plan

    Establish a Post-Project Benefits Attainment Process

    • Determine accountabilities for benefits attainment.
      • Conduct a post-implementation review of the pilot OCM project.
      • Assign ownership for realizing benefits after the project is closed.
      • Define a post-project benefits tracking process.
      • Implement a tool to help monitor and track benefits over the long term.
      • Project Benefits Tracking Tool

    Solidify the PMO’s Role as Change Leader

    • Institute an OCM playbook.
      • Review lessons learned to improve OCM as a core discipline of the PMO.
      • Monitor organizational capacity for change.
      • Define roles and responsibilities for OCM oversight.
      • Formalize the Organizational Change Management Playbook.
      • Assess the value and success of your practices relative to OCM effort and project outcomes.
      • Organizational Change Management Playbook

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Drive Organizational Change from the PMO

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5
    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Assess the organization’s readiness for change.

    1.2 Define the structure and scope of the PMO’s pilot OCM initiative.

    2.1 Foster OCM considerations during the ideation phase.

    2.2 Perform an organizational change impact assessment.

    3.1 Ensure stakeholders are engaged and ready for change.

    3.2 Develop and execute the transition plan.

    3.3 Establish HR and training plans.

    4.1 Determine accountabilities for benefits attainment. 5.1 Institute an OCM playbook.
    Guided Implementations
    • Scoping Call.
    • Review the PMO’s and the organization’s change capabilities.
    • Determine an OCM pilot initiative.
    • Define a sponsorship action plan for change initiatives.
    • Undergo a change impact assessment.
    • Perform a stakeholder analysis.
    • Prepare a communications strategy based on stakeholder types.
    • Develop training plans.
    • Establish a post-project benefits tracking process.
    • Implement a tracking tool.
    • Evaluate the effectiveness of OCM practices.
    • Formalize an OCM playbook for the organization’s projects.
    Onsite Workshop

    Module 1:

    Prepare the PMO for change leadership.

    Module 2:

    Plant the seeds for change during planning and initiation.

    Module 3:

    Facilitate change adoption throughout the organization.

    Module 4:

    Establish a post-project benefits attainment process.

    Module 5:

    Solidify the PMO’s role as change leader.

    Phase 1 Results:

    OCM Capabilities Assessment

    Phase 2 Results:

    Change Impact Analysis

    Phase 3 Results:

    Communications and Transition Plans

    Phase 4 Results:

    A benefits tracking process for sponsors

    Phase 5 Results:

    OCM Playbook

    Workshop overview

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Preparation Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4
    Activities

    Organize and Plan Workshop

    • Finalize workshop itinerary and scope.
    • Identify workshop participants.
    • Gather strategic documentation.
    • Engage necessary stakeholders.
    • Book interviews.

    Assess OCM Capabilities

    • Assess current organizational change management capabilities.
    • Conduct change management SWOT analysis.
    • Define change management success metrics.
    • Define core pilot OCM project.

    Analyze Impact of the Change

    • Analyse the impact of the change across multiple dimensions and stakeholder groups.
    • Create an impact management plan.
    • Analyze impacts to product with risk and opportunity assessments.

    Develop Engagement & Transition Plans

    • Perform stakeholder analysis to identify change champions and blockers.
    • Document comm./training requirements and delivery plan.
    • Define plans to deal with resistance.
    • Validate and test the transition plan.

    Institute an OCM Playbook

    • Define feedback and evaluation process.
    • Finalize communications, transition, and training plans.
    • Establish benefits tracking timeline and commitment plans.
    • Define roles and responsibilities for ongoing organizational change management.
    Deliverables
    • Workshop Itinerary
    • Workshop Participant List
    • Defined Org Change Mandate
    • Organizational Change Capabilities Assessment
    • SWOT Assessment
    • Value Metrics
    • Project Level Assessment/Project Definition
    • Project Sponsor Action Plan
    • Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool
    • Risk Assessment
    • Opportunity Assessment
    • Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
    • Communications Plan
    • Training Plan
    • Resistance Plan
    • Transition Team
    • Communications Template
    • Evaluation Plan
    • Post-Project Benefits Tracking Timelines and Accountabilities
    • OCM Playbook

    Phase 1

    Prepare the PMO for Change Leadership

    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.

    Guided Implementation 1: Prepare the PMO for Change Leadership

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1 week

    Step 1.1: Assess the organization’s readiness for change

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Scoping call to discuss organizational change challenges and the PMO’s role in managing change.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Perform an assessment survey to define capability levels and chart an OCM roadmap.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment
    Step 1.2: Define the structure and scope of the PMO’s pilot OCM initiative

    Work with an analyst to:

    • Determine the appropriate OCM initiative to pilot over this series of Guided Implementations from the PMO’s project list.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Rightsize your OCM planning efforts based on project size, timeline, and resource availability.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Project Level Assessment Tool

    Step 1.1: Assess the organization’s readiness for change

    Phase 1 - 1.1

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Perform an OCM capabilities assessment.
    • Chart an OCM roadmap for the PMO.
    • Undergo a change management SWOT analysis.
    • Define success criteria.
    This step involves the following participants:
    • Required: PMO Director
    • Recommended: PMO staff, project management staff, and other project stakeholders
    Outcomes of this step
    • An OCM roadmap for the PMO with specific recommendations.
    • An assessment of strengths, weakness, challenges, and threats in terms of the PMO’s role as organizational change leader.
    • Success metrics for the PMO’s OCM implementation.

    Project leaders who successfully facilitate change are strategic assets in a world of increasing agility and uncertainty

    As transformation and change become the new normal, it’s up to PMOs to provide stability and direction during times of transition and turbulence.

    Continuous change and transition are increasingly common in organizations in 2016.

    A state of constant change can make managing change more difficult in some ways, but easier in others.

    • Inundation with communications and diversity of channels means the traditional “broadcast” approach to communicating change doesn’t work (i.e. you can’t expect every email to get everyone’s attention).
    • People might be more open to change in general, but specific changes still need to be properly planned, communicated, and managed.

    By managing organizational change more effectively, the PMO can build credibility to manage both business and IT projects.

    "The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic." – Peter Drucker

    In this phase, we will gauge your PMO’s abilities to effectively facilitate change based upon your change management capability levels and your wider organization’s responsiveness to change.

    Evaluate your current capabilities for managing organizational change

    Start off by ensuring that the PMO is sensitive to the particularities of the organization and that it manages change accordingly.

    There are many moving parts involved in successfully realizing an organizational change.

    For instance, even with an effective change toolkit and strong leadership support, you may still fail to achieve project benefits due to such factors as a staff environment resistant to change or poor process discipline.

    Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment to assess your readiness for change across 7 categories:

    • Cultural Readiness
    • Leadership & Sponsorship
    • Organizational Knowledge
    • Change Management Skills
    • Toolkit & Templates
    • Process Discipline
    • KPIs & Metrics

    Download Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment.

    • The survey can be completed quickly in 5 to 10 minutes; or, if being done as a group activity, it can take up to 60 minutes or more.
    • Based upon your answers, you will get a report of your current change capabilities to help you prioritize your next steps.
    • The tool also provides a customized list of Info-Tech recommendations across the seven categories.

    Perform Info-Tech’s OCM capabilities questionnaire

    1.1.1 Anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes (depending on number of participants)

    • The questionnaire on Tab 2 of the Assessment consists of 21 questions across 7 categories.
    • The survey can be completed individually, by the PMO director or manager, or – even more ideally – by a group of project and business stakeholders.
    • While the questionnaire only takes a few minutes to complete, you may wish to survey a wider swath of business units, especially on such categories as “Cultural Readiness” and “Leadership Support.”

    The image is a screen capture of tab 2 of the Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment.

    Use the drop downs to indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with each of the statements in the survey.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Every organization has some change management capability.

    Even if you find yourself in a fledgling or nascent PMO, with no formal change management tools or processes, you can still leverage other categories of change management effectiveness.

    If you can, build upon people-related assets like “Organizational Knowledge” and “Cultural Readiness” as you start to hone your OCM toolkit and process.

    Review your capability levels and chart an OCM roadmap for your PMO

    Tab 3 of the Assessment tool shows your capabilities graph.

    • The chart visualizes your capability levels across the seven categories of organization change covered in the questionnaire in order to show the areas that your organization is already strong in and the areas where you need to focus your efforts.

    The image is a screen capture of tab 3 of the Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment.

    Focus on improving the first capability dimension (from left/front to right/back) that rates below 10.

    Tab 4 of the Assessment tool reveals Info-Tech’s recommendations based upon your survey responses.

    • Use these recommendations to structure your roadmap and bring concrete definitions to your next steps.

    The image is a screen capture of tab 4 of the Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment.

    Use the red/yellow/green boxes to focus your efforts.

    The content in the recommendations boxes is based around these categories and the advice therein is designed to help you to, in the near term, bring your capabilities up to the next level.

    Use the steps in this blueprint to help build your capabilities

    Each of Info-Tech’s seven OCM capabilities match up with different steps and phases in this blueprint.

    We recommend that you consume this blueprint in a linear fashion, as each phase matches up to a different set of OCM activities to be executed at each phase of a project. However, you can use the legend below to locate how and where this blueprint will address each capability.

    Cultural Readiness 2.1 / 2.2 / 3.1 / 3.2 / 3.3
    Leadership Support 2.1 / 4.1 / 5.1
    Organizational Knowledge 2.1 / 3.1 / 3.2
    Change Management Skills 2.1 / 2.2 / 3.1 / 3.2 / 3.3
    Toolkit & Templates 2.1 / 2.2 / 3.1 / 3.2 / 3.3 / 4.1 / 5.1
    Process Discipline 2.1 / 2.2 / 3.1 / 3.2 / 3.3 / 4.1 / 5.1
    KPIs & Metrics 3.2 / 5.1

    Info-Tech Insight

    Organizational change must be planned in advance and managed through all phases of a project.

    Organizational change management must be embedded as a key aspect throughout the project, not merely a set of tactics added to execution phases.

    Perform a change management SWOT exercise

    1.1.2 30 to 60 minutes

    Now that you have a sense of your change management strengths and weaknesses, you can begin to formalize the organizational specifics of these.

    Gather PMO and IT staff, as well as other key project and business stakeholders, and perform a SWOT analysis based on your Capabilities Assessment.

    Follow these steps to complete the SWOT analysis:

    1. Have participants discuss and identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
    2. Spend roughly 60 minutes on this. Use a whiteboard, flip chart, or PowerPoint slide to document results of the discussion as points are made.
    3. Make sure results are recorded and saved either using the template provided on the next slide or by taking a picture of the whiteboard or flip chart.

    Use the SWOT Analysis Template on the next slide to document results.

    Use the examples provided in the SWOT analysis to kick-start the discussion.

    The purpose of the SWOT is to begin to define the goals of this implementation by assessing your change management capabilities and cultivating executive level, business unit, PMO, and IT alignment around the most critical opportunities and challenges.

    Sample SWOT Analysis

    Strengths

    • Knowledge, skills, and talent of project staff.
    • Good working relationship between IT and business units.
    • Other PMO processes are strong and well adhered to by project staff.
    • Motivation to get things done when priorities, goals, and action plans are clear.

    Weaknesses

    • Project leads lack formal training in change management.
    • IT tried to introduce org change processes in the past, but we failed. Staff were unsure of which templates to use and how/when/why to use them.
    • We can’t designate individuals as change agents. We lack sufficient resources.
    • We’ve had some fairly significant change failures in the past and some skepticism and pessimism has taken root in the business units.

    Opportunities

    • The PMO is strong and well established in the organization, with a history of facilitating successful process discipline.
    • The new incoming CEO has already paid lip service to change and transformation. We should be able to leverage their support as we formalize these processes.
    • We have good lines of project communication already in place via our bi-weekly project reporting meetings. We can add change management matters to the agenda of these meetings.

    Threats

    • Additional processes and documentation around change management could be viewed as burdensome overhead. Adoption is uncertain.
    • OCM success depends on multiple stakeholders and business units coming together; with so many moving parts, we can’t be assured that an OCM program will survive long term.

    Define the “how” and the “what” of change management success for your PMO

    1.1.3 30 to 60 minutes

    Before you move on to develop and implement your OCM processes, spend some time documenting how change management success will be defined for your organization and what conditions will be necessary for success to be achieved.

    With the same group of individuals who participated in the SWOT exercise, discuss the below criteria. You can make this a sticky note or a whiteboard activity to help document discussion points.

    OCM Measured Value Metrics Include:
    • Estimate % of expected business benefits realized on the past 3–5 significant projects/programs.
      • Track business benefits (costs reduced, productivity increased, etc.).
    • Estimate costs avoided/reduced (extensions, cancellations, delays, roll-backs, etc.).
      • Establish baseline by estimating average costs of projects extended to deal with change-related issues.
    What conditions are necessary for OCM to succeed? How will success be defined?
    • e.g. The PMO will need the support of senior leaders and business units.
    • e.g. 20% improvement in benefits realization numbers within the next 12 months.
    • e.g. The PMO will need to establish a portal to help with organization-wide communications.
    • e.g. 30% increase in adoption rates on new software and technology projects within the next 12 months.

    Document additional items that could impact an OCM implementation for your PMO

    1.1.4 15 to 45 minutes

    Use the table below to document any additional factors or uncertainties that could impact implementation success.

    These could be external factors that may impact the PMO, or they could be logistical considerations pertaining to staffing or infrastructure that may be required to support additional change management processes and procedures.

    "[A]ll bets are off when it comes to change. People scatter in all directions. Your past experiences may help in some way, but what you do today and how you do it are the new measures people will use to evaluate you." – Tres Roeder

    Consideration Description of Need Potential Resource Implications Potential Next Steps Timeline
    e.g. The PMO will need to train PMs concerning new processes. We will not only need to train PM staff in the new processes and documentation requirements, but we will also have to provide ongoing training, be it monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Members of PMO staff will be required to support this training. Analyze impact of redeploying existing resources vs. outsourcing. Q3 2016
    e.g. We will need to communicate new OCM requirements to the business and wider organization. The PMO will be taking on added communication requirements, needing to advertise to a wider audience than it has before. None Work with business side to expand the PMO’s communications network and look into leveraging existing communication portals. Next month

    Step 1.2: Define the structure and scope of the PMO’s pilot OCM initiative

    Phase 1 - 1.2

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Determine pilot OCM project.
    • Estimate OCM effort.
    • Document high-level project details.
    • Establish a timeline for org change activities.
    • Assess available resources to support the PMO’s OCM initiative.
    This step involves the following participants:
    • Required: PMO Director
    • Recommended: PMO staff, project management staff, and other project stakeholders
    Outcomes of this step
    • Project definition for the PMO’s pilot OCM initiative.
    • A timeline that aligns the project schedule for key OCM activities.
    • Definition of resource availability to support OCM activities through the PMO.

    Organizational change discipline should align with project structure

    Change management success is contingent on doing the right things at the right time.

    In subsequent phases of this blueprint, we will help the PMO develop an OCM strategy that aligns with your organization’s project timelines.

    In this step (1.2), we will do some pre-work for you by determining a change initiative to pilot during this process and defining some of the roles and responsibilities for the OCM activities that we’ll develop in this blueprint.

    The image shows a sample project timeline with corresponding OCM requirements.

    Get ready to develop and pilot your OCM competencies on a specific project

    In keeping with the need to align organizational change management activities with the actual timeline of the project, the next three phases of this blueprint will move from discussing OCM in general to applying OCM considerations to a single project.

    As you narrow your focus to the organizational change stemming from a specific initiative, review the below considerations to help inform the decisions that you make during the activities in this step.

    Choose a pilot project that:

    • Has an identifiable sponsor who will be willing and able to participate in the bulk of the activities during the workshop.
    • Has an appropriate level of change associated with it in order to adequately develop a range of OCM capabilities.
    • Has a reasonably well-defined scope and timeline – you don’t want the pilot initiative being dragged out unexpectedly.
    • Has PMO/IT staff who will be assisting with OCM efforts and will be relatively familiar and comfortable with them in terms of technical requirements.

    Select a specific project that involves significant organizational change

    1.2.1 5 to 15 minutes

    The need for OCM rigor will vary depending on project size and complexity.

    While we recommend that every project has some aspect of change management to it, you can adjust OCM requirements accordingly, depending on the type of change being introduced.

    Incremental Change Transformational Change

    Organizational change management is highly recommended and beneficial for projects that require people to:

    • Adopt new tools and workflows.
    • Learn new skills.
    • Comply with new policies and procedures.
    • Stop using old tools and workflows.

    Organizational change management is required for projects that require people to:

    • Move into different roles, reporting structures, and career paths.
    • Embrace new responsibilities, goals, reward systems, and values
    • Grow out of old habits, ideas, and behaviors.
    • Lose stature in the organization.

    Phases 2, 3, and 4 of this blueprint will guide you through the process of managing organizational change around a specific project. Select one now that is currently in your request or planning stages to pilot through the activities in this blueprint. We recommend choosing one that involves a large, transformational change.

    Estimate the overall difficulty and effort required to manage organizational change

    1.2.2 5 minutes

    Use Info-Tech’s project levels to define the complexity of the project that you’ve chosen to pilot.

    Defining your project level will help determine how much effort and detail is required to complete steps in this blueprint – and, beyond this, these levels can help you determine how much OCM rigor to apply across each of the projects in your portfolio.

    Incremental Change Transformational Change
    Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
    • Low risk and complexity.
    • Routine projects with limited exposure to the business and low risk of negative impact.
    • Examples: infrastructure upgrades, application refreshes, etc.
    • Medium risk and complexity.
    • Projects with broader exposure that present a moderate level of risk to business operations.
    • Examples: Move or renovate locations, cloud migration, BYOD strategy, etc.
    • High risk and complexity.
    • Projects that affect multiple lines of business and have significant costs and/or risks.
    • Examples: ERP implementation, corporate merger, business model innovation, etc.

    For a more comprehensive assessment of project levels and degrees of risk, see Info-Tech’s Create Project Management Success blueprint – and in particular, our Project Level Assessment Tool.

    Record the goals and scope of the pilot OCM initiative

    1.2.3 15 to 30 minutes

    Description

    What is the project changing?

    How will it work?

    What are the implications of doing nothing?

    What are the phases in execution?

    Expected Benefits

    What is the desired outcome?

    What can be measured? How?

    When should it be measured?

    Goals

    List the goals.

    Align with business and IT goals.

    Expected Costs

    List the costs:

    Software costs

    Hardware costs

    Implementation costs

    Expected Risks

    List the risks:

    Business risks

    Technology risks

    Implementation risks

    Planned Project Activities & Milestones Timeline Owner(s) Status
    1. Example: Vendor Evaluation Finish by Q4-17 Jessie Villar In progress
    2. Example: Define Administrative Policies Finish by Q4-17 Gerry Anantha Starting Q2

    Know the “what” and “when” of org change activities

    The key to change management success is ensuring that the right OCM activities are carried out at the right time. The below graphic serves as a quick view of what OCM activities entail and when they should be done.

    The image is the sample project timeline previously shown, but with additional notes for each segment of the Gantt chart. The notes are as follows: Impact Assessment - Start assessing the impact of change during planning and requirements gathering stages; Stakeholder Engagement - Use requirements gathering and design activities as opportunities to engage stakeholders and users; Transition Planning - The development period provides time for the change manager to develop and refine the transition plan (including communications and training). Change managers need to collaborate with development teams to ensure scope and schedule stay aligned, especially in Agile environments); Communications Execution - Communications should occur early and often, beginning well before change affects people and continuing long enough to reinforce change by celebrating success; Training - Training needs to be well timed to coincide with implementation; Quick Wins - Celebrate early successes to show that change is working; Evaluation & Monitoring - Adoption of change is a key to benefits realization. Don’t declare the project over until adoption of change is proven.

    Rough out a timeline for the org change activities associated with your pilot project’s timeline

    1.2.4 20-30 minutes

    With reference to the graphic on the previous slide, map out a high-level timeline for your pilot project’s milestones and the corresponding OCM activities.
    • This is essentially a first draft of a timeline and will be refined as we develop your OCM discipline in the next phase of this blueprint.
    • The purpose of roughing something out at this time is to help determine the scope of the implementation, the effort involved, and to help with resource planning.
    Project Phase or Milestone Estimated Start Date Estimated End Date Associated OCM Requirement(s)
    e.g. Planning e.g. Already in progress e.g. July e.g. Impact Assessment
    e.g. Requirements & Design e.g. August e.g. October e.g. Stakeholder Engagement & Transition Planning

    Info-Tech Insight

    Proactive change management is easier to execute and infinitely more effective than managing change reactively. A reactive approach to OCM is bound to fail. The better equipped the PMO is to plan OCM activities in advance of projects, the more effective those OCM efforts will be.

    Assess the roles and resources that might be needed to help support these OCM efforts

    1.2.5 30 minutes

    The PMO leader will need to delegate responsibility for many to all of these OCM activities throughout the project lifecycle.

    Compile a list of PMO staff, project workers, and other stakeholders who will likely be required to support these processes at each step, keeping in mind that we will be doing a more thorough consideration of the resources required to support an OCM program in Phase 3.

    OCM Activity Resources Available to Support
    Impact Assessment
    Stakeholder Engagement
    Transition Planning
    Training
    Communications
    Evaluation and Monitoring

    Info-Tech Insight

    OCM processes require a diverse network to support them.

    While we advocate an approach to org change that is centralized through the PMO, this doesn’t change the fact that the PMO’s OCM processes will need to engage the entirety of the project eco-system.

    In addition to IT/PMO directors, org change processes will engage a group as varied as project sponsors, project managers, business analysts, communications leads, and HR/training leads.

    Ensure that you are considering resources and infrastructure beyond IT as you plan your OCM processes – and engage these stakeholders early in this planning process.

    Establish core transition team roles and a reporting structure

    1.2.6 30 minutes

    Once you’ve identified OCM resources and assessed their availability, start to sketch the structure of the core transition team.

    In many cases, the core team only has one or two people responsible for impact analysis and plan development in addition to you, the sponsor, who is accountable for leadership and benefits realization.

    For larger initiatives, the core team might include several co-sponsors or advisors from different departments or lines of business, along with a handful of staff working together on analysis and planning.

    Some team structure templates/examples:

    Small (e.g. Office 365)

    • Sponsor
    • PM/BA

    Medium-Large (e.g. business process initiative)

    • Sponsor
    • PM
    • BA
    • OCM Consultant

    Complex Transformational (e.g. business model initiative, company reorg)

    • Exec. Sponsor (CxO)
    • Steering Committee
    • Project Lead/Champion (VP)
    • Business Lead(s)
    • IT Lead
    • HR/Training Lead
    • OCM Consultant

    Ultimately, organizational change is a collaborative effort

    Effective organizational change involves overlapping responsibilities.

    In keeping with the eclectic network of stakeholders that is required to support OCM processes, Phase 2 is broken up into sections that will, by turn, engage project sponsors, project managers, business analysts, communications leads, and HR/training leads.

    At each step, our intention is to arm the PMO with a toolkit and a set of processes that will help foster a project culture that is proactive about change.

    "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." – Harry Truman

    Project Step PMO Sponsor Project Manager Business Analyst Blueprint Reference
    Make a high-level case for change.

    A

    R R/C C 1.1
    Initiate project/change planning. A C R C 1.2
    Analyze full breadth and depth of impact. A C R R 1.3
    Assess communications and training requirements. A C R R 2.1
    Develop communications, training, and other transition plans. A R C R 2.2-3
    Approve and communicate transition plans. A C R C 2.4
    Analyze impact and progress. A C R R 3.1
    Revise project/change planning. A C R C 3.2
    Highlight and leverage successes. A R C C 3.3

    Update the Transition Team Communications Template

    1.2.7 10 minutes

    Participants
    • PMO leader
    • PMO staff
    Input
    • The outcomes of various activities in this step
    Output
    • Key sections of the Transition Team Communications Template completed

    Use Info-Tech’s Transition Team Communications Template to help communicate the outcomes of this step.

    • Use the template to document the goals, benefits, and milestones established in 1.2.3, to record the project timeline and schedule for OCM activities from 1.2.4, to document resources available for OCM activities (1.2.5), and to record the membership and reporting structure of the core transition team (1.2.6).

    Download Info-Tech’s Transition Team Communications Template.

    "Managers and user communities need to feel like they are a part of a project instead of feeling like the project is happening to them. It isn't just a matter of sending a few emails or putting up a page on a project website." Ross Latham

    Build organizational change management capabilities by bringing in required skills

    Case Study

    Industry Natural Resources

    Source Interview

    Challenge
    • Like many organizations, the company is undergoing increasing IT-enabled change.
    • Project managers tended to react to effects of change rather than proactively planning for change.

    "The hard systems – they’re easy. It’s the soft systems that are challenging... Be hard on the process. Be easy on the people." – Business Analyst, natural resources company

    Solution
    • Change management was especially challenging when projects were led by the business.
    • IT was often brought in late in business-led projects.
    • As a result, the organization incurred avoidable costs to deal with integration, retraining, etc.
    • The cost of managing change grows later in the project as more effort needs to be spent undoing (or “unfreezing”) the old state or remediating poorly executed change.
    Results
    • The company hired a business analyst with a background in organizational change to bring in the necessary skills.
    • The business analyst brought knowledge, experience, and templates based on best practices and is sharing these with the rest of the project management team.
    • As a result, organizational change management is starting earlier in projects when its effectiveness and value are maximized.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    1.1.1 Evaluate your current capabilities for managing organizational change

    Take Info-Tech’s OCM capabilities questionnaire and receive custom analyst recommendations concerning next steps.

    1.1.2 Perform a change management SWOT exercise

    Work with a seasoned analyst to assess your PMO’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to becoming an org change leader.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    1.1.3 Define success metrics for your PMO’s efforts to become an org change leader

    Work with an analyst to clarify how the success of this initiative will be measured and what conditions are necessary for success.

    1.2.2 Determine the appropriate OCM initiative to pilot at your organization

    Receive custom analyst insights on rightsizing your OCM planning efforts based on project size, timeline, and resource availability.

    1.2.4 Develop an OCM timeline that aligns with key project milestones

    Harness analyst experience to develop a project-specific timeline for the PMO’s change management activities to better plan your efforts and resources.

    Phase 2

    Plant the Seeds for Change During Project Planning and Initiation

    Phase 2 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.

    Guided Implementation 2: Plant the seeds for change during project planning and initiation

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1 week

    Step 2.1: Foster OCM considerations during the ideation phase

    Discuss these issues with an analyst:

    • Disengaged or absent sponsors on change initiatives.
    • Lack of organizational desire for change.
    • How to customize an OCM strategy to suit the personality of the organization.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Develop a sponsorship action plan to help facilitate more engaged change sponsorship.
    • Build a process for making the case for change throughout the organization.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Activity 2.1.3: “Refine your change story”
    • Activity 2.1.4: “Develop a sponsorship action plan”
    • Transition Team Communications Template
    Step 2.2: Perform an organizational change impact analysis

    Work with an analyst to:

    • Perform an impact analysis to make your change planning more complete.
    • Assess the depth of change impacts across various stakeholder groups.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Assign accountability for managing change impacts.
    • Update the business case with risks and opportunities identified during the impact analysis.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Organizational Change Management Impact Analysis Tool

    Step 2.1: Foster OCM considerations during the ideation phase

    Phase 2 - 2.1

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Assess leadership support for change.
    • Highlight the goals and benefits of the change.
    • Refine your change story.
    • Define success criteria.
    • Develop a sponsorship action plan.
    This step involves the following participants:
    • PMO Director
    • Project sponsor for the pilot OCM project
    • Additional project staff: project managers, business analysts, etc.
    Outcomes of this step
    • Strategy to shore up executive alignment around the need for change.
    • Increased definition around the need for change.
    • Increased engagement from project sponsors around change management and project outcomes.

    Accountability for change management begins in advance of the project itself

    As early as the request phase, project sponsors and requestors have a responsibility to communicate the need for the changes that they are proposing.

    Org Change Step #1: Make the case for change during the request phase

    Initiation→Planning→Execution→Monitoring & Controlling→Closing

    Even before project planning and initiation begin, sponsors and requestors have org change responsibilities around communicating the need for a change and demonstrating their commitment to that change.

    In this step, we will look at the OCM considerations that need to be factored in during project ideation.

    The slides ahead will cover what the PMO can do to help foster these considerations among project sponsors and requestors.

    While this project may already be in the planning phase, the activities in the slides ahead will help lay a solid OCM foundation as you move ahead into the impact assessment and stakeholder engagement steps in this phase.

    Strongly recommended: include the sponsor for your pilot OCM project in many of the following activities (see individual activity slides for direction).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Make active sponsorship a criteria when scoring new requests.

    Projects with active sponsors are far more likely to succeed than those where the sponsor cannot be identified or where she/he is unable or unwilling to champion the initiative throughout the organization.

    Consider the engagement level of sponsors when prioritizing new requests. Without this support, the likelihood of a change initiative succeeding is far diminished.

    What does effective sponsorship look like?

    Somewhere along the way a stereotype arose of the project sponsor as a disengaged executive who dreams up a project idea and – regardless of that idea’s feasibility or merit – secures funding, pats themselves on the back, and does not materialize again until the project is over to pat themselves on the back again.

    Indeed, it’s exaggerated, based partly on the fact that sponsors are almost always extremely busy individuals, with very demanding day jobs on top of their responsibilities as sponsors. The stereotype doesn’t capture the very real day-to-day project-level responsibilities of project sponsors.

    Leading change management institute, Prosci, has developed a checklist of 10 identifiable traits and responsibilities that PMO leaders and project managers should help to foster among project sponsors. As Prosci states, the checklist “can be used as an audit tool to see if you are utilizing best practices in how you engage senior leaders on your change initiatives.”

    Prosci’s Change Management Sponsor Checklist:

    Are your sponsors:

    • Aware of the importance they play in making changes successful?
    • Aware of their roles in supporting org change?
    • Active and visible throughout the project?
    • Building necessary coalitions for change success?
    • Communicating directly and effectively with employees?
    • Aware that the biggest mistake is failing to personally engage as the sponsor?
    • Prepared to help manage resistance?
    • Prepared to celebrate successes?
    • Setting clear priorities to help employees manage project and day-to-day work?
    • Avoiding trends and backing change that will be meaningful for the long term?

    (Source: Prosci’s Change Management Sponsor Checklist)

    Assess leadership support for change

    2.1.1 30 minutes

    Participants
    • PMO leader
    • Other PMO/PM staff
    Output
    • Leadership support strategy

    Many change initiatives require significant investments of political capital to garner approval, funding, and involvement from key executives. This process can take months or even years before the project is staffed and implementation begins.

    • In cases where leadership opposition or ambivalence to change is a critical success inhibitor, project sponsors or change leaders need a deliberate strategy for engaging and converting potential supporters.
    • You might need to recruit someone with more influence or authority to become sponsor or co-sponsor to convert supporters you otherwise could not.
    • Use the table below as an example to begin developing your executive engagement strategy (but keep it private).
    Executive/Stakeholder Degree of Support Ability to Influence Potential Contribution/Engagement Strategy
    Board of Directors Med High
    CEO
    CFO
    CIO
    CxO

    “The stakes of having poorly engaged executive sponsors are high, as are the consequences and costs. PMI research into executive sponsorship shows that one in three unsuccessful projects fail to meet goals due to poorly engaged executive sponsors.”

    PMI, 2014

    Highlight the goals and benefits of the change

    2.1.2 30-60 minutes

    Participants
    • PMO leader
    • PMO staff
    • Project sponsor

    Build desire for change.

    The project sponsor is accountable for defining the high-level scope and benefits of the project. The PMO needs to work with the sponsor during the ideation phase to help establish the need for the proposed change.

    Use the table below to begin developing a compelling vision and story of change. If you have not already defined high-level goals and deliverables for your project, download Info-Tech’s Light Project Request Form (a Detailed Project Request Form is also available).

    Why is there a need to change?
    How will change benefit the organization?
    How did we determine this is the right change?
    What would happen if we didn’t change?
    How will we measure success?

    See Info-Tech’s Optimize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization blueprint for more detailed advice on working with requestors to define requirements and business value of new requests.

    Stories are more compelling than logic and facts alone

    Crucial facts, data, and figures are made more digestible, memorable, and actionable when they are conveyed through a compelling storyline.

    While you certainly need high-level scope elements and a rigorous cost-benefit analysis in your business case, projects that require organizational change also need a compelling story or vision to influence groups of stakeholders.

    As the PMO works with sponsors to identify and document the goals and benefits of change, begin to sketch a narrative that will be compelling to the organization’s varied audiences.

    Structuring an effective project narrative:

    Research shows (Research and impacts cited in Torben Rick’s “Change Management Require[s] a Compelling Story,” 2014) that when managers and employees are asked about what most inspires them in their work, their responses are evenly split across five forms of impact:

    1. Impact on society – e.g. the organization’s role in the community.
    2. Impact on the customer – e.g. providing effective service.
    3. Impact on the company – e.g. contributing positively to the growth of the organization.
    4. Impact on the working team – e.g. creating an inclusive work environment.
    5. Impact on the individual – e.g. personal development and compensation.

    "Storytelling enables the individuals in an organization to see themselves and the organization in a different light, and accordingly take decisions and change their behavior in accordance with these new perceptions, insights, and identities." – Steve Denning

    Info-Tech Insight

    A micro-to-macro change narrative. A compelling org change story needs to address all five of these impacts in order to optimally engage employees in change. In crafting a narrative that covers both the micro and macro levels, you will be laying a solid foundation for adoption throughout the organization.

    Refine your change story

    2.1.3 45 to 60 minutes

    Participants
    • PMO leader
    • PMO staff
    • Project sponsor
    Input
    • 5 levels of change impact
    • Stakeholder groups
    Output
    • Improved change justification to help inform the request phase and the development of the business case.
    Materials
    • Whiteboard and markers

    Using a whiteboard to capture the discussion, address the 5 levels of change impact covered on the previous slide.

    1. Develop a list of the stakeholder groups impacted by this project.
      • The impacts will be felt differently by different groups, so develop a high-level list of those stakeholder groups that will be directly affected by the change.
      • Keep in mind, this activity is not an impact assessment. This activity is meant to elicit how the change will be perceived by the different stakeholder groups, not how it will actually impact them – i.e. this activity is about making the case for change, not actually managing the change.
    2. Brainstorm how the five impact levels will be perceived from the point of view of each stakeholder group.
      • Spend about 5 to 10 minutes per impact per stakeholder group.
      • The goal here isn’t to create a detailed plotline; your change story may evolve as the project evolves. A point or two per impact per group will suffice.
    3. As a group, prioritize the most prescient points and capture the results of your whiteboarding to help inform future artifacts.
      • The points developed during this activity should inform both the ad hoc conversations that PMO staff and the sponsor have with stakeholders, as well as formal project artifacts, such as the request, business case, charter, etc.

    When it comes to communicating the narrative, project sponsors make the most compelling storytellers

    Whatever story you develop to communicate the goals and the benefits of the change, ultimately it should be the sponsor who communicates this message to the organization at large.

    Given the competing demands that senior leaders face, the PMO still has a pivotal role to play in helping to plan and facilitate these communications.

    The PMO should help sponsors by providing insights to shape change messaging (refer to the characteristics outlined in the table below for assistance) and by developing a sponsorship action plan (Activity 2.1.4).

    Tips for communicating a change story effectively:
    Identify and appeal to the audience’s unique frames of reference. e.g. “Most of you remember when we…”
    Include concrete, vivid details to help visualize change. e.g. “In the future, when a sales rep visits a customer in Wisconsin, they’ll be able to process a $100,000 order in seconds instead of hours.”
    Connect the past, present, and future with at least one continuous theme. e.g. “These new capabilities reaffirm our long-standing commitment to customers, as well as our philosophy of continuously finding ways to be more responsive to their needs.”

    “[T]he sponsor is the preferred sender of messages related to the business reasons and organizational implications for a particular initiative; therefore, effective sponsorship is crucial in building an awareness of the need for change.

    Sponsorship is also critical in building the desire to participate and support the change with each employee and in reinforcing the change.”

    Prosci

    Base the style of your communications on the organization’s receptiveness to change

    Not all organizations embrace or resist change in the same ways. Base your change communications on your organization’s cultural appetite for change in general.

    Use the below dimensions to gauge your organization’s appetite for change. Analyzing this will help determine the form and force of communications.

    In the next slide, we will base aspects of your sponsorship action plan on whether an organization’s indicator is “high” or “low” across these three dimensions.

    • Organizations with low appetite for change will require more direct, assertive communications.
    • Organizations with a high appetite for change are more suited to more open, participatory approaches.

    Three key dimensions determine the appetite for cultural change (Dimensions taken from Joanna Malgorzata Michalak’s “Cultural Catalysts and Barriers of Organizational Change Management: a Preliminary Overview,” 2010):

    Power Distance Refers to the acceptance that power is distributed unequally throughout the organization. Organizations with a high power distance indicator show that the unequal power distribution is accepted by the less powerful employees.
    Individualism Organizations that score high in individualism have employees who are more independent; those who score low in individualism fall into the collectivism side where employees are strongly tied to one another or their groups.
    Uncertainty Avoidance Describes the level of acceptance that an organization has towards uncertainty. Those who score high in this area find that their employees do not favor “uncertain” situations, while those that score low in this area find that their employees are comfortable with change and uncertainty.

    "Societies with a high indicator of power distance, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance create vital inertial forces against transformation." – Michalak

    Develop a sponsorship action plan

    2.1.4 45 to 60 minutes

    Participants
    • PMO leader
    • PMO staff
    • Project sponsor
    Use the table below to define key tasks and responsibilities for the project sponsor.
    1. Populate the first column with the stakeholder groups from Activity 2.1.3.
    2. With reference to the Sponsor Checklist, brainstorm key sponsorship responsibilities for this project across each of the groups.
    3. When gauging the frequency of each activity and the “Estimated Weekly Effort” required by the sponsor to complete them, consider the organization’s appetite for change.
      • Where indicators across the three dimensions are low, the sponsor’s involvement can be less hands-on and more collaborative in nature.
      • Where indicators across the three dimensions are high, the sponsor’s involvement should be hands-on and direct in her/his communications.
    Group Activity Est. Weekly Effort Comments/Frequency
    Project Team Ad hoc check-in on progress 30 mins Try to be visible at least once a week
    Attend status meetings 30 mins Every second Tuesday, 9 am
    Senior Managers Touch base informally 45 mins Aim for bi-weekly, one-on-one touchpoints
    Lead steering committee meetings 60 mins First Thursday of the month, 3 pm
    End Users Organization-wide emails Ad hoc, 20 mins As required, with PMO assistance

    "To manage change is to tell people what to do... but to lead change is to show people how to be." – Weick & Quinn

    Update the Transition Team Communications Template

    2.1.5 10 minutes

    Participants
    • PMO leader
    • PMO staff
    Input
    • The outcomes of various activities in this step
    Output
    • Key sections of the Transition Team Communications Template completed

    Use Info-Tech’s Transition Team Communications Template to help communicate the outcomes of this step.

    The following activities should be recorded in the template:

    Activity 2.1.2

    In addition, the outcome of Activity 2.1.4, the “Sponsorship Action Plan,” should be converted to a format such as Word and provided to the project sponsor.

    Download Info-Tech’s Transition Team Communications Template.

    "In most work situations, the meaning of a change is likely to be as important, if not more so, than the change itself."

    – Roethlisberger (cited in Burke)

    Step 2.2: Perform an organizational change impact assessment

    Phase 2 - 2.2

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Perform change impact survey.
    • Assess the depth of impacts for different stakeholders and stakeholder groups.
    • Determine overall adoptability of the OCM effort.
    • Establish a game plan for managing individual impacts.
    • Review risks and opportunities.
    • Determine how the value of the change will be measured.
    This step involves the following participants:
    • PMO Director
    • Project sponsor for the pilot OCM project
    • Additional project staff: project managers, business analysts, members of the transition team, etc.
    Outcomes of this step:
    • A change impact analysis.
    • An adoptability rating for the change initiative to help the PMO plan its OCM efforts.
    • A better understanding of the risks and opportunities associated with the change to inform the business case.

    Analyze change impacts across multiple dimensions to ensure that nothing is overlooked

    Ensure that no stone is left unturned as you prepare for a comprehensive transition plan.

    In the previous step, we established a process and some accountabilities to help the PMO and project sponsors make the case for change during the ideation and initiation phase of a project.

    In this step, we will help with the project planning phase by establishing a process for analyzing how the change will impact various dimensions of the business and how to manage these impacts to best ensure stakeholder adoption.

    Brace for Impact…

    A thorough analysis of change impacts will help the PMO:

    • Bypass avoidable problems.
    • Remove non-fixed barriers to success.
    • Acknowledge and minimize the impact of unavoidable barriers.
    • Identify and leverage potential benefits.
    • Measure the success of the change.

    Assign the appropriate accountabilities for impact analysis

    In the absence of an assigned change manager, organizational change impact assessments are typically performed by a business analyst or the project manager assigned to the change initiative.

    • Indeed, as with all change management activities, making an individual accountable for performing this activity and communicating its outcomes is key to the success of your org change initiative.
    • At this stage, the PMO needs to assign or facilitate accountability for the impact analysis on the pilot OCM initiative or it needs to take this accountability on itself.

    Sample RACI for this activity. Define these accountabilities for your organization before proceeding with this step.

    Project Sponsor PMO PM or BA
    Survey impact dimensions I A R
    Analyze impacts across multiple stakeholder groups I A R
    Assess required OCM rigor I A/R C
    Manage individual impacts I A R

    Info-Tech Insight

    Bring perspective to an imperfect view.

    No individual has a comprehensive view of the potential impact of change.

    Impact assessment and analysis is most effective when multiple viewpoints are coordinated using a well-defined list of considerations that cover a wide breadth of dimensions.

    Revisit and refine the impact analysis throughout planning and execution, as challenges to adoption become more clear.

    Perform a change impact analysis to make your planning more complete

    Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Management Impact Analysis Tool to weigh all of the factors involved in a change and to formalize discipline around impact analysis.

    Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Management Impact Analysis Tool helps to document the change impact across multiple dimensions, enabling the PMO to review the analysis with others to ensure that the most important impacts are captured. The tool also helps to effectively monitor each impact throughout project execution.

    • Change impact considerations can include: products, services, states, provinces, cultures, time zones, legal jurisdictions, languages, colors, brands, subsidiaries, competitors, departments, jobs, stores, locations, etc.
    • Each of these dimensions is an MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) list of considerations that could be impacted by the change. For example, a North American retail chain might consider “Time Zones” as a key dimension, which could break down as Newfoundland, Atlantic, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific.

    Download Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool.

    • Required Participants for this Step: PMO Leader; project manager or business analyst
    • Recommended Participants for this Step: Project Sponsor; IT/PMO staff

    Info-Tech Insight

    Anticipate the unexpected. Impact analysis is the cornerstone of any OCM strategy. By shining a light on considerations that might have otherwise escaped project planners and decision makers, an impact analysis is an essential component to change management and project success.

    Enter high-level project information on the “Set Up” tab

    2.2.1 15 minutes

    The “2. Set Up” tab of the Impact Tool is where you enter project-specific data pertaining to the change initiative.

    The inputs on this tab are used to auto-populate fields and drop-downs on subsequent tabs of the analysis.

    Document the stakeholders (by individual or group) associated with the project who will be subject to the impacts.

    You are allowed up to 15 entries. Try to make this list comprehensive. Missing any key stakeholders will threaten the value of this activity as a whole.

    If you find that you have more than 15 individual stakeholders, you can group individuals into stakeholder groups.

    Keep in mind...

    An impact analysis is not a stakeholder management exercise.

    Impact assessments cover:

    • How the change will affect the organization.
    • How individual impacts might influence the likelihood of adoption.

    Stakeholder management covers:

    • Resistance/objections handling.
    • Engagement strategies to promote adoption.

    We will cover the latter in the next step.

    “As a general principle, project teams should always treat every stakeholder initially as a recipient of change. Every stakeholder management plan should have, as an end goal, to change recipients’ habits or behaviors.”

    PMI, 2015

    Determine the relevant considerations for analyzing the change impacts of a project

    2.2.2 15 to 30 minutes

    Use the survey on tab 3 of the Impact Analysis Tool to determine the dimensions of change that are relevant.

    The impact analysis is fueled by the thirteen-question survey on tab 3 of the tool.

    This survey addresses a comprehensive assortment of change dimensions, ranging from customer-facing considerations, to employee concerns, to resourcing, logistical, and technological questions.

    Once you have determined the dimensions that are impacted by the change, you can go on to assess how individual stakeholders and stakeholder groups are affected by the change.

    This image is a screenshot of tab 3, Impact Survey, of the Impact Analysis Tool.

    Screenshot of tab “3. Impact Survey,” showing the 13-question survey that drives the impact analysis.

    Ideally, the survey should be performed by a group of project stakeholders together. Use the drop-downs in column K to record your responses.

    "A new system will impact roles, responsibilities, and how business is conducted within an organization. A clear understanding of the impact of change allows the business to design a plan and address the different levels of changes accordingly. This approach creates user acceptance and buy-in."

    – January Paulk, Panorama Consulting

    Impacts will be felt differently by different stakeholders and stakeholder groups

    As you assess change impacts, keep in mind that no impact will be felt the same across the organization. Depth of impact can vary depending on the frequency (will the impact be felt daily, weekly, monthly?), the actions necessitated by it (e.g. will it change the way the job is done or is it simply a minor process tweak?), and the anticipated response of the stakeholder (support, resistance, indifference?).

    Use the Organizational Change Depth Scale below to help visualize various depths of impact. The deeper the impact, the tougher the job of managing change will be.

    Procedural Behavioral Interpersonal Vocational Cultural
    Procedural change involves changes to explicit procedures, rules, policies, processes, etc. Behavioral change is similar to procedural change, but goes deeper to involve the changing tacit or unconscious habits. Interpersonal change goes beyond behavioral change to involve changing relationships, teams, locations, reporting structures, and other social interactions. Vocational change requires acquiring new knowledge and skills, and accepting the loss or decline in the value or relevance of previously acquired knowledge and skills. Cultural change goes beyond interpersonal and vocational change to involve changing personal values, social norms, and assumptions about the meaning of good vs. bad or right vs. wrong.
    Example: providing sales reps with mobile access to the CRM application to let them update records from the field. Example: requiring sales reps to use tablets equipped with a custom mobile application for placing orders from the field. Example: migrating sales reps to work 100% remotely. Example: migrating technical support staff to field service and sales support roles. Example: changing the operating model to a more service-based value proposition or focus.

    Determine the depth of each impact for each stakeholder group

    2.2.3 1 to 3 hours

    Tab “4. Impact Analysis” of the Analysis Tool contains the meat of the impact analysis activity.
    1. The “Impact Analysis” tab is made up of thirteen change impact tables (see next slide for a screenshot of one of these tables).
    • You may not need to use all thirteen tables. The number of tables you use coincides with the number of “yes” responses you gave in the previous tab.
    • If you no not need all thirteen impact tables (i.e. if you do not answer “yes” to all thirteen questions in tab 2, the unused/unnecessary tables will not auto-populate.)
  • Use one table per change impact. Each of your “yes” responses from tab 3 will auto-populate at the top of each change impact table. You should go through each of your “yes” responses in turn.
  • Analyze how each impact will affect each stakeholder or stakeholder group touched by the project.
    • Column B in each table will auto-populate with the stakeholder groups from the Set Up tab.
  • Use the drop-downs in columns C, D, and E to rate the frequency of each impact, the actions necessitated by each impact, and the anticipated response of each stakeholder group.
    • Each of the options in these drop-downs is tied to a ranking table that informs the ratings on the two subsequent tabs.
  • If warranted, you can use the “Comments” cells in column F to note the specifics of each impact for each stakeholder/group.
  • See the next slide for an accompanying screenshot of a change impact table from tab 4 of the Analysis Tool.

    Screenshot of “Impact Analysis” tab

    The image is a screenshot of the Impact Analysis tab.

    The stakeholder groups entered on the Set Up will auto-populate in column B of each table.

    Your “yes” responses from the survey tab will auto-populate in the cells to the right of the “Change Impact” cells.

    Use the drop-downs in this column to select how often the impact will be felt for each group (e.g. daily, weekly, periodically, one time, or never).

    “Actions” include “change to core job duties,” “change to how time is spent,” “confirm awareness of change,” etc.

    Use the drop-downs to hypothesize what the stakeholder response might be. For now, for the purpose of the impact analysis, a guess is fine. We will come back to build a communications plan based on actual responses in Phase 3 of this blueprint.

    Review your overall impact rating to help assess the likelihood of change adoption

    Use the “Overall Impact Rating” on tab 5 to help right-size your OCM efforts.

    Based upon your assessment of each individual impact, the Analysis Tool will provide you with an “Overall Impact Rating” in tab 5.

    • This rating is an aggregate of each of the individual change impact tables used during the analysis, and the rankings assigned to each stakeholder group across the frequency, required actions, and anticipated response columns.

    The image is a screenshot of tab 5, the Overall Process Adoption Rating. The image shows a semi-circle, where the left-most section is red, the centre yellow, and the right-most section green, with a dial positioned at the right edge of the yellow section.

    Projects in the red should have maximum change governance, applying a full suite of OCM tools and templates, as well as revisiting the impact analysis exercise regularly to help monitor progress.

    Increased communication and training efforts, as well as cross-functional partnerships, will also be key for success.

    Projects in the yellow also require a high level of change governance. Follow the steps and activities in this blueprint closely, paying close attention to the stakeholder engagement activities in the next step to help sway resistors and leverage change champions.

    In order to free up resources for those OCM initiatives that require more discipline, projects in green can ease up in their OCM efforts somewhat. With a high likelihood of adoption as is, stakeholder engagement and communication efforts can be minimized somewhat for these projects, so long as the PMO is in regular contact with key stakeholders.

    "All change is personal. Each person typically asks: 'What’s in it for me?'" – William T. Craddock

    Use the other outputs on tab 5 to help structure your OCM efforts

    In addition to the overall impact rating, tab 5 has other outputs that will help you assess specific impacts and how the overall change will be received by stakeholders.

    The image is a screenshot of tab 5.

    Top-Five Highest Risk Impacts table: This table displays the highest risk impacts based on frequency and action inputs on Tab 4.

    Top-Five Most Impacted Stakeholders table: Here you’ll find the stakeholders, ranked again based on frequency and action, who will be most impacted by the proposed changes.

    Top Five Supporters table: These are the 5 stakeholders most likely to support changes, based on the Anticipated Response column on Tab 4.

    The stakeholder groups entered on the Set Up Tab will auto-populate in column B of each table.

    In addition to these outputs, this tab also lists top five change resistors, and has an impact register and list of potential impacts to watch out for (i.e. your “maybe” responses from tab 3).

    Establish a game plan to manage individual change impacts

    2.2.4 60 to 90 minutes

    The final tab of the Analysis Tool can be used to help track and monitor individual change impacts.
    • Use the “Communications Plan” on tab 7 to come up with a high-level game plan for tracking communications about each change with the corresponding stakeholders.
    • Update and manage this tab as the communication events occur to help keep your implementation on track.

    The image is a screenshot of the Communications Plan, located on tab 7 of the Analysis Tool. There are notes emerging from each of the table headings, as follows: Communication Topic - Select from a list of topics identified on Tab 6 that are central to successful change, then answer the following; Audience/Format/Delivery - Which stakeholders need to be involved in this change? How are we going to meet with them?; Creator - Who is responsible for creating the change?; Communicator - Who is responsible for communicating the change to the stakeholder?; Intended Outcome - Why do you need to communicate with this stakeholder?; Level of Risk - What is the likelihood that you can achieve your attended outcome? And what happens if you don’t?

    Document the risk assumptions stemming from your impact analysis

    2.2.5 30 to 60 minutes

    Use the Analysis Tool to produce a set of key risks that need to be identified, communicated, mitigated, and tracked.

    A proper risk analysis often reveals risks and mitigations that are more important to other people in the organization than those managing the change. Failure to do a risk analysis on other people’s behalf can be viewed as negligence.

    In the table below, document the risks related to the assumptions being made about the upcoming change. What are the risks that your assumptions are wrong? Can steps be taken to avoid these risks?

    Risk Assumption Magnitude if Assumption Wrong Likelihood That Assumption Is Wrong Mitigation Strategy Assessment
    e.g. Customers will accept shipping fees for overweight items > 10 pounds Low High It's a percentage of our business, and usually accompanies a sharply discounted product. We need to extend discretionary discounting on shipping to supervisory staff to mitigate the risk of lost business. Re-assess after each quarter.

    "One strategy to minimize the impact is to determine the right implementation pace, which will vary depending on the size of the company and the complexity of the project" – Chirantan Basu

    Record any opportunities pertaining to the upcoming change

    2.2.6 30 to 60 minutes

    Use the change impacts to identify opportunities to improve the outcome of the change.

    Use the table below to brainstorm the business opportunities arising from your change initiative. Consider if the PMO can take steps to help improve the outcomes either through supporting the project execution or through providing support to the business.

    Opportunity Assumption Potential Value Likelihood That Assumption Is Wrong Leverage Strategy Assessment
    e.g. Customer satisfaction can increase as delivery time frames for the remaining custom products radically shrink and services extend greatly. High Medium Reset the expectations of this market segment so that they go from being surprised by good service to expecting it. Our competitors will not be able to react to this.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The bigger the change, the bigger the opportunity. Project and change management has traditionally focused on a defensive posture because organizations so often fail to mitigate risk. Good change managers also watch for opportunities to improve and exploit the outcomes of the change.

    Determine how to measure the value of the change

    2.2.7 15 to 30 minutes

    Describe the metrics that will be used to assess the management of this change.

    Now that you’ve assessed the impacts of the change, and the accompanying risks and opportunities, use the table below to document metrics that can be used to help assess the management of the change.

    • Don’t rely on the underlying project to determine the value of the change itself: It’s important to recognize the difference between change management and project management, and the establishment of value metrics is an obvious source of this differentiation.
    • For example, consider a project that is introducing a new method of remitting travel expenses for reimbursement.
      • The project itself would be justified on the efficiency of the new process.
      • The value of the change itself could be measured by the number of help desk calls looking for the new form, documentation, etc.
    Metric Calculation How to Collect Who to Report to Frequency
    Price overrides for new shipping costs It is entered as a line item on invoices, so it can be calculated as % of shipping fees discounted. Custom report from CRM (already developed). Project Steering Committee Project Steering Committee

    Document risks and other impact analysis considerations in the business case

    2.2.8 10 minutes

    Participants
    • PMO leader
    • Project Manager
    Input
    • The risks and issues identified through the impact analysis.
    Output
    • Comprehensive list of risks documented in the business case.
    Use the outcomes of the activities in this step to help inform your business case as well as any other risk management artifacts that your project managers may use.
    • Because long-term project success depends upon stakeholder adoption, high-risk impacts should be documented as considerations in the risk section of your business case.
    • In addition, the “Overall Impact Rating” graph and the “Impact Management Worksheet” could be used to help improve business cases as well as charters on some projects.

    If your organization doesn’t have a standard business case document, use one of Info-Tech’s templates. We have two templates to choose from, depending on the size of the project and the amount of rigor required:

    Download Info-Tech’s Comprehensive Business Case Template for large, complex projects or our Fast Track Business Case Template for smaller ones.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    2.1.3 Create a convincing sponsor-driven story to help build the case for change

    Work with an analyst to exercise your storytelling muscles, building out a process to help make the case for change throughout the organization.

    2.1.4 Develop a sponsorship action plan

    Utilize analyst experience to help develop a sponsorship action plan to help facilitate more engaged change project sponsors.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    2.2.3 Assess different change impacts across various stakeholder groups

    Get an analyst perspective on how each impact may affect different stakeholders in order to assist with the project and OCM planning process.

    2.2.4 Develop a proactive change impact management plan

    Rightsize your response to change impacts by developing a game plan to mitigate each one according to adoption likelihood.

    2.2.5 Use the results of the impact analysis to inform and improve the business case for the project

    Work with the analyst to translate the risks and opportunities identified during the impact analysis into points of consideration to help inform and improve the business case for the project.

    Phase 3

    Facilitate Change Adoption Throughout the Organization

    Phase 3 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.

    Guided Implementation 3: Facilitate Change Adoption Throughout the Organization

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4 to 6 weeks

    Step 3.1: Ensure stakeholders are engaged and ready for change

    Discuss these issues with analyst:

    • Lack of alignment between IT and the business.
    • Organizational resistance to a command-and-control approach to change.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Develop a stakeholder engagement plan.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
    Step 3.2: Develop and execute the transition plan

    Discuss these issues with analyst:

    • Org change initiatives often fail due to the influence of resistors.
    • Failure to elicit feedback contributes to the feeling of a change being imposed.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Develop a communications strategy to address a variety of stakeholder reactions to change.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Transition Plan Template
    • Activity 3.2.7: “Objections Handling Template”
    Step 3.3: Establish HR and training plans

    Discuss these issues with analyst:

    • Training is often viewed as ineffective, contributing to change resistance rather than fostering adoption.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Rightsize training content based on project requirements and stakeholder sentiment.

    With these tools & templates:

    • “Training Requirements” tab in the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
    • “Training Plan” section of the Transition Plan Template

    Step 3.1: Ensure stakeholders are engaged and ready for change

    Phase 3 - 3.1

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Involve the right stakeholders in the change.
    • Define project roles and responsibilities.
    • Define elicitation methods for obtaining stakeholder input.
    • Perform a stakeholder analysis to assess influence, interest, and potential contribution.
    • Assess communications plan requirements.
    This step involves the following participants:
    • Required: PMO Director; project manager or business analyst
    • Recommended: Project Sponsor; the Transition Team; other IT/PMO staff
    Outcomes of this step
    • A stakeholder analysis.
    • Requirements for the communications plan.

    The nature of change is changing

    The challenge of managing change is complicated by forces that are changing change.

    Empowerment: Increased worker mobility, effect of millennials in the workforce, and lower average tenure means that people are less tolerant of a hierarchical, command-and-control approach to change.

    • Additionally, lower average tenure means you can’t assume everyone has the same context or background for change (e.g. they might not have been with the organization for earlier phases when project justification/rationale was established).

    Noise: Inundation with communications and diversity of channels means the traditional “broadcast” approach to communicating change doesn’t work (i.e. you can’t expect every email to get everyone’s attention).

    As a result, disciplines around organizational change tend to be less linear and deliberate than they were in the past.

    "People don’t resist change. They resist being changed."

    Peter Senge

    How to manage change in organizations of today and the future:

    • New realities require a more collaborative, engaging, open, and agile approach to change.
    • Communication is increasingly more of a two-way, ongoing, iterative engagement process.
    • Project leaders on change initiatives need to engage diverse audiences early and often.
    • Information about change needs to reach people and be easily findable where and when stakeholders need it.
    Info-Tech Insight

    Accountabilities for change management are still required. While change management needs to adopt more collaborative and organic approaches, org change success still depends on assigning appropriate accountabilities. What’s changed in the move to matrix structure is that accountabilities need to be facilitated more collaboratively.

    Leading change requires collaboration to ensure people, process, and technology factors are aligned

    In the absence of otherwise defined change leadership, the PMO needs to help navigate every technology-enabled change, even if it isn’t in the “driver’s seat.”

    PMO leaders and IT experts often find themselves asked to help implement or troubleshoot technology-related business projects that are already in flight.

    The PMO will end up with perceived or de facto responsibility for inadequate planning, communications, and training around technology-enabled change.

    IT-Led Projects

    Projects led by the IT PMO tend to be more vulnerable to underestimating the impact on people and processes on the business side.

    Make sure you engage stakeholders and representatives (e.g. “power users”) from user populations early enough to refine and validate your impact assessments.

    Business-Led Projects

    Projects led by people on the business side tend to be more vulnerable to underestimating the implications of technology changes.

    Make sure IT is involved early enough to identify and prepare for challenges and opportunities involving integration, user training, etc.

    "A major impediment to more successful software development projects is a corporate culture that results in a lack of collaboration because business executives view the IT departments as "order takers," a view disputed by IT leaders."

    – David Ramel (cited by Ben Linders)

    Foster change collaboration by initiating a stakeholder engagement plan through the PMO

    If project stakeholders aren’t on board, the organization’s change initiatives will be in serious trouble.

    Stakeholders will not only be highly involved in the process improvement initiative, but they also may be participants, so it’s essential that you get their buy-in for the initiative upfront.

    Use Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Engagement Workbook to help plan how stakeholders rate in terms of engagement with the project.

    Once you have identified where different stakeholders fall in terms of interests, influence, and support for/engagement with the change initiative, you can structure your communication plan (to be developed in step 3.2) based on where individuals and stakeholder groups fall.

    • Required participants for the activities in this step: PMO Leader; project manager or business analyst
    • Recommended participants for the activities in this step: Project Sponsor; IT/PMO staff

    Download Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Engagement Workbook.

    The engagement plan is a structured and documented approach for:

    • Gathering requirements by eliciting input and validating plans for change.
    • Cultivating sponsorship and support from key stakeholders early in the project lifecycle.

    Download Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Engagement Workbook.

    Involve the right people to drive and facilitate change

    Refer to your project level assessment from 1.2.2:

    • Level 1 projects tend to only require involvement from the project team, sponsors, and people affected.
    • Level 2 projects often benefit from broad support and capabilities in order to take advantage of opportunities.
    • Level 3 projects require broad support and capabilities in order to deal with risks and barriers.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The more transformational the change, the more it will affect the org chart – not just after the implementation, but also through the transition.

    Take time early in the project to define the reporting structure for the project/transition team, as well as any teams and roles supporting the transition.

    • Project manager: Has primary accountability for project success.
    • Senior executive project sponsor: Needed to “open doors” and signal organization’s commitment to the change.
    • Technology SMEs and architects: Responsible for determining and communicating requirements and risks of the technology being implemented or changed.
    • Business unit leads: Responsible for identifying and communicating impact on business functions, approving changes, and helping champion change.
    • Product/process owners: Responsible for identifying and communicating impact on business functions, approving changes, and helping champion change.
    • HR specialists: Most valuable when roles and organizational design are affected, i.e. change requires staff redeployment, substantial training (not just using a new system or tool but acquiring new skills and responsibilities), or termination.
    • Training specialists: If you have full-time training staff in the organization, you will eventually need them to develop training courses and material. Consulting them early will help with scoping, scheduling, and identifying the best resources and channels to deliver the training.
    • Communications specialists (internal): Valuable in crafting communications plan; required if communications function owns internal communications.

    Use the RACI table on the next slide to clarify who will be accountable, responsible, consulted, and informed for key tasks and activities around this change initiative.

    Define roles and responsibilities for facilitating change on your pilot OCM initiative

    3.1.1 60 minutes

    Perform a RACI exercise pertaining to your pilot change initiative to clarify who to include in the stakeholder engagement activity.

    Don’t reinvent the wheel: revisit the list of stakeholders and stakeholder groups from your impact assessment. The purpose of the RACI is to bring some clarity to project-specific responsibilities.

    Tasks PMO Project Manager Sr. Executives Technology SME Business Lead Process Owner HR Trainers Communications
    Meeting project objectives A R A R R
    Identifying risks and opportunities A R A C C C C I I
    Building the action plan A R C R R R R R R
    Planning and delivering communications A R C C C C C R A
    Planning and delivering training A R C C C C R A C
    Gathering and analyzing feedback and KPIs A R C C C C C R R

    Copy the results of this RACI exercise into tab 1 of the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook. In addition, it can be used to inform the designated RACI section in the Transition Plan Template. Revise the RACI Table there as needed.

    Formalize the stakeholder analysis to identify change champions and blockers

    Define key stakeholders (or stakeholder groups) who are affected by the project or are in positions to enable or block change.

    • Remember to consider customers, partners, and other external stakeholders.
    • People best positioned to provide insight and influence change positively are also best positioned to create resistance.
    • These people should be engaged early and often in the transition process – not just to make them feel included or part of the change, but because their insight could very likely identify risks, barriers, and opportunities that need to be addressed.

    The image is a screenshot of tab 3 of the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook.

    In tab three of the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook, compile the list of stakeholders who are touched by the change and whose adoption of the change will be key to project success.

    To save time, you can copy and paste your stakeholder list from the Set Up tab of the Organizational Change Management Impact Analysis Tool into the table below and edit the list as needed.

    Formal stakeholder analysis should be:

    • Required for Level 3 projects
    • Recommended for Level 2 projects
    • Optional for Level 1 projects

    Info-Tech Insight

    Resistance is, in many cases, avoidable. Resistance is commonly provided by people who are upset about not being involved in the communication. Missed opportunities are the same: they usually could have been avoided easily had somebody known in time. Use the steps ahead as an opportunity to ensure no one has been missed.

    Perform a stakeholder analysis to begin cultivating support while eliciting requirements

    3.1.2 60 minutes

    Use tab 4 of the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook to systematically assess each stakeholder's influence, interest, and potential contribution to the project as well as to develop plans for engaging each stakeholder or stakeholder group.

    The image is a screencapture of tab 4 of the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook.

    Use the drop-downs to select stakeholders and stakeholder groups. These will automatically populate based on your inputs in tab 3.

    Rate each stakeholder on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of her/his influence in the organization. Not only do these rankings feed the stakeholder map that gets generated on the next slide, but they will help you identify change champions and resistors with influence.

    Similar to the ranking under “Influence,” rate the “Interest” and “Potential Contribution” to help identify stakeholder engagement.

    Document how you will engage each stakeholder and stakeholder group and document how soon you should communicate with them concerning the change. See the following slides for advice on eliciting change input.

    Use the elicitation methods on the following slides to engage stakeholders and gather change requirements.

    Elicitation methods – Observation

    Method Description Assessment and Best Practices Stakeholder Effort BA/PMO Effort
    Casual Observation The process of observing stakeholders performing tasks where the stakeholders are unaware they are being observed. Capture true behavior through observation of stakeholders performing tasks without informing them that they are being observed. This information can be valuable for mapping business process; however, it is difficult to isolate the core business activities from unnecessary actions. Low Medium
    Formal Observation The process of observing stakeholders performing tasks where the stakeholders are aware they are being observed. Formal observation allows business analysts to isolate and study the core activities in a business process because the stakeholder is aware they are being observed. Stakeholders may become distrusting of the business analyst and modify their behavior if they feel their job responsibilities or job security are at risk. Low Medium

    Info-Tech Insight

    Observing stakeholders does not uncover any information about the target state. Be sure to use contextual observation in conjunction with other techniques to discover the target state.

    Elicitation methods – Surveys

    Method Description Assessment and Best Practices Stakeholder Effort BA/PMO Effort
    Closed-Response Survey A survey that has fixed responses for each answer. A Likert-scale (or similar measures) can be used to have respondents evaluate and prioritize possible requirements. Closed-response surveys can be sent to large groups and used to quickly gauge user interest in different functional areas. They are easy for users to fill out and don’t require a high investment of time. However, their main deficit is that they are likely to miss novel requirements that are not listed. As such, closed-response surveys are best used after initial elicitation or brainstorming to validate feature groups. Low Medium
    Open-Response Survey A survey that has open-ended response fields. Questions are fixed, but respondents are free to populate the field in their own words. Open-response surveys take longer to fill out than closed, but can garner deeper insights. Open-response surveys are a useful supplement (and occasionally a replacement) for group elicitation techniques, like focus groups, when you need to receive an initial list of requirements from a broad cross-section of stakeholders. Their primary shortcoming is the analyst can’t immediately follow up on interesting points. However, they are particularly useful for reaching stakeholders who are unavailable for individual one-on-ones or group meetings. Medium Medium

    Info-Tech Insight

    Surveys can be useful mechanisms for initial drafting of raw requirements (open response) and gauging user interest in proposed requirements or feature sets (closed response). However, they should not be the sole focus of your elicitation program due to lack of interactivity and two-way dialogue with the business analyst.

    Elicitation methods – Interviews

    Method Description Assessment and Best Practices Stakeholder Effort BA/PMO Effort

    Structured One-on-One Interview

    In a structured one-on-one interview, the business analyst has a fixed list of questions to ask the stakeholder and follows up where necessary. Structured interviews provide the opportunity to quickly hone in on areas of concern that were identified during process mapping or group elicitation techniques. They should be employed with purpose – to receive specific stakeholder feedback on proposed requirements or help identify systemic constraints. Generally speaking, they should take 30 minutes or less to complete. Low Medium

    Unstructured One-on-One Interview

    In an unstructured one-on-one interview, the business analyst allows the conversation to flow freely. The BA may have broad themes to touch on, but does not run down a specific question list. Unstructured interviews are most useful for initial elicitation when brainstorming a draft list of potential requirements is paramount. Unstructured interviews work best with senior stakeholders (sponsors or power users), since they can be time consuming if they’re applied to a large sample size. It’s important for BAs not to stifle open dialogue and allow the participants to speak openly. They should take 60 minutes or less to complete. Medium Low

    Info-Tech Insight

    Interviews should be used with “high-value targets.” Those who receive one-on-one face time can help generate good requirements, as well as allow effective communication around requirements at a later point (i.e. during the analysis and validation phases).

    Elicitation methods – Focus Groups

    Method Description Assessment and Best Practices Stakeholder Effort BA/PMO Effort
    Focus Group Focus groups are sessions held between a small group (typically ten individuals or less) and an experienced facilitator who leads the conversation in a productive direction. Focus groups are highly effective for initial requirements brainstorming. The best practice is to structure them in a cross-functional manner to ensure multiple viewpoints are represented and the conversation doesn’t become dominated by one particular individual. Facilitators must be wary of “groupthink” in these meetings (the tendency to converge on a single POV). Medium Medium

    Info-Tech Insight

    Group elicitation techniques are most useful for gathering a wide spectrum of requirements from a broad group of stakeholders. Individual or observational techniques are typically needed for further follow-up and in-depth analysis with critical power users or sponsors.

    "Each person has a learning curve. Take the time to assess staff individually as some don’t adjust to change as well as others. Some never will." – CEO, Manufacturing Firm

    Refine your stakeholder analysis through the input elicitation process

    3.1.3 30 minutes

    Review all of these elicitation methods as you go through the workbook as a group. Be sure to document and discuss any other elicitation methods that might be specific to your organization.

    1. Schedule dates and a specific agenda for performing stakeholder elicitation activities.
    • If scheduling more formal methods such as a structured interview or survey, take the time to develop some talking points and questions (see the questionnaire and survey templates in the next step for examples).
  • Assign accountabilities for performing the elicitation exercises and set dates for updating the PMO on the results of these stakeholder elicitations.
  • As curator of the workbook, the PMO will need to refine the stakeholder data in tab 4 of the tool to get a more accurate stakeholder map on the next tab of the workbook.
  • Elicitation method Target stakeholder group(s) PMO staff responsible for eliciting input Next update to PMO
    One-on-one structured interview HR and Sales Karla Molina August 1

    Info-Tech Insight

    Engagement paves the way for smoother communications. The “engagement” approach (rather than simply “communication”) turns stakeholders and users into advocates who help boost your message, sustain change, and realize benefits without constant, direct intervention.

    Develop a stakeholder engagement strategy based on the output of your analysis

    Use the stakeholder map on tab 5 of the Workbook to inform your communications strategy and transition plan.

    Tab 5 of the Workbook provides an output – a stakeholder map – based on your inputs in the previous tab. Use the stakeholder map to inform your communications requirements considerations in the next tab of the workbook as well as your transition plan in the next step.

    The image is a screencapture of tab 5 of the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook.

    This is a screenshot of the “Stakeholder Analysis” from tab 5 of the Workbook. The four quadrants of the map are:

    • Engage (High Interest/High Influence)
    • Communicate – High Level (High Interest/Low Influence)
    • Passive (Low Interest/Low Influence)
    • Communicate – Low Level (Low Interest/High Influence)
    How to interpret each quadrant on the map:

    Top Quadrants: Supporters

    1. Engage: Capitalize on champions to drive the project/change.
    2. Communicate (high level): Leverage this group where possible to help socialize the program and to help encourage dissenters to support.

    Bottom Quadrant: Blockers

    1. Passive: Focus on increasing these stakeholders’ level of support.
    2. Communicate (low level): Pick your battles – focus on your noise makers first and then move on to your blockers.

    Document communications plan requirements based on results of engagement and elicitation

    3.1.4 60 minutes

    The image is a screencapture of the Communications Requirements tab in the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook

    Use the Communications Requirements tab in the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook.

    Do this as a 1–2 hour project team planning session.

    The table will automatically generate a list of stakeholders based on your stakeholder analysis.

    Update the assumptions that you made about the impact of the change in the Impact Analysis with results of stakeholder engagement and elicitation activities.

    Use the table on this tab to refine these assumptions as needed before solidifying your communications plan.

    Define the action required from each stakeholder or stakeholder group (if any) for change to be successful.

    Continually refine messages and methods for communicating with each stakeholder and stakeholder group.

    Note words that work well and words that don’t. For example, some buzzwords might have negative connotations from previous failed initiatives.

    Designate who is responsible for developing and honing the communications plan (see details in the following section on developing the transition plan).

    Step 3.2: Develop and execute the transition plan

    Phase 3 - 3.2

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Create a communications timeline.
    • Establish communications strategy for stakeholder groups.
    • Determine communication delivery methods.
    • Define the feedback and evaluation process.
    • Assess the full range of support and resistance to change.
    • Prepare objections handling process.
    This step involves the following participants:
    • PMO Director
    • Transition Team
    • Project managers
    • Business analyst
    • Project Sponsor
    • Additional IT/PMO staff
    Outcomes of this step
    • A communications strategy
    • A stakeholder feedback process
    • An objections handling strategy
    • A transition plan

    Effective change requires strategic communications and rightsized training plans

    Develop and execute a transition plan through the PMO to ensure long-term adoption.

    In this step we will develop and introduce a plan to manage change around your project.

    After completing this section you will have a realistic, effective, and adaptable transition plan that includes:

    • Clarity around leadership and vision.
    • Well-defined plans for targeting unique groups with specific messages.
    • Resistance and contingency plans.
    • Templates for gathering feedback and evaluating success.

    These activities will enable you to:

    • Execute the transition in coordination with the timeline and structure of the core project.
    • Communicate the action plan and vision for change.
    • Target specific stakeholder and user groups with unique messages.
    • Deal with risks, resistance, and contingencies.
    • Evaluate success through feedback and metrics.

    "Everyone loves change: take what you know and replace it with a promise. Then overlay that promise with the memory of accumulated missed efforts, half-baked attempts, and roads of abandoned promises."

    Toby Elwin

    Assemble the core transition team to help execute this step

    Once the stakeholder engagement step has been completed, the PMO needs to facilitate the involvement of the transition team to help carry out transition planning and communications strategies.

    You should have already sketched out a core transition team in step 1.2.6 of this blueprint. As with all org change activities, ensuring that individuals are made accountable for the execution of the following activities will be key for the long-term success of your change initiative.

    • At this stage, the PMO needs to ensure the involvement of the transition team to participate in the following activities – or the PMO will need to take on the transition planning and communication responsibilities itself.

    Refer to the team structure examples from Activity 1.2.6 of this blueprint if you are still finalizing your transition team.

    Download Info-Tech’s Transition Plan Template to help capture and record the outcomes of the activities in this step.

    Create a high-level communications timeline

    3.2.1 30 minutes

    By now the project sponsor, project manager, and business analysts (or equivalent) should have defined project timelines, requirements, and other key details. Use these to start your communications planning process.

    If your members of the transition team are also part of the core project team, meet with them to elicit the project timeline and requirements.

    Project Milestone Milestone Time Frame Communications Activities Activity Timing Notes
    Business Case Approval
    • Key stakeholder communications
    Pilot Go-Live
    • Pilot launch activity communications
    • Org-wide status communications
    Full Rollout Approval
    • Key stakeholder communications
    Full Rollout
    • Full rollout activity communications
    • Org-wide status communications
    Benefits Assessment
    • Key stakeholder communications
    • Org-wide status communications

    Info-Tech Insight

    Communicate, communicate, communicate.

    Staff are 34% more likely to adapt to change quickly during the implementation and adoption phases when they are provided with a timeline of impending changes specific to their department. (Source: McLean & Company)

    Schedule time to climb out of the “Valley of Despair”

    Many change initiatives fail when leaders give up at the first sign of resistance.

    OCM experts use terms like “Valley of Despair” to describe temporary drops in support and morale that inevitably occur with any significant change. Don’t let these temporary drops derail your change efforts.

    Anticipate setbacks and make sure the project plan accommodates the time and energy required to sustain and reinforce the initiative as people move through stages of resistance.

    The image is a line graph. Segments of the line are labelled with numbers. The beginning of the line is labelled with 1; the descending segment of the line labelled 2; the lowest point is labelled 3; the ascending section is labelled 4; and the end of the graph is labelled 5.

    Based on Don Kelley and Daryl Conner’s Emotional Cycle of Change.

    Identify critical points in the change curve:

    1. Honeymoon of “Uninformed Optimism”: There is usually tentative support and even enthusiasm for change before people have really felt or understood what it involves.
    2. Backlash of “Informed Pessimism” (leading to “Valley of Despair”): As change approaches or begins, people realize they’ve overestimated the benefits (or the speed at which benefits will be achieved) and underestimated the difficulty of change.
    3. Valley of Despair and beginning of “Hopeful Realism”: Eventually, sentiment bottoms out and people begin to accept the difficulty (or inevitability) of change.
    4. Bounce of “Informed Optimism”: People become more optimistic and supportive when they begin to see bright spots and early successes.
    5. Contentment of “Completion”: Change has been successfully adopted and benefits are being realized.

    Tailor a communications strategy for each stakeholder group

    Leveraging the stakeholder analyses you’ve already performed in steps 2.2 and 3.1, customize your communications strategy for the individual stakeholder groups.

    Think about where each of the groups falls within the Organizational Change Depth Scale (below) to determine the type of communications approach required. Don’t forget: the deeper the change, the tougher the job of managing change will be.

    Procedural Behavioral Interpersonal Vocational Cultural

    Position

    • Changing procedures requires clear explanation of what has changed and what people must do differently.
    • Avoid making people think wherever possible. Provide procedural instructions when and where people need them to ensure they remember.

    Incentivize

    • Changing behaviors requires breaking old habits and establishing new ones by adjusting the contexts in which people work.
    • Consider a range of both formal and informal incentives and disincentives, including objective rewards, contextual nudges, cues, and informal recognition

    Empathize

    • Changing people’s relationships (without damaging morale) requires showing empathy for disrupting what is often a significant source of their well-being.
    • Show that efforts have been made to mitigate disruption, and sacrifice is shared by leadership.

    Educate

    • Changing people’s roles requires providing ways to acquire knowledge and skills they need to learn and succeed.
    • Consider a range of learning options that includes both formal training (external or internal) and ongoing self-directed learning.

    Inspire

    • Changing values and norms in the organization (i.e. what type of things are seen as “good” or “normal”) requires deep disruption and persistence.
    • Think beyond incentives; change the vocabularies in which incentives are presented.

    Base your communications approaches on our Organizational Change Depth Scale

    Use the below “change chakras” as a quick guide for structuring your change messages.

    The image is a human, with specific areas of the body highlighted, with notes emerging from them. Above the head is a cloud, labelled Cultural Change/Inspire-Shape ideas and aspirations. The head is the next highlighted element, with notes reading Vocational Change/Educate-Develop their knowledge and skills. The heart is the next area, labelled with Interpersonal Change/Empathize-Appeal to their hearts. The stomach is pictured, with the notes Behavioral Change/Incentivize-Appeal to their appetites and instincts. The final section are the legs, with notes reading Procedural Change/Position-Provide clear direction and let people know where and when they’re needed.

    Categorize stakeholder groups in terms of communications requirements

    3.2.2 30 minutes

    Use the table below to document where your various stakeholder groups fall within the depth scale.
    Depth Levels Stakeholder Groups Tactics
    Procedural Position: Provide explanation of what exactly has changed and specific procedural instructions of what exactly people must do differently to ensure they remember to make adjustments as effortlessly as possible.
    Behavioral Incentivize: Break old habits and establish new ones by adjusting the context of formal and informal incentives (including objective rewards, contextual nudges, cues, and informal recognition).
    Interpersonal Empathize: Offer genuine recognition and support for disruptions of personal networks (a significant source of personal well-being) that may result from changing work relationships. Show how leadership shares the burden of such sacrifices.
    Vocational Educate: Provide a range of learning options (formal and self-directed) to provide the knowledge and skills people need to learn and succeed in changed roles.
    Cultural Inspire: Frame incentives in a vocabulary that reflects any shift in what types of things are seen as “good” or “normal” in the organization.

    The deeper the impact, the more complex the communication strategy

    Interposal, vocational, and cultural changes each require more nuanced approaches when communicating with stakeholders.

    Straightforward → Complex

    When managing interpersonal, vocational, or cultural changes, you will be required to incorporate more inspirational messaging and gestures of empathy than you typically might in a business communication.

    Communications that require an appeal to people’s emotions can be, of course, very powerful, but they are difficult to craft. As a result, oftentimes messages that are meant to inspire do the exact opposite, coming across as farfetched or meaningless platitudes, rather than evocative and actionable calls to change.

    Refer to the tactics below for assistance when crafting more complex change communications that require an appeal to people’s emotions and imaginations.

    • Tell a story. Describe a journey with a beginning (who we are and how we got here) and a destination (our goals and expected success in the future).
    • Convey an intuitive sense of direction. This helps people act appropriately without being explicitly told what to do.
    • Appeal to both emotion and reason. Make people want to be part of the change.
    • Balance abstract ideas with concrete facts. Writers call this “moving up and down the ladder of abstraction.” Without concrete images and facts, the vision will be meaninglessly vague. Without abstract ideas and principles, the vision will lack power to unite people and inspire broad support.
    • Be concise. Make your messages easy to communicate and remember in any situation.

    "Instead of resisting any emotion, the best way to dispel it is to enter it fully, embrace it and see through your resistance."

    Deepak Chopra

    Fine-tune change communications for each stakeholder or audience

    3.2.3 60 to 90 minutes

    Use Info-Tech’s “Message Canvas” (see next slide) to help rationalize and elaborate the change vision for each group.

    Build upon the more high-level change story that you developed in step 1.1 by giving more specificity to the change for specific stakeholder groups.

    Questions to address in your communication strategy include: How will the change benefit the organization and its people? How have we confirmed there is a need for change? What would happen if we didn’t change? How will the change leverage existing strengths – what will stay the same? How will we know when we get to the desired state?

    Remember these guidelines to help your messages resonate:

    • People are busy and easily distracted. Tell people what they really need to know first, before you lose their attention.
    • Repetition is good. Remember the Aristotelian triptych: “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them.”
    • Don’t use technical terms, jargon, or acronyms. Different groups in organizations tend to develop specialized vocabularies. Everybody grows so accustomed to using acronyms and jargon every day that it becomes difficult to notice how strange it sounds to outsiders. This is especially important when IT communicates with non-technical audiences. Don’t alienate your audience by talking at them in a strange language.
    • Test your message. Run focus groups or deliver communications to a test audience (which could be as simple as asking 2–3 people to read a draft) before delivering messages more broadly.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Change thy language, change thyself.

    Jargon, acronyms, and technical terms represent deeply entrenched cultural habits and assumptions.

    Continuing to use jargon or acronyms after a transition tends to drag people back to old ways of thinking and working.

    You don’t need to invent a new batch of buzzwords for every change (nor should you), but every change is an opportunity to listen for words and phrases that have lost their meaning through overuse and abuse.

    3.2.3 continued - Example “Message Canvas”

    The image is a screencapture of tab 6 of the Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool, which is a message canvas

    If there are multiple messages or impacts that need to be communicated to a single group or audience, you may need to do multiple Message Canvases per group. Refer back to your Stakeholder Engagement Workbook to help inform the stakeholder groups and messages that this activity should address.

    Go to tab 6 of the Organizational Change Impact Analysis Toolfor multiple message canvas template boxes that you can use. These messages can then help inform your communication plan on tab 7 of that tool.

    Determine methods for communications delivery

    Review your options for communicating your change. This slide covers traditional methods of communication, while the following slides cover some options for multimedia mass-communications.

    Method Best Practices
    Email Email announcements are necessary for every organizational change initiative but are never sufficient. Treat email as a formalizing medium, not a medium of effective communication when organizational change is concerned. Use email to invite people to in-person meetings, make announcements across teams and geographical areas at the same time, and share formal details.
    Team Meeting Team meetings help sell change. Body language and other in-person cues are invaluable when trying to influence people. Team meetings also provide an opportunity to gauge a group’s response to an announcement and gives the audience an opportunity to ask questions and get clarification.
    One-on-One One-on-ones are more effective than team meetings in their power to influence and gauge individual responses, but aren’t feasible for large numbers of stakeholders. Use one-on-ones selectively: identify key stakeholders and influencers who are most able to either advocate change on your behalf or provide feedback (or both).
    Internal Site / Repository Internal sites and repositories help sustain change by making knowledge available after the implementation. People don’t retain information very well when it isn’t relevant to them. Much of their training will be forgotten if they don’t apply that knowledge for several weeks or months. Use internal sites and repositories for how-to guides and standard operating procedures.

    Review multimedia communication methods for reaching wider audiences in the organization

    Method Best Practices
    User Interfaces User interface (UI) design is overlooked as a communication method. Often a simple UI refinement with the clearer prompts or warnings is more effective and efficient than additional training and repeated email reminders.
    Social Media Social media is widely and deeply embraced by people publicly, and is increasingly useful within organizations. Look for ways to leverage existing internal social tools. Avoid trying to introduce new social channels to communicate change unless social transformation is within the scope of the core project’s goals; the social tool itself might become as much of an organizational change management challenge as the original project.
    Posters & Marketing Collateral Posters and other marketing collateral are common communication tools in retail and hospitality industries that change managers in other industries often don’t think of. Making key messages a vivid, visual part of people’s everyday environment is a very effective way to communicate. On the down side, marketing collateral requires professional design skills and can be costly to create. Professional copywriting is also advisable to ensure your message resonates.
    Video Videos are well worth the cost to produce when the change is transformational in nature, as in cultural changes. Videos are useful for both communicating the vision and as part of the training plan.

    Document communication methods and build the Communications Delivery Plan

    3.2.4 30 minutes

    1. Determine when communications need to be delivered for each stakeholder group.
    2. Select the most appropriate delivery methods for each group and for each message.
    • Meetings and presentations
    • Email/broadcast
    • Intranet and other internal channels (e.g. internal social network)
    • Open houses and workshops
  • Designate who will deliver the messages.
  • Develop plans to follow up for feedback and evaluation (Step 3.2.5).
  • The image is a screenshot of the Stakeholder/Audience section of the Transition Plan Template.

    This is a screenshot from the “Stakeholder/Audience” section of Info-Tech’s Transition Plan Template. Use the template to document your communication strategy for each audience and your delivery plan.

    "The role of project communication is to inspire, instigate, inform or educate and ultimately lead to a desired action. Project communication is not a well presented collection of words; rather it is something that propels a series of actions."

    Sidharth Thakur

    Info-Tech Insight

    Repetition is crucial. People need to be exposed to a message 7 times before it sticks. Using a variety of delivery formats helps ensure people will notice and remember key messages. Mix things up to keep employees engaged and looking forward to the next update.

    Define the feedback and evaluation process to ensure an agile response to resistance

    3.2.5 46 to 60 minutes

    1. Designate where/when on the roadmap the project team will proactively evaluate progress/success and elicit feedback in order to identify emerging challenges and opportunities.
    2. Create checklists to review at key milestones to ensure plans are being executed. Review…
    • Key project implementation milestones (i.e. confirm successful deployment/installation).
    • Quick wins identified in the impact analysis and determined in the transition plan (see the following slides for advice in leveraging quick wins).
  • Ensure there is immediate follow-up on communications and training:
    • Confirm understanding and acceptance of vision and action plan – utilize surveys and questionnaires to elicit feedback.
    • Validate people’s acquisition of required knowledge and skills.
    • Identify emerging/unforeseen challenges and opportunities.
  • "While creating and administering a survey represent(s) additional time and cost to the project, there are a number of benefits to be considered: 1) Collecting this information forces regular and systematic review of the project as it is perceived by the impacted organizations, 2) As the survey is used from project to project it can be improved and reused, 3) The survey can quickly collect feedback from a large part of the organization, increasing the visibility of the project and reducing unanticipated or unwelcome reactions."

    – Claire Schwartz

    Use the survey and questionnaire templates on the following two slides for assistance in eliciting feedback. Record the evaluation and feedback gathering process in the Transition Plan Template.

    Sample stakeholder questionnaire

    Use email to distribute a questionnaire (such as the example below) to project stakeholders to elicit feedback.

    In addition to receiving invaluable opinions from key stakeholders and the frontline workers, utilizing questionnaires will also help involve employees in the change, making them feel more engaged and part of the change process.

    Interviewee Date
    Stakeholder Group Interviewer
    Question Response Notes
    How do you think this change will affect you?
    How do you think this change will affect the organization?
    How long do you expect the change to take?
    What do you think might cause the project/change to fail?
    What do you think are the most critical success factors?

    Sample survey template

    Similar to a questionnaire, a survey is a great way to assess the lay of the land in terms of your org change efforts and the likelihood of adoption.

    Using a free online survey tool like Survey Monkey, Typeform, or Google Forms, surveys are quick and easy to generate and deploy. Use the below example as a template to build from.

    Use survey and questionnaire feedback as an occasion to revisit the Impact Analysis Tool and reassess the impacts and roadblocks based on hard feedback.

    To what degree do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements?

    1=Strongly Disagree, 2=Disagree, 3=Somewhat Disagree, 4=Somewhat Agree, 5=Agree, 6=Strongly Agree

    1. I understand why [this change] is happening.
    2. I agree with the decision to [implement this change].
    3. I have the knowledge and tools needed to successfully go through [this change].
    4. Leadership/management is fully committed to the change.
    5. [This change] will be a success.

    Rate the impact of this change.

    1=Very Negative, 2=Negative, 3=Somewhat Negative, 4=Somewhat Positive, 5=Positive, 6=Very Positive

    1. On you personally.
    2. On your team/department/unit.
    3. On the organization as a whole.
    4. On people leading the change.

    Develop plans to leverage support and deal with resistance, objections, and fatigue

    Assess the “Faces of Change” to review the emotions provoked by the change in order to proactively manage resistors and engage supporters.

    The slides that follow walk you through activities to assess the different “faces of change” around your OCM initiative and to perform an objections handling exercise.

    Assessing people’s emotional responses to the change will enable the PMO and transition team to:

    • Brainstorm possible questions, objections, suggestions, and concerns from each audience.
    • Develop responses to questions, objections, and concerns.
    • Revise the communications messaging and plan to include proactive objections handling.
    • Re-position objections and suggestions as questions to plan for proactively communicating responses and objections to show people that you understand their point of view.
    • Develop a plan with clearly defined responsibility for regularly updating and communicating the objections handling document. Active Subversion Quiet Resistance Vocal Skepticism Neutrality / Uncertainty Vocal Approval Quiet Support Active Leadership
    Hard Work Vs. Tough Work

    Carol Beatty’s distinction between “easy work,” “hard work,” and “tough work” can be revealing in terms of the high failure rate on many change initiatives. (“The Tough Work of Managing Change.” Queen’s University IRC. 2015.)

    • Easy work includes administrative tasks like scheduling meetings and training sessions or delivering progress reports.
    • Hard work includes more abstract efforts like estimating costs/benefit or defining requirements.
    • Tough work involves managing people and emotions, i.e. providing leadership through setbacks, and managing resistance and conflict.

    That is what makes organizational change “tough,” as opposed to merely hard. Managing change requires mental and emotional toughness to deal with uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict.

    Assess the full range of support and resistance to change

    3.2.6 20 minutes

    Categorize the feedback received from stakeholder groups or individual stakeholders across the “faces of change” spectrum.

    Use the table below to document where different stakeholders and stakeholder groups fall within the spectrum.

    Response Symptoms Examples
    Active Subversion Publicly or privately disparaging the transition (in some cases privately disparaging while pretending to support); encouraging people to continue doing things the old way or to leave the organization altogether. Group/Name
    Quiet Resistance Refusing to adopt change, continuing to do things the old way (including seemingly trivial or symbolic things). Non-participative. Group/Name
    Vocal Skepticism Asking questions; questioning the why, what, and how of change, but continuing to show willingness to participate and try new things. Group/Name
    Neutrality / Uncertainty Non-vocal participation, perhaps with some negative body language, but continuing to show tacit willingness to try new things. Group/Name
    Vocal Approval Publicly and privately signaling buy-in for the change. Group/Name
    Quiet Support Actively helping to enable change to succeed without necessarily being a cheerleader or trying to rally others around the transition. Group/Name
    Active Leadership Visibly championing the change and helping to rally others around the transition. Group/Name

    Review strategies and tactics for engaging different responses

    Use the below tactics across the “faces of change” spectrum to help inform the PMO’s responses to sources of objection and resistance and its tactics for leveraging support.

    Response Engagement Strategies and Tactics
    Active Subversion Firmly communicate the boundaries of acceptable response to change: resistance is a natural response to change, but actively encouraging other people to resist change should not be tolerated. Active subversion often indicates the need to find a new role or depart the organization.
    Quiet Resistance Resistance is a natural response to change. Use the Change Curve to accommodate a moderate degree and period of resistance. Use the OCM Depth Scale to ensure communications strategies address the irrational sources of resistance.
    Vocal Skepticism Skepticism can be a healthy sign. Skeptics tend to be invested in the organization’s success and can be turned into vocal and active supporters if they feel their questions and concerns have been heard and addressed.
    Neutrality / Uncertainty Most fence-sitters will approve and support change when they start to see concrete benefits and successes, but are equally likely to become skeptics and resisters when they see signs of failure or a critical mass of skepticism, resistance, or simply ambivalence.
    Vocal Approval Make sure that espoused approval for change isn’t masking resistance or subversion. Engage vocal supporters to convert them into active enablers or champions of change.
    Quiet Support Engage quiet supporters to participate where their skills or social and political capital might help enable change across the organization. This could either be formal or informal, as too much formal engagement can invite minor disagreements and slow down change.
    Active Leadership Engage some of the active cheerleaders and champions of change to help deliver communications (and in some cases training) to their respective groups or teams.

    Don’t let speed bumps become roadblocks

    What If... Do This: To avoid:
    You aren’t on board with the change? Fake it to your staff, then communicate with your superiors to gather the information you need to buy in to the change. Starting the change process off on the wrong foot. If your staff believe that you don’t buy in to the change, but you are asking them to do so, they are not going to commit to it.
    When you introduce the change, a saboteur throws a tantrum? If the employee storms out, let them. If they raise uninformed objections in the meeting that are interrupting your introduction, ask them to leave and meet with them privately later on. Schedule an ad hoc one-on-one meeting. A debate at the announcement. It’s an introduction to the change and questions are good, but it’s not the time for debate. Leave this for the team meetings, focus groups, and one-on-ones when all staff have digested the information.
    Your staff don’t trust you? Don’t make the announcement. Find an Enthusiast or another manager that you trust to make the announcement. Your staff blocking any information you give them or immediately rejecting anything you ask of them. Even if you are telling the absolute truth, if your staff don’t trust you, they won’t believe anything you say.
    An experienced skeptic has seen this tried before and states it won’t work? Leverage their experience after highlighting how the situation and current environment is different. Ask the employee what went wrong before. Reinventing a process that didn’t work in the past and frustrating a very valuable segment of your staff. Don’t miss out on the wealth of information this Skeptic has to offer.

    Use the Objections Handling Template on the next slide to brainstorm specific objections and forms of resistance and to strategize about the more effective responses and mitigation strategies.

    Copy these objections and responses into the designated section of the Transition Plan Template. Continue to revise objections and responses there if needed.

    Objections Handling Template

    3.2.7 45 to 60 minutes

    Objection Source of Objection PMO Response
    We tried this two years ago. Vocal skepticism Enabling processes and technologies needed time to mature. We now have the right process discipline, technologies, and skills in place to support the system. In addition, a dedicated role has been created to oversee all aspects of the system during and after implementation.
    Why aren’t we using [another solution]? Uncertainty We spent 12 months evaluating, testing, and piloting solutions before selecting [this solution]. A comprehensive report on the selection process is available on the project’s internal site [here].

    Info-Tech Insight

    There is insight in resistance. The individuals best positioned to provide insight and influence change positively are also best positioned to create resistance. These people should be engaged throughout the implementation process. Their insights will very likely identify risks, barriers, and opportunities that need to be addressed.

    Make sure the action plan includes opportunities to highlight successes, quick wins, and bright spots

    Highlighting quick wins or “bright spots” helps you go from communicating change to more persuasively demonstrating change.

    Specifically, quick wins help:

    • Demonstrate that change is possible.
    • Prove that change produces positive results.
    • Recognize and reward people’s efforts.

    Take the time to assess and plan quick wins as early as possible in the planning process. You can revisit the impact assessment for assistance in identifying potential quick wins; more so, work with the project team and other stakeholders to help identify quick wins as they emerge throughout the planning and execution phases.

    Make sure you highlight bright spots as part of the larger story and vision around change. The purpose is to continue to build or sustain momentum and morale through the transition.

    "The quick win does not have to be profound or have a long-term impact on your organization, but needs to be something that many stakeholders agree is a good thing… You can often identify quick wins by simply asking stakeholders if they have any quick-win recommendations that could result in immediate benefits to the organization."

    John Parker

    Tips for identifying quick wins (Source: John Parker, “How Business Analysts can Identify Quick Wins,” 2013):
    • Brainstorm with your core team.
    • Ask technical and business stakeholders for ideas.
    • Observe daily work of users and listen to users for problems and opportunities; quick wins often come from the rank and file, not from the top.
    • Review and analyze user support trouble tickets; this can be a wealth of information.
    • Be open to all suggestions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Stay positive. Our natural tendency is to look for what’s not working and try to fix it. While it’s important to address negatives, it’s equally important to highlight positives to keep people committed and motivated around change.

    Document the outcomes of this step in the Transition Plan Template

    3.2.8 45 minutes

    Consolidate and refine communication plan requirements for each stakeholder and group affected by change.

    Upon completion of the activities in this step, the PMO Director is responsible for ensuring that outcomes have been documented and recorded in the Transition Plan Template. Activities to be recorded include:

    • Stakeholder Overview
    • Communications Schedule Activity
    • Communications Delivery
    • Objections Handling
    • The Feedback and Evaluation Process

    Going forward, successful change will require that many responsibilities be delegated beyond the PMO and core transition team.

    • Delegate responsibilities to HR, managers, and team members for:
      • Advocating the importance of change.
      • Communicating progress toward project milestones and goals.
      • Developing HR and training plan.
    • Ensure sponsorship stays committed and active during and after the transition.
      • Leadership visibility throughout the execution and follow-up of the project is needed to remind people of the importance of change and the organization’s commitment to project success.

    Download Info-Tech’s Transition Plan Template.

    "Whenever you let up before the job is done, critical momentum can be lost and regression may follow." – John Kotter, Leading Change

    Step 3.3: Establish HR and Training Plans

    Phase 3 - 3.3

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Analyze HR requirements for involvement in training.
    • Outline appropriate HR and training timelines.
    • Develop training plan requirements across different stakeholder groups.
    • Define training content.
    • Assess skills required to support the change and review options for filling HR gaps.
    This step involves the following participants:
    • PMO Director
    • Transition Team
    • HR Personnel
    • Project Sponsor
    Outcomes of this step
    • A training plan
    • Assessment of skill required to support the change

    Make sure skills, roles, and teams are ready for change

    Ensure that the organization has the infrastructure in place and the right skills availability to support long-term adoption of the change.

    The PMO’s OCM approach should leverage organizational design and development capabilities already in place.

    Recommendations in this section are meant to help the PMO and transition team understand HR and training plan activities in the context of the overall transition process.

    Where organizational design and development capabilities are low, the following steps will help you do just enough planning around HR, and training and development to enable the specific change.

    In some cases the need for improved OCM will reveal the need for improved organizational design and development capabilities.

    • Required Participants for this Step: PMO Leader; PMO staff; Project manager.
    • Recommended Participants for this Step: Project Sponsor; HR personnel.

    This section will walk you through the basic steps of developing HR, training, and development plans to support and enable the change.

    For comprehensive guidance and tools on role, job, and team design, see Info-Tech’s Transform IT Through Strategic Organizational Design blueprint.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t make training a hurdle to adoption. Training and other disruptions take time and energy away from work. Ineffective training takes credibility away from change leaders and seems to validate the efforts of saboteurs and skeptics. The PMO needs to ensure that training sessions are as focused and useful as possible.

    Analyze HR requirements to ensure efficient use of HR and project stakeholder time

    3.3.1 30-60 minutes

    Refer back to Activity 3.2.4. Use the placement of each stakeholder group on the Organizational Change Depth Scale (below) to determine the type of HR and training approach required. Don’t impose training rigor where it isn’t required.

    Procedural Behavioral Interpersonal Vocational Cultural
    Simply changing procedures doesn’t generally require HR involvement (unless HR procedures are affected). Changing behaviors requires breaking old habits and establishing new ones, often using incentives and disincentives. Changing teams, roles, and locations means changing people’s relationships, which adds disruption to people’s lives and challenges for any change initiative. Changing people’s roles and responsibilities requires providing ways to acquire knowledge and skills they need to learn and succeed. Changing values and norms in the organization (i.e. what type of things are seen as “good” or “normal”) requires deep disruption and persistence.
    Typically no HR involvement. HR consultation recommended to help change incentives, compensation, and training strategies. HR consultation strongly recommended to help define roles, jobs, and teams. HR responsibility recommended to develop training and development programs. HR involvement recommended.

    22%

    In a recent survey of 276 large and midsize organizations, eighty-seven percent of survey respondents trained their managers to “manage change,” but only 22% felt the training was truly effective. (Towers Watson)

    Outline appropriate HR and training timelines

    3.3.2 15 minutes

    Revisit the high-level project schedule from steps 1.2.4 and 3.4.1 to create a tentative timeline for HR and training activities.

    Revise this timeline throughout the implementation process, and refine the timing and specifics of these activities as you move from the development to the deployment phase.

    Project Milestone Milestone Time Frame HR/Training Activities Activity Timing Notes
    Business Case Approval
    • Consulted to estimate timeline and cost
    Pilot Go-Live
    • Train groups affected by pilot
    Full Rollout Approval
    • Consulted to estimate timeline and cost
    Full Rollout
    • Train the trainers for full-scale rollout
    Benefits Assessment
    • Consulted to provide actual time and costs

    "The reason it’s going to hurt is you’re going from a state where you knew everything to one where you’re starting over again."

    – BA, Natural Resources Company

    Develop the training plan to ensure that the right goals are set, and that training is properly timed and communicated

    3.3.3 60 minutes

    Use the final tab in the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook, “7. Training Requirements,” to begin fleshing out a training plan for project stakeholders.

    The image is a screencapture of the final tab in the Stakeholder Engagement Workbook, titled Training Requirements.

    The table will automatically generate a list of stakeholders based on your stakeholder analysis.

    If your stakeholder list has grown or changed since the stakeholder engagement exercise in step 3.1, update the “Stakeholder List” tab in the tool.

    Estimate when training can begin, when training needs to be completed, and the total hours required.

    Training too early and too late are both common mistakes. Training too late hurts morale and creates risks. Training too early is often wasted and creates the need for retraining as knowledge and skills are lost without immediate relevance to their work.

    Brainstorm or identify potential opportunities to leverage for training (such as using existing resources and combining multiple training programs).

    Review the Change Management Impact Analysis to assess skills and knowledge required for each group in order for the change to succeed.

    Depending on the type of change being introduced, you may need to have more in-depth conversations with technical advisors, project management staff, and project sponsors concerning gaps and required content.

    Define training content and make key logistical decisions concerning training delivery for staff and users

    3.3.4 30-60 minutes

    Ultimately, the training plan will have to be put into action, which will require that the key logistical decisions are made concerning content and training delivery.

    The image is a screencapture of the Training Plan section of the Transition Plan Template.

    1. Use the “Training Plan” section in Info-Tech’s Transition Plan Template to document details of your training plan: schedules, resources, rooms, and materials required, etc.
    2. Designate who is responsible for developing the training content details. Responsibilities will include:
      • Developing content modules.
      • Determining the appropriate delivery model for each audience and content module (e.g. online course, classroom, outsourced, job shadowing, video tutorials, self-learning).
      • Finding and booking resources, locations, equipment, etc.

    “95% of learning leaders from organizations that are very effective at implementing important change initiatives find best practices by partnering with a company or an individual with experience in the type of change, twice as often as ineffective organizations.”

    Source: Implementing and Supporting Training for Important Change Initiatives.

    Training content should be developed and delivered by people with training experience and expertise, working closely with subject matter experts. In the absence of such individuals, partnering with experienced trainers is a cost that should be considered.

    Assess skills required to support the change that are currently absent or in short supply

    3.3.5 15 to 30 minutes

    The long-term success of the change is contingent on having the resources to maintain and support the tool, process, or business change being implemented. Otherwise, resourcing shortfalls could threaten the integrity of the new way of doing things post-change, threatening people’s trust and faith in the validity of the change as a whole.

    Use the table below to assess and record skills requirements. Refer to the tactics on the next slide for assistance in filling gaps.

    Skill Required Description of Need Possible Resources Recommended Next Steps Timeline
    Mobile Dev Users expect mobile access to services. We need knowledge of various mobile platforms, languages or frameworks, and UX/UI requirements for mobile.
    • Train web team
    • Outsource
    • Analyze current and future mobile requirements.
    Probably Q1 2015
    DBAs Currently have only one DBA, which creates a bottleneck. We need some DBA redundancy to mitigate risk of single point of failure.
    • Redeploy and train member of existing technology services team.
    • Hire or contract new resources.
    • Analyze impact of redeploying existing resources.
    Q3 2014

    Review your options for filling HR gaps

    Options: Benefits: Drawbacks:
    Redeploy staff internally
    • Retains firm-specific knowledge.
    • Eliminates substantial costs of recruiting and terminating employees.
    • Mitigates risk; reduces the number of unknowns that come with acquiring talent.
    • Employees could already be fully or over-allocated.
    • Employees might lack the skills needed for the new or enhanced positions.
    Outsource
    • Best for addressing short-term, urgent needs, especially when the skills and knowledge required are too new or unfamiliar to manage internally.
    • Risk of sharing sensitive information with third parties.
    • Opportunity cost of not investing in knowledge and skills internally.
    Contract
    • Best when you are uncertain how long needs for particular skills or budget for extra capacity will last.
    • Diminished loyalty, engagement, and organizational culture.
    • Similar drawbacks as with outsourcing.
    Hire externally
    • Best for addressing long-term needs for strategic or core skills.
    • Builds capacity and expertise to support growing organizations for the long term.
    • High cost of recruiting and onboarding.
    • Uncertainty: risk that new hires might have misrepresented their skills or won’t fit culturally.
    • Commitment to paying for skills that might diminish in demand and value over time.
    • Economic uncertainty: high cost of layoffs and buyouts.

    Report HR and training plan status to the transition team

    3.3.6 10 minutes (and ongoing thereafter)

    Ensure that any changes or developments made to HR and training plans are captured in the Transition Plan Template where applicable.
    1. Upon completion of the activities in this step, ensure that the “Training Plan” section of the template reflects outcomes and decisions made during the preceding activities.
    2. Assign ongoing RACI roles for informing the transition team of HR and training plan changes; similarly define accountabilities for keeping the template itself up to date.
    • Record these roles within the template itself under the “Roles & Responsibilities” section.
  • Be sure to schedule a date for eliciting training feedback in the “Training Schedule” section of the template.
    • A simple survey, such as those discussed in step 3.2, can go a long way in both helping stakeholders feel more involved in the change, and in making sure training mistakes and weaknesses are not repeated again and again on subsequent change initiatives.
  • Info-Tech Insight

    Try more ad hoc training methods to offset uncertain project timelines.

    One of the top challenges organizations face around training is getting it timed right, given the changes to schedule and delays that occur on many projects.

    One tactic is to take a more ad hoc approach to training, such as making IT staff available in centralized locations after implementation to address staff issues as they come up.

    This will not only help eliminate the waste that can come from poorly timed and ineffective training sessions, but it will also help with employee morale, giving individuals a sense that they haven’t been left alone to navigate unfamiliar processes or technologies.

    Adoption can be difficult for some, but the cause is often confusion and misunderstanding

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Manufacturing

    Source Info-Tech Client

    Challenge
    • The strategy team responsible for the implementation of a new operation manual for the subsidiaries of a global firm was monitoring the progress of newly acquired firms as the implementation of the manual began.
    • They noticed that one department in a distant location was not meeting the new targets or fulfilling the reporting requirements on staff progress.
    Solution
    • The strategy team representative for the subsidiary firm went to the manager leading the department that was slow to adopt the changes.
    • When asked, the manager insisted that he did not have the time or resources to implement all of these changes while maintaining the operation of the department.
    • With true business value in mind, the manager said, they chose to keep the plant running.
    Results
    • The representative from the strategy team was surprised to find that the manager was having such trouble fitting the changes into daily operations as the changes were the daily operations.
    • The representative took the time to go through the new operation manual with the manager and explain that the changes replaced daily operations and were not additions to them.

    "The cause of slow adoption is often not anger or denial, but a genuine lack of understanding and need for clarification. Avoid snap decisions about a lack of adoption until staff understand the details." – IT Manager

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.1.2 Undergo a stakeholder analysis to ensure positive stakeholder engagement

    Move away from a command-and-control approach to change by working with the analyst to develop a strategy that engages stakeholders in the change, making them feel like they are a part of it.

    3.2.3 Develop a stakeholder sentiment-sensitive communications strategy

    Work with the analyst to fine-tune the stakeholder messaging across various stakeholder responses to change.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    3.2.5 Define a stakeholder feedback and evaluation process

    Utilize analyst experience and perspective in order to develop strategy for effectively evaluating stakeholder feedback early enough that resistance and suggestions can be accommodated with the OCM strategy and project plan.

    3.2.7 Develop a strategy to cut off resistance to change

    Utilize analyst experience and perspective in order to develop an objections handling strategy to deal with resistance, objections, and fatigue.

    3.3.4 Develop the training plan to ensure that the right goals are set, and that training is properly timed and communicated

    Receive custom analyst insights on rightsizing training content and timing your training sessions effectively.

    Phase 4

    Establish a Post-Project Benefits Attainment Process

    Phase 4 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.

    Guided Implementation 4: Establish a Post-Project Benefits Attainment Process

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1 to 2 weeks

    Step 4.1: Determine accountabilities for benefits attainment

    Discuss these issues with analyst:

    • Accountability for tracking the business outcomes of the project post-completion is frequently opaque, with little or no allocated resourcing.
    • As a result, projects may get completed, but their ROI to the organization is not tracked or understood.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Perform a post-implementation project review of the pilot OCM initiative.
    • Assign post-project benefits tracking accountabilities.
    • Implement a benefits tracking process and tool.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Portfolio Benefits Tracking Tool
    • Activity 4.1.2: “Assign ownership for realizing benefits after the project is closed”
    • Activity 4.1.3: “Define a post-project benefits tracking process”

    Step 4.1: Determine accountabilities for benefits attainment

    Phase 4 - 4.1

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Conduct a post-implementation review of pilot OCM project.
    • Assign ownership for realizing benefits after the project is closed.
    • Define a post-project benefits tracking process.
    • Implement a tool to help monitor and track benefits over the long term.
    This step involves the following participants:
    • PMO Director
    • Project Sponsor
    • Project managers
    • Business analyst
    • Additional IT/PMO staff
    Outcomes of this step
    • Appropriate assignment of accountabilities for tracking benefits after the project has closed
    • A process for tracking benefits over the long-run
    • A benefits tracking tool

    Project benefits result from change

    A PMO that facilitates change is one that helps drive benefits attainment long after the project team has moved onto the next initiative.

    Organizations rarely close the loop on project benefits once a project has been completed.

    • The primary cause of this is accountability for tracking business outcomes post-project is almost always poorly defined, with little or no allocated resourcing.
    • Even organizations that define benefits well often neglect to manage them once the project is underway. If benefits realization is not monitored, the organization will miss opportunities to close the gap on lagging benefits and deliver expected project value.
    • It is commonly understood that the project manager and sponsor will need to work together to shift focus to benefits as the project progresses, but this rarely happens as effectively as it should.

    With all this in mind, in this step we will round out our PMO-driven org change process by defining how the PMO can help to better facilitate the benefits realization process.

    This section will walk you through the basic steps of developing a benefits attainment process through the PMO.

    For comprehensive guidance and tools, see Info-Tech’s Establish the Benefits Realization Process.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Two of a kind. OCM, like benefits realization, is often treated as “nice to have” rather than “must do.” These two processes are both critical to real project success; define benefits properly during intake and let OCM take the reigns after the project kicks off.

    The benefits realization process spans the project lifecycle

    Benefits realization ensures that the benefits defined in the business case are used to define a project’s expected value, and to facilitate the delivery of this value after the project is closed. The process begins when benefits are first defined in the business case, continues as benefits are managed through project execution, and ends when the loop is closed and the benefits are actually realized after the project is closed.

    Benefits Realization
    Define Manage Realize
    Initial Request Project Kick Off *Solution Is Deployed
    Business Case Approved Project Execution Solution Maintenance
    PM Assigned *Project Close Solution Decommissioned

    *For the purposes of this step, we will limit our focus to the PMO’s responsibilities for benefits attainment at project close-out and in the project’s aftermath to ensure that responsibilities for tracking business outcomes post-project have been properly defined and resourced.

    Ultimate project success hinges on a fellowship of the benefits

    At project close-out, stewardship of the benefits tracking process should pass from the project team to the project sponsor.

    As the project closes, responsibility for benefits tracking passes from the project team to the project sponsor. In many cases, the PMO will need to function as an intermediary here, soliciting the sponsor’s involvement when the time comes.

    The project manager and team will likely move onto another project and the sponsor (in concert with the PMO) will be responsible for measuring and reporting benefits realization.

    As benefits realization is measured, results should be collated by the PMO to validate results and help flag lagging benefits.

    The activities that follow in this step will help define this process.

    The PMO should ensure the participation of the project sponsor, the project manager, and any applicable members of the business side and the project team for this step.

    Ideally, the CIO and steering committee members should be involved as well. At the very least, they should be informed of the decisions made as soon as possible.

    Initiation-Planning-Execution-Monitoring & Controlling-Closing

    Conduct post-implementation review for your pilot OCM project

    4.1.1 60 minutes

    The post-project phase is the most challenging because the project team and sponsor will likely be busy with other projects and work.

    Conducting a post-implementation review for every project will force sponsors and other stakeholders to assess actual benefits realization and identify lagging benefits.

    If the project is not achieving its benefits, a remediation plan should be created to attempt to capture these benefits as soon as possible.

    Agenda Item
    Assess Benefits Realization
    • Compare benefits realized to projected benefits.
    • Compare benefit measurements with benefit targets.
    Assess Quality
    • Performance
    • Availability
    • Reliability
    Discuss Ongoing Issues
    • What has gone wrong?
    • Frequency
    • Cause
    • Resolution
    Discuss Training
    • Was training adequate?
    • Is any additional training required?
    Assess Ongoing Costs
    • If there are ongoing costs, were they accounted for in the project budget?
    Assess Customer Satisfaction
    • Review stakeholder surveys.

    Assign ownership for realizing benefits after the project is closed

    4.1.2 45 to 60 minutes

    The realization stage is the most difficult to execute and oversee. The project team will have moved on, and unless someone takes accountability for measuring benefits, progress will not be measured. Use the sample RACI table below to help define roles and responsibilities for post-project benefits attainment.

    Process Step Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed
    Track project benefits realization and document progress Project sponsor Project sponsor PMO (can provide tracking tools and guidance), and directors or managers in the affected business unit who will help gather necessary metrics for the sponsor (e.g. report an increase in sales 3 months post-project) PMO (can collect data and consolidate benefits realization progress across projects)
    Identify lagging benefits and perform root cause analysis Project sponsor and PMO Project sponsor and PMO Affected business unit CIO, IT steering committee
    Adjust benefits realization plan as needed Project sponsor Project sponsor Project manager, affected business units Any stakeholders impacted by changes to plan
    Report project success PMO PMO Project sponsor IT and project steering committees

    Info-Tech Insight

    A business accountability: Ultimately, the sponsor must help close this loop on benefits realization. The PMO can provide tracking tools and gather and report on results, but the sponsor must hold stakeholders accountable for actually measuring the success of projects.

    Define a post-project benefits tracking process

    4.1.3 45 minutes

    While project sponsors should be accountable for measuring actual benefits realization after the project is closed, the PMO can provide monitoring tools and it should collect measurements and compare results across the portfolio.

    Steps in a benefits tracking process.

    1. Collate the benefits of all the projects in your portfolio. Document each project’s benefits, with the metrics, targets, and realization timelines of each project in a central location.
    2. Collect and document metric measurements. The benefit owner is responsible for tracking actual realization and reporting it to the individual(s) tracking portfolio results.
    3. Create a timeline and milestones for benefits tracking. Establish a high-level timeline for assessing benefits, and put reminders in calendars accordingly, to ensure that commitments do not fall off stakeholders’ radars.
    4. Flag lagging benefits for further investigation. Perform root cause analysis to then find out why a benefit is behind schedule, and what can be done to address the problem.

    "Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information."
    Peter Drucker

    Implement a tool to help monitor and track benefits over the long term

    4.1.4 Times will vary depending on organizational specifics of the inputs

    Download Info-Tech’s Portfolio Benefits Tracking Tool to help solidify the process from the previous step.

    1. Document each project’s benefits, with the metrics, targets, and realization timelines. Tab 1 of the tool is a data entry sheet to capture key portfolio benefit forecasts throughout the project.
    2. Collect and document metric measurements. Tab 2 is where the PMO, with data from the project sponsors, can track actuals month after month post-implementation.
    3. Flag lagging benefits for further investigation. Tab 3 provides a dashboard that makes it easy to flag lagging benefits. The dashboard produces a variety of meaningful benefit reports including a status indication for each project’s benefits and an assessment of business unit performance.

    Continue to increase accountability for benefits and encourage process participation

    Simply publishing a set of best practices will not have an impact unless accountability is consistently enforced. Increasing accountability should not be complicated. Focus on publicly recognizing benefit success. As the process matures, you should be able to use benefits as a more frequent input to your budgeting process.

    • Create an internal challenge. Publish the dashboard from the Portfolio Benefits Tracking Tool and highlight the top 5 or 10 projects that are on track to achieve benefits. Recognize the sponsors and project team members. Recognizing individuals for benefits success will get people excited and encourage an increased focus on benefits.
    • With executive level involvement, the PMO could help institute a bonus structure based on benefits realization. For instance, project teams could be rewarded with bonuses for achieving benefits. Decide upon a set post-project timeline for determining this bonus. For example, 6 months after every project goes live, measure benefits realization. If the project has realized benefits, or is on track to realize benefits, the PM should be given a bonus to split with the team.
    • Include level of benefits realization in the performance reviews of project team members.
    • As the process matures, start decreasing budgets according to the monetary benefits documented in the business case (if you are not already doing so). If benefits are being used as inputs to the budgeting process, sponsors will need to ensure that they are defined properly.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t forget OCM best practices throughout the benefits tracking process. If benefits are lagging, the PMO should revisit phase 3 of this blueprint to consider how challenges to adoption are negatively impacting benefits attainment.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    4.1.2 Assign appropriate ownership and ensure adequate resourcing for realizing benefits after the project is closed

    Get custom insights into how the benefits tracking process should be carried out post-project at your organization to ensure that intended project outcomes are effectively monitored and, in the long run, achieved.

    4.1.4 Implement a benefits tracking tool

    Let our analysts customize a home-grown benefits tracking tool for your organization to ensure that the PMO and project sponsors are able to easily track benefits over time and effectively pivot on lagging benefits.

    Phase 5

    Solidify the PMO’s Role as Change Leader

    Phase 5 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.

    Guided Implementation 5: Solidify the PMO’s role as change leader

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1 to 2 weeks

    Step 5.1: Institute an organizational change management playbook

    Discuss these issues with an analyst:

    • With the pilot OCM initiative complete, the PMO will need to roll out an OCM program to accommodate all of the organization’s projects.
    • The PMO will need to facilitate organization-wide OCM accountabilities – whether it’s the PMO stepping into the role of OCM leader, or other appropriate accountabilities being assigned.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Review the success of the pilot OCM initiative.
    • Define organizational roles and responsibilities for change management.
    • Formalize the Organizational Change Management Playbook.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Organizational Change Management Playbook
    • Activity 5.1.1: “Review lessons learned to improve organizational change management as a core discipline of the PMO”
    • Activity 5.1.3: “Define ongoing organizational roles and responsibilities for change management”

    Step 5.1: Institute an organizational change management playbook

    Phase 5 - 5.1

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Review lessons learned to improve OCM as a core discipline of the PMO.
    • Monitor organizational capacity for change.
    • Define organizational roles and responsibilities for change management.
    • Formalize the Organizational Change Management Playbook.
    • Assess the value and success of the PMO’s OCM efforts.
    This step involves the following participants:
    • Required: PMO Director; PMO staff
    • Strongly recommended: CIO and other members of the executive layer
    Outcomes of this step
    • A well-defined organizational mandate for change management, whether through the PMO or another appropriate stakeholder group
    • Definition of organizational roles and responsibilities for change management
    • An OCM playbook
    • A process and tool for ongoing assessment of the value of the PMO’s OCM activities

    Who, in the end, is accountable for org change success?

    We return to a question that we started with in the Executive Brief of this blueprint: who is accountable for organizational change?

    If nobody has explicit accountability for organizational change on each project, the Officers of the corporation retained it. Find out who is assumed to have this accountability.

    On the left side of the image, there is a pyramid with the following labels in descending order: PMO; Project Sponsors; Officers; Directors; Stakeholders. The top three tiers of the pyramid have upward arrows connecting one section to the next; the bottom three tiers have downward pointing arrows, connecting one section to the next. On the right side of the image is the following text: If accountability for organizational change shifted to the PMO, find out and do it right. PMOs in this situation should proceed with this step. Officers of the corporation have the implicit fiduciary obligation to drive project benefits because they ultimately authorize the project spending. It’s their job to transfer that obligation, along with the commensurate resourcing and authority. If the Officers fail to make someone accountable for results of the change, they are failing as fiduciaries appointed by the Board of Directors. If the Board fails to hold the Officers accountable for the results, they are failing to meet the obligations they made when accepting election by the Shareholders.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Will the sponsor please stand up?

    Project sponsors should be accountable for the results of project changes. Otherwise, people might assume it’s the PMO or project team.

    Keep your approach to change management dynamic while building around the core discipline

    The PMO will need to establish an OCM playbook that can scale to a wide variety of projects. Avoid rigidity of processes and keep things dynamic as you build up your OCM muscles as an organization.

    Continually Develop

    Change Management Capabilities

    Progressively build a stable set of core capabilities.

    The basic science of human behavior underlying change management is unlikely to change. Effective engagement, communication, and management of uncertainty are valuable capabilities regardless of context and project specifics.

    Regularly Update

    Organizational Context

    Regularly update recurring activities and artifacts.

    The organization and the environment in which it exists will constantly evolve. Reusing or recycling key artifacts will save time and improve collaboration (by leveraging shared knowledge), but you should plan to update them on at least a quarterly or annual basis.

    Respond To

    Future Project Requirements

    Approach every project as unique.

    One project might involve more technology risk while another might require more careful communications. Make sure you divide your time and effort appropriately for each particular project to make the most out of your change management playbook.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Continuous Change. Continuous Improvement. Change is an ongoing process. Your approach to managing change should be continually refined to keep up with changes in technology, corporate strategy, and people involved.

    Review lessons learned to improve organizational change management as a core discipline of the PMO

    5.1.1 60 minutes

    1. With your pilot OCM initiative in mind, retrospectively brainstorm lessons learned using the template below. Info-Tech recommends doing this with the transition team. Have people spend 10-15 minutes brainstorming individually or in 2- to 3-person groups, then spend 15-30 minutes presenting and discussing findings collectively.

    What worked? What didn't work? What was missing?

    2. Develop recommendations based on the brainstorming and analysis above.

    Continue... Stop... Start...

    Monitor organizational capacity for change

    5.1.2 20 minutes (to be repeated quarterly or biannually thereafter)

    Perform the Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment in the wake of the OCM pilot initiative and lessons learned exercise to assess capabilities’ improvements.

    As your OCM processes start to scale out over a range of projects across the organization, revisit the assessment on a quarterly or bi-annual basis to help focus your improvement efforts across the 7 change management categories that drive the survey.

    • Cultural Readiness
    • Leadership & Sponsorship
    • Organizational Knowledge
    • Change Management Skills
    • Toolkit & Templates
    • Process Discipline
    • KPIs & Metrics

    The image is a bar graph, with the above mentioned change management categories on the Y-axis, and the categories Low, Medium, and High on the X-axis.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Continual OCM improvement is a collaborative effort.

    The most powerful way to drive continual improvement of your organizational change management practices is to continually share progress, wins, challenges, feedback, and other OCM related concerns with stakeholders. At the end of the day, the PMO’s efforts to become a change leader will all come down to stakeholder perceptions based upon employee morale and benefits realized.

    Define ongoing organizational roles and responsibilities for change management

    5.1.3 60 minutes

    1. Decide whether to designate/create permanent roles for managing change.
    • Recommended if the PMO is engaged in at least one project at any given time that generates organizational change.
  • Designate a principle change manager (if you choose to) – it is likely that responsibilities will be given to someone’s existing position (such as PM or BA).
    • Make sure any permanent roles are embedded in the organization (e.g. within the PMO, rather than trying to establish a one-person “Change Management Office”) and have leadership support.
  • Consider whether to build a team of permanent change champions – it is likely that responsibilities will be given to existing positions.
    • This type of role is increasingly common in organizations that are aggressively innovating and keeping up with consumer technology adoption. If your organization already has a program like this for engaging early adopters and innovators, build on what’s already established.
    • Work with HR to make sure this is aligned with any existing training and development programs.
  • Info-Tech Insight

    Avoid creating unnecessary fiefdoms.

    Make sure any permanent roles are embedded in the organization (e.g. within the PMO) and have leadership support.

    Copy the RACI table from Activity 3.1.1. and repurpose it to help define the roles and responsibilities.

    Include this RACI when you formalize your OCM Playbook.

    Formalize and communicate the Organizational Change Management Playbook

    5.1.4 45 to 60 minutes

    1. Formalize the playbook’s scope:
      1. Determine the size and type of projects for which organizational change management is recommended.
      2. Make sure you clearly differentiate organizational change management and enablement from technical change management (i.e. release management and acceptance).
    2. Refine and formalize tools and templates:
      1. Determine how you want to customize the structure of Info-Tech’s blueprint and templates, tailored to your organization in the future.
        1. For example:
          1. Establish a standard framework for analyzing context around organizational change.
      2. Add branding/design elements to the templates to improve their credibility and impact as internal documents.
      3. Determine where/how templates and other resources are to be found and make sure they will be readily available to anyone who needs them (e.g. project managers).
    3. Communicate the playbook to the project management team.

    Download Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Management Playbook.

    Regularly reassess the value and success of your practices relative to OCM effort and project outcomes

    5.1.5 20 minutes per project

    The image is a screencapture of the Value tab of the Organizational Change: Management Capabilities Assessment

    Use the Value tab in the Organizational Change Management Capabilities Assessment to monitor the value and success of OCM.

    Measure past performance and create a baseline for future success:

    • % of expected business benefits realized on previous 3–5 significant projects/programs.
      • Track business benefits (costs reduced, productivity increased, etc.).
    • Costs avoided/reduced (extensions, cancellations, delays, roll-backs, etc.)
      • Establish baseline by estimating average costs of projects extended to deal with change-related issues.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    5.1.3 Define ongoing organizational roles and responsibilities for change management

    As you scale out an OCM program for all of the organization’s projects based on your pilot initiative, work with the analyst to investigate and define the right accountabilities for ongoing, long-term OCM.

    5.1.4 Develop an Organizational Change Management Playbook

    Formalize a programmatic process for organizational change management in Info-Tech’s playbook template.

    Related research

    Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy

    Grow Your Own PPM Solution

    Optimize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

    Develop a Resource Management Strategy for the New Reality

    Manage a Minimum-Viable PMO

    Establish the Benefits Realization Process

    Manage an Agile Portfolio

    Project Portfolio Management Diagnostic Program: The Project Portfolio Management Diagnostic Program is a low effort, high impact program designed to help project owners assess and improve their PPM practices. Gather and report on all aspects of your PPM environment in order to understand where you stand and how you can improve.

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    Jacobs-Long, Ann. “EPMO’s Can Make A Difference In Your Organization.” May 9, 2012. Web. June 14, 2016.

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    Portfolio Management

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    The challenge

    • Typically your business wants much more than your IT development organization can deliver with the available resources at the requested quality levels.
    • Over-damnd has a negative influence on delivery throughput. IT starts many projects (or features) but has trouble delivering most of them within the set parameters of scope, time, budget, and quality. Some requested deliverables may even be of questionable value to the business.
    • You may not have the right project portfolio management (PPM) strategy to bring order in IT's delivery activities and to maximize business value.

    Our advice

    Insight

    • Many in IT mix PPM and project management. Your project management playbook does not equate to the holistic view a real PPM practice gives you.
    • Some organizations also mistake PPM for a set of processes. Processes are needed, but a real strategy works towards tangible goals.
    • PPM works at the strategic level of the company; hence executive buy-in is critical. Without executive support, any effort to reconcile supply and demand will be tough to achieve.

    Impact and results 

    • PPM is a coherent business-aligned strategy that maximizes business value creation across the entire portfolio, rather than in each project.
    • Our methodology tackles the most pressing challenge upfront: get executive buy-in before you start defining your goals. With senior management behind the plan, implementation will become easier.
    • Create PPM processes that are a cultural fit for your company. Define your short and long-term goals for your strategy and support them with fully embedded portfolio management processes.

    The roadmap

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    Get started.

    Read our executive brief to understand why you should develop a PPM strategy and understand how our methodology can help you. We show you how we can support you.

    Obtain executive buy-in for your strategy

    Ensure your strategy is a cultural fit or cultural-add for your company.

    • Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy – Phase 1: Get Executive Buy-In for Your PPM Strategy (ppt)
    • PPM High-Level Supply-Demand Calculator (xls)
    • PPM Strategic Plan Template (ppt)
    • PPM Strategy-Process Goals Translation Matrix Template (xls)

    Align the PPM processes to your company's strategic goals

    Use the advice and tools in this stage to align the PPM processes.

    • Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy – Phase 2: Align PPM Processes to Your Strategic Goals (ppt)
    • PPM Strategy Development Tool (xls)

    Refine and complete your plan

    Use the inputs from the previous stages and add a cost-benefit analysis and tool recommendation.

    • Streamline Application Maintenance – Phase 3: Optimize Maintenance Capabilities (ppt)

    Streamline your maintenance delivery

    Define quality standards in maintenance practices. Enforce these in alignment with the governance you have set up. Show a high degree of transparency and open discussions on development challenges.

    • Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy – Phase 3: Complete Your PPM Strategic Plan (ppt)
    • Project Portfolio Analyst / PMO Analyst (doc)

     

     

    Build a Continual Improvement Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
    • Parent Category Link: /i-and-o-process-management
    • IT managers must work hard to maintain and improve service quality or risk performance deterioration over time.
    • Leadership may feel lost about what to do next and which initiatives have higher priority for improvement.
    • The backlog of improvement initiatives makes the work even harder. Managers should involve the right people in the process and build a team that is responsible to monitor, measure, prioritize, implement, and test improvements.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Without continual improvement, sustained service quality will be temporary. Organizations need to put in place an ongoing process to detect potential services, enhance their procedures, and sustain their performance, whatever the process maturity is.

    Impact and Result

    • Set strategic vision for the continual improvement program.
    • Build a team to set regulations, processes, and audits for the program.
    • Set measurable targets for the program.
    • Identify and prioritize improvement initiatives.
    • Measure and monitor progress to ensure initiatives achieve the desired outcome.
    • Apply lessons learned to the next initiatives.

    Build a Continual Improvement Program Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Build a Continual Improvement Program – A step-by-step document to walk you through building a plan for efficient IT continual improvement.

    This storyboard will help you craft a continual improvement register and a workflow to ensure sustained service improvements that fulfill ongoing increases in stakeholder expectations.

    • Build a Continual Improvement Program Storyboard

    2. Continual Improvement Register and Workflow – Structured documents to help you outline improvement initiatives, prioritize them, and build a dashboard to streamline tracking.

    Use the Continual Improvement Register and Continual Improvement Workflow to help you brainstorm improvement items, get a better visibility into the items, and plan to execute improvements.

    • Continual Improvement Register
    • Continual Improvement Workflow (Visio)
    • Continual Improvement Workflow (PDF)
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Build a Continual Improvement Program

    Don’t stop with process standardization; plan to continually improve and help those improvements stick.

    Analyst Perspective

    Go beyond standardizing basics

    IT managers often learn how to standardize IT services. Where they usually fail is in keeping these improvements sustainable. It’s one thing to build a quality process, but it’s another challenge entirely to keep momentum and know what to do next.

    To fill the gap, build a continual improvement plan to continuously increase value for stakeholders. This plan will help connect services, products, and practices with changing business needs.

    Without a continual improvement plan, managers may find themselves lost and wonder what’s next. This will lead to misalignment between ongoing and increasingly high stakeholder expectations and your ability to fulfill these requirements.

    Build a continual improvement program to engage executives, leaders, and subject matter experts (SMEs) to go beyond break fixes, enable proactive enhancements, and sustain process changes.

    Photo of Mahmoud Ramin, Ph.D., Senior Research Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations, Info-Tech Research Group. Mahmoud Ramin, Ph.D.
    Senior Research Analyst
    Infrastructure and Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Even high-quality services and products need to be aligned with rising stakeholder expectations to sustain operational excellence.
    • Without the right leadership, commitment, and processes, improvements in service quality can be difficult to sustain.
    • Continual improvement is not only a development plan but also an organizational culture shift, which makes stakeholder buy-in even challenging.

    Common Obstacles

    • IT managers must work hard to maintain and improve service quality or risk performance deterioration over time.
    • Leadership feels lost about what to do next and which initiatives have higher priority for improvement.
    • A backlog of improvement initiatives makes the work even harder. Managers should involve the right people in the process and build a team that is responsible for monitoring, measuring, prioritizing, implementing, and testing improvements.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Set a strategic vision for the continual improvement program.
    • Build a team to set regulations, processes, and audits for the program.
    • Set measurable targets for the program.
    • Identify and prioritize improvement initiatives.
    • Measure and monitor progress to ensure initiatives achieve the desired outcome.
    • Apply lessons learned to the next initiatives.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Without continual improvement, any process maturity achieved around service quality will not be sustained. Organizations need to put in place an ongoing program to maintain their current maturity and continue to grow and improve by identifying new services and enhancing existing processes.

    Purpose of continual improvement

    There should be alignment between ongoing improvements of business products and services and management of these products and services. Continual improvement helps service providers adapt to changing environments. No matter how critical the service is to the business, failure to continually improve reduces the service value.

    Image of a notebook with an illustration titled 'Continuous Improvement'.

    Continual improvement is one of the five elements of ITIL’s Service Value System (SVS).

    Continual improvement should be documented in an improvement register to record and manage improvement initiatives.

    Continual improvement is a proactive approach to service management. It involves measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of people, processes, and technology to:

    • Identify areas for improvement.
    • Adapt to changes in the business environment.
    • Align the IT strategy to organizational goals.

    A continual improvement process helps service management move away from a reactive approach that focuses only on fixing problems as they occur.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Make sure the basics are in place before you embark on a continual improvement initiative.

    Benefits of embedding a cross-organizational continual improvement approach

    Icon of a computer screen. Encourage end users to provide feedback on service quality. Icon of a crossed pencil and wrench.

    Provide an opportunity to stakeholders to define requirements and raise their concerns.

    Icon of a storefront.

    Embed continual improvement in all service delivery procedures.

    Icon of chevrons moving backward.

    Turn failures into improvement opportunities rather than contributing to a blame culture.

    Icon of a telescope.

    Improve practice effectiveness that enhances IT efficiency.

    Icon of a thumbs up in a speech bubble.

    Improve end-user satisfaction that positively impacts brand reputation.

    Icon of shopping bags.

    Improve operational costs while maintaining a high level of satisfaction.

    Icon of a magnifying glass over a map marker.

    Help the business become more proactive by identifying and improving services.

    Info-Tech Insight

    It’s the responsibility of the organization’s leaders to develop and promote a continual improvement culture. Work with the business unit leads and communicate the benefits of continual improvement to get their buy-in for the practice and achieve the long-term impact.

    Build a feedback program to get input into where improvement initiatives are needed

    A well-maintained continual improvement process creates a proper feedback mechanism for the following stakeholder groups:
    • Users
    • Suppliers
    • Service delivery team members
    • Service owners
    • Sponsors
    An efficient feedback mechanism should be constructed around the following initiatives:
    Target with an arrow in the bullseye. The arrow has four flags: 'Perceived value by users', 'Service effectiveness', 'Service governance', and 'Service demand'.
    Stakeholders who participate in feedback activities should feel comfortable providing suggestions for improvement.

    Work closely with the service desk team to build communication channels to conduct surveys. Avoid formal bureaucratic communications and enforce openness in communicating the value of feedback the stakeholders can provide.

    Info-Tech Insight

    When conducting feedback activities with users, keep surveys anonymous and ensure users’ information is kept confidential. Make sure everyone else is comfortable providing feedback in a constructive way so that you can seek clarification and create a feedback loop.

    Implement an iterative continual improvement model and ensure that your services align with your organizational vision

    Build a six-step process for your continual improvement plan. Make it a loop, in which each step becomes an input for the next step. A cycle around a dartboard with numbered steps: '01 Determine your goals', '02 Define the process team', '03 Determine initiatives', '04 Prioritize initiatives', '05 Execute improvement', '06 Establish a learning culture'.

    1. Determine your goals

    A vision statement communicates your desired future state of the IT organization.

    Your IT goals should always support your organizational goals. IT goals are high-level objectives that the IT organization needs to achieve to reach a target state.
    A cycle of the bolded statements on the right surrounding a dartboard with two bullseyes.

    Understand the high-level business objectives to set the vision for continual improvement in a way that will align IT strategies with business strategies.

    Obtaining a clear picture of your organization’s goals and overall corporate strategy is one of the crucial first steps to continual improvement and will set the stage for the metrics you select. Document your continual improvement program goals and objectives.

    Knowing what your business is doing and understanding the impact of IT on the business will help you ensure that any metrics you collect will be business focused.

    Understanding the long-term vision of the business and its appetite for commitment and sponsorship will also inform your IT strategy and continual improvement goals.

    Assess the future state

    At this stage, you need to visualize improvement, considering your critical success factors.

    Critical success factors (CSFs) are higher-level goals or requirements for success, such as improving end-user satisfaction. They’re factors that must be met in order to reach your IT and business strategic vision.

    Select key performance indicators (KPIs) that will identify useful information for the initiative: Define KPIs for each CSF. These will usually involve a trend, as an increase or decrease in something. If KPIs already exist for your IT processes, re-evaluate them to assess their relevance to current strategy and redefine if necessary. Selected KPIs should provide a full picture of the health of targeted practice.

    KPIs should cover these four vectors of practice performance:

    1. Quantity
      How many continual improvement initiatives are in progress
    2. Quality
      How well you implemented improvements
    3. Timeliness
      How long it took to get continual improvement initiatives done
    4. Compliance
      How well processes and controls are being executed, such as system availability
    Cross-section of a head split into sections with icons in the middle sections.

    Examples of key CSFs and KPIs for continual improvement

    CSF

    KPI

    Adopt and maintain an effective approach for continual improvement Improve stakeholder satisfaction due to implementation of improvement initiatives.
    Enhance stakeholder awareness about continual improvement plan and initiatives.
    Increase continual improvement adoption across the organization.
    Commit to effective continual improvement across the business Improve the return on investment.
    Increase the impact of the improvement initiatives on process maturity.
    Increase the rate of successful improvement initiatives.

    Prepare a vision statement to communicate the improvement strategy

    IT Implications + Business Context –› IT Goals
    • IT implications are derived from the business context and inform goals by aligning the IT goals with the business context.
    • Business context encompasses an understanding of the factors impacting the business from various perspectives, how the business makes decisions, and what it is trying to achieve.
    • IT goals are high-level, specific objectives that the IT organization needs to achieve to reach the target state. IT goals begin a process of framing what IT as an organization needs to be able to do in the target state.

    IT goals will help identify the target state, IT capabilities, and the initiatives that will need to be implemented to enable those capabilities.

    The vision statement is expressed in the present tense. It seeks to articulate the desired role of IT and how IT will be perceived.

    Strong IT vision statements have the following characteristics:
    Arrow pointing right. Describe a desired future
    Arrow pointing right. Focus on ends, not means
    Arrow pointing right. Communicate promise
    Arrow pointing right. Work as an elevator pitch:
    • Concise; no unnecessary words
    • Compelling
    • Achievable
    • Inspirational
    • Memorable

    2. Define the process team

    The structure of each continual improvement team depends on resource availability and competency levels.

    Make sure to allocate continual improvement activities to the available resources and assess the requirement to bring in others to fulfill all tasks.

    Brainstorm what steps should be included in a continual improvement program:

    • Who is responsible for identifying, logging, and prioritizing improvement opportunities?
    • Who makes the business case for improvement initiatives?
    • Who is the owner of the register, responsible for documenting initiatives and updating their status?
    • Who executes implementation?
    • Who evaluates implementation success?
    Match stakeholder skill sets with available resources to ensure continual improvement processes are handled properly. Brainstorm skills specific to the program:
    • Knowledge of provided products and services.
    • Good understanding of organization’s goals and objectives.
    • Efficiency in collecting and measuring metrics, understanding company standards and policies, and presenting them to impacted stakeholders.
    • Competency in strategic thinking and aligning the organization’s goals with improvement initiatives.

    Enable the continual improvement program by clarifying responsibilities

    Determine roles and responsibilities to ensure accountability

    The continual improvement activities will only be successful if specific roles and responsibilities are clearly identified.

    Depending on available staff and resources, you may be able to have full-time continual improvement roles, or you may include continual improvement activities in individuals’ job descriptions.

    Each improvement action that you identify should have clear ownership and accountability to ensure that it is completed within the specified timeframe.

    Roles and responsibilities can be reassigned throughout the continual improvement process.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Create cross-functional teams to improve perspective and not focus on only one small group when trying to problem solve. Having other teams hear and reframe the issue or talk about how they can help to solve issues as a team can create bigger solutions that will help the entire IT team, not just one group.

    Consider assigning dedicated continual improvement roles

    Silhouette of a business person.
    CI Coordinator

    Continual improvement coordinators are responsible for moving projects to the implementation phase and monitoring all continual improvement roles.

    Silhouette of a business person.
    Business Owner

    Business owners are accountable for business governance, compliance, and ROI analysis. They are responsible for operational and monetary aspects of the business.

    Silhouette of a business person.
    IT Owner

    IT owners are responsible for developing the action plan and ensuring success of the initiatives. They are usually the subject matter experts, focusing on technical aspects.

    3. Determine improvement initiatives

    Businesses usually make the mistake of focusing too much on making existing processes better while missing gaps in their practices.

    Gather stakeholder feedback to help you evaluate the maturity levels of IT practices Sample of the End User Satisfaction Survey.

    You need to understand the current state of service operations to understand how you can provide value through continual improvement. Give everyone an opportunity to provide feedback on IT services.

    Use Info-Tech’s End User Satisfaction Survey to define the state of your core IT services.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Become proactive to improve satisfaction. Continual improvement is not only about identifying pain points and improving them. It enables you to proactively identify initiatives for further service improvement using both practice functionality and technology enablement.

    Understand the current state of your IT practices

    Determine the maturity level of your IT areas to help you understand which processes need improvement. Involve the practice team in maturity assessment activities to get ideas and input from them. This will also help you get their buy-in and engagement for improvement.

    Leverage performance metrics to analyze performance level. Metrics play a key role in understanding what needs improvement. After you implement metrics, have an impact report regularly generated to monitor them.

    Use problem management to identify root causes for the identified gaps. Potential sources of problems can be:

    • Recurring issues that may be an indicator of an underlying problem.
    • Business processes or service issues that are not IT related, such as inefficient business process or service design issues.

    Establish an improvement roadmap and execute initiatives

    Build a continual improvement register (CIR) for your target initiatives

    A CIR is a document used for recording your action plan from the beginning to the end of the improvement project.

    If you just sit and plan for improvements without acting on them, nothing will improve. CIR helps you create an action plan and allows you to manage, track, and prioritize improvement suggestions.

    Consider tracking the following information in your CIR, adjusted to meet the needs of your organization:

    Information

    Description

    Business value impact Identify approved themes or goals that each initiative should apply to. These can and should change over time based on changing business needs.
    Effort/cost Identify the expected effort or cost the improvement initiative will require.
    Priority How urgent is the improvement? Categorize based on effort, cost, and risk levels.
    Status Ensure each initiative has a status assigned that reflects its current state.
    Timeline List the timeframe to start the improvement initiative based on the priority level.
    CI functional groups Customize the functional groups in your CI program

    Populate your register with ideas that come from your first round of assessments and use this document to continually add and track new ideas as they emerge.

    You can also consider using the register to track the outcomes and benefits of improvement initiatives after they have been completed.

    Activity: Use the Continual Improvement Register template to brainstorm responsibilities, generate improvement initiatives, and action plan

    1-3 hours
    1. Open the Continual Improvement Register template and navigate to tab 2, Setup.
    2. Brainstorm your definitions for the following items to get a clear understanding of these items when completing the CIR. The more quantification you apply to the criteria, the more tangible evaluation you will do:
      • Business value impact categories
      • Effort/cost
      • Priority
      • Status
      • Timeline
    3. Discuss the teams that the upcoming initiatives will belong to and update them under CI Functional Groups.
    1. Analyze the assessment data collected throughout stakeholder feedback and your current-state evaluation.
    2. Use this data to generate a list of initiatives that should be undertaken to improve the performance of the targeted processes.
    3. Use sticky notes to record identified CI initiatives.
    4. Record each initiative in tab 3, CI Register, along with associated information:
      • A unique ID number for the initiative
      • The individual who submitted the idea
      • The team the initiative belongs to
      • A description of the initiative

    Download the Continual Improvement Register template

    Activity: Use the Continual Improvement Register template to brainstorm responsibilities, generate improvement initiatives, and action plan

    Input

    • List of key stakeholders for continual improvement
    • Current state of services and processes

    Output

    • Continual improvement register setup
    • List of initiatives for continual improvement

    Materials

    • Continual improvement register
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Markers
    • Laptops

    Participant

    • CIO
    • IT managers
    • Project managers
    • Continual improvement manager/coordinator

    4. Prioritize initiatives

    Prioritization should be transparent and available to stakeholders.

    Some initiatives are more critical than others to achieve and should be prioritized accordingly. Some improvements require large investments and need an equally large effort, while some are relatively low-cost, low-effort improvements. Focus on low-hanging fruit and prioritize low-cost, low-effort improvements to help the organization with rapid growth. This will also help you get stakeholder buy-in for the rest of your continual improvement program.

    Prioritize improvement initiatives in your CIR to increase visibility and ensure larger improvement initiatives are done the next cycle. As one improvement cycle ends, the next cycle begins, which allows the continual improvement team to keep pace with changing business requirements.

    Stock image of a person on a ladder leaning against a bookshelf.

    Identify “quick wins” that can provide immediate improvement

    Prioritize these quick wins to immediately demonstrate the success of the continual service improvement effort to the business.

    01

    Keep the scope of the continual improvement process manageable at the beginning by focusing on a few key areas that you want to improve.
    • If you have identified pain points, addressing these will demonstrate the value of the project to the business to gain their support.
    • Choose the services or processes that continue to disrupt or threaten service – focus on where pain points are evident and where there is a need for improvement.
    • Critical services to improve should emerge from the current-state assessments.

    02

    From your list of proposed improvements, focus on a few of the top pain points and plan to address those.

    03

    Choose the right services to improve at the first stage of continual improvement to ensure that the continual improvement process delivers value to the business.

    Activity: Prioritize improvement initiatives

    2-3 hours

    Input: List of initiatives for continual improvement

    Output: Prioritized list of initiatives

    Materials: Continual improvement register, Whiteboard/flip charts, Markers, Laptops

    Participants: CIO, IT managers, Project managers, Continual improvement manager

    1. In the CI Register tab of the Continual Improvement Register template, define the status, priority, effort/cost, and timeline according to the definition of each in the data entry tab.
    2. Review improvement initiatives from the previous activity.
    3. Record the CI coordinator, business owner, and IT owner for each initiative.
    4. Fill out submission date to track when the initiative was added to the register.
    5. According to the updated items, you will get a dashboard of items based on their categories, effort, priority, status, and timeline. You will also get a visibility into the total number of improvement initiatives.
    6. Focus on the short-term initiatives that are higher priority and require less effort.
    7. Refer to the Continual Improvement Workflow template and update the steps.

    Download the Continual Improvement Register template

    Download the Continual Improvement Workflow template

    5. Execute improvement

    Develop a plan for improvement

    Determine how you want to reach your improvement objectives. Define how to make processes work better.
    Icons representing steps. Descriptions below.
    Make a business case for your action plan Determine budget for implementing the improvement and move to execution. Find out how long it takes to build the improvement in the practice. Confirm the resources and skill sets you require for the improvement. Communicate the improvement plan across the business for better visibility and for seamless organizational change management, if needed. Lean into incremental improvements to ensure practice quality is sustained, not temporary. Put in place an ongoing process to audit, enhance, and sustain the performance of the target practice.

    Create a specific action plan to guide your improvement activities

    As part of the continual improvement plan, identify specific actions to be completed, along with ownership for each action.

    The continual improvement process must:

    • Define activities to be completed.
    • Create roles and assign ownership to complete activities.
    • Provide training and awareness about the initiative.
    • Define inputs and outputs.
    • Include reporting.

    For each action, identify:

    • The problem.
    • Who will be responsible and accountable.
    • Metric(s) for assessment.
    • Baseline and target metrics.
    • Action to be taken to achieve improvement (training, new templates, etc.).

    Choose timelines:

    • Firm timelines are important to keep the project on track.
    • One to two months for an initiative is an ideal length of time to maintain interest and enthusiasm for the specific project and achieve a result.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Every organization is unique in terms of its services, processes, strengths, weaknesses, and needs, as well as the expectations of its end users. There is no single action plan that will work for everyone. The improvement plan will vary from organization to organization, but the key elements of the plan (i.e. specific priorities, timelines, targets, and responsibilities) should always be in place.

    Build a communication plan to ensure the implementation of continual improvement stakeholder buy-in

    1. Throughout the improvement process, share information about both the status of the project and the impact of the improvement initiatives.
    Icon of a group of people. Encourage a collaborative environment across all members of the practice team.
    Icon of an ascending graph. Motivate every individual to continue moving upward and taking ownership over their roles.
    Icon of overlapping speech bubbles. Communication among team members ensures that everyone is on the same page working together toward a common goal.
    Icon of a handshake. The most important thing is to get the support of your team. Unless you have their support, you won’t be able to deliver any of the solutions you draw up.
    2. The end users should be kept in the loop so they can feel that their contribution is valued.
    Icon of an arrow pointing right. When improvements happen and only a small group of people are involved in the results and action plan, misconceptions will arise.
    Icon of a thumbs up in a speech bubble. If communication is lacking, end users will provide less feedback on the practice improvements.
    Icon of a cone made of stacked layers. For end users to feel their concerns are being considered, you must communicate the findings in a way that conveys the impact of their contribution.

    Info-Tech Insight

    To be effective, continual improvement requires open and honest feedback from IT staff. Debriefings work well for capturing information about lessons learned. Break down the debriefings into smaller, individual activities completed within each phase of the project to better capture the large amount of data and lessons learned within that phase.

    Measure the success of your improvement program

    Continual improvement is everybody’s job within the organization.

    Determine how improvements impacted stakeholders. Build a relationship pyramid to analyze how improvements impacted external users and narrow down to the internal users, implementing team, and leaders.
    1. How did we make improvements with our partners and suppliers? –› Look into your contracts and measure the SLAs and commitments.
    2. How could improvement initiatives impact the organization? –› Involve everybody to provide feedback. Rerun the end-user satisfaction survey and compare with the baseline that you obtained before improvement implementation.
    3. How does the improvement team feel about the whole process? –› What were the lessons learned, and can the team apply the lessons in the next improvement initiatives?
    4. How did the leaders manage and lead improvements? –› Were they able to provide proper vision to guide the improvement team through the process?
    A relationship pyramid with the initial questions on the left starting from '1' at the bottom to '4' at the 2nd highest level.

    Measure changes in selected metrics to evaluate success

    Measuring and reporting are key components in the improvement process.

    Adjust improvement priority based on updated objectives. Justify the reason. Refer to your CIR to document it.

    Did you get there?

    Part of the measurement should include a review of CSFs and KPIs determined in step 1 (assess the future state). Some may need to be replaced.

    • After an improvement has been implemented, it is important to regularly monitor and evaluate the CSFs and KPIs you chose and run reports to evaluate whether the implemented improvement has actually resolved the service/process issues or helped you achieve your objectives.
    • Establish a schedule for regularly reviewing key metrics that were identified in Step 1 and assessing change in those metrics and progress toward reaching objectives.
    • In addition to reviewing CSFs, KPIs, and metrics, check in with the IT organization and end users to measure their perceptions of the change once an appropriate amount of time has passed.
    • Ensure that metrics are telling the whole story and that reporting is honest in order to be informative.
    Outcomes of the continual improvement process should include:
    • Improved efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of processes and services.
    • Processes and services more aligned with the business needs and strategy.
    • Maturity of processes and services.

    For a guideline to determine a list of metrics, refer to Info-Tech’s blueprints:

    Info-Tech Insight

    Make sure you’re measuring the right things and considering all sources of information. Don’t rely on a single or very few metrics. Instead, consider a group of metrics to help you get a better holistic view of improvement initiatives and their impact on IT operations.

    6. Establish a learning culture and apply it to other practices

    Reflect on lessons learned to drive change forward

    What did you learn?
    Icon of a checklist and pencil. Ultimately, continual improvement is an ongoing educational program.
    Icon of a brain with a lighting bolt.
    Icon of a wrench in a speech bubble. By teaching your team how to learn better and identify sources of new knowledge that can be applied going forward, you maximize the efficacy of your team and improvement plan effort.
    What obstacles prevented you from reaching your target condition?
    Icon of a map marker. If you did not reach your target goals, reflect as a team on what obstacles prevented you from reaching that target.
    Icon of a wrench in a gear. Focus on the obstacles that are preventing your team from reaching the target state.
    Icon of a sun behind clouds. As obstacles are removed, new ones will appear, and old ones will disappear.

    Compare expectations versus reality

    Compare the EC (expected change) to the AC (actual change)
    Arrow pointing down.
    Arrow pointing left and down labelled 'Small'. Evaluate the differences: how large is the difference from what you expected? Arrow pointing right and down labelled 'Large'.
    Things are on track and the issue could have simply been an issue with timing of the improvement. More reflection is needed. Perhaps it is a gap in understanding the goal or a poor execution of the action plan.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Regardless of the cause, large differences between the EC and the AC provide great learning opportunities about how to approach change in the future.

    A cycle around a dartboard with numbered steps: '01 Determine your goals', '02 Define the process team', '03 Determine initiatives', '04 Prioritize initiatives', '05 Execute improvement', '06 Establish a learning culture'.

    Think long-term to sustain changes

    The continual improvement process is ongoing. When one improvement cycle ends, the next should begin in order to continually measure and evaluate processes.

    The goal of any framework is steady and continual improvement over time that resets the baseline to the current (and hopefully improved) level at the end of each cycle.

    Have processes in place to ensure that the improvements made will remain in place after the change is implemented. Each completed cycle is just another step toward your target state.
    Icon of a group of people. Ensure that there is a continual commitment from management.
    Icon of a bar chart. Regularly monitor metrics as well as stakeholder feedback after the initial improvement period has ended. Use this information to plan the next improvement.
    Icon of gears. Continual improvement is a combination of attitudes, behavior, and culture.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Sample of 'Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy'. Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy

    Success depends on IT initiatives clearly aligned to business goals, IT excellence, and driving technology innovation.

    Sample of 'Develop Meaningful Service Metrics'. Develop Meaningful Service Metrics

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

    Sample of 'Common Challenges to incident management success'. Improve Incident and Problem Management

    Rise above firefighter mode with structured incident management to enable effective problem management.

    Works Cited

    “Continual Improvement ITIL4 Practice Guide.” AXELOS, 2020. Accessed August 2022.

    “5 Tips for Adopting ITIL 4’s Continual Improvement Management Practice.” SysAid, 2021. Accessed August 2022.

    Jacob Gillingham. “ITIL Continual Service Improvement And 7-Step Improvement Process” Invensis Global Learning Services, 2022. Accessed August 2022.

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    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
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    • Lack of a consistent approach in accessing internal and external data within the organization and sharing data with third parties.
    • Data consumed by most organizations lacks proper data quality, data certification, standards tractability, and lineage.
    • Organizations are looking for guidance in terms of readily accessible data from others and data that can be shared with others or monetized.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Despite data being everywhere, most organizations struggle to find accurate, trustworthy, and meaningful data when required.
    • Connecting to data should be as easy as connecting to the internet. This is achievable if all organizations start participating in the data marketplace ecosystem by leveraging a Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) framework.

    Impact and Result

    • Data marketplaces facilitate data sharing between the data producer and the data consumer. The data product must be carefully designed to truly benefit in today’s connected data ecosystem.
    • Follow Info-Tech’s step-by-step approach to establish your DaaS framework:
      1. Understand Data Ecosystem
      2. Design Data Products
      3. Establish DaaS framework

    Design Data-as-a-Service Research & Tools

    Start here – Read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should design Data-as-a-Service (DaaS), review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand data ecosystem

    Provide clear benefits of adopting the DaaS framework and solid rationale for moving towards a more connected data ecosystem and avoiding data silos.

    • Design Data-as-a-Service – Phase 1: Understand Data Ecosystem

    2. Design data product

    Leverage design thinking methodology and templates to document your most important data products.

    • Design Data-as-a-Service – Phase 2: Design Data Product

    3. Establish a DaaS framework

    Capture internal and external data sources critical to data products success for the organization and document an end-to-end DaaS framework.

    • Design Data-as-a-Service – Phase 3: Establish a DaaS Framework
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Design Data-as-a-Service

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Data Marketplace and DaaS Explained

    The Purpose

    The purpose of this module is to provide a clear understanding of the key concepts such as data marketplace, data sharing, and data products.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    This module will provide clear benefits of adopting the DaaS framework and solid rationale for moving towards a more connected data ecosystem and avoiding data silos.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the business context

    1.2 Understand the data ecosystem

    1.3 Draft products ideas and use cases

    1.4 Capture data product metrics

    Outputs

    Data product ideas

    Data sharing use cases

    Data product metrics

    2 Design Data Product

    The Purpose

    The purpose of this module is to leverage design thinking methodology and templates to document the most important data products.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Data products design that incorporates end-to-end customer journey and stakeholder map.

    Activities

    2.1 Create a stakeholder map

    2.2 Establish a persona

    2.3 Data consumer journey map

    2.4 Document data product design

    Outputs

    Data product design

    3 Assess Data Sources

    The Purpose

    The purpose of this module is to capture internal and external data sources critical to data product success.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Break down silos by integrating internal and external data sources

    Activities

    3.1 Review the conceptual data model

    3.2 Map internal and external data sources

    3.3 Document data sources

    Outputs

    Internal and external data sources relationship map

    4 Establish a DaaS Framework

    The Purpose

    The purpose of this module is to document end-to-end DaaS framework.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    End-to-end framework that breaks down silos and enables data product that can be exchanged for long-term success.

    Activities

    4.1 Design target state DaaS framework

    4.2 Document DaaS framework

    4.3 Assess the gaps between current and target environments

    4.4 Brainstorm initiatives to develop DaaS capabilities

    Outputs

    Target DaaS framework

    DaaS initiative

    Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands

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    • Parent Category Name: Development
    • Parent Category Link: /development
    • While teams are used to optimizing their own respective areas of responsibility, there is lack of clarity on the overall core SDLC process resulting in applications being released that are of poor quality.
    • Software development teams are struggling to release on time and within budget.
    • Teams do not understand the overall process, are not communicating well, and traceability is hard to achieve.
    • Each team claims to be optimized yet the final deliverable doesn’t reflect the expected quality.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Optimizing can make you worse. One cannot just optimize locally – the SDLC must be optimized in its entirety to ensure traceability across the process.
    • Separate process from framework.
      You don’t need to “Go Agile” or follow other industry jargon to effectively optimize your SDLC.
    • SDLC process improvement is ongoing.
      Start with your team’s current capabilities and optimize. You should set expectations that new improvements will always come in the future.

    Impact and Result

    • Use a systematic framework to bring out local optimizations as potential candidates for SDLC optimization.
    • Prioritize those candidates that will aid in optimizing the overall core SDLC process.
    • Create the necessary governance and control structures to sustain the changes.
    • Use Info-Tech tools and templates to accelerate your process optimization.

    Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand Info-Tech's approach to SDLC optimization and why the SDLC must be optimized in its entirety to ensure traceability across the process.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Document the current state of the SDLC

    This phase of the blueprint will help in understanding the organization's business priorities, documenting the current SDLC process, and identifing current SDLC challenges.

    • Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands – Phase 1: Document the Current State of the SDLC
    • SDLC Optimization Playbook

    2. Define root causes, determine optimization initiatives, and define target state

    This phase of the blueprint, will help with defining root causes, determining potential optimization initiatives, and defining the target state of the SDLC.

    • Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands – Phase 2: Define Root Causes, Determine Optimization Initiatives, and Define Target State

    3. Develop a rollout strategy for SDLC optimization

    This phase of the blueprint will help with prioritizing initiatives in order to develop a rollout strategy, roadmap, and communication plan for the SDLC optimization.

    • Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands – Phase 3: Develop a Rollout Strategy for SDLC Optimization
    • SDLC Communication Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Create a Horizontally Optimized SDLC to Better Meet Business Demands

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Document Your Current SDLC

    The Purpose

    Understand SDLC current state.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of your current SDLC state and metrics to measure the success of your SDLC optimization initiative.

    Activities

    1.1 Document the key business objectives that your SDLC delivers upon.

    1.2 Document your current SDLC process using a SIPOC process map.

    1.3 Identify appropriate metrics in order to track the effectiveness of your SDLC optimization.

    1.4 Document the current state process flow of each SDLC phase.

    1.5 Document the control points and tools used within each phase.

    Outputs

    Documented business objectives

    Documented SIPOC process map

    Identified metrics to measure the effectiveness of your SDLC optimization

    Documented current state process flows of each SDLC phase

    Documented control points and tools used within each SDLC phase

    2 Assess Challenges and Define Root Causes

    The Purpose

    Understand current SDLC challenges and root causes.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand the core areas of your SDLC that require optimization.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify the current challenges that exist within each SDLC phase.

    2.2 Determine the root cause of the challenges that exist within each SDLC phase.

    Outputs

    Identified current challenges

    Identified root causes of your SDLC challenges

    3 Determine Your SDLC Optimization Initiatives

    The Purpose

    Understand common best practices and the best possible optimization initiatives to help optimize your current SDLC.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand the best ways to address your SDLC challenges.

    Activities

    3.1 Define optimization initiatives to address the challenges in each SDLC phase.

    Outputs

    Defined list of potential optimization initiatives to address SDLC challenges

    4 Define SDLC Target State

    The Purpose

    Define your SDLC target state while maintaining traceability across your overall SDLC process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand what will be required to reach your optimized SDLC.

    Activities

    4.1 Determine the target state of your SDLC.

    4.2 Determine the people, tools, and control points necessary to achieve your target state.

    4.3 Assess the traceability between phases to ensure a seamlessly optimized SDLC.

    Outputs

    Determined SDLC target state

    Identified people, processes, and tools necessary to achieve target state

    Completed traceability alignment map and prioritized list of initiatives

    5 Prioritize Initiatives and Develop Rollout Strategy

    The Purpose

    Define how you will reach your target state.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Create a plan of action to achieve your desired target state.

    Activities

    5.1 Gain the full scope of effort required to implement your SDLC optimization initiatives.Gain the full scope of effort required to implement your SDLC optimization initiatives.

    5.2 Identify the enablers and blockers of your SDLC optimization.

    5.3 Define your SDLC optimization roadmap.

    5.4 Create a communication plan to share initiatives with the business.

    Outputs

    Level of effort required to implement your SDLC optimization initiatives

    Identified enablers and blockers of your SDLC optimization

    Defined optimization roadmap

    Completed communication plan to present your optimization strategy to stakeholders

    Implement Hardware Asset Management

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.4/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $29,447 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 25 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Asset Management
    • Parent Category Link: /asset-management
    • Executives are often aware of the benefits asset management offers, but many organizations lack a defined program to manage their hardware.
    • Efforts to implement hardware asset management (HAM) are stalled because organizations feel overwhelmed navigating the process or under use the data, failing to deliver value.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations often implement an asset management program as a one-off project and let it stagnate.
    • Organizations often fail to dedicate adequate resources to the HAM process, leading to unfinished processes and inconsistent standards.
    • Hardware asset management programs yield a large amount of useful data. Unfortunately, this data is often underutilized. Departments within IT become data siloes, preventing effective use of the data.

    Impact and Result

    • As the IT environment continues to change, it is important to establish consistency in the standards around IT asset management.
    • A current state assessment of your HAM program will shed light on the steps needed to safeguard your processes.
    • Define the assets that will need to be managed to inform the scope of the ITAM program before defining processes.
    • Build and involve an ITAM team in the process from the beginning to help embed the change.
    • Define standard policies, processes, and procedures for each stage of the hardware asset lifecycle, from procurement through to disposal.

    Implement Hardware Asset Management Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should Implement Hardware Asset Management, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Lay foundations

    Build the foundations for the program to succeed.

    • Implement Hardware Asset Management – Phase 1: Lay Foundations
    • HAM Standard Operating Procedures
    • HAM Maturity Assessment Tool
    • IT Asset Manager
    • IT Asset Administrator

    2. Procure & receive

    Define processes for requesting, procuring, receiving, and deploying hardware.

    • Implement Hardware Asset Management – Phase 2: Procure and Receive
    • HAM Process Workflows (Visio)
    • HAM Process Workflows (PDF)
    • Non-Standard Hardware Request Form
    • Purchasing Policy

    3. Maintain & dispose

    Define processes and policies for managing, securing, and maintaining assets then disposing or redeploying them.

    • Implement Hardware Asset Management – Phase 3: Maintain and Dispose
    • Asset Security Policy
    • Hardware Asset Disposition Policy

    4. Plan implementation

    Plan the hardware budget, then build a communication plan and roadmap to implement the project.

    • Implement Hardware Asset Management – Phase 4: Plan Implementation 
    • HAM Budgeting Tool
    • HAM Communication Plan
    • HAM Implementation Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Implement Hardware Asset Management

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Lay Foundations

    The Purpose

    Build the foundations for the program to succeed.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Evaluation of current challenges and maturity level

    Defined scope for HAM program

    Defined roles and responsibilities

    Identified metrics and reporting requirements

    Activities

    1.1 Outline hardware asset management challenges.

    1.2 Conduct HAM maturity assessment.

    1.3 Classify hardware assets to define scope of the program.

    1.4 Define responsibilities.

    1.5 Use a RACI chart to determine roles.

    1.6 Identify HAM metrics and reporting requirements.

    Outputs

    HAM Maturity Assessment

    Classified hardware assets

    Job description templates

    RACI Chart

    2 Procure & Receive

    The Purpose

    Define processes for requesting, procuring, receiving, and deploying hardware.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined standard and non-standard requests for hardware

    Documented procurement, receiving, and deployment processes

    Standardized asset tagging method

    Activities

    2.1 Identify IT asset procurement challenges.

    2.2 Define standard hardware requests.

    2.3 Document standard hardware request procedure.

    2.4 Build a non-standard hardware request form.

    2.5 Make lease vs. buy decisions for hardware assets.

    2.6 Document procurement workflow.

    2.7 Select appropriate asset tagging method.

    2.8 Design workflow for receiving and inventorying equipment.

    2.9 Document the deployment workflow(s).

    Outputs

    Non-standard hardware request form

    Procurement workflow

    Receiving and tagging workflow

    Deployment workflow

    3 Maintain & Dispose

    The Purpose

    Define processes and policies for managing, securing, and maintaining assets then disposing or redeploying them.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Policies and processes for hardware maintenance and asset security

    Documented workflows for hardware disposal and recovery/redeployment

    Activities

    3.1 Build a MAC policy, request form, and workflow.

    3.2 Design process and policies for hardware maintenance, warranty, and support documentation handling.

    3.3 Revise or create an asset security policy.

    3.4 Identify challenges with IT asset recovery and disposal and design hardware asset recovery and disposal workflows.

    Outputs

    User move workflow

    Asset security policy

    Asset disposition policy, recovery and disposal workflows

    4 Plan Implementation

    The Purpose

    Select tools, plan the hardware budget, then build a communication plan and roadmap to implement the project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Shortlist of ITAM tools

    Hardware asset budget plan

    Communication plan and HAM implementation roadmap

    Activities

    4.1 Generate a shortlist of ITAM tools that will meet requirements.

    4.2 Use Info-Tech’s HAM Budgeting Tool to plan your hardware asset budget.

    4.3 Build HAM policies.

    4.4 Develop a communication plan.

    4.5 Develop a HAM implementation roadmap.

    Outputs

    HAM budget

    Additional HAM policies

    HAM communication plan

    HAM roadmap tool

    Further reading

    Implement Hardware Asset Management

    Build IT services value on the foundation of a proactive asset management program.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    IT asset data impacts the entire organization. It’s time to harness that potential.

    "Asset management is like exercise: everyone is aware of the benefits, but many struggle to get started because the process seems daunting. Others fail to recognize the integrative potential that asset management offers once an effective program has been implemented.

    A proper hardware asset management (HAM) program will allow your organization to cut spending, eliminate wasteful hardware, and improve your organizational security. More data will lead to better business decision-making across the organization.

    As your program matures and your data gathering and utility improves, other areas of your organization will experience similar improvements. The true value of asset management comes from improved IT services built upon the foundation of a proactive asset management program." - Sandi Conrad, Practice Lead, Infrastructure & Operations Info-Tech Research Group

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • Asset Managers and Service Delivery Managers tasked with developing an asset management program who need a quick start.
    • CIOs and CFOs who want to reduce or improve budgeting of hardware lifecycle costs.
    • Information Security Officers who need to mitigate the risk of sensitive data loss due to insecure assets.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Develop a hardware asset management (HAM) standard operating procedure (SOP) that documents:
      • Process roles and responsibilities.
      • Data classification scheme.
      • Procurement standards, processes, and workflows for hardware assets.
      • Hardware deployment policies, processes, and workflows.
      • Processes and workflows for hardware asset security and disposal.
    • Identify requirements for an IT asset management (ITAM) solution to help generate a shortlist.
    • Develop a hardware asset management implementation roadmap.
    • Draft a communication plan for the initiative.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • Executives are aware of the numerous benefits asset management offers, but many organizations lack a defined ITAM program and especially a HAM program.
    • Efforts to implement HAM are stalled because organizations cannot establish and maintain defined processes and policies.

    Complication

    • Organizations often implement an asset management program as a one- off project and let it stagnate, but asset management needs to be a dynamic, continually involving process to succeed.
    • Organizations often fail to dedicate adequate resources to the HAM process, leading to unfinished processes and inconsistent standards.
    • Hardware asset management programs yield a large amount of useful data. Unfortunately, this data is often underused. Departments within IT become data siloes, preventing effective use of the data.

    Resolution

    • As the IT environment continues to change, it is important to establish consistency in the standards around IT asset management.
    • A current state assessment of your HAM program will shed light on the steps needed to safeguard your processes.
    • Define the assets that will need to be managed to inform the scope of the ITAM program before defining processes.
    • Build and involve an ITAM team in the process from the beginning to help embed the change.
    • Define standard policies, processes, and procedures for each stage of the hardware asset lifecycle, from procurement through to disposal.
    • Pace yourself; a staged implementation will make your ITAM program a success.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. HAM is more than just tracking inventory. A mature asset management program provides data for proactive planning and decision making to reduce operating costs and mitigate risk.
    2. ITAM is not just IT. IT leaders need to collaborate with Finance, Procurement, Security, and other business units to make informed decisions and create value across the enterprise.
    3. Treat HAM like a process, not a project. HAM is a dynamic process that must react and adapt to the needs of the business.

    Implement HAM to reduce and manage costs, gain efficiencies, and ensure regulatory compliance

    Save & Manage Money

    • Companies with effective HAM practices achieve cost savings through redeployment, reduction of lost or stolen equipment, power management, and on-time lease returns.
    • The right HAM system will enable more accurate planning and budgeting by business units.

    Improve Contract Management

    • Real-time asset tracking to vendor terms and conditions allows for more effective negotiation.

    Inform Technology Refresh

    • HAM provides accurate information on hardware capacity and compatibility to inform upgrade and capacity planning

    Gain Service Efficiencies

    • Integrating the hardware lifecycle with the service desk will enable efficiencies through Install/Moves/Adds/Changes (IMAC) processes, for larger organizations.

    Meet Regulatory Requirements

    • You can’t secure organizational assets if you don’t know where they are! Meet governance and privacy laws by knowing asset location and that data is secure.

    Prevent Risk

    • Ensure data is properly destroyed through disposal processes, track lost and stolen hardware, and monitor hardware to quickly identify and isolate vulnerabilities.

    HAM is more than just inventory; 92% of organizations say that it helps them provide better customer support

    Hardware asset management (HAM) provides a framework for managing equipment throughout its entire lifecycle. HAM is more than just keeping an inventory; it focuses on knowing where the product is, what costs are associated with it, and how to ensure auditable disposition according to best options and local environmental laws.

    Implementing a HAM practice enables integration of data and enhancement of many other IT services such as financial reporting, service management, green IT, and data and asset security.

    Cost savings and efficiency gains will vary based on the organization’s starting state and what measures are implemented, but most organizations who implement HAM benefit from it. As organizations increase in size, they will find the greatest gains operationally by becoming more efficient at handling assets and identifying costs associated with them.

    A 2015 survey by HDI of 342 technical support professionals found that 92% say that HAM has helped their teams provide better support to customers on hardware-related issues. Seventy-seven percent have improved customer satisfaction through managing hardware assets. (HDI, 2015)

    HAM delivers cost savings beyond only the procurementstage

    HAM cost savings aren’t necessarily realized through the procurement process or reduced purchase price of assets, but rather through the cost of managing the assets.

    HAM delivers cost savings in several ways:

    • Use a discovery tool to identify assets that may be retired, redeployed, or reused to cut or reallocate their costs.
    • Enforce power management policies to reduce energy consumption as well as costs associated with wasted energy.
    • Enforce policies to lock down unauthorized devices and ensure that confidential information isn’t lost (and you don’t have to waste money recovering lost data).
    • Know the location of all your assets and which are connected to the network to ensure patches are up to date and avoid costly security risks and unplanned downtime.
    • Scan assets to identify and remediate vulnerabilities that can cause expensive security attacks.
    • Improve vendor and contract management to identify areas of hardware savings.

    The ROI for HAM is significant and measurable

    Benefit Calculation Sample Annual Savings

    Reduced help desk support

    • The length of support calls should be reduced by making it easier for technicians to identify PC configuration.
    # of hardware-related support tickets per year * cost per ticket * % reduction in average call length 2,000 * $40 * 20% = $16,000

    Greater inventory efficiency

    • An ITAM solution can automate and accelerate inventory preparation and tasks.
    Hours required to complete inventory * staff required * hourly pay rate for staff * number of times a year inventory required 8 hours * 5 staff * $33 per hour * 2 times a year = $2,640

    Improved employee productivity

    • Organizations can monitor and detect unapproved programs that result in lost productivity.
    # of employees * percentage of employees who encounter productivity loss through unauthorized software * number of hours per year spent using unauthorized software * average hourly pay rate 500 employees * 10% * 156 hours * $18 = $140,400

    Improved security

    • Improved asset tracking and stronger policy enforcement will reduce lost and stolen devices and data.
    # of devices lost or stolen last year * average replacement value of device + # of devices stolen * value of data lost from device (50 * $1,000) + (50 * $5,000) = $300,000
    Total Savings: $459,040
    1. Weigh the return against the annual cost of investing in an ITAM solution to calculate the ROI.
    2. Don’t forget about the intangible benefits that are more difficult to quantify but still significant, such as increased visibility into hardware, more accurate IT planning and budgeting, improved service delivery, and streamlined operations.

    Avoid these common barriers to ITAM success

    Organizations that struggle to implement ITAM successfully usually fall victim to these barriers:

    Organizational resistance to change

    Senior-level sponsorship, engagement, and communication is necessary to achieve the desired outcomes of ITAM; without it, ITAM implementations stall and fail or lack the necessary resources to deliver the value.

    Lack of dedicated resources

    ITAM often becomes an added responsibility for resources who already have other full-time responsibilities, which can quickly cause the program to lose focus. Increase the chance of success through dedicated resources.

    Focus on tool over process

    Many organizations buy a tool thinking it will do most of the work for them, but without supporting processes to define ITAM, the data within the tool can become unreliable.

    Choosing a tool or process that doesn’t scale

    Some organizations are able to track assets through manual discovery, but as their network and user base grows, this quickly becomes impossible. Choose a tool and build processes that will support the organization as it grows.

    Using data only to respond to an audit without understanding root causes

    Often, organizations implement ITAM only to the extent necessary to achieve compliance for audits, but without investigating the underlying causes of non-compliance and thus not solving the real problems.

    To help you make quick progress, Info-Tech Research Group parses hardware asset management into essential processes

    Focus on hardware asset lifecycle management essentials:

    IT Asset Procurement:

    • Define procurement standards for new hardware along with related warranties and support options.
    • Develop processes and workflows for purchasing and work out financial implications to inform budgeting later.

    IT Asset Intake and Deployment:

    • Define policies, processes, and workflows for hardware and receiving, inventory, and tracking practices.
    • Develop processes and workflows for managing imaging, change and moves, and large-scale rollouts.

    IT Asset Security and Maintenance:

    • Develop processes, policies, and workflows for asset tracking and security.
    • Maintain contracts and agreements.

    IT Asset Disposal or Recovery:

    • Manage the employee termination and equipment recovery cycle.
    • Securely wipe and dispose of assets that have reached retirement stage.

    The image is a circular graphic, with Implement HAM written in the middle. Around the centre circle are four phrases: Recover or Dispose; Plan & Procure; Receive & Deploy; Secure & Maintain. Around that circle are six words: Retire; Plan; Request; Procure; Receive; Manage.

    Follow Info-Tech’s methodology to build a plan to implement hardware asset management

    Phase 1: Assess & Plan Phase 2: Procure & Receive Phase 3: Maintain & Dispose Phase 4: Plan Budget & Build Roadmap
    1.1 Assess current state & plan scope 2.1 Request & procure 3.1 Manage & maintain 4.1 Plan budget
    1.2 Build team & define metrics 2.2 Receive & deploy 3.2 Redeploy or dispose 4.2 Communicate & build roadmap
    Deliverables
    Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
    HAM Maturity Assessment Procurement workflow User move workflow HAM Budgeting Tool
    Classified hardware assets Non-standard hardware request form Asset security policy HAM Communication Plan
    RACI Chart Receiving & tagging workflow Asset disposition policy HAM Roadmap Tool
    Job Descriptions Deployment workflow Asset recovery & disposal workflows Additional HAM policies

    Asset management is a key piece of Info-Tech's COBIT- inspired IT Management and Governance Framework

    The image shows a graphic which is a large grid, showing Info-Tech's research, sorted into categories.

    Cisco IT reduced costs by upwards of $50 million through implementing ITAM

    CASE STUDY

    Industry IT

    Source Cisco Systems, Inc.

    Cisco Systems, Inc.

    Cisco Systems, Inc. is the largest networking company in the world. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company employees over 70,000 people.

    Asset Management

    As is typical with technology companies, Cisco boasted a proactive work environment that encouraged individualism amongst employees. Unfortunately, this high degree of freedom combined with the rapid mobilization of PCs and other devices created numerous headaches for asset tracking. At its peak, spending on hardware alone exceeded $100 million per year.

    Results

    Through a comprehensive ITAM implementation, the new asset management program at Cisco has been a resounding success. While employees did have to adjust to new rules, the process as a whole has been streamlined and user-satisfaction levels have risen. Centralized purchasing and a smaller number of hardware platforms have allowed Cisco to cut its hardware spend in half, according to Mark Edmondson, manager of IT services expenses for Cisco Finance.

    This case study continues in phase 1

    The image shows four bars, from bottom to top: 1. Asset Gathering; 2. Asset Distribution; 3. Asset Protection; 4. Asset Data. On the right, there is an arrow pointing upwards labelled ITAM Program Maturity.

    Info-Tech delivers: Use our tools and templates to accelerate your project to completion

    HAM Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

    HAM Maturity Assessment

    Non-Standard Hardware Request Form

    HAM Visio Process Workflows

    HAM Policy Templates

    HAM Budgeting Tool

    HAM Communication Plan

    HAM Implementation Roadmap Tool

    Measured value for Guided Implementations (GIs)

    Engaging in GIs doesn’t just offer valuable project advice, it also results in significant cost savings.

    GI Measured Value
    Phase 1: Lay Foundations
    • Time, value, and resources saved by using Info-Tech’s tools and templates to assess current state and maturity, plan scope of HAM program, and define roles and metrics.
    • For example, 2 FTEs * 14 days * $80,000/year = $8,615
    Phase 2: Procure & Receive
    • Time, value, and resources saved by using Info-Tech’s tools and templates to build processes for hardware request, procurement, receiving, and deployment.
    • For example, 2 FTEs * 14 days * $80,000/year = $8,615
    Phase 3: Maintain & Dispose
    • Time, value, and resources saved by following Info-Tech’s tools and methodology to build processes and policies for managing and maintaining hardware and disposing or redeploying of equipment.
    • For example, 2 FTE * 14 days * $80,000/year = $8,615
    Phase 4: Plan Implementation
    • Time, value, and resources saved by following Info-Tech’s tools and methodology to select tools, plan the hardware budget, and build a roadmap.
    • For example, 2 FTE * 14 days * $80,000/year = $8,615
    Total savings $25,845

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation overview

    1. Lay Foundations 2. Procure & Receive 3. Maintain & Dispose 4. Budget & Implementation
    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Assess current state & plan scope

    1.2 Build team & define metrics

    2.1 Request & procure

    2.2 Receive & deploy

    3.1 Manage & maintain

    3.2 Redeploy or dispose

    4.1 Plan budget

    4.2 Communicate & build roadmap

    Guided Implementation
    • Assess current state.
    • Define scope of HAM program.
    • Define roles and metrics.
    • Define standard and non-standard hardware.
    • Build procurement process.
    • Determine asset tagging method and build equipment receiving and deployment processing.
    • Define processes for managing and maintaining equipment.
    • Define policies for maintaining asset security.
    • Build process for redeploying or disposing of assets.
    • Discuss best practices for effectively managing a hardware budget.
    • Build communications plan and roadmap.
    Results & Outcomes
    • Evaluation of current maturity level of HAM
    • Defined scope for the HAM program including list of hardware to track as assets
    • Defined roles and responsibilities
    • Defined and documented KPIs and metrics to meet HAM reporting requirements
    • Defined standard and non- standard requests and processes
    • Defined and documented procurement workflow and purchasing policy
    • Asset tagging method and process
    • Documented equipment receiving and deployment processes
    • MAC policies and workflows
    • Policies and processes for hardware maintenance and asset security
    • Documented workflows for hardware disposal and recovery/redeployment
    • Shortlist of ITAM tools
    • Hardware asset budget plan
    • Communication plan and HAM implementation roadmap

    Workshop overview

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.comfor more information.

    Phases: Teams, Scope & Hardware Procurement Hardware Procurement and Receiving Hardware Maintenance & Disposal Budgets, Roadmap & Communications
    Duration* 1 day 1 day 1 day 1 day
    * Activities across phases may overlap to ensure a timely completion of the engagement
    Projected Activities
    • Outline hardware asset management goals
    • Review HAM maturity and anticipated milestones
    • Define scope and classify hardware assets
    • Define roles and responsibilities
    • Define metrics and reporting requirements
    • Define standard and non-standard hardware requests
    • Review and document procurement workflow
    • Discuss appropriate asset tagging method
    • Design and document workflow for receiving and inventorying equipment
    • Review/create policy for hardware procurement and receiving
    • Identify data sources and methodology for inventory and data collection
    • Define install/moves/adds/changes (MAC) policy
    • Build workflows to document user MAC processes and design request form
    • Design process and policies for hardware maintenance, warranty, and support documentation handling
    • Design hardware asset recovery and disposal workflows
    • Define budgeting process and review Info-Tech’s HAM Budgeting Tool
    • Develop a communication plan
    • Develop a HAM implementation plan
    Projected Deliverables
    • Standard operating procedures for hardware
    • Visio diagrams for all workflows
    • Workshop summary with milestones and task list
    • Budget template
    • Policy draft

    Phase 1

    Lay Foundations

    Implement Hardware Asset Management

    A centralized procurement process helped cut Cisco’s hardware spend in half

    CASE STUDY

    Industry IT

    Source Cisco Systems, Inc.

    Challenge

    Cisco Systems’ hardware spend was out of control. Peaking at $100 million per year, the technology giant needed to standardize procurement processes in its highly individualized work environment.

    Users had a variety of demands related to hardware and network availability. As a result, data was spread out amongst multiple databases and was managed by different teams.

    Solution

    The IT team at Cisco set out to solve their hardware-spend problem using a phased project approach.

    The first major step was to identify and use the data available within various departments and databases. The heavily siloed nature of these databases was a major roadblock for the asset management program.

    This information had to be centralized, then consolidated and correlated into a meaningful format.

    Results

    The centralized tracking system allowed a single point of contact (POC) for the entire lifecycle of a PC. This also created a centralized source of information about all the PC assets at the company.

    This reduced the number of PCs that were unaccounted for, reducing the chance that Cisco IT would overspend based on its hardware needs.

    There were still a few limitations to address following the first step in the project, which will be described in more detail further on in this blueprint.

    This case study continues in phase 2

    Step 1.1: Assess current state and plan scope

    Phase 1: Assess & Plan

    1.1 Assess current state & plan scope

    1.2 Build team & define metrics

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    1.1.1 Complete MGD (optional)

    1.1.2 Outline hardware asset management challenges

    1.1.3 Conduct HAM maturity assessment

    1.1.4 Classify hardware assets to define scope of the program

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO/CFO
    • IT Director
    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Security (optional)
    • Operations (optional)

    Step Outcomes

    • Understand key challenges related to hardware asset management within your organization to inform program development.
    • Evaluate current maturity level of hardware asset management components and overall program to determine starting point.
    • Define scope for the ITAM program including list of hardware to track as assets.

    Complete the Management & Governance Diagnostic (MGD) to weigh the effectiveness of ITAM against other services

    1.1.1 Optional Diagnostic

    The MGD helps you get the data you need to confirm the importance of improving the effectiveness of your asset management program.

    The MGD allows you to understand the landscape of all IT processes, including asset management. Evaluate all team members’ perceptions of each process’ importance and effectiveness.

    Use the results to understand the urgency to change asset management and its relevant impact on the organization.

    Establish process owners and hold team members accountable for process improvement initiatives to ensure successful implementation and realize the benefits from more effective processes.

    To book a diagnostic, or get a copy of our questions to inform your own survey, visit Info-Tech’s Benchmarking Tools, contact your account manager, or call toll-free 1-888-670-8889 (US) or 1-844-618-3192 (CAN).

    Sketch out challenges related to hardware asset management to shape the direction of the project

    Common HAM Challenges

    Processes and Policies:

    • Existing asset management practices are labor intensive and time consuming
    • Manual spreadsheets are used, making collaboration and automation difficult
    • Lack of HAM policies and standard operating procedures
    • Asset management data is not centralized
    • Lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities for ITAM functions
    • End users don’t understand the value of asset management

    Tracking:

    • Assets move across multiple locations and are difficult to track
    • Hardware asset data comes from multiple sources, creating fragmented datasets
    • No location data is available for hardware
    • No data on ownership of assets

    Security and Risk:

    • No insight into which assets contain sensitive data
    • There is no information on risks by asset type
    • Rogue systems need to be identified as part of risk management best practices
    • No data exists for assets that contain critical/sensitive data

    Procurement:

    • No centralized procurement department
    • Multiple quotes from vendors are not currently part of the procurement process
    • A lack of formal process can create issues surrounding employee onboarding such as long lead times
    • Not all procurement standards are currently defined
    • Rogue purchases create financial risk

    Receiving:

    • No formal process exists, resulting in no assigned receiving location and no assigned receiving role
    • No automatic asset tracking system exists

    Disposal:

    • No insight into where disposed assets go
    • Formal refresh and disposal system is needed

    Contracts:

    • No central repository exists for contracts
    • No insight into contract lifecycle, hindering negotiation effectiveness and pricing optimization

    Outline hardware asset management challenges

    1.1.1 Brainstorm HAM challenges

    Participants

    • CIO/CFO
    • IT Director
    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Security
    • Operations (optional)

    A. As a group, outline the hardware asset management challenges facing the organization.

    Use the previous slide to help you get started. You can use the following headings as a guide or think of your own:

    • Processes and Policies
    • Tracking
    • Procurement
    • Receiving
    • Security and Risk
    • Disposal
    • Contracts

    B. If you get stuck, use the Hardware Asset Management Maturity Assessment Tool to get a quick view of your challenges and maturity targets and kick-start the conversation.

    To be effective with hardware asset management, understand the drivers and potential impact to the organization

    Drivers of effective HAM Results of effective HAM
    Contracts and vendor licensing programs are complex and challenging to administer without data related to assets and their environment. Improved access to accurate data on contracts, licensing, warranties, installed hardware and software for new contracts, renewals, and audit requests.
    Increased need to meet compliance requires a formal approach to tracking and managing assets, regardless of device type. Encryption, hardware tracking and discovery, software application controls, and change notifications all contribute to better asset controls and data security.
    Cost cutting is on the agenda, and management is looking to reduce overall IT spend in the organization in any possible way. Reduction of hardware spend by as much as 5% of the total budget through data for better forecasting and planning.
    Assets with sensitive data are not properly secured, go missing, or are not safely disposed of when retired. Document and enforce security policies for end users and IT staff to ensure sensitive data is properly secured, preventing costs much larger than the cost of only the device.

    Each level of HAM maturity comes with its own unique challenges

    Maturity People & Policies Processes Technology
    Chaos
    • No dedicated staff
    • No policies published
    • Procedures not documented or standardized
    • Hardware not safely secured or tagged
    • Hardware purchasing decisions not based on data
    • Minimal tracking tools in place
    Reactive
    • Semi-focused HAM manager
    • No policies published
    • Reliance on suppliers to provide reports for hardware purchases
    • Hardware standards are enforced
    • Discovery tools and spreadsheets used to manage hardware
    Controlled
    • Full-time HAM manager
    • End-user policies published
    • HAM manager involved in budgeting and planning sessions
    • Inventory tracking is in place
    • Hardware is secured and tagged
    • Discovery and inventory tools used to manage hardware
    • Compliance reports run as needed
    Proactive
    • Extended HAM team, including Help Desk, HR, Purchasing
    • Corporate hardware use policies in place and enforced
    • HAM process integrated with help desk and HR processes
    • More complex reporting and integrated financial information and contracts with asset data
    • Hardware requests are automated where possible
    • Product usage reports and alerts in place to harvest and reuse licenses
    • Compliance and usage reports used to negotiate software contracts
    Optimized
    • HAM manager trained and certified
    • Working with HR, Legal, Finance, and IT to enforce policies
    • Quarterly meetings with ITAM team to review policies, procedures, upcoming contracts, and rollouts; data is reviewed before any financial decisions made
    • Full transparency into hardware lifecycle
    • Aligned with business objectives
    • Detailed savings reports provided to executive team annually
    • Automated policy enforcement and process workflows

    Conduct a hardware maturity assessment to understand your starting point and challenges

    1.1.3 Complete HAM Maturity Assessment Tool

    Complete the Hardware Asset Management Maturity Assessment Tool to understand your organization’s overall maturity level in HAM, as well as the starting maturity level aligned with each step of the blueprint, in order to identify areas of strength and weakness to plan the project. Use this to track progress on the project.

    An effective asset management project has four essential components, with varying levels of management required

    The hardware present in your organization can be classified into four categories of ascending strategic complexity: commodity, inventory, asset, and configuration.

    Commodity items are devices that are low-cost, low-risk items, where tracking is difficult and of low value.

    Inventory is tracked primarily to identify location and original expense, which may be depreciated by Finance. Typically there will not be data on these devices and they’ll be replaced as they lose functionality.

    Assets will need the full lifecycle managed. They are identified by cost and risk. Often there is data on these devices and they are typically replaced proactively before they become unstable.

    Configuration items will generally be tracked in a configuration management database (CMDB) for the purpose of enabling the support teams to make decisions involving dependencies, configurations, and impact analysis. Some data will be duplicated between systems, but should be synchronized to improve accuracy between systems.

    See Harness Configuration Management Superpowers to learn more about building a CMDB.

    Classify your hardware assets to determine the scope and strategy of the program

    Asset: A unique device or configuration of devices that enables a user to perform productive work tasks and has a defined location and ownership attributes.

    • Hardware asset management involves tracking and managing physical components from procurement through to retirement. It provides the base for software asset management and is an important process that can lead to improved lifecycle management, service request fulfillment, security, and cost savings through harvesting and redeployment.
    • When choosing your strategy, focus on those devices that are high cost and high risk/function such as desktops, laptops, servers, and mobile devices.

    ASSET - Items of high importance and may contain data, such as PCs, mobile devices, and servers.

    INVENTORY - Items that require significant financial investment but no tracking beyond its existence, such as a projector.

    COMMODITY - Items that are often in use but are of relatively low cost, such as keyboards or mice.

    Classify your hardware assets to define the scope of the program

    1.1.4 Define the assets to be tracked within your organization

    Participants

    • Participants
    • CIO/CFO
    • IT Director
    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Security (optional)
    • Operations (optional)

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 1 – Overview & Scope

    1. Determine value/risk threshold at which items should be tracked (e.g. over $1,000 and holding data).
    2. Divide a whiteboard or flip chart into three columns: commodity, asset, and inventory.
    3. Divide participants into groups by functional role to brainstorm devices in use within the organization. Write them down on sticky notes.
    4. Place the sticky notes in the column that best describes the role of the product in your organization.

    Align the scope of the program with business requirements

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Public Administration

    Source Client Case Study

    Situation

    A state government designed a process to track hardware worth more than $1,000. Initially, most assets consisted of end-user computing devices.

    The manual tracking process, which relied on a series of Excel documents, worked well enough to track the lifecycle of desktop and laptop assets.

    However, two changes upended the organization’s program: the cost of end-user computing devices dropped dramatically and the demand for network services led to the proliferation of expensive equipment all over the state.

    Complication

    The existing program was no longer robust enough to meet business requirements. Networking equipment was not only more expensive than end-user computing devices, but also more critical to IT services.

    What was needed was a streamlined process for procuring high-cost, high-utility equipment, tracking their location, and managing their lifecycle costs without compromising services.

    Resolution

    The organization decided to formalize, document, and automate hardware asset management processes to meet the new challenges and focus efforts on high-cost, high-utility end-user computing devices only.

    Step 1.2: Build team and define metrics

    Phase 1: Assess & Plan

    1.1 Assess current state & plan scope

    1.2 Build team and define metrics

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    1.2.1 Define responsibilities for Asset Manager and Asset Administrator

    1.2.2 Use a RACI chart to determine roles within HAM team

    1.2.3 Further clarify HAM responsibilities for each role

    1.2.4 Identify HAM reporting requirements

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO/CFO
    • IT Director
    • IT Managers
    • Asset Manager
    • Asset Coordinators
    • ITAM Team
    • Service Desk
    • End-User Device Support Team

    Step Outcomes:

    • Defined responsibilities for Asset Manager and Asset Administrator
    • Documented RACI chart assigning responsibility and accountability for core HAM processes
    • Documented responsibilities for ITAM/HAM team
    • Defined and documented KPIs and metrics to meet HAM reporting requirements

    Form an asset management team to lead the project

    Asset management is an organizational change. To gain buy-in for the new processes and workflows that will be put in place, a dedicated, passionate team needs to jump-start the project.

    Delegate the following roles to team members and grow your team accordingly.

    Asset Manager

    • Responsible for setting policy and governance of process and data accuracy
    • Support budget process
    • Support asset tracking processes in the field
    • Train employees in asset tracking processes

    Asset Administrator

    • The front-lines of asset management
    • Communicates with and supports asset process implementation teams
    • Updates and contributes information to asset databases
    Service Desk, IT Operations, Applications
    • Responsible for advising asset team of changes to the IT environment, which may impact pricing or ability to locate devices
    • Works with Asset Coordinator/Manager to set standards for lifecycle stages
    • The ITAM team should visit and consult with each component of the business as well as IT.
    • Engage with leaders in each department to determine what their pain points are.
    • The needs of each department are different and their responses will assist the ITAM team when designing goals for asset management.
    • Consultations within each department also communicates the change early, which will help with the transition to the new ITAM program.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Ensure that there is diversity within the ITAM team. Assets for many organizations are diverse and the composition of your team should reflect that. Have multiple departments and experience levels represented to ensure a balanced view of the current situation.

    Define the responsibilities for core ITAM/HAM roles of Asset Manager and Asset Administrator

    1.2.1 Use Info-Tech’s job description templates to define roles

    The role of the IT Asset Manager is to oversee the daily and long-term strategic management of software and technology- related hardware within the organization. This includes:

    • Planning, monitoring, and recording software licenses and/or hardware assets to ensure compliance with vendor contracts.
    • Forming procurement strategies to optimize technology spend across the organization.
    • Developing and implementing procedures for tracking company assets to oversee quality control throughout their lifecycles.

    The role of the IT Asset Administrator is to actively manage hardware and software assets within the organization. This includes:

    • Updating and maintaining accurate asset records.
    • Planning, monitoring, and recording software licenses and/or hardware assets to ensure compliance with vendor contracts.
    • Administrative duties within procurement and inventory management.
    • Maintaining records and databases regarding warranties, service agreements, and lifecycle management.
    • Product standardization and tracking.

    Use Info-Tech’s job description templates to assist in defining the responsibilities for these roles.

    Organize your HAM team based on where they fit within the strategic, tactical, and operational components

    Typically the asset manager will answer to either the CFO or CIO. Occasionally they answer to a vendor manager executive. The hierarchy may vary based on experience and how strategic a role the asset manager will play.

    The image shows a flowchart for organizing the HAM team, structured by three components: Strategic (at the top); Tactical (in the middle); and Operational (at the bottom). The chart shows how the job roles flow together within the hierarchy.

    Determine the roles and responsibilities of the team who will support your HAM program

    1.2.2 Complete a RACI

    A RACI chart will identify who should be responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for each key activity during the consolidation.

    Participants

    • Project Sponsor
    • IT Director, CIO
    • Project Manager
    • IT Managers and Asset Manager(s)
    • ITAM Team

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedure.

    Instructions:

    1. Write out the list of all stakeholders along the top of a whiteboard. Write out the key initiative steps for the consolidation project along the left side (use this list as a starting point).
    2. For each initiative, identify each team member’s role. Are they:
      • Responsible? The one responsible for getting the job done.
      • Accountable? Only one person can be accountable for each task.
      • Consulted? Involved through input of knowledge and information.
      • Informed? Receive information about process execution and quality.
    3. As you proceed through the initiative, continue to add tasks and assign responsibility to this RACI chart.

    A sample RACI chart is provided on the next slide

    Start with a RACI chart to determine the responsibilities

    1.2.2 Complete a RACI chart for your organization

    HAM Tasks CIO CFO HAM Manager HAM Administrator Service Desk (T1,T2, T3) IT Operations Security Procurement HR Business Unit Leaders Compliance /Legal Project Manager
    Policies and governance A I R I I C I C C I I
    Strategy A R R R R
    Data entry and quality management C I A I C C I I C C
    Risk management and asset security A R C C R C C
    Process compliance auditing A R I I I I I
    Awareness, education, and training I A I I C
    Printer contracts C A C C C R C C
    Hardware contract management A I R R I I R R I I
    Workflow review and revisions I A C C C C
    Budgeting A R C I C
    Asset acquisition A R C C C C I C C
    Asset receiving (inspection/acceptance) I A R R I
    Asset deployment A R R I I
    Asset recovery/harvesting A R R I I
    Asset disposal C A R R I I
    Asset inventory (input/validate/maintain) I I A/R R R R I I I

    Further clarify HAM responsibilities for each role

    1.2.3 Define roles and responsibilities for the HAM team

    Participants

    • Participants IT Asset Managers and Coordinators
    • ITAM Team
    • IT Managers and IT Director

    Document

    1. Discuss and finalize positions to be established within the ITAM/HAM office as well as additional roles that will be involved in HAM.
    2. Review the sample responsibilities below and revise or create responsibilities for each key position within the HAM team.
    3. Document in the HAM Standard Operating Procedures.
    Role Responsibility
    IT Manager
    • Responsible for writing policies regarding asset management and approving final documents
    • Build and revise budget, tracking actual spend vs. budget, seeking final approvals from the business
    • Process definition, communication, reporting and ensuring people are following process
    • Awareness campaign for new policy and process
    Asset Managers
    • Approval of purchases up to $10,000
    • Inventory and contract management including contract review and recommendations based on business and IT requirements
    • Liaison between business and IT regarding software and hardware
    • Monitor and improve workflows and asset related processes
    • Monitor controls, audit and recommend policies and procedures as needed
    • Validate, manage and analyze data as related to asset management
    • Provide reports as needed for decision making and reporting on risk, process effectiveness and other purposes as required
    • Asset acquisition and disposal
    Service Desk
    Desktop team
    Security
    Infrastructure teams

    Determine criteria for success: establish metrics to quantify and demonstrate the results and value of the HAM function

    HAM metrics fall in the following categories:

    HAM Metrics

    • Quantity e.g. inventory levels and need
    • Cost e.g. value of assets, budget for hardware
    • Compliance e.g. contracts, policies
    • Quality e.g. accuracy of data
    • Duration e.g. time to procure or deploy hardware

    Follow a process for establishing metrics:

    1. Identify and obtain consensus on the organization’s ITAM objectives, prioritized if possible.
    2. For each ITAM objective, select two or three metrics in the applicable categories (not all categories will apply to all objectives); be sure to select metrics that are achievable with reasonable effort.
    3. Establish a baseline measurement for each metric.
    4. Establish a method and accountability for ongoing measurement and analysis/reporting.
    5. Establish accountability for taking action on reported results.
    6. As ITAM expands and matures, change or expand the metrics as appropriate.

    Define KPIs and associated metrics

    • Identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for your hardware asset management program based on strategic goals.
    • For each success factor, identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success and specific metrics that will be tracked and reported on.
    • Sample metrics are below:
    CSF KPI Metrics
    Improve accuracy of IT budget and forecasting
    • Asset costs and value
    • Average cost of workstation
    • Total asset spending
    • Total value of assets
    • Budget vs. spend
    Identify discrepancies in IT environment
    • Unauthorized or failing assets
    • Number of unauthorized assets
    • Assets identified as cause of service failure
    Avoid over purchasing equipment
    • Number of unused and underused computers
    • Number of unaccounted-for computers
    • Money saved from harvesting equipment instead of purchasing new
    Make more-effective purchasing decisions
    • Predicted replacement time and cost of assets
    • Deprecation rate of assets
    • Average cost of maintaining an asset
    • Number of workstations in repair
    Improve accuracy of data
    • Accuracy of asset data
    • Accuracy rate of inventory data
    • Percentage improvement in accuracy of audit of assets
    Improved service delivery
    • Time to deploy new hardware
    • Mean time to purchase new hardware
    • Mean time to deploy new hardware

    Identify hardware asset reporting requirements and the data you need to collect to meet them

    1.2.4 Identify asset reporting requirements

    Participants

    • CIO/CFO
    • IT Director
    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 13: Reporting

    1. Discuss the goals and objectives of implementing or improving hardware asset management, based on challenges identified in Step 1.2.
    2. From the goals, identify the critical success factors for the HAM program
    3. For each CSF, identify one to three key performance indicators to evaluate achievement of the success factor.
    4. For each KPI, identify one to three metrics that can be tracked and reported on to measure success. Ensure that the metrics are tangible and measurable and will be useful for decision making or to take action.
    5. Determine who needs this information and the frequency of reporting.
    6. If you have existing ITAM data, record the baseline metric.
    CSF KPI Metrics Stakeholder/frequency

    Phase 1 Guided Implementation

    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.

    Guided Implementation 1: Lay Foundations

    Proposed Time to Completion: 4 weeks

    Step 1.1: Assess current state and plan scope

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Review challenges.
    • Assess current HAM maturity level.
    • Define scope of HAM program.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Complete MGD (optional).
    • Outline hardware asset management challenges.
    • Conduct HAM maturity assessment.
    • Classify hardware assets to define scope of the program.

    With these tools & templates:

    HAM Maturity Assessment

    Standard Operating Procedures

    Step 1.2: Build team and define metrics

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Define roles and responsibilities.
    • Assess reporting requirements.
    • Document metrics to track.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Define responsibilities for Asset Manager and Asset Administrator.
    • Use a RACI chart to determine roles within HAM team.
    • Document responsibilities for HAM roles.
    • Identify HAM reporting requirements.

    With these tools & templates:

    RACI Chart

    Asset Manager and Asset Administrator Job Descriptions

    Standard Operating Procedures

    Phase 1 Results & Insights:

    For asset management to succeed, it needs to support the business. Engage business leaders to determine needs and build your HAM program around these goals.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    1.1.4 Classify hardware assets to define scope of the program

    Determine value/risk threshold at which assets should be tracked, then divide a whiteboard into four quadrants representing four categories of assets. Participants write assets down on sticky notes and place them in the appropriate quadrant to classify assets.

    1.2.2 Build a RACI chart to determine responsibilities

    Identify all roles within the organization that will play a part in hardware asset management, then document all core HAM processes and tasks. For each task, assign each role to be responsible, accountable, consulted, or informed.

    Phase 2

    Procure and Receive

    Implement Hardware Asset Management

    Step 2.1: Request and Procure Hardware

    Phase 2: Procure & Receive

    2.1 Request & Procure

    2.2 Receive & Deploy

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    2.1.1 Identify IT asset procurement challenges

    2.1.2 Define standard hardware requests

    2.1.3 Document standard hardware request procedure

    2.1.4 Build a non-standard hardware request form

    2.1.5 Make lease vs. buy decisions for hardware assets

    2.1.6 Document procurement workflow

    2.1.7 Build a purchasing policy

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    • CFO or other management representative from Finance

    Step Outcomes:

    • Definition of standard hardware requests for roles, including core vs. optional assets
    • End-user request process for standard hardware
    • Non-standard hardware request form
    • Lease vs. buy decisions for major hardware assets
    • Defined and documented procurement workflow
    • Documented purchasing policy

    California saved $40 million per year using a green procurement strategy

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Government

    Source Itassetmanagement.net

    Challenge

    Signed July 27, 2004, Executive order S-20-04, the “Green Building Initiative,” placed strict regulations on energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and raw material usage and waste.

    In compliance with S-20-04, the State of California needed to adopt a new procurement strategy. Its IT department was one of the worst offenders given the intensive energy usage by the variety of assets managed under the IT umbrella.

    Solution

    A green IT initiative was enacted, which involved an extensive hardware refresh based on a combination of agent-less discovery data and market data (device age, expiry dates, power consumption, etc.).

    A hardware refresh of almost a quarter-million PCs, 9,500 servers, and 100 email systems was rolled out as a result.

    Other changes, including improved software license compliance and data center consolidation, were also enacted.

    Results

    Because of the scale of this hardware refresh, the small changes meant big savings.

    A reduction in power consumption equated to savings of over $40 million per year in electricity costs. Additionally, annual carbon emissions were trimmed by 200,000 tons.

    Improve your hardware asset procurement process to…

    Asset Procurement

    • Standardization
    • Aligned procurement processes
    • SLAs
    • TCO reduction
    • Use of centralized/ single POC

    Standardize processes: Using standard products throughout the enterprise lowers support costs by reducing the variety of parts that must be stocked for onsite repairs or for provisioning and supporting equipment.

    Align procurement processes: Procurement processes must be aligned with customers’ business requirements, which can have unique needs.

    Define SLAs: Providing accurate and timely performance metrics for all service activities allows infrastructure management based on fact rather than supposition.

    Reduce TCO: Management recognizes service infrastructure activities as actual cost drivers.

    Implement a single POC: A consolidated service desk is used where the contact understands both standards (products, processes, and practices) and the user’s business and technical environment.

    Identify procurement challenges to identify process improvement needs

    2.1.1 Identify IT asset procurement challenges

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    1. As a group, brainstorm existing challenges related to IT hardware requests and procurement.
    2. If you get stuck, consider the common challenges listed below.
    3. Use the results of the discussion to focus on which problems can be resolved and integrated into your organization as operational standards.

    Document hardware standards to speed time to procure and improve communications to users regarding options

    The first step in your procurement workflow will be to determine what is in scope for a standard request, and how non-standard requests will be handled. Questions that should be answered by this procedure include:

    • What constitutes a non-standard request?
    • Who is responsible for evaluating each type of request? Will there be one individual or will each division in IT elect a representative to handle requests specific to their scope of work?
    • What additional security measures need to be taken?
    • Are there exceptions made for specific departments or high-ranking individuals?

    If your end-user device strategy requires an overhaul, schedule time with an Info-Tech analyst to review our blueprint Build an End-User Computing Strategy.

    Once you’ve answered questions like these, you can outline your hardware standards as in the example below:

    Use Case Mobile Standard Mac Standard Mobile Power User
    Asset Lenovo ThinkPad T570 iMac Pro Lenovo ThinkPad P71
    Operating system Windows 10 Pro Mac OSX Windows 10 Pro, 64 bit
    Display 15.6" 21.5" 17.3”

    Memory

    32GB 8GB 64GB
    Processor Intel i7 – 7600U Processor 2.3GHz Xeon E3 v6 Processor
    Drive 500GB 1TB 1TB
    Warranty 3 year 1 year + 2 extended 3 year

    Info-Tech Insight

    Approach hardware standards from a continual improvement frame of mind. Asset management is a dynamic process. Hardware standards will need to adapt over time to match the needs of the business. Plan assessments at routine intervals to ensure your current hardware standards align with business needs.

    Document specifications to meet environmental, security, and manageability requirements

    Determine environmental requirements and constraints.

    Power management

    Compare equipment for power consumption and ability to remotely power down machines when not in use.

    Heat and noise

    Test equipment run to see how hot the device gets, where the heat is expelled, and how much noise is generated. This may be particularly important for users who are working in close quarters.

    Carbon footprint

    Ask what the manufacturer is doing to reduce post-consumer waste and eliminate hazardous materials and chemicals from their products.

    Ensure security requirements can be met.

    • Determine if network/wireless cards meet security requirements and if USB ports can be turned off to prevent removal of data.
    • Understand the level of security needed for mobile devices including encryption, remote shut down or wipe of hard drives, recovery software, or GPS tracking.
    • Decide if fingerprint scanners with password managers would be appropriate to enable tighter security and reduce the forgotten-password support calls.

    Review features available to enhance manageability.

    • Discuss manageability goals with your IT team to see if any can be solved with added features, for example:
      • Remote control for troubleshooting and remote management of data security settings.
      • Asset management software or tags for bar coding, radio frequency identification (RFID), or GPS, which could be used in combination with strong asset management practices to inventory, track, and manage equipment.

    If choosing refurbished equipment, avoid headaches by asking the right questions and choosing the right vendor

    • Is the equipment functional and for how long is it expected to last?
    • How long will the vendor stand behind the product and what support can be expected?
      • This is typically two to five years, but will vary from vendor to vendor.
      • Will they repair or replace machines? Many will just replace the machine.
    • How big is the inventory supply?
      • What kind of inventory does the vendor keep and for how long can you expect the vendor to keep it?
      • How does the vendor source the equipment and do they have large quantities of the same make and model for easier imaging and support?
    • How complete is the refurbishment process?
      • Do they test all components, replace as appropriate, and securely wipe or replace hard drives?
      • Are they authorized to reload MS Windows OEM?
    • Is the product Open Box or used?
      • Open Box is a new product returned back to the vendor. Even if it is not used, the product cannot be resold as a new product. Open Box comes with a manufacturer’s warranty and the latest operating system.
      • If used, how old is the product?

    "If you are looking for a product for two or three years, you can get it for less than half the price of new. I bought refurbished equipment for my call center for years and never had a problem". – Glen Collins, President, Applied Sales Group

    Info-Tech Insight

    Price differences are minimal between large and small vendors when dealing with refurbished machines. The decision to purchase should be based on ability to provide and service equipment.

    Define standard hardware requests, including core and optional assets

    2.1.2 Identify standards for hardware procurement by role

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    • Representatives from all other areas of the business

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 7: Procurement.

    1. Divide a whiteboard into columns representing all major areas of the business.
    2. List the approximate number of end users present at each tier and record these totals on the board.
    3. Distribute sticky notes. Use two different sizes: large sizes represent critically important hardware and small sizes represent optional hardware.
    4. Define core hardware assets for each division as well as optional hardware assets.
    5. Focus on the small sticky notes to determine if these optional purchases are necessary.
    6. Finalize the group decision to determine the standard hardware procurement for each role in the organization. Record results in a table similar to the example below:
    Department Core Hardware Assets Optional Hardware Assets
    IT PC, tablet, monitor Second monitor
    Sales PC, monitor Laptop
    HR PC, monitor Laptop
    Marketing PC (iMac) Tablet, laptop

    Document procedures for users to make standard hardware requests

    2.1.3 Document standard hardware request procedure

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    • Representatives from all other areas of the business

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 6: End-User Request Process.

    Discuss and document the end-user request process:

    1. In which cases can users request a primary device?
    2. In which cases can users request a secondary (optional device)?
    3. What justification is needed to approve of a secondary device?
      1. E.g. The request for a secondary device should be via email to the IS Projects and Procurements Officer. This email should outline the business case for why multiple devices are required.
    4. Will a service catalog be available and integrated with an ITAM solution for users to make standard requests? If so, can users also configure their options?
    5. Document the process in the standard operating procedure. Example:

    End-User Request Process

    • Hardware and software will be purchased through the user-facing catalog.
    • Peripherals will be ordered as needed.
    • End-user devices will be routed to business managers for approval prior to fulfillment by IT.
    • Requests for secondary devices must be accompanied by a business case.
    • Equipment replacements due to age will be managed through IT replacement processes.

    Improve the process for ordering non-standard hardware by formalizing the request process, including business needs

    2.1.4 Build a non-standard hardware request form

    • Although the goal should be to standardize as much as possible, this isn’t always possible. Ensure users who are requesting non-standard hardware have a streamlined process to follow that satisfies the justifications for increased costs to deliver.
    • Use Info-Tech’s template to build a non-standard hardware request form that may be used by departments/users requesting non-standard hardware in order to collect all necessary information for the request to be evaluated, approved, and sent to procurement.
    • Ensure that the requestor provides detailed information around the equipment requested and the reason standard equipment does not suffice and includes all required approvals.
    • Include instructions for completing and submitting the form as well as expected turnaround time for the approval process.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Include non-standard requests in continual improvement assessment. If a large portion of requests are for non-standard equipment, it’s possible the hardware doesn’t meet the recommended requirements for specialized software in use with many of your business users. Determine if new standards need to be set for all users or just “power users.”

    Identify the information you need to collect to ensure a smooth purchasing process

    Categories Peripherals Desktops/Laptops Servers
    Financial
    • Operational expenses
    • Ordered for inventory with the exceptions of monitors that will be ordered as needed
    • Equipment will be purchased through IT budget
    • Capital expenses
    • Ordered as needed…
    • Inventory kept for…
    • End-user devices will be purchased through departmental budgets
    • Capital expenses
    • Ordered as needed to meet capacity or stability requirements
    • Devices will be purchased through IT budgets
    Request authorization
    • Any user can request
    • Users who are traveling can purchase and expense peripherals as needed, with manager approvals
    • Tier 3 technicians
    Required approvals
    • Manager approvals required for monitors
    • Infrastructure and applications manager up to [$]
    • CIO over [$]
    Warranty requirements
    • None
    • Three years
    • Will be approved with project plan
    Inventory requirements
    • Minimum inventory at each location of 5 of each: mice, keyboards, cables
    • Docking stations will be ordered as needed
    • Laptops (standard): 5
    • Laptops (ultra light): 1
    • Desktops: 5
    • Inventory kept in stock as per DR plan
    Tracking requirements
    • None
    • Added to ITAM database, CMDB
    • Asset tag to be added to all equipment
    • Added to ITAM database, CMDB

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Take into account the possibility of encountering taxation issues based on where the equipment is being delivered as well as taxes imposed or incurred in the location from which the asset was shipped or sent. This may impact purchasing decisions and shipping instructions.

    Develop a procurement plan to get everyone in the business on the same page

    • Without an efficient and structured process around how IT purchases are budgeted and authorized, maverick spending and dark procurement can result, limiting IT’s control and visibility into purchases.
    • The challenge many IT departments face is that there is a disconnect between meeting the needs of the business and bringing in equipment according to existing policies and procedures.
    • The asset manager should demonstrate how they can bridge the gaps and improve tracking mechanisms at the same time.

    Improve procurement decisions:

    • Demonstrate how technology is a value-add.
    • Make a clear case for the budget by using the same language as the rest of the business.
    • Quantify the output of technology investments in tangible business terms to justify the cost.
    • Include the refresh cycle in the procurement plan to ensure mission- critical systems will include support and appropriate warranty.
    • Plan technology needs for the future and ensure IT technology will continue to meet changing needs.
    • Synchronize redundant organizational procurement chains in order to lower cost.

    Document the following in your procurement procedure:

    • Process for purchase requests
    • Roles and responsibilities, including requestors and approvers
    • Hardware assets to purchase and why they are needed
    • Timelines for purchase
    • Process for vendors

    Info-Tech Insight

    IT procurement teams are often heavily siloed from ITAM teams. The procurement team is typically found in the finance department. One way to bridge the gap is to implement routine, reliable reporting between departments.

    Determine if it makes sense to lease or buy your equipment; weigh the pros and cons of leasing hardware

    Pros

    • Keeps operational costs low in the short term by containing immediate cost.
    • Easy, predictable payments makes it easier to budget for equipment over long term.
    • Get the equipment you need to start doing business right away if you’re just starting out.
    • After the leasing term is up, you can continue the lease and update your hardware to the latest version.
    • Typical leases last 2 or 3 years, meaning your hardware can get upgrades when it needs it and your business is in a better position to keep up with technology.
    • Leasing directly from the vendor provides operational flexibility.
    • Focus on the business and let the vendor focus on equipment service and updates as you don’t have to pay for maintenance.
    • Costs structured as OPEX.

    Cons

    • In the long term, leasing is almost always more expensive than buying because there’s no equity in leased equipment and there may be additional fees and interest.
    • Commitment to payment through the entire lease period even if you’re not using the equipment anymore.
    • Early termination fees if you need to get out of the lease.
    • No option to sell equipment once you’re finished with it to make money back.
    • Maintenance is up to leasing company’s specifications.
    • Product availability may be limited.

    Recommended for:

    • Companies just starting out
    • Business owners with limited capital or budget
    • Organizations with equipment that needs to be upgraded relatively often

    Weigh the pros and cons of purchasing hardware

    Pros

    • Complete control over assets.
    • More flexible and straightforward procurement process.
    • Tax incentives: May be able to fully deduct the cost of some newly purchased assets or write off depreciation for computers and peripherals on taxes.
    • Preferable if your equipment will not be obsolete in the next two or three years.
    • You can resell the asset once you don’t need it anymore to recover some of the cost.
    • Customization and management of equipment is easier when not bound by terms of leasing agreement.
    • No waiting on vendor when maintenance is needed; no permission needed to make changes.

    Cons

    • High initial cost of investment with CAPEX expense model.
    • More paperwork.
    • You (as opposed to vendor) are responsible for equipment disposal in accordance with environmental regulations.
    • You are responsible for keeping up with upgrades, updates, and patches.
    • You risk ending up with out-of-date or obsolete equipment.
    • Hardware may break after terms of warranty are up.

    Recommended for:

    • Established businesses
    • Organizations needing equipment with long-term lifecycles

    Make a lease vs. buy decision for equipment purchases

    2.1.4 Decide whether to purchase or lease

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    • Representatives from all other areas of the business

    Document

    Document policy decisions in the Standard Operating Procedures – Section 7: Procurement

    1. Identify hardware equipment that requires a purchase vs. lease decision.
    2. Discuss with Finance whether it makes sense to purchase or lease each major asset, considering the following:
    • Costs of equipment through each method
    • Tax deductions
    • Potential resale value
    • Potential revenue from using the equipment
    • How quickly the equipment will be outdated or require refresh
    • Size of equipment
    • Maintenance and support requirements
    • Overall costs
  • The leasing vs. buying decision should take considerable thought and evaluation to make the decision that best fits your organizational needs and situation.
  • Determine appropriate warranty and service-level agreements for your organization

    Determine acceptable response time, and weigh the cost of warranty against the value of service.

    • Standard warranties vary by manufacturer, but are typically one or three years.
    • Next-day, onsite service may be part of the standard offering or may be available as an uplift.
    • Four-hour, same-day service can also be added for high availability needs.
    • Extended warranties can be purchased beyond three years, although not many organizations take advantage of this offering.
    • Other organizations lower or remove the warranty and have reported savings of as much as $150 per machine.

    Speak to your partner to see how they can help the process of distributing machines.

    • Internal components change frequently with laptops and desktops. If purchasing product over time rather than buying in bulk, ensure the model will be available for a reasonable term to reduce imaging and support challenges.
    • Determine which services are important to your organization and request these services as part of the initial quote. If sending out a formal RFQ or RFP, document required services and use as the basis for negotiating SLAs.
    • Document details of SLA, including expectations of services for manufacturer, vendor, and internal team.
    • If partner will be providing services, request they stock an appropriate number of hot spares for frequently replaced parts.
    • If self-certifying, review resource capabilities, understand skill and certification requirements; for example, A+ certification may be a pre-requisite.
    • Understand DOA policy and negotiate a “lemon policy,” meaning if product dies within 15 or 30 days it can be classified as DOA. Seek clarity on return processes.

    Consider negotiation strategies, including how and when to engage with different partners during acquisition

    Direct Model

    • Dell’s primary sales model is direct either through a sales associate or through its e-commerce site. Promotions are regularly listed on the website, or if customization is required, desktops and laptops have some flexibility in configuration. Discounts can be negotiated with a sales rep on quantity purchases, but the discount level changes based on the model and configuration.
    • Other tier-one manufacturers typically sell direct only from their e-commerce sites, providing promotions based on stock they wish to move, and providing some configuration flexibility. They rely heavily on the channel for the majority of their business.

    Channel Model

    • Most tier one manufacturers have processes in place to manage a smaller number of partners rather than billing and shipping out to individual customers. Deviating from this process and dealing direct with end customers can create order processing issues.
    • Resellers have the ability to negotiate discounts based on quantities. Discounts will vary based on model, timing (quarter or year end), and quantity commitment.
    • Negotiations on large quantities should involve a manufacturer rep as well as the reseller to clearly designate roles and services, ensure processes are in place to fulfill your needs, and agree on pricing scheme. This will prevent misunderstandings and bring clarity to any commitments.
    • Often the channel partners are authorized to provide repair services under warranty for the manufacturer.
    • Dell also uses the channel model for distribution where customers demand additional services.

    Expect discounts to reflect quantity and method of purchase

    Transaction-based purchases will receive the smallest discounting.

    • Understand requirements to find the most appropriate make and model of equipment.
    • Prepare a forecast of expected purchases for the year and discuss discounting.
    • Typically initial discounts will be 3-5% off suggested retail price.
    • Once a history is in place, and the vendor is receiving regular orders, it may extend deeper discounts.

    Bulk purchases will receive more aggressive discounting of 5-15% off suggested retail price, depending on quantities.

    • Examine shipping options and costs to take advantage of bulk deliveries; in some cases vendors may waive shipping fees as an extension of the discounting.
    • If choosing end-of-line product, ensure appropriate quantity of a single model is available to efficiently roll out equipment.
    • Various pricing models can be used to obtain best price.

    Larger quantities rolled out over time will require commitments to the manufacturer to obtain deepest discounts.

    • Discuss all required services as part of negotiation to ensure there are no surprise charges.
    • Several pricing models can be used to obtain the best price.
      • Suggested retail price minus as much as 20%.
      • Cost plus 3% up to 10% or more.
      • Fixed price based on negotiating equipment availability with budget requirements.

    If sending out to bid, determine requirements and scoring criteria

    It’s nearly impossible to find two manufacturers with the exact same specifications, so comparisons between vendors is more art than science.

    New or upgraded components will be introduced into configurations when it makes the most sense in a production cycle. This creates a challenge in comparing products, especially in an RFP. The best way to handle this is to:

    • Define and document minimum technology requirements.
    • Define and document service needs.
    • Compare vendors to see if they’ve met the criteria or not; if yes, compare prices.
    • If the vendors have included additional offerings, see if they make sense for your organization. If they do, include that in the scoring. If not, exclude and score based on price.
    • Recognize that the complexity of the purchase will dictate the complexity of scoring.

    "The hardware is the least important part of the equation. What is important is the warranty, delivery, imaging, asset tagging, and if they cannot deliver all these aspects the hardware doesn’t matter." – Doug Stevens, Assistant Manager Contract Services, Toronto District School Board

    Document and analyze the hardware procurement workflow to streamline process

    The procurement process should balance the need to negotiate appropriate pricing with the need to quickly approve and fulfill requests. The process should include steps to follow for approving, ordering, and tracking equipment until it is ready for receipt.

    Within the process, it is particularly important to decide if this is where equipment is added into the database or if it will happen upon receipt.

    A poorly designed procurement workflow:

    • Includes many bottlenecks, stopping and starting points.
    • May impact project and service requests and requires unrealistic lead times.
    • May lead to lost productivity for users and lost credibility for the IT department.

    A well-designed hardware procurement workflow:

    • Provides reasonable lead times for project managers and service or hardware request fulfillment.
    • Provides predictability for technical resources to plan deployments.
    • Reduces bureaucracy and workload for following up on missing shipments.
    • Enables improved documentation of assets to start lifecycle management.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Where the Hardware Asset Manager is unable to affect procurement processes to reduce time to deliver, consider bringing inventory onsite or having your hardware vendor keep stock, ready to ship on demand. Projects, replacements, and new-user requests cannot be delayed in a service-focused IT organization due to bureaucratic processes.

    Document and analyze your procurement workflow to identify opportunities for improvement and communicate process

    Determine if you need one workflow for all equipment or multiples for small vs. large purchases.

    Occasionally large rollouts require significant changes from lower dollar purchases.

    Watch for:

    • Back and forth communications
    • Delays in approvals
    • Inability to get ETAs from vendors
    • Too many requests for quotes for small purchases
    • Entry into asset database

    This sample can be found in the HAM Process Workflows.

    The image shows a workflow, titled Procurement-Equipment-Small Quantity. On the left, the chart is separated into categories: IT Procurment; Tier 2 or Tier 3; IT Director; CIO.

    Design the process workflow for hardware procurement

    2.1.6 Illustrate procurement workflow with a tabletop exercise

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    • CFO or other management representative from Finance

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 7: Procurement

    1. In a group, distribute sticky notes or cue cards.
    2. Designate a space on the table/whiteboard to plot the workflow.
    3. Determine which individuals are responsible for handling non-standard requests. Establish any exceptions that may apply to your defined hardware standard.
    4. Gather input from Finance on what the threshold will be for hardware purchases that will require further approval.
    5. Map the procurement process for a standard hardware purchase.
    6. If applicable, map the procurement process for a non-standard request separately.
    7. Evaluate the workflow to identify any areas of inefficiency and make any changes necessary to improve the process.
    8. Be sure to discuss and include:
      • All necessary approvals
      • Time required for standard equipment process
      • Time required for non-standard equipment process
      • How information will be transferred to ITAM database

    Document and share an organizational purchasing policy

    2.1.7 Build a purchasing policy

    A purchasing policy helps to establish company standards, guidelines, and procedures for the purchase of all information technology hardware, software, and computer-related components as well as the purchase of all technical services.

    The policy will ensure that all purchasing processes are consistent and in alignment with company strategy. The purchasing policy is key to ensuring that corporate purchases are effective and the best value for money is obtained.

    Implement a purchasing policy to prevent or reduce:

    • Costly corporate conflict of interest cases.
    • Unauthorized purchases of non-standard, difficult to support equipment.
    • Unauthorized purchases resulting in non-traceable equipment.
    • Budget overruns due to decentralized, equipment acquisition.

    Download Info-Tech’s Purchasing Policytemplate to build your own purchasing policy.

    Step 2.2: Receive and Deploy Hardware

    Phase 2: Procure & Receive

    2.1 Request & Procure

    2.2 Receive & Deploy

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    2.2.1 Select appropriate asset tagging method

    2.2.2 Design workflow for receiving and inventorying equipment

    2.2.3 Document the deployment workflow(s)

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Receiver (optional)
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)

    Step Outcomes:

    • Understanding of the pros and cons of various asset tagging methods
    • Defined asset tagging method, process, and location by equipment type
    • Identified equipment acceptance, testing, and return procedures
    • Documented equipment receiving and inventorying workflow
    • Documented deployment workflows for desktop hardware and large-scale deployments

    Cisco implemented automation to improve its inventory and deployment system

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Networking

    Source Cisco IT

    Challenge

    Although Cisco Systems had implemented a centralized procurement location for all PCs used in the company, inventory tracking had yet to be addressed.

    Inventory tracking was still a manual process. Given the volume of PCs that are purchased each year, this is an incredibly labor-intensive process.

    Sharing information with management and end users also required the generation of reports – another manual task.

    Solution

    The team at Cisco recognized that automation was the key component holding back the success of the inventory management program.

    Rolling out an automated process across multiple offices and groups, both nationally and internationally, was deemed too difficult to accomplish in the short amount of time needed, so Cisco elected to outsource its PC management needs to an experienced vendor.

    Results

    As a result of the PC management vendor’s industry experience, the implementation of automated tracking and management functions drastically improved the inventory management situation at Cisco.

    The vendor helped determine an ideal leasing set life of 30 months for PCs, while also managing installations, maintenance, and returns.

    Even though automation helped improve inventory and deployment practices, Cisco still needed to address another key facet of asset management: security.

    This case study continues in phase 3.

    An effective equipment intake process is critical to ensure product is correct, documented, and secured

    Examine your current process for receiving assets. Typical problems include:

    Receiving inventory at multiple locations can lead to inconsistent processes. This can make invoice reconciliation challenging and result in untracked or lost equipment and delays in deployment.

    Equipment not received and secured quickly. Idle equipment tends to go missing if left unsupervised for too long. Missed opportunities to manage returns where equipment is incorrect or defective.

    Disconnect between procurement and receiving where ETAs are unknown or incorrect. This can create an issue where no one is prepared for equipment arrival and is especially problematic on large orders.

    How do you solve these problems? Create a standardized workflow that outlines clear steps for asset receiving.

    A workflow will help to answer questions such as:

    • How do you deal with damaged shipments? Incorrect shipments?
    • Did you reach an agreement with the vendor to replace damaged/incorrect shipments within a certain timeframe?
    • When does the product get tagged and entered into the system as received?
    • What information needs to get captured on the asset tag?

    Standardize the process for receiving your hardware assets

    The first step in effective hardware asset intake is establishing proper procedures for receiving and handling of assets.

    Process: Start with information from the procurement process to determine what steps need to follow to receive into appropriate systems and what processes will enable tagging to happen as soon as possible.

    People: Ensure anyone who may impact this process is aware of the importance of documenting before deployment. Having everyone who may be handling equipment on board is key to success.

    Security: Equipment will be secured at the loading dock or reception. It will need to be secured as inventory and be secured if delivering directly to the bench for imaging. Ensure all receiving activities are done before equipment is deployed.

    Tools: A centralized ERP system may already provide a place to receive and reconcile with purchasing and invoicing, but there may still be a need to receive directly into the ITAM and/or CMDB database rather than importing directly from the ERP system.

    Tagging: A variety of methods can be used to tag equipment to assist with inventory. Consider the overall lifecycle management when determining which tagging methods are best.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Decentralized receiving doesn’t have to mean multiple processes. Take advantage of enterprise solutions that will centralize the data and ensure everyone follows the same processes unless there is an uncompromising and compelling logistical reason to deviate.

    Evaluate the pros and cons of different asset tagging methods

    Method Cost Strengths Weaknesses Recommendation
    RFID with barcoding – asset tag with both a barcode and RFID solution $$$$
    • Secure, fast, and robust
    • Track assets in real time
    • Quick and efficient
    • Most expensive option, requiring purchase of barcode scanner with RFID reader and software)
    • Does not work as well in an environment with less control over assets
    • Requires management of asset database
    • Best in a controlled environment with mature processes and requirement for secure assets
    RFID only – small chip with significant data capacity $$$
    • Track assets from remote locations
    • RFID can be read through boxes so you don’t have to unpack equipment
    • Scan multiple RFID-tagged hardware simultaneously
    • Large data capacity on small chip
    • Expensive, requiring purchase of RFID reading equipment and software
    • Ideal if your environment is spread over multiple locations
    Barcoding only – adding tags with unique barcodes $$
    • Reasonable security
    • Report inventory directly to database
    • Relatively low cost
    • Only read one at a time
    • Need to purchase barcode scanners and software
    • Can be labor intensive to deploy with manual scanning of individual assets
    • Less secure
    • Can’t hold as much data
    • Not as secure as barcodes with RFID but works for environments that are more widely distributed and less controlled

    Evaluate the pros and cons of different asset tagging methods

    Method Cost Strengths Weaknesses Recommendation
    QR codes – two-dimensional codes that can store text, binary, image, or URL data $$
    • Easily scannable from many angles
    • Save and print on labels
    • Can be read by barcode scanning apps or mobile phones
    • Can encode more data than barcodes
    • QR codes need to be large enough to be usable, which can be difficult with smaller IT assets
    • Scanning on mobile devices takes longer than scanning barcodes
    • Ideal if you need to include additional data and information in labels and want workers to use smartphones to scan labels
    Manual tags – tag each asset with your own internal labels and naming system $
    • Most affordable
    • Manual
    • Tags are not durable
    • Labor intensive and time consuming
    • Leaves room for error, misunderstanding, and process variances between locations
    • As this is the most time consuming and resource intensive with a low payoff, it is ideal for low maturity organizations looking for a low-cost option for tagging assets
    Asset serial numbers – tag assets using their serial number $
    • Less expensive
    • Unique serial numbers identified by vendor
    • Serial numbers have to be added to database manually, which is labor intensive and leaves room for error
    • Serial numbers can rub off over time
    • Hard to track down already existing assets
    • Doesn’t help track location of assets after deployment
    • Potential for duplicates
    • Inconsistent formats of serial numbers by manufacturers makes this method prone to error and not ideal for asset management

    Select the appropriate method for tagging and tracking your hardware assets

    2.2.1 Select asset tagging method

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 8

    1. Define your asset tagging method. For most organizations, asset tracking is done via barcoding or QR codes, either by using one method or a combination of the two. Other methods, including RFID, may be applicable based on cost or tracking complexity. Overall, barcodes embedded with RFID are the most robust and efficient method for asset tagging, but also the most expensive. Choose the best method for your organization, taking into account affordability, labor-intensiveness, data complexity needs, and ease of deployment.
    2. Define the process for tagging assets, including how soon they should receive the tag, whose responsibility it is, and whether the tag type varies depending on the asset type.
    3. Define the location of asset tags according to equipment type. Example:
    Asset Type Asset Tag Location
    PC desktop Right upper front corner
    Laptop Right corner closest to user when laptop is closed
    Server Right upper front corner
    Printer Right upper front corner
    Modems Top side, right corner

    Inspect and test equipment before accepting it into inventory to ensure it’s working according to specifications

    Upon receipt of procured hardware, validate the equipment before accepting it into inventory.

    1. Receive - Upon taking possession of the equipment, stage them for inspection before placing them into inventory or deploying for immediate use.
    2. Inspect - The inspection process should involve at minimum examining the products that have been delivered to determine conformance to purchase specifications.
    3. Test -Depending on the type and cost of hardware, some assets may benefit from additional testing to determine if they perform at a satisfactory level before being accepted.
    4. Accept - If the products conform to the requirements of the purchase order, acknowledge receipt so the supplier may be paid. Most shipments are automatically considered as accepted and approved for payment within a specific timeframe.

    Assign responsibility and accountability for inspection and acceptance of equipment, verifying the following:

    • The products conform to purchase order requirements.
    • The quantity ordered is the same as the quantity delivered.
    • There is no damage to equipment.
    • Delivery documentation is acceptable.
    • Products are operable and perform according to specifications.
    • If required, document an acceptance testing process as a separate procedure.

    Build the RMA procedure into the receiving process to handle receipt of defective equipment

    The return merchandise authorization (RMA) process should be a standard part of the receiving process to handle the return of defective materials to the vendor for either repair or replacement.

    If there is a standard process in place for all returns in the organization, you can follow the same process for returning hardware equipment:

    • Call the vendor to receive a unique RMA number that will be attached to the equipment to be returned, then follow manufacturer specifications for returning equipment within allowable timelines according to the contract where applicable.
    • Establish a lemon policy with vendors, allowing for full returns up to 30 days after equipment is deployed if the product proves defective after initial acceptance.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Make sure you’re well aware of the stipulations in your contract or purchase order. Sometimes acceptance is assumed after 60 days or less, and oftentimes the clock starts as soon as the equipment is shipped out rather than when it is received.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Keep in mind that the serial number on the received assed may not be the asset that ultimately ends up on the user’s desk if the RMA process is initiated. Record the serial number after the RMA process or add a correction process to the workflow to ensure the asset is properly accounted for.

    Determine what equipment should be stocked for quick deployment where demand is high or speed is crucial

    The most important feature of your receiving and inventory process should be categorization. A well-designed inventory system should reflect not only the type of asset, but also the usage level.

    A common technique employed by asset managers is to categorize your assets using an ABC analysis. Assets are classified as either A, B, or C items. The ratings are based on the following criteria:

    A

    A items have the highest usage. Typically, 10-20% of total assets in your inventory account for upwards of 70-80% of the total asset requests.

    A items should be tightly controlled with secure storage areas and policies. Avoiding stock depletion is a top priority.

    B

    B items are assets that have a moderate usage level, with around 30% of total assets accounting for 15-25% of total requests.

    B items must be monitored; B items can transition to A or C items, especially during cycles of heavier business activity.

    C

    C items are assets that have the lowest usage, with upwards of 50% of your total inventory accounting for just 5% of total asset requests.

    C items are reordered the least frequently, and present a low demand and high risk for excessive inventory (especially if they have a short lifecycle). Many organizations look to move towards an on-demand policy to mitigate risk.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Get your vendor to keep stock of your assets. If large quantities of a certain asset are required but you lack the space to securely store them onsite, ask your vendor to keep stock for you and release as you issue purchase orders. This speeds up delivery and delays warranty activation until the item is shipped. This does require an adherence to equipment standards and understanding of demand to be effective.

    Define the process for receiving equipment into inventory

    Define the following in your receiving process:

    • When will equipment be opened once delivered?
    • Who will open and validate equipment upon receipt?
    • How will discrepancies be resolved?
    • When will equipment be tagged and identified in the tracking tool?
    • When will equipment be locked in secure storage?
    • Where will equipment go if it needs to be immediately deployed?

    The image shows a workflow chart titled Receiving and Tagging. The process is split into two sections, labelled on the left as: Desktop Support Team and Procurement.

    Design the workflow for receiving and inventorying equipment

    2.2.2 Illustrate receiving workflow with a tabletop exercise

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    • CFO or other management representative from Finance

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 8: Receiving and Equipment Inventory

    Option 1: Whiteboard

    1. Discuss the workflow and draw it on the whiteboard.
    2. Assess whether you are using the best workflow. Modify it if necessary.
    3. Use the sample workflow from this step as a guide if starting from scratch.
    4. Engage the team in refining the process workflow.
    5. Transfer data to Visio and add to the SOP.

    Option 2: Tabletop Exercise

    1. Distribute index cards to each member of the team.
    2. Have each person write a single task they perform on the index card. Be granular. Include the title or the name of the person responsible.
    3. Mark cards that are decision points. Use a card of a different color or use a marker to make a colored dot.
    4. Arrange the index cards in order, removing duplicates.
    5. Assess whether you are using the best workflow. Engage the team to refine it if necessary.
    6. Transfer data to Visio and add to the SOP.

    Improve device deployment by documenting software personas for each role

    • Improve the deployment process for new users by having a comprehensive list of software used by common roles within the organization. With large variations in roles, it may be impossible to build a complete list, but as you start to see patterns in requirements, you may find less distinct personas than anticipated.
    • Consider a survey to business units to determine what they need if this will solve some immediate problems. If this portion of the project will be deferred, use the data uncovered in the discovery process to identify which software is used by which roles.
    • Replacement equipment can have the software footprint created by what was actually utilized by the user, not necessarily what software was installed on the previous device.

    The image shows 4 bubbles, representing software usage. The ARC-GIS bubble is the largest, Auto CAD the second largest, and MS Office and Adobe CS equal in size.

    A software usage snapshot for an urban planner/engineer.

    • Once software needs are determined, use this information to review the appropriate device for each persona.
      • Ensure hardware is appropriate for the type of work the user does and supports required software.
      • If it is more appropriate for a user to have a tablet, ensure the software they use can be used on any device.
    • Review deployment methods to determine if there is any opportunity to improve the imaging or software deployment process with better tools or methodologies.
    • Document the device’s location if it will be static, or if the user may be more mobile, add location information for their primary location.
    • Think about the best place to document – if this information can be stored in Active Directory and imported to the ITAM database, you can update once and use in multiple applications. But this process is built into your add/move/change workflows.

    Maintain a lean library to simplify image management

    Simplify, simplify, simplify. Use a minimal number of desktop images and automate as much as you can.

    • Embrace minimalism. When it comes to managing your desktop image library, your ultimate goal should be to minimize the manual effort involved in provisioning new desktops.
    • Less is more. Try to maintain as few standard desktop images as possible and consider a thin gold image, which can be patched and updated on a regular basis. A thin image with efficient application deployment will improve the provisioning process.
    • Standardize and repeat. System provisioning should be a repeatable process. This means it is ripe for standardization and automation. Look at balancing the imaging process with software provisioning, using group policy and deployment tools to reduce time to provision and deliver equipment.
    • Outsource where appropriate. Imaging is one of the most employed services, where the image is built in-house and deployed by the hardware vendor. As a minimum, quarterly updates should still be provided to integrate the latest patches into the operating system.

    Document the process workflow for hardware deployment

    Define the process for deploying hardware to users.

    Include the following in your workflow:

    • How will equipment be configured and imaged before deployment?
    • Which images will be used for specific roles?
    • Which assets are assigned to specific roles?
    • How will the device status be changed in the ITAM tool once deployed?

    The image shows a workflow chart titled Hardware Deployment. It is divided into two categories, listed on the left: Desktop Support Team and Procurement.

    Large-scale deployments should be run as projects, benefitting from economies of scale in each step

    Large-scale desktop deployments or data center upgrades will likely be managed as projects.

    These projects should include project plans, including resources, timelines, and detailed procedures.

    Define the process for large-scale deployment if it will differ from the regular deployment process.

    The image is a graphic of a flowchart titled Deployment-Equipment-Large Quantity Rollout. It is divided into three categories, listed on the left: IT Procurement; Desktop Rollout Team; Asset Manager.

    Document the deployment workflow(s)

    2.2.3 Document deployment workflows for desktop and large-scale deployment

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    • CFO or other management representative from Finance

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 9: Deployment

    Document each step in the system deployment process with notecards or on a whiteboard. Identify the challenges faced by your organization and strategize potential solutions.

    1. Outline each step in the process of desktop deployment. Be as granular as possible. On each card, describe the step as well as the individual responsible for it.
    2. When you are satisfied that each step is accurately captured, use a second color of notecard to document any challenges, inefficiencies, or pains associated with each step. Consider further documenting the time on each task.
    3. Examine each challenge or pain point. Discuss whether or not there is a clear solution to the problem. If yes, document the solution and amend the workflow. If not, engage in a broader discussion of possible solutions, taking into account people, processes, and available technology.
    4. Document separately the process for large-scale deployment if required.

    Look for opportunities to improve the request and deployment process with better communication and tools

    The biggest challenge in deploying equipment is meeting expectations of the business, and without cooperation from multiple departments, this becomes significantly more difficult.

    • Work with the procurement and the services team to ensure inventory is accessible, and regularly validate that inventory levels in the ITAM database are accurate.
    • Work with the HR department to predict (where possible) anticipated new hires. Plan for inventory ebbs and flows to match the hiring timelines where there are large variations.
    • If service catalogs will be made available for communicating options and SLAs for equipment purchases, work with the service catalog administrators to automate inventory checks and notifications. Work with the end-user device managers to set standards and reduce equipment variations to a manageable amount.
    • Where deployments are part of equipment refresh, ensure data is up to date for the services team to plan the project rollouts and know which software should be redeployed with the devices.
    • Infrastructure and security teams may have specific hardware assets relating to networking, data centers, and security, which may bypass the end-user device workflows but need to be tagged and entered into inventory early in the process. Work with these teams to have their equipment follow the same receiving and inventory processes. Deployment will vary based on equipment type and location.

    Automate hardware deployment where users are dispersed and deployment volume is high

    Self-serve kiosks (vending machines) can provide cost reductions in delivery of up to 25%. Organizations that have a high distribution rate are seeing reductions in cost of peripherals averaging 30-35% and a few extreme cases of closer to 85%.

    Benefits of using vending machines:

    • Secure equipment until deployed.
    • Equipment can be either purchased by credit card or linked to employee ID cards, enabling secure transactions and reporting.
    • Access rights can be controlled in real time, preventing terminated employees from accessing equipment or managing how many devices can be deployed to each user.
    • Vending machines can be managed through a cellular or wireless network.
    • Technology partners can be tasked with monitoring and refilling vending machines.
    • Employees are able to access technology wherever a vending machine can be located rather than needing to travel to the help desk.
    • Equipment loans and new employee packages can be managed through vending machines.

    Phase 2 Guided Implementation

    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.

    Guided Implementation 2: Request, Procure, Receive, and Deploy

    Proposed Time to Completion: 4 weeks

    Step 2.1: Request & Procure

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Define standard and non-standard hardware.
    • Weigh the pros and cons of leasing vs. buying.
    • Build the procurement process.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Define standard hardware requests.
    • Document standard hardware request procedure.
    • Document procurement workflow.
    • Build a purchasing policy.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Standard Operating Procedures
    • Non-Standard Hardware Request Form
    • Hardware Procurement Workflow
    • Purchasing Policy

    Step 2.2: Receive & Deploy

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Determine appropriate asset tagging method.
    • Define equipment receiving process.
    • Define equipment deployment process.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Select appropriate asset tagging method.
    • Design workflow for receiving and inventorying equipment.
    • Document the deployment workflow(s).

    With these tools & templates:

    • Standard Operating Procedures
    • Equipment Receiving & Tagging Workflow
    • Deployment Workflow

    Phase 2 Insight: Bridge the gap between IT and Finance to build a smoother request and procurement process through communication and routine reporting. If you’re unable to affect procurement processes to reduce time to deliver, consider bringing inventory onsite or having your hardware vendor keep stock, ready to ship on demand.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    2.1.2 Define standard hardware requests

    Divide whiteboard into columns representing core business areas. Define core hardware assets for end users in each division along with optional hardware assets. Discuss optional assets to narrow and define standard equipment requests.

    2.2.1 Select appropriate method for tagging and tracking assets

    Discuss the various asset tagging methods and choose the tagging method that is most appropriate for your organization. Define the process for tagging assets and document the standard asset tag location according to equipment type.

    Phase 3

    Maintain and Dispose

    Implement Hardware Asset Management

    Cisco overcame organizational resistance to change to improve asset security

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Networking

    Source Cisco IT

    Challenge

    Cisco Systems had created a dynamic work environment that prized individuality. This environment created high employee satisfaction, but it also created a great deal of risk surrounding device security.

    Cisco lacked an asset security policy; there were no standards for employees to follow. This created a surplus of not only hardware, but software to support the variety of needs amongst various teams at Cisco.

    Solution

    The ITAM team at Cisco recognized that their largest problem was the lack of standardization with respect to PCs. Variance in cost, lifecycle, and software needs/compatibility were primary issues.

    Cisco introduced a PC leasing program with the help of a PC asset management vendor to correct these issues. The primary goal was to increase on-time returns of PCs. A set life of 30 months was defined by the vendor.

    Results

    Cisco engaged employees to help contribute to improving its asset management protocols, and the approach worked.

    On-time returns increased from 60% to 80%. Costs were reduced due to active tracking and disposal of any owned assets still present.

    A reduction in hardware and software platforms has cut costs and increased security thanks to improved tracking capabilities.

    This case study continues in phase 4

    Step 3.1: Manage, Maintain, and Secure Hardware Assets

    Phase 3: Maintain & Dispose

    3.1 Manage & Maintain

    3.2 Dispose or Redeploy

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    3.1.1 Build a MAC policy and request form

    3.1.2 Build workflows to document user MAC processes

    3.1.3 Design process and policies for hardware maintenance, warranty, and support documentation handling

    3.1.4 Revise or create an asset security policy

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Asset Manager
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    • Security Department

    Step Outcomes

    • Understanding of inventory management process best practices
    • Templates for move/add/change request policy and form
    • Documented process workflows for the user move/add/change process
    • Process and policies for hardware maintenance, warranty, and support documentation handling
    • Defined policies for maintaining asset security

    Determine methods for performing inventory audits on equipment

    Auto-discovery

    • Auto-discovery tools will be crucial to the process of understanding what equipment is connected to the network and in use.
    • The core functionality of discovery tools is to scan the environment and collect configuration data from all connected assets, but most tools can also be used to collect usage data, network monitoring, and software asset management data including software distribution, compliance, and license information.
    • These tools may not connect to peripheral devices such as monitors and external drives, will not scan devices that are turned off or disconnected from the network, may not inventory remote users, and will rarely provide location information. This often results in a need to complete physical audits as well.

    Info-Tech Insight

    One of the most common mistakes we see when it comes to asset management is to assume that the discovery tool will discovery most or all of your inventory and do all the work. It is better to assume only 80-90% coverage by the discovery tool and build ownership records to uncover the unreportable assets that are not tied into the network.

    Physical audit

    • The physical audit can be greatly improved with barcode, RFID, or QR codes, allowing items to be scanned, records opened, then updated.
    • If not everything is tagged or entered into the ITAM database, then searching closets, cabinets, and desk drawers may be required to tag and enter those devices into the database.
    • Provide the inventory team with exact instructions on what needs to be collected, verified, and recorded. Depending on the experience and thoroughness of the team, spot checks early in the process may alleviate quality issues often discovered at the end of the inventory cycle.

    Determine requirements for performing inventory audits on equipment

    Conduct an annual hardware audit to ensure hardware is still assigned to the person and location identified in your ITAM system, and assess its condition.

    Perform a quarterly review of hardware stock levels in order to ensure all equipment is relevant and usable. The table below is an example of how to organize this information.

    Item Target Stock Levels Estimated $ Value
    Desktop computers
    Standard issue laptops
    Mice
    Keyboards
    Network cables
    Phones

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t forget about your remotely deployed assets. Think about how you plan to inventory remotely deployed equipment. Some tools will allow data collection through an agent that will talk to the server over the internet, and some will completely ignore those assets or provide a way to manually collect the data and email back to the asset manager. Mobile device management tools may also help with this inventory process. Determine what is most appropriate based on the volume of remote workers and devices.

    Build an inventory management process to maintain an accurate view of owned hardware assets

    • Your inventory should capture which assets are on hand, where they are located, and who owns them, at minimum. Maintaining an accurate, up-to-date view of owned hardware assets allows you to see at any time the actual state of the components that make up your infrastructure across the enterprise.
    • Automated inventory practices save time and effort from doing physical inventories and also reduce the interruption to business users while improving accuracy of data.
    • If you are just starting out, define the process for conducting an inventory of deployed assets, and then define the process for regular upkeep and audit of inventory data.

    Inventory Methods

    • Electronic – captures networked asset information only and can be deployed over the network with no deskside service interaction.
    • Physical – captures environmental detail and must be performed manually by a service technician with possible disruption to users.
    • Full inventory – both physical and electronic inventory of assets.

    Internal asset information to collect electronically

    • Hardware configuration
    • Installed software
    • Operating system
    • System BIOS
    • Network configuration
    • Network drive mappings
    • Printer setups
    • System variables

    External asset information that cannot be detected electronically

    • Assigned user
    • Associated assets
    • Asset/user location
    • Usage of asset
    • Asset tag number

    IMAC (Install, Move, Add, Change) services will form the bulk of asset management work while assets are deployed

    IMAC services are usually performed at a user’s deskside by a services technician and can include:

    • Installing new desktops or peripherals
    • Installing or modifying software
    • Physically moving an end user’s equipment
    • Upgrading or adding components to a desktop

    Specific activities may include:

    Changes

    • Add new user IDs
    • Manage IDs
    • Network changes
    • Run auto-discovery scan

    Moves

    • Perform new location site survey
    • Coordinate with facilities
    • Disconnect old equipment
    • Move to new location
    • Reconnect at new location
    • Test installed asset
    • Obtain customer acceptance
    • Close request

    Installs and Adds

    • Perform site survey
    • Perform final configuration
    • Coordinate with Facilities
    • Asset tagging
    • Transfer data from old desktop
    • Wipe old desktop hard drive
    • Test installed asset
    • Initiate auto-discovery scan
    • Obtain customer acceptance
    • Close request

    A strong IMAC request process will lessen the burden on IT asset managers

    • When assets are actively in use, Asset Managers must also participate in the IMAC (Install-Move-Add-Change) process and ensure that any changes to asset characteristics or locations are updated and tracked in the asset management tool and that the value and usefulness of the asset is monitored.
    • The IMAC process should not only be reactive in response to requests, but proactive to plan for moves and relocations during any organizational change events.

    Recommendations:

    Automate. Wherever possible, use tools to automate the IMAC process.

    E-forms, help desk, ticketing, or change management software can automate the request workflow by allowing the requestor to submit a request ticket that can then be automatically assigned to a designated team member according to the established chain of command. As work is completed, the ticket can be updated, and the requestor will be able to check the status of the work at any time.

    Communicate the length of any downtime associated with execution of the IMAC request to lessen the frustration and impatience among users.

    Involve HR. When it comes to adding or removing user accounts, HR can be a valuable resource. As most new employees should be hired through HR, work with them to improve the onboarding process with enough advanced notice to set up accounts and equipment. Role changes with access rights and software modifications can benefit from improved communications. Review the termination process as well, to secure data and equipment.

    Build a MAC request policy and form for end users

    A consistent Move, Add, Change (MAC) request process is essential for lessening the burden on the IT department. MAC requests are used to address any number of tasks, including:

    • Relocation of PCs and/or peripherals.
    • New account setup.
    • Hardware or software upgrades.
    • Equipment swaps or replacements.
    • User account/access changes.
    • Document generation.
    • User acceptance testing.
    • Vendor coordination.

    Create a request form.

    If you are not using help desk or other ticketing software, create a request template that must be submitted for each MAC. The request should include:

    • The name and department of the requester.
    • The date of the request.
    • Severity of the request. For example, severity can be graded on a score of high, medium, or low where high represents a mission-critical change that could compromise business continuity if not addressed immediately, and low represents a more cosmetic change that will not negatively affect operations. The severity of the request can be determined by the service-level agreement (SLA) associated with the service.
    • Date the request must be completed by. Or at least, what would be the ideal date for completion. This will vary greatly depending on the severity of the request. For example, deleting the access of a terminated employee would be very time sensitive.
    • Item or service to be moved, added, or changed. Include location, serial number, or other designated identifier where possible.
    • If the item or service is to be moved, indicated where it is being moved.
    • It is a good idea to include a comments section where the requester can add any additional questions or details.

    Use Info-Tech’s templates to build your MAC policy and request form

    3.1.1 Build a MAC policy and request form

    Desktop Move/Add/Change Policy

    This desktop move/add/change policy should be put in place to mitigate the risk associated with unauthorized changes, minimize disruption to the business, IT department, and end users, and maintain consistent expectations.

    Move, Add, Change Request Form

    Help end users navigate the move/add/change process. Use the Move/Add/Change Request Form to increase efficiency and organization for MAC requests.

    Document the process for user equipment moves

    Include the following in your process documentation:

    • How and when will any changes to user or location information be made in the ITAM tool?
    • Will any changes in AD automatically update in the ITAM tool?
    • How should requests for equipment moves or changes be made?
    • How will resources be scheduled?

    The image shows a flowchart titled SErvice Request - User Moves. The chart of processes is split into three categories, listed on the left side of the chart: User Manager; IT Coordinator; and Tier 2 & Facilities.

    Build workflows to document user MAC processes

    3.1.2 Build MAC process workflows

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 10: Equipment Install, Adds, Moves, and Changes

    Document each step in the system deployment process using notecards or on a whiteboard. Identify the challenges faced by your organization and strategize potential solutions.

    1. Outline each step in the process of desktop deployment. Be as granular as possible. On each card, describe the step as well as the individual responsible for each step.
    2. When you are satisfied that each step is accurately captured, use a second color of notecard to document any challenges, inefficiencies, or pains associated with each step. Consider further documenting the time on each task.
    3. Examine each challenge or pain point. Discuss whether or not there is a clear solution to the problem. If so, document the solution and amend the workflow. If not, engage in a broader discussion of possible solutions, taking into account people, processes, and available technology.
    4. Document separately the process for large-scale deployment if required.

    Define a policy to ensure effective maintenance of hardware assets

    Effective maintenance and support of assets provides longer life, higher employee productivity, and increased user satisfaction.

    • Your asset management documentation and database should store equipment maintenance contract information so that it can be consulted whenever hardware service is required.
    • Record who to contact as well as how, warranty information, and any SLAs that are associated with the maintenance agreement.
    • Record all maintenance that hardware equipment receives, which will be valuable for evaluating asset and supplier performance.
    • In most cases, the Service Desk should be the central point of contact for maintenance calls to all suppliers.

    Sample equipment maintenance policy terms:

    • Maintenance and support arrangements are required for all standard and non-standard hardware.
    • All onsite hardware should be covered by onsite warranty agreements with appropriate response times to meet business continuity needs.
    • Defective items under warranty should be repaired in a timely fashion.
    • Service, maintenance, and support shall be managed through the help desk ticketing system.

    Design process and policies for hardware maintenance, warranty, and support documentation handling

    3.1.3 Design process for hardware maintenance

    Participants

    • Asset Manager
    • Purchasing
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Security
    • Operations (optional)

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Section 10

    1. Discuss and document the policy for hardware maintenance, warranty, and support.
    2. Key outcomes should include:
    • Who signs off on policies?
    • What is the timeline for documentation review?
    • Where are warranty and maintenance documents stored?
    • How will equipment be assessed for condition during audits?
    • How often will deployed equipment be reimaged?
    • How will equipment repair needs be requested?
    • How will repairs for equipment outside warranty be handled?
  • Document in the Standard Operating Procedure.
  • Use your HAM program to improve security and meet regulatory requirements

    ITAM complements and strengthens security tools and processes, improving the company’s ability to protect its data and systems and reduce operational risk.

    It’s estimated that businesses worldwide lose more than $221 billion per year as a result of security breaches. HAM is one important factor in securing data, equipment investment, and meeting certain regulatory requirements.

    How does HAM help keep your organization secure?

    • Educating users on best practices for securing their devices, and providing physical security such as cable locks and tracking mechanisms.
    • Best practices for reporting lost or stolen equipment for quickly removing access and remotely wiping devices.
    • Accurate location and disposal records will enable accurate reporting for HIPAA and PCI DSS audits where movement of media or hardware containing data is a requirement. Best practices for disposal will include properly wiping drives, recording information, and ensuring equipment is disposed of according to environmental regulations.
    • Secure access to data through end-user mobile devices. Use accurate records and MDM tools to securely track, remove access, and wipe mobile devices if compromised.
    • Encrypt devices that may be difficult to track such as USB drives or secure ports to prevent data from being copied to external drives.
    • Managed hardware allows software to be managed and patched on a regular basis.

    Best Practices

    1. Educate end users about traveling with equipment. Phones and laptops are regularly stolen from cars; tablets and phones are left on planes. Encourage users to consider how they store equipment on the way home from work.
    2. Cable locks used at unsecured offsite or onsite work areas should be supplied to employees.
    3. Equipment stored in IT must be secured at all times.

    Implement mobile device management (MDM) solutions

    Organizations with a formal mobile management strategy have fewer problems with their mobile devices.

    Develop a secure MDM to:

    • Provide connection and device support when the device is fully subsidized by the organization to increase device control.
    • Have loaner devices for when traveling to limit device theft or data loss.
    • Personal devices not managed by MDM should be limited to internet access on a guest network.
    • Limit personal device access to only internet access or a limited zone for data access and a subset of applications.
    • Advanced MDM platforms provide additional capabilities including containerization.

    The benefits of a deployed MDM solution:

    • Central management of a variety of devices and platforms is the most important advantage of MDM. Administrators can gain visibility into device status and health, set policies to groups of users, and control who has access to what.
    • Security features such as enforcing passcodes and remote wipe are also essential, given the increased risk of mobile devices.
      • Remote wipe should be able to wipe either the whole device or just selected areas.
    • Separation of personal data is becoming increasingly important as BYOD becomes the norm. This is a feature that vendors are approaching radically differently.
    • Device lock: Be able to lock the device itself, its container, or its SIM. Even if the SIM is replaced, the device should still remain locked. Consider remote locking a device if retrieval is possible.

    Mobile device management is constantly evolving to incorporate new features and expand to new control areas. This is a high-growth area that warrants constant up-to-date knowledge on the latest developments.

    What can be packed into an MDM can vary and be customized in many forms for what your organization needs.

    Secure endpoint devices to protect the data you cannot control

    Endpoint Encryption

    Endpoints Average None
    Desktop 73% 4%
    Laptops 65% 9%
    Smartphones 27% 28%
    Netbooks 26% 48%
    Tablets 16% 59%
    Grand average 41%

    Benefits from endpoint encryption:

    • Reduced risk associated with mobile workers.
    • Enabled sharing of data in secured workspace.
    • Enhanced end-user accountability.
    • Reduced number of data breach incidents.
    • Reduced number of regulatory violations.

    Ways to reduce endpoint encryption costs:

    • Use multiple vendors (multiple platforms): 33%
    • Use a single vendor (one platform): 40%
    • Use a single management console: 22%
    • Outsource to managed service provider: 26%
    • Permit user self-recovery: 26%

    Remote Wiping

    • If all else fails, a device can always be erased of all its data, protecting sensitive data that may have been on it.
    • Selective wipe takes it a step further by erasing only sensitive data.

    Selective wipe is not perfect.

    It is nearly impossible to keep the types of data separate, even with a sandbox approach. Selective wipe will miss some corporate data, and even a full remote wipe can only catch some of users’ increasingly widely distributed data.

    Selective wipe can erase:

    • Corporate profiles, email, and network settings.
    • Data within a corporate container or other sandbox.
    • Apps deployed across the enterprise.

    Know when to perform a remote wipe.

    Not every violation of policy warrants a wipe. Playing Candy Crush during work hours probably does not warrant a wipe, but jail breaking or removing a master data management client can open up security holes that do warrant a wipe.

    Design an effective asset security policy to protect the business

    Data security is not simply restricted to compromised software. In fact, 70% of all data breaches in the healthcare industry since 2010 are due to device theft or loss, not hacking. (California Data Breach Report – October, 2014) ITAM is not just about tracking a device, it is also about tracking the data on the device.

    Organizations often struggle with the following with respect to IT asset security:

    • IT hardware asset removal control.
    • Personal IT hardware assets (BYOD).
    • Data removal from IT hardware assets.
    • Inventory control with respect to leased hardware and software.
    • Unused software.
    • Repetitive versions of software.
    • Unauthorized software.

    Your security policy should seek to protect IT hardware and software that:

    • Have value to the business.
    • Require ongoing maintenance and support.
    • Create potential risk in terms of financial loss, data loss, or exposure.

    These assets should be documented and controlled in order to meet security requirements.

    The asset security policy should encompass the following:

    • Involved parties.
    • Hardware removal policy/documentation procedure.
    • End-user asset security responsibilities.
    • Theft/loss reporting procedure.
    • BYOD standards, procedures, and documentation requirements.
    • Data removal.
    • Software usage.
    • Software installation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Hardware can be pricey; data is priceless. The cost of losing a device is minimal compared to the cost of losing data contained on a device.

    Revise or create an asset security policy

    3.1.4 Develop IT asset security policy

    Participants

    • CIO or IT Director
    • Asset Manager
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Security
    • Operations (optional)

    Document

    Document in the Asset Security Policy.

    1. Identify asset security challenges within your organization. Record them in a table like the one below.
    Challenge Current Security Risk Target Policy
    Hardware removal Secure access and storage, data loss Designated and secure storage area
    BYOD No BYOD policy in place N/A → phasing out BYOD as an option
    Hardware data removal Secure data disposal Data disposal, disposal vendor
    Unused software Lack of support/patching makes software vulnerable Discovery and retirement of unused software
    Unauthorized software Harder to track, less secure Stricter stance on pirated software
    1. Brainstorm the reasons for why these challenges exist.
    2. Identify target policy details that pertain to each challenge. Record the outcomes in section(s) 5.1, 5.2, or 5.3 of the Asset Security Policy.

    Poor asset security and data protection had costly consequences for UK Ministry of Justice

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Legal

    Source ICO

    Challenge

    The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in the UK had a security problem: hard drives that contained sensitive prisoner data were unencrypted and largely unprotected for theft.

    These hard drives contained information related to health, history of drug use, and past links to organized crime.

    After two separate incidents of hard drive theft that resulted in data breaches, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), stepped in.

    Solution

    It was determined that after the first hard drive theft in October 2011, replacement hard drives with encryption software were provisioned to prisons managed by the MoJ.

    Unfortunately, the IT security personnel employed by the MoJ were unaware that the encryption software required manual activation.

    When the second hard drive theft occurred, the digital encryption could not act as a backup to poor physical security (the hard drive was not secured in a locker as per protocol).

    Results

    The perpetrators were never found and the stolen hard drives were never recovered.

    As a result of the two data breaches, the MoJ had to implement costly security upgrades to its data protection system.

    The ICO fined the MoJ £180,000 for its repeated security breaches. This costly fine could have been avoided if more diligence was present in the MoJ’s asset management program.

    Step 3.2: Dispose or Redeploy Assets

    3.1 Manage & Maintain

    3.2 Dispose or Redeploy

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    3.2.1 Identify challenges with IT asset recovery and disposal

    3.2.2 Design hardware asset recovery and disposal workflows

    3.2.3 Build a hardware asset disposition policy

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Infrastructure Director/Manager
    • Asset Manager
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)

    Step Outcomes:

    • Defined process to determine when to redeploy vs. dispose of hardware assets
    • Process for recovering and redeploying hardware equipment
    • Process for safely disposing of assets that cannot be redeployed
    • Comprehensive asset disposition policy

    Balance the effort to roll out new equipment against the cost to maintain equipment when building your lifecycle strategy

    The image shows two line graphs. The graph on the left is titled: Desktop Refresh Rate by Company Size (based on Revenue). The graph on the right is titled: Laptop Refresh Rate by Company Size (based on Revenue). Each graph has four lines, defined by a legend in the centre of the image: yellow is small ($25mm); dark blue is Mid ($25-500MM); light blue is large ( data-verified=$500MM); and orange is Overall.">

    (Info-Tech Research Group; N=96)

    Determining the optimal length of time to continue to use equipment will depend on use case and equipment type

    Budget profiles Refresh methods

    Stretched

    Average equipment age: 7+ years

    To save money, some organizations will take a cascading approach, using the most powerful machines for engineers or scientists to ensure processing power, video requirements and drives will meet the needs of their applications and storage needs; then passing systems down to departments who will require standard-use machines. The oldest and least powerful machines are either used as terminals or disposed.

    Generous

    Average equipment age: 3 years

    Organizations that do not want to risk user dissatisfaction or potential compatibility or reliability issues will take a more aggressive replacement approach. These organizations often have less people assigned to end-user device maintenance and will not repair equipment outside of warranty. There is little variation in processing power among devices, with major differences determined by mobility and operating system.

    Cautious

    Average equipment age: 4 to 5 years

    Organizations that fit between the other two profiles will look to stretch the budget beyond warranty years, but will keep a close eye on maintenance requirements. Repairs needed outside of warranty will require an eye to costs, efforts, and subsequent administrative work of loaning equipment to keep the end user productive while waiting on service.

    Recommendations to keep users happy and equipment in prime form is to check condition at the 2-3 year mark, reimage at least once to improve performance, and have backup machines, if equipment starts to become problematic.

    Build a process to determine when and how to redeploy or dispose of hardware assets at end of use

    • When equipment is no longer needed for the function or individual to whom it was assigned, the Hardware Asset Manager needs to use data to ensure the right decision is made as to what to do with the asset.
    • End of use involves evaluating options for either continuing to use the equipment in another capacity or by another individual or determining that the asset has no remaining value to the organization in any capacity and it is time to retire it.
    • If the asset is retired, it may still have capacity for continued use outside of the organization or it may be disposed.

    Redeployment

    • Deliver the asset to a new user if it is no longer needed by the original user but still has value and usability.
    • Redeployment saves money and prevents unnecessary purchases.
    • Common when employees leave the company or a merge or acquisition changes the asset pool.

    VS.

    Disposal

    • When an asset is no longer of use to the organization, it may be disposed of.
    • Need to consider potential financial and public relations considerations if disposal is not done according to environmental legislation.
    • Need to ensure proper documentation and data removal is built into disposition policy.

    Use persistent documentation and communication to improve hardware disposal and recovery

    Warning! Poor hardware disposal and recovery practices can be caused by the following:

    1. Your IT team is too busy and stretched thin. Data disposal is one of many services your IT team is likely to have to deal with, but this service requires undivided attention. By standardizing hardware refreshes, you can instill more predictability with your hardware life cycles and better manage disposal.
    2. Poor inventory management. Outdated data and poor tracking practices can result in lost assets during the disposal phase. It only takes a single lost asset to cause a disastrous data breach in your supply chain.
    3. Obliviousness to disposal regulations. Electronic disposal and electronically stored data are governed by strict regulation.

    How do you improve your hardware disposal and recovery process?

    • A specific, controlled process needs to be in place to wipe all equipment and verify that it’s been wiped properly. Otherwise, companies will continue to spend money to protect data while equipment is in use, but overlook the dangerous implications of careless IT asset disposal. Create a detailed documentation process to track your assets every step of the way to ensure that data and applications are properly disposed of. Detailed documentation can also help bolster sustainability reporting for organizations wishing to track such data.
    • Better communication should be required. Most decommissioning or refresh processes use multiple partners for manufacturing, warehousing, data destruction, product resale, and logistics. Setting up and vetting these networks can take years, and even then, managing them can be like playing a game of telephone; transparency is key.

    Address three core challenges of asset disposal and recovery

    Asset Disposal

    Data Security

    Sixty-five percent of organizations cite data security as their top concern. Many data breaches are a result of hardware theft or poor data destruction practices.

    Choosing a reputable IT disposal company or data removal software is crucial to ensuring data security with asset disposal.

    Environmental

    Electronics contain harmful heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic, and cadmium.

    Disposal of e-waste is heavily regulated, and improper disposal can result in hefty fines and bad publicity for organizations.

    Residual value

    Many obsolete IT assets are simply confined to storage at their end of life.

    This often imposes additional costs with maintenance or storage fees and leaves a lot of value on the table through assets that could be sold or re-purposed within the organization.

    Identify challenges with IT asset recovery and disposal with a triple bottom line scorecard

    3.2.1 Identify challenges with IT asset recovery and disposal

    Participants

    • Infrastructure Director/Manager
    • Asset Manager
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)
    1. Divide the whiteboard into three boxes: Social, Economic, and Environmental.
    2. Divide each box into columns like the one shown below:
    Economic
    Challenge Objectives Targets Initiatives
    No data capture during disposal Develop reporting standards 80% disposed assets recorded Work with Finance to develop reporting procedure
    Idle assets Find resale market/dispose of idle assets 50% of idle assets disposed of within the year Locate resale vendor and disposal service
    1. Ask participants to list challenges associated with each area.
    2. Once challenges facing recovery and disposal have been exhausted from the group, assign a significance of 1-5 (1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest) to each challenge.
    3. Discuss the most significant challenges and how they might be addressed through the next steps of building recovery & disposal processes.

    Build a process for recovery and redeployment of hardware

    • Having hardware standards in place makes redeploying easier by creating a larger pool of possible users for a standardized asset.
    • Most redeployment activities will be carried out by the Help Desk as a service request ticket, so it is important to have clear communication and guidelines with the Help Desk as to which tasks need to be carried out as part of the request.

    Ensure the following are addressed:

    • Where will equipment be stored before being redeployed?
    • Will shipping be required and are shipping costs factored into analysis?
    • Ensure equipment is cleaned before it is redeployed.
    • Do repairs and reconfigurations need to be made?
    • How will software be removed and licenses harvested and reported to Software Asset Manager?
    • How will data be securely wiped and protected?

    The image shows a work process in flowchart format titled Equipment Recovery. The chart is divided into two sections, listed on the left: Business Manager/HR and Desktop Support Team.

    Define the process for safely disposing of assets that cannot be redeployed

    Asset Disposal Checklist

    1. Review the data stored on the device.
    2. Determine if there has been any sensitive or confidential information stored.
    3. Remove all sensitive/confidential information.
    4. Determine if software licenses are transferable.
    5. Remove any non- transferable software prior to reassignment.
    6. Update the department’s inventory record to indicate new individual assigned custody.
    7. In the event of a transfer to another department, remove data and licensed software.
    8. If sensitive data has been stored, physically destroy the storage device.
    • Define the process for retiring and disposing of equipment that has reached replacement age or no longer meets minimum conditions or standards.
    • Clearly define the steps that need to be taken both before and after the involvement of an ITAD partner.

    The image shows a flowchart titled Equipment Disposal. It is divided into two sections, labelled on the left as: Desktop Support Team and Asset Manager.

    Design hardware asset recovery and disposal workflows

    3.2.2 Design hardware asset recovery and disposal policies and workflows

    Participants

    • Infrastructure Director/Manager
    • Asset Manager
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Operations (optional)

    Document

    Document in the Standard Operating Procedures, Sections 11 and 12

    Document each step in the recovery and disposal process in two separate workflows using notecards or on a whiteboard. Identify the challenges faced by your organization and strategize potential solutions.

    1. Keeping in mind current challenges around hardware asset recovery and disposal, design the target state for both the asset recovery and disposal processes.
    2. Outline each step of the process and be as granular as possible.
    3. When you are satisfied that each step is accurately captured, use a second color of notecard to document any challenges, inefficiencies, or pains associated with each step. Consider further documenting the time on each task.
    4. Examine each challenge or pain point. Discuss whether or not there is a clear solution to the problem. If so, document the solution and amend the workflow. If not, engage in a broader discussion of possible solutions, taking into account people, processes, and available technology.
    5. Review the checklists on the previous slides to ensure all critical tasks are accounted for in your process workflows.

    Add equipment disposition to asset lifecycle decisions to meet environmental regulations and mitigate risk

    Although traditionally an afterthought in asset management, IT asset disposition (ITAD) needs to be front and center. Increase focus on data security and concern surrounding environmental sustainability and develop an awareness of the cost efficiencies possible through best-practices disposition.

    Optimized ITAD solutions:

    1. Protect sensitive or valuable data
    2. Support sustainability
    3. Focus on asset value recovery

    Info-Tech Insight

    A well-thought-out asset management program mitigates risk and is typically less costly than dealing with a large-scale data loss incident or an inappropriate disposal suit. Also, it protects your company’s reputation – which is difficult to put a price on.

    Partner with an ITAD vendor to support your disposition strategy

    Maximizing returns on assets requires knowledge and skills in asset valuation, upgrading to optimize market return, supply chain management, and packaging and shipping. It’s unlikely that the return will be adequate to justify that level of investment, so partnering with a full-service ITAD vendor is a no-brainer.

    • An ITAD vendor knows the repurpose and resale space better than your organization. They know the industry and have access to more potential buyers.
    • ITAD vendors can help your organization navigate costly environmental regulations for improper disposal of IT assets.

    Disposal doesn’t mean your equipment has to go to waste.

    Additionally, your ITAD vendor can assist with a large donation of hardware to a charitable organization or a school.

    Donating equipment to schools or non-profits may provide charitable receipts that can be used as taxable benefits.

    Before donating:

    • Ensure equipment is needed and useful to the organization.
    • Be prepared for an appraisal requirement. Receipts can only be issued for fair market value.
    • Prevent compromised data by thoroughly wiping or completely replacing drives.
    • Ensure official transfer of ownership to prevent liability if improper disposal practices follow.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Government assistance grants may be available to help keep your organization’s hardware up to date, thereby providing incentives to upgrade equipment while older equipment still has a useful life.

    Protect the organization by sufficiently researching potential ITAD partners

    Research ITAD vendors as diligently as you would primary hardware vendors.

    Failure to thoroughly investigate a vendor could result in a massive data breach, fines for disposal standards violations, or a poor resale price for your disposed assets. Evaluate vendors using questions such as the following:

    • Are you a full-service vendor or are you connected to a wholesaler?
    • Who are your collectors and processors?
    • How do you handle data wiping? If you erase the data, how many passes do you perform?
    • What do you do with the e-waste? How much is reused? How much is recycled?
    • Do you have errors and omissions insurance in case data is compromised?
    • How much will it cost to recycle or dispose of worthless equipment?
    • How much will I receive for assets that still have useful life?

    ITAD vendors that focus on recycling will bundle assets to ship to an e-waste plant – leaving money on the table.

    ITAD vendors with a focus on reuse will individually package salable assets for resale – which will yield top dollars.

    Info-Tech Insight

    To judge the success of a HAM overhaul, you need to establish a baseline with which to compare final results. Be sure to take HAM “snapshots” before ITAD partnering so it’s easy to illustrate the savings later.

    Work with ITAD partner or equipment supplier to determine most cost-effective method and appropriate time for disposal

    2-4 Two-to-four year hardware refresh cycle

    • Consider selling equipment to an ITAD partner who specializes in sales of refurbished equipment.
    • Consider donating equipment to schools or non-profits, possibly using an ITAD partner who specializes in refurbishing equipment and managing the donation process.

    5-7 Five-to-seven year hardware refresh cycle

    • At this stage equipment may still have a viable life, but would not be appropriate for school or non-profit donations, due to a potentially shorter lifespan. Consider selling equipment to an ITAD partner who has customers interested in older, refurbished equipment.

    7+ Seven or more years hardware refresh cycle

    • If keeping computers until they reach end of life, harvest parts for replacement on existing machines and budget for disposal fees.
    • Ask new computer supplier about disposal services or seek out ITAD partner who will disassemble and dispose of equipment in an environmentally responsible manner.

    Info-Tech Insight

    • In all cases, ensure hard drives are cleansed of data with no option for data recovery. Many ITAD partners will provide a drive erasure at DoD levels as part of their disposal service.
    • Many ITAD partners will provide analysts to help determine the most advantageous time to refresh.

    Ensure data security and compliance by engaging in reliable data wiping before disposition

    Failure to properly dispose of data can not only result in costly data breaches, but also fines and other regulatory repercussions. Choosing an ITAD vendor or a vendor that specializes in data erasure is crucial. Depending on your needs, there are a variety of data wiping methods available.

    Certified data erasure is the only method that leaves the asset’s hard drive intact for resale or donation. Three swipes is the bare minimum, but seven is recommended for more sensitive data (and required by the US Department of Defense). Data erasure applications may be destructive or non-destructive – both methods overwrite data to make it irretrievable.

    Physical destruction must be done thoroughly, and rigorous testing must be done to verify data irretrievability. Methods such as hand drilling are proven to be unreliable.

    Degaussing uses high-powered magnets to erase hard drives and makes them unusable. This is the most expensive option; degaussing devices can be purchased or rented.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Data wiping can be done onsite or can be contracted to an ITAD partner. Using an ITAD partner can ensure greater security at a more affordable price.

    Make data security a primary driver of asset disposition practices

    It is estimated that 10-15% of data loss cases result from insecure asset disposal. Protect yourself by following some simple disposition rules.

    1. Reconcile your data onsite
    • Verify that bills of landing and inventory records match before assets leave. Otherwise, you must take the receiver’s word on shipment contents.
  • Wipe data at least once onsite
    • Do at least one in-house data wipe before the assets leave the site for greater data security.
  • Transport promptly after data wiping
    • Prompt shipment will minimize involvement with the assets, and therefore, cost. Also, the chance of missing assets will drop dramatically.
  • Avoid third-party transport services
    • Reputable ITAD companies maintain strict chain of custody control over assets. Using a third party introduces unnecessary risk.
  • Keep detailed disposition records
    • Records will protect you in the event of an audit, a data loss incident, or an environmental degradation claim. They could save you millions.
  • Wipe all data-carrying items
    • Don’t forget cell phones, fax machines, USB drives, scanners, and printers – they can carry sensitive information that can put the organization at risk.
  • Only partner with insured ITAD vendors
    • You are never completely out of danger with regards to liability, but partnering with an insured vendor is potent risk mitigation.
  • Work these rules into your disposition policy to mitigate data loss risk.

    Support your HAM efforts with a comprehensive disposition policy

    3.2.3 Build a Hardware Asset Disposition Policy

    Implementation of a HAM program is a waste of time if you aren’t going to maintain it. Maintenance requires the implementation of detailed policies, training, and an ongoing commitment to proper management.

    Use Info-Tech’s Hardware Asset Disposition Policy to:

    1. Establish and define clear standards, procedures, and restrictions surrounding disposition.
    2. Ensure continual compliance with applicable data security and environmental legislation.
    3. Assign specific responsibilities to individuals or groups to ensure ongoing adherence to policy standards and that costs or benefits are in line with expectations.

    Phase 3 Guided Implementation

    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.

    Guided Implementation 3: Maintain & Dispose

    Proposed Time to Completion: 4 weeks

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Discuss inventory management best practices.
    • Build process for moves, adds, and changes.
    • Build process for hardware maintenance.
    • Define policies for maintaining asset security.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Build a MAC policy and request form.
    • Build workflows to document user MAC processes.
    • Design processes and policies for hardware maintenance, warranty, and support documentation handling.
    • Build an asset security policy.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Standard Operating Procedures
    • Asset Security Policy

    Step 3.2: Dispose or Redeploy Assets

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Discuss when to dispose vs. redeploy assets.
    • Build process for redeploying vs. disposing of assets.
    • Review ITAD vendors.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Identify challenges with IT asset recovery and disposal.
    • Design hardware asset recovery and disposal workflows.
    • Build a hardware asset disposition policy.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Standard Operating Procedures
    • Asset Recovery Workflow
    • Asset Disposal Workflow
    • Hardware Asset Disposition Policy

    Phase 3 Insight: Not all assets are created equal. Taking a blanket approach to asset maintenance and security is time consuming and costly. Focus on the high-cost, high-use, and data-sensitive assets first.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.1.4 Revise or create an asset security policy

    Discuss asset security challenges within the organization; brainstorm reasons the challenges exist and process changes to address them. Document a new asset security policy.

    3.2.2 Design hardware asset recovery and disposal workflows

    Document each step in the hardware asset recovery and disposal process, including all decision points. Examine challenges and amend the workflow to address them.

    Phase 4

    Plan Budget Process and Build Roadmap

    Implement Hardware Asset Management

    Cisco deployed an enterprise-wide re-education program to implement asset management

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Networking

    Source Cisco IT

    Challenge

    Even though Cisco Systems had designed a comprehensive asset management program, implementing it across the enterprise was another story.

    An effective solution, complete with a process that could be adopted by everyone within the organization, would require extensive internal promotion of cost savings, efficiencies, and other benefits to the enterprise and end users.

    Cisco’s asset management problem was as much a cultural challenge as it was a process challenge.

    Solution

    The ITAM team at Cisco began discussions with departments that had been tracking and managing their own assets.

    These sessions were used as an educational tool, but also as opportunities to gather internal best practices to deploy across the enterprise.

    Eventually, Cisco introduced weekly meetings with global representation to encourage company-wide communication and collaboration.

    Results

    By establishing a process for managing PC assets, we have cut our hardware costs in half.” – Mark Edmonson, Manager – IT Services Expenses

    Cisco reports that although change was difficult to adopt, end-user satisfaction has never been higher. The centralized asset management approach has resulted in better contract negotiations through better data access.

    A reduced number of hardware and software platforms has streamlined tracking and support, and will only drive down costs as time goes on.

    Step 4.1: Plan Hardware Asset Budget

    Phase 4: Plan Budget & Build Roadmap

    4.1 Plan Budget

    4.2 Communicate & Build Roadmap

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    4.1 Use Info-Tech’s HAM Budgeting Tool to plan your hardware asset budget

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Director
    • Asset Manager
    • Finance Department

    Step Outcomes

    • Know where to find data to budget for hardware needs accurately
    • Learn how to manage a hardware budget
    • Plan hardware asset budget with a budgeting tool

    Gain control of the budget to increase the success of HAM

    A sophisticated hardware asset management program will be able to uncover hidden costs, identify targets for downsizing, save money through redistributing equipment, and improve forecasting of equipment to help control IT spending.

    While some asset managers may not have experience managing budgets, there are several advantages to ITAM owning the hardware budget:

    • Be more involved in negotiating pricing with suppliers.
    • Build better relationships with stakeholders across the business.
    • Forecast requirements more accurately.
    • Inform benchmarks for hardware performance.
    • Gain more responsibility and have a greater influence on purchasing decisions.
    • Directly impact the reduction in IT spend.
    • Manage the asset database more easily and have a greater understanding of hardware needs.
    • Build a continuous rolling refresh.

    Use ITAM data to forecast hardware needs accurately and realistically

    Your IT budget should be realistic, accounting for business needs, routine maintenance, hardware replacement costs, unexpected equipment failures, and associated support and warranty costs. Know where to find the data you need and who to work with to forecast hardware needs as accurately as possible.

    What type of data should I take into account?

    Plan for:

    • New hardware purchases required
      • Planned refreshes based on equipment lifecycle
      • Inventory for break and fix
      • Standard equipment for new hires
      • Non-standard equipment required
      • Hardware for planned projects
      • Implementation and setup costs
      • Routine hardware implementation
      • Large hardware implementation for projects
      • Support and warranty costs

    Take into account:

    • Standard refresh cycle for each hardware asset
    • Amount of inventory to keep on hand
    • Length of time from procurement to inventory
    • Current equipment costs and equipment price increases
    • Equipment depreciation rates and resale profits

    Where do I find the information I need to budget accurately?

    • Work with HR to forecast equipment needs for new hires.
    • Work with the Infrastructure Manager to forecast devices and equipment needed for approved and planned projects.
    • Use the asset management database to forecast hardware refresh and replacement needs based on age and lifecycle.
    • Work with business stakeholders to ensure all new equipment needs are accounted for in the budget.

    Use Info-Tech’s HAM Budgeting Tool to plan your hardware asset budget

    4.1.1 Build HAM budget

    This tool is designed to assist in developing and justifying the budget for hardware assets for the upcoming year. The tool will allow you to budget for projects requiring hardware asset purchases as well as equipment requiring refresh and to adjust the budget as needed to accommodate both projects and refreshes. Follow the instructions on each tab to complete the tool.

    The hardware budget should serve as a planning and communications tool for the organization

    The most successful relationships have a common vocabulary. Thus, it is important to translate “tech speak” into everyday language and business goals and initiatives as you plan your budget.

    One of the biggest barriers that infrastructure and operations team face with regards to equipment budgeting is the lack of understanding of IT infrastructure and how it impacts the rest of the organization. The biggest challenge is to help the rest of the organization overcome this barrier.

    There are several things you can do to overcome this barrier:

    • Avoid using technical terms or jargon. Terms many would consider common knowledge, such as “WLAN,” are foreign to many.
    • Don’t assume the business knows how the technology you’re referring to will impact their day-to-day work. You will need to demonstrate it to them.
    • Help the audience understand the business impact of not implementing each initiative. What does this mean for them?
    • Discuss the options on the table in terms of the business value that the hardware can enable. Review how deferring refresh projects can impact user-facing applications, systems, and business unit operations.
    • Present options. If you can’t implement everything on the project list, present what you can do at different levels of funding.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Err on the side of inviting more discussion. Your budgeting process relies on business decision makers and receiving actionable feedback requires an ongoing exchange of information.

    Help users understand the importance of regular infrastructure refreshes

    Getting business users to support regular investments in maintenance relies on understanding and trust. Present the facts in plain language. Provide options, and clearly state the impact of each option.

    Example: Your storage environment is nearing capacity.

    Don’t:

    Explain the project exclusively in technical terms or slang.

    We’re exploring deduping technology as well as cheap solid state, SATA, and tape storage to address capacity.”

    Do:

    • Explain impact in terms that the business can understand.

    Deduplication technology can reduce our storage needs by up to 50%, allowing us to defer a new storage purchase.”

    • Be ready to present project alternatives and impacts.

    Without implementing deduplication technology, we will need to purchase additional storage by the end of the year at an estimated cost of $25,000.”

    • Connect the project to business initiatives and strategic priorities.

    This is a cost-effective technique to increase storage capacity to manage annual average data growth at around 20% per year.

    Step 4.2: Build Communication Plan and Roadmap

    Phase 4: Plan Budget & Build Roadmap

    4.1 Plan Budget

    4.2 Communicate & Build Roadmap

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    4.2 Develop a HAM implementation roadmap

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Director
    • Asset Manager
    • Service Desk Manager

    Step Outcomes

    • Documented end-user hardware asset management policies
    • Communications plan to achieve support from end users and other business units
    • HAM implementation roadmap

    Educate end users through ITAM training to increase program success

    As part of your communication plan and overall HAM implementation, training should be provided to end users within the organization.

    All facets of the business, from management to new hires, should be provided with ITAM training to help them understand their role in the project’s success.

    ITAM solutions are complex by nature with both business process and technical knowledge required to use them correctly. Keep the message appropriate to the audience – end users don’t need to know the complete process, but will need to know policy and how to request.

    Management may have priorities that appear to clash with new processes. Engage management by making them aware of the benefits and importance of ITAM. Include the benefits and consequences of not implementing ITAM in your education approach. Encourage them to support efforts by reinforcing your messages to end users.

    New hires should have ITAM training bundled into their onboarding process. Fresh minds are easier to train and the ITAM program will be seen as an organizational standard, not merely a change.

    Policy documents can help summarize end users’ obligations and clarify processes. Consider an IT Resources Acceptable UsePolicy.

    "The lowest user is the most important user in your asset management program. New employees are your most important resource. The life cycle of the assets will go much smoother if new employees are brought on board." – Tyrell Hall, ITAM Program Coordinator

    Info-Tech Insight

    During training, you should present the material through the lens of “what’s in it for me?” Otherwise, you risk alienating end users through implementing organizational change viewed as low value.

    Include policy design and enforcement in your communication plan

    • Hardware asset management policies should define the actions to be taken to protect and preserve technology assets from failure, loss, destruction, theft, or damage.
    • Implementing asset management policies enforces the notion that the organization takes its IT assets and the management of them seriously, and will help ensure the benefits of ITAM are achieved.
    • Designing, approving, documenting, and adopting one set of standard ITAM policies for each department to follow will ensure the processes are enforced equally across the organization.
    • Good ITAM policies answer the “what, how, and why” of IT asset management, provide the means for ITAM governance, and provide a basis for strategy and decision making.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Use policy templates to jumpstart your policy development and ensure policies are comprehensive, but be sure to modify and adapt policies to suit your corporate culture or they will not gain buy-in from employees. For a policy to be successful, it must be a living document and have participation and involvement from the committees and departments to whom it will pertain.

    Use Info-Tech’s policy templates to build HAM policies

    4.2.1 Build HAM policies

    Use these HAM policy templates to get started:

    Information Technology Standards Policy

    This policy establishes standards and guidelines for a company’s information technology environment to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of company computing resources.

    Desktop Move/Add/Change Policy

    This desktop move/add/change policy is put in place for users to request to change their desktop computing environments. This policy applies configuration changes within a company.

    Purchasing Policy

    The purchasing policy helps to establish company standards, guidelines, and procedures for the purchase of all information technology hardware, software, and computer-related components as well as the purchase of all technical services.

    Hardware Asset Disposition Policy

    This policy assists in creating guidelines around disposition in the last stage of the asset lifecycle.

    Additional policy templates

    Info-Tech Insight

    Use policy templates to jumpstart your policy development and ensure policies are comprehensive, but modify and adapt them to suit your corporate culture or they will not gain buy-in from employees. For a policy to be successful, it must be a living document and have participation from the committees and departments to whom it will pertain.

    Create a communication plan to achieve end-user support and adherence to policies

    Communication is crucial to the integration and overall implementation of your ITAM program. An effective communication plan will:

    • Gain support from management at the project proposal phase.
    • Create end-user buy-in once the program is set to launch.
    • Maintain the presence of the program throughout the business.
    • Instill ownership throughout the business from top-level management to new hires.

    Use the variety of components as part of your communication plan in order to reach the organization.

    1. Advertise successes.
    • Regularly demonstrate the value of the ITAM program with descriptive statistics focused on key financial benefits.
    • Share data with the appropriate personnel; promote success to obtain further support from senior management.
  • Report and share asset data.
    • Sharing detailed asset-related reports frequently gives decision makers useful data to aid in their strategy.
    • These reports can help your organization prepare for audits, adjust asset budgeting, and detect unauthorized assets.
  • Communicate the value of ITAM.
    • Educate management and end users about how they fit into the bigger picture.
    • Individuals need to know that their behaviors can adversely affect data quality and, ultimately, lead to better decision making.
  • Develop a communication plan to convey the right messages

    4.2.2 Develop a communication plan to convey the right messages

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT Director
    • Asset Manager
    • Service Desk Manager

    Document

    Document in the HAM Communication Plan

    1. Identify the groups that will be affected by the HAM program as those who will require communication.
    2. For each group requiring a communication plan, identify the following:
    • Benefits of HAM for that group of individuals (e.g. better data, security).
    • The impact the change will have on them (e.g. change in the way a certain process will work).
    • Communication method (i.e. how you will communicate).
    • Timeframe (i.e. when and how often you will communicate the changes).
  • Complete this information in a table like the one below and document in the Communication Plan.
  • Group Benefits Impact Method Timeline
    Service Desk Improve end-user device support Follow new processes Email campaign 3 months
    Executives Mitigate risks, better security, more data for reporting Review and sign off on policies
    End Users Smoother request process Adhere to device security and use policies
    Infrastructure Faster access to data and one source of truth Modified processes for centralized procurement and inventory

    Implement ITAM in a phased, constructive approach

    • One of the most difficult decisions to make when implementing ITAM is: “where do we start?”
    • The pyramid to the right mirrors Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The base is the absolute bare minimum that should be in place, and each level builds upon the previous one.
    • As you track up the pyramid, your ITAM program will become more and more mature.

    Now that your asset lifecycle environment has been constructed in full, it’s time to study it. Gather data about your assets and use the results to create reports and new solutions to continually improve the business.

    • Asset Data
    • Asset Protection: safely protect and dispose of assets once they are mass distributed throughout your organization.
    • Asset Distribution: determine standards for asset provisioning and asset inventory strategy.
    • Asset Gathering: define what assets you will procure, distribute, and track. Classifying your assets by tier will allow you to make decisions as you progress up the pyramid.

    ↑ ITAM Program Maturity

    Integrate your HAM program into the organization to assist its implementation

    The HAM program cannot perform on its own – it must be integrated with other functional areas of the organization in order to maintain its stability and support.

    • Effective IT asset management is supported by a comprehensive set of processes as part of its implementation.
    • For example, integration with the purchasing/procurement team is required to gather hardware and software purchase data to control asset costs and mitigate software license compliance risk.
    • Integration with Finance is required to support internal cost allocations and charge backs.

    To integrate your ITAM program into your organization effectively, a clear implementation roadmap needs to be designed. Prioritize “quick wins” in order to demonstrate success to the business early and gain buy-in from your team. Long-term goals should be designed that will be supported by the outcomes of the short-term gains of your ITAM program.

    Short-term goal Long-term goal
    Identify inventory classification and tool (hardware first) Hardware contract data integration (warranty, maintenance, lease)
    Create basic ITAM policies and processes Continual improvement through policy impact review and revision
    Implement ITAM auto-discovery tools Software compliance reports, internal audits

    Info-Tech Insight

    Installing an ITAM tool does not mean you have an effective asset management program. A complete solution needs to be built around your tool, but the strength of ITAM comes from processes embedded in the organization that are shaped and supported by your ITAM data.

    Develop an IT hardware asset management implementation roadmap

    4.2.3 Develop a HAM implementation roadmap

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT Director
    • Asset Manager
    • Service Desk Manager

    Document

    Document in the IT Hardware Asset Management Implementation Roadmap

    1. Identify up to five streams to work on initiatives for the hardware asset management project.
    2. Fill out key tasks and objectives for each process. Assign responsibility for each task.
    3. Select a start date and end date for each task. See tab 1 of the tool for instructions on which letters to input for each stage of the process.
    4. Once your list is complete, open tab 3 of the tool to see your completed sunshine diagram.
    5. Keep this diagram visible for your team and use it as a guide to task completion as you work towards your future-state value stream.

    Focus on continual improvement to sustain your ITAM program

    Periodically review the ITAM program in order to achieve defined goals, objectives, and benefits.

    Act → Plan → Do → Check

    Once ITAM is in place in your organization, a focus on continual improvement creates the following benefits:

    • Remain in sync with the business: your asset management program reflects the current and desired future states of your organization at the time of its creation. But the needs of the business change. As mentioned previously, asset management is a dynamic process, so in order for your program to keep pace, a focus on continual improvement is needed.
      • For example, imagine if your organization had designed your ITAM program before cloud-based solutions were an option. What if your asset classification scheme did not include personal devices or tablets or your asset security policy lacked a section on BYOD?
    • Create funding for new projects through ITAM continual improvement: one of the goals is to save money through more efficient use of your assets by “sweating” out underused hardware and software.
      • It may be tempting to simply present the results to Finance as savings, but instead, describe the results as “available funds for other projects.” Otherwise, Finance may view the savings as a nod to restrict IT’s budget and allocate funds elsewhere. Make it clear that any saved funds are still required, albeit in a different capacity.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Look for new uses for ITAM data. Ask management what their goals are for the next 12-18 months. Analyze the data you are gathering and determine how your ITAM data can assist with achieving these goals.

    Phase 4 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.

    Step 4.1: Plan Budget

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Know where to find data to budget for hardware needs accurately.
    • Learn how to manage a hardware budget.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Plan hardware asset budget.

    With these tools & templates:

    HAM Budgeting Tool

    Step 4.2: Communicate & Roadmap

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Develop policies for end users.
    • Build communications plan.
    • Build an implementation roadmap.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Build HAM policies.
    • Develop a communication plan.
    • Develop a HAM implementation roadmap.

    With these tools & templates:

    HAM policy templates

    HAM Communication Plan

    HAM Implementation Roadmap

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    4.1.1 Build a hardware asset budget

    Review upcoming hardware refresh needs and projects requiring hardware purchases. Use this data to forecast and budget equipment for the upcoming year.

    4.2.2 Develop a communication plan

    Identify groups that will be affected by the new HAM program and for each group, document a communications plan.

    Insight breakdown

    Overarching Insights

    HAM is more than just tracking inventory. A mature asset management program provides data for proactive planning and decision making to reduce operating costs and mitigate risk.

    ITAM is not just IT. IT leaders need to collaborate with Finance, Procurement, Security, and other business units to make informed decisions and create value across the enterprise.

    Treat HAM like a process, not a project. HAM is a dynamic process that must react and adapt to the needs of the business.

    Phase 1 Insight

    For asset management to succeed, it needs to support the business. Engage business leaders to determine needs and build your HAM program around these goals.

    Phase 2 Insight

    Bridge the gap between IT and Finance to build a smoother request and procurement process through communication and routine reporting. If you’re unable to affect procurement processes to reduce time to deliver, consider bringing inventory onsite or having your hardware vendor keep stock, ready to ship on demand.

    Phase 3 Insight

    Not all assets are created equal. Taking a blanket approach to asset maintenance and security is time consuming and costly. Focus on the high-cost, high-use, and data-sensitive assets first.

    Phase 4 Insight

    Deploying a fancy ITAM tool will not make hardware asset management implementation easier. Implementation is a project that requires you focus on people and process first – the technology comes after.

    Related Info-Tech research

    Implement Software Asset Management

    Build an End-User Computing Strategy

    Find the Value – and Remain Valuable – With Cloud Asset Management

    Consolidate IT Asset Management

    Harness Configuration Management Superpowers

    IT Asset Management Market Overview

    Bibliography

    Chalkley, Martin. “Should ITAM Own Budget?” The ITAM Review. 19 May 2011. Web.

    “CHAMP: Certified Hardware Asset Management Professional Manual.” International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers, Inc. 2008. Web.

    Foxen, David. “The Importance of Effective HAM (Hardware Asset Management).” The ITAM Review. 19 Feb. 2015. Web.

    Foxen, David. “Quick Guide to Hardware Asset Tagging.” The ITAM Review. 5 Sep. 2014. Web.

    Galecki, Daniel. “ITAM Lifecycle and Savings Opportunities – Mapping out the Journey.” International Association of IT Asset Managers, Inc. 16 Nov. 2014. Web.

    “How Cisco IT Reduced Costs Through PC Asset Management.” Cisco IT Case Study. 2007. Web.

    Irwin, Sherry. “ITAM Metrics.” The ITAM Review. 14 Dec. 2009. Web.

    “IT Asset and Software Management.” ECP Media LLC, 2006. Web.

    Rains, Jenny. “IT Hardware Asset Management.” HDI Research Brief. May 2015. Web.

    Riley, Nathan. “IT Asset Management and Tagging Hardware: Best Practices.” Samanage Blog. 5 March 2015. Web.

    “The IAITAM Practitioner Survey Results for 2016 – Lean Toward Ongoing Value.” International Association of IT Asset Managers, Inc. 24 May 2016. Web.

    Make Sense of Strategic Portfolio Management

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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
    • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
    • As an IT leader, you’re responsible for steering the realization of business strategy through wise investments in and responsible stewardship of assets, applications, portfolios, programs, products, and projects.
    • You need a tool to help align goals and facilitate processes across business units. You’re aware of a tool space called Strategic Portfolio Management, and it looks like it could help, but you’re unsure of how it’s different from some of the existing tools you already pay for and don’t use to their full functionality.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    As a software space, strategic portfolio management lacks a unified definition. In the same way that it took many years for project portfolio management to stabilize as a concept distinct from traditional enterprise project management, strategic portfolio management is experiencing a similar period of formational uncertainty. Unpacking what’s truly new and valuable in helping to define strategy and drive strategic outcomes versus what’s just repackaged as SPM is an important first step, but it's not an easy undertaking.

    Impact and Result

    In this concise publication, we will cut through the marketing to unpack what strategic portfolio management is, and what makes it distinct from similar capabilities. We’ll help to situate you in the space and assess the extent to which your tooling needs can be met by a strategic portfolio management offering.

    Make Sense of Strategic Portfolio Management Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Make Sense of Strategic Portfolio Management Storyboard – A guide to help you drive strategic outcomes.

    In this concise publication we introduce you to strategic portfolio management and consider the extent to which your organization can leverage an SPM application to help drive strategic outcomes.

    • Make Sense of Strategic Portfolio Management Storyboard

    2. Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment Tool – Use this tool to determine if your organization can benefit from the features and functionality of an SPM approach.

    Use this Excel workbook to determine if your organization can benefit from the features and functionality of an SPM approach or whether you need something more like a traditional project portfolio management tool.

    • Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Make Sense of Strategic Portfolio Management

    Separate what's new and valuable from bloated claims on the hype cycle.

    Analyst Perspective

    Do you need strategic portfolio management, or do you need to do portfolio management more strategically?

    Travis Duncan, Research Director, PPM and CIO Strategy

    Travis Duncan
    Research Director, PPM and CIO Strategy
    Info-Tech Research Group

    While the market is eager to get users into what they're calling "strategic portfolio management," there's a lot of uncertainty out there about what this market is and how it's different from other, more established portfolio disciplines – most significantly, project portfolio management.

    Indeed, if you look at how the space is covered within the industry, you'll encounter a dog's breakfast of players, a comparison of apples and oranges: Jira in the same quadrants as Planisware, Smartsheets in the same profiles as Planview and ServiceNow. While each of the individual players is impressive, their areas of focus are unique and the extent to which they should be compared together under the category of strategic portfolio management is questionable.

    It speaks to some of the grey area within the SPM space more generally, which is at a bit of a crossroads: Will it formally shed the guardrails of its antecedents to become its own space, or will it devolve into a bait and switch through which capabilities that struggled to gain much traction beyond IT settings seek to infiltrate the business and grow their market share under a different name?

    Part of it is up to the rest of us as users and potential customers. Clarifying what we need before we jump into something simply because our prior attempts failed will help determine whether we need a unique space for strategic portfolio management or whether we simply need to do portfolio management more strategically.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge Common Obstacles Info-Tech's Approach
    • As an IT leader, you're responsible for steering the realization of business strategy through wise investments in/ and responsible stewardship of: assets, applications, portfolios, programs, products, and projects.
    • You need a tool to help align goals and facilitate processes and communications across business units. You're aware of a tool space called strategic portfolio management, and it looks like it could help, but you're unsure of how it's different from some of the existing tools you already license.
    • As a software space, strategic portfolio management lacks a unified definition. Unpacking what's truly new in helping to define strategy and drive strategic outcomes versus what's just repackaged as SPM is no small undertaking.
    • Because SPM can span different business units, ways of working, and roles, getting buy-in, alignment, and adoption can be even more precarious than it is when implementing other types of solutions.
    • In this concise publication, we will cut through the marketing to unpack what strategic portfolio management is and what makes it distinct from similar capabilities.
    • Assess the extent to which your tooling needs can be met by a strategic portfolio management offering or the extent to which you may need to look at other software categories.
    • With a better understanding of the space, we hope to help facilitate better internal discussions around the value of SPM for your business needs.

    Info-Tech Insight
    In the same way that it took many years for PPM to stabilize as a concept distinct from traditional enterprise project management, strategic portfolio management is experiencing a similar period of formational uncertainty. In a space that can be all things to all users, clarify your actual needs before jumping onto a bandwagon and ending up with something that you don't need, and that the organization can't adopt.

    Strategic portfolio management is enterprise portfolio management

    Evolved from various other capabilities and vendor solutions, strategic portfolio management (SPM) seeks to connect strategy to execution.

    While the concept of 'strategic portfolio management' has been written about within project portfolio management circles for nearly 20 years, SPM, as a distinct organizational competence and software category, is a relatively new and largely vendor-driven capability.

    First emerging in the discourse during the mid-to-late 2010s, SPM has evolved from its roots in traditional enterprise project portfolio management. Though, as we will discuss, it has other antecedents not limited to PPM.

    In this publication, we'll unpack what SPM is, how it is distinct (and, in turn, how it is not distinct) from PPM and other capabilities, and we will consider the extent to which your organization can and should leverage an SPM application to help drive strategic outcomes.

    –The increasing need to deliver value from digital initiatives is giving rise to strategic portfolio management, a digital investment management discipline that enables strategy realization in complex dynamic environments."
    – OnePlan, "Is Strategic Portfolio Management the Future of PPM?"

    Only 2% of business leaders are confident that they will achieve 80% to 100% of their strategic objectives.
    Source: Smith, 2022

    Put strategic portfolio management in context

    SPM is a new stage in the history of project portfolio management more generally. While it's emerging as a distinct capability, and it borrows from capabilities beyond PPM, unpacking its distinctiveness is best done by first understanding its source.

    Understand the recent triggers for strategic portfolio management

    Triggers for the emergence of strategic portfolio management in the discourse include the pace of technology-introduced change, the waning of enterprise project management, and challenges around enterprise PPM tool adoption.

    Spot the difference?

    Scope, focus, and audience are just a few of the factors distinguishing what the market calls "SPM" from traditional PPM.

    Project Portfolio Management Differentiator Strategic Portfolio Management
    Work-Level (Tactical) Primary Orientation High-Level (Strategic)
    CIO Accountable for Outcomes CxO
    Project Manager Responsible for Outcomes Product Management Organization
    Project Managers, PMO Staff Targeted Users Business Leaders, ePMO Staff
    Project Portfolio(s) Essential Scope Multi-Portfolio (Project, Application, Product, Program, etc.)
    IT Project Delivery and Business Results Delivery Core Focus Business Strategy and Change Delivery
    Project Scope Change Impact Sensitivity Enterprise Scope
    IT and/or Business Benefit Language of Value Value Stream
    Project Timelines Main View Strategy Roadmaps
    Resource Capacity Primary Currency Money
    Work-Assignment Details Modalities of Planning Value Milestones & OKRs
    Work Management Modalities of Execution Governance (Project, Product, Strategy, Program, etc.)
    Project Completion Definitions of "Done" Business Capability Realization

    Info-Tech Insight
    The distinction between the two capabilities is not necessarily as black and white as the table above would have it (some "PPM" tools offer what we're identifying above as "SPM" capabilities), but it can be helpful to think in these binaries when trying to distinguish the two capabilities. At the very least, SPM broadens its scope to target more executive and business users, and functions best when it's speaking at a higher level, to a business audience.

    Strategic portfolio management offers a more holistic view of the enterprise

    At its best, strategic portfolio management can accommodate various paradigms of work management and incorporate different types of portfolio management.

    Perhaps the biggest evolution from traditional PPM that strategic portfolio management promises is that it casts a wider net in terms of the types of work it tracks (and how it tracks that work) and the types of portfolios it accommodates.

    Not bound to the concepts of "projects" and a "project portfolio" specifically, SPM broadens its scope to encompass capabilities like product and product portfolio management, enterprise architecture management, security and risk management, and more.

    • Where a PPM solution only shows one piece of the puzzle, SPM looks at the entire investment ecosystem, tracking strategic goals, the ideas generated to help achieve those goals, and all the various kinds of investments made in the service of those goals.
    • what's more, where traditional PPM tools required users to adhere to a certain way of working and managing tasks, SPM is more flexible, relying on integrations across various ways of working to provide higher-level insight on the progress of work and the achievement of goals.

    Deliver business strategy and change effectively

    Info-Tech's Strategic Portfolio Management Framework

    "An SPM tool will capture business strategy, business capabilities, operating models, the enterprise architecture and the project portfolio with unmatched visibility into how they all relate. This will give...a robust understanding of the impact of a proposed IT change " and enable IT and business to act like cocreators driving innovation."
    – Paula Ziehr

    You might need a strategic portfolio management tool if–

    If you find yourself facing any of these situations, it might be time to step away from your PPM tool and into an SPM approach:

    • Your organization is facing a large implementation that will cross multiple departmental units and requires alignment across senior leadership (e.g. a digital transformation initiative).
    • You currently have disparate systems tracking different portfolios (project, product, applications, etc.) and types of investments, but lack insight into the whole in terms of how work efforts and investments tie back to strategy realization.
    • You are an ePMO or a strategy realization office that doesn't manage work necessarily, but that rather ensures that the work, assets, and capabilities that are funded connect to strategy and drive the realization of strategy.

    Sixty one percent of leaders acknowledge their companies struggle to bridge the gap between creating a strategy and executing on that strategy.
    Source: StrategyBlocks, 2020

    Get to know your strategic portfolio management stakeholders

    In terms of users, SPM's focus is further up the org chart than most applications, relying on high-level but usable outputs to help drive decision making.

    ePMO or Strategy Realization Office Senior Leadership and Executive Stakeholders Business Leads and IT Directors and Managers
    SPM tools are best facilitated through enterprise PMOs or strategy realization offices. After all, in enterprises, these are the entities charged with the planning, execution, and tracking of strategy.

    Their roles within the tool typically entail:

    • Helping to facilitate processes and collect data.
    • Data quality and curation.
    • Report distribution and consumption.
    As those with the accountability and authority to drive the organization's strategy, you could argue that these stakeholders are the primary stakeholders for an SPM tool.

    Their roles within the tool typically entail:

    • Using strategy map and ideation functionalities.
    • Using reports to steward strategy realization.
    SPM targets more business users as well as senior IT managers and directors.

    Their roles within the tool typically entail:

    • Using strategy map and ideation functionalities.
    • Providing updates to ePMOs on progress.

    What should you look for in a strategic portfolio management tool? (1 of 2)

    Standard features for SPM include:

    Name Description
    Analytics and Reporting SPM should provide access to real-time dashboards and data interpretation, which can be exported as reports in a range of formats.
    Strategy Mapping and Road Mapping SPM should provide access to up-to-date timeline views of strategies and initiatives, including the ability to map such things as dependencies, market needs, funding, priorities, governance, and accountabilities.
    Value Tracking and Measurement SPM should include the ability to forecast, track, and measure return on investment for strategic investments. This includes accommodations for various paradigms of value delivery (e.g. traditional value delivery and measurement, OKRs, as well as value mapping and value streams).
    Ideation and Innovation Management SPM should include the ability to facilitate innovation management processes across the organization, including the ability to support stage gates from ideation through to approval; to articulate, socialize, and test ideas; perform impact assessments; create value canvas and OKR maps; and prioritize.
    Multi-Portfolio Management SPM should include the ability to perform various modalities of portfolio management and portfolio optimization, including project portfolio management, applications portfolio management, asset portfolio management, etc.
    Interoperability/APIs An SPM tool should enable seamless integration with other applications for data interoperability.

    What should you look for in a strategic portfolio management tool? (2 of 2)

    Advanced features for SPM can include:

    Name Description
    Product Management SPM can include product-management-specific functionality, including the ability to connect product families, roadmaps, and backlogs to enterprise goals and priorities, and track team-level activities at the sprint, release, and campaign levels.
    Enterprise Architecture Management SPM can include the ability to define and map the structure and operation of an organization in order to effectively coordinate various domains of architecture and governance (e.g. business architecture, data architecture, application architecture, security architecture, etc.) in order to effectively plan and introduce change.
    Security and Risk Management SPM can include the ability to identify and track enterprise risks and ensure compliance controls are met.
    Lean Portfolio Management SPM can include the ability to plan and report on portfolio performance independent from task level details of product, program, or project delivery.
    Investment and Financial Management SPM can include the ability to forecast, track, and report on financials at various levels (strategy, product, program, project, etc.).
    Multi-Methodology Delivery SPM can include the ability to plan and execute work in a way that accommodates various planning and delivery paradigms (predictive, iterative, Kanban, lean, etc.).

    What's promising within the space?

    As this space continues to stabilize, the following are some promising associations for business and IT enablement.

    1. SPM accommodates various ways of working.
    • Where traditional PPM and work management tools required that users change their processes and tasking paradigms to fit within the tool's rigid task management and data structures, the best SPM tools are those that are adaptable to various ways of working and can accommodate many tasking and work management models.
    • Sometimes this is done through extensive integrations and APIs that pull data from existing work management applications into a single view within the SPM tool, and other times, this is done by abstracting the task-level details into a higher-level reporting structure (it can depend on the solution). In any event, the best SPMs are bound to one work management model.
    2. SPM puts the focus on value and change.
    • With its focus on the planning and execution of strategy, SPM can't avoid putting a spotlight on value and value realization. The best SPM tools include the ability to forecast, track, and measure return on investment for strategic investments, and they accommodate for various paradigms of value delivery (e.g. traditional value delivery and measurement, OKRs, as well as value mapping and value streams).
    • Of course, you can't realize value without successfully fostering change. And while SPM tools don't necessarily offer functionality explicitly identifiable as organizational change management, they can act as agents of change in putting the spotlight on the execution of change at the executive level.
    3. SPM fosters a coherent approach to demand management.
    • With its goal of ensuring that strategy informs the organization of portfolios and guides the selection of projects and delivery of products, SPM can potentially bring some order to what is often a chaotic demand-management landscape, ensuring that planned and in-progress work is well justified from an ROI perspective.

    What's of concern within the space?

    As a progeny from other capabilities, SPM has some risks and connotations potential users should be wary of.

    1. The space is rife with IT buzzwords and, as a concept, is sometimes used as a repackaging of failing concepts.
    • You don't need to spend too much time engaging with the literature around SPM before you notice the marketing appeals heavily to concepts like "digitalization," "digital transformation," "continual innovation," "agility/Agile," and the like. While these are all important concepts, and the pursuit of them is worthwhile in many cases, there's no denying they're used as consultant and vendor buzzwords, deployed to excite our imaginations, without necessarily providing much meat around what they mean or how they're deployed and successfully sustained.
    • Indeed, many concepts and capabilities that appear in relation to SPM are on the downward swing of industry hype cycles, suggesting that SPM may be being used by vendors and consultants as another attempt to repackage and capitalize on these concepts even as practitioners grow weary and suspicious of the marketing claims built up around them.
    2. Some solutions that identify as SPM are not.
    • Because it's on the upward swing of its place in the hype cycle, many established PPM and service management vendors are applying the 'strategic portfolio management" label to their products without necessarily doing anything different from a functionality perspective to fit within the space. As a result, SPM vendor landscapes can compare work management, project management, demand management tools, and more. Users who want SPM functionality need to stay frosty to ensure they get what they pay for.
    3. SPM tools may have a capacity blind spot.
    • The biggest barrier to getting things done and done well in modern enterprises is approving more work than you have the capacity to deliver. While SPM offerings can help with better demand management, not many of them cover the capacity side with the same level of improvement.

    Does your organization need a strategic portfolio management tool?

    Use Info-Tech's Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment to gauge your readiness for SPM.

    • As noted in previous places in this deck, there is often a grey area in the market between project portfolio management tools and strategic portfolio management tools.
    • Some PPM tools offer SPM functionality, while some SPM tools avoid traditional PPM outcomes and stay at a higher, strategic level.
    • Depending on the scope of your PMO or portfolio optimization needs, you may need a tool that has just one, or both, of these capabilities.
    • Use Info-Tech's Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment to help you assess whether you require a high-level strategy management tool, a more low-level project portfolio management tool, or a mix of both.

    Download Info-Tech's Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment

    1.1 Assess your needs

    10 to 20 minutes

    1. The Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment is a 41-question survey broken up into three parts: (1) PMO Type, (2) Features and Functionality, (3) Roles.
    2. Go through each section using the provided dropdowns to help identify the orientation of your PMO, the feature and functionality needs of your office, as well as the roles whose needs will need to be serviced through the potential tool implementation.

    This screenshot shows a sample output from the assessment. Based upon your inputs, you'll be grouped within three ranges:

    1. Green: Based upon your inputs, you will benefit from an SPM tool.
    2. Yellow: You may benefit from an SPM tool, but you may also require something more traditional. Clarify your requirements before proceeding.
    3. Red: you're unlikely to leverage many of the benefits of an SPM tool at this time. Look for a more tactical solution.

    Sample Output from the assessment tool

    Input Output
    • Understanding of existing project management, project portfolio management, and work management applications.
    • Recommendation on PPM/SPM tool type
    Materials Participants
    • Strategic Portfolio Management Needs Assessment tool
    • Portfolio managers and/or ePMO directors
    • Project managers and product managers
    • Business stakeholders

    Explore the SPM vendor landscape

    Use Info-Tech's application selection resources to help find the right solution for your organization.

    If the analysis in the previous slides suggested you can benefit from an SPM tool, you can quick-start your vendor evaluation process with SoftwareReviews.

    SoftwareReviews has extensive coverage of not just the SPM space, but of the project portfolio management (pictured to the top right) and project management spaces as well. So, from the tactical to the strategic, SoftwareReviews can help you find the right tools.

    Further, as you settle in on a shortlist, you can begin your vendor analysis using our rapid application selection methodology (see framework on bottom right). For more information see our The Rapid Application Selection Framework blueprint.

    Info-Tech's Rapid Application Selection Framework

    Info-Tech's Rapid Application Selection Framework (RASF)

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy
    Drive IT project throughput by throttling resource capacity.

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for your PMO
    Turn planning into action with a realistic PMO timeline.

    Maintain an Organized Portfolio
    Align portfolio management practices with COBIT (APO05: Manage Portfolio)

    Bibliography

    Angliss, Katy, and Pete Harpum. Strategic Portfolio Management: In the Multi-Project and Program Organization. Book. Routledge. 30 Dec. 2022.

    Anthony, James. "95 Essential Project Management Statistics: 2022 Market Share & Data Analysis." Finance Online. 2022. Web. Accessed 21 March 2022

    Banham, Craig. "Integrating strategic planning with portfolio management." Sopheon. Webinar. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Garfein, Stephen J. "Executive Guide to Strategic Portfolio Management: roadmap for closing the gap between strategy and results." PMI. Conference Paper. Oct. 2007. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Garfein, Stephen J. "Strategic Portfolio Management: A smart, realistic and relatively fast way to gain sustainable competitive advantage." PMI. Conference Paper. 2 March 2005. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Hontar, Yulia. "Strategic Portfolio Management." PPM Express. Blog 16 June 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Milsom, James. "6 Strategic Portfolio Management Trends for 2023." i-nexus. Blog. 25 Jan. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Milsom, James. "Strategic Portfolio Management 101." i-nexus. 8 Dec. 2021. Blog . Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    OnePlan, "Is Strategic Portfolio Management the Future of PPM?" YouTube. 17 Nov. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    OnePlan. "Strategic Portfolio Management for Enterprise Agile." YouTube. 27 May 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Piechota, Frank. "Strategic Portfolio Management: Enabling Successful Business Outcomes." Shibumi. Blog . 31 May 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    ServiceNow. "Strategic Portfolio Management—The Thing You've Been Missing." ServiceNow. Whitepaper. 2021. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Smith, Shepherd, "50+ Eye-Opening Strategic Planning Statistics" ClearPoint Strategy. Blog. 13 Sept. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    SoftwareAG. "What is Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM)?" SoftwareAG. Blog. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Stickel, Robert. "What It Means to be Adaptive." OnePlan. Blog. 24 May 2021. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    UMT360. "What is Strategic Portfolio Management?" YouTube. Webinar. 22 Oct. 2020. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Wall, Caroline. "Elevating Strategy Planning through Strategic Portfolio Management." StrategyBlocks. Blog. 26 Feb. 2020. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Westmoreland, Heather. "What is Strategic Portfolio Management." Planview. Blog. 19 Oct 2002. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Wiltshire, Andrew. "Shibumi Included in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Strategic Portfolio Management for the 2nd Straight Year." Shibumi. Blog. 20 Apr. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Ziehr, Paula. "Keep your eye on the prize: Align your IT investments with business strategy." SoftwareAG. Blog. 5 Jul. 2022. Accessed 6 Feb. 2023.

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}557|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Prospective buyer traffic into digital marketing platforms has exploded.
    • Many freemium/low-cost digital marketing platforms lack lead scoring and nurturing functionality.
    • As a result, the volume of unqualified leads being delivered to outbound sellers has increased dramatically.
    • This has reduced sales productivity, frustrated prospective buyers, and raised the costs of lead generation.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Lead scoring is a must-have capability for high-tech marketers.
    • Without lead scoring, marketers will see increased costs of lead generation and decreased SQL-to-opportunity conversion rates.
    • Lead scoring increases sales productivity and shortens sales cycles.

    Impact and Result

    • Align Marketing, Sales, and Inside Sales on your ideal customer profile.
    • Re-evaluate the assets and activities that compose your current lead generation engine.
    • Develop a documented methodology to ignore, nurture, or contact right away the leads in your marketing pipeline.
    • Deliver more qualified leads to sellers, raising sales productivity and marketing/lead-gen ROI.

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should optimize lead generation with lead scoring, review SoftwareReviews Advisory’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Drive aligned vision for lead scoring

    Outline your plan, form your team, and plan marketing tech stack support.

    • Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring – Phase 1: Drive an Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    2. Build and test your lead scoring model

    Set lead flow thresholds, define your ideal customer profile and lead generation engine components, and weight, score, test, and refine them.

    • Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring – Phase 2: Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model
    • Lead Scoring Workbook

    3. Apply your model to marketing apps and go live with better qualified leads

    Apply your lead scoring model to your lead management app, test it, validate the results with sellers, apply advanced methods, and refine.

    • Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring – Phase 3: Apply Your Model to Marketing Apps and Go Live With Better Qualified Leads
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Drive Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    The Purpose

    Drive an aligned vision for lead scoring.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Attain an aligned vision for lead scoring.

    Identify the steering committee and project team and clarify their roles and responsibilities.

    Provide your team with an understanding of how leads score through the marketing funnel.

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for lead scoring.

    1.2 Identify steering committee and project team members.

    1.3 Assess your tech stack for lead scoring and seek advice from Info-Tech analysts to modernize where needed.

    1.4 Align on marketing pipeline terminology.

    Outputs

    Steering committee and project team make-up

    Direction on tech stack to support lead generation

    Marketing pipeline definitions alignment

    2 Buyer Journey and Lead Generation Engine Mapping

    The Purpose

    Define the buyer journey and map the lead generation engine.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Align the vision for your target buyer and their buying journey.

    Identify the assets and activities that need to compose your lead generation engine.

    Activities

    2.1 Establish a buyer persona.

    2.2 Map your buyer journey.

    2.3 Document the activities and assets of your lead generation engine.

    Outputs

    Buyer persona

    Buyer journey map

    Lead gen engine assets and activities documented

    3 Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    The Purpose

    Build and test your lead scoring model.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gain team alignment on how leads score and, most importantly, what constitutes a sales-accepted lead.

    Develop a scoring model from which future iterations can be tested.

    Activities

    3.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and set your thresholds.

    3.2 Identify your ideal customer profile, attributes, and subattribute weightings – run tests.

    Outputs

    Lead scoring thresholds

    Ideal customer profile, weightings, and tested scores

    Test profile scoring

    4 Align on Engagement Attributes

    The Purpose

    Align on engagement attributes.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Develop a scoring model from which future iterations can be tested.

    Activities

    4.1 Weight the attributes of your lead generation engagement model and run tests.

    4.2 Apply weightings to activities and assets.

    4.3 Test engagement and profile scenarios together and make any adjustments to weightings or thresholds.

    Outputs

    Engagement attributes and weightings tested and complete

    Final lead scoring model

    5 Apply Model to Your Tech Platform

    The Purpose

    Apply the model to your tech platform.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Deliver better qualified leads to Sales.

    Activities

    5.1 Apply model to your marketing management/campaign management software and test the quality of sales-accepted leads in the hands of sellers.

    5.2 Measure overall lead flow and conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.

    5.3 Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

    Outputs

    Model applied to software

    Better qualified leads in the hands of sellers

    Further reading

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    In today’s competitive environment, optimizing Sales’ resources by giving them qualified leads is key to B2B marketing success.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Improve B2B seller win rates with a lead scoring methodology as part of your modern lead generation engine.

    The image contains a picture of Jeff Golterman.

    As B2B organizations emerge from the lowered demands brought on by COVID-19, they are eager to convert marketing contacts to sales-qualified leads with even the slightest signal of intent, but many sales cycles are wasted when sellers receive unqualified leads. Delivering highly qualified leads to sellers is still more art than science, and it is especially challenging without a way to score a contact profile and engagement. While most marketers capture some profile data from contacts, many will pass a contact over to Sales without any engagement data or schedule a demo with a contact without any qualifying profile data. Passing unqualified leads to Sales suboptimizes Sales’ resources, raises the costs per lead, and often results in lost opportunities. Marketers need to develop a lead scoring methodology that delivers better qualified leads to Field Sales scored against both the ideal customer profile (ICP) and engagement that signals lower-funnel buyer interest. To be successful in building a compelling lead scoring solution, marketers must work closely with key stakeholders to align the ICP asset/activity with the buyer journey. Additionally, working early in the design process with IT/Marketing Operations to implement lead management and analytical tools in support will drive results to maximize lead conversion rates and sales wins.

    Jeff Golterman

    Managing Director

    SoftwareReviews Advisory

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    The affordability and ease of implementation of digital marketing tools have driven global adoption to record levels. While many marketers are fine-tuning the lead generation engine components of email, social media, and web-based advertising to increase lead volumes, just 32% of companies pass well-qualified leads over to outbound marketers or sales development reps (SDRs). At best, lead gen costs stay high, and marketing-influenced win rates remain suboptimized. At worst, marketing reputation suffers when poorly qualified leads are passed along to sellers.

    Common Obstacles

    Most marketers lack a methodology for lead scoring, and some lack alignment among Marketing, Product, and Sales on what defines a qualified lead. In their rush to drive lead generation, marketers often fail to “define and align” on the ICP with stakeholders, creating confusion and wasted time and resources. In the rush to adopt B2B marketing and sales automation tools, many marketers have also skipped the important steps to 1) define the buyer journey and map content types to support, and 2) invest in a consistent content creation and sourcing strategy. The wrong content can leave prospects unmotivated to engage further and cause them to seek alternatives.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    To employ lead scoring effectively, marketers need to align Sales, Marketing, and Product teams on the definition of the ICP and what constitutes a Sales-accepted lead. The buyer journey needs to be mapped in order to identify the engagement that will move a lead through the marketing lead generation engine. Then the project team can score prospect engagement and the prospect profile attributes against the ICP to arrive at a lead score. The marketing tech stack needs to be validated to support lead scoring, and finally Sales needs to sign off on results.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Lead scoring is a must-have capability for high-tech marketers. Without lead scoring, marketers will see increased costs of lead gen, decreased SQL to opportunity conversion rates, decreased sales productivity, and longer sales cycles.

    Who benefits from a lead scoring project?

    This Research Is Designed for:

    • Marketers and especially campaign managers who are:
      • Looking for a more precise way to score leads and deploy outbound marketing resources to optimize contacts-to-MQL conversion rates.
      • Looking for a more effective way to profile contacts raised by your lead gen engine.
      • Looking to use their lead management software to optimize lead scoring.
      • Starting anew to strengthen their lead generation engine and want examples of a typical engine, ways to identify buyer journey, and perform lead nurturing.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Explain why having a lead scoring methodology is important.
    • Identify a methodology that will call for identifying an ICP against which to score prospect profiles behind each contact that engages your lead generation engine.
    • Create a process of applying weightings to score activities during contact engagement with your lead generation engine. Apply both scores to arrive at a contact/lead score.
    • Compare your current lead gen engine to a best-in-class example in order to identify gaps and areas for improvement and exploration.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • CMOs, Marketing Operations leaders, heads of Product Marketing, and regional Marketing leads who are stakeholders in:
      • Finding alternatives to current lead scoring approaches.
        • Altering current or evaluating new marketing technologies to support a refreshed lead scoring approaches.

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Align stakeholders on an overall program of identifying target customers, building common understanding of what constitutes a qualified lead, and determining when to use higher-cost outbound marketing resources.
    • Deploy high-value applications that will improve core marketing metrics.

    Insight summary

    Continuous adjustment and improvement of your lead scoring methodology is critical for long-term lead generation engine success.

    • Building a highly functioning lead generation engine is an ongoing process and one that requires continual testing of new asset types, asset design, and copy variations. Buyer profiles change over time as you launch new products and target new markets.
    • Pass better qualified leads to Field Sales and improve sales win rates by taking these crucial steps to implement a better lead generation engine and a lead scoring methodology:
      • Make the case for lead scoring in your organization.
      • Establish trigger points that separate leads to ignore, nurture, qualify, or outreach/contact.
      • Identify your buyer journey and ICP through collaboration among Sales, Marketing, and Product.
      • Assess each asset and activity type across your lead generation engine and apply a weighting for each.
      • Test lead scenarios within our supplied toolkit and with stakeholders. Adjust weightings and triggers that deliver lead scores that make sense.
      • Work with IT/Marketing Operations to emulate your lead scoring methodology within your marketing automation/campaign management application.
      • Explore advanced methods including nurturing.
    • Use the Lead Scoring Workbook collaboratively with other stakeholders to design your own methodology, test lead scenarios, and build alignment across the team.

    Leading marketers who successfully implement a lead scoring methodology develop it collaboratively with stakeholders across Marketing, Sales, and Product Management. Leaders will engage Marketing Operations, Sales Operations, and IT early to gain support for the evaluation and implementation of a supporting campaign management application and for analytics to track lead progress throughout the Marketing and Sales funnels. Leverage the Marketing Lead Scoring Toolkit to build out your version of the model and to test various scenarios. Use the slides contained within this storyboard and the accompanying toolkit as a means to align key stakeholders on the ICP and to weight assets and activities across your marketing lead generation engine.

    What is lead scoring?

    Lead scoring weighs the value of a prospect’s profile against the ICP and renders a profile score. The process then weighs the value of the prospects activities against the ideal call to action (CTA) and renders an activity score. Combining the profile and activity scores delivers an overall score for the value of the lead to drive the next step along the overall buyer journey.

    EXAMPLE: SALES MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

    • For a company that markets sales management software the ideal buyer is the head of Sales Operations. While the ICP is made up of many attributes, we’ll just score one – the buyer’s role.
    • If the prospect/lead that we wish to score has an executive title, the lead’s profile scores “High.” Other roles will score lower based on your ICP. Alongside role, you will also score other profile attributes (e.g. company size, location).
    • With engagement, if the prospect/lead clicked on our ideal CTA, which is “request a proposal,” our engagement would score high. Other CTAs would score lower.
    The image contains a screenshot of two examples of lead scoring. One example demonstrates. Profile Scoring with Lead Profile, and the second image demonstrates Activity Scoring and Lead Engagement.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    A significant obstacle to quality lead production is disagreement on or lack of a documented definition of the ideal customer profile. Marketers successful in lead scoring will align key stakeholders on a documented definition of the ICP as a first step in improving lead scoring.

    Use of lead scoring is in the minority among marketers

    The majority of businesses are not practicing lead scoring!

    Up to 66% of businesses don’t practice any type of lead scoring.

    Source: LeadSquared, 2014

    “ With lead scoring, you don’t waste loads of time on unworthy prospects, and you don’t ignore people on the edge of buying.”

    Source: BigCommerce

    “The benefits of lead scoring number in the dozens. Having a deeper understanding of which leads meet the qualifications of your highest converters and then systematically communicating with them accordingly increases both ongoing engagement and saves your internal team time chasing down inopportune leads.”

    – Joey Strawn, Integrated Marketing Director, in IndustrialMarketer.com

    Key benefit: sales resource optimization

    Many marketing organizations send Sales too many unqualified leads

    • Leads – or, more accurately, contacts – are not all qualified. Some are actually nothing more than time-wasters for sellers.
    • Leading marketers peel apart a contact into at least two dimensions – “who” and “how interested.”
      • The “who” is compared to the ICP and given a score.
      • The “how interested” measures contact activity – or engagement – within our lead gen engine and gives it a score.
    • Scores are combined; a contact with a low score is ignored, medium is nurtured, and high is sent to sellers.
    • A robust ICP, together with engagement scoring and when housed within your lead management software, prioritizes for marketers which contacts to nurture and gets hot leads to sellers more quickly.

    Optimizing Sales Resources Using Lead Scoring

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate optimizing sales resources with lead scoring.

    Lead scoring drives greater sales effectiveness

    When contacts are scored as “qualified leads” and sent to sellers, sales win rates and ROI climb

    • Contacts can be scored properly once marketers align with Sales on the ICP and work closely with colleagues in areas like product marketing and field marketing to assign weightings to lead gen activities.
    • When more qualified leads get into the hands of the salesforce, their win rates improve.
    • As win rates improve, and sellers are producing more wins from the same volume of leads, sales productivity improves and ROI on the marketing investment increases.

    “On average, organizations that currently use lead scoring experience a 77% lift in lead generation ROI, over organizations that do not currently use lead scoring.”

    – MarketingSherpa, 2012

    Average Lead Generation ROI by Use of Lead Scoring

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate the average lead generation ROI by using of lead scoring. 138% are currenting using lead scoring, and 78% are not using lead scoring.
    Source: 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey, MarketingSherpa
    Methodology: Fielded June 2011, N=326 CMOs

    SoftwareReviews’ Lead Scoring Approach

    1. Drive Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    2. Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    3. Apply to Your Tech Platform and Validate, Nurture, and Grow

    Phase
    Steps

    1. Outline a vision for lead scoring and identify stakeholders.
    2. Assess your tech stack for lead scoring and seek advice from Info-Tech analysts to modernize where needed.
    3. Align on marketing pipeline terminology, buyer persona and journey, and lead gen engine components.
    1. Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and establish thresholds.
    2. Collaborate with stakeholders on your ICP, apply weightings to profile attributes and values, and test your model.
    3. Identify the key activities and assets of your lead gen engine, weight attributes, and run tests.
    1. Apply model to your marketing management software.
    2. Test quality of sales-accepted leads by sellers and measure conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.
    3. Apply advanced methods such as lead nurturing.

    Phase Outcomes

    1. Steering committee and stakeholder selection
    2. Stakeholder alignment
    3. Team alignment on terminology
    4. Buyer journey map
    5. Lead gen engine components and asset types documented
    1. Initial lead-stage threshold scores
    2. Ideal customer profile, weightings, and tested scores
    3. Documented activities/assets across your lead generation engine
    4. Test results to drive adjusted weightings for profile attributes and engagement
    5. Final model to apply to marketing application
    1. Better qualified leads in the hands of sellers
    2. Advanced methods to nurture leads

    Key Deliverable: Lead Scoring Workbook

    The workbook walks you through a step-by-step process to:

    • Identify your team.
    • Identify the lead scoring thresholds.
    • Define your IPC.
    • Weight the activities within your lead generation engine.
    • Run tests using lead scenarios.

    Tab 1: Team Composition

    Consider core functions and form a cross-functional lead scoring team. Document the team’s details here.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Workbook, Tab 1.

    Tab 2: Threshold Setting

    Set your initial threshold weightings for profile and engagement scores.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Workbook, Tab 2.

    Tab 3:

    Establish Your Ideal Customer Profile

    Identify major attributes and attribute values and the weightings of both. You’ll eventually score your leads against this ICP.

    Record and Weight Lead Gen Engine Activities

    Identify the major activities that compose prospect engagement with your lead gen engine. Weight them together as a team.

    Test Lead Profile Scenarios

    Test actual lead profiles to see how they score against where you believe they should score. Adjust threshold settings in Tab 2.

    Test Activity Engagement Scores

    Test scenarios of how contacts navigate your lead gen engine. See how they score against where you believe they should score. Adjust thresholds on Tab 2 as needed.

    Review Combined Profile and Activity Score

    Review the combined scores to see where on your lead scoring matrix the lead falls. Make any final adjustments to thresholds accordingly.

    The image contains screenshots of the Lead Scoring Workbook, Tab 3.

    Several ways we help you build your lead scoring methodology

    DIY Toolkit Guided Implementation Workshop Consulting

    "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."

    "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."

    "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."

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

    • Begin your project using the step-by-step process outlined in this blueprint.
    • Leverage the accompanying workbook.
    • Launch inquiries with the analyst who wrote the research.
    • Kick off your project with an inquiry with the authoring analyst and your engagement manager.
    • Additional inquiries will guide you through each step.
    • Leverage the blueprint and toolkit.
    • Reach out to your engagement manager.
    • During a half-day workshop the authoring analyst will guide you and your team to complete your lead scoring methodology.
    • Reach out to your engagement manager.
    • We’ll lead the engagement to structure the process, gather data, interview stakeholders, craft outputs, and organize feedback and final review.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Call #1: Collaborate on vision for lead scoring and the overall project.

    Call #2: Identify the steering committee and the rest of the team.

    Call #3: Discuss app/tech stack support for lead scoring. Understand key marketing pipeline terminology and the buyer journey.

    Call #4: Discuss your ICP, apply weightings, and run test scenarios.

    Call #5: Discuss and record lead generation engine components.

    Call #6: Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and set thresholds for your model.

    Call #7: Identify your ICP, apply weightings to attributes, and run tests.

    Call #8: Weight the attributes of engagement activities and run tests. Review the application of the scoring model on lead management software.

    Call #9: Test quality of sales-accepted leads in the hands of sellers. Measure lead flow and conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.

    Call #10: Review progress and discuss nurturing and other advanced topics.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization. For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst. Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

    Workshop Overview

    Accelerate your project with our facilitated SoftwareReviews Advisory workshops

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Drive Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    Buyer Journey and Lead Gen Engine Mapping

    Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    Align on Engagement Attributes

    Apply to Your Tech Platform

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for lead scoring.

    1.2 Identify steering committee and project team members.

    1.3 Assess your tech stack for lead scoring and seek advice from Info-Tech analysts to modernize where needed.

    1.4 Align on marketing pipeline terminology.

    2.1 Establish a buyer persona (if not done already).

    2.2 Map your buyer journey.

    2.3 Document the activities and assets of your lead gen engine.

    3.1 Understand Lead Scoring Grid and set your thresholds.

    3.2 Identify ICP attribute and sub-attribute weightings. Run tests.

    4.1 Weight the attributes of your lead gen engagement model and run tests.

    4.2 Apply weightings to activities and assets.

    4.3 Test engagement and profile scenarios together and adjust weightings and thresholds as needed.

    5.1 Apply model to your campaign management software and test quality of sales-accepted leads in the hands of sellers.

    5.2. Measure overall lead flow and conversion rates through your marketing pipeline.

    5.3 Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

    Deliverables

    1. Steering committee & project team composition
    2. Direction on tech stack to support lead gen
    3. Alignment on marketing pipeline definitions
    1. Buyer (persona if needed) journey map
    2. Lead gen engine assets and activities documented
    1. Lead scoring thresholds
    2. ICP, weightings, and tested scores
    3. Test profile scoring
    1. Engagement attributes and weightings tested and complete
    2. Final lead scoring model
    1. Model applied to your marketing management/ campaign management software
    2. Better qualified leads in the hands of sellers

    Phase 1

    Drive an Aligned Vision for Lead Scoring

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Establish a cross-functional vision for lead scoring

    1.2 Asses your tech stack for lead scoring (optional)

    1.3 Catalog your buyer journey and lead gen engine assets

    2.1 Start building your lead scoring model

    2.2 Identify and verify your IPC and weightings

    2.3 Establish key lead generation activities and assets

    3.1 Apply model to your marketing management software

    3.2 Test the quality of sales-accepted leads

    3.3 Apply advanced methods

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Solidify your vision for lead scoring.
    • Achieve stakeholder alignment.
    • Assess your tech stack.

    This phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
    • CMO
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
    • Inside Sales leadership
    • Marketing Operations/IT
    • Digital Platform leadership

    Step 1.1

    Establish a Cross-Functional Vision for Lead Scoring

    Activities

    1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

    1.1.2 Outline the vision for lead scoring

    1.1.3 Select your lead scoring team

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Discuss the reasons why lead scoring is important.
    • Review program process.
    • Identify stakeholders and team.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on vision of lead scoring
    • Stakeholders described and team members recorded
    • A documented buyer journey and map of your current lead gen engine

    1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

    1 hour

    1. Meet to identify the stakeholders that should be included in the project’s steering committee.
    2. Finalize selection of steering committee members.
    3. Contact members to ensure their willingness to participate.
    4. Document the steering committee members and the milestone/presentation expectations for reporting project progress and results
    Input Output
    • Stakeholder interviews
    • List of business process owners (lead management, inside sales lead qualification, sales opportunity management, marketing funnel metric measurement/analytics)
    • Lead generation/scoring stakeholders
    • Steering committee members
    Materials Participants
    • N/A
    • Initiative Manager
    • CMO, Sponsoring Executive
    • Departmental Leads – Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others)
    • Marketing Applications Director
    • Senior Digital Business Analyst

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    B2B marketers that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, and lead management supporting staff of what constitutes a qualified lead will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer acquisition process.

    1.1.2 Outline the vision for lead scoring

    1 hour

    1. Convene a meeting of the steering committee and initiative team members who will be involved in the lead scoring project.
    • Using slides from this blueprint, understand the definition of lead scoring, the value of lead scoring to the organization, and the overall lead scoring process.
    • Understand the teams’ roles and responsibilities and help your Marketing Operations/IT colleagues understand some of the technical requirements needed to support lead scoring.
    • This is important because as the business members of the team are developing the lead scoring approach on paper, the technical team can begin to evaluate lead management apps within which your lead scoring model will be brought to life.
    Input Output
    • Slides to explain lead scoring and the lead scoring program
    • An understanding of the project among key stakeholders
    Materials Participants
    • Slides taken from this blueprint. We suggest slides from the Executive Brief (slides 3-16) and any others depending on the team’s level of familiarity.
    • Initiative Manager
    • CMO, Sponsoring Executive
    • Departmental leads from Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others)
    • Marketing Applications Director
    • Senior Digital Business Analyst

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    While SMBs can implement some form of lead scoring when volume is very low and leads can be scored by hand, lead scoring and effective lead management cannot be performed without investment in digital platforms and lead management software and integration with customer relationship management (CRM) applications in the hands of inside and field sales staff. Marketers should plan and budget for the right combination of applications and tools to be in place for proper lead management.

    Lead scoring stakeholders

    Developing a common stakeholder understanding of the ICP, the way contact profiles are scored, and the way activities and asset engagement in your lead generation engine are scored will strengthen alignment between Marketing, Sales and Product Management.

    Title

    Key Stakeholders Within a Lead Generation/Scoring Initiative

    Lead Scoring Sponsor

    • Owns the project at the management/C-suite level
    • Responsible for breaking down barriers and ensuring alignment with organizational strategy
    • CMO, VP of Marketing, CEO (in SMB providers)

    Lead Scoring Initiative Manager

    • Typically a senior member of the marketing team
    • Responsible for preparing and managing the project plan and monitoring the project team’s progress
    • Marketing Manager or a field marketing team member who has strong program management skills, has run large-scale B2B generation campaigns, and is familiar with the stakeholder roles and enabling technologies

    Business Leads

    • Works alongside the lead scoring initiative manager to ensure that the strategy is aligned with business needs
    • In this case, likely to be a marketing lead
    • Marketing Director

    Digital, Marketing/Sales Ops/IT Team

    • Composed of individuals whose application and technology tools knowledge and skills are crucial to lead generation success
    • Responsible for understanding the business requirements behind lead generation and the requirements in particular to support lead scoring and the evaluation, selection, and implementation of the supporting tech stack – apps, website, analytics, etc.
    • Project Manager, Business Lead, CRM Manager, Integration Manager, Marketing Application SMEs, Sales Application

    Steering Committee

    • Composed of C-suite/management-level individuals who act as the lead generation process decision makers
    • Responsible for validating goals and priorities, defining the scope, enabling adequate resourcing, and managing change especially among C-level leaders in Sales & Product
    • Executive Sponsor, Project Sponsor, CMO, Business Unit SMEs

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers managing the lead scoring initiative must include Product Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, and Product Management. And given that world-class B2B lead generation engines cannot run without technology enablement, Marketing Operations/IT – those that are charged with enabling marketing and sales – must also be part of the decision making and implementation process of lead scoring and lead generation.

    1.1.3 Select your lead scoring team

    30 minutes

    1. The CMO and other key stakeholders should discuss and determine who will be involved in the lead scoring project.
    • Business leaders in key areas – Product Marketing, Field Marketing, Digital Marketing, Inside Sales, Sales, Marketing Ops, Product Management, and IT – should be involved.
  • Document the members of your lead scoring team in tab 1 of the Lead Scoring Workbook.
    • The size of the team will vary depending on your initiative and size of your organization.
    InputOutput
    • Stakeholders
    • List of lead scoring team members
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Lead Scoring Workbook
    • Initiative Manager
    • CMO, Sponsoring Executive
    • Departmental Leads – Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others)
    • Marketing Applications Director
    • Senior Digital Business Analyst

    Download the Lead Scoring Workbook

    Lead scoring team

    Consider the core team functions when composing the lead scoring team. Form a cross-functional team (i.e. across IT, Marketing, Sales, Service, Operations) to create a well-aligned lead management/scoring strategy. Don’t let your core team become too large when trying to include all relevant stakeholders. Carefully limit the size of the team to enable effective decision making while still including functional business units.

    Required Skills/Knowledge

    Suggested Team Members

    Business

    • Understanding of the customer
    • Understanding of brand
    • Understanding of multichannel marketing: email, events, social
    • Understanding of lead qualification
    • Field Marketing/Campaign Lead
    • Product Marketing
    • Sales Manager
    • Inside Sales Manager
    • Content Marketer/Copywriter

    IT

    • Campaign management application capabilities
    • Digital marketing
    • Marketing and sales funnel Reporting/metrics
    • Marketing Application Owners
    • CRM/Sales Application Owners
    • Marketing Analytics Owners
    • Digital Platform Owners

    Other

    • Branding/creative
    • Social
    • Change management
    • Creative Director
    • Social Media Marketer

    Step 1.2 (Optional)

    Assess Your Tech Stack for Lead Scoring

    Our model assumes you have:

    1.2.1 A marketing application/campaign management application in place that accommodates lead scoring.

    1.2.2 Lead management software integrated with the sales automation/CRM tool in the hands of Field Sales.

    1.2.3 Reporting/analytics that spans the entire lead generation pipeline/funnel.

    Refer to the following three slides if you need guidance in these areas.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Confirm that you have your tech stack in place.
    • Set up an inquiry with an Info-Tech analyst should you require guidance on evaluating lead pipeline reporting, CRM, or analytics applications.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Understanding of what new application and technology support is required to support lead scoring.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers that collaborate closely with Marketing Ops/IT early in the process of lead scoring design will be best able to assess whether current marketing applications and tools can support a full lead scoring capability.

    1.2.1 Plan technology support for marketing management apps

    Work with Marketing Ops and IT early to evaluate application enablement for lead management, including scoring

    A thorough evaluation takes months – start early

    • Work closely with Marketing Operations (or the team that manages the marketing apps and digital platforms) as early as possible to socialize your approach to lead scoring.
    • Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting a marketing management suite or for changes to existing apps and tools to support your lead scoring approach that includes lead tracking and marketing funnel analytics.
    • Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select a Marketing Management Suite, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews Marketing Management Data Quadrant during vendor evaluation and selection.

    SoftwareReviews Marketing Management Data Quadrant

    The image contains a screenshot of the Marketing Management Data Quadrant.

    1.2.2 Plan technology support for sales opportunity management

    Work with Marketing Ops and IT early to evaluate applications for sales opportunity management

    A thorough evaluation takes months – start early

    • Work closely with Sales Operations as early as possible to socialize your approach to lead scoring and how lead management must integrate with sales opportunity management to manage the entire marketing and sales funnel management process.
    • Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting a sales opportunity management application that integrates with your marketing management suite or for changes to existing apps and tools to support your lead management and scoring approach that support the entire marketing and sales pipeline with analytics.

    Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select and Implement a CRM Platform, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews CRM Data Quadrant during vendor evaluation and selection.

    SoftwareReviews Customer Relationship Management Data Quadrant

    The image contains a screenshot of the SoftwareReviews Customer Relationship Management Data Quadrant.

    1.2.3 Plan analytics support for marketing pipeline analysis

    Work with Marketing Ops early to evaluate analytics tools to measure marketing and sales pipeline conversions

    A thorough evaluation takes weeks – start early

    • Work closely with Marketing and Sales Operations as early as possible to socialize your approach to measuring the lifecycle of contacts through to wins across the entire marketing and sales funnel management process.
    • Work with them on a set of updated requirements for selecting tools that can support the measurement of conversion ratios from contact to MQL, SQL, and opportunity to wins. Having this data enables you to measure improvement in component parts to your lead generation engine.
    • Access the Info-Tech blueprint Select and Implement a Reporting and Analytics Solution, along with analyst inquiry support during the requirements definition, vendor evaluation and vendor selection phases. Use the SoftwareReviews Best Business intelligence & Analytics Software Data Quadrant as well during vendor evaluation and selection.

    SoftwareReviews Business Intelligence Data Quadrant

    The image contains a screenshot of the Software Reviews Business Intelligent Quadrant.

    Step 1.3

    Catalog Your Buyer Journey and Lead Gen Engine Assets

    Activities

    1.3.1 Review marketing pipeline terminology

    1.3.2 Describe your buyer journey

    1.3.3 Describe your awareness and lead generation engine

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Discuss marketing funnel terminology.
    • Describe your buyer journey.
    • Catalog the elements of your lead generation engine.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on terminology, your buyer journey, and elements of your lead generation engine

    1.3.1 Review marketing pipeline terminology

    30 minutes

    1. We assume for this model the following:
      1. Our primary objective is to deliver more, and more-highly qualified, sales-qualified leads (SQLs) to our salesforce. The salesforce will accept SQLs and after further qualification turn them into opportunities. Sellers work opportunities and turn them into wins. Wins that had first/last touch attribution within the lead gen engine are considered marketing-influenced wins.
      2. This model assumes the existence of sales development reps (SDRs) whose mission it is to take marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) from the lead generation engine and further qualify them into SQLs.
      3. The lead generation engine takes contacts – visitors to activities, website, etc. – and scores them based on their profile and engagement. If the contact scores at or above the designated threshold, the lead generation engine rates it as an MQL and passes it along to Inside Sales/SDRs. If the contact scores above a certain threshold and shows promise, it is further nurtured. If the contact score is low, it is ignored.
    2. If an organization does not possess a team of SDRs or Inside Sales, you would adjust your version of the model to, for example, raise the threshold for MQLs, and when the threshold is reached the lead generation engine would pass the lead to Field Sales for further qualification.

    Stage

    Characteristics

    Actions

    Contact

    • Unqualified
    • No/low activity

    Nurture

    SDR Qualify

    Send to Sales

    Close

    MQL

    • Profile scores high
    • Engagement strong

    SQL

    • Profile strengthened
    • Demo/quote/next step confirmed

    Oppt’y

    • Sales acceptance
    • Sales opportunity management

    Win

    • Deal closed

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Score leads in a way that makes it crystal clear whether they should be ignored, further nurtured, further qualified, or go right into a sellers’ hands as a super hot lead.

    1.3.2 Describe your buyer journey

    1. Understand the concept of the buyer journey:
      1. Typically Product Marketing is charged with establishing deep understanding of the target buyer for each product or solution through a complete buyer persona and buyer journey map. The details of how to craft both are covered in the upcoming SoftwareReviews Advisory blueprint Craft a More Comprehensive Go-to-Market Strategy. However, we share our Buyer Journey Template here (on the next slide) to illustrate the connection between the buyer journey and the lead generation and scoring processes.
      2. Marketers and campaigners developing the lead scoring methodology will work closely with Product Marketing, asking them to document the buyer journey.
      3. The value of the buyer journey is to guide asset/content creation, nurturing strategy and therefore elements of the lead generation engine such as web experience, email, and social content and other elements of engagement.
      4. The additional value of having a buyer persona is to also inform the ICP, which is an essential element of lead scoring.
      5. For the purposes of lead scoring, use the template on the next slide to create a simple form of the buyer journey. This will guide lead generation engine design and the scoring of activities later in our blueprint.

    2 hours

    On the following slide:

    1. Tailor this template to suit your buyer journey. Text in green is yours to modify. Text in black is instructional.
    2. Your objective is to use the buyer journey to identify asset types and a delivery channel that once constructed/sourced and activated within your lead gen engine will support the buyer journey.
    3. Keep your buyer journey updated based on actual journeys of sales wins.
    4. Complete different buyer journeys for different product areas. Complete these collaboratively with stakeholders for alignment.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Establishing a buyer journey is one of the most valuable tools that, typically, Product Marketing produces. Its use helps campaigners, product managers, and Inside and Field Sales. Leading marketers keep journeys updated based on live deals and characteristics of wins.

    Buyer Journey Template

    Personas: [Title] e.g. “BI Director”

    The image contains a screenshot of the describe persona level as an example.

    [Persona name] ([levels it includes from arrows above]) Buyer’s Journey for [solution type] Vendor Selection

    The image contains a screenshot of the Personas Type example to demonstrate a specific IT role, end use in a relevant department.

    1.3.3 Describe Your Awareness and Lead Gen Engine

    1. Understand the workings of a typical awareness and lead generation engine. Reference the image of a lead gen engine on the following slide when reviewing our guidance below:
      1. In our lead scoring example found in the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 3, “Weight and Test,” we use a software company selling a sales automation solution, and the engagement activities match with the Typical Awareness and Lead Gen Engine found on the following slide. Our goal is to match a visual representation of a lead gen and awareness engine with the activity scoring portion of lead scoring.
      2. At the top of the Typical Awareness and Lead Generation Engine image, the activities are activated by a team of various roles: digital manager (new web pages), campaign manager (emails and paid media), social media marketer (organic and paid social), and events marketing manager (webinars).
      3. “Awareness” – On the right, the slide shows additional awareness activities driven by the PR/Corporate Comms and Analyst Relations teams.*
      4. The calls to action (CTAs) found in the outreach activities are illustrated below the timeline. The CTAs are grouped and are designed to 1) drive profile capture data via a main sales form fill, and 2) drive engagement that corresponds to the Education, Solution, and Selection buyer journey phases outlined on the prior slide. Ensure you have fast paths to get a hot lead – request a demo – directly to Field Sales when profiles score high.

    * For guidance on best practices in engaging industry analysts, contact your engagement manager to schedule an inquiry with our expert in this area. during that inquiry, we will share best practices and recommended analyst engagement models.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    2 hours

    On the following slide:

    1. Tailor the slide to describe your lead generation engine as you will use it when you get to latter steps to describe the activities in your lead gen engine and weight them for lead scoring.
    2. Use the template to see what makes up a typical lead gen and awareness building engine. Record your current engine parts and see what you may be missing.
    3. Note: The “Goal” image in the upper right of the slide is meant as a reminder that marketers should establish a goal for SQLs delivered to Field Sales for each campaign.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketing’s primary mission is to deliver marketing-influenced wins (MIWs) to the company. Building a compelling awareness and lead gen engine must be done with that goal in mind. Leaders are ruthless in testing – copy, email subjects, website navigation, etc. – to fine-tune the engine and staying highly collaborative with sellers to ensure high value lead delivery.

    Typical Awareness and Lead Gen Engine

    Understand how a typical lead generation engine works. Awareness activities are included as a reference. Use as a template for campaigns.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram to demonstrate how a lead generation engine works.

    Phase 2

    Build and Test Your Lead Scoring Model

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Establish a cross-functional vision for lead scoring

    1.2 Asses your tech stack for lead scoring (optional)

    1.3 Catalog your buyer journey and lead gen engine assets

    2.1 Start building your lead scoring model

    2.2 Identify and verify your IPC and weightings

    2.3 Establish key lead generation activities and assets

    3.1 Apply model to your marketing management software

    3.2 Test the quality of sales-accepted leads

    3.3 Apply advanced methods

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1. Understand the Lead Scoring Grid and establish thresholds.
    2. Collaborate with stakeholders on your ICP, apply weightings to profile attributes and values, and test.
    3. Identify the key activities and assets of your lead gen engine, weight attributes, and run tests.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
    • Product Marketing
    • Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
    • Inside Sales leadership
    • Marketing Operations/IT
    • Digital Platform leadership

    Step 2.1

    Start Building Your Lead Scoring Model

    Activities

    2.1.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid

    2.1.2 Identify thresholds

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Discuss the concept of the thresholds for scoring leads in each of the various states – “ignore,” “nurture,” “qualify,” “send to sales.”
    • Open the Lead Scoring Workbook and validate your own states to suit your organization.
    • Arrive at an initial set of threshold scores.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on stages
    • Stakeholder alignment on initial set of thresholds

    2.1.1 Understand the Lead Scoring Grid

    30 minutes

    1. Understand how lead scoring works and our grid is constructed.
    2. Understand the two important areas of the grid and the concept of how the contact’s scores will increase as follows:
      1. Profile – as the profile attributes of the contact approaches that of the ICP we want to score the contact/prospect higher. Note: Step 1.3 walks you through creating your ICP.
      2. Engagement – as the contact/prospect engages with the activities (e.g. webinars, videos, events, emails) and assets (e.g. website, whitepapers, blogs, infographics) in our lead generation engine, we want to score the contact/prospect higher. Note: You will describe your engagement activities in this step.
    3. Understand how thresholds work:
      1. Threshold percentages, when reached, trigger movement of the contact from one state to the next – “ignore,” “nurture,” “qualify with Inside Sales,” and “send to sales.”
    The image contains a screenshot of an example of the lead scoring grid, as described in the text above.

    2.1.2 Identify thresholds

    30 minutes

    We have set up a model Lead Scoring Grid – see Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.”

    Set your thresholds within the Lead Scoring Workbook:

    • Set your threshold percentages for ”Profile” and “Engagement.”
    • You will run test scenarios for each in later steps.
    • We suggest you start with the example percentages given in the Lead Scoring Workbook and plan to adjust them during testing in later steps.
    • Define the “Send to Sales,” “Qualify With Inside Sales,” “Nurture,” and “Ignore” zones.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Clarify that all-important threshold for when a lead passes to your expensive and time-starved outbound sellers.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 2 demonstrating the Lead Scoring Grid.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Step 2.2

    Identify and Verify Your Ideal Customer Profile and Weightings

    Activities

    2.2.1 Identify your ideal customer profile

    2.2.2 Run tests to validate profile weightings

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify the attributes that compose the ICP.
    • Identify the values of each attribute and their weightings.
    • Test different contact profile scenarios against what actually makes sense.
    • Adjust weightings if needed.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Stakeholder alignment on ICP
    • Stakeholder alignment on weightings given to attributes
    • Tested results to verify thresholds and cores

    2.2.1 Identify your ideal customer profile

    Collaborate with stakeholders to understand what attributes best describe your ICP. Assign weightings and subratings.

    2 hours

    1. Choose attributes such as job role, organization type, number of employees/potential seat holders, geographical location, interest area, etc., that describe the ideal profile of a target buyer. Best practice sees marketers choosing attributes based on real wins.
    2. Some marketers compare the email domain of the contact to a target list of domains. In the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 3, “Weight and Test,” we provide an example profile for a “Sales Automation Software” ICP.
    3. Use the workbook as a template, remove our example, and create your own ICP attributes. Then weight the attributes to add up to 100%. Add in the attribute values and weight them. In the next step you will test scenarios.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers who align with colleagues in areas such as Product Marketing, Sales, Inside Sales, Sales Training/Enablement, and Product Managers and document the ICP give their organizations a greater probability of lead generation success.

    The image contains a screenshot of tab 3, demonstrating the weight and test with the example profile.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    2.2.2 Run tests to validate profile weightings

    Collaborate with stakeholders to run different profile scenarios. Validate your model including thresholds.

    The image contains a screenshot of tab 3 to demonstrate the next step of running tests to validate profile weightings.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Keep your model simple in the interest of fast implementation and to drive early learnings. The goal is not to be perfect but to start iterating toward success. You will update your scoring model even after going into production.

    2 hours

    1. Choose scenarios of contact/lead profile attributes by placing a “1” in the “Attribute” box shown at left.
    2. Place your estimate of how you believe the profile should score in the box to the right of “Estimated Profile State.” How does the calculated state, beneath, compare to the estimated state?
    3. In cases where the calculated state differs from your estimated state, consider weighting the profile attribute differently to match.
    4. If you find estimates and calculated states off dramatically, consider changing previously determined thresholds in tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.” Test multiple scenarios with your team.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Step 2.3

    Establish Key Lead Generation Activities and Assets

    Activities

    2.3.1 Establish activities, attribute values, and weights

    2.3.2 Run tests to evaluate activity ratings

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify the activities/asset types in your lead gen engine.
    • Weight each attribute and define values to score for each one.
    • Run tests to ensure your model makes sense.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Final stakeholder alignment on which assets compose your lead generation engine
    • Scoring model tested

    2.3.1 Establish activities, attribute values, and weights

    2 hours

    1. Catalog the assets and activities that compose your lead generation engine outlined in Activity 1.3.3. Identify their attribute values and weight them accordingly.
    2. Consider weighting attributes and values according to how close that asset gets to conveying your ideal call to action. For example, if your ideal CTA is “schedule a demo” and the “click” was submitted in the last seven days, it scores 100%. Take time decay into consideration. If that same click was 60 days ago, it scores less – maybe 60%.
    3. Different assets convey different intent and therefore command different weightings; a video comparing your offering against the competition, considered a down funnel asset, scores higher than the company video, considered a top-of-the-funnel activity and “awareness.”
    The image contains a screenshot of the next step of establishing activities, attribute values, and weights.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    2.3.2 Run tests to validate activity weightings

    Collaborate with stakeholders to run different engagement scenarios. Validate your model including thresholds.

    The image contains a screenshot of activity 2.3.2: run tests to validate activity weightings.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Use data from actual closed deals and the underlying activities to build your model – nothing like using facts to inform your key decisions. Use common sense and keep things simple. Then update further when data from new wins appears.

    2 hours

    1. Test scenarios of contact engagement by placing a “1” in the “Attribute” box shown at left.
    2. Place your estimate of how you believe the engagement should score in the box to the right of “Estimated Engagement State.” How does the calculated state, beneath, compare to the estimated state?
    3. In cases where the calculated state differs from your estimated state, consider weighting the activity attribute differently to match.
    4. If you find that the estimates and calculated states are off dramatically, consider changing previously determined thresholds in tab 2, “Identify Thresholds.” Test multiple scenarios with your team.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Phase 3

    Apply Your Model to Marketing Apps and Go Live With Better Qualified Leads

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Establish a cross-functional vision for lead scoring

    1.2 Asses your tech stack for lead scoring (optional)

    1.3 Catalog your buyer journey and lead gen engine assets

    2.1 Start building your lead scoring model

    2.2 Identify and verify your IPC and weightings

    2.3 Establish key lead generation activities and assets

    3.1 Apply model to your marketing management software

    3.2 Test the quality of sales-accepted leads

    3.3 Apply advanced methods

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1. Apply model to your marketing management/campaign management software.
    2. Get better qualified leads in the hands of sellers.
    3. Apply lead nurturing and other advanced methods.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Field Marketing/Campaign Manager
    • Sales Leadership/Sales Operations
    • Inside Sales leadership
    • Marketing Operations/IT
    • Digital Platform leadership

    Step 3.1

    Apply Model to Your Marketing Management Software

    Activities

    3.1.1 Apply final model to your lead management software

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Apply the details of your scoring model to the lead management software.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Marketing management software or campaign management application is now set up/updated with your lead scoring approach.

    3.1.1 Apply final model to your lead management software

    Now that your model is complete and ready to go into production, input your lead scoring parameters into your lead management software.

    The image contains a screenshot of activity 3.1.1 demonstrating tab 4 of the Lead Scoring Workbook.

    3 hours

    1. Go to the Lead Scoring Workbook, tab 4, “Model Summary” for a formatted version of your lead scoring model. Double-check print formatting and print off a copy.
    2. Use the copy of your model to show to prospective technology providers when asking them to demonstrate their lead scoring capabilities.
    3. Once you have finalized your model, use the printed output from this tab to ease your process of transposing the corresponding model elements into your lead management software.

    Lead Scoring Workbook

    Step 3.2

    Test the Quality of Sales-Accepted Leads

    Activities

    3.2.1 Achieve sales lead acceptance

    3.2.2 Measure and optimize

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Suggest that the Inside Sales and Field Sales teams should assess whether to sign off on quality of leads received.
    • Campaign managers and stakeholders should now be able to track lead status more effectively.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Sales leadership should be able to sign off that leads are better qualified.
    • With marketing pipeline analytics in place, campaigners can start to measure lead flow and conversion rates.

    3.2.1 Achieve sales lead acceptance

    Collaborate with sellers to validate your lead scoring approach.

    1 hour

    1. Gather a set of SQLs – leads that have been qualified by Inside Sales and delivered to Field Sales. Have Field Sales team members convey whether these leads were properly qualified.
    2. Where leads are deemed not properly qualified, determine if the issue was a) a lack of proper qualification by the Inside Sales team, or b) the lead generation engine, which should have further nurtured the lead or ignored it outright.
    3. Work collaboratively with Inside Sales to update your lead scoring model and/or Inside Sales practice.

    Stage

    Characteristics

    Actions

    Contact

    • Unqualified
    • No/low activity

    Nurture

    SDR Qualify

    Send to Sales

    Close

    MQL

    • Profile scores high
    • Engagement strong

    SQL

    • Profile strengthened
    • Demo/quote/next step confirmed

    Oppt’y

    • Sales acceptance
    • Sales opportunity management

    Win

    • Deal closed

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers that collaborate with Sales – and in this case, a group of sellers as a sales advisory team – well in advance of sales acceptance to design lead scoring will save time during this stage, build trust with sellers, and make faster decisions related to lead management/scoring.

    3.2.2 Measure and optimize

    Leverage analytics that help you optimize your lead scoring methodology.

    Ongoing

    1. Work with Marketing Ops/IT team to design and implement analytics that enable you to:
    2. Meet frequently with your stakeholder team to review results.
    3. Learn from the wins: see how they actually scored and adjust thresholds and/or asset/activity weightings.
    4. Learn from losses: fix ineffective scoring, activities, assets, form-fill strategies, and engagement paths.
    5. Test from both wins and losses if demographic weightings are delivering accurate scores.
    6. Analyze those high scoring leads that went right to sellers but did not close. This could point to a sales training or enablement challenge.
    The image contains a screenshot of the lead scoring dashboard.

    Analytics will also drive additional key insights across your lead gen engine:

    • Are volumes increasing or decreasing? What percentage of leads are in what status (A1-D4)?
    • What nurturing will re-engage stalled leads that score high in profile but low in engagement (A3, B3)?
    • Will additional profile data capture further qualify leads with high engagement (C1, C2)?
    • And beyond all of the above, what leads move to Inside Sales and convert to SQLs, opportunities, and eventually marketing-influenced wins?

    Step 3.3

    Apply Advanced Methods

    Activities

    3.3.1 Employ lead nurturing strategies

    3.3.2 Adjust your model over time to accommodate more advanced methods

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Apply lead nurturing to your lead gen engine.
    • Adjust your engine over time with more advanced methods.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Stakeholders
    • Project sponsors and leaders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Marketers can begin to test lead nurturing strategies and other advanced methods.

    3.3.1 Employ lead nurturing strategies

    A robust content marketing competence with compelling assets and the capture of additional profile data for qualification are key elements of your nurturing strategy.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Lead Scoring Grid with a focus on Nurture.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Nurturing success combines the art of crafting engaging copy/experiences and the science of knowing just where a prospect is within your lead gen engine. Great B2B marketers demonstrate the discipline of knowing when to drive engagement and/or additional profile attribute capture using intent while not losing the prospect to over-profiling.

    Ongoing

    1. The goal of lead nurturing is to move the collection of contacts/leads that are scoring, for example, in the A3, B3, C1, C2, and C3 cells into A2, B2, and B1 cells.
    2. How is this best done? To nurture leads that are A3 and B3, entice the prospect with engagement that leads to the bottom of funnel – e.g. “schedule a demo” or “schedule a consultation” via a compelling asset. See the example on the following slide.
    3. To nurture C1 and C2, we need to qualify them further, so entice with an asset that leads to deeper profile knowledge.
    4. For C3 leads, we need both profile and activity nurturing.

    Lead nurturing example

    The image contains an example of a lead nurturing example.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    When nurturing, choose/design content as to what “intent” it satisfies. For example, a head-to-head comparison with a key competitor signals “Selection” phase of the buyer journey. Content that helps determine what app-type to buy signals “Solution”. A company video, or a webinar replay, may mean your buyer is “educating themselves.

    3.3.2 Adjust your model over time to accommodate more advanced methods

    When getting started or within a smaller marketing team, focus on the basics outlined thus far in this blueprint. Larger and/or more experienced teams are able to employ more advanced methods.

    Ongoing

    Advanced Methods

    • Invest in technologies that interpret lead scores and trigger next-step actions, especially outreach by Inside and/or Field Sales.
    • Use the above to route into nurturing environments where additional engagement will raise scores and trigger action.
    • Recognize that lead value decays with time to time additional outreach/activities and to reduce lead scores over time.
    • Always be testing different engagement, copy, and subsequent activities to optimize lead velocity through your lead gen engine.
    • Build intent sensitivity into engagement activities; e.g. test if longer demo video engagement times imply ”contact me for a demo” via a qualification outreach. Update scores manually to drive learnings.
    • Vary engagement paths by demographics to deliver unique digital experiences. Use firmographics/email domain to drive leads through a more tailored account-based marketing (ABM) experience.
    • Reapply learnings from closed opportunities/wins to drive updates to buyer journey mapping and your ICP.

    Frequently used acronyms

    ABM

    Account-Based Marketing

    B2B

    Business to Business

    CMO

    Chief Marketing Officer

    CRM

    Customer Relationship Management

    ICP

    Ideal Customer Profile

    MIW

    Marketing-Influenced Win

    MQL

    Marketing-Qualified Lead

    SDR

    Sales Development Representative

    SQL

    Sales-Qualified Lead

    Works cited

    Arora, Rajat. “Mining the Real Gems from you Data – Lead Scoring and Engagement Scoring.” LeadSquared, 27 Sept. 2014. Web.

    Doyle, Jen. “2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report: Research and insights on attracting and converting the modern B2B buyer.” MarketingSherpa, 2012. Web.

    Doyle, Jen, and Sergio Balegno. “2011 MarketingSherpa B2B Marketing Benchmark Survey: Research and Insights on Elevating Marketing Effectiveness from Lead Generation to Sales Conversion.” MarketingSherpa, 2011.

    Kirkpatrick, David. “Lead Scoring: CMOs realize a 138% lead gen ROI … and so can you.” marketingsherpa blog, 26 Jan 2012. Web.

    Moser, Jeremy. “Lead Scoring Is Important for Your Business: Here’s How to Create Scoring Model and Hand-Off Strategy.” BigCommerce, 25 Feb. 2019. Web.

    Strawn, Joey. “Why Lead Scoring Is Important for B2Bs (and How You Can Implement It for Your Company.” IndustrialMarketer.com, 17 Aug. 2016. Web.

    Build an Information Security Strategy

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}242|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.5/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $45,303 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 34 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting
    • Many security leaders struggle to decide how to best to prioritize their scarce information security resources
    • The need to move from a reactive approach to security towards a strategic planning approach is clear. The path to getting there is less so.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    The most successful information security strategies are:

    • Holistic – They consider the full spectrum of information security, including people, processes, and technology.
    • Risk aware – They understand that security decisions should be made based on the security risks facing their organization, not just on “best practice.”
    • Business aligned – They demonstrate an understanding of the goals and strategies of the organization and how the security program can support the business.

    Impact and Result

    • Info-Tech has developed a highly effective approach to building an information security strategy, an approach that has been successfully tested and refined for more than seven years with hundreds of different organizations:
    • This approach includes tools for:
      • Ensuring alignment with business objectives.
      • Assessing organizational risk and stakeholder expectations.
      • Enabling a comprehensive current state assessment.
      • Prioritizing initiatives and building out a security roadmap.

    Build an Information Security Strategy Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Information Security (IS) Strategy Research – A step-by-step document that helps you build a holistic, risk-based, and business-aligned IS strategy.

    Your security strategy should not be based on trying to blindly follow best practices but on a holistic risk-based assessment that is risk aware and aligns with your business context. Use this storyboard to augment your security strategy by ensuring alignment with business objectives, assessing your organization's risk and stakeholder expectations, understanding your current security state, and prioritizing initiatives and a security roadmap.

    • Build an Information Security Strategy – Phases 1-4

    2. Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool – A tool to make informed security risk decisions to support business needs.

    Use this tool to formally identify business goals and customer and compliance obligations and make explicit links to how security initiatives propose to support these business interests. Then define the scope and boundaries for the security strategy and the risk tolerance definitions that will guide future security risk decisions.

    • Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool

    3. Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool – An evaluation tool to invest in the right security functions using a pressure analysis approach.

    Security pressure posture analysis helps your organization assess your real security context and enables you to invest in the right security functions while balancing the cost and value in alignment with business strategies. Security pressure sets the baseline that will help you avoid over-investing or under-investing in your security functions.

    • Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool

    4. Information Security Program Gap Analysis Tool – A structured tool to systematically understand your current security state.

    Effective security planning should not be one size fits all – it must consider business alignment, security benefit, and resource cost. To enable an effective security program, all areas of security need to be evaluated closely to determine where the organization sits currently and where it needs to go in the future.

    • Information Security Program Gap Analysis Tool

    5. Information Security Strategy Communication Deck – A best-of-breed presentation document to build a clear, concise, and compelling strategy document.

    Use this communication deck template to present the results of the security strategy to stakeholders, demonstrate the progression from the current state to the future state, and establish the roadmap of the security initiatives that will be implemented. This information security communication deck will help ensure that you’re communicating effectively for your cause.

    • Information Security Strategy Communication Deck

    6. Information Security Charter – An essential document for defining the scope and purpose of a security project or program.

    A charter is an essential document for defining the scope and purpose of security. Without a charter to control and set clear objectives for this committee, the responsibility of security governance initiatives will likely be undefined within the enterprise, preventing the security governance program from operating efficiently. This template can act as the foundation for a security charter to provide guidance to the governance of information security.

    • Information Security Charter
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build an Information Security Strategy

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess Security Requirements

    The Purpose

    Understand business and IT strategy and plans.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined security obligations, scope, and boundaries.

    Activities

    1.1 Define business and compliance.

    1.2 Establish security program scope.

    1.3 Analyze the organization’s risk and stakeholder pressures.

    1.4 Identify the organizational risk tolerance level.

    Outputs

    Security obligations statement

    Security scope and boundaries statement

    Defined risk tolerance level

    Risk assessment and pressure analysis

    2 Perform a Gap Analysis

    The Purpose

    Define the information security target state.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Set goals and Initiatives for the security strategy in line with the business objectives.

    Activities

    2.1 Assess current security capabilities.

    2.2 Identify security gaps.

    2.3 Build initiatives to bridge the gaps.

    Outputs

    Information security target state

    Security current state assessment

    Initiatives to address gaps

    3 Complete the Gap Analysis

    The Purpose

    Continue assessing current security capabilities.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identification of security gaps and initiatives to bridge them according to the business goals.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify security gaps.

    3.2 Build initiatives to bridge the maturity gaps.

    3.3 Identify initiative list and task list.

    3.4 Define criteria to be used to prioritize initiatives.

    Outputs

    Completed security current state assessment

    Task list to address gaps

    Initiative list to address gaps

    Prioritize criteria

    4 Develop the Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Create a plan for your security strategy going forward.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Set path forward to achieving the target state for the business through goal cascade and gap initiatives.

    Activities

    4.1 Conduct cost/benefit analysis on initiatives.

    4.2 Prioritize gap initiatives based on cost and alignment with business.

    4.3 Build an effort list.

    4.4 Determine state times and accountability.

    4.5 Finalize security roadmap and action plan.

    4.6 Create communication plan.

    Outputs

    Information security roadmap

    Draft communication deck

    5 Communicate and Implement

    The Purpose

    Finalize deliverables.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Consolidate documentation into a finalized deliverable that can be used to present to executives and decision makers to achieve buy-in for the project.

    Activities

    5.1 Support communication efforts.

    5.2 Identify resources in support of priority initiatives.

    Outputs

    Security strategy roadmap documentation

    Detailed cost and effort estimates

    Mapping of Info-Tech resources against individual initiatives

    Further reading

    Build an Information Security Strategy

    Create value by aligning your strategy to business goals and business risks.

    Analyst Perspective

    Set your security strategy up for success.

    “Today’s rapid pace of change in business innovation and digital transformation is a call to action to information security leaders.

    Too often, chief information security officers find their programs stuck in reactive mode, a result of years of mounting security technical debt. Shifting from a reactive to proactive stance has never been more important. Unfortunately, doing so remains a daunting task for many.

    While easy to develop, security plans premised on the need to blindly follow ‘best practices’ are unlikely to win over many stakeholders. To be truly successful, an information security strategy needs to be holistic, risk-aware, and business-aligned.”

    Kevin Peuhkurinen

    Research Director – Security, Risk & Compliance

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge

    • Many security leaders struggle to decide how best to prioritize their scarce information security resources.
    • The need to move from a reactive approach to security toward a strategic planning approach is clear. The path to getting there is less clear.

    Common Obstacle

    • Developing a security strategy can be challenging. Complications include:
      • Performing an accurate assessment of your current security program can be extremely difficult when you don’t know what to assess or how.
      • Determining the appropriate target state for security can be even more challenging. A strategy built around following best practices is unlikely to garner significant support from business stakeholders.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Info-Tech has developed a highly effective approach to building an information security strategy, an approach that has been successfully tested and refined for 7+ years with hundreds of organizations.
    • This unique approach includes tools for:
      • Ensuring alignment with business objectives.
      • Assessing organizational risk and stakeholder expectations.
      • Enabling a comprehensive current state assessment.
      • Prioritizing initiatives and building out a security roadmap.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The most successful information security strategies are:

    • Holistic. They consider the full spectrum of information security, including people, processes, and technologies.
    • Risk-Aware. They understand that security decisions should be made based on the security risks facing their organization, not just on best practice.
    • Business-Aligned. They demonstrate an understanding of the goals and strategies of the organization, and how the security program can support the business.

    It’s not a matter of if you have a security incident, but when

    Organizations need to prepare and expect the inevitable security breach.

    Fifty-eight percent of companies surveyed that experienced a breach were small businesses.

    Eighty-nine percent of breaches have a financial or espionage motive.

    Three graphs are depicted. The first is labeled ‘Total Cost for Three Data Breach Root Causes,’ the second ‘Distribution of Benchmark by Root Cause of the Data Breach,’ and the third ‘Per Capita for Three Root Causes of a Data Breach.’ The three root causes are malicious or criminal attack (US$166 million per capita), system glitch ($132 million per capita), and human error ($133 million per capita).

    Source: Ponemon Institute, “2019 Global Cost of Data Breach Study”

    An information security strategy can help you prepare for incidents

    Organizations need to expect the inevitable security breach.

    90%

    of businesses have experienced an external threat in the last year.

    50%

    of IT professionals consider security to be their number one priority.

    53%

    of organizations claimed to have experienced an insider attack in the previous 12 months. 1

    46%

    of businesses believe the frequency of attacks is increasing. 2

    Effective IT leaders approach their security strategy from an understanding that attacks on their organization will occur. Building a strategy around this assumption allows your security team to understand the gaps in your current approach and become proactive instead of being reactive.

    Sources: 1 Kaspersky Lab, “Global IT Security Risks Survey”; 2 CA Technologies, “Insider Threat 2018 Report”

    Persistent Issues

    Evolving Ransomware

    • Continual changes in types and platforms make ransomware a persistent threat. The frequency of ransomware attacks was reported to have increased by 67% in the past five years. 1

    Phishing Attacks

      • Despite filtering and awareness, email remains the most common threat vector for phishing attacks (94%) and an average of 3% of participants in phishing campaigns still click on them. 2

    Insider Privilege and Misuse

    • Typically, 34% of breaches are perpetrated by insiders, with 15% involving privilege misuse. Takeaway: Care less about titles and more about access levels. 3

    Denial of Service

    • The median amount of time that an organization is under attack from DDoS attack is three days.

    Emerging Trends

    Advanced Identity and Access Governance

    • Using emerging technologies in automation, orchestration, and machine learning, the management and governance of identities and access has become more advanced.

    Sources: 1 Accenture, “2019 The Cost of Cyber Crime Study”; 2,3 Verizon, “2019 Data Breach Investigations Report”

    New threat trends in information security aren’t new.

    Previously understood attacks are simply an evolution of prior implementations, not a revolution.

    Traditionally, most organizations are not doing a good-enough job with security fundamentals, which is why attackers have been able to use the same old tricks.

    However, information security has finally caught the attention of organizational leaders, presenting the opportunity to implement a comprehensive security program.

    Cyberattacks have a significant financial impact

    Global average cost of a data breach: $3.92 Million

    Source: Ponemon Institute, “2019 Cost of a Data Breach Study: Global Overview”

    A bar graph, titled ‘Average cost of data breach by industry,’ is depicted. Of 17 industries depicted, public is the lowest average cost (US$1.29 million) and health is the highest average cost ($6.45 million).

    Primary incident type (with a confirmed data breach)

    1. Leading incident type is Denial of Service attacks (DoS), taking up to 70% of all incidents.
    2. When it comes to data breaches, we see that the use of stolen credentials leads to the most cases of confirmed breaches, accounting for 29%.

    Personal records tend to be the most compromised data types, while databases tend to be the most frequently involved asset in breaches.

    Source: Verizon, “2019 Data Breach Investigations Report”

    Security threats are not going away

    We continue to see and hear of security breaches occurring regularly.

    A bar graph depicts the percentage of businesses who experienced a data breach in the last year–US total and global total. Numbers have increased from 2016 to 2019. In 2016, 19 percent of US businesses experienced a breach. In 2019, this number was 59 percent.

    An attacker must be successful only once. The defender – you – must be successful every time.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Maturing from reactive to strategic information security

    Two circular graphs depict the move from ‘reactive security’ to ‘strategic security’ organizations can accomplish using Info-Tech’s approach.

    Tools icon that is used in the first three stages of the strategic security graph above. Indicates Info-Tech tools included in this blueprint.

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. A proven, structured approach to mature your information security program from reactive to strategic.
    2. A comprehensive set of tools to take the pain out of each phase in the strategy building exercise.
    3. Visually appealing templates to communicate and socialize your security strategy and roadmap to your stakeholders.

    Info-Tech’s Security Strategy Model

    Info-Tech’s Security Strategy Model is depicted in this rectangular image with arrows. The first level depicts business context (enterprise goals, compliance obligations, scope and boundaries) and pressures (security risks, risk tolerance, stakeholder expectations). The second level depicts security target state (maturity model, security framework, security alignment goals, target maturity, time frame) and current state (current state assessment, gap analysis). The third level depicts the information security roadmap (initiative list, task list, prioritization methodology, and Gantt chart).

    The Info-Tech difference:

    An information security strategy model that is:

    1. Business-Aligned. Determines business context and cascades enterprise goals into security alignment goals.
    2. Risk-Aware. Understands the security risks of the business and how they intersect with the overall organizational risk tolerance.
    3. Holistic. Leverages a best-of-breed information security framework to provide comprehensive awareness of organizational security capabilities.

    Info-Tech’s best-of-breed security framework

    This image shows how Info-Tech’s framework is based on ISO 27000 series, CIS Top 20, COBIT 2019, NIST 800-53, and NIST CSF.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Creating an information security strategy

    Value to the business

    Outcome

    Best-of-breed security strategy

    Have documentation that paints a picture of the road to compliance. Integrate your framework with your risk tolerance and external pressures.

    Be ready for future changes by aligning your security strategy to security framework best practices.

    Address the nature of your current information security

    Eliminate gaps in process and know what is in scope for your security strategy. Learn what pressures your business and industry are under.

    Gain insight into your current state, allowing you to focus on high-value projects first, transitioning towards a target state.

    Highlight overlooked functions of your current security strategy

    Build a comprehensive security program that brings to light all aspects of your security program.

    Instead of pursing ad hoc projects, know what needs work and how to prioritize your pressing security issues.

    Create a tangible roadmap to your target state

    Create a plan for your future state of information security. Refer to and update your target state as your business needs change.

    Document your current progress and path forward in the future. Know your goals and requirements, codified in a living document.

    Use our prepopulated deliverables to fast track your progress

    Let Info-Tech do the work for you. With completed deliverables, have tangible documents to convey your business needs.

    A comprehensive set of deliverables with concrete, defensible data to justify any business changes.

    A living security strategy

    Pivot and change prioritization to meet the needs of your security deficits.

    Future-proof your security strategy for any contingency.

    The Info-Tech difference:

    Evolve the security program to be more proactive by leveraging Info-Tech’s approach to building a security strategy.

    • Dive deep into security obligations and security pressures to define the business context.
    • Conduct a thorough current state and future state analysis that is aligned with a best-of-breed framework.
    • Prioritize gap-closing initiatives to create a living security strategy roadmap.

    Use Info-Tech’s blueprint to save one to three months

    This image depicts how using Info-Tech’s four-phase blueprint can save an estimated seven to 14 weeks of an organization’s time and effort.

    Iterative benefit

    Over time, experience incremental value from your initial security strategy. Through continual updates your strategy will evolve but with less associated effort, time, and costs.

    These estimates are based on experiences with Info-Tech clients throughout the creation of this blueprint.

    Key deliverable:

    Information Security Strategy Communication Deck (PPT)

    Present your findings in a prepopulated document that can summarizes all key findings of the blueprint.

    Screenshots from Info-Tech’s Information Security Strategy Communication Deck Template.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool

    Define the business, customer, and compliance alignment for your security program.

    Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool

    Determine your organization’s security pressures and ability to tolerate risk.

    Information Security Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Use our best-of-breed security framework to perform a gap analysis between your current and target states.

    Information Security Charter

    Ensure the development and management of your security policies meet the broader program vision.

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostic and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical Guided Implementation on this topic look like?

    Guided Implementation #1 - Assess security requirements
    • Call #1 - Introduce project and complete pressure analysis.
    Guided Implementation #2 - Build a gap initiative strategy
    • Call #1 - Introduce the maturity assessment.
    • Call #2 - Perform gap analysis and translate into initiatives.
    • Call #3 - Consolidate related gap initiatives and define, cost, effort, alignment, and security benefits.
    Guided Implementation #3 - Prioritize initiatives and build roadmap
    • Call #1 - Review cost/benefit analysis and build an effort map.
    • Call #2 - Build implementation waves and introduce Gantt chart.
    Guided Implementation #4 - Execute and maintain
    • Call #1 - Review Gantt chart and ensure budget/buy-in support.
    • Call #2 - Three-month check-in: Execute and maintain.

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

    A typical Guided Implementation is between 2-12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Activities

    Assess Security Requirements

    Perform a Gap Analysis

    Complete the Gap Analysis

    Develop Roadmap

    Communicate and Implement

    1.1 Understand business and IT strategy and plans

    1.2 Define business and compliance requirements

    1.3 Establish the security program scope

    1.4 Analyze the organization’s risks and stakeholder pressures

    1.5 Identify the organizational risk tolerance level

    2.1 Define the information security target state

    2.2 Assess current security capabilities

    2.3 Identify security gaps

    2.4 Build initiatives to bridge the gaps

    3.1 Continue assessing current security capabilities

    3.2 Identify security gaps

    3.3 Build initiatives to bridge the maturity gaps

    3.4 Identify initiative list and task list

    3.5 Define criteria to be used to prioritize initiatives

    4.1 Conduct cost/benefit analysis on initiatives

    4.2 Prioritize gap initiatives based on cost, time, and alignment with the business

    4.3 Build effort map

    4.4 Determine start times and accountability

    4.5 Finalize security roadmap and action plan

    4.6 Create communication plan

    5.1 Finalize deliverables

    5.2 Support communication efforts

    5.3 Identify resources in support of priority initiatives

    Deliverables

    1.Security obligations statement

    2.Security scope and boundaries statement

    3.Defined risk tolerance level

    4.Risk assessment and pressure analysis

    1.Information security target state

    2.Security current state assessment

    3.Initiatives to address gaps

    1.Completed security current state assessment

    2.Task list to address gaps address gaps

    4.Prioritization criteria

    1.Information security roadmap

    2.Draft communication deck

    1.Security strategy roadmap documentation

    2.Detailed cost and effort estimates

    3.Mapping of Info-Tech resources against individual initiatives

    Executive Brief Case Study

    Credit Service Company

    Industry: Financial Services

    Source: Info-Tech Research group

    Founded over 100 years ago, Credit Service Company (CSC)* operates in the United States with over 40 branches located across four states. The organization services over 50,000 clients.

    Situation

    Increased regulations, changes in technology, and a growing number of public security incidents had caught the attention of the organization’s leadership. Despite awareness, an IT and security strategy had not been previously created. Management was determined to create a direction for the security team that aligned with their core mission of providing exceptional service and expertise.

    Solution

    During the workshop, the IT team and Info-Tech analysts worked together to understand the organization’s ideal state in various areas of information security. Having a concise understanding of requirements was a stepping stone to beginning to develop CSC’s prioritized strategy.

    Results

    Over the course of the week, the team created a document that concisely prioritized upcoming projects and associated costs and benefits. On the final day of the workshop, the team effectively presented the value of the newly developed security strategy to senior management and received buy-in for the upcoming project.

    *Some details have been changed for client privacy.

    Phase 1

    Assess Security Requirements

      Phase 1

    • 1.1 Define goals & scope
    • 1.2 Assess risks
    • 1.3 Determine pressures
    • 1.4 Determine risk tolerance
    • 1.5 Establish target state

      Phase 2

    • 2.1 Review Info-Tech’s security framework
    • 2.2 Assess your current state
    • 2.3 Identify gap closure actions

      Phase 3

    • 3.1 Define tasks & initiatives
    • 3.2 Perform cost/benefit analysis
    • 3.3 Prioritize initiatives
    • 3.4 Build roadmap

      Phase 4

    • 4.1 Build communication deck
    • 4.2 Develop a security charter
    • 4.3 Execute on your roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1.1 Define goals and scope of the security strategy.

    1.2 Assess your organization’s current inherent security risks.

    1.3 Determine your organization’s stakeholder pressures for security.

    1.4 Determine your organization’s risk tolerance.

    1.5 Establish your security target state.

    1.1.1 Record your business goals

    Once you have identified your primary and secondary business goals, as well as the corresponding security alignment goals, record them in the Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool. The tool provides an activity status that will let you know if any parts of the tool have not been completed.

    1. Record your identified primary and secondary business goals in the Goals Cascade tab of the Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.

    Use the drop-down lists to select an appropriate goal or choose “Other.” If you do choose “Other,” you will need to manually enter an appropriate business goal.

    2. For each of your business goals, select one to two security alignment goals. The tool will provide you with recommendations, but you can override these by selecting a different goal from the drop-down lists.

    A screenshot of the ‘Business Goals Cascade,’ which is part of the ‘Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.’

    A common challenge for security leaders is how to express their initiatives in terms that are meaningful to business executives. This exercise helps to make an explicit link between what the business cares about and what security is trying to accomplish.

    1.1.2 Review your goals cascade

    Estimated Time: 15 minutes

    1. When you have completed the goals cascade, you can review a graphic diagram that illustrates your goals. The graphic is found on the Results tab of the Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.
      • Security must support the primary business objectives. A strong security program will enable the business to compete in new and creative ways, rather than simply acting as an obstacle.
      • Failure to meet business obligations can result in operational problems, impacting the organization’s ability to function and the organization’s bottom line.
    2. Once you have reviewed the diagram, copy it into the Information Security Strategy Communication Deck.

    A screenshot of the ‘Goal Cascade Diagrams,’ which is part of the ‘Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.’

    Identify your compliance obligations

    Most conventional regulatory obligations are legally mandated legislation or compliance obligations, such as:

    Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)

    Applies to public companies that have registered equity or debt securities within the SEC to guarantee data integrity against financial fraud.

    Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

    Applies to any organization that processes, transmits, or stores credit card information to ensure cardholder data is protected.

    Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

    Applies to the healthcare sector and protects the privacy of individually identifiable healthcare information.

    Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH)

    Applies to the healthcare sector and widens the scope of privacy and security protections available under HIPAA.

    Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA)

    Applies to private sector organizations that collect personal information in Canada to ensure the protection of personal information in the course of commercial business.

    Compliance obligations also extend to voluntary security frameworks:

    NIST

    National Institute of Standards and Technology; a non-regulatory agency that develops and publicizes measurement

    CIS – 20 CSC

    Center for Internet Security – 20 Critical Security Controls; foundational set of effective cybersecurity practices.

    ISO 27001

    An information security management system framework outlining policies and procedures.

    COBIT 5

    An information technology and management and governance framework.

    HITRUST

    A common security framework for organizations that use or hold regulated personal health information.

    1.1.3 Record your compliance obligations

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. Identify your compliance obligations. Most organizations have compliance obligations that must be adhered to. These can include both mandatory and voluntary obligations. Mandatory obligations include:
      • Laws
      • Government regulations
      • Industry standards
      • Contractual agreements
      Voluntary obligations include standards that the organization has chosen to follow for best practices and any obligations that are required to maintain certifications. Organizations will have many different compliance obligations. For the purposes of your security strategy, include only those that have information security or privacy requirements.
    2. Record your compliance obligations, along with any notes, in your copy of the Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.

    A screenshot of ‘Security Compliance Obligations,’ part of the ‘Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.’

    Establish your scope and boundaries

    It is important to know at the outset of the strategy: what are we trying to secure?

    This includes physical areas we are responsible for, types of data we care about, and departments or IT systems we are responsible for.

    This also includes what is not in scope. For some outsourced services or locations, you may not be responsible for their security. In some business departments, you may not have control of security processes. Ensure that it is made explicit at the outset what will be included and what will be excluded from security considerations.

    Physical Scope and Boundaries

    • How many offices and locations does your organization have?
    • Which locations/offices will be covered by your information security management system (ISMS)?
    • How sensitive is the data residing at each location?
    • You may have many physical locations, and it is not necessary to list every one. Rather, list exceptional cases that are specifically in or out of scope.

    IT Systems Scope and Boundaries

    • There may be hundreds of applications that are run and maintained in your organization. Some of these may be legacy applications. Does your ISMS need to secure all your programs or a select few?
    • Is the system owned or outsourced?
    • Where are we accountable for security?
    • How sensitive is the data that each system handles?

    Organizational Scope and Boundaries

    • Will your ISMS cover all departments within your organization? For example, do certain departments (e.g. Operations) not need any security coverage?
    • Do you have the ability to make security decisions for each department?
    • Who are the key stakeholders/data owners for each department?

    Organizational scope considerations

    Many different groups will fall within the purview of the security strategy. Consider these two main points when deciding which departments will be in scope:

    1. If a group/user has access to data or systems that can impact the organization, then securing that group/user should be included within scope of the security strategy.
    2. If your organization provides some work direction to a group/user, they should be included within scope of the security strategy.
    1. Identify your departments and business groups
      • Start by identifying departments that provide some essential input or service to the organization or departments that interact with sensitive data.
    2. Break out different subsidiaries or divisions
      • Subsidiaries may or may not be responsible for securing themselves and protecting their data, but either way they are often heavily reliant on corporate for guidance and share IT resourcing support.
    3. Identify user groups
      • Many user groups exist, all requiring different levels of security. For example, from on-premises to remote access, from full-time employees to part-time or contractors.

    Physical scope considerations

    List physical locations by type

    Offices

    The primary location(s) where business operations are carried out. Usually leased or owned by the business.

    Regional Offices

    These are secondary offices that can be normal business offices or home offices. These locations will have a VPN connection and some sort of tenant.

    Co-Locations

    These are redundant data center sites set up for additional space, equipment, and bandwidth.

    Remote Access

    This includes all remaining instances of employees or contractors using a VPN to connect.

    Clients and Vendors

    Various vendors and clients have dedicated VPN connections that will have some control over infrastructure (whether owed/laaS/other).

    List physical locations by nature of the location

    Core areas within physical scope

    These are many physical locations that are directly managed. These are high-risk locations with many personal and services, resulting in many possible vulnerabilities and attack vectors.

    Locations on the edge of control

    These are on the edge of the physical scope, and thus, in scope of the security strategy. These include remote locations, remote access connections, etc.

    Third-party connections

    Networks of third-party users are within physical scope and need defined security requirements and definitions of how this varies per user.

    BYOD

    Mostly privately owned mobile devices with either on-network or remote access.

    It would be overkill and unhelpful to list every single location or device that is in scope. Rather, list by broad categories as suggested above or simply list exceptional cases that are in/out of scope.

    IT systems scope considerations

    Consider identifying your IT systems by your level of control or ownership.

    Fully owned systems

    These are systems that are wholly owned or managed by your organization.

    IT is almost always the admin of these systems. Generally they are hosted on premises. All securitization through methods such as patching or antivirus is done and managed by your IT department.

    Cloud/remote hosted (SaaS)

    These are systems with a lot of uncertainties because the vendor or service provided is either not known or what they are doing for security is not fully known.

    These systems need to be secured regardless, but supplier and vendor relationship management becomes a major component of how to manage these systems. Often, each system has varying levels of risk based on vendor practices.

    Hybrid owned (IaaS/PaaS)

    You likely have a good understanding of control for these systems, but they may not be fully managed by you (i.e. ownership of the infrastructure). These systems are often hosted by third parties that do some level of admin work.

    A main concern is the unclear definition of responsibility in maintaining these systems. These are managed to some degree by third parties; it is challenging for your security program to perform the full gamut of security or administrative functions.

    Unknown/unowned systems

    There are often systems that are unowned and even unknown and that very few people are using. These apps can be very small and my not fall under your IT management system framework. These systems create huge levels of risk due to limited visibility.

    For example, unapproved (shadow IT) file sharing or cloud storage applications would be unknown and unowned.

    1.1.4 Record your scope and boundaries

    Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    1. Divide into groups and give each group member a handful of sticky notes. Ask them to write down as many items as possible for the organization that could fall under one of the scope buckets.
    2. Collect each group’s responses and discuss the sticky notes and the rationale for including them. Discuss your security-related locations, data, people, and technologies, and define their scope and boundaries.
      • Careful attention should be paid to any elements of the strategy that are not in scope.
    3. Discuss and aggregate all responses as to what will be in scope of the security strategy and what will not be. Record these in the Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.

    A screenshot of ‘Scope and Boundaries,’ part of the ‘Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool.’

    1.2 Conduct a risk assessment

    Estimated Time: 1-3 hours

    1. As a group, review the questions on the Risk Assessment tab of the Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool.
    2. Gather the required information from subject matter experts on the following risk elements:
      • Threats
      • Assets
      • Vulnerabilities (people, systems, supply chain)
      • Historical security incidents

    Input

    • List of organizational assets
    • Historical data on information security incidents

    Output

    • Completed risk assessment

    Materials

    • Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Risk Management

    Download the Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool

    1.2.1 Complete the risk assessment questionnaire

    Estimated Time: 60-90 minutes

    1. Review each question in the questionnaire and provide the most appropriate response using the drop-down list.
      • If you are unsure of the answer, consult with subject matter experts to obtain the required data.
      • Otherwise, provide your best estimation
    2. When providing responses for the historical incident questions, only count incidents that had a sizeable impact on the business.

    A screenshot of the ‘Organizational Security Risk Assessment,’ part of the ‘Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool.’

    Info-Tech Insight

    Understanding your organization’s security risks is critical to identifying the most appropriate level of investment into your security program. Organizations with more security risks will need more a mature security program to mitigate those risks.

    1.2.2 Review the results of the risk assessment

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. Once you have completed the risk assessment, you can review the output on the Results tab.
    2. If required, the weightings of each of the risk elements can be customized on the Weightings tab.
    3. Once you have reviewed the results, copy your risk assessment diagram into the Information Security Strategy Communication Deck.

    A screenshot showing sample results of the ‘Organizational Risk Assessment,’ part of the ‘Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool.’

    It is important to remember that the assessment measures inherent risk, meaning the risk that exists prior to the implementation of security controls. Your security controls will be assessed later as part of the gap analysis.

    1.3 Conduct pressure analysis

    Estimated Time: 1-2 hours

    1. As a group, review the questions on the Pressure Analysis tab of the Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool.
    2. Gather the required information from subject matter experts on the following pressure elements:
      • Compliance and oversight
      • Customer expectations
      • Business expectations
      • IT expectations

    Input

    • Information on various pressure elements within the organization

    Output

    • Completed pressure analysis

    Materials

    • Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leaders
    • Compliance

    Download the Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool

    Risk tolerance considerations

    At this point, we want to frame risk tolerance in terms of business impact. Meaning, what kinds of impacts to the business would we be able to tolerate and how often? This will empower future risk decisions by allowing the impact of a potential event to be assessed, then compared against the formalized tolerance. We will consider impact from three perspectives:

    F

    Functional Impact

    The disruption or degradation of business/organizational processes.

    I

    Informational Impact

    The breach of confidentiality, privacy, or integrity of data/information.

    R

    Recoverability Impact

    The disruption or degradation of the ability to return to conditions prior to a security incident.

    Consider these questions:

    Questions to ask

    Description

    Is there a hard-dollar impact from downtime?

    This refers to when revenue or profits are directly impacted by a business disruption. For example, when an online ordering system is compromised and shut down, it affects sales, and therefore, revenue.

    Is regulatory compliance a factor?

    Depending on the circumstances of the vulnerabilities, it can be a violation of compliance obligations that would cause significant fines.

    Are any critical services dependent on this asset?

    Functional dependencies are sometimes not obvious, and assets that appear marginal can have huge impacts on critical services.

    Is there a health or safety risk?

    Some operations are critical to health and safety. For example, medical organizations have operations that are necessary to ensure uninterrupted critical health services. An exploited vulnerability that impacts these operations can have life and death consequences.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    It is crucial to keep in mind that you care about a risk scenario impact to the main business processes.

    For example, imagine a complete functional loss of the corporate printers. For most businesses, even the most catastrophic loss of printer function will have a small impact on their ability to carry out the main business functions.

    On the flip side, even a small interruption to email or servers could have a large functional impact on business processes.

    Risk tolerance descriptions

    High

    • Organizations with high risk tolerances are often found in industries with limited security risk, such as Construction, Agriculture and Fishing, or Mining.
    • A high risk tolerance may be appropriate for organizations that do not rely on highly sensitive data, have limited compliance obligations, and where their customers do not demand strong security controls. Organizations that are highly focused on innovation and rapid growth may also tend towards a higher risk tolerance.
    • However, many organizations adopt a high risk tolerance by default simply because they have not adequately assessed their risks.

    Moderate

    • Organizations with medium risk tolerances are often found in industries with moderate levels of security risk, such as Local Government, Education, or Retail and Wholesale
    • A medium risk tolerance may be appropriate for organizations that store and process some sensitive data, have a modest number of compliance obligations, and where customer expectations for security tend to be implicit rather than explicit.

    Low

    • Organizations with low risk tolerances are often found in industries with elevated security risk, such as Financial Services, Federal Governments, or Defense Contractors.
    • A low risk tolerance may be appropriate for organizations that store very sensitive data, process high-value financial transactions, are highly regulated, and where customers demand strong security controls.
    • Some organizations claim to have a low risk tolerance, but in practice will often allow business units or IT to accept more security risk than would otherwise be permissible. A strong information security program will be required to manage risks to an acceptable level.

    1.4.1 Complete the risk tolerance questionnaire

    Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    1. In a group discussion, review the low-, medium-, and high-impact scenarios and examples for each impact category. Ensure that everyone has a consistent understanding of the scenarios.
    2. For each impact type, use the frequency drop-down list to identify the maximum frequency that the organization could tolerate for the event scenarios, considering:
      • The current frequency with which the scenarios are occurring in your organization may be a good indication of your tolerance. However, keep in mind that you may be able to tolerate these incidents happening more frequently than they do.
      • Hoping is not the same as tolerating. While everyone hopes that high-impact incidents never occur, carefully consider whether you could tolerate them occurring more frequently.

    A screenshot showing the ‘Organizational Security Risk Tolerance Assessment,’ part of the ‘Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool.’

    1.4.2 Review the results of the risk tolerance analysis

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. Once you have completed the risk tolerance exercise, you can review the output on the Results tab.
    2. If required, the weightings of each of the impact types can be customized on the Weightings tab.
    3. Once you have reviewed the results, copy your risk tolerance diagram into the Information Security Strategy Communication Deck.

    A screenshot showing the results of the 'Information Security Risk Tolerance Assessment,' part of the ‘Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool.’

    A low risk tolerance will require a stronger information security program to ensure that operational security risk in the organization is minimized. If this tool reports that your risk tolerance is low, it is recommended that you review the results with your senior stakeholders to ensure agreement and support for the security program.

    1.5 Establish your target state

    Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    1. As a group, review the overall results of the requirements gathering exercise:
      • Business goals cascade
      • Compliance obligations
      • Scope
    2. Review the overall results of the risk assessment, pressure analysis, and risk tolerance exercises.
    3. Conduct a group discussion to arrive at a consensus of what the ideal target state for the information security program should look like.
      • Developing mission and vision statements for security may be useful for focusing the group.
      • This discussion should also consider the desired time frame for achieving the target state.

    Download the Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool

    Input

    • Information security requirements (goals cascade, compliance obligations, scope)
    • Risk assessment
    • Pressure analysis
    • Risk tolerance

    Output

    • Completed information security target state

    Materials

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Risk Management
    • Business Leaders
    • Compliance

    Understanding security target states

    Maturity models are very effective for determining information security target states. This table provides general descriptions for each maturity level. As a group, consider which description most accurately reflects the ideal target state for information security in your organization.

    1. AD HOC

      Initial/Ad hoc security programs are reactive. Lacking strategic vision, these programs are less effective and less responsive to the needs of the business.
    2. DEVELOPING

      Developing security programs can be effective at what they do but are not holistic. Governance is largely absent. These programs tend to rely on the talents of individuals rather than a cohesive plan.
    3. DEFINED

      A defined security program is holistic, documented, and proactive. At least some governance is in place, however, metrics are often rudimentary and operational in nature. These programs still often rely on best practices rather than strong risk management.
    4. MANAGED

      Managed security programs have robust governance and metrics processes. Management and board-level metrics for the overall program are produced. These are reviewed by business leaders and drive security decisions. More mature risk management practices take the place of best practices.
    5. OPTIMIZED

      An optimized security program is based on strong risk management practices, including the production of key risk indicators (KRIs). Individual security services are optimized using key performance indicators (KPIs) that continually measure service effectiveness and efficiency.

    1.5.1 Review the results of the target state recommendation

    Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    1. Based upon your risk assessment, pressure analysis, and risk tolerance, the Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool will provide a recommended information security target state.
    2. With your group, review the recommendation against your expectations.
    3. If required, the weightings of each of the factors can be customized on the Weightings tab.
    4. Once you have reviewed the results, copy your target state diagram into the Information Security Strategy Communication Deck.

    A screenshot showing the results of the ‘Information Security Target State,’ part of the ‘Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool.’

    Info-Tech Insight

    Higher target states require more investment to attain. It is critical to ensure that all key stakeholders agree on the security target state. If you set a target state that aims too high, you may struggle to gain support and funding for the strategy. Taking this opportunity to ensure alignment from the start will pay off dividends in future.

    1.5.2 Review and adjust risk and pressure weightings

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. If the results of your risk assessment, pressure analysis, risk tolerance, or target state do not match your expectations, you may need to review and adjust the weightings for the elements within one or more of these areas.
    2. On the Weightings tab, review each of the strategic categories and adjust the weights as required.
      • Each domain is weighted to contribute to your overall pressure score based on the perceived importance of the domain to the organization.
      • The sum of all weights for each category must add up to 100%.

    A screenshot showing the results of the weightings given to each factor in a category, part of the ‘Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool.’

    Case Study

    Credit Service Company

    Industry: Financial Services

    Source: Info-Tech Research group

    Below are some of the primary requirements that influenced CSC’s initial strategy development.

    External Pressure

    Pressure Level: High

    • Highly regulated industries, such as Finance, experience high external pressure.
    • Security pressure was anticipated to increase over the following three years due to an increase in customer requirement.

    Obligations

    Regulatory: Numerous regulations and compliance requirements as a financial institution (PCI, FFIEC guidance).

    Customer: Implicitly assumes personal, financial, and health information will be kept secure.

    Risk Tolerance

    Tolerance Level: Low

    1. Management: Are risk averse and have high visibility into information security.
    2. Multiple locations controlled by a central IT department decreased the organization’s risk tolerance.

    Summary of Security Requirements

    Define and implement dynamic information security program that understands and addresses the business’ inherent pressure, requirements (business, regulatory, and customer), and risk tolerance.

    Phase 2

    Build a Gap Initiative Strategy

      Phase 1

    • 1.1 Define goals & scope
    • 1.2 Assess risks
    • 1.3 Determine pressures
    • 1.4 Determine risk tolerance
    • 1.5 Establish target state

      Phase 2

    • 2.1 Review Info-Tech’s security framework
    • 2.2 Assess your current state
    • 2.3 Identify gap closure actions

      Phase 3

    • 3.1 Define tasks & initiatives
    • 3.2 Perform cost/benefit analysis
    • 3.3 Prioritize initiatives
    • 3.4 Build roadmap

      Phase 4

    • 4.1 Build communication deck
    • 4.2 Develop a security charter
    • 4.3 Execute on your roadmap

      This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 2.1 Review Info-Tech’s framework.
    • 2.2 Assess your current state of security against your target state.
    • 2.3 Identify actions required to close gaps.

    2.1 Review the Info-Tech framework

    Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    1. As a group, have the security team review the security framework within the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.
    2. Customize the tool as required using the instructions on the following slides.

    Input

    • Information security requirements
    • Security target state

    Output

    • Customized security framework

    Materials

    • Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team

    Download the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Understand the Info-Tech framework

    Info-Tech’s security framework uses a best-of-breed approach to leverage and align with most major security standards, including:

    • ISO 27001/27002
    • COBIT
    • Center for Internet Security (CIS) Critical Controls
    • NIST Cybersecurity Framework
    • NIST SP 800-53
    • NIST SP 800-171

    A diagram depicting Info-Tech’s best-of-breed security framework.

    A best-of-breed approach ensures holistic coverage of your information security program while refraining from locking you in to a specific compliance standard.

    2.1.1 Configure the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    Review the Setup tab of the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool. This tab contains several configurable settings that should be customized to your organization. For now, the three settings you will need to modify are:

    • The security target state. Enter the target state from your Information Security Pressure Analysis Tool. If you do not enter a target state, the tool will default to a target of 3 (Defined).
    • Your Security Alignment Goals (from your Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool).
    • The starting year for your security roadmap.

    A screenshot showing the ‘Setup’ tab of the ‘Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.’

    2.2 Assess current state of security

    Estimated Time: 8-16 hours

    1. Using the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool, review each of the controls in the Gap Analysis tab.
    2. Follow the instructions on the next slides to complete your current state and target state assessment.
    3. For most organizations, multiple internal subject matter experts will need to be consulted to complete the assessment.

    Input

    • Security target state
    • Information on current state of security controls, including sources such as audit findings, vulnerability and penetration test results, and risk registers

    Output

    • Gap analysis

    Materials

    • Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management

    Download the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Example maturity levels

    To help determine appropriate current and target maturity levels, refer to the example below for the control “Email communication is filtered for spam and potential malicious communications.”

    AD HOC 01

    There is no centrally managed spam filter. Spam may be filtered by endpoint email clients.

    DEVELOPING 02

    There is a secure email gateway. However, the processes for managing it are not documented. Administrator roles are not well defined. Minimal fine-tuning is performed, and only basic features are in use.

    DEFINED 03

    There is a policy and documented process for email security. Roles are assigned and administrators have adequate technical training. Most of the features of the solution are being used. Rudimentary reports are generated, and some fine-tuning is performed.

    MANAGED 04

    Metrics are produced to measure the effectiveness of the email security service. Advanced technical features of the solution have been implemented and are regularly fine-tuned based on the metrics.

    OPTIMIZED 05

    There is a dedicated email security administrator with advanced technical training. Custom filters are developed to further enhance security, based on relevant cyber threat intelligence. Email security metrics feed key risk indicators that are reported to senior management.

    2.2.1 Conduct current state assessment

    Estimated Time: 8-16 hours

    1. Carefully review each of the controls in the Gap Analysis tab. For each control, indicate the current maturity level using the drop-down list.
      • You should only use “N/A” if you are confident that the control is not required in your organization.
      • For example, if your organization does not perform any software development then you can select “N/A” for any controls related to secure coding practices.
    2. Provide comments to describe your current state. This step is optional but recommended as it may be important to record this information for future reference.
    3. Select the target maturity for the control. The tool will default to the target state for your security program, but this can be overridden using the drop-down list.

    2.2.1 Conduct current state assessment

    Estimated Time: 8-16 hours

    1. Carefully review each of the controls in the Gap Analysis tab. For each control, indicate the current maturity level using the drop-down list.
      • You should only use “N/A” if you are confident that the control is not required in your organization. For example, if your organization does not perform any software development then you can select “N/A” for any controls related to secure coding practices.
    2. Provide comments to describe your current state. This step is optional but recommended as it may be important to record this information for future reference.
    3. Select the target maturity for the control. The tool will default to the target state for your security program, but this can be overridden using the drop-down list.

    A screenshot showing the 'Gap Analysis' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    Review the Gap Analysis Dashboard

    Use the Gap Assessment Dashboard to map your progress. As you fill out the Gap Analysis Tool, check with the Dashboard to see the difference between your current and target state.

    Use the color-coded legend to see how large the gap between your current and target state is. The legend can be customized further if desired.

    Security domains that appear white have not yet been assessed or are rated as “N/A.”

    2.2.3 Identify actions required to close gaps

    Estimated Time: 4-8 hours

    1. Using the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool, review each of the controls in the Gap Analysis tab.
    2. Follow the instructions on the next slides to identify gap closure actions for each control that requires improvement.
    3. For most organizations, multiple internal subject matter experts will need to be consulted to complete the assessment.

    Input

    • Security control gap information

    Output

    • Gap closure action list

    Materials

    • Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management

    Download the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    2.3.1 Identify gap closure actions

    Estimated Time: 4-8 hours

    1. For each of the controls where there is a gap between the current and target state, a gap closure action should be identified:
      • Review the example actions and copy one or more of them if appropriate. Otherwise, enter your own gap closure action.
    2. Identify whether the action should be managed as a task or as an initiative. Most actions should be categorized as an initiative. However, it may be more appropriate to categorize them as a task when:
      1. They have no costs associated with them
      2. They require a low amount of initial effort to implement and no ongoing effort to maintain
      3. They can be accomplished independently of other tasks

    A screenshot showing gap closure actions, part of the 'Gap Analysis' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    Considerations for gap closure actions

    • In small groups, have participants ask, “what would we have to do to achieve the target state?” Document these in the Gap Closure Actions column.
    • The example gap closure actions may be appropriate for your organization, but do not simply copy them without considering whether they are right for you.
    • Not all gaps will require their own action. You can enter one action that may address multiple gaps.
    • If you find that many of your actions are along the lines of “investigate and make recommendations,” you should consider using the estimated gap closure percentage column to track the fact that these gaps will not be fully closed by the actions.

    A screenshot showing considerations for gap closure actions, part of the 'Gap Analysis' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    2.3.2 Define gap closure action effectiveness

    Estimated Time: 1-2 hours

    For each of the gap closure actions, optionally enter an estimated gap closure percentage to indicate how effective the action will be in fully closing the gap.

    • For instance, an action to “investigate solutions and make recommendations” will not fully close the gap.
    • This is an optional step but will be helpful to understand how much progress towards your security target state you will make based on your roadmap.
    • If you do not fill in this column, the tool will assume that your actions will fully close all gaps.

    A screenshot showing considerations for estimated gap closure percentage, part of the 'Gap Analysis' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    Completing this step will populate the “Security Roadmap Progression” diagram in the Results tab, which will provide a graphic illustration of how close to your target state you will get based upon the roadmap.

    Phase 3

    Prioritize Initiatives and Build Roadmap

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Define goals & scope
    • 1.2 Assess risks
    • 1.3 Determine pressures
    • 1.4 Determine risk tolerance
    • 1.5 Establish target state

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Review Info-Tech’s security framework
    • 2.2 Assess your current state
    • 2.3 Identify gap closure actions

    Phase 3

    • 3.1 Define tasks & initiatives
    • 3.2 Perform cost/benefit analysis
    • 3.3 Prioritize initiatives
    • 3.4 Build roadmap

    Phase 4

    • 4.1 Build communication deck
    • 4.2 Develop a security charter
    • 4.3 Execute on your roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 3.1 Define tasks and initiatives.
    • 3.2 Define cost, effort, alignment, and security benefit of each initiative.
    • 3.3 Prioritize initiatives.
    • 3.4 Build the prioritized security roadmap

    3.1 Define tasks and initiatives

    Estimated Time: 2-4 hours

    1. As a group, review the gap actions identified in the Gap Analysis tab.
    2. Using the instructions on the following slides, finalize your task list.
    3. Using the instructions on the following slides, review and consolidate your initiative list.

    Input

    • Gap analysis

    Output

    • List of tasks and initiatives

    Materials

    • Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    3.1.1 Finalize your task list

    Estimated Time: 1-2 hours

    1. Obtain a list of all your task actions by filtering on the Action Type column in the Gap Analysis tab.
    2. Paste the list into the table on the Task List tab.
      • Use Paste Values to retain the table formatting
    3. Enter a task owner and due date for each task. Without accountability, it is too easy to fall into complacency and neglect these tasks.

    A screenshot showing the 'Task List' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    Info-Tech Insight

    Tasks are not meant to be managed to the same degree that initiatives will be. However, they are still important. It is recommended that you develop a process for tracking these tasks to completion.

    3.1.2 Consolidate your gap closure actions into initiatives

    Estimated Time: 2-3 hours

    1. Once you have finalized your task list, you will need to consolidate your list of initiative actions. Obtain a list of all your initiative actions by filtering on the Action Type column in the Gap Analysis tab.
    2. Create initiatives on the Initiative List tab. While creating initiatives, consider the following:
      • As much as possible, it is recommended that you consolidate multiple actions into a single initiative. Reducing the total number of initiatives will allow for more efficient management of the overall roadmap.
      • Start by identifying areas of commonality between gap closure actions, for instance:
        • Group all actions within a security domain into a single initiative.
        • Group together similar actions, such as all actions that require updating policies.
        • Consider combining actions that have inter-dependencies.
      • While it is recommended that you consolidate actions as much as possible, some actions should become initiatives on their own. This will be appropriate when:
        • The action is time sensitive and consolidating it with other actions will cause scheduling issues.
        • Actions that could otherwise be consolidated have different business sponsors or owners and need to be kept separate for funding or accountability reasons.
    3. Link the initiative actions on the Gap Analysis tab using the drop-down list in the Initiative Name column.

    Initiative consolidation example

    In the example below, we see three gap closure actions within the Security Culture and Awareness domain being consolidated into a single initiative “Develop security awareness program.”

    We can also see one gap closure action within the same domain being grouped with two actions from the Security Policies domain into another initiative “Update security policies.”

    Info-Tech Insight

    As you go through this exercise, you may find that some actions that you previously categorized as tasks could be consolidated into an initiative.

    A screenshot showing how six sample gap closure actions can be distilled into two gap closure initiatives. Part of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    3.1.3 Finalize your initiative list

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. Review your final list of initiatives and make any required updates.
    2. Optionally, add a description or paste in a list of the individual gap closure actions that are associated with the initiative. This will make it easier to perform the cost and benefit analysis.
    3. Use the drop-down list to indicate which of the security alignment goals most appropriately reflects the objectives of the initiative. If you are unsure, use the legend next to the table to find the primary security domain associated with the initiative and then select the recommended security alignment goal.
      • This step is important to understand how the initiative supports the business goals identified earlier.

     A screenshot showing the primary security alignment goal, part of the 'Initiative List' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    3.2 Conduct cost/ benefit analysis

    Estimated Time: 1-2 hours

    1. As a group, define the criteria to be used to conduct the cost/benefit analysis, following the instructions on the next slide.
    2. Assign costing and benefits information for each initiative.
    3. Define dependencies or business impacts if they will help with prioritization.

    Input

    • Gap analysis
    • Initiative list

    Output

    • Completed cost/benefit analysis for initiative list

    Materials

    • Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    3.2.1 Define costing criteria

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. On the Setup tab of the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool, enter high, medium, and low ranges for initial and ongoing costs and efforts.
      1. Initial costs are one-time, upfront capital investments (e.g. hardware and software costs, project-based consulting fees, training).
      2. Ongoing cost is any annually recurring operating expenses that are new budgetary costs (e.g. licensing, maintenance, subscription fees).
      3. Initial staffing in hours is total time in person hours required to complete a project. It is not total elapsed time but dedicated time. Consider time required to gather requirements and to design, test, and implement the solution.
      4. Ongoing staffing in FTEs is the ongoing average effort required to support that initiative after implementation.
    2. In addition to ranges, provide an average for each. These will be used to calculate estimated total costs for the roadmap.

    A screenshot showing the initiative costs for estimation, part of the 'Setup' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.' The range of costs is labeled with an arrow with number 1 on it, and the average cost per initiative is labeled with an arrow with number 2 on it.

    Make sure that your ranges allow for differentiation between initiatives to enable prioritization. For instance, if you set your ranges too low, all your initiatives will be assessed as high cost, providing no help when you must prioritize them.

    3.2.2 Define benefits criteria

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. On the Setup tab of the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool, enter high, medium, and low values for the Alignment with Business Benefit.
      • This variable is meant to capture how well each initiative aligns with organizational goals and objectives.
      • By default, this benefit is linked directly to business goals through the primary and secondary security alignment goals. This allows the tool to automatically calculate the benefit based on the security alignment goals associated with each initiative.
      • If you change these values, you may need to override the calculated values in the prioritization tab.
    2. Enter a high, medium, and low value for the Security Benefit.
      • This variable is meant to capture the relative security benefit or risk reduction being provided by the gap initiative.
      • By default, this benefit is linked to security risk reduction.

    A screenshot showing the initiative benefits for estimation, part of the 'Setup' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    Some organizations prefer to use the “Security Benefit” criteria to demonstrate how well each initiative supports specific compliance goals.

    3.2.3 Complete the cost/benefit analysis

    Estimated Time: 1-2 hours

    1. On the Prioritization tab, use the drop-down lists to enter the estimated costs and efforts for each initiative, using the criteria defined earlier.
      • If you have actual costs available, you can optionally enter them under the Detailed Cost Estimates columns.
    2. Enter the estimated benefits, also using the criteria defined earlier.
      • The Alignment with Business benefit will be automatically populated, but you can override this value using the drop-down list if desired.

    A screenshot showing the estimated cost, estimated effort, and estimated benefits section, part of the 'Prioritization' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.' Estimated cost and estimated effort are labeled with an arrow with number 1 on it, and estimated benefits is labeled with an arrow with a number 2 on it.

    3.2.4 Optionally enter detailed cost estimates

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. For each initiative, the tool will automatically populate the Detailed Cost Estimates and Detailed Staffing Estimates columns using the averages that you provided in steps 3.2.1 and 3.2.2. However, if you have more detailed data about the costs and effort requirements for an initiative, you can override the calculated data by manually entering it into these columns. For example:
      • You are planning to subscribe to a security awareness vendor, and you have a quote from them specifying that the initial cost will be $75,000.
      • You have defined your “Medium” cost range as being “$10-100K”, so you select medium as your initial cost for this initiative in step 3.2.3. As you defined the average for medium costs as being $50,000, this is what the tool will put into the detailed cost estimate.
      • You can override this average by entering $75,000 as the initial cost in the detailed cost estimate column.

    A screenshot showing the detailed cost estimates and detailed staffing estimates columns, part of the 'Prioritization' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.' These columns are labeled with an arrow with a number 1 on it.

    Case Study

    Credit Service Company

    Industry: Financial Services

    Source: Info-Tech Research Group

    A chart titled 'Framework Components,' displaying how the Credit Service Company profiled in the case study performed a current state assessment, created gap initiatives, and prioritized gap initiatives.

    3.3 Prioritize initiatives

    Estimated Time: 2-3 hours

    1. As a group, review the results of the cost/benefit analysis. Optionally, complete the Other Considerations columns in the Prioritization tab:
      • Dependencies can refer to other initiatives on the list or any other dependency that relates to activities or projects within the organization.
      • Business impacts can be helpful to document as they may require additional planning and communication that could impact initiative timelines.
    2. Follow step 3.3.1 to create an effort map with the results of the cost/benefit analysis.
    3. Follow step 3.3.2 to assign initiatives into execution waves.

    Input

    • Gap analysis
    • Initiative list
    • Cost/benefit analysis

    Output

    • Prioritized list of initiatives

    Materials

    • Information Security Gap Analysis Tool
    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    3.3.1 Create effort map

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. On a whiteboard, draw the quadrant diagram shown.
    2. Create sticky notes for each initiative on your initiative list.
    3. For each initiative, use the “Cost/Effort Rating” and the “Benefit Rating” calculated on the Prioritization tab to place the corresponding sticky note onto the diagram.

    An effort map is a tool used for the visualization of a cost/benefit analysis. It is a quadrant output that visually shows how your gap initiatives were prioritized. In this example, the initiative “Update Security Policies” was assessed as low cost/effort (3) and high benefit (10).

    An image showing how 'update security policies,' as ranked on a cost/effort and benefit quadrant, translates to a cost/effort and benefit rating on the 'Prioritization' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    3.3.2 Assign initiatives to execution waves

    Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    1. Using sticky flip chart sheets, create four sheets and label them according to the four execution waves:
      • MUST DO – These are initiatives that need to get moving right away. They may be quick wins, items with critical importance, or foundational projects upon which many other initiatives depend.
      • SHOULD DO – These are important initiatives that need to get done but cannot launch immediately due to budget constraints, dependencies, or business impacts that require preparation.
      • COULD DO – Initiatives that have merit but are not a priority.
      • WON’T DO – Initiatives where the costs outweigh the benefits.
    2. Using the further instructions on the following slides, move the initiative sticky notes from your effort map into the waves.

    Considerations for prioritization

    • Starting from the top right of the effort map, begin pulling stickies off and putting them in the appropriate roadmap category.
    • Keep dependencies in mind. If an important initiative depends on a low-priority one being completed first, then pull dependent initiatives up the list.
    • It may be helpful to think of each wave as representing a specific time frame (e.g. wave 1 = first year of your roadmap, wave 2 = year two, wave 3 = year three).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Use an iterative approach. Most organizations tend to put too many initiatives into wave 1. Be realistic about what you can accomplish and take several passes at the exercise to achieve a balance.

    An image showing how to map the sticky notes from a sample exercise, as placed on a cost/effort and benefit quadrant, into waves.

    3.3.3 Finalize prioritization

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. Once you have completed placing your initiative sticky notes into the waves, update the Prioritization tab with the Roadmap Wave column.
    2. Optionally, use the Roadmap Sub-Wave column to prioritize initiatives within a single wave.
      • This will allow you more granular control over the final prioritization, especially where dependencies require extra granularity.

    Any initiatives that are currently in progress should be assigned to Wave 0.

    An image showing the roadmap wave and roadmap sub-wave sections, part of the 'Prioritization' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.' Roadmap wave is labeled with an arrow with a number 1 on it, and roadmap sub-wave is labeled with an arrow with a number 2 on it.

    3.4 Build roadmap

    Estimated Time: 1-3 hours

    1. As a group, follow step 3.4.1 to create your roadmap by scheduling initiatives into the Gantt chart within the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.
    2. Review the roadmap for resourcing conflicts and adjust as required.
    3. Review the final cost and effort estimates for the roadmap.

    Input

    • Gap analysis
    • Cost/benefit analysis
    • Prioritized initiative list
    • (Optional) List of other non-security IT and business projects

    Output

    • Security strategic roadmap

    Materials

    • Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    3.4.1 Schedule initiatives using the Gantt chart

    Estimated Time: 1-2 Hours

    1. On the Gantt Chart tab for each initiative, enter an owner (the individual who will be primarily responsible for execution).
    2. Additionally, enter a start month and year for the initiative and the expected duration in months.
      • You can filter the Wave column to only see specific waves at any one time to assist with the scheduling.
      • You do not need to schedule Wave 4 initiatives as the expectation is that these initiatives will not be done.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Use the Owner column to help identify resourcing constraints. If a single individual is responsible for many different initiatives that are planned to start at the same time, consider staggering those initiatives.

    An image showing the owner and planned start sections, part of the 'Security Roadmap Gantt Chart' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.' The owner column is labeled with an arrow with a 1 on it, and the planned start column is labeled with an arrow with a 2 on it.

    3.4.2 Review your roadmap

    Estimated Time: 30-60 minutes

    1. When you have completed the Gantt chart, as a group review the overall roadmap to ensure that it is reasonable for your organization. Consider the following:
      • Do you have other IT or business projects planned during this time frame that may impact your resourcing or scheduling?
      • Does your organization have regular change freezes throughout the year that will impact the schedule?
      • Do you have over-subscribed resources? You can filter the list on the Owner column to identify potential over-subscription of resources.
      • Have you considered any long vacations, sabbaticals, parental leaves, or other planned longer-term absences?
      • Are your initiatives adequately aligned to your budget cycle? For instance, if you have an initiative that is expected to make recommendations for capital expenditure, it must be completed prior to budget planning.

    A screenshot image showing parts of the 'Security Roadmap Gantt Chart' tab with sample data in it. Taken from the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    3.4.3 Review your expected roadmap progression

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. If you complete the optional exercise of filling in the Estimated Gap Closure Percentage column on the Gap Analysis tab, the tool will generate a diagram showing how close to your target state you can expect to get based on the tasks and initiatives in your roadmap. You can review this diagram on the Results tab.
      • Remember that this Expected Maturity at End of Roadmap score assumes that you will complete all tasks and initiatives (including all Wave 4 initiatives).
    2. Copy the diagram into the Information Security Strategy Communication Deck.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Often, internal stakeholders will ask the question “If we do everything on this roadmap, will we be at our target state?” This diagram will help answer that question.

    A screenshot image showing the 'Expected Security Roadmap Progression' with sample data in it. Part of the 'Results' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    3.4.4 Review your cost/effort estimates table

    Estimated Time: 30 minutes

    1. Once you have completed your roadmap, review the total cost/effort estimates. This can be found in a table on the Results tab. This table will provide initial and ongoing costs and staffing requirements for each wave. This also includes the total three-year investment. In your review consider:
      • Is this investment realistic? Will completion of your roadmap require adding more staff or funding than you otherwise expected?
      • If the investment seems unrealistic, you may need to revisit some of your assumptions, potentially reducing target levels or increasing the amount of time to complete the strategy.
      • This table provides you with the information to have important conversations with management and stakeholders
    2. When you have completed your review, copy the table into the Information Security Strategy Communication Deck.

    A screenshot image showing the 'Information Security Roadmap Cost/Effort Estimates,' part of the 'Results' tab of the 'Information Security Gap Analysis Tool.'

    Phase 4

    Execute and Maintain

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Define goals & scope
    • 1.2 Assess risks
    • 1.3 Determine pressures
    • 1.4 Determine risk tolerance
    • 1.5 Establish target state

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Review Info-Tech’s security framework
    • 2.2 Assess your current state
    • 2.3 Identify gap closure actions

    Phase 3

    • 3.1 Define tasks & initiatives
    • 3.2 Perform cost/benefit analysis
    • 3.3 Prioritize initiatives
    • 3.4 Build roadmap

    Phase 4

    • 4.1 Build communication deck
    • 4.2 Develop a security charter
    • 4.3 Execute on your roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 4.1 Build your security strategy communication deck.
    • 4.2 Develop a security charter.
    • 4.3 Execute on your roadmap.

    4.1 Build your communication deck

    Estimated Time: 1-3 hours

    1. As a group, review the Information Security Strategy Communication Deck.
    2. Follow the instructions within the template and on the next few slides to customize the template with the results of your strategic roadmap planning.

    Input

    • Completed Security Requirements Gathering Tool
    • Completed Security Pressure Analysis Tool
    • Completed Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Output

    • Information Security Strategy Communication Deck

    Materials

    • Information Security Strategy Communication Deck

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership

    Download the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    4.1.1 Customize the Communication Deck

    Estimated Time: 1-2 hours

    1. When reviewing the Information Security Strategy Communication Deck, you will find slides that contain instructions within green text boxes. Follow the instructions within the boxes, then delete the boxes.
      • Most slides only require that you copy and paste screenshots or tables from your tools into the slides.
      • However, some slides require that you customize or add text explanations that need to reflect your unique organization.
      • It is recommended that you pay attention to the Next Steps slide at the end of the deck. This will likely have a large impact on your audience.
    2. Once you have customized the existing slides, you may wish to add additional slides. For instance, you may wish to add more context to the risk assessment or pressure analysis diagrams or provide details on high-priority initiatives.

    An image showing the 'Business Goals Cascade,' part of the 'Information Security Strategy Communication Deck.' A green box on top of the screenshot instructs you to 'Paste your goals cascade from the Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool here.'

    Consider developing multiple versions of the deck for different audiences. Senior management may only want an executive summary, whereas the CIO may be more interested in the methodology used to develop the strategy.

    Communication considerations

    Developing an information security strategy is only half the job. For the strategy to be successful, you will need to garner support from key internal stakeholders. These may include the CIO, senior executives, and business leaders. Without their support, your strategy may never get the traction it needs. When building your communication deck and planning to present to these stakeholders, consider the following:

    • Gaining support from stakeholders requires understanding their needs. Before presenting to a new audience, carefully consider their priorities and tailor your presentation to address them.
    • Use the communication deck to clarify the business context and how your initiatives that will support business goals.
    • When presenting to senior stakeholders, anticipate what questions they might ask and be sure to prepare answers in advance. Always be prepared to speak to any data point within the deck.
    • If you are going to present your strategy to a group and you anticipate that one or more members of that group may be antagonistic, seek out an opportunity to speak to them before the meeting and address their concerns one on one.

    If you have already fully engaged your key stakeholders through the requirements gathering exercises, presenting the strategy will be significantly easier. The stakeholders will have already bought in to the business goals, allowing you to show how the security strategy supports those goals.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Reinforce the concept that a security strategy is an effort to enable the organization to achieve its core mission and goals and to protect the business only to the degree that the business demands. It is important that stakeholders understand this point.

    4.2 Develop a security charter

    Estimated Time: 1-3 hours

    1. As a group, review the Information Security Charter.
    2. Customize the template as required to reflect your information security program. It may include elements such as:
      • A mission and vision statement for information security in your organization
      • The objectives and scope of the security program
      • A description of the security principles upon which your program is built
      • High-level roles and responsibilities for information security within the organization

    Input

    • Completed Security Requirements Gathering Tool
    • Completed Security Pressure Analysis Tool
    • Completed Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Output

    • Information security charter

    Materials

    • Information Security Charter

    Participants

    • Security Team

    Download the Information Security Gap Analysis Tool

    4.2.1 Customize the Information Security Charter

    Estimated Time: 1-3 hours

    1. Involve the stakeholders that were present during Phase 1 activities to allow you to build a charter that is truly reflective of your organization.
    2. The purpose of the security charter is too:
      • Establish a mandate for information security within the organization.
      • Communicate executive commitment to risk and information security management.
      • Outline high-level responsibilities for information security within the organization.
      • Establish awareness of information security within the organization.

    A screenshot of the introduction of the 'Information Security Charter' template.

    A security charter is a formalized and defined way to document the scope and purpose of your security program. It will define security governance and allow it to operate efficiently through your mission and vision.

    4.3 Execute on your roadmap

    1. Executing on your information security roadmap will require coordinated effort by multiple teams within your organization. To ensure success, consider the following recommendations:
      1. If you have a project management office, leverage them to help apply formal project management methodologies to your initiatives.
      2. Develop a process to track the tasks on your strategy task list. Because these will not be managed as formal initiatives, it will be easy to lose track of them.
      3. Develop a schedule for regular reporting of progress on the roadmap to senior management. This will help hold yourself and others accountable for moving the project forward.
    2. Plan to review and update the strategy and roadmap on a regular basis. You may need to add, change, or remove initiatives as priorities shift.

    Input

    • Completed Security Gap Analysis Tool

    Output

    • Execution of your strategy and roadmap

    Materials

    • Information Security Gap Analysis Tool
    • Project management tools as required

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Project Management Office
    • IT and Corporate Teams, as required

    Info-Tech Insight

    Info-Tech has many resources that can help you quickly and effectively implement most of your initiatives. Talk to your account manager to learn more about how we can help your strategy succeed.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    • Knowledge of organizational pressures and the drivers behind them
    • Insight into stakeholder goals and obligations
    • A defined security risk tolerance information and baseline
    • Comprehensive knowledge of security current state and summary initiatives required to achieve security objectives

    Deliverables Completed

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

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    Additional Support

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

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

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

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

    Information Security Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Use our best-of-breed security framework to perform a gap analysis between your current and target states.

    Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool

    Define the business, customer, and compliance alignment for your security program.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Develop a Security Operations Strategy

    A unified security operations process actively transforms security events and threat information into actionable intelligence, driving security prevention, detection, analysis, and response processes, addressing the increasing sophistication of cyberthreats, and guiding continuous improvement.

    This blueprint will walk through the steps of developing a flexible and systematic security operations program relevant to your organization.

    Implement a Security Governance and Management Program

    Your security governance and management program needs to be aligned with business goals to be effective.

    This approach also helps to provide a starting point to develop a realistic governance and management program.

    This project will guide you through the process of implementing and monitoring a security governance and management program that prioritizes security while keeping costs to a minimum.

    Align Your Security Controls to Industry Frameworks for Compliance

    Don’t reinvent the wheel by reassessing your security program using a new framework.

    Instead, use the tools in this blueprint to align your current assessment outcomes to required standards.

    Bibliography

    “2015 Cost of Data Breach Study: United States.” Sponsored by IBM. Ponemon Institute, May 2015. Web.

    “2016 Cost of Cyber Crime Study & the Risk of Business Innovation.” Ponemon Institute, Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

    “2016 Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis.” Ponemon Institute, June 2016. Web. 26 Oct. 2016.

    “2016 Data Breach Investigations Report.” Verizon, 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

    “2016 NowSecure Mobile Security Report.” NowSecure, 2016. Web. 5 Nov. 2016.

    “2017 Cost of Cyber Crime Study.” Ponemon Institute, Oct. 2017. Web.

    “2018 Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Overview.” Ponemon Institute, July 2018. Web.

    “2018 Data Breach Investigations Report.” Verizon, 2018. Web. Oct. 2019.

    “2018 Global State of Information Security Survey.” CSO, 2017. Web.

    “2018 Thales Data Threat Report.” Thales eSecurity, 2018. Web.

    “2019 Data Breach Investigations Report.” Verizon, 2020. Web. Feb. 2020.

    “2019 Global Cost of a Data Breach Study.” Ponemon Institute, Feb. 2020. Web.

    “2019 The Cost of Cyber Crime Study.” Accenture, 2019. Web Jan 2020.

    “2020 Thales Data Threat Report Global Edition.” Thales eSecurity, 2020. Web. Mar. 2020.

    Ben Salem, Malek. “The Cyber Security Leap: From Laggard to Leader.” Accenture, 2015. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

    “Cisco 2017 Annual Cybersecurity Report.” Cisco, Jan. 2017. Web. 3 Jan. 2017.

    “Cyber Attack – How Much Will You Lose?” Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oct. 2016. Web. 3 Jan. 2017.

    “Cyber Crime – A Risk You Can Manage.” Hewlett Packard Enterprise, 2016. Web. 3 Jan. 2017.

    “Global IT Security Risks Survey.” Kaspersky Lab, 2015. Web. 20 October 2016.

    “How Much Is the Data on Your Mobile Device Worth?” Ponemon Institute, Jan. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

    “Insider Threat 2018 Report.” CA Technologies, 2018. Web.

    “Kaspersky Lab Announces the First 2016 Consumer Cybersecurity Index.” Press Release. Kaspersky Lab, 8 Sept. 2016. Web. 3 Jan. 2017.

    “Kaspersky Lab Survey Reveals: Cyberattacks Now Cost Large Businesses an Average of $861,000.” Press Release. Kaspersky Lab, 13 Sept. 2016. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

    “Kaspersky Security Bulletin 2016.” Kaspersky Lab, 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

    “Managing Cyber Risks in an Interconnected World: Key Findings From the Global State of Information Security Survey 2015.” PwC, 30 Sept. 2014. Web.

    “Measuring Financial Impact of IT Security on Business.” Kaspersky Lab, 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

    “Ponemon Institute Releases New Study on How Organizations Can Leapfrog to a Stronger Cyber Security Posture.” Ponemon Institute, 10 Apr. 2015. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

    “Predictions for 2017: ‘Indicators of Compromise’ Are Dead.” Kaspersky Lab, 2016. Web. 4 Jan. 2017.

    “Take a Security Leap Forward.” Accenture, 2015. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

    “Trends 2016: (In)security Everywhere.” ESET Research Laboratories, 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.

    Research Contributors

    • Peter Clay, Zeneth Tech Partners, Principal
    • Ken Towne, Zeneth Tech Partners, Security Architect
    • Luciano Siqueria, Road Track, IT Security Manager
    • David Rahbany, The Hain Celestial Group, Director IT Infrastructure
    • Rick Vadgama, Cimpress, Head of Information Privacy and Security
    • Doug Salah, Wabtec Corp, Manager of Information Security and IT Audit
    • Peter Odegard, Children’s Hospitals and Clinics, Information Security Officer
    • Trevor Butler, City of Lethbridge, Information Technology General Manager
    • Shane Callahan, Tractor Supply, Director of Information Security
    • Jeff Zalusky, Chrysalis, President/CEO
    • Candy Alexander, Independent Consultant, Cybersecurity and Information Security Executive
    • Dan Humbert, YMCA of Central Florida, Director of Information Technology
    • Ron Kirkland, Crawford & Co, Manager ICT Security & Customer Service
    • Jason Bevis – FireEye, Senior Director Orchestration Product Management - Office of the CTO
    • Joan Middleton, Village of Mount Prospect, IT Director
    • Jim Burns, Great America Financial Services, Vice President Information Technology
    • Ryan Breed, Hudson’s Bay, Information Security Analyst
    • James Fielder, Farm Credit Services – Central Illinois, Vice President of Information Systems

    Implement Software Asset Management

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}313|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.3/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $107,154 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 39 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Asset Management
    • Parent Category Link: /asset-management
    • Organizations are aware of the savings that result from implementing software asset management (SAM), but are unsure of where to start the process.
    • Poor data capture procedures and lack of a centralized repository produce an incomplete picture of software assets and licenses, preventing accurate forecasting and license optimization.
    • Audit protocols are ad hoc, resulting in sloppy reporting and time-consuming work and lack of preparedness for external software audits.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • A strong SAM program will benefit all aspects of the business. Data and reports gained through SAM will enable data-driven decision making for all areas of the business.
    • Don’t just track licenses; manage them to create value from data. Gathering and monitoring license data is just the beginning. What you do with that data is the real test.
    • Win the audit battle without fighting. Conduct internal audits to minimize surprises when external audits are requested.

    Impact and Result

    • Conduct a current state assessment of existing SAM processes to form an appropriate plan for implementing or improving your SAM program.
    • Define standard policies, processes, and procedures for each stage of the software asset lifecycle, from procurement through to retirement.
    • Develop an internal audit policy to mitigate the risk of costly external audits.

    Implement Software Asset Management Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement software asset management, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess & plan

    Assess current state and plan the scope of the SAM program, team, and budget.

    • Implement Software Asset Management – Phase 1: Assess & Plan
    • SAM Maturity Assessment
    • SAM Standard Operating Procedures
    • SAM Budget Workbook

    2. Procure, receive & deploy

    Define processes for software requests, procurement, receiving, and deployment.

    • Implement Software Asset Management – Phase 2: Procure, Receive & Deploy
    • SAM Process Workflows (Visio)
    • SAM Process Workflows (PDF)

    3. Manage, redeploy & retire

    Define processes for software inventory, maintenance, harvest and redeployment, and retirement.

    • Implement Software Asset Management – Phase 3: Manage, Redeploy & Retire
    • Patch Management Policy

    4. Build supporting processes

    Build processes for audits and plan the implementation.

    • Implement Software Asset Management – Phase 4: Build Supporting Processes & Tools
    • Software Audit Scoping Email Template
    • Software Audit Launch Email Template
    • SAM Communication Plan
    • SAM FAQ Template
    • Software Asset Management Policy
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Implement Software Asset Management

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess & Plan

    The Purpose

    Assess current state and plan the scope of the SAM program, team, and budget.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Current state assessment

    Defined roles and responsibilities

    SAM budget plan

    Activities

    1.1 Outline SAM challenges and objectives.

    1.2 Assess current state.

    1.3 Identify roles and responsibilities for SAM team.

    1.4 Identify metrics and reports.

    1.5 Identify SAM functions to centralize vs. decentralize.

    1.6 Plan SAM budget process.

    Outputs

    Current State Assessment

    RACI Chart

    Defined metrics and reports

    SAM Budget Workbook

    2 Procure, Receive & Deploy

    The Purpose

    Define processes for software requests, procurement, receiving, and deployment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined standards for software procurement

    Documented processes for software receiving and deployment

    Activities

    2.1 Determine software standards.

    2.2 Define procurement process for new contracts.

    2.3 Define process for contract renewals and additional procurement scenarios.

    2.4 Design process for receiving software.

    2.5 Design deployment workflow.

    2.6 Define process for non-standard software requests.

    Outputs

    Software standards

    Standard Operating Procedures

    SAM Process Workflows

    3 Manage, Redeploy & Retire

    The Purpose

    Define processes for software inventory, maintenance, harvest and redeployment, and retirement.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined process for conducting software inventory

    Maintenance and patch policy

    Documented workflows for software harvest and redeployment as well as retirement

    Activities

    3.1 Define process for conducting software inventory.

    3.2 Define policies for software maintenance and patches.

    3.3 Map software license harvest and reallocation process.

    3.4 Define policy for retiring software.

    Outputs

    Standard Operating Procedures

    Patch management policy

    SAM Process Workflows

    4 Build Supporting Processes & Tools

    The Purpose

    Build processes for audits, identify tool requirements, and plan the implementation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined process for internal and external audits

    Tool requirements

    Communication and implementation plan

    Activities

    4.1 Define and document the internal audit process.

    4.2 Define and document the external audit process.

    4.3 Document tool requirements.

    4.4 Develop a communication plan.

    4.5 Prepare an FAQ list.

    4.6 Identify SAM policies.

    4.7 Develop a SAM roadmap to plan your implementation.

    Outputs

    Audit response templates

    Tool requirements

    Communication plan

    End-user FAQ list

    Software Asset Management Policy

    Implementation roadmap

    Further reading

    Implement Software Asset Management

    Go beyond tracking licenses to proactively managing software throughout its lifecycle.

    Table of contents

    1. Title
    2. Executive Brief
    3. Execute the Project/DIY Guide
    4. Next Steps
    5. Appendix

    Analyst Perspective

    “Organizations often conflate software asset management (SAM) with license tracking. SAM is not merely knowing how many licenses you require to be in compliance; it’s asking the deeper budgetary questions to right-size your software spend.

    Software audits are a growing concern for businesses, but proactive reporting and decision making supported by quality data will mitigate audit risks. Value is left on the table through underused or poor-quality data, so active data management must be in play. A dedicated ITAM tool can assist with extracting value from your license data.

    Achieving an optimized SAM program is a transformative effort, but the people, processes, and technology need to be in place before that can happen.” (Sandi Conrad, Senior Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice, Info-Tech Research Group)

    Software license complexity and audit frequency are increasing: are you prepared to manage the risk?

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • CIOs that want to improve IT’s reputation with the business.
    • CIOs that want to eliminate the threat of a software audit.
    • Organizations that want proactive reporting that benefits the entire business.
    • IT managers who want visibility into their software usage.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Establish a standardized software management process.
    • Track and manage software throughout its lifecycle, from procurement through to retirement or redeployment.
    • Rationalize your software license estate.
    • Improve your negotiations with software vendors.
    • Improve the quality of your SAM data gathering and reporting.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • Organizations are aware of the savings that result from implementing software asset management (SAM), but are unsure of where to start the process. With no formal standards in place for managing licenses, organizations are constantly at risk for costly software audits and poorly executed software spends.

    Complication

    • Poor data-capture procedures produce an incomplete picture of software lifecycles.
    • No centralized repository exists, resulting in fragmented reporting.
    • Audit protocols are ad hoc, resulting in sloppy reporting and time-consuming work.

    Resolution

    • Conduct a current state assessment of existing SAM processes to form an appropriate plan for implementing or improving your SAM program.
    • Build and involve a SAM team in the process from the beginning to help embed the change.
    • Define standard policies, processes, and procedures for each stage of the software asset lifecycle, from procurement through to retirement. Pace yourself; a staged implementation will make your ITAM program a success.
    • Develop an internal audit program to mitigate the risk of costly audits.
    • Once a standardized SAM program and data are in place, you will be able to use the data to optimize and rationalize your software licenses.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A strong SAM program will benefit all aspects of the business.
    Data and reports gained through SAM will enable data-driven decision making for all areas of the business.

    Don’t just track licenses; manage them to create value from data.
    Gathering and monitoring license data is just the beginning. What you do with that data is the real test.

    Win the audit battle without fighting.
    Conduct internal audits to minimize surprises when external audits are requested.

    Build the business case for SAM on cost and risk avoidance

    You can estimate the return even without tools or data.

    Benefit Calculate the return
    Compliance

    How many audits did you have in the past three years?

    How much time did you spend in audit response?

    Suppose you had two audits each year for the last three years, each with an average $250,000 in settlements.

    A team of four with an average salary of $75,000 each took six months to respond each year, allocating 20% of their work time to the audit.

    You could argue annual audits cost on average $530,000. Increasing ITAM maturity stands to reduce that cost significantly.

    Efficiency

    How much do you spend on software and maintenance by supplier?

    Suppose you spent $1M on software last year. What if you could reduce the spend by just 10% through better practices?

    SAM can help reduce the annual spend by simplifying support, renegotiating contracts based on asset data, reducing redundancy, and reducing spend.

    The Business Benefits of SAM

    • Compliance: Managing audits and meeting legal, contractual, and regulatory obligations.
    • Efficiency: Reducing costs and making the best use of assets while maintaining service.
    • Agility: Anticipate requirements using asset data for business intelligence and analytics.

    Poor software asset management practices increase costs and risks

    Failure to implement SAM can lead to:

    High cost of undiscovered IT assets
    • Needless procurement of software for new hires can be costly.
    Licensing, liability, and legal violations
    • Legal actions and penalties that result from ineffective SAM processes and license incompliance can severely impact an organization’s financial performance and corporate brand image.
    Compromised security
    • Not knowing what assets you have, who is using them and how, can compromise the security of sensitive information.
    Increased management costs
    • Not having up-to-date software license information impacts decision making, with many management teams failing to respond quickly and efficiently to operational demands.
    Increased disruptions
    • Vendors seek out organizations who don’t manage their software assets effectively; it is likely that you could be subject to major operational disruptions as a result of an audit.
    Poor supplier/vendor relationship
    • Most organizations fear communicating with vendors and are anxious about negotiating new licenses.

    54% — A study by 1E found that only 54% of organizations believe they can identify all unused software in their organization.

    28% — On average, 28% of deployed software is unused, with a wasted cost of $224 per PC on unused software (1E, 2014).

    53% — Express Metrix found that 53% of organizations had been audited within the past two years. Of those, 72% had been audited within the last 12 months.

    SAM delivers cost savings beyond the procurement stage

    SAM delivers cost savings in several ways:

    • Improved negotiating position
      • Certainty around software needs and licensing terms can put the organization in a better negotiating position for new contracts or contract renewals.
    • Improved purchasing position
      • Centralized procurement can allow for improved purchasing agreements with better pricing.
    • More accurate forecasting and spend
      • With accurate data on what software is installed vs. used, more accurate decisions can be made around software purchasing needs and budgeting.
    • Prevention of over deployment
      • Deploy software only where it is needed based on what end users actively use.
    • Software rationalization
      • SAM data may reveal multiple applications performing similar functions that can be rationalized into a single standard software that is used across the enterprise.
    • License harvesting
      • Identify unused licenses that can be harvested and redeployed to other users rather than purchasing new licenses.

    SAM delivers many benefits beyond cost savings

    Manage risk. If licensing terms are not properly observed, the organization is at risk of legal and financial exposure, including illegal software installation, loss of proof of licenses purchased, or breached terms and conditions.

    Control and predict spend. Unexpected problems related to software assets and licenses can significantly impact cash flow.

    Less operational interruptions. Poor software asset management processes could lead to failed deployments, software update interruptions, viruses, or a shutdown of unlicensed applications.

    Avoid security breaches. If data is not secure through software patches and security, confidential information may be disclosed.

    More informed decisions. More accurate data on software assets improves transparency and informs decision making.

    Improved contract management. Automated tools can alert you to when contracts are up for renewal to allow time to plan and negotiate, then purchase the right amount of licenses.

    Avoid penalties. Conduct internal audits and track compliance to avoid fees or penalties if an external audit occurs.

    Reduced IT support. Employees should require less support from the service desk with proper, up to date, licensed software, freeing up time for IT Operations to focus on other work.

    Enhanced productivity. By rationalizing and standardizing software offerings, more staff should be using the same software with the same versioning, allowing for better communication and collaboration.

    Asset management is especially correlated with the following processes

    Being highly effective at asset management means that you are more likely to be highly effective at almost all IT processes, especially:

    Icon for process 'BAI10 Configuration Management'. Configuration Management
    76% more effective
    Icon for process 'ITRG03 Manage Service Catalogs'. Service Catalog
    74% more effective
    Icon for process 'APO11 Quality Management'. Quality Management
    63% more effective
    Icon for process 'ITRG08 Data Quality'. Data Quality
    62% more effective
    Icon for process 'MEA01 Performance Measurement'. Performance Measurement
    61% more effective
    Icon for process 'BAI05 Organizational Change Management'. Organizational Change Management
    60% more effective
    Icon for process 'APO05 Portfolio Management'. Portfolio Management
    59% more effective
    Icon for process 'APO03 Enterprise Architecture'. Enterprise Architecture
    58% more effective

    Why? Good SAM processes are integral to both service management and configuration management

    (Source: Info-Tech Research Group, IT Management and Governance Diagnostic; N=972 organizations) (High asset management effectiveness was defined as those organizations with an effectiveness score of 8 or above.)

    To accelerate progress, Info-Tech Research Group parses software asset management into its essential processes

    Focus on software asset management essentials

    Software Procurement:

    • Define procurement standards for software and related warranties and support options.
    • Develop processes and workflows for purchasing and work out financial implications to inform budgeting later.

    Software Deployment and Maintenance:

    • Define policies, processes, and workflows for software receiving, deployment, and maintenance practices.
    • Develop processes and workflows for managing imaging, harvests and redeployments, service requests, and large-scale rollouts.

    Software Harvest and Retirement:

    • Manage the employee termination and software harvest cycle.
    • Develop processes, policies, and workflows for software security and retirement.

    Software Contract and Audit Management:

    • Develop processes for data collection and validation to prepare for an audit.
    • Define metrics and reporting processes to keep asset management processes on track.
    A diagram that looks like a tier circle with 'Implement SAM' at the center. The second ring has 'Request & Procure', 'Receive & Deploy', 'Manage & Maintain', and 'Harvest & Retire'. The third ring seems to be a cycle beginning with 'Plan', 'Request', 'Procure', 'Deploy', 'Manage', 'Retire', and back to 'Plan'.

    Asset management is a key piece of Info-Tech’s COBIT-based IT Management and Governance Framework

    The Info-Tech / COBIT5 IT Management & Governance Framework, a number of IT process icons arranged like a periodic table. A magnifying glass highlights process 'BAI09 Asset Management' in the 'Infrastructure & Operations' category.

    Follow Info-Tech's methodology to build a plan to implement software asset management

    Phase 1
    Assess & Plan
    Phase 2
    Procure, Receive & Deploy
    Phase 3
    Manage, Redeploy & Retire
    Phase 4
    Build supporting processes

    1.1

    Assess current state

    2.1

    Request & procure

    3.1

    Manage & maintain contracts

    4.1

    Compliance & audits

    1.2

    Build team and define metrics

    2.2

    Receive & deploy

    3.2

    Harvest or retire

    4.2

    Communicate & build roadmap

    1.3

    Plan & budget
    Deliverables
    Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
    SAM maturity assessment Process workflows Process workflows Audit response templates
    RACI chart Software standards Patch management policy Communication plan & FAQ template
    SAM metrics SAM policies
    SAM budget workbook

    Thanks to SAM, Visa saved $200 million in three years

    Logo for VISA.

    Case Study

    Industry: Financial Services
    Source: International Business Software Managers Association

    Visa, Inc.

    Visa, Inc. is the largest payment processing company in the world, with a network that can handle over 40,000 transactions every minute.

    Software Asset Management Program

    In 2006, Visa launched a formal IT asset management program, but it was not until 2011 that it initiated a focus on SAM. Joe Birdsong, the SAM director, first addressed four major enterprise license agreements (ELAs) and compliance issues. The SAM team implemented a few dedicated SAM tools in conjunction with an aggressive approach to training.

    Results

    The proactive approach taken by Visa used a three-pronged strategy: people, process, and tools. The process included ELA negotiations, audit responses, and software license rationalization exercises.

    According to Birdsong, “In the past three years, SAM has been credited with saving Visa over $200 million.”

    An timeline arrow with benchmarks, in order: 'Tool purchases', 'ELA negotiations', 'License rationalization', 'Audit responses', '$200 million in savings in just three years thanks to optimized SAM processes'.

    Info-Tech delivers: Use our tools and templates to accelerate your project to completion

    Thumbnail of Info-Tech's 'SAM Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)'.
    SAM Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
    Thumbnail of Info-Tech's 'SAM Maturity Assessment'.
    SAM Maturity Assessment
    Thumbnail of Info-Tech's 'SAM Visio Process Workflows'.
    SAM Visio Process Workflows
    Thumbnail of Info-Tech's 'SAM Budget Workbook'.
    SAM Budget Workbook
    Thumbnail of Info-Tech's 'Additional SAM Policy Templates'.
    Additional SAM Policy Templates
    Thumbnail of Info-Tech's 'Software Asset Management Policy'.
    Software Asset Management Policy
    Thumbnail of Info-Tech's 'SAM Communication Plan'.
    SAM Communication Plan
    Thumbnail of Info-Tech's 'SAM FAQ Template'.
    SAM FAQ Template

    Use these insights to help guide your understanding of the project

    • SAM provides value to other processes in IT.
      Data, reports, and savings gained through SAM will enable data-driven decision making for all areas of the business.
    • Don’t just track licenses; manage them to create value from data.
      Gathering and monitoring license data is just the beginning. What you do with that data is the real test.
    • SAM isn’t about managing costs; it’s about understanding your environment to make better decisions.
      Capital tied up in software can impact the progress of other projects.
    • Managing licenses can impact the entire organization.
      Gain project buy-in from stakeholders by articulating the impact that managing licenses can have on other projects and the prevalence of shadow IT.

    Measure the value of a guided implementation (GI)

    Engaging in GIs doesn’t just offer valuable project advice, it also results in significant cost savings.

    GI Measured Value (Assuming 260 workdays in a year)
    Phase 1: Assess & Plan
    • Time, value, and resources saved by using Info-Tech’s methodology to assess current state and create a defined SAM team with actionable metrics
    • For example, 2 FTEs * 5 days * $80,000/year = $6,400
    Phase 2: Procure, Receive & Deploy
    • Time, value, and resources saved by using Info-Tech’s methodology to streamline request, procurement, receiving, and deployment processes for software assets.
    • For example, 2 FTEs * 5 days * $80,000/year = $6,400
    Phase 3: Manage, Redeploy & Retire
    • Time, value, and resources saved by using Info-Tech’s methodology to streamline the maintenance, inventory, license redeployment, and software retiring processes.
    • For example, 2 FTEs * 5 days * $80,000/year = $6,400
    Phase 4: Build Supporting Processes and Tools
    • Time, resources, and potential audit fines saved by using Info-Tech’s methodology to improve audit defense processes ($298,325 average audit penalty (Based on the results of Cherwell Software’s 2013 Software Audit Industry Report)) and design a communication and implementation plan.
    • For example, 2 FTEs * 5days * $80,000/year = $6,400 + $298,325 = $304,725
    Total savings $330,325

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Implement Software Asset Management – project overview

    Phase 1: Assess & plan Phase 2: Procure, receive & deploy Phase 3: Manage, redeploy & retire Phase 4: Build supporting processes
    Supporting Tool icon Best-Practice Toolkit

    Step 1.1: Assess current state

    Step 1.2: Build team and define metrics

    Step 1.3: Plan and budget

    Step 2.1: Request and procure

    Step 2.2: Receive and deploy

    Step 3.1: Manage and maintain contracts

    Step 3.2: Harvest, redeploy, or retire

    Step 4.1: Compliance and audits

    Step 4.2: Communicate and build roadmap

    Guided Implementations
    • Assess current state and challenges.
    • Define roles and responsibilities as well as metrics.
    • Discuss SAM budgeting.
    • Define software standards and procurement process.
    • Build processes for receiving software and deploying software.
    • Define process for conducting software inventory and maintenance and patches.
    • Build software harvest and redeployment processes and retirement.
    • Define process for internal and external audits.
    • Develop communication and implementation plan.
    Associated Activity icon Onsite Workshop Module 1:
    Assess & Plan
    Module 2:
    Map Core Processes: Procure, Receive & Deploy
    Module 3:
    Map Core Processes: Manage, Redeploy & Retire
    Module 4:
    Prepare for audit, build roadmap and communications

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4
    Activities
    Assess & Plan

    1.1 Outline SAM challenges and objectives

    1.2 Assess current state

    1.3 Identify roles and responsibilities for SAM team

    1.4 Identify metrics and reports

    1.5 Identify SAM functions to centralize vs. decentralize

    1.6 Plan SAM budget process

    Map Core Processes: Procure, Receive & Deploy

    2.1 Determine software standards

    2.2 Define procurement process for new contracts

    2.3 Define process for contract renewals and additional procurement scenarios

    2.4 Design process for receiving software

    2.5 Design deployment workflow

    2.6 Define process for non-standard software requests

    Map Core Processes: Manage, Redeploy & Retire

    3.1 Define process for conducting software inventory

    3.2 Define policies for software maintenance and patches

    3.3 Map software license harvest and reallocation process

    3.4 Define policy for retiring software

    Build Supporting Processes

    4.1 Define and document the internal audit process

    4.2 Define and document the external audit process

    4.3 Develop a communication plan

    4.4 Prepare an FAQ list

    4.5 Identify SAM policies

    4.6 Develop a SAM roadmap to plan your implementation

    Deliverables
    • SAM maturity assessment
    • RACI chart
    • Defined metrics and reports
    • Budget workbook
    • Process workflows
    • Software standards
    • Process workflows
    • Patch management policy
    • Standard operating procedures
    • Audit response templates
    • Communication plan
    • FAQ template
    • Additional policy templates
    • Roadmap of initiatives

    Use these icons to help direct you as you navigate this research

    Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.

    A small monochrome icon of a wrench and screwdriver creating an X.

    This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.

    A small monochrome icon depicting a person in front of a blank slide.

    This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.

    Phase 1: Assess Current State

    VISA fought fire with fire to combat costly software audits

    Logo for VISA.

    Case Study

    Industry: Financial Services
    Source: SAM Summit 2014

    Challenge

    Visa implemented an IT asset management program in 2006. After years of software audit teams from large firms visiting and leaving expensive software compliance bills, the world’s leading payment processing company decided it was time for a change.

    Upper management recognized that it needed to combat audits. It had the infrastructure in place and the budget to purchase SAM tools that could run discovery and tracking functions, but it was lacking the people and processes necessary for a mature SAM program.

    Solution

    Visa decided to fight fire with fire. It initially contracted the same third-party audit teams to help build out its SAM processes. Eventually, Visa formed a new SAM team that was led by a group of former auditors.

    The former auditors recognized that their role was not technology based, so a group of technical individuals were hired to help roll out various SAM tools.

    The team rolled out tools like BDNA Discover and Normalize, Flexera FlexNet Manager, and Microsoft SCCM.

    Results

    To establish an effective SAM team, diverse talent is key. Visa focused on employees that were consultative but also technical. Their team needed to build relationships with teams within the organization and externally with vendors.

    Most importantly, the leaders of the team needed to think like auditors to better prepare for audits. According to Joe Birdsong, SAM Director at Visa, “we want to be viewed as a team that can go in and help right-size their environment and better understand licensing to help teams make better decisions.”

    The SAM team was only the beginning.

    Step 1.1 Assess current state and plan scope

    Phase 1:
    Assess & Plan
    This step will walk you through the following activities:This step involves the following participants:

    1.1

    Assess current state
    • 1.1.1 Outline the organization’s SAM challenges
    • 1.1.2 Identify objectives of SAM program
    • 1.1.3 Determine the maturity of your SAM program
    • Project Sponsor
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and SAM Manager

    1.2

    Build team and define metrics

    1.3

    Plan & budget

    Step Outcomes

    • An outline of the challenges related to SAM
    • A clear direction for the program based on drivers, anticipated benefits, and goals
    • A completed maturity assessment of current SAM processes

    Sketch out challenges related to software asset management to shape the direction of the project

    Common SAM challenges

    • Audits are disruptive, time-consuming, and costly
    • No audit strategy and response in place
    • Software non-compliance risk is too high
    • Lacking data to forecast software needs
    • No central repository of software licenses
    • Untracked or unused software licenses results in wasted spend
    • Software license and maintenance costs account for a large percentage of the budget
    • Lacking data to know what software is purchased and deployed across the organization
    • Lack of software standards make it difficult to collect consistent information about software products
    • New software licenses are purchased when existing licenses remain on the shelf or multiple similar software products are purchased
    • Employees or departments make ad hoc purchases, resulting in overspending and reduced purchasing power
    • License renewal dates come up unexpectedly without time for adequate decision making
    • No communication between departments to coordinate software purchasing
    • Difficult to stay up to date with software licensing rule changes to remain in compliance
    • Processes and policies are unstandardized and undocumented

    Outline the organization’s SAM challenges

    Associated Activity icon 1.1.1 Brainstorm SAM challenges

    Participants: CIO/CFO, IT Director, Asset Manager, Purchasing, Service Desk Manager, Security (optional), Operations (optional)

    1. Distribute sticky notes to participants. Have everyone start by identifying challenges they face as a result of poor software asset management.
    2. As group, discuss and outline the software asset management challenges facing the organization. These may be challenges caused by poor SAM processes or simply by a lack of process. Group the challenges into key pain points to inform the current state discussion and assessment to follow.

    To be effective with software asset management, understand the drivers and potential impact to the organization

    Drivers of effective SAM Results of effective SAM
    Contracts and vendor licensing programs are complex and challenging to administer without data related to assets and their environment. Improved access to accurate data on contracts, licensing, warranties, installed software for new contracts, renewals, and audit requests.
    Increased need to meet compliance requires a formal approach to tracking and managing assets. Encryption, software application controls, and change notifications all contribute to better asset controls and data security.
    Cost cutting is on the agenda, and management is looking to reduce overall IT spend in the organization in any possible way. Reduction of software spend through data for better forecasting, planning, and licensing rationalization and harvesting.
    Audits are time consuming, disruptive to project timelines and productivity, and costly. Respond to audits with a formalized process, accurate data, and minimal disruption using always-available reporting.

    Determine goals to focus the direction of your SAM program

    Associated Activity icon 1.1.2 Identify objectives of the SAM program

    Participants: CIO/CFO, IT Director, Asset Manager, Service Manager (optional)

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. Identify the drivers behind the software asset management implementation or improvement project. List on a whiteboard or flip chart.
    2. Using the project drivers as input, brainstorm the goals of the SAM project. Discuss the goals as a group and finalize into a list of objectives for the SAM program.
    3. Record the objectives in the SOP and keep them in mind as you work through the rest of the project.

    Sample Objectives:

    1. A single data repository to efficiently manage assets for their entire lifecycle.
    2. Formalizing a methodology for documenting assets to make data retrieval easy and accurate.
    3. Defining and documenting processes to determine where improvements can be made.
    4. Improving customer experience in accessing, using, and maintaining assets.
    5. Centralizing contract information.
    6. Providing access to information for all technical teams as needed.

    Implementing SAM processes will support other IT functions

    By improving how you manage your licenses and audit requests, you will not only provide benefits through a mature SAM program, you will also improve your service desk and disaster recovery functions.

    Service Desk Disaster Recovery
    • Effective service desk tickets require a certain degree of technical detail for completion that a SAM program often provides.
    • Many tools are available that can handle both ITSM and ITAM functions. Your SAM data can be integrated into many of your service desk functions.
    • For example, if a particular application is causing a high number of tickets, SAM data could show the application’s license is almost expired and its usage has decreased due to end-user frustrations. The SAM team could review the application and decide to purchase software that better meets end-user needs.
    • If you don’t know what you have, you don’t know what needs to be back online first.
    • The ability to restore system functionality is heavily dependent on the ability to locate or reproduce master media documentation and system configuration information.
    • If systems/software are permanently lost, the ability to recover software licensing information is crucial to preserving compliance.
    • License agreement and software are needed to demonstrate software ownership. Unless the proof of ownership is present, there is no proof of compliance.
    Short description of Info-Tech blueprint 'Standardize the Service Desk'. Short description of Info-Tech blueprint 'Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan'.

    Each level of SAM maturity comes with its own unique challenges

    Maturity People & Policies Processes Technology
    Chaos
    • No dedicated staff
    • No policies published
    • Procedures not documented or standardized
    • Licenses purchased randomly
    • Help desk images machines, but users can buy and install software
    • Minimal tracking tools in place
    Reactive
    • Semi-focused SAM manager
    • No policies published
    • Reliance on suppliers to provide reports for software purchases
    • Buy licenses as needed
    • Software installations limited to help desk
    • Discovery tools and spreadsheets used to manage software
    Controlled
    • Full-time SAM manager
    • End-user policies published and requiring sign-off
    • License reviews with maintenance and support renewals
    • SAM manager involved in budgeting and planning sessions
    • Discovery and inventory tools used to manage software
    • Compliance reports run as needed
    Proactive
    • Extended SAM team, including help desk and purchasing
    • Corporate anti-piracy statement in place and enforced
    • Quarterly license reviews
    • Centralized view into software licenses
    • Software requests through service catalog with defined standard and non-standard software
    • Product usage reports and alerts in place to harvest and reuse licenses
    • Compliance and usage reports used to negotiate software contracts
    Optimized
    • SAM manager trained and certified
    • Working with HR, Legal, Finance, and IT to enforce policies
    • Full support and maintenance analysis for all license reviews
    • Quarterly meetings with SAM team to review policies, procedures, upcoming contracts, and rollouts
    • Software deployed automatically through service catalog/apps store
    • Detailed savings reports provided to executive team annually
    • Automated policy enforcement and process workflows

    Determine the maturity of your SAM program

    Supporting Tool icon 1.1.3 Use the SAM Maturity Assessment Tool
    1. Download the SAM Maturity Assessment Tool and go to tab 2.
    2. Complete the self-assessment in all seven categories:
      1. Control Environment
      2. Roles & Responsibilities
      3. Policies & Procedures
      4. Competence
      5. Planning & Implementation Process
      6. Monitoring & Review
      7. Inventory Processes
    3. Go to tab 3 and examine the graphs produced. Identify the areas in your SAM program that require the most attention and which are already relatively mature.
    4. Use the results of this maturity assessment to focus the efforts of the project moving forward. Return to the assessment after a pre-determined time (e.g. one year later) to track improvement in maturity over time.
    Screenshot of the results page from the SAM Maturity Assessment Tool. Screenshot of the processes page from the SAM Maturity Assessment Tool.

    Step 1.2 Build team and define metrics

    Phase 1:
    Assess & Plan
    This step will walk you through the following activities:This step involves the following participants:

    1.1

    Assess current state
    • 1.2.1 Identify roles and responsibilities for SAM team
    • 1.2.2 Identify metrics and KPIs to track the success of your SAM program
    • 1.2.3 Define SAM reports to track metrics
    • CIO/CFO
    • IT Director
    • SAM Manager
    • SAM Team
    • Service Desk Manager

    1.2

    Build team and define metrics

    1.3

    Plan & budget

    Step Outcomes

    • A description of the roles and responsibilities of IT staff involved in SAM
    • A list of metrics and reports to track to measure the success of the software asset management program

    Define roles and responsibilities for the SAM program

    Roles and responsibilities should be adapted to fit specific organizational requirements based on its size, structure, and distribution and the scope of the program. Not all roles are necessary and in small organizations, one or two people may fulfill multiple roles.

    Senior Management Sponsor – Ensures visibility and support for the program.

    IT Asset Manager – Responsible for management of all assets and maintaining asset database.

    Software Asset Manager – Responsible for management of all software assets (a subset of the overall responsibility of the IT Asset Manager).

    SAM Process Owner – Responsible for overall effectiveness and efficiency of SAM processes.

    Asset Analyst – Maintains up-to-date records of all IT assets, including software version control.

    Additional roles that interact with SAM:

    • Security Manager
    • Auditors
    • Procurement Manager
    • Legal Council
    • Change Manager
    • Configuration Manager
    • Release and Deployment Manager
    • Service Desk Manager

    Form a software asset management team to drive project success

    Many organizations simply do not have a large enough staff to hire a full-time software asset manager. The role will need to be championed by an internal employee.

    Avoid filling this position with a temporary contract; one of the most difficult operational factors in SAM implementation and continuity is constant turnover and organizational shifts. Hiring a software asset manager on contract might get the project going faster, but without the knowledge gained by doing the processes, the program won’t have enough momentum to sustain itself.

    Software Asset Manager Duties

    • Gather proof of license.
    • Record and track all assets within the SAM repository.
    • Produce compliance reports.
    • Preparation of budget requests.
    • Administration of software renewal process.
    • Contract and support analysis.
    • Document procedures.
    • Ensure project is on track.

    SAM Team Member Duties

    • Record license and contract data in SAM tool.
    • Assist in production of SAM reports.
    • Data analysis.
    • Match tickets to SAM data.
    • Assist in documentation.
    • Assist in compliance reports.
    • Gather feedback from end users.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Make sure your SAM team is diverse. The SAM team will need to be skilled at achieving compliance, but there is also a need for technically skilled individuals to maximize the function of the SAM tool(s) at your organization.

    Identify roles and responsibilities for SAM

    Associated Activity icon 1.2.1 Complete a RACI chart for your organization

    Participants: CIO/CFO, IT Director, SAM Manager, SAM Team, Service Desk Manager

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Determine the roles and responsibilities for your SAM program. Record the results in a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) chart such as the example below.

    SAM Processes and Tasks CIO CFO SAM Manager IT Director Service Management Team IT Ops Security Finance Legal Project Manager
    Policies/Governance A C R R I I C I R I
    Strategy A C R R I I I I C
    Risk Management/Asset Security A C R R C R C C C
    Data Entry/Quality I I A R R
    Compliance Auditing R C A R I I I I
    Education & Training R I A C I I
    Contract Lifecycle Management R R A R C C C C R C
    Workflows R C A R I I I R I C/I
    Budgeting R R R A C R
    Software Acquisition R I A R I C R C C
    Controls/Reporting R I A R I I C I
    Optimize License Harvesting I I A R I C C

    Identify metrics to form the framework of the project

    Trying to achieve goals without metrics is like trying to cook without measuring your ingredients. You might succeed, but you’ll have no idea how to replicate it.

    SAM metrics should measure one of five categories:

    • Quantity → How many do we have? How many do we want?
    • Compliance → What is the level of compliance in a specific area?
    • Duration → How long does it take to achieve the desired result?
    • Financial → What is the cost/value? What is our comparative spend?
    • Quality → How good was the end result? E.g. Completeness, accuracy, timeliness

    The metrics you track depend on your maturity level. As your organization shifts in maturity, the metrics you prioritize for tracking will shift to reflect that change. Example:

    Metric category Low maturity metric High maturity metric
    Compliance % of software installed that is unauthorized % of vendors in effective licensing position (ELP) report
    Quantity % of licenses documented in ITAM tool % of requests made through unauthorized channels

    Associate KPIs and metrics with SAM goals

    • Identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for your software asset management program based on strategic goals.
    • For each success factor, identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success, as well as specific metrics that will be tracked and reported on.
    • Sample metrics are below:

    CSF = Goal, or what success looks like

    KPI = How achievement of goal will be defined

    Metric = Numerical measure to determine if KPI has been achieved

    CSF/Goal KPI Metrics
    Improve accuracy of software budget and forecasting
    • Reduce software spend by 5%
    • Total software asset spending
    • Budgeted software spend vs. actual software spend
    Avoid over purchasing software licenses and optimize use of existing licenses
    • Reduce number of unused and underused licenses by 10%
    • Number of unused licenses
    • Money saved from harvesting licenses instead of purchasing new ones
    Improve accuracy of data
    • Data in SAM tool matches what is deployed with 95% accuracy
    • Percentage of entitlements recorded in SAM tool
    • Percentage of software titles recognized by SAM tool
    Improved service delivery
    • Reduce time to deploy new software by 10%
    • Mean time to purchase new software
    • Mean time to fulfill new software requests

    Identify metrics and KPIs to track the success of your SAM program

    Associated Activity icon 1.2.2 Brainstorm metrics and KPIs

    Participants: CIO, IT Director, SAM Manager, SAM Team

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. Discuss the goals and objectives of implementing or improving software asset management, based on challenges identified earlier.
    2. From the goals, identify the critical success factors for the SAM program.
    3. For each CSF, identify one to three key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate achievement of the success factor.
    4. For each KPI, identify one to three metrics that can be tracked and reported on to measure success. Ensure that the metrics are tangible and measurable.

    Use the table below as an example.

    Goal/CSF KPI Metric
    Improve license visibility Increase accuracy and completeness of SAM data
    • % of total titles included in ITAM tool
    • % of licenses documented in ITAM tool
    Reduce software costs Reduce number of unused software licenses by 20%
    • % of licenses assigned to ex-employees
    • % of deployed licenses that have not been used in the past six months
    Reduce shadow IT Reduce number of unauthorized software purchases and installations by 10%
    • % of software requests made through unauthorized channels
    • % of software installed that is unauthorized

    Tailor metrics and reports to specific stakeholders

    Asset Managers

    Asset managers require data to manage how licenses are distributed throughout the organization. Are there multiple versions of the same application deployed? What proportion of licenses deployed are assigned to employees who are no longer at the organization? What are the usage patterns for applications?

    Service Desk Technicians

    Service desk technicians need real-time data on licenses currently available to deploy to machines that need to be imaged/updated, otherwise there is a risk of breaching a vendor agreement.

    Business Managers and Executives

    Business managers and executives need reports to make strategic decisions. The reports created for business stakeholders need to help them align business projects or business processes with SAM metrics. To determine which reports will provide the most value, start by looking at business goals and determining the tactical data that will help inform and support these goals and their progress.

    Additional reporting guidelines:

    • Dashboards should provide quick-glance information for daily maintenance.
    • Alerts should be set for all contract renewals to provide enough advanced notice (e.g. 90 days).
    • Reports should be automated to provide actionable information to appropriate stakeholders as needed.

    Define SAM reports to track metrics

    Associated Activity icon 1.2.3 Identify reports and metrics to track regularly

    Participants: CIO, IT Director, SAM Manager, SAM Team

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. Identify key stakeholders requiring SAM reports. For each audience, identify their goals and requirements from reporting.
    2. Using the list of metrics identified previously, sort metrics into reports for each audience based on their requirements and goals. Add any additional metrics required.
    3. Identify a reporting frequency for each report.

    Example:

    Stakeholder Purpose Report Frequency
    Asset Manager
    • Manage budget
    • Manage contracts and cash flow
    • Ensure processes are being followed
    Operational budget spent to date Monthly
    Capital budget spent to date Monthly
    Contracts coming due for renewal Quarterly
    Software harvested for redeployment Quarterly
    Number of single applications being managed Annually
    CFO
    • Manage budget
    • Manage cash flow
    Software purchased, operational & capital Monthly
    Software accrued for future purchases Monthly
    Contracts coming due for renewal
    • Include dollar value, savings/spend
    Quarterly
    CIO
    • Resource planning
    • Progress reporting
    Software deployments and redeployments Monthly
    Software rollouts planned Quarterly
    % of applications patched Quarterly
    Money saved Annually
    Number of contracts & apps managed Quarterly

    Step 1.3 Plan the SAM program and budget

    Phase 1:
    Assess & Plan
    This step will walk you through the following activities:This step involves the following participants:

    1.1

    Assess current state
    • 1.3.1 Identify SAM functions to centralize vs. decentralize
    • 1.3.2 Complete the SAM budget tool
    • Project Sponsor
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and SAM Manager
    • CFO

    1.2

    Build team and define metrics

    1.3

    Plan & budget

    Step Outcomes

    • Defined scope for the SAM program in terms of the degree of centralization of core functions and contracts
    • A clearer picture of software spend through the use of a SAM budgeting tool.

    Asset managers need to be involved in infrastructure projects at the decision-making stage

    Ensure that your software asset manager is at the table when making key IT decisions.

    Many infrastructure managers and business managers are unaware of how software licensing can impact projects. For example, changes in core infrastructure configuration can have big impacts from a software licensing perspective.

    Mini Case Study

    • When a large healthcare organization’s core infrastructure team decided to make changes to their environment, they failed to involve their asset manager in the decision-making process.
    • When the healthcare organization decided to make changes to their servers, they were running Oracle software on their servers, but the licenses were not being tracked.
    • When the change was being made to the servers, the business contacted Oracle to notify them of the change. What began as a tech services call quickly devolved into a licensing error; the vendor determined that the licenses deployed in the server environment were unauthorized.
    • For breaching the licensing agreement, Oracle fined the healthcare organization $250,000.
    • Had the asset manager been involved in the process, they would have understood the implications that altering the hardware configuration would have on the licensing agreement and a very expensive mistake could have been avoided.

    Decide on the degree of centralization for core SAM functions

    • Larger organizations with multiple divisions or business units will need to decide which SAM functions will be centralized and which, if any, will be decentralized as they plan the scope of their SAM program. Generally, certain core functions should be centralized for the SAM program to deliver the greatest benefits.
    • The degree of centralization may also be broken down by contract, with some contracts centralized and some decentralized.
    • A centralized SAM database gives needed visibility into software assets and licenses across the organization, but operation of the database may also be done locally.

    Centralization

    • Allows for more strategic planning
    • Visibility into software licenses across the organization promotes rationalization and cost savings
    • Ensure common products are used
    • More strategic sourcing of vendors and resellers
    • Centrally negotiate pricing for better deals
    • Easier to manage risk and prepare for audits
    • Greater coordination of resources

    Decentralization

    • May allow for more innovation
    • May be easier to demonstrate local compliance if the organization is geographically decentralized
    • May be easier to procure software if offices are in different countries
    • Deployment and installation of software on user devices may be easier

    Identify SAM functions to centralize vs. decentralize

    Associated Activity icon 1.3.1 Identify functions for centralization

    Participants: CIO, IT Director, SAM Manager, SAM Team

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. If applicable, identify SAM functions that will need to be centralized and evaluate the implications of centralization to ensure it is feasible.
    2. If applicable, identify SAM functions that will be decentralized, if resources are available to manage those functions locally.

    Example:

    Centralized Functions
    • Operation of SAM database
    • SAM budget
    • Vendor selection
    • Contract negotiation and purchasing
    • Data analysis
    • Software receiving and inventory
    • Audits and risk management
    Decentralized functions
    • Procurement
    • Deployment and installation

    Software comprises the largest part of the infrastructure and operations budget

    After employee salaries (38%), the four next largest spend buckets have historically been infrastructure related. Adding salaries and external services, the average annual infrastructure and operations spend is over 50% of all IT spend.

    The largest portion of that spend is on software license and maintenance. As of 2016, software accounted for the roughly the same budget total as voice communications, data communications, and hardware combined. Managing software contracts is a crucial part of any mature budgeting process.

    Graph showing the percentage of all IT spend used for 'Ongoing software license and maintenance' annually. In 2010 it was 17%; in 2018 it was 21%. Graph showing the percentage of all IT spend used for 'Hardware maintenance / upgrades' annually. In 2010 it was 7%; in 2018 it was 8%. Graph showing the percentage of all IT spend used for 'Data communications' annually. In 2010 it was 7%; in 2018 it was 7%. Graph showing the percentage of all IT spend used for 'Voice communications' annually. In 2010 it was 5%; in 2018 it was 7%.

    Gain control of the budget to increase the success of SAM

    A sophisticated software asset management program will be able to uncover hidden costs, identify opportunities for rationalization, save money through reharvesting unused licenses, and improve forecasting of software usage to help control IT spending.

    While some asset managers may not have experience managing budgets, there are several advantages to the ITAM function owning the budget:

    • Be more involved in negotiating pricing with vendors.
    • Build better relationships with stakeholders across the business.
    • Gain greater purchasing power and have a greater influence on purchasing decisions.
    • Forecast software requirements more accurately.
    • Inform benchmarks and metrics with more data.
    • Directly impact the reduction in IT spend.
    • Manage the asset database more easily and have a greater understanding of software needs.
    • Identify opportunities for cost savings through rationalization.

    Examine your budget from a SAM perspective to optimize software spend

    How does examining your budget from a SAM perspective benefit the business?

    • It provides a chance to examine vendor contracts as they break down contracts by projects and services, which gives a clearer picture of where software fits into the budget.
    • It also gives organizations a chance to review vendor agreements and identify any redundancies present in software supporting services.

    Review the budget:

    • When reviewing your budget, implement a contingency fund to mitigate risk from a possible breach of compliance.
    • If your organization incurs compliance issues that relate to specific services, these fines may be relayed back to the departments that own those services, affecting how much money each department has.
    • The more sure you are of your compliance position, the less likely you are to need a contingency fund, and vice versa.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Finance needs to be involved. Their questions may cover:

    • Where are the monthly expenditures? Where are our financial obligations? Do we have different spending amounts based on what time of year it is?

    Use the SAM Budget Workbook to uncover insights about your software spend

    Supporting Tool icon 1.3.2 Complete the SAM budget tool

    The SAM Budget Workbook is designed to assist in developing and justifying the budget for software assets for the upcoming year.

    Instructions

    1. Work through tabs 2-6, following the instructions as you go.
    2. Tab 2 involves selecting software vendors and services provided by software.
    3. Tab 3 involves classifying services by vendor and assigning a cost to them. Tab 3 also allows you to classify the contract status.
    4. Tab 4 is a cost variance tracking sheet for software contracts.
    5. Tabs 5 and 6 are monthly budget sheets that break down software costs by vendor and service, respectively.
    6. Tab 7 provides graphs to analyze the data generated by the tool.
    7. Use the results found on tab 7 to analyze your budget: are you spending too much with one service? Is there vendor overlap based on what project or service that software is reporting?
    Screenshots of the 'Budget of Services Supported by Software Vendors' and 'Software Expense cashflow reports by Vendor' pages from the SAM Budget Workbook. Screenshot of the 'Analysis of Data' page from the SAM Budget Workbook.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop Associated Activity icon

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    1.1.3

    Sample of activity 1.1.3 'Determine the maturity of your SAM program'. Determine the maturity of your SAM program

    Using the SAM Maturity Assessment Tool, fill out a series of questions in a survey to assess the maturity of your current SAM program. The survey assesses seven categories that will allow you to align your strategy to your results.

    1.2.3

    Sample of activity 1.2.3 'Define SAM reports to track metrics'. Define SAM reports to track metrics

    Identify key stakeholders with reporting needs, metrics to track to fulfill reporting requirements, and a frequency for producing reports.

    Phase 1 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 1: Assess and Plan

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4
    Step 1.1: Assess current state Step 1.2: Build team and define metrics Step 1.3: Plan and budget
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Outline SAM challenges
    • Overview of the project
    • Assess current maturity level
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Define roles and responsibilities of SAM staff
    • Identify metrics and reports to track
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Plan centralization of SAM program
    • Discuss SAM budgeting
    Then complete these activities…
    • Identify challenges
    • Identify objectives of SAM program
    • Assess maturity of current state
    Then complete these activities…
    • Define roles and responsibilities
    • Identify metrics and KPIs
    • Plan reporting
    Then complete these activities…
    • Identify SAM functions to centralize
    • Complete the SAM budgeting tool
    With these tools & templates:
    • SAM Maturity Assessment
    • Standard Operating Procedures
    With these tools & templates:
    • Standard Operating Procedures
    With these tools & templates:
    • SAM Budget Workbook

    Phase 2: Procure, Receive, and Deploy

    VISA used high-quality SAM data to optimize its software licensing

    Logo for VISA.

    Case Study

    Industry: Financial Services
    Source: SAM Summit 2014

    Challenge

    Visa formed a SAM team in 2011 to combat costly software audits.

    The team’s first task was to use the available SAM data and reconcile licenses deployed throughout the organization.

    Organizations as large as Visa constantly run into issues where they are grossly over or under licensed, causing huge financial risk.

    Solution

    Data collection and analysis were used as part of the license rationalization process. Using a variety of tools combined with a strong team allowed Visa to perform the necessary steps to gather license data and analyze usage.

    One of the key exercises was uniting procurement and deployment data and the teams responsible for each.

    End-to-end visibility allowed the data to be uniform. As a result, better decisions about license rationalization can be made.

    Results

    By improving its measurement of SAM data, Visa was able to dedicate more time to analyze and reconcile its licenses. This led to improved license management and negotiations that reflected actual usage.

    By improving license usage through rationalization, Visa reduced the cost of supporting additional titles.

    The SAM team also performed license reclamation to harvest and redistribute licenses to further improve usage. The team’s final task was to optimize audit responses.

    Step 2.1 Request and procure software

    Phase 2:
    Procure, Receive & Deploy
    This step will walk you through the following activities:This step involves the following participants:

    2.1

    Request & Procure
    • 2.1.1 Determine which software contracts should be centralized vs. localized
    • 2.1.2 Determine your software standards
    • 2.1.3 Define procurement policy
    • 2.1.4 Identify approvals and requests for authorization thresholds
    • 2.1.5 Build software procurement workflow for new contracts
    • 2.1.6 Define process for contract renewals and additional procurement scenarios
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and SAM Manager
    • SAM Team

    2.2

    Receive & Deploy

    Step Outcomes

    • Defined standards for software requests
    • A documented policy for software procurement including authorization thresholds
    • Documented process workflows for new contracts and contract renewals

    Procurement and SAM teams must work together to optimize purchasing

    Procurement and SAM must collaborate on software purchases to ensure software purchases meet business requirements and take into account all data on existing software and licenses to optimize the purchase and contract. Failure to work together can lead to unnecessary software purchases, overspending on purchases, and undesirable contract terms.

    SAM managers must collaborate with Procurement when purchasing software.

    SAM managers should:

    • Receive requests for software licenses
    • Ensure a duplicate license isn’t already purchased before going through with purchase
    • Ensure the correct license is purchased for the correct individuals
    • Ensure the purchasing information is tracked in the ITAM/SAM tool
    • Report on software usage to inform purchases
    Two cartoon people in work attire each holding a piece of a puzzle that fits with the other. Procurement must commit to be involved in the asset management process.

    Procurement should:

    • Review requests and ensure all necessary approvals have been received before purchasing
    • Negotiate optimal contract terms
    • Track and manage purchasing information and invoices and handle financial aspects
    • Use data from SAM team on software usage to decide on contract terms and optimize value

    Centralize procurement to decrease the likelihood of overspending

    Centralized negotiation and purchasing of software can ensure that the SAM team has visibility and control over the procurement process to help prevent overspending and uncontrolled agreements.

    Benefits of centralized procurement

    • Ability to easily manage software demand.
    • Provides capability to effectively manage your relationships with suppliers.
    • Allows for decreased contract processing times.
    • Provides easy access to data with a single consolidated system for tracking assets at an early stage.
    • Reduces number of rogue purchases by individual departments.
    • Efficiency through automation and coordinated effort to examine organization’s compliance and license position.
    • Higher degree of visibility and transparency into asset usage in the organization.

    Info-Tech Insights

    It may be necessary to procure some software locally if organizations have multiple locations, but try to centrally procure and manage the biggest contracts from vendors that are likely to audit the organization. Even with a decentralized model, ensure all teams communicate and that contracts remain visible centrally even if managed locally.

    Standards for software procurement help prevent overspending

    Software procurement is often more difficult for organizations than hardware procurement because:

    • Key departments that need to be involved in the purchasing process do not communicate or interact enough.
    • A fear of software auditing causes organizations to overspend to mitigate risk.
    • Standards are often not in place, with most purchases being made outside of the gold imaging standard.
    • A lack of discovery results in gross overspending on software licenses that are already present and underused.

    Info-Tech Insight

    One of the major challenges involved in implementing SAM is uniting multiple datasets and data sources across the enterprise. A conversation with each major business unit will help with the creation of software procurement standards that are acceptable to all.

    Determine which software contracts should be centralized vs. localized (optional)

    Associated Activity icon 2.1.1 Identify central standard enterprise offerings

    Participants: CIO, IT Director, SAM Manager, SAM Team

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. As a group, list as many software contracts that are in place across the organization as can easily be identified, focusing on top vendors.
    2. Identify which existing software contracts are standard enterprise offerings that are procured and managed centrally and which are non-standard or localized applications.
    3. Looking at the list of non-standard software, identify if any can or should be rationalized or replaced with a standard offering.
    Standard enterprise offerings
    • Microsoft
    • IBM
    • Adobe
    • Dell
    • Cisco
    • VMware
    • Barracuda
    Localized or non-standard software

    Classify your approved software into tiers to improve workflow efficiency

    Not all titles are created equal; classifying your pre-approved and approved software titles into a tiered system will provide numerous benefits for your SAM program.

    The more prestigious the asset tier, the higher the degree of data capture, support, and maintenance required.

    • Mission-critical, high-priority applications are classified as gold standard.
    • Secondary applications or high priority are silver standard.
    • Low-usage applications or normal priority are bronze standard.

    E.g. An enterprise application that needs to be available 24/7, such as a learning management system, should be classified as a gold tier to ensure it has 24/7 support.

    Creating tiers assists stakeholders in justifying the following set of decision points:

    • Which assets will require added maintenance (e.g. software assurance for Microsoft)
    • Technical support requirements to meet business requirements
    • Lifecycle and upgrade cycle of the software assets.
    • Monitoring usage to determine whether licenses can be harvested
    • Authorizations required for purchase requests

    Determine your software standards

    Associated Activity icon 2.1.2 Identify standard software images for your organization

    Participants: Asset Manager, Purchasing, Service Desk Manager, Operations (optional)

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. As a group, discuss and identify the relevant software asset tiers and number of tiers.
    2. For each tier, define:
      • Support requirements (hours and payments)
      • Maintenance requirements (mandatory or optional)
      • Lifecycle (when to upgrade, when to patch)
      • Financial requirements (CapEx/OpEx expenses)
      • Request authorizations (requestors and approvers)
    3. Sort the software contracts identified in the previous category into tiers, for example:
      • Mission-critical software (gold tier)
      • High-priority software (silver tier)
      • Normal-priority software (bronze tier)
    4. Use the SOP as an example.

    Determine which licensing options and methodologies fit into future IT strategy

    Not everyone is ready to embrace the cloud for all solutions; make sure to align cloud strategy to business requirements. Work closely with IT executives to determine appropriate contract terms, licensing options, and tracking processes.

    Vendors make changes to bundles and online services terms on a regular basis. Ensure you document your agreed upon terms to save your required functionality as vendor standard offerings change.

    • Any contracts getting moved to the cloud will need to undergo a contract comparison first.
    • The contract you signed last month could be completely different this month. Many cloud contracts are dynamic in nature.
    • Keep a copy of the electronic contract that you signed in a secure, accessible location.
    • Consider reaching a separate agreement with the vendor that they will ensure you maintain the results of the original agreement to prevent scope creep.

    Not all on-premises to cloud options transition linearly:

    • Features of perpetual licenses may not map to subscriptions
    • Product terms may differ from online services terms
    • Licensing may change from per device to per user
    • Vendor migrations may be more complex than anticipated

    Download the Own the Cloud: Strategy and Action Plan blueprint for more guidance

    Understand the three primary models of software usage agreements

    Licensed Open Source Shareware
    License Structure A software supplier is paid for the permission to use their software. The software is provided free of charge, but is still licensed. The software is provided free of charge, but is still licensed. Usage may be on a trial basis, with full usage granted after purchase.
    Source Code The source code is still owned by the supplier. Source code is provided, allowing users to change and share the software to suit their needs. Source code is property of the original developer/supplier.
    Technical Support Technical support is included in the price of the contract. Technical support may be provided, often in a community-based format from other developers of the open-source software in question. Support may be limited during trial of software, but upgraded once a purchase is made.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Open-source software should be managed in the same manner as commercial software to understand licensing requirements and be aware of any changes to these agreements, such as commercialization of such products, as well as any rules surrounding source code.

    Coordinate with purchasing department to define software procurement policy

    Associated Activity icon 2.1.3 Define procurement policy

    Participants: Asset Manager, Purchasing, Service Desk Manager, Operations (optional)

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Define and document policies that will apply to IT software purchases, including policies around:

    • Software purchase approvals
    • Licenses for short-term contractors
    • On-premises vs. SaaS purchases
    • Shareware and freeware fees
    • Open-source software

    Use the example below as guidance and document in the SOP.

    • Software will not be acquired through user corporate credit cards, office supply, petty cash, or personal expense budgets. Purchases made outside of the acceptable processes will not be reimbursed and will be removed from company computers.
    • Contractors who are short term and paid through vendor contracts and invoices will supply their own licenses.
    • Software may be purchased as on-premises or as-a-service solutions as IT deems appropriate for the solution.
    • Shareware and freeware authors will be paid the fee they specify for use of their products.
    • Open-source software will be managed in the same manner as commercial software to understand licensing requirements and be aware of any changes to these agreements, such as commercialization of such products.

    Identify approvals and requests for authorization thresholds

    Associated Activity icon 2.1.4 Identify financial thresholds for approvals and requests

    Participants: Asset Manager, Purchasing, CIO, CFO, IT Director

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Identify and classify financial thresholds for contracts requiring approval. For each category of contract value, identify who needs to authorize the request. Discuss and document any other approvals necessary. An example is provided below.

    Example:
    Requests for authorization will need to be directed based on the following financial thresholds:

    Contract value Authorization
    <$50,000 IT Director
    $50,000 to $250,000 CIO
    $250,000 to $500,000 CIO and CFO
    >$500,000 Legal review

    Develop a defined process for software procurement

    A poorly defined software procurement workflow can result in overspending on unnecessary software licensing throughout the year. This can impact budgeting and any potential software refreshes, as businesses will often rely on purchasing what they can afford, not what they need.

    Benefits of a defined workflow

    • Standardized understanding of the authorization processes results in reduced susceptibility to errors and quicker processing times.
    • Compliance with legal regulations.
    • Protection from compliance violations.
    • Transparency with the end user by communicating the process of software procurement to the business.

    Elements to include in procurement workflows:

    • RFP
    • Authorizations and approvals
    • Contract review
    • Internal references to numbers, cost centers, locations, POs, etc.

    Four types of procurement workflows:

    1. New contract – Purchasing brand new software
    2. Add to contract – Adding new POs or line items to an existing contract
    3. Contract renewal – Renewing an existing contract
    4. No contract required – Smaller purchases that don’t require a signed contract

    Outline the procurement process for new contracts

    The procurement workflow may involve the Service Desk, procurement team, and asset manager.

    The following elements should be accounted for:

    • Assignee
    • Requestor
    • Category
    • Type
    • Model or version
    • Requisition number
    • Purchase order number
    • Unit price
    A flowchart outlining the procurement process for new contracts. There are three levels, at the top is 'Tier 2 or Tier 3', the middle is 'IT Procurement', the bottom is 'Asset Manager'. It begins in 'Tier 2 or Tier 3' with 'Approved request received', and if it is not declined it moves on to 'Purchasing request forwarded to Procurement' on the 'IT Procurement' level. If an RFP is required, it eventually moves to 'Receives contract' on the 'Asset Manager' level and ends with 'Document license requirements, notify IT Product Owner'.

    Build software procurement workflow for new contracts

    Associated Activity icon 2.1.5 Build new contract procurement workflow

    Participants: Asset Manager, Purchasing, Service Desk Manager, Operations (optional)

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. As a team, outline each of the tasks in the process of procuring a new software asset using cue cards, sticky notes, or a whiteboard.
    2. Use the sample procurement workflow on the previous slide as an example if needed.
    3. Ensure the following elements required for the asset procurement process have been accounted for:
      • Assignee
      • Requestor
      • Category
      • Type
      • Model or version
      • Requisition number
      • Purchase order number
      • Unit price
    4. Review the workflow and make any adjustments necessary to improve the process. Document using Visio and add to the SOP.

    Review vendor contracts to right-size licensing procurement

    Many of your applications come from the same vendor, and a view into the business services provided by each software vendor contract will prove beneficial to the business.

    • You may uncover overlaps in services provided by software across departments.
    • The same service may be purchased from different vendors simply because two departments never compared notes!
    • This leaves a lot of money on the table from a lack of volume discounts.
    A graphic depicting a Venn diagram in which the 'Software' and 'Services' circles overlap, both of which stem from a 'Vendor Contract'.
    • Be cautious about approaching license budgeting strictly from a cost perspective. SAM is designed to right-size your licenses to properly support your organization.
    • One trap organizations often fall into is bundling discounts. Vendors will offer steep discounts if clients purchase multiple titles. On the surface, this might seem like a great offer.
    • However, what often happens is that organizations will bundle titles to get a steep discount on their prize title of the group.
    • The other titles become shelfware, and when the time comes to renew the contract, the maintenance fees on the shelfware titles will often make the contract more expensive than if only the prize title was purchased.

    Additionally, information regarding what licenses are being used for certain services may yield insight into potential redundancies. For example, two separate departments may have each have a different application deployed that supports the same service. This presents an opportunity for savings based on bulk licensing agreements, not to mention a simplified support environment by reducing the number of titles deployed in your environment.

    Define a procedure for tracking and negotiating contract renewals

    Participants: IT Director/CIO, Asset Manager, Purchasing, Service Desk Manager, Operations (optional)

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Discuss and document a policy for tracking and negotiating contract renewals. Answer the following questions as guides:

    • How will renewal dates be tracked and monitored?
    • How soon should contracts be reviewed prior to renewal to determine appropriateness for use and compliance?
    • What criteria will be used to determine if the product should be renewed?
    • Who will be consulted for contract renewal decisions for major contracts?
    • How will licensing and support decisions be made?

    Optional contract review:

    1. Take a sample contract to renew. Create a list of services that are supported by the software. Look for overlaps, redundancies, shelfware, and potential bundling opportunities. Recall the issues outlined when purchasing bundled software.
    2. Create a list of action items to bring into the next round of contract negotiations with that vendor and identify a start date to begin reviewing these items.

    Define process for contract renewals and additional procurement scenarios

    Associated Activity icon 2.1.6 Build additional procurement workflows

    Participants: Asset Manager, Purchasing, Service Desk Manager, Operations (optional)

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Build procurement workflows and define policies and procedures for additional purchasing scenarios beyond new contracts.

    This may include:

    1. Contract renewals
    2. Single purchase, non-contract procurement
    3. Adding to contracts

    Use the sample workflows in the Standard Operating Procedures as a guide.

    A flowchart outlining the procurement process for 'Software Contract Renewal'.

    A flowchart outlining the procurement process for 'Software single purchase, non-contract'.

    Negotiate for value to ensure quality license agreements

    Approach negotiating from a value-first, price-second perspective.

    Contract negotiations too often come down to a question of price. While you want to avoid overpaying for licenses, a worse offense is getting a steep discount for a bundle of applications where the majority will go unused.

    Vendors will try to sell a full stack of software at a steep discount to give the illusion of value. Often organizations bite off more than they can chew. When auditors come knocking, the business may be in compliance, but being over-licensed is a dangerous state to be in. Organizations end up over-licensed and in possession of numerous “shelfware” apps that sit on the proverbial shelf collecting dust while drawing expensive maintenance and licensing fees from the business.
    • Pressure from the business is also an issue. Negotiations can be rushed in an effort to fulfill an immediate need.
    • Make sure you clearly outline the level of compliance expected from the vendor.
    • Negotiate reduced-fee software support services. Your Service Desk can already handle the bulk of requests, and investing in a mature Service Desk will provide more lasting value than paying for expensive maintenance and support services that largely go unused.

    Learn to negotiate effectively to optimize contract renewals

    Leverage Info-Tech’s research, Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements, to review your software contracts to leverage your unique position during negotiations and find substantial cost savings.

    This blueprint includes the following tools and templates:

    • RASCI Chart
    • Vendor Communication Management Plan
    • Software Business Use Case Template
    • SaaS TCO Calculator
    • Software Terms & Conditions Evaluation Tool
    • Software Buyer’s Checklist
    • Controlled Vendor Communications Letter
    • Key Vendor Fiscal Year End Calendar
    • Contract Negotiation Tactics Playbook

    Step 2.2 Receive and deploy software

    Phase 2:
    Procure, Receive & Deploy
    This step will walk you through the following activities:This step involves the following participants:

    2.1

    Request & Procure
    • 2.2.1 Identify storage locations for software information and media
    • 2.2.2 Design the workflow for receiving software
    • 2.2.3 Design and document the deployment workflow(s)
    • 2.2.4 Create a list of pre-approved, approved, and unapproved software titles
    • 2.2.5 Document the request and deployment process for non-standard software requests
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and SAM Manager
    • SAM Team
    • Purchasing (optional)
    • Service Desk Manager (optional)
    • Operations (optional)
    • Release & Deployment manager (optional)

    2.2

    Receive & Deploy

    Step Outcomes

    • A strategy for storing software information and media in the ITAM database and DML
    • A documented workflow for the software receiving process
    • Documented process workflows for software requests and deployment, including for large quantities of software
    • A list of pre-approved, approved, and unapproved software titles for deployment
    • A process for responding to non-standard software requests

    Verify product and information upon receipt

    Upon receipt of procured software:

    • Verify that the product is correct
    • Reconcile with purchase record to ensure the order has been completed
    • Verify that the invoice is correct
    • Update financial information such as budget and accounting records
    • Update ITAM database to show status as received
    • Record/attach license keys and software codes in ITAM database
    • Attach relevant documents to record in the ITAM database (license reports, invoices, end-user agreement, etc.)
    • Download and store any installation files, DVDs, and CDs
    • Once software has been installed, verify license is matched to discovered installed software within the ITAM database

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    While most software will be received through email and download, in some cases physical software may be received through courier or mail. Ensure processes and procedures are defined for both cases.

    Establish a secure repository for licenses and documentation

    All licenses, documentation, and digital media for authorized and supported software should be collected and stored in a central, secure location to minimize risk of theft, loss, or unauthorized installation or duplication of software.

    Where to store software data?

    The ITAM database should contain an up-to-date record of all software assets, including their associated:

    • Serial numbers
    • License keys and codes
    • Contracts and agreements

    The database allows you to view software that is installed and associated licenses.

    A definitive media library (DML) is a single logical storage area, which may consist of one or more locations in which definitive authorized versions of all software configuration items are securely stored and protected.

    The DML consists of file storage as well as physical storage of CDs and DVDs and must be continually updated to contain the latest information about each configuration item.

    The DML is used to organize content and link to automated deployment to easily install software.

    Use a definitive media library (DML) to assist in storage of software packages for deployment

    The DML will usually contain the most up-to-date versions to minimize errors created by having unauthorized, old, or problematic software releases being deployed into the live IT environment. The DML can be used for both full-packed product (FPP) software and in-house developed software, providing formalized data around releases of in-house software.

    The DML should consist of two main storage areas:

    1. Secure file storage
    2. Secure physical storage for any master CD/DVDs

    Additional Recommendations:

    • The process of building, testing, adapting, and final pre-production testing should provide your IT department with a solid final deployment package, but the archive will enable you to quickly pull in a previous version if necessary.
    • When upgrading software packages to include new patches or configurations, use the DML to ensure you're referencing a problem-free version.
    • Include the DML in your disaster recovery plan (DRP) and include testing of the DML as part of your DRP testing. If you need to rebuild servers from these files, offsite, you'll want to know your backup DML is sound.

    Ensure you have a strategy to create and update your DML

    Your DML should have a way to separate archived, new, and current software to allow for optimal organization of files and code, to ensure the correct software is installed, and to prepare for automated deployment through the service catalog.

    New software hasn’t been tested yet. Make it available for testing, but not widely available.

    Keep a record for archived software, but do not make it available for install.

    Current software is regularly used and should be available for install.

    Deployment

    • Are you using tools to integrate with the DML for deployment?
    • Store files that are ready for automated deployment in a separate location.

    Identify storage locations for software information and media

    Associated Activity icon 2.2.1 Identify software storage locations

    Participants: Asset Manager, IT Director

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. Identify storage locations for asset data that is received (i.e. ITAM database, DML).
    2. Identify information that should be stored with each asset (i.e. license, serial number, invoice, end-user license agreement) and where this information should be stored.
    3. Identify fields that should be populated in the DML for each record:
      • Product name
      • Version
      • Description
      • Authorized by
      • Received by/date
      • Configuration item on which asset is installed
      • Media
      • Physical and backup locations
      • Verified by/date

    Define the standard process for receiving software

    Define the following in your receiving process:

    • Process for software received by email/download
    • Process for physical material received at Service Desk
    • Information to be recorded and where
    • Process following discrepancy of received software
    A flowchart outlining the standard process for receiving software. There are two levels, at the top is 'Desktop Support Team' and the bottom is 'Procurement'. It begins in 'Desktop Support Team' with 'Received at Service Desk' or 'Receive by email/download'. If the reconciliation is correct it eventually moves on to 'Fulfill service request, deliver and close ticket'. If the reconciliation is not correct it moves to 'Contact vendor with discrepancy details' in 'Procurement'. If a return is required 'Repackage and ship', or if not 'Notify Desktop Support Team of resolution'.

    Design the workflow for receiving software

    Associated Activity icon 2.2.2 Design the workflow for receiving software

    Participants: Asset Manager, Purchasing, Service Desk Manager, Operations (optional)

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Option 1: Whiteboard

    1. Discuss the workflow and draw it on the whiteboard.
    2. Assess whether you are using the best workflow. Modify it if necessary.
    3. Use the sample workflow from this step as a guide if starting from scratch.
    4. Engage the team in refining the process workflow.
    5. Transfer data to Visio and add to the SOP.

    Option 2: Tabletop Exercise

    1. Distribute index cards to each member of the team.
    2. Have each person write a single task they perform on the index card. Be granular. Include the title or the name of the person responsible.
    3. Mark cards that are decision points. Use a card of a different color or use a marker to make a colored dot.
    4. Arrange the index cards in order, removing duplicates.
    5. Assess whether you are using the best workflow. Engage the team to refine it if necessary.
    6. Transfer data to Visio and add to the SOP.

    Build release management into your software deployment process

    A sound software deployment process is tied to sound release management practices.

    Releases: A collection of authorized changes to an IT service. Releases are divided into:

    • Major software releases/upgrades: Normally containing large areas of new functionality, some of which may make intervening fixes to redundant problems.
    • Minor software releases/upgrades: Normally containing small enhancements and fixes, some of which may have already been issued as emergency fixes.
    • Emergency software fixes: Contain the corrections to a small number of known problems.

    Ensure that release management processes work with SAM processes:

    • If a release will impact licensing, the SAM manager must be made aware to make any necessary adjustments.
    • Deployment models should be in line with SAM strategy (i.e. is software rolled out to everyone or individually when upgrades are needed?).
    • How will user requests for upgrades be managed?
    • Users should be on the same software version to ensure file compatibility and smooth patch management.
    • Ideally, software should be no more than two versions back.

    Document the process workflow for software deployment

    Define the process for deploying software to users.

    Include the following in your workflow:

    • All necessary approvals
    • Source of software
    • Process for standard vs. non-standard software requests
    • Update ITAM database once software has been installed with license data and install information
    A flowchart outlining the process workflow for software deployment. There are four levels, at the top is 'Business', then 'Desktop Support Team', 'Procurement', and the bottom is 'Asset Manager'. It begins in 'Business' with 'Request for software', and if it is approved by the manager it moves to 'Check DB: Can a volume serial # be used?' in 'Desktop Support Team'. If yes, it eventually moves on to 'Close ticket' on the same level, if not it eventually moves to 'Initiate procurement process' in 'Procurement', 'Initiate receiving process' in 'Asset Manager', and finally to 'Run quarterly license review to purchase volume licenses'.

    Large-scale software rollouts should be run as projects

    Rollouts or upgrades of large quantities of software will likely be managed as projects.

    These projects should include project plans, including resources, timelines, and detailed procedures.

    Define the process for large-scale deployment if it will differ from the regular deployment process.

    A flowchart outlining large-scale software rollouts. There are three levels, at the top is 'IT Procurement', then 'Asset Manager', and the bottom is 'Software Packager'. It begins in 'IT Procurement' with 'Project plan approved', and if a bid is not required it skips to 'Sign contract/Create purchase order'. This eventually moves to 'Receive access to eLicense site/receive access to new product' in 'Asset Manager', and either to 'Approve invoice for payment, forward to accounting' on the same level or to 'Download software, license keys' in 'Software Packager' then eventually to 'Deploy'.

    Design and document the deployment workflow(s)

    Associated Activity icon 2.2.3 Document deployment workflows for desktop and large-scale deployment

    Participants: Asset Manager, Service Desk Manager, Release & Deployment Manager

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. Outline each step in the process of software deployment using notecards or on a whiteboard. Be as granular as possible. On each card, describe the step and the individual responsible for each step.
      • Be sure to identify the type of release for standard software releases and patches.
      • Additionally, identify how additional software outside the scope of the base image will be addressed.
    2. When you are satisfied that each step is accurately captured, use a second color of notecard to document any challenges, inefficiencies, or pains associated with each step. Consider further documenting the time on each task.
    3. Examine each challenge or pain point. Discuss whether there is a clear solution to the problem. If so, document the solution and amend the workflow. If not, engage in a broader discussion of possible solutions, considering people, processes, and available technology.
    4. Document separately the process for large-scale software deployment if required.

    Develop standards to streamline your software estate

    Software should be approved and deployed based on approved standards to minimize over-deployed software and manage costs appropriately. A list of standard software improves the efficiency of the software approval process.

    • Pre-approved titles include basic platforms like Office or Adobe Reader that are often available in enterprise-wide license packages.
    • Approved titles include popular titles with license numbers that need to be managed on a role-by-role basis. For example, if most of your marketing team uses the Adobe Creative Suite, a user still needs to get approval before they can get a license.
    • Unapproved titles are managed on a case-by-case basis and are up to the discretion of the asset manager and other involved parties.

    Additionally, create a list of unauthorized software including titles not to be installed under any circumstances. This list should be designed with feedback from your end users and technical support staff. Front-line knowledge is crucial to identifying which titles are causing major problems.

    Create a list of pre-approved, approved, and unapproved software titles

    Associated Activity icon 2.2.4 Determine software categories for deployment

    Participants: IT Director, Asset Manager, Purchasing (optional), Service Desk Manager (optional), Release & Deployment Manager (optional)

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. Define software categories that will be used to build software standards.
    2. Include definitions of each category.
    3. Add examples of software to each category to begin building list of approved software titles for deployment.

    Use the following example as a guide.

    Category Definition Software titles
    Pre-approved/standard
    • Supported and approved for install for all end users
    • Included on most, if not all devices
    • Typically installed as a base image
    • Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
    • Adobe Reader
    • Windows
    Approved by role
    • Supported and approved for install, but only for certain groups of end users
    • Popular titles with license numbers that need to be managed on a role-by-role basis
    • Pre-approved for purchase with business manager’s approval
    • Adobe Creative Cloud Suite
    • Adobe Acrobat Pro
    • Microsoft Visio
    Unapproved/requires review
    • Not previously approved or installed by IT
    • Special permission required for installation based on demonstrable business need
    • Managed on a case-by-case basis
    • Up to the discretion of the asset manager and other involved parties
    • Dynamics
    • Zoom Text
    • Adaptive Insights
    Unauthorized
    • Not to be installed under any circumstances
    • Privately owned software
    • Pirated copies of any software titles
    • Internet downloads

    Define the review and approval process for non-standard software

    Software requiring review will need to be managed on a case-by-case basis, with approval dependent on software evaluation and business need.

    The evaluation and approval process may require input from several parties, including business analysts, Security, technical team, Finance, Procurement, and the manager of the requestor’s department.

    A flowchart outlining the review and approval process for non-standard software. There are five levels, at the top is 'Business Analyst/Project Manager', then 'Security Team', 'Technical Team', 'Financial & Contract Review' and the bottom is 'Procurement'. It begins in 'Business Analyst/Project Manager' with 'Request for non-standard software', and if the approved product is available it moves to 'Evaluate tool for security, data, and privacy compliance' in 'Security Team'. If more evaluation is necessary it moves to 'Evaluate tool for infrastructure and integration requirements' in 'Technical Team', and then 'Evaluate terms and conditions' in 'Financial & Contract Review'. At any point in the evaluation process it can move back to the 'Business Analyst/Project Manager' level for 'Assemble requirements details', and finally down to the 'Procurement' level for 'Execute purchase'.

    Document the request and deployment process for non-standard software

    Associated Activity icon 2.2.5 Document process for non-standard software requests

    Participants: Asset Manager, Service Desk Manager, Release & Deployment Manager

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Define the review and approval process for non-standard software requests.

    Use the workflow on the previous slide as a guide to map your own workflow process and document the steps in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    The following assessments may need to be included in the process:

    • Functionality and use requirements: May include suggestion back to the business before proceeding any further to see if similar, already approved software could be used in its place.
    • Technical specifications: Cloud, data center, hardware, backups, integrations (Active Directory, others), file, and program compatibility.
    • Security: Security team may need to assess to ensure nothing will install that will compromise data or systems security.
    • Privacy policy: Security and compliance team may need to evaluate the solution to ensure data will be secured and accessed only by authorized users.
    • Terms and conditions: The contracts team may evaluate terms and conditions to ensure contracts and end-user agreements do not violate existing standards.
    • Accessibility and compliance: Software may be required to meet accessibility requirements in accordance with company policies.

    BMW deployed a global data centralization program to achieve 100% license visibility

    Logo for BMW.

    Case Study

    Industry: Financial Services
    Source: SAM Summit 2014

    Challenge

    BMW is a large German automotive manufacturer that employs over 100,000 people. It has over 7,000 software products deployed across 106,000 clients and servers in over 150 countries.

    When the global recession hit in 2008, the threat of costly audits increased, so BMW decided to boost its SAM program to cut licensing costs. It sought to centralize inventory data from operations across the globe.

    Solution

    A new SAM office was established in 2009 in Germany. The SAM team at BMW began by processing all the accumulated license and installation data from operations in Germany, Austria, and the UK. Within six months, the team had full visibility of all licenses and software assets.

    Compliance was also a priority. The team successfully identified where they could make substantial reductions in support and maintenance costs as well as remove surplus costs associated with duplicate licensing.

    Results

    BMW overcame a massive data centralization project to achieve 100% visibility of its global licensing estate, an incredible achievement given the scope of the operation.

    BMW experienced efficiency gains due to transparency and centralized management of licenses through the new SAM office.

    Additionally, internal investment in training and technical knowledge has helped BMW continuously improve the program. This has resulted in ongoing cost reductions for the manufacturer.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop Associated Activity icon

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    2.1.5

    Sample of activity 2.1.5 'Build software procurement workflow for new contracts'. Build software procurement workflow for new contracts

    Use the sample workflow to document your own process for procurement of new software contracts.

    2.2.4

    Sample of activity 2.2.4 'Create a list of pre-approved, approved, and unapproved software titles'. Create a list of pre-approved, approved, and unapproved software titles

    Build definitions of software categories to inform software standards and brainstorm examples of each category.

    Phase 2 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 2: Procure, receive, and deploy

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 6
    Step 2.1: Request and procureStep 2.2: Receive and deploy
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Define standards for software requests
    • Build procurement policy
    • Define procurement processes
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Build processes for software receiving
    • Build processes for software requests and deployment
    • Define process for non-standard requests
    Then complete these activities…
    • Determine software standards
    • Define procurement policy
    • Identify authorization thresholds
    • Build procurement workflows for new contracts and renewals
    Then complete these activities…
    • Identify storage locations for software information
    • Design workflow for receiving software
    • Design workflow for software deployment
    • Create a list of approved and non-standard requests
    • Define process for non-standard requests
    With these tools & templates:
    • Standard Operating Procedures
    With these tools & templates:
    • Standard Operating Procedures

    Phase 3: Manage, Redeploy, and Retire

    Step 3.1 Manage and maintain software contracts

    Phase 3:
    Manage, Redeploy & Retire
    This step will walk you through the following activities:This step involves the following participants:

    3.1

    Manage & Maintain Software
    • 3.1.1 Define process for conducting software inventory
    • 3.1.2 Define policies for software maintenance and patches
    • 3.1.3 Document your patch management policy
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and SAM Manager
    • SAM Team
    • Release Manager (optional)
    • Security (optional)

    3.2

    Harvest, Redeploy, or Retire

    Step Outcomes

    • A process for conducting regular software inventory checks and analyzing the data to continually manage software assets and license compliance.
    • An understanding of software maintenance requirements
    • A policy for conducting regular software maintenance and patching
    • A documented patch management policy

    Manage your software licenses to decrease your risk of overspending

    Many organizations fail to track their software inventory effectively; the focus often remains on hardware due to its more tangible nature. However, annual software purchases often account for a higher IT spend than annual hardware purchases, so it’s important to track both.

    Benefits of managing software licenses

    • Better control of the IT footprint. Many companies already employ hardware asset management, but when they employ SAM, there is potential to save millions of dollars through optimal use of all technology assets.
    • Better purchasing decisions and negotiating leverage. Enhanced visibility into actual software needs means not only can companies procure and deploy the right increments of software in the right areas, but they can also do so more cost-effectively through tools such as volume purchase agreements or bundled services.
    • No refund policy combined with shelfware (software that sits unused “on the shelf”) is where software companies make their money.
    • Managing licenses will help prevent costly audit penalties. Special attention should be paid to software purchased from large vendors such as Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, SAP, or IBM.

    Maintain a comprehensive, up-to-date software inventory to manage licenses effectively

    A clearly defined process for inventory management will reduce the risk of over buying licenses and falling out of compliance.

    • A detailed software inventory and tracking system should act as a single point of contact for all your license data.
    • Maintain a comprehensive inventory of installed software through complete and accurate records of all licenses, certifications, and software purchase transactions, storing these in a secure repository.
    • Periodically review installed software and accompanying licenses to ensure only legal and supported software is in use and to ensure ongoing compliance with the software management policy.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Have and maintain a list of supported software to guide what new software will be approved for purchase and what current software should be retained on the desktops, servers, and other processing devices.

    Conduct a baseline inventory of deployed software to know what you have

    You have to know what you have before you can manage it.

    A baseline inventory tells you exactly what software you have deployed and where it is being used. This can help to determine how to best optimize software and license usage.

    A software inventory will allow you to:

    • Identify all software residing on computers.
    • Compare existing software to the list of supported software.
    • Identify and delete illegal or unsupported software.
    • Identify and stop software use that violates license agreements, copyright law, or organizational policies.

    Two methods for conducting a software inventory:

    1. If you have several computers to analyze, use automated tools to conduct inventory for greater accuracy and efficiency. Software inventory or discovery tools scan installed software and generate inventory reports, while asset management tools will help you manage that data.
    2. Manual inventory may be possible if your organization has few computers.

    How to conduct a manual software inventory:

    1. Record serial number of device being analyzed.
    2. Record department and employee to whom the computer is assigned.
    3. Inspect contents of hard drive and/or server to identify software as well as hidden files and directories.
    4. Record licensing information for software found on workstation and server.
    5. Compare findings with list of supported software and licenses stored in repository.

    Keep the momentum going through regular inventory and licensing checks

    Take preventive action to avoid unauthorized software usage through regular software inventory and license management:

    • Regularly update the list of supported software and authorized use.
    • Monitor and optimize software license usage.
    • Continually communicate with and train employees around software needs and policies.
    • Maintain a regular inventory schedule to keep data up to date and remain compliant with licensing requirements – your specific schedule will depend on the size of the company and procurement schedule.
    • Conduct random spot inventories – even if you are using a tool, periodic spot checks should still be performed to ensure accuracy of inventory.
    • Periodically review software procurement records and ensure procurement process is being followed.
    • Continuously monitor software installations on networked computers through automated tools.
    • Ensure software licensing documentation and data is secure.

    Define process for conducting software inventory

    Associated Activity icon 3.1.1 Define process for regular software inventory

    Participants: IT Director, Asset Manager

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. If a baseline software inventory has not been conducted, discuss and document a plan for completing the inventory.
      • Will the inventory be conducted manually or through automated tools?
      • If manually, what information will be collected and recorded? Which devices will be analyzed? Where will data be stored?
      • If automatically, which tools will be used? Will any additional information need to be collected? Who will have access to the inventory?
      • When will the inventory be conducted and by whom?
        • Monthly inventory may be required if there is a lot of change and movement, otherwise quarterly is usually sufficient.
    2. Document how inventory data will be analyzed.
      • How will data be compared against supported software?
      • How will software violations be addressed?
    3. Develop a plan for continual inventory spot checks and maintenance.
      • How often will inventory be conducted and/or analyzed?
      • How often will spot checks be performed?

    Don’t forget that software requires maintenance

    While maintenance efforts are typically focused around hardware, software maintenance – including upgrades and patches – must be built into the software asset management process to ensure software remains compliant with security and regulatory requirements.

    Software maintenance guidelines:

    • Maintenance agreements should be stored in the ITAM database.
    • Software should be kept as current as possible. It is recommended that software remain no more than two versions off.
    • Unsupported software should be uninstalled or upgraded as required.
    • Upgrades should be tested, especially for high-priority or critical applications or if integrated with other applications.
    • Change and release management best practices should be applied for all software upgrades and patches.
    • A process should be defined for how often patches will be applied to end-user devices.

    Integrate patch management with your SAM practice to improve security and reduce downtime

    The integration between patch management and asset management is incredibly valuable from a technology point of view. IT asset management (ITAM) tools create reports on the characteristics of deployed software. By combining these reports with a generalized software updater, you can automate most simple patches to save your team’s efforts for more-critical incidents. Usage reports can also help determine which applications should be reviewed and removed from the environment.

    • In recent years, patch management has grown in popularity due to widespread security threats, the resultant downtime, and expenses associated with them.
    • The main objective of patch management is to create a consistently configured environment that is secure against known vulnerabilities in operating systems and application software.

    Assessing new patches should include questions such as:

    • What’s the risk of releasing the patch? What is the criticality of the system? What end users will be affected?
    • How will we manage business disruption during an incident caused by a failed patch deployment?
    • In the event of service outage as a result of a failed patch deployment, how will we recover services effectively in business priority order?
    • What’s the risk of expediting the patch? Of not releasing the patch at all?

    Define policies for software maintenance and patches

    Associated Activity icon 3.1.2 Define software maintenance and patching policies

    Participants: IT Director, Asset Manager, Release Manager (optional), Security (optional)

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Software maintenance:

    Review the software maintenance guidelines in this section and in the SOP template. Discuss each policy and revise and document in accordance with your policies.

    Patch management:

    Discuss and document patch management policies:

    1. How often will end-user devices receive patches?
    2. How often will servers be patched?
    3. How will patches be prioritized? See example below.
      • Critical patches will be applied within two days of release, with testing prioritized to meet this schedule.
      • High-priority patches will be applied within 30 days of release, with testing scheduled to meet this requirement.
      • Normal-priority patches will be evaluated for appropriateness and will be installed as needed.

    Document your patch management policy

    Supporting Tool icon 3.1.3 Use the Patch Management Policy template to document your policy

    The patch management policy helps to ensure company computers are properly patched with the latest appropriate updates to reduce system vulnerability and to enhance repair application functionality. The policy aids in establishing procedures for the identification of vulnerabilities and potential areas of functionality enhancements, as well as the safe and timely installation of patches. The patch management policy is key to identifying and mitigating any system vulnerabilities and establishing standard patch management practices.

    Use Info-Tech’s Patch Management Policy template to get started.

    Sample of the 'Patch Management Policy' template.

    Step 3.2 Harvest, Redeploy, or Retire Software

    Phase 3:
    Manage, Redeploy & Retire
    This step will walk you through the following activities:This step involves the following participants:

    3.1

    Manage & Maintain Software
    • 3.2.1 Map your software license harvest and reallocation process
    • 3.2.2 Define the policy for retiring software
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and SAM Manager
    • SAM Team

    3.2

    Harvest, Redeploy, or Retire

    Step Outcomes

    • A defined process for harvesting and reallocating unused software licenses
    • A defined policy for how and when to retire unused or outdated software

    Harvest and reallocate software to optimize license usage

    Using a defined process for harvesting licenses will yield a crop of savings throughout the organization.

    Unused software licenses are present in nearly every organization and result in wasted resources and software spend. Recycling and reharvesting licenses is a critical process within software asset management to save your organization money.

    Licensing Recycling

    When computers are no longer in use and retired, the software licenses installed on the machines may be able to be reused.

    License recycling involves reusing these licenses on machines that are still in use or for new employees.

    License Harvesting

    License harvesting involves more actively identifying machines with licenses that are either not in use or under utilized, and recovering them to be used elsewhere, thus reducing overall software spend on new licenses.

    Use software monitoring data to identify licenses for reallocation in alignment with policies and agreements

    1. Monitor software usage
      Monitor and track software license usage to gain a clear picture of where and how existing software licenses are being used and identify any unused or underused licenses.
    2. Identify licenses for reharvesting
      Identify software licenses that can be reharvested and reallocated according to your policy.
    3. Uninstall software
      Notify user, schedule a removal time if approved, uninstall software, and confirm it has been removed.
    4. Reallocate license when needed

    Sources of surplus licenses for harvest:

    • Projects that required a license during a particular time period, but now do not require a license (i.e. the free version of the software will suffice)
    • Licenses assigned to users no longer with the organization
    • Software installed on decommissioned hardware
    • Installed software that hasn’t been used by the user in the last 90 days (or other defined period)
    • Over-purchased software due to poorly controlled software request, approval, or provisioning processes

    Info-Tech Insight

    Know the stipulations of your end-user license agreement (EULA) before harvesting and reallocating licenses. There may be restrictions on how often a license can be recycled in your agreement.

    Create a defined process for software license harvesting

    Define a standard reharvest timeline. For example, every 90 days, your SAM team can perform an internal audit using your SAM tool to gather data on software usage. If a user has not used a title in that time period, your team can remove that title from that user’s machine. Depending on the terms and conditions of the contract, the license can either be retired or harvested and reallocated.

    Ensure you have exception rules built in for software that’s cyclical in its usage. For example, Finance may only use tax software during tax season, so there’s no reason to lump it under the same process as other titles.

    It’s important to note that in addition to this process, you will need a software usage policy that supports your license harvest process.

    The value of license harvesting

    • Let’s say you paid for 1,000 licenses of a software title at a price of $200 per license.
    • Of this total, 950 have been deployed, and of that total, 800 are currently being used.
    • This means that 16% of deployed licenses are not in use – at a cost of $30,000.
    • With a defined license harvest process, this situation would have been prevented.

    Build a workflow to document the software harvest process

    Include the following in your process:

    • How will unused software be identified?
    • How often will usage reports be reviewed?
    • How will the user be notified of software to be removed?
    • How will the software be removed?
    A flowchart documenting the software harvest process. There are two levels, at the top is 'IT Asset Manager', and the bottom is 'Desktop Support Team'. It begins in 'IT Asset Manager' with 'Create/Review Usage Report', and if the client agrees to removal it moves to 'License deactivation required?' in 'Desktop Support Team'. Eventually you 'Close ticket' and it moves back up to 'Discovery tool will register change automatically' in 'IT Asset Manager'.

    Map your software license harvest and reallocation process

    Associated Activity icon 3.2.1 Build license harvest and reallocation workflow

    Participants: IT Director, Asset Manager, Service Desk Manager

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. Outline each step in the process of software harvest and reallocation using notecards or a whiteboard. Be as granular as possible. On each card, describe the step and the individual responsible for each step.
    2. When you are satisfied that each step is accurately captured, use a second color of notecard to document any challenges, inefficiencies, or pains associated with each step. Consider further documenting the time on each task.
    3. Examine each challenge or pain point. Discuss whether there is a clear solution to the problem. If so, document the solution and amend the workflow. If not, engage in a broader discussion of possible solutions, considering people, processes, and available technology.
    4. Use the sample workflow on the previous slide as a guide if needed.

    The same flowchart documenting the software harvest process from the previous section.

    Improve your software retirement process to drive savings for the whole business

    Business Drivers for Software Disposal

    • Cost Reduction
      • Application retirement allows the application and the supporting hardware stack to be decommissioned.
      • This eliminates recurring costs such as licensing, maintenance, and application administration costs, representing potentially significant savings
    • Consolidation
      • Many legacy applications are redundant systems. For example, many companies have ten or more legacy financial systems from mergers/acquisitions.
      • Systems can be siloed, running incompatible software. Moving data to a common accessible repository streamlines research, audits, and reporting.
    • Compliance
      • An increased focus on regulations places renewed emphasis on e-discovery policies. Keeping legacy applications active just to retain data is an expensive proposition.
      • During application retirement, data is classified, assigned retention policies, and disposed of according to data/governance initiatives.
    • Risk Mitigation
      • Relying on IT to manage legacy systems is problematic. The lack of IT staff familiar with the application increases the potential risk of delayed responses to audits and e-discovery.
      • Retiring application data to a common platform lets you leverage skills you have current investments in. This enables you to be responsive to audit or litigation results.

    Retire your outdated software to decrease IT spend on redundant applications

    Benefits of software retirement:

    1. Assists the service desk in not having to support every release, version, or edition of software that your company might have used in the past.
    2. Stay current with product releases so your company is better placed to take advantage of improvements built-in to such products, rather than being limited by the lack of a newly introduced function.
    3. Removing software that is no longer of commercial benefit can offer a residual value through assets.

    Consequences of continuing to support outdated software:

    • Budgets are tied up to support existing applications and infrastructure, which leaves little room to invest in new technologies that would otherwise help grow business.
    • Much of this software includes legacy systems that were acquired or replaced when new applications were deployed. The value of these outdated systems decreases with every passing year, yet organizations often continue to support these applications.
      • Fear of compliance and data access are the most common reasons.
    • Unfortunately, the cost of doing so can consume over 50% of an overall IT budget.

    The solution to this situation is to retire outdated software.

    “Time and time again, I keep hearing stories from schools on how IT budgets are constantly being squeezed, but when I dig a little deeper, little or no effort is being made on accounting for software that might be on the kit we are taking away.” (Phil Goldsmith, Managing Director – ScrumpyMacs)

    Define the policy for retiring software

    Associated Activity icon 3.2.2 Document process for software retirement

    Participants: IT Director, Asset Manager, Operations

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    1. Discuss and document the process for retiring software that has been deemed redundant due to changing business needs or an improvement in competitive options.
    2. Consider the following:
      • What criteria will determine when software is suited for retirement?
      • The contract should always be reviewed before making a decision to ensure proper notice is given to the vendor.
      • Notice should be provided as soon as possible to ensure no additional billing arrives for renewals.
      • How will software be removed from all devices? How soon must the software be replaced, if applicable?
      • How long will records be archived in the ITAM database?
    3. Document decisions in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop Associated Activity icon

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.1.2

    Sample of activity 3.1.2 'Define policies for software maintenance and patches'. Define policies for software maintenance and patches

    Discuss best practices and define policies for conducting regular software maintenance and patching.

    3.2.1

    Sample of activity 3.3.1 'Assess the maturity of audit management processes and policies'. Map your software license harvest and reallocation process

    Build a process workflow for harvesting and reallocating unused software licenses.

    Phase 3 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 3: Manage, redeploy, and retire

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4
    Step 3.1: Manage and maintain softwareStep 3.2: Harvest, redeploy, or retire
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Define a process for conducting software inventory
    • Define a policy for software maintenance
    • Build a patch management policy
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Build a process for harvesting and reallocating software licenses
    • Define a software retirement policy
    Then complete these activities…
    • Define process for conducting software inventory
    • Define policies for software maintenance
    • Document patch management policy
    Then complete these activities…
    • Map software harvest and reallocation process
    • Define software retirement policy
    With these tools & templates:
    • Standard Operating Procedures
    • Patch Management Policy
    With these tools & templates:
    • Standard Operating Procedures

    Phase 4: Build Supporting Processes & Tools

    Visa used an internal SAM strategy to win the audit battle

    Logo for VISA.

    Case Study

    Industry: Financial Services
    Source: SAM Summit 2014

    Challenge

    The overarching goal of any SAM program is compliance to prevent costly audit fines. The SAM team at Visa was made up of many individuals who were former auditors.

    To deal with audit requests from vendors, “understand how auditors do things and understand their approach,” states Joe Birdsong, SAM Director at Visa.

    Vendors are always on the lookout for telltale signs of a lucrative audit. For Visa, the key was to understand these processes and learn how to prepare for them.

    Solution

    Vendors typically look for the following when evaluating an organization for audit:

    1. A recent decrease in customer spend
    2. How easy the licensed software is to audit
    3. Organizational health

    Ultimately, an audit is an attack on the relationship between the vendor and organization. According to Birdsong: “Maybe they haven’t really touched base with your teams and had good contact and relationship with them, and they don’t really know what’s going on in your enterprise.”

    Results

    By understanding the motivations behind potential audits, Visa was able to form a strategy to increase transparency with the vendor.

    Regular data collection, almost real-time reporting, and open, quick communication with the vendor surrounding audits made Visa a low-risk client for vendors.

    Buy-in from management is also important, and the creation of an official SAM strategy helps maintain support. Thanks to its proactive SAM program, Visa saved $200 million in just three years.

    Step 4.1 Ensure compliance for audits

    Phase 4:
    Build supporting processes & tools
    This step will walk you through the following activities:This step involves the following participants:

    4.1

    Compliance & audits
    • 4.1.1 Define and document the internal audit process
    • 4.1.2 Define and document the external audit process
    • 4.1.3 Prepare an audit scoping email template
    • 4.1.4 Prepare an audit launch email template
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and SAM Manager
    • SAM Team

    4.2

    Communicate & build roadmap

    Step Outcomes

    • An understanding of the audit process and importance of audit preparation
    • A defined process for conducting regular internal audits to prepare for and defend against external audits
    • A strategy and documented process for responding to external audit requests

    Take a lifecycle approach to your software compliance process

    Internal audits are an effective way for organizations to regularly assess their licensing position in preparation for an audit.

    1. Gather License Data
      Use your SAM tool to run a discovery check to determine the current state of your software estate.
    2. Improve Data Quality
      Scan the data for red flags. Improve its completeness, consistency, and quality.
    3. Identify Audit Risks
      Using corrected license data, examine your reports and identify areas of risk within the organization.
    4. Identify priority titles
      Determine which titles need attention first by using the output of the license rationalization step.
    5. Reconcile to eliminate gaps
      Ensure that the correct number of licenses are deployed for each title.
    6. Draft Vendor Response
      Prepare response to vendor for when an audit has been requested.

    Improve audit response maturity by leveraging technology and contract data

    By improving your software asset management program’s maturity, you will drive savings for the business that go beyond the negotiating table.

    Recognize the classic signs of each stage of audit response maturity to identify where your organization currently stands and where it can go.

    • Optimized: Automated tools generate compliance, usage, and savings reports. Product usage reports and alerts in place to harvest and reuse licenses. Detailed savings reports provided to executive team.
    • Proactive: Best practices enforced. Compliance positions are checked quarterly, and compliance reports are used to negotiate software contracts.
    • Reactive: Best practices identified but unused. Manual tools still primarily in use. Compliance reports are time-consuming and often inaccurate.
    • Chaotic: Purchases are ad hoc and transaction based. Minimal tracking in place, leading to time-consuming manual processes.

    Implement a proactive internal audit strategy to defend against external audits

    Audits – particularly those related to software – have been on the rise as vendors attempt to recapture revenue.

    Being prepared for an audit is critical. Internal preparation will not only help your organization reduce the risk associated with an audit but will also improve daily operations through focusing on diligent documentation and data collection.

    Conducting routine internal audits will help prepare your organization for the real deal and may even prevent the audit from happening altogether. Hundreds of thousands of dollars can be saved through a proactive audit strategy with routine documentation in place.

    In addition to the fines incurred from a failed audit, numerous other negative consequences can arise:

    • Multiple audits: Failing an audit makes the organization more likely to be audited again.
    • Poor perception of IT: Unless non-compliance was previously disclosed to the business, IT can be deemed responsible.
    • Punitive injunctions: If a settlement is not reached, vendors will apply for an injunction, inhibiting use of their software.
    • Inability to justify purchases: IT can have difficulty justifying the purchase of additional resources after a failed audit.
    • Disruption to business: Precious time and resources will be spent dealing with the results of the audit.

    Perform routine internal compliance reports to decrease audit risk

    The intent of an internal audit is to stop the battle from happening before it starts. Waiting for a knock at the door from a vendor can be stressful, and it can do harm beyond a costly fine.

    • Internal audits help to ensure you’re keeping track of any software changes to keep your data and licensing up to date and avoid costly surprises if an external audit is requested.
    • Identify areas where processes are breaking down and address them before there’s a potential negative impact.
    • Identify control points in processes ahead of time to more easily identify access points where information should be verified.

    “You want to get [the] environment to a level where you’re comfortable sharing information with [a] vendor. Inviting them in to have a chat and exposing numbers means there’s no relationship there where they’re coming to audit you. They only come to audit you when they know there’s a gain to be had, otherwise what’s the point of auditing?
    I want customers to get comfortable with licensing and what they’re spending, and then there’s no problem exposing that to vendors. Vendors actually appreciate that.”
    (Ben Brand, SAM Practice Manager, Insight)

    Info-Tech Insight

    “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” – Sun Tzu

    Performing routine checks on your license compliance will drastically reduce the risk that your organization gets hit with a costly fine. Maintaining transparency and demonstrating compliance will fend off audit-hungry vendors.

    Define and document the internal audit process

    Associated Activity icon 4.1.1 Document process and procedures for internal audits

    Participants: CIO and/or IT Director, Asset Manager, IT Managers

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Define and document a process for conducting internal software audits.
    Include the following:

    1. How often will audits be completed for each software published?
    2. When will audits be conducted?
    3. Who will conduct the audit? Who will be consulted?
    4. What will be included in the scope of the audit?

    Example:

    • Annual audits will be completed for each software publisher, scheduled as part of the license or maintenance agreement renewals.
    • Where annual purchases are not required, vendor audits for compliance will be conducted annually, with a date predetermined based on minimizing scheduling conflicts with larger audits.
    • Audit will be completed with input from product managers.
    • Audit will include:
      • Software compliance review: Licenses owned compared to product installed.
      • Version review: Determine if installed versions match company standards. If there is a need for upgrades, does the license permit upgrading?
      • Maintenance review: Does the maintenance match requirements for the next year’s plans and licenses in use?
      • Support review: Is the support contract appropriate for use?
      • Budget: Has budget been allocated; is there an adjustment required due to increases?

    Identify organizational warning signs to decrease audit risk

    Being prepared for an audit is critical. Internal preparation will not only help your organization reduce the risk associated with an audit but will also improve daily operations through focusing on diligent documentation and data collection.

    Certain triggers exist that indicate a higher risk of an audit occurring. It is important to recognize these warning signs so you can prepare accordingly.

    Health of organization
    If your organization is putting out fires and a vendor can sense it, they’ll see an audit as a highly lucrative exercise.

    Decrease in customer spend
    A decrease in spend means that an organization has a high chance of being under-licensed.

    License complexity
    The more complex the license, the harder it is to remain in compliance. Some vendors are infamous for their complex licensing agreements.

    Audit Strategy

    • Audits should neither be feared nor embraced.
    • An audit is an attack on your relationship with your vendor; your vendor needs to defend its best interests, but it would also rather maintain a satisfied relationship with its client.
    • A proactive approach to audits through routine reporting and transparency with vendors will alleviate all fear surrounding the audit process. It provides your vendor with compliance assurance and communicates that an audit won’t net the vendor enough revenue to justify the effort.

    Focus on three key tactics for success before responding to an audit

    Taking these due diligence steps will pay dividends downstream, reducing the risk of negative results such as release of confidential information.

    Form an Audit Team

    • Once an audit letter is received from a vendor or third party, a virtual team needs to be formed.
    • The team should be cross-functional, representing various core areas of the business.
    • Don’t forget legal counsel: they will assist in the review of audit provision(s) to determine your contractual rights and obligations with respect to the audit.

    Sign an NDA

    • An NDA should be signed by all parties, the organization, the vendor, and the auditor.
    • Don’t wait on a vendor to provide its NDA. The organization should have its own and provide it to both parties.
    • If the auditor is a third party, negotiate a three-way NDA. This will prevent data being shared with other third parties.

    Examine Contract History

    • Vendors will attempt to alter terms of contracts when new products are purchased.
    • Maintain your current agreement if they are more favorable by “grandfathering” your original agreement.
    • Oracle master level agreements are an example: master level agreements offer more favorable terms than more recent versions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Even if you cannot get a third-party NDA signed, the negotiation process should delay the overall audit process by at least a month, buying your organization valuable time to gather license data.

    Be prepared for external audit requests with a defined process for responding

    1. Vendor-initiated audit request received and brought to attention of IT Asset Manager and CIO.
    2. Acknowledge receipt of audit notice.
    3. Negotiate timing and scope of the audit (including software titles, geographic locations, entities, and completion date).
    4. Notify staff not to remove or acquire licenses for software under audit.
    5. Gather documentation and create report of all licensed software within audit scope.
      • Include original contract, most recent contract, and any addendums, purchase receipts, or reseller invoices, and publisher documentation such as manuals or electronic media.
    6. Compare documentation to installed software according to ITAM database.
    7. Validate any unusual or non-compliant software.
    8. Complete documentation requested by auditor and review results.

    Define and document the external audit process

    Associated Activity icon 4.1.2 Define external audit process

    Participants: CIO and/or IT Director, Asset Manager, IT Managers

    Document: Document in the Standard Operating Procedures.

    Define and document a process for responding to external software audit requests.
    Include the following:

    1. Who must be notified of the audit request when it is received?
    2. When must acknowledgement of the notice be sent and by whom?
    3. What must be defined under the scope of the audit (e.g. software titles, geographic locations, entities, completion date)?
    4. What communications must be sent to IT staff and end users to ensure compliance?
    5. What documentation should be gathered to review?
    6. How will documentation be verified against data?
    7. How will unusual or non-compliant software be identified and validated?
    8. Who needs to be informed of the results?

    Control audit scope with an audit response template

    Supporting Tool icon 4.1.3 Prepare an audit scoping email template

    Use the Software Audit Scoping Email Template to create an email directed at your external (or internal) auditors. Send the audit scoping email several weeks before an audit to determine the audit’s scope and objectives. The email should include:

    • Detailed questions about audit scope and objectives.
    • Critical background information on your organization/program.

    The email will help focus your preparation efforts and initiate your relationship with the auditors.

    Control scope by addressing the following:

    • Products covered by a properly executed agreement
    • Geographic regions
    • User groups
    • Time periods
    • Specific locations
    • A subset of users’ computers
    Sample of the 'Software Audit Scoping Email Template'.

    Keep leadership informed with an audit launch email

    Supporting Tool icon 4.1.4 Prepare an audit launch email template

    Approximately a week before the audit, you should email the internal leadership to communicate information about the start of the audit. Use the Software Audit Launch Email Template to create this email, including:

    • Staffing
    • Functional requirements
    • Audit contact person information
    • Scheduling details
    • Audit report estimated delivery time

    For more guidance on preparing for a software audit, see Info-Tech’s blueprint: Prepare and Defend Against a Software Audit.

    Sample of the 'Software Audit Launch Email Template'.

    A large bank employed proactive, internal audits to experience big savings

    Case Study

    Industry: Banking
    Source: Pomeroy

    Challenge

    A large American financial institution with 1,300 banking centers in 12 states, 28,000 end users, and 108,000 assets needed to improve its asset management program.

    The bank had employed numerous ITAM tools, but IT staff identified that its asset data was still fragmented. There was still incomplete insight into what assets the banked owned, the precise value of those assets, their location, and what they’re being used for.

    The bank decided to establish an asset management program that involved internal audits to gather more-complete data sets.

    Solution

    With the help of a vendor, the bank implemented cradle-to-grave asset tracking and lifecycle management, which provided discovery of almost $80 million in assets.

    The bank also assembled an ITAM team and a dedicated ITAM manager to ensure that routine internal audits were performed.

    The team was instrumental in establishing standardization of IT policies, hardware configuration, and service requirements.

    Results

    • The bank identified and now tracks over 108,000 assets.
    • The previous level of 80% accuracy in inventory tracking was raised to 96%.
    • Nearly $500,000 was saved through asset recovery and repurposing of 600 idle assets.
    • There are hundreds of thousands of dollars in estimated savings as the result of avoiding costly penalties from failed audits thanks to proactive internal audits.

    Step 4.2 Build communication plan and roadmap

    Phase 4:
    Build supporting processes & tools
    This step will walk you through the following activities:This step involves the following participants:

    4.1

    Compliance & audits
    • 4.2.1 Develop a communication plan to convey the right messages
    • 4.2.2 Anticipate end-user questions by preparing an FAQ list
    • 4.2.3 Build a software asset management policy
    • 4.2.4 Build additional SAM policies
    • 4.2.5 Develop a SAM roadmap to plan your implementation
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and SAM Manager
    • SAM Team

    4.2

    Communicate & build roadmap

    Step Outcomes

    • A documented communications plan for relevant stakeholders to understand the benefits and changes the SAM program will bring
    • A list of anticipated end-user questions with responses
    • Documented software asset management policies
    • An implementation roadmap

    Communicate SAM processes to gain acceptance and support

    Communication is crucial to the integration and overall implementation of your SAM program. If staff and users do not understand the purpose of processes and policies, they will fail to provide the desired value.

    An effective communication plan will:

    • Gain support from management at the project proposal phase.
    • Create end-user buy-in once the program is set to launch.
    • Maintain the presence of the program throughout the business.
    • Instill ownership throughout the business from top-level management to new hires.

    Communicate the following:

    1. Advertise successes

      • Regularly demonstrate the value of the SAM program with descriptive statistics focused on key financial benefits.
      • Share data with the appropriate personnel; promote success to obtain further support from senior management.
    2. Report and share asset data

      • Sharing detailed asset-related reports frequently gives decision makers useful data to aid in their strategy.
      • These reports can help your organization prepare for audits, adjust budgeting, and detect unauthorized software.
    3. Communicate the value of SAM

      • Educate management and end users about how they fit into the bigger picture.
      • Individuals need to know which behaviors may put the organization at risk or adversely affect data quality.

    Educate staff and end users through SAM training to increase program success

    As part of your communication plan and overall SAM implementation, training should be provided to both staff and end users within the organization.

    • ITAM solutions are complex by nature with both business process and technical knowledge required to use them correctly.
    • All facets of the business, from management to new hires, should be provided with training to help them understand their role in the program’s success.
    • Keep the message appropriate to the audience – end users don’t need to know the complete process, but will need to know policy and how to request.
    • Even after the SAM program has been fully implemented, keep employees up to date with policies and processes through ongoing training sessions for both new hires and existing employees:
      • New hires: Provide new hires with all relevant SAM policies and ensure they understand the importance of software asset management.
      • Existing employees: Continually remind them of how SAM is involved in their daily operations and inform them of any changes to policies.

    Create your communications plan to anticipate challenges, remove obstacles, and ensure buy-in

    Provide separate communications to key stakeholder groups

    Why:
    • What problems are you trying to solve?
    What:
    • What processes will it affect (that will affect me)?
    Who:
    • Who will be affected?
    • Who do I go to if I have issues with the new process?
    Three circular arrows each linking t the next in a downward daisy chain. The type arrow has 'IT Staff' in the middle, the second 'Management', and the third 'End Users' When:
    • When will this be happening?
    • When will it affect me?
    How:
    • How will these changes manifest themselves?
    Goal:
    • What is the final goal?
    • How will it benefit me?

    Develop a communication plan to convey the right messages

    Associated Activity icon 4.2.1 Develop a communication plan to convey the right messages

    Participants: CIO, IT Director, Asset Manager, Service Desk Manager

    Document: Document in the SAM Communication Plan.

    1. Identify the groups that will be affected by the SAM program.
    2. For each group requiring a communication plan, identify the following:
    3. Benefits of SAM for that group of individuals (e.g. more efficient software requests).
    4. The impact the change will have on them (e.g. change in the way a certain process will work).
    5. Communication method (i.e. how you will communicate).
    6. Timeframe (i.e. when and how often you will communicate the changes).
    7. Complete this information in a table like the one below and document in the Communication Plan.
    Group Benefits Impact Method Timeline
    Executives
    • Improved audit compliance
    • Improved budgeting and forecasting
    • Review and sign off on policies
    End Users
    • Streamlined software request process
    • Follow software installation and security policies
    IT
    • Faster access to data and one source of truth
    • Modified processes
    • Ensure audits are completed regularly

    Anticipate end-user questions by preparing an FAQ list

    Associated Activity icon 4.2.2 Prepare an FAQ list

    Document: Document FAQ questions and answers in the SAM FAQ Template.

    ITAM imposes changes to end users throughout the business and it’s normal to expect questions about the new program. Prepare your team ahead of time by creating a list of FAQs.

    Some common questions include:

    • Why are you changing from the old processes?
    • Why now?
    • What are you going to ask me to do differently?
    • Will I lose any of my software?

    The benefits of preparing a list of answers to FAQs include:

    • A reduction in time spent creating answers to questions. If you focus on the most common questions, you will make efficient use of your team’s time.
    • Consistency in your team’s responses. By socializing the answers to FAQs, you ensure that no one on your team is out of the loop and the message remains consistent across the board.

    Include policy design and enforcement in your communication plan

    • Software asset management policies should define the actions to be taken to support software asset management processes and ensure the effective and efficient management of IT software assets across the asset lifecycle.
    • Implementing asset management policies enforces the notion that the organization takes its IT assets and the management of them seriously and will help ensure the benefits of SAM are achieved.
    • Designing, approving, documenting, and adopting one set of standard SAM policies for each department to follow will ensure the processes are enforced equally across the organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Use policy templates to jumpstart your policy development and ensure policies are comprehensive, but be sure to modify and adapt policies to suit your corporate culture or they will not gain buy-in from employees. For a policy to be successful, it must be a living document and have participation and involvement from the committees and departments to whom it will pertain.

    Build a software asset management policy

    Supporting Tool icon 4.2.3 Document a SAM policy

    Use Info-Tech’s Software Asset Management Policy template to define and document the purpose, scope, objectives, and roles and responsibilities for your organization's software asset management program.

    The template allows you to customize policy requirements for:

    • Procurement
    • Installation and Removal
    • Maintenance
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Company Divestitures
    • Audits

    …as well as consequences for non-compliance.

    Sample of the 'Software Asset Management Policy' template.

    Use Info-Tech’s policy templates to build additional policies

    Supporting Tool icon 4.2.4 Build additional SAM policies

    Asset Security Policy
    The IT asset security policy will describe your organization's approach to ensuring the physical and digital security of your IT assets throughout their entire lifecycle.

    End-User Devices Acceptable Use Policy
    This policy should describe how business tools provided to employees are to be used in a responsible, ethical, and compliant manner, as well as the consequences of non-compliance.

    Purchasing Policy
    The purchasing policy helps to establish company standards, guidelines, and procedures for the purchase of all information technology hardware, software, and computer-related components as well as the purchase of all technical services.

    Release Management Policy
    Use this policy template to define and document the purpose, scope, objectives, and roles and responsibilities for your organization's release management program.

    Internet Acceptable Use Policy
    Use this template to help keep the internet use policy up to date. This policy template includes descriptions of acceptable and unacceptable use, security provisions, and disclaimers on the right of the organization to monitor usage and liability.

    Samples of additional SAM policies, listed to the left.

    Implement SAM in a phased, constructive approach

    One of the most difficult decisions to make when implementing a SAM program is: “where do we start?”

    It’s not necessary to deploy a comprehensive SAM program to start. Build on the essentials to become more mature as you grow.

    SAM Program Maturity (highest to lowest)

    • Audits and reporting
      Gather and analyze data about software assets to ensure compliance for audits and to continually improve the business.
    • Contracts and budget
      Analyze contracts and licenses for software across the enterprise and optimize planning to enable cost reduction.
    • Lifecycle standardization
      Define standards and processes for all asset lifecycle phases from request and procurement through to retirement and redistribution.
    • Inventory and tracking
      Define assets you will procure, distribute, and track. Know what you have, where it is deployed, and keep track of contracts and all relevant data.

    Integrate your SAM program with the organization to assist its implementation

    SAM cannot perform on its own – it must be integrated with other functional areas of the organization to maintain its stability and support.

    • Effective SAM is supported by a comprehensive set of processes as part of its implementation.
    • For example, integration with the procurement team’s processes and tools is required to track software purchases to mitigate software license compliance risk.
    • Integration with Finance is required to support internal cost allocations and chargebacks.
    • Integration with the service desk is required to track and deploy software requests.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    To integrate SAM effectively, a clear implementation roadmap needs to be designed. Prioritize “quick wins” to demonstrate success to the business early and to gain buy-in from your team. Short-term gains should be designed to support long-term goals of your SAM program.

    Sample short-term goals
    • Identify inventory classification and tool
    • Create basic SAM policies and processes
    • Implement SAM auto-discovery tools
    Sample long-term goals
    • Software contract data integration
    • Continual improvement through review and revision
    • Software compliance reports, internal audits

    Develop a SAM roadmap to plan your implementation

    Associated Activity icon 4.2.5 Build a project roadmap
    1. Identify and review all initiatives that will be taken to implement or improve the software asset management program. These may fall under people, process, or technology-related tasks.
    2. Assign a priority level to each task (Quick Win, Low, Medium, High).
    3. Use the priority to sort tasks into start dates, breaking down by:
      1. Short, medium, or long-term
      2. 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 12+ months
      3. Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4
    4. Review tasks and adjust start dates for some, if needed to set realistic and achievable timelines.
    5. Transfer tasks to a project plan or Gantt chart to formalize.
    Examples:
    Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
    • Hire software asset manager
    • Document SOP
    • Define policies
    • Select a SAM tool
    • Create list of approved services and software
    • Define metrics
    • Inventory existing software and contracts
    • Build a patch policy
    • Build a service catalog
    • Contract renewal alignment
    • Run internal audit
    • Security review

    Review and maintain the SAM program to reach optimal maturity

    • SAM is a dynamic process. It must adapt to keep pace with the direction of the organization. New applications, different licensing needs, and a constant stream of new end users all contribute to complicating the licensing process.
    • As part of your organization’s journey to an optimized SAM program, put in place continual improvement practices to maintain momentum.

    A suggested cycle of review and maintenance for your SAM: 'Plan', 'Do', 'Check', 'Act'.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Advertising the increased revenue that is gained from good SAM practices is a powerful way to gain project buy-in.

    Keep the momentum going:

    • Clearly define ongoing responsibilities for each role.
    • Develop a training and awareness program for new employees to be introduced to SAM processes and policies.
    • Continually review and revise existing processes as necessary.
    • Measure the success of the program to identify areas for improvement and demonstrate successes.
    • Measure adherence to process and policies and enforce as needed.

    Reflect on the outcomes of implementing SAM to target areas for improvement and share knowledge gained within and beyond the SAM team. Some questions to consider include:

    1. How did the data compare to our expectations? Was the project a success?
    2. What obstacles were present that impacted the project?
    3. How can we apply lessons learned through this project to others in the future?

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop Associated Activity icon

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    4.2.1

    Sample of activity 4.2.1 'Develop a communication plan to convey the right messages'. Develop a communication plan to convey the right messages

    Identify stakeholders requiring communication and formulate a message and delivery method for each.

    4.2.5

    Sample of activity 4.2.5 'Develop a SAM roadmap to plan your implementation'. Develop a SAM roadmap to plan your implementation

    Outline the tasks necessary for the implementation of this project and prioritize to build a project roadmap.

    Phase 4 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 4: Build supporting processes & tools

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4
    Step 4.1: Compliance & audits Step 4.2: Communicate & build roadmap
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Discuss audit process
    • Define a process for internal audits
    • Define a process for external audit response
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Build communication plan
    • Discuss policy needs
    • Build a roadmap
    Then complete these activities…
    • Document internal audit process
    • Document external audit process
    • Prepare audit templates
    Then complete these activities…
    • Develop communication plan
    • Prepare an FAQ list for end users
    • Build SAM policies
    • Develop a roadmap
    With these tools & templates:
    • Standard Operating Procedures
    • Software Audit Scoping Email Template
    • Software Audit Launch Email Template
    With these tools & templates:
    • SAM Communication Plan
    • Software Asset Management FAQ Template
    • Software Asset Management Policy
    • Additional Policy Templates

    Bibliography

    2013 Software Audit Industry Report.” Express Metrix, 2013. Web.

    7 Vital Trends Disrupting Today’s Workplace: Results and Data from 2013 TINYpulse Employee Engagement Survey.” TINYpulse, 2013. Web.

    Beaupoil, Christof. “How to measure data quality and protect against software audits.” Network World, 6 June 2011.

    Begg, Daniel. “Effective Licence Position (ELP) – What is it really worth?” LinkedIn, 19 January 2016.

    Boehler, Bernhard. “Advanced License Optimization: Go Beyond Compliance for Maximum Cost Savings.” The ITAM Review, 24 November 2014.

    Bruce, Warren. “SAM Baseline – process & best practice.” Microsoft. 2013 Australia Partner Conference.

    Case Study Top 20 U.S. Bank Tackles Asset Management.” Pomeroy, 2012. Web.

    Cherwell Software Software Audit Industry Report.” Cherwell Software, 2015. Web.

    Conrad, Sandi. “SAM starter kit: everything you need to get started with software asset management. Conrad & Associates, 2010.

    Corstens, Jan, and Diederik Van der Sijpe. “Contract risk & compliance software asset management (SAM).” Deloitte, 2012.

    Deas, A., T. Markowitzm and E. Black. “Software asset management: high risk, high reward.” Deloitte, 2014.

    Doig, Chris. “Why you should always estimate ROI before buying enterprise software” CIO, 13 August 2015.

    Fried, Chuck. “America Needs An Education On Software Asset Management (SAM).” LinkedIn. 16 June 2015.

    Lyons, Gwen. “Understanding the Drivers Behind Application Rationalization Critical to Success.” Flexera Software Blog, 31 October 2012.

    Bibliography

    Metrics to Measure SAM Success: eight ways to prove your SAM program is delivering business benefits.” Snow Software White Paper, 2015.

    Microsoft. “The SAM Optimization Model.” Microsoft Corporation White Paper, 2010.

    Miller, D. and M. Oliver. “Engaging Stakeholders for Project Success.” Project Management Institute White Paper, 2015.

    Morrison, Dan. “5 Common Misconceptions of Software Asset Management.” SoftwareOne. 12 May 2015.

    O’Neill, Leslie T. “Visa Case Study: SAM in the 21st Century.” International Business Software Managers Association (IBSMA), 30 July 2014.

    Reducing Hidden Operating Costs Through IT Asset Discovery.” NetSupport Inc., 2011.

    SAM Summit 2014, 23-25 June 2014, University of Chicago Gleacher Center Conference Facilities, Chicago, MI.

    Saxby, Heather. “20 Things Every CIO Needs to Know about Software Asset Management.” Crayon Software Experts, 13 May 2015.

    The 2016 State of IT: Managing the money monsters for the coming year.” Spiceworks, 2016.

    The Hidden Cost of Unused Software.” A 1E Report, 1E.com: 2014. Web.

    What does it take to achieve software license optimization?” Flexera White Paper, 2013.

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Michael Dean, Director, User Support Services, Des Moines University Michael Dean
    Director, User Support Services
    Des Moines University
    Simon Leuty
    Co-Founder
    Livingstone Tech
    Photo of Simon Leuty, Co-Founder, Livingstone Tech
    Photo of Clare Walsh, PR Consultant, Adesso Tech Ltd. Clare Walsh
    PR Consultant
    Adesso Tech Ltd.
    Alex Monaghan
    Director, Presales EMEA
    Product Support Solutions
    Photo of Alex Monaghan, Director, Presales EMEA, Product Support Solutions

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Ben Brand, SAM Practice Manager, Insight Ben Brand
    SAM Practice Manager
    Insight
    Michael Swanson
    President
    ISAM
    Photo of Michael Swanson, President, ISAM
    Photo of Bruce Aboudara, SVP, Marketing & Business Development, Scalable Software Bruce Aboudara
    SVP, Marketing & Business Development
    Scalable Software
    Will Degener
    Senior Solutions Consultant
    Scalable Software
    Photo of Will Degener, Senior Solutions Consultant, Scalable Software

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Peter Gregorowicz, Associate Director, Network & Client Services, Vancouver Community College Peter Gregorowicz
    Associate Director, Network & Client Services
    Vancouver Community College
    Peter Schnitzler
    Operations Team Lead
    Toyota Canada
    Photo of Peter Schnitzler, Operations Team Lead, Toyota Canada
    Photo of David Maughan, Head of Service Transition, Mott MacDonald Ltd. David Maughan
    Head of Service Transition
    Mott MacDonald Ltd.
    Brian Bernard
    Infrastructure & Operations Manager
    Lee County Clerk of Court
    Photo of Brian Bernard, Infrastructure & Operations Manager, Lee County Clerk of Court

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Leticia Sobrado, IT Data Governance & Compliance Manager, Intercept Pharmaceuticals Leticia Sobrado
    IT Data Governance & Compliance Manager
    Intercept Pharmaceuticals

    Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}451|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 10.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: 2 Average Days Saved
    • member rating average days saved: After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.
    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
    • Parent Category Link: /i-and-o-process-management
    • Infrastructure and operations teams are managing deployments on- and off-premises, and across multiple infrastructure services providers.
    • Though automation tools speed up the delivery process, documentation is always pushed off so the team can meet urgent deadlines.
    • Without documented delivery processes, wait times are longer, controls are adequate but ad hoc, builds are non-standard, and errors are more likely to be introduced in production.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Prioritize in-demand services to add to the playbook. Pilot a few services to get value from the project quickly.
    • Do not get lost in automation or tooling. You do not need a complex tool or back-end automation to get value from this project.
    • Learn, then iterate. With a few completed service processes, it is much easier to identify opportunities for service automation.

    Impact and Result

    • Prioritize in-demand services for documentation and standardization.
    • Build service workflows and document service requirements in the services playbook.
    • Create a costing model and track costs to deliver defined services.
    • Leverage data on costs and service requirements to improve service delivery.

    Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to find out why you should create an infrastructure services playbook, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Define and prioritize infrastructure services

    Produce a prioritized list of high-demand infrastructure services.

    • Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook – Phase 1: Define and Prioritize Infrastructure Services
    • Infrastructure Services Playbook

    2. Build workflows and an infrastructure services playbook

    Design workflows and create the first draft of the infrastructure services playbook.

    • Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook – Phase 2: Build Workflows and an Infrastructure Services Playbook
    • Infrastructure Service Workflows (Visio)
    • Infrastructure Service Workflows (PDF)

    3. Identify costs and mature service delivery capabilities

    Build a service rate sheet to track costs and develop better service capabilities.

    • Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook – Phase 3: Identify Costs and Mature Service Delivery Capabilities
    • Service Rate Sheet
    • Infrastructure Service Catalog Mind Map Example
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Define and Prioritize Infrastructure Services

    The Purpose

    Define and prioritize infrastructure services.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identify candidate services for the Playbook.

    Activities

    1.1 Define the services you own.

    1.2 Prioritize infrastructure services.

    Outputs

    Affinity map of infrastructure services

    Service pain points and root causes

    A list of high-demand infrastructure services

    2 Build the Infrastructure Services Playbook

    The Purpose

    Build workflows and an infrastructure services playbook.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Produce a draft infrastructure services playbook.

    Activities

    2.1 Design workflow for service delivery.

    2.2 Add steps and requirements to the Services Playbook.

    Outputs

    Documented service workflows

    Infrastructure Services Playbook

    3 Identify Costs and Mature Service Delivery Capabilities

    The Purpose

    Identify costs and mature service delivery capabilities.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Build an infrastructure service rate sheet.

    Define next steps for infrastructure service capabilities.

    Activities

    3.1 Optimize infrastructure cost estimates.

    3.2 Mature your I&O organization into a service broker.

    Outputs

    Service Rate Sheet

    Master list of infrastructure services

    Action plan for Playbook implementation

    Further reading

    Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook

    Automation, SDI, and DevOps – build a cheat sheet to manage a changing Infrastructure & Operations environment.

    Table of contents

    Analyst Perspective

    Executive Summary

    Project Overview

    Summary and Conclusion

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    Technology is changing how infrastructure services are delivered.

    "Managing a hybrid infrastructure environment is challenge enough. Add to this the pressure on IT Operations to deliver services faster and more continuously – it’s a recipe for boondoggle deployments, overcommitted staff, end-user frustration, and operational gridlock.

    It’s not every service you provide that causes problems, so prioritize a few in-demand, painful services. Build and maintain durable, flexible processes that enable your team to provide consistent, repeatable services at a standard cost. Identify opportunities to improve service delivery.

    You’ll save the business time and money and your own team significant grief." (Andrew Sharp, Research Manager, Infrastructure & Operations, Info-Tech Research Group)

    Your infrastructure and operations team is a service provider; standardize, document, and communicate service capabilities

    This Research is Designed For:

    • CTOs and Infrastructure Managers
    • Service Level Managers
    • ITSM Managers and Process Owners

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Inventory services that IT Infrastructure & Operations (I&O) provides to the business (servers, storage, and network).
    • Standardize services and track costs.
    • Articulate the value of these services to business owners.
    • Develop a catalog of infrastructure services.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • CIOs
    • Application Development Managers
    • Security Managers
    • Auditors

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Understand the complexities of technical service delivery.
    • Make better strategic IT infrastructure decisions.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • Infrastructure and operations teams are managing deployments on- and off-premises and across multiple infrastructure service providers.
    • Though automation tools speed up the delivery process, documentation is always pushed off so the team can meet urgent deadlines.

    Complication

    • Cloud providers have set the bar high for ease of access to stable infrastructure services.
    • Without documented delivery processes, wait times are longer, controls are adequate but ad hoc, builds are non-standard, and errors are more likely to be introduced in production.

    Resolution

    • Prioritize in-demand services for documentation and standardization.
    • Build service workflows and document service requirements in the services playbook.
    • Create a costing model and track costs to deliver defined services.
    • Leverage data on costs and service requirements to improve service delivery.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Keep it simple. Work through a few in-demand services to get early value from the project.
    2. Don’t get lost in automation or tooling. You don’t need a complex tool or back-end automation to get value from standardized services.
    3. Do then iterate. With a few completed service processes, it’s much easier to identify opportunities for service automation.

    Create an infrastructure services playbook to improve efficiency, support DevOps, and streamline service delivery

    Begin building an infrastructure services playbook by defining the services you provide. This will also help your team support changes to service delivery (e.g. more use of cloud services and the shift to DevOps).

    In this blueprint, the first step will be to document infrastructure services to:

    1. Clarify infrastructure capabilities and achievable service levels.

      Document infrastructure services to clarify achievable service levels with given resources and what you will need to meet service-level requirement gaps. Establishing your ability to meet customer demands is the first step toward becoming a broker of internal or external services.
    2. Standardize infrastructure service delivery.

      Sometimes, it’s extremely important to do the exact same thing every time (e.g. server hardening). Sometimes, your team needs room to deviate from the script. Create a playbook that allows you to standardize service delivery as needed.
    3. Make good strategic infrastructure decisions.

      Knowledge is power. Defined services and capabilities will help you make important strategic infrastructure decisions around capacity planning and when outsourcing is appropriate.

    Review and optimize infrastructure service delivery as you shift to more cloud-based services

    If you can’t standardize and streamline how you support cloud services, you risk AppDev and business leaders circumventing the I&O team.

    Logo for 'vmware'.

    Example:

    Create a new server resource in a virtual environment vs. public cloud

    In a virtualized environment, provisioning processes can still be relatively siloed.

    In a software-defined environment, many steps require knowledge across the infrastructure stack. Better documentation will help your team deliver services outside their area of specialty.

    Logo for 'Microsoft Azure'.
    • Identify CPU requirements for a virtual machine (VM)
    • Calculate VM memory requirements
    • Configure the floppy drive for a VM
    • Configure IDE devices for a VM
    • Configure SCSI adapters for a VM
    • Configure network adapters for a VM
    • Configure VM priority for host CPU resources
    • Server is live

    • Complete SDI code development & review, version control, build status, etc.
    • Identify software and specifications for the instance you want to use
    • Review configuration, storage, and security settings
    • Secure the instance with an existing key pair or create a new key pair
    • Update documentation – public IP address, physical & logical connections, data flows, etc.
    • Launch and connect to instance
    • Server is live

    Strengthen DevOps with an infrastructure playbook

    The purpose behind DevOps is to reduce friction and deliver faster, more continuous, more automated services through the use of cross-functional teams.

    DevOps: bridging Applications Development and Infrastructure & Operations by embracing a culture, practices, and tools born out of Lean and Agile methodologies.

    • Create a common language across functions.
    • Ensure that all service steps are documented.
    • Move towards more standard deployments.
    • Increase transparency within the IT department.
    • Cultivate trust across teams.
    • Build the foundation for automated services.
    A colorful visualization of the DevOps cycle. On the Development side is 'Feedback', Plan', 'Build', 'Integrate', then over to the Operations side is 'Deploy', and 'Operate', then back to Dev with 'Feedback', starting the cycle over again.

    "The bar has been raised for delivering technology products and services – what was good enough in previous decades is not good enough now." (Kim, Humble, Debois, Willis (2016))

    Leverage an infrastructure services playbook to improve service delivery, one step at a time

    Crawl

    • Prioritize infrastructure services that are good candidates for standardization.
    • Document the steps and requirements to deliver the service.
    • Use the playbook and workflows internally as you gather requirements and deliver on requests.
    • Track costs internally.

    Walk

    • Provide infrastructure clients with the playbook and allow them to make requests against it.
    • Update and maintain existing documentation.
    • Automate, where possible.
    • Showback costs to the business.

    Run

    • Provide infrastructure customers with scripts to provision infrastructure resources.
    • Audit requests before fulfilling them.
    • Chargeback costs, as needed.
    A turtle smiles happily on four legs, simply content to be alive. Another turtle moves quickly on two legs, seemingly in a runner's trance, eyes closed, oblivious to the fact that another turtle has beaten him to finish line.

    Focus on in-demand infrastructure services — PHASE 1

    Standardize in-demand, repeatable services first.

    Demand for infrastructure services is usually driven by external requests or operational requirements. Prioritize services based on criticality, durability, frequency, availability, and urgency requirements.

    Scheduling Delays
    • Dealing with a slew of capital projects driven by a major funding initiative, the IT team of a major US transit system is struggling to execute on basic operational tasks.

    • Action:
    • A brainstorming and prioritization exercise identifies web server deployment as their most in-demand service.
    • Identifying breakdowns in web server deployment helps free up resources for other tasks and addresses a serious pain point.
    Think outside the box
    • On a new project for a sporting goods client, the IT department for a marketing firm deploys and supports a “locker” kiosk that users engage with for a chance to win a gift.

    • Action:
    • As the campaign proves successful, the I&O Manager creates a playbook to guide kiosk support and deployment in the future, including required skills, timelines, success metrics, and costs.
    Keep it standard, keep it safe
    • An IT audit at a higher education institution finds that no standard process for server hardening has been defined or documented by the infrastructure team.

    • Action:
    • Improving IT security is a strategic priority for the department.
    • The infrastructure team decides to standardize and document processes, guidelines, and configurations for hardening OS, SCCM, SaltStack, scripting, and patching.

    Leverage service workflows to populate the playbook — PHASE 2

    Infrastructure as Code is breaking down traditional infrastructure silos and support models.

    1. Document the workflow to deliver the service. Identify pain points and target broken processes first.
      Provision –› Configure –› Run –› Quiesce –› Destroy
    2. Define logical expected results and metrics for problematic steps in the process. Identify challenges and possible improvements to each problematic step.
      Building and deploying toolsets is taking a long time
      Start
      • Create a baseline offering for common requests.
      • Make clear that non-standard requests will take time to fulfil.
      Stop
      • Move to just one web server.
      Continue
      • Use weekly drop-ins to communicate the change.
    3. Document skills and roles, approvers, and pre-requirements to fill out the documentation, as needed. Use the documented process to guide internal process and align with external expectations.

    Cross-silo knowledge is needed: In a software-defined environment, building and launching a new server requires knowledge across the stack.

    • Complete SDI code development & review, version control, build status, etc.
    • Identify software and specifications for the instance you want to use
    • Review configuration, storage, and security settings
    • Secure the instance with an existing key pair, or create a new key pair
    • Update documentation – public IP address, physical & logical connections, data flows, etc.
    • Launch and connect to the instance
    • Server is live

    Take a progressive approach to cost tracking — PHASE 3

    Infrastructure & Operations are bound by two metrics:

    1. Are systems up?
    2. Is technology delivered as efficiently as possible?

    Because tracking cost is integral to efficiency, cost and budget management, by proxy, is one of the most important Infrastructure & Operations metrics.

    Cost management is not a numbers game. It is an indicator of how well infrastructure is managed.

    Track costs in a practical way that delivers value to your organization:

    1. Build and leverage an internal rate sheet to help estimate cost to serve.
    2. Showback rate sheet to help managers and architects make better infrastructure decisions.
    3. Chargeback costs to defined cost centers.

    Project overview

    Use Info-Tech’s methodology to get value faster from your infrastructure services playbook.

    Phases

    Phase 1: Define and prioritize infrastructure services Phase 2: Build the infrastructure services playbook Phase 3: Identify costs and mature service delivery capabilities

    Steps

    1.1 Define the services you own 2.1 Design workflows for service delivery 3.1 Estimate infrastructure service costs
    1.2 Prioritize infrastructure services 2.2 Add steps and requirements to the services playbook 3.2 Mature your I&O organization into a service broker

    Tools & Templates

    Infrastructure Services Playbook Infrastructure Service Workflows Service Rate Sheet

    Use these icons to help direct you as you navigate this research

    Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.

    A small monochrome icon of a wrench and screwdriver creating an X.

    This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.

    A small monochrome icon depicting a person in front of a blank slide.

    This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation Overview

    Your Trusted Advisor is just a call away.

    Scoping
    (Call 1)

    Scope requirements, objectives, and stakeholders. Review the playbook toolset and methodology, and establish fit-for-need.

    Identify Services
    (Call 2)

    Brainstorm common infrastructure services your group provides. Consolidate the list and identify priority services.

    Create Service Workflows
    (Calls 3-4)

    Build Visio workflows for 2-3 priority services.

    Populate the Playbook
    (Calls 4-5)

    Add data to the playbook based on infrastructure service workflows

    Create a Rate Sheet for Costs
    (Call 6)

    Build a rate sheet that allows you to calculate costs for additional

    Your Guided Implementation will pair you with an advisor from our analyst team for the duration of your infrastructure services project.

    Workshop Overview

    Module 1
    (Day 1)
    Module 1
    (Day 1)
    Module 1
    (Day 1)
    Offsite deliverables wrap-up (Day 5)
    Activities
    Define and Prioritize Infrastructure Services

    1.1 Assess current maturity of services and standardization processes.

    1.2 Identify, group, and break out important infrastructure services.

    1.3 Define service delivery pain points and perform root-cause analysis.

    1.4 Prioritize services based on demand criteria.

    Build the Infrastructure Services Playbook

    2.1 Determine criteria for standard versus custom services.

    2.2 Document standard workflows for better alignment and consistent delivery.

    2.3 Build a flowchart for the identified high-demand service(s).

    2.4 Outline information as it relates to the service lifecycle in the Playbook template.

    Identify Costs and Mature Service Delivery Capabilities

    4.1 Gather information for the rate sheet.

    4.2 Choose an allocation method for overhead costs.

    4.3 Select the right approach in the crawl, walk, run model for your organization.

    4.4 Discuss the promotion plan and target revision dates for playbook and rate sheet.

    Deliverables
    1. High-demand infrastructure services list
    1. Right-sized criteria for standardization
    2. Service workflows
    3. Infrastructure Services Playbook
    1. Service Rate Sheet
    2. Deployment plan

    Develop an IT Infrastructure Services Playbook

    PHASE 1

    Define and Prioritize Infrastructure Services

    Step 1.1: Define the services you own

    PHASE 1

    Define and prioritize infrastructure services

    1.1

    Define the services you own

    1.2

    Prioritize infrastructure services

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Define “infrastructure service”
    • Brainstorm service offerings
    • Consolidate services with affinity map

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Infrastructure Manager
    • I&O SMEs

    Results & Insights

    • Results: Consolidated list of end-to-end services
    • Insights: Avoid analysis paralysis by brainstorming without restrictions. It is more effective to cut down in Step 1.2 rather than risk neglecting important services for the playbook.

    Consider a range of infrastructure services

    Your infrastructure team is a service provider to the applications team – and sometimes other users as well.

    Service Requests
    • A developer requests a new web server.
    • The marketing department asks for a database to support a six-month digital marketing campaign.
    Projects
    • A new service is promoted to production.
    Operations
    • Firewall rules are updated to support server, network, or security posture changes.
    • Standard practices are followed and maintained to harden a range of different operating systems.
    • Engineers follow a standard process to integrate new tools and entitlements into Active Directory.
    • Patches and firmware updates are applied to core infrastructure components as needed.
    Problems
    • A database batch job often breaks on overnight batch jobs and requires manual intervention to check and restart.
    A visualization of the word 'Infrastructure Services' being orbited by 'Service Requests', 'Projects', 'Operations', and 'Problems'.

    IT infrastructure & operations teams deliver services that fulfil requests, support projects, resolve problems, and operate systems.

    Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}229|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management
    • Each year, SMB IT organizations spend more money “outsourcing” tasks, activities, applications, functions, and other items.
    • Many SMBs lack the affordability of implementing a sophisticated vendor management initiative or office.
    • The increased spend and associated outsourcing leads to less control, and more risk for IT organizations. Managing this becomes a higher priority for IT, but many IT organizations are ill-equipped to do this proactively.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Vendor management is not “plug and play” – each organization’s vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. There are commonalities among vendor management initiatives, but the key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs, not the other way around.
    • All vendors are not of equal importance to an organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization’s investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.
    • Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI’s ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates “informally”, starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

    Impact and Result

    • Build and implement a vendor management initiative tailored to your environment.
    • Create a solid foundation to sustain your vendor management initiative as it evolves and matures.
    • Leverage vendor management-specific tools and templates to manage vendors more proactively and improve communication.
    • Concentrate your vendor management resources on the right vendors.
    • Build a roadmap and project plan for your vendor management journey to ensure you reach your destination.
    • Build collaborative relationships with critical vendors.

    Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand how changes in the vendor landscape and customer reliance on vendors have made a vendor management initiative indispensible.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Plan

    This phase helps you organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI.

    • Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business – Phase 1: Plan
    • Phase 1 Small Business Tools and Templates Compendium

    2. Build

    This phase helps you configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

    • Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business – Phase 2: Build
    • Phase 2 Small Business Vendor Classification Tool
    • Phase 2 Small Business Risk Assessment Tool
    • Phase 2 Small Business Tools and Templates Compendium

    3. Run

    This phase helps you begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI.

    • Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business – Phase 3: Run

    4. Review

    This phase helps the VMI identify what it should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    • Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business – Phase 4: Review
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Essentials of Vendor Management for Small Business

    Create and implement a vendor management framework to begin obtaining measurable results in 90 days.


    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Vendor Management Challenge

    Small businesses are often challenged by the growth and complexity of their vendor ecosystem, including the degree to which the vendors control them. Vendors are increasing, obtaining more and more budget dollars, while funding for staff or headcount is decreasing as a result of cloud-based applications and an increase in our reliance on Managed Service Providers. Initiating a vendor management initiative (VMI) vs. creating a fully staffed vendor management office will get you started on the path of proactively controlling your vendors instead of consistently operating in a reactionary mode. This blueprint is designed with that very thought: to assist small businesses in creating the essentials of a vendor management initiative.

    This is a picture of Steve Jeffery

    Steve Jeffery
    Principal Research Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Each year, IT organizations "outsource" tasks, activities, functions, and other items. During 2021:

    • Spend on as-a-service providers increased 38% over 2020.*
    • Spend on managed service providers increased 16% over 2020.*
    • IT service providers increased their merger and acquisition numbers by 47% over 2020.*

    This leads to more spend, less control, and more risk for IT organizations. Managing this becomes a higher priority for IT, but many IT organizations are ill-equipped to do this proactively.

    Common Obstacles

    As new contracts are negotiated and existing contracts are renegotiated or renewed, there is a perception that the contracts will yield certain results, output, performance, solutions, or outcomes. The hope is that these will provide a measurable expected value to IT and the organization. Oftentimes, much of the expected value is never realized. Many organizations don't have a VMI to help:

    • Ensure at least the expected value is achieved.
    • Improve on the expected value through performance management.
    • Significantly increase the expected value through a proactive VMI.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Vendor Management is a proactive, cross-functional lifecycle. It can be broken down into four phases:

    • Plan
    • Build
    • Run
    • Review

    The Info-Tech process addresses all four phases and provides a step-by-step approach to configure and operate your VMI. The content in this blueprint helps you quickly establish your VMI and sets a solid foundation for its growth and maturity.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Vendor management is not a one-size-fits-all initiative. It must be configured:

    • For your environment, culture, and goals.
    • To leverage the strengths of your organization and personnel.
    • To focus your energy and resources on your critical vendors.

    Executive Summary

    Your challenge

    Spend on managed service providers and as-a-service providers continues to increase. In addition, IT services vendors continue to be active in the mergers and acquisitions arena. This increases the need for a VMI to help with the changing IT vendor landscape.

    38%

    2021

    16%

    2021

    47%

    2021

    Spend on as-a-service providers

    Spend on managed services providers

    IT services merger & acquisition growth (transactions)

    Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Executive Summary

    Common obstacles

    When organizations execute, renew, or renegotiate a contract, there is an "expected value" associated with that contract. Without a robust VMI, most of the expected value will never be realized. With a robust VMI, the realized value significantly exceeds the expected value during the contract term.

    A contract's realized value with and without a vendor management initiative

    This is an image of a bar graph showing the difference in value between those with and without a VMI, with and for those with a VMI, with Vendor Collaboration and with Vendor Performance Management. The data for those with a VMI have substantially more value.

    Source: Based on findings from Geller & Company, 2003.

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech's approach

    A sound, cyclical approach to vendor management will help you create a VMI that meets your needs and stays in alignment with your organization as they both change (i.e. mature and grow).

    This is an image of the 4 Step Vendor Management Process. The four steps are: 1. Plan; 2. Build; 3. Run; 4. Review.

    Info-Tech's methodology for creating and operating your vmi

    Phase 1 - Plan Phase 2 - Build Phase 3 - Run Phase 4 - Review
    Phase Steps

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    Phase Outcomes This phase helps you organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI. This phase helps you configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan. This phase helps you begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI. This phase helps the VMI identify what it should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    Insight Summary

    Insight 1

    Vendor management is not "plug and play" – each organization's vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. While there are commonalities and leading practices associated with vendor management, your initiative won't look exactly like another organization's. The key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs.

    Insight 2

    All vendors are not of equal importance to your organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization's investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.

    Insight 3

    Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI's ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates "informally", starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT benefits

    • Identify and manage risk proactively.
    • Reduce costs and maximize value.
    • Increase visibility with your critical vendors.
    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Create a collaborative environment with key vendors.
    • Segment vendors to allocate resources more effectively and more efficiently.

    Business benefits

    • Improve vendor accountability.
    • Increase collaboration between departments.
    • Improve working relationships with your vendors.
    • Create a feedback loop to address vendor/customer issues before they get out of hand or are more costly to resolve.
    • Increase access to meaningful data and information regarding important vendors.

    Phase 1 - Plan

    Phase 1

    Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins

    2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    This phase will walk you through the following activity:

    • Organizing your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, and a desired future state for the VMI.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Others as needed

    Vendor Management Initiative Basics for the Small/Medium Businesses

    Phase 1 – Plan

    Get Organized

    Phase 1 – Plan focuses on getting organized. Foundational elements (Mission Statement, Goals, Scope, Strengths and Obstacles, Roles and Responsibilities, and Process Mapping) will help you define your VMI. These and the other elements of this Phase will follow you throughout the process of starting up your VMI and running it.

    Spending time up front to ensure that everyone is on the same page will help avoid headaches down the road. The tendency is to skimp (or even skip) on these steps to get to "the good stuff." To a certain extent, the process provided here is like building a house. You wouldn't start building your dream home without having a solid blueprint. The same is true with vendor management. Leveraging vendor management tools and techniques without the proper foundation may provide some benefit in the short term, but in the long term it will ultimately be a house of cards waiting to collapse.

    Step 1.1 – Mission statement and goals

    Identify why the VMI exists and what it will achieve

    Whether you are starting your vendor management journey or are already down the path, it is important to know why the vendor management initiative exists and what it hopes to achieve. The easiest way to document this is with a written declaration in the form of a Mission Statement and Goals. Although this is the easiest way to proceed, it is far from easy.

    The Mission Statement should identify at a high level the nature of the services provided by the VMI, who it will serve, and some of the expected outcomes or achievements. The Mission Statement should be no longer than one or two sentences.

    The complement to the Mission Statement is the list of goals for the VMI. Your goals should not be a reassertion of your Mission Statement in bullet format. At this stage it may not be possible to make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based), but consider making them as SMART as possible. Without some of the SMART parameters attached, your goals are more like dreams and wishes. At a minimum, you should be able to determine the level of success achieved for each of the VMI goals.

    Although the VMI's Mission Statement will stay static over time (other than for significant changes to the VMI or organization as a whole), the goals should be reevaluated periodically using a SMART filter, and adjusted as needed.

    1.1.1 – Mission statement and goals

    20 – 40 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list, on a whiteboard or flip chart, the reasons why the VMI will exist.
    2. Review external mission statements for inspiration.
    3. Review internal mission statements from other areas to ensure consistency.
    4. Draft and document your Mission Statement in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
    5. Continue brainstorming and identify the high-level goals for the VMI.
    6. Review the list of goals and make them as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based) as possible.
    7. Document your goals in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium– Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
    8. Obtain signoff on the Mission Statement and goals from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming results
    • Mission statements from other internal and external sources

    Output

    • Completed Mission Statement and Goals

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 1.2 – Scope

    Determine what is in scope and out of scope for the VMI

    Regardless of where your VMI resides or how it operates, it will be working with other areas within your organization. Some of the activities performed by the VMI will be new and not currently handled by other groups or individuals internally; at the same time, some of the activities performed by the VMI may be currently handled by other groups or individuals internally. In addition, executives, stakeholders, and other internal personnel may have expectations or make assumptions about the VMI. As a result, there can be a lot of confusion about what the VMI does and doesn't do, and the answers cannot always be found in the VMI's Mission Statement and Goals.

    One component of helping others understand the VMI landscape is formalizing the VMI Scope. The Scope will define boundaries for the VMI. The intent is not to fence itself off and keep others out but provide guidance on where the VMI's territory begins and ends. Ultimately, this will help clarify the VMI's roles and responsibilities, improve workflow, and reduce errant assumptions.

    When drafting your VMI scoping document, make sure you look at both sides of the equation (similar to what you would do when following best practices for a statement of work). Identify what is in scope and what is out of scope. Be specific when describing the individual components of the VMI Scope, and make sure executives and stakeholders are onboard with the final version.

    1.2.1 – Scope

    20 - 40 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list, on a whiteboard or flip chart, the activities and functions in scope and out of scope for the VMI.
      1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
      2. Go back and forth between in scope and out of scope as needed; it is not necessary to list all the in-scope items and then turn your attention to the out-of-scope items.
    2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity. An item may be in scope or out of scope, but not both.
    3. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.2 Scope to document the results.
    4. Obtain signoff on the Scope from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming results
    • Mission Statement and Goals

    Output

    • Completed list of items in and out of scope for the VMI

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.2 Scope

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 1.3 – Strengths and obstacles

    Pinpoint the VMI's strengths and obstacles

    A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a valuable tool, but it is overkill for your VMI at this point. However, using a modified and simplified form of this tool (strengths and obstacles) will yield significant results and benefit the VMI as it grows and matures.

    Your output will be two lists: the strengths associated with the VMI and the obstacles the VMI is facing. For example, strengths could include items such as smart people working within the VMI and executive support. Obstacles could include items such as limited headcount and training required for VMI staff.

    The goals are 1) to harness the strengths to help the VMI be successful and 2) to understand the impact of the obstacles and plan accordingly. The output can also be used to enlighten executives and stakeholders about the challenges associated with their directives or requests (e.g. human bandwidth may not be sufficient to accomplish some of the vendor management activities and there is a moratorium on hiring until the next budget year).

    For each strength identified, determine how you will or can leverage it when things are going well or when the VMI is in a bind. For each obstacle, list the potential impact on the VMI (e.g. scope, growth rate, and number of vendors that can actively be part of the VMI).

    As you do your brainstorming, be as specific as possible and validate your lists with stakeholders and executives as needed.

    1.3.1 – Strengths and obstacles

    20 - 40 Minutes

    Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list, on a whiteboard or flip chart, the VMI's strengths and obstacles.

    Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.

    Go back and forth between strengths and obstacles as needed; it is not necessary to list all the strengths first and then all the obstacles.

    It is possible for an item to be a strength and an obstacle; when this happens, add details to distinguish the situations.

    Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity.

    Determine how you will leverage each strength and how you will manage each obstacle.

    Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles to document the results.

    Obtain signoff on the strengths and obstacles from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Mission Statement and Goals
    • Scope

    Output

    • Completed list of items impacting the VMI's ability to be successful: strengths the VMI can leverage and obstacles the VMI must manage

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 1.4 – Roles and responsibilities

    Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what

    One crucial success factor for VMIs is gaining and maintaining internal alignment. There are many moving parts to an organization, and a VMI must be clear on the various roles and responsibilities related to the relevant processes. Some of this information can be found in the VMI's Scope referenced in Step 1.2, but additional information is required to avoid stepping on each other's toes; many of the processes require internal departments to work together. (For example, obtaining requirements for a request for proposal takes more than one person or department). While it is not necessary to get too granular, it is imperative that you have a clear understanding of how the VMI activities will fit within the larger vendor management lifecycle (which is comprised of many sub processes) and who will be doing what.

    As we have learned through our workshops and guided implementations, a traditional RACI* or RASCI* Chart does not work well for this purpose. These charts are not intuitive, and they lack the specificity required to be effective. For vendor management purposes, a higher-level view and a slightly different approach provide much better results.

    This step will lead your through the creation of an OIC* Chart to determine vendor management lifecycle roles and responsibilities. Afterward, you'll be able to say, "Oh, I see clearly who is involved in each part of the process and what their role is."

    *RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed

    *RASCI – Responsible, Accountable, Support, Consulted, Informed

    *OIC – Owner, Informed, Contributor

    This is an image of a table, where the row headings are: Role 1-5, and the Column Headings are: Step 1-5.

    Step 1.4 – Roles and responsibilities (cont'd)

    Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what

    To start, define the vendor management lifecycle steps or process applicable to your VMI. Next, determine who participates in the vendor management lifecycle. There is no need to get too granular – think along the lines of departments, subdepartments, divisions, agencies, or however you categorize internal operational units. Avoid naming individuals other than by title; this typically happens when a person oversees a large group (e.g. the CIO [chief information officer] or the CPO [chief procurement officer]). Be thorough, but don't let the chart get out of hand. For each role and step of the lifecycle, ask whether the entry is necessary; does it add value to the clarity of understanding the responsibilities associated with the vendor management lifecycle? Consider two examples, one for roles and one for lifecycle steps. 1) Is IT sufficient or do you need IT Operations and IT Development? 2) Is "negotiate contract documents" sufficient or do you need negotiate the contract and negotiate the renewal? The answer will depend on your culture and environment but be wary of creating a spreadsheet that requires an 85-inch monitor to view it.

    After defining the roles (departments, divisions, agencies) and the vendor management lifecycle steps or process, assign one of three letters to each box in your chart:

    • O – Owner – who owns the process; they may also contribute to it.
    • I – Informed – who is informed about the progress or results of the process.
    • C – Contributor – who contributes or works on the process; it can be tangible or intangible contributions.

    This activity can be started by the VMI or done as a group with representatives from each of the named roles. If the VMI starts the activity, the resulting chart should be validated by the each of the named roles.

    1.4.1 – Roles and responsibilities

    1 – 6 hours

    1. Meet with the participants and configure the OIC Chart in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.4 OIC Chart.
      1. Review the steps or activities across the top of the chart and modify as needed.
      2. Review the roles listed along the left side of the chart and modify as needed.
    2. For each activity or step across the top of the chart, assign each role a letter – O for owner of that activity or step, I for informed, or C for contributor. Use only one letter per cell.
    3. Work your way across the chart. Every cell should have an entry or be left blank if it is not applicable.
    4. Review the results and validate that every activity or step has an O assigned to it; there must be an owner for every activity or step.
    5. Obtain signoff on the OIC Chart from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • A list of activities or steps to complete a project starting with requirements gathering and ending with ongoing risk management.
    • A list of internal areas (departments, divisions, agencies, etc.) and stakeholders that contribute to completing a project.

    Output

    • Completed OCI chart indicating roles and responsibilities for the VMI and other internal areas.

    Materials

    • Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 1.4 OIC Chart

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Representatives from other areas as needed
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Phase 2 - Build

    Create and configure tools, templates, and processes

    Phase 1

    Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins

    2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Configuring and creating the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Human Resources
    • Legal
    • Others as needed

    Vendor Management Initiative Basics for the Small/Medium Businesses

    Phase 2 – Build

    Create and configure tools, templates, and processes

    Phase 2 – Build focuses on creating and configuring the tools and templates that will help you run your VMI. Vendor management is not a plug and play environment, and unless noted otherwise, the tools and templates included with this blueprint require your input and thought. The tools and templates must work in concert with your culture, values, and goals. That will require teamwork, insights, contemplation, and deliberation.

    During this Phase you'll leverage the various templates and tools included with this blueprint and adapt them for your specific needs and use. In some instances, you'll be starting with mostly a blank slate; while in others, only a small modification may be required to make it fit your circumstances. However, it is possible that a document or spreadsheet may need heavy customization to fit your situation. As you create your VMI, use the included materials for inspiration and guidance purposes rather than as absolute dictates.

    Step 2.1 – Classification model

    Configure the COST vendor classification tool

    One of the functions of a VMI is to allocate the appropriate level of vendor management resources to each vendor since not all vendors are of equal importance to your organization. While some people may be able intuitively to sort their vendors into vendor management categories, a more objective, consistent, and reliable model works best. Info-Tech's COST model helps you assign your vendors to the appropriate vendor management category so that you can focus your vendor management resources where they will do the most good.

    COST is an acronym for Commodity, Operational, Strategic, and Tactical. Your vendors will occupy one of these vendor management categories, and each category helps you determine the nature of the resources allocated to that vendor, the characteristics of the relationship desired by the VMI, and the governance level used.

    The easiest way to think of the COST model is as a 2 x 2 matrix or graph. The model should be configured for your environment so that the criteria used for determining a vendor's classification align with what is important to you and your organization. However, at this point in your VMI's maturation, a simple approach works best. The Classification Model included with this blueprint requires minimal configuration to get your started, and that is discussed on the activity slide associated with this Step 2.1.

    This is an image of the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

    Step 2.1 – Classification model (cont'd)

    Configure the COST vendor classification tool

    Common characteristics by vendor management category

    Operational

    Strategic
    • Low to moderate risk and criticality; moderate to high spend and switching costs
    • Product or service used by more than one area
    • Price is a key negotiation point
    • Product or service is valued by the organization
    • Quality or the perception of quality is a differentiator (i.e. brand awareness)
    • Moderate to high risk and criticality; moderate to high spend and switching costs
    • Few competitors and differentiated products and services
    • Product or service significantly advances the organization's vision, mission, and success
    • Well-established in their core industry

    Commodity

    Tactical
    • Low risk and criticality; low spend and switching costs
    • Product or service is readily available from many sources
    • Market has many competitors and options
    • Relationship is transactional
    • Price is the main differentiator
    • Moderate to high risk and criticality; low to moderate spend and switching costs
    • Vendor offerings align with or support one or more strategic objectives
    • Often IT vendors "outside" of IT (i.e. controlled and paid for by other areas)
    • Often niche or new vendors

    Source: Compiled in part from Guth, Stephen. "Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More)." 2015.

    2.1.1 – Classification model

    15 – 30 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the spend ranges in Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool – Tab 1. Configuration for your environment.
    2. Collect your vendors and their annual spend to sort by largest to lowest.
    3. Update cells F14-J14 in the Classification Model based on your actual data.
      1. Cell F14 – Set the boundary at a point between the spend for your 10th and 11th ranked vendors. For example, if the 10th vendor by spend is $1,009, 850 and the 11th vendor by spend is $980,763, the range for F14 would be $1,000,00+.
      2. Cell G14 – Set the bottom of the range at a point between the spend for your 30th and 31st ranked vendors; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in F14.
      3. Cell H14 – Set the bottom of the range slightly below the spend for your 50th ranked vendor; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in G14.
      4. Cells I14 and J14 – Divide the remaining range in half and split it between the two cells; for J14 the range will be $0 to $1 less than the bottom range in I14.
    4. Ignore the other variables at this time.

    Input

    • Phase 1 List of Vendors by Annual Spend

    Output

    • Configured Vendor Classification Tool

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool – Tab 1. Configuration

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool

    Step 2.2 – Risk assessment tool

    Identify risks to measure, monitor, and report on

    One of the typical drivers of a VMI is risk management. Organizations want to get a better handle on the various risks their vendors pose. Vendor risks originate from many areas: financial, performance, security, legal, and others. However, security risk is the high-profile risk, and the one organizations often focus on almost exclusively, which leaves the organization vulnerable in other areas.

    Risk management is a program, not a project; there is no completion date. A proactive approach works best and requires continual monitoring, identification, and assessment. Reacting to risks after they occur can be costly and have other detrimental effects on the organization. Any risk that adversely affects IT will adversely affect the entire organization.

    While the VMI won't necessarily be quantifying or calculating the risk directly, it generally is the aggregator of risk information across the risk categories, which it then includes in its reporting function (see Steps 2.12 and 3.8).

    At a minimum, your risk management strategy should involve:

    • Identifying the risks you want to measure and monitor.
    • Identifying your risk appetite (the amount of risk you are willing to live with).
    • Measuring, monitoring, and reporting on the applicable risks.
    • Developing and deploying a risk management plan to minimize potential risk impact.

    Vendor risk is a fact of life, but you do have options for how to handle it. Be proactive and thoughtful in your approach, and focus your resources on what is important.

    2.2.1 – Risk assessment tool

    30 - 90 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the risk indicators in Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool – Tab 1. Set parameters for your environment.
    2. Review the risk categories and determine which ones you will be measuring and monitoring.
    3. Review the risk indicators under each risk category and determine whether the indicator is acceptable as written, is acceptable with modifications, should be replaced, or should be deleted.
    4. Make the necessary changes to the risk indicators; these changes will cascade to each of the vendor tabs. Limit the number of risk indicators to no more than seven per risk category.
    5. Gain input and approval as needed from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required.

    Input

    • Scope
    • OIC Chart
    • Process Maps
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Configured Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool – Tab 1. Set Parameters

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    A vendor management scorecard is a great tool for measuring, monitoring, and improving relationship alignment. In addition, it is perfect for improving communication between you and the vendor.

    Conceptually, a scorecard is similar to a school report card. At the end of a learning cycle, you receive feedback on how well you do in each of your classes. For vendor management, the scorecard is also used to provide periodic feedback, but there are some nuances and additional benefits and objectives when compared to a report card.

    Although scorecards can be used in a variety of ways, the focus here will be on vendor management scorecards – contract management, project management, and other types of scorecards will not be included in the materials covered in this Step 2.3 or in Step 3.4.

    This image contains a table with the score for objectives A-D. The scores are: A4, B3, C5, D4.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Anatomy

    The Info-Tech scorecard includes five areas:

    • Measurement categories. Measurement categories help organize the scorecard. Limit the number of measurement categories to three to five; this allows the parties to stay focused on what's important. Too many measurement categories make it difficult for the vendor to understand the expectations.
    • Criteria. The criteria describe what is being measured. Create criteria with sufficient detail to allow the reviewers to fully understand what is being measured and to evaluate it. Criteria can be objective or subjective. Use three to five criteria per measurement category.
    • Measurement category weights. Not all your measurement categories may be of equal importance to you; this area allows you to give greater weight to a measurement category when compiling the overall score.
    • Rating. Reviewers will be asked to assign a score to each criteria using a 1 to 5 scale.
    • Comments. A good scorecard will include a place for reviewers to provide additional information regarding the rating, or other items that are relevant to the scorecard.

    An overall score is calculated based on the rating for each criteria and the measurement category weights.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Goals and objectives

    Scorecards can be used for a variety of reasons. Some of the common ones are:

    • Improving vendor performance.
    • Conveying expectations to the vendor.
    • Identifying and recognizing top vendors.
    • Increasing alignment between the parties.
    • Improving communication with the vendor.
    • Comparing vendors across the same criteria.
    • Measuring items not included in contract metrics.
    • Identifying vendors for "strategic alliance" consideration.
    • Helping the organization achieve specific goals and objectives.

    Identifying and resolving issues before they impact performance or the relationship.

    Identifying your scorecard drivers first will help you craft a suitable scorecard.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Info-Tech recommends starting with simple scorecards to allow you and the vendors to acclimate to the new process and information. As you build your scorecards, keep in mind that internal personnel will be scoring the vendors and the vendors will be reviewing the scorecard. Make your scorecard easy for your personnel to fill out, and containing meaningful content to drive the vendor in the right direction. You can always make the scorecard more complex in the future.

    Our recommendation of five categories is provided below. Choose three to five of the categories that help you accomplish your scorecard goals and objectives:

    1. Timeliness – Responses, resolutions, fixes, submissions, completions, milestones, deliverables, invoices, etc.
    2. Cost – Total cost of ownership, value, price stability, price increases/decreases, pricing models, etc.
    3. Quality – Accuracy, completeness, mean time to failure, bugs, number of failures, etc.
    4. Personnel – Skilled, experienced, knowledgeable, certified, friendly, trustworthy, flexible, accommodating, etc.
    5. Risk – Adequate contractual protections, security breaches, lawsuits, finances, audit findings, etc.

    Some criteria may be applicable in more than one category. The categories above should cover at least 80% of the items that are important to your organization. The general criteria listed for each category is not an exhaustive list, but most things break down into time, money, quality, people, and risk issues.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Additional Considerations

    • Even a good rating system can be confusing. Make sure you provide some examples or a way for reviewers to discern the differences between a 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Don't assume your "rating key" will be intuitive.
    • When assigning weights, don't go lower than 10% for any measurement category. If the weight is too low, it won't be relevant enough to have an impact on the total score. If it doesn't "move the needle", don't include it.
    • Final sign-off on the scorecard template should occur outside the VMI. The heavy lifting can be done by the VMI to create it, but the scorecard is for the benefit of the organization overall, and those impacted by the vendors specifically. You may end up playing arbiter or referee, but the scorecard is not the exclusive property of the VMI. Try to reach consensus on your final template whenever possible.
    • You should notice improved ratings and total scores over time for your vendors. One explanation for this is the Pygmalion Effect: "The Pygmalion [E]ffect describes situations where someone's high expectations improves our behavior and therefore our performance in a given area. It suggests that we do better when more is expected of us."* Convey your expectations and let the vendors' competitive juices take over.
    • While creating your scorecard and materials to explain the process to internal personnel, identify those pieces that will help you explain it to your vendors during vendor orientation (see Steps 2.6 and 3.4). Leveraging pre-existing materials is a great shortcut.

    *Source: The Decision Lab, n.d.

    Step 2.3 – Scorecards and feedback (cont'd)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors

    Vendor Feedback

    After you've built your scorecard, turn your attention to the second half of the equation – feedback from the vendor. A communication loop cannot be successful without dialogue flowing both ways. While this can happen with just a scorecard, a mechanism specifically geared toward the vendor providing you with feedback improves communication, alignment, and satisfaction.

    You may be tempted to create a formal scorecard for the vendor to use; avoid that temptation until later in your maturity or development of the VMI. You'll be implementing a lot of new processes, deploying new tools and templates, and getting people to work together in new ways. Work on those things first.

    For now, implement an informal process for obtaining information from the vendor. Start by identifying information that you will find useful – information that will allow you to improve overall, to reduce waste or time, to improve processes, to identify gaps in skills. Incorporate these items into your business alignment meetings (see Steps 2.4 and 3.5). Create three to five good questions to ask the vendor and include these in the business alignment meeting agenda. The goal is to get meaningful feedback, and that starts with asking good questions.

    Keep it simple at first. When the time is right, you can build a more formal feedback form or scorecard. Don't be in a rush; as long as the informal method works, keep using it.

    2.3.1 – Scorecards and feedback

    30 – 60 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for your scorecard measurement categories:
      1. What makes a vendor valuable to your organization?
      2. What differentiates a "good" vendor from a "bad" vendor?
      3. What items would you like to measure and provide feedback on to the vendor to improve performance, the relationship, risk, and other areas?
    2. Select three, but no more than five, of the following measure categories: timeliness, cost, quality, personnel, and risk.
    3. Within each measurement category, list two or three criteria that you want to measure and track for your vendors. Choose items that are as universal as possible rather than being applicable to one vendor or one vendor type.
    4. Assign a weight to each measurement category, ensuring that the total weight is 100% for all measurement categories.
    5. Document your results as you go in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Scorecard.

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Configured Scorecard template

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Scorecard

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    2.3.2 – Scorecards and feedback

    15 to 30 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for feedback to seek from your vendors during your business alignment meetings. During the brainstorming, identify questions to ask the vendor about your organization that will:
      1. Help you improve the relationship.
      2. Help you improve your processes or performance.
      3. Help you improve ongoing communication.
      4. Help you evaluate your personnel.
    2. Identify the top five questions you want to include in your business alignment meeting agenda. (Note: you may need to refine the actual questions from the brainstorming activity before they are ready to include in your business alignment meeting agenda.)
    3. Document both your brainstorming activity and your final results in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Feedback. The brainstorming questions can be used in the future as your VMI matures and your feedback transforms from informal to formal. The results will be used in Steps 2.4 and 3.5.

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Feedback questions to include with the business alignment meeting agenda

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Feedback

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.4 – Business alignment meeting agenda

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI

    A business alignment meeting (BAM) is a multi-faceted tool to ensure the customer and the vendor stay focused on what is important to the customer at a high level. BAMs are not traditional operational meetings where the parties get into the details of the contracts, deal with installation problems, address project management issues, or discuss specific cost overruns. The focus of the BAM is the scorecard (see Step 2.3), but other topics are discussed, and other purposes are served. For example:

    • You can use the BAM to develop the relationship with the vendor's leadership team so that if escalation is ever needed, your organization is more than just a name on a spreadsheet or customer list.
    • You can learn about innovations the vendor is working on (without the meeting turning into a sales call).
    • You can address high-level performance trends and request corrective action as needed.
    • You can clarify your expectations.
    • You can educate the vendor about your industry, culture, and organization.
    • You can learn more about the vendor.

    As you build your BAM Agenda, someone in your organization may say, "Oh, that's just a quarterly business review (QBR) or top-to-top meeting." In most instances, an existing QBRs or top-to-top meeting is not the same as a BAM. Using the term QBR or top-to-top meeting instead of BAM can lead to confusion internally. The VMI may say to the business unit, procurement, or another department, "We're going to start running some QBRs for our strategic vendors." The typical response is, "There's no need; we already run QBRs/top-to-top meetings with our important vendors." This may be accompanied by an invitation to join their meeting, where you may be an afterthought, have no influence, and get five minutes at the end to talk about your agenda items. Keep your BAM separate so that it meets your needs.

    Step 2.4 – Business alignment meeting agenda (cont'd)

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI

    As previously noted, using the term BAM more accurately depicts the nature of the VMI meeting and prevents confusion internally with other meetings already occurring. In addition, hosting the BAM yourself rather than piggybacking onto another meeting ensures that the VMI's needs are met. The VMI will set and control the BAM agenda and determine the invite list for internal personnel and vendor personnel. As you may have figured out by now, having the right customer and vendor personnel attend will be essential.

    BAMs are conducted at the vendor level, not the contract level. As a result, the frequency of the BAMs will depend on the vendor's classification category (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1). General frequency guidelines are provided below, but they can be modified to meet your goals:

    • Commodity vendors – Not applicable
    • Operational vendors – Biannually or annually
    • Strategic vendors – Quarterly
    • Tactical vendors – Quarterly or biannually

    BAMs can help you achieve some additional benefits not previously mentioned:

    • Foster a collaborative relationship with the vendor.
    • Avoid erroneous assumptions by the parties.
    • Capture and provide a record of the relationship (and other items) over time.

    Step 2.4 – Business alignment meeting agenda (cont'd)

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI

    As with any meeting, building the proper agenda will be one of the keys to an effective and efficient meeting. A high-level BAM agenda with sample topics is set out below:

    BAM Agenda

    • Opening remarks
      • Welcome and introductions
      • Review of previous minutes
    • Active discussion
      • Review of open issues
      • Scorecard and feedback
      • Current status of projects to ensure situational awareness by the vendor
      • Roadmap/strategy/future projects
      • Accomplishments
    • Closing remarks
      • Reinforce positives (good behavior, results, and performance, value added, and expectations exceeded)
      • Recap
    • Adjourn

    2.4.1 – Business alignment meeting agenda

    20 – 45 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the sample agenda in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.
    2. Using the sample agenda as inspiration and brainstorming activities as needed, create a BAM agenda tailored to your needs.
      1. Select the items from the sample agenda applicable to your situation.
      2. Add any items required based on your brainstorming.
      3. Add the feedback questions identified during Activity 2.3.2 and documented in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Feedback.
    3. Gain input and approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required or appropriate.
    4. Document the final BAM agenda in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium –Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.3 Feedback

    Output

    • Configured BAM agenda

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab2 .4 BAM Agenda

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.5 – Relationship alignment document

    Draft a document to convey important VMI information to your vendors

    Throughout this blueprint, alignment is mentioned directly (e.g. business alignment meetings [Steps 2.4 and 3.3]) or indirectly implied. Ensuring you and your vendors are on the same page, have clear and transparent communication, and understand each other's expectations is critical to fostering strong relationships. One component of gaining and maintaining alignment with your vendors is the Relationship Alignment Document (RAD). Depending upon the Scope of your VMI and what your organization already has in place, your RAD will fill in the gaps on various topics.

    Early in the VMI's maturation, the easiest approach is to develop a short document (1 one page) or a pamphlet (i.e. the classic trifold) describing the rules of engagement when doing business with your organization. The RAD can convey expectations, policies, guidelines, and other items. The scope of the document will depend on:

    1. What you believe is important for the vendors to understand.
    2. Any other similar information already provided to the vendors.

    The first step to drafting a RAD is to identify what information vendors need to know to stay on your good side. You may want vendors to know about your gift policy (e.g. employees may not accept vendor gifts above a nominal value, such as a pen or mousepad). Next, compare your list of what vendors need to know and determine if the content is covered in other vendor-facing documents such as a vendor code of conduct or your website's vendor portal. Lastly, create your RAD to bridge the gap between what you want and what is already in place. In some instances, you may want to include items from other documents to reemphasize them with the vendor community.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The RAD can be used with all vendors regardless of classification category. It can be sent directly to the vendors or given to them during vendor orientation (see Step 3.3)

    2.5.1 – Relationship alignment document

    1 to 4 Hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the RAD sample and checklist in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc.
    2. Determine:
      1. Whether you will create one RAD for all vendors or one RAD for strategic vendors and another RAD for tactical and operational vendors; whether you will create a RAD for commodity vendors.
      2. The concepts you want to include in your RAD(s).
      3. The format for your RAD(s) – traditional, pamphlet, or other.
      4. Whether signoff or acknowledgement will be required by the vendors.
    3. Draft your RAD(s) and work with other internal areas, such as Marketing to create a consistent brand for the RADS, and Legal to ensure consistent use and preservation of trademarks or other intellectual property rights and other legal issues.
    4. Review other vendor-facing documents (e.g. supplier code of conduct, onsite safety and security protocols) for consistencies between them and the RAD(s).
    5. Obtain signoff on the RAD(s) from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Marketing, and others as needed.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Vendor-facing documents, policies, and procedures

    Output

    • Completed Relationship Alignment Document(s)

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Marketing, as needed
    • Legal, as needed

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.6 – Vendor orientation

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors

    Your organization is unique. It may have many similarities with other organizations, but your culture, risk tolerance, mission, vision, and goals, finances, employees, and "customers" (those that depend on you) make it different. The same is true of your VMI. It may have similar principles, objectives, and processes to other organizations' VMIs, but yours is still unique. As a result, your vendors may not fully understand your organization and what vendor management means to you.

    Vendor orientation is another means to helping you gain and maintain alignment with your important vendors, educate them on what is important to you, and provide closure when/if the relationship with the vendor ends. Vendor orientation is comprised of three components, each with a different function:

    • Orientation
    • Reorientation
    • Debrief

    Vendor orientation focuses on the vendor management pieces of the puzzle (e.g. the scorecard process) rather than the operational pieces (e.g. setting up a new vendor in the system to ensure invoices are processed smoothly).

    Step 2.6 – Vendor orientation (cont'd)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors

    Reorientation

    • Reorientation is either identical or similar to orientation, depending upon the circumstances. Reorientation occurs for several reasons, and each reason will impact the nature and detail of the reorientation content. Reorientation occurs whenever:
    • There is a significant change in the vendor's products or services.
    • The vendor has been through a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.
    • A significant contract renewal/renegotiation has recently occurred.
    • Sufficient time has passed from orientation; commonly 2 to 3 years.
    • The vendor has been placed in a "performance improvement plan" or "relationship improvement plan" protocol.
    • Significant turnover has occurred within your organization (executives, key stakeholders, and/or VMI personnel).
    • Substantial turnover has occurred at the vendor at the executive or account management level.
    • The vendor has changed vendor classification categories after the most current classification.
    • As the name implies, the goal is to refamiliarize the vendor with your current VMI situation, governances, protocols, and expectations. The drivers for reorientation will help you determine the reorientation's scope, scale, and frequency.

    Step 2.6 – Vendor orientation (cont'd)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors

    Debrief

    To continue the analogy from orientation, debrief is like an exit interview for an employee when their employment is terminated. In this case, debrief occurs when the vendor is no longer an active vendor with your organization - all contracts have terminated or expired, and no new business with the vendor is anticipated within the next three months.

    Similar to orientation and reorientation, debrief activities will be based on the vendor's classification category within the COST model. Strategic vendors don't go away very often; usually, they transition to operational or tactical vendors first. However, if a strategic vendor is no longer providing products or services to you, dig a little deeper into their experiences and allocate extra time for the debrief meeting.

    The debrief should provide you with feedback on the vendor's experience with your organization and their participation in your VMI. Additionally, it can provide closure for both parties since the relationship is ending. Be careful that the debrief does not turn into a finger-pointing meeting or therapy session for the vendor. It should be professional and productive; if it is going off the rails, terminate the meeting before more damage can occur.

    End the debrief on a high note if possible. Thank the vendor, highlight its key contributions, and single out any personnel who went above and beyond. You never know when you will be doing business with this vendor again – don't burn bridges!

    Step 2.6 – Vendor orientation (cont'd)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors

    As you create your vendor orientation materials, focus on the message you want to convey.

    • For orientation and reorientation:
      • What is important to you that vendors need to know?
      • What will help the vendors understand more about your organization and your VMI?
      • What and how are you different from other organizations overall, and in your "industry"?
      • What will help them understand your expectations?
      • What will help them be more successful?
      • What will help you build the relationship?
    • For debrief:
      • What information or feedback do you want to obtain?
      • What information or feedback to you want to give?

    The level of detail you provide strategic vendors during orientation and reorientation may be different from the information you provide tactical and operational vendors. Commodity vendors are not typically involved in the vendor orientation process. The orientation meetings can be conducted on a one-to-one basis for strategic vendors and a one-to-many basis for operational and tactical vendors; reorientation and debrief are best conducted on a one-to-one basis. Lastly, face-to-face or video meetings work best for vendor orientation; voice-only meetings, recorded videos, or distributing only written materials seldom hit their mark or achieve the desired results.

    Step 2.7 – Three-year roadmap

    Plot your path at a high level

    1. The VMI exists in many planes concurrently:
    2. It operates both tactically and strategically.

    It focuses on different timelines or horizons (e.g., the past, the present, and the future). Creating a three-year roadmap facilitates the VMI's ability to function effectively across these multiple landscapes.

    The VMI roadmap will be influenced by many factors. The work product from Phase 1 – Plan, input from executives, stakeholders, and internal clients, and the direction of the organization are great sources of information as you begin to build your roadmap.

    To start, identify what you would like to accomplish in year 1. This is arguably the easiest year to complete: budgets are set (or you have a good idea what the budget will look like), personnel decisions have been made, resources have been allocated, and other issues impacting the VMI are known with a higher degree of certainty than any other year. This does not mean things won't change during the first year of the VMI, but expectations are usually lower, and the short event horizon makes things more predictable during the year-1 ramp-up period.

    Years 2 and 3 are more tenuous, but the process is the same: identify what you would like to accomplish or roll out in each year. Typically, the VMI maintains the year-1 plan into subsequent years and adds to the scope or maturity. For example, you may start year 1 with BAMs and scorecards for three of your strategic vendors; during year 2, you may increase that to five vendors; and during year 3, you may increase that to nine vendors. Or, you may not conduct any market research during year 1, waiting to add it to your roadmap in year 2 or 3 as you mature.

    Breaking things down by year helps you identify what is important and the timing associated with your priorities. A conservative approach is recommended. It is easy to overcommit, but the results can be disastrous and painful.

    2.7.1 – Three-year roadmap

    45 – 90 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate year 1 of your three-year roadmap with your existing fiscal year or reporting year. Year 1 may be shorter or longer than a calendar year.
    2. Review the VMI activities listed in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.7 Three-year roadmap. Use brainstorming and your prior work product from Phase 1 and Phase 2 to identify additional items for the roadmap and add them at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
    3. Starting with the first activity, determine when that activity will begin and put an X in the corresponding column; if the activity is not applicable, leave it blank or insert N/A.
    4. Go back to the top of the list and add information as needed.
      1. For any year-1 or year-2 activities, add an X in the corresponding columns if the activity will be expanded/continued in subsequent periods (e.g., if a Year 2 activity will continue in year 3, put an X in year 3 as well).
      2. Use the comments column to provide clarifying remarks or additional insights related to your plans or "X's". For example, "Scorecards begin in year 1 with three vendors and will roll out to five vendors in year 2 and nine vendors in year 3."
    5. Obtain signoff from stakeholders, sponsors, and executives as needed.

    Input

    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1 – 2.6 work product
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • High level three-year roadmap for the VMI

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.7 Three-Year Roadmap

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.8 – 90-day plan

    Pave your short-term path with a series of detailed quarterly plans

    Now that you have prepared a three-year roadmap, it's time to take the most significant elements from the first year and create action plans for each three-month period. Your first 90-day plan may be longer or shorter if you want to sync to your fiscal or calendar quarters. Aligning with your fiscal year can make it easier for tracking and reporting purposes; however, the more critical item is to make sure you have a rolling series of four 90-day plans to keep you focused on the important activities and tasks throughout the year.

    The 90-day plan is a simple project plan that will help you measure, monitor, and report your progress. Use the Info-Tech tool to help you track:

    Activities.

    • Tasks comprising each activity.
    • Who will be performing the tasks.
    • An estimate of the time required per person per task.
    • An estimate of the total time to achieve the activity.
    • A due date for the activity.
    • A priority of the activity.

    The first 90-day plan will have the greatest level of detail and should be as thorough as possible; the remaining three 90-day plans will each have less detail for now. As you approach the middle of the first 90-day plan, start adding details to the next 90-day plan; toward the end of the first quarter add a high-level 90-day plan to the end of the chain. Continue repeating this cycle each quarter and consult the three-year roadmap and the leadership team, as necessary.

    2.8.1 – 90-day plan

    45 – 90 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate the first "90-day" plan with your existing fiscal year or reporting cycles. Your first plan may be shorter or longer than 90 days.
    2. Looking at the year-1 section of the three-year roadmap, identify the activities that will be started during the next 90 days.
    3. Using the Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.8 90-Day Plan, enter the following information into the spreadsheet for each activity to be accomplished during the next 90 days:
      1. Activity description.
      2. Tasks required to complete the activity (be specific and descriptive).
      3. The people who will be performing each task.
      4. The estimated number of hours required to complete each task.
      5. The start date and due date for each task or the activity.
    4. Validate the tasks are a complete list for each activity and the people performing the tasks have adequate time to complete the tasks by the due date(s).
    5. Assign a priority to each Activity.

    Input

    • Three-Year Roadmap
    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1 – 2.7 work product
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Detailed plan for the VMI for the next quarter or "90" days

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.8 90-Day Plan

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.9 – Quick wins

    Identify potential short-term successes to gain momentum and show value immediately

    As the final step in the timeline trilogy, you are ready to identify some quick wins for the VMI. Using the first 90-day plan and a brainstorming activity, create a list of things you can do in 15 to 30 days that add value to your initiative and build momentum.

    As you evaluate your list of potential candidates, look for things that:

    • Are achievable within the stated timeline.
    • Don't require a lot of effort.
    • Involve stopping a certain process, activity, or task; this is sometimes known as a "stop doing stupid stuff" approach.
    • Will reduce or eliminate inefficiencies; this is sometimes known as the war on waste.
    • Have a moderate to high impact or bolster the VMI's reputation.

    As you look for quick wins, you may find that everything you identify does not meet the criteria. That's okay; don't force the issue. Return your focus to the 90-day plan and three-year roadmap and update those documents if the brainstorming activity associated with Step 2.9 identified anything new.

    2.9.1 – Quick wins

    15 - 30 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the three-year roadmap and 90-day plan. Determine if any item on either document can be completed:
      1. Quickly (30 days or less).
      2. With minimal effort.
      3. To provide or show moderate to high levels of value or provide the VMI with momentum.
    2. Brainstorm to identify any other items that meet the criteria in step 1 above.
    3. Compile a comprehensive list of these items and select up to five to pursue.
    4. Document the list in the Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.9 Quick Wins.
    5. Manage the quick wins list and share the results with the VMI team and applicable stakeholders and executives.

    Input

    • Three-Year Roadmap
    • 90-Day Plan
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • A list of activities that require low levels of effort to achieve moderate to high levels of value in a short period

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.9 Quick Wins

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 2.10 – Reports

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience

    Issuing reports is a critical piece of the VMI since the VMI is a conduit of information for the organization. It may be aggregating risk data from internal areas, conducting vendor research, compiling performance data, reviewing market intelligence, or obtaining relevant statistics, feedback, comments, facts, and figures from other sources. Holding onto this information minimizes the impact a VMI can have on the organization; however, the VMI's internal clients, stakeholders, and executives can drown in raw data and ignore it completely if it is not transformed into meaningful, easily-digested information.

    Before building a report, think about your intended audience:

    • What information are they looking for? What will help them understand the big picture?
    • What level of detail is appropriate, keeping in mind the audience may not be like-minded?
    • What items are universal to all the readers and what items are of interest to one or two readers?
    • How easy or hard will it be to collect the data? Who will be providing it, and how time consuming will it be?
    • How accurate, valid, and timely will the data be?
    • How frequently will each report need to be issued?

    Step 2.10 – Reports (cont'd)

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience

    Use the following guidelines to create reports that will resonate with your audience:

    • Value information over data, but sometimes data does have a place in your report.
    • Use pictures, graphics, and other representations more than words, but words are often necessary in small, concise doses.
    • Segregate your report by user; for example, general information up top, CIO information below that on the right, CFO information to the left of CIO information, etc.
    • Send a draft report to the internal audience and seek feedback, keeping in mind you won't be able to cater to or please everyone.

    2.10.1 – Reports

    15 – 45 Minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the applicable work product from Phase 1 and Phase 2; identify qualitative and quantitative items the VMI measures, monitors, tracks, or aggregates.
    2. Determine which items will be reported and to whom (by category):
      1. Internally to personnel within the VMI.
      2. Internally to personnel outside the VMI.
      3. Externally to vendors.
    3. Within each category above, determine your intended audiences/recipients. For example, you may have a different list of recipients for a risk report than you do a scorecard summary report. This will help you identify the number of reports required.
    4. Create a draft structure for each report based on the audience and the information being conveyed. Determine the frequency of each report and person responsible for creating for each report.
    5. Document your final choices in Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.10 Reports.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1 – 2.11 work product

    Output

    • A list of reports used by the VMI
    • For each report
      • The conceptual content
      • A list of who will receive or have access
      • A creation/distribution frequency

    Materials

    • Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium – Tab 2.10 Reports

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Download the Info-Tech Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Phase 3 - Run

    Implement your processes and leverage your tools and templates

    Phase 1

    Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins

    2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    This phase will walk you through the following activity:

    • Beginning to operate the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to initiate your VMI.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Vendor Management Initiative Basics for the Small/Medium Businesses

    Phase 3 – Run

    Implement your processes and leverage your tools and templates

    All the hard work invested in Phase 1 – Plan and Phase 2 – Build begins to pay off in Phase 3 – Run. It's time to stand up your VMI and ensure that the proper level of resources is devoted to your vendors and the VMI itself. There's more hard work ahead, but the foundational elements are in place. This doesn't mean there won't be adjustments and modifications along the way, but you are ready to use the tools and templates in the real world; you are ready to begin reaping the fruits of your labor.

    Phase 3 – Run guides you through the process of collecting data, monitoring trends, issuing reports, and conducting effective meetings to:

    • Manage risk better.
    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Improve vendor relationships.
    • Identify areas where the parties can improve.
    • Improve communication between the parties.
    • Increase the value proposition with your vendors.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors

    Begin classifying your top 25 vendors by spend

    Step 3.1 sets the table for many of the subsequent steps in Phase 3 – Run. The results of your classification process will determine which vendors go through the scorecarding process (Step 3.2); which vendors participate in BAMs (Step 3.3), and which vendors you will devote relationship-building resources to (Step 3.6).

    As you begin classifying your vendors, Info-Tech recommends using an iterative approach initially to validate the results from the classification model you configured in Step 2.1.

    1. Identify your top 25 vendors by spend.
    2. Run your top 10 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results.
      1. If the results are what you expected and do not contain any significant surprises, go to 3. on the next page.
      2. If the results are not what you expected or do contain significant surprises, look at the configuration page of the tool (Tab 1) and adjust the weights or the spend categories slightly. Be cautious in your evaluation of the results before modifying the configuration page - some legitimate results are unexpected, or are surprises based on bias. If you modify the weighting, review the new results and repeat your evaluation. If you modify the spend categories, review the answers on the vendor tabs to ensure that the answers are still accurate; review the new results and repeat your evaluation.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Review your results and adjust the classification tool as needed

    1. Run your top 11-through-25 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results. Identify any unexpected results. Determine if further configuration makes sense and repeat the process outlined in 2.b., previous page, as necessary. If no further modifications are required, continue to 4., below.
    2. Share the preliminary results with the leadership team, executives, and stakeholders to obtain their approval or adjustments to the results.
      1. They may have questions and want to understand the process before approving the results.
      2. They may request that you move a vendor from one quadrant to another based on your organization's roadmap, the vendor's roadmap, or other information not available to you.
    3. Identify the vendors that will be part of the VMI at this stage – how many and which ones. Based on this number and the VMI's scope (Step 1.2), make sure you have the resources necessary to accommodate the number of vendors participating in the VMI. Proceed cautiously and gradually increase the number of vendors participating in the VMI.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Finalize the results and update VMI tools and templates

    1. Update the vendor inventory tool (Step 1.7) to indicate the current classification status for the top 25 vendors by spend. Once your vendors have been classified, you can sort the vendor inventory tool by classification status to see all the vendors in that category at once.
    2. Review your three-year roadmap (Step 2.9) and 90-day plans (Step 2.6) to determine if any modifications are needed to the activities and timelines.

    Additional classification considerations:

    • You should only have a few vendors that fit in the strategic category. As a rough guideline, no more than 5% to 10% of your IT vendors should end up in the strategic category. If you have many vendors, even 5% may be too many. the classification model is an objective start to the classification process, but common sense must prevail over the "math" at the end of the day.
    • At this point, there is no need to go beyond the top 25 by spend. Most VMIs starting out can't handle more than three to five strategic vendors initially. Allow the VMI to run a pilot program with a small sample size, work out any bugs, make adjustments, and then ramp up the VMI's rollout in waves. Vendors can be added quarterly, biannually, or annually, depending upon the desired goals and available resources.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Align your vendor strategy to your classification results

    As your VMI matures, additional vendors will be part of the VMI. Review the table below and incorporate the applicable strategies into your deployment of vendor management principles over time. Stay true to your mission, goals, and scope, and remember that not all your vendors are of equal importance.

    Operational

    Strategic
    • Focus on spend containment
    • Concentrate on lowering total cost of ownership
    • Invest moderately in cultivating the relationship
    • Conduct BAMs biannually or annually
    • Compile scorecards quarterly or biannually
    • Identify areas for performance and cost improvement
    • Focus on value, collaboration, and alignment
    • Review market intelligence for the vendor's industry
    • Invest significantly in cultivating the relationship
    • Initiate executive-to-executive relationships
    • Conduct BAMs quarterly
    • Compile scorecards quarterly
    • Understand how the vendors view your organization

    Commodity

    Tactical
    • Investigate vendor rationalization and consolidation
    • Negotiate for the best-possible price
    • Leverage competition during negotiations
    • Streamline the purchasing and payment process
    • Allocate minimal VMI resources
    • Assign the lowest priority for vendor management metrics
    • Conduct risk assessments biannually or annually
    • Cultivate a collaborative relationship based on future growth plans or potential with the vendor
    • Conduct BAMs quarterly or biannually
    • Compile scorecards quarterly
    • Identify areas of performance improvement
    • Leverage innovation and creative problem solving

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Be careful when using the word "partner" with your strategic and other vendors

    For decades, vendors have used the term "partner" to refer to the relationship they have with their clients and customers. This is often an emotional ploy used by the vendors to get the upper hand. To fully understand the terms "partner" and "partnership", let's evaluate them through two more objective, less cynical lenses.

    If you were to talk to your in-house or outside legal counsel, you may be told that partners share in profits and losses, and they have a fiduciary obligation to each other. Unless there is a joint venture between the parties, you are unlikely to have a partnership with a vendor from this perspective.

    What about a "business" partnership — one that doesn't involve sharing profits and losses? What would that look like? Here are some indicators of a business partnership (or preferably a strategic alliance):

    • Trust and transparent communication exist.
    • You have input into the vendor's roadmap for products and services.
    • The vendor is aligned with your desired outcomes and helps you achieve success.
    • You and the vendor are accountable for actions and inactions, with both parties being at risk.
    • There is parity in the peer-to-peer relationships between the organizations (e.g. C-Level to C-Level).
    • The vendor provides transparency in pricing models and proactively suggests ways for you to reduce costs.
    • You and the vendor work together to make each party better, providing constructive feedback on a regular basis.
    • The vendor provides innovative suggestions for you to improve your processes, performance, the bottom line, etc.
    • Negotiations are not one-sided; they are meaningful and productive, resulting in an equitable distribution of money and risk.

    Step 3.1 – Classify vendors (cont'd)

    Understand the implications and how to leverage the words "partner" and "partnership"

    By now you might be thinking, "What's all the fuss? Why does it matter?" At Info-Tech, we've seen firsthand how referring to the vendor as a partner can have the following impact:

    • Confidences are disclosed unnecessarily.
    • Negotiation opportunities and leverage are lost.
    • Vendors no longer have to earn the customer's business.
    • Vendor accountability is missing due to shared responsibilities.
    • Competent skilled vendor resources are assigned to other accounts.
    • Value erodes over time since contracts are renewed without being competitively sourced.
    • One-sided relationships are established, and false assurances are provided at the highest levels within the customer organization.

    Proceed with caution when using partner or partnership with your vendors. Understand how your organization benefits from using these terms and mitigate the negatives outlined above by raising awareness internally to ensure people understand the psychology behind the terms. Finally, use the term to your advantage when warranted by referring to the vendor as a partner when you want or need something that the vendor is reluctant to provide. Bottom line: be strategic in how you refer to vendors and know the risks.

    Step 3.2 – Compile scorecards

    Begin scoring your top vendors

    The scorecard process typically is owned and operated by the VMI, but the actual rating of the criteria within the measurement categories is conducted by those with day-to-day interactions with the vendors, those using or impacted by the services and products provided by the vendors, and those with the skills to research other information on the scorecard (e.g. risk). Chances are one person will not be able to complete an entire scorecard by themselves. As a result, the scorecard process is a team sport comprised of sub-teams where necessary.

    The VMI will compile the scores, calculate the final results, and aggregate all the comments into one scorecard. There are two common ways to approach this task:

    1. Send out the scorecard template to those who will be scoring the vendor and ask them to return it when completed, providing them with a due date a few days before you need it; you'll need time to compile, calculate, and aggregate.
    2. Invite those who will be scoring the vendor to a meeting and let the contributors use that time to score the vendors; make VMI team members available to answer questions and facilitate the process.

    Step 3.2 – Compile scorecards (cont'd)

    Gather input from stakeholders and others impacted by the vendors

    Since multiple people will be involved in the scorecarding process or have information to contribute, the VMI will have to work with the reviewers to ensure he right mix of data is provided. For example:

    • If you are tracking lawsuits filed by or against the vendor, one person from Legal may be able to provide that, but they may not be able to evaluate any other criteria on the scorecard.
    • If you are tracking salesperson competencies, multiple people from multiple areas may have valuable insights.
    • If you are tracking deliverable timeliness, several project managers may want to contribute across several projects.

    Where one person is contributing exclusively to limited criteria, make it easy for them to identify the criteria they are to evaluate. When multiple people from the same functional area will provide insights, they can contribute individually (and the VMI will average their responses) or they can respond collectively after reaching consensus as a group.

    After the VMI has compiled, calculated, and aggregated, share the results with executives, impacted stakeholders, and others who will be attending the BAM for that vendor. Depending upon the comments provided by internal personnel, you may need to create a sanitized version of the scorecard for the vendor.

    Make sure your process timeline has a buffer built in. You'll be sending the final scorecard to the vendor three to five days before the BAM, and you'll need some time to assemble the results. The scorecarding process can be perceived as a low-priority activity for people outside of the VMI, and other "priorities" will arise for them. Without a timeline buffer, the VMI may find itself behind schedule and unprepared, due to things beyond its control.

    Step 3.3 – Conduct business alignment meetings

    Determine which vendors will participate and how long the meetings will last

    At their core, BAMs aren't that different from any other meeting. The basics of running a meeting still apply, but there are a few nuances that apply to BAMs. Set out below are leading practices for conducing your BAMs; adapt them to meet your needs and suit your environment.

    Who

    Initially, BAMs are conducted with the strategic vendors in your pilot program. Over time you'll add vendors until all your strategic vendors are meeting with you quarterly. After that, roll out the BAMs to those tactical and operational vendors located close to the strategic quadrant in the classification model (Steps 2.1 and 3.1) and as VMI resources allow. It may take several years before you are holding regular BAMs with all your strategic, tactical, and operational vendors.

    Duration

    Keep the length of your meetings reasonable. The first few with a vendor may need to be 60 to 90 minutes long. After that, you should be able to trim them to 45 minutes to 60 minutes. The BAM does not have to fill the entire time. When you are done, you are done.

    Step 3.3 – Conduct business alignment meetings (cont'd)

    Identify who will be invited and send out invitations

    Invitations

    Set up a recurring meeting whenever possible. Changes will be inevitable but keeping the timeline regular works to your advantage. Also, the vendors included in your initial BAMs won't change for twelve months. For the first BAM with a vendor, provide adequate notice; four weeks is usually sufficient, but calendars will fill up quickly for the main attendees from the vendor. Treat the meeting as significant and make sure your invitation reflects this. A simple meeting request will often be rejected, treated as optional, or ignored completely by the vendor's leadership team (and maybe yours as well!).

    Invitees

    Internal invitees should include those with a vested interest in the vendor's performance and the relationship. Other functional areas may be invited based on need or interest. Be careful the attendee list doesn't get too big. Based on this, internal BAM attendees often include representatives from IT, Sourcing/Procurement, and the applicable business units. At times, Finance and Legal are included.

    From the vendor's side, strive to have decision makers and key leaders attend. The salesperson/account manager is often included for continuity, but a director or vice president of sales will have more insights and influence. The project manager is not needed at this meeting due to the nature of the meeting and its agenda; however, a director or vice president from the product or service delivery area is a good choice. Bottom line: get as high into the vendor's organization as possible whenever possible; look at the types of contracts you have with that vendor to provide guidance on the type of people to invite.

    Step 3.3 – Conduct business alignment meetings (cont'd)

    Prepare for the Meetings and Maintain Control

    Preparation

    Send the scorecard and agenda to the vendor five days prior to the BAM. The vendor should provide you with any information you require for the meeting five days prior, as well.

    Decide who will run the meeting. Some customers like to lead, and others let the vendor present. How you craft the agenda and your preferences will dictate who runs the show.

    Make sure the vendor knows what materials they should bring to the meeting or have access to. This will relate to the agenda and any specific requests listed under the discussion points. You don't want the vendor to be caught off guard and unable to discuss a matter of importance to you.

    Running the BAM

    Regardless of which party leads, make sure you manage the agenda to stay on topic. This is your meeting – not the vendor's, not IT's, not Procurement's or Sourcing's. Don't let anyone hijack it.

    Make sure someone is taking notes. If you are running this virtually, consider recording the meeting. Check with your legal department first for any concerns, notices, or prohibitions that may impact your recording the session.

    Remember, this is not a sales call, and it is not a social activity. Innovation discussions are allowed and encouraged, but that can quickly devolve into a sales presentation. People can be friendly toward one another, but the relationship building should not overwhelm the other purposes.

    Step 3.3 – Conduct business alignment meetings (cont'd)

    Follow these additional guidelines to maximize your meetings

    More leading practices

    • Remind everyone that the conversation may include items covered by various confidentiality provisions or agreements.
    • Publish the meeting minutes on a timely basis (within 48 hours).
    • Focus on the bigger picture by looking at trends over time; get into the details only when warranted.
    • Meet internally immediately beforehand to prepare – don't go in cold. Review the agenda and the roles and responsibilities for the attendees.
    • Physical meetings are better than virtual meetings, but travel constraints, budgets, and pandemics may not allow for physical meetings.

    Final thoughts

    • When performance or the relationship is suffering, be constructive in your feedback and conversations rather than trying to assign blame; lead with the carrot rather than the stick.
    • Look for collaborative solutions whenever possible and avoid referencing the contract if possible. Communicate your willingness to help resolve outstanding issues.
    • Use inclusive language and avoid language that puts the vendor on the defensive.
    • Make sure that your meetings are not focused exclusively on the negative, but don't paint a rosy picture where one doesn't exist.
    • A vendor that is doing well should be commended. This is an important part of relationship building.

    Step 3.4 – Work the 90-day plan

    Monitor your progress and share your results

    Having a 90-day plan is a good start, but assuming the tasks on the plan will be accomplished magically or without any oversight can lead to failure. While it won't take a lot of time to work the plan, following a few basic guidelines will help ensure the 90-day plan gets results and wasn't created in vain.

    1. Measure and track your progress against the initial/current 90-day plan at least weekly; with a short timeline, any delay can have a huge impact.
    2. If adjustments are needed to any elements of the plan, understand the cause and the impact of those adjustments before making them.
    3. Make adjustments ONLY when warranted. The temptation will be to push activities and tasks further out on the timeline (or to the next 90-day plan!) when there is any sort of hiccup along the way, especially when personnel outside the VMI are involved. Hold true to the timeline whenever possible; once you start slipping, it often becomes a habit.
    4. Report on progress every week and hold people accountable for their assignments and contributions.
    5. Take the 90-day plan seriously and treat it as you would any significant project. This is part of the VMI's branding and image.

    Step 3.5 – Manage the three-year roadmap

    Keep an eye on the future since it will feed the present

    The three-year roadmap is a great planning tool, but it is not 100% reliable. There are inherent flaws and challenges. Essentially, the roadmap is a set of three "crystal balls" attempting to tell you what the future holds. The vision for year 1 may be clear, but for each subsequent year, the crystal ball becomes foggier. In addition, the timeline is constantly changing; before you know it, tomorrow becomes today and year 2 becomes year 1.

    To help navigate through the roadmap and maximize its potential, follow these principles:

    • Manage each year of the roadmap differently.
      • Review the year-1 map each quarter to update your 90-day plans (See steps 2.10 and 3.4).
      • Review the year-2 map every six months to determine if any changes are necessary. As you cycle through this, your vantage point of year 2 will be 6 months or 12 months away from the beginning of year 2, and time moves quickly.
      • Review the year-3 map annually, and determine what needs to be added, changed, or deleted. Each time you review year 3, it will be a "new" year 3 that needs to be built.
    • Analyze the impact on the proposed modifications from two perspectives: 1) What is the impact if a requested modification is made? 2) What is the impact if a requested modification is not made?
    • Validate all modifications with leadership and stakeholders before updating the three-year roadmap to ensure internal alignment.

    Step 3.6 – Develop/improve vendor relationships

    Drive better performance through better relationships

    One of the key components of a VMI is relationship management. Good relationships with your vendors provide many benefits for both parties, but they don't happen by accident. Do not assume the relationship will be good or is good merely because your organization is buying products and services from a vendor.

    In many respects, the VMI should mirror a vendor's sales organization by establishing relationships at multiple levels within the vendor organizations, not just with the salesperson or account manager. Building and maintaining relationships is hard work, but the return on investment makes it worthwhile.

    Business relationships are comprised of many components, not all of which must be present to have a great relationship. However, there are some essential components. Whether you are trying to develop, improve, or maintain a relationship with a vendor, make sure you are conscious of the following:

    • Focusing your energies on strategic vendors first and then tactical and operational vendors.
    • Being transparent and honest in your communications.
    • Continuously building trust by being responsive and honoring commitments (timely).
    • Creating a collaborative environment and build upon common ground.
    • Thanking the vendor when appropriate.
    • Resolving disputes early, avoiding the "blame game", and being objective when there are disagreements.

    Phase 4 - Review

    Keep your VMI up to date and running smoothly

    Phase 1

    Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    2.1 Classification Model

    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document

    2.6 Vendor Orientation

    2.7 3-Year Roadmap

    2.8 90-Day Plan

    2.9 Quick Wins

    2.10 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors

    3.2 Compile Scorecards

    3.3 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings

    3.4 Work the 90-Day Plan

    3.5 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap

    3.6 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships

    4.1 Incorporate Leading Practices

    4.2 Leverage Lessons Learned

    4.3 Maintain Internal Alignment

    This phase will walk you through the following activity:

    • Helping the VMI identify what it should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Vendor Management Initiative Basics for the Small/Medium Businesses

    Phase 4 – Review

    Keep your VMI up to date and running smoothly

    As the adage says, "The only thing constant in life is change." This is particularly true for your VMI. It will continue to mature, people inside and outside of the VMI will change, resources will expand or contract from year to year, your vendor base will change. As a result, your VMI needs the equivalent of a physical every year. In place of bloodwork, x-rays, and the other paces your physician may put you through, you'll assess compliance with your policies and procedures, incorporate leading practices, leverage lessons learned, maintain internal alignment, and update governances.

    Be thorough in your actions during this Phase to get the most out of it. It requires more than the equivalent of gauging a person's health by taking their temperature, measuring their blood pressure, and determining their body mass index. Keeping your VMI up-to-date and running smoothly takes hard work.

    Some of the items presented in this Phase require an annual review; others may require quarterly review or timely review (i.e. when things are top of mind and current). For example, collecting lessons learned should happen on a timely basis rather than annually, and classifying your vendors should occur annually rather than every time a new vendor enters the fold.

    Ultimately, the goal is to improve over time and stay aligned with other areas internally. This won't happen by accident. Being proactive in the review of your VMI further reinforces the nature of the VMI itself – proactive vendor management, not reactive!

    Step 4.1 – Incorporate leading practices

    Identify and evaluate what external VMIs are doing

    The VMI's world is constantly shifting and evolving. Some changes will take place slowly, while others will occur quickly. Think about how quickly the cloud environment has changed over the past five years versus the 15 years before that; or think about issues that have popped up and instantly altered the landscape (we're looking at you COVID and ransomware). As a result, the VMI needs to keep pace, and one of the best ways to do that is to incorporate leading practices.

    At a high level, a leading practice is a way of doing something that is better at producing a particular outcome or result or performing a task or activity than other ways of proceeding. The leading practice can be based on methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, and other items. Leading practices change periodically due to innovation, new ways of thinking, research, and other factors. Consequently, a leading practice is to identify and evaluate leading practices each year.

    Step 4.1 – Incorporate leading practices (cont'd)

    Update your VMI based on your research

    • A simple approach for incorporating leading practices into your regular review process is set out below:
    • Research:
      • What other VMIs in your industry are doing.
      • What other VMIs outside your industry are doing.
      • Vendor management in general.
    • Based on your results, list specific leading practices others are doing that would improve your VMI (be specific – e.g. other VMIs are incorporating risk into their classification process).
    • Evaluate your list to determine which of these potential changes fit or could be modified to fit your culture and environment.
    • Recommend the proposed changes to leadership (with a short business case or explanation/justification, as needed) and gain approval.

    Remember: Leading practices or best practices may not be what is best for you. In some instances, you will have to modify them to fit in your culture and environment; in other instances, you will elect not to implement them at all (in any form).

    Step 4.2 – Leverage lessons learned

    Tap into the collective wisdom and experience of your team members

    There are many ways to keep your VMI running smoothly, and creating a lessons learned library is a great complement to the other ways covered in this Phase 4 - Review. By tapping into the collective wisdom of the team and creating a safe feedback loop, the VMI gains the following benefits:

    • Documented institutional wisdom and knowledge normally found only in the team members' brains.
    • The ability for one team member to gain insights and avoid mistakes without having to duplicate the events leading to the insights or mistakes.
    • Improved methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, skills, and relationships.

    Many of the processes raised in this Phase can be performed annually, but a lessons learned library works best when the information is deposited in a timely manner. How you choose to set up your lessons learned process will depend on the tools you select and your culture. You may want to have regular input meetings to share the lessons as they are being deposited, or you may require team members to deposit lessons learned on a regular basis (within a week after they happen, monthly, or quarterly). Waiting too long can lead to vague or lost memories and specifics; timeliness of the deposits is a crucial element.

    Step 4.2 – Leverage lessons learned (cont'd)

    Create a library to share valuable information across the team

    Lessons learned are not confined to identifying mistakes or dissecting bad outcomes. You want to reinforce good outcomes, as well. When an opportunity for a lessons-learned deposit arises, identify the following basic elements:

    • A brief description of the situation and outcome.
    • What went well (if anything) and why did it go well?
    • What didn't go well (if anything) and why didn't it go well?
    • What would/could you do differently next time?
    • A synopsis of the lesson(s) learned.

    Info-Tech Insights

    The lessons learned library needs to be maintained. Irrelevant material needs to be culled periodically, and older or duplicate material may need to be archived.

    the lessons learned process should be blameless. The goal is to share insightful information, not to reward or punish people based on outcomes or results.

    Step 4.3 – Maintain internal alignment

    Review the plans of other internal areas to stay in sync

    Maintaining internal alignment is essential for the ongoing success of the VMI. Over time, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the VMI does not operate in a vacuum; it is an integral component of a larger organization whose parts must work well together to function optimally. Focusing annually on the VMI's alignment within the enterprise helps reduce any breakdowns that could derail the organization.

    To ensure internal alignment:

    • Review the key components of the applicable materials from Phase 1 - Plan and Phase 2 - Build with the appropriate members of the leadership team (e.g. executives, sponsors, and stakeholders). Not every item from those Phases and Steps needs to be reviewed but err on the side of caution for the first set of alignment discussions, and be prepared to review each item. You can gauge the audience's interest on each topic and move quickly when necessary or dive deeper when needed. Identify potential changes required to maintain alignment.
    • Review the strategic plans (e.g. 1-, 3-, and 5- year plans) for various portions of the organization if you have access to them or gather insights if you don't have access.
      • If the VMI is under the IT umbrella, review the strategic plans for IT and its departments.
      • Review the strategic plans for the areas the VMI works with (e.g. Procurement, Business Units).
      • The organization itself.
    • Create and vet a list of modifications to the VMI and obtain approval.
    • Develop a plan for making the necessary changes.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem solved

    Vendor management is a broad, often overwhelming, comprehensive spectrum that encompasses many disciplines. By now, you should have a great idea of what vendor management can or will look like in your organization. Focus on the basics first: Why does the VMI exist and what does it hope to achieve? What is it's scope? What are the strengths you can leverage, and what obstacles must you manage? How will the VMI work with others? From there, the spectrum of vendor management will begin to clarify and narrow.

    Leverage the tools and templates from this blueprint and adapt them to your needs. They will help you concentrate your energies in the right areas and on the right vendors to maximize the return on your organization's investment in the VMI of time, money, personnel, and other resources. You may have to lead by example internally and with your vendors at first, but they will eventually join you on your path if you stay true to your course.

    At the heart of a good VMI is the relationship component. Don't overlook its value in helping you achieve your vendor management goals. The VMI does not operate in a vacuum, and relationships (internal and external) will be critical.

    Lastly, seek continual improvement from the VMI and from your vendors. Both parties should be held accountable, and both parties should work together to get better. Be proactive in your efforts, and you, the VMI, and the organization will be rewarded.

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

    Contact your account representative for more information

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

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    Bibliography

    Slide 5 – ISG Index 4Q 2021, Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Slide 6 – ISG Index 4Q 2021, Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Slide 7 – Geller & Company. "World-Class Procurement — Increasing Profitability and Quality." Spend Matters. 2003. Web. Accessed 4 Mar. 2019.

    Slide 26 – Guth, Stephen. The Vendor Management Office: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Sourcing. Lulu.com, 2007. Print. Protiviti. Enterprise Risk Management. Web. 16 Feb. 2017.

    Slide 34 – "Why Do We Perform Better When Someone Has High Expectations of Us?" The Decision Lab. Accessed January 31, 2022.

    Slide 56 - Top 10 Tips for Creating Compelling Reports," October 11, 2019, Design Eclectic. Accessed March 29, 2022.

    Slide 56 – "Six Tips for Making a Quality Report Appealing and Easy To Skim," Agency for Health Research and Quality. Accessed March 29, 2022.

    Slide 56 –Tucker, Davis. Marketing Reporting: Tips to Create Compelling Reports, March 28, 2020, 60 Second Marketer. Accessed March 29, 2022.

    Enhance PPM Dashboards and Reports

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    • Your organization has introduced project portfolio management (PPM) processes that require new levels of visibility into the project portfolio that were not required before.
    • Key PPM decision makers are requesting new or improved dashboards and reports to help support making difficult decisions.
    • Often PPM dashboards and reports provide too much information and are difficult to navigate, resulting in information overload and end-user disengagement.
    • PPM dashboards and reports are laborious to maintain; ineffective dashboards end up wasting scarce resources, delay decisions, and negatively impact the perceived value of the PMO.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Well-designed dashboards and reports help actively engage stakeholders in effective management of the project portfolio by communicating information and providing support to key PPM decision makers. This tends to improve PPM performance, making resource investments into reporting worthwhile.
    • Observations and insights gleaned from behavioral studies and cognitive sciences (largely ignored in PPM literature) can help PMOs design dashboards and reports that avoid information overload and that provide targeted decision support to key PPM decision makers.

    Impact and Result

    • Enhance your PPM dashboards and reports by carrying out a carefully designed enhancement project. Start by clarifying the purpose of PPM dashboards and reports. Establish a focused understanding of PPM decision-support needs, and design dashboards and reports to address these in a targeted way.
    • Conduct a thorough review of all existing dashboards and reports, evaluating the need, effort, usage, and satisfaction of each report to eliminate any unnecessary or ineffective dashboards and design improved dashboards and reports that will address these gaps.
    • Design effective and targeted dashboards and reports to improve the engagement of senior leaders in PPM and help improve PPM performance.

    Enhance PPM Dashboards and Reports Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should enhance your PPM reports and dashboards, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Establish a PPM dashboard and reporting enhancement project plan

    Identify gaps, establish a list of dashboards and reports to enhance, and set out a roadmap for your dashboard and reporting enhancement project.

    • Enhance PPM Dashboards and Reports – Phase 1: Establish a PPM Dashboard and Reporting Enhancement Project Plan
    • PPM Decision Support Review Workbook
    • PPM Dashboard and Reporting Audit Workbook
    • PPM Dashboard and Reporting Audit Worksheets – Exisiting
    • PPM Dashboard and Reporting Audit Worksheets – Proposed
    • PPM Metrics Menu
    • PPM Dashboard and Report Enhancement Project Charter Template

    2. Design and build enhanced PPM dashboards and reporting

    Gain an understanding of how to design effective dashboards and reports.

    • Enhance PPM Dashboards and Reports – Phase 2: Design and Build New or Improved PPM Dashboards and Reporting
    • PPM Dashboard and Report Requirements Workbook
    • PPM Executive Dashboard Template
    • PPM Dashboard and Report Visuals Template
    • PPM Capacity Dashboard Operating Manual

    3. Implement and maintain effective PPM dashboards and reporting

    Officially close and evaluate the PPM dashboard and reporting enhancement project and transition to an ongoing and sustainable PPM dashboard and reporting program.

    • Enhance PPM Dashboards and Reports – Phase 3: Implement and Maintain Effective PPM Dashboards and Reporting
    • PPM Dashboard and Reporting Program Manual
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Enhance PPM Dashboards and Reports

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Establish a PPM Dashboard and Reporting Enhancement

    The Purpose

    PPM dashboards and reports will only be effective and valuable if they are designed to meet your organization’s specific needs and priorities.

    Conduct a decision-support review and a thorough dashboard and report audit to identify the gaps your project will address.

    Take advantage of the planning stage to secure sponsor and stakeholder buy-in.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Current-state assessment of satisfaction with PPM decision-making support.

    Current-state assessment of all existing dashboards and reports: effort, usage, and satisfaction.

    A shortlist of dashboards and reports to improve that is informed by actual needs and priorities.

    A shortlist of dashboards and reports to create that is informed by actual needs and priorities.

    The foundation for a purposeful and focused PPM dashboard and reporting program that is sustainable in the long term.

    Activities

    1.1 Engage in PPM decision-making review.

    1.2 Perform a PPM dashboard and reporting audit and gap analysis.

    1.3 Identify dashboards and/or reports needed.

    1.4 Plan the PPM dashboard and reporting project.

    Outputs

    PPM Decision-Making Review

    PPM Dashboard and Reporting Audit

    Prioritized list of dashboards and reports to be improved and created

    Roadmap for the PPM dashboard and reporting project

    2 Design New or Improved PPM Dashboards and Reporting

    The Purpose

    Once the purpose of each PPM dashboard and report has been identified (based on needs and priorities) it is important to establish what exactly will be required to produce the desired outputs.

    Gathering stakeholder and technical requirements will ensure that the proposed and finalized designs are realistic and sustainable in the long term.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Dashboard and report designs that are informed by a thorough analysis of stakeholder and technical requirements.

    Dashboard and report designs that are realistically sustainable in the long term.

    Activities

    2.1 Review the best practices and science behind effective dashboards and reporting.

    2.2 Gather stakeholder requirements.

    2.3 Gather technical requirements.

    2.4 Build wireframe options for each dashboard or report.

    2.5 Review options: requirements, feasibility, and usability.

    2.6 Finalize initial designs.

    2.7 Design and record the input, production, and consumption workflows and processes.

    Outputs

    List of stakeholder requirements for dashboards and reports

    Wireframe design options

    Record of the assessment of each wireframe design: requirements, feasibility, and usability

    A set of finalized initial designs for dashboards and reports.

    Process workflows for each initial design

    3 Plan to Roll Out Enhanced PPM Dashboards and Reports

    The Purpose

    Ensure that enhanced dashboards and reports are actually adopted in the long term by carefully planning their roll-out to inputters, producers, and consumers.

    Plan to train all stakeholders, including report consumers, to ensure that the reports generate the decision support and PPM value they were designed to.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An informed, focused, and scheduled plan for rolling out dashboards and reports and for training the various stakeholders involved.

    Activities

    3.1 Plan for external resourcing (if necessary): vendors, consultants, contractors, etc.

    3.2 Conduct impact analysis: risks and opportunities.

    3.3 Create an implementation and training plan.

    3.4 Determine PPM dashboard and reporting project success metrics.

    Outputs

    External resourcing plan

    Impact analysis and risk mitigation plan

    Record of the PPM dashboard and reporting project success metrics

    Refine Your Estimation Practices With Top-Down Allocations

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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
    • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
    • As a portfolio manager, you’re expected to size projects for approval and intake before they have sufficient definition.
    • The consequences of initial sizing are felt throughout the project lifecycle.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Your organization lacks strong organizational memory upon which assumptions and estimates can be made.
    • Definition is at a minimum not validated, untested, and is likely incomplete. It has the potential to be dangerously misleading.

    Impact and Result

    • Build project history and make more educated estimates – Projects usually start with a “ROM” or t-shirt size estimate, but if your estimates are consistently off, then it’s time to shift the scale.
    • Plan ahead – Projects face risks; similar projects face similar risks. Provide sponsors with estimates that account for as many risks as possible, so that if something goes wrong you have a plan to make it right.
    • Store and strengthen organizational memory – Each project is rich with lessons that can inform your next project to make it more effective and efficient, and ultimately help to avoid committing the same failures over and over again. Develop a process to catalogue project history and all of the failures and successes associated with those projects.

    Refine Your Estimation Practices With Top-Down Allocations Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should improve your estimation practices, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Build organizational memory to inform early estimates

    Analyze your project history to identify and fill gaps in your estimation practices.

    • Refine Your Estimation Practices With Top-Down Allocations – Phase 1: Build Organizational Memory to Inform Early Estimations
    • PMO Organizational Memory Tool
    • T-Shirt Sizing Health Check Lite
    • Project Estimation Playbook

    2. Develop and refine a reliable estimate with top-down allocations

    Allocate time across project phases to validate and refine estimates and estimate assumptions.

    • Refine Your Estimation Practices With Top-Down Allocations – Phase 2: Develop and Refine a Reliable Estimate With Top-Down Allocations
    • Planning-Level Estimate Calculator

    3. Implement a new estimation process

    Implement a lessons learned process to provide transparency to your sponsors and confidence to your teams.

    • Refine Your Estimation Practices With Top-Down Allocations – Phase 3: Implement a New Estimation Process
    • Project Lessons Learned Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Refine Your Estimation Practices With Top-Down Allocations

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Develop the Foundations of Organizational Memory

    The Purpose

    Track key performance indicators on past projects to inform goals for future projects.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Developed Project History List.

    Refined starting estimates that can be adjusted accurately from project to project.

    Activities

    1.1 Build project history.

    1.2 Analyze estimation capabilities.

    1.3 Identify estimation goals.

    Outputs

    Project History List

    T-Shirt Sizing Health Check

    Estimate Tracking Plan

    2 Define a Requirements Gathering Process

    The Purpose

    Outline the common attributes required to complete projects.

    Identify the commonly forgotten attributes to ensure comprehensive scoping early on.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Refined initial estimate based on high-level insights into work required and resources available.

    Activities

    2.1 Develop a list of in-scope project attributes.

    2.2 Identify leadership priorities for deliverables and attributes.

    2.3 Track team and skill responsibilities for attributes.

    Outputs

    Identified list or store of past project attributes and costs

    Attribute List and Estimated Cost

    Required Skills List

    3 Build an Estimation Process

    The Purpose

    Set clear processes for tracking the health of your estimate to ensure it is always as accurate as possible.

    Define check-in points to evaluate risks and challenges to the project and identify trigger conditions.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An estimation process rooted in organizational memory and lessons learned.

    Project estimates that are consistently reevaluated to predict and correct challenges before they can drastically affect your projects.

    Activities

    3.1 Determine Milestone Check-In Points.

    3.2 Develop Lessons Learned Meeting Agendas.

    3.3 Identify common risks and past lessons learned.

    3.4 Develop contingency tracking capabilities.

    Outputs

    Project Lessons Learned Template

    Historic Risks and Lessons Learned Master Template

    Contingency Reserve and Risk Registers

    4 Improve Business Alignment With Your Estimation Plan

    The Purpose

    Bridge the gap between death march projects and bloated and uncertain estimates by communicating expectations and assumptions clearly to your sponsors.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clear estimation criteria and assumptions aligned with business priorities.

    Post-mortem discussion items crucial to improving project history knowledge for next time.

    Activities

    4.1 Identify leadership risk priorities.

    4.2 Develop IT business alignment.

    4.3 Develop hand-off procedures and milestone approval methods.

    4.4 Create a list of post-mortem priorities.

    Outputs

    Estimation Quotation

    Risk Priority Rankings

    Hand-Off Procedures

    Post-mortem agenda planning

    Ransomware Cyber Attack. The real Disaster Recovery Scenario

    Cyber-ransomware criminals need to make sure that you cannot simply recover your encrypted data via your backups. They must make it look like paying is your only option. And if you do not have a strategy that takes this into account, unfortunately, you may be up the creek without a paddle. because how do they make their case? Bylooking for ways to infect your backups, way before you find out you have been compromised. 

    That means your standard disaster recovery scenarios provide insufficient protection against this type of event. You need to think beyond DRP and give consideration to what John Beattie and Michael Shandrowski call "Cyber Incident Recovery Risk management" (CIR-RM).  

    incident, incident management, cybersecurity, cyber, disaster recovery, drp, business continuity, bcm, recovery

    Register to read more …

    Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}509|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
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    • Parent Category Name: Requirements & Design
    • Parent Category Link: /requirements-and-design
    • It can be difficult to secure alignment between the many lines of business, IT included, in your organization.
    • Historically, we have drawn a dividing line between IT and "the business.”
    • The reality of organizational politics and stakeholder bias means that, with selection and prioritization, sometimes the highest value option is dismissed to make way for the loudest voice’s option.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Enterprise business analysis can help you stop the debate between IT and “the business,” as it sees everyone as part of the business. It can effectively break down silos, support the development of holistic strategies to address internal and external risks, and remove the bias and politics in decision making all too common in organizations.
    • The business analyst is the only role that can connect the strategic with the tactical, the systems, and the operations and do so objectively. It is the one source to show how people, process, and technology connect and relate, and the most skilled can remove bias and politics from their lens of view.
    • Maturity can’t be rushed. Build your enterprise business analysis program on a solid foundation of leading and consistent business analysis practices to secure buy-in and have a program that is sustainable in the long term.

    Impact and Result

    Let’s make the case for enterprise business analysis!

    • Organizations that have higher business analysis maturity and deploy enterprise analysis deliver better quality outcomes, with higher value, lower cost, and higher user satisfaction.
    • Business analysts should be contributing at the strategic level, as they need to understand multiple horizons simultaneously and be able to zoom in and out as the context calls for it. Business analysts aren’t only for projects.

    Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Storyboard – Take your business analysis from tactics to strategy.

    • Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Storyboard

    2. Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis Template – Make the case for enterprise business analysis.

    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Make the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis

    Putting the strategic and tactical puzzle together.

    Analyst Perspective

    We commonly recognize the value of effective business analysis at a project or tactical level. A good business analysis professional can support the business by identifying its needs and recommending solutions to address them.
    Now, wouldn't it be great if we could do the same thing at a higher level?
    Enterprise (or strategic) business analysis is all about seeing that bigger picture, an approach that makes any business analysis professional a highly valuable contributor to their organization. It focuses on the enterprise, not a specific project or line of business.
    Leading the business analysis effort at an enterprise level ensures that your business is not only doing things right, but also doing the right things; aligned with the strategic vision of your organization to improve the way decisions are made, options are analyzed, and successful results are realized.

    Vincent Mirabelli

    Vincent Mirabelli
    Principal Research Director, Applications Delivery and Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Difficulty properly aligning between the many lines of business in your organization.
    • Historically, we have drawn a dividing line between IT and the business.
    • The reality of organizational politics and stakeholder bias means that, with selection and prioritization, sometimes the highest value option is dismissed in favor of the loudest voice.

    Common Obstacles

    • Difficulty aligning an ever-changing backlog of projects, products, and services while simultaneously managing risks, external threats, and stakeholder expectations.
    • Many organizations have never heard of enterprise business analysis and only see the importance of business analysts at the project and delivery level.
    • Business analysis professionals rarely do enough to advocate for a seat at the strategic tables in their organizations.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Let's make the case for enterprise business analysis!

    • Organizations that have higher business analysis maturity and deploy enterprise business analysis deliver better quality outcomes with higher value, lower cost, and higher user satisfaction.
    • Business analysts aren't only for projects. They should contribute at the strategic level, since they need to understand multiple horizons simultaneously and be able to zoom in and out as the context requires.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Enterprise business analysis can help you reframe the debate between IT and the business, since it sees everyone as part of the business. It can effectively break down silos, support the development of holistic strategies to address internal and external risks, and remove bias and politics from decision making.

    Phase 1

    Build the case for enterprise business analysis

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Define enterprise business analysis

    1.2 Identify your pains and opportunities

    2.1 Set your vision

    2.2 Define your roadmap and next steps

    2.3 Complete your executive communications deck

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 1.1.1 Discuss how business analysis is used in our organization
    • 1.1.2 Discuss your disconnects between strategy and tactics
    • 1.2.1 Identify your pains and opportunities

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    How business analysis supports our success today

    Delivering value at the tactical level

    Effective business analysis helps guide an organization through improvements to processes, products, and services. Business analysts "straddle the line between IT and the business to help bridge the gap and improve efficiency" in an organization (CIO, 2019).
    They are most heavily involved in:

    • Defining needs
    • Modeling concepts, processes, and solutions
    • Conducting analysis
    • Maintaining and managing requirements
    • Managing stakeholders
    • Monitoring progress
    • Doing business analysis planning
    • Conducting elicitation

    In a survey, business analysts indicated that of their total working time, they spend 31% performing business analysis planning and 41% performing elicitation and analysis (PMI, 2017).

    By including a business analyst in a project, organizations benefit by:
    (IAG, 2009)

    87%

    Reduced time overspending

    75%

    Prevented budget overspending

    78%

    Reduction in missed functionality

    1.1.1 Discuss how business analysis is used in your organization

    15-30 minutes

    1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss their knowledge, experience, and perspectives on business analysis. This should relate to their experience and not a future or aspirational usage.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Brainstorm and document all shared thoughts and perspectives.
    4. Synthesize those thoughts and perspectives and record the results for the group to review and discuss.
    5. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A shared understanding of how your organization leverages its business analysis function

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Executives and leadership are satisfied with IT when there is alignment between tactics and goals

    Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision Survey data highlights the importance of IT projects in supporting the business to achieve its strategic goals.

    However, Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Survey (N=124) data indicates that CEOs perceive IT as poorly aligned with the business' strategic goals.

    Info-Tech's CIO-CEO Alignment Diagnostics

    43%

    of CEOs believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT.

    60%

    of CEOs believe that IT must improve understanding of business goals.

    80%

    of CIOs/CEOs are misaligned on the target role of IT.

    30%

    of business stakeholders support their IT departments.

    Addressing problems solely with tactics does not always have the desired effect

    94%

    Source: "Out of the Crisis", Deming (via Harvard Business Review)

    According to famed management and quality thought leader and pioneer W. Edwards Deming, 94% of issues in the workplace are systemic cause significant organizational pain.

    Yet we continue to address them on the surface, rather than acknowledge how ingrained they are in our culture, systems, and processes.

    For example, we:

    • Create workarounds to address process and solution constraints
    • Expect that poor (or lack of ) leadership can be addressed in a course or seminar
    • Expect that "going Agile" will resolve our problems, and that decision making, governance, and organizational alignment will happen organically.

    Band-aid solutions rarely have the desired effect, particularly in the long-term.

    Our solutions should likewise focus on the systemic/macro environment. We can do this via projects, products and services, but those don't always address the larger issues.

    If we take the work our business analysis currently does in defining needs and solutions, and elevate this to the strategic level, the results can be impactful.

    Many organizations would benefit from enhancing their business analysis maturity

    The often-overlooked strategic value of the role comes with maturing your practices.

    Only 18% of organizations have mature (optimized or established) business analysis practices.

    With that higher level of maturity comes increased levels of capability, efficiency, and effectiveness in delivering value to people, processes, and technology. Through such efforts, they're better equipped and able to connect the strategy of their organization to the projects, processes, and products they deliver.

    They shift focus from "figuring business analysis out" to truly unleashing its potential, with business analysts contributing in strategic and tactical ways.

    an image showing the following data: Optimized- 5; Established- 13; Improving- 37; Starting- 25; Ad hoc- 21

    (Adapted from PMI, 2017)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Business analysts are best suited to connect the strategic with the tactical, the systems, and the operations. They maintain the most objective lens regarding how people, process, and technology connect and relate, and the most skilled of them can remove bias and politics from their perspective.

    1.1.2 Discuss your disconnects between strategy and tactics

    30-60 minutes

      1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss their knowledge, experience, and perspectives regarding failures that resulted from disconnects between strategy and tactics.
      2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
      3. Brainstorm and document all shared thoughts and perspectives.
      4. Synthesize those thoughts and perspectives and record the results.
      5. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Input

    • Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A shared understanding and list of failures due to disconnects between strategy and tactics

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Defining enterprise business analysis

    Terms may change, but the function remains the same.

    Enterprise business analysis (sometimes referred to as strategy analysis) "…focuses on defining the future and transition states needed to address the business need, and the work required is defined both by that need and the scope of the solution space. It covers strategic thinking in business analysis, as well as the discovery or imagining of possible solutions that will enable the enterprise to create greater value for stakeholders and/or capture more value for itself."
    (Source: "Business Analysis Body of Knowledge," v3)

    Define the function of enterprise business analysis

    This is a competitive advantage for mature organizations.

    Organizations with high-performing business analysis programs experience an enhanced alignment between strategy and operations. This contributes to improved organizational performance. We see this in financial (69% vs. 45%) and strategic performance (66% vs. 21%), also organizational agility (40% vs. 14%) and management of operational projects (62% vs. 29%). (PMI, 2017)

    When comparing enterprise with traditional business analysis, we see stark differences in the size and scope of their view, where they operate, and the role they play in organizational decision making.

    Enterprise Traditional
    Decision making Guides and influences Executes
    Time horizon 2-10 years 0-2 years
    Focus Strategy, connecting the strategic to the operational Operational, optimizing how business is done, and keeping the lights on
    Domain

    Whole organization

    Broader marketplace

    Only stakeholder lines of business relevant to the current project, product or service
    Organizational Level Executive/Leadership Project

    (Adapted from Schulich School of Business)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Maturity can't be rushed. Build your enterprise business analysis program on a solid foundation of leading and consistent business analysis practices to secure buy-in and have a program that is sustainable in the long term.

    An image showing the percentages of high- and low- maturity organizations, for the following categories: Financial performance; Strategy implementation; Organizational agility; Management of projects.

    (Adapted from PMI, 2017)

    How enterprise business analysis is used to improve organizations

    The biggest sources of project failure include:

    • Wrong (or poor) requirements
    • Unrealistic (or incomplete) business case
    • Lack of appropriate governance and oversight
    • Poor implementation
    • Poor benefits management
    • Environmental changes

    Source: MindTools.com, 2023.

    Enterprise business analysis addresses these sources and more.

    It brings a holistic view of the organization, improving collaboration and decision making across the many lines of business, effectively breaking down silos.

    In addition to ensuring we're doing the right things, not just doing things right in the form of improved requirements and more accurate business cases, or ensuring return on investment (ROI) and monitoring the broader landscape, enterprise business analysis also supports:

    • Reduced rework and waste
    • Understanding and improving operations
    • Making well-informed decisions through improved objectivity/reduced bias
    • Identifying new opportunities for growth and expansion
    • Identifying and mitigating risk
    • Eliminating projects and initiatives that do not support organizational goals or objectives
    • A career-pathing option for business analysts

    Identify your pains and opportunities

    There are many considerations in enterprise business analysis.

    Pains, gains, threats, and opportunities can come at your organization from anywhere. Be it a new product launch, an international expansion, or a new competitor, it can be challenging to keep up.

    This is where an enterprise business analyst can be the most helpful.

    By keeping a pulse on the external and internal environments, they can support growth, manage risks, and view your organization through multiple lenses and perspectives to get a single, complete picture.

    External

    Internal

    Identifying competitive forces

    In the global environment

    Organizational strengths and weaknesses

    • Monitoring and maintaining your competitive advantage.
    • Understanding trends, risks and threats in your business domain, and how they affect your organization.
    • Benchmarking performance against like and unlike organizations, to realize where you stand and set a baseline for continuous improvement and business development.
    • Leveraging tools and techniques to scan the broader landscape on an ongoing basis. Using PESTLE analysis, they can monitor the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors that impact when, where, how, and with who you conduct your business and IT operations.
    • Supporting alignment between a portfolio or program of projects and initiatives.
    • Improving alignment between the various lines of business, who often lack full visibility outside of their silo, and can find themselves clashing over time, resources, and attention from leaders.
    • Improving solutions and outcomes through objective option selection.

    1.2.1 Identify your pains and opportunities

    30-60 minutes

    1. As a group, generate a list of the current pains and opportunities facing your organization. You can focus on a particular type (competitive, market, or internal) or leave it open. You can also focus on pains or opportunities separately, or simultaneously.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Record the results for the group to review, discuss, and prioritize.
      1. Discuss the impact and likelihood of each item. This can be formally ranked and quantified if there is data to support the item or leveraging the wisdom of the group.
      2. Prioritize the top three to five items of each type, as agreed by the group, and document the results.
    4. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Attendee knowledge
    • Supporting data, if available

    Output

    • A list of identified organizational pains and opportunities that has been prioritized by the group

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Phase 2

    Prepare the foundations for your enterprise business analysis program

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Define enterprise business analysis

    1.2 Identify your pains and opportunities

    2.1 Set your vision

    2.2 Define your roadmap and next steps

    2.3 Complete your executive communications deck

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • 2.1.1 Define your vision and goals
    • 2.1.2 Identify your enterprise business analysis inventory
    • 2.2.1 Now, Next, Later

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Set your vision

    Your vision becomes your "north star," guiding your journey and decisions.

    When thinking about a vision statement for enterprise business analysis, think about:

    • Who are we doing this for? Who will benefit?
    • What do our business partners need? What do our customers need?
    • What value do we provide them? How can we best support them?
    • Why is this special/different from how we usually do business?

    Always remember: Your goal is not your vision!

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

    Your vision represents where you want to go. It's what you want to do.

    Your goals represent how you want to achieve your vision.

    • They are a key element of operationalizing your vision.
    • Your strategy, initiatives, and features will align with one or more goals.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Your vision shouldn't be so far out that it doesn't feel real, nor so short term that it gets bogged down in details. Finding balance will take some trial and error and will be different depending on your organization.

    2.1.1 Define your vision and goals

    1-2 hours

    1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss their vision for enterprise business analysis. It should address the questions used in framing your vision statement.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Review your current organizational vision and goals.
    4. Discuss and document all shared thoughts and perspectives on how enterprise business analysis can align with the organizational vision.
    5. Synthesize those thoughts and perspectives to create a vision statement.
    6. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Stakeholder vision, knowledge, and experience
    • Current organizational vision and goals

    Output

    • A documented vision and goals for your enterprise business analysis program

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Components of successful enterprise business analysis programs

    Ensure you're off to the best start by examining where you are and where you want to go.

    Training

    • Do the current team members have the right level of training?
    • Can we easily obtain training to close any gaps?

    Competencies and capabilities

    • Do our business analysts have the right skills, attributes, and behaviors to be successful?

    Structure and alignment

    • Would the organizational culture support enterprise business analysis (EBA)?
    • How might we structure the EBA unit to maximize effectiveness?
    • How can we best support the organization's goals and objectives?

    Methods and processes

    • How do we plan on managing the work to be done?
    • Can we define our processes and workflows?

    Tools, techniques, and templates

    • Do we have the most effective tools, techniques, and templates?

    Governance

    • How will we make decisions?
    • How will the program be managed?

    2.1.2 Identify your enterprise business analysis inventory

    30-60 minutes

    1. Gather the appropriate stakeholders to discuss the current business analysis assets, which could be leveraged for enterprise business analysis. This includes people, processes, and technologies which cover skills, knowledge, resources, experience, knowledge, and competencies. Focus on what the organization currently has, and not what it needs.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. Record the results for the group to review and discuss.
    4. Transfer the results to the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Your current business analysis assets and resources Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A list of assets and resources to enable enterprise business analysis

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    Define your roadmap and next steps

    What do we have? What do we need?

    From completing the enterprise business analysis inventory, you will have a comprehensive list of all available assets.

    The next question is, how can this be leveraged to start building for the future?

    To operationalize enterprise business analysis, consider:

    • What do we still need to do?
    • How important are the identified gaps? Can we still operate?
    • What decisions do we need to make?
    • What stakeholders do we need to involve? Have we engaged them all?

    Lay out your roadmap

    Taking steps to mature your enterprise business analysis practice.

    The Now, Next, Later technique is a method for prioritizing and planning improvements or tasks. This involves breaking down a list of tasks or improvements into three categories:

    • Now tasks are those that must be completed immediately. These tasks are usually urgent or critical, and they must be completed to keep the project or organization running smoothly.
    • Next tasks are those that should be completed soon. These tasks are not as critical as Now tasks, but they are still important and should be tackled relatively soon.
    • Later tasks are those that can be completed later. These tasks are less critical and can be deferred without causing major problems.

    By using this technique, you can prioritize and plan the most important tasks, while allowing the flexibility to adjust as necessary.

    This technique also helps clarify what must be done first vs. what can wait. This prioritizes the most important things while keeping track of what must be done next, maintaining a smooth development/improvement process.

    An image of the now - next - later roadmap technique.

    2.2.1 Now, Next, Later

    1-2 hours

    1. Use the list of items created in 2.1.2 (Identify your enterprise business analysis inventory). Add any you feel are missing during this exercise.
    2. Have a team member facilitate the session.
    3. In the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template, categorize these items according to Now, Next and Later, where:
      1. Now = Critically important items that may require little effort to complete. These must be done within the next six months.
      2. Next = Important items that may require more effort or depend on other factors. These must be done in six to twelve months.
      3. Later = Less important items that may require significant effort to complete. These must be done at some point within twelve months.

    Ultimately, the choice of priority and timing is yours. Recognize that items may change categories as new information arises.

    Download the Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Input

    • Your enterprise business analysis inventory and gaps
    • Stakeholder knowledge and experience

    Output

    • A prioritized list of items to enable enterprise business analysis

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip charts
    • Collaborative whiteboard
    • Communicate the Case for Enterprise Business Analysis template

    Participants

    • Business analyst(s)
    • Organizational business leaders
    • Any other relevant stakeholders

    2.3 Complete your executive communication deck

    Use the results of your completed exercises to build your executive communication slide deck, to make the case for enterprise business analysis

    Slide Header Associated Exercise Rationale
    Pains and opportunities

    1.1.2 Discuss your disconnects between strategy and tactics

    1.2.1 Identify your pains and opportunities

    This helps build the case for enterprise business analysis (EBA), leveraging the existing pains felt in the organization. This will draw the connection for your stakeholders.
    Our vision and goals 2.1.1 Define your vision and goals Defines where you want to go and what effort will be required.
    What is enterprise business analysis

    1.1.1 How is BA being used in our organization today?
    Pre-populated supporting content

    Defines the discipline of EBA and how it can support and mature your organization.
    Expected benefits Pre-populated supporting content What's in it for us? This section helps answer that question. What benefits can we expect, and is this worth the investment of time and effort?
    Making this a reality 2.1.2 Identify your EBA inventory Identifies what the organization presently has that makes the effort easier. It doesn't feel as daunting if there are existing people, processes, and technologies in place and in use today.
    Next steps 2.2.1 Now, Next, Later A prioritized list of action items. This will demonstrate the work involved, but broken down over time, into smaller, more manageable pieces.

    Track metrics

    Track metrics throughout the project to keep stakeholders informed.

    As the project nears completion:

    1. You will have better-aligned and more satisfied stakeholders.
    2. You will see fewer projects and initiatives that don't align with the organizational goals and objectives.
    3. There will be a reduction in costs attributed to misaligned projects and initiatives (as mentioned in #2) and the opportunity to allocate valuable time and resources to other, higher-value work.
    Metric Description Target Improvement/Reduction
    Improved stakeholder satisfaction Lines of business and previously siloed departments/divisions will be more satisfied with time spent on solution involvement and outcomes. 10% year 1, 20% year 2
    Reduction in misaligned/non-priority project work Reduction in projects, products, and services with no clear alignment to organizational goals. With that, resource costs can be allocated to other, higher-value solutions. 10% year 1, 25% year 2
    Improved delivery agility/lead time With improved alignment comes reduced conflict and political infighting. As a result, the velocity of solution delivery will increase. 10%

    Bibliography

    Bossert, Oliver and Björn Münstermann. "Business's 'It's not my problem' IT problem." McKinsey Digital. 30 March, 2023.
    Brule, Glenn R. "The Lay of the Land: Enterprise Analysis." Modern Analyst.
    "Business Analysis: Leading Organizations to Better Outcomes." Project Management Institute (PMI), 2017
    Corporate Finance Institute. "Strategic Analysis." Updated 14 March 2023
    IAG Consulting. Business Analysis Benchmark Report, 2009.
    International Institute of Business Analysis. "A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge" (BABOK Guide) version 3.
    Mirabelli, Vincent. "Business Analysis Foundations: Enterprise" LinkedIn Learning, February 2022.
    - - "Essential Techniques in Enterprise Analysis" LinkedIn Learning, September 2022.
    - - "The Essentials of Enterprise Analysis" Love the Process Academy. May 2020.
    - - "The Value of Enterprise Analysis." VincentMirabelli.com
    Praslova, Ludmila N. "Today's Most Critical Workplace Challenges Are About Systems." Harvard Business Review. 10 January 2023.
    Pratt, Mary K. and Sarah K. White. "What is a business analyst? A key role for business-IT efficiency." CIO. 17 April, 2019.
    Project Management Institute. "Business Analysis: Leading Organizations to Better Outcomes." October 2017.
    Sali, Sema. "The Importance of Strategic Business Analysis in Successful Project Outcomes." International Institute of Business Analysis. 26 May 2022.
    - - "What Does Enterprise Analysis Look Like? Objectives and Key Results." International Institute of Business Analysis. 02 June 2022.
    Shaker, Kareem. "Why do projects really fail?" Project Management Institute, PM Network. July 2010.
    "Strategic Analysis: Definition, Types and Benefits" Voxco. 25 February 2022.
    "The Difference Between Enterprise Analysis and Business Analysis." Schulich School of Business, Executive Education Center. 24 September 2018 (Updated June 2022)
    "Why Do Projects Fail: Learning How to Avoid Project Failure." MindTools.com. Accessed 24 April 2023.

    Build a Chatbot Proof of Concept

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
    • Parent Category Link: /service-desk
    • Implement a chatbot proof of concept mapped to business needs.
    • Scale up customer service delivery in a cost-effective manner.
    • Objectively measure the success of the chatbot proof of concept with metrics-based data.
    • Choose the ticket categories to build during your chatbot proof of concept.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Build your chatbot to create business value. Whether it is increasing service or resource efficiency, keep the goal of value in mind when making decisions with your proof of concept.

    Impact and Result

    • When implemented effectively, chatbots can help save costs, generate new revenue, and ultimately increase customer satisfaction for both external- and internal-facing customers.

    Build a Chatbot Proof of Concept Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a chatbot proof of concept, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Form your chatbot strategy

    Build action-based metrics to measure the success of your chatbot proof of concept.

    • Chatbot ROI Calculator
    • Chatbot POC Metrics Tool

    2. Build your chatbot foundation

    Put business value first to architect your chatbot before implementation.

    • Chatbot Conversation Tree Library (Visio)
    • Chatbot Conversation Tree Library (PDF)

    3. Continually improve your chatbot

    Continue to grow your chatbot beyond the proof of concept.

    • Chatbot POC RACI
    • Chatbot POC Implementation Roadmap
    • Chatbot POC Communication Plan
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Chatbot Proof of Concept

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Build Your Strategy

    The Purpose

    Build your strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Calculate your chatbot’s ROI to determine its success.

    Organize your chatbot proof of concept (POC) metrics to keep the project on track.

    Objectively choose chatbot ticket categories.

    Activities

    1.1 Customize your chatbot ROI calculator.

    1.2 Choose your proof of concept ticket categories.

    1.3 Design chatbot metrics to measure success.

    Outputs

    Chatbot ROI Calculator

    Chatbot POC Implementation Roadmap

    Chatbot POC Metrics Tool

    2 Architect Your Chatbot

    The Purpose

    Architect your chatbot.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Design your integrations with business value in mind.

    Begin building chatbot decision trees.

    Activities

    2.1 List and map your chatbot integrations.

    2.2 Build your conversation tree library.

    Outputs

    Chatbot Integration Map

    Chatbot Conversation Tree Library

    3 Architect Your Chatbot Conversations

    The Purpose

    Architect your chatbot conversations.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Detail your chatbot conversations in the decision trees.

    Activities

    3.1 Build your conversation tree library.

    Outputs

    Chatbot Conversation Tree Library

    4 Continually Grow Your Chatbot

    The Purpose

    Continually grow your chatbot.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identify talent for chatbot support.

    Create an implementation plan.

    Activities

    4.1 Outline the support responsibilities for your chatbot.

    4.2 Build a communication plan.

    Outputs

    Chatbot POC RACI

    Chatbot POC Communication Plan

    Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management

    Understanding the differences in IaaS platform agreements, purchasing options, associated value, and risks. What are your options for:

    • Upfront or monthly payments
    • Commitment discounts
    • Support options
    • Migration planning and support

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    IaaS platforms offer similar technical features, but they vary widely on their procurement model. By fully understanding the procurement differences and options, you will be able to purchase wisely, save money both long and short term, and mitigate investment risk.

    Most vendors have similar processes and options to buy. Finding a transparent explanation and summary of each platform in a side-by-side review is difficult.

    • Are vendor reps being straight forward?
    • What are the licensing requirements?
    • What discounts or incentives can I negotiate?
    • How much do I have to commit to and for how long?

    Impact and Result

    This project will provide several benefits for both IT and the business. It includes:

    • Best IaaS platform to support current and future procurement requirements.
    • Right-sized cloud commitment tailored to the organization’s budget.
    • Predictable and controllable spend model.
    • Flexible and reliable IT infrastructure that supports the lines of business.
    • Reduced financial and legal risk.

    Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to learn how the public cloud IaaS procurement models compare. Review Info-Tech’s methodology and understand the top three platforms, features, and benefits to support and inform the IaaS vendor choice.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Educate

    Learn the IaaS basics, terminologies, purchasing options, licensing requirements, hybrid options, support, and organization requirements through a checklist process.

    • Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models – Phase 1: Educate
    • Public Cloud Procurement Checklist
    • Microsoft Public Cloud Licensing Guide

    2. Evaluate

    Review and understand the features, downsides, and differences between the big three players.

    • Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models – Phase 2: Evaluate
    • Public Cloud Procurement Comparison Summary

    3. Execute

    Decide on a primary vendor that meets requirements, engage with a reseller, negotiate pricing incentives, migration costs, review, and execute the agreement.

    • Master the Public Cloud IaaS Acquisition Models – Phase 3: Execute
    • Public Cloud Acquisition Executive Summary Template

    Infographic

    Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
    • Companies are aware of the need to discuss and assess risk, but many struggle to do so in a systematic and repeatable way.
    • Rarely are security risks analyzed in a consistent manner, let alone in a systematic and repeatable method to determine project risk as well as overall organizational risk exposure.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The best security programs are built upon defensible risk management. With an appropriate risk management program in place, you can ensure that security decisions are made strategically instead of based on frameworks and gut feelings. This will optimize any security planning and budgeting.
    • All risks can be quantified. Security, compliance, legal, or other risks can be quantified using our methodology.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop a security risk management program to create a standardized methodology for assessing and managing the risk that information systems face.
    • Build a risk governance structure that makes it clear how security risks can be escalated within the organization and who makes the final decision on certain risks.
    • Use Info-Tech’s risk assessment methodology to quantifiably evaluate the threat severity for any new or existing project or initiative.
    • Tie together all aspects of your risk management program, including your information security risk tolerance level, threat and risk assessments, and mitigation effectiveness models.

    Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop and implement a security risk management program, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Establish the risk environment

    Lay down the foundations for security risk management, including roles and responsibilities and a defined risk tolerance level.

    • Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program – Phase 1: Establish the Risk Environment
    • Security Risk Governance Responsibilities and RACI Template
    • Risk Tolerance Determination Tool
    • Risk Weighting Determination Tool

    2. Conduct threat and risk assessments

    Define frequency and impact rankings then assess the risk of your project.

    • Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program – Phase 2: Conduct Threat and Risk Assessments
    • Threat and Risk Assessment Process Template
    • Threat and Risk Assessment Tool

    3. Build the security risk register

    Catalog an inventory of individual risks to create an overall risk profile.

    • Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program – Phase 3: Build the Security Risk Register
    • Security Risk Register Tool

    4. Communicate the risk management program

    Communicate the risk-based conclusions and leverage these in security decision making.

    • Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program – Phase 4: Communicate the Risk Management Program
    • Security Risk Management Presentation Template
    • Security Risk Management Summary Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Combine Security Risk Management Components Into One Program

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Establish the Risk Environment

    The Purpose

    Build the foundation needed for a security risk management program.

    Define roles and responsibilities of the risk executive.

    Define an information security risk tolerance level.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

    Defined risk tolerance level.

    Activities

    1.1 Define the security executive function RACI chart.

    1.2 Assess business context for security risk management.

    1.3 Standardize risk terminology assumptions.

    1.4 Conduct preliminary evaluation of risk scenarios to determine your risk tolerance level.

    1.5 Decide on a custom risk factor weighting.

    1.6 Finalize the risk tolerance level.

    1.7 Begin threat and risk assessment.

    Outputs

    Defined risk executive functions

    Risk governance RACI chart

    Defined quantified risk tolerance and risk factor weightings

    2 Conduct Threat and Risk Assessments

    The Purpose

    Determine when and how to conduct threat and risk assessments (TRAs).

    Complete one or two TRAs, as time permits during the workshop.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Developed process for how to conduct threat and risk assessments.

    Deep risk analysis for one or two IT projects/initiatives.

    Activities

    2.1 Determine when to initiate a risk assessment.

    2.2 Review appropriate data classification scheme.

    2.3 Identify system elements and perform data discovery.

    2.4 Map data types to the elements.

    2.5 Identify STRIDE threats and assess risk factors.

    2.6 Determine risk actions taking place and assign countermeasures.

    2.7 Calculate mitigated risk severity based on actions.

    2.8 If necessary, revisit risk tolerance.

    2.9 Document threat and risk assessment methodology.

    Outputs

    Define scope of system elements and data within assessment

    Mapping of data to different system elements

    Threat identification and associated risk severity

    Defined risk actions to take place in threat and risk assessment process

    3 Continue to Conduct Threat and Risk Assessments

    The Purpose

    Complete one or two TRAs, as time permits during the workshop.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Deep risk analysis for one or two IT projects/initiatives, as time permits.

    Activities

    3.1 Continue threat and risk assessment activities.

    3.2 As time permits, one to two threat and risk assessment activities will be performed as part of the workshop.

    3.3 Review risk assessment results and compare to risk tolerance level.

    Outputs

    One to two threat and risk assessment activities performed

    Validation of the risk tolerance level

    4 Establish a Risk Register and Communicate Risk

    The Purpose

    Collect, analyze, and aggregate all individual risks into the security risk register.

    Plan for the future of risk management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Established risk register to provide overview of the organizational aggregate risk profile.

    Ability to communicate risk to other stakeholders as needed.

    Activities

    4.1 Begin building a risk register.

    4.2 Identify individual risks and threats that exist in the organization.

    4.3 Decide risk responses, depending on the risk level as it relates to the risk tolerance.

    4.4 If necessary, revisit risk tolerance.

    4.5 Identify which stakeholders sign off on each risk.

    4.6 Plan for the future of risk management.

    4.7 Determine how to present risk to senior management.

    Outputs

    Risk register, with an inventory of risks and a macro view of the organization’s risk

    Defined risk-based initiatives to complete

    Plan for securing and managing the risk register

    Select and Implement an IT PPM Solution

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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
    • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
    • The number of IT project resources and the quantity of IT projects and tasks can no longer be recorded, prioritized, and tracked using non-commercial project portfolio management (PPM) solutions.
    • Your organization has attained a moderate level of PPM maturity.
    • You have sufficient financial and technical resources to purchase a commercial PPM solution.
    • There is a wide variety of commercial PPM solutions; different kinds of PPM solutions are more appropriate for organizations of a certain size and a certain PPM maturity level than others.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Implementations of PPM solutions are often unsuccessful resulting in wasted time and resources; failing to achieve sustainable adoption of the tool is a widespread pain point.
    • The costs of PPM solutions do not end after the implementation and subscription invoices are paid. Have realistic expectations about the time required to use and maintain PPM solutions to ensure success.
    • PPM solutions help PMOs serve the organization’s core decision makers. Success depends on improved service to these stakeholders.

    Impact and Result

    • Using Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape and PPM solution use cases, you will be able to make sense of the diversity of PPM solutions available in today’s market and choose the most appropriate solution for your organization’s size and level of PPM maturity.
    • Info-Tech’s blueprint for a PPM solution selection and implementation project will provide you with a variety of tools and templates.
    • A carefully planned out and executed selection and implementation process will help ensure your organization can maximize the value of your project portfolio and will allow the PMO to improve portfolio stakeholder satisfaction.

    Select and Implement an IT PPM Solution Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement a commercial PPM solution, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Launch the PPM solution project and collect requirements

    Create a PPM solution selection and implementation project charter and gather your organizations business and technical requirements.

    • Select and Implement a PPM Solution – Phase 1: Launch the PPM Solution Project and Collect Requirements
    • PPM Solution Project Charter Template
    • PPM Implementation Work Breakdown Structure
    • PPM Solution Requirements Gathering Tool
    • PPM Solution Cost-of-Use Estimation Tool
    • PPM Solution RFP Template
    • PPM Solution Success Metrics Workbook
    • PPM Solution Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool

    2. Select a PPM solution

    Select the most appropriate PPM solution for your organization by using Info-Tech’s PPM solution Vendor Landscape and use cases to help you create a vendor shortlist, produce an RFP, and establish evaluation criteria for ranking your shortlisted solutions.

    • Select and Implement a PPM Solution – Phase 2: Select a PPM Solution
    • PPM Vendor Shortlist & Detailed Feature Analysis Tool
    • PPM Solution Vendor Response Template
    • PPM Solution Evaluation & RFP Scoring Tool
    • PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script

    3. Plan the PPM solution implementation

    Plan a PPM solution implementation that will result in long-term sustainable adoption of the tool and that will allow the PMO to meet the needs of core project portfolio stakeholders.

    • Select and Implement a PPM Solution – Phase 3: Plan the PPM Solution Implementation
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select and Implement an IT PPM Solution

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Launch the PPM Solution Project and Gather Requirements

    The Purpose

    Create a PPM solution selection and implementation project charter.

    Gather the business and technical requirements for the PPM solution.

    Establish clear and measurable success criteria for your PPM solution project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Comprehensive project plan

    Comprehensive and organized record of the various PPM solution requirements

    A record of PPM solution project goals and criteria that can be used in the future to establish the success of the project

    Activities

    1.1 Brainstorm, refine, and prioritize your PPM solution needs

    1.2 Stakeholder identification exercise

    1.3 Project charter work session

    1.4 Requirements gathering work session

    1.5 PPM solution success metrics workbook session

    Outputs

    High-level outline of PPM solution requirements

    Stakeholder consultation plan

    A draft project charter and action plan to fill in project charter gaps

    A draft requirements workbook and action plan to fill in requirement gathering gaps

    A PPM project success metrics workbook that can be used during and after the project

    2 Select a PPM Solution

    The Purpose

    Identify the PPM solutions that are most appropriate for your organization’s size and level of PPM maturity.

    Create a PPM solution and vendor shortlist.

    Create a request for proposal (RFP).

    Create a PPM solution scoring and evaluation tool.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Knowledge of the PPM solution market and the various features available

    An informed shortlist of PPM vendors

    An organized and focused method for evaluating the often long and complex responses to the RFP that vendors provide

    The groundwork for an informed and defensible selection of a PPM solution for your organization

    Activities

    2.1 Assess the size of your organization and the level of PPM maturity to select the most appropriate use case

    2.2 PPM solution requirements and criteria ranking activity

    2.3 An RFP working session

    2.4 Build an RFP evaluation tool

    Outputs

    Identification of the most appropriate use case in Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape

    A refined and organized list of the core features that will be included in the RFP

    A draft RFP with an action plan to fill in any RFP gaps

    An Excel tool that can be used to compare and evaluate vendors’ responses to the RFP

    3 Prepare for the PPM Solution Implementation

    The Purpose

    To think ahead to the eventual implementation of the solution that will occur once the selection phase is completed

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of key insights and steps that will help avoid mistakes resulting in poor adoption or PPM solutions that end up producing little tangible value

    Activities

    3.1 Outline high-level implementation stages

    3.2 Organizational change management strategy session

    3.3 A PPM project success metrics planning session

    Outputs

    High-level implementation tasks and milestones

    A RACI chart for core implementation tasks

    A high-level PPM solution implementation organizational change management strategy

    A RACI chart for core organizational change management tasks related to the PPM solution implementation

    A PPM project success metrics schedule and plan

    The Rapid Application Selection Framework

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    • Parent Category Name: Selection & Implementation
    • Parent Category Link: /selection-and-implementation
    • Selection takes forever. Traditional software selection drags on for years, sometimes in perpetuity.
    • IT is viewed as a bottleneck and the business has taken control of software selection.
    • “Gut feel” decisions rule the day. Intuition, not hard data, guides selection, leading to poor outcomes.
    • Negotiations are a losing battle. Money is left on the table by inexperienced negotiators.
    • Overall: Poor selection processes lead to wasted time, wasted effort, and applications that continually disappoint.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Adopt a formal methodology to accelerate and improve software selection results.
    • Improve business satisfaction by including the right stakeholders and delivering new applications on a truly timely basis.
    • Kill the “sacred cow” requirements that only exist because “it’s how we’ve always done it.”
    • Forget about “RFP” overload and hone in on the features that matter to your organization.
    • Skip the guesswork and validate decisions with real data.
    • Take control of vendor “dog and pony shows” with single-day, high-value, low-effort, rapid-fire investigative interviews.
    • Master vendor negotiations and never leave money on the table.

    Impact and Result

    Improving software selection is a critical project that will deliver huge value.

    • Hit a home run with your business stakeholders: use a data-driven approach to select the right application vendor for their needs – fast.
    • Shatter stakeholder expectations with truly rapid application selections.
    • Boost collaboration and crush the broken telephone with concise and effective stakeholder meetings.
    • Lock in hard savings and do not pay list price by using data-driven tactics.

    The Rapid Application Selection Framework Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. The Rapid Application Selection Framework

    • The Rapid Application Selection Framework Deck

    2. The Guide to Software Selection: A Business Stakeholder Manual

    • The Guide to Software Selection: A Business Stakeholder Manual

    3. The Software Selection Workbook

    • The Software Selection Workbook

    4. The Vendor Evaluation Workbook

    • The Vendor Evaluation Workbook
    [infographic]

    Mitigate Key IT Employee Knowledge Loss

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    • Parent Category Name: Lead
    • Parent Category Link: /lead

    Seventy-four percent of organizations do not have a formal process for capturing and retaining knowledge - which, when lost, results in decreased productivity, increased risk, and money out the door.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Seventy-four percent of organizations do not have a formal process for capturing and retaining knowledge – which, when lost, results in decreased productivity, increased risk, and money out the door. It’s estimated that Fortune 500 companies lose approximately $31.5 billion each year by failing to share knowledge.
    • Don’t follow a one-size-fits-all approach to knowledge transfer strategy! Right-size your approach based on your business goals.
    • Prioritize knowledge transfer candidates based on their likelihood of departure and the impact of losing that knowledge.
    • Select knowledge transfer tactics based on the type of knowledge that needs to be captured – explicit or tacit.

    Impact and Result

    Successful completion of the IT knowledge transfer project will result in the following outcomes:

    1. Approval for IT knowledge transfer project obtained.
    2. Knowledge and stakeholder risks identified.
    3. Effective knowledge transfer plans built.
    4. Knowledge transfer roadmap built.
    5. Knowledge transfer roadmap communicated and approval obtained.

    Mitigate Key IT Employee Knowledge Loss Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Mitigate Key IT Employee Knowledge Loss Deck – A step-by-step document that walks you through how to transfer knowledge on your team to mitigate risks from employees leaving the organization.

    Minimize risk and IT costs resulting from attrition through effective knowledge transfer.

    • Mitigate Key IT Employee Knowledge Loss Storyboard

    2. Project Stakeholder Register Template – A template to help you identify and document project management stakeholders.

    Use this template to document the knowledge transfer stakeholder power map by identifying the stakeholder’s name and role, and identifying their position on the power map.

    • Project Stakeholder Register Template

    3. IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter Template – Define your project and lay the foundation for subsequent knowledge transfer project planning

    Use this template to communicate the value and rationale for knowledge transfer to key stakeholders.

    • IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter Template

    4. IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool – Identify the risk profile of knowledge sources and the knowledge they have

    Use this tool to identify and assess the knowledge and individual risk of key knowledge holders.

    • IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool

    5. IT Knowledge Transfer Plan Template – A template to help you determine the most effective knowledge transfer tactics to be used for each knowledge source by listing knowledge sources and their knowledge, identifying type of knowledge to be transferred and choosing tactics that are appropriate for the knowledge type

    Use this template to track knowledge activities, intended recipients of knowledge, and appropriate transfer tactics for each knowledge source.

    • IT Knowledge Transfer Plan Template

    6. IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide Template – A template that provides a framework to conduct interviews with knowledge sources, including comprehensive questions that cover what type of knowledge a knowledge source has and how unique the knowledge is

    Use this template as a starting point for managers to interview knowledge sources to extract information about the type of knowledge the source has.

    • IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide Template

    7. IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation Template – A presentation template that provides a vehicle used to communicate IT knowledge transfer recommendations to stakeholders to gain buy-in

    Use this template as a starting point to build your proposed IT knowledge transfer roadmap presentation to management to obtain formal sign-off and initiate the next steps in the process.

    • IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Mitigate Key IT Employee Knowledge Loss

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    Further reading

    Mitigate Key IT Employee Knowledge Loss

    Transfer IT knowledge before it’s gone.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Seventy-four percent of organizations do not have a formal process for capturing and retaining knowledge1 which, when lost, results in decreased productivity, increased risk, and money out the door. You need to:

    • Build a strategic roadmap to retain and share knowledge.
    • Build a knowledge transfer strategy based on your organization’s business goals.
    • Increase departmental efficiencies through increased collaboration.
    • Retain key IT knowledge
    • Improve junior employee engagement by creating development opportunities.
    • Don’t follow a one-size fits all approach. Right-size your approach based on your organizational goals.
    • Prioritize knowledge transfer candidates based on their likelihood of departure and the impact of losing that knowledge.
    • What you’re transferring impacts how you should transfer it. Select knowledge transfer tactics based on the type of knowledge that needs to be captured – explicit or tacit.

    Our client-tested methodology and project steps allow you to tailor your knowledge transfer plan to any size of organization, across industries. Successful completion of the IT knowledge transfer project will result in the following outcomes:

    • Approval for IT knowledge transfer project obtained.
    • Knowledge and stakeholder risks identified.
    • Effective knowledge transfer plans built.
    • Knowledge transfer roadmap built.
    • Knowledge transfer roadmap communicated.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Seventy-four percent of organizations do not have a formal process for capturing and retaining knowledge which, when lost, results in decreased productivity, increased risk, and money out the door.1

    1 McLean & Company, 2016, N=120

    Stop your knowledge from walking out the door

    Today, the value of an organization has less to do with its fixed assets and more to do with its intangible assets. Intangible assets include patents, research and development, business processes and software, employee training, and employee knowledge and capability.

    People (and their knowledge and capabilities) are an organization’s competitive advantage and with the baby boomer retirement looming, organizations need to invest in capturing employee knowledge before the employees leave. Losing employees in key roles without adequate preparation for their departure has a direct impact on the bottom line in terms of disrupted productivity, severed relationships, and missed opportunities.

    Knowledge Transfer (KT) is the process and tactics by which intangible assets – expertise, knowledge, and capabilities – are transferred from one stakeholder to another. A well-devised knowledge transfer plan will mitigate the risk of knowledge loss, yet as many as 74%2 of organizations have no formal approach to KT – and it’s costing them money, reputation, and time.

    84%of all enterprise value on the S&P 500 is intangibles.3

    $31.5 billion lost annually by Fortune 500 companies failing to share knowledge. 1

    74% of organizations have no formal process for facilitating knowledge transfer. 2

    1 Shedding Light on Knowledge Management, 2004, p. 46

    2 McLean & Company, 2016, N=120

    3 Visual Capitalists, 2020

    Losing knowledge will undermine your organization’s strategy in four ways

    In a worst-case scenario, key employees leaving will result in the loss of valuable knowledge, core business relationships, and profits.

    1

    Inefficiency due to “reinvention of the wheel.” When older workers leave and don’t effectively transfer their knowledge, younger generations duplicate effort to solve problems and find solutions.

    2

    Loss of competitive advantage. What and who you know is a tremendous source of competitive edge. Losing knowledge and/or established client relationships hurts your asset base and stifles growth, especially in terms of proprietary or unique knowledge.

    3

    Reduced capacity to innovate. Older workers know what works and what doesn’t, as well as what’s new and what’s not. They can identify the status quo faster, to make way for novel thinking.

    4

    Increased vulnerability. One thing that comes with knowledge is a deeper understanding of risk. Losing knowledge can impede your organizational ability to identify, understand, and mitigate risks. You’ll have to learn through experience all over again.

    Are you part of the 74% of organizations with no knowledge transfer planning in place? Can you afford not to have it?

    Consider this:

    55-60

    67%

    78%

    $14k / minute

    the average age of mainframe workers – making close to 50% of workers over 60.2

    of Fortune 100 companies still use mainframes3 requiring. specialized skills and knowledge

    of CIOs report mainframe applications will remain a key asset in the next decade.1

    is the cost of mainframe outages for an average enterprise.1

    A system failure to a mainframe could be disastrous for organizations that haven’t effectively transferred key knowledge. Now think past the mainframe to key processes, customer/vendor relationships, legal requirements, home grown solutions etc. in your organization.

    What would knowledge loss cost you in terms of financial and reputational loss?

    Source: 1 Big Tech Problem as Mainframes Outlast Workforce

    Source: 2 IT's most wanted: Mainframe programmers

    Source: 3The State of the Mainframe, 2022

    Case Study

    Insurance organization fails to mitigate risk of employee departure and incurs costly consequences – in the millions

    INDUSTRY: Insurance

    SOURCE: ITRG Member

    Challenge

    Solution

    Results

    • A rapidly growing organization's key Senior System Architect unexpectedly fell ill and needed to leave the organization.
    • This individual had been with the organization for more than 25 years and was the primary person in IT responsible for several mission-critical systems.
    • Following this individual’s departure, one of the systems unexpectedly went down.
    • As this individual had always been the go-to person for the system, and issues were few and far between, no one had thought to document key system elements and no knowledge transfer had taken place.
    • The failed system cost the organization more than a million dollars in lost revenue.
    • The organization needed to hire a forensic development team to reverse engineer the system.
    • This cost the organization another $200k in consulting fees plus the additional cost of training existing employees on a system which they had originally been hoping to upgrade.

    Forward thinking organizations use knowledge transfer not only to avoid risks, but to drive IT innovation

    IT knowledge transfer is a process that, at its most basic level, ensures that essential IT knowledge and capabilities don’t leave the organization – and at its most sophisticated level, drives innovation and customer service by leveraging knowledge assets.

    Knowledge Transfer Risks:

    Knowledge Transfer Opportunities:

    ✗ Increased training and development costs when key stakeholders leave the organization.

    ✗ Decreased efficiency through long development cycles.

    ✗ Late projects that tie up IT resources longer than planned, and cost overruns that come out of the IT budget.

    ✗ Lost relationships with key stakeholders within and outside the organization.

    ✗ Inconsistent project/task execution, leading to inconsistent outcomes.

    ✗ IT losing its credibility due to system or project failure from lost information.

    ✗ Customer dissatisfaction from inconsistent service.

    ✓ Mitigated risks and costs from talent leaving the organization.

    ✓ Business continuity through redundancies preventing service interruptions and project delays.

    ✓ Operational efficiency through increased productivity by never having to start projects from scratch.

    ✓ Increased engagement from junior staff through development planning.

    ✓ Innovation by capitalizing on collective knowledge.

    ✓ Increased ability to adapt to change and save time-to-market.

    ✓ IT teams that drive process improvement and improved execution.

    Common obstacles

    In building your knowledge transfer roadmap, the size of your organization can present unique challenges

    How you build your knowledge transfer roadmap will not change drastically based on the size of your organization; however, the scope of your initiative, tactics you employ, and your communication plan for knowledge transfer may change.


    How knowledge transfer projects vary by organization size:

    Small Organization

    Medium Organization

    Large Organization

    Project Opportunities

    ✓ Project scope is much more manageable.

    ✓ Communication and planning can be more manageable.

    ✓ Fewer knowledge sources and receivers can clarify prioritization needs.

    ✓ Project scope is more manageable.

    ✓ Moderate budget for knowledge transfer activities.

    ✓ Communication and enforcement is easier.

    ✓ Budget available to knowledge transfer initiatives.

    ✓ In-house expertise may be available.

    Project Risks

    ✗ Limited resources for the project.

    ✗ In-house expertise is unlikely.

    ✗ Knowledge transfer may be informal and not documented.

    ✗ Limited overlap in responsibilities, resulting in fewer redundancies.

    ✗ Limited staff with knowledge transfer experience for the project.

    ✗ Knowledge assets are less likely to be documented.

    ✗ Knowledge transfer may be a lower priority and difficult to generate buy-in.

    ✗ More staff to manage knowledge transfer for, and much larger scope for the project.

    ✗ Impact of poor knowledge transfer can result in much higher costs.

    ✗Geographically dispersed business units make collaboration and communication difficult.

    ✗ Vast amounts of historical knowledge to capture.

    Capture both explicit and tacit knowledge

    Explicit

    Tacit

    • “What knowledge” – knowledge can be articulated, codified, and easily communicated.
    • Easily explained and captured – documents, memos, speeches, books, manuals, process diagrams, facts, etc.
    • Learn through reading or being told.
    • “How knowledge” – intangible knowledge from an individual’s experience that is more from the process of learning, understanding, and applying information (insights, judgments, and intuition).
    • Hard to verbalize, and difficult to capture and quantify.
    • Learn through observation, imitation, and practice.

    Types of explicit knowledge

    Types of tacit knowledge

    Information

    • Specialized technical knowledge.
    • Unique design capabilities/ methods/ models.
    • Legacy systems, details, passwords.
    • Special formulas/algorithms/ techniques/contacts.

    Process

    • Specialized research and development processes.
    • Proprietary production processes.
    • Decision-making processes.
    • Legacy systems.
    • Variations from documented processes.

    Skills

    • Techniques for executing on processes.
    • Relationship management.
    • Competencies built through deliberate practice enabling someone to act effectively.

    Expertise

    • Company history and values.
    • Relationships with key stakeholders.
    • Tips and tricks.
    • Competitor history and differentiators.

    Examples: reading music, building a bike, knowing the alphabet, watching a YouTube video on karate.

    Examples: playing the piano, riding a bike, reading or speaking a language, earning a black belt in karate.

    Knowledge transfer is not a one-size-fits-all project

    The image contains a picture of Info-Tech's Knowledge Transfer Maturity Model. Level 0: Accidental, goal is not prioritized. Level 1: Stabilize, goal is risk mitigation. Level 2: Proactive, goal is operational efficiency. Level 3: Knowledge Culture, goal is innovation & customer service.

    No formal knowledge transfer program exists; knowledge transfer is ad hoc, or may be conducted through an exit interview only.

    74% of organizations are at level 0.1

    At level one, knowledge transfer is focused around ensuring that high risk, explicit knowledge is covered for all high-risk stakeholders.

    Organizations have knowledge transfer plans for all high-risk knowledge to ensure redundancies exist and leverage this to drive process improvements, effectiveness, and employee engagement.

    Increase end-user satisfaction and create a knowledge value center by leveraging the collective knowledge to solve repeat customer issues and drive new product innovation.

    1 Source: McLean & Company, 2016, N=120

    Assess your fit for this blueprint by considering the following statements

    I’m an IT Leader who…

    Stabilize

    …has witnessed that new employees have recently left or are preparing to leave the organization, and worries that we don’t have their knowledge captured anywhere.

    …previously had to cut down our IT department, and as a result there is a lack of redundancy for tasks. If someone leaves, we don’t have the information we need to continue operating effectively.

    …is worried that the IT department has no succession planning in place and that we’re opening ourselves up to risk.

    Proactive

    …feels like we are losing productivity because the same problems are being solved differently multiple times.

    …worries that different employees have unique knowledge which is critical to performance and that they are the only ones who know about it.

    …has noticed that the processes people are using are different from the ones that are written down.

    …feels like the IT department is constantly starting projects from scratch, and employees aren’t leveraging each other’s information, which is causing inefficiencies.

    …feels like new employees take too long to get up to speed.

    …knows that we have undocumented systems and more are being built each day.

    Knowledge Culture

    …feels like we’re losing out on opportunities to innovate because we’re not sharing information, learning from others’ mistakes, or capitalizing on their successes.

    …notices that staff don’t have a platform to share information on a regular basis, and believes if we brought that information together, we would be able to improve customer service and drive product innovation.

    …wants to create a culture where employees are valued for their competencies and motivated to learn.

    …values knowledge and the contributions of my team.

    This blueprint can help you build a roadmap to resolve each of these pain points. However, not all organizations need to have a knowledge culture. In the next section, we will walk you through the steps of selecting your target maturity model based on your knowledge goals.

    Case Study

    Siemens builds a knowledge culture to drive customer service improvements and increases sales by $122 million

    INDUSTRY: Electronics Engineering

    SOURCE: KM Best Practices

    Challenge

    Solution

    Results

    • As a large electronics and engineering global company, Siemens was facing increased global competition.
    • There was an emphasized need for agility and specialized knowledge to remain competitive.
    • The new company strategy to address competitive forces focused on becoming a knowledge enterprise and improving knowledge-sharing processes.
    • New leadership roles were created to develop a knowledge management culture.
    • “Communities of practice” were created with the goal of “connecting people to people” by allowing them to share best practices and information across departments.
    • An internal information-sharing program was launched that combined chat, database, and search engine capabilities for 12,000 employees.
    • Employees were able to better focus on customer needs based on offering services and products with high knowledge content.
    • With the improved customer focus, sales increased by $122 million and there was a return of $10-$20 per dollar spent on investment in the communities of practice.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Five steps to future-proof your IT team

    The five steps are in a cycle. The five steps are: Obtain approval for IT knowledge transfer project, Identify your  knowledge and stakeholder risks, Build knowledge transfer plans, Build your knowledge transfer roadmap, Communicate your knowledge transfer roadmap to stakeholders.

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Successfully build a knowledge transfer roadmap based on your goals, no matter what market segment or size of business.
    2. Increase departmental efficiencies through increased collaboration.
    3. Retain key IT knowledge.
    4. Improve junior employee engagement by creating development opportunities.

    Use Info-Tech tools and templates

    Project outcomes

    1. Approval for IT knowledge transfer project obtained

    2. Knowledge and stakeholder risks identified

    3. Tactics for individuals’ knowledge transfer identified

    4. Knowledge transfer roadmap built

    5. Knowledge transfer roadmap approved

    Info-Tech tools and templates to help you complete your project deliverables

    Project Stakeholder Register Template

    IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool

    IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide Template

    Project Planning and Monitoring Tool

    IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation Template

    IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter Template

    IT Knowledge Transfer Plan Template

    Your completed project deliverables

    IT Knowledge Transfer Plans

    IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation

    IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap

    Info-Tech’s methodology to mitigate key IT employee knowledge loss

    1. Initiate

    2. Design

    3. Implement

    Phase Steps

    1. Obtain approval for IT knowledge transfer project.
    2. Identify your knowledge and stakeholder risks.
    1. Build knowledge transfer plans.
    2. Build your knowledge transfer roadmap.
    1. Communicate your knowledge transfer roadmap to stakeholders.

    Phase Outcomes

    • Approval for IT knowledge transfer project obtained.
    • Knowledge and stakeholder risks identified.
    • IT knowledge transfer project charter created.
    • Tactics for individuals’ knowledge transfer identified.
    • Knowledge transfer roadmap built.
    • IT knowledge transfer plans established.
    • IT Knowledge transfer roadmap presented.
    • Knowledge transfer roadmap approved.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter

    Establish a clear project scope, decision rights, and executive sponsorship for the project.

    The image contains a screenshot of the IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter.

    IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool

    Identify and assess the knowledge and individual risk of key knowledge holders.

    The image contains a screenshot of the IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool.

    IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide

    Extract information about the type of knowledge sources have.

    The image contains a screenshot of the IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide.

    IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation

    Communicate IT knowledge transfer recommendations to stakeholders to gain buy-in.

    The image contains a screenshot of the IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation.

    Key deliverable:

    IT Knowledge Transfer Plan

    Track knowledge activities, intended recipients, and appropriate transfer tactics for each knowledge source.

    The image contains a screenshot of the IT Knowledge Transfer Plan.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    Business Benefits

    • Business continuity through redundancies preventing service interruptions and project delays.
    • Operational efficiency through increased productivity by never having to start projects from scratch.
    • Increased engagement from junior staff through development planning.
    • IT teams that drive process improvement and improved execution.
    • Mitigated risks and costs from talent leaving the organization.
    • Innovation by capitalizing on collective knowledge.
    • Increased ability to adapt to change and save time-to-market.

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

    Call #1: Structure the project. Discuss transfer maturity goal and metrics.

    Call #2: Build knowledge transfer plans.

    Call #3: Identify priorities & review risk assessment tool.

    Call #4: Build knowledge transfer roadmap. Determine logistics of implementation.

    Call #5: Determine logistics of 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 five to six calls.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Define the Current and Target State

    Identify Knowledge Priorities

    Build Knowledge Transfer Plans

    Define the Knowledge Transfer Roadmap

    Next Steps and
    Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    1.1 Have knowledge transfer fireside chat.

    1.2 Identify current and target maturity.

    1.3 Identify knowledge transfer metrics

    1.4 Identify knowledge transfer project stakeholders

    2.1 Identify your knowledge sources.

    2.2 Complete a knowledge risk assessment.

    2.3 Identify knowledge sources’ level of knowledge risk.

    3.1 Build an interview guide.

    3.2 Interview knowledge holders.

    4.1 Prioritize the sequence of initiatives.

    4.2 Complete the project roadmap.

    4.3 Prepare communication presentation.

    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. Organizational benefits and current pain points of knowledge transfer.
    2. Identification of target state of maturity.
    3. Metrics for knowledge transfer.
    4. Project stakeholder register.
    1. List of high risk knowledge sources.
    2. Departure analysis.
    3. Knowledge risk analysis.
    1. Knowledge transfer interview guide.
    2. Itemized knowledge assets.
    1. Prioritized sequence based on target state maturity goals.
    2. Project roadmap.
    3. Communication deck.

    Phase #1

    Initiate your IT knowledge transfer project

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Obtain approval for project

    1.2 Identify knowledge and stakeholder risks

    2.1 Build knowledge transfer plans

    2.2 Build knowledge transfer roadmap

    3.1 Communicate your roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Hold a working session with key stakeholders.
    • Identify your current state of maturity for knowledge transfer.
    • Identify your target state of maturity for knowledge transfer.
    • Define key knowledge transfer metrics.
    • Identify your project team and their responsibilities.
    • Build the project charter and obtain approval.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT Leadership
    • Other key stakeholders

    Step 1.1

    Obtain Approval for Your IT Knowledge Transfer Project

    Activities

    1.1.1 Hold a Working Session With Key Stakeholders

    1.1.2 Conduct a Current and Target State Analysis.

    1.1.3 Identify Key Metrics

    1.1.4 Identify Your Project Team

    1.1.5 Populate an RACI

    1.1.6 Build the Project Charter and Obtain Approval

    Initiate Your IT Knowledge Transfer Project

    The primary goal of this section is to gain a thorough understanding of the reasons why your organization should invest in knowledge transfer and to identify the specific challenges to address.

    Outcomes of this step

    Organizational benefits and current pain points of knowledge transfer

    Hold a working session with the key stakeholders to structure the project

    Don’t build your project charter in a vacuum. Involve key stakeholders to determine the desired knowledge transfer goals, target maturity and KPIs, and ultimately build the project charter.

    Building the project charter as a group will help you to clarify your key messages and help secure buy-in from critical stakeholders up-front, which is key.

    In order to execute on the knowledge transfer project, you will need significant involvement from your IT leadership team. The trouble is that knowledge transfer can be inherently stressful for employees as it can cause concerns around job security. Members of your IT leadership team will also be individuals who need to participate in knowledge transfer, so get them involved upfront. The working session will help stakeholders feel more engaged in the project, which is pivotal for success.

    You may feel like a full project charter isn’t necessary, and depending on your organizational size, it might not be. However, the exercise of building the charter is important regardless. No matter your current climate, some level of socializing the value and plans for knowledge transfer will be necessary.

    Meeting Agenda

    1. Short project introduction
    2. Led by: Project Sponsor

    • Why the project was initiated.
  • Make the case for the project
  • Led by: Project Manager

    • Current state: What project does the project address?
    • Future state: What is our target state of maturity?
  • Success criteria
  • Led by: Project Manager

    • How will success be measured?
  • Define the project team
  • Led by: Project Manager

    • Description of planned project approach.
    • Stakeholder assessment.
    • What is required of the sponsor and stakeholders?
  • Determine next steps
  • Led by: Project Manager

    1.1.1 Key Stakeholder Working Session

    Identify the pain points you’re experiencing with knowledge transfer and some of the benefits which you’d like to see from a program to determine the key objectives By doing so, you’ll get a holistic view of what you need to achieve.

    Collect this information by:

    1. Asking the working group participants (as a whole or in smaller groups) to discuss pain points created by ineffective knowledge transfer practices.
    • Challenges related to stakeholders.
    • Challenges created by process issues.
    • Issues achieving the intended outcome due to ineffective knowledge transfer.
    • Difficulties improving knowledge transfer practices.
  • Discussing opportunities to be gained from improving these practices.
  • Having participants write these down on sticky notes and place them on a whiteboard or flip chart.
  • Reviewing all the points as a group and grouping challenges and benefits into themes.
  • Having the group prioritize the risks and benefits in terms of what the solution “must have,” “should have,” “could have,” and “won’t have.”
  • Documenting this in the IT Knowledge Transfer Charter template.
  • Input Output
    • Reasons for the project
    • Stakeholder requirements
    • Pain point and risks
    • Identified next steps
    • Target state
    • Completed IT Knowledge Transfer Charter
    Materials Participants
    • Agenda (see previous slide)
    • Sticky notes (optional)
    • Pens (optional)
    • Whiteboard (optional
    • Markers (optional)
    • IT leadership

    Examples of Possible Pain Points

    • Employees have recently left or are preparing to leave the organization, and we worry that we don’t have their knowledge captured anywhere.
    • We previously had to cut down our IT department, and as a result there is a lack of redundancy for tasks. If someone leaves, we don’t have the information we need to continue operating effectively.
    • We’re worried that the IT department has no succession planning in place and that we’re opening ourselves up to risk.
    • It feels like we are losing productivity because the same problems are being solved multiple times, differently.
    • We’re worried that different employees have unique knowledge which is critical to performance, and that they are the only ones who know about it.
    • We’ve noticed that the processes people are using are different from the ones that are written down.
    • It feels like the IT department is constantly starting projects from scratch and employees aren’t leveraging each other’s information, which is causing inefficiencies.
    • It feels like new employees take too long to get up to speed.
    • We know that we have undocumented systems and more are being built each day.
    • We feel like we’re losing out on opportunities to innovate because we’re not sharing information, learning from others’ mistakes, or capitalizing on their successes.
    • We’ve noticed that staff don’t have a platform to share information on a regular basis. We believe if we brought that information together, we would be better able to improve customer service and drive product innovation.
    • We want to create a culture where employees are valued for their competencies and motivated to learn.
    • We value knowledge and the contributions of our team.

    1.1.2 Conduct a Current and Target State Analysis

    Identify your current and target state of maturity

    How to determine your current and target state of maturity:

    1. Provide the previous two slides with the details of the maturity assessment to the group, to review.
    2. Ask each participant to individually determine what they think is the IT team’s current state of maturity. After a few minutes, discuss as a group and come to an agreement.
    3. Review each of the benefits and timing for each of the maturity levels. Compare the benefits listed to those that you named in the previous exercise and determine which maturity level best describes your target state.
    4. Discuss as a group and agree on one maturity level.
    5. Review the other levels of maturity and determine what is in and out of scope for the project (hint: higher level benefits would be considered out of scope). Document this in the IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter template.
    Input Output
    • Knowledge Transfer Maturity Level charts
    • Target maturity level documented in the IT Knowledge Transfer Charter
    Materials Participants
    • Paper and pens
    • Handouts of maturity levels
    • IT Leadership Team

    IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter Template

    Info-Tech’s Knowledge Transfer Maturity Model

    Depending on the level of maturity you are trying to achieve, a knowledge transfer project could take weeks, months, or even years. Your maturity level depends on the business goal you would like to achieve, and impacts who and what your roadmap targets.

    The image contains a picture of Info-Tech's Knowledge Transfer Maturity Model. Level 0: Accidental, goal is not prioritized. Level 1: Stabilize, goal is risk mitigation. Level 2: Proactive, goal is operational efficiency. Level 3: Knowledge Culture, goal is innovation & customer service.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The maturity levels build on one another; if you start with a project, it is possible to move from a level 0 to a level 1, and once the project is complete, you can advance to a level 2 or 3. However, it’s important to set clear boundaries upfront to limit scope creep, and it’s important to set appropriate expectations for what the project will deliver.

    Knowledge Transfer Maturity Level: Accidental and Stabilize

    Goal

    Description

    Time to implement

    Benefits

    Level 0: Accidental

    Not Prioritized

    • No knowledge transfer process is present.
    • Knowledge transfer is completed in an ad hoc manner.
    • Some transfer may take place through exit interviews.

    N/A

    • Simple to implement and maintain.

    Level 1: Stabilize

    Risk Mitigation

    At level one, knowledge transfer is focused around ensuring that redundancies exist for explicit knowledge for:

    1. ALL high-risk knowledge.
    2. ALL high-risk stakeholders.

    Your high-risk knowledge is any information which is proprietary, unique, or specialized.

    High risk stakeholders are those individuals who are at a higher likelihood of departing the organization due to retirement or disengagement.

    0 – 6 months

    • Mitigates risks from talent leaving the organization.
    • Ensures business continuity through redundancies.
    • Provides stability to sustain high-performing services, and mitigates risks from service interruptions.

    Knowledge Transfer Maturity Level: Proactive and Knowledge Culture

    Goal

    Description

    Time to implement

    Benefits

    Level 2: Proactive

    Operational Efficiency

    Level 2 extends Level 1.

    Once stabilized, you can work on KT initiatives that allow you to be more proactive and cover high risk knowledge that may not be held by those see as high risk individuals.

    Knowledge transfer plans must exist for ALL high risk knowledge.

    3m – 1yr

    • Enhances productivity by reducing need to start projects from scratch.
    • Increases efficiency by tweaking existing processes with best practices.
    • Sees new employees become productive more quickly through targeted development planning.
    • Increases chance that employees will stay at the organization longer, if they can see growth opportunities.
    • Streamlines efficiencies by eliminating redundant or unnecessary processes.

    Level 3: Knowledge Culture

    Drive Innovation Through Knowledge

    Level 3 extends Level 2.

    • Knowledge Transfer covers explicit and tacit information throughout the IT organization.
    • The program should be integrated with leadership development and talent management.
    • Key metrics should be tied to process improvement, innovation, and customer service.

    1-2 years

    • Increases end-user satisfaction by leveraging the collective knowledge to solve repeat customer issues.
    • Drives product innovation through collaboration.
    • Increases employee engagement by recognizing and rewarding knowledge sharing.
    • Increases your ability to adapt to change and save time-to-market through increased learning.
    • Enables the development of new ideas through iteration.
    • Supports faster access to knowledge.

    Select project-specific KPIs

    Use the selected KPIs to track the value of knowledge transfer

    You need to ensure your knowledge transfer initiatives are having the desired effect and adjust course when necessary. Establishing an upfront list of key performance indicators that will be benchmarked and tracked is a crucial step.

    Many organizations overlook the creation of KPIs for knowledge transfer because the benefits are often one step removed from the knowledge transfer itself. However, there are several metrics you can use to measure success.

    Hint: Metrics will vary based on your knowledge transfer maturity goals.

    Metrics For Knowledge Transfer

    Creating KPIs for knowledge transfer is a crucial step that many organizations overlook because the benefits are often one step removed from the knowledge transfer itself. However, there are several qualitative and quantitative metrics you can use to measure success depending on your maturity level goals.

    Stabilize

    • Number of high departure risk employees identified.
    • Number of high-risk employees without knowledge transfer plans.
    • Number of post-retirement knowledge issues.

    Be Proactive

    • Number of issues arising from lack of redundancy.
    • Percentage of high-risk knowledge items without transfer plans.
    • Time required to get new employees up to speed.

    Promote Knowledge Culture

    • Percentage of returned deliverables for rework.
    • Percentage of errors repeated in reports.
    • Number of employees mentoring their colleagues.
    • Number of issues solved through knowledge sharing.
    • Percentage of employees with knowledge transfer/development plans.

    1.1.3 Identify Key Metrics

    Identify key metrics the organization will use to measure knowledge transfer success

    How to determine knowledge transfer metrics:

    1. Assign each participant 1-4 of the desired knowledge transfer benefits and pain points which you identified as priorities.
    2. Independently have them brainstorm how they would measure the success of each, and after 10 minutes, present their thoughts to the group.
    3. Write each of the metric suggestions on a whiteboard and agree to 3-5 benefits which you will track. The metrics you choose should relate to the key pain points you have identified and match your desired maturity level.
    InputOutput
    • Knowledge transfer pain points and benefits
    • 3-5 key metrics to track
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard
    • IT Leadership Team

    Identify knowledge transfer project team

    Determine Project Participants

    Pick a Project Sponsor

    • The project participants are the IT managers and directors whose day-to-day lives will be impacted by the knowledge transfer roadmap and its implementation.
    • These individuals will be your roadmap ream and will help with planning. Most of these individuals should be in the workshop, but ensure you have everyone covered. Some examples of individuals you should consider for your team are:
      • Director/Manager Level:
        • Applications
        • Infrastructure
        • Operations
      • Service Delivery Managers
      • Business Relationship Managers
    • The project sponsor should be a member of your IT department’s senior executive team whose goals and objectives will be impacted by knowledge transfer implementation.
      • This is the person you will get to sign-off on the project charter document.
    The image contains a triangle that has been split into three parts. The top section is labelled: Project Sponsor, middle section: Project Participants, and the bottom is labelled Project Stakeholders.

    The project sponsor is the main catalyst for the creation of the roadmap. They will be the one who signs off on the project roadmap.

    The Project Participants are the key stakeholders in your organization whose input will be pivotal to the creation of the roadmap.

    The project stakeholders are the senior executives who have a vested interest in knowledge transfer. Following completion of this workshop, you will present your roadmap to these individuals for approval.

    1.1.4 Identify Your Project Team

    How to define the knowledge transfer project team:

    1. Through discussion, generate a complete list of key stakeholders, considering each of the roles indicated in the chart on the Key Project Management Stakeholders slide. Write their names on a whiteboard.
    2. Using the quadrant template on the next slide, draw the stakeholder power map.
    3. Evaluate each stakeholder on the list based on their level of influence and support of the project. Write the stakeholder’s name on a sticky note and place it in the appropriate place on the grid.
    4. Create an engagement plan based on the stakeholder’s placement.
    5. Use Info-Tech’s Project Stakeholder Register Template to identify and document your project management stakeholders.

    Project Stakeholder Register Template

    Input Output
    • Initial stakeholder analysis
    • Complete list of project participants.
    • Complete project stakeholder register.
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard / Flip chart
    • Markers / Pens
    • Project Stakeholder Register Template
    • IT Leadership Team
    • Other stakeholders

    Have a strategic approach for engaging stakeholders to help secure buy-in

    If your IT leadership team isn’t on board, you’re in serious trouble! IT leaders will not only be highly involved in the knowledge transfer project, but they also may be participants, so it’s essential that you get their buy-in for the project upfront.

    Document the results in the Project Stakeholder Register Template; use this as a guide to help structure your communication with stakeholders based on where they fall on the grid.

    How to Manage:

    Focus on increasing these stakeholders’ level of support!

    1. Have a one-on-one meeting to seek their views on critical issues and address concerns.
    2. Identify key pain points they have experienced and incorporate these in the project goal statements.
    3. Where possible, leverage KT champions to help encourage support.
    The image contains a small graph to demonstrate the noise makers, the blockers, the changers, and the helpers.

    Capitalize on champions to drive the project/change.

    1. Use them for internal PR of the objectives and benefits.
    2. Ask them what other stakeholders can be leveraged.
    3. Involve them early in creating project documents.

    How to Manage:

    How to Manage:

    Pick your battles – focus on your noise makers first, and then move on to your blockers.

    1. Determine the level of involvement the blockers will have in the project (i.e. what you will need from them in the future) and determine next steps based on this (one-on-one meeting, group meeting, informal communication, or leveraging helpers/ champions to encourage them).

    Leverage this group where possible to help socialize the program and to help encourage dissenters to support.

    1. Mention their support in group settings.
    2. Focus on increasing their understanding via informal communication.

    How to Manage:

    Key Project Management Stakeholders

    Role

    Project Role

    Required

    CIO

    Will often play the role of project sponsor and should be involved in key decision points.

    IT Managers Directors

    Assist in the identification of high-risk stakeholders and knowledge and will be heavily involved in the development of each transfer plan.

    Project Manager

    Should be in charge of leading the development and execution of the project.

    Business Analysts

    Responsible for knowledge transfer elicitation analysis and validation for the knowledge transfer project.

    Situational

    Technical Lead

    Responsible for solution design where required for knowledge transfer tactics.

    HR

    Will aid in the identification of high-risk stakeholders or help with communication and stakeholder management.

    Legal

    Organizations that are subject to knowledge confidentiality, Sarbanes-Oxley, federal rules, etc. may need legal to participate in planning.

    Ensure coverage of all project tasks

    Populate a Project RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) chart

    Apps MGR

    Dev. MGR

    Infra MGR

    Build the project charter

    R

    R

    I

    Identify IT stakeholders

    R

    R

    I

    Identify high risk stakeholders

    R

    A

    R

    Identify high risk knowledge

    I C C

    Validate prioritized stakeholders

    I C R

    Interview key stakeholders

    R R A

    Identify knowledge transfer tactics for individuals

    C C A

    Communicate knowledge transfer goals

    C R A

    Build the knowledge transfer roadmap

    C R A

    Approve knowledge transfer roadmap

    C R C

    1.1.5 Populate an RACI

    Populate a RACI chart to identify who should be responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for each key activity.

    How to define RACI for the project team:

    1. Write out the list of all stakeholders along the top of a whiteboard. Write out the key project steps along the left-hand side (use this list as a starting point).
    2. For each initiative, identify each team member’s role. Are they:
    3. Responsible: The one responsible for getting the job done.

      Accountable: Only one person can be accountable for each task.

      Consulted: Involvement through input of knowledge and information.

      Informed: Receiving information about process execution and quality.

    4. As you proceed through the project, continue to add tasks and assign responsibility to the RACI chart on the next slide.
    InputOutput
    • Stakeholder list
    • Key project steps
    • Project RACI chart
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard
    • IT Leadership Team

    1.1.6 Build the Project Charter and Obtain Sign-off

    Complete the IT knowledge transfer project charter.

    Build the project charter and obtain sign-off from your project sponsor. Use your organization’s project charter if one exists. If not, customize Info-Tech’s IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter Template to suit your needs.

    The image contains a screenshot of the IT knowledge transfer project charter template.

    IT Knowledge Transfer Project Charter Template

    Step 1.2

    Identify Your Knowledge and Stakeholder Risks

    Activities

    1.2.1 Identify Knowledge Sources

    1.2.2 Complete a Knowledge Risk Assessment

    1.2.3 Review the Prioritized List of Knowledge Sources

    The primary goal of this section is to identify who your primary risk targets are for knowledge transfer.

    Outcomes of this step

    • A list of your high-risk knowledge sources
    • Departure analysis
    • Knowledge risk analysis

    Prioritize your knowledge transfer initiatives

    Throughout this section, we will walk through the following 3 activities in the tool to determine where you need to focus attention for your knowledge transfer roadmap based on knowledge value and likelihood of departure.

    1. Identify Knowledge Sources

    Create a list of knowledge sources for whom you will be conducting the analysis, and identify which sources currently have a transfer plan in place.

    2. Value of Knowledge

    Consider the type of knowledge held by each identified knowledge source and determine the level of risk based on the knowledge:

    1. Criticality
    2. Availability

    3. Likelihood of Departure

    Identify the knowledge source’s risk of leaving the organization based on their:

    1. Age cohort
    2. Engagement level

    This tool contains sensitive information. Do not share this tool with knowledge sources. The BA and Project Manager, and potentially the project sponsor, should be the only ones who see the completed tool.

    The image contains screenshots from the Knowledge Risk Assessment Tool.

    Focus on key roles instead of all roles in IT

    Identify Key Roles

    Hold a meeting with your IT Leadership team, or meet with members individually, and ask these questions to identify key roles:

    • What are the roles that have a significant impact on delivering the business strategy?
    • What are the key differentiating roles for our IT organization?
    • Which roles, if vacant, would leave the organization open to non-compliance with regulatory or legal requirements?
    • Which roles have a direct impact on the customer?
    • Which roles, if vacant, would create system, function, or process failure for the organization?

    Key roles include:

    • Strategic roles: Roles that give the greatest competitive advantage. Often these are roles that involve decision-making responsibility.
    • Core roles: Roles that must provide consistent results to achieve business goals.
    • Proprietary roles: Roles that are tied closely to unique or proprietary internal processes or knowledge that cannot be procured externally. These are often highly technical or specialized.
    • Required roles: Roles that support the department and are required to keep it moving forward day-to-day.
    • Influential roles: Positions filled by employees who are the backbone of the organization, i.e. the go-to people who are the corporate culture.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This step is meant to help speed up and simplify the process for large IT organizations. IT organizations with fewer than 30 people, or organizations looking to build a knowledge culture, can opt to skip this step and include all members of the IT team. This way, everyone is considered and you can prioritize accordingly.

    1.2.1 Identify Key Knowledge Sources

    1. Identify key roles, as shown on the previous slide. This can be done by brainstorming names on sticky notes and placing them on a whiteboard.
    2. Document using IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool Tab 2. Input with first name, last name, department/ IT area, and manager of each identified Knowledge Source.
    3. Also answer the question of whether the Knowledge Source currently has a knowledge transfer plan in place.
    • Not in place
    • Partially in place
    • In place
  • Conduct sanity check: once you have identified key roles, ask – “did we miss anybody?”
  • InputOutput
    • Employee list
    • List of knowledge sources for IT
    MaterialsParticipants
    • IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool.
    • IT Leadership Team

    IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool

    Document key knowledge sources (example)

    Use information about the current state of knowledge transfer plans in your organization to understand your key risks and focus areas.

    The image contains a screenshot of the knowledge source.

    Legend:

    1. Document knowledge source information (name, department, and manager).

    2. Select the current state of knowledge transfer plans for each knowledge source.

    Once you have identified key roles, conduct a sanity check and ask – “did we miss anybody?” For example:

    • There are three systems administrators. One of them, Joe, has been with the organization for 15 years.
    • Joe’s intimate systems knowledge and long-term relationship with one of the plant systems vendors has made him a go-to person during times of operational systems crisis and has resulted in systems support discounts.
    • While the systems administrator role by itself is not considered key (partly due to role redundancy), Joe is a key person to flag for knowledge transfer activities as losing him would make achieving core business goals more difficult.

    Case Study

    Municipal government learns the importance of thorough knowledge source identification after losing key stakeholder

    INDUSTRY: Government

    Challenge

    Solution

    Results

    • A municipal government was introducing a new integration project that was led by their controller.
    • The controller left abruptly, and while the HR department conducted an exit interview, they didn’t realize until after the individual had left how much information was lost.
    • Nobody knew the information needed to complete the integration, so they had to make do with what they had.
    • The Director of IT at the time was the most familiar with the process.
    • Even though she would not normally do this type of project, at the time she was the only person with knowledge of the process and luckily was able to complete the integration.
    • The Director of IT had to put other key projects on hold, and lost productivity on other prioritized work.
    • The organization realized how much they were at risk and changed how they approached knowledge. They created a new process to identify “single point of failures” and label people as high risk. These processes started with the support organization’s senior level key people to identify their processes and record everything they do and what they know.

    Identify employees who may be nearing retirement and flag them as high risk

    Risk Parameter

    Description

    How to Collect this Data:

    Age Cohort

    • 60+ years of age or older, or anyone who has indicated they will be retiring within five years (highest risk).
    • Employees in their early 50s: are still many years away from retirement but have a sufficient number of years remaining in their career to make a move to a new role outside of your organization.
    • Employees in their late 50s: are likely more than five years away from retirement but are less likely than younger employees to leave your organization for another role because of increasing risk in making such a move, and persistent employer unwillingness to hire older employees.
    • Employees under 50: should never be considered low risk only based on age – which is why the second component of stakeholder risk is engagement.

    For those people on your shortlist, pull some hard demographic data.

    Compile a report that breaks down employees into age-based demographic groups.

    Flag those over the age of 50 – they’re in the “retirement zone” and could decide to leave at any time.

    Check to see which stakeholders identified fall into the “over 50” age demographic.

    Document this information in the IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    150% of an employee’s base salary and benefits is the estimated cost of turnover according to The Society of Human Resource Professionals.1

    1McLean & Company, Make the Case for Employee Engagement

    Identify disengaged employees who may be preparing to leave the organization

    Risk Parameter

    Description

    How to Collect this Data:

    Engagement

    An engaged stakeholder is energized and passionate about their work, leading them to exert discretionary effort to drive organizational performance (lowest risk).

    An almost engaged stakeholder is generally passionate about their work. At times they exert discretionary effort to help achieve organizational goals.

    Indifferent employees are satisfied, comfortable, and generally able to meet minimum expectations. They see their work as “just a job,” prioritizing their needs before organizational goals.

    Disengaged employees have little interest in their job and the organization and often display negative attitudes (highest risk).

    Option 1:

    The optimal approach for determining employee engagement is through an engagement survey. See McLean & Company for more details.

    Option 2:

    Ask the identified stakeholder’s manager to provide an assessment of their engagement either independently or via a meeting.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Engaged employees are five times more likely than disengaged employees to agree that they are committed to their organization.1

    1Source: McLean & Company, N = 13683

    The level of risk of the type of information is defined by criticality and availability

    Risk Parameter

    Description

    How to Collect this Data:

    Criticality

    Roles that are critical to the continuation of business and cannot be left vacant without risking business operations. Would the role, if vacant, create system, function, or process failure for the organization?

    Option 1: (preferred)

    Meet with IT managers/directors over the phone or directly and review each of the identified reports to determine the risk.

    Option 2: Send the IT mangers/directors the list of their direct reports, and ask them to evaluate their knowledge type risk independently and return the information to you.

    Option 3: (if necessary) Review individual job descriptions independently, and use your judgment to come up with a rating for each. Send the assessment to the stakeholders’ managers for validation.

    Availability

    Refers to level of redundancy both within and outside of the organization. Information which is highly available is considered lower risk. Key questions to consider include: does this individual have specialized, unique, or proprietary expertise? Are there internal redundancies?

    1.2.2 Complete a Knowledge Risk Assessment

    Complete a Tab 3 assessment for each of your identified Knowledge Sources. The Knowledge Source tab will pre-populate with information from Tab 2 of the tool. For each knowledge source, you will determine their likelihood of departure and degree of knowledge risk.

    Likelihood of departure:

    1. Document the age cohort risk for each knowledge source on Tab 3 of the IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool. Age Cohort: Under 50, 51-55, 56-60, or over 60.
    2. Document the engagement risk for each knowledge source on Tab 3, “Assessment”, of the IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool. Engagement level: Engaged, Almost engaged, Indifferent employees, Disengaged.
    3. Degree of knowledge risk is based on:

    4. Document the knowledge type risk for each stakeholder on Tab 3, “Assessment” in the IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool.
    • Criticality: Would the role, if vacant, create system, function, or process failure for the organization?
    • Availability: Does this individual have specialized, unique, or proprietary expertise? Are there internal redundancies?
    Input Output
    • Knowledge source list (Tab 2)
    • Employee demographics information
    • List of high-risk knowledge sources
    Materials Participants
    • Sticky notes
    • Pens
    • Whiteboard
    • Marker
    • IT Leadership Team
    • HR

    IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool

    Results matrix

    The image contains a screenshot of risk assessment. The image contains a matrix example from tab 4.

    Determine where to focus your efforts

    The IT Knowledge Transfer Map on Tab 5 helps you to determine where to focus your knowledge transfer efforts

    Knowledge sources have been separated into the three maturity levels (Stabilize, Proactive, and Knowledge Culture) and prioritized within each level.

    Focus first on your stabilize groups, and based on your target maturity goal, move on to your proactive and knowledge culture groups respectively.

    The image contains a screenshot of the IT Knowledge Transfer Map on tab 5.

    Sequential Prioritization

    Orange line Level 1: Stabilize

    Blue Line Level 2: Proactive

    Green Line Level 3: Knowledge Culture

    Each pie chart indicates which of the stakeholders in that risk column currently has knowledge transfer plans.

    Each individual also has their own status ball on whether they currently have a knowledge transfer plan.

    1.2.3 Review the Prioritized List

    Review results

    Identify knowledge sources to focus on for the knowledge transfer roadmap. Review the IT Knowledge Transfer Map on Tab 5 to determine where to focus your knowledge transfer efforts

    1. Show the results from the assessment tool.
    2. Discuss matrix and prioritized list.
    • Does it match with maturity goals?
    • Do prioritizations seem correct?
    InputOutput
    • Knowledge source risk profile
    • Risk Assessment (Tab 3)
    • Prioritized list of knowledge sources to focus on for the knowledge transfer roadmap
    MaterialsParticipants
    • n/a
    • IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool
    • IT Leadership Team

    IT Knowledge Transfer Risk Assessment Tool

    Phase #2

    Design your knowledge transfer plans

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Obtain approval for project

    1.2 Identify knowledge and stakeholder risks

    2.1 Build knowledge transfer plans

    2.2 Build knowledge transfer roadmap

    3.1 Communicate your roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Building knowledge transfer plans for all prioritized knowledge sources.
    • Understanding which transfer tactics are best suited for different knowledge types.
    • Identifying opportunities to leverage collaboration tools for knowledge transfer.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT Leadership
    • Other key stakeholders
    • Knowledge sources

    Define what knowledge needs to be transferred

    Each knowledge source has unique information which needs to be transferred. Chances are you don’t know what you don’t know. The first step is therefore to interview knowledge sources to find out.

    Identify the knowledge receiver

    Depending on who the information is going to, the knowledge transfer tactic you employ will differ. Before deciding on the knowledge receiver and tactic, consider three key factors:

    • How will this knowledge be used in the future?
    • What is the next career step for the knowledge receiver?
    • Are the receiver and the source going to be in the same location?

    Identify which knowledge transfer tactics you will use for each knowledge asset

    Not all tactics are good in every situation. Always keep the “knowledge type” (information, process, skills, and expertise), knowledge sources’ engagement level, and the knowledge receiver in mind as you select tactics.

    Determine knowledge transfer tactics

    Determine tactics for each stakeholder based on qualities of their specific knowledge.

    This tool is built to accommodate up to 30 knowledge items; Info-Tech recommends focusing on the top 10-15 items.

    1. Send documents to each manager. Include:
    • a copy of this template.
    • interview guide.
    • tactics booklet.
  • Instruct managers to complete the template for each knowledge source and return it to you.
  • These steps should be completed by the BA or IT Manager. The BA is helpful to have around because they can learn about the tactics and answer any questions about the tactics that the managers might have when completing the template.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Knowledge Source's Name.

    IT Knowledge Transfer Plan Template

    Step 2.1

    Build Your Knowledge Transfer Plans

    Activities

    2.1.1 Interview Knowledge Sources to Uncover Key Knowledge Items

    2.1.2 Identify When to use Knowledge Transfer Tactics

    2.1.3 Build Individual Knowledge Transfer Plans

    The primary goal of this section is to build an interview guide and interview knowledge sources to identify key knowledge assets.

    Outcomes of this step

    • Knowledge Transfer Interview Guide
    • Itemized knowledge assets
    • Completed knowledge transfer plans

    2.1.1 Interview Knowledge Sources

    Determine key knowledge items

    The first step is for managers to interview knowledge sources in order to extract information about the type of knowledge the source has.

    Meet with the knowledge sources and work with them to identify essential knowledge. Use the following questions as guidance:

    1. What are you an expert in?
    2. What do others ask you for assistance with?
    3. What are you known for?
    4. What are key responsibilities you have that no one else has or knows how to do?
    5. Are there any key systems, processes, or applications which you’ve taken the lead on?
    6. When you go on vacation, what is waiting for you in your inbox?
    7. If you went on vacation, would there be any systems that, if there was a failure, you would be the only one who knows how to fix?
    8. Would you say that all the key processes you use, or tools, codes etc. are documented?
    Input Output
    • Knowledge type information
    • Prioritized list of key knowledge sources.
    • Knowledge activity information
    • What are examples of good use cases for the technique?
    • Why would you use this technique over others?
    • Is this technique suitable for all projects? When wouldn’t you use it?
    Materials Participants
    • Interview guide
    • Pen
    • Paper
    • IT Leadership Team
    • Knowledge sources

    IT Knowledge Identification Interview Guide Template

    2.1.2 Understand Knowledge Transfer Tactics

    Understand when and how to use different knowledge transfer tactics

    1. Break the workshop participants into teams. Assign each team two to four knowledge transfer tactics and provide them with the associated handout(s) from the following slides. Using the material provided, have each team brainstorm around the following questions:
      1. What types of information can the technique be used to collect?
      2. What are examples of good use cases for the technique?
      3. Why would you use this technique over others?
      4. Is this technique suitable for all projects? When wouldn’t you use it?
    2. Have each group present their findings from the brainstorming to the group.
    3. Once everyone has presented, have the groups select which tactics they would be interested in using and which ones they would not want to use by putting green and red dots on each.
    4. As a group, confirm the list of tactics you would be interested in using and disqualify the others.
    Input Output
    • List of knowledge tactics to utilize.
    Materials Participants
    • Knowledge transfer tactics handouts
    • Flip chart paper
    • Markers
    • Green and red dot stickers
    • IT Leadership Team
    • Project team

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Interviews

    Interviews provide an opportunity to meet one-on-one with key stakeholders to document key knowledge assets. Interviews can be used for explicit and tacit information, and in particular, capture processes, rules, coding information, best practices, etc.

    Benefits:

    • Good bang-for-your-buck interviews are simple to conduct and can be used for all types of knowledge.
    • Interviews can obtain a lot of information in a relatively short period of time.
    • Interviews help make tacit knowledge more explicit through effective questioning.
    • They have highly flexible formatting as interviews can be conducted in person, over the phone, or by email.

    How to get started:

    1. Have the business analyst (BA) review the employee’s knowledge transfer plan and highlight the areas to be discussed in the interview.
    2. The BA will then create an interview guide detailing key questions which would need to be asked to ascertain the information.
    3. Schedule a 30-60 minute interview. When complete, document the interview and key lessons learned. Send the information back to the interviewee for validation of what was discussed.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training: Minimal

    Technology Support: N/A

    Process Development: Minimal

    Duration: Annual

    Participants

    Business analysts

    Knowledge source

    Materials

    Interview guide

    Notepad

    Pen

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Process Mapping

    Business process mapping refers to building a flow chart diagram of the sequence of actions which defines what a business does. The flow chart defines exactly what a process does and the specific succession of steps including all inputs, outputs, flows, and linkages. Process maps are a powerful tool to frame requirements in the context of the complete solution.

    Benefits:

    • They are simple to build and analyze; most organizations and users are familiar with flow diagrams, making them highly usable.
    • They provide an end-to-end picture of a process.
    • They’re ideal for gathering full and detailed requirements of a process.
    • They include information around who is responsible, what they do, when, where it occurs, triggers, to what degree, and how often it occurs.
    • They’re great for legacy systems.

    How to get started:

    1. Have the BA prepare beforehand by doing some preliminary research on the purpose of the process, and the beginning and end points.
    2. With the knowledge holder, use a whiteboard and identify the different stakeholders who interact with the process, and draw swim lanes for each.
    3. Together, use sticky notes and/or dry erase markers etc. to draw out the process.
    4. When you believe you’re complete, start again from the beginning and break the process down to more details.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training: Minimal

    Technology Support: N/A

    Process Development: Minimal

    Duration: Annual

    Participants

    Business analysts

    Knowledge source

    Materials

    Whiteboard / flip-chart paper

    Marker

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Use Cases

    Use case diagrams are a common transfer tactic where the BA maps out step-by-step how an employee completes a project or uses a system. Use cases show what a system or project does rather than how it does it. Use cases are frequently used by product managers and developers.

    Benefits:

    • Easy to draw and understand.
    • Simple way to digest information.
    • Can get very detailed.
    • Should be used for documenting processes, experiences etc.
    • Initiation and brainstorming.
    • Great for legacy systems.

    How to get started:

    1. The BA will schedule a 30-60 minute in-person meeting with the employee, draw a stick figure on the left side of the board, and pose the initial question: “If you need to do X, what is your first step?” Have the stakeholder go step-by-step through the process until the end goal. Draw this process across the whiteboard. Make sure you capture the triggers, causes of events, decision points, outcomes, tools, and interactions.
    2. Starting at the beginning of the diagram, go through each step again and ask the employee if the step can be broken down into more granular steps. If the answer is yes, break down the use case further.
    3. Ask the employee if there are any alternative flows that people could use, or any exceptions. If there are, map these out on the board.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training: Minimal

    Technology Support: N/A

    Process Development: Minimal

    Duration: Annual

    Participants

    Business analysts

    Knowledge source

    Materials

    Whiteboard / flip-chart paper

    Marker

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Job Shadow

    Job shadowing is a working arrangement where the “knowledge receiver” learns how to do a job by observing an experienced employee complete key tasks throughout their normal workday.

    Benefits:

    • Low cost and minimal effort required.
    • Helps employees understand different elements of the business.
    • Helps build relationships.
    • Good for knowledge holders who are not great communicators.
    • Great for legacy systems.

    How to get started:

    1. Determine goals and objectives for the knowledge transfer, and communicate these to the knowledge source and receiver.
    2. Have the knowledge source identify when they will be performing a particular knowledge activity and select that day for the job shadow. If the information is primarily experience, select any day which is convenient.
    3. Ask the knowledge receiver to shadow the source and ask questions whenever they have them.
    4. Following the job shadow, have the knowledge receiver document what they learned that day and file that information.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training: Required

    Technology Support: N/A

    Process Development:Required

    Duration:Ongoing

    Participants

    BA

    IT manager

    Knowledge source and receiver

    Materials

    N/A

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Peer Assist

    Meeting or workshop where peers from different teams share their experiences and knowledge with individuals or teams that require help with a specific challenge or problem.

    Benefits:

    • Improves productivity through enhanced problem solving.
    • Encourages collaboration between teams to share insight, and assistance from people outside your team to obtain new possible approaches.
    • Promotes sharing and development of new connections among different staff, and creates opportunities for innovation.
    • Can be combined with Action Reviews.

    How to get started:

    1. Create a registry of key projects that different individuals have solved. Where applicable, leverage the existing work done through action reviews.
    2. Create and communicate a process for knowledge sources and receivers to reach out to one another. Email or social collaboration platforms are the most common.
    3. The source may then reply with documentation or a peer can set up an interview to discuss.
    4. Information should be recorded and saved on a corporate share drive with appropriate metadata to ensure ease of search.
    5. See Appendix for further details.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training: Minimal

    Technology Support: N/A

    Process Development:Required

    Duration:Ongoing

    Participants

    Knowledge sources

    Knowledge receiver

    BA to build a skill repository

    Materials

    Intranet

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Transition Workshop

    A half- to full-day exercise where an outgoing leader facilitates a knowledge transfer of key insights they have learned along the way and any high-profile knowledge they may have.

    Benefits:

    • Accelerates knowledge transfer following a leadership change.
    • Ensures business continuity.
    • New leader gets a chance to understand the business drivers behind team decisions and skills of each member.
    • The individuals on the team learn about the new leader’s values and communication styles.

    How to get started:

    1. Outgoing leader organizes a one-time session where they share information with the team (focus on tacit knowledge, such as team successes and challenges) and team can ask questions.
    2. Incoming leader and remaining team members share information about norms, priorities, and values.
    3. Document the information.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training: Required

    Technology Support: Some

    Process Development: Some

    Duration:Ongoing

    Participants

    IT leader

    Incoming IT team

    Key stakeholders

    Materials

    Meeting space

    Video conferencing (as needed)

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Action Review

    Action Review is a team-based discussion at the end of a project or step to review how the activity went and what can be done differently next time. It is ideal for transferring expertise and skills.

    Benefits:

    • Learning is done during and immediately after the project so that knowledge transfer happens quickly.
    • Results can be shared with other teams outside of the immediate members.
    • Makes tacit knowledge explicit.
    • Encourages a culture where making mistakes is OK, but you need to learn from them.

    How to get started:

    1. Hold an initial meeting with IT teams to inform them of the action reviews. Create an action review goals statement by working with IT teams to discuss what they hope to get out of the initiative.
    2. Ask project teams to present their work and answer the following questions:
      1. What was supposed to happen?
      2. What actually happened?
      3. Why were there differences?
      4. What can we learn and do differently next time?
    3. Have each individual or group present, record the meeting minutes, and send the details to the group for future reference. Determine a share storage place on your company intranet or shared drive for future reference.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training:Minimal

    Technology Support: Minimal

    Process Development: Some

    Duration:Ongoing

    Participants

    IT unit/group

    Any related IT stakeholder impacted by or involved in a project.

    Materials

    Meeting space

    Video conferencing (as needed)

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Mentoring

    Mentoring can be a formal program where management sets schedules and expectations. It can also be informal through an environment for open dialogue where staff is encouraged to seek advice and guidance, and to share their knowledge with more novice members of the organization.

    Benefits:

    • Speeds up learning curves and helps staff acclimate to the organizational culture.
    • Communicates organizational values and appropriate behaviors, and is an effective way to augment training efforts.
    • Leads to higher engagement by improving communication among employees, developing leadership, and helping employees work effectively.
    • Improves succession planning by preparing and grooming employees for future roles and ensuring the next wave of managers is qualified.

    How to get started:

    1. Have senior management define the goals for a mentorship program. Depending on your goals, the frequency, duration, and purpose for mentorship will change. Create a mission statement for the program.
    2. Communicate the program with mentors and mentees and define what the scope of their roles will be.
    3. Implement the program and measure success.

    Creating a mentorship program is a full project in itself. For full details on how to set up a mentorship program, see McLean & Company’s Build a Mentoring Program.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training: Required

    Technology Support: N/a

    Process Development:Required

    Duration:Ongoing

    Participants

    IT unit/group

    Materials

    Meeting space

    Video conferencing (as needed)

    Documentation

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Story Telling

    Knowledge sources use anecdotal examples to highlight a specific point and pass on information, experience, and ideas through narrative.

    Benefits:

    • Provides context and transfers expertise in a simple way between people of different contexts and background.
    • Illustrates a point effectively and makes a lasting impression.
    • Helps others learn from past situations and respond more effectively in future ones.
    • Can be completed in person, through blogs, video or audio recordings, or case studies.

    How to get started:

    1. Select a medium for how your organization will record stories, whether through blogs, video or audio recordings, or case studies. Develop a template for how you’re going to record the information.
    2. Integrate story telling into key activities – project wrap-up, job descriptions, morning meetings, etc.
    3. Determine the medium for retaining and searching stories.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training: Required

    Technology Support: Some

    Process Development:Required

    Duration:Ongoing

    Participants

    Knowledge source

    Knowledge receiver

    Videographer (where applicable)

    Materials

    Meeting space

    Video conferencing (as needed)

    Documentation

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Job Share

    Job share exists when at least two people share the knowledge and responsibilities of two job roles.

    Benefits:

    • Reduces the risk of concentrating all knowledge in one person and creating a single point of failure.
    • Increases the number of experts who hold key knowledge that can be shared with others, i.e. “two heads are better than one.”
    • Ensures redundancies exist for when an employee leaves or goes on vacation.
    • Great for getting junior employees up to speed on legacy system functionality.
    • Results in more agile teams.
    • Doubles the amount of skills and expertise.

    How to get started:

    1. Determine which elements of two individuals’ job duties could be shared by two people. Before embarking on a job share, ensure that the two individuals will work well together as a team and individually.
    2. Establish a vision, clear values, and well-defined roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships to avoid duplication of effort and confusion.
    3. Start with a pilot group of employees who are in support of the initiative, track the results, and make adjustments where needed.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training: Some

    Technology Support: Minimal

    Process Development:Required

    Duration:Ongoing

    Participants

    IT manager

    HR

    Employees

    Materials

    Job descriptions

    Knowledge Transfer Tactics:

    Communities of Practice

    Communities of practice are working groups of individuals who engage in a process of regularly sharing information with each other across different parts of the organization by focusing on common purpose and working practices. These groups meet on a regular basis to work together on problem solving, to gain information, ask for help and assets, and share opinions and best practices.

    Benefits:

    • Supports a collaborative environment.
    • Creates a sense of community and positive working relationships, which is a key driver for engagement.
    • Encourages creative thinking and support of one another.
    • Facilitates transfer of wide range of knowledge between people from different specialties.
    • Fast access to information.
    • Multiple employees hear the answers to questions and discussions, resulting in wider spread knowledge.
    • Can be done in person or via video conference, and is best when supported by social collaboration tools.

    How to get started:

    1. Determine your medium for these communities and ensure you have the needed technology.
    2. Develop training materials, and a rewards and recognition process for communities.
    3. Have a meeting with staff, ask them to brainstorm a list of different key “communities,” and ask staff to self select into communities.
    4. Have the communities determine the purpose statement for each group, and set up guidelines for functionality and uses.

    Knowledge Types

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Dependencies

    Training:Required

    Technology Support: Required

    Process Development:Required

    Duration:Ongoing

    Participants

    Employees

    BA (to assist in establishing)

    IT managers (rewards and recognition)

    Materials

    TBD

    The effectiveness of each knowledge transfer tactic varies based on the type of knowledge you are trying to transfer

    This table shows the relative strengths and weaknesses of each knowledge transfer tactic compared to four different knowledge types.

    Not all techniques are effective for types of knowledge; it is important to use a healthy mixture of techniques to optimize effectiveness.

    Very strong = Very effective

    Strong = Effective

    Medium = Somewhat effective

    Weak = Minimally effective

    Very weak = Not effective

    Knowledge Type

    Tactic

    Explicit

    Tacit

    Information

    Process

    Skills

    Expertise

    Interviews

    Very strong

    Strong

    Strong

    Strong

    Process mapping

    Medium

    Very strong

    Very weak

    Very weak

    Use cases

    Medium

    Very strong

    Very weak

    Very weak

    Job shadow

    Very weak

    Medium

    Very strong

    Very strong

    Peer assist

    Strong

    Medium

    Very strong

    Very strong

    Action review

    Medium

    Medium

    Strong

    Weak

    Mentoring

    Weak

    Weak

    Strong

    Very strong

    Transition workshop

    Strong

    Strong

    Strong

    Strong

    Story telling

    Weak

    Weak

    Strong

    Very strong

    Job share

    Weak

    Weak

    Very strong

    Very strong

    Communities of practice

    Strong

    Weak

    Very strong

    Very strong

    Consider your stakeholders’ level of engagement prior to selecting a knowledge transfer tactic

    Level of Engagement

    Tactic

    Disengaged/ Indifferent

    Almost Engaged - Engaged

    Interviews

    Yes

    Yes

    Process mapping

    Yes

    Yes

    Use cases

    Yes

    Yes

    Job shadow

    No

    Yes

    Peer assist

    Yes

    Yes

    Action review

    Yes

    Yes

    Mentoring

    No

    Yes

    Transition workshop

    Yes

    Yes

    Story telling

    No

    Yes

    Job share

    Maybe

    Yes

    Communities of practice

    Maybe

    Yes

    When considering which tactics to employ, it’s important to consider the knowledge holder’s level of engagement. Employees whom you would identify as being disengaged may not make good candidates for job shadowing, mentoring, or other tactics where they are required to do additional work or are asked to influence others.

    Knowledge transfer can be controversial for all employees as it can cause feelings of job insecurity. It’s essential that motivations for knowledge transfer are communicated effectively.

    Pay particular attention to your communication style with disengaged and indifferent employees, communicate frequently, and tie communication back to what’s in it for them.

    Putting disengaged employees in a position where they are mentoring others can be a risk. Their negativity could influence others not to participate as well or negate the work you’re doing to create a positive knowledge sharing culture.

    Consider using collaboration tools as a medium for knowledge transfer

    There is a wide variety of different collaboration tools available to enable interpersonal and team connections for work-related purposes. Familiarize yourself with all types of collaboration tools to understand what is available to help facilitate knowledge transfer.

    Collaboration Tools

    Content Management

    Real Time Communication

    Community Collaboration

    Social Collaboration

    Tools for collaborating around documents. They store content and allow for easy sharing and editing, e.g. content repositories and version control.

    Can be used for:

    • Action review
    • Process maps and use cases
    • Storing interview notes
    • Stories: blogs, video, and case studies

    Tools that enable real-time employee interactions. They permit “on-demand” workplace communication, e.g. IM, video and web conferencing.

    Can be used for:

    • Action review
    • Interviews
    • Mentoring
    • Peer assist
    • Story telling
    • Transition workshops

    Tools that allow teams and communities to come together and share ideas or collaborate on projects, e.g. team portals, discussion boards, and ideation tools.

    Can be used for:

    • Action review
    • Communities of practice
    • Peer assist
    • Story Telling

    Social tools borrow concepts from consumer social media and apply them to the employee-centric context, e.g. employee profiles, activity streams, and microblogging.

    Can be used for:

    • Peer assist
    • Story telling
    • Communities of practice

    For more information on Collaboration Tools and how to use them, see Info-Tech’s Establish a Communication and Collaboration System Strategy.

    Identify potential knowledge receivers

    Hold a meeting with your IT leaders to identify who would be the best knowledge receivers for specific knowledge assets

    • Before deciding on a successor, determine how the knowledge asset will be used in the future. This will impact who the receiver will be and your tactic. That is, if you are looking to upgrade a technology in the future, consider who would be taking on that project and what they would need to know.
    • Prior to the meeting, each manager should send a copy of the knowledge assets they have identified to the other managers.
    • Participants should come equipped with names of members of their teams and have an idea of what their career aspirations are.
    • Don’t assume that all employees want a career change. Be sure to have conversations with employees to determine their career aspirations.

    Ask how effectively the potential knowledge receiver would serve in the role today.

    • Review their competencies in terms of:
      • Relationship-building skills
      • Business skills
      • Technical skills
      • Industry-specific skills or knowledge
    • Consider what competencies the knowledge receiver currently has and what must be learned.
    • Finally, determine how difficult it will be for the knowledge receiver to acquire missing skills or knowledge, whether the resources are available to provide the required development, and how long it will take to provide it.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Wherever possible, ask employees about their personal learning styles. It’s likely that a collaborative compromise will have to be struck for knowledge transfer to work well.

    Using the IT knowledge transfer plan tool

    The image contains a screenshot of the IT Knowledge Transfer tool.

    We will use the IT Knowledge Transfer Plans as the foundation for building your knowledge transfer roadmap.

    2.1.3 Complete Knowledge Transfer Plans

    Complete one plan template for each of the knowledge sources

    1. Fill in the top with the knowledge source’s name. Remember that one template should be filled out for each source.
    2. List their key knowledge activities as identified through the interview.
    3. For each knowledge activity, identify and list the most appropriate recipient of this knowledge.
    4. For each knowledge activity, use the drop-down options to identify the type of knowledge that it falls under.
    5. Depending on the type of knowledge, different tactic drop-down options are available. Select which tactic would be most appropriate for this knowledge as well as the people involved in the knowledge transfer.

    The Strength Level column will indicate how well matched the tactic is to the type of knowledge.

    Input Output
    • Results of knowledge source interviews
    • A completed knowledge transfer plan for each identified knowledge source.
    Materials Participants
    • A completed knowledge transfer plan for each identified knowledge source.
    • IT leadership team

    IT Knowledge Transfer Plan Template

    Step 2.2

    Build Your Knowledge Transfer Roadmap

    Activities

    2.2.1 Merge Your Knowledge Transfer Plans

    2.2.2 Define Knowledge Transfer Initiatives’ Timeframes

    The goal of this step is to build the logistics of the knowledge transfer roadmap to prepare to communicate it to key stakeholders.

    Outcomes of this step

    • Prioritized sequence based on target state maturity goals.
    • Project roadmap.

    Plan and monitor the knowledge transfer project

    Depending on the desired state of maturity, the number of initiatives your organization has will vary and there could be a lengthy number of tasks and subtasks required to reach your organization knowledge transfer target state. The best way to plan, organize, and manage all of them is with a project roadmap.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Project Planning and Monitoring tool.

    Project Planning & Monitoring Tool

    Steps to use the project planning and monitoring tool:

    1. Begin by identifying all the project deliverables in scope for your organization. Review the previous content pertaining to specific people, process, and technology deliverables that your organization plans on creating.
    2. Identify all the tasks and subtasks necessary to create each deliverable.
    3. Arrange the tasks in the appropriate sequential order.
    4. Assign each task to a member of the project team.
    5. Estimate the day the task will be started and completed.
    6. Specify any significant dependencies or prerequisites between tasks.
    7. Update the project roadmap throughout the project by accounting for injections and entering the actual starting and ending dates.
    8. Use the project dashboard to monitor the project progress and identify risks early.

    Project Planning & Monitoring Tool

    Prioritize your tactics to build a realistic roadmap

    Initiatives should not and cannot be tackled all at once;

    • At this stage, each of the identified stakeholders should have a knowledge transfer plan for each of their reports with rough estimates for how long initiatives will take.
    • Simply looking at this raw list of transition plans can be daunting. Logically bundle the identified needs into IT initiatives to create the optimal IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap.
    • It’s important not to try to do too much too quickly. Focus on some quick wins and leverage the success of these initiatives to drive the project forward.

    The image contains a screenshot of the prioritize tactics step.

    Populate the task column of the Project Planning and Monitoring Tool. See the following slides for more details on how to do this.

    Some techniques require a higher degree of effort than others

    Effort by Stakeholder

    Tactic

    Business Analyst

    IT Manager

    Knowledge Holder

    Knowledge Receiver

    Interviews

    Medium

    N/A

    Low

    Low

    These tactics require the least amount of effort, especially for organizations that are already using these tactics for a traditional requirements gathering process.

    Process Mapping

    Medium

    N/A

    Low

    Low

    Use Cases

    Medium

    N/A

    Low

    Low

    Job Shadow

    Medium

    Medium

    Medium

    Medium

    These tactics generally require more involvement from IT management and the BA in tandem for preparation. They will also require ongoing effort for all stakeholders. Stakeholder buy-in is key for success.

    Peer Assist

    Medium

    Medium

    Medium

    Medium

    Action Review

    Low

    Medium

    Medium

    Low

    Mentoring

    Medium

    High

    High

    Medium

    Transition Workshop

    Medium

    Low

    Medium

    Low

    Story Telling

    Medium

    Medium

    Low

    Low

    Job Share

    Medium

    High

    Medium

    Medium

    Communities of Practice

    High

    Medium

    Medium

    Medium

    Consider each tactic’s dependencies as you build your roadmap

    Implementation Dependencies

    Tactic

    Training

    Technology Support

    Process Development

    Duration

    Interviews

    Minimal

    N/A

    Minimal

    Annual

    Start your knowledge transfer project here to get quick wins for explicit knowledge.

    Process Mapping

    Minimal

    N/A

    Minimal

    Annual

    Use Cases

    Minimal

    N/A

    Minimal

    Annual

    Job Shadow

    Required

    N/A

    Required

    Ongoing

    Don’t change too much too quickly or try to introduce all of the tactics at once. Focus on 1-2 key tactics and spend a significant amount of time upfront building an effective process and rolling it out. Leverage the effectiveness of the initial tactics to push these initiatives forward.

    Peer Assist

    Minimal

    N/A

    Required

    Ongoing

    Action Review

    Minimal

    Minimal

    Some

    Ongoing

    Mentoring

    Required

    N/A

    Required

    Ongoing

    Transition Workshop

    Required

    Some

    Some

    Ongoing

    Story Telling

    Some

    Required

    Required

    Ongoing

    Job Share

    Some

    Minimal

    Required

    Ongoing

    Communities of Practice

    Required

    Required

    Required

    Ongoing

    2.2.1 Merge Your Knowledge Transfer Plans

    Populate the task column of the Project Planning and Monitoring Tool

    1. Take an inventory of all the tactics and techniques which you plan to employ. Eliminate redundancies where possible.
    2. Start your implementation with your highest risk group using explicit knowledge transfer tactics. Interviews, use cases, and process mapping will give you some quick wins and will help gain momentum for the project.
    3. Proactive and knowledge culture should then move forward to other tactics, the majority of which will require training and process design. Pick one to two other key tactics you would like to employ and build those out.
    4. Once you get more advanced, you can continue to grow the number of tactics you employ, but in the beginning, less is more. Keep growing your implementation roadmap one tactic at a time and track key metrics as you go.
    InputOutput
    • A list of project tasks to be completed.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Project Planning Monitoring Tool.
    • IT Leadership Team

    Project Planning & Monitoring Tool

    2.2.2 Define Initiatives’ Timeframes

    Populate the estimated start and completion date and task owner columns of the Project Planning and Monitoring Tool.

    1. Define the time frame: time frames will depend on several factors. Consider the following while defining timelines for your knowledge transfer tactics:
    • Tactics you choose to employ
    • Availability of resources to implement the initiative
    • Technology requirements
  • Input the Start Date and End Date for each initiative via the drop-down. (Year 1-M1 = year 1, month 1 of implementation.)
  • Define the status of initiative:
    • Planned
    • In progress
    • Completed
  • The initiative owner will ensure each step of the rollout is executed as planned, and will:
    • Engage all required stakeholders at appropriate stages of the project.
    • Engage all required resources to implement the process and make sure that communication channels are open and available between all relevant parties.
    Input Output
    • Timeframes for all project tasks.
    Materials Participants
    • Project Planning and Monitoring Tool.
    • IT Leadership Team

    Project Planning & Monitoring Tool

    Once you start the implementation, leverage the Project Planning and Monitoring Tool for ongoing status updates

    Track your progress

    • Update your project roadmap as you complete the project and keep track of your progress by completing the “Actual Start Date” and “Actual Completion Date” as you go through your project.
    • Use the Progress Report tab in project team meetings to update stakeholders on which tasks have been completed on schedule, for an analysis of tasks to date, and project time management.
    The image contains screenshots from the Project Planning and Monitoring Tool.

    Phase #3

    Implement your knowledge transfer plans and roadmap

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Obtain approval for project

    1.2 Identify knowledge and stakeholder risks

    2.1 Build knowledge transfer plans

    2.2 Build knowledge transfer roadmap

    3.1 Communicate your roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Preparing a key stakeholder communication presentation.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT Leadership
    • Other key stakeholders

    Step 3.1

    Communicate Your Knowledge Transfer Roadmap to Stakeholders

    Activities

    3.1.1 Prepare IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation

    The goal of this step is to be ready to communicate the roadmap with the project team, project sponsor, and other key stakeholders.

    Outcomes of this step

    • Key stakeholder communication deck.

    Use Info-Tech’s template to communicate with stakeholders

    Obtain approval for the IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap by customizing Info-Tech’s IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation Template designed to effectively convey your key messages. Tailor the template to suit your needs.

    It includes:

    • Project Context
    • Project Scope and Objectives
    • Knowledge Transfer Roadmap
    • Next Steps

    The image contains screenshots of the IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation Template.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The support of IT leadership is critical to the success of your roadmap roll-out. Remind them of the project benefits and impact them hard with the risks/pain points.

    IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation Template

    3.1.1 Prepare a Presentation for Your Project Team and Sponsor

    Now that you have created your knowledge transfer roadmap, the final step of the process is to get sign-off from the project sponsor to begin the planning process to roll-out your initiatives.

    Know your audience:

    1. Revisit your project charter to determine the knowledge transfer project stakeholders who will be included in your presentation audience.
    2. You want your presentation to be succinct and hard-hitting. Management’s time is tight, and they will lose interest if you drag out the delivery. Impact them hard and fast with the pains and benefits of your roadmap.
    3. The presentation should take no more than an hour. Depending on your audience, the actual presentation delivery could be quite short (12-13 slides). However, you want to ensure adequate time for Q & A.
    Input Output
    • Project charter
    • A completed presentation to communicate your knowledge transfer roadmap.
    Materials Participants
    • IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation Template
    • IT leadership team
    • Project sponsor
    • Project stakeholders

    IT Knowledge Transfer Roadmap Presentation Template

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Build an IT Succession Plan

    Train Managers to Handle Difficult Conversations

    Lead Staff Through Change

    Bibliography

    Babcock, Pamela. “Shedding Light on Knowledge Management.” HR Magazine, 1 May 2004.

    King, Rachael. "Big Tech Problem as Mainframes Outlast Workforce." Bloomberg, 3 Aug. 2010. Web.

    Krill, Paul. “IT’s Most Wanted: Mainframe Programmers.” IDG Communications, Inc. 1 December 2011.

    McLean & Company. “Mitigate the Risk of Baby Boomer Retirement with Scalable Succession Planning.” 7 March 2016.

    McLean & Company. “Make the Case For Employee Engagement.” McLean and Company. 27 March 2014.

    PwC. “15th Annual Global CEO Survey: Delivering Results Growth and Value in a Volatile World.” PwC, 2012.

    Rocket Software, Inc. “Rocket Software 2022 Survey Report: The State of the Mainframe.” Rocket Software, Inc. January 2022. Accessed 30 April 2022.

    Ross, Jenna. “Intangible Assets: A Hidden but Crucial Driver of Company Value.” Visual Capitalist, 11 February 2020. Accessed 2 May 2022.

    The challenge of corporate security management

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    Corporate security management is a vital aspect in every modern business, regardless of business area or size. At Tymans Group we offer expert security management consulting to help your business set up proper protocols and security programs. More elaborate information about our security management consulting services and solutions can be found below.

    Corporate security management components

    You may be experiencing one or more of the following:

    • The risk goals should support business goals. Your business cannot operate without security, and security is there to conduct business safely. 
    • Security governance supports security strategy and security management. These three components form a protective arch around your business. 
    • Governance and management are like the legislative branch and the executive branch. Governance tells people what to do, and management's job is to verify that they do it.

    Our advice with regards to corporate security management

    Insight

    To have a successful information security strategy, take these three factors into account:

    • Holistic: your view must include people, processes, and technology.
    • Risk awareness: Base your strategy on the actual risk profile of your company and then add the appropriate best practices.
    • Business-aligned: When your strategic security plan demonstrates alignment with the business goals and supports it, embedding will be much more straightforward.

    Impact and results of our corporate security management approach

    • The approach of our security management consulting company helps to provide a starting point for realistic governance and realistic corporate security management.
    • We help you by implementing security governance and managing it, taking into account your company's priorities, and keeping costs to a minimum.

    The roadmap

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within the corporate security management domain have access to:

    Get up to speed

    Read up on why you should build your customized corporate information security governance and management system. Review our methodology and understand the four ways we can support you.

    Align your security objectives with your business goals

    Determine the company's risk tolerance.

    • Implement a Security Governance and Management Program – Phase 1: Align Business Goals With Security Objectives (ppt)
    • Information Security Governance and Management Business Case (ppt)
    • Information Security Steering Committee Charter (doc)
    • Information Security Steering Committee RACI Chart (doc)
    • Security Risk Register Tool (xls)

    Build a practical governance framework for your company

    Our best-of-breed security framework makes you perform a gap analysis between where you are and where you want to be (your target state). Once you know that, you can define your goals and duties.

    • Implement a Security Governance and Management Program – Phase 2: Develop an Effective Governance Framework (ppt)
    • Information Security Charter (doc)
    • Security Governance Organizational Structure Template (doc)
    • Security Policy Hierarchy Diagram (ppt)
    • Security Governance Model Facilitation Questions (ppt)
    • Information Security Policy Charter Template (doc)
    • Information Security Governance Model Tool (Visio)
    • Pdf icon 20x20
    • Information Security Governance Model Tool (PDF)

    Now that you have built it, manage your governance framework.

    There are several essential management activities that we as a security management consulting company suggest you employ.

    • Implement a Security Governance and Management Program – Phase 3: Manage Your Governance Framework (ppt)
    • Security Metrics Assessment Tool (xls)
    • Information Security Service Catalog (xls)
    • Policy Exception Tracker (xls)
    • Information Security Policy Exception Request Form (doc)
    • Security Policy Exception Approval Workflow (Visio)
    • Security Policy Exception Approval Workflow (PDF)
    • Business Goal Metrics Tracking Tool (xls)

    Book an online appointment for more advice

    We are happy to tell you more about our corporate security management solutions and help you set up fitting security objectives. As a security management consulting firm we offer solutions and advice, based on our own extensive experience, which are practical and people-orientated. Discover our services, which include data security management and incident management and book an online appointment with CEO Gert Taeymans to discuss any issues you may be facing regarding risk management or IT governance.

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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
    • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
    • As an IT leader, you are responsible for getting new things done while keeping the old things running. These “new things” can come in many forms, e.g. service requests, incidents, and officially sanctioned PMO projects, as well as a category of “unofficial” projects that have been initiated through other channels.
    • These unofficial projects get called many things by different organizations (e.g. level 0 projects,BAU projects, non-PMO projects, day-to-day projects), but they all have the similar characteristics: they are smaller and less complex than larger projects or officially sanctioned projects; they are larger and more risky than operational tasks or incidents; and they are focused on the needs of a specific functional unit and tend to stay within those units to get done.
    • Because these day-to-day projects are small, emergent, team-specific, operationally vital, yet generally perceived as being strategically unimportant, top-level leadership has a limited understanding of them when they are approving and prioritizing major projects. As a result, they approve projects with no insight into how your team’s capacity is already stretched thin by existing demands.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Senior leadership cannot contrast the priority of things that are undocumented. As an IT leader, you need to ensure day-to-day projects receive the appropriate amount of documentation without drowning your team in a process that the types of project don’t warrant.
    • Don’t bleed your project capacity dry by leaving the back door open. When executive oversight took over the strategic portfolio, we assumed they’d resource those projects as a priority. Instead, they focused on “alignment,” “strategic vision,” and “go to market” while failing to secure and defend the resource capacity needed. To focus on the big stuff, you need to sweat the small stuff.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop a method to consistently identify and triage day-to-day projects across functional teams in a standard and repeatable way.
    • Establish a way to balance and prioritize the operational necessity of day-to-day projects against the strategic value of major projects.
    • Build a repeatable process to document and report where the time goes across all given pockets of demand your team faces.

    Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should put more portfolio management structure around your day-to-day projects, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Uncover your organization’s hidden pockets of day-to-day projects

    Define an organizational standard for identifying day-to-day projects and triaging them in relation to other categories of projects.

    • Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects – Phase 1: Uncover Your Organization’s Hidden Pockets of Day-to-Day Projects
    • Day-to-Day Project Definition Tool
    • Day-to-Day Project Supply/Demand Calculator

    2. Establish ongoing day-to-day project visibility

    Build a process for maintaining reliable day-to-day project supply and demand data.

    • Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects – Phase 2: Establish Ongoing Day-to-Day Project Visibility
    • Day-to-Day Project Process Document
    • Day-to-Day Project Intake and Prioritization Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Bring Visibility to Your Day-to-Day Projects

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Analyze the Current State of Day-to-Day Projects

    The Purpose

    Assess the current state of project portfolio management and establish a realistic target state for the management of day-to-day projects.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Realistic and well-informed workshop goals.

    Activities

    1.1 Begin with introductions and workshop expectations activity.

    1.2 Perform PPM SWOT analysis.

    1.3 Assess pain points and analyze root causes.

    Outputs

    Realistic workshop goals and expectations

    PPM SWOT analysis

    Root cause analysis

    2 Establish Portfolio Baselines for Day-to-Day Projects

    The Purpose

    Establish a standard set of baselines for day-to-day projects that will help them to be identified and managed in the same way across different functional teams.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standardization of project definitions and project value assessments across different functional teams.

    Activities

    2.1 Formalize the definition of a day-to-day project and establish project levels.

    2.2 Develop a project value scorecard for day-to-day projects.

    2.3 Analyze the capacity footprint of day-to-day projects.

    Outputs

    Project identification matrix

    Project value scorecard

    A capacity overview to inform baselines

    3 Build a Target State Process for Day-to-Day Projects

    The Purpose

    Establish a target state process for tracking and monitoring day-to-day projects at the portfolio level.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standardization of how day-to-day projects are managed and reported on across different functional teams.

    Activities

    3.1 Map current state workflows for the intake and resource management practices (small and large projects).

    3.2 Perform a right-wrong-missing-confusing analysis.

    3.3 Draft a target state process for the initiation of day-to-day projects and for capacity planning.

    Outputs

    Current state workflows

    Right-wrong-missing-confusing analysis

    Target state workflows

    4 Prepare to Implement Your New Processes

    The Purpose

    Start to plan the implementation of your new processes for the portfolio management of day-to-day projects.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An implementation plan, complete with communication plans, timelines, and goals.

    Activities

    4.1 Perform a change impact and stakeholder management analysis.

    4.2 Perform a start-stop-continue activity.

    4.3 Define an implementation roadmap.

    Outputs

    Change impact and stakeholder analyses

    Start-stop-continue retrospective

    Implementation roadmap

    Digital Data Ethics

    • Download01-Title: Tech Trend Update: If Digital Ethics Then Data Equity
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    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
    • Parent Category Link: /innovation

    In the past two years, we've seen that we need quick technology solutions for acute issues. We quickly moved to homeworking and then to a hybrid form. We promptly moved many of our offline habits online.

    That necessitated a boost in data collection from us towards our customers and employees, and business partners.
    Are you sure how to approach this structurally? What is the right thing to do?

    Impact and Results

    • When you partner with another company, set clear expectations
    • When you are building your custom solution, invite constructive criticism
    • When you present yourself as the authority, consider the most vulnerable in the relationship

    innovation

    Scale Business Process Automation

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    • Parent Category Name: Optimization
    • Parent Category Link: /optimization
    • Business process automation (BPA) adoption gained significant momentum as your business leaders saw the positive outcomes in your pilots, such as improvements in customer experience, operational efficiencies, and cost optimizations.
    • Your stakeholders are ready to increase their investments in more process automation solutions. They want to scale initial successes to other business and IT functions.
    • However, it is unclear how BPA can be successfully scaled and what benefits can be achieved from it.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    The shift from isolated, task-based automations in your pilot to value-oriented, scaled automations brings new challenges and barriers to your organization such as:

    • Little motivation or tolerance to change existing business operations to see the full value of BPA.
    • Overinvesting in current BPA technologies to maximize the return despite available alternatives that can do the same tasks better.
    • BPA teams are ill-equipped to meet the demands and complexities of scaled BPA implementations.

    Impact and Result

    • Ground your scaling expectations. Set realistic and achievable goals centered on driving business value to the entire organization by optimizing and automating end-to-end business processes.
    • Define your scaling journey. Tailor your scaling approach according to your ability to ease BPA implementation, to broaden BPA adoption, and to loosen BPA constraints.
    • Prepare to scale BPA. Cement your BPA management and governance foundations to support BPA scaling using the lessons learned from your pilot implementation.

    Scale Business Process Automation Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Scale Business Process Automation Deck – A guide to learn the opportunities and values of scaling business process automation.

    This research walks you through the level setting of your scaled business process automation (BPA) expectations, factors to consider in defining your scaled BPA journey, and assessing your readiness to scale BPA.

    • Scale Business Process Automation Storyboard

    2. Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment – A tool to help you evaluate your readiness to scale business process automation.

    Use this tool to identify key gaps in the people, processes, and technologies you need to support the scaling of business process automation (BPA). It also contains a canvas to facilitate your discussions around business process automation with your stakeholders and BPA teams.

    • Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Scale Business Process Automation

    Take a value-first approach to automate the processes that matter

    Analyst Perspective

    Scaling business process automation (BPA) is an organization-wide commitment

    Business and IT must work together to ensure the right automations are implemented and BPA is grown and matured in a sustainable way. However, many organizations are not ready to make this commitment. Managing the automation demand backlog, coordinating cross-functional effort and organizational change, and measuring BPA value are some of the leading factors challenging scaling BPA.

    Pilot BPA with the intent to scale it. Pilots are safe starting points to establish your foundational governance and management practices and build the necessary relationships and collaborations for you to be successful. These factors will then allow you to explore more sophisticated, complicated, and innovative opportunities to drive new value to your team, department, and organization.

    A picture of Andrew Kum-Seun

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

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Business process automation (BPA) adoption gained significant momentum as your business leaders see the positive outcomes in your pilots, such as improvements in customer experience, operational efficiencies, and cost optimizations.
    • Your stakeholders are ready to increase their investments in more process automation solutions. They want to scale initial successes to other business and IT functions.
    • However, it is unclear how BPA can be successfully scaled and what benefits can be achieved from it.

    Common Obstacles

    The shift from isolated, task-based automations in your pilot to value-oriented and scaled automations brings new challenges and barriers to your organization:

    • Little motivation or tolerance to change existing business operations to see the full value of BPA.
    • Overinvesting in current BPA technologies to maximize return despite available alternatives that can do the same tasks better.
    • BPA teams are ill-equipped to meet the demands and complexities of scaled BPA implementations.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    • Ground your scaling expectations. Set realistic and achievable goals centered on driving business value to the entire organization by optimizing and automating end-to-end business processes.
    • Define your scaling journey. Tailor your scaling approach according to your ability to ease BPA implementation, to broaden BPA adoption, and to loosen BPA constraints.
    • Prepare to scale BPA. Cement your BPA management and governance foundations to support BPA scaling using the lessons learned from your pilot implementation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Take a value-first approach in your scaling business process automation (BPA) journey. Low-risk, task-oriented automations are good starting points to introduce BPA but constrain the broader returns your organization wants. Business value can only scale when everything and everyone in your processes are working together to streamline the entire value stream rather than the small gains from optimizing small, isolated automations.

    Scale Business Process Automation

    Take a value-first approach to automate the processes that matter

    Pilot Your BPA Capabilities

    • Learn the foundation practices to design, deliver, and support BPA.
    • Understand the fit and value of BPA.
    • Gauge the tolerance for business operational change and system risk.

    See Info-Tech's Build a Winning Business Process Automation Playbook blueprint for more information.

    Build Your Scaling BPA Vision

    Apply Lessons Learned to Scale

    1. Ground Your Scaling Expectations
      Set realistic and achievable goals centered on driving business value to the entire organization by optimizing and automating end-to-end business processes.
    2. Define Your Scaling Journey
      Tailor your scaling approach according to your ability to ease BPA implementation, to broaden BPA adoption, and to loosen BPA constraints.
    3. Prepare to Scale BPA
      Cement your BPA management and governance foundations to support BPA scaling using the lessons learned from your pilot implementation.

    Research deliverable

    Design and communicate your approach to scale business process automation with Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment:

    • Level set your scaled BPA goals and objectives.
    • Discuss and design your scaled BPA journey.
    • Identify the gaps and improvements needed to scale your BPA practices and implementation.

    A screenshot from Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment

    Step 1.1

    Ground Your Scaling Expectations

    Activities

    1.1.1 Define Your Scaling Objectives

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Business Process Owners
    • Product Owners
    • Application Directors
    • Business Architects
    • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

    Outcomes of this step

    Scaling BPA objectives

    Organizations want to scale their initial BPA success

    Notable Initial Benefits

    1. Time Saved: "In the first day of live operations, the robots were saving 51 hours each day or the equivalent of six people working an eight-hour shift." – Brendan MacDonald, Director of Customer Compliance Operations, Ladbrokes (UiPath)
    2. Documentation & Knowledge Sharing: "If certain people left, knowledge of some processes would be lost and we realized that we needed a reliable process management system in place." – Peta Kinnane, Acting Audit and Risk Coordinator, Liverpool City Council (Nintex)
    3. Improved Service Delivery: "Thanks to this automation, our percentage of triaged and assigned tickets is now 100%. Nothing falls through the cracks. It has also improved the time to assignment. We assign tickets 2x faster than before." – Sebastian Goodwin, Head of Cybersecurity, Nutanix (Workato)

    Can We Gain More From Automation?

    The Solution

    As industries evolve and adopt more tools and technology, their products, services, and business operating models become more complex. Task- and desktop-based automations are often not enough. More sophisticated and scaled automations are needed to simplify and streamline the process from end-to-end of complex operations and align them with organizational goals.

    Stakeholders see automation as an opportunity to scale the business

    The value of scaling BPA is dependent on the organization's ability to scale with it. In other words, stakeholders should see an increase in business value without a substantial increase in resources and operational costs (e.g., there should be little difference if sending out 10 emails versus 1000).

    Examples of how business can be scaled with automation

    • Processes triggered by incoming documents or email: in these processes, an incoming document or email (that has semi-structured or unstructured data) is collected by a script or an RPA bot. This document is then processed with a machine learning model that validates it either by rules or ML models. The validated and enriched machine-readable data is then passed on to the next system of record.
    • The accounts payable process: this process includes receiving, processing, and paying out invoices from suppliers that provided goods or services to the company. While manual processing can be expensive, take too much time, and lead to errors, businesses can automate this process with machine learning and document extraction technologies like optical characters recognition (OCR), which converts texts containing images into characters that can be readable by computers to edit, compute, and analyze.
    • Order management: these processes include retrieving email and relevant attachments, extracting information that tells the business what its customers want, updating internal systems with newly placed orders or modifications, or taking necessary actions related to customer queries.
    • Enhance customer experience: [BPA tools] can help teams develop and distribute customer loyalty offers faster while also optimizing these offers with customer insights. Now, enterprises can more easily guarantee they are delivering the relevant solutions their clients are demanding.

    Source: Stefanini Group

    Scaling BPA has its challenges

    Perceived Lack of Opportunities

    Pilot BPA implementations often involve the processes that are straightforward to automate or are already shortlisted to optimize. However, these low-hanging fruits will run out. Discovering new BPA opportunities can be challenged for a variety of reasons, such as:

    • Lack of documentation and knowledge
    • Low user participation or drive to change
    • BPA technology limitations and constraints

    Perceived Lack of Opportunities

    BPA is not a cheap investment. A single RPA bot, for example, can cost between $5,000 to $15,000. This cost does not include the added cost for training, renewal fees, infrastructure set up and other variable and reoccurring costs that often come with RPA delivery and support (Blueprint). This reality can motivate BPA owners to favor existing technologies over other cheaper and more effective alternatives in an attempt boost their return on investment.

    Ill-Equipped Support Teams

    Good technical skills and tools, and the right mindset are critical to ensure BPA capabilities are deployed effectively. Low-code no-code (LCNC) can help but success isn't guaranteed. Lack of experience with low-code platforms is the biggest obstacle in low-code adoption according to 60% of respondents (Creatio). The learning curve has led some organizations to hire contractors to onboard BPA teams, hire new employees, or dedicate significant funding and resources to upskill internal resources.

    Shift your objectives from task-based efficiencies to value-driven capabilities

    How can I improve myself?

    How can we improve my team?

    How can we improve my organization?

    Objectives

    • Improve worker productivity
    • Improve the repeatability and predictability of the process
    • Deliver outputs of consistent quality and cadence
    • Increase process, tool, and technology confidence
    • Increase the team's throughput, commitment, and load
    • Apply more focus on cognitive and complex tasks
    • Reduce the time to complete error-prone, manual, and routine collaborations
    • Deliver insightful, personalized, and valuable outputs
    • Drive more value in existing pipelines and introduce new value streams
    • Deliver consistent digital experiences involving different technologies
    • Automatically tailor a customer's experience to individual preferences
    • Forecast and rapidly respond to customer issues and market trends

    Goals

    • Learn the fit of BPA & set the foundations
    • Improve the practices & tools and optimize the performance
    • Scale BPA capabilities throughout the organization

    Gauge the success of your scaled BPA

    BPA Practice Effectiveness

    Key Question: Are stakeholders satisfied with how the BPA practice is meeting their automation needs?

    Examples of Metrics:

    • User satisfaction
    • Automation request turnaround time
    • Throughput of BPA team

    Automation Solution Quality

    Key Question: How do your automation solutions perform and meet your quality standards?

    Examples of Metrics:

    • Licensing and operational costs
    • Service level agreement and uptime/downtime
    • Number of defects

    Business Value Delivery

    Key Question: How has automation improved the value your employees, teams, and the organization delivers?

    Examples of Metrics:
    Increase in revenue generation
    Reduction in operational costs
    Expansion of business capabilities with minimal increases in costs and risks

    1.1.1 Define your scaling objectives

    5 minutes

    1. Complete the following fields to build your scaled business process automation canvas:
      1. Problem that scaling BPA is intending to solve
      2. Your vision for scaling BPA
      3. Stakeholders
      4. Scaled BPA business and IT objectives and metrics
      5. Business capabilities, processes, and application systems involved
      6. Notable constraints, roadblocks, and challenges to your scaled BPA success
    2. Document your findings and discussions in Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

    Output

    Scaled BPA value canvas

    Participants

    • Business Process Owners
    • Product Owners
    • Application Directors
    • Business Architects
    • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

    Record the results in the 2. Value Canvas Tab in the Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

    1.1.1 cont'd

    Scaled BPA Value Canvas Template:

    A screenshot of Scaled BPA Value Canvas Template

    Align your objectives to your application portfolio strategy

    Why is an application portfolio strategy important for BPA?

    • All business process optimizations are designed, delivered, and managed to support a consistent interpretation of the business and IT vision and goals.
    • Clear understanding of the sprawl, criticality, and risks of automation solutions and applications to business capabilities.
    • BPA initiatives are planned, prioritized, and coordinated alongside modernization, upgrades, and other changes to the application portfolio.
    • Resources, skills, and capacities are strategically allocated to meet BPA demand considering other commitments in the backlog and roadmap.
    • BPA expectations and practices uphold the persona, values, and principles of the application team.

    What is an application portfolio strategy?

    An application portfolio strategy details the direction, activities, and tactics to deliver on the promise of your application portfolio. It often includes:

    • Portfolio vision and goals
    • Application, automation, and process portfolio
    • Values and principles
    • Portfolio health
    • Risks and constraints
    • Strategic roadmap

    See our Application Portfolio Management Foundations blueprint for more information.

    Leverage your BPA champions to drive change and support scaling initiatives

    An arrow showing the steps to Leverage your BPA champions to drive change and support scaling initiatives

    Expected Outcome From Your Pilot: Your pilot would have recognized the roles that know how to effectively apply good BPA practices (e.g., process analysis and optimization) and are familiar with the BPA toolset. These individuals are prime candidates who can standardize your Build a Winning Business Process Automation Playbook, upskill interested teams, and build relationships among those involved in the delivery and use of BPA.

    Step 1.2

    Define Your Scaling Journey

    Activities

    1.2.1 Discuss Your BPA Opportunities
    1.2.2 Lay Out Your Scaling BPA Journey

    Scale Business Process Automation

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Business Process Owners
    • Product Owners
    • Application Directors
    • Business Architects
    • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

    Outcomes of this step

    • List of scaling BPA opportunities
    • Tailored scaling journey

    Maintain a healthy demand pipeline

    A successful scaled BPA practice requires a continuous demand for BPA capabilities and the delivery of minimum viable automations (MVA) held together by a broader strategic roadmap.

    An image of a healthy demand pipeline.  it flows from opportunities to trends, with inputs from internal and external sources.

    An MVA focuses on a single and small process use case, involves minimal possible effort to improve, and is designed to satisfy a specific user group. Its purpose is to maximize learning and value and inform the further scaling of the BPA technology, approach, or practice.

    See our Build a Winning Business Process Automation Playbook blueprint for more information.

    Investigate how BPA trends can drive more value for the organization

    • Event-Driven Automation
      Process is triggered by a schedule, system output, scenario, or user (e.g., voice-activated, time-sensitive, system condition)
    • Low- & No-Code Automation build and management are completed through an easy-to-learn scripting language and/or a GUI.
    • Intelligent Document Processing
      Transform documents for better analysis, processing and handling (e.g., optical character recognition) by a tool or system.
    • End-to-End Process Automation & Transparency
      Linking cross-functional processes to enable automation of the entire value stream with seamless handoffs or triggers.
    • Orchestration of Different BPA Technologies
      Integrating and sequencing the execution of multiple automation solutions through a single console.
    • Cognitive Automation
      AI and other intelligent technologies automate information-intensive processes, including semi and unstructured data and human thinking simulation.
    • Intelligent Internet-of-Things
      Connecting process automation technologies to physical environments with sensors and other interaction devices (e.g., computer vision).
    • Ethical Design
      Optimizing processes that align to the moral value, principles, and beliefs of the organization (e.g., respects data privacy, resists manipulative patterns).
    • User Profiling & Tailored Experiences
      Customizing process outputs and user experience with user-defined configurations or system and user activity monitoring.
    • Process Mining & Discovery
      Gleaning optimization opportunities by analyzing system activities (mining) or monitoring user interactions with applications (discovery).

    1.2.1 Discuss your BPA opportunities

    5 minutes

    1. Review the goals and objectives of your initiative and the expectations you want to gain from scaling BPA.
    2. Discuss how BPA trends can be leveraged in your organization.
    3. List high priority scaling BPA opportunities.

    Output

    • Scaled BPA opportunities

    Participants

    • Business Process Owners
    • Product Owners
    • Application Directors
    • Business Architects
    • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

    Create your recipe for success

    Your scaling BPA recipe (approach) can involve multiple different flavors of various quantities to fit the needs and constraints of your organization and workers.

    What and how many ingredients you need is dependent on three key questions:

    1. How can we ease BPA implementation?
    2. How can we broaden the BPA scope?
    3. How can we loosen constraints?

    Personalize Scaling BPA To Your Taste

    • Extend BPA Across Business Units (Horizontal)
    • Integrate BPA Across Your Application Architecture (Vertical)
    • Embed AI/ML Into Your Automation Technologies
    • Empower Users With Business-Managed Automations
    • Combine Multiple Technologies for End-to-End Automation
    • Increase the Volume and Velocity of Automation
    • Automate Cognitive Processes and Making Variable Decisions

    Answer these questions in the definition of your scaling BPA journey

    Seeing the full value of your scaling approach is dependent on your ability to support BPA adoption across the organization

    How can we ease BPA implementation?

    • Good governance practices (e.g., role definitions, delivery and management processes, technology standards).
    • Support for innovation and experimentation.
    • Interoperable and plug-and-play architecture.
    • Dedicated technology management and support, including resources, documents, templates and shells.
    • Accessible and easy-to-understand knowledge and document repository.

    How can we broaden BPA scope?

    • Provide a unified experience across processes, fragmented technologies, and siloed business functions.
    • Improve intellectually intensive activities, challenging decision making and complex processes with more valuable insights and information using BPA.
    • Proactively react to business and technology environments and operational changes and interact with customers with unattended automation.
    • Infuse BPA technologies into your product and service to expand their functions, output quality, and reliability.

    How can we loosen constraints?

    • Processes are automated without the need for structured data and optimized processes, and there is no need to work around or avoid legacy applications.
    • Workers are empowered to develop and maintain their own automations.
    • Coaching, mentoring, training, and onboarding capabilities.
    • Accessibility and adoption of underutilized applications are improved with BPA.
    • BPA is used to overcome the limitations or the inefficiencies of other BPA technologies.

    1.2.2 Lay out your scaling BPA journey

    5 minutes

    1. Review the goals and objectives of your initiative, the expectations you want to gain from scaling BPA, and the various scaling BPA opportunities.
    2. Discuss the different scaling BPA flavors (patterns) and how each flavor is applicable to your situation. Ask yourself these key questions:
      1. How can we ease BPA implementation?
      2. How can we broaden the BPA scope?
      3. How can we loosen constraints?
    3. Design the broad steps of your scaling BPA journey. See the following slide for an example.
    4. Document your findings and discussions in Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

    Record the results in the 3. Scaled BPA Journey Tab in the Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

    Output

    • Scaled BPA journey

    Participants

    • Business Process Owners
    • Product Owners
    • Application Directors
    • Business Architects
    • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

    1.2.2 cont'd

    An image of the marker used to identify Continuous business process optimization and automation Continuous business process optimization and automation
    An image of the marker used to identify Scope of Info-Tech's Build Your Business Process Automation Playbook blueprintScope of Info-Tech's Build Your Business Process Automation Playbook blueprint

    Example:

    An example of the BPA journey.  Below are the links included in the journey.

    Continuously review and realign expectations

    Optimizing your scaled BPA practices and applying continuous improvements starts with monitoring the process after implementation.

    Purpose of Monitoring

    1. Diligent monitoring confirms your scaled BPA implementation is performing as desired and meeting initial expectations.
    2. Holding reviews of your BPA practice and implementations helps assess the impact of marketplace and business operations changes and allows the organization to stay on top of trends and risks.

    Metrics

    Metrics are an important aspect of monitoring and sustaining the scaled practice. The metrics will help determine success and find areas where adjustments may be needed.

    Hold retrospectives to identify any practice issues to be resolved or opportunities to undertake

    The retrospective gives your organization the opportunity to review themselves and brainstorm solutions and a plan for improvements to be actioned. This session is reoccurring, typically, after key milestones. While it is important to allow all participants the opportunity to voice their opinions, feelings, and experiences, retrospectives must be positive, productive, and time boxed.

    Step 1.3

    Prepare to Scale BPA

    Activities

    1.3.1 Assess Your Readiness to Scale BPA

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Business Process Owners
    • Product Owners
    • Application Directors
    • Business Architects
    • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

    Outcomes of this step

    • Scale BPA readiness assessment

    Prepare to scale by learning from your pilot implementations

    "While most organizations are advised to start with automating the 'low hanging fruit' first, the truth is that it can create traps that will impede your ability to achieve RPA at scale. In fact, scaling RPA into the organizational structure is fundamentally different from implementing a conventional software product or other process automation."
    – Blueprint

    What should be the takeaways from your pilot?

    Degree of Required BPA Support

    • Practices needed to address the organization's tolerance to business process changes and automation adoption.
    • Resources, budget and skills needed to configure and orchestrate automation technologies to existing business applications and systems.

    Technology Integration & Compatibility

    • The BPA technology and application system's flexibility to be enhanced, modified, and removed.
    • Adherence to data and system quality standards (e.g., security, availability) across all tools and technologies.

    Good Practices Toolkit

    • A list of tactics, techniques, templates, and examples to assist teams assessing and optimizing business processes and applying BPA solutions in your organization's context.
    • Strategies to navigate common blockers, challenges, and risks.

    Controls & Measures

    • Defined guardrails aligned to your organization's policies and risk tolerance
    • Key metrics are gathered to gauge the value and performance of your processes and automations for enhancements and further scaling.

    Decide how to architect and govern your BPA solutions

    Centralized

    A single body and platform to coordinate, execute, and manage all automation solutions.

    An image of the Centralized approach to governing BPA solutions.

    Distributed

    Automation solutions are locally delivered and managed whether that is per business unit, type of technology, or vendor. Some collaboration and integration can occur among solutions but might be done without a holistic strategy or approach.

    An image of the Distributed approach to governing BPA solutions.

    Hybrid

    Automation solutions are locally delivered and managed and executed for isolated use cases. Broader and complex automations are centrally orchestrated and administered.

    An image of the Hybrid approach to governing BPA solutions.

    Be prepared to address the risks with scaling BPA

    "Companies tend to underestimate the complexity of their business processes – and bots will frequently malfunction without an RPA design team that knows how to anticipate and prepare for most process exceptions. Unresolved process exceptions rank among the biggest RPA challenges, prompting frustrated users to revert to manual work."
    – Eduardo Diquez, Auxis, 2020

    Scenarios

    • Handling Failures of Dependent Systems
    • Handling Data Corruption & Quality Issues
    • Alignment to Regulatory & Industry Standards
    • Addressing Changes & Regressions to Business Processes
    • "Run Away" & Hijacked Automations
    • Unauthorized Access to Sensitive Information

    Recognize the costs to support your scaled BPA environment

    Cost Factors

    Automation Operations
    How will chaining multiple BPA technologies together impact your operating budget? Is there a limit on the number of active automations you can have at a single time?

    User Licenses
    How many users require access to the designer, orchestrator, and other functions of the BPA solution? Do they also require access to dependent applications, services, and databases?

    System Enhancements
    Are application and system upgrades and modernizations needed to support BPA? Is your infrastructure, data, and security controls capable of handling BPA demand?

    Supporting Resources
    Are dedicated resources needed to support, govern, and manage BPA across business and IT functions? Are internal resources or third-party providers preferred?

    Training & Onboarding
    Are end users and supporting resources trained to deliver, support, and/or use BPA? How will training and onboarding be facilitated: internally or via third party providers?

    Create a cross-functional and supportive body to lead the scaling of BPA

    Your supportive body is a cross-functional group of individuals promoting collaboration and good BPA practices. It enables an organization to extract the full benefits from critical systems, guides the growth and evolution of strategic BPA implementations, and provides critical expertise to those that need it. A supportive body distinctly caters to optimizing and strengthening BPA governance, management, and operational practices for a single technology or business function or broadly across the entire organization encompassing all BPA capabilities.

    What a support body is not:

    • A Temporary Measure
    • Exclusive to Large Organizations
    • A Project Management Office
    • A Physical Office
    • A Quick Fix

    See our Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications With a Center of Excellence blueprint for more information.

    What are my options?

    Center of Excellence (CoE)
    AND
    Community of Practice (CoP)

    CoEs and CoPs provide critical functions

    An image of the critical functions provided by CoE and CoP.

    Shift your principles as you scale BPA

    As BPA scales, users and teams must not only think of how a BPA solution operates at a personal and technical level or what goals it is trying to achieve, but why it is worth doing and how the outcomes of the automated process will impact the organization's reputation, morality, and public perception.

    An image of the journey from Siloed BPA to Scaled BPA.

    "I think you're going to see a lot of corporations thinking about the corporate responsibility of [organizational change from automation], because studies show that consumers want and will only do business with socially responsible companies."

    – Todd Lohr

    Source: Appian, 2018.

    Assess your readiness to scale BPA

    Vision & Objectives
    Clear direction and goals of the business process automation practice.

    Governance
    Defined BPA roles and responsibilities, processes, and technology controls.

    Skills & Competencies
    The capabilities users and support roles must have to be successful with BPA.

    Business Process Management & Optimization
    The tactics to document, analyze, optimize, and monitor business processes.

    Business Process Automation Delivery
    The tactics to review the fit of automation solutions and deliver and support according to end user needs and preferences.

    Business Process Automation Platform
    The capabilities to manage BPA platforms and ensure it supports the growing needs of the business.

    1.3.1 Assess your readiness to scale BPA

    5 minutes

    1. Review your scaling BPA journey and selected patterns.
    2. Conduct a readiness assessment using the 4. Readiness Assessment tab in Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.
    3. Brainstorm solutions to improve the capability or address the gaps found in this assessment.

    Output

    • Scaled BPA readiness assessment

    Participants

    • Business Process Owners
    • Product Owners
    • Application Directors
    • Business Architects
    • BPA Delivery & Support Teams

    Record the results in the 4. Readiness Assessment tab in Info-Tech's Scale Business Process Automation Readiness Assessment.

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Bibliography

    Alston, Roland. "With the Rise of Intelligent Automation, Ethics Matter Now More than Ever." Appian, 4 Sept. 2018. Web.
    "Challenges of Achieving RPA at Scale." Blueprint, N.d. Web.
    Dilmegani, Cem. "RPA Benefits: 20 Ways Bots Improve Businesses in 2023," AI Multiple, 9 Jan 2023. Web.
    Diquez, Eduardo. "Struggling To Scale RPA? Discover The Secret to Success." Auxis, 30 Sept. 2020. Web.
    "How much does Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Really Cost?" Blueprint, 14 Sept. 2021. Web.
    "Liverpool City Council improves document process with Nintex." Nintex, n.d. Web.
    "The State of Low-Code/No-Code." Creatio, 2021. Web.
    "Using automation to enhance security and increase IT NPS to 90+ at Nutanix." Workato, n.d. Web.
    "What Is Hyperautomation? A Complete Guide To One Of Gartner's Top Tech Trends." Stefanini Group, 26 Mar. 2021. Web.

    Build a Data Architecture Roadmap

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    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
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    • Data architecture involves many moving pieces requiring coordination to provide greatest value from data.
    • Data architects are at the center of this turmoil and must be able to translate high-level business requirements into specific instructions for data workers using complex data models.
    • Data architects must account for the constantly growing data and application complexity, more demanding needs from the business, an ever-increasing number of data sources, and a growing need to integrate components to ensure that performance isn’t compromised.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Data architecture needs to evolve with the changing business landscape. There are four common business drivers that put most pressure on archaic architectures. As a result, the organization’s architecture must be flexible and responsive to changing business needs.
    • Data architecture is not just about models. Viewing data architecture as just technical data modeling can lead to structurally unsound data that does not serve the business.
    • Data is used differently across the layers of an organization’s data architecture, and the capabilities needed to optimize use of data change with it. Architecting and managing data from source to warehousing to presentation requires different tactics for optimal use.

    Impact and Result

    • Have a framework in place to identify the appropriate solution for the challenge at hand. Our three-phase practical approach will help you build a custom and modernized data architecture.
      • Identify and prioritize the business drivers in which data architecture changes would create the largest overall benefit, and determine the corresponding data architecture tiers that need to be addressed.
      • Discover the best-practice trends, measure your current state, and define the targets for your data architecture tactics.
      • Build a cohesive and personalized roadmap for restructuring your data architecture. Manage your decisions and resulting changes.

    Build a Data Architecture Roadmap Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why your organization should optimize its data architecture as it evolves with the drivers of the business to get the most from its data.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Prioritize your data architecture with business-driven tactics

    Identify the business drivers that necessitate data architecture improvements, then create a tactical plan for optimization.

    • Build a Business-Aligned Data Architecture Optimization Strategy – Phase 1: Prioritize Your Data Architecture With Business-Driven Tactics
    • Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool
    • Data Architecture Optimization Template

    2. Personalize your tactics to optimize your data architecture

    Analyze how you stack up to Info-Tech’s data architecture capability model to uncover your tactical plan, and discover groundbreaking data architecture trends and how you can fit them into your action plan.

    • Build a Business-Aligned Data Architecture Optimization Strategy – Phase 2: Personalize Your Tactics to Optimize Your Data Architecture
    • Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool
    • Data Architecture Trends Presentation

    3. Create your tactical data architecture roadmap

    Optimize your data architecture by following tactical initiatives and managing the resulting change brought on by those optimization activities.

    • Build a Business-Aligned Data Architecture Optimization Strategy – Phase 3: Create Your Tactical Data Architecture Roadmap
    • Data Architecture Decision Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Data Architecture Roadmap

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Identify the Drivers of the Business for Optimizing Data Architecture

    The Purpose

    Explain approach and value proposition.

    Review the common business drivers and how the organization is driving a need to optimize data architecture.

    Understand Info-Tech’s five-tier data architecture model.

    Determine the pattern of tactics that apply to the organization for optimization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of the current data architecture landscape.

    Priorities for tactical initiatives in the data architecture practice are identified.

    Target state for the data quality practice is defined.

    Activities

    1.1 Explain approach and value proposition.

    1.2 Review the common business drivers and how the organization is driving a need to optimize data architecture.

    1.3 Understand Info-Tech’s five-tier data architecture model.

    1.4 Determine the pattern of tactics that apply to the organization for optimization.

    Outputs

    Five-tier logical data architecture model

    Data architecture tactic plan

    2 Determine Your Tactics For Optimizing Data Architecture

    The Purpose

    Define improvement initiatives.

    Define a data architecture improvement strategy and roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gaps, inefficiencies, and opportunities in the data architecture practice are identified.

    Activities

    2.1 Create business unit prioritization roadmap.

    2.2 Develop subject area project scope.

    2.3 Subject area 1: data lineage analysis, root cause analysis, impact assessment, business analysis

    Outputs

    Business unit prioritization roadmap

    Subject area scope

    Data lineage diagram

    3 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 2

    The Purpose

    Define improvement initiatives.

    Define a data quality improvement strategy and roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Improvement initiatives are defined.

    Improvement initiatives are evaluated and prioritized to develop an improvement strategy.

    A roadmap is defined to depict when and how to tackle the improvement initiatives.

    Activities

    3.1 Create business unit prioritization roadmap.

    3.2 Develop subject area project scope.

    3.3 Subject area 1: data lineage analysis, root cause analysis, impact assessment, business analysis.

    Outputs

    Business unit prioritization roadmap

    Subject area scope

    Data lineage diagram

    Further reading

    Build a Data Architecture Roadmap

    Optimizing data architecture requires a plan, not just a data model.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    Integral to an insight-driven enterprise is a modern and business-driven data environment.

    “As business and data landscapes change, an organization’s data architecture needs to be able to keep pace with these changes. It needs to be responsive so as to not only ensure the organization continues to operate efficiently but that it supports the overall strategic direction of the organization.

    In the dynamic marketplace of today, organizations are constantly juggling disruptive forces and are finding the need to be more proactive rather than reactive. As such, organizations are finding their data to be a source of competitive advantage where the data architecture has to be able to not only support the increasing amount, sources, and rate at which organizations are capturing and collecting data but also be able to meet and deliver on changing business needs.

    Data architecture optimization should, therefore, aid in breaking down data silos and creating a more shared and all-encompassing data environment for better empowering the business.” (Crystal Singh, Director, Research, Data and Information Practice, Info-Tech Research Group)

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:
    • Data architects or their equivalent, looking to optimize and improve the efficiency of the capture, movement and storage of data for a variety of business drivers.
    • Enterprise architects looking to improve the backbone of the holistic approach of their organization’s structure.
    This Research Will Help You:
    • Identify the business drivers that are impacted and improved by best-practice data architecture.
    • Optimize your data architecture using tactical practices to address the pressing issues of the business to drive modernization.
    • Align the organization’s data architecture with the grander enterprise architecture.
    This Research Will Also Assist:
    • CIOs concerned with costs, benefits, and the overall structure of their organizations data flow.
    • Database administrators tasked with overseeing crucial elements of the data architecture.
    This Research Will Help Them:
    • Get a handle on the current situation of data within the organization.
    • Understand how data architecture affects the operations of the data sources within the enterprise.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • The data architecture of a modern organization involves many moving pieces requiring coordination to provide greatest value from data.
    • Data architects are at the center of this turmoil and must be able to translate high-level business requirements into specific instructions for data workers using complex data models.

    Complication

    • Data architects must account for the constantly growing data and application complexity, and more demanding needs from the business.
    • There is an ever-increasing number of data sources and a growing need to integrate components to ensure that performance isn’t compromised.
    • There isn’t always a clearly defined data architect role, yet the responsibilities must be filled to get maximum value from data.

    Resolution

    • To deal with these challenges, a data architect must have a framework in place to identify the appropriate solution for the challenge at hand.
      • Identify and prioritize the business drivers in which data architecture changes would create the largest overall benefit, and determine the corresponding data architecture tiers that need to be addressed to customize your solution.
      • Discover the best practice trends, measure your current state, and define the targets for your data architecture tactics.
      • Build a cohesive and personalized roadmap for restructuring your data architecture. Manage your decisions and resulting changes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Data architecture is not just about models. Viewing data architecture as just technical data modeling can lead to a data environment that does not aptly serve or support the business. Identify the priorities of your business and adapt your data architecture to those needs.
    2. Changes to data architecture are typically driven by four common business driver patterns. Use these as a shortcut to understand how to evolve your data architecture.
    3. Data is used differently across the layers of an organization’s data architecture; therefore, the capabilities needed to optimize the use of data change with it. Architecting and managing data from source to warehousing to presentation requires different tactics for optimal use.

    Your data is the foundation of your organization’s knowledge and ability to make decisions

    Data should be at the foundation of your organization’s evolution.

    The transformational insights that executives are constantly seeking to leverage can be uncovered with a data practice that makes high quality, trustworthy information readily available to the business users who need it.

    50% Organizations that embrace data are 50% more likely to launch products and services ahead of their competitors. (Nesta, 2016)

    Whether hoping to gain a better understanding of your business or trying to become an innovator in your industry, any organization can get value from its data regardless of where you are in your journey to becoming a data-driven enterprise:

    Business Monitoring
    • Data reporting
    • Uncover inefficiencies
    • Monitor progress
    • Track inventory levels
    Business Insights
    • Data analytics
    • Expose patterns
    • Predict future trends
    Business Optimization
    • Data-based apps
    • Build apps to automate actions based on insights
    Business Transformation
    • Monetary value of data
    • Create new revenue streams
    (Journey to Data Driven Enterprise, 2015)

    As organizations seek to become more data driven, it is imperative to better manage data for its effective use

    Here comes the zettabyte era.

    A zettabyte is a billion terabytes. Organizations today need to measure their data size in zettabytes, a challenge that is only compounded by the speed at which the data is expected to move.

    Arriving at the understanding that data can be the driving force of your organization is just the first step. The reality is that the true hurdles to overcome are in facing the challenges of today’s data landscape.

    Challenges of The Modern Data Landscape
    Data at rest Data movement
    Greater amounts Different types Uncertain quality Faster rates Higher complexity

    “The data environment is very chaotic nowadays. Legacy applications, data sprawl – organizations are grappling with what their data landscape looks like. Where are our data assets that we need to use?” (Andrew Johnston, Independent Consultant)

    Solution

    Well-defined and structured data management practices are the best way to mitigate the limitations that derive from these challenges and leverage the most possible value from your data.

    Refer to Info-Tech’s capstone Create a Plan For Establishing a Business-Aligned Data Management Practice blueprint to understand data quality in the context of data disciplines and methods for improving your data management capabilities.

    Data architecture is an integral aspect of data management

    Data Architecture

    The set of rules, policies, standards, and models that govern and define the type of data collected and how it is used, stored, managed, and integrated within the organization and its database systems.

    In general, the primary objective of data architecture is the standardization of data for the benefit of the organization.

    54% of leading “analytics-driven” enterprises site data architecture as a required skill for data analytics initiatives. (Maynard 2015)

    MYTH

    Data architecture is purely a model of the technical requirements of your data systems.

    REALITY

    Data architecture is largely dependent on a human element. It can be viewed as “the bridge between defining strategy and its implementation”. (Erwin 2016)

    Functions

    A strong data architecture should:

    • Define, visualize, and communicate data strategy to various stakeholders.
    • Craft a data delivery environment.
    • Ensure high data quality.
    • Provide a roadmap for continuous improvement.

    Business value

    A strong data architecture will help you:

    • Align data processes with business strategy and the overall holistic enterprise architecture.
    • Enable efficient flow of data with a stronger focus on quality and accessibility.
    • Reduce the total cost of data ownership.

    Data architects must maintain a comprehensive view of the organization’s rapidly proliferating data

    The data architect:
    • Acts as a “translator” between the business and data workers to communicate data and technology requirements.
    • Facilitates the creation of the data strategy.
    • Manages the enterprise data model.
    • Has a greater knowledge of operational and analytical data use cases.
    • Recommends data management policies and standards, and maintains data management artifacts.
    • Reviews project solution architectures and identifies cross impacts across the data lifecycle.
    • Is a hands-on expert in data management and warehousing technologies.
    • Is not necessarily it’s own designated position, but a role that can be completed by a variety of IT professionals.

    Data architects bridge the gap between strategic and technical requirements:

    Visualization centering the 'Data Architect' as the bridge between 'Data Workers', 'Business', and 'Data & Applications'.

    “Fundamentally, the role of a data architect is to understand the data in an organization at a reasonable level of abstraction.” (Andrew Johnston, Independent Consultant)

    Many are experiencing the pains of poor data architecture, but leading organizations are proactively tackling these issues

    Outdated and archaic systems and processes limit the ability to access data in a timely and efficient manner, ultimately diminishing the value your data should bring.

    59%

    of firms believe their legacy storage systems require too much processing to meet today’s business needs. (Attivio, Survey Big Data decision Makers, 2016)

    48%

    of companies experience pains from being reliant on “manual methods and trial and error when preparing data.” (Attivio, Survey Big Data decision Makers, 2016)

    44%
    +
    22%

    44% of firms said preparing data was their top hurdle for analytics, with 22% citing problems in accessing data. (Data Virtualization blog, Data Movement Killed the BI Star, 2016)

    Intuitive organizations who have recognized these shortcomings have already begun the transition to modernized and optimized systems and processes.

    28%

    of survey respondents say they plan to replace “data management and architecture because it cannot handle the requirements of big data.” (Informatica, Digital Transformation: Is Your Data Management Ready, 2016)

    50%

    Of enterprises plan to replace their data warehouse systems and analytical tools in the next few years. (TDWI, End of the Data Warehouse as we know it, 2017)

    Leading organizations are attacking data architecture problems … you will be left behind if you do not start now!

    Once on your path to redesigning your data architecture, neglecting the strategic elements may leave you ineffective

    Focusing on only data models without the required data architecture guidance can cause harmful symptoms in your IT department, which will lead to organization-wide problems.

    IT Symptoms Due to Ineffective Data Architecture

    Poor Data Quality

    • Inconsistent, duplicate, missing, incomplete, incorrect, unstandardized, out of date, and mistake-riddled data can plague your systems.

    Poor Accessibility

    • Delays in accessing data.
    • Limits on who can access data.
    • Limited access to data remotely.

    Strategic Disconnect

    • Disconnect between owner and consumer of data.
    • Solutions address narrow scope problems.
    • System barriers between departments.
    Leads to Poor Organizational Conditions

    Inaccurate Insights

    • Inconsistent and/or erroneous operational and management reports.
    • Ineffective cross-departmental use of analytics.

    Ineffective Decision Making

    • Slow flow of information to executive decision makers.
    • Inconsistent interpretation of data or reports.

    Inefficient Operations

    • Limits to automated functionality.
    • Increased divisions within organization.
    • Regulatory compliance violations.
    You need a solution that will prevent the pains.

    Follow Info-Tech’s methodology to optimize data architecture to meet the business needs

    The following is a summary of Info-Tech’s methodology:

    1

    1. Prioritize your core business objectives and identify your business driver.
    2. Learn how business drivers apply to specific tiers of Info-Tech’s five-tier data architecture model.
    3. Determine the appropriate tactical pattern that addresses your most important requirements.
    Visualization of the process described on the left: Business drivers applying to Info-Tech's five-tier data architecture, then determining tactical patterns, and eventually setting targets of your desired optimized state.

    2

    1. Select the areas of the five-tier architecture to focus on.
    2. Measure current state.
    3. Set the targets of your desired optimized state.

    3

    1. Roadmap your tactics.
    2. Manage and communicate change.
    A roadmap leading to communication.

    Info-Tech will get you to your optimized state faster by focusing on the important business issues

    First Things First

    1. Info-Tech’s methodology helps you to prioritize and establish the core strategic objectives behind your goal of modernizing data architecture. This will narrow your focus to the appropriate areas of your current data systems and processes that require the most attention.

    Info-Tech has identified these four common drivers that lead to the need to optimize your data architecture.

    • Becoming More Data Driven
    • Regulations and Compliance
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • New Functionality or Business Rule

    These different core objectives underline the motivation to optimize data architecture, and will determine your overall approach.

    Use the five-tier architecture to provide a consumable view of your data architecture

    Every organization’s data system requires a unique design and an assortment of applications and storage units to fit their business needs. Therefore, it is difficult to paint a picture of an ideal model that has universal applications. However, when data architecture is broken down in terms of layers or tiers, there exists a general structure that is seen in all data systems.

    Info-Tech's Five Tier Data Architecture. The five tiers being 'Sources' which includes 'Apps', 'Excel and other documents', and 'Access database(s)'; 'Integration and Translation' the 'Movement and transformation of data'; 'Warehousing' which includes 'Data Lakes & Warehouse(s) (Raw Data)'; 'Analytics' which includes 'Data Marts', 'Data Cube', 'Flat Files', and 'BI Tools'; and 'Presentation' which includes 'Reports' and 'Dashboards'.

    Thinking of your data systems and processes in this framework will allow you to see how different elements of the architecture relate to specific business operations.

    1. This blueprint will demonstrate how the business driver behind your redesign requires you to address specific layers of the five-tier data architecture.
    1. Once you’ve aligned your business driver to the appropriate data tiers, this blueprint will provide you with the best practice tactics you should apply to achieve an optimized data architecture.

    Use the five-tier architecture to prioritize tactics to improve your data architecture in line with your pattern

    Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Capability Model
    Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Capability Model featuring the five-tier architecture listing 'Core Capabilities' and 'Advanced Capabilities' within each tier, and a list of 'Cross Capabilities' which apply to all tiers.
    1. Based on your business driver, the relevant data tiers, and your organization’s own specific requirements you will need to establish the appropriate data architecture capabilities.
    2. This blueprint will help you measure how you are currently performing in these capabilities…
    3. And help you define and set targets so you can reach your optimized state.
    1. Once completed, these steps will be provided with the information you will need to create a comprehensive roadmap.
    2. Lastly, this blueprint will provide you with the tools to communicate this plan across your organization and offer change management guidelines to ensure successful adoption.
    Info-Tech Insight

    Optimizing data architecture requires a tactical approach, not a passive approach.

    The demanding task of optimization requires the ability to heavily prioritize. After you have identified why, determine how using our pre-built roadmap to address the four common drivers.

    Do not forget: data architecture is not a standalone concept; it fits into the more holistic design of enterprise architecture

    Data Architecture in Alignment

    Data architecture can not be designed to simply address the focus of data specialists or even the IT department.

    It must act as a key component in the all encompassing enterprise architecture and reflect the strategy and design of the entire business.

    Data architecture collaborates with application architecture in the delivery of effective information systems, and informs technology architecture on data related infrastructure requirements/considerations

    Please refer to the following blueprints to see the full picture of enterprise architecture:

    A diagram titled 'Enterprise Architecture' with multiple forms of architecture interacting with each other. At the top is 'Business Architecture' which feeds into 'Data Architecture' and 'Application Architecture' which feed into each other, and influence 'Infrastructure Architecture' and 'Security Architecture'.
    Adapted from TOGAF
    Refer to Phase C of TOGAF and Bizbok for references to the components of business architecture that are used in data architecture.

    Info-Tech’s data architecture optimization methodology helped a monetary authority fulfill strict regulatory pressures

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Financial
    Source: Info-Tech Consulting
    Symbol for 'Monetary Authority Case Study'. Look for this symbol as you walk through the blueprint for details on how Info-Tech Consulting assisted this monetary authority.

    Situation: Strong external pressures required the monetary authority to update and optimize its data architecture.

    The monetary authority is responsible for oversight of the financial situation of a country that takes in revenue from foreign incorporation. Due to increased pressure from international regulatory bodies, the monetary authority became responsible for generating multiple different types of beneficial ownership reports based on corporation ownership data within 24 hours of a request.

    A stale and inefficient data architecture prevented the monetary authority from fulfilling external pressures.

    Normally, the process to generate and provide beneficial ownership reports took a week or more. This was due to multiple points of stale data architecture, including a dependence on outdated legacy systems and a broken process for gathering the required data from a mix of paper and electronic sources.

    Provide a structured approach to solving the problem

    Info-Tech helped the monetary authority identify the business need that resulted from regulatory pressures, the challenges that needed to be overcome, and actionable tactics for addressing the needs.

    Info-Tech’s methodology was followed to optimize the areas of data architecture that address the business driver.

    • External Requirements
    • Business Driver
        Diagnose Data Architecture Problems
      • Outdated architecture (paper, legacy systems)
      • Stale data from other agencies
      • Incomplete data
          Data Architecture Optimization Tactics
        1. Optimized Source Databases
        2. Improved Integration
        3. Data Warehouse Optimization
        4. Data Marts for Reports
        5. Report Delivery Efficiency

    As you walk through this blueprint, watch for additional case studies that walk through the details of how Info-Tech helped this monetary authority.

    This blueprint’s three-step process will help you optimize data architecture in your organization

    Phase 1
    Prioritize Your Data Architecture With Business-Driven Tactics
    Phase 2
    Personalize Your Tactics to Optimize Your Data Architecture
    Phase 3
    Create Your Tactical Data Architecture Roadmap
    Step 1: Identify Your Business Driver for Optimizing Data Architecture
    • Learn about what data architecture is and how it must evolve with the drivers of the business.
    • Determine the business driver that your organization is currently experiencing.
    • Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool

    Step 2: Determine Actionable Tactics to Optimize Data Architecture
    • Create your data architecture optimization plan to determine the high-level tactics you need to follow.
    • Data Architecture Optimization Template

    Step 1: Measure Your Data Architecture Capabilities
    • Determine where you currently stand in the data architecture capabilities across the five-tier data architecture.
    • Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool

    Step 2: Set a Target for Data Architecture Capabilities
    • Identify your targets for the data architecture capabilities.
    • Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool

    Step 3: Identify the Tactics that Apply to Your Organization
    • Understand the trends in the field of data architecture and how they can help to optimize your environment.
    • Data Architecture Trends Presentation

    Step 1: Personalize Your Data Architecture Roadmap
    • Personalize the tactics across the tiers that apply to you to build your personalized roadmap.
    • Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool

    Step 2: Manage Your Data Architecture Decisions and the Resulting Changes
    • Document the changes in the organization’s data architecture.
    • Data architecture involves change management – learn how data architects should support change management in the organization.
    • Data Architecture Decision Template

    Use these icons to help direct you as you navigate this research

    Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.

    A small monochrome icon of a wrench and screwdriver creating an X.

    This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.

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    This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Build a Business-Aligned Data Architecture Optimization Strategy – project overview

    PHASE 1
    Prioritize Your Data Architecture With Business-Driven Tactics
    PHASE 2
    Personalize Your Tactics to Optimize Your Data Architecture
    PHASE 3
    Create Your Tactical Data Architecture Roadmap
    Supporting Tool icon

    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Identify Your Business Driver for Optimizing Data Architecture

    1.2 Determine Actionable Tactics to Optimize Data Architecture

    2.1 Measure Your Data Architecture Capabilities

    2.2 Set a Target for Data Architecture Capabilities

    2.3 Identify the Tactics that Apply to Your Organization

    3.1 Personalize Your Data Architecture Roadmap

    3.2 Manage Your Data Architecture Decisions and the Resulting Changes

    Guided Implementations

    • Understand what data architecture is, how it aligns with enterprise architecture, and how data architects support the needs of the business.
    • Identify the business drivers that necessitate the optimization of the organization’s data architecture.
    • Create a tactical plan to optimize data architecture across Info-Tech’s five-tier logical data architecture model.
    • Understand Info-Tech’s tactical data architecture capability model and measure the current state of these capabilities at the organization.
    • Determine the target state of data architecture capabilities.
    • Understand the trends in the field of data architecture and identify how they can fit into your environment.
    • Use the results of the data architecture capability gap assessment to determine the priority of activities to populate your personalized data architecture optimization roadmap.
    • Understand how to manage change as a data architect or equivalent.
    Associated Activity icon

    Onsite Workshop

    Module 1:
    Identify the Drivers of the Business for Optimizing Data Architecture
    Module 2:
    Create a Tactical Plan for Optimizing Data Architecture
    Module 3:
    Create a Personalized Roadmap for Data Architecture Activities

    Workshop overview

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Preparation

    Workshop Day 1

    Workshop Day 2

    Workshop Day 3

    Workshop Day 4

    Workshop Day 5

    Organize and Plan Workshop Identify the Drivers of the Business for Optimizing Data Architecture Determine the Tactics For Optimizing Data Architecture Create Your Roadmap of Optimization Activities Create Your Personalized Roadmap Create a Plan for Change Management

    Morning Activities

    • Finalize workshop itinerary and scope.
    • Identify workshop participants.
    • Gather strategic documentation.
    • Engage necessary stakeholders.
    • Book interviews.
    • 1.1 Explain approach and value proposition.
    • 1.2 Review the common business drivers and how the organization is driving a need to optimize data architecture.
    • 2.1 Create your data architecture optimization plan.
    • 2.2 Interview key business stakeholders for input on business drivers for data architecture.
    • 3.1 Align with the enterprise architecture by interviewing the enterprise architect for input on the data architecture optimization roadmap.
    • 4.1 As a group, determine the roadmap activities that are applicable to your organization and brainstorm applicable initiatives.
    • 5.1 Use the Data Architecture Decision Documentation Template to document key decisions and updates.

    Afternoon Activities

    • 1.3 Understand Info-Tech’s Five-Tier Data Architecture.
    • 1.4 Determine the pattern of tactics that apply to the organization for optimization.
    • 2.3 With input from the business and enterprise architect, determine the current data architecture capabilities.
    • 3.3 With input from the business and enterprise architect, determine the target data architecture capabilities.
    • 4.2 Determine the timing and effort of the roadmap activities.
    • 5.2 Review best practices for change management.
    • 5.3 Present roadmap and findings to the business stakeholders and enterprise architect.

    Deliverables

    • Workshop Itinerary
    • Workshop Participant List
    1. Five-Tier Logical Data Architecture Model
    2. Data Architecture Tactic Plan
    1. Five-Tier Data Architecture Capability Model
    1. Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap
    1. Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap
    1. Data Architecture Decision Template

    Build a Business-Aligned Data Architecture Optimization Strategy

    PHASE 1

    Prioritize Your Data Architecture With Business-Driven Tactics

    Phase 1 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 1: Prioritize Your Data Architecture With Business-Driven Tactics

    Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks
    Step 1.1: Identify Your Business Driver for Optimizing Data Architecture Step 1.2: Determine Actionable Tactics to Optimize Data Architecture
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Understand what data architecture is, what it is not, and how it fits into the broader enterprise architecture program.
    • Determine the drivers that fuel the need for data architecture optimization.
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Understand the Five-Tier Data Architecture Model and how the drivers of the business inform your priorities across this logical model of data architecture.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Complete the Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Create a tactical data architecture optimization plan based on the business driver input.
    With these tools & templates:
    • Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool
    With these tools & templates:
    • Data Architecture Optimization Template

    Phase 1 Results & Insights

    • Data Architecture is not just about data models. The approach that Phase 1 guides you through will help to not only plan where you need to focus your efforts as a data architect (or equivalent) but also give you guidance in how you should go about optimizing the holistic data architecture environment based on the drivers of the business.

    Phase 1 will help you create a strategy to optimize your data architecture using actionable tactics

    In this phase, you will determine your focus for optimizing your data architecture based on the business drivers that are commonly felt by most organizations.

    1. Identify the business drivers that necessitate data architecture optimization efforts.
    2. Understand Info-Tech’s Five-Tier Data Architecture, a logical architecture model that will help you prioritize tactics for optimizing your data architecture environment.
    3. Identify tactics for optimizing the organization’s data architecture across the five tiers.

    “To stay competitive, we need to become more data-driven. Compliance pressures are becoming more demanding. We need to add a new functionality.”

    Info-Tech’s Five-Tier Data Architecture:

    1. Data Sources
    2. Data Integration and Translation
    3. Data Warehousing
    4. Data Analytics
    5. Data Presentation

    Tactical plan for Data Architecture Optimization

    Phase 1, Step 1: Identify Your Business Driver for Optimizing Data Architecture

    PHASE 1

    1.1 1.2
    Identify Your Business Driver for Optimizing Data Architecture Determine Actionable Tactics to Optimize Data Architecture

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand how data architecture fits into the organization’s larger enterprise architecture.
    • Understand what data architecture is and how it should be driven by the business.
    • Identify the driver that is creating a need for data architecture optimization.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Data Architect
    • Enterprise Architect

    Outcomes of this step

    • A starting point for the many responsibilities of the data architect role. Balancing business and technical requirements can be challenging, and to do so you need to first understand what is driving the need for data architecture improvements.
    • Holistic understanding of the organization’s architecture environment, including enterprise, application, data, and technology architectures and how they interact.

    Data architecture involves planning, communication, and understanding of technology

    Data Architecture

    A description of the structure and interaction of the enterprise’s major types and sources of data, logical data assets, physical data assets, and data management resources (TOGAF 9).

    The subject area of data management that defines the data needs of the enterprise and designs the master blueprints to meet those needs (DAMA DMBOK, 2009).

    IBM (2007) defines data architecture as the design of systems and applications that facilitate data availability and distribution across the enterprise.

    Definitions vary slightly across major architecture and management frameworks.

    However, there is a general consensus that data architecture provides organizations with:

    • Alignment
    • Planning
    • Road mapping
    • Change management
    • A guide for the organization’s data management program

    Data architecture must be based on business goals and objectives; developed within the technical strategies, constraints, and opportunities of the organization in support of providing a foundation for data management.

    Current Data Management
    • Alignment
    • Planning
    • Road mapping
    Goal for Data Management

    Info-Tech Insight

    Data Architecture is not just data models. Data architects must understand the needs of the business, as well as the existing people and processes that already exist in the organization to effectively perform their job.

    Review how data architecture fits into the broader architectural context

    A flow diagram starting with 'Business Processes/Activities' to 'Business Architecture' which through a process of 'Integration' flows to 'Data Architecture' and 'Application Architecture', the latter of which also flows into to the former, and they both flow into 'Technology Architecture' which includes 'Infrastructure' and 'Security'.

    Each layer of architecture informs the next. In other words, each layer has components that execute processes and offer services to the next layer. For example, data architecture can be broken down into more granular activities and processes that inform how the organization’s technology architecture should be arranged.

    Data does not exist on its own. It is informed by business architecture and used by other architectural domains to deliver systems, IT services, and to support business processes. As you build your practice, you must consider how data fits within the broader architectural framework.

    The Zachman Framework is a widely used EA framework; within it, data is identified as the first domain.

    The framework aims to standardize artifacts (work-products) within each architectural domain, provides a cohesive view of the scope of EA and clearly delineates data components. Use the framework to ensure that your target DA practice is aligned to other domains within the EA framework.

    'The Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture: The Enterprise Ontology', a complicated framework with top and bottom column headers and left and right row headers. Along the top are 'Classification Names': 'What', 'How', 'Where', 'Who', 'When', and 'Why'. Along the bottom are 'Enterprise Names': 'Inventory Sets', 'Process Flows', 'Distribution Networks', 'Responsibility Assignments', 'Timing Cycles', and 'Motivation Intentions'. Along the left are 'Audience Perspectives': 'Executive Perspective', 'Business Mgmt. Perspective', 'Architect Perspective', 'Engineer Perspective', 'Technician Perspective', and 'Enterprise Perspective'. Along the right are 'Model Names': 'Scope Contexts', 'Business Concepts', 'System Logic', 'Technology Physics', 'Tool Components', and 'Operations Instances'.
    (Source: Zachman International)

    Data architects operate in alignment with the other various architecture groups

    Data architects operate in alignment with the other various architecture groups, with coordination from the enterprise architect.

    Enterprise Architect
    The enterprise architect provides thought leadership and direction to domain architects.

    They also maintain architectural standards across all the architectural domains and serve as a lead project solution architect on the most critical assignments.

    • Business Architect
      A business subject matter expert who works with the line-of-business team to assist in business planning through capability-based planning.
    • Security Architect
      Plays a pivotal role in formulating the security strategy of the organization, working with the business and CISO/security manager. Recommends and maintains security standards, policies, and best practices.
    • Infrastructure Architect
      Recommends and maintains standards across the compute, storage, and network layers of the organization. Reviews project solution architectures to ensure compliance with infrastructure standards, regulations, and target state blueprints.
    • Application Architect
      Manages the business effectiveness, satisfaction, and maintainability of the application portfolio. Conduct application architecture assessments to document expected quality attribute standards, identify hotspots, and recommend best practices.
    • Data Architect
      Facilitates the creation of data strategy and has a greater understanding of operational and analytical data use cases. Manages the enterprise data model which includes all the three layers of modelling - conceptual, logical, and physical. Recommends data management policies and standards, and maintains data management artefacts. Reviews project solution architectures and identifies cross impacts across the data lifecycle.

    As a data architect, you must maintain balance between the technical and the business requirements

    The data architect role is integral to connecting the long-term goals of the business with how the organization plans to manage its data for optimal use.

    Data architects need to have a deep experience in data management, data warehousing, and analytics technologies. At a high level, the data architect plans and implements an organization’s data, reporting, and analytics roadmap.

    Some of the role’s primary duties and responsibilities include:

    1. Data modeling
    2. Reviewing existing data architecture
    3. Benchmark and improve database performance
    4. Fine tune database and SQL queries
    5. Lead on ETL activities
    6. Validate data integrity across all platforms
    7. Manage underlying framework for data presentation layer
    8. Ensure compliance with proper reporting to bureaus and partners
    9. Advise management on data solutions

    Data architects bridge the gap between strategic and technical requirements:

    Visualization centering the 'Data Architect' as the bridge between 'Data Workers', 'Business', and 'Data & Applications'.

    “Fundamentally, the role of a data architect is to understand the data in an organization at a reasonable level of abstraction.” (Andrew Johnston, Independent Consultant)

    Info-Tech Insight

    The data architect role is not always clear cut. Many organizations do not have a dedicated data architect resource, and may not need one. However, the duties and responsibilities of the data architect must be carried out to some degree by a combination of resources as appropriate to the organization’s size and environment.

    Understand the role of a data architect to ensure that essential responsibilities are covered in the organization

    A database administrator (DBA) is not a data architect, and data architecture is not something you buy from an enterprise application vendor.

    Data Architect Role Description

    • The data architect must develop (along with the business) a short-term and long-term vision for the enterprise’s data architecture.
    • They must be able to create processes for governing the identification, collection, and use of accurate and valid metadata, as well as for tracking data quality, completeness, and redundancy.
    • They need to create strategies for data security, backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, and archiving, and ensure regulatory compliance.

    Skills Necessary

    • Hands-on experience with data architecting and management, data mining, and large-scale data modeling.
    • Strong understanding of relational and non-relational data structures, theories, principles, and practices.
    • Strong familiarity with metadata management.
    • Knowledge of data privacy practices and laws.

    Define Policies, Processes, and Priorities

    • Policies
      • Boundaries of the data architecture.
      • Data architecture standards.
      • Data architecture security.
      • Responsibility of ownership for the data architecture and data repositories.
      • Responsibility for data architecture governance.
    • Processes
      • Data architecture communication.
      • Data architecture change management.
      • Data architecture governance.
      • Policy compliance monitoring.
    • Priorities
      • Align architecture efforts with business priorities.
      • Close technology gaps to meet service level agreements (SLAs).
      • Determine impacts on current or future projects.

    See Info-Tech’s Data Architect job description for a comprehensive description of the data architect role.

    Leverage data architecture frameworks to understand how the role fits into the greater Enterprise Architecture framework

    Enterprise data architectures are available from industry consortiums such as The Open Group (TOGAF®), and open source initiatives such as MIKE2.0.

    Logo for The Open Group.

    The Open Group TOGAF enterprise architecture model is a detailed framework of models, methods, and supporting tools to create an enterprise-level architecture.

    • TOGAF was first developed in 1995 and was based on the Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM) developed by the US Department of Defense.
    • TOGAF includes application, data, and infrastructure architecture domains providing enterprise-level, product-neutral architecture principles, policies, methods, and models.
    • As a member of The Open Group, it is possible to participate in ongoing TOGAF development initiatives.

    The wide adoption of TOGAF has resulted in the mapping of it to several other industry standards including CoBIT and ITIL.

    Logo for MIKE2.0.

    MIKE2.0 (Method for an Integrated Knowledge Environment), is an open source method for enterprise information management providing a framework for information development.

    • SAFE (Strategic Architecture for the Federated Enterprise) provides the technology solution framework for MIKE2.0
    • SAFE includes application, presentation, information, data, Infrastructure, and metadata architecture domains.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    If an enterprise-level IT architecture is your goal, TOGAF is likely a better model. However, if you are an information and knowledge-based business then MIKE2.0 may be more relevant to your business.

    The data architect must identify what drives the need for data from the business to create a business-driven architecture

    As the business landscape evolves, new needs arise. An organization may undergo new compliance requirements, or look to improve their customer intimacy, which could require a new functionality from an application and its associated database.

    There are four common scenarios that lead to an organization’s need to optimize its data architecture and these scenarios all present unique challenges for a data architect:

    1. Becoming More Data Driven As organizations are looking to get more out of their data, there is a push for more accurate and timely data from applications. Data-driven decision making requires verifiable data from trustworthy sources. Result: Replace decisions made on gut or intuition with real and empirical data - make more informed and data-driven decisions.
    2. New Functionality or Business Rule In order to succeed as business landscapes change, organizations find themselves innovating on products or services and the way they do things. Changes in business rules, product or service offering, and new functionalities can subsequently demand more from the existing data architecture. Result: Prepare yourself to successfully launch new business initiatives with an architecture that supports business needs.
    3. Mergers and Acquisitions If an organization has recently acquired, been acquired, or is merging with another, the technological implications require careful planning to ensure a seamless fit. Application consolidation, retirement, data transfer, and integration points are crucial. Result: Leverage opportunities to incorporate and consolidate new synergistic assets to realize the ROI.
    4. Risk and Compliance Data in highly regulated organizations needs to be kept safe and secure. Architectural decisions around data impact the level of compliance within the organization. Result: Avoid the fear of data audits, regulatory violations, and privacy breaches.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    These are not the only reasons why data architects need to optimize the organization’s data architecture. These are only four of the most common scenarios, however, other business needs can be addressed using the same concept as these four common scenarios.

    Use the Data Architecture Driver tool to identify your focus for data architecture

    Supporting Tool icon 1.1 Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool

    Follow Info-Tech’s process of first analyzing the needs of the business, then determining how best to architect your data based on these drivers. Data architecture needs to be able to rapidly evolve to support the strategic goals of the business, and the Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool will help you to prioritize your efforts to best do this.

    Tab 2. Driver Identification

    Objective: Objectively assess the most pressing business drivers.

    Screenshot of the Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, tab 2.

    Tab 3. Tactic Pattern Plan, Section 1

    Purpose: Review your business drivers that require architectural changes in your environment.

    Screenshot of the Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, tab 3, section 1.

    Tab 3. Tactic Pattern Plan, Section 2

    Purpose: Determine a list of tactics that will help you address the business drivers.

    Screenshot of the Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, tab 3, section 2.

    Step
    • Evaluate business drivers to determine the data architecture optimization priorities and tactics.
    Step
    • Understand how each business driver relates to data architecture and how each driver gives rise to a specific pattern across the five-tier data architecture.
    Step
    • Review the list of high-level tactics presented to optimize your data architecture across the five tier architecture.

    Identify the drivers for improving your data architecture

    Associated Activity icon 1.1.1 1 hour

    INPUT: Data Architecture Driver tool assessment prompts.

    OUTPUT: Identified business driver that applies to your organization.

    Materials: Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool

    Participants: Data architect, Enterprise architect

    Instructions

    In Tab 2. Driver Identification of the Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, assess the degree to which the organization is feeling the pains of the four most common business drivers:

    1. Is there a present or growing need for the business to be making data-driven decisions?
    2. Does the business want to explore a new functionality and hence require a new application?
    3. Is your organization acquiring or merging with another entity?
    4. Is your organization’s regulatory environment quick to change and require stricter reporting?

    Data architecture improvements need to be driven by business need.

    Screenshot of the Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, tab 2 Driver Identification.
    Tab 2. Driver Identification

    “As a data architect, you have to understand the functional requirements, the non-functional requirements, then you need to make a solution for those requirements. There can be multiple solutions and multiple purposes. (Andrew Johnston, Independent Consultant)

    Interview the business to get clarity on business objectives and drivers

    Associated Activity icon 1.1.2 1 hour per interview

    INPUT: Sample questions targeting the activities, challenges, and opportunities of each business unit

    OUTPUT: Sample questions targeting the activities, challenges, and opportunities of each business unit

    Materials: Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool

    Participants: Data architect, Business representatives, IT representatives

    Identify 2-3 business units that demonstrate enthusiasm for or a positive outlook on improving how organizational data can help them in their role and as a unit.

    Conducting a deep-dive interview process with these key stakeholders will help further identify high-level goals for the data architecture strategy within each business unit. This process will help to secure their support throughout the implementation process by giving them a sense of ownership.

    Key Interview Questions:

    1. What are your primary activities? What do you do?
    2. What challenges do you have when completing your activities?
    3. How is poor data impacting your job?
    4. If [your selected domain]’s data is improved, what business issues would this help solve?

    Request background information and documentation from stakeholders regarding the following:

    • What current data management policies and processes exist (that you know of)?
    • Who are the data owners and end users?
    • Where are the data sources within the department stored?
    • Who has access to these data sources?
    • Are there existing or ongoing data issues within those data sources?

    Interview the enterprise architect to get input on the drivers of the business

    Associated Activity icon 1.1.3 2 hours

    INPUT: Data Architecture Driver tool assessment prompts.

    OUTPUT: Identified business driver that applies to your organization.

    Materials: Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool

    Participants: Data architect, Enterprise architect

    Data architecture improvements need to be driven by business need.

    Instructions

    As you work through Tab 2. Driver Identification of the Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, consult with the enterprise architect or equivalent to assist you in rating the importance of each of the symptoms of the business drivers. This will help you provide greater value to the business and more aligned objectives.

    Screenshot of the Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, tab 2 Driver Identification.
    Tab 2. Driver Identification

    Once you know what that need is, go to Step 2.

    Phase 1, Step 2: Establish Actionable Tactics to Optimize Data Architecture

    PHASE 1

    1.11.2
    Identify Your Business Driver for Optimizing Data ArchitectureDetermine Actionable Tactics to Optimize Data Architecture

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand Info-Tech’s five-tier data architecture to begin focusing your architectural optimization.
    • Create your Data Architecture Optimization Template to plan your improvement tactics.
    • Prioritize your tactics based on the five-tier architecture to plan optimization.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Data Architect
    • Enterprise Architect
    • DBAs

    Outcomes of this step

    • A tactical and prioritized plan for optimizing the organization’s data architecture according to the needs of the business.

    To plan a business-driven architecture, data architects need to keep the organization’s big picture in mind

    Remember… Architecting an organization involves alignment, planning, road mapping, design, and change management functions.

    Data architects must be heavily involved with:

    • Understanding the short- and long-term visions of the business to develop a vision for the organization’s data architecture.
    • Creating processes for governing the identification, collection, and use of accurate and valid data, as well as for tracking data quality, completeness, and redundancy.
    • They need to create strategies for data security, backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, and archiving, and ensure regulatory compliance.

    To do this, you need a framework. A framework provides you with the holistic view of the organization’s data environment that you can use to design short- and long-term tactics for improving the use of data for the needs of the business.

    Use Info-Tech’s five-tier data architecture to model your environment in a logical, consumable fashion.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    The more complicated an environment is, the more need there is for a framework. Being able to pick a starting point and prioritize tasks is one of the most difficult, yet most essential, aspects of any architect’s role.

    The five tiers of an organization’s data architecture support the use of data throughout its lifecycle

    Info-Tech’s five-tier data architecture model summarizes an organization’s data environment at a logical level. Data flows from left to right, but can also flow from the presentation layer back to the warehousing layer for repatriation of data.

    Info-Tech's Five Tier Data Architecture. The five tiers being 'Sources' which includes 'App1 ', 'App2', 'Excel and other documents', 'Access database(s)', 'IOT devices', and 'External data feed(s) & social media'; 'Integration and Translation' which includes 'Solutions: SOA, Point to Point, Manual Loading, ESB , ETL, ODS, Data Hub' and 'Functions: Scrambling Masking Encryption, Tokenizing, Aggregation, Transformation, Migration, Modeling'; 'Warehousing' which includes 'Data Lakes & Warehouse(s) (Raw Data)', 'EIM, ECM, DAM', and 'Data Lakes & Warehouse(s) (Derived Data)'; 'Analytics' which includes 'Data Marts', 'Data Cube', 'Flat Files', 'BI Tools', and the 'Protected Zone: Data Marts - BDG Class Ref. MDM'; and 'Presentation' which includes 'Formulas', 'Thought Models', 'Reports', 'Dashboards', 'Presentations', and 'Derived Data (from analytics activities)'.

    Use the Data Architecture Optimization Template to build your improvement roadmap

    Supporting Tool icon 1.2 Data Architecture Optimization Template

    Download the Data Architecture Optimization Template.

    Overview

    Use this template to support your team in creating a tactical strategy for optimizing your data architecture across the five tiers of the organization’s architecture. This template can be used to document your organization’s most pressing business driver, the reasons for optimizing data architecture according to that driver, and the tactics that will be employed to address the shortcomings in the architecture.

    Sample of Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Optimization Template. Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Optimization Template Table of Contents
    1. Build Your Current Data Architecture Logical Model Use this section to document the current data architecture situation, which will provide context for your plan to optimize your data architecture.
    2. Optimization Plan Use this section to document the tactics that will be employed to optimize the current data architecture according to the tactic pattern identified by the business driver.

    Fill out as you go

    As you read about the details of the five-tier data architecture model in the following slides, start building your current logical data architecture model by filling out the sections that correspond to the various tiers. For example, if you identified that the most pressing business driver is becoming compliant with regulations, document the sources of data required for compliance, as well as the warehousing strategy currently being employed. This will help you to understand the organization’s data architecture at a logical level.

    Tier 1 represents all of the sources of your organization’s data

    Tier 1 of Info-Tech's Five Tier Data Architecture, 'Sources', which includes 'App1 ', 'App2', 'Excel and other documents', 'Access database(s)', 'IOT devices', and 'External data feed(s) & social media'.
    –› Data to integration layer

    Tier 1 is where the data enters the organization.

    All applications, data documents such as MS Excel spreadsheets, documents with table entries, manual extractions from other document types, user-level databases including MS Access and MySQL, other data sources, data feeds, big datasets, etc. reside here.

    This tier typically holds the siloed data that is so often not available across the enterprise because the data is held within department-level applications or systems. This is also the layer where transactions and operational activities occur and where data is first created or ingested.

    There are any number of business activities from transactions through business processes that require data to flow from one system to another, so it is often at this layer we see data created more than once, data corruption occurs, manual re-keying of data from system to system, and spaghetti-like point-to-point connections are built that are often fragile. This is usually the single most problematic area within an enterprise’s data environment. Application- or operational-level (siloed) reporting often occurs at this level.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    An optimized Tier 1 has the following attributes:

    • Rationalized applications
    • Operationalized database administration
    • Databases governed, monitored, and maintained to ensure optimal performance

    Tier 2 represents the movement of data

    Tier 2 of Info-Tech's Five Tier Data Architecture, 'Integration and Translation', which includes 'Solutions: SOA, Point to Point, Manual Loading, ESB , ETL, ODS, Data Hub' and 'Functions: Scrambling Masking Encryption, Tokenizing, Aggregation, Transformation, Migration, Modeling'.
    –› Data to Warehouse Environment

    Find out more

    For more information on data integration, see Info-Tech’s Optimize the Organization’s Data Integration Practices blueprint.

    Tier 2 is where integration, transformation, and aggregation occur.

    Regardless of how you integrate your systems and data stores, whether via ETL, ESB, SOA, data hub, ODS, point-to-point, etc., the goal of this layer is to move data at differing speeds for one of two main purposes:

    1) To move data from originating systems to downstream systems to support integrated business processes. This ensures the data is pristine through the process and improves trustworthiness of outcomes and speed to task and process completion.

    2) To move data to Tier 3 - The Data Warehouse Architecture, where data rests for other purposes. This movement of data in its purest form means we move raw data to storage locations in an overall data warehouse environment reflecting any security, compliance and other standards in our choices for how to store.

    Also, this is where data is transformed for unique business purpose that will also be moved to a place of rest or a place of specific use. Data masking, scrambling, aggregation, cleansing and matching, and other data related blending tasks occur at this layer.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    An optimized Tier 2 has the following attributes:

    • Business data glossary is leveraged
    • ETL is governed
    • ETL team is empowered
    • Data matching is facilitated
    • Canonical data model is present

    Tier 3 is where data comes together from all sources to be stored in a central warehouse environment

    Tier 3 is where data rests in long-term storage.

    This is where data rests (long-term storage) and also where an enterprise’s information, documents, digital assets, and any other content types are stored. This is also where derived and contrived data creations are stored for re-use, and where formulas, thought models, heuristics, algorithms, report styles, templates, dashboard styles, and presentations-layer widgets are all stored in the enterprise information management system.

    At this layer there may be many technologies and many layers of security to reflect data domains, classifications, retention, compliance, and other data needs. This is also the layer where data lakes exist as well as traditional relational databases, enterprise database systems, enterprise content management systems, and simple user-level databases.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    An optimized Tier 3 has the following attributes:

    • Data warehouse is governed
    • Data warehouse operations and planning
    • Data library is comprehensive
    • Four Rosetta Stones of data are in place: BDG, data classification, reference data, master data.
    Data from integration layer –›
    Tier 3 of Info-Tech's Five Tier Data Architecture, 'Data Warehouse Environment' which includes 'Data Lakes & Warehouse(s) (Raw Data)', 'EIM, ECM, DAM'.
    –› Analytics

    Find out more

    For more information on Data Warehousing, see Info-Tech’s Build an Extensible Data Warehouse Foundation and Drive Business Innovation With a Modernized Data Warehouse Environment blueprints.

    Tier 4 is where knowledge and insight is born

    Tier 4 represents data being used for a purpose.

    This is where you build fit-for-purpose data sets (marts, cubes, flat files) that may now draw from all enterprise data and information sources as held in Tier 3. This is the first place where enterprise views of all data may be effectively done and with trust that golden records from systems of record are being used properly.

    This is also the layer where BI tools get their greatest use for performing analysis. Unlike Tier 3 where data is at rest, this tier is where data moves back into action. Data is brought together in unique combinations to support reporting, and analytics. It is here that the following enterprise analytic views are crafted:
    Exploratory, Inferential, Causal, Comparative, Statistical, Descriptive, Diagnostic, Hypothesis, Predictive, Decisional, Directional, Prescriptive

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    An optimized Tier 4 has the following attributes:

    • Reporting meets business needs
    • Data mart operations are in place
    • Governance of data marts, cubes, and BI tools in place
    Warehouse Environment –›
    Tier 4 of Info-Tech's Five Tier Data Architecture, 'Analytics', which includes 'Data Marts', 'Data Cube', 'Flat Files', and 'BI Tools'.
    –› Presentation

    Find out more

    For more information on BI tools and strategy, see Info-Tech’s Select and Implement a Business Intelligence and Analytics Solution and Build a Next Generation BI with a Game-Changing BI Strategy blueprints.

    The presentation layer, Tier 5, is where data becomes presentable information

    Tier 5 represents data in knowledge form.

    This is where the data and information combine in information insight mapping methods (presentations, templates, etc.). We craft and create new ways to slice and dice data in Tier 4 to be shown and shared in Tier 5.

    Templates for presenting insights are extremely valuable to an enterprise, both for their initial use, and for the ability to build deeper, more insightful analytics. Re-use of these also enables maximum speed for sharing, consuming the outputs, and collective understanding of these deeper meanings that is a critical asset to any enterprise. These derived datasets and the thought models, presentation styles, templates, and other derived and contrived assets should be repatriated into the derived data repositories and the enterprise information management systems respectively as shown in Tier 3.

    Find out more

    For more information on enterprise content management and metadata, see Info-Tech’s Develop an ECM Strategy and Break Open Your DAM With Intuitive Metadata blueprints.

    Tier 5 of Info-Tech's Five Tier Data Architecture, 'Presentation', which includes 'Formulas', 'Thought Models', 'Reports', 'Dashboards', 'Presentations', and 'Derived Data (from analytics activities)'. The 'Repatriation of data' feeds the derived data back into Warehousing.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    An optimized Tier 5 has the following attributes:

    • Metadata creation is supervised
    • Metadata is organized
    • Metadata is governed
    • Content management capabilities are present

    Info-Tech Insight

    Repatriation of data and information is an essential activity for all organizations to manage organizational knowledge. This is the activity where information, knowledge, and insights that are stored in content form are moved back to the warehousing layer for long-term storage. Because of this, it is crucial to have an effective ECM strategy as well as the means to find information quickly and efficiently. This is where metadata and taxonomy come in.

    As a data architect, you must prioritize your focus according to business need

    Determine your focus.

    Now that you have an understanding of the drivers requiring data architecture optimization, as well as the current data architecture situation at your organization, it is time to determine the actions that will be taken to address the driver.

    1. Business driver

    Screenshot of Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, Tab 2. Tactic Pattern Plan.
    Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, Tab 2. Tactic Pattern Plan

    3. Documented tactic plan

    Data Architecture Optimization Template

    2. Tactics across the five tiers

    Another screenshot of Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, Tab 2. Tactic Pattern Plan.

    The next four slides provide an overview of the priorities that accompany the four most common business drivers that require updates to a stale data architecture.

    Business driver #1: Adding a new functionality to an application can have wide impacts on data architecture

    Does the business wants to add a new application or supplement an existing application with a new functionality?

    Whether the business wants to gain better customer intimacy, achieve operational excellence, or needs to change its compliance and reporting strategy, the need for collecting new data through a new application or a new functionality within an existing application can arise. This business driver has the following attributes:

    • Often operational oriented and application driven.
    • An application is changed through an application version upgrade, migration to cloud, or application customization, or as a result of application rationalization or changes in the way that application data is generated.
    • However, not all new functionalities trigger this scenario. Non-data-related changes, such as a new interface, new workflows, or any other application functionality changes that do not involve data, will not have data architecture impacts.
    Stock photo of someone using a smartphone with apps.
    Modified icon for Tools & Templates. When this business driver arises, data architects should focus on optimizing architecture at the source tier and the integration of the new functionality. Tactics for this business driver should address the following pattern:
    Tiers 1 and 2 highlighted.

    Business driver #2: Organizations today are looking to become more data driven

    Does the business wants to better leverage its data?

    An organization can want to use its data for multiple reasons. Whether these reasons include improving customer experience or operational excellence, the data architect must ensure that the organization’s data aggregation environment, reporting and analytics, and presentation layer are assessed and optimized for serving the needs of the business.

    “Data-drivenness is about building tools, abilities, and, most crucially, a culture that acts on data.” (Carl Anderson, Creating a Data-Driven Organization)

    Tactics for this business driver should address the following pattern:
    Tiers 3, 4, and 5 highlighted.
    Modified icon for Tools & Templates. When this business driver arises, data architects should focus on optimizing architecture at the source tier and the integration of the new functionality.
    Stock photo of someone sitting at multiple computers with analytics screens open.
    • This scenario is typically project driven and analytical oriented.
    • The business is looking to leverage data and information by processing data through BI tools and self-service.
    • Example: The organization wants to include new third-party data, and needs to build a new data mart to provide a slice of data for analysis.

    Business driver #3: Risk and compliance demands can put pressure on outdated architectures

    Is there increasing pressure on the business to maintain compliance requirements as per regulations?

    An organization can want to use its data for multiple reasons. Whether these reasons include improving customer experience or operational excellence, the data architect must ensure that the organization’s data aggregation environment, reporting and analytics, and presentation layer are assessed and optimized for serving the needs of the business.

    There are different types of requirements:
    • Can be data-element driven. For example, PII, PHI are requirements around data elements that are associated with personal and health information.
    • Can be process driven. For example, some requirements restrict data read/write to certain groups.
    Stock photo of someone pulling a block out of a Jenga tower.
    Modified icon for Tools & Templates. When this business driver arises, data architects should focus on optimizing architecture where data is stored: at the sources, the warehouse environment, and analytics layer. Tactics for this business driver should address the following pattern:
    Tiers 1, 3, and 4 highlighted.

    Business driver #4: Mergers and acquisitions can require a restructuring of the organization’s data architecture

    Is the organization looking to acquire or merge with another organization or line of business?

    There are three scenarios that encompass the mergers and acquisitions business driver for data architecture:

    1. The organization acquires/merges with another organization and wants to integrate the data.
    2. The organization acquires/merges a subset of an organization (a line of business, for example) and wants to integrate the data.
    3. The organization acquires another organization for competitive purposes, and does not need to integrate the data.
    Regardless of what scenario your organization falls into, you must go through the same process of identifying the requirements for the new data:
    1. Understand what data you are getting.
      The business may acquire another organization for the data, for the technology, and/or for algorithms (for example). If the goal is to integrate the new data, you must understand if the data is unstructured, structured, how much data, etc.
    2. Plan for the integration of the new data into your environment.
      Do you have the expertise in-house to integrate the data? Database structures and systems are often mismatched (for example, acquired company could have an Oracle database whereas you are an SAP shop) and this may require expertise from the acquired company or a third party.
    3. Integrate the new data.
      Often, the extraction of the new data is the easy part. Transforming and loading the data is the difficult and costly part.
    “As a data architect, you must do due diligence of the acquired firm. What are the workflows, what are the data sources, what data is useful, what is useless, what is the value of the data, and what are the risks of embedding the data?” (Anonymous Mergers and Acquisitions Consultant)
    Modified icon for Tools & Templates. When this business driver arises, data architects should focus on optimizing architecture at the source tier, the warehousing layer, and analytics. Tiers 1, 3, and 4 highlighted.

    Determine your tier priority pattern and the tactics that you should address based on the business drivers

    Associated Activity icon 1.2.1 30 minutes

    INPUT: Business driver assessment

    OUTPUT: Tactic pattern and tactic plan

    Materials: Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool, Data Architecture Optimization Template

    Participants: Data architect, Enterprise architect

    Instructions
    1. After you have assessed the organization’s business driver on Tab 1. Driver Identification, move to Tab 2. Tactic Pattern Plan.
    2. Here, you will find a summary of the business driver that applies to you, as well as the tier priority pattern that will help you to focus your efforts for data architecture.
    3. Document the Tier Priority Pattern and associated tactics in Section 2. Optimization Plan of the Data Architecture Optimization Plan.
    Screenshot of Data Architecture Driver Tool.
    Data Architecture Driver Tool
    Arrow pointing right. Sample of Data Architecture Optimization Template
    Data Architecture Optimization Template

    Info-Tech Insight

    Our approach will help you to get to the solution of the organization’s data architecture problems as quickly as possible. However, keep in mind that you should still address the other tiers of your data architecture even if they are not part of the pattern we identified. For example, if you need to become more data driven, don’t completely ignore the sources and the integration of data. However, to deliver the most and quickest value, focus on tiers 3, 4, and 5.

    This phase helped you to create a tactical plan to optimize your data architecture according to business priorities

    Phase 1 is all about focus.

    Data architects and those responsible for updating an organization’s data architecture have a wide-open playing field with which to take their efforts. Being able to narrow down your focus and generate an actionable plan will help you provide more value to the organization quickly and get the most out of your data.

      Phase 1
      • Business Drivers
        • Tactic Pattern
          • Tactical Plan

    Now that you have your prioritized tactical plan, move to Phase 2. This phase will help you map these priorities to the essential capabilities and measure where you stack up in these capabilities. This is an essential step in creating your data architecture roadmap and plan for coming years to modernize the organization’s data architecture.

    To identify what the monetary authority needed from its data architecture, Info-Tech helped determine the business driver

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Financial
    Source: Info-Tech Consulting
    Symbol for 'Monetary Authority Case Study'.

    Part 1

    Prior to receiving new external requirements, the monetary Authority body had been operating with an inefficient system. Outdated legacy systems, reports in paper form, incomplete reports, and stale data from other agencies resulted in slow data access. The new requirements demanded speeding up this process.

    Diagram comparing the 'Original Reporting' requirement of 'Up to 7 days' vs the 'New Requirement' of 'As soon as 1 hour'. The steps of reporting in that time are 'Report Request', 'Gather Data', and 'Make Report'.

    Although the organization understood it needed changes, it first needed to establish what were the business objectives, and which areas of their architecture they would need to focus on.

    The business driver in this case was compliance requirements, which directed attention to the sources, aggregation, and insights tiers.

    Tiers 1, 3, and 4 highlighted.

    Looking at the how the different tiers relate to certain business operations, the organization uncovered the best practise tactics to achieving an optimized data architecture.

    1. Source Tactics: 3. Warehousing Tactics: 4. Analytics Tactics:
    • Identify data sources
    • Ensure data quality
    • Properly catalogue data
    • Properly index data
    • Provide the means for data accessibility
    • Allow for data reduction/space for report building

    Once the business driver had been established, the organization was able to identify the specific areas it would eventually need to evaluate and remedy as needed.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop Associated Activity icon

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    1.1.1

    Sample of activity 1.1.1 'Identify the drivers for improving your data architecture'. Identify the business driver that will set the direction of your data architecture optimization plan.

    In this activity, the facilitator will guide the team in identifying the business driver that is creating the need to improve the organization’s data architecture. Data architecture needs to adapt to the changing needs of the business, so this is the most important step of any data architecture improvements.

    1.2.1

    Sample of activity 1.2.1 'Determine your tier priority pattern and the tactics that you should address based on the business drivers'. Determine the tactics that you will use to optimize data architecture.

    In this activity, the facilitator will help the team create a tactical plan for optimizing the organization’s data architecture across the five tiers of the logical model. This plan can then be followed when addressing the business needs.

    Build a Business-Aligned Data Architecture Optimization Strategy

    PHASE 2

    Personalize Your Tactics to Optimize Your Data Architecture

    Phase 2 will determine your tactics that you should implement to optimize your data architecture

    Business Drivers
    Each business driver requires focus on specific tiers and their corresponding capabilities, which in turn correspond to tactics necessary to achieve your goal.
    New Functionality Risk and Compliance Mergers and Acquisitions Become More Data Driven
    Tiers 1. Data Sources 2. Integration 3. Warehousing 4. Insights 5. Presentation
    Capabilities Current Capabilities
    Target Capabilities
    Example Tactics Leverage indexes, partitions, views, and clusters to optimize performance.

    Cleanse data source.

    Leverage integration technology.

    Identify matching approach priorities.

    Establish governing principles.

    Install performance enhancing technologies.

    Establish star schema and snowflake principles.

    Share data via data mart.

    Build metadata architecture:
    • Data lineage
    • Sharing
    • Taxonomy
    • Automatic vs. manual creation

    Phase 2 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 2: Personalize Your Tactics to Optimize Your Data Architecture

    Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks
    Step 2.1: Measure Your Data Architecture Capabilities Step 2.2: Set a Target for Data Architecture Capabilities Step 2.3: Identify the Tactics That Apply to Your Organization
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Understand Info-Tech’s data architecture capability model to begin identifying where to develop tactics for optimizing your data architecture.
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Understand Info-Tech’s data architecture capability model to begin identifying where to develop tactics for optimizing your data architecture.
    Finalize phase deliverable:
    • Learn about the trends in data architecture that can be leveraged to develop tactics.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Measure your current state across the tiers of the capability model that will help address your business driver.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Measure your target state for the capabilities that will address your business driver.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Review the tactical roadmap that was created with guidance from the capability gap analysis.
    With these tools & templates:
    • Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool
    With these tools & templates:
    • Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool
    With these tools & templates:
    • Data Architecture Trends Presentation Template

    Phase 2 Results & Insights

    • Data architecture is not just data models. Understand the essential capabilities that your organization needs from its data architecture to develop a tactical plan for optimizing data architecture across its people, processes, and technology.

    Phase 2, Step 1: Measure Your Data Architecture Capabilities

    PHASE 2

    2.1 2.2 2.3
    Measure Your Data Architecture Capabilities Set a Target for Data Architecture Capabilities Identify the Tactics That Apply to Your Organization

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • As you walk through the data architecture capability model, measure your current state in each of the relevant capabilities.
    • Distinguish between essential and nice-to-have capabilities for your organization.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Data Architect

    Outcomes of this step

    • A framework for generating a tactical plan for data architecture optimization.
    • Knowledge of the various trends in the data architecture field that can be incorporated into your plan.

    To personalize your tactical strategy, you must measure up your base data architecture capabilities

    What is a capability?

    Capabilities represent a mixture of people, technology, and processes. The focus of capability design is on the outcome and the effective use of resources to produce a differentiating capability or an essential supporting capability.

    To personalize your tactics, you have to understand what the essential capabilities are across the five tiers of an organization’s data architecture. Then, assess where you currently stand in these capabilities and where you need to go in order to build your optimization plan.

    'Capability' as a mixture of 'People', 'Technology', 'Process', and 'Assets'.

    Info-Tech’s data architecture capability model can be laid over the five-tier data architecture to understand the essential and advanced capabilities that an organization should have, and to build your tactical strategy for optimizing the organization’s data architecture across the tiers.

    Use Info-Tech’s data architecture capability model as a resource to assess and plan your personalized tactics

    Info-Tech’s data architecture capability model can be laid over the five-tier data architecture to understand the essential and advanced capabilities that an organization should have, and to build your tactical strategy for optimizing the organization’s data architecture across the tiers.

    Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Capability Model featuring the five-tier architecture listing 'Core Capabilities' and 'Advanced Capabilities' within each tier, and a list of 'Cross Capabilities' which apply to all tiers.

    Use the Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool to create a tailored plan of action

    Supporting Tool icon 2.1.1 Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool

    Instructions

    Use the Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool as your central tool to develop a tactical plan of action to optimize the organization’s data architecture.

    This tool contains the following sections:

    1. Business Driver Input
    2. Capability Assessment
    3. Capability Gap Analysis
    4. Tactical Roadmap
    5. Metrics
    6. Initiative Roadmap

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    Sample of the Info-Tech deliverable Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool.

    Benefits of using this tool:

    • Comprehensive documentation of data architecture capabilities present in leading organizations.
    • Generates an accurate architecture roadmap for your organization that is developed in alignment with the broader enterprise architecture and related architectural domains.

    To create a plan for your data architecture priorities, you must first understand where you currently stand

    Now that you understand the business problem that you are trying to solve, it is time to take action in solving the problem.

    The organization likely has some of the capabilities that are needed to solve the problem, but also a need to improve other capabilities. To narrow down the capabilities that you should focus on, first select the business driver that was identified in Phase 1 in Tab 1. Business Driver Input of the Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool. This will customize the roadmap tool to deselect the capabilities that are likely to be less relevant to your organization.

    For Example: If you identified your business driver as “becoming more data-driven”, you will want to focus on measuring and building out the capabilities within Tiers 3, 4, and 5 of the capability model.

    Data Architecture Capability Model
    Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Capability Model with tiers 3, 4, and 5 highlighted.

    Note

    If you want to assess your organization for all of the capabilities across the data architecture capability model, select “Comprehensive Data Architecture Assessment” in Tab 1. Business Driver Input of the Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool.

    Determine your current state across the related architecture tiers

    Associated Activity icon 2.1.2 1 hour

    INPUT: Current data architecture capabilities.

    OUTPUT: An idea of where you currently stand in the capabilities.

    Materials: Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool

    Participants: Data architect, Enterprise architect, Business representatives

    Use the Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool to evaluate the baseline and target capabilities of your practice in terms of how data architecture is approached and executed.

    Instructions
    1. Invite the appropriate stakeholders to participate in this exercise.
    2. On Tab 2. Practice Components, assess the current and target states of each capability on a scale of 1–5.
    3. Note: “Ad hoc” implies a capability is completed, but randomly, informally, and without a standardized method.
      These results will set the baseline against which you will monitor performance progress and keep track of improvements over time.
    To assess data architecture maturity, Info-Tech uses the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) program for rating capabilities on a scale of 1 to 5:

    1 = Initial/Ad hoc

    2 = Developing

    3 = Defined

    4 = Managed and Measurable

    5 = Optimized

    Info-Tech Insight

    Focus on Early Alignment. Assessing capabilities within specific people’s job functions can naturally result in disagreement or debate, especially between business and IT people. Objectively facilitate any debate and only finalize capability assessments when there is full alignment. Remind everyone that data architecture should ultimately serve business needs wherever possible.

    Phase 2, Step 2: Set a Target for Data Architecture Capabilities

    PHASE 2

    2.12.22.3
    Measure Your Data Architecture CapabilitiesSet a Target for Data Architecture CapabilitiesIdentify the Tactics That Apply to Your Organization

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Determine your target state in each of the relevant capabilities.
    • Distinguish between essential and nice-to-have capabilities for your organization.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Data Architect

    Outcomes of this step

    • A holistic understanding of where the organization’s data architecture currently sits, where it needs to go, and where the biggest gaps lie.

    To create a plan for your data architecture priorities, you must also understand where you need to get to in the future

    Keep the goal in mind by documenting target state objectives. This will help to measure the highest priority gaps in the organization’s data architecture capabilities.

    Example driver = Becoming more data driven Arrow pointing right. Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Capability Model with tiers 3, 4, and 5 highlighted. Arrow pointing right. Current Capabilities Arrow pointing right. Target Capabilities
    Gaps and Priorities
    Stock photo of a hand placing four shelves arranged as stairs. On the first step is a mini-cut-out of a person walking.

    Determine your future state across the relevant tiers of the data architecture capability model

    Associated Activity icon 2.2.1 2 hours

    INPUT: Current state of data architecture capabilities.

    OUTPUT: Target state of data architecture capabilities.

    Materials: Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool

    Participants: Data architect

    The future of data architecture is now.

    Determine the state of data architecture capabilities that the organization needs to reach to address the drivers of the business.

    For example: If you identified your business driver as “becoming more data driven”, you will want to focus on the capabilities within Tiers 3, 4, and 5 of the capability model.

    Driver = Becoming more data driven Arrow pointing right. Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Capability Model with tiers 3, 4, and 5 highlighted. Arrow pointing right. Target Capabilities

    Identify where gaps in your data architecture capabilities lie

    Associated Activity icon 2.2.2 1 hour

    INPUT: Current and target states of data architecture capabilities.

    OUTPUT: Holistic understanding of where you need to improve data architecture capabilities.

    Materials: Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool

    Participants: Data architect

    Visualization of gap assessment of data quality practice capabilities

    To enable deeper analysis on the results of your capability assessment, Tab 4. Capability Gap Analysis in the Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool creates visualizations of the gaps identified in each of your practice capabilities and related data management practices. These diagrams serve as analysis summaries.

    Gap Assessment of Data Source Capabilities

    Sample of the Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool, tab 4. Capability Gap Analysis.

    Use Tab 3. Data Quality Practice Scorecard to enhance your data quality project.

    1. Enhance your gap analyses by forming a relative comparison of total gaps in key practice capability areas, which will help in determining priorities.
    2. Put these up on display to improve discussion in the gap analyses and prioritization sessions.
    3. Improve the clarity and flow of your strategy template, final presentations, and summary documents by copying and pasting the gap assessment diagrams.

    Phase 2, Step 3: Identify the Tactics That Apply to Your Organization

    PHASE 2

    2.12.22.3
    Measure Your Data Architecture CapabilitiesSet a Target for Data Architecture CapabilitiesIdentify the Tactics That Apply to Your Organization

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Before making your personal tactic plan, identify the trends in data architecture that can benefit your organization.
    • Understand Info-Tech’s data architecture capability model.
    • Initiate the Data Architecture Roadmap Tool to begin creating a roadmap for your optimization plan.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Data Architect

    Outcomes of this step

    • A framework for generating a tactical plan for data architecture optimization.
    • Knowledge of the various trends in the data architecture field that can be incorporated into your plan.

    Capitalize on trends in data architecture before you determine the tactics that apply to you

    Stop here. Before you begin to plan for optimization of the organization’s data environment, get a sense of the sustainability and scalability of the direction of the organization’s data architecture evolution.

    Practically any trend in data architecture is driven by an attempt to solve one or more the common challenges of today’s tumultuous data landscape, otherwise known as “big data.” Data is being produced in outrageous amounts, at very high speeds, and in a growing number of types and structures.

    To meet these demands, which are not slowing down, you must keep ahead of the curve. Consider the internal and external catalysts that might fuel your organization’s need to modernize its data architecture:

    Big Data

    Data Storage

    Advanced analytics

    Unstructured data

    Integration

    Hadoop ecosystem

    The discussion about big data is no longer about what it is, but how do businesses of all types operationalize it.

    Is your organization currently capturing and leveraging big data?

    Are they looking to do so in the near future?

    The cloud

    The cloud offers economical solutions to many aspects of data architecture.

    Have you dealt with issues of lack of storage space or difficulties with scalability?

    Do you need remote access to data and tools?

    Real-time architecture

    Advanced analytics (machine learning, natural language processing) often require data in real-time. Consider Lambda and Kappa architectures.

    Has your data flow prevented you from automation, advanced analytics, or embracing the world of IoT?

    Graph databases

    Self-service data access allows more than just technical users to participate in analytics. NoSQL can uncover buried relationships in your data.

    Has your organization struggled to make sense of different types of unstructured data?

    Is ETL enough?

    What SQL is to NoSQL, ETL is to NoETL. Integration techniques are being created to address the high variety and high velocity of data.

    Have your data scientists wasted too much time and resources in the ETL stage?

    Read the Data Architecture Trends Presentation to understand the current cutting edge topics in data architecture

    Supporting Tool icon 2.1 Data Architecture Trends Presentation

    The speed at which new technology is changing is making it difficult for IT professionals to keep pace with best practices, let alone cutting edge technologies.

    The Info-Tech Data Architecture Trends Presentation provides a glance at some of the more significant innovations in technology that are driving today’s advanced data architectures.

    This presentation also explains how these trends relate to either the data challenges you may be facing, or the specific business drivers you are hoping to bring to your organization.

    Sample of the Data Architecture Trends Presentation.
    Data Architecture Trends Presentation

    Gaps between your current and future capabilities will help you to determine the tactics that apply to you

    Now that you know where the organization currently stands, follow these steps to begin prioritizing the initiatives:

    1. What are you trying to accomplish? Determine target states that are framed in quantifiable objectives that can be clearly communicated. The more specific the objectives are the better.
    2. Evaluate the “delta,” or difference between where the organization currently stands and where it needs to go. This will be expressed in terms of gap closure strategies, and will help clarify the initiatives that will populate the road map.
    3. Determine the relative business value of each initiative, as well as the relative complexities of successfully implementing them. These scores should be created with stakeholder input, and then plotted in an effort/transition quadrant map to determine where the quickest and most valuable wins lie.
    Current State Gap Closure Strategies Target State Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap
    • Organization objectives
    • Functional needs
    • Current operating models
    • Technology assets
    Initiatives involving:
    • Organizational changes
    • Functional changes
    • Technology changes
    • Process changes
    • Performance objectives (revenue growth, customer intimacy, growth of organization)
    • Operating model improvements
    • Prioritized, simplified, and compelling vision of how the organization will optimize data architecture

    (Source: “How to Build a Roadmap”)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Optimizing data architecture requires a tactical approach, not a passive approach. The demanding task of optimization requires the ability to heavily prioritize. After you have identified why, determine how using our pre-built roadmap to address the four common drivers.

    Each of the layers of an organization’s data architecture have associated challenges to optimization

    Stop! Before you begin, recognize these “gotchas” that can present roadblocks to creating an effective data architecture environment.

    Before diving headfirst into creating your tactical data architecture plan, documenting the challenges associated with each aspect of the organization’s data architecture can help to identify where you need to focus your energy in optimizing each tier. The following table presents the common challenges across the five tiers:

    Source Tier

    Integration Tier

    Warehousing Tier

    Analytics Tier

    Presentation Tier

    Inconsistent data models Performance issues Scalability of the data warehouse Data currency, flexibility Model interoperability
    Data quality measures: data accuracy, timeliness, accessibility, relevance Duplicated data Infrastructure needed to support volume of data No business context for using the data in the correct manner No business context for using the data in the correct manner
    Free-form field and data values beyond data domain Tokenization and other required data transformations Performance
    Volume
    Greedy consumers can cripple performance
    Insufficient infrastructure
    Inefficiencies in building the data mart Report proliferation/chaos (“kitchen sink dashboards”)
    Reporting out of source systems DB model inefficiencies
    Manual errors;
    Application usability
    Elasticity

    Create metrics before you plan to optimize your data architecture

    Associated Activity icon 2.2.3 1 hour

    INPUT: Tactics that will be used to optimize data architecture.

    OUTPUT: Metrics that can be used to measure optimization success.

    Materials: Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool

    Participants: Data architect

    Metrics will help you to track your optimization efforts and ensure that they are providing value to the organization.

    There are two types of metrics that are useful for data architects to track and measure: program metrics and project metrics. Program metrics represent the activities that the data architecture program, which is the sum of multiple projects, should help to improve. Project metrics are the more granular metrics that track each project.

    Program Metrics

    • TCO of IT
      • Costs associated with applications, databases, data maintenance
      • Should decrease with better data architecture (rationalized apps, operationalized databases)
    • Cost savings:
      • Retiring a legacy system and associated databases
      • Consolidated licensing
      • Introducing shared services
    • Data systems under maintenance (maintenance burden)
    • End-user data requests fulfilled
    • Improvement of time of delivery of reports and insights

    Project Metrics

    • Percent of projects in alignment with EA
    • Percent of projects compliant with the EA governance process (architectural due diligence rate)
    • Reducing time to market for launching new products
      • Reducing human error rates
      • Speeding up order delivery
      • Reducing IT costs
      • Reducing severity and frequency of security incidents

    Use Tab 6. Metrics of the Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool to document and track metrics associated with your optimization tactics.

    Use Info-Tech’s resources to build your data architecture capabilities

    The following resources from Info-Tech can be used to improve the capabilities that were identified as having a gap. Read more about the details of the five-tier architecture in the blueprints below:

    Data Governance

    Data architecture depends on effective data governance. Use our blueprint, Enable Shared Insights With an Effective Data Governance Engine to get more out of your architecture.

    Data Quality

    The key to maintaining high data quality is a proactive approach that requires you to establish and update strategies for preventing, detecting, and correcting errors. Find out more on how to improve data quality with Info-Tech’s blueprint, Restore Trust in Your Data Using a Business-Aligned Data Quality Management Approach.

    Master Data Management

    When you start your data governance program, you will quickly realize that you need an effective MDM strategy for managing your critical data assets. Use our blueprint, Develop a Master Data Management Strategy and Roadmap to Better Monetize Data to get started with MDM.

    Data Warehouse

    The key to maintaining high data quality is a proactive approach that requires you to establish and update strategies for preventing, detecting, and correcting errors. Find out more on how to improve data quality with Info-Tech’s blueprint, Drive Business Innovation With a Modernized Data Warehouse Environment.

    With the optimal tactics identified, the monetary authority uncovered areas needing improvement

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Financial
    Source: Info-Tech Consulting
    Symbol for 'Monetary Authority Case Study'.

    Part 2

    After establishing the appropriate tactics based on its business driver, the monetary authority was able to identify its shortcomings and adopt resolutions to remedy the issues.

    Best Practice Tactic Current State Solution
    Tier 1 - Data Sources Identify data sources Data coming from a number of locations. Create data model for old and new systems.
    Ensure data quality Internal data scanned from paper and incomplete. Data cleansing and update governance and business rules for migration to new system.
    External sources providing conflicting data.
    Tier 3 - Data Warehousing Data catalogue Data aggregated incompletely. Built proper business data glossary for searchability.
    Indexing Data warehouse performance sub-optimal. Architected data warehouse for appropriate use (star schema).
    Tier 4 - Data Analytics Data accessibility Relevant data buried in warehouse. Build data marts for access.
    Data reduction Accurate report building could not be performed in current storage. Built interim solution sandbox, spin up SQL database.

    Establishing these solutions provided the organization with necessary information to build their roadmap and move towards implementing an optimized data architecture.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop Associated Activity icon

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of a Info-Tech analyst.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    2.1.1 – 2.2.2

    Sample of activities 2.1.1 and 2.2.2, the first being 'Determine your current state across the related architecture tiers'. Evaluate your current capabilities and design your target data quality practice from two angles

    In this assessment and planning activity, the team will evaluate the current and target capabilities for your data architecture’s ability to meet business needs based on the essential capabilities across the five tiers of an organization’s architectural environment.

    2.2.3

    Sample of activity 2.2.3 'Create metrics before you plan to optimize your data architecture'. Create metrics to track the success of your optimization plan.

    The Info-Tech facilitator will guide you through the process of creating program and project metrics to track as you optimize your data architecture. This will help to ensure that the tactics are helping to improve crucial business attributes.

    Build a Business-Aligned Data Architecture Optimization Strategy

    PHASE 3

    Create Your Tactical Data Architecture Roadmap

    Phase 3 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 3: Create Your Tactical Data Architecture Roadmap

    Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks
    Step 3.1: Personalize Your Data Architecture RoadmapStep 3.2: Manage Your Data Architecture Decisions and the Resulting Changes
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Review the tactical plan that addresses the business drivers by optimizing your data architecture in the relevant focus areas.
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Discuss and review the roadmap of optimization activities, including dependencies, timing, and ownership of activities.
    • Understand how change management is an integral aspect of any data architecture optimization plan.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Create your detailed data architecture initiative roadmap.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Create your Data Architecture Decision Template to document the changes that are going to be made to optimize your data architecture environment.
    • Review how change management fits into the data architecture improvement program.
    With these tools & templates:
    • Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap Tool
    With these tools & templates:
    • Data Architecture Decision Template

    Phase 3 Results & Insights

    • Phase 3 will help you to build a personalized roadmap and plan for optimizing data architecture in your organization. In carrying out this roadmap, changes will, by necessity, occur. Therefore, an integral aspect of a data architect’s role is change management. Use the resources included in Phase 3 to smoothen the change management process.

    Phase 3, Step 1: Personalize Your Data Architecture Roadmap

    PHASE 3

    3.1 3.2
    Personalize Your Data Architecture Roadmap Manage Your Data Architecture Decisions and the Resulting Changes

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Determine the timing, effort, and ownership of the recommended optimization initiatives.
    • Brainstorm initiatives that are not yet on the roadmap but apply to you.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Data Architect
    • DBAs
    • Enterprise Architect

    Outcomes of this step

    • A roadmap of specific initiatives that map to the tactical plan for optimizing your organization’s data architecture.
    • A plan for communicating high-level business objectives to data workers to address the issues of the business.

    Now that you have tactical priorities, identify the actionable steps that will lead you to an optimized data architecture

    Phase 1 and 2 helped you to identify tactics that address some of the most common business drivers. Phase 3 will bring you through the process of practically planning what those tactics look like in your organization’s environment and create a roadmap to plan how you will generate business value through optimization of your data architecture environment.

    Diagram of the three phases and the goals of each one. The first phase says 'Identify your data architecture business driver' and highlights 'Business Driver 3' out of four to focus on in Phase 2. Phase 2 says 'Optimization tactics across the five-tier logical data architecture' and identifies four of six 'Tactics' to use in Phase 3. Phase 3 is a 'Practical Roadmap of Initiatives' and utilizes a timeline of initiatives in which to apply the chosen tactics.

    Use the Data Architecture Tactic Roadmap Tool to personalize your roadmap

    Supporting Tool icon 3.1.1 Data Architecture Tactic Roadmap Tool
    Generating Your Roadmap
    1. On Tab 5. Tactic and Initiative Planning, you will find a list of tactics that correspond to every capability that applies to your chosen driver and where there is a gap. In addition, each tactic has a sequence of “Suggested Initiatives,” which represent the best-practice steps that you should take to optimize your data architecture according to your priorities and gaps.
    2. Customize this list of initiatives according to your needs.
    3. The Gantt chart is generated in Tab 7. Initiative Roadmap, and can be used to organize your plan and ensure that all of the essential aspects of optimizing data architecture are addressed.
    4. The roadmap can be used as an “executive brief” roadmap and as a communication tool for the business.
    Screenshot of the Data Architecture Tactic Roadmap Tool, Tab 5. Tactic and Initiative Planning.
    Tab 5. Tactic and Initiative Planning

    Screenshot of the Data Architecture Tactic Roadmap Tool, Tab 7. Initiative Roadmap.
    Tab 7. Initiative Roadmap

    Determine the details of your data architecture optimization activities

    Associated Activity icon 3.1.2 1 hour

    INPUT: Timing of initiatives for optimizing data architecture.

    OUTPUT: Optimization roadmap

    Materials: Data Architecture Tactic Roadmap Tool

    Participants: Data architect, Enterprise Architect

    Instructions

    1. With the list of suggested activities in place on Tab 5. Tactic and Initiative Planning, select whether or not the initiatives will be included in the roadmap. By default, all of the initiatives are set to “Yes.”
    2. Plan the sequence, starting time, and length of each initiative, as well as the assigned responsibility of the initiative in Tab 5. Tactic and Initiative Planning of the Data Architecture Tactic Roadmap Tool.
    3. The tool will a generate a Gantt chart based on the start and length of your initiatives.
    4. The Gantt chart is generated in Tab 7. Initiative Roadmap.
    Screenshot of the Data Architecture Tactic Roadmap Tool, Tab 5. Tactic and Initiative Planning. Tab 5. Tactic and Initiative Planning Screenshot of the Data Architecture Tactic Roadmap Tool, Tab 7. Initiative Roadmap. Tab 7. Initiative Roadmap

    Info-Tech Insight

    The activities that populate the roadmap can be taken as best practice activities. If you want an actionable, comprehensive, and prescriptive plan for optimizing your data architecture, fill in the timing of the activities and print the roadmap. This can serve as a rapid communication tool for your data architecture plan to the business and other architects.

    Optimizing data architecture relies on communication between the business and data workers

    Remember: Data architects bridge the gap between strategic and technical requirements of data.

    Visualization centering the 'Data Architect' as the bridge between 'Data Workers', 'Business', and 'Data & Applications'.

    Therefore, as you plan the data and its interactions with applications, it is imperative that you communicate the plan and its implications to the business and the data workers. Stock photo of coworkers communicating.
    Also remember: In Phase 1, you built your tactical data architecture optimization plan.
    Sample 1 of the Data Architecture Optimization Template. Sample 2 of the Data Architecture Optimization Template.
    Use this document to communicate your plan for data architecture optimization to both the business and the data workers. Socialize this document as a representation of your organization’s current data architecture as well as where it is headed in the future.

    Communicate your data architecture optimization plan to the business for approval

    Associated Activity icon 3.1.3 2 hours

    INPUT: Data Architecture Tactical Roadmap

    OUTPUT: Communication plan

    Materials: Data Architecture Optimization Template

    Participants: Data Architect, Business representatives, IT representatives

    Instructions

    Begin by presenting your plan and roadmap to the business units who participated in business interviews in activity 1.1.3 of Phase 1.

    If you receive feedback that suggests that you should make revisions to the plan, consult Info-Tech Research Group for suggestions on how to improve the plan.

    If you gain approval for the plan, communicate it to DBAs and other data workers.

    Iterative optimization and communication plan:
    Visualization of the Iterative optimization and communication plan. 'Start here' at 'Communicate Plan and Roadmap to the Business', and then continue in a cycle of 'Receive Approval or Suggested Modifications', 'Get Advice for Improvements to the Plan', 'Revise Plan', and back to the initial step until you receive 'Approval', then 'Present to Data Workers'.

    With a roadmap in place, the monetary authority followed a tactical and practical plan to repair outdated data architecture

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Financial
    Source: Info-Tech Consulting
    Symbol for 'Monetary Authority Case Study'.

    Part 3

    After establishing the appropriate tactics based on its business driver, the monetary authority was able to identify its shortcomings and adopt resolutions to remedy the issues.

    Challenge

    A monetary authority was placed under new requirements where it would need to produce 6 different report types on its clients to a regulatory body within a window potentially as short as 1 hour.

    With its current capabilities, it could complete such a task in roughly 7 days.

    The organization’s data architecture was comprised of legacy systems that had poor searchability. Moreover, the data it worked with was scanned from paper, regularly incomplete and often inconsistent.

    Solution

    The solution first required the organization to establish the business driver behind the need to optimize its architecture. In this case, it would be compliance requirements.

    With Info-Tech’s methodology, the organization focused on three tiers: data sources, warehousing, and analytics.

    Several solutions were developed to address the appropriate lacking capabilities. Firstly, the creation of a data model for old and new systems. The implementation of governance principles and business rules for migration of any data. Additionally, proper indexing techniques and business data glossary were established. Lastly, data marts and sandboxes were designed for data accessibility and to enable a space for proper report building.

    Results

    With the solutions established, the monetary authority was given information it needed to build a comprehensive roadmap, and is currently undergoing the implementation of the plan to ensure it will experience its desired outcome – an optimized data architecture built with the capacity to handle external compliance requirements.

    Phase 3, Step 2: Manage Your Data Architecture Decisions and the Resulting Changes

    PHASE 3

    3.13.2
    Personalize Your Data Architecture RoadmapManage Your Data Architecture Decisions and the Resulting Changes

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • With a plan in place, document the major architectural decisions that have been and will be made to optimize data architecture.
    • Create a plan for change and release management, an essential function of the data architect role.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Data Architect
    • Enterprise Architect

    Outcomes of this step

    • Resources for documenting and managing the inevitable change associated with updates to the organization’s data architecture environment.

    To implement data architecture changes, you must plan to accommodate the issues that come with change

    Once you have a plan in place, one the most challenging aspects of improving an organization is yet to come…overcoming change!

    “When managing change, the job of the data architect is to avoid unnecessary change and to encapsulate necessary change.

    You must provide motivation for simplifying change, making it manageable for the whole organization.” (Andrew Johnston, Independent Consultant)

    Stock photo of multiple hands placing app/website design elements on a piece of paper.

    Create roadmap

    Arrow pointing down.

    Communicate roadmap

    Arrow pointing down.

    Implement roadmap

    Arrow pointing down.

    Change management

    Use the Data Architecture Decision Template when architectural changes are made

    Supporting Tool icon 3.2 Data Architecture Decision Template
    Document the architectural decisions made to provide context around changes made to the organization’s data environment.

    The goal of this Data Architecture Decision Template is to provide data architects with a template for managing the changes that accompany major architectural decisions. As you work through the Build a Business-Aligned Data Architecture Optimization Strategy blueprint, you will create a plan for tactical initiatives that address the drivers of the business to optimize your data architecture. This plan will bring about changes to the organization’s data architecture that need change management considerations.

    Document any major changes to the organization’s data architecture that are required to evolve with the organization’s drivers. This will ensure that major architectural changes are documented, tracked, and that the context around the decision is maintained.

    “Environment is very chaotic nowadays – legacy apps, sprawl, ERPs, a huge mix and orgs are grappling with what our data landscape look like? Where are our data assets that we need to use?” (Andrew Johnston, Independent Consultant)

    Sample of the Data Architecture Decision Template.

    Use Info-Tech’s Data Architecture Decision Template to document any major changes in the organization’s data architecture.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s resources to smooth change management

    As changes to the architectural environment occur, data architects must stay ahead of the curve and plan the change management considerations that come with major architectural decisions.

    “When managing change, the job of the data architect is to avoid unnecessary change and to encapsulate necessary change.

    You must provide motivation for simplifying change, making it manageable for the whole organization.” (Andrew Johnston, Independent Consultant)

    See Info-Tech’s resources on change management to smooth changes:
    Banner for the blueprint set 'Optimize Change Management' with subtitle 'Turn and face the change with a right-sized change management process'.
    Sample of the Optimize Change Management blueprint.

    Change Management Blueprint

    Sample of the Change Management Roadmap Tool.

    Change Management Roadmap Tool

    Use Info-Tech’s resources for effective release management

    As changes to the architectural environment occur, data architects must stay ahead of the curve and plan the release management considerations around new hardware and software releases or updates.

    Release management is a process that encompasses the planning, design, build, configuration, and testing of hardware and software releases to create a defined set of release components (ITIL). Release activities can include the distribution of the release and supporting documentation directly to end users. See Info-Tech’s resources on Release Management to smooth changes:

    Banner for the blueprint set 'Take a Holistic View to Optimize Release Management' with subtitle 'Build trust by right-sizing your process using appropriate governance'.
    Samples of the Release Management blueprint.

    Release Management Blueprint

    Sample of the Release Management Process Standard Template.

    Release Management Process Standard Template

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop Associated Activity icon

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of a Info-Tech analyst.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    3.1.1

    Sample of activity 3.1.2 'Determine the timing of your data architecture optimization activities'. Create your personalized roadmap of activities.

    In this activity, the facilitator will guide the team in evaluating practice gaps highlighted by the assessment, and compare these gaps at face value so general priorities can be documented. The same categories as in 3.1.1 are considered.

    3.1.3

    Sample of activity 3.1.3 'Communicate your Data Architecture Optimization Plan to the business for approval'. Communicate your data architecture optimization plan.

    The facilitator will help you to identify the optimal medium and timing for communicating your plan for optimizing your data architecture.

    Insight breakdown

    Insight 1

    • Data architecture needs to evolve along with the changing business landscape. There are four common business drivers that put most pressure on archaic architectures. As a result, the organization’s architecture must be flexible and responsive to changing business needs.

    Insight 2

    • Data architecture is not just about models.
      Viewing data architecture as just technical data modeling can lead to structurally unsound data that does not serve the business.

    Insight 3

    • Data is used differently across the layers of an organization’s data architecture, and the capabilities needed to optimize use of data change with it. Architecting and managing data from source to warehousing to presentation requires different tactics for optimal use.

    Summary of accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    • An understanding of what data architecture is, how data architects can provide value to the organization, and how data architecture fits into the larger enterprise architecture picture.
    • The capabilities required for optimization of the organization’s data architecture across the five tiers of the logical data architecture model.

    Processes Optimized

    • Prioritization and planning of data architect responsibilities across the five tiers of the five-tier logical data architecture model.
    • Roadmapping of tactics that address the most common business drivers of the organization.
    • Architectural change management.

    Deliverables Completed

    • Data Architecture Driver Pattern Identification Tool
    • Data Architecture Optimization Template
    • Data Architecture Trends Presentation
    • Data Architecture Roadmap Tool
    • Data Architecture Decision Template

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Ron Huizenga, Senior Product Manager, Embarcadero Technologies, Inc. Ron Huizenga, Senior Product Manager
    Embarcadero Technologies, Inc.

    Ron Huizenga has over 30 years of experience as an IT executive and consultant in enterprise data architecture, governance, business process reengineering and improvement, program/project management, software development, and business management. His experience spans multiple industries including manufacturing, supply chain, pipelines, natural resources, retail, healthcare, insurance, and transportation.

    Photo of Andrew Johnston, Architect, Independent Consultant. Andrew Johnston, Architect Independent Consultant

    An independent consultant with a unique combination of managerial, commercial, and technical skills, Andrew specializes in the development of strategies and technical architectures that allow businesses to get the maximum benefit from their IT resources. He has been described by clients as a "broad spectrum" architect, summarizing his ability to engage in many problems at many levels.

    Research contributors

    Internal Contributors
    Logo for Info-Tech Research Group.
    • Steven J. Wilson, Senior Director, Research & Advisory Services
    • Daniel Ko, Research Manager
    • Bernie Gilles, Senior Director, Research & Advisory Services
    External Contributors
    Logo for Embarcadero.
    Logo for Questa Computing. Logo for Geha.
    • Ron Huizenga, Embercardo Technologies
    • Andrew Johnston, Independent Consultant
    • Darrell Enslinger, Government Employees Health Association
    • Anonymous Contributors

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    Leading Through Uncertainty Workshop Overview

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}474|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Leadership Development Programs
    • Parent Category Link: /leadership-development-programs

    As the world around us changes there is a higher risk that IT productivity and planned priorities will be derailed.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    To meet the challenges of uncertainty head on IT leaders must adapt so their employees are supported and IT departments continue to operate successfully.

    Impact and Result

    • Clearly define and articulate the current and future priorities to provide direction and cultivate hope for the future.
    • Recognize and manage your own reactions to be conscious of how you are showing up and the perceptions others may have.
    • Incorporate the 4Cs of Leading Through Uncertainty into your leadership practice to make sense of the situation and lead others through it.
    • Build tactics to connect with your employees that will ensure employee engagement and productivity.

    Leading Through Uncertainty Workshop Overview Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Workshop Overview

    Read our concise Workshop Overview to find out how this program can support IT leaders when managing teams through uncertain times.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    • Leading Through Uncertainty (LTU) Workshop Overview
    [infographic]

    Marketing Management Suite Software Selection Guide

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}552|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Selecting and implementing the right MMS platform – one that aligns with your requirements is a significant undertaking.
    • Despite the importance of selecting and implementing the right MMS platform, many organizations struggle to define an approach to picking the most appropriate vendor and rolling out the solution in an effective and cost-efficient manner.
    • IT often finds itself in the unenviable position of taking the fall for an MMS platform that doesn’t deliver on the promise of the MMS strategy.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • MMS platform selection must be driven by your overall customer experience management strategy. Link your MMS selection to your organization’s CXM framework.
    • Determine what exactly you require from your MMS platform; leverage use cases to help guide selection.
    • Ensure strong points of integration between your MMS and other software such as CRM and POS. Your MMS solution should not live in isolation; it must be part of a wider ecosystem.

    Impact and Result

    • An MMS platform that effectively meets business needs and delivers value.
    • Reduced costs during MMS vendor platform selection and faster time to results after implementation.

    Marketing Management Suite Software Selection Guide Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Marketing Management Suite Software Selection Guide – A deck that walks you through the process of building your business case and selecting the proper MMS platform.

    This blueprint will help you build a business case for selecting the right MMS platform, define key requirements, and conduct a thorough analysis and scan of the current state of the ever-evolving MMS market space.

    • Marketing Management Suite Software Selection Guide Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Marketing Management Suite Software Selection Guide

    Streamline your organizational approach to selecting a right-sized marketing management platform.

    Analyst perspective

    A robustly configured and comprehensive MMS platform is a crucial ingredient to help kick-start your organization's cross-channel and multichannel marketing management initiatives.

    Modern marketing management suites (MMS) are imperative given today's complex, multitiered, and often non-standardized marketing processes. Relying on isolated methods such as lead generation or email marketing techniques for executing key cross-channel and multichannel marketing initiatives is not enough to handle the complexity of contemporary marketing management activities.

    Organizations need to invest in highly customizable and functionally extensive MMS platforms to provide value alongside the marketing value chain and a 360-degree view of the consumer's marketing journey. IT needs to be rigorously involved with the sourcing and implementation of the new MMS tool, and the necessary business units also need to own the requirements and be involved from the initial stages of software selection.

    To succeed with MMS implementation, consider drafting a detailed roadmap that outlines milestone activities for configuration, security, points of integration, and data migration capabilities and provides for ongoing application maintenance and support.

    This is a picture of Yaz Palanichamy

    Yaz Palanichamy
    Senior Research Analyst, Customer Experience Strategy
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge

    • Many organizations struggle with taking a systematic and structured approach to selecting a right-sized marketing management suite (MMS) – an indispensable part of managing an organization's specific and nuanced marketing management needs.
    • Organizations must define a clear-cut strategic approach to investing in a new MMS platform. Exercising the appropriate selection and implementation rigor for a right-sized MMS tool is a critical step in delivering concrete business value to sustain various marketing value chains across the organization.

    Common Obstacles

    • An MMS vendor that is not well aligned to marketing requirements wastes resources and causes an endless cascade of end-user frustration.
    • The MMS market is rapidly evolving, making it difficult for vendors to retain a competitive foothold in the space.
    • IT managers and/or marketing professionals often find themselves in the unenviable position of taking the fall for MMS platforms that fail to deliver on the promise of the overarching marketing management strategy.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    • MMS platform selection must be driven by your overall marketing management strategy. Email marketing techniques, social marketing, and/or lead management strategies are often not enough to satisfy the more sophisticated use cases demanded by increasingly complex customer segmentation levels.
    • For organizations with a large audience or varied product offerings, a well-integrated MMS platform enables the management of various complex campaigns across many channels, product lines, customer segments, and marketing groups throughout the enterprise.

    Info-Tech Insight

    IT must collaborate with marketing professionals and other key stakeholder groups to define a unified vision and holistic outlook for a right-sized MMS platform.

    Info-Tech's methodology for selecting a right-sized marketing management suite platform

    1. Understand Core MMS Features

    2. Build the Business Case & Streamline Requirements

    3. Discover the MMS Market Space & Prepare for Implementation

    Phase Steps

    1. Define MMS Platforms
    2. Classify Table Stakes & Differentiating Capabilities
    3. Explore Trends
    1. Build the Business Case
    2. Streamline the Requirements Elicitation Process for a New MMS Platform
    3. Develop an Inclusive RFP Approach
    1. Discover Key Players in the Vendor Landscape
    2. Engage the Shortlist & Select Finalist
    3. Prepare for Implementation

    Phase Outcomes

    1. Consensus on scope of MMS and key MMS platform capabilities
    1. MMS platform selection business case
    2. Top-level use cases and requirements
    3. Procurement vehicle best practices
    1. Market analysis of MMS platforms
    2. Overview of shortlisted vendors
    3. Implementation considerations

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

    Call #1: Understand what a marketing management suite is. Discuss core capabilities and key trends.

    Call #2: Build the business case
    to select a right-sized MMS.

    Call #3: Define your core
    MMS requirements.

    Call #4: Build and sustain procurement vehicle best practices.

    Call #5: Evaluate the MMS vendor landscape and short-list viable options.


    Call #6: Review implementation considerations.

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

    The MMS procurement process should be broken into segments:

    1. Create a vendor shortlist using this buyer's guide.
    2. Define a structured approach to selection.
    3. Review the contract.

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    What are marketing management suite platforms?

    Our Definition: Marketing management suite (MMS) platforms are core enterprise applications that provide a unified set of marketing processes for a given organization and, typically, the capability to coordinate key cross-channel marketing initiatives.

    Key product capabilities for sophisticated MMS platforms include but are not limited to:

    • Email marketing
    • Lead nurturing
    • Social media management
    • Content curation and distribution
    • Marketing reporting and analytics
    • Consistent brand messaging

    Using a robust and comprehensive MMS platform equips marketers with the appropriate tools needed to make more informed decisions around campaign execution, resulting in better targeting, acquisition, and customer retention initiatives. Moreover, such tools can help bolster effective revenue generation and ensure more viable growth initiatives for future marketing growth enablement strategies.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Feature sets are rapidly evolving over time as MMS offerings continue to proliferate in this market space. Ensure that you focus on core components such as customer conversion rates and new lead captures through maintaining well- integrated multichannel campaigns.

    Marketing Management Suite Software Selection Buyer's Guide

    Info-Tech Insight

    A right-sized MMS software selection and procurement decision should involve comprehensive requirements and needs analysis by not just Marketing but also other organizational units such as IT, in conjunction with input suppled from the internal vendor procurement team.

    MMS Software Selection & Vendor Procurement Journey. The three main steps are: Envision the Art of the Possible; Elicit Granular Requirements; Contextualize the MMS Vendor Market Space

    Phase 1

    Understand Core MMS Features

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Define MMS Platforms

    1.2 Classify Table Stakes & Differentiating Capabilities

    1.3 Explore Trends

    2.1 Build the Business Case

    2.2 Streamline Requirements Elicitation

    2.3 Develop an Inclusive RFP Approach

    3.1 Discover Key Players in the Vendor Landscape

    3.2 Engage the Shortlist & Select Finalist

    3.3 Prepare for Implementation

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Level-set an understanding of MMS technology.
    • Define which MMS features are table stakes (standard) and which are key differentiating functionalities.
    • Identify the art of the possible in a modern MMS platform from sales, marketing, and service lenses.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CMO
    • Digital Marketing Project Manager
    • Marketing Data Analytics Analyst
    • Marketing Management Executive

    What are marketing management suite platforms?

    Our Definition: Marketing management suite (MMS) platforms are core enterprise applications that provide a unified set of marketing processes for a given organization and, typically, the capability to coordinate key cross-channel marketing initiatives.

    Key product capabilities for sophisticated MMS platforms include but are not limited to:

    • Email marketing
    • Lead nurturing
    • Social media management
    • Content curation and distribution
    • Marketing reporting and analytics
    • Consistent brand messaging

    Using a robust and comprehensive MMS platform equips marketers with the appropriate tools needed to make more informed decisions around campaign execution, resulting in better targeting, acquisition, and customer retention initiatives. Moreover, such tools can help bolster effective revenue generation and ensure more viable growth initiatives for future marketing growth enablement strategies.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Feature sets are rapidly evolving over time as MMS offerings continue to proliferate in this market space. Ensure that you focus on core components such as customer conversion rates and new lead captures through maintaining well- integrated multichannel campaigns.

    Marketing through the ages

    Tracing the foundational origins of marketing management practices

    Initial traction for marketing management strategies began with the need to holistically understand the effects of advertising efforts and how the media mix could be best optimized.

    1902

    1920s-1930s

    1942

    1952-1964

    1970s-1990s

    Recognizing the increasing need for focused and professional marketing efforts, the University of Pennsylvania offers the first marketing course, dubbed "The Marketing of Products."

    As broadcast media began to peak, marketers needed to manage a greater number of complex and interspersed marketing channels.

    The introduction of television ads in 1942 offered new opportunities for brands to reach consumers across a growing media landscape. To generate the highest ROI, marketers sought to understand the consumer and focus on more tailored messaging and product personalization. Thus, modern marketing practices were born.

    Following the introduction of broadcast media, marketers had to develop strategies beyond traditional spray-and-pray methods. The first modern marketing measurement concept, "marketing mix," was conceptualized in 1952 and popularized in 1964 by Neil Borden.

    This period marked the digital revolution and the new era of marketing. With the advent of new communications technology and the modern internet, marketing management strategies reached new heights of sophistication. During the early 1990s, search engines emerged to help users navigate the web, leading to early forms of search engine optimization and advertising.

    Where it's going: the future state of marketing management

    1. Increasing Complexity Driving Consumer Purchasing Decisions
      • "The main complexity is dealing with the increasing product variety and changing consumer demands, which is forcing marketers to abandon undifferentiated marketing strategies and even niche marketing strategies and to adopt a mass customization process interacting one-to-one with their customers." – Complexity, 2019
    2. Consumers Seeking More Tailored Brand Personalization
      • Financial Services marketers lead all other industries in AI application adoption, with 37% currently using them (Salesforce, 2019).
    3. The Inclusion of More AI-Enabled Marketing Strategies
      • According to a 2022 Nostro report, 70% of consumers say it is important that brands continue to offer personalized consumer experiences.
    4. Green Marketing
      • Recent studies have shown that up to 80% of all consumers are interested in green marketing strategies (Marketing Schools, 2020).

    Marketing management by the numbers

    Key trends

    6%

    As a continuously growing discipline, marketing management roles are predicted to grow faster than average, at a rate of 6% over the next decade.

    Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021

    17%

    While many marketing management vendors offer A/B testing, only 17% of marketers are actively using A/B testing on landing pages to increase conversion rates.

    Source: Oracle, 2022

    70%

    It is imperative that technology and SaaS companies begin to use marketing automation as a core component of their martech strategy to remain competitive. About 70% of technology and SaaS companies are employing integrated martech tools.

    Source: American Marketing Association, 2021

    Understand MMS table stakes features

    Organizations can expect nearly all MMS vendors to provide the following functionality

    Email Marketing

    Lead Nurturing

    Reporting, Analytics, and Marketing KPIs

    Marketing Campaign Management

    Integrational Catalog

    The use of email alongside marketing efforts to promote a business' products and services. Email marketing can be a powerful tool to maintain connections with your audience and ensure sustained brand promotion.

    The process of developing and nurturing relationships with key customer contacts at every major touchpoint in their customer journey. MMS platforms can use automated lead-nurturing functions that are triggered by customer behavior.

    The use of well-defined metrics to help curate, gather, and analyze marketing data to help track performance and improve the marketing department's future marketing decisions and strategies.

    Tools needed for the planning, execution, tracking, and analysis of direct marketing campaigns. Such tools are needed to help gauge your buyers' sentiments toward your company's product offerings and services.

    MMS platforms should generally have a comprehensive open API/integration catalog. Most MMS platforms should have dedicated integration points to interface with various tools across the marketing landscape (e.g. social media, email, SEO, CRM, CMS tools, etc.).

    Identify differentiating MMS features

    While not always deemed must-have functionality, these features may be the deciding factor when choosing between two MMS-focused vendors.

    Digital Asset Management (DAM)

    A DAM can help manage digital media asset files (e.g. photos, audio files, video).

    Customer Data Management

    Customer data management modules help your organization track essential customer information to maximize your marketing results.

    Text-Based Marketing

    Text-based marketing strategy is ideal for any organization primarily focused on coordinating structured and efficient marketing campaigns.

    Customer
    Journey Orchestration

    Customer journey orchestration enables users to orchestrate customer conversations and journeys across the entire marketing value chain.

    AI-Driven Workflows

    AI-powered workflows can help eliminate complexities and allow marketers to automate and optimize tasks across the marketing spectrum.

    Dynamic Segmentation

    Dynamic segmentation to target audience cohorts based on recent actions and stated preferences.

    Advanced Email Marketing

    These include capabilities such as A/B testing, spam filter testing, and detailed performance reporting.

    Ensure you understand the art of the possible across the MMS landscape

    Understanding the trending feature sets that encompass the broader MMS vendor landscape will best equip your organization with the knowledge needed to effectively match today's MMS platforms with your organization's marketing requirements.

    Holistically examine the potential of any MMS solution through three main lenses:

    Data-Driven
    Digital Advertising

    Adapt innovative techniques such as conversational marketing to help collect, analyze, and synthesize crucial audience information to improve the customer marketing experience and pre-screen prospects in a more conscientious manner.

    Next Best Action Marketing

    Next best action marketing (NBAM) is a customer-centric paradigm/marketing technique designed to capture specific information about customers and their individual preferences. Predicting customers' future actions by understanding their intent during their purchasing decisions stage will help improve conversion rates.

    AI-Driven Customer
    Segmentation

    The use of inclusive and innovative AI-based forecast modeling techniques can help more accurately analyze customer data to create more targeted segments. As such, marketing messages will be more accurately tailored to the customer that is reading them.

    Art of the possible: data-driven digital advertising

    CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING INTELLIGENCE

    Are you curious about the measures needed to boost engagement among your client base and other primary target audience groups? Conversational marketing intelligence metrics can help collect and disseminate key descriptive data points across a broader range of audience information.

    AI-DRIVEN CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING DEVICES

    Certain social media channels (e.g. LinkedIn and Facebook) like to take advantage of click-to-Messenger-style applications to help drive meaningful conversations with customers and learn more about their buying preferences. In addition, AI-driven chatbot applications can help the organization glean important information about the customer's persona by asking probing questions about their marketing purchase behaviors and preferences.

    METAVERSE- DRIVEN BRANDING AND ADVERTISING

    One of the newest phenomena in data-driven marketing technology and digital advertising techniques is the metaverse, where users can represent themselves and their brand via virtual avatars to further gamify their marketing strategies. Moreover, brands can create immersive experiences and engage with influencers and established communities and collect a wealth of information about their audience that can help drive customer retention and loyalty.

    Case study

    This is the logos for Gucci and Roblox.

    Metaverse marketing extends the potential for commercial brand development and representation: a deep dive into Gucci's metaverse practice

    INDUSTRY: Luxury Goods Apparel
    SOURCE: Vogue Business

    Challenge

    Beginning with a small, family-owned leather shop known as House of Gucci in Florence, Italy, businessman and fashion designer Guccio Gucci sold saddles, leather bags, and other accessories to horsemen during the 1920s. Over the years, Gucci's offerings have grown to include various other personal luxury goods.

    As consumer preferences have evolved over time, particularly with the younger generation, Gucci's professional marketing teams looked to invest in virtual technology environments to help build and sustain better brand awareness among younger consumer audiences.

    Solution

    In response to the increasing presence of metaverse-savvy gamers on the internet, Gucci began investing in developing its online metaverse presence to bolster its commercial marketing brand there.

    A recent collaboration with Roblox, an online gaming platform that offers virtual experiences, provided Gucci the means to showcase its fashion items using the Gucci Garden – a virtual art installation project for Generation Z consumers, powered by Roblox's VR technology. The Gucci Garden virtual system featured a French-styled garden environment where players could try on and buy Gucci virtual fashion items to dress up their blank avatars.

    Results

    Gucci's disruptive, innovative metaverse marketing campaign project with Roblox is proof of its commitment to tapping new marketing growth channels to showcase the brand to engage new and prospective consumers (e.g. Roblox's player base) across more unique sandboxed/simulation environments.

    The freedom and flexibility in the metaverse environments allows brands such as Gucci to execute a more flexible digital marketing approach and enables them to take advantage of innovative metaverse-driven technologies in the market to further drive their data-driven digital marketing campaigns.

    Art of the possible: next best action marketing (NBAM)

    NEXT BEST ACTION PREDICTIVE MODELING

    To improve conversion propensity, next best action techniques can use predictive modeling methods to help build a dynamic overview of the customer journey. With information sourced from actionable marketing intelligence data, MMS platforms can use NBAM techniques to identify customer needs based on their buying behavior, social media interactions, and other insights to determine what unique set of actions should be taken for each customer.

    MACHINE LEARNING–BASED RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS

    Rules-based recommender systems can help assign probabilities of purchasing behaviors based on the patterns in touchpoints of a customer's journey and interaction with your brand. For instance, a large grocery chain company such as Walmart or Whole Foods will use ML-based recommender systems to decide what coupons they should offer to their customers based on their purchasing history.

    Art of the possible: AI-driven customer segmentation

    MACHINE/DEEP LEARNING (ML/DL) ALGORITHMS

    The inclusion of AI in data analytics helps make customer targeting more accurate
    and meaningful. Organizations can analyze customer data more thoroughly and generate in-depth contextual and descriptive information about the targeted segments. In addition, they can use this information to automate the personalization of marketing campaigns for a specific target audience group.

    UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER SENTIMENTS

    To greatly benefit from AI-powered customer segmentation, organizations must deploy specialized custom AI solutions to help organize qualitative comments into quantitative data. This approach requires companies to use custom AI models and tools that will analyze customer sentiments and experiences based on data extracted from various touchpoints (e.g. CRM systems, emails, chatbot logs).

    Phase 2

    Build the Business Case and Streamline Requirements

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Define MMS Platforms

    1.2 Classify Table Stakes & Differentiating Capabilities

    1.3 Explore Trends

    2.1 Build the Business Case

    2.2 Streamline Requirements Elicitation

    2.3 Develop an Inclusive RFP Approach

    3.1 Discover Key Players in the Vendor Landscape

    3.2 Engage the Shortlist & Select Finalist

    3.3 Prepare for Implementation

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Define and build the business case for the selection of a right-sized MMS platform.
    • Elicit and prioritize granular requirements for your MMS platform.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CMO
    • Technical Marketing Analyst
    • Digital Marketing Project Manager
    • Marketing Data Analytics Analyst
    • Marketing Management Executive

    Software Selection Engagement

    5 Advisory Calls over a 5-Week Period to Accelerate Your Selection Process

    Expert analyst guidance over 5 weeks on average to select software and negotiate with the vendor.

    Save money, align stakeholders, speed up the process and make better decisions.

    Use a repeatable, formal methodology to improve your application selection process.

    Better, faster results, guaranteed, included in your membership.

    This is an image of the plan for five advisory calls over a five-week period.

    CLICK HERE to book your Selection Engagement

    Elicit and prioritize granular requirements for your marketing management suite (MMS) platform

    Understanding business needs through requirements gathering is the key to defining everything you need from your software. However, it is an area where people often make critical mistakes.

    Poorly scoped requirements

    Best practices

    • Fail to be comprehensive and miss certain areas of scope.
    • Focus on how the solution should work instead of what it must accomplish.
    • Have multiple levels of detail within the requirements, causing inconsistency and confusion.
    • Drill all the way down to system-level detail.
    • Add unnecessary constraints based on what is done today rather than focusing on what is needed for tomorrow.
    • Omit constraints or preferences that buyers think are obvious.
    • Get a clear understanding of what the system needs to do and what it is expected to produce.
    • Test against the principle of MECE – requirements should be "mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive."
    • Explicitly state the obvious and assume nothing.
    • Investigate what is sold on the market and how it is sold. Use language that is consistent with that of the market and focus on key differentiators – not table stakes.
    • Contain the appropriate level of detail – the level should be suitable for procurement and sufficient for differentiating vendors.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Poor requirements are the number one reason projects fail. Review Info-Tech's Improve Requirements Gathering blueprint to learn how to improve your requirements analysis and get results that truly satisfy stakeholder needs.

    Info-Tech's approach

    Develop an inclusive and thorough approach to the RFP process

    Identity Need; Define Business requirements; Gain Business Authorization; Perform RFI/RFP; Negotiate Agreement; Purchase Goods and Services; Assess and Measure Performance.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Review Info-Tech's process and understand how you can prevent your organization from leaking negotiation leverage while preventing vendors from taking control of your RFP.

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. The secret to managing an RFP is to make it as manageable and as thorough as possible. The RFP process should be like any other aspect of business – by developing a standard process. With a process in place, you are better able to handle whatever comes your way, because you know the steps you need to follow to produce a top-notch RFP.
    2. The business then identifies the need for more information about a product/service or determines that a purchase is required.
    3. A team of stakeholders from each area impacted gather all business, technical, legal, and risk requirements. What are the expectations of the vendor relationship post-RFP? How will the vendors be evaluated?
    4. Based on the predetermined requirements, either an RFI or an RFP is issued to vendors with a due date.

    Leverage Info-Tech's Contract Review Service to level the playing field with your shortlisted vendors

    You may be faced with multiple products, services, master service agreements, licensing models, service agreements, and more.
    Use Info-Tech's Contract Review Service to gain insights on your agreements:

    1. Are all key terms included?
    2. Are they applicable to your business?
    3. Can you trust that results will be delivered?
    4. What questions should you be asking from an IT perspective?

    Validate that a contract meets IT's and the business' needs by looking beyond the legal terminology. Use a practical set of questions, rules, and guidance to improve your value for dollar spent.

    This is an image of three screenshots from Info-Tech's Contract Review Service.

    CLICK to BOOK The Contract Review Service

    CLICK to DOWNLOAD Master Contract Review and Negotiation for Software Agreements

    Phase 3

    Discover the MMS Market Space and Prepare for Implementation

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    1.1 Define MMS Platforms

    1.2 Classify Table Stakes & Differentiating Capabilities

    1.3 Explore Trends

    2.1 Build the Business Case

    2.2 Streamline Requirements Elicitation

    2.3 Develop an Inclusive RFP Approach

    3.1 Discover Key Players in the Vendor Landscape

    3.2 Engage the Shortlist & Select Finalist

    3.3 Prepare for Implementation

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Dive into the key players of the MMS vendor landscape.
    • Understand best practices for building a vendor shortlist.
    • Understand key implementation considerations for MMS.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CMO
    • Marketing Management Executive
    • Applications Manager
    • Digital Marketing Project Manager
    • Sales Executive
    • Vendor Outreach and Partnerships Manager

    Review your use cases to start your shortlist

    Your Info-Tech analysts can help you narrow down the list of vendors that will meet your requirements.

    Next steps will include:

    1. Reviewing your requirements.
    2. Checking out SoftwareReviews.
    3. Shortlisting your vendors.
    4. Conducting demos and detailed proposal reviews.
    5. Selecting and contracting with a finalist!

    Get to know the key players in the MMS landscape

    The following slides provide a top-level overview of the popular players you will encounter in your MMS shortlisting process.

    This is a series of images of the logos for the companies which will be discussed later in this blueprint.

    Evaluate software category leaders through vendor rankings and awards

    SoftwareReviews

    This is an image of two screenshots from the Data Quadrant Report.

    The Data Quadrant is a thorough evaluation and ranking of all software in an individual category to compare platforms across multiple dimensions.

    Vendors are ranked by their Composite Score, based on individual feature evaluations, user satisfaction rankings, vendor capability comparisons, and likeliness to recommend the platform.

    This is an image of two screenshots from the Emotional Footprint Report.

    The Emotional Footprint is a powerful indicator of overall user sentiment toward the relationship with the vendor, capturing data across five dimensions.

    Vendors are ranked by their Customer Experience (CX) Score, which combines the overall Emotional Footprint rating with a measure of the value delivered by the solution.

    Speak with category experts to dive deeper into the vendor landscape

    SoftwareReviews

    • Fact-based reviews of business software from IT professionals.
    • Product and category reports with state-of-the-art data visualization.
    • Top-tier data quality backed by a rigorous quality assurance process.
    • User-experience insight that reveals the intangibles of working with a vendor.

    CLICK HERE to ACCESS

    Comprehensive software reviews
    to make better IT decisions

    We collect and analyze the most detailed reviews on enterprise software from real users to give you an unprecedented view into the product and vendor before you buy.

    SoftwareReviews is powered by Info-Tech

    Technology coverage is a priority for Info-Tech, and SoftwareReviews provides the most comprehensive unbiased data on today's technology. Combined with the insight of our expert analysts, our members receive unparalleled support in their buying journey.

    SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

    Strengths:

    • Advanced Campaign Management
    • Email Marketing Automation
    • Multichannel Integration

    Areas to Improve:

    • Mobile Marketing Management
    • Advanced Data Segmentation
    • Pricing Sensitivity and Implementation Support Model

    This is an image of SoftwareReviews analysis for Adobe Experience Cloud.

    history

    This is the Logo for Adobe Experience Cloud

    "Adobe Experience Cloud (AEC), formerly Adobe Marketing Cloud (AMC), provides a host of innovative multichannel analytics, social, advertising, media optimization, and content management products (just to name a few). The Adobe Marketing Cloud package allows users with valid subscriptions to download the entire collection and use it directly on their computer with open access to online updates. Organizations that have a deeply ingrained Adobe footprint and have already reaped the benefits of Adobe's existing portfolio of cloud services products (e.g. Adobe Creative Cloud) will find the AEC suite a functionally robust and scalable fit for their marketing management and marketing automation needs.

    However, it is important to note that AEC's pricing model is expensive when compared to other competitors in the space (e.g. Sugar Market) and, therefore, is not as affordable for smaller or mid-sized organizations. Moreover, there is the expectation of a learning curve with the AEC platform. Newly onboarded users will need to spend some time learning how to navigate and work comfortably with AEC's marketing automaton modules. "
    - Yaz Palanichamy
    Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

    Adobe Experience Cloud Platform pricing is opaque.
    Request a demo.*

    *Info-Tech recommends reaching out to the vendor's internal sales management team for explicit details on individual pricing plans for the Adobe Marketing Cloud suite.

    2021

    Adobe Experience Platform Launch is integrated into the Adobe Experience Platform as a suite of data collection technologies (Experience League, Adobe).

    November 2020

    Adobe announces that it will spend $1.5 billion to acquire Workfront, a provider of marketing collaboration software (TechTarget, 2020).

    September 2018

    Adobe acquires marketing automation software company Marketo (CNBC, 2018).

    June 2018

    Adobe buys e-commerce services provider Magento Commerce from private equity firm Permira for $1.68 billion (TechCrunch, 2018).

    2011

    Adobe acquires DemDex, Inc. with the intention of adding DemDex's audience-optimization software to the Adobe Online Marketing Suite (Adobe News, 2011).

    2009

    Adobe acquires online marketing and web analytics company Omniture for $1.8 billion and integrates its products into the Adobe Marketing Cloud (Zippia, 2022).

    Adobe platform launches in December 1982.

    SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

    Strengths:

    • Marketing Workflow Management
    • Advanced Data Segmentation
    • Marketing Operations Management

    Areas to Improve:

    • Email Marketing Automation
    • Marketing Asset Management
    • Process of Creating and/or Managing Marketing Lists

    This is an image of SoftwareReviews analysis for Dynamics 365

    history

    This is the logo for Dynamics 365

    2021

    Microsoft Dynamics 365 suite adds customer journey orchestration as a viable key feature (Tech Target, 2021)

    2019

    Microsoft begins adding to its Dynamics 365 suite in April 2019 with new functionalities such as virtual agents, fraud detection, new mixed reality (Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog, 2019).

    2017

    Adobe and Microsoft expand key partnership between Adobe Experience Manager and Dynamics 365 integration (TechCrunch, 2017).

    2016

    Microsoft Dynamics CRM paid seats begin growing steadily at more than 2.5x year-over-year (TechCrunch, 2016).

    2016

    On-premises application, called Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, contains the Dynamics 365 Marketing Management platform (Learn Microsoft, 2023).

    Microsoft Dynamics 365 product suite is released on November 1, 2016.

    "Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing remains a viable option for organizations that require a range of innovative MMS tools that can provide a wealth of functional capabilities (e.g. AI-powered analytics to create targeted segments, A/B testing, personalizing engagement for each customer). Moreover, Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing offers trial options to sandbox their platform for free for 30 days to help users familiarize themselves with the software before buying into the product suite.

    However, ensure that you have the time to effectively train users on implementing the MS Dynamics 365 platform. The platform does not score high on customizability in SoftwareReviews reports. Developers have only a limited ability to modify the core UI, so organizations need to be fully equipped with the knowledge needed to successfully navigate MS-based applications to take full advantage of the platform. For organizations deep in the Microsoft stack, D365 Marketing is a compelling option."
    Yaz Palanichamy
    Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

    Dynamics 365
    Marketing

    Dynamics 365
    Marketing (Attachment)

    • Starts from $1,500 per tenant/month*
    • Includes 10,000 contacts, 100,000 interactions, and 1,000 SMS messages
    • For organizations without any other Dynamics 365 application
    • Starts from $750 per tenant/month*
    • Includes 10,000 contacts, 100,000 interactions, and 1,000 SMS messages
    • For organizations with a qualifying Dynamics 365 application

    * Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts. See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

    SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

    Strengths:

    • Marketing Analytics
    • Marketing Workflow Management
    • Lead Nurturing

    Areas to Improve:

    • Advanced Campaign Management
    • Email Marketing Automation
    • Marketing Segmentation

    This is an image of SoftwareReviews analysis for HubSpot

    history

    This is an image of the Logo for HubSpot

    2022

    HubSpot Marketing Hub releases Campaigns 2.0 module for its Marketing Hub platform (HubSpot, 2022).

    2018


    HubSpot announces the launch of its Marketing Hub Starter platform, a new offering that aims to give growing teams the tools they need to start marketing right (HubSpot Company News, 2018).

    2014

    HubSpot celebrates its first initial public offering on the NYSE market (HubSpot Company News, 2014).

    2013

    HubSpot opens its first international office location in Dublin, Ireland
    (HubSpot News, 2013).

    2010

    Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah write "Inbound Marketing," a seminal book that focuses on inbound marketing principles (HubSpot, n.d.).

    HubSpot opens for business in Cambridge, MA, USA, in 2005.

    "HubSpot's Marketing Hub software ranks consistently high in scores across SoftwareReviews reports and remains a strong choice for organizations that want to run successful inbound marketing campaigns that make customers interested and engaged with their business. HubSpot Marketing Hub employs comprehensive feature sets, including the option to streamline ad tracking and management, perform various audience segmentation techniques, and build personalized and automated marketing campaigns.

    However, SoftwareReviews reports indicate end users are concerned that HubSpot Marketing Hub's platform may be slightly overpriced in recent years and not cost effective for smaller and mid-sized companies that are working with a limited budget. Moreover, when it comes to mobile user accessibility reports, HubSpot's Marketing Hub does not directly offer data usage reports in relation to how mobile users navigate various web pages on the customer's website."
    Yaz Palanichamy
    Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

    HubSpot Marketing Hub (Starter Package)

    HubSpot Marketing Hub (Professional Package)

    HubSpot Marketing Hub (Enterprise Package)

    • Starts from $50/month*
    • Includes 1,000 marketing contacts
    • All non-marketing contacts are free, up to a limit of 15 million overall contacts (marketing contacts + non-marketing contracts)
    • Starts from $890/month*
    • Includes 2,000 marketing contacts
    • Onboarding is required for a one-time fee of $3,000
    • Starts from $3600/month*
    • Includes 10,000 marketing contacts
    • Onboarding is required for a one-time fee of $6,000

    *Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
    See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

    SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

    Strengths:

    • Email Marketing Automation
    • Customer Journey Mapping
    • Contacts Management

    Areas to Improve:

    • Pricing Model Flexibility
    • Integrational API Support
    • Antiquated UI/CX Design Elements

    This is an image of SoftwareReviews analysis for Maropost

    history

    This is an image of the Logo for MAROPOST Marketing Cloud

    2022

    Maropost acquires Retail Express, leading retail POS software in Australia for $55M (PRWire, 2022).

    2018


    Maropost develops innovative product feature updates to its marketing cloud platform (e.g. automated social campaign management, event segmentation for mobile apps) (Maropost, 2019).

    2015

    US-based communications organization Success selects Maropost Marketing Cloud for marketing automation use cases (Apps Run The World, 2015).

    2017

    Maropost is on track to become one of Toronto's fastest-growing companies, generating $30M in annual revenue (MarTech Series, 2017).

    2015

    Maropost is ranked as a "High Performer" in the Email Marketing category in a G2 Crowd Grid Report (VentureBeat, 2015).

    Maropost is founded in 2011 as a customer-centric ESP platform.

    Maropost Marketing Cloud – Essential

    Maropost
    Marketing Cloud –Professional

    Maropost
    Marketing Cloud –Enterprise

    • Starts from $279/month*
    • Includes baseline features such as email campaigns, A/B campaigns, transactional emails, etc.
    • Starts from $849/month*
    • Includes additional system functionalities of interest (e.g. mobile keywords, more journeys for marketing automation use cases)
    • Starts from $1,699/month*
    • Includes unlimited number of journeys
    • Upper limit for custom contact fields is increased by 100-150

    *Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.
    See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

    SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

    Strengths:

    • Advanced Data Segmentation
    • Marketing Analytics
    • Multichannel Integration

    Areas to Improve:

    • Marketing Operations
      Management
    • Marketing Asset Management
    • Community Marketing Management

    This is an image of SoftwareReviews analysis for Oracle Marketing Cloud.

    history

    This is an image of the Logo for Oracle Marketing Cloud

    2021

    New advanced intelligence capabilities within Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation help deliver more targeted and personalized messages (Oracle, Marketing Automation documentation).

    2015


    Oracle revamps its marketing cloud with new feature sets, including Oracle ID Graph for cross-platform identification of customers, AppCloud Connect, etc. (Forbes, 2015).

    2014

    Oracle announces the launch of the Oracle Marketing Cloud (TechCrunch, 2014).

    2005

    Oracle acquires PeopleSoft, a company that produces human resource management systems, in 2005 for $10.3B (The Economic Times, 2016).

    1982

    Oracle becomes the first company to sell relational database management software (RDBMS). In 1982 it has revenue of $2.5M (Encyclopedia.com).

    Relational Software, Inc (RSI) – later renamed Oracle Corporation – is founded in 1977.

    "Oracle Marketing Cloud offers a comprehensive interwoven and integrated marketing management solution that can help end users launch cross-channel marketing programs and unify all prospect and customer marketing signals within one singular view. Oracle Marketing Cloud ranks consistently high across our SoftwareReviews reports and sustains top scores in overall customer experience rankings at a factor of 9.0. The emotional sentiment of users interacting with Oracle Marketing Cloud is also highly favorable, with Oracle's Emotional Footprint score at +93.

    Users should be aware that some of the reporting mechanisms and report-generation capabilities may not be as mature as those of some of its competitors in the MMS space (e.g. Salesforce, Adobe). Data exportability also presents a challenge in Oracle Marketing Cloud and requires a lot of internal tweaking between end users of the system to function properly. Finally, pricing sensitivity may be a concern for small and mid-sized organizations who may find Oracle's higher-tiered pricing plans to be out of reach. "
    Yaz Palanichamy
    Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

    Oracle Marketing Cloud pricing is opaque.
    Request a demo.*

    *Info-Tech recommends reaching out to the vendor's internal sales management team for explicit details on individual pricing plans for the Adobe Marketing Cloud suite.

    SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

    Strengths:

    • Marketing Analytics
    • Advanced Campaign Management
    • Email Marketing Automation
    • Social Media Marketing Management

    Areas to Improve:

    • Community Marketing Management
    • Marketing Operations Management
    • Pricing Sensitivity and Vendor Support Model

    This is an image of SoftwareReviews analysis for Salesforce

    history

    This is an image of the Logo for Salesforce Marketing Cloud

    2022

    Salesforce announces sustainability as a core company value (Forbes, 2022).

    2012



    Salesforce unveils Salesforce Marketing Cloud during Dreamforce 2012, with 90,000 registered attendees (Dice, 2012).

    2009

    Salesforce launches Service Cloud, bringing customer service and support automation features to the market (TechCrunch, 2009).

    2003


    The first Dreamforce event is held at the Westin St. Francis hotel in downtown San Francisco
    (Salesforce, 2020).

    2001


    Salesforce delivers $22.4M in revenue for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2002 (Salesforce, 2020).

    Salesforce is founded in 1999.

    "Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a long-term juggernaut of the marketing management software space and is the subject of many Info-Tech member inquiries. It retains strong composite and customer experience (CX) scores in our SoftwareReviews reports. Some standout features of the platform include marketing analytics, advanced campaign management functionalities, email marketing automation, and customer journey management capabilities. In recent years Salesforce has made great strides in improving the overall user experience by investing in new product functionalities such as the Einstein What-If Analyzer, which helps test how your next email campaign will impact overall customer engagement, triggers personalized campaign messages based on an individual user's behavior, and uses powerful real-time segmentation and sophisticated AI to deliver contextually relevant experiences that inspire customers to act.

    On the downside, we commonly see Salesforce's solutions as costlier than competitors' offerings, and its commercial/sales teams tend to be overly aggressive in marketing its solutions without a distinct link to overarching business requirements. "
    Yaz Palanichamy
    Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

    Marketing Cloud Basics

    Marketing Cloud Pro

    Marketing Cloud Corporate

    Marketing Cloud Enterprise

    • Starts at $400*
    • Per org/month
    • Personalized promotional email marketing
    • Starts at $1,250*
    • Per org/month
    • Personalized marketing automation with email solutions
    • Starts at $3,750*
    • Per org/month
    • Personalized cross-channel strategic marketing solutions

    "Request a Quote"

    *Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts. See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

    SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

    Strengths:

    • Email Marketing Automation
    • Marketing Workflow Management
    • Marketing Analytics

    Areas to Improve:

    • Mobile Marketing Management
    • Marketing Operations Management
    • Advanced Data Segmentation

    This is an image of SoftwareReviews analysis for SAP

    history

    This is an image of the Logo for SAP

    2022

    SAP announces the second cycle of the 2022 SAP Customer Engagement Initiative. (SAP Community Blog, 2022).

    2020

    SAP acquires Austrian cloud marketing company Emarsys (TechCrunch, 2020).

    2015

    SAP Digital for Customer Engagement launches in May 2015 (SAP News, 2015).

    2009

    SAP begins branching out into three markets of the future (mobile technology, database technology, and cloud). SAP acquires some of its competitors (e.g. Ariba, SuccessFactors, Business Objects) to quickly establish itself as a key player in those areas (SAP, n.d.).

    1999

    SAP responds to the internet and new economy by launching its mysap.com strategy (SAP, n.d.).

    SAP is founded In 1972.

    "Over the years, SAP has positioned itself as one of the usual suspects across the enterprise applications market. While SAP has a broad range of capabilities within the CRM and customer experience space, it consistently underperforms in many of our user-driven SoftwareReviews reports for MMS and adjacent areas, ranking lower in MMS product feature capabilities such as email marketing automation and advanced campaign management than other mainstream MMS vendors, including Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Adobe Experience Cloud. The SAP Customer Engagement Marketing platform seems decidedly a secondary focus for SAP, behind its more compelling presence across the enterprise resource planning space.

    If you are approaching an MMS selection from a greenfield lens and with no legacy vendor baggage for SAP elsewhere, experience suggests that your needs will be better served by a vendor that places greater primacy on the MMS aspect of their portfolio."
    Yaz Palanichamy
    Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

    SAP Customer Engagement Marketing pricing is opaque:
    Request a demo.*

    *Info-Tech recommends reaching out to the vendor's internal sales management team for explicit details on individual pricing plans for the Adobe Marketing Cloud suite.

    SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

    Strengths:

    • Social Media Automation
    • Email Marketing Automation
    • Marketing Analytics

    Areas to Improve:

    • Ease of Data Integration
    • Breadth of Features
    • Marketing Workflow Management

    b

    SoftwareReviews' Enterprise MMS Rankings

    Strengths:

    • Campaign Management
    • Segmentation
    • Email Delivery

    Areas to Improve:

    • Mobile Optimization
    • A/B Testing
    • Content Authoring

    This is an image of SoftwareReviews analysis for ZOHO Campaigns.

    history

    This is an image of the Logo for ZOHO Campaigns

    2021

    Zoho announces CRM-Campaigns sync (Zoho Campaigns Community Learning, 2021).

    2020

    Zoho reaches more than 50M customers in January ( Zippia, n.d.).

    2017

    Zoho launches Zoho One, a comprehensive suite of 40+ applications (Zoho Blog, 2017).

    2012

    Zoho releases Zoho Campaigns (Business Wire, 2012).

    2007

    Zoho expands into the collaboration space with the release of Zoho Docs and Zoho Meetings (Zoho, n.d.).

    2005

    Zoho CRM is released (Zoho, n.d.).

    Zoho platform is founded in 1996.

    "Zoho maintains a long-running repertoire of end-to-end software solutions for business development purposes. In addition to its flagship CRM product, the company also offers Zoho Campaigns, which is an email marketing software platform that enables contextually driven marketing techniques via dynamic personalization, email interactivity, A/B testing, etc. For organizations that already maintain a deep imprint of Zoho solutions, Zoho Campaigns will be a natural extension to their immediate software environment.

    Zoho Campaigns is a great ecosystem play in environments that have a material Zoho footprint. In the absence of an existing Zoho environment, it's prudent to consider other affordable products as well."
    Yaz Palanichamy
    Senior Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group

    Free Version

    Standard

    Professional

    • Starts at $0*
    • Per user/month billed annually
    • Up to 2,000 contacts
    • 6,000 emails/month
    • Starts at $3.75*
    • Per user/month billed annually
    • Up to 100,000 contacts
    • Advanced email templates
    • SMS marketing
    • Starts at $6*
    • Per user/month billed annually
    • Advanced segmentation
    • Dynamic content

    *Pricing correct as of October 2022. Listed in USD and absent discounts.

    See pricing on vendor's website for latest information.

    Leverage Info-Tech's research to plan and execute your MMS implementation

    Use Info-Tech's three-phase implementation process to guide your planning:

    1. Assess

    2. Prepare

    3. Govern & Course Correct

    Download Info-Tech's Governance and Management of Enterprise Software Implementation
    Establish and execute an end-to-end, agile framework to succeed with the implementation of a major enterprise application.

    Ensure your implementation team has a high degree of trust and communication

    If external partners are needed, dedicate an internal resource to managing the vendor and partner relationships.

    Communication

    Teams must have some type of communication strategy. This can be broken into:

    • Regularity: Having a set time each day to communicate progress and a set day to conduct retrospectives.
    • Ceremonies: Injecting awards and continually emphasizing delivery of value to encourage relationship building and constructive motivation.
    • Escalation: Voicing any concerns and having someone responsible for addressing them.

    Proximity

    Distributed teams create complexity as communication can break down. This can be mitigated by:

    • Location: Placing teams in proximity to eliminate the barrier of geographical distance and time zone differences.
    • Inclusion: Making a deliberate attempt to pull remote team members into discussions and ceremonies.
    • Communication Tools: Having the right technology (e.g. video conference) to help bring teams closer together virtually.

    Trust

    Members should trust other members are contributing to the project and completing their required tasks on time. Trust can be developed and maintained by:

    • Accountability: Having frequent quality reviews and feedback sessions. As work becomes more transparent, people become more accountable.
    • Role Clarity: Having a clear definition of what everyone's role is.

    Selecting a right-sized MMS platform

    This selection guide allows organizations to execute a structured methodology for picking an MMS platform that aligns with their needs. This includes:

    • Alignment and prioritization of key business and technology drivers for an MMS selection business case.
    • Identification of key use cases and requirements for a right-sized MMS platform.
    • A comprehensive market scan of key players in the MMS market space.

    This formal MMS selection initiative will drive business-IT alignment, identify pivotal sales and marketing automation priorities, and thereby allow for the rollout of a streamlined MMS platform that is highly likely to satisfy all stakeholder needs.

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

    contact your account representative for more information

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Summary of accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    • What marketing management is
    • Historical origins of marketing management
    • The future of marketing management
    • Key trends in marketing management suites

    Processes Optimized

    • Requirements gathering
    • RFPs and contract reviews
    • Marketing management suite vendor selection
    • Marketing management platform implementation

    Marketing Management

    • Adobe Experience Cloud
    • Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Marketing
    • HubSpot Marketing Hub
    • Maropost Marketing Cloud
    • Oracle Marketing Cloud

    Vendors Analyzed

    • Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    • SAP
    • Sugar Market
    • Zoho Campaigns

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Select a Marketing Management Suite

    Many organizations struggle with taking a systematic approach to selection that pairs functional requirements with specific marketing workflows, and as a result they choose a marketing management suite (MMS) that is not well aligned to their needs, wasting resources and causing end-user frustration.

    Get the Most Out of Your CRM

    Customer relationship management (CRM) application portfolios are often messy,
    with multiple integration points, distributed data, and limited ongoing end-user training. A properly optimized CRM ecosystem will reduce costs and increase productivity.

    Customer Relationship Management Platform Selection Guide

    Speed up the process to build your business case and select your CRM solution. Despite the importance of CRM selection and implementation, many organizations struggle to define an approach to picking the right vendor and rolling out the solution in an effective and cost-efficient manner.

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    Zoho. "About Us." Zoho, n.d. Web.

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    Security Priorities 2023

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}254|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $909 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 1 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting
    • Most people still want a hybrid work model but there is a shortage in security workforce to maintain secure remote work, which impacts confidence in the security practice.
    • Pressure of operational excellence drives organizational modernization with the consequence of higher risks of security attacks that impact not only cyber but also physical systems.
    • The number of regulations with stricter requirements and reporting is increasing, along with high sanctions for violations.
    • Accurate assessment of readiness and benefits to adopt next-gen cybersecurity technologies can be difficult. Additionally, regulation often faces challenges to keep up with next-gen cybersecurity technologies implications and risks of adoption, which may not always be explicit.
    • Software is usually produced as part of a supply chain instead in a silo. Thus, a vulnerability in any part of the supply chain can become a threat surface.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Secure remote work still needs to be maintained to facilitate the hybrid work model post pandemic.
    • Despite all the cybersecurity risks, organizations continue modernization plans due to the long-term overall benefits. Hence, we need to secure organization modernization.
    • Organizations should use regulatory changes to improve security practices, instead of treating them as a compliance burden.
    • Next-gen cybersecurity technologies alone are not the silver bullet. A combination of technologies with skilled talent, useful data, and best practices will give a competitive advantage.

    Impact and Result

    • Use this report to help decide your 2023 security priorities by:
      • Collecting and analyzing your own related data, such as your organization 2022 incident reports. Use Info-Tech’s Security Priorities 2023 material for guidance.
      • Identifying your needs and analyzing your capabilities. Use Info-Tech's template to explain the priorities you need to your stakeholders.
      • Determining the next steps. Refer to Info-Tech's recommendations and related research.

    Security Priorities 2023 Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Security Priorities 2023 Report – A report to help decide your 2023 security priorities.

    Each organization is different, so a generic list of security priorities will not be applicable to every organization. Thus, you need to:

  • Collect and analyze your own related data such as your organization 2022 incident reports. Use Info-Tech’s Security Priorities 2023 material for guidance.
  • Identify your needs and analyze your capabilities. Use Info-Tech's template to explain the priorities you need to your stakeholders.
  • Refer to Info-Tech's recommendations and related research for guidance on the next steps.
    • Security Priorities 2023 Report

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Security Priorities 2023

    How we live post pandemic

    Each organization is different, so a generic list of priorities will not be applicable to every organization.

    During 2022, ransomware campaigns declined from quarter to quarter due to the collapse of experienced groups. Several smaller groups are developing to recapture the lost ransomware market. However, ransomware is still the most worrying cyber threat.

    Also in 2022, people returned to normal activities such as traveling and attending sports or music events but not yet to the office. The reasons behind this trend can be many fold, such as employees perceive that work from home (WFH) has positive productivity effects and time flexibility for employees, especially for those with families with younger children. On the other side of the spectrum, some employers perceive that WFH has negative productivity effects and thus are urging employees to return to the office. However, employers also understand the competition to retain skilled workers is harder. Thus, the trend is to have hybrid work where eligible employees can WFH for a certain portion of their work week.

    Besides ransomware and the hybrid work model, in 2022, we saw an evolving threat landscape, regulatory changes, and the potential for a recession by the end of 2023, which can impact how we prioritize cybersecurity this year. Furthermore, organizations are still facing the ongoing issues of insufficient cybersecurity resources and organization modernization.

    This report will explore important security trends, the security priorities that stem from these trends, and how to customize these priorities for your organization.

    In Q2 2022, the median ransom payment was $36,360 (-51% from Q1 2022), a continuation of a downward trend since Q4 2021 when the ransom payment median was $117,116.
    Source: Coveware, 2022

    From January until October 2022, hybrid work grew in almost all industries in Canada especially finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing (+14.7%), public administration and professional services (+11.8%), and scientific and technical services (+10.8%).
    Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, October 2022; N=3,701

    Hybrid work changes processes and infrastructure

    Investment on remote work due to changes in processes and infrastructure

    As part of our research process for the 2023 Security Priorities Report, we used the results from our State of Hybrid Work in IT Survey, which collected responses between July 10 and July 29, 2022 (total N=745, with n=518 completed surveys). This survey details what changes in processes and IT infrastructure are likely due to hybrid work.

    Process changes to support hybrid work

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: None of the above - 12%; Change management - 29%; Asset management - 34%; Service request support - 41%; Incident management - 42%

    Survey respondents (n=518) were asked what processes had the highest degree of change in response to supporting hybrid work. Incident management is the #1 result and service request support is #2. This is unsurprising considering that remote work changed how people communicate, how they access company assets, and how they connect to the company network and infrastructure.

    Infrastructure changes to support hybrid work

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Changed queue management and ticketing system(s) - 11%; Changed incident and service request processes - 23%; Addition of chatbots as part of the Service Desk intake process - 29%; Reduced the need for recovery office spaces and alternative work mitigations - 40%; Structure & day-to-day operation of Service Desk - 41%; Updated network architecture - 44%

    For 2023, we believe that hybrid work will remain. The first driver is that employees still prefer to work remotely for certain days of the week. The second driver is the investment from employers on enabling WFH during the pandemic, such as updated network architecture (44%) and the infrastructure and day-to-day operations (41%) as shown on our survey.

    Top cybersecurity concerns and organizational preparedness for them

    Concerns may correspond to readiness.

    In the Info-Tech Research Group 2023 Trends and Priorities Survey of IT professionals, we asked about cybersecurity concerns and the perception about readiness to meet current and future government legislation regarding cybersecurity requirements.

    Cybersecurity issues

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Cyber risks are not on the radar of the executive leaders or board of directors - 3.19; Organization is not prepared to respond to a cyber attack - 3.08; Supply chain risks related to cyber threats - 3.18; Talent shortages leading to capacity constraints in cyber security - 3.51; New government or industry-imposed regulations - 3.15

    Survey respondents were asked how concerned they are about certain cybersecurity issues from 1 (not concerned at all) to 5 (very concerned). The #1 concern was talent shortages. Other issues with similar concerns included cyber risks not on leadership's radar, supply chain risks, and new regulations (n=507).

    Cybersecurity legislation readiness

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: 1 (Not confident at all) - 2.4%; 2 - 11.2%; 3 - 39.7%; 4 - 33.3%; 5 (Very confident) - 13.4%

    When asked about how confident organizations are about being prepared to meet current and future government legislation regarding cybersecurity requirements, from 1 (not confident at all) to 5 (very confident), the #1 response was 3 (n=499).

    Unsurprisingly, the ever-changing government legislation environment in a world emerging from a pandemic and ongoing wars may not give us the highest confidence.

    We know the concerns and readiness…

    But what is the overall security maturity?

    As part of our research process for the 2023 Security Priorities Report, we reviewed results of completed Info-Tech Research Group Security Governance and Management Benchmark diagnostics (N=912). This report details what we see in our clients' security governance maturity. Setting aside the perception on readiness – what are their actual security maturity levels?

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Security Culture - 47%; Policy and Process Governance - 47%; Event and Incident Management - 58%; Vulnerability - 57%; Auditing - 52%; Compliance Management - 58%; Risk Analysis - 52%

    Overall, assessed organizations are still scoring low (47%) on Security Culture and Policy and Process Governance. This justifies why most security incidents are still due to gaps in foundational security and security awareness, not lack of advanced controls such as event and incident management (58%).

    And how will the potential recession impact security?

    Organizations are preparing for recession, but opportunities for growth during recession should be well planned too.

    As part of our research process for the 2023 Security Priorities Report, we reviewed the results of the Info-Tech Research Group 2023 Trends and Priorities Survey of IT professionals, which collected responses between August 9 and September 9, 2022 (total N=813 with n=521 completed surveys).

    Expected organizational spending on cybersecurity compared to the previous fiscal year

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: A decrease of more than 10% - 2.2%; A decrease of between 1-10% - 2.6%; About the same - 41.4%; An increase of between 1-10% - 39.6%; An increase of more than 10% - 14.3%

    Keeping the same spending is the #1 result and #2 is increasing spending up to 10%. This is a surprising finding considering the survey was conducted after the middle of 2022 and a recession has been predicted since early 2022 (n=489).

    An infographic titled Cloudy with a Chance of Recession

    Source: Statista, 2022, CC BY-ND

    US recession forecast

    Contingency planning for recessions normally includes tight budgeting; however, it can also include opportunities for growth such as hiring talent who have been laid off by competitors and are difficult to acquire in normal conditions. This can support our previous findings on increasing cybersecurity spending.

    Five Security Priorities for 2023

    This image describes the Five Security Priorities for 2023.

    Maintain Secure Hybrid Work

    PRIORITY 01

    • HOW TO STRATEGICALLY ACQUIRE, RETAIN, OR UPSKILL TALENT TO MAINTAIN SECURE SYSTEMS.

    Executive summary

    Background

    If anything can be learned from COVID-19 pandemic, it is that humans are resilient. We swiftly changed to remote workplaces and adjusted people, processes, and technologies accordingly. We had some hiccups along the way, but overall, we demonstrated that our ability to adjust is amazing.

    The pandemic changed how people work and how and where they choose to work, and most people still want a hybrid work model. However, the number of days for hybrid work itself varies. For example, from our survey in July 2022 (n=516), 55.8% of employees have the option of 2-3 days per week to work offsite, 21.0% for 1 day per week, and 17.8% for 4 days per week.

    Furthermore, the investment (e.g. on infrastructure and networks) to initiate remote work was huge, and the cost doesn't end there, as we need to maintain the secure remote work infrastructure to facilitate the hybrid work model.

    Current situation

    Remote work: A 2022 survey by WFH Research (N=16,451) reports that ~14% of full-time employees are fully remote and ~29% are in a hybrid arrangement as of Summer-Fall 2022.

    Security workforce shortage: A 2022 survey by Bridewell (N=521) reports that 68% of leaders say it has become harder to recruit the right people, impacting organizational ability to secure and monitor systems.

    Confidence in the security practice: A 2022 diagnostic survey by Info-Tech Research Group (N=55) reports that importance may not correspond to confidence; for example, the most important selected cybersecurity area, namely Data Access/Integrity (93.7%), surprisingly has the lowest confidence of the practice (80.5%).

    "WFH doubled every 15 years pre-pandemic. The increase in WFH during the pandemic was equal to 30 years of pre-pandemic growth."

    Source: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021

    Leaders must do more to increase confidence in the security practice

    Importance may not correspond to confidence

    As part of our research process for the 2023 Security Priorities Report, we analyzed results from the Info-Tech Research Group diagnostics. This report details what we see in our clients' perceived importance of security and their confidence in existing security practices.

    Cybersecurity importance

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Importance to the Organization - 94.3%; Importance to My Department	92.2%

    Cybersecurity importance areas

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Mobility (Remote & Mobile Access) - 90.2%; Regulatory Compliance - 90.1%; Desktop Computing - 90.9%; Data Access / Integrity - 93.7%

    Confidence in cybersecurity practice

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Confidence in the Organization's Overall Security - 79.4%; Confidence in Security for My Department - 79.8%

    Confidence in cybersecurity practice areas

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Mobility (Remote & Mobile Access) - 75.8%; Regulatory Compliance - 81.5%; Desktop Computing - 80.9%; Data Access / Integrity - 80.5%

    Diagnostics respondents (N=55) were asked about how important security is to their organization or department. Importance to the overall organization is 2.1 percentage points (pp) higher, but confidence in the organization's overall security is slightly lower (-0.4 pp).

    If we break down to security areas, we can see that the most important area, Data Access/Integrity (93.7%), surprisingly has the lowest confidence of the practice: 80.5%. From this data we can conclude that leaders must build a strong cybersecurity workforce to increase confidence in the security practice.

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Maintain secure hybrid work plan

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    Build a strong cybersecurity workforce to increase confidence in the security practice to facilitate hybrid work.

    Initiative Description:

    • Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.
    • Review your security strategy for hybrid work.
    • Identify skills gaps that hinder the successful execution of the hybrid work security strategy.
    • Use the identified skill gaps to define the technical skill requirements for current and future work roles.
    • Conduct a skills assessment on your current workforce to identify employee skill gaps.
    • Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource each skill gap.

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Employees still prefer to WFH for certain days of the week.
    • The investment on WFH during pandemic such as updated network architecture and infrastructure and day-to-day operations.
    • Tech companies' huge layoffs, e.g. Meta laid off more than 11,000 employees.

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    • Unskilled workers lacking certificates or years of experience who are trained and become skilled workers then quit or are hijacked by competitors.
    • Organizational and cultural changes cause friction with work-life balance.
    • Increased attack surface of remote/hybrid workforce.

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    • Increase perceived productivity by employees and increase retention.
    • Increase job satisfaction and work-life balance.
    • Hiring talent that has been laid off who are difficult to acquire in normal conditions.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. Identify skill requirements to maintain secure hybrid work

    Review your security strategy for hybrid work.

    Determine the skill needs of your security strategy.

    2. Identify skill gaps

    Identify skills gaps that hinder the successful execution of the hybrid work security strategy.

    Use the identified skill gaps to define the technical skill requirements for work roles.

    3. Decide whether to build or buy skills

    Conduct a skills assessment on your current workforce to identify employee skill gaps.

    Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource each skill gap.

    Source: Close the InfoSec Skills Gap: Develop a Technical Skills Sourcing Plan, Info-Tech

    Secure Organization Modernization

    PRIORITY 02

    • TRENDS SUGGEST MODERNIZATION SUCH AS DIGITAL
      TRANSFORMATION TO THE CLOUD, OPERATIONAL TECHNOLOGY (OT),
      AND THE INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) IS RISING; ADDRESSING THE RISK
      OF CONVERGING ENVIRONMENTS CAN NO LONGER BE DEFERRED.

    Executive summary

    From computerized milk-handling systems in Wisconsin farms, to automated railway systems in Europe, to Ausgrid's Distribution Network Management System (DNMS) in Australia, to smart cities and beyond; system modernization poses unique challenges to cybersecurity.

    The threats can be safety, such as the trains stopped in Denmark during the last weekend of October 2022 for several hours due to an attack on a third-party IT service provider; economics, such as a cream cheese production shutdown that occurred at the peak of cream cheese demand in October 2021 due to hackers compromising a large cheese manufacturer's plants and distribution centers; and reliability, such as the significant loss of communication for the Ukrainian military, which relied on Viasat's services.

    Despite all the cybersecurity risks, organizations continue modernization plans due to the long-term overall benefits.

    Current situation

    • Pressure of operational excellence: Competitive markets cannot keep pace with demand without modernization. For example, in automated milking systems, the labor time saved from milking can be used to focus on other essential tasks such as the decision-making process.
    • Technology offerings: Technologies are available and affordable such as automated equipment, versatile communication systems, high-performance human machine interaction (HMI), IIoT/Edge integration, and big data analytics.
    • Higher risks of cyberattacks: Modernization enlarges attack surfaces, which are not only cyber but also physical systems. Most incidents indicate that attackers gained access through the IT network, which was followed by infiltration into OT networks.

    IIoT market size is USD 323.62 billion in 2022 and projected to be around USD 1 trillion in 2028.

    Source: Statista,
    March 2022

    Modernization brings new opportunities and new threats

    Higher risks of cyberattacks on Industrial Control System (ICS)

    Target: Australian sewage plant.

    Method: Insider attack. Impact: 265,000 gallons of untreated sewage released.

    Target: Middle East energy companies.

    Method: Shamoon.

    Impact: Overwritten Windows-based systems files.

    Target: German Steel Mill

    Method: Spear-phishing

    Impact: Blast furnace control shutdown failure.

    Target: Middle East Safety Instrumented System (SIS).

    Method: TRISIS/TRITON.

    Impact: Modified safety system ladder logic.

    Target: Viasat's KA-SAT Network.

    Method: AcidRain.

    Impact: Significant loss of communication for the Ukrainian military, which relied on Viasat's services.

    A timeline displaying the years 1903; 2000; 2010; 2012; 2013; 2014; 2018; 2019; 2021; 2022 is displayed.

    Target: Marconi wireless telegraphs presentation. Method: Morse code.

    Impact: Fake message sent "Rats, rats, rats, rats. There was a young fellow of Italy, Who diddled the public quite prettily."

    Target: Iranian uranium enrichment plant.

    Method: Stuxnet.

    Impact: Compromised programmable logic controllers (PLCs).

    Target: ICS supply chain.

    Method: Havex.

    Impact: Remote Access Trojan (RAT) collected information and uploaded data to command-and-control (C&C) servers.

    Target: Ukraine power grid.

    Method: BlackEnergy.

    Impact: Manipulation of HMI View causing 1-6 hour power outages for 230,000 consumers.

    Target: Colonial Pipeline.

    Method: DarkSide ransomware.

    Impact: Compromised billing infrastructure halted the pipeline operation.

    Sources:

    • DOE, 2018
    • CSIS, 2022
    • MIT Technology Review, 2022

    Info-Tech Insight

    Most OT incidents start with attacks against IT networks and then move laterally into the OT environment. Therefore, converging IT and OT security will help protect the entire organization.

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Secure organization modernization

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    The systems (OT, IT, IIoT) are evolving now – ensure your security plan has you covered.

    Initiative Description:

    • Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.
    • Identify the drivers to align with your organization's business objectives.
    • Build your case by leveraging a cost-benefit analysis and update your security strategy.
    • Identify people, process, and technology gaps that hinder the modernization security strategy.
    • Use the identified skill gaps to update risks, policies and procedures, IR, DR, and BCP.
    • Evaluate and enable modernization technology top focus areas and refine security processes.
    • Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource to fill the security workforce gap.

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Pressure of operational excellence
    • Technology offerings
    • Higher risks of cyberattacks

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    • Complex systems with many components to implement and manage require diligent change management.
    • Organizational and cultural changes cause friction between humans and machines.
    • Increased attack surface of cyber and physical systems.

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    • Improve service reliability through continuous and real-time operation.
    • Enhance efficiency through operations visibility and transparency.
    • Gain cost savings and efficiency to automate operations of complex and large equipment and instrumentations.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. Identify modernization business cases to secure

    Identify the drivers to align with your organization's business objectives.

    Build your case by leveraging a cost-benefit analysis, and update your security strategy.

    2. Identify gaps

    Identify people, process, and technology gaps that hinder the modernization
    security strategy.

    Use the identified skill gaps to update risks, policies and procedures, IR, DR, and BCP.

    3. Decide whether to build or buy capabilities

    Evaluate and enable modernization technology top focus areas and refine
    security processes.

    Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource to fill the security workforce gap.

    Sources:

    Industrial Control System (ICS) Modernization: Unlock the Value of Automation in Utilities, Info-Tech

    Secure IT-OT Convergence, Info-Tech

    Develop a cost-benefit analysis

    Identify a modernization business case for security.

    Benefits

    Metrics

    Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings

    • Reduction in truck rolls and staff time of manual operations of equipment or instrumentation.
    • Cost reduction in energy usage such as substation power voltage level or water treatment chemical level.

    Improve Reliability and Resilience

    • Reduction in field crew time to identify the outage locations by remotely accessing field equipment to narrow down the
      fault areas.
    • Reduction in outage time impacting customers and avoiding financial penalty in service quality metrics.
    • Improve operating reliability through continuous and real-time trend analysis of equipment performance.

    Energy & Capacity Savings

    • Optimize energy usage of operation to reduce overall operating cost and contribution to organizational net-zero targets.

    Customers & Society Benefits

    • Improve customer safety for essential services such as drinkable water consumption.
    • Improve reliability of services and address service equity issues based on data.

    Cost

    Metrics

    Equipment and Infrastructure

    Upgrade existing security equipment or instrumentation or deploy new, e.g. IPS on Enterprise DMZ and Operations DMZ.

    Implement communication network equipment and labor to install and configure.

    Upgrade or construct server room including cooling/heating, power backup, and server and rack hardware.

    Software and Commission

    The SCADA/HMI software and maintenance fee as well as lifecycle upgrade implementation project cost.

    Labor cost of field commissioning and troubleshooting.

    Integration with security systems, e.g. log management and continuous monitoring.

    Support and Resources

    Cost to hire/outsource security FTEs for ongoing managing and operating security devices, e.g. SOC.

    Cost to hire/outsource IT/OT FTEs to support and troubleshoot systems and its integrations with security systems, e.g. MSSP.

    An example of a cost-benefit analysis for ICS modernization

    Sources:

    Industrial Control System (ICS) Modernization: Unlock the Value of Automation in Utilities, Info-Tech

    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2021

    IT-OT convergence demands new security approach and solutions

    Identify gaps

    Attack Vectors

    IT

    • User's compromised credentials
    • User's access device, e.g. laptop, smartphone
    • Access method, e.g. denial-of-service to modem, session hijacking, bad data injection

    OT

    • Site operations, e.g. SCADA server, engineering workstation, historian
    • Controls, e.g. SCADA Client, HMI, PLCs, RTUs
    • Process devices, e.g. sensors, actuators, field devices

    Defense Strategies

    • Limit exposure of system information
    • Identify and secure remote access points
    • Restrict tools and scripts
    • Conduct regular security audits
    • Implement a dynamic network environment

    (Control System Defense: Know the Opponent, CISA)

    An example of a high-level architecture of an electric utility's control system and its interaction with IT systems.

    An example of a high-level architecture of an electric utility's control system and its interaction with IT systems.

    Source: ISA-99, 2007

    RESPOND TO REGULATORY CHANGES

    PRIORITY 03

    • GOVERNMENT-ENACTED POLICY CHANGES AND INDUSTRY REGULATORY CHANGES COULD BE A COMPLIANCE BURDEN … OR PREVENT YOUR NEXT SECURITY INCIDENT.

    Executive summary

    Background

    Government-enacted regulatory changes are occurring at an ever-increasing rate these days. As one example, on November 10, 2022, the EU Parliament introduced two EU cybersecurity laws: the Network and Information Security (NIS2) Directive (applicable to organizations located within the EU and organizations outside the EU that are essential within an EU country) and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). There are also industry regulatory changes such as PCI DSS v4.0 for the payment sector and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) for Bulk Electric Systems (BES).

    Organizations should use regulatory changes as a means to improve security practices, instead of treating them as a compliance burden. As said by lead member of EU Parliament Bart Groothuis on NIS2, "This European directive is going to help around 160,000 entities tighten their grip on security […] It will also enable information sharing with the private sector and partners around the world. If we are being attacked on an industrial scale, we need to respond on an industrial scale."

    Current situation

    Stricter requirements and reporting: Regulations such as NIS2 include provisions for incident response, supply chain security, and encryption and vulnerability disclosure and set tighter cybersecurity obligations for risk management reporting obligations.

    Broader sectors: For example, the original NIS directive covers 19 sectors such as Healthcare, Digital Infrastructure, Transport, and Energy. Meanwhile, the new NIS2 directive increases to 35 sectors by adding other sectors such as providers of public electronic communications networks or services, manufacturing of certain critical products (e.g. pharmaceuticals), food, and digital services.

    High sanctions for violations: For example, Digital Services Act (DSA) includes fines of up to 6% of global turnover and a ban on operating in the EU single market in case of repeated serious breaches.

    Approximately 100 cross-border data flow regulations exist in 2022.

    Source: McKinsey, 2022

    Stricter requirements for payments

    Obligation changes to keep up with emerging threats and technologies

    64 New requirements were added
    A total of 64 requirements have been added to version 4.0 of the PCI DSS.

    13 New requirements become effective March 31, 2024
    The other 51 new requirements are considered best practice until March 31, 2025, at which point they will become effective.

    11 New requirements only for service providers
    11 of the new requirements are applicable only to entities that provide third-party services to merchants.

    Defined roles must be assigned for requirements.

    Focus on periodically assessing and documenting scope.

    Entities may choose a defined approach or a customized approach to requirements.

    An example of new requirements for PCI DSS v4.0

    Source: Prepare for PCI DSS v4.0, Info-Tech

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Respond to regulatory changes

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    The compliance obligations are evolving – ensure your security plan has you covered.

    Initiative Description:

    Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.

    • Identify relevant security and privacy compliance and conformance levels.
    • Identify gaps for updated obligations, and map obligations into control framework.
    • Review, update, and implement policies and strategy.
    • Develop compliance exception process and forms.
    • Develop test scripts.
    • Track status and exceptions

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Pressure of new regulations
    • Governance, risk & compliance (GRC) tool offerings
    • High administrative or criminal penalties of non-compliance

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    • Complex structures and a great number of compliance requirements
    • Restricted budget and lack of skilled workforce for organizations such as local municipalities and small or medium organizations compared to private counterparts
    • Personal liability for some regulations for non-compliance

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    • Reduces compliance risk.
    • Reduces complexity within the control environment by using a single framework to align multiple compliance regimes.
    • Reduces costs and efforts related to managing IT audits through planning and preparation.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. Identify compliance obligations

    Identify relevant security and privacy obligations and conformance levels.

    Identify gaps for updated obligations, and map obligations into control framework.

    2. Implement compliance strategy

    Review, update, and implement policies and strategy.

    Develop compliance exception process.

    3. Track and report

    Develop test scripts to check your remediations to ensure they are effective.

    Track and report status and exceptions.

    Sources: Build a Security Compliance Program and Prepare for PCI DSS v4.0, Info-Tech

    Identify relevant security and privacy compliance obligations

    Identify obligations

    # Security Jurisdiction
    1 Network and Information Security (NIS2) Directive European Union (EU) and organizations outside the EU that are essential within an EU country
    2 North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) North American electrical utilities
    3 Executive Order (EO) 14028: Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity, The White House, 2021 United States

    #

    Privacy Jurisdiction
    1 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) EU and EU citizens
    2 Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) Canada
    3 California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) California, USA
    4 Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (PIPL) China

    An example of security and privacy compliance obligations

    How much does it cost to become compliant?

    • It is important to understand the various frameworks and to adhere to the appropriate compliance obligations.
    • Many factors influence the cost of compliance, such as the size of organization, the size of network, and current security readiness.
    • To manage compliance obligations, it is important to use a platform that not only performs internal and external monitoring but also provides third-party vendors (if applicable) with visibility into potential threats in their organization.

    Adopt Next-Generation Cybersecurity Technologies

    PRIORITY 04

    • GOVERNMENTS AND HACKERS ARE RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES, SUCH AS ZERO TRUST ARCHITECTURE AND AI-BASED CYBERSECURITY. SO SHOULD YOUR ORGANIZATION.

    Executive summary

    Background

    The cat and mouse game between threat actors and defenders is continuing. The looming question "can defenders do better?" has been answered with rapid development of technology. This includes the automation of threat analysis (signature-based, specification-based, anomaly-based, flow-based, content-based, sandboxing) not only on IT but also on other relevant environments, e.g. IoT, IIoT, and OT based on AI/ML.

    More fundamental approaches such as post-quantum cryptography and zero trust (ZT) are also emerging.
    ZT is a principle, a model, and also an architecture focused on resource protection by always verifying transactions using the least privilege principle. Hopefully in 2023, ZT will be more practical and not just a vendor marketing buzzword.

    Next-gen cybersecurity technologies alone are not a silver bullet. A combination of skilled talent, useful data, and best practices will give a competitive advantage. The key concepts are explainable, transparent, and trustworthy. Furthermore, regulation often faces challenges to keep up with next-gen cybersecurity technologies, especially with the implications and risks of adoption, which may not always be explicit.

    Current situation

    ZT: Performing an accurate assessment of readiness and benefits to adopt ZT can be difficult due to ZT's many components. Thus, an organization needs to develop a ZT roadmap that aligns with organizational goals and focuses on access to data, assets, applications, and services; don't select solutions or vendors too early.

    Post-quantum cryptography: Current cryptographic applications, such as RSA for PKI, rely on factorization. However, algorithms such as Shor's show quantum speedup for factorization, which can break current crypto when sufficient quantum computing devices are available. Thus, threat actors can intercept current encrypted information and store it to decrypt in the future.

    AI-based threat management: AI helps in analyzing and correlating data extremely fast compared to humans. Millions of telemetries, malware samples, raw events, and vulnerability data feed into the AI system, which humans cannot process manually. Furthermore, AI does not get tired in processing this big data, thus avoiding human error and negligence.

    Data breach mitigation cost without AI: USD 6.20 million; and with AI: USD 3.15 million

    Source: IBM, 2022

    Traditional security is not working

    Alert Fatigue

    Too many false alarms and too many events to process. Evolving threat landscapes waste your analysts' valuable time on mundane tasks, such as evidence collection. Meanwhile, only limited time is spared for decisions and conclusions, which results in the fear of missing an incident and alert fatigue.

    Lack of Insight

    To report progress, clear metrics are needed. However, cybersecurity still lacks in this area as the system itself is complex and some systems work in silos. Furthermore, lessons learned are not yet distilled into insights for improving future accuracy.

    Lack of Visibility

    System integration is required to create consistent workflows across the organization and to ensure complete visibility of the threat landscape, risks, and assets. Also, the convergence of OT, IoT, and IT enhances this challenge.

    Source: IBM Security Intelligence, 2020

    A business case for AI-based cybersecurity

    Threat management

    Prevention

    Risk scores are generated by machine learning based on variables such as behavioral patterns and geolocation. Zero trust architecture is combined with machine learning. Asset management leverages visibility using machine learning. Comply with regulations by improving discovery, classification, and protection of data using machine learning. Data security and data privacy services use machine learning for data discovery.

    Detection

    AI, advanced machine learning, and static approaches, such as code file analysis, combine to automatically detect and analyze threats and prevent threats from spreading, assisted by threat intelligence.

    Response

    AI helps in orchestrating security technologies for organizations to reduce the number of security agents installed, which may not talk to each other or, worse, may conflict with each other.

    Recovery

    AI continuously tunes based on lessons learned, such as creating security policies for improving future accuracy. AI also does not get fatigue, and it assists humans in a faster recovery.

    Prevention; Detection; Response; Recovery

    AI has been around since the 1940s, but why is it only gaining traction now? Because supporting technologies are only now available, including faster GPUs for complex computations and cheaper storage for massive volumes of data.

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Adopt next-gen cybersecurity technologies

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Develop a practical roadmap that shows the business value of next-gen cybersecurity technologies investment.

    Initiative Description:

    Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.

    • Identify the stakeholders who will be affected by the next-gen cybersecurity technologies implementation and define responsibilities based on skillsets and the degree of support.
    • Adopt well-established data governance practices for cross-functional teams.
    • Conduct a maturity assessment of key processes and highlight interdependencies.
    • Develop a baseline and periodically review risks, policies and procedures, and business plan.
    • Develop a roadmap and deploy next-gen cybersecurity architecture and controls step by step, working with trusted technology partners.
    • Monitor metrics on effectiveness and efficiency.

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Pressure of attacks by sophisticated threat actors
    • Next-gen cybersecurity technologies tool offerings
    • High cost of traditional security, e.g. longer breach lifecycle

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    • Lack of transparency of the model or bias, leading to non-compliance with policies/regulations
    • Risks related with data quality and inadequate data for model training
    • Adversarial attacks, including, but not limited to, adversarial input and model extraction

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    • Reduces the number of alerts, thus reduces alert fatigue.
    • Increases the identification of unknown threats.
    • Leads to faster detection and response.
    • Closes skills gap and increases productivity.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. People

    Identify the stakeholders who will be affected by the next-gen cybersecurity technologies implementation and define responsibilities based on skillsets and the degree of support.

    Adopt well-established data governance practices for cross-functional teams.

    2. Process

    Conduct a maturity assessment of key processes and highlight interdependencies.

    Develop a baseline and periodically review risks, policies and procedures, and business plan.

    3. Technology

    Develop a roadmap and deploy next-gen cybersecurity architecture and controls step by step, working with trusted technology partners.

    Monitor metrics on effectiveness and efficiency.

    Source: Leverage AI in Threat Management (keynote presentation), Info-Tech

    Secure Services and Applications

    PRIORITY 05

    • APIS ARE STILL THE #1 THREAT TO APPLICATION SECURITY.

    Executive summary

    Background

    Software is usually produced as part of a supply chain instead of in silos. A vulnerability in any part of the supply chain can become a threat surface. We have learned this from recent incidents such as Log4j, SolarWinds, and Kaseya where attackers compromised a Virtual System Administrator tool used by managed service providers to attack around 1,500 organizations.

    DevSecOps is a culture and philosophy that unifies development, security, and operations to answer this challenge. DevSecOps shifts security left by automating, as much as possible, development and testing. DevSecOps provides many benefits such as rapid development of secure software and assurance that, prior to formal release and delivery, tests are reliably performed and passed.

    DevSecOps practices can apply to IT, OT, IoT, and other technology environments, for example, by integrating a Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF).

    Current situation

    Secure Software Supply Chain: Logging is a fundamental feature of most software, and recently the use of software components, especially open source, are based on trust. From the Log4j incident we learned that more could be done to improve the supply chain by adopting ZT to identify related components and data flows between systems and to apply the least privilege principle.

    DevSecOps: A software error wiped out wireless services for thousands of Rogers customers across Canada in 2021. Emergency services were also impacted, even though outgoing 911 calls were always accessible. Losing such services could have been avoided, if tests were reliably performed and passed prior to release.

    OT insecure-by-design: In OT, insecurity-by-design is still a norm, which causes many vulnerabilities such as insecure protocols implementation, weak authentication schemes, or insecure firmware updates. Additional challenges are the lack of CVEs or CVE duplication, the lack of Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), and product supply chains issues such as vulnerable products that are certified because of the scoping limitation and emphasis on functional testing.

    Technical causes of cybersecurity incidents in EU critical service providers in 2019-2021 shows: software bug (12%) and faulty software changes/update (9%).

    Source: CIRAS Incident reporting, ENISA (N=1,239)

    Software development keeps evolving

    DOD Maturation of Software Development Best Practices

    Best Practices 30 Years Ago 15 Years Ago Present Day
    Lifecycle Years or Months Months or Weeks Weeks or Days
    Development Process Waterfall Agile DevSecOps
    Architecture Monolithic N-Tier Microservices
    Deployment & Packaging Physical Virtual Container
    Hosting Infrastructure Server Data Center Cloud
    Cybersecurity Posture Firewall + SIEM + Zero Trust

    Best practices in software development are evolving as shown on the diagram to the left. For example, 30 years ago the lifecycle was "Years or Months," while in the present day it is "Weeks or Days."

    These changes also impact security such as the software architecture, which is no longer "Monolithic" but "Microservices" normally built within the supply chain.

    The software supply chain has known integrity attacks that can happen on each part of it. Starting from bad code submitted by a developer, to compromised source control platform (e.g. PHP git server compromised), to compromised build platform (e.g. malicious behavior injected on SolarWinds build), to a compromised package repository where users are deceived into using the bad package by the similarity between the malicious and the original package name.

    Therefore, we must secure each part of the link to avoid attacks on the weakest link.

    Software supply chain guidance

    Secure each part of the link to avoid attacks on the weakest link.

    Guide for Developers

    Guide for Suppliers

    Guide for Customers

    Secure product criteria and management, develop secure code, verify third-party components, harden build environment, and deliver code.

    Define criteria for software security checks, protect software, produce well-secured software, and respond to vulnerabilities.

    Secure procurement and acquisition, secure deployment, and secure software operations.

    Source: "Securing the Software Supply Chain" series, Enduring Security Framework (ESF), 2022

    "Most software today relies on one or more third-party components, yet organizations often have little or no visibility into and understanding of how these software components are developed, integrated, and deployed, as well as the practices used to ensure the components' security."

    Source: NIST – NCCoE, 2022

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Secure services and applications

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    Adopt recommended practices for securing the software supply chain.

    Initiative Description:

    Description must include what organization will undertake to complete the initiative.

    • Define and keep security requirements and risk assessments up to date.
    • Require visibility into provenance of product, and require suppliers' self-attestation of security hygiene.
    • Verify distribution infrastructure, product and individual components integrity, and SBOM.
    • Use multi-layered defenses, e.g. ZT for integration and control configuration.
    • Train users on how to detect and report anomalies and when to apply updates to a system.
    • Ensure updates from authorized and authenticated sources and verify the integrity of the updated SBOM.

    Drivers:

    List initiative drivers.

    • Cyberattacks exploit the vulnerabilities of weak software supply chain
    • Increased need to enhance software supply chain security, e.g. under the White House Executive Order (EO) 14028
    • OT insecure-by-design hinders OT modernization

    Risks:

    List initiative risks and impacts.

    Only a few developers and suppliers explicitly address software security in detail.

    Time pressure to deliver functionality over security.

    Lack of security awareness and lack of trained workforce.

    Benefits:

    List initiative benefits and align to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    Customers (acquiring organizations) achieve secure acquisition, deployment, and operation of software.

    Developers and suppliers provide software security with minimal vulnerabilities in its releases.

    Automated processes such as automated testing avoid error-prone and labor-intensive manual test cases.

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Recommended Actions

    1. Procurement and Acquisition

    Define and keep security requirements and risk assessments up to date.

    Perform analysis on current market and supplier solutions and acquire security evaluation.

    Require visibility into provenance of product, and require suppliers' self-attestation of security hygiene

    2. Deployment

    Verify distribution infrastructure, product and individual components integrity, and SBOM.

    Save and store the tests and test environment and review and verify the
    self-attestation mechanism.

    Use multi-layered defenses, e.g. ZT for integration and control configuration.

    3. Software Operations

    Train users on how to detect and report anomalies and when to apply updates to a system.

    Ensure updates from authorized and authenticated sources and verify the integrity of the updated SBOM.

    Apply supply chain risk management (SCRM) operations.

    Source: "Securing the Software Supply Chain" series, Enduring Security Framework (ESF), 2022

    Bibliography

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    Barrero, Jose Maria, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J. Davis. "Why working from home will stick." WFH Research, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 28731, 2021.
    Boehm, Jim, Dennis Dias, Charlie Lewis, Kathleen Li, and Daniel Wallance. "Cybersecurity trends: Looking over the horizon." McKinsey & Company, March 2022. Accessed
    31 Oct. 2022.
    "China: TC260 issues list of national standards supporting implementation of PIPL." OneTrust, 8 Nov. 2022. Accessed 17 Nov. 2022.
    Chmielewski, Stéphane. "What is the potential of artificial intelligence to improve cybersecurity posture?" before.ai blog, 7 Aug. 2022. Accessed 15 Aug. 2022.
    Conerly, Bill. "The Recession Will Begin Late 2023 Or Early 2024." Forbes, 1 Nov. 2022. Accessed 8 Nov. 2022.
    "Control System Defense: Know the Opponent." CISA, 22 Sep. 2022. Accessed 17 Nov. 2022.
    "Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022." IBM, 2022.
    "Cybersecurity: Parliament adopts new law to strengthen EU-wide resilience." European Parliament News, 10 Nov. 2022. Press Release.
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    Davis, Steven. "The Big Shift to Working from Home." NBER Macro Annual Session On
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    "DoD Enterprise DevSecOps Fundamentals." DoD CIO, 12 May 2022. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022.
    Elkin, Elizabeth, and Deena Shanker. "That Cream Cheese Shortage You Heard About? Cyberattacks Played a Part." Bloomberg, 09 Dec. 2021. Accessed 27 Oct. 2022.
    Evan, Pete. "What happened at Rogers? Day-long outage is over, but questions remain." CBC News, 21 April 2022. Accessed 15 Nov. 2022.
    "Fewer Ransomware Victims Pay, as Median Ransom Falls in Q2 2022." Coveware,
    28 July 2022. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.
    "Fighting cybercrime: new EU cybersecurity laws explained." EU Commission, 10 Nov. 2022. Accessed 16 Nov. 2022.
    "Guide to PCI compliance cost." Vanta. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.
    Hammond, Susannah, and Mike Cowan. "Cost of Compliance 2022: Competing priorities." Thomson Reuters, 2022. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.
    Hemsley, Kevin, and Ronald Fisher. "History of Industrial Control System Cyber Incidents." Department of Energy (DOE), 2018. Accessed 29 Aug. 2022.
    Hofmann, Sarah. "What Is The NIS2 And How Will It Impact Your Organisation?" CyberPilot,
    5 Aug. 2022. Accessed 16 Nov. 2022.
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    "Introducing SLSA, an End-to-End Framework for Supply Chain Integrity." Google,
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    Kovacs, Eduard. "Trains Vulnerable to Hacker Attacks: Researchers." SecurityWeek, 29 Dec. 2015. Accessed 15 Nov. 2022.
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    Malacco, Victor. "Promises and potential of automated milking systems." Michigan State University Extension, 28 Feb. 2022. Accessed 15 Nov. 2022.
    Maxim, Merritt, et al. "Planning Guide 2023: Security & Risk." Forrester, 23 Aug. 2022. Accessed 31 Oct. 2022.
    "National Cyber Threat Assessment 2023-2024." Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, 2022. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.
    Nicaise, Vincent. "EU NIS2 Directive: what's changing?" Stormshield, 20 Oct. 2022. Accessed
    17 Nov. 2022.
    O'Neill, Patrick. "Russia hacked an American satellite company one hour before the Ukraine invasion." MIT Technology Review, 10 May 2022. Accessed 26 Aug. 2022.
    "OT ICEFALL: The legacy of 'insecure by design' and its implications for certifications and risk management." Forescout, 2022. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022.
    Palmer, Danny. "Your cybersecurity staff are burned out - and many have thought about quitting." ZDNet, 8 Aug. 2022. Accessed 19 Aug. 2022.
    Placek, Martin. "Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market size worldwide from 2020 to 2028 (in billion U.S. dollars)." Statista, 14 March 2022. Accessed 15 Nov. 2022.
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    Richter, Felix. "Cloudy With a Chance of Recession." Statista, 6 April 2022. Web.
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    "Securing the Software Supply Chain: Recommended Practices Guide for Customers." Enduring Security Framework (ESF), Oct. 2022. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022.
    "Security Guidelines for the Electricity Sector: Control System Electronic Connectivity."
    North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), 28 Oct. 2013. Accessed 25 Nov. 2022.
    Shepel, Jan. "Schreiber Foods hit with cyberattack; plants closed." Wisconsin State Farmer,
    26 Oct. 2022. Accessed 15 Nov. 2022.
    "Significant Cyber Incidents." Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Accessed
    1 Sep. 2022.
    Souppaya, Murugiah, Michael Ogata, Paul Watrobski, and Karen Scarfone. "Software Supply Chain and DevOps Security Practices: Implementing a Risk-Based Approach to DevSecOps." NIST - National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), Nov. 2022. Accessed
    22 Nov. 2022.
    "Ten Things Will Change Cybersecurity in 2023." SOCRadar, 23 Sep. 2022. Accessed
    31 Oct. 2022.
    "The Nature of Cybersecurity Defense: Pentagon To Reveal Updated Zero-Trust Cybersecurity Strategy & Guidelines." Cybersecurity Insiders. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022.
    What Is Threat Management? Common Challenges and Best Practices." IBM Security Intelligence, 2020.
    Woolf, Tim, et al. "Benefit-Cost Analysis for Utility-Facing Grid Modernization Investments: Trends, Challenges, and Considerations." Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Feb. 2021. Accessed 15 Nov. 2022.
    Violino, Bob. "5 key considerations for your 2023 cybersecurity budget planning." CSO Online,
    14 July 2022. Accessed 27 Oct. 2022

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Andrew Reese
    Cybersecurity Practice Lead
    Zones

    Ashok Rutthan
    Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
    Massmart

    Chris Weedall
    Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
    Cheshire East Council

    Jeff Kramer
    EVP Digital Transformation and Cybersecurity
    Aprio

    Kris Arthur
    Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
    SEKO Logistics

    Mike Toland
    Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
    Mutual Benefit Group

    Develop a Plan to Pilot Enterprise Service Management

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Management
    • Parent Category Link: /service-management
    • Many business groups in the organization are siloed and have disjointed services that lead to a less than ideal customer experience.
    • Service management is too often process-driven and is implemented without a holistic view of customer value.
    • Businesses get caught up in the legacy of their old systems and find it difficult to move with the evolving market.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Customer experience is the new battleground. Parity between products is creating the need to differentiate via customer experience.
    • Don’t forget your employees! Enterprise service management (ESM) is also about delivering exceptional experiences to your employees so they can deliver exceptional services to your customers.
    • ESM is not driven by tools and processes. Rather, ESM is about pushing exceptional services to customers by pulling from organizational capabilities.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand ESM concepts and how they can improve customer service.
    • Use Info-Tech’s advice and tools to perform an assessment of your organization’s state for ESM, identify the gaps, and create an action plan to move towards an ESM pilot.
    • Increase business and customer satisfaction by delivering services more efficiently.

    Develop a Plan to Pilot Enterprise Service Management Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should move towards ESM, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand ESM and get buy-in

    Understand the concepts of ESM, determine the scope of the ESM program, and get buy-in.

    • Develop a Plan to Pilot Enterprise Service Management – Phase 1: Understand ESM and Get Buy-in
    • Enterprise Service Management Executive Buy-in Presentation Template
    • Enterprise Service Management General Communications Presentation Template

    2. Assess the current state for ESM

    Determine the current state for ESM and identify the gaps.

    • Develop a Plan to Pilot Enterprise Service Management – Phase 2: Assess the Current State for ESM
    • Enterprise Service Management Assessment Tool
    • Enterprise Service Management Assessment Tool Action Plan Guide
    • Enterprise Service Management Action Plan Tool

    3. Identify ESM pilot and finalize action plan

    Create customer journey maps, identify an ESM pilot, and finalize the action plan for the pilot.

    • Develop a Plan to Pilot Enterprise Service Management – Phase 3: Identify ESM Pilot and Finalize Action Plan
    • Enterprise Service Management Customer Journey Map Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Develop a Plan to Pilot Enterprise Service Management

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand ESM and Get Buy-In

    The Purpose

    Understand what ESM is and how it can improve customer service.

    Determine the scope of your ESM initiative and identify who the stakeholders are for this program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of ESM concepts.

    Understanding of the scope and stakeholders for your ESM initiative.

    Plan for getting buy-in for the ESM program.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand the concepts and benefits of ESM.

    1.2 Determine the scope of your ESM program.

    1.3 Identify your stakeholders.

    1.4 Develop an executive buy-in presentation.

    1.5 Develop a general communications presentation.

    Outputs

    Executive buy-in presentation

    General communications presentation

    2 Assess the Current State for ESM

    The Purpose

    Assess your current state with respect to culture, governance, skills, and tools.

    Identify your strengths and weaknesses from the ESM assessment scores.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of your organization’s current enablers and constraints for ESM.

    Determination and analysis of data needed to identify strengths or weaknesses in culture, governance, skills, and tools.

    Activities

    2.1 Understand your organization’s mission and vision.

    2.2 Assess your organization’s culture, governance, skills, and tools.

    2.3 Identify the gaps and determine the necessary foundational action items.

    Outputs

    ESM assessment score

    Foundational action items

    3 Define Services and Create Custom Journey Maps

    The Purpose

    Define and choose the top services at the organization.

    Create customer journey maps for the chosen services.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    List of prioritized services.

    Customer journey maps for the prioritized services.

    Activities

    3.1 Make a list of your services.

    3.2 Prioritize your services.

    3.3 Build customer journey maps.

    Outputs

    List of services

    Customer journey maps

    Maximize Business Value From IT Through Benefits Realization

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /it-governance-risk-and-compliance
    • IT and the business are often misaligned because business value is not well defined or communicated.
    • Decisions are made without a shared perspective of value. This results in cost misallocation and unexploited opportunities to improve efficiency and drive innovation.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • IT exists to provide business value and is part of the business value chain. Most IT organizations lack a way to define value, which complicates the process of making value-based strategic business decisions.
    • IT must link its spend to business value to justify its investments. IT doesn’t have an established process to govern benefits realization and struggles to demonstrate how it provides value from its investments.
    • Pursue value, not technology. The inability to articulate value leads to IT being perceived as a cost center.

    Impact and Result

    • Ensure there is a common understanding within the organization of what is valuable to drive growth and consistent strategic decision making.
    • Equip IT to evaluate, direct, and monitor investments to support the achievement of organizational values and business benefits.
    • Align IT spend with business value through an enhanced governance structure to achieve cost optimization. Ensure IT visibly contributes to the creation and maintenance of value.

    Maximize Business Value From IT Through Benefits Realization Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should establish a benefits realization process, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand business value

    Ensure that all key strategic stakeholders hold a current understanding of what is valuable to the organization and a sense of what will be valuable based on future needs.

    • Maximize Business Value from IT Through Benefits Realization – Phase 1: Understand Business Value
    • Business Value Statement Template
    • Business Value Statement Example
    • Value Statement Email Communication Template
    • Feedback Consolidation Tool

    2. Incorporate benefits realization into governance

    Establish the process to evaluate spend on IT initiatives based on expected benefits, and implement the methods to monitor how well the initiatives achieve these benefits.

    • Maximize Business Value from IT Through Benefits Realization – Phase 2: Incorporate Benefits Realization into Governance
    • Business Value Executive Presentation Template

    3. Ensure an accurate reference of value

    Re-evaluate, on a consistent basis, the accuracy of the value drivers stated in the value statement with respect to the organization’s current internal and external environments.

    • Maximize Business Value from IT Through Benefits Realization – Phase 3: Ensure an Accurate Reference of Value
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Maximize Business Value From IT Through Benefits Realization

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand Business Value

    The Purpose

    Establish the business value statement.

    Understand the importance of implementing a benefits realization process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Unified stakeholder perspectives of business value drivers

    Establish supporters of the initiative

    Activities

    1.1 Understand what governance is and how a benefits realization process in governance will benefit the company.

    1.2 Discuss the mission and vision of the company, and why it is important to establish the target state prior to defining value.

    1.3 Brainstorm and narrow down organization value drivers.

    Outputs

    Stakeholder buy-in on benefits realization process

    Understanding of interrelations of mission, vision, and business value drivers

    Final three prioritized value drivers

    Completed business value statement

    2 Incorporate Benefits Realization Into Governance

    The Purpose

    Establish the intake, assessment and prioritization, and output and monitoring processes that are involved with implementing benefits realization.

    Assign cut-over dates and accountabilities.

    Establish monitoring and tracking processes.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A thorough implementation plan that can be incorporated into existing governance documents

    Stakeholder understanding of implemented process, process ownership

    Activities

    2.1 Devise the benefits realization process.

    2.2 Establish launch dates, accountabilities, and exception handling on processes.

    2.3 Devise compliance monitoring and exception tracking methods on the benefits realization process.

    Outputs

    Benefits realization process incorporated into governance documentation

    Actionable plan to implement benefits realization process

    Reporting processes to ensure the successful delivery of the improved governance process

    3 Ensure an Accurate Reference of Value

    The Purpose

    Implement a process to ensure that business value drivers remain current to the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Align IT with the business and business to its environment

    Activities

    3.1 Determine regular review cycle to reassess business value drivers.

    3.2 Determine the trigger events that may cause off-cycle revisits to value.

    3.3 Devise compliance monitoring on value definition.

    Outputs

    Agenda and tools to assess the business context to verify the accuracy of value

    List of possible trigger events specific to your organization

    Reporting processes to ensure the continuous adherence to the business value definition

    IT Metrics and Dashboards During a Pandemic

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    • Parent Category Name: Performance Measurement
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    The ways you measure success as a business are based on the typical business environment, but during a crisis like a pandemic, the business environment is rapidly changing or significantly different.

    • How do you assess the scope of the risk?
    • How do you quickly align your team to manage new risks?
    • How do you remain flexible enough to adapt to a rapidly changing situation?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Measure what you have the data for and focus on managing the impacts to your employees, customers, and suppliers. Be willing to make decisions based on imperfect data. Don’t forget to keep an eye on the long-term objectives and remember that how you act now can reflect on your business for years to come.

    Impact and Result

    Use Info-Tech’s approach to:

    • Quickly assess the risk and identify critical items to manage.
    • Communicate what your decisions are based on so teams can either quickly align or challenge conclusions made from the data.
    • Quickly adjust your measures based on new information or changing circumstances.
    • Use the tools you already have and keep it simple.

    IT Metrics and Dashboards During a Pandemic Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to develop your temporary crisis dashboard.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Consider your organizational goals

    Identify the short-term goals for your organization and reconsider your long-term objectives.

    • Crisis Temporary Measures Dashboard Tool

    2. Build a temporary data collection and dashboard method

    Determine your tool for data collection and your data requirements and collect initial data.

    3. Implement a cadence for review and action

    Determine the appropriate cadence for reviewing the dashboard and action planning.

    [infographic]

    Security Priorities 2022

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    • Ransomware activities and the cost of breaches are on the rise.
    • Cybersecurity talent is hard to find, and an increasing number of cybersecurity professionals are considering leaving their jobs.
    • Moving to the digital world increases the risk of a breach.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The pandemic has fundamentally changed the technology landscape. Security programs must understand how their threat surface is now different and adapt their controls to meet the challenge.
    • The upside to the upheaval in 2021 is new opportunities to modernize your security program.

    Impact and Result

    • Use the report to ensure your plan in 2022 addresses what’s important in cybersecurity.
    • Understand the current situation in the cybersecurity space.

    Security Priorities 2022 Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Security Priorities 2022 – A report that describes priorities and recommendations for CISOs in 2022.

    Use this report to understand the current situation in the cybersecurity space and inform your plan for 2022. This report includes sections on protecting against and responding to ransomware, acquiring and retaining talent, securing a remote workforce, securing digital transformation, and adopting zero trust.

    • Security Priorities for 2022 Report

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Security Priorities 2022

    The pandemic has changed how we work

    disruptions to the way we work caused by the pandemic are here to stay.

    The pandemic has introduced a lot of changes to our lives over the past two years, and this is also true for various aspects of how we work. In particular, a large workforce moved online overnight, which shifted the work environment rapidly.

    People changed how they communicate, how they access company information, and how they connect to the company network. These changes make cybersecurity a more important focus than ever.

    Although changes like the shift to remote work occurred in response to the pandemic, they are largely expected to remain, regardless of the progression of the pandemic itself. This report will look into important security trends and the priorities that stemmed from these trends.

    30% more professionals expect transformative permanent change compared to one year ago.

    47% of professionals expect a lot of permanent change; this remains the same as last year. (Source: Info-Tech Tech Trends 2022 Survey; N=475)

    The cost of a security breach is rising steeply

    The shift to remote work exposes organizations to more costly cyber incidents than ever before.

    $4.24 million

    Average cost of a data breach in 2021
    The cost of a data breach rose by nearly 10% in the past year, the highest rate in over seven years.

    $1.07 million

    More costly when remote work involved in the breach

    The average cost of breaches where remote work is involved is $1.07 million higher than breaches where remote work is not involved.

    The ubiquitous remote work that we saw in 2021 and continue to see in 2022 can lead to more costly security events. (Source: IBM, 2021)

    Remote work is here to stay, and the cost of a breach is higher when remote work is involved.

    The cost comes not only directly from payments but also indirectly from reputational loss. (Source: IBM, 2021)

    Security teams can participate in the solution

    The numbers are clear: in 2022, when we face a threat environment like WE’VE never EXPERIENCED before, good security is worth the investment

    $1.76 million

    Saved when zero trust is deployed facing a breach

    Zero trust controls are realistic and effective controls.

    Organizations that implement zero trust dramatically reduce the cost of an adverse security event.

    35%

    More costly if it takes more than 200 days to identify and contain a breach

    With increased BYOD and remote work, detection and response is more challenging than ever before – but it is also highly effective.

    Organizations that detect and respond to incidents quickly will significantly reduce the impact. (Source: IBM, 2021)

    Breaches are 34% less costly when mature zero trust is implemented.

    A fully staffed and well-prepared security team could save the cost through quick responses. (Source: IBM, 2021)

    Top security priorities and constraints in 2022

    Survey results

    As part of its research process for the 2022 Security Priorities Report, Info-Tech Research Group surveyed security and IT leaders (N=97) to ask their top security priorities as well as their main obstacles to security success in 2022:

    Top Priorities
    A list of the top three priorities identified in the survey with their respective percentages, 'Acquiring and retaining talent, 30%', 'Protecting against and responding to ransomware, 23%', and 'Securing a remote workforce, 23%'.

    Survey respondents were asked to force-rank their security priorities.

    Among the priorities chosen most frequently as #1 were talent management, addressing ransomware threats, and securing hybrid/remote work.

    Top Obstacles
    A list of the top three obstacles identified in the survey with their respective percentages, 'Staffing constraints, 31%', 'Demand of ever-changing business environment, 23%', and 'Budget constraints, 15%'.

    Talent management is both the #1 priority and the top obstacle facing security leaders in 2022.

    Unsurprisingly, the ever-changing environment in a world emerging from a pandemic and budget constraints are also top obstacles.

    We know the priorities…

    But what are security leaders actually working on?

    This report details what we see the world demanding of security leaders in the coming year.

    Setting aside the demands – what are security leaders actually working on?

    A list of 'Top security topics among Info-Tech members' with accompanying bars, 'Security Strategy', 'Security Policies', 'Security Operations', 'Security Governance', and 'Security Incident Response'.

    Many organizations are still mastering the foundations of a mature cybersecurity program.

    This is a good idea!

    Most breaches are still due to gaps in foundational security, not lack of advanced controls.

    We know the priorities…

    But what are security leaders actually working on?

    A list of industries with accompanying bars representing their demand for security. The only industry with a significant positive percentage is 'Government'. Security projects included in annual plan relative to industry.

    One industry plainly stands out from the rest. Government organizations are proportionally much more active in security than other industries, and for good reason: they are common targets.

    Manufacturing and professional services are proportionally less interested in security. This is concerning, given the recent targeting of supply chain and personal data holders by ransomware gangs.

    5 Security Priorities for 2022 Logo for Info-Tech. Logo for ITRG.

    People

    1. Acquiring and Retaining Talent
      Create a good working environment for existing and potential employees. Invest time and effort into talent issues to avoid being understaffed.
    2. Securing a Remote Workforce
      Create a secure environment for users and help your people build safe habits while working remotely.

    Process

    1. Securing Digital Transformation
      Build in security from the start and check in frequently to create agile and secure user experiences.

    Technology

    1. Adopting Zero Trust
      Manage access of sensitive information based on the principle of least privilege.
    2. Protecting Against and Responding to Ransomware
      Put in your best effort to build defenses but also prepare for a breach and know how to recover.

    Main Influencing Factors

    COVID-19 Pandemic
    The pandemic has changed the way we interact with technology. Organizations are universally adapting their business and technology processes to fit the post-pandemic paradigm.
    Rampant Cybercrime Activity
    By nearly every conceivable metric, cybercrime is way up in the past two years. Cybercriminals smell blood and pose a more salient threat than before. Higher standards of cybersecurity capability are required to respond to this higher level of threat.
    Remote Work and Workforce Reallocation
    Talented IT staff across the globe enabled an extraordinarily fast shift to remote and distance work. We must now reckon with the security and human resourcing implications of this huge shift.

    Acquire and Retain Talent

    Priority 01

    Security talent was in short supply before the pandemic, and it's even worse now.

    Executive summary

    Background

    Cybersecurity talent has been in short supply for years, but this shortage has inflected upward since the pandemic.

    The Great Resignation contributed to the existing talent gap. The pandemic has changed how people work as well as how and where they choose work. More and more senior workers are retiring early or opting for remote working opportunities.

    The cost to acquire cybersecurity talent is huge, and the challenge doesn’t end there. Retaining top talent can be equally difficult.

    Current situation

    • A 2021 survey by ESG shows that 76% of security professional agree it’s difficult to recruit talent, and 57% said their organization is affected by this talent shortage.
    • (ISC)2 reports there are 2.72 million unfilled job openings and an increasing workforce gap (2021).

    2.72 million unfilled cybersecurity openings (Source: (ISC)2, 2021)

    IT leaders must do more to attract and retain talent in 2022

    • Over 70% of IT professionals are considering quitting their jobs (TalentLMS, 2021). Meanwhile, 51% of surveyed cybersecurity professionals report extreme burnout during the last 12 months and many of them have considered quitting because of it (VMWare, 2021).
    • Working remotely makes it easier for people to look elsewhere, lowering the barrier to leaving.
    • This is a big problem for security leaders, as cybersecurity talent is in very short supply. The cost of acquiring and retaining quality cybersecurity staff in 2022 is significant, and many organizations are unwilling or unable to pay the premium.
    • Top talent will demand flexible working conditions – even though remote work comes with security risk.
    • Most smart, talented new hires in 2022 are demanding to work remotely most of the time.
    Top reasons for resignations in 2021
    Burnout 30%
    Other remote opportunities 20%
    Lack of growth opportunities 20%
    Poor culture 20%
    Acquisition concerns 10%
    (Source: Survey of West Coast US cybersecurity professionals; TechBeacon, 2021)

    Talent will be 2022’s #1 strength and #1 weakness

    Staffing obstacles in 2022:

    “Attracting and retaining talent is always challenging. We don’t pay as well and my org wants staff in the office at least half of the time. Most young, smart, talented new hires want to work remotely 100 percent of the time.“

    “Trying to grow internal resources into security roles.”

    “Remote work expectations by employees and refusal by business to accommodate.”

    “Biggest obstacle: payscales that are out of touch with cybersecurity market.”

    “Request additional staff. Obtaining funding for additional position is most significant obstacle.”

    (Info-Tech Tech Security Priorities Survey 2022)
    Top obstacles in 2022:

    As you can see, respondents to our security priorities survey have strong feelings on the challenges of staffing a cybersecurity team.

    The growth of remote work means local talent can now be hired by anybody, vastly increasing your competition as an employer.

    Hiring local will get tougher – but so will hiring abroad. People who don’t want to relocate for a new job now have plenty of alternatives. Without a compelling remote work option, you will find non-local prospects unwilling to move for a new job.

    Lastly, many organizations are still reeling at the cost of experienced cybersecurity talent. Focused internal training and development will be the answer for many organizations.

    Recommended Actions

    Provide career development opportunities

    Many security professionals are dissatisfied with their unclear career development paths. To improve retention, organizations should provide their staff with opportunities and clear paths for career and skills advancement.

    Be open-minded when hiring

    To broaden the candidate pool, organizations should be open-minded when considering who to hire.

    • Enable remote work.
    • Do not fixate on certificates and years of experience; rather, be open to developing those who have the right interest and ability.
    • Consider using freelance workers.
    Facilitate work-life balance

    Many security professionals say they experience burnout. Promoting work-life balance in your organization can help retain critical skills.

    Create inclusive environment

    Hire a diverse team and create an inclusive environment where they can thrive.

    Talent acquisition and retention plan

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    Address a top priority and a top obstacle with a plan to attract and retain top organizational and cybersecurity talent.

    Initiative Description:

    • Provide secure remote work capabilities for staff.
    • Work with HR to refine a hiring plan that addresses geographical and compensation gaps with cybersecurity and general staff.
    • Survey staff engagement to identify points of friction and remediate where needed.
    • Define a career path and growth plan for staff.
    Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative.

    Primary Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing down.
    Reduction in costs due to turnover and talent loss

    Other Expected Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing up.
    Productivity due to good morale/ engagement
    Arrow pointing up.
    Improved corporate culture
    Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    Risks:

    • Big organizational and cultural changes
    • Increased attack surface of remote/hybrid workforce

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Secure a Remote Workforce

    Priority 02

    Trends suggest remote work is here to stay. Addressing the risk of insecure endpoints can no longer be deferred.

    Executive summary

    Remote work poses unique challenges to cybersecurity teams. The personal home environment may introduce unauthorized people and unknown network vulnerabilities, and the organization loses nearly all power and influence over the daily cyber hygiene of its users.

    In addition, the software used for enabling remote work itself can be a target of cybersecurity criminals.

    Current situation

    • 70% of workers in technical services work from home.
    • Employees of larger firms and highly paid individuals are more likely to be working outside the office.
    • 80% of security and business leaders find that remote work has increased the risk of a breach.
    • (Source: StatCan, 2021)

    70% of tech workers work from home (Source: Statcan, 2021)

    Remote work demands new security solutions

    The security perimeter is finally gone

    The data is outside the datacenter.
    The users are outside the office.
    The endpoints are … anywhere and everywhere.

    Organizations that did not implement digital transformation changes following COVID-19 experience higher costs following a breach, likely because it is taking nearly two months longer, on average, to detect and contain a breach when more than 50% of staff are working remotely (IBM, 2021).

    In 2022 the cumulative risk of so many remote connections means we need to rethink how we secure the remote/hybrid workforce.

    Security
    • Distributed denial of service
    • DNS hijacking
    • Weak VPN protocols
    Identity
    • One-time verification allowing lateral movement
    Colorful tiles representing the surrounding security solutions. Network
    • Risk perimeter stops at corporate network edge
    • Split tunneling
    Authentication
    • Weak authentication
    • Weak password
    Access
    • Man-in-the-middle attack
    • Cross-site scripting
    • Session hijacking

    Recommended Actions

    Mature your identity management

    Compromised identity is the main vector to breaches in recent years. Stale accounts, contractor accounts, misalignment between HR and IT – the lack of foundational practices leads to headline-making breaches every week.
    Tighten up identity control to keep your organization out of the newspaper.

    Get a handle on your endpoints

    Work-from-home (WFH) often means unknown endpoints on unknown networks full of other unknown devices…and others in the home potentially using the workstation for non-work purposes. Gaining visibility into your endpoints can help to keep detection and resolution times short.

    Educate users

    Educate everyone on security best practices when working remotely:

    • Apply secure settings (not just defaults) to the home network.
    • Use strong passwords.
    • Identify suspicious email.
    Ease of use

    Many workers complain that the corporate technology solution makes it difficult to get their work done.

    Employees will take productivity over security if we force them to choose, so IT needs to listen to end users’ needs and provide a solution that is nimble and secure.

    Roadmap to securing remote/hybrid workforce

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    The corporate network now extends to the internet – ensure your security plan has you covered.

    Initiative Description:

    • Reassess enterprise security strategy to include the WFH attack surface (especially endpoint visibility).
    • Ensure authentication requirements for remote workers are sufficient (e.g. MFA, strong passwords, hardware tokens for high-risk users/connections).
    • Assess the value of zero trust networking to minimize the blast radius in the case of a breach.
    • Perform penetration testing annually.
    Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative.

    Primary Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing down.


    Reduced cost of security incidents/reputational damage

    Other Expected Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing up.
    Improved ability to attract and retain talent
    Arrow pointing up.
    Increased business adaptability
    Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    Risks:

    • Potential disruption to traditional working patterns
    • Cost of investing in WFH versus risk of BYOD

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Secure Digital Transformation

    Priority 03

    Digital transformation could be a competitive advantage…or the cause of your next data breach.

    Executive summary

    Background

    Digital transformation is occurring at an ever-increasing rate these days. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said early in the pandemic, “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”

    We have heard similar stories from Info-Tech members who deployed rollouts that were scheduled to take months over a weekend instead.

    Microsoft’s own shift to rapidly expand its Teams product is a prime example of how quickly the digital landscape has changed. The global adaption to a digital world has largely been a success story, but rapid change comes with risk, and there is a parallel story of rampant cyberattacks like we have never seen before.

    Insight

    There is an adage that “slow is smooth, and smooth is fast” – the implication being that fast is sloppy. In 2022 we’ll see a pattern of organizations working to catch up their cybersecurity with the transformations we all made in 2020.

    $1.78 trillion expected in digital transformation investments (Source: World Economic Forum, 2021)

    An ounce of security prevention versus a pound of cure

    The journey of digital transformation is a risky one.

    Digital transformations often rely heavily on third-party cloud service providers, which increases exposure of corporate data.

    Further, adoption of new technology creates a new threat surface that must be assessed, mitigations implemented, and visibility established to measure performance.

    However, digital transformations are often run on slim budgets and without expert guidance.

    Survey respondents report as much: rushed deployments, increased cloud migration, and shadow IT are the top vulnerabilities reported by security leaders and executives.

    In a 2020 Ponemon survey, 82% of IT security and C-level executives reported experiencing at least one data breach directly resulting from a digital transformation they had undergone.

    Scope creep is inevitable on any large project like a digital transformation. A small security shortcut early in the project can have dire consequences when it grows to affect personal data and critical systems down the road.

    Recommended Actions

    Engage the business early and often

    Despite the risks, organizations engage in digital transformations because they also have huge business value.

    Security leaders should not be seeking to slow or stop digital transformations; rather, we should be engaging with the business early to get ahead of risks and enable successful transformation.

    Establish a vendor security program

    Data is moving out of datacenters and onto third-party environments. Without security requirements built into agreements, and clear visibility into vendor security capabilities, that data is a major source of risk.

    A robust vendor security program will create assurance early in the process and help to reinforce the responsibility of securing data with other parts of the organization.

    Build/revisit your security strategy

    The threat surface has changed since before your transformation. This is the right time to revisit or rebuild your security strategy to ensure that your control set is present throughout the new environment – and also a great opportunity to show how your current security investments are helping secure your new digital lines of business!

    Educate your key players

    Only 16% of security leaders and executives report alignment between security and business processes during digital transformation.

    If security is too low a priority, then key players in your transformation efforts are likely unaware of how security risks impact their own success. It will be incumbent upon the CISO to start that conversation.

    Securing digital transformation

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    Ensure your investment in digital transformation is appropriately secured.

    Initiative Description:

    • Engage security with digital transformation and relevant governance structures (steering committees) to ensure security considerations are built into digital transformation planning.
    • Incorporate security stage gates in project management procedures.
    • Establish a vendor security assessment program.
    Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative.

    Primary Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing up.


    Increased likelihood of digital transformation success

    Other Expected Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing up.
    Ability to make informed decisions for the field rep strategy
    Arrow pointing down.
    Reduced long-term cost of digital transformation
    Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    Risks:

    • Potential increased up front cost (reduced long-term cost)
    • Potential slowed implementation with security stage gates in project management

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Adopt Zero Trust

    Priority 04

    Governments are recognizing the importance of zero trust strategies. So should your organization.

    Why now for zero trust?

    John Kindervag modernized the concept of zero trust back in 2010, and in the intervening years there has been enormous interest in cybersecurity circles, yet in 2022 only 30% of organizations report even beginning to roll out zero trust capabilities (Statista, 2022).

    Why such little action on a revolutionary and compelling model?

    Zero trust is not a technology; it is a principle. Zero trust adoption takes concerted planning, effort, and expense, for which the business value has been unclear throughout most of the last 10 years. However, several recent developments are changing that:

    • Securing technology has become very hard! The size, complexity, and attack surface of IT environments has grown significantly – especially since the pandemic.
    • Cyberattacks have become rampant as the cost to deploy harmful ransomware has become lower and the impact has become higher.
    • The shift away from on-premises datacenters and offices created an opening for zero trust investment, and zero trust technology is more mature than ever before.

    The time has come for zero trust adoption to begin in earnest.

    97% will maintain or increase zero trust budget (Source: Statista, 2022)

    Traditional perimeter security is not working

    Zero trust directly addresses the most prevalent attack vectors today

    A hybrid workforce using traditional VPN creates an environment where we are exposed to all the risks in the wild (unknown devices at any location on any network), but at a stripped-down security level that still provides the trust afforded to on-premises workers using known devices.

    What’s more, threats such as ransomware are known to exploit identity and remote access vulnerabilities before moving laterally within a network – vectors that are addressed directly by zero trust identity and networking. Ninety-three percent of surveyed zero trust adopters state that the benefits have matched or exceeded their expectations (iSMG, 2022).

    Top reasons for building a zero trust program in 2022

    (Source: iSMG, 2022)

    44%

    Enforce least privilege access to critical resources

    44%

    Reduce attacker ability to move laterally

    41%

    Reduce enterprise attack surface

    The business case for zero trust is clearer than ever

    Prior obstacles to Zero Trust are disappearing

    A major obstacle to zero trust adoption has been the sheer cost, along with the lack of business case for that investment. Two factors are changing that paradigm in 2022:

    The May 2021 US White House Executive Order for federal agencies to adopt zero trust architecture finally placed zero trust on the radar of many CEOs and board members, creating the business interest and willingness to consider investing in zero trust.

    In addition, the cost of adopting zero trust is quickly being surpassed by the cost of not adopting zero trust, as cyberattacks become rampant and successful zero trust deployments create a case study to support investment.

    Bar chart titled 'Cost to remediate a Ransomware attack' with bars representing the years '2021' and '2020'. 2021's cost sits around $1.8M while 2020's was only $750K The cost to remediate a ransomware attack more than doubled from 2020 to 2021. Widespread adoption of zero trust capabilities could keep that number from doubling again in 2022. (Source: Sophos, 2021)

    The cost of a data breach is on average $1.76 million less for organizations with mature zero trust deployments.

    That is, the cost of a data breach is 35% reduced compared to organizations without zero trust controls. (Source: IBM, 2021)

    Recommended Actions

    Start small

    Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by deploying zero trust in a wide swath. Rather, start as small as possible to allow for growing pains without creating business friction (or sinking your project altogether).

    Build a sensible roadmap

    Zero trust principles can be applied in a myriad of ways, so where should you start? Between identities, devices, networking, and data, decide on a use case to do pilot testing and then refine your approach.

    Beware too-good-to-be-true products

    Zero trust is a powerful buzzword, and vendors know it.

    Be skeptical and do your due diligence to ensure your new security partners in zero trust are delivering what you need.

    Zero trust roadmap

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    Develop a practical roadmap that shows the business value of security investment.

    Initiative Description:

    • Define desired business and security outcomes from zero trust adoption.
    • Assess zero trust readiness.
    • Build roadmaps for zero trust:
      1. Identity
      2. Networking
      3. Devices
      4. Data
    Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative.

    Primary Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing up.


    Increased security posture and business agility

    Other Expected Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing down.
    Reduced impact of security events
    Arrow pointing down.
    Reduced cost of managing complex control set
    Arrow pointing up.
    More secure business transformation (i.e. cloud/digital)
    Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    Risks:

    • Learning curve of implementation (start small and slow)
    • Transition from current control set to zero trust model

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Protect Against and Respond to Ransomware

    Priority 05

    Ransomware is still the #1 threat to the safety of your data.

    Executive summary

    Background

    • Ransomware attacks have transformed in 2021 and show no sign of slowing in 2022. There is a new major security breach every week, despite organizations spending over $150 billion in a year on cybersecurity (Nasdaq, 2021).
    • Ransomware as a service (RaaS) is commonplace, and attackers are doubling down by holding encrypted data ransom and also demanding payment under threat to disclose exfiltrated data – and they are making good on their threats.
    • The global cost of ransomware is expected to rise to $265 billion by 2031 (Cybersecurity Ventures, 2021).
    • We expect to see an increase in ransomware incidents in 2022, both in severity and volume – multiple attacks and double extortion are now the norm.
    • High staff turnover increases risk because new employees are unfamiliar with security protocols.

    150% increase ransomware attacks in 2020 (Source: ENISA)

    This is a new golden age of ransomware

    What is the same in 2022

    Unbridled ransomware attacks make it seem like attackers must be using complex new techniques, but prevalent ransomware attack vectors are actually well understood.

    Nearly all modern variants are breaching victim systems in one of three ways:

    • Email phishing
    • Software vulnerabilities
    • RDP/Remote access compromise
    What is new in 2022
    The sophistication of victim targeting

    Victims often find themselves asking, “How did the attackers know to phish the most security-oblivious person in my staff?” Bad actors have refined their social engineering and phishing to exploit high-risk individuals, meaning your chain is only as strong as the weakest link.

    Ability of malware to evade detection

    Modern ransomware is getting better at bypassing anti-malware technology, for example, through creative techniques such as those seen in the MedusaLocker variant and in Ghost Control attacks.

    Effective anti-malware is still a must-have control, but a single layer of defense is no longer enough. Any organization that hopes to avoid paying a ransom must prepare to detect, respond, and recover from an attack.

    Many leaders still don’t know what a ransomware recovery would look like

    Do you know what it would take to recover from a ransomware incident?

    …and does your executive leadership know what it would take to recover?

    The organizations that are most likely to pay a ransom are unprepared for the reality of recovering their systems.

    If you have not done a tabletop or live exercise to simulate a true recovery effort, you may be exposed to more risk than you realize.

    Are your defenses sufficiently hardened against ransomware?

    Organizations with effective security prevention are often breached by ransomware – but they are prepared to contain, detect, and eradicate the infection.

    Ask yourself whether you have identified potential points of entry for ransomware. Assume that your security controls will fail.

    How well are your security controls layered, and how difficult would it be for an attacker to move east/west within your systems?

    Recommended Actions

    Be prepared for a breach

    There is no guarantee that an organization will not fall victim to ransomware, so instead of putting all their effort into prevention, organizations should also put effort into planning to respond to a breach.

    Security awareness training/phishing detection

    Phishing continues to be the main point of entry for ransomware. Investing in phishing awareness and detection among your end users may be the most impactful countermeasure you can implement.

    Zero trust adoption

    Always verify at every step of interaction, even when access is requested by internal users. Manage access of sensitive information based on the principle of least privilege access.

    Encrypt and back up your data

    Encrypt your data so that even if there is a breach, the attackers don’t have a copy of your data. Also, keep regular backups of data at a separate location so that you still have data to work with after a breach occurs.

    You never want to pay a ransom. Being prepared to deal with an incident is your best chance to avoid paying!

    Prevent and respond to ransomware

    Use this template to explain the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about.

    Provide a brief value statement for the initiative.

    Determine your current readiness, response plan, and projects to close gaps.

    Initiative Description:

    • Execute a systematic assessment of your current security and ransomware recovery capabilities.
    • Perform tabletop activities and live recoveries to test data recovery capabilities.
    • Train staff to detect suspicious communications and protect their identities.
    Description must include what IT will undertake to complete the initiative.

    Primary Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing up.


    Improved productivity and brand protection

    Other Expected Business Benefits:

    Arrow pointing down.
    Reduced downtime and disruption
    Arrow pointing down.
    Reduced cost due to incidents (ransom payments, remediation)
    Align initiative benefits back to business benefits or benefits for the stakeholder groups that it impacts.

    Risks:

    • Friction with existing staff

    Related Info-Tech Research:

    Deepfakes: Dark-horse threat for 2022

    Deepfake video

    How long has it been since you’ve gone a full workday without having a videoconference with someone?

    We have become inherently trustful that the face we see on the screen is real, but the technology required to falsify that video is widely available and runs on commercially available hardware, ushering in a genuinely post-truth online era.

    Criminals can use deepfakes to enhance social engineering, to spread misinformation, and to commit fraud and blackmail.

    Deepfake audio

    Many financial institutions have recently deployed voiceprint authentication. TD describes its VoicePrint as “voice recognition technology that allows us to use your voiceprint – as unique to you as your fingerprint – to validate your identity” over the phone.

    However, hackers have been defeating voice recognition for years already. There is ripe potential for voice fakes to fool both modern voice recognition technology and the accounts payable staff.

    Bibliography

    “2021 Ransomware Statistics, Data, & Trends.” PurpleSec, 2021. Web.

    Bayern, Macy. “Why 60% of IT security pros want to quit their jobs right now.” TechRepublic, 10 Oct. 2018. Web.

    Bresnahan, Ethan. “How Digital Transformation Impacts IT And Cyber Risk Programs.” CyberSaint Security, 25 Feb. 2021. Web.

    Clancy, Molly. “The True Cost of Ransomware.” Backblaze, 9 Sept. 2021.Web.

    “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021.” IBM, 2021. Web.

    Cybersecurity Ventures. “Global Ransomware Damage Costs To Exceed $265 Billion By 2031.” Newswires, 4 June 2021. Web.

    “Digital Transformation & Cyber Risk: What You Need to Know to Stay Safe.” Ponemon Institute, June 2020. Web.

    “Global Incident Response Threat Report: Manipulating Reality.” VMware, 2021.

    Granger, Diana. “Karmen Ransomware Variant Introduced by Russian Hacker.” Recorded Future, 18 April 2017. Web.

    “Is adopting a zero trust model a priority for your organization?” Statista, 2022. Web.

    “(ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, 2021: A Resilient Cybersecurity Profession Charts the Path Forward.” (ISC)2, 2021. Web.

    Kobialka, Dan. “What Are the Top Zero Trust Strategies for 2022?” MSSP Alert, 10 Feb. 2022. Web.

    Kost, Edward. “What is Ransomware as a Service (RaaS)? The Dangerous Threat to World Security.” UpGuard, 1 Nov. 2021. Web.

    Lella, Ifigeneia, et al., editors. “ENISA Threat Landscape 2021.” ENISA, Oct. 2021. Web.

    Mello, John P., Jr. “700K more cybersecurity workers, but still a talent shortage.” TechBeacon, 7 Dec. 2021. Web.

    Naraine, Ryan. “Is the ‘Great Resignation’ Impacting Cybersecurity?” SecurityWeek, 11 Jan. 2022. Web.

    Oltsik, Jon. “ESG Research Report: The Life and Times of Cybersecurity Professionals 2021 Volume V.” Enterprise Security Group, 28 July 2021. Web.

    Osborne, Charlie. “Ransomware as a service: Negotiators are now in high demand.” ZDNet, 8 July 2021. Web.

    Osborne, Charlie. “Ransomware in 2022: We’re all screwed.” ZDNet, 22 Dec. 2021. Web.

    “Retaining Tech Employees in the Era of The Great Resignation.” TalentLMS, 19 Oct. 2021. Web.

    Rubin, Andrew. “Ransomware Is the Greatest Business Threat in 2022.” Nasdaq, 7 Dec. 2021. Web.

    Samartsev, Dmitry, and Daniel Dobrygowski. “5 ways Digital Transformation Officers can make cybersecurity a top priority.“ World Economic Forum, 15 Sept. 2021. Web.

    Seymour, John, and Azeem Aqil. “Your Voice is My Passport.” Presented at black hat USA 2018.

    Solomon, Howard. “Ransomware attacks will be more targeted in 2022: Trend Micro.” IT World Canada, 6 Jan. 2022. Web.

    “The State of Ransomware 2021.” Sophos, April 2021. Web.

    Tarun, Renee. “How The Great Resignation Could Benefit Cybersecurity.” Forbes Technology Council, Forbes, 21 Dec. 2021. Web.

    “TD VoicePrint.” TD Bank, n.d. Web.

    “Working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, April 202 to June 2021.” Statistics Canada, 4 Aug. 2021. Web.

    “Zero Trust Strategies for 2022.” iSMG, Palo Alto Networks, and Optiv, 28 Jan. 2022. Web.

    Business Continuity

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    • Parent Category Name: Security and Risk
    • Parent Category Link: /security-and-risk

    The challenge

    • Recent crises have put business continuity firmly on the radar with executives. The pressures mount to have a proper BCP in place.

    • You may be required to show regulators and oversight bodies proof of having your business continuity processes under control.
    • Your customers want to know that you can continue to function under adverse circumstances and may require proof of your business continuity practices and plans.
    • While your company may put the BCM function in facility management or within the business, it typically falls upon IT leaders to join the core team to set up the business continuity plans.

    Our advice

    Insight

    • Business continuity plans require the cooperation and input from all departments with often conflicting objectives.
    • For most medium-sized companies, BCP activities do not require a full-time position. 
    • While the set up of a BCP is an epic or project, embed the maintenance and exercises in its regular activities.
    • As an IT leader in your company, you have the skillset and organizational overview to lead a BCP set up. It is the business that must own the plans. They know their processes and know where to prioritize.
    • The traditional approach to creating a BCP is a considerable undertaking. Most companies will hire one or more consultants to guide them. If you want to do this in-house, then carve up the work into discrete tasks to make it more manageable. Our blueprint explains to you how to do that.

    Impact and results 

    • You have a structured and straightforward process that you can apply to one business unit or department at a time.
    • Start with a pilot, and use the results to fine-tune your approach, fill the gaps while at the same time slowly reducing your business continuity exposure. Repeat the process for each department or team.
    • Enable the business to own the plans. Develop templates that they can use.
    • Leverage the BCP project's outcome and refine your disaster recovery plans to ensure alignment with the overall BCP.

    The roadmap

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    Get started

    Our concise executive brief shows you why you should develop a sound business continuity practice in your company. We'll show you our methodology and the ways we can help you in completing this.

    Identify your current maturity and document process dependencies.

    Choose a medium-sized department and build a team. Identify that department's processes, dependencies, and alternatives.

    • BCP Maturity Scorecard (xls)
    • BCP Pilot Project Charter Template (doc)
    • BCP Business Process Workflows Example (Visio)
    • BCP Business Process Workflows Example (PDF)

    Conduct a business impact analysis to determine what needs to recover first and how much (if any) data you can afford to lose in a disaster.

    Define an objective impact scoring scale for your company. Have the business estimate the impact of downtime and set your recovery targets.

    • BCP Business Impact Analysis Tool (xls)

    Document the recovery workflow entirely.

    The need for clarity is critical. In times when you need the plans, people will be under much higher stress. Build the workflow for the steps necessary to rebuild. Identify gaps and brainstorm on how to close them. Prioritize solutions that mitigate the remaining risks.

    • BCP Tabletop Planning Template (Visio)
    • BCP Tabletop Planning Template (PDF)
    • BCP Project Roadmap Tool
    • BCP Relocation Checklists

    Report the results of the pilot BCP and implement governance.

    Present the results of the pilot and propose the next steps. Assign BCM teams or people within each department. Update and maintain the overall BCMS documentation.

    • BCP Pilot Results Presentation (ppt)
    • BCP Summary (doc)
    • Business Continuity Teams and Roles Tool (xls)

    Additional business continuity tools and templates

    These can help with the creation of your BCP.

    • BCP Recovery Workflow Example (Visio)
    • BCP Recovery Workflow Example (PDF)
    • BCP Notification, Assessment, and Disaster Declaration Plan (doc)
    • BCP Business Process Workarounds and Recovery Checklists (doc)
    • Business Continuity Management Policy (doc)
    • Business Unit BCP Prioritization Tool (xls)
    • Industry-Specific BIA Guidelines (zip)
    • BCP-DRP Maintenance Checklist (xls)
    • Develop a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Plan Storyboard (ppt)

     

    Establish a Foresight Capability

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    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
    • Parent Category Link: /innovation
    • To be recognized and validated as a forward-thinking CIO, you must establish a structured approach to innovation that considers external trends as well as internal processes.
    • The CEO is expecting an investment in IT innovation to yield either cost reduction or revenue growth, but growth cannot happen without opportunity identification.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Technological innovation is disrupting business models – and it’s happening faster than organizations can react.
    • Smaller, more agile organizations have an advantage because they have less resources tied to existing operations and can move faster.

    Impact and Result

    • Be the disruptor, not the disrupted. This blueprint will help you plan proactively and identify opportunities before your competitors.
    • Strategic foresight gives you the tools you need to effectively process the signals in your environment, build an understanding of relevant trends, and turn this understanding into action.

    Establish a Foresight Capability Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to effectively apply strategic foresight, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Signal gathering

    Develop a better understanding of your external environment and build a database of signals.

    • Establish a Foresight Capability – Phase 1: Signal Gathering
    • Foresight Process Tool

    2. Trends and drivers

    Select and analyze trends to uncover drivers.

    • Establish a Foresight Capability – Phase 2: Trends and Drivers

    3. Scenario building

    Use trends and drivers to build plausible scenarios and brainstorm strategic initiatives.

    • Establish a Foresight Capability – Phase 3: Scenario Building

    4. Idea selection

    Apply the wind tunneling technique to assess strategic initiatives and determine which are most likely to succeed in the face of uncertainty.

    • Establish a Foresight Capability – Phase 4: Idea Selection
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Establish a Foresight Capability

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Pre-workshop – Gather Signals and Build a Repository

    The Purpose

    Note: this is preparation for the workshop and is not offered onsite.

    Gather relevant signals that will inform your organization about what is happening in the external competitive environment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A better understanding of the competitive landscape.

    Activities

    1.1 Gather relevant signals.

    1.2 Store signals in a repository for quick and easy recall during the workshop.

    Outputs

    A set of signal items ready for analysis

    2 Identify Trends and Uncover Drivers

    The Purpose

    Uncover trends in your environment and assess their potential impact.

    Determine the causal forces behind relevant trends to inform strategic decisions.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of the underlying causal forces that are influencing a trend that is affecting your organization.

    Activities

    2.1 Cluster signals into trends.

    2.2 Analyze trend impact and select a key trend.

    2.3 Perform causal analysis.

    2.4 Select drivers.

    Outputs

    A collection of relevant trends with a key trend selected

    A set of drivers influencing the key trend with primary drivers selected

    3 Build Scenarios and Ideate

    The Purpose

    Leverage your understanding of trends and drivers to build plausible scenarios and apply them as a canvas for ideation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A set of potential responses or reactions to trends that are affecting your organization.

    Activities

    3.1 Build scenarios.

    3.2 Brainstorm potential strategic initiatives (ideation).

    Outputs

    Four plausible scenarios for ideation purposes

    A potential strategic initiative that addresses each scenario

    4 Apply Wind Tunneling and Select Ideas

    The Purpose

    Assess the various ideas based on which are most likely to succeed in the face of uncertainty.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An idea that you have tested in terms of risk and uncertainty.

    An idea that can be developed and pitched to the business or stored for later use. 

    Activities

    4.1 Assign probabilities to scenarios.

    4.2 Apply wind tunneling.

    4.3 Select ideas.

    4.4 Discuss next steps and prototyping.

    Outputs

    A strategic initiative (idea) that is ready to move into prototyping

    Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need

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    • Parent Category Name: Architecture Domains
    • Parent Category Link: /architecture-domains
    • A mature EA function is increasingly becoming an organizational priority to drive innovation, provide insight, and define digital capabilities.
    • Proliferation of digital technology has increased complexity, straining the EA function to deliver insights.
    • An EA tool increases the efficiency with which the EA function can deliver insights, but a large number of organizations have not a selected an EA tool that suits their needs.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • EA tool value largely comes from tying organizational context and requirements to the selection process.
    • Organizations that have selected an EA tool often fail to have it adopted and show its true value. To ensure successful adoption and value delivery, the EA tool selection process must account for the needs of business stakeholders and tool users.

    Impact and Result

    • Link the need for the EA tool to your organization’s EA value proposition. The connection enables the EA tool to address the future needs of stakeholders and the design style of the EA team.
    • Use Info-Tech’s EA Solution Recommendation Tool to create a shortlist of EA tools that is suited to the preferences of the organization.
    • Gather additional information on the shortlist of EA tool vendors to narrow down the selection using the EA Tool Request for Information Template.

    Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should procure an EA tool in the digital age, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Executive Brief
    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Phases 1-3

    1. Make the case

    Decide if an EA tool is needed in your organization and define the requirements of EA tool users.

    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Phase 1: Make the Case
    • EA Value Proposition Template
    • EA Tool User Requirements Template

    2. Shortlist EA tools

    Determine your organization’s preferences in terms of product capabilities and vendor characteristics.

    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Phase 2: Shortlist EA Tools
    • EA Solution Recommendation Tool

    3. Select and communicate the process

    Gather information on shortlisted vendors and make your final decision.

    • Select an EA Tool Based on Business and User Need – Phase 3: Select and Communicate the Process
    • EA Tool Request for Information Template
    • EA Tool Demo Script Template
    • Request for Proposal (RFP) Template
    • EA Tool Selection Process Template
    [infographic]

    Make Prudent Decisions When Increasing Your Salesforce Footprint

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    • Parent Category Name: Licensing
    • Parent Category Link: /licensing
    • Too often, organizations fail to achieve economy of scale. They neglect to negotiate price holds, do not negotiate deeper discounts as volume increases, or do not realize there are already existing contracts within the organization.
    • Understand what to negotiate. Organizations do not know what can and cannot be negotiated, which means value gets left on the table.
    • Integrations with other applications must be addressed from the outset. Many users buy the platform only to realize later on that the functionality they wanted does not exist and may be an extra expense with customization.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Buying power dissipates when you sign the contract. Get the right product for the right number of users for the right term and get it right the first time.
    • Getting the best price does not assure a great total cost of ownership or ROI. There are many components as part of the purchasing process that if unaccounted for can lead to dramatic and unbudgeted spend.
    • Avoid buyer’s remorse through due diligence before signing the deal. If you need to customize the software or extend it with a third-party add-in, identify your costs and timelines upfront. Plan for successful adoption.

    Impact and Result

    • Centralize purchasing instead of enabling small deals to maximize discount levels by creating a process to derive a cost-effective methodology when subscribing to Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Force.com.
    • Educate your organization on Salesforce’s licensing methods and contract types, enabling informed purchasing decisions. Critical components of every agreement that need to be negotiated are a renewal escalation cap, term protection, and license metrics to document what comes with each. Re-bundling protection is also critical in case a product is no longer desired.
    • Proactively addressing integrations and business requirements will enable project success and enable the regular upgrades the come with a multi-tenant cloud services SaaS solution.

    Make Prudent Decisions When Increasing Your Salesforce Footprint Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you need to understand and document your Salesforce licensing strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Establish software requirements

    Begin your journey by understanding whether Salesforce is the right CRM. Also proactively approach Salesforce licensing by understanding which information to gather and assessing the current state and gaps.

    • Make Prudent Decisions When Increasing Your Salesforce Footprint – Phase 1: Establish Software Requirements
    • Salesforce Licensing Purchase Reference Guide
    • RASCI Chart

    2. Evaluate licensing options

    Review current products and licensing models to determine which licensing models will most appropriately fit the organization's environment.

    • Make Prudent Decisions When Increasing Your Salesforce Footprint – Phase 2: Evaluate Licensing Options
    • Salesforce TCO Calculator
    • Salesforce Discount Calculator

    3. Evaluate agreement options

    Review Salesforce’s contract types and assess which best fits the organization’s licensing needs.

    • Make Prudent Decisions When Increasing Your Salesforce Footprint – Phase 3: Evaluate Agreement Options
    • Salesforce Terms and Conditions Evaluation Tool

    4. Purchase and manage licenses

    Conduct negotiations, purchase licensing, finalize a licensing management strategy, and enhance your CRM with a Salesforce partner.

    • Make Prudent Decisions When Increasing Your Salesforce Footprint – Phase 4: Purchase and Manage Licenses
    • Controlled Vendor Communications Letter
    • Vendor Communication Management Plan
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Make Prudent Decisions When Increasing Your Salesforce Footprint

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Establish Software Requirements

    The Purpose

    Assess current state and align goals; review business feedback.

    Interview key stakeholders to define business objectives and drivers.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Have a baseline for whether Salesforce is the right solution.

    Understand Salesforce as a solution.

    Examine all CRM options.

    Activities

    1.1 Perform requirements gathering to review Salesforce as a potential solution.

    1.2 Gather your documentation before buying or renewing.

    1.3 Confirm or create your Salesforce licensing team.

    1.4 Meet with stakeholders to discuss the licensing options and budget allocation.

    Outputs

    Copy of your Salesforce Master Subscription Agreement

    RASCI Chart

    Salesforce Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    2 Evaluate Licensing Options

    The Purpose

    Review product editions and licensing options.

    Review add-ons and licensing rules.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand how licensing works.

    Discuss licensing rules and their application to your current environment.

    Determine the product and license mix that is best for your requirements.

    Activities

    2.1 Determine the editions, licenses, and add-ons for your Salesforce CRM solution.

    2.2 Calculate total cost of ownership.

    2.3 Use the Salesforce Discount Calculator to ensure you are getting the discount you deserve.

    2.4 Meet with stakeholders to discuss the licensing options and budget allocation.

    Outputs

    Salesforce CRM Solution

    Salesforce TCO Calculator

    Salesforce Discount Calculator

    Salesforce Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    3 Evaluate Agreement Options

    The Purpose

    Review terms and conditions of Salesforce contracts.

    Review vendors.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Determine if MSA or term agreement is best.

    Learn what specific terms to negotiate.

    Activities

    3.1 Perform a T&Cs review and identify key “deal breakers.”

    3.2 Decide on an agreement that nets the maximum benefit.

    Outputs

    Salesforce T&Cs Evaluation Tool

    Salesforce Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    4 Purchase and Manage Licenses

    The Purpose

    Finalize the contract.

    Discuss negotiation points.

    Discuss license management and future roadmap.

    Discuss Salesforce partner and implementation strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Discuss negotiation strategies.

    Learn about licensing management best practices.

    Review Salesforce partner options.

    Create an implementation plan.

    Activities

    4.1 Know the what, when, and who to negotiate.

    4.2 Control the flow of communication.

    4.3 Assign the right people to manage the environment.

    4.4 Discuss Salesforce partner options.

    4.5 Discuss implementation strategy.

    4.6 Meet with stakeholders to discuss licensing options and budget allocation.

    Outputs

    Salesforce Negotiation Strategy

    Vendor Communication Management Plan

    RASCI Chart

    Info-Tech’s Core CRM Project Plan

    Salesforce Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    Make the Case for Product Delivery

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    • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /architecture-and-strategy
    • Organizations are traditionally organized to deliver initiatives in specific periods of time. This is in contention with product-centric delivery practices. This form of delivery acknowledges the reality that solutions of all shapes and sizes deliver continual and evolving business value over their lifetime.
    • Delivering multiple products together creates additional challenges because each product has its own pedigree, history, and goals.
    • Product owners struggle to prioritize changes to deliver product value. This creates a gap and conflict between product and enterprise goals.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Delivering products doesn’t mean you will stop delivering projects! Product-centric delivery is intended to address the misalignment between the long-term delivery of value that organizations demand and the nature of traditional project-focused environments.

    Impact and Result

    • We will help you build a proposal deck to make the case to your stakeholders for product-centric delivery.
    • You will build this proposal deck by answering key questions about product-centric delivery so you can identify:
      • A common definition of product.
      • How this form of delivery differs from traditional project-centric approaches.
      • Key challenges and benefits.
      • The capabilities needed to effectively own products and deliver value.
      • What you are asking of stakeholders.
      • A roadmap of how to get started.

    Make the Case for Product Delivery Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Make the Case for Product Delivery Deck – A guide to help align your organization on the practices to deliver what matters most.

    This project will help you define “product” for your organization, define your drivers and goals for moving to product delivery, understand the role of product ownership, lay out the case to your stakeholders, and communicate what comes next for your transition to product.

    • Make the Case for Product Delivery Storyboard

    2. Make the Case for Product Delivery Presentation Template – A template to help you capture and detail your case for product delivery.

    Build a proposal deck to help make the case to your stakeholders for product-centric delivery.

    • Make the Case for Product Delivery Presentation Template

    3. Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook – A tool to capture the results of exercises to build your case to change your product delivery method.

    This workbook is designed to capture the results of the exercises in the Make the Case for Product Delivery Storyboard. Each worksheet corresponds to an exercise in the storyboard. The workbook is also a living artifact that should be updated periodically as the needs of your team and organization change.

    • Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Make the Case for Product Delivery

    Align your organization on the practices to deliver what matters most.

    Table of Contents

    Define product

    Define your drivers and goals

    Understand the role of product ownership

    Communicate what comes next

    Make the case to your stakeholders

    Appendix: Additional research

    Appendix: Product delivery strategy communication

    Appendix: Manage stakeholder influence

    Appendix: Product owner capability details

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge
    • Products are the lifeblood of an organization. They deliver the capabilities needed to deliver value to customers, internal users, and stakeholders.
    • Organizations are under pressure to align the value they provide with the organization’s goals and overall company vision.
    • You need to clearly convey the direction and strategy of your product portfolio to gain alignment, support, and funding from your organization.
    Common Obstacles
    • IT organizations are traditionally organized to deliver initiatives in specific periods of time. This is in contention with product-centric delivery.
    • Product delivery acknowledges the reality that solutions of all shapes and sizes deliver continual and evolving business value over their lifetime.
    • Delivering multiple products together creates additional challenges because each product has its own pedigree, history, and goals.
    • Product owners struggle to prioritize changes to deliver product value. This creates a gap and conflict between product and enterprise goals.
    Info-Tech’s Approach
    • Info-Tech will enable you to build a proposal deck to make the case to your stakeholders for product-centric delivery.
    • You will build this proposal deck by answering key questions about product-centric delivery so you can identify:
      • A common definition of product.
      • How this form of delivery differs from traditional project-centric approaches.
      • Key challenges and benefits.
      • The capabilities needed to effectively own products and deliver value.
      • What you are asking of stakeholders.
      • A roadmap of how to get started.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Delivering products doesn’t mean you will stop delivering projects! Product-centric delivery is intended to address the misalignment between the long-term delivery of value that organizations demand and the nature of traditional project-focused environments.

    Many executives perceive IT as being poorly aligned with business objectives

    Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Survey data highlights the importance of IT initiatives in supporting the business in achieving its strategic goals.

    However, Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Survey (2021; N=58) data indicates that CEOs perceive IT to be poorly aligned to business’ strategic goals.

    Info-Tech CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostics, 2021 (N=58)

    40% Of CEOs believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT.

    34% Of business stakeholders are supporters of their IT departments (n=334).

    40% Of CIOs/CEOs are misaligned on the target role for IT.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Great technical solutions are not the primary driver of IT success. Focusing on delivery of digital products that align with organizational goals will produce improved outcomes and will foster an improved relationship between business and IT.

    Increase product success by involving IT, business, and customers in your product roadmaps, planning, and delivery

    Product management and delivery seek to promote improved relationships among IT, business, and customers, a critical driver for business satisfaction.

    IT

    Stock image of an IT professional.

    1

    Collaboration

    IT, business, and customers work together through all stages of the product lifecycle, from market research through the roadmapping and delivery processes and into maintenance and retirement. The goal is to ensure the risks and dependencies are realized before work is committed.

    Stakeholders, Customers, and Business

    Stock image of a business professional.

    2

    Communication

    Prioritize high-value modes of communication to break down existing silos and create common understanding and alignment across functions. This approach increases transparency and visibility across the entire product lifecycle.

    3

    Integration

    Explore methods to integrate the workflows, decision making, and toolsets among the business, IT, and customers. The goal is to become more reactive to changes in business and customer expectations and more proactive about market trends.

    Product does not mean the same thing to everyone

    Do not expect a universal definition of products.
    Every organization and industry has a different definition of what a product is. Organizations structure their people, processes, and technologies according to their definition of the products they manage. Conflicting product definitions between teams increase confusion and misalignment of product roadmaps.

    “A product [is] something (physical or not) that is created through a process and that provides benefits to a market.” (Mike Cohn, Founding Member of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance) “A product is something ... that is created and then made available to customers, usually with a distinct name or order number.” (TechTarget) “A product is the physical object ... , software or service from which customer gets direct utility plus a number of other factors, services, and perceptions that make the product useful, desirable [and] convenient.” (Mark Curphey)

    Organizations need a common understanding of what a product is and how it pertains to the business.

    This understanding needs to be accepted across the organization.

    “There is not a lot of guidance in the industry on how to define [products]. This is dangerous because what will happen is that product backlogs will be formed in too many areas. All that does is create dependencies and coordination across teams … and backlogs.” (Chad Beier, “How Do You Define a Product?” Scrum.org)

    Products enable the long-term and continuous delivery of value

    Diagram laying out the lifecycles and roadmaps contributing to the 'Continuous delivery of value'. Beginning with 'Project Lifecycle' in which Projects with features and services end in a Product Release that is disconnected from the continuum. Then the 'Hybrid Lifecycle' and 'Product Lifecycle' which are connected by a 'Product Roadmap' and 'Product Backlog' have Product Releases that connect to the continuum.

    Phase 1

    Build the case for product-centric delivery

    Phase 1
    1.1 Define product
    1.2 Define your drivers and goals
    1.3 Understand the role of product ownership
    1.4 Communicate what comes next
    1.5 Make the case to your stakeholders

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Define product in your context.
    • Define your drivers and goals for moving to product delivery.
    • Understand the role of product ownership.
    • Communicate what comes next for your transition to product.
    • Lay out the case to your stakeholders.

    This phase involves the following participants:

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

    Step 1.1

    Define product

    Activities
    • 1.1.1 Define “product” in your context
    • 1.1.2 Consider examples of what is (and is not) a product in your organization
    • 1.1.3 Identify the differences between project and product delivery

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

    • A clear definition of product in your organization’s context.

    Make the Case for Product Delivery

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5

    Exercise 1.1.1 Define “product” in your context

    30-60 minutes

    Output: Your enterprise/organizational definition of products and services

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Discuss what “product” means in your organization.
    2. Create a common, enterprise-wide definition for “product.”
    “A product [is] something (physical or not) that is created through a process and that provides benefits to a market.” (Mike Cohn, Founding Member of Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance) “A product is something ... that is created and then made available to customers, usually with a distinct name or order number.” (TechTarget) “A product is the physical object ... , software or service from which customer gets direct utility plus a number of other factors, services, and perceptions that make the product useful, desirable [and] convenient.” (Mark Curphey)

    Record the results in the Make the Case for Product-Centric Delivery Workbook.

    Example: What is a product?

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

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

    Info-Tech Insight

    A proper definition of product recognizes three key facts:

    1. Products are long-term endeavors that don’t end after the project finishes.
    2. Products are not just “apps” but can be software or services that drive the delivery of value.
    3. There is more than one stakeholder group that derives value from the product or service.
    Stock image of an open human head with gears and a city for a brain.

    How do we know what is a product?

    What isn’t a product:
    • Features (on their own)
    • Transactions
    • Unstructured data
    • One-time solutions
    • Non-repeatable processes
    • Solutions that have no users or consumers
    • People or teams
    You have a product if the given item...
    • Has end users or consumers
    • Delivers quantifiable value
    • Evolves or changes over time
    • Has predictable delivery
    • Has definable boundaries
    • Has a cost to produce and operate

    Exercise 1.1.2 Consider examples of what is (and is not) a product in your organization

    15 minutes

    Output: Examples of what is and isn’t a product in your specific context.

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Leverage the definition you created in exercise 1.1.1 and the explanation on the slide What is a product?
    2. Pick examples that effectively show the difference between products and non-products and facilitate a conversation on the ones that seem to be on the line. Specific server instances, or instances of providing a service, are worthwhile examples to consider.
    3. From the list you come up with, take the top three examples and put them into the Make the Case for Product Delivery Presentation Template.
    Example:
    What isn’t a product?
    • Month-end SQL scripts to close the books
    • Support Engineer doing a password reset
    • Latest research project in R&D
    What is a product?
    • Self-service password reset portal
    • Oracle ERP installation
    • Microsoft Office 365

    Record the results in the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook.

    Product delivery practices should consider everything required to support it, not just what users see.

    Cross-section of an iceberg above and below water with visible product delivery practices like 'Funding', 'External Relationships', and 'Stakeholder Management' above water and internal product delivery practices like 'Product Governance', 'Business Functionality', and 'R&D' under water. There are far more processes below the water.

    Products and services share the same foundation and best practices

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

    Product = Service

    “Product” and “service” are terms that each organization needs to define to fit its culture and customers (internal and external). The most important aspect is consistent use and understanding of:
    • External products
    • Internal products
    • External services
    • Internal services
    • Products as a service (PaaS)
    • Productizing services (SaaS)

    Exercise 1.1.3 Identify the differences between project and product delivery

    30-60 minutes

    Output: List of differences between project and product delivery

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Consider project delivery and product delivery.
    2. Discuss what some differences are between the two.
      Note: This exercise is not about identifying the advantages and disadvantages of each style of delivery. This is to identify the variation between the two.
    Theme Project Delivery (Current) Product Delivery (Future)
    Timing Defined start and end Does not end until the product is no longer needed
    Funding Funding projects Funding products and teams
    Prioritization LoB sponsors Product owner
    Capacity Management Project management Managed by product team

    Record the results in the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook.

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

    Project Product
    Fund projects — Funding –› Fund products or teams
    Line of business sponsor — Prioritization –› Product owner
    Makes specific changes to a product —Product management –› Improves product maturity and support
    Assignment of people to work — Work allocation –› Assignment of work to product teams
    Project manager manages — Capacity management –› Team manages capacity

    Info-Tech Insights

    • Product ownership should be one of your first areas of focus when transitioning from project to product delivery.
    • Product delivery requires significant shifts in the way you complete development work and deliver value to your users. Make the changes that support improving end-user value and enterprise alignment.

    Projects can be a mechanism for funding product changes and improvements

    Diagram laying out the lifecycles and roadmaps contributing to the 'Continuous delivery of value'. Beginning with 'Project Lifecycle' in which Projects with features and services end in a Product Release that is disconnected from the continuum. Then the 'Hybrid Lifecycle' and 'Product Lifecycle' which are connected by a 'Product Roadmap' and 'Product Backlog' have Product Releases that connect to the continuum. Projects within products

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

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

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

    Step 1.2

    Define your drivers and goals

    Activities
    • 1.2.1 Understand your drivers for product-centric delivery
    • 1.2.2 Define the goals for your product-centric organization

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

    • A clear understanding of your motivations and desired outcomes for moving to product delivery.

    Make the Case for Product Delivery

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5

    Exercise 1.2.1 Understand your drivers for product-centric delivery

    30-60 minutes

    Output: Organizational drivers to move to product-centric delivery.

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Identify your pain points in the current delivery model.
    2. What is the root cause of these pain points?
    3. How will a product-centric delivery model fix the root cause (drivers)?
    Pain Points
    • Lack of ownership
    Root Causes
    • Siloed departments
    Drivers
    • Accountability

    Record the results in the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook.

    Exercise 1.2.2 Define the goals for your product-centric organization

    30 minutes

    Output: Goals for product-centric delivery

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Review the differences between project and product delivery from exercise 1.1.3 and the list of drivers from exercise 1.2.1.
    2. Define your goals for achieving a product-centric organization.
      Note: Your drivers may have already covered the goals. If so, review if you would like to change the drivers based on your renewed understanding of the differences between project and product delivery.
    Pain Points
    • Lack of ownership
    Root Causes
    • Siloed departments
    Drivers
    • Accountability
    Goals
    • End-to-end ownership

    Record the results in the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook.

    Step 1.3

    Understand the role of product ownership

    Activities
    • 1.3.1 Identify product ownership capabilities

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

    • Product owner capabilities that you agree are critical to start your product transformation.

    Make the Case for Product Delivery

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5

    Accountability for the delivery of value through product ownership is not optional

    Tree of 'Enterprise Goals and Priorities' leading to 'Product' through a 'Product Family'.

    Info-Tech Insight

    People treat the assignment of accountability for products (aka product ownership) as optional. Without assigning accountability up front, your transition to product delivery will stall. Accountable individuals will be focused on the core outcome for product delivery, which is the delivery of the right value, at the right time, to the right people.

    Description of the tree levels shown in the diagram on the left. First is 'Enterprise Goals and Priorities', led by 'Executive Leadership' using the 'Enterprise Strategic Roadmap'. Second is 'Product Family', led by 'Product Manager' using the 'Product Family Roadmap'. Last is 'Product', led by the 'Product Owner' using the 'Product Roadmap' and 'Backlog' on the strategic end, and 'Releases' on the Tactical end. In the holistic context, 'Product Family is considered 'Strategic' while 'Product' is 'Tactical'.

    Recognize the different product owner perspectives

    Business
    • Customer facing, revenue generating
    Technical
    • IT systems and tools
    Operations
    • Keep the lights on processes

    Info-Tech Best Practice

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    “A Product Owner in its most beneficial form acts like an Entrepreneur, like a 'mini-CEO'. The Product Owner is someone who really 'owns' the product.” (Robbin Schuurman, “Tips for Starting Product Owners”)

    Implement the Info-Tech product owner capability model

    As discussed in Build a Better Product Owner, most product owners operate with an incomplete knowledge of the skills and capabilities needed to perform the role. Common gaps include focusing only on product backlogs, acting as a proxy for product decisions, and ignoring the need for key performance indicators (KPIs) and analytics in both planning and value realization. 'Product Owner Capabilities': 'Vision', 'Leadership', 'Product Lifecycle Management', 'Value Realization'.
    Vision
    • Market Analysis
    • Business Alignment
    • Product Roadmap
    Leadership
    • Soft Skills
    • Collaboration
    • Decision Making
    Product Lifecycle Management
    • Plan
    • Build
    • Run
    Value Realization
    • KPIs
    • Financial Management
    • Business Model

    Details on product ownership capabilities can be found in the appendix.

    Exercise 1.3.1 Identify product ownership capabilities

    60 minutes

    Output: Product owner capability mapping

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Write down the capabilities product owners need to perform their duties (one per sticky note) in order to describe product ownership in your organization. Consider people, processes, and tools.
    2. Mark each capability with a plus (current capability), circle (some proficiency), or dash (missing capability).
    3. Discuss each capability and place on the appropriate quadrant.

    'Product Owner Capabilities': 'Vision', 'Leadership', 'Product Lifecycle Management', 'Value Realization'.

    Record the results in the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook.

    Differentiate between product owners and product managers

    Product Owner (Tactical Focus)
    • Backlog management and prioritization
    • Epic/story definition, refinement in conjunction with business stakeholders
    • Sprint planning with Scrum Master
    • Working with Scrum Master to minimize disruption to team velocity
    • Ensuring alignment between business and Scrum teams during sprints
    • Profit and loss (P&L) product analysis and monitoring
    Product Manager (Strategic Focus)
    • Product strategy, positioning, and messaging
    • Product vision and product roadmap
    • Competitive analysis and positioning
    • New product innovation/definition
    • Release timing and focus (release themes)
    • Ongoing optimization of product-related marketing and sales activities
    • P&L product analysis and monitoring

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Step 1.4

    Communicate what comes next

    Activities
    • 1.4.1 How do we get started?

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

    • A now, next, later roadmap indicating your overall next steps.

    Make the Case for Product Delivery

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5

    Make a plan in order to make a plan!

    Consider some of the techniques you can use to validate your strategy.

    Cyclical diagram of the 'Continuous Delivery of Value' within 'Business Value'. Surrounding attributes are 'User Centric', 'Adaptable', 'Accessible', 'Private & Secured', 'Informative & Insightful', 'Seamless Application Connection', 'Relationship & Network Building', 'Fit for Purpose'.

    Go to your backlog and prioritize the elements that need to be answered sooner rather than later.

    Possible areas of focus:

    • Regulatory requirements or questions to answer around accessibility, security, privacy.
    • Stress testing any new processes against situations that may occur.
    Learning Milestones

    The completion of a set of artifacts dedicated to validating business opportunities and hypotheses.

    Possible areas of focus:

    • Align teams on product strategy prior to build
    • Market research and analysis
    • Dedicated feedback sessions
    • Provide information on feature requirements
    Stock image of people learning.
    Sprint Zero (AKA Project-before-the-project)

    The completion of a set of key planning activities, typically the first sprint.

    Possible areas of focus:

    • Focus on technical verification to enable product development alignment
    • Sign off on architectural questions or concerns
    Stock photo of a person writing on a board of sticky notes.

    The “Now, Next, Later” roadmap

    Use this when deadlines and delivery dates are not strict. This is best suited for brainstorming a product plan when dependency mapping is not required.

    • Now
      What are you going to do now?
    • Next
      What are you going to do very soon?
    • Later
      What are you going to do in the future?
    A priority map laid out as a half rainbow with 'Now' as the inner, 'Next' as the middle, and 'Later' as the outer. Various 'Features', 'Releases', and an 'MVP' are mapped into the sections.
    (Source: “Tips for Agile product roadmaps & product roadmap examples,” Scrum.org, 2017)

    Exercise 1.4.1 How do we get started?

    30-60 minutes

    Output: Product transformation critical steps and basic roadmap

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Identify what the critical steps are for the organization to embrace product-centric delivery.
    2. Group each critical step by how soon you need to address it:
      • Now: Let’s do this ASAP.
      • Next: Sometime very soon, let’s do these things.
      • Later: Much further off in the distance, let’s consider these things.
    A priority map laid out as a half rainbow with 'Now' as the inner, 'Next' as the middle, and 'Later' as the outer. Various 'Features', 'Releases', and an 'MVP' are mapped into the sections.
    (Source: “Tips for Agile product roadmaps & product roadmap examples,” Scrum.org, 2017)

    Record the results in the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook.

    Example

    Example table for listing tasks to complete Now, Next, or Later

    Step 1.5

    Make the case to your stakeholders

    Activities
    • 1.5.1 Identify what support you need from your stakeholders
    • 1.5.2 Build your pitch for product delivery

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

    • A deliverable that helps make the case for product delivery.

    Make the Case for Product Delivery

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5

    Develop a stakeholder strategy to define your product owner landscape

    Stakeholder Influence

    Stakeholders are a critical cornerstone to product ownership. They provide the context, alignment, and constraints that influence or control what a product owner is able to accomplish.

    Product teams operate within this network of stakeholders who represent different perspectives within the organization.

    See the appendix for activities and guidance on how to devise a strategy for managing stakeholders.

    Image of four puzzle pieces being put together, labelled 'Product Lifecycle', 'Project Delivery', 'Operational Support', 'and Stakeholder Management'.

    Exercise 1.5.1 Identify what support you need from your stakeholders

    30 minutes

    Output: Clear understanding of stakeholders, what they need from you, and what you need from them.

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. If you don’t yet know who your stakeholders are, consider completing one or more of the stakeholder management exercises in the appendix.
    2. Identify your key stakeholders who have an interest in solution delivery.
    3. Consider their perspective on product-centric delivery. (For example: For head of support, what does solution delivery mean to them?)
    4. Identify what role each stakeholder would play in the transformation.
      • This role represents what you need from them for this transformation to product-centric delivery.
    Stakeholder
    What does solution delivery mean to them?
    What do you need from them in order to be successful?

    Record the results in the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook.

    Exercise 1.5.2 Build your pitch deck

    30 minutes (and up)

    Output: A completed presentation to help you make the case for product delivery.

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Take the results from the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook and transfer them into the presentation template.
    2. Follow the instructions on each page listed in the instruction bubbles to know what results to place where.
    3. This is meant to be a template; you are welcome to add and remove slides as needed to suit your audience!

    Sample of slides from the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook with instruction bubbles overlaid.

    Record the results in the Make the Case for Product Delivery Workbook.

    Appendix

    Additional research to start your journey

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Product Delivery

    Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision

    • Build a product vision your organization can take from strategy through execution.

    Build a Better Product Owner

    • Strengthen the product owner role in your organization by focusing on core capabilities and proper alignment.

    Build Your Agile Acceleration Roadmap

    • Quickly assess the state of your Agile readiness and plan your path forward to higher value realization.

    Implement Agile Practices That Work

    • Improve collaboration and transparency with the business to minimize project failure.

    Implement DevOps Practices That Work

    • Streamline business value delivery through the strategic adoption of DevOps practices.

    Deliver Digital Products at Scale

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

    Extend Agile Practices Beyond IT

    • Further the benefits of Agile by extending a scaled Agile framework to the business.

    Build Your BizDevOps Playbook

    • Embrace a team sport culture built around continuous business-IT collaboration to deliver great products.

    Embed Security Into the DevOps Pipeline

    • Shift security left to get into DevSecOps.

    Spread Best Practices With an Agile Center of Excellence

    • Facilitate ongoing alignment between Agile teams and the business with a set of targeted service offerings.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Application Portfolio Management

    Application Portfolio Management (APM) Research Center

    • See an overview of the APM journey and how we can support the pieces in this journey.

    Application Portfolio Management for Small Enterprises

    • There is no one-size-fits-all rationalization. Tailor your framework to meet your goals.

    Streamline Application Maintenance

    • Effective maintenance ensures the long-term value of your applications.

    Build an Application Rationalization Framework

    • Manage your application portfolio to minimize risk and maximize value.

    Modernize Your Applications

    • Justify modernizing your application portfolio from both business and technical perspectives.

    Review Your Application Strategy

    • Ensure your applications enable your business strategy.

    Application Portfolio Management Foundations

    • Ensure your application portfolio delivers the best possible return on investment.

    Streamline Application Management

    • Move beyond maintenance to ensuring exceptional value from your apps.

    Optimize Applications Release Management

    • Facilitate ongoing alignment between Agile teams and the business with a set of targeted service offerings.

    Embrace Business-Managed Applications

    • Empower the business to implement their own applications with a trusted business-IT relationship.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Value, Delivery Metrics, Estimation

    Build a Value Measurement Framework

    • Focus product delivery on business value–driven outcomes.

    Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively

    • Be careful what you ask for, because you will probably get it.

    Application Portfolio Assessment: End User Feedback

    • Develop data-driven insights to help you decide which applications to retire, upgrade, re-train on, or maintain to meet the demands of the business.

    Create a Holistic IT Dashboard

    • Mature your IT department by measuring what matters.

    Refine Your Estimation Practices With Top-Down Allocations

    • Don’t let bad estimates ruin good work.

    Estimate Software Delivery With Confidence

    • Commit to achievable software releases by grounding realistic expectations

    Reduce Time to Consensus With an Accelerated Business Case

    • Expand on the financial model to give your initiative momentum.

    Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

    • Deliver more projects by giving yourself the voice to say “no” or “not yet” to new projects.

    Enhance PPM Dashboards and Reports

    • Facilitate ongoing alignment between Agile teams and the business with a set of targeted service offerings.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Org Design and Performance

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    • Focus product delivery on business value–driven outcomes.

    Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

    • Have the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

    Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

    • Reorganizations are inherently disruptive. Implement your new structure with minimal pain for staff while maintaining IT performance throughout the change.

    Build an IT Employee Engagement Program

    • Measure employee sentiment to drive IT performance

    Set Meaningful Employee Performance Measures

    • Set holistic measures to inspire employee performance.

    Master Organizational Change Management Practices

    • PMOs, if you don't know who is responsible for org change, it's you.

    Appendix

    Product delivery strategy communication

    Product roadmaps guide delivery and communicate your strategy

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

    Diagram on how to get from product owner capabilities to 'Business Value Realization' through 'Product Roadmap' with a 'Tiered Backlog', 'Delivery Capacity and Throughput' via a 'Product Delivery Pipeline'.
    (Adapted from: Pichler, “What Is Product Management?”)

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Define product value by aligning backlog delivery with roadmap goals

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

    Two-part diagram showing the 'Product Backlog' segmented into '1. Current: Features/ Stories', '2. Near-term: Capabilities', and '3. Future: Epics', and then the 'Product Roadmap' with the same segments placed into a timeline.

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

    Product managers and product owners have many responsibilities, and a roadmap can be a useful tool to complete those objectives through communication or organization of tasks.

    However, not all roadmaps address the correct audience and achieve those objectives. Care must be taken to align the view to the given audience.

    Pie Chart showing the surveyed most important reason for using a product roadmap. From largest to smallest are 'Communicate a strategy', 'Plan and prioritize', 'Communicate milestones and releases', 'Get consensus on product direction', and 'Manage product backlog'.
    Surveyed most important reason for using a product roadmap (Source: ProductPlan, 2018)

    Audience
    Business/ IT leaders Users/Customers Delivery teams
    Roadmap View
    Portfolio Product Technology
    Objectives
    To provide a snapshot of the portfolio and priority apps To visualize and validate product strategy To coordinate and manage teams and show dev. progress
    Artifacts
    Line items or sections of the roadmap are made up of individual apps, and an artifact represents a disposition at its highest level. Artifacts are generally grouped by various product teams and consist of strategic goals and the features that realize those goals. Artifacts are grouped by the teams who deliver that work and consist of features and technical enablers that support those features.

    Appendix

    Managing stakeholder influence

    From Build a Better Product Owner

    Step 1.3 (from Build a Better Product Owner)

    Manage Stakeholder Influence

    Activities
    • 1.3.1 Visualize interrelationships to identify key influencers
    • 1.3.2 Group your product owners into categories
    • 1.3.3 Prioritize your stakeholders
    • 1.3.4 Delegation Poker: Reach better decisions

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    To be successful, product owners need to identify and manage all stakeholders for their products. This step will build a stakeholder map and strategy.

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

    • Relationships among stakeholders and influencers
    • Categorization of stakeholders and influencers
    • Stakeholder and influencer prioritization
    • Better understanding of decision-making approaches and delegation
    Product Owner Foundations
    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3

    Develop a product owner stakeholder strategy

    Stakeholder Influence

    Stakeholders are a critical cornerstone to product ownership. They provide the context, alignment, and constraints that influence or control what a product owner is able to accomplish.

    Product owners operate within this network of stakeholders who represent different perspectives within the organization.

    First, product owners must identify members of their stakeholder network. Next, they should devise a strategy for managing stakeholders.

    Without accomplishing these missing pieces, product owners will encounter obstacles, resistance, or unexpected changes.

    Image of four puzzle pieces being put together, labelled 'Product Lifecycle', 'Project Delivery', 'Operational Support', 'and Stakeholder Management'.

    Create a stakeholder network map to product roadmaps and prioritization

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

    Legend
    Black arrow with a solid line and single direction. Black arrows indicate the direction of professional influence
    Green arrow with a dashed line and bi-directional. Dashed green arrows indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships

    Info-Tech Insight

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

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

    1.3.1 Visualize interrelationships to identify key influencers

    60 minutes

    Input: List of product stakeholders

    Output: Relationships among stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Markers, Build a Better Product Owner Workbook

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. List direct stakeholders for your product.
    2. Determine the stakeholders of your stakeholders and consider adding each of them to the stakeholder list.
    3. Assess who has either formal or informal influence over your stakeholders; add these influencers to your stakeholder list.
    4. Construct a diagram linking stakeholders and their influencers together.
      1. Use black arrows to indicate the direction of professional influence.
      2. Use dashed green arrows to indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships.
    5. Record the results in the Build a Better Product Owner Workbook.

    Record the results in the Build a Better Product Owner Workbook.

    Categorize your stakeholders with a prioritization map

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

    Stakeholder prioritization map split into four quadrants along two axes, 'Influence', and 'Ownership/Interest': 'Players' (high influence, high interest); 'Mediators' (high influence, low interest); 'Noisemakers' (low influence, high interest); 'Spectators' (low influence, low interest). Source: Info-Tech Research Group

    There are four areas in the map, and the stakeholders within each area should be treated differently.
    • Players – players have a high interest in the initiative and the influence to effect change over the initiative. Their support is critical, and a lack of support can cause significant impediment to the objectives.
    • Mediators – mediators have a low interest but significant influence over the initiative. They can help to provide balance and objective opinions to issues that arise.
    • Noisemakers – noisemakers have low influence but high interest. They tend to be very vocal and engaged, either positively or negatively, but have little ability to enact their wishes.
    • Spectators – generally, spectators are apathetic and have little influence over or interest in the initiative.

    1.3.2 Group your product owners into categories

    30 minutes

    Input: Stakeholder map

    Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Markers, Build a Better Product Owner Workbook

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Identify your stakeholder’s interest in and influence on your Agile implementation as high, medium, or low by rating the attributes below.
    2. Map your results to the model below to determine each stakeholder’s category.
    3. Record the results in the Build a Better Product Owner Workbook.
    Same stakeholder prioritization map as before but with example positions mapped onto it.
    Level of Influence
    • Power: Ability of a stakeholder to effect change.
    • Urgency: Degree of immediacy demanded.
    • Legitimacy: Perceived validity of stakeholder’s claim.
    • Volume: How loud their “voice” is or could become.
    • Contribution: What they have that is of value to you.
    Level of Interest

    How much are the stakeholder’s individual performance and goals directly tied to the success or failure of the product?

    Record the results in the Build a Better Product Owner Workbook.

    Prioritize your stakeholders

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

    Stakeholder prioritization table with 'Stakeholder Category' as row headers ('Player', 'Mediator', 'Noisemaker', 'Spectator') and 'Level of Support' as column headers ('Supporter', 'Evangelist', 'Neutral', 'Blocker'). Importance ratings are 'Critical', 'High', 'Medium', 'Low', and 'Irrelevant'.

    Consider the three dimensions for stakeholder prioritization: influence, interest, and support. Support can be determined by rating the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would recommend your product? These parameters are used to prioritize which stakeholders are most important and should receive the focus of your attention. The table to the right indicates how stakeholders are ranked.

    1.3.3 Prioritize your stakeholders

    30 minutes

    Input: Stakeholder matrix, Stakeholder prioritization

    Output: Stakeholder and influencer prioritization

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Markers, Build a Better Product Owner Workbook

    Participants: Product owners, Product managers, Development team leads, Portfolio managers, Business analysts

    1. Identify the level of support of each stakeholder by answering the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would endorse your product?
    2. Prioritize your stakeholders using the prioritization scheme on the previous slide.
    3. Record the results in the Build a Better Product Owner Workbook.
    Stakeholder Category Level of Support Prioritization
    CMO Spectator Neutral Irrelevant
    CIO Player Supporter Critical

    Record the results in the Build a Better Product Owner Workbook.

    Define strategies for engaging stakeholders by type

    Stakeholder strategy map assigning stakeholder strategies to stakeholder categories, as described in the adjacent table.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Type Quadrant Actions
    Players High influence; high interest – actively engage Keep them updated on the progress of the project. Continuously involve Players in the process and maintain their engagement and interest by demonstrating their value to its success.
    Mediators High influence; low interest – keep satisfied They can be the game changers in groups of stakeholders. Turn them into supporters by gaining their confidence and trust and including them in important decision-making steps. In turn, they can help you influence other stakeholders.
    Noisemakers Low influence; high interest – keep informed Try to increase their influence (or decrease it if they are detractors) by providing them with key information, supporting them in meetings, and using Mediators to help them.
    Spectators Low influence; low interest – monitor They are followers. Keep them in the loop by providing clarity on objectives and status updates.

    Appendix

    Product owner capability details

    From Build a Better Product Owner

    Develop product owner capabilities

    Capability 'Vision' with sub-capabilities 'Market Analysis, 'Business Alignment', and 'Product Roadmap'.

    Each capability has three components needed for successful product ownership.

    Definitions are on the following slides.

    Central diagram title 'Product Owner Capabilities'.

    Define the skills and activities in each component that are directly related to your product and culture.

    Capability 'Leadership' with sub-capabilities 'Soft Skills', 'Collaboration', and 'Decision Making'.
    Capability 'Product Lifecycle Management' with sub- capabilities 'Plan', 'Build', and 'Run'. Capability 'Value Realization' with sub-capabilities 'KPIs', 'Financial Management', and 'Business Model'.

    Capabilities: Vision

    Market Analysis

    • Unique solution: Identify the target users and unique value your product provides that is not currently being met.
    • Market size: Define the size of your user base, segmentation, and potential growth.
    • Competitive analysis: Determine alternative solutions, products, or threats that affect adoption, usage, and retention.

    Business Alignment

    • SWOT analysis: Complete a SWOT analysis for your end-to-end product lifecycle. Use Info-Tech’s Business SWOT Analysis Template.
    • Enterprise alignment: Align product to enterprise goals, strategies, and constraints.
    • Delivery strategy: Develop a delivery strategy to achieve value quickly and adapt to internal and external changes.

    Product Roadmap

    • Roadmap strategy: Determine the duration, detail, and structure of your roadmap to accurately communicate your vision.
    • Value prioritization: Define criteria used to evaluate and sequence demand.
    • Go to market strategy: Create organizational change management, communications, and a user implementation approach.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Data comes from many places and may still not tell the complete story.

    Capability 'Vision' with sub-capabilities 'Market Analysis, 'Business Alignment', and 'Product Roadmap'.

    “Customers are best heard through many ears.” (Thomas K. Connellan, Inside the Magic Kingdom)

    Capabilities: Leadership

    Soft Skills

    • Communication: Maintain consistent, concise, and appropriate communication using SMART guidelines (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely).
    • Integrity: Stick to your values, principles, and decision criteria for the product to build and maintain trust with your users and teams.
    • Influence: Manage stakeholders using influence and collaboration over contract negotiation.

    Collaboration

    • Stakeholder management: Build a communications strategy for each stakeholder group, tailored to individual stakeholders.
    • Relationship management: Use every interaction point to strengthen relationships, build trust, and empower teams.
    • Team development: Promote development through stretch goals and controlled risks to build team capabilities and performance.

    Decision Making

    • Prioritized criteria: Remove personal bias by basing decisions off data analysis and criteria.
    • Continuous improvement: Balance new features with the need to ensure quality and create an environment of continuous improvement.
    • Team empowerment/negotiation: Push decisions to teams closest to the problem and solution, using Delegation Poker to guide you.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Product owners cannot be just a proxy for stakeholder decisions. The product owner owns product decisions and management of all stakeholders.

    Capability 'Leadership' with sub-capabilities 'Soft Skills', 'Collaboration', and 'Decision Making'.

    “Everything walks the walk. Everything talks the talk.” (Thomas K. Connellan, Inside the Magic Kingdom)

    Capabilities: Product lifecycle management

    Plan

    • Product backlog: Follow a schedule for backlog intake, refinement, updates, and prioritization.
    • Journey map: Create an end-user journey map to guide adoption and loyalty.
    • Fit for purpose: Define expected value and intended use to ensure the product meets your end user’s needs.

    Build

    • Capacity management: Work with operations and delivery teams to ensure consistent and stable outcomes.
    • Release strategy: Build learning, release, and critical milestones into a repeatable release plan.
    • Compliance: Build policy compliance into delivery practices to ensure alignment and reduce avoidable risk (privacy, security).

    Run

    • Adoption: Focus attention on end-user adoption and proficiency to accelerate value and maximize retention.
    • Support: Build operational support and business continuity into every team.
    • Measure: Measure KPIs and validate expected value to ensure product alignment to goals and consistent product quality.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Product owners must actively manage the full lifecycle of the product.

    Capability 'Product Lifecycle Management' with sub- capabilities 'Plan', 'Build', and 'Run'.

    “Pay fantastic attention to detail. Reward, recognize, celebrate.” (Thomas K. Connellan, Inside the Magic Kingdom)

    Capabilities: Value realization

    Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

    • Usability and user satisfaction: Assess satisfaction through usage monitoring and end-user feedback.
    • Value validation: Directly measure performance against defined value proposition, goals, and predicted ROI.
    • Fit for purpose: Verify the product addresses the intended purpose better than other options.

    Financial Management

    • P&L: Manage each product as if it were its own business with profit and loss statements.
    • Acquisition cost/market growth: Define the cost of acquiring a new consumer, onboarding internal users, and increasing product usage.
    • User retention/market share: Verify product usage continues after adoption and solution reaches new user groups to increase value.

    Business Model

    • Defines value proposition: Dedicate your primary focus to understanding and defining the value your product will deliver.
    • Market strategy and goals: Define your acquisition, adoption, and retention plan for users.
    • Financial model: Build an end-to-end financial model and plan for the product and all related operational support.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Most organizations stop with on-time and on-budget. True financial alignment needs to define and manage the full lifecycle P&L.

    Capability 'Value Realization' with sub-capabilities 'KPIs', 'Financial Management', and 'Business Model'.

    “The competition is anyone the customer compares you with.” (Thomas K. Connellan, Inside the Magic Kingdom)

    Avoid common capability gaps

    Vision

    • Focusing solely on backlog refining (tactical only)
    • Ignoring or failing to align product roadmap to enterprise goals
    • Operational support and execution
    • Basing decisions on opinion rather than market data
    • Ignoring or missing internal and external threats to your product

    Leadership

    • Failing to include feedback from all teams who interact with your product
    • Using a command-and-control approach
    • Viewing product owner as only a delivery role
    • Acting as a proxy for stakeholder decisions
    • Avoiding tough strategic decisions in favor of easier tactical choices

    Product Lifecycle Management

    • Focusing on delivery and not the full product lifecycle
    • Ignoring support, operations, and technical debt
    • Failing to build knowledge management into the lifecycle
    • Underestimating delivery capacity, capabilities, or commitment
    • Assuming delivery stops at implementation

    Value Realization

    • Focusing exclusively on “on time/on budget” metrics
    • Failing to measure a 360-degree end-user view of the product
    • Skipping business plans and financial models
    • Limiting financial management to project/change budgets
    • Ignoring market analysis for growth, penetration, and threats

    Bibliography – Product Ownership

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    Schuurman, Robbin. “10 Tips for Product Owners on Product Backlog Management.” Scrum.org, 5 Dec. 2017. Web.

    Schuurman, Robbin. “10 Tips for Product Owners on the Product Vision.” Scrum.org, 29 Nov. 2017. Web.

    Schuurman, Robbin. “Tips for Starting Product Owners.” Scrum.org, 27 Nov. 2017. Web.

    Sharma, Rohit. “Scaling Product Teams the Structured Way.” Monetary Musings, 28 Nov. 2016. Web.

    Bibliography – Product Ownership

    Steiner, Anne. “Start to Scale Your Product Management: Multiple Teams Working on Single Product.” Cprime, 6 Aug. 2019. Web.

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    “The Standish Group 2015 Chaos Report.” The Standish Group, 2015. Web.

    Theus, Andre. “When Should You Scale the Product Management Team?” ProductPlan, 7 May 2019. Web.

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    Bibliography – Product Roadmap

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    Research Contributors and Experts

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    Emily Archer
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    David Berg
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    David Berg is a product commercialization expert that has spent the last 20 years of his career delivering product management and business development services across a broad range of industries. Early in his career, David worked with product management and engineering teams to build core network infrastructure products that secure and power the internet we benefit from today. David’s experience also includes working with clean technologies in the area of clean power generation, agritech, and Internet of Things infrastructure. Over the last five years, David has been focused on his latest venture, Strainprint Technologies, a data and analytics company focused on the medical cannabis industry. Strainprint has built the largest longitudinal medical cannabis dataset in the world with the goal to develop an understanding of treatment behavior, interactions, and chemical drivers to guide future product development.

    Research Contributors and Experts

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    Yarrow Diamond is an experienced professional with expertise in enterprise strategy development, project portfolio management, and business process reengineering across financial services, healthcare and insurance, hospitality, and real estate environments. She has a master’s in Enterprise Architecture from Penn State University, LSSMBB, PMP, CSM, ITILv3.

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    Cari J. Faanes-Blakey, CBAP, PMI-PBA
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    Cari J. Faanes-Blakey has a history in software development and implementation as a Business Analyst and Project Manager for financial and taxation software vendors. Active in the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), Cari participated on the writing team for the BA Body of Knowledge 3.0 and the certification exam.

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    Kieran Gobey
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    Blueprint Software Systems

    Kieran Gobey is an IT professional with 24 years of experience, focused on business, technology, and systems analysis. He has split his career between external and internal customer-facing roles, and this has resulted in a true understanding of what is required to be a Professional Services Consultant. His problem-solving skills and ability to mentor others have resulted in successful software implementations.

    Kieran’s specialties include deep system troubleshooting and analysis skills, facilitating communications to bring together participants effectively, mentoring, leadership, and organizational skills.

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    Rupert Kainzbauer
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    Saeed Khan
    Founder,
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    Saeed Khan has been working in high tech for 30 years in both Canada and the US and has held a number of leadership roles in Product Management over that time. He speaks regularly at conferences and has been writing publicly about technology product management since 2005.

    Through Transformation Labs, Saeed helps companies accelerate product success by working with product teams to improve their skills, practices, and processes. He is a cofounder of ProductCamp Toronto and currently runs a Meetup group and global Slack community called Product Leaders, the only global community of senior-level product executives.

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    Hoi Kun Lo
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    Research Contributors and Experts

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    Abhishek Mathur
    Sr Director, Product Management
    Kasisto, Inc.

    Abhishek Mathur is a product management leader, an artificial intelligence practitioner, and an educator. He has led product management and engineering teams at Clarifai, IBM, and Kasisto to build a variety of artificial intelligence applications within the space of computer vision, natural language processing, and recommendation systems. Abhishek enjoys having deep conversations about the future of technology and helping aspiring product managers enter and accelerate their careers.

    Photo of Jeff Meister, Technology Advisor and Product Leader.

    Jeff Meister
    Technology Advisor and Product Leader

    Jeff Meister is a technology advisor and product leader. He has more than 20 years of experience building and operating software products and the teams that build them. He has built products across a wide range of industries and has built and led large engineering, design, and product organizations.

    Jeff most recently served as Senior Director of Product Management at Avanade, where he built and led the product management practice. This involved hiring and leading product managers, defining product management processes, solution shaping and engagement execution, and evangelizing the discipline through pitches, presentations, and speaking engagements.

    Jeff holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Electrical Engineering) and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Waterloo, an MBA from INSEAD (Strategy), and certifications in product management, project management, and design thinking.

    Research Contributors and Experts

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    Vincent Mirabelli
    Principal,
    Global Project Synergy Group

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    Oz Nazili
    VP, Product & Growth
    TWG

    Oz Nazili is a product leader with a decade of experience in both building products and product teams. Having spent time at funded startups and large enterprises, he thinks often about the most effective way to deliver value to users. His core areas of interest include Lean MVP development and data-driven product growth.

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    Mark Pearson
    Principal IT Architect
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    Brenda Peshak
    Product Owner,
    Widget Industries, LLC

    Brenda Peshak is skilled in business process, analytical skills, Microsoft Office Suite, communication, and customer relationship management (CRM). She is a strong product management professional with a Master’s focused in Business Leadership (MBL) from William Penn University.

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    Mike Starkey
    Director of Engineering
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    Anant Tailor
    Cofounder & Head of Product
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    Angela Weller
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    Build a Strategy for Big Data Platforms

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    • Parent Category Name: Big Data
    • Parent Category Link: /big-data
    • The immaturity of the big data market means that organizations lack examples and best practices to follow, and they are often left trailblazing their own paths.
    • Experienced and knowledgeable big data professionals are limited and without creative resourcing; IT might struggle to fill big data positions.
    • The term NoSQL has become a catch-all phrase for big data technologies; however, the technologies falling under the umbrella of NoSQL are disparate and often misunderstood. Organizations are at risk of adopting incorrect technologies if they don’t take the time to learn the jargon.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • NoSQL plays a key role in the emergence of the big data market, but it has not made relational databases outdated. Successful big data strategies can be conducted using SQL, NoSQL, or a combination of the two.
    • Assign a Data Architect to oversee your initiative. Hire or dedicate someone who has the ability to develop both a short-term and long-term vision and that has hands-on experience with data management, mining and modeling. You will still need someone (like a database administrator) who understands the database, the schemas, and the structure.
    • Understand your data before you attempt to use it. Take a master data management approach to ensure there are rules and standards for managing your enterprise’s data, and take extra caution when integrating external sources.

    Impact and Result

    • Assess whether SQL, NoSQL, or a combination of both technologies will provide you with the appropriate capabilities to achieve your business objectives and gain value from your data.
    • Form a Big Data Team to bring together IT and the business in order to leave a successful initiative.
    • Conduct ongoing training with your personnel to ensure up-to-date skills and end-user understanding.
    • Frequently scan the big data market space to identify new technologies and opportunities to help optimize your big data strategy.

    Build a Strategy for Big Data Platforms Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Develop a big data strategy

    Know where to start and where to focus attention in the implementation of a big data strategy.

    • Storyboard: Build a Strategy for Big Data Platforms

    2. Assess the appropriateness of big data technologies

    Decide the most correct tools to use in order to solve enterprise data management problems.

    • Big Data Diagnostic Tool

    3. Determine the TCO of a scale out implementation

    Compare the TCO of a SQL (scale up) with a NoSQL (scale out) deployment to determine whether NoSQL will save costs.

    • Scale Up vs. Scale Out TCO Tool
    [infographic]

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management
    • Each year, IT organizations spend more money “outsourcing” tasks, activities, applications, functions, and other items.
    • The increased spend and associated outsourcing leads to less control, and more risk for IT organizations. Managing this becomes a higher priority for IT, but many IT organizations are ill-equipped to do this proactively.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Vendor management is not “plug and play” – each organization’s vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. There are commonalites among vendor management initiatives, but the key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs, not the other way around.
    • All vendors are not of equal importance to an organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization’s investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.
    • Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI’s ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates “informally,” starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

    Impact and Result

    • Build and implement a vendor management initiative tailored to your environment.
    • Create a solid foundation to sustain your vendor management initiative as it evolves and matures.
    • Leverage vendor management-specific tools and templates to manage vendors more proactively and improve communication.
    • Concentrate your vendor management resources on the right vendors.
    • Build a roadmap and project plan for your vendor management journey to ensure you reach your destination.
    • Build collaborative relationships with critical vendors.

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should jump start a vendor management initiative, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Plan

    Organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI.

    • Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 1: Plan
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    2. Build

    Configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

    • Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 2: Build
    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium
    • Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool
    • Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    3. Run

    Begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI.

    • Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 3: Run

    4. Review

    Identify what the VMI should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    • Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative – Phase 4: Review

    Infographic

    Workshop: Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Plan

    The Purpose

    Getting Organized

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined Roles and Goals for the VMI

    Activities

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities – OIC Chart

    1.5 Process Mapping

    1.6 Vendor Inventory Tool (Overview)

    Outputs

    Completed Mission Statement and Goals

    List of Items In Scope and Out of Scope for the VMI

    List of Strengths and Obstacles for the VMI

    Completed OIC Chart

    Sample Process Map for One Process

    Begun Using Vendor Inventory Tool

    2 Plan/Build/Run

    The Purpose

    Build VMI Tools and Templates

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Configured Tools and Templates for the VMI Based on Its Roles and Goals

    Activities

    2.1 Maturity Assessment

    2.2 Structure and Job Descriptions

    2.3 Attributes of a Valuable Vendor

    2.4 Classification Model

    2.5 Risk Assessment Tool

    2.6 Scorecards and Feedback

    2.7 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda

    Outputs

    Completed Maturity Assessment.

    Sample Job Descriptions and Phrases.

    List of Attributes of a Valuable Vendor.

    Configured Classification Model.

    Configured Risk Assessment Tool.

    Configured Scorecard and Feedback Questions.

    Configured Business Alignment Meeting Agenda.

    3 Build/Run

    The Purpose

    Continue Building VMI Tools and Templates

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Configured Tools and Templates for the VMI Based on Its Roles and Goals

    Activities

    3.1 Relationship Alignment Document

    3.2 Vendor Orientation

    3.3 Policies and Procedures

    3.4 3-Year Roadmap

    3.5 90-Day Plan

    3.6 Quick Wins

    3.7 Reports

    3.8 Kickoff Meeting

    Outputs

    Relationship Alignment Document Sample and Checklist

    Vendor Orientation Checklist

    Policies and Procedures Checklist

    Completed 3-Year Roadmap

    Completed 90-Day Plan

    List of Quick Wins

    List of Reports

    4 Review

    The Purpose

    Review the Past 12 Months of VMI Operations and Improve

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Keeping the VMI Aligned With the Organization’s Goals and Ensuring the VMI Is Leveraging Leading Practices

    Activities

    4.1 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships.

    4.2 Assess Compliance.

    4.3 Incorporate Leading Practices.

    4.4 Leverage Lessons Learned.

    4.5 Maintain Internal Alignment.

    4.6 Update Governances.

    Outputs

    Further reading

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Create and implement a vendor management framework to begin obtaining measurable results in 90 days.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    What is vendor management?

    When you read the phrase “vendor management,” what comes to mind? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Take your time … I’ll wait.

    Unfortunately, those words conjure up a lot of different meanings, and much of that depends on whom you ask. Those who work in the vendor management field will provide a variety of answers. To complicate matters, those who are vendor management “outsiders” will have a totally different view of what vendor management is. Why is this important? Because we need a common definition to communicate more effectively, even if the definition is broad.

    Let’s start creating a working definition that is not circular. Vendor management is not simply managing vendors. That expression basically reorders the words and does nothing to advance our cause; it only adds to the existing confusion surrounding the concept.

    Vendor management is best thought of as a spectrum or continuum with many points rather than a specific discipline like accounting or finance. There are many functions and activities that fall under the umbrella term of vendor management: some of them will be part of your vendor management initiative (VMI), some will not, and some will exist in your organization but be outside the VMI. This is the unique part of vendor management – the part that makes it fun, but also the part that leads to the confusion. For example, accounts payable sits within the accounting department almost exclusively, but contract management can sit within or outside the VMI. The beauty of vendor management is its flexibility; your VMI can be created to meet your specific needs and goals while leveraging common vendor management principles.

    Every conversation around vendor management needs to begin with “What do you mean by that?” Only then can we home in on the scope and nature of what people are discussing. “Managing vendors” is too narrow because it often ignores many of the reasons organizations create VMIs in the first place: to reduce costs, to improve performance, to improve processes, to improve relationships, to improve communication, and to manage risk better.

    Vendor management is a strategic initiative that takes the big picture into account … navigating the cradle to grave lifecycle to get the most out of your interactions and relationships with your vendors. It is flexible and customizable; it is not plug and play or overly prescriptive. Tools, principles, templates, and concepts are adapted rather than adopted as is. Ultimately, you define what vendor management is for your organization.

    We look forward to helping you on your vendor management journey no matter what it looks like. But first, let’s have a conversation about how you want to define vendor management in your environment.

    This is a picture of Phil Bode, Principal  Research Director, Vendor Management at Info-Tech Research Group.

    Phil Bode
    Principal Research Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Each year, IT organizations “outsource” tasks, activities, functions, and other items. During 2021:

    • Spend on as-a-service providers increased 38% over 2020.*
    • Spend on managed service providers increased 16% over 2020.*
    • IT service providers increased their merger and acquisition numbers by 47% over 2020.*

    *Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    This leads to more spend, less control, and more risk for IT organizations. Managing this becomes a higher priority for IT, but many IT organizations are ill-equipped to do this proactively.

    Common Obstacles

    As new contracts are negotiated and existing contracts are renegotiated or renewed, there is a perception that the contracts will yield certain results, output, performance, solutions, or outcomes. The hope is that these will provide a measurable expected value to IT and the organization. Oftentimes, much of the expected value is never realized. Many organizations don’t have a VMI to help:

    • Ensure at least the expected value is achieved.
    • Improve on the expected value through performance management.
    • Significantly increase the expected value through a proactive VMI.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Vendor management is a proactive, cross-functional lifecycle. It can be broken down into four phases:

    • Plan
    • Build
    • Run
    • Review

    The Info-Tech process addresses all four phases and provides a step-by-step approach to configure and operate your VMI. The content in this blueprint helps you quickly establish your VMI and set a solid foundation for its growth and maturity.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Vendor management is not a one-size-fits-all initiative. It must be configured:

    • For your environment, culture, and goals.
    • To leverage the strengths of your organization and personnel.
    • To focus your energy and resources on your critical vendors.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Spend on managed service providers and as-a-service providers continues to increase. In addition, IT services vendors continue to be active in the mergers and acquisitions arena. This increases the need for a VMI to help with the changing IT vendor landscape. In 2021, there was increases of:

    38%

    Spend on As-a-Service Providers

    16%

    Spend on Managed Services Providers

    47%

    IT Services Merger & Acquisition Growth (Transactions)

    Source: Information Services Group, Inc., 2022.

    Executive Summary

    Common Obstacles

    When organizations execute, renew, or renegotiate a contract, there is an “expected value” associated with that contract. Without a robust VMI, most of the expected value will never be realized. With a robust VMI, the realized value significantly exceeds the expected value during the contract term.

    A contract’s realized value with and without a vendor management initiative

    Two bars are depicted, showing that vendor collaboration and vendor performance management exceed expected value with a VMI, but without VMI, 75% of a contract's expected value can disappear within 18 months.

    Source: Based on findings from Geller & Company, 2003.

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    A sound, cyclical approach to vendor management will help you create a VMI that meets your needs and stays in alignment with your organization as they both change (i.e. mature and grow).

    This is an image of Info-Tech's approach to VMI.  It includes the following four steps: 01 - Plan; 02 - Build; 03 - Run; 04 - Review

    Info-Tech’s Methodology for Creating and Operating Your VMI

    Phase 1: Plan Phase 2: Build Phase 3: Run Phase 4: Review

    Phase Steps

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    Phase Outcomes

    This phase helps you organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI. This phase helps you configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan. This phase helps you begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI. This phase helps the VMI identify what it should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    Insight Summary

    Insight 1

    Vendor management is not “plug and play” – each organization’s vendor management initiative (VMI) needs to fit its culture, environment, and goals. While there are commonalities and leading practices associated with vendor management, your initiative won’t look exactly like another organization’s. The key is to adapt vendor management principles to fit your needs.

    Insight 2

    All vendors are not of equal importance to your organization. Internal resources are a scarce commodity and should be deployed so that they provide the best return on the organization’s investment. Classifying or segmenting your vendors allows you to focus your efforts on the most important vendors first, allowing your VMI to have the greatest impact possible.

    Insight 3

    Having a solid foundation is critical to the VMI’s ongoing success. Whether you will be creating a formal vendor management office or using vendor management techniques, tools, and templates “informally,” starting with the basics is essential. Make sure you understand why the VMI exists and what it hopes to achieve, what is in and out of scope for the VMI, what strengths the VMI can leverage and the obstacles it will have to address, and how it will work with other areas within your organization.

    Blueprint Deliverables

    The four phases of creating and running a vendor management initiative are supported with configurable tools, templates, and checklists to help you stay aligned internally and achieve your goals.

    VMI Tools and Templates

    This image contains two screenshots of Info-Tech's VMI Tools and Templates

    Build a solid foundation for your VMI and configure tools and templates to help you manage your vendor relationships.

    Key Deliverables:

    1. Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium
    2. Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium
    3. Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool
    4. Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    A suite of tools and templates to help you create and implement your vendor management initiative.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • Identify and manage risk proactively.
    • Reduce costs and maximize value.
    • Increase visibility with your critical vendors.
    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Create a collaborative environment with key vendors.
    • Segment vendors to allocate resources more effectively and more efficiently.

    Business Benefits

    • Improve vendor accountability.
    • Increase collaboration between departments.
    • Improve working relationships with your vendors.
    • Create a feedback loop to address vendor or customer issues before they get out of hand or are more costly to resolve.
    • Increase access to meaningful data and information regarding important vendors.

    Establish Baseline Metrics

    Baseline metrics will be improved through:

    Using the Maturity Assessment and 90-Day Plan tools, track how well you are able to achieve your goals and objectives:

    • Did you meet the targeted maturity level for each maturity category as determined by the point system?
    • Did you finish each activity in the 90-Day Plan completely and on time?
    1-Year Maturity Roadmap(by Category) Target Maturity (Total Points) Actual Maturity (Total Points)
    Contracts 12 12
    Risk 8 7
    Vendor Selection 9 9
    Vendor Relationships 21 21
    VMI Operations 24 16
    90-Day Plan (by Activity) Activity Completed
    Finalize mission and goals; gain executive approval Yes
    Finalize OIC chart; gain buy-in from other departments Yes
    Classify top 40 vendors by spend Yes
    Create initial scorecard Yes
    Develop the business alignment meeting agenda Yes
    Conduct two business alignment meetings No
    Update job descriptions Yes
    Map two VMI processes No

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phases 2 & 3 Phase 4

    Call #1: Mission statement and goals, scope, and strengths and obstacles.

    Call #5: Classification model.

    Call #9: Policies and procedures and reports.

    Call #12: Assess compliance, incorporate leading practices, leverage lessons learned, maintain internal alignment, and update governances.

    Call #2: Roles and responsibilities and process mapping.

    Call #6: Risk assessment.

    Call #10: 3-year roadmap.

    Call #3: Charter and vendor inventory.

    Call #7: Scorecards and feedback and business alignment meetings.

    Call #11: 90-day plan and quick wins.

    Call #4: Maturity assessment and VMI structure.

    Call #8: Relationship alignment document, vendor orientation, and job descriptions.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
    Plan Plan/Build/Run Build/Run Review

    Activities

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    Deliverables

    1. Completed Mission Statement and Goals
    2. List of Items In Scope and Out of Scope for the VMI
    3. List of Strengths and Obstacles for the VMI
    4. Completed OIC Chart
    5. Sample Process Map for One Process
    6. Vendor Inventory tab
    1. Completed Maturity Assessment
    2. Sample Job Descriptions and Phrases
    3. List of Attributes of a Valuable Vendor
    4. Configured Classification Model
    5. Configured Risk Assessment Tool
    6. Configured Scorecard and Feedback Questions
    7. Configured Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    1. Relationship Alignment Document Sample and Checklist
    2. Vendor Orientation Checklist
    3. Policies and Procedures Checklist
    4. Completed 3-Year Roadmap
    5. Completed 90-Day Plan
    6. List of Quick Wins
    7. List of Reports

    Phase 1: Plan

    Get Organized

    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Organize your VMI and document internal processes, relationships, roles, and responsibilities. The main outcomes from this phase are organizational documents, a baseline VMI maturity level, and a desired future state for the VMI.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Others as needed

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Phase 1: Plan

    Get organized.

    Phase 1: Plan focuses on getting organized. Foundational elements (mission statement, goals, scope, strengths and obstacles, roles and responsibilities, and process mapping) will help you define your VMI. These and the other elements of this Phase will follow you throughout the process of standing up your VMI and running it.

    Spending time up front to ensure that everyone is on the same page will help avoid headaches down the road. The tendency is to skimp (or even skip) on these steps to get to “the good stuff.” To a certain extent, the process provided here is like building a house. You wouldn’t start building your dream home without having a solid blueprint. The same is true with vendor management. Leveraging vendor management tools and techniques without the proper foundation may provide some benefit in the short term, but in the long term it will ultimately be a house of cards waiting to collapse.

    Step 1.1: Mission statement and goals

    Identify why the VMI exists and what it will achieve.

    Whether you are starting your vendor management journey or are already down the path, it is important to know why the vendor management initiative exists and what it hopes to achieve. The easiest way to document this is with a written declaration in the form of a mission statement and goals. Although this is the easiest way to proceed, it is far from easy.

    The mission statement should identify at a high level the nature of the services provided by the VMI, who it will serve, and some of the expected outcomes or achievements. The mission statement should be no longer than one or two sentences.

    The complement to the mission statement is the list of goals for the VMI. Your goals should not be a reassertion of your mission statement in bullet format. At this stage it may not be possible to make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based), but consider making them as SMART as possible. Without some of the SMART parameters attached, your goals are more like dreams and wishes. At a minimum, you should be able to determine the level of success achieved for each of the VMI goals.

    Although the VMI’s mission statement will stay static over time (other than for significant changes to the VMI or organization as a whole), the goals should be re-evaluated periodically using a SMART filter and adjusted as needed.

    1.1.1: Mission statement and goals

    20-40 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the reasons why the VMI will exist.
    2. Review external mission statements for inspiration.
    3. Review internal mission statements from other areas to ensure consistency.
    4. Draft and document your mission statement in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
    5. Continue brainstorming and identify the high-level goals for the VMI.
    6. Review the list of goals and make them as SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound/Time-Based) as possible.
    7. Document your goals in the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals.
    8. Obtain sign-off on the mission statement and goals from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming results
    • Mission statements from other internal and external sources

    Output

    • Completed mission statement and goals

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.1 Mission Statement and Goals

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.2: Scope

    Determine what is in scope and out of scope for the VMI

    Regardless of where your VMI resides or how it operates, it will be working with other areas within your organization. Some of the activities performed by the VMI will be new and not currently handled by other groups or individuals internally; at the same time, some of the activities performed by the VMI may be currently handled by other groups or individuals internally. In addition, executives, stakeholders, and other internal personnel may have expectations or make assumptions about the VMI. As a result, there can be a lot of confusion about what the VMI does and doesn’t do, and the answers cannot always be found in the VMI’s mission statement and goals.

    One component of helping others understand the VMI landscape is formalizing the VMI scope. The scope will define boundaries for the VMI. The intent is not to fence itself off and keep others out but provide guidance on where the VMI’s territory begins and ends. Ultimately, this will help clarify the VMI’s roles and responsibilities, improve workflow, and reduce errant assumptions.

    When drafting your VMI scoping document, make sure you look at both sides of the equation (similar to what you would do when following best practices for a statement of work): Identify what is in scope and what is out of scope. Be specific when describing the individual components of the VMI scope, and make sure executives and stakeholders are on board with the final version.

    1.2.1: Scope

    20-40 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the activities and functions in scope and out of scope for the VMI.
      1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
      2. Go back and forth between in scope and out of scope as needed; it is not necessary to list all of the in-scope items and then turn your attention to the out-of-scope items.
    2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity. An item may be in scope or out of scope but not both.
    3. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.2 Scope, to document the results.
    4. Obtain sign-off on the scope from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Mission statement and goals

    Output

    • Completed list of items in and out of scope for the VMI

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.2 Scope

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.3: Strengths and obstacles

    Pinpoint the VMI’s strengths and obstacles.

    A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a valuable tool, but it is overkill for your VMI at this point. However, using a modified and simplified form of this tool (strengths and obstacles) will yield significant results and benefit the VMI as it grows and matures.

    Your output will be two lists: the strengths associated with the VMI and the obstacles facing the VMI. For example, strengths could include items such as smart people working within the VMI and executive support. Obstacles could include items such as limited headcount and training required for VMI staff.

    The goals are 1) to harness the strengths to help the VMI be successful and 2) to understand the impact of the obstacles and plan accordingly. The output can also be used to enlighten executives and stakeholders about the challenges associated with their directives or requests (e.g. human bandwidth may not be sufficient to accomplish some of the vendor management activities and there is a moratorium on hiring until the next budget year).

    For each strength identified, determine how you will or can leverage it when things are going well or when the VMI is in a bind. For each obstacle, list the potential impact on the VMI (e.g. scope, growth rate, and number of vendors that can actively be part of the VMI).

    As you do your brainstorming, be as specific as possible and validate your lists with stakeholders and executives as needed.

    1.3.1: Strengths and obstacles

    20-40 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use a brainstorming activity to list on a whiteboard or flip chart the VMI’s strengths and obstacles.
      1. Be specific to avoid ambiguity and improve clarity.
      2. Go back and forth between strengths and obstacles as needed; it is not necessary to list all of the strengths and then turn your attention to the obstacles.
      3. It is possible for an item to be a strength and an obstacle; when this happens, add details to distinguish the situations.
    2. Review the lists to make sure there is enough specificity.
    3. Determine how you will leverage each strength and how you will manage each obstacle.
    4. Use the Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles, to document the results.
    5. Obtain sign-off on the strengths and obstacles from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Mission statement and goals
    • Scope

    Output

    • Completed list of items impacting the VMI’s ability to be successful: strengths the VMI can leverage and obstacles the VMI must manage

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.4: Roles and responsibilities

    Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what.

    One crucial success factor for VMIs is gaining and maintaining internal alignment. There are many moving parts to an organization, and a VMI must be clear on the various roles and responsibilities related to the relevant processes. Some of this information can be found in the VMI’s scope, referenced in Step 1.2, but additional information is required to avoid stepping on each other’s toes since many of the processes require internal departments to work together. (For example, obtaining requirements for a request for proposal takes more than one person or one department to complete this process.) While it is not necessary to get too granular, it is imperative that you have a clear understanding of how the VMI activities will fit within the larger vendor management lifecycle (which is comprised of many sub processes) and who will be doing what.

    As we have learned through our workshops and guided implementations, a traditional RACI* or RASCI* chart does not work well for this purpose. These charts are not intuitive, and they lack the specificity required to be effective. For vendor management purposes, a higher-level view and a slightly different approach provide much better results.

    This step will lead your through the creation of an OIC* chart to determine vendor management lifecycle roles and responsibilities. Afterward, you’ll be able to say, “Oh, I see clearly who is involved in each part of the process and what their role is.”

    *RACI – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed
    *RASCI – Responsible, Accountable, Support, Consulted, Informed
    *OIC – Owner, Informed, Contributor

    This is an image of a table which shows an example of which role would be responsible for which step

    Step 1.4: Roles and responsibilities (cont.)

    Obtain consensus on who is responsible for what.

    To start, define the vendor management lifecycle steps or process applicable to your VMI. Next, determine who participates in the vendor management lifecycle. There is no need to get too granular – think along the lines of departments, subdepartments, divisions, agencies, or however you categorize internal operational units. Avoid naming individuals other than by title; this typically happens when a person oversees a large group (e.g. the CIO [chief information officer] or the CPO [chief procurement officer]). Be thorough, but the chart can get out of hand quickly. For each role and step of the lifecycle, ask whether the entry is necessary – does it add value to the clarity of understanding the responsibilities associated with the vendor management lifecycle? Consider two examples, one for roles and one for lifecycle steps: 1) Is IT sufficient or do you need IT Operations and IT Development? 2) Is “negotiate contract documents” sufficient or do you need “negotiate the contract” and “negotiate the renewal”? The answer will always depend on your culture and environment, but be wary of creating a spreadsheet that requires an 85-inch monitor to view it in its entirety.

    After defining the roles (departments, divisions, agencies) and the vendor management lifecycle steps or process, assign one of three letters to each box in your chart:

    • O – Owner – who owns the process; they may also contribute to it.
    • I – Informed – who is informed about the progress or results of the process.
    • C – Contributor – who contributes or works on the process; it can be tangible or intangible contributions.

    This activity can be started by the VMI or done as a group with representatives from each of the named roles. If the VMI starts the activity, the resulting chart should be validated by the each of the named roles.

    1.4.1: Roles and responsibilities

    1-6 hours

    1. Meet with the participants and configure the OIC Chart in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.4 OIC Chart.
      1. Review the steps or activities across the top of the chart and modify as needed.
      2. Review the roles listed along the left side of the chart and modify as needed.
    2. For each activity or step across the top of the chart, assign each role a letter – O for owner of that activity or step; I for informed; or C for contributor. Use only one letter per cell.
    3. Work your way across the chart. Every cell should have an entry or be left blank if it is not applicable.
    4. Review the results and validate that every activity or step has an O assigned to it; there must be an owner for every activity or step.
    5. Obtain sign-off on the OIC chart from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • A list of activities or steps to complete a project, starting with requirements gathering and ending with ongoing risk management
    • A list of internal areas (departments, divisions, agencies, etc.) and stakeholders that contribute to completing a project

    Output

    • Completed OCI chart indicating roles and responsibilities for the VMI and other internal areas

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.4 OIC Chart

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Representatives from other areas as needed
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives as needed

    Step 1.5: Process mapping

    Diagram the workflow.

    Although policies and procedures are important, their nature can make it difficult to grasp how things work at a high level (or even at the detail level). To help bridge the gap, map the applicable processes (determined by how deep and wide you want to go) involving the VMI. To start, look at the OIC chart from Step 1.4. You can expand the breadth and depth of your mapping to include the VMI scope, the 3-year roadmap (see Step 2.9), and the processes driven by the day-to-day work within the VMI.

    Various mapping tools can be used. Three common approaches that can be mixed and matched are:

    • Traditional flowcharts.
    • Swimlane diagrams.
    • Work breakdown structures.
    This is an example of a Workflow Process Map

    Step 1.5: Process mapping (cont.)

    Diagram the workflow.

    Your goal is not to create an in-depth diagram for every step of the vendor management lifecycle. However, for steps owned by the VMI, the process map should include sufficient details for the owner and the contributors (see Step 1.4) to understand what is required of them to support that step in the lifecycle.

    For VMI processes that don’t interact with other departments, follow the same pattern as outlined above for steps owned by the VMI.

    Whatever methodology you use to create your process map, make sure it includes enough details so that readers and users can identify the following elements:

    • Input:
      • What are the inputs?
      • Where do the inputs originate or come from?
    • Process:
      • Who is involved/required for this step?
      • What happens to the inputs in this step?
      • What additional materials, tools, or resources are used or required during this step?
    • Output:
      • What are the outputs?
      • Where do the outputs go next?

    1.5.1: Process Mapping

    1-8 hours (or more)

    1. Meet with the participants and determine which processes you want to map.
      1. For processes owned by the VMI, map the entire process.
      2. For processes contributed to by the VMI, map the entire process at a high level and map the VMI portion of the process in greater detail.
    2. Select the right charts/diagrams for your output.
      1. Flowchart
      2. Swimlane diagram
      3. Modified SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer)
      4. WBS (work breakdown structure)
    3. Begin mapping the processes either in a tool or using sticky notes. You want to be able to move the steps and associated information easily; most people don’t map the entire process accurately or with sufficient detail the first time through. An iterative approach works best.
    4. Obtain signoff on the process maps from stakeholders and executives as required. A copy of the final output can be kept in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.5 Process Mapping, if desired.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Existing processes (formal, informal, documented, and undocumented)
    • OIC chart

    Output

    • Process maps for processes contributed to or owned by the VMI

    Materials

    • Sticky Notes
    • Flowchart/process mapping software or something similar
    • (Optional) Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.5 Process Mapping

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Procurement/Sourcing
    • IT
    • Representatives from other areas as needed
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.6: Charter

    Document how the VMI will operate.

    As you continue getting organized by working through steps 1.1-1.5, you may want to document your progress in a charter and add some elements. Basically, a charter is a written document laying out how the VMI will operate within the organization. It clearly states the VMI’s mission, goals, scope, roles and responsibilities, and vendor governance model. In addition, it can include a list of team members and sponsors.

    Whether you create a VMI charter will largely depend on:

    • Your organization’s culture.
    • Your organization’s formality.
    • The perceived value of creating a charter.

    If you decide to create a VMI charter, this is a good place in the process to create an initial draft. As you continue working through the blueprint and your VMI matures, update the VMI charter as needed.

    VMI Charter:

    • Purpose
    • Sponsors
    • Roles
    • Responsibilities
    • Governance

    1.6.1: Charter

    1-4 hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the template in Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.6 Charter.
    2. Determine whether the participants will use this template or add materials to your standard charter template.
    3. Complete as much of the charter as possible, knowing that some information may not be available until later.
    4. Return to the charter as needed until it is completed.
    5. Obtain sign-off on the charter from stakeholders and executives as required.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Mission statement and goals
    • Scope
    • Strengths and obstacles
    • OIC chart
    • List of stakeholders and executives and their VMI roles and responsibilities

    Output

    • Completed VMI charter

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.6 Charter
    • Your organization’s standard charter document

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.7: Vendor inventory

    Compile a list of vendors and relevant vendor information.

    As you prepare your VMI for being operational, it’s critical to identify all of your current vendors providing IT products or services to the organization. This can be tricky and may depend on how you view things internally. For example, you may have traditional IT vendors that are managed by IT, and you may have IT vendors that are managed by other internal departments (shadow IT or out-in-the-open IT). If it wasn’t determined with the help of stakeholders and executives before now, make sure you establish the purview of the VMI at this point. What types of vendors are included and excluded from the VMI?

    You may find that a vendor can be included and excluded based on the product or service they provide. A vendor may provide a service that is managed by IT and a service that is managed/controlled by another department. In this instance, a good working relationship and clearly defined roles and responsibilities between the VMI and the other department will be required. But, it all starts with compiling a list of vendors and validating the VMI’s purview (and any limitations) for the vendors with stakeholders and executives.

    Step 1.7: Vendor inventory (cont.)

    Compile a list of vendors and relevant vendor information.

    At a minimum, the VMI should be able to quickly retrieve key information about each of “its” vendors:

    • Vendor Name
    • Classification (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1)
    • Categories of Service
    • Names of Products and Services Provided
    • Brief Descriptions of Products and Services Provided
    • Annualized Vendor Spend
    • Vendor Contacts
    • Internal Vendor Relationship Owner

    Not all of this information will be available at this point, but you can begin designing or configuring your tool to meet your needs. As your VMI enters Phase 3: Run and continues to mature, you will return to this tool and update the information. For example, the vendor classification category won’t be known until Phase 3, and it can change over time.

    1.7.1: Vendor inventory

    1-10 hours

    Meet with the participants and review the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory. Determine whether the VMI wants to collect and/or monitor additional information and make any necessary modifications to the tool.

    Enter the “Annual IT Vendor Spend” amount in the appropriate cell toward the top of the spreadsheet. This is for IT spend for vendor-related activities within the VMI’s scope; include shadow IT spend and “non-shadow” IT spend if those vendors will be included in the VMI’s scope.

    Populate the data fields for your top 50 vendors by annual spend; you may need multiple entries for the same vendor depending on the nature of the products and services they provide.

    Ignore the “Classification” column for now; you will return to this later when classification information is available.

    Ignore the “Percentage of IT Budget” column as well; it uses a formula to calculate this information.

    Input

    • Data from various internal and external sources such as accounts payable, contracts, and vendor websites

    Output

    • List of vendors with critical information required to manage relationships with key vendors

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory

    Participants

    • VMI team (directly)
    • Other internal and external personnel (indirectly)

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Step 1.8: Maturity assessment

    Establish a VMI maturity baseline and set an ideal future state.

    Knowing where you are and where you want to go are essential elements for any journey in the physical world, and the same holds true for your VMI journey. Start by assessing your current-state VMI maturity. This will provide you with a baseline to measure progress against. Next, using the same criteria, determine the level of VMI maturity you would like to achieve one year in the future. This will be your future-state VMI maturity. Lastly, identify the gaps and plot your course.

    The maturity assessment provides three main benefits:

    1. Focus – you’ll know what is important to you moving forward.
    2. 3-Year Roadmap (discussed more fully in Step 2.9) – you’ll have additional input for your short-term and long-term roadmap (1, 2, and 3 years out).
    3. Quantifiable Improvement – you’ll be able to measure your progress and make midcourse corrections when necessary.

    Step 1.8: Maturity assessment (cont.)

    Establish a VMI maturity baseline and set an ideal future state.

    The Info-Tech VMI Maturity Assessment tool evaluates your maturity across several criteria across multiple categories. Once completed, the assessment will specify:

    • A current-state score by category and overall.
    • A target-state score by category and overall.
    • A quantifiable gap for each criterion.
    • A priority assignment for each criterion.
    • A level of effort required by criterion to get from the current state to the target state.
    • A target due date by criterion for achieving the target state.
    • A rank order for each criterion (note: limit your ranking to your top 7 or 9).

    Many organizations will be tempted to mature too quickly. Resource constraints and other items from Step 1.3 (Strengths and Obstacles) will impact how quickly you can mature. Being aggressive is fine, but it must be tempered with a dose of reality. Otherwise, morale, perception, and results can suffer.

    1.8.1: Maturity assessment

    45-90 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and use Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Input, to complete the first part of this activity. Provide the required information indicated below.
      1. Review each statement in column B and enter a value in the “Current” column using the drop-down menus based on how much you disagree or agree (0-4) with the statement. This establishes a baseline maturity.
      2. Repeat this process for the “Future” column using a target date of one year from now to achieve this level. This is your desired maturity.
      3. Enter information regarding priority, level of effort, and target due date in the applicable columns using the drop-down menus. (Priority levels are critical, high, medium, low, and maintain; Levels of Effort are high, medium, and low; Target Due Dates are broken into timelines: 1-3 months, 4-6 months, 7-9 months, and 10-12 months.)
    2. Review the information on Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Output; use the Distribution Tables to help you rank your top priorities. Enter a unique number into the Priority (Rank) column. Limit your ranking to the top 7 to 9 activities to provide focus.

    Input

    • Knowledge of current VMI practices and desired future states

    Output

    • VMI maturity baseline
    • Desired VMI target maturity state (in one year)
    • Prioritized areas to improve and due dates
    • Graphs and tables to identify maturity deltas and track progress

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Input
    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.8 Maturity Assessment Output

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 1.9: Structure

    Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

    There are two parts to the VMI structure:

    1. Organization Structure. Who owns the VMI – where does it fit on the organization chart?
    2. Reporting Structure. What is the reporting structure within the VMI – what are the job functions, titles, and solid and dotted lines of accountability?

    VMI Organization Structure

    The decision regarding who owns the VMI can follow one of two paths:

    1. The decision has already been made by the board of directors, executives, senior leadership, or stakeholders; OR
    2. The decision has not been made, and options will be reviewed and evaluated before it is implemented.

    Many organizations overlook the importance of this decision. The VMI’s position on the organization chart can aid or hinder its success. Whether the decision has already been made or not, this is the perfect time to evaluate the decision or options based on the following question: Why is the VMI being created and how will it operate? Review the documents you created during Steps 1.1-1.8 and other factors to answer this question.

    Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

    Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

    Based on your work product from Steps 1.1-1.8 and other factors, select where the VMI will be best located from the following areas/offices or their equivalent:

    • Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)
    • Chief Information Officer (CIO)
    • Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
    • Chief Procurement Officer (CPO)
    • Chief Operating Officer (COO)
    • Other area

    Without the proper support and placement in the organization chart, the VMI can fail. It is important for the VMI to find a suitable home with a direct connection to one of the sponsors identified above and for the VMI lead to have significant stature (aka title) within the organization. For example, if the VMI lead is a “manager” level who is four reporting layers away from the chief officer/sponsor, the VMI will have an image issue within and outside of the sponsor’s organization (as well as within the vendor community). While this is not to say that the VMI lead should be a vice president* or senior director, our experience and research indicate that the VMI and the VMI lead will be taken more seriously when the VMI lead is at least a director level reporting directly to a CXO.

    *For purposes of the example above, the reporting structure hierarchy used is manager, senior manager, director, senior director, vice president, CXO.

    Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

    Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

    VMI Reporting Structure

    As previously mentioned, the VMI reporting structure describes and identifies the job functions, titles, and lines of accountability. Whether you have a formal vendor management office or you are leveraging the principles of vendor management informally, your VMI reporting structure design will involve some solid lines and some dotted lines. In this instance, the dotted lines represent part-time participation or people/areas that will assist the VMI in some capacity. For example, if the VMI sits within IT, a dotted line to Procurement will show that a good working relationship is required for both parties to succeed; or a dotted line to Christina in Legal will indicate that Christina will be helping the VMI with legal issues.

    There is no one-size-fits-all reporting structure for VMIs, and your approach must leverage the materials from Steps 1.1-1.8, your culture, and your needs. By way of example, your VMI may include some or all of the following functions:

    • Contract Management
    • Relationship Management
    • Financial Management
    • Asset Management
    • Performance Management
    • Sourcing/Procurement
    • Risk Management

    Step 1.9: Structure (cont.)

    Determine the VMI’s organizational and reporting structure.

    Once you’ve identified the functional groups, you can assign titles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships. A good diagram goes a long way to helping others understand your organization. Traditional organization charts work well with VMIs, but a target diagram allows for rapid absorption of the dotted-line relationships. Review the two examples below and determine an approach that works best for you.

    An organizational Chart is depicted.  At the top of the chart is: Office of the CIO.  Below that is: VMI: Legal; Accounting & Finance; Corporate Procurement; below that are the following: Vendor Risk Management; Vendor Reporting and Analysis; Asset Management; Performance Management; Contract Management; IT Procurement Three concentric circles are depicted.  In the inner circle is the term: VMI.  In the middle circle are the terms: Reporting & Analysis; Asset Mgmt; Contract Mgmt; Performance Mgmt; It Proc; Vendor Risk.  In the outer circle are the following terms: Compliance; Finance; HR; Accounting; Procurement; Business Units; Legal; IT

    1.9.1: Structure

    15-60 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review decisions that have been made or options that are available regarding the VMI’s placement in the organization chart.
      1. Common options include the Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), or Chief Procurement Officer (CPO).
      2. Less common but viable options include the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), or another area.
    2. Brainstorm and determine the job functions and titles
    3. Define the reporting structure within the VMI.
    4. Identify the “dotted line” relationships between the VMI and other internal areas.
    5. Using flowchart, org. chart, or other similar software, reduce your results to a graphic representation that indicates where the VMI resides, its reporting structure, and its dotted-line relationships.
    6. Obtain sign-off on the structure from stakeholders and executives as required. A copy of the final output can be kept in the Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.9 Structure, if desired.

    Input

    • Mission statement and goals
    • Scope
    • Maturity assessment results (current and target state)
    • Existing org. charts
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Completed org. chart with job titles and reporting structure

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/flip chart
    • Sticky notes
    • Flowchart/org. chart software or something similar
    • (Optional) Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.9 Structure

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • VMI sponsor
    • Stakeholders and executives

    Phase 2: Build

    Create and Configure Tools, Templates, and Processes

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4
    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals


    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    1.5 Process Mapping

    1.6 Charter

    1.7 Vendor Inventory

    1.8 Maturity Assessment

    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Configure and create the tools and templates that will help you run the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are a clear understanding of which vendors are important to you, the tools to manage the vendor relationships, and an implementation plan.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Human Resources
    • Legal
    • Others as needed

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Phase 2: Build

    Create and configure tools, templates, and processes.

    Phase 2: Build focuses on creating and configuring the tools and templates that will help you run your VMI. Vendor management is not a plug-and-play environment, and unless noted otherwise, the tools and templates included with this blueprint require your input and thought. The tools and templates must work in concert with your culture, values, and goals. That will require teamwork, insights, contemplation, and deliberation.

    During this Phase, you’ll leverage the various templates and tools included with this blueprint and adapt them for your specific needs and use. In some instances, you’ll be starting with mostly a blank slate; while in others, only a small modification may be required to make it fit your circumstances. However, it is possible that a document or spreadsheet may need heavy customization to fit your situation. As you create your VMI, use the included materials for inspiration and guidance purposes rather than as absolute dictates.

    Step 2.1: Classification model

    Configure the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

    One of the functions of a VMI is to allocate the appropriate level of vendor management resources to each vendor since not all vendors are of equal importance to your organization. While some people may be able intuitively to sort their vendors into vendor management categories, a more objective, consistent, and reliable model works best. Info-Tech’s COST model helps you assign your vendors to the appropriate vendor management category so that you can focus your vendor management resources where they will do the most good.

    COST is an acronym for Commodity, Operational, Strategic, and Tactical. Your vendors will occupy one of these vendor management categories, and each category helps you determine the nature of the resources allocated to that vendor, the characteristics of the relationship desired by the VMI, and the governance level used.

    The easiest way to think of the COST model is as a 2x2 matrix or graph. The model should be configured for your environment so that the criteria used for determining a vendor’s classification align with what is important to you and your organization. However, at this point in your VMI’s maturation, a simple approach works best. The Classification Model included with this blueprint requires minimal configuration to get you started and that is discussed on the activity slide associated with this Step 2.1.


    Speed
    Operational Strategic
    Commodity Tactical
    →→→
    Criticality and Risk to the Organization

    Step 2.1: Classification model (cont.)

    Configure the COST Vendor Classification Tool.

    Common Characteristics by Vendor Management Category

    Operational Strategic
    • Low to moderate risk and criticality; moderate to high spend and switching costs
    • Product or service used by more than one area
    • Price is a key negotiation point
    • Product or service is valued by the organization
    • Quality or the perception of quality is a differentiator (i.e. brand awareness)
    • Moderate to high risk and criticality; moderate to high spend and switching costs
    • Few competitors and differentiated products and services
    • Product or service significantly advances the organization’s vision, mission, and success
    • Well-established in their core industry
    Commodity Tactical
    • Low risk and criticality; low spend and switching costs
    • Product or service is readily available from many sources
    • Market has many competitors and options
    • Relationship is transactional
    • Price is the main differentiator
    • Moderate to high risk and criticality; low to moderate spend and switching costs
    • Vendor offerings align with or support one or more strategic objectives
    • Often IT vendors “outside” of IT (i.e. controlled and paid for by other areas)
    • Often niche or new vendors

    Source: Compiled in part from Stephen Guth, “Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More)”

    2.1.1: Classification Model

    15-30 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the spend ranges in Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration, for your environment.
    2. Sort the data from Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory, by spend; if you used multiple line items for a vendor in the Vendor Inventory tab, you will have to aggregate the spend data for this activity.
    3. Update cells F14-J14 in the Classification Model based on your actual data.
      1. Cell F14 – set the boundary at a point between the spend for your 10th and 11th ranked vendors. For example, if the 10th vendor by spend is $1,009,850 and the 11th vendor by spend is $980,763, the range for F14 would be $1,000,00+.
      2. Cell G14 – set the bottom of the range at a point between the spend for your 30th and 31st ranked vendors; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in F14.
      3. Cell H14 – set the bottom of the range slightly below the spend for your 50th ranked vendor; the top of the range will be $1 less than the bottom of the range specified in G14.
      4. Cells I14 and J14 – divide the remaining range in half and split it between the two cells; for J14 the range will be $0 to $1 less than the bottom range in I14.
    4. Ignore the other variables at this time.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    Input

    • Jump – Phase 1 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 1.7 Vendor Inventory

    Output

    • Configured Vendor Classification Tool

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Step 2.2: Risk assessment tool

    Identify risks to measure, monitor, and report on.

    One of the typical drivers of a VMI is risk management. Organizations want to get a better handle on the various risks their vendors pose. Vendor risks originate from many areas: financial, performance, security, legal, and many others. However, security risk is the high-profile risk and the one organizations often focus on almost exclusively, which leaves the organization vulnerable in other areas.

    Risk management is a program, not a project – there is no completion date. A proactive approach works best and requires continual monitoring, identification, and assessment. Reacting to risks after they occur can be costly and can have other detrimental effects on the organization. Any risk that adversely affects IT will adversely affect the entire organization.

    While the VMI won’t necessarily be quantifying or calculating the risk directly, it generally is the aggregator of risk information across the risk categories, which it then includes in its reporting function. (See Steps 2.12 and 3.8.)

    At a minimum, your risk management strategy should involve:

    • Identifying the risks you want to measure and monitor.
    • Identifying your risk appetite (the amount of risk you are willing to live with).
    • Measuring, monitoring, and reporting on the applicable risks.
    • Developing and deploying a risk management plan to minimize potential risk impact.

    Vendor risk is a fact of life, but you do have options for how you handle it. Be proactive and thoughtful in your approach, and focus your resources on what is important.

    2.2.1: Risk assessment tool

    30-90 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants to configure the risk indicators in Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool, Tab 1. Set Parameters, for your environment.
    2. Review the risk categories and determine which ones you will be measuring and monitoring.
    3. Review the risk indicators under each risk category and determine whether the indicator is acceptable as written, is acceptable with modifications, should be replaced, or should be deleted.
    4. Make the necessary changes to the risk indicators; these changes will cascade to each of the vendor tabs. Limit the number of risk indicators to no more than seven per risk category.
    5. Gain input and approval as needed from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Risk Assessment Tool

    Input

    • Scope
    • OIC Chart
    • Process Maps
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Configured Vendor Classification Tool

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Vendor Classification Tool, Tab 1. Configuration

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    A vendor management scorecard is a great tool for measuring, monitoring, and improving relationship alignment. In addition, it is perfect for improving communication between you and the vendor.

    Conceptually, a scorecard is similar to a report card you received when you were in school. At the end of a learning cycle, you received feedback on how well you did in each of your classes. For vendor management, the scorecard is also used to provide periodic feedback, but there are some different nuances and some additional benefits and objectives when compared to a report card.

    Although scorecards can be used in a variety of ways, the main focus here will be on vendor management scorecards – contract management, project management, and other types of scorecards will not be included in the materials covered in this Step 2.3 or in Step 3.4.

    Category 1 Score
    Vendor Objective A 4
    Objective B 3
    Objective C 5
    Objective D 4 !

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Anatomy

    The Info-Tech Scorecard includes five areas:

    • Measurement Categories. Measurement categories help organize the scorecard. Limit the number of measurement categories to three to five; this allows the parties to stay focused on what’s important. Too many measurement categories make it difficult for the vendor to understand the expectations.
    • Criteria. The criteria describe what is being measured. Create criteria with sufficient detail to allow the reviewers to fully understand what is being measured and to evaluate it. Criteria can be objective or subjective. Use three to five criteria per measurement category.
    • Measurement Category Weights. Not all of your measurement categories may be of equal importance to you; this area allows you to give greater weight to a measurement category when compiling the overall score.
    • Rating. Reviewers will be asked to assign a score to each criteria using a 1 to 5 scale.
    • Comments. A good scorecard will include a place for reviewers to provide additional information regarding the rating or other items that are relevant to the scorecard.

    An overall score is calculated based on the rating for each criteria and the measurement category weights.

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Goals and Objectives

    Scorecards can be used for a variety of reasons. Some of the common ones are listed below:

    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Convey expectations to the vendor.
    • Identify and recognize top vendors.
    • Increase alignment between the parties.
    • Improve communication with the vendor.
    • Compare vendors across the same criteria.
    • Measure items not included in contract metrics.
    • Identify vendors for “strategic alliance” consideration.
    • Help the organization achieve specific goals and objectives.
    • Identify and resolve issues before they impact performance or the relationship.

    Identifying your scorecard drivers first will help you craft a suitable scorecard.

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Info-Tech recommends starting with simple scorecards to allow you and the vendors to acclimate to the new process and information. As you build your scorecards, keep in mind that internal personnel will be scoring the vendors and the vendors will be reviewing the scorecard. Make your scorecard easy for your personnel to fill out and composed of meaningful content to drive the vendor in the right direction. You can always make the scorecard more complex in the future.

    Our recommendation of five categories is provided below. Choose three to five categories to help you accomplish your scorecard goals and objectives:

    1. Timeliness – responses, resolutions, fixes, submissions, completions, milestones, deliverables, invoices, etc.
    2. Cost – total cost of ownership, value, price stability, price increases/decreases, pricing models, etc.
    3. Quality – accuracy, completeness, mean time to failure, bugs, number of failures, etc.
    4. Personnel – skilled, experienced, knowledgeable, certified, friendly, trustworthy, flexible, accommodating, etc.
    5. Risk – adequate contractual protections, security breaches, lawsuits, finances, audit findings, etc.

    Some criteria may be applicable in more than one category. The categories above should cover at least 80% of the items that are important to your organization. The general criteria listed for each category is not an exhaustive list, but most things break down into time, money, quality, people, and risk issues.

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Additional Considerations

    • Even a good rating system can be confusing. Make sure you provide some examples or a way for reviewers to discern the differences between 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Don’t assume your “Rating Key” will be intuitive.
    • When assigning weights, don’t go lower than 10% for any measurement category. If the weight is too low, it won’t be relevant enough to have an impact on the total score. If it doesn’t “move the needle,” don’t include it.
    • Final sign-off on the scorecard template should occur outside of the VMI. The heavy lifting can be done by the VMI to create it, but the scorecard is for the benefit of the organization overall and those impacted by the vendors specifically. You may end up playing arbiter or referee, but the scorecard is not the exclusive property of the VMI. Try to reach consensus on your final template whenever possible.
    • You should notice improved ratings and total scores over time for your vendors. One explanation for this is the Pygmalion Effect: “The Pygmalion [E]ffect describes situations where someone’s high expectations improves our behavior and therefore our performance in a given area. It suggests that we do better when more is expected of us.”* Convey your expectations and let the vendors’ competitive juices take over.
    • While you’re creating your scorecard and materials to explain the process to internal personnel, identify those pieces that will help you explain it to your vendors as part of your vendor orientation (see steps 2.6 and 3.4). Leveraging pre-existing materials is a great shortcut.

    *Source: The Decision Lab, 2020

    Step 2.3: Scorecards and feedback (cont.)

    Design a two-way feedback loop with your vendors.

    Vendor Feedback

    After you’ve built your scorecard, turn your attention to the second half of the equation – feedback from the vendor. A communication loop cannot be successful without the dialogue flowing both ways. While this can happen with just a scorecard, a mechanism specifically geared toward the vendor providing you with feedback improves communication, alignment, and satisfaction.

    You may be tempted to create a formal scorecard for the vendor to use. Our recommendation is to avoid that temptation until later in your maturity or development of the VMI. You’ll be implementing a lot of new processes, deploying new tools and templates, and getting people to work together in new ways. Work on those things first.

    For now, implement an informal process for obtaining information from the vendor. Start by identifying information that you will find useful, information that will allow you to improve overall, to reduce waste or time, to improve processes, to identify gaps in skills. Incorporate these items into your business alignment meetings (see Steps 2.4 and 3.5). Create three to five good questions to ask the vendor and include these in the business alignment meeting agenda. The goal is to get meaningful feedback, and that starts with asking good questions.

    Keep it simple at first. When the time is right, you can build a more formal feedback form or scorecard. Don’t be in a rush though. So long as the informal method works, keep using it.

    2.3.1: Scorecards and feedback

    30-60 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for your scorecard measurement categories:
      1. What makes a vendor valuable to your organization?
      2. What differentiates a “good” vendor from a “bad” vendor?
      3. What items would you like to measure and provide feedback to the vendor to improve performance, the relationship, risk, and other areas?
    2. Select three, but no more than five, of the following measure categories: timeliness, cost, quality, personnel, and risk.
    3. Within each measurement category, list two or three criteria that you want to measure and track for your vendors; choose items that are as universal as possible rather than being applicable to one vendor or one vendor type.
    4. Assign a weight to each measurement category, ensuring that the total weight is 100% for all measurement categories.
    5. Document your results as you go in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Scorecard.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Configured scorecard template

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Scorecard

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    2.3.2: Scorecards and feedback

    15-30 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and brainstorm ideas for feedback to seek from your vendors during your business alignment meetings. During the brainstorming, identify questions to ask the vendor about your organization that will:
      1. Help you improve the relationship.
      2. Help you improve your processes or performance.
      3. Help you improve ongoing communication.
      4. Help you evaluate your personnel.
    2. Identify the top five questions you want to include in your business alignment meeting agenda. (Note: you may need to refine the actual questions from the brainstorming activity before they are ready to include in your business alignment meeting agenda.)
    3. Document both your brainstorming activity and your final results in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback. The brainstorming questions can be used in the future as your VMI matures and your feedback transforms from informal to formal. The final results will be used in Steps 2.4 and 3.5.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Feedback questions to include with the business alignment meeting agenda

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

    A business alignment meeting (BAM) is a great, multi-faceted tool to ensure the customer and the vendor stay focused on what is important to the customer at a high level. BAMs are not traditional “operational” meetings where the parties get into the details of the contracts, deal with installation problems, address project management issues, or discuss specific cost overruns. The main focus of the BAM is the scorecard (see Step 2.3), but other topics are discussed and other purposes are served. For example, you can use the BAM to develop the relationship with the vendor’s leadership team so that if escalation is ever needed, your organization is more than just a name on a spreadsheet or customer list; you can learn about innovations the vendor is working on (without the meeting turning into a sales call); you can address high-level performance trends and request corrective action as needed; you can clarify your expectations; you can educate the vendor about your industry, culture, and organization; and you can learn more about the vendor.

    As you build your BAM agenda, someone in your organization may say, “Oh, that’s just a quarterly business review (QBR) or top-to-top meeting.” However, in most instances, an existing QBR or top-to-top meeting is not the same as a BAM. Using the term QBR or top-to-top meeting instead of BAM can lead to confusion internally. The VMI may say to the business unit, Procurement, or another department, “We’re going to start running some QBRs for our strategic vendors.” The typical response is, “There’s no need to do that. We already run QBRs/top-to-top meetings with our important vendors.” This may be accompanied by an invitation to join their meeting, where you may be an afterthought, have no influence, and get five minutes at the end to talk about your agenda items. Keep your BAM separate so that it meets your needs.

    Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda (cont.)

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

    As previously noted, using the term BAM more accurately depicts the nature of the VMI meeting and prevents confusion internally with other meetings already occurring. In addition, hosting the BAM yourself rather than piggybacking onto another meeting ensures that the VMI’s needs are met. The VMI will set and control the BAM agenda and determine the invite list for internal personnel and vendor personnel. As you may have figured out by now, having the right customer and vendor personnel attend will be essential.

    BAMs are conducted at the vendor level … not the contract level. As a result, the frequency of the BAMs will depend on the vendor’s classification category (see Steps 2.1 and 3.1). General frequency guidelines are provided below, but they can be modified to meet your goals:

    • Commodity Vendors – Not applicable
    • Operational Vendors – Biannually or annually
    • Strategic Vendors – Quarterly
    • Tactical Vendors – Quarterly or biannually

    BAMs can help you achieve some additional benefits not previously mentioned:

    • Foster a collaborative relationship with the vendor.
    • Avoid erroneous assumptions by the parties.
    • Capture and provide a record of the relationship (and other items) over time.

    Step 2.4: Business alignment meeting agenda (cont.)

    Craft an agenda that meets the needs of the VMI.

    As with any meeting, building the proper agenda will be one of the keys to an effective and efficient meeting. A high-level BAM agenda with sample topics is set out below:

    BAM Agenda

    • Opening Remarks
      • Welcome and introductions
      • Review of previous minutes
    • Active Discussion
      • Review of open issues
      • Scorecard and feedback
      • Current status of projects to ensure situational awareness by the vendor
      • Roadmap/strategy/future projects
      • Accomplishments
    • Closing Remarks
      • Reinforce positives (good behavior, results, and performance, value added, and expectations exceeded)
      • Recap
    • Adjourn

    2.4.1: Business alignment meeting agenda

    20-45 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the sample agenda in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.
    2. Using the sample agenda as inspiration and brainstorming activities as needed, create a BAM agenda tailored to your needs.
      1. Select the items from the sample agenda applicable to your situation.
      2. Add any items required based on your brainstorming.
      3. Add the feedback questions identified during Activity 2.3.2 and documented in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback.
    3. Gain input and approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as required or appropriate.
    4. Document the final BAM agenda in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.3 Feedback

    Output

    • Configured BAM agenda

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.4 BAM Agenda

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.5: Relationship alignment document

    Draft a document to convey important VMI information to your vendors.

    Throughout this blueprint, alignment is mentioned directly (e.g. business alignment meetings [Steps 2.4 and 3.5]) or indirectly implied. Ensuring you and your vendors are on the same page, have clear and transparent communication, and understand each other’s expectations is critical to fostering strong relationships. One component of gaining and maintaining alignment with your vendors is the relationship alignment document (RAD). Depending upon the scope of your VMI and what your organization already has in place, your RAD will fill in the gaps on various topics.

    Early in the VMI’s maturation, the easiest approach is to develop a short document (i.e. 1 page) or a pamphlet (i.e. the classic trifold) describing the rules of engagement when doing business with your organization. The RAD can convey expectations, policies, guidelines, and other items. The scope of the document will depend on 1) what you believe is important for the vendors to understand, and 2) any other similar information already provided to the vendors.

    The first step to drafting a RAD is to identify what information vendors need to know to stay on your good side. For example, you may want vendors to know about your gift policy (e.g. employees may not accept gifts from vendors above a nominal value such as a pen or mousepad). Next, compare your list of what vendors need to know and determine if the content is covered in other vendor-facing documents such as a vendor code of conduct or your website’s vendor portal. Lastly, create your RAD to bridge the gap between what you want and what is already in place. In some instances, you may want to include items from other documents to reemphasize them with the vendor community.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The RAD can be used with all vendors regardless of classification category. It can be sent directly to the vendors or given to them during vendor orientation (see Step 3.3)

    2.5.1: Relationship alignment document

    1-4 hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the RAD sample and checklist in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc.
    2. Determine:
      1. Whether you will create one RAD for all vendors or one RAD for strategic vendors and another RAD for tactical and operational vendors; whether you will create a RAD for commodity vendors.
      2. The concepts you want to include in your RAD(s).
      3. The format for your RAD(s) – traditional, pamphlet, or other.
      4. Whether signoff or acknowledgement will be required by the vendors.
    3. Draft your RAD(s) and work with other internal areas such as Marketing to create a consistent brand for the RADS and Legal to ensure consistent use and preservation of trademarks or other intellectual property rights and other legal issues.
    4. Review other vendor-facing documents (e.g. supplier code of conduct, onsite safety and security protocols) for consistencies between them and the RAD(s).
    5. Obtain signoff on the RAD(s) from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Marketing, and others as needed.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Vendor-facing documents, policies, and procedures

    Output

    • Completed relationship alignment document(s)

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.5 Relationship Alignment Doc

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Marketing, as needed
    • Legal, as needed

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    Vendor Orientation: 01 - Orientation; 02 - Reorientation; 03 - Debrief

    Your organization is unique. It may have many similarities with other organizations, but your culture, risk tolerance, mission, vision, and goals, finances, employees, and “customers” (those that depend on you) make it different. The same is true of your VMI. It may have similar principles, objectives, and processes to other organizations’ VMIs, but yours is still unique. As a result, your vendors may not fully understand your organization and what vendor management means to you.

    Vendor orientation is another means to helping you gain and maintain alignment with your important vendors, educate them on what is important to you, and provide closure when/if the relationship with the vendor ends. Vendor orientation is comprised of three components, each with a different function:

    • Orientation
    • Reorientation
    • Debrief

    Vendor orientation focuses on the vendor management pieces of the puzzle (e.g. the scorecard process) rather than the operational pieces (e.g. setting up a new vendor in the system to ensure invoices are processed smoothly).

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    Vendor Orientation: 01 - Orientation

    Orientation

    Orientation is conceptually similar to new hire orientation for employees at your organization. Generally conducted as a meeting, orientation provides your vendors with the information they need to be successful when working with your organization. Sadly, this is often overlooked by customers; it can take months or years for vendors to figure it out by themselves. By controlling the narrative and condensing the timeline, vendor relationships and performance improve more rapidly.

    A partial list of topics for orientation is set out below:

    • Your organization’s structure
    • Your organization’s culture
    • Your relationship expectations
    • Your governances (VMI and other)
    • Their vendor classification designation (commodity, operational, strategic, or tactical)
    • The scorecard process
    • Business alignment meetings
    • Relationship alignment documents

    In short, this is the first step toward building (or continuing to build) a robust, collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship with your important vendors.

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    Vendor Orientation: 02 - Reorientation

    Reorientation

    Reorientation is either identical or similar to orientation, depending upon the circumstances. Reorientation occurs for a number of reasons, and each reason will impact the nature and detail of the reorientation content. Reorientation occurs whenever:

    • There is a significant change in the vendor’s products or services.
    • The vendor has been through a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.
    • A significant contract renewal/renegotiation has recently occurred.
    • Sufficient time has passed from orientation; commonly 2 to 3 years.
    • The vendor has been placed in a “performance improvement plan” or “relationship improvement plan” protocol.
    • Significant turnover has occurred within your organization (executives, key stakeholders, and/or VMI personnel).
    • Substantial turnover has occurred at the vendor at the executive or account management level.
    • The vendor has changed vendor classification categories after the most current classification.

    As the name implies, the goal is to refamiliarize the vendor with your current VMI situation, governances, protocols, and expectations. The drivers for reorientation will help you determine its scope, scale, and frequency.

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    Vendor Orientation: 03 - Debrief

    Debrief

    To continue the analogy from orientation, debrief is similar to an exit interview for an employee when their employment is terminated. In this case, debrief occurs when the vendor is no longer an active vendor with your organization – all contracts have terminated or expired, and no new business with the vendor is anticipated within the next three months.

    Similar to orientation and reorientation, debrief activities will be based on the vendor’s classification category within the COST model. Strategic vendors don’t go away very often; usually, they transition to operational or tactical vendors first. However, if a strategic vendor is no longer providing products or services to you, dig a little deeper into their experiences and allocate extra time for the debrief meeting.

    The debrief should provide you with feedback on the vendor’s experience with your organization and their participation in your VMI. In addition, it can provide closure for both parties since the relationship is ending. Be careful that the debrief does not turn into a finger-pointing meeting or therapy session for the vendor. It should be professional and productive; if it is going off the rails, terminate the meeting before more damage can occur.

    End the debrief on a high note if possible. Thank the vendor, highlight its key contributions, and single out any personnel who went above and beyond. You never know when you will be doing business with this vendor again – don’t burn bridges!

    Step 2.6: Vendor orientation (cont.)

    Create a VMI awareness process to build bridges with your vendors.

    • As you create your vendor orientation materials, focus on the message you want to convey.
    • For orientation and reorientation:
      • What is important to you that vendors need to know?
      • What will help the vendors understand more about your organization … your VMI?
      • What and how are you different from other organizations overall … in your “industry”?
      • What will help them understand your expectations?
      • What will help them be more successful?
      • What will help you build the relationship?
    • For debrief:
      • What information or feedback do you want to obtain?
      • What information or feedback to you want to give?
    • The level of detail you provide strategic vendors during orientation and reorientation may be different from the information you provide tactical and operational vendors. Commodity vendors are not typically involved in the vendor orientation process. The orientation meetings can be conducted on a one-to-one basis for strategic vendors and a one-to-many basis for operational and tactical vendors; reorientation and debrief are best conducted on a one-to-one basis. Lastly, face-to-face or video meetings work best for vendor orientation; voice-only meetings, recorded videos, or distributing only written materials seldom hit their mark or achieve the desired results.

    2.6.1: Vendor orientation

    1 to several hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the Phase Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.6 Vendor Orientation.
      1. Use the orientation checklist to identify the materials you want to create for your orientation meetings.
      2. Use the reorientation checklist to identify the materials you want to create for your reorientation meetings.
    2. The selections can be made by classification category (i.e. different items can apply to strategic, operational, and tactical vendors).
    3. Create the materials and seek input and/or approval from sponsors, stakeholders, and executives as needed.
    4. Use the debrief section of the tool to create an agenda, list the questions you want to ask vendors, and list information you want to provide to vendors. The agenda, questions, and information can be segregated by classification category.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Agendas and materials for orientation, reorientation, and debrief

    Materials

    • Phase Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.6 Vendor Orientation

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Step 2.7: Job descriptions

    Ensure new and existing job descriptions are up to date.

    Based on your work product from Steps 1.1-1.9, it’s time to start drafting new or modifying existing job descriptions applicable to the VMI team members. Some of the VMI personnel may be dedicated full-time to the VMI, while others may be supporting the VMI on a part-time basis. At a minimum, create or modify your job descriptions based on the categories set out below. Remember to get the internal experts involved so that you stay true to your environment and culture.

    01 Title

    This should align overall with what the person will be doing and what the person will be responsible for. Your hands may be tied with respect to titles, but try to make them intuitively descriptive if possible.

    02 Duties

    This is the main portion of the job description. List the duties, responsibilities, tasks, activities, and results expected. Again, there may be some limitations imposed by your organization, but be as thorough as possible.

    03 Qualifications

    This tends to be a gray area for many organizations, with the qualifications, certifications, and experience desired expressed in “ranges” so that good candidates are not eliminated from consideration unnecessarily.

    2.7.1: Job descriptions

    1 to several hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the VMI structure from Step 1.9.
      1. List the positions that require new job descriptions.
      2. List the positions that require updated job descriptions.
    2. Review the other Phase 1 work product and list the responsibilities, tasks, and functions that need to be incorporated into the new and updated job descriptions.
    3. Review the sample VMI job descriptions and sample VMI job description language in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions, and identify language and concepts you want to include in the new and revised job descriptions.
    4. Using your template, draft the new job descriptions and modify the existing job descriptions to synchronize with the VMI structure. Work with other internal areas such as Human Resources to ensure cultural fit and compliance.
    5. Obtain input and signoff on the job descriptions from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Human Resources, and others as needed.
    6. Document your final job descriptions in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Existing job descriptions
    • Work product from Phase 1

    Output

    • Job descriptions for new positions
    • Updated job descriptions for existing positions

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.7 Job Descriptions

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Human Resources (as needed)
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.8: Policies and procedures

    Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

    Policies and procedures are often thought of as boring documents that are 1) tedious to create, 2) seldom read after creation, and 3) only used to punish people when they do something “wrong.” However, when done well, these documents:

    • Communicate expectations.
    • Capture institutional knowledge.
    • Provide guidance for decision making.
    • Help workers avoid errors and minimize risk.
    • Ensure regulatory and organizational compliance.
    • List the steps required to achieve consistent results.

    Definitions of Policies and Procedures

    Policies and procedures are essential, but they are often confused with each other. A policy is a rule, guideline, or framework for making decisions. For example, in the vendor management space, you may want a policy indicating your organization’s view on gifts from vendors. A procedure is a set of instructions for completing a task or activity. For example, staying in the vendor management space, you may want a procedure to outline the process for classifying vendors.

    Step 2.8: Policies and procedures (cont.)

    Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

    Start With Your Policy/Procedure Template or Create One for Consistency

    When creating policies and procedures, follow your template. If you don’t have one (or want to see if anything is missing from your template) the following list of potential components for your governance documents is provided.* Not every concept is required. Use your judgment and err on the side of caution when drafting; balance readability and helpfulness against over documenting and over complicating.

    • Descriptive Title
    • Policy Number
    • Brief Overview
    • Purpose
    • Scope
    • The Policy or Procedure
    • Definitions
    • Revision Date
    • History
    • Related Documents
    • Keywords

    Step 2.8: Policies and procedures (cont.)

    Prepare policies and procedures for VMI functions.

    Although they are not ever going to be compared to page-turning novels, policies and procedures can be improved by following a few basic principles. By following the guidelines set out below, your VMI policies and procedures will contribute to the effectiveness of your initiative.*

    • Use short sentences.
    • Organize topics logically.
    • Use white space liberally.
    • Use mandatory language.
    • Use gender-neutral terms.
    • Write with an active voice.
    • Avoid jargon when possible.
    • Use a consistent “voice” and tone.
    • Use pictures or diagrams when they will help.
    • Write in the same tense throughout the document.
    • Use icons and colors to designate specific elements.
    • Make sure links to other policies and procedures work.
    • Define all acronyms and jargon (when it must be used).
    • Avoid a numbering scheme with more than three levels.

    *Adapted in part from smartsheet.com

    Info-Tech Insight

    Drafting policies and procedures is an iterative process that requires feedback from the organization’s leadership team.

    2.8.1: Policies and procedures

    Several hours

    1. Meet with the participants and review the sample policies and procedures topics in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures.
    2. Determine:
      1. The concepts you want to include in your policies and procedures; brainstorm for any additional concepts you want to include.
      2. The format/template for your policies and procedures.
    3. Draft your policies and procedures based on the sample topics and your brainstorming activity. Work with other internal areas such as Legal and Human Resources to ensure cultural and environmental fit within your organization.
    4. Obtain input and signoff on the policies and procedures from stakeholders, sponsors, executives, Legal, Human Resources, and others as needed.
    5. Document your final policies and procedures in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures.
    6. Publish your policies and procedures and conduct training sessions or awareness sessions as needed.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Existing policies and procedures (if any)
    • Existing policies and procedures template (if any)
    • Scope
    • OIC chart
    • Process maps
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • VMI policies and procedures

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.8 Policies and Procedures

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Legal and Human Resources (as needed)
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.9: 3-year roadmap

    Plot your path at a high level.

    The VMI exists in many planes concurrently: 1) it operates both tactically and strategically, and 2) it focuses on different timelines or horizons (e.g. the past, the present, and the future). Creating a 3-year roadmap facilitates the VMI’s ability to function effectively across these multiple landscapes.

    The VMI roadmap will be influenced by many factors. The work product from Phase 1: Plan, input from executives, stakeholders, and internal clients, and the direction of the organization as a whole are great sources of information as you begin to build your roadmap.

    To start, identify what you would like to accomplish in Year 1. This is arguably the easiest year to complete: budgets are set (or you have a good idea what the budget will look like), personnel decisions have been made, resources have been allocated, and other issues impacting the VMI are known with a higher degree of certainty than any other year. This does not mean things won’t change during the first year of the VMI, but expectations are usually lower and the short event horizon makes things more predictable during the Year-1 ramp-up period.

    Years 2 and 3 are more tenuous, but the process is the same: identify what you would like to accomplish or roll out in each year. Typically, the VMI maintains the Year 1 plan into subsequent years and adds to the scope or maturity. For example, you may start Year 1 with BAMs and scorecards for three of your strategic vendors; during Year 2, you may increase that to five vendors; and during Year 3, you may increase that to nine vendors. Or, you may not conduct any market research during Year 1, waiting to add it to your roadmap in Year 2 or 3 as you mature.

    Breaking things down by year helps you identify what is important and the timing associated with your priorities. A conservative approach is recommended. It is easy to overcommit, but the results can be disastrous and painful.

    2.9.1: 3-year roadmap

    45-90 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate Year 1 of your 3-year roadmap with your existing fiscal year or reporting year. Year 1 may be shorter or longer than a calendar year.
    2. Review the VMI activities listed in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.9 3-Year Roadmap. Use brainstorming and your prior work product from Phase 1 and Phase 2 to identify additional items for the roadmap and add them at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
    3. Starting with the first activity, determine when that activity will begin and put an X in the corresponding column; if the activity is not applicable, leave it blank or insert N/A.
    4. Go back to the top of the list and add information as needed.
      1. For any Year-1 or Year-2 activities, add an X in the corresponding columns if the activity will be expanded/continued in subsequent periods (e.g. if a Year 2 activity will continue in Year 3, put an X in Year 3 as well).
      2. Use the comments column to provide clarifying remarks or additional insights related to your plans or “X’s.” For example, “Scorecards begin in Year 1 with three vendors and will roll out to five vendors in Year 2 and nine vendors in Year 3.”
    5. Obtain signoff from stakeholders, sponsors, and executives as needed.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1-2.8 work product
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • High level 3-year roadmap for the VMI

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.9 3-Year Roadmap

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.10: 90-day plan

    Pave your short-term path with a series of detailed quarterly plans.

    Now that you have prepared a 3-year roadmap, it’s time to take the most significant elements from the first year and create action plans for each three-month period. Your first 90-day plan may be longer or shorter if you want to sync to your fiscal or calendar quarters. Aligning with your fiscal year can make it easier for tracking and reporting purposes; however, the more critical item is to make sure you have a rolling series of four 90-day plans to keep you focused on the important activities and tasks throughout the year.

    The 90-day plan is a simple project plan that will help you measure, monitor, and report your progress. Use the Info-Tech tool to help you track:

    • Activities
    • Tasks comprising each activity
    • Who will be performing the tasks
    • An estimate of the time required per person per task
    • An estimate of the total time to achieve the activity
    • A due date for the activity
    • A priority of the activity

    The first 90-day plan will have the greatest level of detail and should be as thorough as possible; the remaining three 90-day plans will each have less detail for now. As you approach the middle of the first 90-day plan, start adding details to the next 90-day plan; toward the end of the first quarter add a high-level 90-day plan to the end of the chain. Continue repeating this cycle each quarter and consult the 3-year roadmap and the leadership team as necessary.

    90 Days

    2.10.1: 90-day plan

    45-90 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and decide how to coordinate the first 90-day plan with your existing fiscal year or reporting cycles. Your first plan may be shorter or longer than 90 days.
    2. Looking at the Year 1 section of the 3-year roadmap, identify the activities that will be started during the next 90 days.
    3. Using the Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.10 90-Day Plan, enter the following information into the spreadsheet for each activity to be accomplished during the next 90 days:
      1. Activity description
      2. Tasks required to complete the activity (be specific and descriptive)
      3. The people who will be performing each task
      4. The estimated number of hours required to complete each task
      5. The start date and due date for each task or the activity
    4. Validate the tasks are a complete list for each activity and the people performing the tasks have adequate time to complete the tasks by the due date(s).
    5. Assign a priority to each activity.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • 3-year roadmap
    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1-2.9 work product
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • Detailed plan for the VMI for the next quarter or 90 days

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.10 90-Day Plan

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Step 2.11: Quick wins

    Identify potential short-term successes to gain momentum and show value immediately.

    As the final step in the timeline trilogy, you are ready to identify some quick wins for the VMI. Using the first 90-day plan and a brainstorming activity, create a list of things you can do in 15 to 30 days that add value to your initiative and build momentum.

    As you evaluate your list of potential candidates, look for things that:

    • Are achievable within the stated timeline.
    • Don’t require a lot of effort.
    • Involve stopping a certain process, activity, or task; this is sometimes known as a “stop doing stupid stuff” approach.
    • Will reduce or eliminate inefficiencies; this is sometimes known as the war on waste.
    • Have a moderate to high impact or bolster the VMI’s reputation.

    As you look for quick wins, you may find that everything you identify does not meet the criteria. That’s ok … don’t force the issue. Return your focus to the 90-day plan and 3-year roadmap, and update those documents if the brainstorming activity associated with this Step 2.11 identified anything new.

    2.11.1: Quick wins

    15-30 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the 3-year roadmap and 90-day plan. Determine if any item on either document can be completed:
      1. Quickly (30 days or less)
      2. With minimal effort
      3. To provide or show moderate to high levels of value or provide the VMI with momentum
    2. Brainstorm to identify any other items that meet the criteria in step 1 above.
    3. Compile a comprehensive list of these items and select up to five to pursue.
    4. Document the list in the Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.11 Quick Wins.
    5. Manage the quick wins list and share the results with the VMI team and applicable stakeholders and executives.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • 3-year roadmap
    • 90-day plan
    • Brainstorming

    Output

    • A list of activities that require low levels of effort to achieve moderate to high levels of value in a short period

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.11 Quick Wins

    Participants

    • VMI team

    Step 2.12: Reports

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

    Issuing reports is a critical piece of the VMI since the VMI is a conduit of information for the organization. It may be aggregating risk data from internal areas, conducting vendor research, compiling performance data, reviewing market intelligence, or obtaining relevant statistics, feedback, comments, facts, and figures from other sources. Holding onto this information minimizes the impact a VMI can have on the organization; however, the VMI’s internal clients, stakeholders, and executives can drown in raw data and ignore it completely if it is not transformed into meaningful, easily-digested information.

    Before building a report, think about your intended audience:

    • What information are they looking for … what will help them understand the big picture?
    • What level of detail is appropriate, keeping in mind the audience may not be like-minded?
    • What items are universal to all of the readers and what items are of interest to one or two readers?
    • How easy or hard will it be to collect the data … who will be providing it, how time consuming will it be?
    • How accurate, valid, and timely will the data be?
    • How frequently will each report need to be issued?

    Step 2.12: Reports (cont.)

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

    Use the following guidelines to create reports that will resonate with your audience:

    • Value information over data, but sometimes data does have a place in your report.
    • Use pictures, graphics, and other representations more than words, but words are often necessary in small, concise doses.
    • Segregate your report by user; for example, general information up top, CIO information below that on the right, CFO information to the left of CIO information, etc.
    • Send a draft report to the internal audience and seek feedback, keeping in mind you won’t be able to cater to or please everyone.

    Step 2.12: Reports (cont.)

    Construct your reports to resonate with your audience.

    The report’s formatting and content display can make or break your reports.*

    • Make the report look inviting and easy to read. Use:
      • Short paragraphs and bullet points.
      • A simple layout and uncluttered, wide margins.
      • Minimal boldface, underline, or italics to attract the readers’ attention.
      • High contrast between text and background.
    • Charts, graphs, and infographics should be intuitive and tell the story on their own.
    • Make it easy to peruse the report for topics of interest.
      • Maintain consistent design features.
      • Use impactful, meaningful headings and subheadings.
      • Include callouts to draw attention to important high-level information.
    • Demonstrate the impact of the accomplishments or success stories when appropriate.
    • Finish with a simple concise summary when appropriate. Consider adding:
      • Key points for the reader to takeaway.
      • Action items or requests.
      • Plans for next reporting period.

    *Sources: Adapted and compiled in part from: designeclectic.com, ahrq.gov, and 60secondmarketer.com.

    2.12.1: Reports

    15-45 minutes

    1. Meet with the participants and review the applicable work product from Phases 1 and 2; identify qualitative and quantitative items the VMI measures, monitors, tracks, or aggregates.
    2. Determine which items will be reported and to whom (by category):
      1. Internally to personnel within the VMI
      2. Internally to personnel outside the VMI
      3. Externally to vendors
    3. Within each category above, determine your intended audiences/recipients. For example, you may have a different list of recipients for a risk report than you do a scorecard summary report. This will help you identify the number of reports required.
    4. Create a draft structure for each report based on the audience and the information being conveyed. Determine the frequency of each report and person responsible for creating for each report.
    5. Document your final choices in Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.12 Reports.

    Download the Info-Tech Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium

    Input

    • Brainstorming
    • Phase 1 work product
    • Steps 2.1-2.11 work product

    Output

    • A list of reports used by the VMI
    • For each report:
    • The conceptual content
    • A list of who will receive or have access
    • A creation/distribution frequency

    Materials

    • Jump – Phase 2 Tools and Templates Compendium, Tab 2.12 Reports

    Participants

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives (as needed)

    Phase 3: Run

    Implement Your Processes and Leverage Your Tools and Templates

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals
    1.2 Scope
    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles
    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities
    1.5 Process Mapping
    1.6 Charter
    1.7 Vendor Inventory
    1.8 Maturity Assessment
    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Begin operating the VMI. The main outcomes from this phase are guidance and the steps required to implement your VMI.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Phase 3: Run

    Implement your processes and leverage your tools and templates.

    All of the hard work invested in Phase 1: Plan and Phase 2: Build begins to pay off in Phase 3: Run. It’s time to stand up your VMI and ensure that the proper level of resources is devoted to your vendors and the VMI itself. There’s more hard work ahead, but the foundational elements are in place. This doesn’t mean there won’t be adjustments and modifications along the way, but you are ready to use the tools and templates in the real world; you are ready to begin reaping the fruits of your labor.

    Phase 3: Run guides you through the process of collecting data, monitoring trends, issuing reports, and conducting effective meetings to:

    • Manage risk better.
    • Improve vendor performance.
    • Improve vendor relationships.
    • Identify areas where the parties can improve.
    • Improve communication between the parties.
    • Increase the value proposition with your vendors.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors

    Begin classifying your top 25 vendors by spend.

    Step 3.1 sets the table for many of the subsequent steps in Phase 3: Run. The results of your classification process will determine: which vendors go through the scorecarding process (Step 3.4); which vendors participate in BAMs (Step 3.5); the nature and content of the vendor orientation activities (Step 3.3); which vendors will be part of the risk measurement and monitoring process (Step 3.8); which vendors will be included in the reports issued by the VMI (Step 3.9); and which vendors you will devote relationship-building resources to (Step 3.10).

    As you begin classifying your vendors, Info-Tech recommends using an iterative approach initially to validate the results from the classification model you configured in Step 2.1.

    1. Using the information from the Vendor Inventory tab (Step 1.7), identify your top 25 vendors by spend.
    2. Run your top 10 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results.
      1. If the results are what you expected and do not contain any significant surprises, go to next page.
      2. If the results are not what you expected or contain significant surprises, look at the configuration page of the tool (Tab 1) and adjust the weights or the spend categories slightly. Be cautious in your evaluation of the results before modifying the configuration page – some legitimate results are unexpected or surprising based on bias. If you modify the weighting, review the new results and repeat your evaluation. If you modify the spend categories, review the answers on the vendor tabs to ensure that the answers are still accurate; review the new results and repeat your evaluation.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Review your results and adjust the classification tool as needed.

    1. Run your top 11 through 25 vendors by spend through the classification model and review the results. Identify any unexpected results or surprises. Determine if further configuration makes sense and repeat the process outlined in 2.b, previous page, as necessary. If no further modifications are required, continue to 4, below.
    2. Share the preliminary results with the leadership team, executives, and stakeholders to obtain their approval or adjustments to the results.
      1. They may have questions and want to understand the process before approving the results.
      2. They may request that you move a vendor from one quadrant to another based on your organization’s roadmap, the vendor’s roadmap, or other information not available to you.
    3. Identify the vendors that will be part of the VMI at this stage – how many and which ones. Based on this number and the VMI’s scope (Step 1.2), make sure you have the resources necessary to accommodate the number of vendors participating in the VMI. Proceed cautiously and gradually increase the number of vendors participating in the VMI.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Finalize the results and update VMI tools and templates.

    1. Update the Vendor Inventory tab (Step 1.7) to indicate the current classification status for the top 25 vendors by spend. Once your vendors have been classified, you can sort the Vendor Inventory tab by classification status to see all the vendors in that category at once.
    2. Review your 3-year roadmap (Step 2.9) and 90-day plans (Step 2.10) to determine if any modifications are needed to the activities and timelines.

    Additional classification considerations:

    • You should only have a few vendors that fit in the strategic category. As a rough guideline, no more than 5% to 10% of your IT vendors should end up in the strategic category. If you have a large number of vendors, even 5% may be too many. The classification model is an objective start to the classification process, but common sense must prevail over the “math” at the end of the day.
    • At this point, there is no need to go beyond the top 25 by spend. Most VMIs starting out can’t handle more than three to five strategic vendors initially. Allow the VMI to run a pilot program with a small sample size, work out any bugs, make adjustments, and then ramp up the VMI’s rollout in waves. Vendors can be added quarterly, biannually, or annually, depending upon the desired goals and available resources.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Align your vendor strategy to your classification results.

    As your VMI matures, additional vendors will be part of the VMI. Review the table below and incorporate the applicable strategies into your deployment of vendor management principles over time. Stay true to your mission, goals, and scope, and remember that not all of your vendors are of equal importance.

    Operational Strategic
    • Focus on spend containment
    • Concentrate on lowering total cost of ownership
    • Invest moderately in cultivating the relationship
    • Conduct BAMs biannually or annually
    • Compile scorecards quarterly or biannually
    • Identify areas for performance and cost improvement
    • Focus on value, collaboration, and alignment
    • Review market intelligence for the vendor’s industry
    • Invest significantly in cultivating the relationship
    • Initiate executive-to-executive relationships
    • Conduct BAMs quarterly
    • Compile scorecards quarterly
    • Understand how the vendors view your organization

    Commodity

    Tactical

    • Investigate vendor rationalization and consolidation
    • Negotiate for the best-possible price
    • Leverage competition during negotiations
    • Streamline the purchasing and payment process
    • Allocate minimal VMI resources
    • Assign the lowest priority for vendor management metrics
    • Conduct risk assessments biannually or annually
    • Cultivate a collaborative relationship based on future growth plans or potential with the vendor
    • Conduct BAMs quarterly or biannually
    • Compile scorecards quarterly
    • Identify areas of performance improvement
    • Leverage innovation and creative problem solving

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Be careful when using the word “partner” with your strategic and other vendors.

    For decades, vendors have used the term “partner” to refer to the relationship they have with their clients and customers. In many regards, this is often an emotional ploy used by the vendors to get the upper hand. To fully understand the terms “partner” and “partnership” let’s evaluate them through two more-objective, less-cynical lenses.

    If you were to talk to your in-house or outside legal counsel, you may be told that partners share in profits and losses, and they have a fiduciary obligation to each other. Unless there is a joint venture between the parties, you are unlikely to have a partnership with a vendor from this perspective.

    What about a “business” partnership … one that doesn’t involve sharing profits and losses? What would that look like? Here are some indicators of a business partnership (or preferably a strategic alliance):

    • Trust and transparent communication exist.
    • You have input into the vendor’s roadmap for products and services.
    • The vendor is aligned with your desired outcomes and helps you achieve success.
    • You and the vendor are accountable for actions and inactions, with both parties being at risk.
    • There is parity in the peer-to-peer relationships between the organizations (e.g. C-Level to C-Level).
    • The vendor provides transparency in pricing models and proactively suggests ways for you to reduce costs.
    • You and the vendor work together to make each party better, providing constructive feedback on a regular basis.
    • The vendor provides innovative suggestions for you to improve your processes, performance, the bottom line, etc.
    • Negotiations are not one-sided; they are meaningful and productive, resulting in an equitable distribution of money and risk.

    Step 3.1: Classify vendors (cont.)

    Understand the implications and how to leverage the words “partner” and “partnership.”

    By now you might be thinking, “What’s all the fuss? Why does it matter?” At Info-Tech, we’ve seen firsthand how referring to the vendor as a partner can have the following impact:

    • Confidences are disclosed unnecessarily.
    • Negotiation opportunities and leverage are lost.
    • Vendors no longer have to earn the customer’s business.
    • Vendor accountability is missing due to shared responsibilities.
    • Competent skilled vendor resources are assigned to other accounts.
    • Value erodes over time since contracts are renewed without being competitively sourced.
    • One-sided relationships are established, and false assurances are provided at the highest levels within the customer organization.

    Proceed with caution when using partner or partnership with your vendors. Understand how your organization benefits from using these terms and mitigate the negatives outlined above by raising awareness internally to ensure people understand the psychology behind the terms. Finally, use the term to your advantage when warranted by referring to the vendor as a partner when you want or need something that the vendor is reluctant to provide. Bottom line: Be strategic in how you refer to vendors and know the risks.

    Step 3.2: Conduct internal “kickoff” meeting

    Raise awareness about the VMI and its mission, vision, and goals.

    To be effective, your VMI needs executive support, a clear vision, appropriate governances and tools, personnel with the right skills, and other items discussed in this blueprint. However, the VMI doesn’t exist in a vacuum … it can’t sit back and be reactive. As part of being proactive, the VMI must be aware of its brand and “market” its services. An effective way to market the VMI is to conduct an internal kickoff meeting. There are at least a couple of ways to do this:

    • Host a meeting for stakeholders, executives, and others who will be contributing to the VMI processes (but are not part of the VMI). The meeting can be part of a townhall or standalone meeting; it can be done live or via a recorded video.
    • Attend appropriate staff meetings and make your presentation.

    With either approach above or one of your choosing, keep in mind the following objectives for your kickoff meeting:

    • Make sure you provide a way for those in attendance to ask questions at that time and later. You want to create and foster a communication loop with the people who will be impacted by the VMI or participating with it.
    • Raise awareness of your existence and personnel. Tell the VMI’s story by sharing your mission statement, goals, and scope; this will help dispel (or confirm) rumors about the VMI that often lead to confusion and faulty assumptions.
    • As you share the VMI’s vision, connect the story to how the VMI will impact the organization and individuals and to how they can help. The VMI tends to be the least autonomous area within an organization; it needs the assistance of others to be successful. Convey an atmosphere of collaboration and appreciation for their help.

    Host a kickoff meeting annually to kickoff the new year. Remind people of your story, announce successes from the past year, and indicate what the future year holds. Keep it brief, make it personal for the audience, and help them connect the names of VMI personnel to faces.

    Step 3.3: Conduct vendor orientation

    Introduce your VMI to your top vendors.

    Based on the results from your vendor classification (Step 3.1) and your VMI deployment timeline, identify the vendors who will participate in the initial orientation meetings. Treat the orientation as a formal, required meeting for the vendors to attend. Determine the attendee list for your organization and the vendors, and send out invites. Ideally, you will want the account manager, a sales director or vice president, the “delivery” director or vice president, and an executive from the vendor in the meeting. From the customer side, you may need more than one or two people from the VMI to entice the vendor’s leadership team to attend; you may need attendance from your own leadership team to add weight or credibility to the meeting (unfortunately).

    Before going into the meeting, make sure everyone on your side knows their roles and responsibilities, and review the agenda. Control the agenda or the meeting is likely to get out of hand and turn into a sales call.

    Conduct orientation meetings even if the participating vendors have been doing business with you for several years. Don’t assume they know all about your organization and your VMI (even if their other clients have a VMI).

    Run two or three orientation meetings and then review the “results.” What needs to be modified? What lessons have you learned? Make any necessary adjustments and continue rolling out the orientation meetings.

    Early in the VMI’s deployment, reorientation and debrief may not be in play. As time passes, it is important to remember them! Use them when warranted to help with vendor alignment.

    Step 3.4: Compile scorecards

    Begin scoring your top vendors.

    The scorecard process typically is owned and operated by the VMI, but the actual rating of the criteria within the measurement categories is conducted by those with day-to-day interactions with the vendors, those using or impacted by the services and products provided by the vendors, and those with the skills to research other information on the scorecard (e.g. risk). Chances are one person will not be able to complete an entire scorecard by themselves. As a result, the scorecard process is a team sport comprising sub-teams where necessary.

    The VMI will compile the scores, calculate the final results, and aggregate all of the comments into one scorecard. There are two common ways to approach this task:

    1. Send out the scorecard template to those who will be scoring the vendor and ask them to return it when completed, providing them with a due date a few days before you actually need it; you’ll need time to compile, calculate, and aggregate.
    2. Invite those who will be scoring the vendor to a meeting and let the contributors use that time to score the vendors; make VMI team members available to answer questions and facilitate the process.

    Step 3.4: Compile scorecards (cont.)

    Gather input from stakeholders and others impacted by the vendors.

    Since multiple people will be involved in the scorecarding process or have information to contribute, the VMI will have to work with the reviewers to ensure that the right mix of data is provided. For example:

    • If you are tracking lawsuits filed by or against the vendor, one person from Legal may be able to provide that, but they may not be able to evaluate any other criteria on the scorecard.
    • If you are tracking salesperson competencies, multiple people from multiple areas may have valuable insights.
    • If you are tracking deliverable timeliness, several project managers may want to contribute across several projects.

    Where one person is contributing exclusively to limited criteria, make it easy for the person to identify the criteria they are to evaluate. When multiple people from the same functional area will provide insights, they can contribute individually (and the VMI will average their responses) or they can respond collectively after reaching consensus among themselves.

    After the VMI has compiled, calculated, and aggregated, share the results with executives, impacted stakeholders, and others who will be attending the BAM for that vendor. Depending upon the comments provided by internal personnel, you may need to create a sanitized version of the scorecard for the vendor.

    Make sure your process timeline has a buffer built in. You’ll be sending the final scorecard to the vendor three to five days before the BAM, and you’ll need some time to assemble the results. The scorecarding process can be perceived as a low-priority activity for people outside of the VMI, and other “priorities” will arise for them. Without a timeline buffer, the VMI may find itself behind schedule and unprepared due to things beyond its control.

    Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings

    Determine which vendors will participate and how long the meetings will last.

    At their core, BAMs aren’t that different from any other meeting. The basics of running a meeting still apply, but there are a few nuances that apply to BAMs Set out below are leading practices for conducing your BAMs; adapt them to meet your needs and suit your environment.

    Who

    Initially, BAMs are conducted with the strategic vendors in your pilot program. Over time, you’ll add vendors until all of your strategic vendors are meeting with you quarterly. After that, roll out the BAMs to those tactical and operational vendors located close to the strategic quadrant in the classification model (Steps 2.1 and 3.1) and as VMI resources allow. It may take several years before you are holding regular BAMs with all of your strategic, tactical, and operational vendors.

    Duration

    Keep the length of your meetings reasonable. The first few with a vendor may need to be 60 to 90 minutes long. After that, you should be able to trim them to 45 to 60 minutes. The BAM does not have to fill the entire time. When you are done, you are done.

    Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

    Identify who will be invited and send out invitations.

    Invitations

    Set up a recurring meeting whenever possible. Changes will be inevitable, but keeping the timeline regular works to your advantage. Also, the vendors included in your initial BAMs won’t change for twelve months. For the first BAM with a vendor, provide adequate notice; four weeks is sufficient in most instances, but calendars will fill up quickly for the main attendees from the vendor. Treat the meeting as significant and make sure your invitation reflects this. A simple meeting request will often be rejected, treated as optional, or ignored completely by the vendor’s leadership team (and maybe yours as well!).

    Invitees

    Internal invitees should include those with a vested interest in the vendor’s performance and the relationship. In addition, other functional areas may be invited based on need or interest. Be careful the attendee list doesn’t get too big. Based on this, internal BAM attendees often include representatives from IT, Sourcing/Procurement, and the applicable business units. At times, Finance and Legal are included.

    From the vendor’s side, strive to have decision makers and key leaders attend. The salesperson/account manager is often included for continuity, but a director or vice president of sales will have more insights and influence. The project manager is not needed at this meeting due to the nature of the meeting and its agenda; however, a director or vice president from the “product or service delivery” area is a good choice. Bottom line: get as high into the vendor’s organization as possible whenever possible; look at the types of contracts you have with that vendor to provide guidance on the type of people to invite.

    Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

    Prepare for the meetings and maintain control.

    Preparation

    Send the scorecard and agenda to the vendor five days prior to the BAM. The vendor should provide you with any information you require for the meeting five days prior as well.

    Decide who will run the meeting. Some customers like to lead and others let the vendor present. How you craft the agenda and your preferences will dictate who runs the show.

    Make sure the vendor knows what materials it should bring to the meeting or have access to. This will relate to the agenda and any specific requests listed under the discussion points. You don’t want the vendor to be caught off guard and unable to discuss a matter of importance to you.

    Running the BAM

    Regardless of which party leads, make sure you manage the agenda to stay on topic. This is your meeting – not the vendor’s, not IT’s, not Procurement’s or Sourcing’s. Don’t let anyone hijack it.

    Make sure someone is taking notes. If you are running this virtually, consider recording the meeting. Check with your legal department first for any concerns, notices, or prohibitions that may impact your recording the session.

    As a reminder, this is not a sales call, and this is not a social activity. Innovation discussions are allowed and encouraged, but that can quickly devolve into a sales presentation. People can be friendly toward one another, but the relationship building should not overwhelm the other purposes.

    Step 3.5: Conduct business alignment meetings (cont.)

    Follow these additional guidelines to maximize your meetings.

    More Leading Practices

    • Remind everyone that the conversation may include items covered by various confidentiality provisions or agreements.
    • Publish the meeting minutes on a timely basis (within 48 hours).
    • Focus on the bigger picture by looking at trends over time; get into the details only when warranted.
    • Meet internally immediately beforehand to prepare – don’t go in cold; review the agenda and the roles and responsibilities for the attendees.
    • Physical meetings are better than virtual meetings, but travel constraints, budgets, and pandemics may not allow for physical meetings.

    Final Thoughts

    • When performance or the relationship is suffering, be constructive in your feedback and conversations rather than trying to assign blame; lead with the carrot rather than the stick.
    • Look for collaborative solutions whenever possible and avoid referencing the contract if possible. Communicate your willingness to help resolve outstanding issues.
    • Use inclusive language and avoid language that puts the vendor on the defensive.
    • Make sure that your meetings are not focused exclusively on the negative, but don’t paint a rosy picture where one doesn’t exist.
    • A vendor that is doing well should be commended. This is an important part of relationship building.

    Step 3.6: Work the 90-day plan

    Monitor your progress and share your results.

    Having a 90-day plan is a good start, but assuming the tasks on the plan will be accomplished magically or without any oversight can lead to failure. While it won’t take a lot of time to work the plan, following a few basic guidelines will help ensure the 90-day plan gets results and wasn’t created in vain.

    90-Day Plan: Activity 1; Activity 2; Activity 3; Activity 4; Activity 5
    1. Measure and track your progress against the initial/current 90-day plan at least weekly; with a short timeline, any delay can have a huge impact.
    2. If adjustments are needed to any elements of the plan, understand the cause and the impact of those adjustments before making them.
    3. Make adjustments ONLY when warranted. The temptation will be to push activities and tasks further out on the timeline (or to the next 90-day plan!) when there is any sort of “hiccup” along the way, especially when personnel outside the VMI are involved. Hold true to the timeline whenever possible; once you start slipping, it often becomes a habit.
    4. Report on progress every week and hold people accountable for their assignments and contributions.
    5. Take the 90-day plan seriously and treat it as you would any significant project – this is part of the VMI’s branding and image.

    Step 3.7: Manage the 3-year roadmap

    Keep an eye on the future since it will feed the present.

    The 3-year roadmap is a great planning tool, but it is not 100% reliable. There are inherent flaws and challenges. Essentially, the roadmap is a set of three “crystal balls” attempting to tell you what the future holds. The vision for Year 1 may be fairly clear, but for each subsequent year, the crystal ball becomes foggier. In addition, the timeline is constantly changing; before you know it, tomorrow becomes today and Year 2 becomes Year 1.

    To help navigate through the roadmap and maximize its potential, follow these principles:

    • Manage each year of the roadmap differently.
      • Review the Year 1 map each quarter to update your 90-day plans (See steps 2.10 and 3.6).
      • Review the Year 2 map every six months to determine if any changes are necessary. As you cycle through this, your vantage point of Year 2 will be 6 months or 12 months away from the beginning of Year 2, and time moves quickly.
      • Review the Year 3 map annually, and determine what needs to be added, changed, or deleted. Each time you review Year 3, it will be a “new” Year 3 that needs to be built.
    • Analyze the impact on the proposed modifications from two perspectives: 1) What is the impact if a requested modification is made? 2) What is the impact if a requested modification is not made?
    • Validate all modifications with leadership and stakeholders before updating the 3-year roadmap to ensure internal alignment.

    Step 3.8: Measure and monitor risk

    Understand and manage risk levels.

    Using the configured Vendor Risk Assessment Tool (Step 2.2), confirm which risks you will be measuring and monitoring and identify the vendors that will be part of the initial risk management process. Generally, organizations start measuring and monitoring risk in two to five risk categories for two or three strategic vendors. Over time, additional risk categories and/or vendors can be added in waves. Resist the temptation to add risk categories or vendors into the mix too quickly. Expanding requires resources inside and outside of the VMI.

    The VMI will rely heavily on other areas to provide input or the risk data, and the VMI needs to establish good working relationships with those areas. For example, if legal risk is something being measured and monitored, the VMI will need data from Legal on the number and nature of any lawsuits filed by or against the applicable vendors; the VMI will need data from Legal, Contract Management, or Procurement/Sourcing on the number and nature of any agreed upon deviations from your organization’s preferred contract terms that increase legal risk.

    With respect to risk, the VMI’s main role is threefold: 1) take the data obtained from others (or in some instances the VMI may have the data) and turn it into useful information, 2) monitor the risk categories over time and periodically issue reports, and 3) work with other areas to manage the risk.

    Step 3.9: Issue reports

    Inform internal personnel and vendors about trends, issues, progress, and results.

    Issuing the reports created in Step 2.12 is one of the main ways the VMI 1) will communicate with internal and external personnel and 2) track trends and information over time. Even with input from the potential reviewers of the reports, you’ll still want to seek their feedback and input periodically. It may take a few iterations until the reports are hitting their mark. You may find that a metric is no longer required, that a metric is missing completely or it is missing a component, or a formatting change would improve the report’s readability. Once a report has been “finalized,” try not to change it until you are engaged in Phase 4: Review activities. It can be unsettling for the reviewers when reports change constantly.

    Whenever possible, find ways to automate the reports. While issuing reports is critical, the function should not consume more time than necessary. Automation can remove some of the manual and repetitive tasks.

    Internal reports may need to be kept confidential. An automated dashboard or reporting tool can help lock down who has access to the information. At a minimum, the internal reports should contain a “Confidential” stamp, header, watermark, or other indicator that the materials are sensitive and should not be disclosed outside of your organization without approval.

    Reports for vendors may not need to be sent as often as reports are generated or prepared for internal personnel. Establish a cadence by classification model category and stick to it. Letting each vendor choose the frequency will make it more difficult for you to manage. The vendors can choose to ignore the report if they so choose.

    This is an image of an example of a bar graph showing ROI and Benchmark for Categories 1-6

    Step 3.10: Develop/improve vendor relationships

    Drive better performance through better relationships.

    One of the key components of a VMI is relationship management. Good relationships with your vendors provide many benefits for both parties, but they don’t happen by accident. Do not assume the relationship will be good or is good merely because your organization is buying products and services from a vendor.

    In many respects, the VMI should mirror a vendor’s sales organization by establishing relationships at multiple levels within the vendor organizations – not just with the salesperson or account manager. Building and maintaining relationships is hard work, but the return on investment makes it worthwhile.

    Business relationships are comprised of many components, not all of which have to be present to have a great relationship. However, there are some essential components. Whether you are trying to develop, improve, or maintain a relationship with a vendor, make sure you are conscious of the following:*

    • Focus your energies on strategic vendors first and then tactical and operational vendors.
    • Be transparent and honest in your communications.
    • Continue building trust by being responsive and honoring commitments (timely).
    • Create a collaborative environment and build upon common ground.
    • Thank the vendor when appropriate.
    • Resolve disputes early, avoid the “blame game,” and be objective when there are disagreements.

    Step 3.11: Contribute to other processes

    Continue assisting others and managing roles and responsibilities outside of the VMI.

    The VMI has processes that it owns and processes that it contributes to. Based on the VMI scope (Step 1.2), the OIC chart (Step 1.4), and the process mapping activities (Step 1.5), ensure that the VMI is honoring its contribution commitments. This is often easier said than done though. A number of factors can make it difficult to achieve the balance required to handle VMI processes and contribute to other processes associated with the VMI’s mission and vision. Understanding the issues is half the battle. If you see signs of these common “vampires,” take action quickly to address the situation.

    • The VMI’s first focus is often internal, and the tendency is to operate in a bubble. Classifying vendors, running BAMs, coordinating the risk process, and other inward-facing processes can consume all of the VMI’s energy. As a result, there is little time, effort, or let’s be honest, desire to participate in other processes outside of the VMI.
    • It is easy for VMI personnel to get dragged into processes and situations that are outside of its scope. This often happens when personnel join the VMI from other internal areas or departments and have good relationships with their former teammates. The relationships make it hard to say “No” when out-of-scope assistance is being requested.
    • The VMI may have “part-time” personnel who have responsibilities across internal departments, divisions, agencies, or teams. When the going gets tough and time is at a premium, people gravitate toward the easiest or most comfortable work. That work may not be VMI work.

    Phase 4: Review

    Keep Your VMI Up to Date and Running Smoothly

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4
    1.1 Mission Statement and Goals


    1.2 Scope

    1.3 Strengths and Obstacles

    1.4 Roles and Responsibilities

    1.5 Process Mapping

    1.6 Charter

    1.7 Vendor Inventory

    1.8 Maturity Assessment

    1.9 Structure

    2.1 Classification Model
    2.2 Risk Assessment Tool
    2.3 Scorecards and Feedback
    2.4 Business Alignment Meeting Agenda
    2.5 Relationship Alignment Document
    2.6 Vendor Orientation
    2.7 Job Descriptions
    2.8 Policies and Procedures
    2.9 3-Year Roadmap
    2.10 90-Day Plan
    2.11 Quick Wins
    2.12 Reports

    3.1 Classify Vendors
    3.2 Conduct Internal “Kickoff” Meeting
    3.3 Conduct Vendor Orientation
    3.4 Compile Scorecards
    3.5 Conduct Business Alignment Meetings
    3.6 Work the 90-Day Plan
    3.7 Manage the 3-Year Roadmap
    3.8 Measure and Monitor Risk
    3.9 Issue Reports
    3.10 Develop/Improve Vendor Relationships
    3.11 Contribute to Other Processes

    4.1 Assess Compliance
    4.2 Incorporate Leading Practices
    4.3 Leverage Lessons Learned
    4.4 Maintain Internal Alignment
    4.5 Update Governances

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify what the VMI should stop doing, start doing, and continue doing as it improves and matures. The main outcomes from this phase are ways to advance the VMI and maintain internal alignment.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • VMI team
    • Applicable stakeholders and executives
    • Others as needed

    Jump Start Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Phase 4: Review

    Keep your VMI up to date and running smoothly.

    As the old adage says, “The only thing constant in life is change.” This is particularly true for your VMI. It will continue to mature; people inside and outside of the VMI will change; resources will expand or contract from year to year; your vendor base will change. As a result, your VMI needs the equivalent of a physical every year. In place of bloodwork, x-rays, and the other paces your physician may put you through, you’ll assess compliance with your policies and procedures, incorporate leading practices, leverage lessons learned, maintain internal alignment, and update governances.

    Be thorough in your actions during this Phase to get the most out of it. It requires more than the equivalent of gauging a person’s health by taking their temperature, measuring their blood pressure, and determining their body mass index. Keeping your VMI up to date and running smoothly takes hard work.

    Some of the items presented in this Phase require an annual review; others may require quarterly review or timely review (i.e. when things are top of mind and current). For example, collecting lessons learned should happen on a timely basis rather than annually, and classifying your vendors should occur annually rather than every time a new vendor enters the fold.

    Ultimately, the goal is to improve over time and stay aligned with other areas internally. This won’t happen by accident. Being proactive in the review of your VMI further reinforces the nature of the VMI itself – proactive vendor management, NOT reactive!

    Step 4.1: Assess compliance

    Determine what is functionally going well and not going well.

    Whether you have a robust set of vendor management-related policies and procedures or they are the bare minimum, gathering data each quarter and conducting an assessment each year will provide valuable feedback. The scope of your assessment should focus on two concepts: 1) are the policies and procedures being followed and 2) are the policies and procedures accurate and relevant. This approach requires parallel thinking, but it will help you understand the complete picture and minimize the amount of time required.

    Use the steps listed below (or modify them for your culture) to conduct your assessment:

    • Determine the type of assessment – formal or informal.
    • Determine the scale of the assessment – which policies and procedures will be reviewed and how many people will be interviewed.
    • Determine the compliance levels, and seek feedback on the policies and procedures – what is going well and what can be improved?
    • Review the compliance deviations.
    • Conduct a root cause analysis for the deviations.
    • Create a list of improvements and gain approval.
    • Create a plan for minimizing noncompliance in the future.
      • Improve/increase education and awareness.
      • Clarify/modify policies and procedures.
      • Add resources, tools, and people (as necessary and as allowed).

    Step 4.2: Incorporate leading practices

    Identify and evaluate what external VMIs are doing.

    The VMI’s world is constantly shifting and evolving. Some changes will take place slowly, while others will occur quickly. Think about how quickly the cloud environment has changed over the past five years versus the 15 years before that; or think about issues that have popped up and instantly altered the landscape (we’re looking at you COVID-19 and ransomware). As a result, the VMI needs to keep pace, and one of the best ways to do that is to incorporate leading practices.

    At a high level, a leading practice is a way of doing something that is better at producing a particular outcome or result or performing a task or activity than other ways of proceeding. The leading practice can be based on methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, and other items. Leading practices change periodically due to innovation, new ways of thinking, research, and other factors. Consequently, a leading practice is to identify and evaluate leading practices each year.

    Step 4.2: Incorporate leading practices (cont.)

    Update your VMI based on your research.

    • A simple approach for incorporating leading practices into your regular review process is set out below:
    • Research:
      • What other VMIs in your industry are doing.
      • What other VMIs outside your industry are doing.
      • Vendor management in general.
    • Based on your results, list specific leading practices others are doing that would improve your VMI (be specific – e.g. other VMIs are incorporating risk into their classification process).
    • Evaluate your list to determine which of these potential changes fit or could be modified to fit your culture and environment.
    • Recommend the proposed changes to leadership (with a short business case or explanation/justification, as needed) and gain approval.

    Remember: Leading practices or best practices may not be what is best for you. In some instances, you will have to modify them to fit your culture and environment; in other instances, you will elect not to implement them at all (in any form).

    Step 4.3: Leverage lessons learned

    Tap into the collective wisdom and experience of your team members.

    There are many ways to keep your VMI running smoothly, and creating a lessons learned library is a great complement to the other ways covered in this Phase 4: Review. By tapping into the collective wisdom of the team and creating a safe feedback loop, the VMI gains the following benefits:

    • Documented institutional wisdom and knowledge normally found only in the team members’ brains.
    • The ability for one team member to gain insights and avoid mistakes without having to duplicate the events leading to the insights or mistakes.
    • Improved methodologies, tools, processes, procedures, skills, and relationships.

    Many of the processes raised in this Phase can be performed annually, but a lessons learned library works best when the information is “deposited” in a timely manner. How you choose to set up your lessons learned process will depend on the tools you select and your culture. You may want to have regular “input” meetings to share the lessons as they are being deposited, or you may require team members to deposit lessons learned on a regular basis (within a week after they happen, monthly, or quarterly). Waiting too long can lead to vague or lost memories and specifics – timeliness of the deposits is a crucial element.

    Step 4.3: Leverage lessons learned (cont.)

    Create a library to share valuable information across the team.

    Lessons learned are not confined to identifying mistakes or dissecting bad outcomes. You want to reinforce good outcomes as well. When an opportunity for a lessons-learned deposit arises, identify the following basic elements:

    • A brief description of the situation and outcome.
    • What went well (if anything) and why did it go well?
    • What didn't go well (if anything) and why didn't it go well?
    • What would/could you do differently next time?
    • A synopsis of the lesson(s) learned.

    Info-Tech Insights

    The lessons learned library needs to be maintained. Irrelevant material needs to be culled periodically, and older or duplicate material may need to be archived.

    The lessons learned process should be blameless. The goal is to share insightful information … not to reward or punish people based on outcomes or results.

    Step 4.4: Maintain internal alignment

    Review the plans of other internal areas to stay in sync.

    Maintaining internal alignment is essential for the ongoing success of the VMI. Over time, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the VMI does not operate in a vacuum; it is an integral component of a larger organization whose parts must work well together to function optimally. Focusing annually on the VMI’s alignment within the enterprise helps reduce any breakdowns that could derail the organization.

    To ensure internal alignment:

    • Review the key components of the applicable materials from Phase 1: Plan and Phase 2: Build with the appropriate members of the leadership team (e.g. executives, sponsors, and stakeholders). Not every item from those Phases and Steps needs to be reviewed, but err on the side of caution for the first set of alignment discussions, and be prepared to review each item. You can gauge the audience’s interest on each topic and move quickly when necessary or dive deeper when needed. Identify potential changes required to maintain alignment.
    • Review the strategic plans (e.g. 1-, 3-, and 5- year plans) for various portions of the organization if you have access to them or gather insights if you don’t have access.
      • If the VMI is under the IT umbrella, review the strategic plans for IT and its departments.
      • Review the strategic plans for the areas the VMI works with (e.g. Procurement, Business Units).
      • The organization itself.
    • Create and vet a list of modifications to the VMI and obtain approval.
    • Develop a plan for making the necessary changes.

    Step 4.5: Update governances

    Revise your protocols and return to the beginning of cyclical processes.

    You’re at the final Step and ready to update governances. This is comprised of two sequential paths.

    • First, use the information from Steps 4.1-4.4 to make any required modifications to the items in Phase 1: Plan, Phase 2: Build, and Phase 3: Run. For example, you may need to update your policies and procedures (Step 2.8) based on your findings in Step 4.1; or you may need to update the VMI’s scope (Step 1.2) to ensure internal alignment issues identified in Step 4.4. are accounted for.
    • Second, return to Phase 3: Run to perform the activities below; they tend to be performed annually, but use your discretion and perform them on an as-needed basis:
      • Reclassify vendors.
      • Complete a new maturity assessment.
      • Run reorientation sessions for vendors.
      • Conduct a kickoff meeting to update internal personnel.

    Other activities and tasks (e.g. scorecards and BAMs) may be impacted by the modifications made above, but the nature of their performance follows a shorter cadence. As a result, they are not specifically called out here in this Step 4.5 since they are performed on an ongoing basis. However, don’t overlook them as part of your update.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    Vendor management is a broad, often overwhelming, comprehensive spectrum that encompasses many disciplines. By now, you should have a great idea of what vendor management can or will look like in your organization. Focus on the basics first: Why does the VMI exist and what does it hope to achieve? What is its scope? What are the strengths you can leverage, and what obstacles must you manage? How will the VMI work with others? From there, the spectrum of vendor management will begin to clarify and narrow.

    Leverage the tools and templates from this blueprint and adapt them to your needs. They will help you concentrate your energies in the right areas and on the right vendors to maximize the return on your organization’s investment in the VMI of time, money, personnel, and other resources. You may have to lead by example internally and with your vendors at first, but they will eventually join you on your path if you stay true to your course.

    At the heart of a good VMI is the relationship component. Don’t overlook its value in helping you achieve your vendor management goals. The VMI does not operate in a vacuum, and relationships (internal and external) will be critical.

    Lastly, seek continual improvement from the VMI and from your vendors. Both parties should be held accountable, and both parties should work together to get better. Be proactive in your efforts, and you, the VMI, and the organization will be rewarded.

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

    Contact your account representative for more information

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

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    Duncan. “Top 10 Tips for Creating Compelling Reports.” Design Eclectic, 11 October 2019. Accessed 29 March 2022.

    Eby, Kate. “Master Writing Policies, Procedures, Processes, and Work Instructions.” 1 June 2018, updated 19 July 2021. Accessed 11 January 2022.

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    Geller & Company. “World-Class Procurement — Increasing Profitability and Quality.” Spend Matters, 2003. Accessed 4 March 2019.

    Guth, Stephen. “Vendor Relationship Management Getting What You Paid for (And More).” Citizens, 26 Feb. 2015. Web.

    Guth, Stephen. The Vendor Management Office: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Sourcing. Lulu.com, 2007. Print.

    “ISG Index 4Q 2021.” Information Services Group, Inc., 2022. Web.

    “Six Tips for Making a Quality Report Appealing and Easy To Skim.” AHRQ, Oct. 2019. Accessed 29 March 2022.

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    “Why Do We Perform Better When Someone Has High Expectations of Us?” The Decision Lab, 9 Sept. 2020. Accessed 31 January 2022.

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    3. Mature your DataOps practice

    Mature your data practice by putting in the right people in the right roles and establishing DataOps metrics, communication plan, DataOps best practices, and data principles.

    • Sprint Toward Data-Driven Culture Using DataOps – Phase 3: Mature Your DataOps Practice
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Sprint Toward Data-Driven Culture Using DataOps

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Identify the Drivers of the Business for DataOps

    The Purpose

    Understand the DataOps approach and value proposition.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A clear understanding of organization data priorities and metrics along with a simplified view of data using Info-Tech’s Onion framework.

    Activities

    1.1 Explain DataOps approach and value proposition.

    1.2 Review the common business drivers and how the organization is driving a need for DataOps.

    1.3 Understand Info-Tech’s DataOps Framework.

    Outputs

    Organization's data priorities and metrics

    Data Onion framework

    2 Assess DataOps Maturity in Your Organization

    The Purpose

    Assess the DataOps maturity of the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Define clear understanding of organization’s DataOps capabilities.

    Activities

    2.1 Assess current state.

    2.2 Develop target state summary.

    2.3 Define DataOps improvement initiatives.

    Outputs

    Current state summary

    Target state summary

    3 Develop Action Items and Roadmap to Establish DataOps

    The Purpose

    Establish clear action items and roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Define clear and measurable roadmap to mature DataOps within the organization.

    Activities

    3.1 Continue DataOps improvement initiatives.

    3.2 Document the improvement initiatives.

    3.3 Develop a roadmap for DataOps practice.

    Outputs

    DataOps initiatives roadmap

    4 Plan for Continuous Improvement

    The Purpose

    Define a plan for continuous improvements.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Continue to improve DataOps practice.

    Activities

    4.1 Create target cross-functional team structures.

    4.2 Define DataOps metrics for continuous monitoring.

    4.3 Create a communication plan.

    Outputs

    DataOps cross-functional team structure

    DataOps metrics

    Optimize Social Media Strategy by Service

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Many organizations are jumping the gun on service selection and missing valuable opportunities to tap into conversations their consumers are having about them.
    • Companies are struggling to harness real benefits from social media because they dive into content and engagement strategy without spending the appropriate amount of time on social media service selection.
    • After organizations have selected the appropriate social media services, clients fail to understand best practices for participating in conversations and therefore are unable to optimize their success on each service.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Conventional wisdom dictates that you should pick the social network where you have the greatest subscriber base to reach, but this is irrelevant. Organizations need to consider all the social media services available when selecting services, to ensure they are optimizing their social media strategy and interacting with the right people.
    • In today’s social media landscape there is a wide variety of social media services to choose from. Services range from hot micro-blogging services, like Twitter, to more niche social multimedia services, like Flickr or Vimeo.
    • Each department should manage its set of relevant services regardless of platform. For example a marketing manager should manage all social media services in marketing, rather than have one person manage all Twitter feeds, one person manage all Facebook pages, etc.
    • The services your organization selects shouldn’t operate as islands. Consider not only how the services will fit with each other, but also how they will fit with existing channels. Use a market coverage model to ensure the services you select are complementing each other.
    • The landscape for social media services changes rapidly. It is essential to conduct an audit of services to maintain an optimal mix of services. Conduct the audit semi-annually for best effect.

    Impact and Result

    • Learn about the importance of choosing the correct services to ensure you are reaching your consumers and not wasting time playing with the wrong people.
    • Understand the business use cases for each service and best practices for using them.
    • Leverage different social media services to create a market coverage model that balances social media services with your products/services and business objectives.
    • Identify the risks associated with specific platforms and ensure IT works to mitigate them.
    • Create a plan for conducting a Social Media Service Audit to stay on top of changing trends.

    Optimize Social Media Strategy by Service Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Create the right social media service mix

    Understand the different social media services, their unique value propositions for customer interaction, and the content and timing best practices for each.

    • Storyboard: Optimize Social Media Strategy by Service
    • Social Media Service Selection Tool

    2. Execute a plan for social service selection and management

    Leverage different social media services to create a market coverage model and assign responsibilities.

    3. Perform a semi-annual social media service audit

    Conduct an audit to stay on top of changing trends.

    • Social Media Services Audit Template
    [infographic]

    Build Effective Enterprise Integration on the Back of Business Process

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    • Parent Category Name: Enterprise Integration
    • Parent Category Link: /enterprise-integration
    • Organizations undergoing growth, either organically or through M&A, tend to develop integration capabilities in a piecemeal and short-sighted fashion to preserve their view of agility.
    • Integration strategies that are focused solely on technological solutions are likely to complicate rather than simplify, as not enough consideration is given to how other systems and processes will be impacted.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Define a path for your EI strategy. Establish the more pressing goal of enterprise integration: improving operational integrity or adding business intelligence/predictive analytics capability.
    • Combine multiple views of integration for a comprehensive EI strategy. Assess business process, applications, and data in tandem to understand where enterprise integration will fit in your organization.
    • Don’t start by boiling the ocean and get bogged down in mapping out the entire organization. For the purposes of the strategy, narrow your focus to a set of related high-value processes to identify ways to improve integration.

    Impact and Result

    • Begin your enterprise strategy formation by identifying if your organization places emphasis on enabling operational excellence or predictive modeling/analytics.
    • Enterprise integration needs to bring together business process, applications, and data, in that order. Kick-start the process of identifying opportunities for improvement by creating business process maps that incorporate how applications and data are coordinated to support business activities.
    • Revisit the corporate drivers after integration mapping activities to identify the primary use cases for improvement.
    • Prepare for the next steps of carrying out the strategy by reviewing a variety of solution options.
    • Develop a compelling business case by consolidating the outputs of your mapping activities, establishing metrics for a specific process (or set of processes), and quantifying the benefits.

    Build Effective Enterprise Integration on the Back of Business Process Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create an enterprise integration strategy; review Info-Tech’s methodology that encompasses business process, applications, and data; and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Position enterprise integration within the organization

    Begin strategy development by assigning roles and responsibilities for the team and establishing the initial direction for the strategy.

    • Build Effective Enterprise Integration on the Back of Business Process – Phase 1: Position Enterprise Integration Within Your Organization
    • Chief Enterprise Integration Officer
    • Enterprise Integration Strategy Drivers Assessment

    2. Explore the lenses of enterprise integration

    Create business process maps that incorporate how applications and data are coordinated to support business activities.

    • Build Effective Enterprise Integration on the Back of Business Process – Phase 2: Explore the Lenses of Enterprise Integration
    • Enterprise Integration Process Mapping Tool

    3. Develop the enterprise integration strategy

    Review your integration map to identify improvement opportunities, explore integration solutions, and consolidate activity outputs into a strategy presentation.

    • Build Effective Enterprise Integration on the Back of Business Process – Phase 3: Develop the Enterprise Integration Strategy
    • Enterprise Integration Strategy Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build Effective Enterprise Integration on the Back of Business Process

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Position Enterprise Integration

    The Purpose

    Discuss the general approach for creating a holistic enterprise integration strategy.

    Define the initial direction and drivers.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Strategy development team with responsibilities identified.

    Clear initial direction for the strategy based on senior stakeholder input.

    Activities

    1.1 Define the driving statements for your EI strategy.

    1.2 Develop a RACI chart.

    1.3 Discuss the current state of enterprise integration.

    1.4 Establish the initial direction of your strategy by surveying senior stakeholders.

    Outputs

    Vision, mission, and values for enterprise integration

    RACI chart for strategy development

    Documentation of past integration projects

    Chief Enterprise Integration Officer job description template

    2 Explore the Lenses of Enterprise Integration

    The Purpose

    Build a comprehensive map of what integration looks like for your target business processes.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clear documentation of the integration environment, encompassing process, data, and applications.

    Activities

    2.1 Develop level-0 and level-1 business capability diagrams.

    2.2 Identify the business processes of focus, based on relevance to overall corporate drivers.

    2.3 Complete process flow diagrams.

    2.4 Begin identifying the applications that are involved in each step of your process.

    2.5 Detail the connections/interactions between the applications in your business processes.

    2.6 Draw a current state diagram for application integration.

    2.7 Identify the data elements created, used, and stored throughout the processes, as well as systems of record.

    Outputs

    Business capability maps

    Business process flow diagrams

    Current state integration diagram

    Completed integration map

    3 Develop the Enterprise Integration Strategy

    The Purpose

    Review the outputs of the integration mapping activities.

    Educate strategy team on the potential integration solutions.

    Consolidate the findings of the activities into a compelling strategy presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Integration improvement opportunities are identified.

    Direction and drivers for enterprise integration are finalized.

    Understanding of the benefits and limitations of some integration solutions.

    Activities

    3.1 Discuss the observations/challenges and opportunities for improvement.

    3.2 Refine the focus of the strategy by conducting a more detailed stakeholder survey.

    3.3 Review the most common integration solutions for process, applications, and data.

    3.4 Create a future state integration architecture diagram.

    3.5 Define the IT and business critical success factors for EI.

    3.6 Articulate the risks with pursuing (and not pursuing) an EI strategy.

    3.7 Quantify the monetary benefits of the EI strategy.

    3.8 Discuss best practices for presenting the strategy and organize the presentation content.

    Outputs

    Critical success factors and risks for enterprise integration

    Monetary benefits of enterprise integration

    Completed enterprise integration strategy presentation

    Identify and Manage Operational Risk Impacts on Your Organization

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
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    More than any other time, our world is changing. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level.

    A new threat will impact your organization's operations at some point. Make sure your plans are flexible enough to manage the inevitable consequences and that you understand where those threats may originate.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Identifying and managing a vendor’s potential operational impact on your organization requires multiple people in the organization across several functions. Those people all need coaching on the potential changes in the market and how these changes may affect operations.
    • Organizational leadership is often taken unaware during crises, and their plans lack the flexibility to adjust to significant market upheavals.

    Impact and Result

    Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks from vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.

    • Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.
    • Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts with our Operational Risk Impact Tool.

    Identify and Manage Operational Risk Impacts on Your Organization Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Identify and Manage Operational Risk Impacts to Your Organization Storyboard – Use this research to better understand the negative impacts of vendor actions to your brand reputation.

    Use this research to identify and quantify the potential operational impacts caused by vendors. Utilize Info-Tech's approach to look at the operational impact from various perspectives to better prepare for issues that may arise.

    • Identify and Manage Operational Risk Impacts to Your Organization Storyboard

    2. Operational Risk Impact Tool – Use this tool to help identify and quantify the operational impacts of negative vendor actions.

    By playing the “what if” game and asking probing questions to draw out – or eliminate - possible negative outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.

    • Operational Risk Impact Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Identify and Manage Operational Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    Understand internal and external vendor risks to avoid potential disaster.

    Analyst perspective

    Organizations need to be aware of the operational damage vendors may cause to plan around those impacts effectively.

    Frank Sewell

    Organizations must be mindful that operational risks come from internal and external vendor sources. Missing either component in the overall risk assessment can significantly impact day-to-day business processes that cost revenue, delay projects, and lead to customer dissatisfaction.

    Frank Sewell,

    Research Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    More than any other time, our world is changing rapidly. As a result, organizations – and their vendors – need to be able to adapt their plans to accommodate risk on an unprecedented level.

    A new threat will impact your organization's operations at some point. Make sure your plans are flexible enough to manage the inevitable consequences and that you understand where those threats may originate.

    Common Obstacles

    Identifying and managing a vendor’s potential operational impact on your organization requires multiple people in the organization across several functions. Those people all need coaching on the potential changes in the market and how these changes may affect operations.

    Organizational leadership is often taken unaware during crises, and their plans lack the flexibility to adjust to significant market upheavals.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks from vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.

    Prioritize and classify your vendors with quantifiable, standardized rankings.

    Prioritize focus on your high-risk vendors.

    Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts with our Operational Risk Impact Tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Organizations must evolve their risk assessments to be more adaptive to respond to threats in the market. Ongoing monitoring of the vendors tied to company operations, and understanding where those vendors impact your operations, is imperative to avoiding disasters.

    Info-Tech’s multi-blueprint series on vendor risk assessment

    There are many individual components of vendor risk beyond cybersecurity.

    There are many components to vendor risk, including: Financial, Reputational, Operational, Strategic, Security, Regulatory & Compliance.

    This series will focus on the individual components of vendor risk and how vendor management practices can facilitate organizations’ understanding of those risks.

    Out of Scope:
    This series will not tackle risk governance, determining overall risk tolerance and appetite, or quantifying inherent risk.

    Operational risk impacts

    Potential losses to the organization due to incidents that affect operations.

    • In this blueprint we’ll explore operational risks, particularly from third-party vendors, and their impacts.
    • Identify potentially disruptive events to assess the overall impact on organizations and implement adaptive measures to identify, manage, and monitor vendor performance.
    Operational

    The world is constantly changing

    The IT market is constantly reacting to global influences. By anticipating changes, leaders can set expectations and work with their vendors to accommodate them.

    When the unexpected happens, being able to adapt quickly to new priorities ensures continued long-term business success.

    Below are some things no one expected to happen in the last few years:

    27%

    Businesses are changing their internal processes around TPRM in response to the Pandemic.

    70%

    Of organizations attribute a third-party breach to too much privileged access.

    85%

    Of breaches involved human factors (phishing, poor passwords, etc.).

    Assess internal and external operational risk impacts

    Due diligence and consistent monitoring are the keys to safeguarding your organization.

    Two sides of the Same Coin

    Internal

    • Poorly vetted supplemental staff
    • Bad system configurations
    • Lack of relevant skills
    • Poor vendor performance
    • Failure to follow established processes
    • Weak contractual accountability
    • Unsupportable or end-of-life system components

    External

    • Cyberattacks
    • Supply Chain Issues
    • Geopolitical Disruptions
    • Vendor Acquisitions
    • N-Party Non-Compliance
    • Vendor Fraud

    Operational risk is the risk of losses caused by flawed or failed processes, policies, systems, or events that disrupt business operations.

    - Wikipedia

    Internal operational risk

    Vendors operating within your secure perimeter can open your organization to substantial risk.

    Frequently monitor your internal process around vendor management to ensure safe operations.

    • Poorly vetted supplemental staff
    • Bad system configurations
    • Lack of relevant skills
    • Poor vendor performance
    • Failure to follow established processes
    • Weak contractual accountability
    • Unsupportable or end-of-life system components

    Info-Tech Insight

    You may have solid policies, but if your employees and vendors are not following them, they will not protect the organization.

    External operational risks

    • Cyberattacks
    • Supplier issues and geopolitical instability
    • Vendor acquisitions
    • N-party vendor non-compliance

    Identify and manage operational risks

    Poorly configured systems

    Failing to ensure that your vendor-supported systems are properly configured and that your vendors are meeting your IT change control and configuration standards is more commonplace than expected. Proper oversight and management of your support vendors are crucial to ensure they are meeting expectations in this regard.

    Failure to follow processes

    Most companies have policies and procedures around IT change and configuration control, security standards, risk management, vendor performance standards, etc. While having these processes is a good start, failure to perform continuous monitoring and management of these leads to increased risks of incidents.

    Supply chain disruptions

    Awareness of the supply chain's complications, and each organization's dependencies, are increasing for everyone. However, most organizations still do not understand the chain of n-party vendors that support their specific vendors or how interruptions in their supply chains could affect them. The 2022 Toyota shutdown due to Kojima is a perfect example of how one essential parts vendor could shut down your operations.

    What to look for

    Identify operational risk impacts

    • Does the vendor have a business continuity plan they will share for your review?
    • Is the vendor operating on old hardware that may be out of warranty or at end of life?
    • Is the vendor operating on older software or shareware that may lack the necessary patches?
    • Does the vendor self-audit, or do they use a vetted third-party audit firm to issue a SOC report annually?
    • Does the vendor have sufficient personnel in acceptable regions to support your operations?
    • Is the vendor willing to make concessions on contractual protections, or are they only offering “one-sided” agreements with “as-is” warranties?

    Operational risks

    Not knowing where your risks come from creates additional risks to operations.

    • Supply chain disruptions and global shortages.
      • Geopolitical disruptions and natural disasters have caused unprecedented interruptions to business. Do you know where your critical vendors are getting their supplies? Are you aware of their business continuity plans to accommodate for those interruptions?
    • Poor vendor performance.
      • Organizations need to understand where vendors are acting in their operations and manage the impact of replacing that vendor and cutting their losses rather than continuing to throw good money away after a bad performance.
    • Vendor acquisitions.
      • A lot of acquisition is going on in the market today. Large companies are buying competitors, imposing new terms on customers, or removing competing products from the market. Understand your options if a vendor is acquired by a company with which you do not wish to be in a relationship.

    It is important to identify where potential risks to your operations may come from to manage and potentially eliminate them from impacting your organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Most organizations realize that their vendors could operationally affect them if an incident occurs. Still, they fail to follow the chain of events that might arise from those incidents to understand the impact fully.

    Prepare your vendor risk management for success

    Due diligence will enable successful outcomes.

    1. Obtain top-level buy-in; it is critical to success.
    2. Build enterprise risk management (ERM) through incremental improvement.
    3. Focus initial efforts on the “big wins” to prove the process works.
    4. Use existing resources.
    5. Build on any risk management activities that already exist in the organization.
    6. Socialize ERM throughout the organization to gain additional buy‑in.
    7. Normalize the process long term with ongoing updates and continuing education for the organization.

    How to assess third-party operational risk

    1. Review Organizational Operations

      Understand the organization’s operational risks to prepare for the “what if” game exercise.
    2. Identify and Understand Potential Operational Risks

      Play the “what if” game with the right people at the table.
    3. Create a Risk Profile Packet for Leadership

      Pull all the information together in a presentation document.
    4. Validate the Risks

      Work with leadership to ensure that the proposed risks are in line with their thoughts.
    5. Plan to Manage the Risks

      Lower the overall risk potential by putting mitigations in place.
    6. Communicate the Plan

      It is important not only to have a plan but also to socialize it in the organization for awareness.
    7. Enact the Plan

      Once the plan is finalized and socialized, put it in place with continued monitoring for success.

    Insight summary

    Operational risk impacts often come from unexpected places and have unforeseen impacts. Knowing where your vendors place in critical business processes and those vendors' business continuity plans concerning your organization should be a priority for those who manage the vendors.

    Insight 1

    Organizations fail to plan for vendor acquisitions appropriately.

    Vendors routinely get acquired in the IT space. Does your organization have appropriate safeguards from inadvertently entering a negative relationship? Do you have plans around replacing critical vendors purchased in such a manner?

    Insight 2

    Organizations often fail to understand how they factor into a vendor’s business continuity plan.

    If one of your critical vendors goes down, do you know how they intend to re-establish business? Do you know how you factor into their priorities?

    Insight 3

    Organizations need to have a comprehensive understanding of how their vendor-managed systems integrate with Operations.

    Do you understand where in the business processes vendor-supported systems lie? Do you have contingencies around disruptions that account for those pieces missing from the process?

    Identifying operational vendor risk

    Who should be included in the discussion

    • While it is true that executive-level leadership defines the strategy for an organization, it is vital for those making decisions to make informed decisions.
    • Getting input from operational experts at your organization will enhance your organization's long-term potential for success.
    • Involving those who not only directly manage vendors but also understand your business processes will aid in determining the forward path for relationships with your current vendors and identifying new emerging potential partners.

    See the blueprint Build an IT Risk Management Program

    Review your operational plans for new risks on a regular basis.

    Keep in mind Risk = Likelihood x Impact (R=L*I).

    Impact (I) tends to remain the same, while Likelihood (L) is becoming closer to 100% as threat actors become more prevalent

    Managing vendor operational risk impacts

    What can we realistically do about the risks?

    • Review vendors’ business continuity plans and disaster recovery testing.
      • Understand your priority in their plans.
    • Institute proper contract lifecycle management.
      • Make sure to follow corporate due diligence and risk assessment policies and procedures.
      • Failure to do so consistently can be a recipe for disaster.
    • Develop IT governance and change control.
    • Introduce continual risk assessment to monitor the relevant vendor markets.
      • Regularly review your operational plans for new risks and evolving likelihoods.
      • Risk = Likelihood x Impact (R=L*I).
        • Impact (I) tends to remain the same and be well understood, while Likelihood (L) may often be considered 100%.
    • Be adaptable and allow for innovations that arise from the current needs.
      • Capture lessons learned from prior incidents to improve over time and adjust your plans accordingly.

    Organizations need to review their organizational risk plans, considering the placement of vendors in their operations.

    Pandemics, extreme weather, and wars that affect global supply chains are current realities, not unlikely scenarios.

    Ongoing improvement

    Incorporating lessons learned

    • Over time, despite everyone’s best observations and plans, incidents will catch us off guard.
    • When it happens, follow your incident response plans and act accordingly.
    • An essential step is to document what worked and what did not – collectively known as the “lessons learned.”
    • Use the lessons learned document to devise, incorporate, and enact a better risk management process.

    Sometimes disasters occur despite our best plans to manage them.

    When this happens, it is important to document the lessons learned and improve our plans going forward.

    The "what if" game

    1-3 hours

    Vendor management professionals are in an excellent position to help senior leadership identify and pull together resources across the organization to determine potential risks. By playing the "what if" game and asking probing questions to draw out – or eliminate – possible adverse outcomes, everyone involved adds their insight into parts of the organization to gather a comprehensive picture of potential impacts.

    • Break into smaller groups (or if too small, continue as a single group).
    • Use the Operational Risk Impact Tool to prompt discussion on potential risks. Keep this discussion flowing organically to explore all potentials but manage the overall process to keep the discussion pertinent and on track.
    • Collect the outputs and ask the subject matter experts (SMEs) for management options for each one in order to present a comprehensive risk strategy. You will use this to educate senior leadership so that they can make an informed decision to accept or reject the solution.

    Download the Operational Risk Impact Tool

    Input

    • List of identified potential risk scenarios scored by likelihood and operational impact
    • List of potential management of the scenarios to reduce the risk

    Output

    • Comprehensive operational risk profile on the specific vendor solution

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Operational Risk Impact Tool to help drive discussion

    Participants

    • Vendor Management – Coordinator
    • Organizational Leadership
    • Operations Experts (SMEs)
    • Legal/Compliance/Risk Manager

    High risk example from tool

    Sample Questions to Ask to Identify Impacts. Lists questions impact score, weight, question and comments or notes.

    Being overly reliant on a single talented individual can impose risk to your operations. Make sure you include resiliency in your skill sets for critical business practices.

    Impact score and level. Each score for impacts are unique to the organization.

    Low risk example from tool

    Sample Questions to Ask to Identify Impacts. Lists questions impact score, weight, question and comments or notes. Impact score and level. Each score for impacts are unique to the organization.

    Summary

    Seek to understand all aspects of your operations.

    • Organizations need to understand and map out where vendors are critical to their operations.
    • Those organizations that consistently follow their established risk assessment and due diligence processes will be better positioned to avoid disasters.
    • Bring the right people to the table to outline potential risks in the market and your organization.
    • Understand how your vendors prioritize your organization in their business continuity processes.
    • Incorporate “lessons learned” from prior incidents into your risk management process to build better plans for future issues.

    Organizations must evolve their operational risk assessments considering their vendor portfolio.

    Ongoing monitoring of the market and the vendors tied to company operations is imperative to avoiding disaster.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Identify and Manage Financial Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential financial impacts that vendors may incur and suggest systems to help manage them.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage financial impacts with our Financial Risk Impact Tool.

    Identify and Manage Reputational Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your reputation and brand with our Reputational Risk Impact Tool.

    Identify and Manage Strategic Risk Impacts on Your Organization

    • Vendor management practices educate organizations on the different potential risks to vendors in your market and suggest creative and alternative ways to avoid and help manage them.
    • Standardize your processes for identifying and monitoring vendor risks to manage potential impacts on your strategic plan with our Strategic Risk Impact Tool.

    Bibliography

    “Weak Cybersecurity is taking a toll on Small Businesses.” Tripwire. August 7, 2022.

    SecureLink 2022 White Paper SL_Page_EA+PAM (rocketcdn.me)

    Member Poll March 2021 "Guide: Evolving Work Environments Impact of Covid-19 on Profile and Management of Third Parties.“ Shared Assessments. March 2021.

    “Operational Risk.” Wikipedia.

    Tonello, Matteo. “Strategic Risk Management: A Primer for Directors.” Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, August 23, 2012.

    Frigo, Mark L., and Richard J. Anderson. “Embracing Enterprise Risk Management: Practical Approaches for Getting Started.” COSO, 2011.

    Select and Implement a Reporting and Analytics Solution

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    • Parent Category Name: Business Intelligence Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /business-intelligence-strategy
    • Statistics show that the top priority of 85% of CIOs is insight and intelligence. Yet an appetite for intelligence does not mean that business intelligence initiatives will be an automatic success. In fact, many industry studies found that only 30% to 50% of organizations considered their BI initiative to be a complete success. It is, therefore, imperative that organizations take the time to select and implement a BI suite that aligns with business goals and fosters end-user adoption.
    • The multitude of BI offerings creates a busy and sometimes overwhelming vendor landscape. When selecting a solution, you have to make sense of the many offerings and bridge the gap between what is out there and what your organization needs.
    • BI is more than software. A BI solution has to effectively address business needs and demonstrate value through content and delivery once the platform is implemented.
    • Another dimension of the success of BI is the quality and validity of the reports and insights. The overall success of the BI solution is only as good as the quality of data fueling them.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Business intelligence starts with data management. Without data management, including governance and data quality capabilities, your BI users will not be able to get the insights they need due to inaccurate and unavailable data.
    • When selecting a BI tool, it is crucial to ensure that the tool is fit for the purpose of the organization. Ensure alignment between the business drivers and the tool capabilities.
    • Self-serve BI requires a measured approach. Self-serve BI is meant to empower users to make more informed and faster decisions. But uncontrolled self-serve BI will lead to report chaos and prevent users from getting the most out of the tool. You must govern self-serve before it gets out of hand.

    Impact and Result

    • Evaluate your organization and land yourself into one of our three BI use cases. Find a BI suite that best suits the use case and, therefore, your organization.
    • Understand the ever-changing BI market. Get to know the established vendors as well as the emerging players.
    • Define BI requirements comprehensively through the lens of business, data, architecture, and user groups. Evaluate requirements to ensure they align with the strategic goals of the business.

    Select and Implement a Reporting and Analytics Solution Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should select and implement a business intelligence and analytics solution, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Launch a BI selection project

    Promote and get approval for the BI selection and implementation project.

    • Select and Implement a Business Intelligence and Analytics Solution – Phase 1: Launch a BI Selection Project
    • BI Score Calculator
    • BI Project Charter

    2. Select a BI solution

    Select the most suitable BI platform.

    • Select and Implement a Business Intelligence and Analytics Solution – Phase 2: Select a BI Solution
    • BI Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool
    • BI Planning and Scoring Tool
    • BI Vendor Demo Script
    • BI Vendor Shortlist & Detailed Feature Analysis Tool
    • BI Request for Proposal Template

    3. Implement the BI solution

    Build a sustainable BI program.

    • Select and Implement a Business Intelligence and Analytics Solution – Phase 3: Implement the BI Solution
    • BI Test Plan Template
    • BI Implementation Planning Tool
    • BI Implementation Work Breakdown Structure Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select and Implement a Reporting and Analytics Solution

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Launch a BI Selection Project

    The Purpose

    Identify the scope and objectives of the workshop.

    Discuss the benefits and opportunities related to a BI investment.

    Gain a high-level understanding of BI and the BI market definitions and details.

    Outline a project plan and identify the resourcing requirements for the project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Determine workshop scope.

    Identify the business drivers and benefits behind a BI investment.

    Outline the project plan for the organization’s BI selection project.

    Determine project resourcing.

    Identify and perform the steps to launch the organization’s selection project.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify business drivers for investing in process automation technology.

    1.2 Identify the organization’s fit for a BI investment.

    1.3 Create a project plan.

    1.4 Identify project resourcing.

    1.5 Outline the project’s timeline.

    1.6 Determine key metrics.

    1.7 Determine project oversight.

    1.8 Complete a project charter.

    Outputs

    Completion of a project charter

    Launched BI selection project

    2 Analyze BI Requirements and Shortlist Vendors

    The Purpose

    Identify functional requirements for the organization’s BI suite.

    Determine technical requirements for the organization’s BI suite.

    Identify the organization’s alignment to the Vendor Landscape’s use-case scenarios.

    Shortlist BI vendors.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Documented functional requirements.

    Documented technical requirements.

    Identified use-case scenarios for the future BI solution.

    Activities

    2.1 Interview business stakeholders.

    2.2 Interview IT staff.

    2.3 Consolidate interview findings.

    2.4 Build the solution’s requirements package.

    2.5 Identify use-case scenario alignment.

    2.6 Review Info-Tech’s BI Vendor Landscape results.

    2.7 Create custom shortlist.

    Outputs

    Documented requirements for the future solution.

    Identification of the organization’s BI functional use-case scenarios.

    Shortlist of BI vendors.

    3 Plan the Implementation Process

    The Purpose

    Identify the steps for the organization’s implementation process.

    Select the right BI environment.

    Run a pilot project.

    Measure the value of your implementation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Install a BI solution and prepare the BI solution in a way that allows intuitive and interactive uses.

    Keep track of and quantify BI success.

    Activities

    3.1 Select the right environment for the BI platform.

    3.2 Configure the BI implementation.

    3.3 Conduct a pilot to get started with BI and to demonstrate BI possibilities.

    3.4 Promote BI development in production.

    Outputs

    A successful BI implementation.

    BI is architected with the right availability.

    BI ROI is captured and quantified.

    Explore the Secrets of IBM Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}141|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Licensing
    • Parent Category Link: /licensing
    • IBM customers want to make effective use of their paid-up licenses to avoid overspending and stay compliant with agreements.
    • Each IBM software product is subject to different rules.
    • Clients control and have responsibility for aligning usage and payments. Over time, the usage of the software may be out of sync with what the client has paid for, resulting in either overspending or violation of the licensing agreement.
    • IBM audits software usage in order to generate revenue from non-compliant customers.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • You have a lot of work to do if you haven’t been paying attention to your IBM software.
    • Focus on needs first. Conduct and document a thorough requirements assessment. Well-documented needs will be your core asset in negotiation.
    • Know what’s in IBM’s terms and conditions. Failure to understand these can lead to major penalties after an audit.
    • Review your agreements and entitlements quarterly. IBM may have changed the rules, and you have almost certainly changed your usage.

    Impact and Result

    • Establish clear licensing requirements.
    • Maintain an effective process for managing your IBM license usage and compliance.
    • Identify any cost-reduction opportunities.
    • Prepare for penalty-free IBM audits.

    Explore the Secrets of IBM Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand why you need to invest effort in managing usage and licensing of your IBM software.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Review terms and conditions for your IT contract

    Use Info-Tech’s licensing best practices to avoid the common mistakes of overspending on IBM licensing or failing an IBM audit.

    • IBM Passport Advantage Software RFQ Template
    • IBM 3-Year Bundled Price Analysis Tool
    [infographic]

    Build a Better Manager

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}603|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
    • member rating average days saved: N/A
    • Parent Category Name: Train & Develop
    • Parent Category Link: /train-and-develop
    • Management skills training is needed, but organizations are struggling to provide training that makes a long-term difference in the skills managers actually use in their day to day.
    • Many training programs are ineffective because they offer the wrong content, deliver it in a way that is not memorable, and are not aligned with the IT department’s business objectives.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • More of the typical manager training is not enough to solve the problem of underprepared first-time IT managers.
    • You must overcome the key pitfalls of ineffective training to deliver training that is better than the norm.
    • Offer tailored training that focuses on skill building and is aligned with measurable business goals to make your manager training a tangible success.

    Impact and Result

    Use Info-Tech’s tactical, practical training materials to deliver training that is:

    • Specifically tailored to first-time IT managers.
    • Designed around practical application of new skills.
    • Aligned with your department’s business goals.

    Build a Better Manager Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Build a Better Manager Capstone Deck – This deck will guide you through identifying the critical skills your managers need to succeed and planning out a training program tailored to your team and organization.

    This deck presents a behind-the-scenes explanation for the training materials, enabling a facilitator to deliver the training.

    • Build a Better Manager – Phases 1-3

    2. Facilitation Guides – These ready-to-deliver presentation decks span 8 modules. Each module covers a key management skill. The modules can be delivered independently or as a series.

    The modules are complete with presentation slides, speaker’s notes, and accompanying participant workbooks and provide everything you need to deliver the training to your team.

    • Accountability Facilitation Guide
    • Coaching and Feedback Facilitation Guide
    • Communicate Effectively Facilitation Guide
    • Manage Conflict Constructively Facilitation Guide
    • Your Role in Decision Making Facilitation Guide
    • Master Time Facilitation Guide
    • Performance Management Facilitation Guide
    • Your Role in the Organization Facilitation Guide

    3. Participant Workbooks and Supporting Materials – Each training module comes with a corresponding participant workbook to help trainees record insights and formulate individual skill development plans.

    Each workbook is tailored to the presentation slides in its corresponding facilitation guide. Some workbooks have additional materials, such as role play scenarios, to aid in practice. Every workbook comes with example entries to help participants make the most of their training.

    • Communicate Effectively Participant Workbook
    • Performance Management Participant Workbook
    • Coaching and Feedback Participant Workbook
    • Effective Feedback Training Role Play Scenarios
    • Your Role in the Organization Participant Workbook
    • Your Role in Decision Making Participant Workbook
    • Decision Making Case Study
    • Manage Conflict Constructively Participant Workbook
    • Conflict Resolution Role Play Scenarios
    • Master Time Participant Workbook
    • Accountability Participant Workbook
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Better Manager

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Build a Better Manager

    The Purpose

    Attend training on the specific topics necessary for each individual management team.

    Each workshop consists of four days, one 3-hour training session per day. One module is delivered per day, selecting from the following pool of topics:

    Master Time

    Accountability

    Your Role in the Organization

    Your Role in Decision Making

    Manage Conflict Constructively

    Effective Communication

    Performance Management

    Coaching & Feedback

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Managers learn about best practices, practice their application, and formulate individual skill development plans.

    Activities

    1.1 Training on one topic per day, for four days (selected from a pool of eight possible topics)

    Outputs

    Completed workbook and action plan

    Further reading

    Build a Better Manager

    Support IT success with a solid management foundation.

    Analyst Perspective

    Training that delivers results.

    Jane Koupstova.

    Ninety-eight percent of managers say they need more training, but 93% of managers already receive some level of manager training. Unfortunately, the training typically provided, although copious, is not working. More of the same will never get you better outcomes.

    How many times have you sat through training that was so long, you had no hope of implementing half of it?

    How many times have you been taught best practices, with zero guidance on how to apply them?

    To truly support our managers, we need to rethink manager training. Move from fulfilling an HR mandate to providing truly trainee-centric instruction. Teach only the right skills – no fluff – and encourage and enable their application in the day to day.

    Jane Kouptsova
    Research Director, People & Leadership
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    IT departments often promote staff based on technical skill, resulting in new managers feeling unprepared for their new responsibilities in leading people.

    The success of your organization hinges on managers’ ability to lead their staff; by failing to equip new managers adequately, you are risking the productivity of your entire department.

    Despite the fact that $14 billion is spent annually on leadership training in the US alone (Freedman, 2016), only one in ten CIOs believe their department is very effective at leadership, culture, and values (Info-Tech, 2019).

    Training programs do not deliver results due to trainee overwhelm, ineffective skill development, and a lack of business alignment.

    Use Info-Tech’s tactical, practical approach to management training to deliver training that:

    • Is specifically tailored to first-time IT managers.
    • Is designed around practical application of new skills.
    • Is aligned with your department’s business goals.
    • Equips your new managers with essential skills and foundational competencies

    Info-Tech Insight

    When it comes to manager training, more is not more. Attending training is not equal to being trained. Even good information is useless when it doesn’t get applied. If your role hasn’t required you to use your training within 48 hours, you were not trained on the most relevant skills.

    Effective managers drive effective departments by engaging their teams

    The image contains a screenshot to demonstrate effective managers.

    Engaged teams are:

    • 52% more willing to innovate*
    • 70% more likely to be at the organization a year from now**
    • 57% more likely to exceed their role’s expectations**

    Engaged teams are driven by managers:

    • 70% of team-level engagement is accounted for by managers***
    *McLean & Company; N=3,395; **McLean & Company; N=5,902; ***Gallup, 2018

    Despite the criticality of their role, IT organizations are failing at supporting new managers

    87% of middle managers wish they had more training when they were first promoted

    98% of managers say they need more training

    Source: Grovo, 2016

    IT must take notice:

    IT as an industry tends to promote staff on the basis of technical skill. As a result, new managers find themselves suddenly out of their comfort zone, tasked with leading teams using management skills they have not been trained in and, more often than not, having to learn on the job. This is further complicated because many new IT managers must go from a position of team member to leader, which can be a very complex transition.

    The truth is, many organizations do try and provide some degree of manager training, it just is not effective

    99% of companies offer management training*

    93% of managers attend it*

    $14 billion spent annually in the US on leadership training**

    Fewer than one in ten CIOs believe their IT department is highly effective at leadership, culture, and values.

    The image contains a screenshot of a pie chart that demonstrates the effectiveness of the IT department at leadership, culture, and values.

    *Grovo, 2016; **Chief Executive, 2016
    Info-Tech’s Management & Governance Diagnostic, N=337 CIOs

    There are three key reasons why manager training fails

    1. Information Overload

    Seventy-five percent of managers report that their training was too long to remember or to apply in their day to day (Grovo, 2016). Trying to cover too much useful information results in overwhelm and does not deliver on key training objectives.

    2. Limited Implementation

    Thirty-three percent of managers find that their training had insufficient follow-up to help them apply it on the job (Grovo, 2016). Learning is only the beginning. The real results are obtained when learning is followed by practice, which turns new knowledge into reliable habits.

    3. Lack of departmental alignment

    Implementing training without a clear link to departmental and organizational objectives leaves you unable to clearly communicate its value, undermines your ability to secure buy-in from attendees and executives, and leaves you unable to verify that the training is actually improving departmental effectiveness.

    Overcome those common training pitfalls with tactical solutions

    MOVE FROM

    TO

    1. Information Overload

    Timely, tailored topics

    The more training managers attend, the less likely they are to apply any particular element of it. Combat trainee overwhelm by offering highly tactical, practical training that presents only the essential skills needed at the managers’ current stage of development.

    2. Limited Implementation

    Skills-focused framework

    Many training programs end when the last manager walks out of the last training session. Ensure managers apply their new knowledge in the months and years after the training by relying on a research-based framework that supports long-term skill building.

    3. Lack of Departmental Alignment

    Outcome-based measurement

    Setting organizational goals and accompanying metrics ahead of time enables you to communicate the value of the training to attendees and stakeholders, track whether the training is delivering a return on your investment, and course correct if necessary.

    This research combats common training challenges by focusing on building habits, not just learning ideas

    Manager training is only useful if the skills it builds are implemented in the day-to-day.

    Research supports three drivers of successful skill building from training:

    Habits

    Organizational Support

    The training modules include committing to implementing new skills on the job and scheduling opportunities for feedback.

    Learning Structure

    Training activities are customizable, flexible, and accompanied by continuous learning self-evaluation.

    Personal Commitment

    Info-Tech’s methodology builds in activities that foster accountability and an attitude of continuous improvement.

    Learning

    Info-Tech Insight

    When it comes to manager training, stop thinking about learning, and start thinking about practice. In difficult situations, we fall back on habits, not theoretical knowledge. If a manager is only as good as their habits, we need to support them in translating knowledge into practice.

    This research focuses on building good management habits to drive enterprise success

    Set up your first-time managers for success by leveraging Info-Tech’s training to focus on three key areas of management:

    • Managing people as a team
    • Managing people as individuals
    • Managing yourself as a developing leader

    Each of these areas:

    • Is immediately important for a first-time manager
    • Includes practical, tactical skills that can be implemented quickly
    • Translates to departmental and organizational benefits

    Info-Tech Insight

    There is no such thing as “effective management training.” Various topics will be effective at different times for different roles. Delivering only the highest-impact learning at strategic points in your leadership development program will ensure the learning is retained and translates to results.

    This blueprint covers foundational training in three key domains of effective management

    Effective Managers

    • Self
      • Conflict & Difficult Conversations
      • Your Role in the Organization
      • Your Role in Decisions
    • Team
      • Communication
      • Feedback & Coaching
      • Performance Management
    • People
      • Master Time
      • Delegate
      • Accountability

    Each topic corresponds to a module, which can be used individually or as a series in any order.

    Choose topics that resonate with your managers and relate directly to their day-to-day tasks. Training on topics that may be useful in the future, while interesting, is less likely to generate lasting skill development.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    This blueprint is not a replacement for formal leadership or management certification. It is designed as a practical, tactical, and foundational introduction to key management capabilities.

    Info-Tech’s training tools guide participants through successful skill building

    Practical facilitation guides equip you with the information, activities, and speaker’s notes necessary to deliver focused, tactical training to your management team.

    The participant’s workbook guides trainees through applying the three drivers of skill building to solidify their training into habits.

    Measure the effectiveness of your manager training with outcomes-focused metrics

    Linking manager training with measurable outcomes allows you to verify that the program is achieving the intended benefits, course correct as needed, and secure buy-in from stakeholders and participants by articulating and documenting value.

    Use the metrics suggested below to monitor your training program’s effectiveness at three key stages:

    Program Metric

    Calculation

    Program enrolment and attendance

    Attendance at each session / Total number enrolled in session

    First-time manager (FTM) turnover rate

    Turnover rate: Number of FTM departures / Total number of FTMs

    FTM turnover cost

    Number of departing FTMs this year * Cost of replacing an employee

    Manager Effectiveness Metric

    Calculation

    Engagement scores of FTM's direct reports

    Use Info-Tech's Employee Engagement surveys to monitor scores

    Departures as a result of poor management

    Number of times "manager relationships" is selected as a reason for leaving on an exit survey / Total number of departures

    Cost of departures due to poor management

    Number of times "manager relationships" is selected as a reason for leaving on an exit survey * Cost associated with replacing an employee

    Organizational Outcome Metric

    Calculation

    On-target delivery

    % projects completed on-target = (Projects successfully completed on time and on budget / Total number of projects started) * 100

    Business stakeholder satisfaction with IT

    Use Info-Tech’s business satisfaction surveys to monitor scores

    High-performer turnover rate

    Number of permanent, high-performing employee departures / Average number of permanent, high-performing employees

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

    Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #2: Review selected modules and discuss training delivery.

    Call #3: Review training delivery, discuss lessons learned. Review long-term skill development plan.

    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 1 to 3 calls over the course of several months, depending on training schedule.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

    3-Hour Training Session

    3-Hour Training Session

    3-Hour Training Session

    3-Hour Training Session

    Activities

    Training on topic 1 (selected from a pool of 8 possible topics)

    Training on topic 2 (selected from a pool of 8 possible topics)

    Training on topic 3 (selected from a pool of 8 possible topics)

    Training on topic 4 (selected from a pool of 8 possible topics)

    Deliverables

    Completed workbook and action plan

    Completed workbook and action plan

    Completed workbook and action plan

    Completed workbook and action plan

    Pool of topics:

    • Master Time
    • Accountability
    • Your Role in the Organization
    • Your Role in Decision Making
    • Manage Conflict Constructively
    • Effective Communication
    • Performance Management
    • Coaching & Feedback

    Phase 1

    Prepare to facilitate training

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
    • Select training topics
    • Customize the training facilitation guide for your organization
    • Deliver training modules
    • Confirm skill development action plan with trainees
    • Secure organizational support from trainees' supervisors

    Outcomes of this phase:

    • Training facilitation deck customized to organizational norms
    • Training workbook distributed to participants
    • Training dates and facilitator finalized

    1.1 Select training modules

    1-3 hours

    1. Review the module descriptions on the following slides.
    2. Identify modules that will address managers’ most pressing development needs.
      To help make this decision, consult the following:
      • Trainees’ development plans
      • Trainees’ supervisors
    Input Output
    • Module descriptions
    • Trainees’ development goals and needs
    • Prioritized list of training modules
    Materials Participants
    • Prioritized list of training modules
    • Training sponsor
    • Trainees’ supervisors

    Effective Communication

    Effective communication is the cornerstone of good management

    Effective communication can make or break your IT team’s effectiveness and engagement and a manager’s reputation in the organization. Effective stakeholder management and communication has a myriad of benefits – yet this is a key area where IT leaders continue to struggle.


    There are multiple ways in which you communicate with your staff. The tactics you will learn in this section will help you to:

    1. Understand communication styles. Every staff member has a predisposition in terms of how they give, receive, and digest information. To drive effective communication new managers need to understand the profiles of each of their team members and adjust their communicate style to suit.
    2. Understand what your team members want communicated to them and how. Communication is highly personal, and a good manager needs to clearly understand what their team wants to be informed about, their desired interactions, and when they need to be involved in decision making. They also must determine the appropriate channels for communication exchanges.
    3. Make meetings matter. Many new managers never receive training on what differentiates a good and bad meeting. Effective meetings have a myriad of benefits, but more often than not meetings are ineffective, wasting both the participants’ and organizer’s time. This training will help you to ensure that every team meeting drives a solid outcome and gets results.

    Benefits:

    • Better buy-in, understanding, and communication.
    • Improved IT reputation with the organization.
    • Improved team engagement.
    • Improved stakeholder satisfaction.
    • Better-quality decision making.
    • Improved transparency, trust, and credibility.
    • Less waste and rework.
    • Greater ability to secure support and execute the agenda.
    • More effective cooperation on activities, better quality information, and greater value from stakeholder input.
    • Better understanding of IT performance and contribution.

    Effective Communication

    Effective manager communication has a direct impact on employee engagement

    35% Of organizations say they have lost an employee due to poor internal communication (project.co, 2021).

    59% Of business leaders lose work time to mistakes caused by poor communication (Grammarly, 2022).

    $1.2 trillion Lost to US organizations as a result of poor communication (Grammarly, 2022).

    Effective Communication

    Effective communication is crucial to all parts of the business

    Operations

    Human Resources

    Finance

    Marketing

    Increases production by boosting revenue.

    Reduces the cost of litigation and increases revenue through productivity improvements.

    Reduces the cost of failing to comply with regulations.

    Increases attraction and retention of key talent.

    Effective Communication

    The Communicate Effectively Facilitation Guide covers the following topics:

    • Understand Communication Styles
    • Tailor Communication Methods to Activities
    • Make Meetings Matter

    Learning outcomes:

    Main goal: Become a better communicator across a variety of personal styles and work contexts.

    Key objectives:

    • Reaffirm why effective communication matters.
    • Work with people with different communication styles.
    • Communicate clearly and effectively within a team.
    • Make meetings more effective.

    Info-Tech Insight

    First-time IT managers face specific communication challenges that come with managing people for the first time: learning to communicate a greater variety of information to different kinds of people, in a variety of venues. Tailored training in these areas helps managers focus and fast-track critical skill development.

    Performance Management

    Meaningful performance measures drive employee engagement, which in turn drives business success

    Meaningful performance measures help employees understand the rationale behind business decisions, help managers guide their staff, and clarify expectations for employees. These factors are all strong predictors of team engagement:

    The image contains a screenshot to demonstrate the relationship and success between performance measures and employee engagement.

    Performance Management

    Clear performance measures benefit employees and the organization

    Talent Management Outcomes

    Organizational Outcomes

    Performance measure are key throughout the talent management process.

    Candidates:

    • Want to know how they will be assessed
    • Rely on measures to become productive as soon as possible

    Employees:

    • Benefit from training centered on measures that are aligned with business outcomes
    • Are rewarded, recognized, and compensated based on measurable guidelines

    Promotions and Evaluations:

    • Are more effective when informed by meaningful performance measures that align with what leadership believes is important

    Performance measures benefit the organization by:

    • Helping employees know the steps to take to improve their performance
    • Ensuring alignment between team objectives and organizational goals
    • Providing a standardized way to support decision making related to compensation, promotions, and succession planning
    • Reducing “gaming” of metrics, when properly structured, thereby reducing risk to the organization
    • Affording legal defensibility by providing an objective basis for decision making

    Performance Management

    The Performance Management Facilitation Guide covers the following topics:

    • Develop Meaningful Goals
    • Set Meaningful Metrics

    Learning outcomes:

    Main goal: Become proficient in setting, tracking, and communicating around performance management goals.

    Key objectives:

    • Understand the role of managers and employees in the performance management process.
    • Learn to set SMART, business-aligned goals for your team.
    • Learn to help employees set useful individual goals.
    • Learn to set meaningful, holistic metrics to track goal progression.
    • Understand the relationship between goals, metrics, and feedback.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Goal and metric development holds special significance for first-time IT managers because it now impacts not only their personal performance, but that of their employees and their team collectively. Training on these topics with a practical team- and employee-development approach is a focused way to build these skills.

    Coaching & Feedback

    Coaching and feedback are effective methods to influence employees and drive business outcomes

    COACHING is a conversation in which a manager asks an employee questions to guide them to solve problems themselves, instead of just telling them the answer.

    Coaching increases employee happiness, and decreases turnover.1

    Coaching promotes innovation.2

    Coaching increases employee engagement, effort and performance.3

    FEEDBACK is information about the past, given in the present, with the goal of influencing behavior or performance for the future. It includes information given for reinforcement and redirection.

    Honest feedback enhances team psychological safety.4

    Feedback increases employee engagement.5

    Feedback boosts feelings of autonomy and drives innovation.6

    1. Administrative Sciences, 2022
    2. International Review of Management and Marketing, 2020
    3. Current Psychology, 2021
    4. Quantum Workplace, 2021
    5. Issues and Perspectives in Business and Social Sciences, 2022
    6. Sustainability, 2021

    Coaching & Feedback

    The Coaching & Feedback Facilitation Guide covers the following topics:

    • The 4 A’s of Coaching
    • Effective Feedback

    Learning outcomes:

    Main goal: Get prepared to coach and offer feedback to your staff as appropriate.

    Key objectives:

    • Understand the difference between coaching and feedback and when to apply each one.
    • Learn the importance of a coaching mindset.
    • Learn effective coaching via the 4 A’s framework.
    • Understand the actions that make up feedback and the factors that make it successful.
    • Learn to deal with resistance to feedback.

    Info-Tech Insight

    First-time managers often shy away from giving coaching and feedback, stalling their team’s performance. A focused and practical approach to building these skills equips new managers with the tools and confidence to tackle these challenges as soon as they arise.

    Your Role in the Organization

    IT managers who understand the business context provide more value to the organization

    Managers who don’t understand the business cannot effect positive change. The greater understanding that IT managers have of business context, the more value they provide to the organization as seen by the positive relationship between IT’s understanding of business needs and the business’ perception of IT value.

    The image contains a screenshot of a scatter plot grid demonstrating business satisfaction with IT Understanding of Needs across Overall IT Value.

    Source: Info-Tech Research Group

    Your Role in the Organization

    Knowing your stakeholders is key to understanding your role in the business and providing value to the organization

    To understand your role in the business, you need to know who your stakeholders are and what value you and your team provide to the organization. Knowing how you help each stakeholder meet their wants needs and goals means that you have the know-how to balance experience and outcome-based behaviors. This is the key to being an attentive leader.


    The tactics you will learn in this section will help you to:

    1. Know your stakeholders. There are five key stakeholders the majority of IT managers have: management, peers, direct reports, internal users, and external users or customers. Managers need to understand the goals, needs, and wants of each of these groups to successfully provide value to the organization.
    2. Understand the value you provide to each stakeholder. Stakeholder relationship management requires IT managers to exhibit drive and support behaviors based on the situation. By knowing how you drive and support each stakeholder, you understand how you provide value to the organization and support its mission, vision, and values.
    3. Communicate the value your team provides to the organization to your team. Employees need to understand the impact of their work. As an IT manager, you are responsible for communicating how your team provides value to the organization. Mission statements on how you provide value to each stakeholder is an easy way to clearly communicate purpose to your team.

    Benefits:

    • Faster and higher growth.
    • Improved team engagement.
    • Improved stakeholder satisfaction.
    • Better quality decision making.
    • More innovation and motivation to complete goals and tasks.
    • Greater ability to secure support and execute on goals and tasks.
    • More effective cooperation on activities, better quality information, and greater value from stakeholder input.
    • Better understanding of IT performance and contribution.

    Your Role in the Organization

    The Your Role in the Organization Facilitation Guide covers the following topics:

    • Know Your Stakeholders
    • Understand the Value You Provide to the Organization
    • Develop Learnings Into Habits

    Learning outcomes:

    Main goal: Understand how your role and the role of your team serves the business.

    Key objectives:

    • Learn who your stakeholders are.
    • Understand how you drive and support different stakeholder relationships.
    • Relate your team’s tasks back to the mission, vision, and values of the organization.
    • Create a mission statement for each stakeholder to bring back to your team.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Before training first-time IT managers, take some time as the facilitator to review how you will serve the wants and needs of those you are training and your stakeholders in the organization.

    Decision Making

    Bad decisions have tangible costs, so managers must be trained in how to make effective decisions

    To understand your role in the decision-making process, you need to know what is expected of you and you must understand what goes into making a good decision. The majority of managers report they have no trouble making decisions and that they are good decision makers, but the statistics say otherwise. This ease at decision making is due to being overly confident in their expertise and an inability to recognize their own ignorance.1


    The tactics you will learn in this section will help you to:

    1. Effectively communicate decisions. Often, first-time managers are either sharing their decision recommendations with their manager or they are communicating a decision down to their team. Managers need to understand how to have these conversations so their recommendations provide value to management and top-down decisions are successfully implemented.
    2. Provide valuable feedback on decisions. Evaluating decisions is just as critical as making decisions. If decisions aren’t reviewed, there is no data or feedback to discover why a decision was a success or failure. Having a plan in place before the decision is made facilitates the decision review process and makes it easier to provide valuable feedback.
    3. Avoid common decision-making mistakes. Heuristics and bias are common decision pitfalls even senior leaders are susceptible to. By learning what the common decision-making mistakes are and being able to recognize them when they appear in their decision-making process, first-time managers can improve their decision-making ability.

    20% Of respondents say their organizations excel at decision making (McKinsey, 2018).

    87% “Diverse teams are 87% better at making decisions” (Upskillist, 2022).

    86% of employees in leadership positions blame the lack of collaboration as the top reason for workplace failures (Upskillist, 2022).

    Decision Making

    A decision-making process is imperative, even though most managers don’t have a formal one

    1. Identify the Problem and Define Objectives
    2. Establish Decision Criteria
    3. Generate and Evaluate Alternatives
    4. Select an Alternative and Implement
    5. Evaluate the Decision

    Managers tend to rely on their own intuition which is often colored by heuristics and biases. By using a formal decision-making process, these pitfalls of intuition can be mitigated or avoided. This leads to better decisions.

    First-time managers are able to apply this framework when making decision recommendations to management to increase their likelihood of success, and having a process will improve their decisions throughout their career and the financial returns correlated with them.

    Decision Making

    Recognizing personal heuristics and bias in the decision-making process improves more than just decision results

    Employees are able to recognize bias in the workplace, even when management can’t. This affects everything from how involved they are in the decision-making process to their level of effort and productivity in implementing decisions. Without employee support, even good decisions are less likely to have positive results. Employees who perceive bias:

    Innovation

    • Hold back ideas and solutions
    • Intentionally fail to follow through on important projects and tasks

    Brand Reputation

    • Speak negatively about the company on social media
    • Do not refer open positions to qualified persons in their network

    Engagement

    • Feel alienated
    • Actively seek new employment
    • Say they are not proud to work for the company

    Decision Making

    The Decision Making Facilitation Guide covers the following topics:

    • Effectively Communicate Decisions
    • Provide Valuable Feedback on Decisions
    • Avoid Common Decision-Making Mistakes

    Learning outcomes:

    Main goal: Understand how to successfully perform your role in the decision process.

    Key objectives:

    • Understand the decision-making process and how to assess decisions.
    • Learn how to communicate with your manager regarding your decision recommendations.
    • Learn how to effectively communicate decisions to your team.
    • Understand how to avoid common decision-making errors.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Before training a decision-making framework, ensure it is in alignment with how decisions are made in your organization. Alternatively, make sure leadership is on board with making a change.

    Manage Conflict Constructively

    Enable leaders to resolve conflicts while minimizing costs

    If you are successful in your talent acquisition, you likely have a variety of personalities and diverse individuals within your IT organization and in the business, which means that conflict is inevitable. However, conflict does not have to be negative – it can take on many forms. The presence of conflict in an organization can actually be a very positive thing: the ability to freely express opinions and openly debate can lead to better, more strategic decisions being made.

    The effect that the conflict is having on individuals and the work environment will determine whether the conflict is positive or counterproductive.

    As a new manager you need to know how to manage potential negative outcomes of conflict by managing difficult conversations and understanding how to respond to conflict in the workplace.


    The tactics you will learn in this section will help you to:

    1. Apply strategies to prepare for and navigate through difficult conversations.
    2. Expand your comfort level when handling conflict, and engage in constructive conflict resolution approaches.

    Benefits:

    • Relieve stress for yourself and your co-workers.
    • Save yourself time and energy.
    • Positively impact relationships with your employees.
    • Improve your team dynamic.
    • Remove roadblocks to your work and get things done.
    • Save the organization money.
    • Improve performance.
    • Prevent negative issues from reoccurring.

    Manage Conflict Constructively

    Addressing difficult conversations is beneficial to you, your people, and the organization

    When you face a difficult conversation you…

    • Relieve stress on you and your co-workers.
    • Save yourself time and energy.
    • Positively impact relationships with your employees.
    • Improve your team dynamic.
    • Remove roadblocks to your work
    • Save the organization money.
    • Improve performance.
    • Prevent negative issues from reoccurring.

    40% Of employees who experience conflict report being less motivated as a result (Acas, 2021).

    30.6% Of employees report coming off as aggressive when trying to resolve a conflict
    (Niagara Institute, 2022).

    Manage Conflict Constructively

    The Manage Conflict Constructively Facilitation Guide covers the following topics:

    • Know Your Ideal Time Mix
    • Calendar Diligence
    • Effective Delegation
    • Limit Interruptions

    Learning outcomes:

    Main goal: Effectively manage your time and know which tasks are your priority and which tasks to delegate.

    Key objectives:

    • Understand common reasons for difficult conversations.
    • Learn Info-Tech’s six-step process to best to prepare for difficult conversations.
    • Follow best practices to approach difficult conversations.
    • Learn the five approaches to conflict management.
    • Practice conflict management skills.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Conflict does not have to be negative. The presence of conflict in an organization can actually be a very positive thing: the ability to freely express opinions and openly debate can lead to better, more strategic decisions being made.

    Master Time

    Effective leaders spend their time in specific ways

    How effective leaders average their time spent across the six key roles:

    Leaders with effective time management skills spend their time across six key manager roles: strategy, projects, management, operations, innovation, and personal. While there is no magic formula, providing more value to the business starts with little practices like:

    • Spending time with the right stakeholders and focusing on the right priorities.
    • Evaluating which meetings are important and productive.
    • Benchmarking yourself against your peers in the industry so you constantly learn from them and improve yourself.


    The keys to providing this value is time management and delegation. The tactics in this section will help first-time managers to:

    1. Discover your ideal time. By analyzing how you currently spend your time, you can see which roles you are under/over using and, using your job description and performance metrics, discover your ideal time mix.
    2. Practice calendar diligence. Time blocking is an effective way to use your time, see your week, and quickly understand what roles you are spending your time in. Scheduling priority tasks first gives insight into which tasks should be delegated.
    3. Effectively delegation. Clear expectations and knowing the strengths of your team are the cornerstone to effective delegation. By understanding the information you need to communicate and identifying the best person on your team to delegate to, tasks and goals will be successfully completed.
    4. Limit interruptions. By learning how to limit interruptions from your team and your manager, you are better able to control your time and make sure your tasks and goals get completed.

    Strategy

    23%

    Projects

    23%

    Management

    19%

    Operations

    19%

    Innovation

    13%

    Personal

    4%

    Source: Info-Tech, N=85

    Master Time

    Signs you struggle with time management

    Too many interruptions in a day to stay focused.

    Too busy to focus on strategic initiatives.

    Spending time on the wrong things.

    The image contains a screenshot of a bar graph that demonstrates struggle with time management.

    Master Time

    The Master Time Facilitation Guide covers the following topics:

    • Understand Communication Styles
    • Tailor Communication Methods to Activities
    • Make Meetings Matter

    Learning outcomes:

    Main goal: Become a better communicator across a variety of personal styles and work contexts.

    Key objectives:

    • Understand how you spend your time.
    • Learn how to use your calendar effectively.
    • Understand the actions to take to successfully delegate.
    • Learn how to successfully limit interruptions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    There is a right and wrong way to manage your calendar as a first-time manager and it has nothing to do with your personal preference.

    Accountability

    Accountability creates organizational and team benefits

    Improves culture and innovation

    Improves individual performance

    Increases employee engagement

    Increases profitability

    Increases trust and productivity

    Enables employees to see how they contribute

    Increases ownership employees feel over their work and outcomes

    Enables employees to focus on activities that drive the business forward

    Source: Forbes, 2019

    Accountability

    Accountability increases employee empowerment

    Employee empowerment is the number one driver of employee engagement. The extent to which you can hold employees accountable for their own actions and decisions is closely related to how empowered they are and how empowered they feel; accountability and empowerment go hand in hand. To feel empowered, employees must understand what is expected of them, have input into decisions that affect their work, and have the tools they need to demonstrate their talents.

    The image contains a screenshot to demonstrate how accountability increases employee empowerment.

    Source: McLean & Company Engagement Database, 2018; N=71,794

    Accountability

    The Accountability Facilitation Guide covers the following topics:

    • Create Clarity and Transparency
    • Articulate Expectations and Evaluation
    • Help Your Team Remove Roadblocks
    • Clearly Introduce Accountability to Your Team

    Learning outcomes:

    Main goal: Create a personal accountability plan and learn how to hold yourself and your team accountable.

    Key objectives:

    • Understand why accountability matters.
    • Learn how to create clarity and transparency.
    • Understand how to successfully hold people accountable through clearly articulating expectations and evaluation.
    • Know how to remove roadblocks to accountability for your team.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Accountability is about focusing on the results of a task, rather than just completing the task. Create team accountability by keeping the team focused on the result and not “doing their jobs.” First-time managers need to clearly communicate expectations and evaluation to successfully develop team accountability.

    Use the Build a Better Manager Participant Workbooks to help participants set accountabilities and track their progress

    A key feature of this blueprint is built-in guidance on transferring your managers’ new knowledge into practical skills and habits they can fall back on when their job requires it.

    The Participant Workbooks, one for each module, are structured around the three key principles of learning transfer to help participants optimally structure their own learning:

    • Track your learning. This section guides participants through conducting self-assessments, setting learning goals, recording key insights, and brainstorming relapse-prevention strategies
    • Establish your personal commitment. This section helps participants record the actions they personally commit to taking to continually practice their new skills
    • Secure organizational support. This section guides participants in recording the steps they will take to seek out support from their supervisor and peers.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Build a Better Manager Participant Workbooks.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Participants should use this workbook throughout their training and continue to review it for at least three months after. Practical skills take an extended amount of time to solidify, and using the workbook for several months will ensure that participants stay on track with regular practice and check-ins.

    Set your trainees up for success by reviewing these training best practices

    Cultural alignment

    It is critical that the department leadership team understand and agree with the best practices being presented. Senior team leads should be comfortable coaching first-time managers in implementing the skills developed through the training. If there is any question about alignment with departmental culture or if senior team leads would benefit from a refresher course, conduct a training session for them as well.

    Structured training

    Ensure the facilitator takes a structured approach to the training. It is important to complete all the activities and record the outputs in the workbook where appropriate. The activities are structured to ensure participants successfully use the knowledge gained during the workshop to build practical skills.

    Attendees

    Who should attend the training? Although this training is designed for first-time IT managers, you may find it helpful to run the training for the entire management team as a refresher and to get everyone on the same page about best practices. It is also helpful for senior leadership to be aware of the training because the attendees may come to their supervisors with requests to discuss the material or coaching around it.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Participants should use this workbook throughout their training and continue to review it for at least three months after. Practical skills take an extended amount of time to solidify, and using the workbook for several months will ensure that participants stay on track with regular practice and check-ins.

    1.2 Customize the facilitation guides

    1-3 hours

    Prior to facilitating your first session, ensure you complete the following steps:

    1. Read through all the module content, including the speaker’s notes, to familiarize yourself with the material and ensure the tactics presented align with your department’s culture and established best practices.
    2. Customize the slides with a pencil icon with information relevant to your organization.
    3. Ensure you are comfortable with all material to be presented and are prepared to answer questions. If you require clarification on any of the material, book a call with your Info-Tech analyst for guidance.
    4. Ensure you do not delete or heavily customize the self-assessment activities and the activities in the Review and Action Plan section of the module. These activities are structured around a skill building framework and designed to aid your trainees in applying their new knowledge in their day to day. If you have any concerns about activities in these sections, book a call with your Info-Tech analyst for guidance.
    Input Output
    • List of selected modules
    • Customized facilitation guides
    Materials Participants
    • Facilitation guides from selected modules
    • Training facilitator

    1.3 Prepare to deliver training

    1-3 hours

    Complete these steps in preparation for delivering the training to your first-time managers:

    1. Select a facilitator.
      • The right person to facilitate the meeting depends on the dynamics within your department. Having a senior IT leader can lend additional weight to the training best practices but may not be feasible in a large department. In these cases, an HR partner or external third party can be asked to facilitate.
    2. Distribute the workbooks to attendees before the first training session.
      • Change the header on the workbook templates to your own organization’s, if desired.
      • Email the workbooks to attendees prior to the first session. There is no pre-work to be completed.
    Input Output
    • List of selected modules
    • Facilitator selected
    • Workbook distributed
    Materials Participants
    • Workbooks from selected modules
    • Training sponsor
    • Training facilitator

    Phase 2

    Deliver training

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
    • Select training topics
    • Customize the training facilitation guide for your organization
    • Deliver training modules
    • Confirm skill development action plan with trainees
    • Secure organizational support from trainees' supervisors

    Outcomes of this phase:

    • Training delivered
    • Development goals set by attendees
    • Action plan created by attendees

    2.1 Deliver training

    3 hours

    When you are ready, deliver the training. Ensure you complete all activities and that participants record the outcomes in their workbooks.

    Tips for activity facilitation:

    • Encourage and support participation from everyone. And be sure no one on the team dismisses anyone’s thoughts or opinions – they present the opportunity for further discussion and deeper insight.
    • Debrief after each activity, outlining any lessons learned, action items, and next steps.
    • Encourage participants to record all outcomes, key insights, and action plans in their workbooks.
    Input Output
    • Facilitation guides and workbooks for selected modules
    • Training delivered
    • Workbooks completed
    Materials Participants
    • Facilitation guides and workbooks for selected modules
    • Training facilitator
    • Trainees

    Phase 3

    Enable long-term skill development

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3
    • Select training topics
    • Customize the training facilitation guide for your organization
    • Deliver training modules
    • Confirm skill development action plan with trainees
    • Secure organizational support from trainees' supervisors

    Outcomes of this phase:

    • Attendees reminded of action plan and personal commitment
    • Supervisors reminded of the need to support trainees' development

    3.1 Email trainees with action steps

    0.5 hours

    After the training, send an email to attendees thanking them for participating and summarizing key next steps for the group. Use the template below, or write your own:

    “Hi team,

    I want to thank you personally for attending the Communicate Effectively training module. Our group led some great discussion.

    A reminder that the next time you will reconvene as a group will be on [Date] to discuss your progress and challenges to date.

    Additionally, your manager is aware and supportive of the training program, so be sure to follow through on the commitments you’ve made to secure the support you need from them to build your new skills.

    I am always open for questions if you run into any challenges.

    Regards,

    [Your name]”

    InputOutput
    • The date of participants’ next discussion meeting
    • Attendees reminded of next meeting date and encouraged to follow through on action plan
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Training facilitator

    3.2 Secure support from trainees’ supervisors

    0.5 hours

    An important part of the training is securing organizational support, which includes support from your trainees’ supervisors. After the trainees have committed to some action items to seek support from their supervisors, it is important to express your support for this and remind the supervisors of their role in guiding your first-time managers. Use the template below, or write your own, to remind your trainees’ supervisors of this at the end of training (if you are going through all three modules in a short period of time, you may want to wait until the end of the entire training to send this email):

    “Hi team,

    We have just completed Info-Tech’s first-time manager training with our new manager team. The trainees will be seeking your support in developing their new skills. This could be in the form of coaching, feedback on their progress, reviewing their development plan, etc.

    Supervisor support is a crucial component of skill building, so I hope I can count on all of you to support our new managers in their learning. If you are not sure how to handle these requests, or would like a refresher of the material our trainees covered, please let me know.

    I am always open for questions if you run into any challenges.

    Regards,

    [Your name]”

    InputOutput
    • List of trainees’ direct supervisors
    • Supervisors reminded to support trainees’ skill practice
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Training facilitator

    Contributors

    Brad Armstrong

    Brad Armstrong, Senior Engineering Manager, Code42 Software

    I am a pragmatic engineering leader with a deep technical background, now focused on building great teams. I'm energized by difficult, high-impact problems at scale and with the cloud technologies and emerging architectures that we can use to solve them. But it's the power of people and organizations that ultimately lead to our success, and the complex challenge of bringing all that together is the work I find most rewarding.

    We thank the expert contributors who chose to keep their contributions anonymous.

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    Key Metrics for Every CIO

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    • Parent Category Name: Performance Measurement
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    • As a CIO, you are inundated with data and information about how your IT organization is performing based on the various IT metrics that exist.
    • The information we receive from metrics is often just that – information. Rarely is it used as a tool to drive the organization forward.
    • CIO metrics need to consider the goals of key stakeholders in the organization.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The top metrics for CIOs don’t have anything to do with IT.
    • CIOs should measure and monitor metrics that have a direct impact on the business.
    • Be intentional with the metric and number of metrics that you monitor on a regular basis.
    • Be transparent with your stakeholders on what and why you are measuring those specific metrics.

    Impact and Result

    • Measure fewer metrics, but measure those that will have a significant impact on how your deliver value to your organization.
    • Focus on the metrics that you can take action against, rather than simply monitor.
    • Ensure your metrics tie to your top priorities as a CIO.

    Key Metrics for Every CIO Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Key Metrics for Every CIO deck – The top metrics every CIO should measure and act on

    Leverage the top metrics for every CIO to help focus your attention and provide insight into actionable steps.

    • Key Metrics for Every CIO Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Key Metrics for Every CIO

    The top six metrics for CIOs – and they have very little to do with IT

    Analyst Perspective

    Measure with intention

    Be the strategic CIO who monitors the right metrics relevant to their priorities – regardless of industry or organization. When CIOs provide a laundry list of metrics they are consistently measuring and monitoring, it demonstrates a few things.

    First, they are probably measuring more metrics than they truly care about or could action. These “standardized” metrics become something measured out of expectation, not intention; therefore, they lose their meaning and value to you as a CIO. Stop spending time on these metrics you will be unable or unwilling to address.

    Secondly, it indicates a lack of trust in the IT leadership team, who can and should be monitoring these commonplace operational measures. An empowered IT leader will understand the responsibility they have to inform the CIO should a metric be derailing from the desired outcome.

    Photo of Brittany Lutes, Senior Research Analyst, Organizational Transformation Practice, Info-Tech Research Group. Brittany Lutes
    Senior Research Analyst
    Organizational Transformation Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    CIOs need to measure a set of specific metrics that:

    • Will support the organization’s vision, their career, and the IT function all in one.
    • Can be used as a tool to make informed decisions and take appropriate actions that will improve the IT function’s ability to deliver value.
    • Consider the influence of critical stakeholders, especially the end customer.
    • Are easily measured at any point in time.
    Common Obstacles

    CIOs often cannot define these metrics because:

    • We confuse the operational metrics IT leaders need to monitor with strategic metrics CIOs need to monitor.
    • Previously monitored metrics did not deliver value.
    • It is hard to decide on a metric that will prove both insightful and easily measurable.
    • We measure metrics without any method or insight on how to take actionable steps forward.
    Info-Tech’s Approach

    For every CIO, there are six areas that should be a focus, no matter your organization or industry. These six priorities will inform the metrics worth measuring:

    • Risk management
    • Delivering on business objectives
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Employee engagement
    • Business leadership relations
    • Managing to a budget

    Info-Tech Insight

    The top metrics for a CIO to measure and monitor have very little to do with IT and everything to do with ensuring the success of the business.

    Your challenge

    CIOs are not using metrics as a personal tool to advance the organization:
    • Metrics should be used as a tool by the CIO to help inform the future actions that will be taken to reach the organization’s strategic vision.
    • As a CIO, you need to have a defined set of metrics that will support your career, the organization, and the IT function you are accountable for.
    • CIO metrics must consider the most important stakeholders across the entire ecosystem of the organization – especially the end customer.
    • The metrics for a CIO are distinctly different from the metrics you use to measure the operational effectiveness of the different IT functions.
    “CIOs are businesspeople first and technology people second.” (Myles Suer, Source: CIO, 2019.)

    Common obstacles

    These barriers make this challenge difficult to address for many CIOs:
    • CIOs often do not measure metrics because they are not aware of what should or needs to be measured.
    • As a result of not wanting to measure the wrong thing, CIOs can often choose to measure nothing at all.
    • Or they get too focused on the operational metrics of their IT organization, leaving the strategic business metrics forgotten.
    • Moreover, narrowing the number of metrics that are being measured down to an actionable number is very difficult.
    • We rely only on physical data sets to help inform the measurements, not considering the qualitative feedback received.
    CIO priorities are business priorities

    46% of CIOs are transforming operations, focused on customer experiences and employee productivity. (Source: Foundry, 2022.)

    Finances (41.3%) and customers (28.1%) remain the top two focuses for CIOs when measuring IT effectiveness. All other focuses combine for the remaining 30.6%. (Source: Journal of Informational Technology Management, 2018.)

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Organizational goals inform CIO metrics

    Diagram with 'CIO Metrics' at the center surrounded by 'Directive Goals', 'Product/Service Goals', 'IT Goals', and 'Operations Goals', each of which are connected to eachother by 'Customers'.

    The Info-Tech difference:
    1. Every CIO has the same set of priorities regardless of their organization or industry given that these metrics are influenced by similar goals of organizations.
    2. CIO metrics are a tool to help inform the actions that will support each core area in reaching their desired goals.
    3. Be mindful of the goals different business units are using to reach the organization’s strategic vision – this includes your own IT goals.
    4. Directly or indirectly, you will always influence the ability to acquire and retain customers for the organization.

    CIO priorities

    MANAGING TO A BUDGET
    Reducing operational costs and increasing strategic IT spend.
    Table centerpiece for CIO Priorities. DELIVERING ON BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
    Aligning IT initiatives to the vision of the organization.
    CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
    Directly and indirectly impacting customer experience.
    EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
    Creating an IT workforce of engaged and purpose-driven people.
    RISK MANAGEMENT
    Actively knowing and mitigating threats to the organization.
    BUSINESS LEADERSHIP RELATONS
    Establishing a network of influential business leaders.

    High-level process flow

    How do we use the CIO metrics?
    Process flow that starts at 'Consider - Identify and analyze CIO priorities', and is followed by 'Select priorities - Identify the top priorities for CIOs (see previous slide)', 'Create a measure - Determine a measure that aligns to each priority', 'Make changes & improvements - Take action to improve the measure and reach the goal you are trying to achieve', 'Demonstrate progress - Use the metrics to demonstrate progress against priorities'. Using priority-based metrics allows you to make incremental improvements that can be measured and reported on, which makes program maturation a natural process.

    Example CIO dashboard

    Example CIO dashboard.
    * Arrow indicates month-over-month trend

    Harness the value of metric data

    Metrics are rarely used accurately as a tool
    • When you have good metrics, you can:
      • Ensure employees are focused on the priorities of the organization
      • Have insight to make better decisions
      • Communicate with the business using language that resonates with each stakeholder
      • Increase the performance of your IT function
      • Continually adapt to meet changing business demands
    • Metrics are tools that quantifiably indicate whether a goal is on track to being achieved (proactive) or if the goal was successfully achieved (retroactive)
    • This is often reflected through two metric types:
      • Leading Metrics: The metric indicates if there are actions that should be taken in the process of achieving a desired outcome.
      • Lagging Metrics: Based on the desired outcome, the metric can indicate where there were successes or failures that supported or prevented the outcome from being achieved.
    • Use the data from the metrics to inform your actions. Do not collect this data if your intent is simply to know the data point. You must be willing to act.
    "The way to make a metric successful is by understanding why you are measuring it." (Jeff Neyland CIO)

    CIOs measure strategic business metrics

    Keep the IT leadership accountable for operational metrics
    • Leveraging the IT leadership team, empower and hold each leader accountable for the operational metrics specific to their functional area
    • As a CIO, focus on the metrics that are going to impact the business. These are often tied to people or stakeholders:
      • The customers who will purchase the product or service
      • The decision makers who will fund IT initiatives
      • The champions of IT value
      • The IT employees who will be driven to succeed
      • The owner of an IT risk event
    • By focusing on these priority areas, you can regularly monitor aspects that will have major business impacts – and be able to address those impacts.
    As a CIO, avoid spending time on operational metrics such as:
    • Time to deliver
    • Time to resolve
    • Project delivery (scope, time, money)
    • Application usage
    • User experiences
    • SLAs
    • Uptime/downtime
    • Resource costs
    • Ticket resolution
    • Number of phishing attempts
    Info-Tech Insight

    While operational metrics are important to your organization, IT leaders should be empowered and responsible for their management.

    SECTION 1

    Actively Managing IT Risks

    Actively manage IT risks

    The impact of IT risks to your organization cannot be ignored any further
    • Few individuals in an organization understand IT risks and can proactively plan for the prevention of those threats, making the CIO the responsible and accountable individual when it comes to IT risks – especially the components that tie into cybersecurity.
    • When the negative impacts of an IT threat event are translated into terms that can be understood and actioned by all in the organization, it increases the likelihood of receiving the sponsorship and funding support necessary.
    • Moreover, risk management can be used as a tool to drive the organization toward its vision state, enabling informed risk decisions.

    Risk management metric:

    Number of critical IT threats that were detected and prevented before impact to the organization.

    Beyond risk prevention
    Organizations that have a clear risk tolerance can use their risk assessments to better inform their decisions.
    Specifically, taking risks that could lead to a high return on investment or other key organizational drivers.

    Protect the organization from more than just cyber threats

    Other risk-related metrics:
    • Percentage of IT risks integrated into the organization’s risk management approach.
    • Number of risk management incidents that were not identified by your organization (and the potential financial impact of those risks).
    • Business satisfaction with IT actions to reduce impact of negative IT risk events.
    • Number of redundant systems removed from the organizations portfolio.
    Action steps to take:
    • Create a risk-aware culture, not just with IT folks. The entire organization needs to understand how IT risks are preventable.
    • Clearly demonstrate the financial and reputational impact of potential IT risks and ensure that this is communicated with decision-makers in the organization.
    • Have a single source of truth to document possible risk events and report prevention tactics to minimize the impact of risks.
    • Use this information to recommend budget changes and help make risk-informed decisions.

    49%

    Investing in Risk

    Heads of IT “cited increasing cybersecurity protections as the top business initiative driving IT investments this year” (Source: Foundry, 2022.)

    SECTION 2

    Delivering on Business Objectives

    Delivering on business objectives

    Deliver on initiatives that bring value to your organization and stop benchmarking
    • CIOs often want to know how they are performing in comparison to their competitors (aka where do you compare in the benchmarking?)
    • While this is a nice to know, it adds zero value in demonstrating that you understand your business, let alone the goals of your business
    • Every organization will have a different set of goals it is striving toward, despite being in the same industry, sector, or market.
    • Measuring your performance against the objectives of the organization prevents CIOs from being more technical than it would do them good.

    Business Objective Alignment Metric:

    Percentage of IT metrics have a direct line of impact to the business goals

    Stop using benchmarks to validate yourself against other organizations. Benchmarking does not provide:
    • Insight into how well that organization performed against their goals.
    • That other organizations goals are likely very different from your own organization's goals.
    • It often aggregates the scores so much; good and bad performers stop being clearly identified.

    Provide a clear line of sight from IT metrics to business goals

    Other business alignment metrics:
    • Number of IT initiatives that have a significant impact on the success of the organization's goals.
    • Number of IT initiatives that exceed the expected value.
    • Positive impact ($) of IT initiatives on driving business innovation.
    Action steps to take:
    • Establish a library or dashboard of all the metrics you are currently measuring as an IT organization, and align each of them to one or more of the business objectives your organization has.
    • Leverage the members of the organization’s executive team to validate they understand how your metric ties to the business objective.
    • Any metric that does not have a clear line of sight should be reconsidered.
    • IT metrics should continue to speak in business terms, not IT terms.

    50%

    CIOs drive the business

    The percentage of CEOs that recognize the CIO as the main driver of the business strategy in the next 2-3 years. (Source: Deloitte, 2020.)

    SECTION 3

    Impact on Customer Satisfaction

    Influencing end-customer satisfaction

    Directly or indirectly, IT influences how satisfied the customer is with their product or service
    • Now more than ever before, IT can positively influence the end-customer’s satisfaction with the product or service they purchase.
    • From operational redundancies to the customer’s interaction with the organization, IT can and should be positively impacting the customer experience.
    • IT leaders who take an interest in the customer demonstrate that they are business-focused individuals and understand the intention of what the organization is seeking to achieve.
    • With the CIO role becoming a strategic one, understanding why a customer would or would not purchase your organization’s product or service stops being a “nice to have.”

    Customer satisfaction metric:

    What is the positive impact ($ or %) of IT initiatives on customer satisfaction?

    Info-Tech Insight

    Be the one to suggest new IT initiatives that will impact the customer experience – stop waiting for other business leaders to make the recommendation.

    Enhance the end-customer experience with I&T

    Other customer satisfaction metrics:
    • Amount of time CIO spends interacting directly with customers.
    • Customer retention rate.
    • Customer attraction rate.
    Action steps to take:
    • Identify the core IT capabilities that support customer experience. Automation? Mobile application? Personal information secured?
    • Suggest an IT-supported or-led initiative that will enhance the customer experience and meet the business goals. Retention? Acquisition? Growth in spend?
    • This is where operational metrics or dashboards can have a real influence on the customer experience. Be mindful of how IT impacts the customer journey.

    41%

    Direct CX interaction

    In 2022, 41% of IT heads were directly interacting with the end customer. (Source: Foundry, 2022.)

    SECTION 4

    Keeping Employees Engaged

    Keeping employees engaged

    This is about more than just an annual engagement survey
    • As a leader, you should always have a finger on the pulse of how engaged your employees are
    • Employee engagement is high when:
      • Employees have a positive disposition to their place of work
      • Employees are committed and willing to contribute to the organization's success
    • Employee engagement comprises three types of drivers: organizational, job, and retention. As CIO, you have a direct impact on all three drivers.
    • Providing employees with a positive work environment where they are empowered to complete activities in line with their desired skillset and tied to a clear purpose can significantly increase employee engagement.

    Employee engagement metric:

    Number of employees who feel empowered to complete purposeful activities related to their job each day

    Engagement leads to increases in:
    • Innovation
    • Productivity
    • Performance
    • Teamwork
    While reducing costs associated with high turnover.

    Employees daily tasks need to have purpose

    Other employee engagement metrics:
    • Tenure of IT employees at the organization.
    • Number of employees who seek out or use a training budget to enhance their knowledge/skills.
    • Degree of autonomy employees feel they have in their work on a daily basis.
    • Number of collaboration tools provided to enable cross-organizational work.
    Action steps to take:
    • If you are not willing to take actionable steps to address engagement, don’t bother asking employees about it.
    • Identify the blockers to empowerment. Common blockers include insufficient team collaboration, bureaucracy, inflexibility, and feeling unsupported and judged.
    • Ensure there is a consistent understanding of what “purposeful” means. Are you talking about “purposeful” to the organization or the individual?
    • Provide more clarity on what the organization’s purpose is and the vision it is driving toward. Just because you understand does not mean the employees do.

    26%

    Act on engagement

    Only 26% of leaders actually think about and act on engagement every single day. (Source: SHRM, 2022.)

    SECTION 5

    Establishing Trusted Business Relationships

    Establishing trusted business partnerships

    Leverage your relationships with other C-suite executives to demonstrate IT’s value
    • Your relationship with other business peers is critical – and, funny enough, it is impacted by the use of good metrics and data.
    • The performance of your IT team will be recognized by other members of the executive leadership team (ELT) and is a direct reflection of you as a leader.
    • A good relationship with the ELT can alleviate issues if concerns about IT staff surface.
      • Of the 85% of IT leaders working on transformational initiatives, only 30% are trying to cultivate an IT/business partnership (Foundry, 2022).
    • Don’t let other members of the organizations ELT overlook you or the value IT has. Build the key relationships that will drive trust and partnerships.

    Business leadership relationship metric:

    Ability to influence business decisions with trusted partners.

    Some key relationships that are worth forming with other C-suite executives right now include:
    • Chief Sustainability Officer
    • Chief Revenue Officer
    • Chief Marketing Officer
    • Chief Data Officer

    Influence business decisions with trusted partners

    Other business relations metrics:
    • The frequency with which peers on the ELT complain about the IT organization to other ELT peers.
    • Percentage of business leaders who trust IT to make the right choices for their accountable areas.
    • Number of projects that are initiated with a desired solution versus problems with no desired solution.
    Action steps to take:
    • From lunch to the boardroom, it is important you make an effort to cultivate relationships with the other members of the ELT.
    • Identify who the most influential members of the ELT are and what their primary goals or objectives are.
    • Follow through on what you promise you will deliver – if you do not know, do not promise it!
    • What will work for one member of the ELT will not work for another – personalize your approach.

    60%

    Enterprise-wide collaboration

    “By 2023, 60% of CIOs will be primarily measured for their ability to co-create new business models and outcomes through extensive enterprise and ecosystem-wide collaboration.” (Source: IDC, 2021.)

    SECTION 6

    Managing to a Budget

    Managing to a budget

    Every CIO needs to be able to spend within budget while increasing their strategic impact
    • From security, to cloud, to innovating the organization's products and services, IT has a lot of initiatives that demand funds and improve the organization.
    • Continuing to demonstrate good use of the budget and driving value for the organization will ensure ongoing recognition in the form of increased money.
    • 29% of CIOs indicated that controlling costs and expense management was a key duty of a functional CIO (Foundry, 2022).
    • Demonstrating the ability to spend within a defined budget is a key way to ensure the business trusts you.
    • Demonstrating an ability to spend within a defined budget and reducing the cost of operational expenses while increasing spend on strategic initiatives ensures the business sees the value in IT.

    Budget management metric:

    Proportion of IT budget that is strategic versus operational.

    Info-Tech Insight

    CIOs need to see their IT function as its own business – budget and spend like a CEO.

    Demonstrate IT’s ability to spend strategically

    Other budget management metrics:
    • Cost required to lead the organization through a digital transformation.
    • Reduction in operational spend due to retiring legacy solutions.
    • Percentage of budget in the run, grow, and transform categories.
    • Amount of money spent keeping the lights on versus investing in new capabilities.

    Action steps to take:

    • Consider opportunities to automate processes and reduce the time/talent required to spend.
    • Identify opportunities and create the time for resources to modernize or even digitize the organization to enable a better delivery of the products or services to the end customer.
    • Review the previous metrics and tie it back to running the business. If customer satisfaction will increase or risk-related threats decrease through an initiative IT is suggesting, you can make the case for increased strategic spend.

    90%

    Direct CX interaction

    Ninety percent of CIOs expect their budget to increase or remain the same in their next fiscal year. (Source: Foundry, 2022.)

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Jeff Neyland. Jeff Neyland
    Chief Information Officer – University of Texas at Arlington
    Photo of Brett Trelfa. Brett Trelfa
    SVP and CIO – Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield
    Blank photo template. Lynn Fyhrlund
    Chief Information Officer – Milwaukee County Department of Administrative Services

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Vicki Van Alphen Executive Counselor Ibrahim Abdel-Kader Research Analyst
    Mary Van Leer Executive Counselor Graham Price Executive Counselor
    Jack Hakimian Vice President Research Valence Howden Principal Research Director
    Mike Tweedie CIO Practice Lead Tony Denford Organization Transformation Practice Lead

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Sample of the 'IT Metrics Library'. IT Metrics Library
    • Use this tool to review commonly used KPIs for each practice area
    • Identify KPI owners, data sources, baselines, and targets. It also suggests action and research for low-performing KPIs.
    • Use the "Action Plan" tab to keep track of progress on actions that were identified as part of your KPI review.
    Sample of 'Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter'. Define Service Desk Metrics That Matter
    • Consolidate your metrics and assign context and actions to those currently tracked.
    • Establish tension metrics to see and tell the whole story.
    • Split your metrics for each stakeholder group. Assign proper cadences for measurements as a first step to building an effective dashboard.
    Sample of 'CIO Priorities 2022'. CIO Priorities 2022
    • Understand how to respond to trends affecting your organization.
    • Determine your priorities based on current state and relevant internal factors.
    • Assign the right resources to accomplish your vision.
    • Consider what new challenges outside of your control will demand a response.

    Bibliography

    “Developing and Sustaining Employee Engagement.” SHRM, 2022.

    Dopson, Elise. “KPIs Vs. Metrics: What’s the Difference & How Do You Measure Both?” Databox, 23 Jun. 2021.

    Shirer, Michael, and Sarah Murray. “IDC Unveils Worldwide CIO Agenda 2022 Predictions.” IDC, 27 Oct. 2021.

    Suer, Myles. “The Most Important Metrics to Drive IT as a Business.” CIO, 19 Mar. 2019.

    “The new CIO: Business Savvy.” Deloitte Insights. Deloitte, 2020.

    “2022 State of the CIO: Rebalancing Act: CIO’s Operational Pandemic-Era Innovation.” Foundry, 2022.

    “Why Employee Engagement Matters for Leadership at all Levels.” Walden University, 20 Dec. 2019.

    Zhang, Xihui, et al. “How to Measure IT Effectiveness: The CIO’s Perspective.” Journal of Informational Technology Management, 29(4). 2018.

    Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee

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    • Parent Category Name: Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /governance-risk-compliance
    • Security is still seen as an IT problem rather than a business risk, resulting in security governance being relegated to the existing IT steering committee.
    • Security is also often positioned in the organization where they are not privy to the details of the organization’s overall strategy. Security leaders struggle to get the full enterprise picture.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Work to separate the Information Security Steering Committee (ISSC) from the IT Steering Committee (ITSC). Security transcends the boundaries of IT and needs an independent, eclectic approach to make strategic decisions.
    • Be the lawyer, not the cop. Ground your communications in business terminology to facilitate a solution that makes sense to the entire organization.
    • Develop and stick to the agenda. Continued engagement from business stakeholders requires sticking to a strategic level-focused agenda. Dilution of purpose will lead to dilution in attendance.

    Impact and Result

    • Define a clear scope of purpose and responsibilities for the ISSC to gain buy-in and consensus for security governance receiving independent agenda time from the broader IT organization.
    • Model the information flows necessary to provide the steering committee with the intelligence to make strategic decisions for the enterprise.
    • Determine membership and responsibilities that shift with the evolving security landscape to ensure participation reflects interested parties and that money being spent on security mitigates risk across the enterprise.
    • Create clear presentation material and strategically oriented meeting agendas to drive continued participation from business stakeholders and executive management.

    Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to improve your security governance with a security steering committee, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Define committee purpose and responsibilities

    Identify the purpose of your committee, determine the capabilities of the committee, and define roles and responsibilities.

    • Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee – Phase 1: Define Committee Purpose and Responsibilities
    • Information Security Steering Committee Charter

    2. Determine information flows, membership & accountabilities

    Determine how information will flow and the process behind that.

    • Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee – Phase 2: Determine Information Flows, Membership & Accountabilities

    3. Operate the Information Security Steering Committee

    Define your meeting agendas and the procedures to support those meetings. Hold your kick-off meeting. Identify metrics to measure the committee’s success.

    • Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee – Phase 3: Operate the Information Security Steering Committee
    • Security Metrics Summary Document
    • Information Security Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee

    Build an inclusive committee to enable holistic strategic decision making.

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    "Having your security organization’s steering committee subsumed under the IT steering committee is an anachronistic framework for today’s security challenges. Conflicts in perspective and interest prevent holistic solutions from being reached while the two permanently share a center stage.

    At the end of the day, security is about existential risks to the business, not just information technology risk. This focus requires its own set of business considerations, information requirements, and delegated authorities. Without an objective and independent security governance body, organizations are doomed to miss the enterprise-wide nature of their security problems."

    – Daniel Black, Research Manager, Security Practice, Info-Tech Research Group

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • CIOs
    • CISOs
    • IT/Security Leaders

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Develop an effective information security steering committee (ISSC) that ensures the right people are involved in critical decision making.
    • Ensure that business and IT strategic direction are incorporated into security decisions.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Information Security Steering Committee (ISSC) members

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Formalize roles and responsibilities.
    • Define effective security metrics.
    • Develop a communication plan to engage executive management in the organization’s security planning.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • Successful information security governance requires a venue to address security concerns with participation from across the entire business.
    • Without access to requisite details of the organization – where we are going, what we are trying to do, how the business expects to use its technology – security can not govern its strategic direction.

    Complication

    • Security is still seen as an IT problem rather than a business risk, resulting in security governance being relegated to the existing IT steering committee.
    • Security is also often positioned in the organization where they are not privy to the details of the organization’s overall strategy. Security leaders struggle to get the full enterprise picture.

    Resolution

    • Define a clear scope of purpose and responsibilities for the Information Security Steering Committee to gain buy-in and consensus for security governance receiving independent agenda time from the broader IT organization.
    • Model the information flows necessary to provide the steering committee with the intelligence to make strategic decisions for the enterprise.
    • Determine membership and responsibilities that shift with the evolving security landscape to ensure participation reflects interested parties and that money being spent on security mitigates risk across the enterprise.
    • Create security metrics that are aligned with committee members’ operational goals to incentivize participation.
    • Create clear presentation material and strategically oriented meeting agendas to drive continued participation from business stakeholders and executive management.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Work to separate the ISSC from the IT Steering Committee (ITSC). Security transcends the boundaries of IT and needs an independent, eclectic approach to make strategic decisions.
    2. Be the lawyer, not the cop. Ground your communications in business terminology to facilitate a solution that make sense to the entire organization.
    3. Develop and stick to the agenda. Continued engagement from business stakeholders requires sticking to a strategic level-focused agenda. Dilution of purpose will lead to dilution in attendance.

    Empower your security team to act strategically with an ISSC

    Establishing an Information Security Steering Committee (ISSC)

    Even though security is a vital consideration of any IT governance program, information security has increasingly become an important component of the business, moving beyond the boundaries of just the IT department.

    This requires security to have its own form of steering, beyond the existing IT Steering Committee, that ensures continual alignment of the organization’s security strategy with both IT and business strategy.

    An ISSC should have three primary objectives:

    • Direct Strategic Planning The ISSC formalizes organizational commitments to strategic planning, bringing visibility to key issues and facilitating the integration of security controls that align with IT and business strategy.
    • Institute Clear Accountability The ISSC facilitates the involvement and commitment of executive management through clearly defined roles and accountabilities for security decisions, ensuring consistency in participation as the organization’s strategies evolve.
    • Optimize Security Resourcing The ISSC maximizes security by monitoring the implementation of the security strategic plan, making recommendations on prioritization of effort, and securing necessary resources through the planning and budgeting processes, as necessary.

    What does the typical ISSC do?

    Ensuring proper governance over your security program is a complex task that requires ongoing care and feeding from executive management to succeed.

    Your ISSC should aim to provide the following core governance functions for your security program:

    1. Define Clarity of Intent and Direction How does the organization’s security strategy support the attainment of the business and IT strategies? The ISSC should clearly define and communicate strategic linkage and provide direction for aligning security initiatives with desired outcomes.
    2. Establish Clear Lines of Authority Security programs contain many important elements that need to be coordinated. There needs to be clear and unambiguous authority, accountability, and responsibility defined for each element so lines of reporting/escalation are clear and conflicting objectives can be mediated.
    3. Provide Unbiased Oversight The ISSC should vet the organization’s systematic monitoring processes to make certain there is adherence to defined risk tolerance levels and ensure that monitoring is appropriately independent from the personnel responsible for implementing and managing the security program.
    4. Optimize Security Value Delivery Optimized value delivery occurs when strategic objectives for security are achieved and the organization’s acceptable risk posture is attained at the lowest possible cost. This requires constant attention to ensure controls are commensurate with any changes in risk level or appetite.

    Formalize the most important governance functions for your organization

    Creation of an ISSC is deemed the most important governance and oversight practice that a CISO can implement, based on polling of IT security leaders analyzing the evolving role of the CISO.

    Relatedly, other key governance practices reported – status updates, upstream communications, and executive-level sponsorship – are within the scope of what organizations traditionally formalize when establishing their ISSC.

    Vertical bar chart highlighting the most important governance functions according to respondents. The y axis is labelled 'Percentage of Respondents' with the values 0%-60%, and the x axis is labelled 'Governance and Oversight Practices'. Bars are organized from highest percentage to lowest with 'Creation of cross-functional committee to oversee security strategy' at 56%, 'Regularly scheduled reporting on the state of security to stakeholders' at 55%, 'Upstream communication channel from security leadership to CEO' at 46%, and 'Creation of program charter approved by executive-level sponsor' at 37%. Source: Ponemon Institute, 2017; N=184 organizations; 660 respondents.

    Despite the clear benefits of an ISSC, organizations are still falling short

    83% of organizations have not established formal steering committees to evaluate the business impact and risks associated with security decisions. (Source: 2017 State of Cybersecurity Metrics Report)

    70% of organizations have delegated cybersecurity oversight to other existing committees, providing security limited agenda time. (Source: PwC 2017 Annual Corporate Director Survey)

    "This is a group of risk managers an institution would bring together to deal with a response anyway. Having them in place to do preventive discussions and formulate policy to mitigate the liability sets and understand compliance obligations is just powerful." (Kirk Bailey, CISO, University of Washington)

    Prevent the missteps that make 9 out of 10 steering committees unsuccessful

    Why Do Steering Committees Fail?

    1. A lack of appetite for a steering committee from business partners. An effective ISSC requires participation from core members of the organization’s leadership team. The challenge is that most business partners don’t understand the benefits of an ISSC and the responsibilities aren’t tailored to participants’ needs or interests. It’s the CISO’s (or senior IT/security leader’s) responsibility to make this case to stakeholders and right-size the committee responsibilities and membership.
    2. ISSC committees are given inappropriate responsibilities. The steering committee is fundamentally about decision making; it’s not a working committee. Security leadership typically struggles with clarifying these responsibilities on two fronts: either the responsibilities are too vague and there is no clear way to execute on them within a meeting or responsibilities are too tactical and require knowledge that participants do not have. Responsibilities should determine who is on the ISSC, not the other way around.
    3. Lack of process around execution. An ISSC is only valuable if members are able to successfully execute on its mandate. Without well-defined processes it becomes nearly impossible for the ISSC to be actionable. As a result, participants lack the information they need to make critical decisions, agendas are unmet, and meetings are seen as a waste of time.

    Use these icons to help direct you as you navigate this research

    Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.

    A small monochrome icon of a wrench and screwdriver creating an X.

    This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.

    A small monochrome icon depicting a person in front of a blank slide.

    This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members, who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee – project overview

    1. Define Committee Purpose and Responsibilities

    2. Determine Information Flows, Membership & Accountabilities

    3. Operate the Information Security Steering Committee

    Supporting Tool icon

    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Tailor Info-Tech’s Information Security Steering Committee Charter Template to define terms of reference for the ISSC

    1.2 Conduct a SWOT analysis of your information security governance capabilities

    1.3 Identify the responsibilities and duties of the ISSC

    1.4 Draft the committee purpose statement of your ISSC

    2.1 Define your SIPOC model for each of the ISSC responsibilities

    2.2 Identify committee participants and responsibility cadence

    2.3 Define ISSC participant RACI for each of the responsibilities

    3.1 Define the ISSC meeting agendas and procedures

    3.2 Define which metrics you will report to the ISSC

    3.3 Hold a kick-off meeting with your ISSC members to explain the process, responsibilities, and goals

    3.4 Tailor the Information Security Steering Committee Stakeholder Presentation template

    3.5 Present the information to the security leadership team

    3.6 Schedule your first meeting of the ISSC

    Guided Implementations

    • Identify the responsibilities and duties of the ISSC.
    • Draft the committee purpose of the ISSC.
    • Determine SIPOC modeling of information flows.
    • Determine accountabilities and responsibilities.
    • Set operational standards.
    • Determine effectiveness metrics.
    • Steering committee best practices.
    Associated Activity icon

    Onsite Workshop

    This blueprint can be combined with other content for onsite engagements, but is not a standalone workshop.
    Phase 1 Outcome:
    • Determine the purpose and responsibilities of your information security steering committee.
    Phase 2 Outcome:
    • Determine membership, accountabilities, and information flows to enable operational excellence.
    Phase 3 Outcome:
    • Define agendas and standard procedures to operate your committee.
    • Design an impactful stakeholder presentation.

    Improve Security Governance With a Security Steering Committee

    PHASE 1

    Define Committee Purpose and Responsibilities

    Phase 1: Define Committee Purpose and Responsibilities

    ACTIVITIES:

    • 1.1 Tailor Info-Tech’s Information Security Steering Committee Charter Template to define terms of reference for the ISSC
    • 1.2 Conduct a SWOT analysis of your information security governance capabilities
    • 1.3 Identify the responsibilities and duties of the ISSC
    • 1.4 Draft the committee purpose statement for your ISSC

    OUTCOMES:

    • Conduct an analysis of your current information security governance capabilities and identify opportunities and weaknesses.
    • Define a clear scope of purpose and responsibilities for your ISSC.
    • Begin to customize your ISSC charter.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Balance vision with direction. Purpose and responsibilities should be defined so that they encompass your mission and objectives to the enterprise in clear terms, but provide enough detail that you can translate the charter into operational plans for the security team.

    Tailor Info-Tech’s Information Security Steering Committee Charter Template to define terms of reference for the ISSC

    Supporting Tool icon 1.1

    A charter is the organizational mandate that outlines the purpose, scope, and authority of the ISSC. Without a charter, the steering committee’s value, scope, and success criteria are unclear to participants, resulting in unrealistic stakeholder expectations and poor organizational acceptance.

    Start by reviewing Info-Tech’s template. Throughout the next two sections we will help you to tailor its contents.

    • Committee Purpose: The rationale, benefits of, and overall function of the committee.
    • Organization and Membership: Who is on the committee and how is participation measured against organizational need.
    • Responsibilities and Duties: What tasks/decisions the accountable committee is making.
    • RACI: Who is accountable, responsible, consulted, and informed regarding each responsibility.
    • Committee Procedures and Agendas: Includes how the committee will be organized and how the committee will interact and communicate with interested parties.
    Sample of the Info-Tech deliverable 'Information Security Steering Committee Charter Template'.

    Download the Information Security Steering Committee Charter to customize your organization’s charter

    Conduct a SWOT analysis of your information security governance capabilities

    Associated Activity icon 1.2

    INPUT: Survey outcomes, Governance overview handouts

    OUTPUT: SWOT analysis, Top identified challenges and opportunities

    1. Hold a meeting with your IT leadership team to conduct a SWOT analysis on your current information security governance capabilities.
    2. In small groups, or individually, have each group complete a SWOT analysis for one of the governance areas. For each consider:
      • Strengths: What is currently working well in this area?
      • Weaknesses: What could you improve? What are some of the challenges you’re experiencing?
      • Opportunities: What are some organizational trends that you can leverage? Consider whether your strengths or weaknesses could create opportunities.
      • Threats: What are some key obstacles across people, process, and technology?
    3. Have each team or individual rotate until each person has contributed to each SWOT. Add comments from the stakeholder survey to the SWOT.
    4. As a group, rank the inputs from each group and highlight the top five challenges and the top five opportunities you see for improvement.

    Identify the responsibilities and duties of the ISSC

    Associated Activity icon 1.3

    INPUT: SWOT analysis, Survey reports

    OUTPUT: Defined ISSC responsibilities

    1. With your security leadership team, review the typical responsibilities of the ISSC on the following slides (also included in the templated text of the charter linked below).
    2. Print off the following two slides, and in small teams or individually, identify which responsibilities the ISSC should have in your organization, brainstorm any additional responsibilities, and document reasoning.
    3. Have each team present to the larger group, track the similarities and differences between each of the groups, and come to consensus on the list of categories and responsibilities.
    4. Complete a sanity check: review your SWOT analysis. Do the responsibilities you’ve identified resolve the critical challenges or weaknesses?
    5. As a group, consider the responsibilities and whether you can reasonably implement those in one year or if there are any that will need to wait until year two of the committee.

    Add or modify responsibilities in Info-Tech’s Information Security Steering Committee Charter.

    Typical ISSC responsibilities and duties

    Use the following list of responsibilities to customize the list of responsibilities your ISSC may take on. These should link directly to the Responsibilities and Duties section of your ISSC charter.

    Strategic Oversight

    • Provide oversight and ensure alignment between information security strategy and company objectives.
    • Assess the adequacy of resources and funding to sustain and advance successful security programs and practices for identifying, assessing, and mitigating cybersecurity risks across all business functions.
    • Review controls to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber-attacks or information or data breaches involving company electronic information, intellectual property, data, or connected devices.
    • Review the company’s cyberinsurance policies to ensure appropriate coverage.
    • Provide recommendations, based on security best practices, for significant technology investments.

    Policy Governance

    • Review company policies pertaining to information security and cyberthreats, taking into account the potential for external threats, internal threats, and threats arising from transactions with trusted third parties and vendors.
    • Review privacy and information security policies and standards and the ramifications of updates to policies and standards.
    • Establish standards and procedures for escalating significant security incidents to the ISSC, board, other steering committees, government agencies, and law enforcement, as appropriate.

    Typical ISSC responsibilities and duties (continued)

    Use the following list of responsibilities to customize the list of responsibilities your ISSC may take on. These should link directly to the Responsibilities and Duties section of your ISSC charter.

    Risk Governance

    • Review and approve the company’s information risk governance structure and key risk management processes and capabilities.
    • Assess the company’s high-risk information assets and coordinate planning to address information privacy and security needs.
    • Provide input to executive management regarding the enterprise’s information risk appetite and tolerance.
    • Review the company’s cyber-response preparedness, incident response plans, and disaster recovery capabilities as applicable to the organization’s information security strategy.
    • Promote an open discussion regarding information risk and integrate information risk management into the enterprise’s objectives.

    Monitoring & Reporting

    • Receive periodic reports and coordinate with management on the metrics used to measure, monitor, and manage cyber and IT risks posed to the company and to review periodic reports on selected risk topics as the Committee deems appropriate.
    • Review reports provided by the IT organization regarding the status of and plans for the security of the company’s data stored on internal resources and with third-party providers.
    • Monitor and evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the company’s technology security, capabilities for disaster recovery, data protection, cyberthreat detection and cyber incident response, and management of technology-related compliance risks.

    Review the organization’s security strategy to solidify understanding of the ISSC’s purpose

    The ISSC should consistently evolve to reflect the strategic purpose of the security program. If you completed Info-Tech’s Security Strategy methodology, review the results to inform the scope of your committee. If you have not completed Info-Tech’s methodology, determining these details should be achieved through iterative stakeholder consultations.

    Strategy Components

    ISSC Considerations

    Security Pressure Analysis

    Review the ten security domains and your organization’s pressure levels to review the requisite maturity level of your security program. Consider how this may impact the focus of your ISSC.

    Security Drivers/Obligations

    Review how your security program supports the attainment of the organization’s business objectives. By what means should the ISSC support these objectives? This should inform the rationale, benefits, and overall function of the committee.

    Security Strategy Scope and Boundaries

    Consider the scope and boundaries of your security program to reflect on what the program is responsible for securing. Is this reflected adequately in the language of the committee’s purpose? Should components be added or redacted?

    Draft the committee purpose statement of your ISSC

    Associated Activity icon 1.4

    INPUT: SWOT Analysis, Security Strategy

    OUTPUT: ISSC Committee Purpose

    1. In a meeting with your IT leadership team – and considering the organization’s security strategy, defined responsibilities, and opportunities and threats identified – review the example goal statement in the Information Security Steering Committee Charter, and identify whether any of these statements apply to your organization. Select the statements that apply and collaboratively make any changes needed.
    2. Define unique goal statements by considering the following questions:
      • What three things would you realistically list for the ISSC to achieve?
      • If you were to accomplish three things in the next year, what would those be?
    3. With those goal statements in mind, consider the overall purpose of the committee. The purpose statement should be a reflection of what the committee does, why, and the goals.
    4. Have each individual review the example purpose statement and draft what they think a good purpose statement would be.
    5. Present each statement, and work together to determine a best-of-breed statement.

    Alter the Committee Purpose section in the Information Security Steering Committee Charter.

    Re-Envision Enterprise Printing

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}165|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 8.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $9,000 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 2 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Devices
    • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing-devices
    • Enterprises may be overspending on printing, but this spend is often unknown and untracked.
    • You are locked into a traditional printer lease and outdated document management practices, hampering digital transformation.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Don’t just settle for printer consolidation: Seek to eliminate print and enlist your managed print services vendor to help you achieve that goal.

    Impact and Result

    • Identify reduction opportunities via a thorough inventory and requirements-gathering process, and educate others on the financial and non-financial benefits. Enforce reduced printing through policies.
    • Change your printing financial model to print as a service by building an RFP and scoring tool for managed print services that makes the vendor a partner in continuous innovation.
    • Leverage durable print management software to achieve vendor-agnostic governance and visibility.

    Re-Envision Enterprise Printing Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Re-Envision Enterprise Printing – A step-by-step document to help plan and execute a printer reduction project.

    This storyboard will help you plan the project, assess your current state and requirements, build a managed print services RFP and scoring process, and build continuous improvement of business processes into your operations.

    • Re-Envision Enterprise Printing – Phases 1-3

    2. Planning tools

    Use these templates and tools to plan the printer reduction project, document your inventory, assess current printer usage, and gather information on current and future requirements.

    • Enterprise Printing Project Charter
    • Enterprise Printing Roles and Responsibilities RACI Guide
    • Printer Reduction Tool
    • End-User Print Requirements Survey

    3. RFP tools

    Use these templates and tools to create an RFP for managed print services that can easily score and compare vendors.

    • Managed Print Services Vendor Assessment Questions
    • Managed Print Services RFP Vendor Proposal Scoring Tool
    • Managed Print Services RFP Template

    4. Printer policy

    Update the printer policy to express the new focus on reducing unsupported printer use.

    • Printer Policy Template

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Re-Envision Enterprise Printing

    Don't settle for printer consolidation; seek the elimination of print

    Analystperspective

    You're likely not in the printing business.
    Prepare your organization for the future by reducing print.

    Initiatives to reduce printers are often met with end-user resistance. Don't focus on the idea of taking something away from end users. Instead, focus on how print reduction fits into larger goals of business process improvement, and on opportunities to turn the vendor into a partner who drives business process improvement through ongoing innovation and print reduction.

    What are your true print use cases? Except in some legitimate use cases, printing often introduces friction and does not lead to efficiencies. Companies investing in digital transformation and document management initiatives must take a hard look at business processes still reliant on hard copies. Assess your current state to identify what the current print volume and costs are and where there are opportunities to consolidate and reduce.

    Change your financial model. The managed print services industry allows you to use a pay-as-you-go approach and right-size your print spend to the organization's needs. However, in order to do printing-as-a-service right, you will need to develop a good RFP and RFP evaluation process to make sure your needs are covered by the vendor, while also baking in assurances the vendor will partner with you for continuous print reduction.

    This is a picture of Emily Sugerman

    Emily Sugerman
    Research Analyst, Infrastructure & Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Darin Stahl
    Principal Research Advisor, Infrastructure & Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge

    IT directors and business operations managers face several challenges:

    • Too many known unknowns: Enterprises may be overspending on printing, but this spend is often unknown and untracked.
    • Opportunity costs: By locking into conventional printer leases and outdated document management, you are locking yourself out of the opportunity to improve business processes.

    Common Obstacles

    Printer reduction initiatives are stymied by:

    • End-user resistance: Though sometimes the use of paper remains necessary, end users often cling to paper processes out of concern about change.
    • Lack of governance: You lack insight into legitimate print use cases and lack full control over procurement of devices and consumables.
    • Overly generic RFP: Print requirements are not tailored to your organization, and your managed print services RFP does not ask enough of the vendor.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Follow these steps to excise superfluous, costly printing:

    • Identify reduction opportunities via a thorough inventory and requirements-gathering process, and educate others on the financial and non-financial benefits. Enforce reduced printing through policies.
    • Change your printing financial model to print-as-a-service by building an RFP and scoring tool for managed print services that makes the vendor a partner in continuous innovation.
    • Leverage durable print management software to achieve vendor-agnostic governance and visibility.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don't settle for printer consolidation: seek to eliminate print and enlist your managed print services vendor to help you achieve that goal.

    Your challenge

    This research is designed to help organizations that aim to reduce printing long term

    • Finally understand aggregate printing costs: Not surprisingly, printing has become a large hidden expense in IT. Enterprises may be overspending on printing, but this spend is often unknown and untracked. Printer consumables are purchased independently by each department, non-networked desktop printers are everywhere, and everyone seems to be printing in color.
    • Walk the walk when it comes to digital transformation: Outdated document management practices that rely on unnecessary printing are not the foundation upon which the organization can improve business processes.
    • Get out of the printing business: Hire a managed print provider and manage that vendor well.

    "There will be neither a V-shaped nor U-shaped recovery in demand for printing paper . . . We are braced for a long L-shaped decline."
    –Toru Nozawa, President, Nippon Paper Industries (qtd. in Nikkei Asia, 2020).

    Weight of paper and paperboard generated in the U.S.*

    This is an image of a graph plotting the total weight of paper and paperboard generated in the US, bu thousands of US tons.

    *Comprises nondurable goods (including office paper), containers, and packaging.

    **2020 data not available.

    Source: EPA, 2020.

    Common obstacles

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

    • Cost-saving opportunities are unclear: In most cases, nobody is accountable for controlling printing costs, so there's a lack of incentive to do so.
    • End-user attachment to paper-based processes: For end users who have been relying on paper processes, switching to a new way of working can feel like a big ask, particularly if an optimized alternative has not been provided and socialized.
    • Legitimate print use cases are undefined: Print does still have a role in some business processes (e.g. for regulatory reasons). However, these business processes have not been analyzed to determine which print use cases are still legitimate. The WFH experience during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that many workflows that previously incorporated printing could be digitized. Indeed, the overall attachment to office paper is declining (see chart).
    • Immature RFP and RFP scoring methods: Outsourcing print to a managed service provider necessitates careful attention to RFP building and scoring. If your print requirements are not properly tailored to your organization and your managed print services RFP does not ask enough of the vendor, it will be harder to hold your vendor to account.

    How important is paper in your office?

    87% 77%

    Quocirca, a printer industry market research firm, found that the number of organizations for whom paper is "fairly or very important to their business" has dropped 10 percentage points between 2019 and 2021.

    Source: Quocirca, 2021.

    Info-Tech's approach

    Permanently change your company's print culture

    1. Plan your Project
    • Create your project charter, investigate end user printer behavior and reduction opportunities, gather requirements and calculate printer costs
  • Find the right managed print vendor
    • Protect yourself by building the right requirements into your RFP, evaluating candidates and negotiating from a strong position
  • Implement the new printer strategy
    • Identify printers to consolidate and eliminate, install them, and communicate updated printer policy
  • Operate
    • Track the usage metrics, service requests, and printing trends, support the printers and educate users to print wisely and sparingly
  • The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Use Info-Tech's tracking tools to finally track data on printer inventory and usage.
    2. Get to an RFP for managed print services faster through Info-Tech's requirement selection activity, and use Info-Tech's scoring tool template to more quickly compare candidates and identify frontrunners and knockouts.
    3. Use Info-Tech's guidance on print management software to decouple your need to govern the fleet from any specific vendor.

    Info-Tech's methodology for Re-Envision Enterprise Printing

    1. Strategy & planning 2. Vendor selection, evaluation, acquisition 3. Implementation & operation
    Phase steps
    1. Create project charter and assign roles
    2. Assess current state of enterprise print environments
    3. Gather current and future printer requirements
    1. Understand managed print services model
    2. Create RFP documents and score vendors
    3. Understand continuous innovation & print management software
    1. Modify printer policies
    2. Measure project success
    3. Training & adoption
    4. Plan persuasive communication
    5. Prepare for continuous improvement
    Phase outcomes
    • Documentation of project roles, scope, objectives, success metrics
    • Accurate printer inventory
    • Documentation of requirements based on end-user feedback, existing usage, and future goals
    • Finalized requirements
    • Completed RFP and vendor scoring tool
    • Managed print vendor selected, if necessary
    • Updated printer policies that reinforce print reduction focus
    • Assessment of project success

    Insight summary

    Keep an eye on the long-term goal of eliminating print

    Don't settle for printer consolidation: seek to eliminate print and enlist your managed print services vendor to help you achieve that goal.

    Persuading leaders is key

    Good metrics and visible improvement are important to strengthen executive support for a long-term printer reduction strategy.

    Tie printer reduction into business process improvement

    Achieve long-lasting reductions in print through document management and improved workflow processes.

    Maintain clarity on what types of printer use are and aren't supported by IT

    Modifying and enforcing printing policies can help reduce use of printers.

    Print management software allows for vendor-agnostic continuity

    Print management software should be vendor-agnostic and allow you to manage devices even if you change vendors or print services.

    Secure a better financial model from the provider

    Simply changing your managed print services pay model to "pay-per-click" can result in large cost savings.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Key deliverable:

    Managed Print Services RFP

    This blueprint's key deliverable is a completed RFP for enterprise managed print services, which feeds into a scoring tool that accelerates the requirements selection and vendor evaluation process.

    Managed Print Services Vendor Assessment Questions

    This is a screenshot from the Managed Print Services Vendor Assessment Questions

    Managed Print Services RFP Template

    This is a screenshot from the Managed Print Services RFP Template

    Managed Print Services RFP Vendor Proposal Scoring Tool

    This is a screenshot from the Managed Print Services RFP Vendor Proposal Scoring Tool

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

    Enterprise Printing Project Charter

    This is a screenshot from the Enterprise Printing Project Charter

    Document the parameters of the print reduction project, your goals, desired business benefits, metrics.

    Enterprise Printing Roles and Responsibilities RACI Guide

    This is a screenshot from the Enterprise Printing Project Charter

    Assign key tasks for the project across strategy & planning, vendor selection, implementation, and operation.

    Printer Policy

    This is a screenshot from the Printer Policy

    Start with a policy template that emphasizes reduction in print usage and adjust as needed for your organization.

    Printer Reduction Tool

    This is a screenshot from the Printer Reduction Tool

    Track the printer inventory and calculate total printing costs.

    End-User Print Requirements Survey

    This is a screenshot from the End-User Print Requirements Survey

    Base your requirements in end user needs and feedback.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT benefits

    • Make the project charter for printer reduction and estimate cost savings
    • Determine your organization's current printing costs, usage, and capabilities
    • Define your organization's printing requirements and select a solution
    • Develop a printer policy and implement the policy

    Business benefits

    • Understand the challenges involved in reducing printers
    • Understand the potential of this initiative to reduce costs
    • Accelerate existing plans for modernization of paper-based business processes by reducing printer usage
    • Contribute to organizational environmental sustainability targets

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

    Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #4: Review requirements.
    Weigh the benefits of managed print services.

    Call #6: Measure project success.

    Call #2: Review your printer inventory.
    Understand your current printing costs and usage.

    Call #5: Review completed scoring tool and RFP.

    Call #5: Review vendor responses to RFP.

    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.

    Phase 1

    Strategy and Planning

    Strategy & planning

    Vendor selection, evaluation, acquisition

    Implementation & Operation

    1.1 Create project charter and assign roles

    1.2 Assess current state

    1.3 Gather requirements

    2.1 Understand managed print services model

    2.2 Create RFP materials

    2.3 Leverage print management software

    3.1 Modify printer policies

    3.2 Measure project success

    3.3 Training & adoption

    3.4 Plan communication

    3.5 Prepare for continuous improvement

    Re-Envision Enterprise Printing

    • This phase will walk you through the following activities:
    • Create a list of enterprise print roles and responsibilities
    • Create project charter
    • Inventory printer fleet and calculate printing costs
    • Examine current printing behavior and identify candidates for device elimination
    • Gather requirements, including through end user survey

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT director/CIO
    • Business operations manager
    • Project manager

    Step 1.1

    Create project charter and assign roles

    Outcomes of this step

    Completed Project Charter with RACI chart

    Phase 1: Strategy and Planning

    • Step 1.1 Create project charter and assign roles
    • Step 1.2 Assess current state
    • Step 1.3 Gather requirements

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT director/CIO
    • Business operations manager
    • Project manager

    Activities in this step

    • Create a list of enterprise print roles and responsibilities
    • Create project charter

    1.1 Create project charter

    Use the project charter to clearly define the scope and avoid scope creep

    Identify project purpose

    • Why is the organization taking on this project? What are you trying to achieve?
    • What is the important background you need to document? How old is the fleet? What kinds of printer complaints do you get? What percentage of the IT budget does printing occupy?
    • What specific goals should this project achieve? What measurable financial and non-financial benefits do these goals achieve?

    Identify project scope

    • What functional requirements do you have?
    • What outputs are expected?
    • What constraints will affect this project?
    • What is out of scope for this project?

    What are the main roles and responsibilities?

    • Who is doing what for this project?

    How will you measure success?

    • What are the project's success metrics and KPIs?

    Enterprise Printing Project Charter

    This is a screenshot from the Enterprise Printing Project Charter

    Anticipate stakeholder resistance

    Getting management buy-in for printer reduction is often one of the biggest challenges of the project.

    Challenge Resolution
    Printer reduction is not typically high on the priority list of strategic IT initiatives. It is often a project that regularly gets deferred. The lack of an aggregate view of the total cost of printing in the environment could be one root cause, and what can't be measured usually isn't being managed. Educate and communicate the benefits of printer reduction to executives. In particular, spend time getting buy-in from the COO and/or CFO. Use Info-Tech's Printer Reduction Tool to show executives the waste that is currently being generated.
    Printers are a sensitive and therefore unpopular topic of discussion. Executives often see a trade-off: cost savings versus end-user satisfaction. Make a strong financial and non-financial case for the project. Show examples of other organizations that have successfully consolidated their printers.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If printer reduction is not driven and enforced from the top down, employees will find ways to work around your policies and changes. Do not attempt to undertake printer reduction initiatives without alerting executives. Ensure visible executive support to achieve higher cost savings.

    Align the printer reduction project to org goals to achieve buy-in

    A successful IT project demonstrates clear connections to business goals

    Which business and organizational goals and drivers are supported by IT's intention to transform its printing ecosystem? For example,

    Legislation: In 2009, the Washington House of Representatives passed a bill requiring state agencies to implement a plan to reduce paper consumption by 30% (State of Washington, 2009). The University of Washington cites this directive as one of the drivers for their plans to switch fully to electronic records by 2022 (University of Washington, n.d.).

    Health care modernization: Implementing electronic health records; reducing paper charts.

    Supply chain risk reduction: In 2021, an Ontario district school board experienced photocopier toner shortages and were forced to request schools to reduce printing and photocopying: "We have recommended to all locations that the use of printing be minimized as much as possible and priority given to the printing of sensitive and confidential documentation" (CBC, 2021).

    Identify overall organizational goals in the following places:

    • Company mission statements
    • Corporate website
    • Business strategy documents
    • Other IT strategy documents
    • Executives

    Document financial and non-financial benefits

    Financial benefits: Printer reduction can reduce your printing costs and improve printing capabilities.

    • Printer reduction creates a controlled print environment; poorly controlled print environments breed unnecessary costs.
    • Cost savings can be realized through:
      • Elimination of cost-efficient inkjet desktop printers.
      • Elimination of high-cost, inefficient, or underutilized printers.
      • Sharing of workshop printers between an optimal number of end users.
      • Replacing separate printers, scanners, copiers, and fax machines with. multi-function devices.
    • Cost savings can be achieved through a move to managed print services, if you negotiate the contract well and manage the vendor properly. The University of Washington estimated a 20-25% cost reduction under a managed print services model compared to the existing lease (University of Washington, "What is MPS").

    Non-financial benefits: Although the main motivation behind printer reduction is usually cost savings, there are also non-financial benefits to the project.

    • Printer reduction decreases physical space required for printers
    • Printer reduction meets employee and client environmental demands
      • Printer reduction can reduce the electricity and consumables used
      • Reduction in consumables means reduced hazardous waste from consumables and devices
    • Printer reduction can result in better printing capabilities
      • Moving to a managed print services model can provide you with better printing capabilities with higher availability

    Assign responsibility to track print device costs to IT

    Problem:
    Managers in many organizations wrongly assume that since IT manages the printer devices, they also already manage costs.

    However, end users typically order printer devices and supplies through the supplies/facilities department, bypassing any budget approval process, or through IT, which does not have any authority or incentive to restrict requests (when they're not measured against the controlling of printer costs).

    Organization-wide printer usage policies are rarely enforced with any strictness.

    Without systematic policy enforcement, end-user print behavior becomes frivolous and generates massive printing costs.

    Solution:
    Recommend all print device costs be allocated to IT.

    • Aggregate responsibility: Recommend that all printer costs be aggregated under IT's budget and tracked by IT staff.
    • Assign accountability: Although supplies may continually be procured by the organization's supplies/facilities department, IT should track monthly usage and costs by department.
    • Enforce policy: Empower IT with the ability to enforce a strict procurement policy that ensures all devices in the print environment are approved models under IT's control. This eliminates having unknown devices in the printer fleet and allows for economies of scale to be realized from purchasing standardized printing supplies.
    • Track metrics: IT should establish metrics to measure and control each department's printer usage and flat departments that exceed their acceptable usage amounts.

    Assign accountability for the initiative

    Someone needs to have accountability for both the printer reduction tasks and the ongoing operation tasks, or the initiative will quickly lose momentum.

    Customize Info-Tech's Enterprise Printing Roles and Responsibilities RACI Guide RACI chart to designate project roles and responsibilities to participants both inside and outside IT.

    These tasks fall under the categories of:

    • Strategy and planning
    • Vendor selection, evaluation, and acquisition
    • Implementation
    • Operate

    Assign a RACI: Remember the meaning of the different roles

    • Responsible (does the work on a day-to-day basis)
    • Accountable (reviews, signs off on, and is held accountable for outcomes)
    • Consulted (input is sought to feed into decision making)
    • Informed (is given notification of outcomes)

    As a best practice, no more than one person should be responsible or accountable for any given process. The same person can be both responsible and accountable for a given process, or it could be two different people.

    Avoid making someone accountable for a process if they do not have full visibility into the process for appropriate oversight, or do not have time to give the process sufficient attention.

    The Enterprise Printing Roles and Responsibilities RACI Guide can be used to organize and manage these tasks.

    This is a screenshot from the Enterprise Printing Roles and Responsibilities RACI Guide

    Define metrics to measure success

    Track your project success by developing and tracking success metrics

    Ensure your metrics relate both to business value and customer satisfaction. "Reduction of print" is a business metric, not an experience metric.

    Frame metrics around experience level agreements (XLAs) and experience level objectives (XLOs): What are the outcomes the customer wants to achieve and the benefits they want to achieve? Tie the net promoter score into the reporting from the IT service management system, since SLAs are still needed to tactically manage the achievement of the XLOs.

    Use the Metrics Development Workbook from Info-Tech's Develop Meaningful Service Metrics to define:

    • Relevant stakeholders
    • Their goals and pain points
    • The success criteria that must be met to achieve these goals
    • The key indicators that must be measured to achieve these goals from an IT perspective
    • What the appropriate IT metrics are, based on all of the above

    Metrics could include

    • User satisfaction
    • Print services net promoter model
    • Total printing costs
    • Printer availability (uptime)
    • Printer reliability (mean time between failures)
    • Total number of reported incidents
    • Mean time for vendor to respond and repair

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Good metrics and visible improvement are important to strengthen executive support for a long-term printer reduction strategy.

    Step 1.2

    Assess current state

    Outcomes of this step

    • Aggregate view of your printer usage and costs

    Strategy and Planning

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT director/CIO
    • Business operations manager
    • Project manager

    Activities in this step

    • 1.2. Inventory your printer fleet: Office walk-around
    • 1.2 Inventory your printer fleet: Collect purchase receipts/statements/service records
    • 1.3 Calculate printing costs

    Create an aggregate view of your printer usage and costs

    Problem: Lack of visibility

    • Most organizations are unaware of the savings potential in reducing print due to a lack of data.
    • Additionally, organizations may have inappropriately sized devices for their workloads.
    • Often, nobody is responsible for managing the printers collectively, resulting in a lack of visibility into printing activity. Without this visibility, it is difficult to muster executive commitment and support for printer reduction efforts.
    • The first step to eliminating your printers is to inventory all the printers in the organization and look at an aggregate view of the costs. Without understanding the cost saving potential, management will likely continue to avoid printer changes due to the idea's unpopularity with end users.
    • Valid use cases for printers will likely still remain, but these use cases should be based on a requirements analysis.
    This is a screenshot from the Printer Reduction Tool. It includes the Printer Inventory, and a table with the following column headings: Device Type; Specific Device; Networked; Manufacturer; Model; Serial #; Office Location; Device Owner; # users Supported; Monthly Duty; Page Count to; Device Age; Remaining Useful; # Pages printer/month; % Utilization

    Create visibility through by following these steps:

    1. Office walk-around: Most organizations have no idea how many printers they have until they walk around the office and physically count them. This is especially true in cases where management is allowed to purchase personal printers and keep them at their desks. An office walk-around is often necessary to accurately capture all the printers in your inventory.
    2. Collect purchase receipts/statements/service records: Double-check your printer inventory by referring to purchase receipts, statements, and service records.
    3. Identify other sources of costs: Printer purchases only make up a small fraction of total printing costs. Operating costs typically account for 95% of total printer costs. Make sure to factor in paper, ink/toner, electricity, and maintenance costs.

    1.2.1 Inventory your printer fleet: part 1

    Office walk-around

    1. Methodically walk around the office and determine the following for each printer:
      • Device type
      • Make, model, serial number
      • Location
      • Number of users supported
      • Device owner
      • Type of users supported (department, employee position)
    2. Record printer details in Tab 1 of Info-Tech's Printer Reduction Tool. Collaborate with the accounting or purchasing department to determine the following for each printer recorded:
      • Purchase price/date
      • Monthly duty cycle
      • Estimated remaining useful life
      • Page count to date

    Input

    Output
    • Existing inventory lists
    • Visual observation
    • Inventory of office printers, including their printer details

    Materials

    Participants

    • Notepad
    • Pen
    • Printer Reduction Tool
    • IT director
    • IT staff

    Download the Printer Reduction Tool

    1.2.2 Inventory your printer fleet:
    part 2

    Collect purchase receipts/statements/service records

    1. Ask your purchasing manager for purchase receipts, statements, and service records relating to printing.
    2. For documents found, match the printer with your physical inventory. Add any printers found that were not captured in the physical inventory count. Record the following:
      1. Device type
      2. Make, model, serial number
      3. Location
      4. Number of users supported
      5. Device owner
      6. Type of users supported (department, employee position)
    3. 3. Collaborate with the accounting or purchasing department to determine the following for each printer recorded:
      1. Purchase price/date
      2. Monthly duty cycle
      3. Estimated remaining useful life
      4. Page count to date
    4. Enter the data in Tab 1 of the Printer Reduction Tool

    Input

    Output
    • Purchase receipts
    • Statements
    • Service records
    • Printer inventory cross-checked with paperwork

    Materials

    Participants

    • Printer inventory from previous activity
    • IT director
    • IT staff
    • Purchasing manager

    Download the Printer Reduction Tool

    1.2.3 Calculate your printing costs

    Collect purchase receipts/statements/service records

    • Collect invoices, receipts, and service records to sum up the costs of paper, ink or toner, and maintenance for each machine. Estimate electricity costs.
    • Record your costs in Tab 2 of the Printer Reduction Tool.
    • Review the costs per page and per user to look for particularly expensive printers and understand the main drivers of the cost.
    • Review your average monthly cost and annual cost per user. Do these costs surprise you?

    Input

    Output
    • Invoices, receipts, service records for
    • Cost per page and user
    • Average monthly and annual cost

    Materials

    Participants

    • Printer Reduction Tool
    • IT director
    • IT staff

    Step 1.3

    Gather printing requirements

    Outcomes of this step

    • Understanding of the organization's current printing behavior and habits
    • Identification of how industry context and digitization of business processes have impacted current and future requirements

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT director
    • IT staff
    • Rest of organization

    Activities in this step

    • Examine current printing behavior and habits
    • Administer end-user survey
    • Identify current requirements
    • Identify future requirements

    Requirements Gathering Overview

    1. Identify opportunities to go paperless
      • Determine where business process automation is occurring
      • Align with environmental and sustainability campaigns
    2. Identify current requirements
      • Review the types of document being printed and the corresponding features needed
      • Administer end-user survey to understand user needs and current printer performance
    3. Identify future requirements
    • Identify future requirements to avoid prematurely refreshing your printer fleet
  • Examine industry-specific/ workflow printing
    • Some industries have specific printing requirements such as barcode printing accuracy. Examine your industry-specific printing requirements
  • Stop: Do not click "Print"

    The most effective way to achieve durable printing cost reduction is simply to print less.

    • Consolidating devices and removing cost-inefficient individual printers is a good first step to yielding savings.
    • However, more sustainable success is achieved by working with the printer vendor(s) and the business on continuous innovation via proposals and initiatives that combine hardware, software, and services.
    • Sustained print reduction depends on separate but related business process automation and digital innovation initiatives.

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Achieve long-lasting reductions in print through document management and improved workflow processes.

    Leverage Info-Tech research to support your business' digital transformation

    This is an image of the title page from Info-Tech's Define your Digital Business Strategy blueprint.

    Define how changes to enterprise printing fit into digital transformation plans

    Identify opportunities to go paperless

    The "paperless office" has been discussed since the 1970s. The IT director alone does not have authority to change business processes. Ensure the print reduction effort is tied to other strategies and initiatives around digital transformation. Working on analog pieces of paper is not digital and may be eroding digital transformation process.

    Leverage Info-Tech's Assert IT's Relevance During Digital Transformations to remind others that modernization of the enterprise print environment belongs to the discussion around increasing digitized support capabilities.

    1. Digital Marketing

    2. Digital Channels

    3. Digitized Support Capabilities

    4. Digitally Enabled Products

    5. Business Model Innovation

    Manage Websites

    E-Channel Operations

    Workforce Management

    Product Design

    Innovation Lab Management

    Brand Management

    Product Inventory Management

    Digital Workplace Management

    Portfolio Product Administration

    Data Sandbox Management

    SEO

    Interactive Help

    Document Management

    Product Performance Measurement

    Innovation Compensation Management

    Campaign Execution

    Party Authentication

    Eliminate business process friction caused by print

    Analyze workflows for where they are still using paper. Ask probing questions about where paper still adds value and where the business process is a candidate for paperless digital transformation

    • Is this piece of paper only being used to transfer information from one application to another?
    • What kind of digitalization efforts have happened in the business as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic? Which workflows have digitized on their own?
    • Where has e-signature been adopted?
    • Is this use of paper non-negotiable (e.g. an ER triage that requires a small printer for forms; the need for bank tellers to provide receipts to customers)?
    • Do we have compliance obligations that require us to retain a paper process?
    • What is getting printed? Who is printing the most? Identify if there are recurring system-generated reports being printed daily/weekly/quarterly that are adding to the volume. Are reports going directly from staff mailboxes to a recycling bin?
    • Does our print financial model incentivize the transformation of business processes, or does it reinforce old habits?
    • What services, software, and solutions for document management and business process analysis does our managed print services vendor offer? Can we involve the vendor in the business transformation conversation by including an innovation clause in the next contract (re)negotiation to push the vendor to offer proposals for projects that reduce print?

    Develop short-term and long-term print reduction strategies

    Short-term strategies

    • Consolidate the number of printers you have.
    • Determine whether to outsource printing to a managed services provider and make the move.
    • Enable print roaming and IT verification.
    • Require user-queued print jobs to be authenticated at a printer to prevent print jobs that are lost or not picked up.
    • Set up user quotas.
    • Provide usage records to business managers so they can understand the true cost of printing.
    • User quotas may create initial pushback, but they lead users to ask themselves whether a particular print job is necessary.
    • Renegotiate print service contracts.
    • Revisit contracts and shop around to ensure pricing is competitive.
    • Leverage size and centralization by consolidating to a single vendor, and use the printing needs of the entire enterprise to decrease pricing and limit future contractual obligations.
    • Train users on self-support.
    • Train users to remedy paper jams and move paper in and out of paper trays.

    Long-term strategies

    • Promote a paperless culture by convincing employees of its benefits (greater cost savings, better security, easier access, centralized repository, greener).
    • Educate users to use print area wisely.
    • Develop campaigns to promote black and white printing or a paperless culture.

    Info-Tech Insight:

    One-time consolidation initiatives leave money on the table. The extra savings results from changes in printing culture and end-user behavior.

    Examine current printing behavior and habits

    It's natural for printer usage and printing costs to vary based on office, department, and type of employee. Certain jobs simply require more printing than others.

    However, the printing culture within your organization likely also varies based on

    • office
    • department
    • type of employee

    Examine the printing behaviors of your employees based on these factors and determine whether their printing behavior aligns with the nature of their job.

    Excessive printing costs attributed to departments or groups of employees that don't require much printing for their jobs could indicate poor printing culture and potentially more employee pushback.

    Examine current printing behavior and habits, and identify candidates for elimination

    1. Go to Tab 3 of your Printer Reduction Tool ("Usage Dashboard Refresh"). Right-click each table and press "Refresh."
    2. Go to Tab 4 of your Printer Reduction Tool ("Usage Dashboard") to understand the following:
      1. Average printer utilization by department
      2. Pages printed per month by department
      3. Cost per user by department
    3. Take note of the outliers and expensive departments.
    4. Review printer inventory and printer use rates on Tab 5.
    5. Decide which printers are candidates for elimination and which require more research.
    6. If already working in a managed print services model, review the vendor's recommendations for printer elimination and consolidation.
    7. Mark printers that could be eliminated or consolidated.

    Input

    Output
    • Discussion
    • Understanding of expensive departments and other outliers

    Materials

    Participants

    • Printer Reduction Tool
    • IT director/ business operations
    • Business managers

    Administer end-user survey

    Understand end-user printing requirements and current printer performance through an end-user survey

    1. Customize Info-Tech's End-User Print Requirements Survey to help you understand your users' needs and the current performance of your printer fleet.
    2. Send the survey to all printer users in the organization.
    3. Collect the surveys and aggregate the requirements of users in each department.
    4. Record the survey results in the "Survey Results" tab.

    Input

    Output
    • End-user feedback
    • Identification of outliers and expensive departments

    Materials

    Participants

    • End-User Print Requirements Survey template
    • IT director
    • IT staff
    • Rest of organization

    Download the End-User Print Requirements Survey

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Use an end-user printer satisfaction survey before and after any reduction efforts or vendor implementation, both as a requirement-gathering user input and to measure/manage the vendor.

    Identify your current requirements

    Collect all the surveys and aggregate user requirements. Input the requirements into your Printer Reduction Tool.

    Discussion activity:

    • Review the requirements for each department and discuss:
    • What is this device being used for (e.g. internal documents, external documents, high-quality graphics/color)?
    • Based on its use case, what kinds of features are needed (e.g. color printing, scanning to email, stapling)?
    • Is this the right type of device for its purpose? Do we need this device, or can it be eliminated?
    • Based on its use case, what kinds of security features are needed (e.g. secure print release)?
    • Are there any compliance requirements that need to be satisfied (e.g. PCI, ITAR, HIPAA)?
    • Based on its use case, what's the criticality of uptime?
    • What is this device's place in the organization's workflow? What are its dependencies?
    • With which systems is the device compatible? Is it compatible with the newer operating system versions? If not, determine whether the device is a refresh candidate.

    Input

    Output
    • Survey results and department requirements
    • List of current requirements

    Materials

    Participants

    • N/A
    • IT director
    • IT staff

    Identify your future requirements

    Prepare your printer fleet for future needs to avoid premature printer refreshes.

    Discussion activity:

    • Review the current requirements for each department's printers and discuss whether the requirements will meet the department's printing needs over the next 10 years.
    • What is this device going to be used for in the next 10 years?
    • Will use of this device be reduced by plans to increase workflow digitization?
    • Based on its use case, what kinds of features are needed?
    • Is this the right type of device for its purpose?
    • Based on its use case, what kinds of security features are needed?
    • Based on its use case, what is the criticality of uptime?
    • Is this device's place in the organization's workflow going to change? What are its dependencies?
    • Reassess your current requirements and make any changes necessary to accommodate for future requirements.

    Input

    Output
    • Discussion
    • List of future requirements

    Materials

    Participants

    • N/A
    • IT director
    • IT staff

    Examine requirements specific to your industry and workflow

    Some common examples of industries with specific printing requirements:

    • Healthcare
      • Ability to comply with HIPAA requirements
      • High availability and reliability with on-demand support and quick response times
      • Built-in accounting software for billing purposes
      • Barcode printing for hospital wristbands
      • Fax requirements
    • Manufacturing
      • Barcoding technology
      • Ability to meet regulations such as FDA requirements for the pharmaceutical industry
      • Ability to integrate with ERP systems
    • Education
      • Password protection for sensitive student information
      • Test grading solutions
      • Paper tests for accessibility needs

    Phase 2

    Vendor Selection, Evaluation, Acquisition

    Strategy & planning

    Vendor selection, evaluation, acquisition

    Implementation & Operation

    1.1 Create project charter and assign roles

    1.2 Assess current state

    1.3 Gather requirements

    2.1 Understand managed print services model

    2.2 Create RFP materials

    2.3 Leverage print management software

    3.1 Modify printer policies

    3.2 Measure project success

    3.3 Training & adoption

    3.4 Plan communication

    3.5 Prepare for continuous improvement

    Re-Envision Enterprise Printing

    • This phase will walk you through the following activities:
    • Define managed print services RFP requirement questions
    • Create managed print services RFP and scoring tool
    • Score the RFP responses

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT director/CIO
    • Business operations manager
    • Project manager

    Change your financial model

    The managed print services industry allows you to use a pay-as-you-go approach and right-size your print spend to the organization's needs.

    Avoid being locked into a long lease where the organization pays a fixed monthly fee whether the printer runs or not.

    Instead, treat enterprise printing as a service, like the soda pop machine in the break room, where the vendor is paid when the device is used. If the vending machine is broken, the vendor is not paid until the technician restores it to operability. Printers can work the same way.

    By moving to a per click/page financial model, the vendor installs and supports the devices and is paid whenever a user prints. Though the organization pays more on a per-click/page basis compared to a lease, the vendor is incentivized to right-size the printer footprint to the organization, and the organization saves on monthly recurring lease costs and maintenance costs.

    Right-size commitments: If the organization remains on a lease instead of pay-per-click model, it should right-size the commitment if printing drops below a certain volume. In the agreement, include a business downturn clause that allows the organization to right-size and protect itself in the event of negative growth.

    Understand the managed print services model and its cost savings

    Outsourcing print services can monitor and balance your printers and optimize your fleet for efficiency. Managed print services are most appropriate for:

    • Organizations engaging in high-volume, high-quality print jobs with growing levels of output.
    • Organizations with many customer-facing print jobs.

    There are three main managed printing service models. Sometimes, an easy switch from a level pay model to a pay-per-click model can result in substantial savings:

    Level Pay

    • Flat rate per month based on estimates.
    • Attempts to flatten IT's budgeting so printing costs are consistent every month or every year (for budgeting purposes). At the end of the year, the amount of supplies used is added up and compared with the initial estimates and adjusted accordingly.
    • The customer pays the same predictable fee each month every year, even if you don't meet the maximum print quantity for the pay. Increased upcharge for quantities exceeding maximum print quantity.

    Base Plus Click

    • Fixed base payment (lease or rental) + pay-per-sheet for services.
    • In addition to the monthly recurring base cost, you pay for what you use. This contract may be executed with or without a minimum monthly page commitment. Page count through remote monitoring technologies is typically required.

    Pay Per Click

    • Payment is solely based on printing usage.
    • Printing costs will likely be the lowest with this option, but also the most variable.
    • This option requires a minimum monthly page commitment and/or minimum term.

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Vendors typically do not like the pay-per-click option and will steer businesses away from it. However, this option holds the vendor accountable for the availability and reliability of your printers, and Info-Tech generally recommends this option.

    Compare financials of each managed print services option

    Your printing costs with a pay-per-click model are most reflective of your actual printer usage. Level pay tends to be more expensive, where you need to pay for overages but don't benefit from printing less than the maximum allocated.

    See the below cost comparison example with level pay set at a maximum of 120,000 impressions per month. In the level pay model, the organization was paying for 120,000 sheets in the month it only used 60,000 impressions, whereas it would have been able to pay just for the 60,000 sheets in the pay-per-click model.

    This image contains tables with the column headings: Impressions per month; Total Cost; Average Cost per Impression; for each of the following categories: Level Pay; Base Plus Click; Pay Per Click

    Financial comparison case study

    This organization compared estimated costs over a 36-month period for the base-plus-click and pay-per-page models for Toshiba E Studio 3515 AC Digital Color Systems.

    Base-plus-click model

    Monthly recurring cost

    Avg. impressions per month

    Monthly cost

    Monthly cost

    "Net pay per click"

    Cost over 36-month period

    A fixed lease cost each month, with an additional per click/page charge

    $924.00

    12,000 (B&W)

    $0.02 (B&W)

    $1,164.00 (B&W)

    $0.097 (B&W)

    $41,904 (B&W)

    5,500 (Color)

    $0.09 (Color)

    $495.00 (Color)

    $0.090 (Color)

    $17,820 (Color)

    Base-plus-click model

    Monthly recurring cost

    Avg. impressions per month

    Monthly cost

    Monthly cost

    "Net pay per click"

    Cost over 36-month period

    No monthly lease cost, only per-image charges

    0.00

    12,000 (B&W)

    $0.06 (B&W)

    $720.00 (B&W)

    $0.060 (B&W)

    $25,920 (B&W)

    5,500 (Color)

    $0.12 (Color)

    $660.00 (Color)

    $0.120 (Color)

    $23,760 (Color)

    Results

    Though the per-image cost for each image is lower in the base-plus-click model, the added monthly recurring costs for the lease means the "net pay per click" is higher.

    Overall, the pay-per-page estimate saved $10,044 over a 36-month period for this device.

    Bake continuing innovation into your requirements

    Once you are in the operation phase, you will need to monitor and analyze trends in company printing in order to make recommendations for the future and to identify areas for possible savings and/or asset optimization.

    Avoid a scenario where the vendor drops the printer in your environment and returns only for repairs. Engage the vendor in this continuous innovation work:

    In the managed services agreement, include a proviso for continuous innovation where the vendor has a contractual obligation to continually look at the business process flow and bring yearly proposals to show innovation (e.g. cost reductions; opportunities to reduce print, which allows the vendor to propose document management services and record keeping services). Leverage vendors who are building up capabilities to transform business processes to help with the heavy lifting.

    Establish a vision for the relationship that goes beyond devices and toner. The vendor can make a commitment to continuous management and constant improvement, instead of installing the devices and leaving. Ideally, this produces a mutually beneficial situation: The client asks the vendor to sell them ways to mature and innovate the business processes, while the vendor retains the business and potentially sells new services. In order to retain your business, the vendor must continue to learn and know about your business.

    The metric of success for your organization is the simple reduction in printed copies overall. The vendor success metric would be proposals that may combine hardware, software, and services that provide cost-effective reductions in print through document management and workflow processes. The vendors should be keen to build this into the relationship since the services delivery has a higher margin for them.

    Sample requirement wording:

    "Continuing innovation: The contractor initiates at least one (1) project each year of the contract that shows leadership and innovation in solutions and services for print, document management, and electronic recordkeeping. Bidders must describe a sample project in their response, planning for an annual investment of approximately 50 consulting hours and $10,000 in hardware and/or software."

    Reward the vendor for performance instead of "punishing" them for service failures

    Problem: Printer downtime and poor service is causing friction with your managed service provider (MSP).

    MSPs often offer clients credit requests (service credits) for their service failures, which are applied to the previous month's monthly recurring charge. They are applied to the last month's MRC (monthly reoccurring charges) at the end of term and then the vendor pays out the residual.

    However, while common, service credits are not always perceived to be a strong incentive for the provider to continually focus on improvement of mean time to respond or mean time to repair.

    Solution: Turn your vendor into a true partner by including an "earn back" condition in the contract.

    • Engage the vendor as a true partner within a relationship based upon service credits.
    • Suggest that the vendor include a minor change to the non-performance processes within the final agreement: the vendor implements an "earn back" condition in the agreement.
    • Where a bank of service credits exists because of non-performance, if the provider exceeds the SLA performance metrics for a number of consecutive months (two is common), then a given number of prior credits received by the client are returned to the provider as a reward for improved performance.
    • This can be a useful mechanism to drive improved performance.

    Leverage enterprise print management software

    Printers are commoditized and can come and go, but print management software enables the governance, compliance, savings and visibility necessary for the transformation

    • Printer management solutions range from tools bundled with ink-jet printers that track consumables' status, to software suites that track data for thousands of print devices.
    • Typically, these solutions arrive in enterprises as part of larger managed services printing engagements, bundled with hardware, financing, maintenance, and "services."
    • Bundling print management software means that customers very rarely seek to acquire printing management software alone.
    • Owing to the level of customization (billing, reporting, quotas, accounts, etc.) switching print management software solutions is also rare. The work you put into this software will remain with IT regardless of your hardware.
    • Durability of print management software is also influenced by the hardware- and technology-agnostic nature of the solutions (e.g. swapping one vendor's devices for another does not trigger anything more than a configuration change in print management software.)

    Include enterprise print management requirements in the RFP

    Ask respondents to describe their managed services capabilities and an optional on-premises, financed solution with these high-level capabilities.

    Select the appropriate type of print management software

    Vendor-provided solutions are adequate control for small organizations with simple print environments

    • Suitable for small organizations (<100 users).
    • Software included with print devices can pool print jobs, secure access, and centralize job administration.
    • Dealing with complex sales channels for third-party vendors is likely a waste of resources.

    SMBs with greater print control needs can leverage mid-level solutions to manage behavior

    • Suitable for mid-size organizations (<500 users).
    • Mid-level software can track costs, generate reports, and centralize management.
    • Solutions start at $500 but require additional per-device costs.

    Full control solutions will only attract large organizations with a mature print strategy

    • Full control solutions tend to be suitable for large organizations (>500 users) with complex print environments and advanced needs.
    • Full control software allows for absolute enforcement of printing policies and full control of printing.
    • Expect to spend thousands for a tailored solution that will save time and guide cost savings.

    Enterprise print management software features

    The feature set for these tools is long and comprehensive. The feature list below is not exhaustive, as specific tools may have additional product capabilities.

    Print Management Software Features

    Hardware-neutral support of all major printer types and operating systems (e.g. direct IP to any IPP-enabled printer along with typical endpoint devices) Tracking of all printing activity by user, client account, printer, and document metadata
    Secure print on demand (Secure print controls: User Authenticated Print Release, Pull Printing) Granular print cost/charging, allowing costs to be assigned on a per-printer basis with advanced options to charge different amounts based on document type (e.g. color, grayscale or duplex), page size, user or group
    Managed and secured mobile printing (iOS/Android), BYOD, and guest printing DaaS/VDI print support
    Printer installation discovery/enablement, device inventory/management Auditing/reporting, print audit trail using document attributes to manage costs/savings, enforce security and compliance with regulations and policies
    Monitoring print devices, print queues, provide notification of conditions Watermarking and/or timestamping to ensure integrity and confidentially/classification of printed documents some solutions support micro font adding print date, time, user id and other metadata values discreetly to a page preventing data leakage
    Active Directory integration or synchronization with LDAP user accounts Per-user quotas or group account budgets
    Ability to govern default print settings policies (B&W, double-sided, no color, etc.)

    Get to the managed print services RFP quicker

    Jumpstart your requirements process using these tools and exercises

    Vendor Assessment Questions

    Use Info-Tech's catalog of commonly used questions and requirements in successful acquisition processes for managed print services. Ask the right questions to secure an agreement that meets your needs. If you are already in a contract with managed print services, take the opportunity of contract renewal to improve the contract and service.

    RFP Template and "Schedule 1" Attachment

    Add your finalized assessment questions into this table, which you will attach to your RFP. The vendor answers questions in this "Schedule 1" attachment and returns it to you.

    RFP Scoring Tool

    Aggregate the RFP responses into this scoring tool to identify the frontrunners and candidates for elimination. Since the vendors are asked to respond in a standard format, it is easier to bring together all the responses to create a complete view of your options.

    Define RFP requirement questions

    Include the right requirements for your organization, and avoid leaving out important requirements that might have been overlooked.

    1. Download the Managed Print Services Vendor Assessment Questions tool. Use this document as a "shopping list" to jumpstart an initial draft of the RFP and, more importantly, scoring requirements.
    2. Review the questions in the context of your near- and long-term printer outsourcing needs. Consider your environment, your requirements, and goals. Include other viewpoints from the RACI chart from Phase 1.
    3. Place an 'X' in the first column to retain the question. Edit the wording of the question if required, based on your organizational needs.
    4. Use the second column to indicate which section of the RFP to include the question in.

    Input

    Output
    • Requirements from Phase 1.3
    • Completed list of requirement questions

    Materials

    Participants

    • Managed Print Services Vendor Assessment Questions tool
    • IT director/business operations
    • Other roles from the RACI chart completed in Phase 1

    Download the Managed Print Services Vendor Assessment Questions tool

    Create RFP scoring tool and RFP

    1. Enter the requirements questions into the scoring tool on Tabs 2 and 4.
    2. Tab 2: Create scoring column for each vendor. You will paste in their responses here.
    3. Edit Tabs 3 and 4 so they align with what you want the vendor to see. Copy and paste Tab 3 and Tab 4 into a new document, which will serve as a "Schedule 1" attachment to the RFP package the vendor receives.
    4. Complete the RFP template. Describe your current state and current printer hardware (documented in the earlier current-state assessment). Explain the rules of how to respond and how to fill out the Schedule 1 document. Instruct each vendor to fill in their responses to each question along with any notes, and to reply with a zip file that includes the completed RFP package along with any marketing material needed to support their response.
    5. Send a copy of the RFP and Schedule 1 to each vendor under consideration.

    Input

    Output
    • Completed list of requirement questions from previous activity
    • RFP Scoring tool
    • Completed RFP and schedule 1 attachment

    Materials

    Participants

    • Managed Print Services RFP Vendor Proposal Scoring Tool
    • Managed Print Services RFP
    • IT director/business operations

    Download the Managed Print Services RFP Vendor Proposal Scoring Tool

    Download the Managed Print Services RFP template

    Score RFP responses

    1. When the responses are returned, copy and paste each vendor's results from Schedule 1 into Tab 2 of the main scoring tool.
    2. Evaluate each RFP response against the RFP criteria based on the scoring scale.
    3. Send the completed scoring tool to the CIO.
    4. Set up a meeting to discuss the scores and generate shortlist of vendors.
    5. Conduct further interviews with shortlisted vendors for due diligence, pricing, and negotiation discussions.
    6. Once a vendor is selected, review the SLAs and contract and develop a transition plan.

    Input

    Output
    • Completed Managed Print Services RFP Vendor Proposal Scoring Tool
    • Shortlist or final decision on vendor

    Materials

    Participants

    • N/A
    • IT director/business operations

    Info-Tech Insight:

    The responses from the low-scoring vendors still have value: these providers will likely provide ideas that you can then leverage with your frontrunner, even if their overall proposal did not score highly.

    Phase 3

    Implementation & Operation

    Strategy & planning

    Vendor selection, evaluation, acquisition

    Implementation & Operation

    1.1 Create project charter and assign roles

    1.2 Assess current state

    1.3 Gather requirements

    2.1 Understand managed print services model

    2.2 Create RFP materials

    2.3 Leverage print management software

    3.1 Modify printer policies

    3.2 Measure project success

    3.3 Training & adoption

    3.4 Plan communication

    3.5 Prepare for continuous improvement

    Re-Envision Enterprise Printing

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Update your enterprise printer policies
    • Readminister end-user survey to measure project success

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT director/CIO
    • Business operations manager
    • Project manager

    Modify your printer policies

    Review and modify Info-Tech's Printer Policy Template to support your print reduction goals

    Consider that your goal is to achieve printer reduction. Discuss with your team how strict it needs to be to truly reset behavior with printers. Many organizations struggle with policy enforcement. Firm language in the policy may be required to achieve this goal. For example,

    • IT only supports the printers acquired through the managed print service. Personal desktop printers are not supported by IT. Expense statements will not be accepted for non-supported printers.
    • Create a procurement policy where all device requests need justification and approval by department managers and IT. Have a debate over what the extreme exceptions would be. Legitimate exceptions must go through a review and approval process.
    • Restrict color printing to external or customer-facing use cases.
    • Encourage digital or electronic solutions in lieu of hard copies (e.g. e-signatures and approval workflows; scanning; use of integrated enterprise applications like SharePoint).
    This is a screenshot of the Printer Policy Page Template

    Download the Printer Policy template

    Readminister the end-user survey

    You have already run this survey during the requirements-gathering phase. Run it again to measure success.

    The survey was run once prior to the changes being implemented to establish a baseline of user satisfaction and to gain insights into additional requirements.

    Several months after the initial rollout (90 days is typical to let the dust settle), resurvey the end users and publish or report to the administration success metrics (the current costs vs. the actual costs prior to the change).

    User satisfaction survey can be used to manage the vendor, especially if the users are less happy after the vendor touched their environment. Use this feedback to hold the provider to account for improvement.

    Input

    Output
    • Previous survey results
    • Changes to baseline satisfaction metrics

    Materials

    Participants

    • End-user survey from Phase 1
    • IT director
    • IT staff
    • Rest of organization

    Measure project success

    Revisit the pre-project metrics and goals and compare with your current metrics

    • Identify printers to consolidate or eliminate.
    • Update asset management system (enter software and hardware serial numbers or identification tags into configuration management system).
    • Reallocate/install printers across the organization.
    • Develop ongoing printer usage and cost reports for each department.
    • Review the end-user survey and compare against baseline.
    • Operate, validate, and distribute usage metrics/chargeback to stakeholders.
    • Audit and report on environmental performance and sustainability performance to internal and external bodies, as required.
    • Write and manage knowledgebase articles.
    • Monitor and analyze trends in company printing in order to make recommendations for the future and to identify areas for possible savings and/or asset optimization.

    Metrics could include

    • User satisfaction
    • Print services net promoter model
    • Total printing costs
    • Printer availability (uptime)
    • Printer reliability (mean time between failures)
    • Total number of reported incidents
    • Mean time for vendor to respond and repair

    Support training and adoption

    Train users on self-support

    Prepare troubleshooting guides and step-by-step visual aid posters for the print areas that guide users to print, release, and find their print jobs and fix common incidents on their own. These may include:

    • The name of this printer location and the names of the others on that floor.
    • How to enter a PIN to release a print job.
    • How to fix a paper jam.
    • How to empty the paper tray.
    • How to log a service ticket if all other steps are exhausted.

    Educate users to use print area wisely

    • Inform users what to do if other print jobs appear to be left behind in the printer area.
    • Display guidelines on printer location alternatives in case of a long line.
    • Display suggestions on maximum recommended time to spend on a job in the event other users are waiting.

    Develop campaign to promote paperless culture

    Ensure business leadership and end users remain committed to thinking before they print.

    • Help your users avoid backsliding by soliciting feedback on the new printer areas.
    • Ensure timely escalation of service tickets to the vendor.
    • Support efforts by the business to seek out business process modernization opportunities whenever possible.

    Plan persuasive communication strategies

    Identify cost-saving opportunities and minimize complaints through persuasive communication

    Solicit the input of end users through surveys and review comments.

    Common complaints Response

    Consider the input of end users when making elimination and consolidation decisions and communicate IT's justification for each end user's argument to keep their desktop printers.

    "I don't trust network storage. I want physical copies." Explain the security and benefits of content management systems.
    "I use my desktop a lot. I need it." Explain the cost benefits of printing on cheaper network MFPs, especially if they print in large quantities.
    "I don't use it a lot, so it's not costly." It's a waste of money to maintain and power underused devices.
    "I need security and confidentiality." MFPs have biometric and password-release functions, which add an increased layer of security.
    "I need to be able to print from home." Print drivers and networked home printers can be insecure devices and attack vectors.
    "I don't have time to wait." Print jobs in queue can be released when users are at the device.
    "I don't want to walk that far." Tell the end user how many feet the device will be within (e.g. 50 feet). It is not usually very far.

    Implement a continual improvement plan to achieve long-term enterprise print goals

    Implement a continual improvement plan for enterprise printing:

    • Develop a vendor management plan:
      • In order to govern SLAs and manage the vendor, ensure that you can track printer-related tickets even if the device is now supported by managed print services.
      • Ensure that printer service tickets sent from the device to the vendor are also reconciled in your ITSM tool. Require the MSP to e-bond the ticket created within their own device and ticketing system back to you so you can track it in your own ITSM tool.
      • Every two months, validate service credits that can be returned to the vendor for exceeding SLA performance metrics.
      • Monitor the impact of their digital transformation strategies. Develop a cadence to review the vendor's suggestions for innovation opportunities.
    • Operate, validate, and distribute usage and experience metrics/chargeback to stakeholders.
    • Monitor and analyze trends in company printing.
    This is a graph which demonstrates the process of continual improvement through Standardization. It depicts a graph with Time as the X axis, and Quality Management as the Y axis. A grey circle with the words: ACT; PLAN; CHECK; DO, moving from the lower left part of the graph to the upper right, showing that standardization improves Quality Management.

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    You have now re-envisioned your enterprise print environment by documenting your current printer inventory and current cost and usage. You also have hard inventory and usage data benchmarks that you can use to measure the success of future initiatives around digitalization, going paperless, and reducing print cost.

    You have also developed a plan to go to market and become a consumer of managed print services, rather than a provider yourself. You have established a reusable RFP and requirements framework to engage a managed print services vendor who will work with you to support your continuous improvement plans.

    Return to the deliverables and advice in this blueprint to reinforce the organization's message to end users on when, where, and how to print. Ideally, this project has helped you go beyond a printer refresh – but rather served as a means to change the printing culture at your organization.

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

    Contact your account representative for more information

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

    Bibliography

    Fernandes, Louella. "Quocirca Managed Services Print Market, 2021." Quocirca, 25 Mar. 2021. Accessed 12 Oct. 2021.

    McInnes, Angela. "No More Photocopies, No More Ink: Thames Valley Schools Run Out of Toner." CBC, 21 Oct. 2021. Web.

    "Paper and Paperboard: Material-Specific Data." EPA, 15 Dec. 2020. Accessed 15 Oct. 2021.

    State of Washington, House of Representatives. "State Agencies – Paper Conservation and Recycling." 61st Legislature, Substitute House Bill 2287, Passed 20 April 2009.

    Sugihara, Azusa. "Pandemic Shreds Office Paper Demand as Global Telework Unfolds." Nikkei Asia, 18 July 2020. Accessed 29 Sept. 2021.

    "Paper Reduction." University of Washington, n.d. Accessed 28 Oct. 2021.

    "What is MPS?" University of Washington, n.d. Accessed 16 Mar. 2022.

    Research contributors

    Jarrod Brumm
    Senior Digital Transformation Consultant

    Jacques Lirette
    President, Ditech Testing

    3 anonymous contributors

    Info-Tech Research Group Experts

    Allison Kinnaird, Research Director & Research Lead
    Frank Trovato, Research Director

    Measure and Manage Customer Satisfaction Metrics That Matter the Most

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • Lack of understanding of what is truly driving customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
    • Lack of insight into who our satisfied and dissatisfied customers are.
    • Lack of a system for early detection of declines in satisfaction.
    • Lack of clarity on what to improve and how resources should be allocated.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • All software companies measure satisfaction in some way, but many lack understanding of what’s truly driving customers to stay or leave. By understanding the true drivers of satisfaction, solution providers can measure and monitor satisfaction more effectively, pull actionable insights and feedback, and make changes to products and services that customers really care about and will keep them coming back to you to have their needs met.
    • Obstacles:
      • Use of metrics that don’t provide the insight needed to make impactful changes that will boost satisfaction and ultimately, retention and profit.
      • Lack of a clear definition of what satisfaction means to customers, metric definitions and/or standard methods of measurement, and a consistent monitoring cadence.

    Impact and Result

    • Understanding of who your satisfied and dissatisfied customers are.
    • Understanding of the true drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among your customer segments.
    • Establishment of a repeatable process and cadence for effective satisfaction measurement and monitoring.
    • Development of an executable customer satisfaction improvement plan that identifies customer journey pain points and areas of dissatisfaction, and outlines how to improve them.
    • Knowledge of where money, time, and other resources are needed most to improve satisfaction levels and ultimately increase retention.

    Measure and Manage Customer Satisfaction Metrics That Matter the Most Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Measure and Manage the Customer Satisfaction Metrics that Matter the Most Deck – An overview of how to understand what drives customer satisfaction and how to measure and manage it for improved business outcomes.

    Understand the true drivers of customer satisfaction and build a process for managing and improving customer satisfaction.

    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Measure and Manage the Customer Satisfaction Metrics that Matter the Most

    Understand what truly keeps your customer satisfied. Start to measure what matters to improve customer experience and increase satisfaction and advocacy. 

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst perspective

    Understanding and measuring the true drivers of satisfaction enable the delivery of real customer value

    The image contains a picture of Emily Wright.

    “Healthy customer relationships are the paramount to long-term growth. When customers are satisfied, they remain loyal, spend more, and promote your company to others in their network. The key to high satisfaction is understanding and measuring the true drivers of satisfaction to enable the delivery of real customer value.

    Most companies believe they know who their satisfied customers are and what keeps them satisfied, and 76% of B2B buyers expect that providers understand their unique needs (Salesforce Research, 2020). However, on average B2B companies have customer experience scores of less than 50% (McKinsey, 2016). This disconnect between customer expectations and provider experience indicates that businesses are not effectively measuring and monitoring satisfaction and therefore are not making meaningful enhancements to their service, offerings, and overall experience.

    By focusing on the underlying drivers of customer satisfaction, organizations develop a truly accurate picture of what is driving deep satisfaction and loyalty, ensuring that their company will achieve sustainable growth and stay competitive in a highly competitive market.”

    Emily Wright

    Senior Research Analyst, Advisory

    SoftwareReviews

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    SoftwareReviews’ Approach

    Getting a truly accurate picture of satisfaction levels among customers, and where to focus efforts to improve satisfaction, is challenging. Providers often find themselves reacting to customer challenges and being blindsided when customers leave. More effective customer satisfaction measurement is possible when providers self-assess for the following challenges:

    • Lack of understanding of what is truly driving customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
    • Lack of insight into who our satisfied and dissatisfied customers are.
    • Lack of a system for early detection of declines in satisfaction.
    • Lack of clarity of what needs to be improved and how resources should be allocated.
    • Lack of reliable internal data for effective customer satisfaction monitoring.

    What separates customer success leaders from developing a full view of their customers are several nagging obstacles:

    • Use of metrics that don’t provide the insight needed to make impactful changes that will boost satisfaction and ultimately, retention and profit.
    • Friction from customers participating in customer satisfaction studies.
    • Lack of data, or integrated databases from which to track, pull, and analyze customer satisfaction data.
    • Lack a clear definition of what satisfaction means to customers, metric definitions, and/or standard methods of measurement and a consistent monitoring cadence.
    • Lack of time, resources, or technology to uncover and effectively measure and monitor satisfaction drivers.

    Through the SoftwareReviews’ approach, customer success leaders will:

    • Understand who your satisfied and dissatisfied customers are.
    • Understand the true drivers of satisfaction and dissatisfaction among your customer segments.
    • Establish a repeatable process and cadence for effective satisfaction measurement and monitoring.
    • Develop an executable customer satisfaction improvement plan that identifies customer journey pain points and areas of dissatisfaction, and outlines how to improve them.
    • Know where money, time, and resources are needed most to improve satisfaction levels and ultimately retention.

    Overarching SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    All companies measure satisfaction in some way, but many lack understanding of what’s truly driving customers to stay or leave. By understanding the true drivers of satisfaction, solution providers can measure and monitor satisfaction more effectively, pull actionable insights and feedback, and make changes to products and services that customers really care about. This will keep them coming back to you to have their needs met.

    Healthy Customer Relationships are vital for long-term success and growth

    Measuring customer satisfaction is critical to understanding the overall health of your customer relationships and driving growth.

    Through effective customer satisfaction measurement, organizations can:

    Improve Customer Experience

    Increase Retention and CLV

    Increase Profitability

    Reduce Costs

    • Provide insight into where and how to improve.
    • Enhance experience, increase loyalty.
    • By providing strong CX, organizations can increase revenue by 10-15% (McKinsey, 2014).
    • Far easier to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones.
    • Ensuring high satisfaction among customers increases Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through longer tenure and higher spending.
    • NPS Promoter score has a customer lifetime value that's 600%-1,400% higher than a Detractor (Bain & Company, 2015).
    • Highly satisfied customers spend more through expansions and add-ons, as well as through their long tenure with your company.
    • They also spread positive word of mouth, which brings in new customers.
    • “Studies demonstrate a strong correlation between customer satisfaction and increased profits — with companies with high customer satisfaction reporting 5.7 times more revenue than competitors.” (Matthew Loper, CEO and Co-Founder of WELLTH, 2022)
    • Measuring, monitoring, and maintaining high satisfaction levels reduces costs across the board.
    • “Providing a high-quality customer experience can save up to 33% of customer service costs” (Deloitte, 2018).
    • Satisfied customers are more likely to spread positive word of mouth which reduces acquisition / marketing costs for your company.

    “Measuring customer satisfaction is vital for growth in any organization; it provides insights into what works and offers opportunities for optimization. Customer satisfaction is essential for improving loyalty rate, reducing costs and retaining your customers.”

    -Ken Brisco, NICE, 2019

    Poor customer satisfaction measurement is costly

    Virtually all companies measure customer satisfaction, but few truly do it well. All too often, customer satisfaction measurement consists of a set of vanity metrics that do not result in actionable insight for product/service improvement. Improper measurement can result in numerous consequences:

    Direct and Indirect Costs

    Being unaware of true drivers of satisfaction that are never remedied costs your business directly through customer churn, service costs, etc.

    Tarnished Brand

    Tarnished brand through not resolving issues drives dissatisfaction; dissatisfied customers share their negative experiences, which can damage brand image and reputation.

    Waste Limited Resources

    Putting limited resources towards vanity programs and/or fixes that have little to no bearing on core satisfaction drivers wastes time and money.

    “When customer dissatisfaction goes unnoticed, it can slowly kill a company. Because of the intangible nature of customer dissatisfaction, managers regularly underestimate the magnitude of customer dissatisfaction and its impact on the bottom line.”

    - Lakshmiu Tatikonda, “The Hidden Costs of Customer Dissatisfaction”, 2013

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Most companies struggle to understand what’s truly driving customers to stay or leave. By understanding the true satisfaction drivers, tech providers can measure and monitor satisfaction more effectively, avoiding the numerous harmful consequences that result from average customer satisfaction measurement.

    Does your customer satisfaction measurement process need improvement?

    Getting an accurate picture of customer satisfaction is no easy task. Struggling with any of the following means you are ready for a detailed review of your customer satisfaction measurement efforts:

    • Not knowing who your most satisfied customers are.
    • Lacking early detection for declining satisfaction – either reactive, or unaware of dissatisfaction as it’s occurring.
    • Lacking a process for monitoring changes in satisfaction and lack ability to be proactive; you feel blindsided when customers leave.
    • Inability to fix the problem and wasting money on the wrong areas, like vanity metrics that don’t bring value to customers.
    • Spending money and other resources towards fixes based on a gut feeling, without quantifying the real root cause drivers and investing in their improvement.
    • Having metrics and data but lacking context; don’t know what contributed to the metrics/results, why people are dissatisfied or what contributes to satisfaction.
    • Lacking clear definition of what satisfaction means to customers / customer segments.
    • Difficulty tying satisfaction back to financial results.

    Customers are more satisfied with software vendors who understand the difference between surface level and short-term satisfaction, and deep or long-term satisfaction

    Surface-level satisfaction

    Surface-level satisfaction has immediate effects, but they are usually short-term or limited to certain groups of users. There are several factors that contribute to satisfaction including:

    • Novelty of new software
    • Ease of implementation
    • Financial savings
    • Breadth of features

    Software Leaders Drive Deep Satisfaction

    Deep satisfaction has long-term and meaningful impacts on the way that organizations work. Deep satisfaction has staying power and increases or maintains satisfaction over time, by reducing complexity and delivering exceptional quality for end-users and IT alike. This report found that the following capabilities provided the deepest levels of satisfaction:

    • Usability and intuitiveness
    • Quality of features
    • Ease of customization
    • Vendor-specific capabilities

    The above solve issues that are part of everyday problems, and each drives satisfaction in deep and meaningful ways. While surface-level satisfaction is important, deep and impactful capabilities can sustain satisfaction for a longer time.

    Deep Customer Satisfaction Among Software Buyers Correlates Highly to “Emotional Attributes”

    Vendor Capabilities and Product Features remain significant but are not the primary drivers

    The image contains a graph to demonstrate a correlation to Satisfaction, all Software Categories.
    Source: SoftwareReviews buyer reviews (based on 82,560 unique reviews).

    Driving deep satisfaction among software customers vs. surface-level measures is key

    Vendor capabilities and product features correlate significantly to buyer satisfaction

    Yet, it’s the emotional attributes – what we call the “Emotional Footprint”, that correlate more strongly

    Business-Value Created and Emotional Attributes are what drives software customer satisfaction the most

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate Software Buyer Satisfaction Drivers and Emotional Attributes are what drives software customer satisfaction.

    Software companies looking to improve customer satisfaction will focus on business value created and the Emotional Footprint attributes outlined here.

    The essential ingredient is understanding how each is defined by your customers.

    Leaders focus on driving improvements as described by customers.

    SoftwareReviews Insight:

    These true drivers of satisfaction should be considered in your customer satisfaction measurement and monitoring efforts. The experience customers have with your product and brand is what will differentiate your brand from competitors, and ultimately, power business growth. Talk to a SoftwareReviews Advisor to learn how users rate your product on these satisfaction drivers in the SoftwareReviews Emotional Footprint Report.

    Benefits of Effective Customer Satisfaction Measurement

    Our research provides Customer Success leaders with the following key benefits:

    • Ability to know who is satisfied, dissatisfied, and why.
    • Confidence in how to understand or uncover the factors behind customer satisfaction; understand and identify factors driving satisfaction, dissatisfaction.
    • Ability to develop a clear plan for improving customer satisfaction.
    • Knowledge of how to establish a repeatable process for customer satisfaction measurement and monitoring that allows for proactivity when declines in satisfaction are detected.
    • Understanding of what metrics to use, how to measure them, and where to find the right information/data.
    • Knowledge of where money, time, and other resources are needed most to drive tangible customer value.

    “81% of organizations cite CX as a competitive differentiator. The top factor driving digital transformation is improving CX […] with companies reporting benefits associated with improving CX including:

    • Increased customer loyalty (92%)
    • An uplift in revenue (84%)
    • Cost savings (79%).”

    – Dan Cote, “Advocacy Blooms and Business Booms When Customers and Employees Engage”, Influitive, 2021

    The image contains a screenshot of a thought model that focuses on Measure & Manage the Customer Satisfaction Metrics That Matter the Most.

    Who benefits from improving the measurement and monitoring of customer satisfaction?

    This Research Is Designed for:

    • Customer Success leaders and marketers who are:
      • Responsible for understanding how to benchmark, measure, and understand customer satisfaction to improve satisfaction, NPS, and ROI.
      • Looking to take a more proactive and structured approach to customer satisfaction measurement and monitoring.
      • Looking for a more effective and accurate way to measure and understand how to improve customer satisfaction around products and services.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Understand the factors driving satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
    • Know which customers are satisfied/dissatisfied.
    • Know where time, money, and resources are needed the most in order to improve or maintain satisfaction levels.
    • Develop a formal plan to improve customer satisfaction.
    • Establish a repeatable process for customer satisfaction measurement and monitoring that allows for proactivity when declines in satisfaction are detected.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Customer Success Leaders, Marketing and Sales Directors and Managers, Product Marketing Managers, and Advocacy Managers/Coordinators who are responsible for:
      • Product improvements and enhancements
      • Customer service and onboarding
      • Customer advocacy programs
      • Referral/VoC programs

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Coordinate and align on customer experience efforts and actions.
    • Gather and make use of customer feedback to improve products, solutions, and services provided.
    • Provide an amazing customer experience throughout the entirety of the customer journey.

    SoftwareReviews’ methodology for measuring the customer satisfaction metrics that matter the most

    1. Identify true customer satisfaction drivers

    2. Develop metrics dashboard

    3. Develop customer satisfaction measurement and management plan

    Phase Steps

    1. Identify data sources, documenting any gaps in data
    2. Analyze all relevant data on customer experiences and outcomes
    3. Document top satisfaction drivers
    1. Identify business goals, problems to be solved / define business challenges and marketing/customer success goals
    2. Use SR diagnostic to assess current state of satisfaction measurement, assessing metric alignment to satisfaction drivers
    3. Define your metrics dashboard
    4. Develop common metric definitions, language for discussing, and standards for measuring customer satisfaction
    1. Determine committee structure to measure performance metrics over time
    2. Map out gaps in satisfaction along customer journey/common points in journey where customers are least dissatisfied
    3. Build plan that identifies weak areas and shows how to fix using SR’s emotional footprint, other measures
    4. Create plan and roadmap for CSat improvement
    5. Create communication deck

    Phase Outcomes

    1. Documented satisfaction drivers
    2. Documented data sources and gaps in data
    1. Current state customer satisfaction measurement analysis
    2. Common metric definitions and measurement standards
    3. Metrics dashboard
    1. Customer satisfaction measurement plan
    2. Customer satisfaction improvement plan
    3. Customer journey maps
    4. Customer satisfaction improvement communication deck
    5. Customer Satisfaction Committee created

    Insight summary

    Understanding and measuring the true drivers of satisfaction enable the delivery of real customer value

    All software companies measure satisfaction in some way, but many lack understanding of what’s truly driving customers to stay or leave. By understanding the true drivers of satisfaction, solution providers can measure and monitor satisfaction more effectively, pull actionable insights and feedback, and make changes to products and services that customers really care about and which will keep them coming back to you to have their needs met.

    Positive experiences drive satisfaction more so than features and cost

    According to our analysis of software buyer reviews data*, the biggest drivers of satisfaction and likeliness to recommend are the positive experiences customers have with vendors and their products. Customers want to feel that:

    1. Their productivity and performance is enhanced, and the vendor is helping them innovate and grow as a company.
    2. Their vendor inspires them and helps them to continually improve.
    3. They can rely on the vendor and the product they purchased.
    4. They are respected by the vendor.
    5. They can trust that the vendor will be on their side and save them time.
    *8 million data points across all software categories

    Measure Key Relationship KPIs to gauge satisfaction

    Key metrics to track include the Business Value Created score, Net Emotional Footprint, and the Love/Hate score (the strength of emotional connection).

    Orient the organization around customer experience excellence

    1. Arrange staff incentives around customer value instead of metrics that are unrelated to satisfaction.
    2. Embed customer experience as a core company value and integrate it into all functions.
    3. Make working with your organization easy and seamless for customers.

    Have a designated committee for customer satisfaction measurement

    Best in class organizations create customer satisfaction committees that meet regularly to measure and monitor customer satisfaction, resolve issues quickly, and work towards improved customer experience and profit outcomes.

    Use metrics that align to top satisfaction drivers

    This will give you a more accurate and fulsome view of customer satisfaction than standard satisfaction metrics alone will.

    Guided Implementation

    What is our GI on measuring and managing the customer satisfaction metrics that matter most?

    Identify True Customer Satisfaction Drivers

    Develop Metrics Dashboard Develop Customer Satisfaction Measurement and Management Plan

    Call #1: Discuss current pain points and barriers to successful customer satisfaction measurement, monitoring and maintenance. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #2: Discuss all available data, noting any gaps. Develop plan to fill gaps, discuss feasibility and timelines. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #3: Walk through SoftwareReviews reports to understand EF and satisfaction drivers. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #4: Segment customers and document key satisfaction drivers. Plan next call – 2 week.

    Call #5: Document business goals and align them to metrics. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #6: Complete the SoftwareReviews satisfaction measurement diagnostic. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #7: Score list of metrics that align to satisfaction drivers. Plan next call – 2 days.

    Call #8: Develop metrics dashboard and definitions. Plan next call – 2 weeks.

    Call #9: Finalize metrics dashboard and definitions. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #10: Discuss committee and determine governance. Plan next call – 2 weeks.

    Call #11: Map out gaps in satisfaction along customer journey as they relate to top satisfaction drivers. Plan next call –2 weeks.

    Call #12: Develop plan and roadmap for satisfaction improvement. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #13: Finalize plan and roadmap. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call # 14: Review and coach on communication deck.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst.

    Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

    Software Reviews offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    “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.” “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.” “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.” “Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”
    Included within Advisory Membership Optional add-ons

    Bibliography

    “Are you experienced?” Bain & Company, Apr. 2015. Accessed 6 June. 2022.

    Brisco, Ken. “Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Why It’s So Important.” NICE, Feb. 2019. Accessed 6 June. 2022.

    CMO.com Team. “The Customer Experience Management Mandate.” Adobe Experience Cloud Blog, July 2019. Accessed 14 June. 2022.

    Cote, Dan. “Advocacy Blooms and Business Booms When Customers and Employees Engage.” Influitive, Dec. 2021. Accessed 15 June. 2022.

    Fanderl, Harald and Perrey, Jesko. “Best of both worlds: Customer experience for more revenues and lower costs.” McKinsey & Company, Apr. 2014. Accessed 15 June. 2022.

    Gallemard, Jeremy. “Why – And How – Should Customer Satisfaction Be Measured?” Smart Tribune, Feb. 2020. Accessed 6 June. 2022.

    Kumar, Swagata. “Customer Success Statistics in 2021.” Customer Success Box, 2021. Accessed 17 June. 2022.

    Lakshmiu Tatikonda, “The Hidden Costs of Customer Dissatisfaction”, Management Accounting Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 3, 2013, pp 38. Accessed 17 June. 2022.

    Loper, Matthew. “Why ‘Customer Satisfaction’ Misses the Mark – And What to Measure Instead.” Newsweek, Jan. 2022. Accessed 16 June. 2022.

    Maechler, Nicolas, et al. “Improving the business-to-business customer experience.” McKinsey & Company, Mar. 2016. Accessed 16 June.

    “New Research from Dimension Data Reveals Uncomfortable CX Truths.” CISION PR Newswire, Apr. 2017. Accessed 7 June. 2022.

    Sheth, Rohan. 75 Must-Know Customer Experience Statistics to move Your Business Forward in 2022.” SmartKarrot, Feb. 2022. Accessed 17 June. 2022.

    Smith, Mercer. “111 Customer Service Statistics and Facts You Shouldn’t Ignore.” HelpScout, May 2022. Accessed 17 June. 2022.

    “State of the Connected Customer.” Salesforce, 2020. Accessed 14 June. 2022

    “The true value of customer experiences.” Deloitte, 2018. Accessed 15 June. 2022.

    Align Projects With the IT Change Lifecycle

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}464|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
    • Parent Category Link: /i-and-o-process-management
    • Coordinate IT change and project management to successfully push changes to production.
    • Manage representation of project management within the scope of the change lifecycle to gather requirements, properly approve and implement changes, and resolve incidents that arise from failed implementations.
    • Communicate effectively between change management, project management, and the business.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Improvement can be incremental. You do not have to adopt every recommended improvement right away. Ensure every process change you make will create value and slowly add improvements to ease buy-in.

    Impact and Result

    • Establish pre-set touchpoints between IT change management and project management at strategic points in the change and project lifecycles.
    • Include appropriate project representation at the change advisory board (CAB).
    • Leverage standard change resources such as the change calendar and request for change form (RFC).

    Align Projects With the IT Change Lifecycle Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Align Projects With the IT Change Lifecycle Deck – A guide to walk through integrating project touchpoints in the IT change management lifecycle.

    Use this storyboard as a guide to align projects with your IT change management lifecycle.

    • Align Projects With the IT Change Lifecycle Storyboard

    2. The Change Management SOP – This template will ensure that organizations have a comprehensive document in place that can act as a point of reference for the program.

    Use this SOP as a template to document and maintain your change management practice.

    • Change Management Standard Operating Procedure
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Align Projects With the IT Change Lifecycle

    Increase the success of your changes by integrating project touchpoints in the change lifecycle.

    Analyst Perspective

    Focus on frequent and transparent communications between the project team and change management.

    Benedict Chang

    Misalignment between IT change management and project management leads to headaches for both practices. Project managers should aim to be represented in the change advisory board (CAB) to ensure their projects are prioritized and scheduled appropriately. Advanced notice on project progress allows for fewer last-minute accommodations at implementation. Widespread access of the change calendar can also lead project management to effectively schedule projects to give change management advanced notice.

    Moreover, alignment between the two practices at intake allows for requests to be properly sorted, whether they enter change management directly or are governed as a project.

    Lastly, standardizing implementation and post-implementation across everyone involved ensures more successful changes and socialized/documented lessons learned for when implementations do not go well.

    Benedict Chang
    Senior Research Analyst, Infrastructure and Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    To align projects with the change lifecycle, IT leaders must:

    • Coordinate IT change and project management to successfully push changes to production.
    • Manage representation of project management within the scope of the change lifecycle to gather requirements, properly approve and implement changes, and resolve incidents that arise from failed implementations.
    • Communicate effectively between change management, project management, and the business.

    Loose definitions may work for clear-cut examples of changes and projects at intake, but grey-area requests end up falling through the cracks.

    Changes to project scope, when not communicated, often leads to scheduling conflicts at go-live.

    Too few checkpoints between change and project management can lead to conflicts. Too many checkpoints can lead to delays.

    Set up touchpoints between IT change management and project management at strategic points in the change and project lifecycles.

    Include appropriate project representation at the change advisory board (CAB).

    Leverage standard change resources such as the change calendar and request for change form (RFC).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Improvement can be incremental. You do not have to adopt every recommended improvement right away. Ensure every process change you make will create value, and slowly add improvements to ease buy-in.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Use the change lifecycle to identify touchpoints.

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's approach.

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Start with your change lifecycle to define how change control can align with project management.
    2. Make improvements to project-change alignment to benefit the relationship between the two practices and the practices individually.
    3. Scope the alignment to your organization. Take on the improvements to the left one by one instead of overhauling your current process.

    Use this research to improve your current process

    This deck is intended to align established processes. If you are just starting to build IT change processes, see the related research below.

    Align Projects With the IT Change Lifecycle

    02 Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

    01 Optimize IT Change Management

    Increase the success of your changes by integrating project touchpoints in your change lifecycle.

    (You are here)

    Decide which IT projects to approve and when to start them.

    Right-size IT change management to protect the live environment.

    Successful change management will provide benefits to both the business and IT

    Respond to business requests faster while reducing the number of change-related disruptions.

    IT Benefits

    Business Benefits

    • Fewer incidents and outages at project go-live
    • Upfront identification of project and change requirements
    • Higher rate of change and project success
    • Less rework
    • Fewer service desk calls related to failed go-lives
    • Fewer service disruptions
    • Faster response to requests for new and enhanced functionalities
    • Higher rate of benefits realization when changes are implemented
    • Lower cost per change
    • Fewer “surprise” changes disrupting productivity

    IT satisfaction with change management will drive business satisfaction with IT. Once the process is working efficiently, staff will be more motivated to adhere to the process, reducing the number of unauthorized changes. As fewer changes bypass proper evaluation and testing, service disruptions will decrease and business satisfaction will increase.

    Change management improves core benefits to the business: the four Cs

    Most organizations have at least some form of change control in place, but formalizing change management leads to the four Cs of business benefits:

    Control

    Collaboration

    Consistency

    Confidence

    Change management brings daily control over the IT environment, allowing you to review every relatively new change, eliminate changes that would have likely failed, and review all changes to improve the IT environment.

    Change management planning brings increased communication and collaboration across groups by coordinating changes with business activities. The CAB brings a more formalized and centralized communication method for IT.

    Request-for-change templates and a structured process result in implementation, test, and backout plans being more consistent. Implementing processes for pre-approved changes also ensures these frequent changes are executed consistently and efficiently.

    Change management processes will give your organization more confidence through more accurate planning, improved execution of changes, less failure, and more control over the IT environment. This also leads to greater protection against audits.

    1. Alignment at intake

    Define what is a change and what is a project.

    Both changes and projects will end up in change control in the end. Here, we define the intake.

    Changes and projects will both go to change control when ready to go live. However, defining the governance needed at intake is critical.

    A change should be governed by change control from beginning to end. It would typically be less than a week’s worth of work for a SME to build and come in at a nominal cost (e.g. <$20k over operating costs).

    Projects on the other hand, will be governed by project management in terms of scope, scheduling, resourcing, etc. Projects typically take over a week and/or cost more. However, the project, when ready to go live, should still be scheduled through change control to avoid any conflicts at implementation. At triage and intake, a project can be further scoped based on projected scale.

    This initial touchpoint between change control and project management is crucial to ensure tasks and request are executed with the proper governance. To distinguish between changes and projects at intake, list examples of each and determine what resourcing separates changes from projects.

    Need help scoping projects? Download the Project Intake Classification Matrix

    Change

    Project

    • Smaller scale task that typically takes a short time to build and test
    • Generates a single change request
    • Governed by IT Change Management for the entire lifecycle
    • Larger in scope
    • May generate multiple change requests
    • Governed by PMO
    • Longer to build and test

    Info-Tech Insight

    While effort and cost are good indicators of changes and projects, consider evaluating risk and complexity too.

    1 Define what constitutes a change

    1. As a group, brainstorm examples of changes and projects. If you wish, you may choose to also separate out additional request types such as service requests (user), operational tasks (backend), and releases.
    2. Have each participant write the examples on sticky notes and populate the following chart on the whiteboard/flip chart.
    3. Use the examples to draw lines and determine what defines each category.
    • What makes a change distinct from a project?
    • What makes a change distinct from a service request?
    • What makes a change distinct from an operational task?
    • When do the category workflows cross over with other categories? (For example, when does a project interact with change management?
  • Record the definitions of requests and results in section 2.3 of the Change Management Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).
  • Change

    Project

    Service Request (Optional)

    Operational Task (Optional)

    Release (Optional)

    Changing Configuration

    New ERP

    Add new user

    Delete temp files

    Software release

    Download the Change Management Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

    Input Output
    • List of examples of each category of the chart
    • Definitions for each category to be used at change intake
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (or shared screen if working remotely)
    • Service catalog (if applicable)
    • Sticky notes
    • Markers/pens
    • Change Management SOP
    • Change Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Members of the Change Advisory Board

    2. Alignment at build and test

    Keep communications open by pre-defining and communicating project milestones.

    CAB touchpoints

    Consistently communicate the plan and timeline for hitting these milestones so CAB can prioritize and plan changes around it. This will give change control advanced notice of altered timelines.

    RFCs

    Projects may have multiple associated RFCs. Keeping CAB appraised of the project RFC or RFCs gives them the ability to further plan changes.

    Change Calendar

    Query and fill the change calendar with project timelines and milestones to compliment the CAB touchpoints.

    Leverage the RFC to record and communicate project details

    The request for change (RFC) form does not have to be a burden to fill out. If designed with value in mind, it can be leveraged to set standards on all changes (from projects and otherwise).

    When looking at the RFC during the Build and Test phase of a project, prioritize the following fields to ensure the implementation will be successful from a technical and user-adoption point of view.

    Filling these fields of the RFC and communicating them to the CAB at go-live approval gives the approvers confidence that the project will be implemented successfully and measures are known for when that implementation is not successful.

    Download the Request for Change Form Template

    Communication Plan

    The project may be successful from a technical point of view, but if users do not know about go-live or how to interact with the project, it will ultimately fail.

    Training Plan

    If necessary, think of how to train different stakeholders on the project go-live. This includes training for end users interacting with the project and technicians supporting the project.

    Implementation Plan

    Write the implementation plan at a high enough level that gives the CAB confidence that the implementation team knows the steps well.

    Rollback Plan

    Having a well-formulated rollback plan gives the CAB the confidence that the impact of the project is well known and the impact to the business is limited even if the implementation does not go well.

    Provide clear definitions of what goes on the change calendar and who’s responsible

    Inputs

    • Freeze periods for individual business departments/applications (e.g. finance month-end periods, HR payroll cycle, etc. – all to be investigated)
    • Maintenance windows and planned outage periods
    • Project schedules, and upcoming major/medium changes
    • Holidays
    • Business hours (some departments work 9-5, others work different hours or in different time zones, and user acceptance testing may require business users to be available)

    Guidelines

    • Business-defined freeze periods are the top priority.
    • No major or medium normal changes should occur during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
    • Vendor SLA support hours are the preferred time for implementing changes.
    • The vacation calendar for IT will be considered for major changes.
    • Change priority: High > Medium > Low.
    • Minor changes and preapproved changes have the same priority and will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

    Roles

    • The Change Manager will be responsible for creating and maintaining a change calendar.
    • Only the Change Manager can physically alter the calendar by adding a new change after the CAB has agreed upon a deployment date.
    • All other CAB members, IT support staff, and other impacted stakeholders should have access to the calendar on a read-only basis to prevent people from making unauthorized changes to deployment dates.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Make the calendar visible to as many parties as necessary. However, limit the number of personnel who can make active changes to the calendar to limit calendar conflicts.

    3. Alignment at approval

    How can project management effectively contribute to CAB?

    As optional CAB members

    Project SMEs may attend when projects are ready to go live and when invited by the change manager. Optional members provide details on change cross-dependencies, high-level testing, rollback, communication plans, etc. to inform prioritization and scheduling decisions.

    As project management representatives

    Project management should also attend CAB meetings to report in on changes to ongoing projects, implementation timelines, and project milestones. Projects are typically high-priority changes when going live due to their impact. Advanced notice of timeline and milestone changes allow the rest of the CAB to properly manage other changes going into production.

    As core CAB members

    The core responsibilities of CAB must still be fulfilled:

    1. Protect the live environment from poorly assessed, tested, and implemented changes.

    2. Prioritize changes in a way that fairly reflects change impact, urgency, and likelihood.

    3. Schedule deployments in a way the minimizes conflict and disruption.

    If you need to define the authority and responsibilities of the CAB, see Activity 2.1.3 of the Optimize IT Change Management blueprint.

    4. Alignment at implementation

    At this stage, the project or project phase is treated as any other change.

    Verification

    Once the change has been implemented, verify that all requirements are fulfilled.

    Review

    Ensure all affected systems and applications are operating as predicted.

    Update change ticket and change log

    Update RFC status and CMDB as well (if necessary).

    Transition

    Once the change implementation is complete, it’s imperative that the team involved inform and train the operational and support groups.

    If you need to define transitioning changes to production, download Transition Projects to the Service Desk

    5. Alignment at post-implementation

    Tackle the most neglected portion of change management to avoid making the same mistake twice.

    1. Define RFC statuses that need a PIR
    2. Conduct PIRs for failed changes. Successful changes can simply be noted and transitioned to operations.

    3. Conduct a PIR for every failed change
    4. It’s best to perform a PIR once a change-related incident is resolved.

    5. Avoid making the same mistake twice
    6. Include a root-cause analysis, mitigation actions/timeline, and lessons learned in the documentation.

    7. Report to CAB
    8. Socialize the findings of the PIR at the subsequent CAB meeting.

    9. Circle back on previous PIRs
    10. If a similar change is conducted, append the related PIR to avoid the same mistakes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Include your PIR documentation right in the RFC for easy reference.

    Download the RFC template for more details on post-implementation reviews

    2 Implement your alignments stepwise

    1. As a group, decide on which implementations you need to make to align change management and project management.
    2. For each improvement, list a timeline for implementation.
    3. Update section 3.5 in the Change Management Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). to outline the responsibilities of project management within IT Change Management.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Change Management SOP

    Download the Change Management Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

    Input Output
    • This deck
    • SOP update
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (or shared screen if working remotely)
    • Service catalog (if applicable)
    • Sticky notes
    • Markers/pens
    • Change Management SOP
    • Change Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Members of the Change Advisory Board

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Optimize IT Change Management

    Right-size IT change management to protect the live environment.

    Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

    Decide which IT projects to approve and when to start them.

    Maintain an Organized Portfolio

    Align portfolio management practices with COBIT (APO05: Manage Portfolio).

    Develop a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Plan

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}420|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
    • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
    • IT departments are being asked to rapidly ramp up work-from-home capabilities and other business process workarounds.
    • Crisis managers are experiencing a pandemic more severe than what they’ve managed in the past.
    • Organizations are scrambling to determine how they can keep their businesses running through this pandemic.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Obstacles to working from home go beyond internet speed and needing a laptop. Business input is critical to uncover unexpected obstacles.
    • IT needs to address a range of issues from security risk to increased service desk demand from users who don’t normally work from home.
    • Resist the temptation to bypass IT processes – your future-self will thank you for tracking all those assets about to go out the door.

    Impact and Result

    • Start with crisis management fundamentals – identify crisis management roles and exercise appropriate crisis communication.
    • Prioritize business processes and work-from-home requirements. Not everyone can be set up on day one.
    • Don’t over-complicate your work-from-home deployment plan. A simple spreadsheet (see the Work-from-Home Requirements Tool) to track requirements can be very effective.

    Develop a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Plan Research & Tools

    Start here

    Stay up to date on COVID-19 and the resources available to you.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    • Develop a COVID-19 Pandemic Response Plan Storyboard

    1. Manage the pandemic crisis

    Identify key roles and immediate steps to manage this crisis.

    • Pandemic Response Plan Example

    2. Create IT’s plan to support the pandemic response plan

    Plan the deployment of a work-from-home initiative.

    • Work-From-Home Requirements Tool
    [infographic]

    Define Your Cloud Vision

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    • Parent Category Name: Cloud Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /cloud-strategy

    The cloud permeates the enterprise technology discussion. It can be difficult to separate the hype from the value. Should everything go to the cloud, or is that sentiment stoked by vendors looking to boost their bottom lines? Not everything should go to the cloud, but coming up with a systematic way to determine what belongs where is increasingly difficult as offerings get more complex.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Don’t think about the cloud as an inevitable next step for all workloads. The cloud is merely another tool in the toolbox, ready to be used when appropriate and put away when it’s not needed. Cloud-first isn’t always the way to go.

    Impact and Result

    • Evaluate workloads’ suitability for the cloud using Info-Tech’s methodology to select the optimal migration (or non-migration) path based on the value of cloud characteristics.
    • Codify risks tied to workloads’ cloud suitability and plan mitigations.
    • Build a roadmap of initiatives for actions by workload and risk mitigation.
    • Define a cloud vision to share with stakeholders.

    Define Your Cloud Vision Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Define Your Cloud Vision – A step-by-step guide to generating, validating, and formalizing your cloud vision.

    The cloud vision storyboard walks readers through the process of generating, validating and formalizing a cloud vision, providing a framework and tools to assess workloads for their cloud suitability and risk.

    • Define Your Cloud Vision – Phases 1-4

    2. Cloud Vision Executive Presentation – A document that captures the results of the exercises, articulating use cases for cloud/non-cloud, risks, challenges, and high-level initiative items.

    The executive summary captures the results of the vision exercise, including decision criteria for moving to the cloud, risks, roadblocks, and mitigations.

    • Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    3. Cloud Vision Workbook – A tool that facilitates the assessment of workloads for appropriate service model, delivery model, support model, and risks and roadblocks.

    The cloud vision workbook comprises several assessments that will help you understand what service model, delivery model, support model, and risks and roadblocks you can expect to encounter at the workload level.

    • Cloud Vision Workbook
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Define Your Cloud Vision

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand the Cloud

    The Purpose

    Align organizational goals to cloud characteristics.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of how the characteristics particular to cloud can support organizational goals.

    Activities

    1.1 Generate corporate goals and cloud drivers.

    1.2 Identify success indicators.

    1.3 Explore cloud characteristics.

    1.4 Explore cloud service and delivery models.

    1.5 Define cloud support models and strategy components.

    1.6 Create state summaries for the different service and delivery models.

    1.7 Select workloads for further analysis.

    Outputs

    Corporate cloud goals and drivers

    Success indicators

    Current state summaries

    List of workloads for further analysis

    2 Assess Workloads

    The Purpose

    Evaluate workloads for cloud value and action plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Action plan for each workload.

    Activities

    2.1 Conduct workload assessment using the Cloud Strategy Workbook tool.

    2.2 Discuss assessments and make preliminary determinations about the workloads.

    Outputs

    Completed workload assessments

    Workload summary statements

    3 Identify and Mitigate Risks

    The Purpose

    Identify and plan to mitigate potential risks in the cloud project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A list of potential risks and plans to mitigate them.

    Activities

    3.1 Generate a list of risks and potential roadblocks associated with the cloud.

    3.2 Sort risks and roadblocks and define categories.

    3.3 Identify mitigations for each identified risk and roadblock

    3.4 Generate initiatives from the mitigations.

    Outputs

    List of risks and roadblocks, categorized

    List of mitigations

    List of initiatives

    4 Bridge the Gap and Create the Strategy

    The Purpose

    Clarify your vision of how the organization can best make use of cloud and build a project roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A clear vision and a concrete action plan to move forward with the project.

    Activities

    4.1 Review and assign work items.

    4.2 Finalize the decision framework for each of the following areas: service model, delivery model, and support model.

    4.3 Create a cloud vision statement

    Outputs

    Cloud roadmap

    Finalized task list

    Formal cloud decision rubric

    Cloud vision statement

    5 Next Steps and Wrap-Up

    The Purpose

    Complete your cloud vision by building a compelling executive-facing presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Simple, straightforward communication of your cloud vision to key stakeholders.

    Activities

    5.1 Build the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Outputs

    Completed cloud strategy executive presentation

    Completed Cloud Vision Workbook.

    Further reading

    Define Your Cloud Vision

    Define your cloud vision before it defines you

    Analyst perspective

    Use the cloud’s strengths. Mitigate its weaknesses.

    The cloud isn’t magic. It’s not necessarily cheaper, better, or even available for the thing you want it to do. It’s not mysterious or a cure-all, and it does take a bit of effort to systematize your approach and make consistent, defensible decisions about your cloud services. That’s where this blueprint comes in.

    Your cloud vision is the culmination of this effort all boiled down into a single statement: “This is how we want to use the cloud.” That simple statement should, of course, be representative of – and built from – a broader, contextual strategy discussion that answers the following questions: What should go to the cloud? What kind of cloud makes sense? Should the cloud deployment be public, private, or hybrid? What does a migration look like? What risks and roadblocks need to be considered when exploring your cloud migration options? What are the “day 2” activities that you will need to undertake after you’ve gotten the ball rolling?

    Taken as a whole, answering these questions is difficult task. But with the framework provided here, it’s as easy as – well, let’s just say it’s easier.

    Jeremy Roberts

    Research Director, Infrastructure and Operations

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • You are both extrinsically motivated to move to the cloud (e.g. by vendors) and intrinsically motivated by internal digital transformation initiatives.
    • You need to define the cloud’s true value proposition for your organization without assuming it is an outsourcing opportunity or will save you money.
    • Your industry, once cloud-averse, is now normalizing the use of cloud services, but you have not established a basic cloud vision from which to develop a strategy at a later point.

    Common Obstacles

    • Organizations jump to the cloud before defining their cloud vision and without any clear plan for realizing the cloud’s benefits.
    • Many organizations have a foot in the cloud already, but these decisions have been made in an ad hoc rather than systematic fashion.
    • You lack a consistent framework to assess your workloads’ suitability for the cloud.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    • Evaluate workloads’ suitability for the cloud using Info-Tech’s methodology to select the optimal migration (or non-migration) path based on the value of cloud characteristics.
    • Codify risks tied to workloads’ cloud suitability and plan mitigations.
    • Build a roadmap of initiatives for actions by workload and risk mitigation.
    • Define a cloud vision to share with stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Insight: 1) Base migration decisions on cloud characteristics. If your justification for the migration is simply getting your workload out of the data center, think again. 2) Address the risks up front in your migration plan. 3) The cloud changes roles and calls for different skill sets, but Ops is here to stay.

    Your challenge

    This research is designed to help organizations who need to:

    • Identify workloads that are good candidates for the cloud.
    • Develop a consistent, cost-effective approach to cloud services.
    • Outline and mitigate risks.
    • Define your organization’s cloud archetype.
    • Map initiatives on a roadmap.
    • Communicate your cloud vision to stakeholders so they can understand the reasons behind a cloud decision and differentiate between different cloud service and deployment models.
    • Understand the risks, roadblocks, and limitations of the cloud.

    “We’re moving from a world where companies like Oracle and Microsoft and HP and Dell were all critically important to a world where Microsoft is still important, but Amazon is now really important, and Google also matters. The technology has changed, but most of the major vendors they’re betting their business on have also changed. And that’s super hard for people..” –David Chappell, Author and Speaker

    Common obstacles

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

    • Organizations jump to the cloud before defining their cloud vision and without any clear plan for realizing the cloud’s benefits.
    • Many organizations already have a foot in the cloud, but the choice to explore these solutions was made in an ad hoc rather than systematic fashion. The cloud just sort of happened.
    • The lack of a consistent assessment framework means that some workloads that probably belong in the cloud are kept on premises or with hosted services providers – and vice versa.
    • Securing cloud expertise is remarkably difficult – especially in a labor market roiled by the global pandemic and the increasing importance of cloud services.

    Standard cloud challenges

    30% of all cloud spend is self-reported as waste. Many workloads that end up in the cloud don’t belong there. Many workloads that do belong in the cloud aren’t properly migrated. (Flexera, 2021)

    44% of respondents report themselves as under-skilled in the cloud management space. (Pluralsight, 2021)

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Goals and drivers

    • Service model
      • What type of cloud makes the most sense for workload archetypes? When does it make sense to pick SaaS over IaaS, for example?
    • Delivery model
      • Will services be delivered over the public cloud, a private cloud, or a hybrid cloud? What challenges accompany this decision?
    • Migration Path
      • What does the migration path look like? What does the transition to the cloud look like, and how much effort will be required? Amazon’s 6Rs framework captures migration options: rehosting, repurchasing, replatforming, and refactoring, along with retaining and retiring. Each workload should be assessed for its suitability for one or more of these paths.
    • Support model
      • How will services be provided? Will staff be trained, new staff hired, a service provider retained for ongoing operations, or will a consultant with cloud expertise be brought on board for a defined period? The appropriate support model is highly dependent on goals along with expected outcomes for different workloads.

    Highlight risks and roadblocks

    Formalize cloud vision

    Document your cloud strategy

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Determine the hypothesized value of cloud for your organization.
    2. Evaluate workloads with 6Rs framework.
    3. Identify and mitigate risks.
    4. Identify cloud archetype.
    5. Plot initiatives on a roadmap.
    6. Write action plan statement and goal statement.

    What is the cloud, how is it deployed, and how is service provided?

    Cloud Characteristics

    1. On-demand self-service: the ability to access reosurces instantly without vendor interaction
    2. Broad network access: all services delivered over the network
    3. Resource pooling: multi-tenant environment (shared)
    4. Rapid elasticity: the ability to expand and retract capabilities as needed
    5. Measured service: transparent metering

    Service Model:

    1. Software-as-a-Service: all but the most minor configuration is done by the vendor
    2. Platform-as-a-Service: customer builds the application using tools provided by the provider
    3. Infrastructure-as-a-Service: the customer manages OS, storage, and the application

    Delivery Model

    1. Public cloud: accessible to anyone over the internet; multi-tenant environment
    2. Private cloud: provisioned for a single organization with multiple units
    3. Hybrid cloud: two or more connected clouds; data is portage across them
    4. Community cloud: provisioned for a specific group of organizations

    (National Institute of Standards and Technology)

    A workload-first approach will allow you to take full advantage of the cloud’s strengths

    • Under all but the most exceptional circumstances, good cloud strategies will incorporate different service models. Very few organizations are “IaaS shops” or “SaaS shops,” even if they lean heavily in one direction.
    • These different service models (including non-cloud options like colocation and on-premises infrastructure) each have different strengths. Part of your cloud strategy should involve determining which of the services makes the most sense for you.
    • Own the cloud by understanding which cloud (or non-cloud!) offering makes the most sense for you given your unique context.

    Migration paths

    In a 2016 blog post, Amazon introduced a framework for understanding cloud migration strategies. The framework presented here is slightly modified – including a “relocate” component rather than a “retire” component – but otherwise hews close to the standard.

    These migration paths reflect organizational capabilities and desired outcomes in terms of service models – cloud or otherwise. Retention means keeping the workload where it is, in a datacenter or a colocation service, or relocating to a colocation or hosted software environment. These represent the “non-cloud” migration paths.

    In the graphic on the right, the paths within the red box lead to the cloud. Rehosting means lifting and shifting to an infrastructure environment. Migrating a virtual machine from your VMware environment on premises to Azure Virtual machines is a quick way to realize some benefits from the cloud. Migrating from SQL Server on premises to a cloud-based SQL solution looks a bit more like changing platforms (replatforming). It involves basic infrastructure modification without a substantial architectural component.

    Refactoring is the most expensive of the options and involves engaging the software development lifecycle to build a custom solution, fundamentally rewriting the solution to be cloud native and take advantage of cloud-native architectures. This can result in a PaaS or an IaaS solution.

    Finally, repurchasing means simply going to market and procuring a new solution. This may involve migrating data, but it does not require the migration of components.

    Migration Paths

    Retain (Revisit)

    • Keep the application in its current form, at least for now. This doesn’t preclude revisiting it in the future.

    Relocate

    • Move the workload between datacenters or to a hosted software/colocation provider.

    Rehost

    • Move the application to the cloud (IaaS) and continue to run it in more or less the same form as it currently runs.

    Replatform

    • Move the application to the cloud and perform a few changes for cloud optimizations.

    Refactor

    • Rewrite the application, taking advantage of cloud-native architectures.

    Repurchase

    • Replace with an alternative, cloud-native application and migrate the data.

    Support model

    Support models by characteristic

    Duration of engagement Specialization Flexibility
    Internal IT Indefinite Varies based on nature of business Fixed, permanent staff
    Managed Service Provider Contractually defined General, some specialization Standard offering
    Consultant Project-based Specific, domain-based Entirely negotiable

    IT services, including cloud services, can be delivered and managed in multiple ways depending on the nature of the workload and the organization’s intended path forward. Three high-level options are presented here and may be more or less valuable based on the duration of the expected engagement with the service (temporary or permanent), the skills specialization required, and the flexibility necessary to complete the job.

    By way of example, a highly technical, short-term project with significant flexibility requirements might be a good fit for an expensive consultant, whereas post-implementation maintenance of a cloud email system requires relatively little specialization and flexibility and would therefore be a better fit for internal management.

    There is no universally applicable rule here, but there are some workloads that are generally a good fit for the cloud and others that are not as effective, with that fit being conditional on the appropriate support model being employed.

    Risks, roadblocks, and strategy components

    No two cloud strategies are exactly alike, but all should address 14 key areas. A key step in defining your cloud vision is an assessment of these strategy components. Lower maturity does not preclude an aggressive cloud strategy, but it does indicate that higher effort will be required to make the transition.

    Component Description Component Description
    Monitoring What will system owners/administrators need visibility into? How will they achieve this? Vendor Management What practices must change to ensure effective management of cloud vendors?
    Provisioning Who will be responsible for deploying cloud workloads? What governance will this process be subject to? Finance Management How will costs be managed with the transition away from capital expenditure?
    Migration How will cloud migrations be conducted? What best practices/standards must be employed? Security What steps must be taken to ensure that cloud services meet security requirements?
    Operations management What is the process for managing operations as they change in the cloud? Data Controls How will data residency, compliance, and protection requirements be met in the cloud?
    Architecture What general principles must apply in the cloud environment? Skills and roles What skills become necessary in the cloud? What steps must be taken to acquire those skills?
    Integration and interoperability How will services be integrated? What standards must apply? Culture and adoption Is there a cultural aversion to the cloud? What steps must be taken to ensure broad cloud acceptance?
    Portfolio Management Who will be responsible for managing the growth of the cloud portfolio? Governing bodies What formal governance must be put in place? Who will be responsible for setting standards?

    Cloud archetypes – a cloud vision component

    Once you understand the value of the cloud, your workloads’ general suitability for cloud, and your proposed risks and mitigations, the next step is to define your cloud archetype.

    Your organization’s cloud archetype is the strategic posture that IT adopts to best support the organization’s goals. Info-Tech’s model recognizes seven archetypes, divided into three high-level archetypes.

    After consultation with your stakeholders, and based on the results of the suitability and risk assessment activities, define your archetype. The archetype feeds into the overall cloud vision and provides simple insight into the cloud future state for all stakeholders.

    The cloud vision itself is captured in a “vision statement,” a short summary of the overall approach that includes the overall cloud archetype.

    We can best support the organization's goals by:

    More Cloud

    Less Cloud

    Cloud Focused Cloud-Centric Providing all workloads through cloud delivery.
    Cloud-First Using the cloud as our default deployment model. For each workload, we should ask “why NOT cloud?”
    Cloud Opportunistic Hybrid Enabling the ability to transition seamlessly between on-premises and cloud resources for many workloads.
    Integrated Combining cloud and traditional infrastructure resources, integrating data and applications through APIs or middleware.
    Split Using the cloud for some workloads and traditional infrastructure resources for others.
    Cloud Averse Cloud-Light Using traditional infrastructure resources and limiting our use of the cloud to when it is absolutely necessary.
    Anti-Cloud Using traditional infrastructure resources and avoiding use of the cloud wherever possible.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for defining your cloud vision

    1. Understand the Cloud 2. Assess Workloads 3. Identify and Mitigate Risks 4. Bridge the Gap and Create the Vision
    Phase Steps
    1. Generate goals and drivers
    2. Explore cloud characteristics
    3. Create a current state summary
    4. Select workloads for analysis
    1. Conduct workload assessments
    2. Determine workload future state
    1. Generate risks and roadblocks
    2. Mitigate risks and roadblocks
    3. Define roadmap initiatives
    1. Review and assign work items
    2. Finalize cloud decision framework
    3. Create cloud vision
    Phase Outcomes
    1. List of goals and drivers
    2. Shared understanding of cloud terms
    3. Current state of cloud in the organization
    4. List of workloads to be assessed
    1. Completed workload assessments
    2. Defined workload future state
    1. List of risks and roadblocks
    2. List of mitigations
    3. Defined roadmap initiatives
    1. Cloud roadmap
    2. Cloud decision framework
    3. Completed Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Insight summary

    The cloud may not be right for you – and that’s okay!

    Don’t think about the cloud as an inevitable next step for all workloads. The cloud is merely another tool in the toolbox, ready to be used when appropriate and put away when it’s not needed. Cloud first isn’t always the way to go.

    Not all clouds are equal

    It’s not “should I go to the cloud?” but “what service and delivery models make sense based on my needs and risk tolerance?” Thinking about the cloud as a binary can force workloads into the cloud that don’t belong (and vice versa).

    Bottom-up is best

    A workload assessment is the only way to truly understand the cloud’s value. Work from the bottom up, not the top down, understand what characteristics make a workload cloud suitable, and strategize on that basis.

    Your accountability doesn’t change

    You are still accountable for maintaining available, secure, functional applications and services. Cloud providers share some responsibility, but the buck stops where it always has: with you.

    Don’t customize for the sake of customization

    SaaS providers make money selling the same thing to everyone. When migrating a workload to SaaS, work with stakeholders to pursue standardization around a selected platform and avoid customization where possible.

    Best of both worlds, worst of both worlds

    Hybrid clouds are in fashion, but true hybridity comes with additional cost, administration, and other constraints. A convoy moves at the speed of its slowest member.

    The journey matters as much as the destination

    How you get there is as important as what “there” actually is. Any strategy that focuses solely on the destination misses out on a key part of the value conversation: the migration strategy.

    Blueprint benefits

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    This presentation captures the results of the exercises and presents a complete vision to stakeholders including a desired target state, a rubric for decision making, the results of the workload assessments, and an overall risk profile.

    Cloud Vision Workbook

    This workbook includes the standard cloud workload assessment questionnaire along with the results of the assessment. It also includes the milestone timeline for the implementation of the cloud vision.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • A consistent approach to the cloud takes the guesswork out of deployment decisions and makes it easier for IT to move on to the execution stage.
    • When properly incorporated, cloud services come with many benefits, including automation, elasticity, and alternative architectures (micro-services, containers). The cloud vision project will help IT readers articulate expected benefits and work towards achieving them.
    • A clear framework for incorporating organizational goals into cloud plans.

    Business benefits

    • Simple, well-governed access to high-quality IT resources.
    • Access to the latest and greatest in technology to facilitate remote work.
    • Framework for cost management in the cloud that incorporates OpEx and chargebacks/showbacks. A clear understanding of expected changes to cost modeling is also a benefit of a cloud vision.
    • Clarity for stakeholders about IT’s response (and contribution to) IT strategic initiatives.

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Don’t take our word for it:

    • The cloud vision material in various forms has been offered for several years, and members have generally benefited substantially, both from cloud vision workshops and from guided implementations led by analysts.
    • After each engagement, we send a survey that asks members how they benefited from the experience. Of 30 responses, the cloud vision research has received an average score of 9.8/10. Real members have found significant value in the process.
    • Additionally, members reported saving between 2 and 120 days (for an average of 17), and financial savings ranged from $1,920 all the way up to $1.27 million, for an average of $170,577.90! If we drop outliers on both ends, the average reported value of a cloud vision engagement is $37, 613.
    • Measure the value by calculating the time saved from using Info-Tech’s framework vs. a home-brewed cloud strategy alternative and by comparing the overall cost of a guided implementation or workshop with the equivalent offering from another firm. We’re confident you’ll come out ahead.

    9.8/10 Average reported satisfaction

    17 Days Average reported time savings

    $37, 613 Average cost savings (adj.)

    Executive Brief Case Study

    Industry: Financial

    Source: Info-Tech workshop

    Anonymous financial institution

    A small East Coast financial institution was required to develop a cloud strategy. This strategy had to meet several important requirements, including alignment with strategic priorities and best practices, along with regulatory compliance, including with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

    The bank already had a significant cloud footprint and was looking to organize and formalize the strategy going forward.

    Leadership needed a comprehensive strategy that touched on key areas including the delivery model, service models, individual workload assessments, cost management, risk management and governance. The output had to be consumable by a variety of audiences with varying levels of technical expertise and had to speak to IT’s role in the broader strategic goals articulated earlier in the year.

    Results

    The bank engaged Info-Tech for a cloud vision workshop and worked through four days of exercises with various IT team members. The bank ultimately decided on a multi-cloud strategy that prioritized SaaS while also allowing for PaaS and IaaS solutions, along with some non-cloud hosted solutions, based on organizational circumstances.

    Bank cloud vision

    [Bank] will provide innovative financial and related services by taking advantage of the multiplicity of best-of-breed solutions available in the cloud. These solutions make it possible to benefit from industry-level innovations, while ensuring efficiency, redundancy, and enhanced security.

    Bank cloud decision workflow

    • SaaS
      • Platform?
        • Yes
          • PaaS
        • No
          • Hosted
        • IaaS
          • Other

    Non-cloud

    Cloud

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

    DIY Toolkit

    "Our team has already made this crticial 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 imediately. 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 the take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

    A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Phase 1

    • Call #1: Discuss current state, challenges, etc.
    • Call #2: Goals, drivers, and current state.

    Phase 2

    • Call #3: Conduct cloud suitability assessment for selected workloads.

    Phase 3

    • Call #4: Generate and categorize risks.
    • Call #5: Begin the risk mitigation conversation.

    Phase 4

    • Call #6: Complete the risk mitigation process
    • Call #7: Finalize vision statement and cloud decision framework.

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Offsite day
    Understand the cloud Assess workloads Identify and mitigate risks Bridge the gap and create the strategy Next steps and wrap-up (offsite)
    Activities

    1.1 Introduction

    1.2 Generate corporate goals and cloud drivers

    1.3 Identify success indicators

    1.4 Explore cloud characteristics

    1.5 Explore cloud service and delivery models

    1.6 Define cloud support models and strategy components

    1.7 Create current state summaries for the different service and delivery models

    1.8 Select workloads for further analysis

    2.1 Conduct workload assessments using the cloud strategy workbook tool

    2.2 Discuss assessments and make preliminary determinations about workloads

    3.1 Generate a list of risks and potential roadblocks associated with the cloud

    3.2 Sort risks and roadblocks and define categories

    3.3 Identify mitigations for each identified risk and roadblock

    3.4 Generate initiatives from the mitigations

    4.1 Review and assign work items

    4.2 Finalize the decision framework for each of the following areas:

    • Service model
    • Delivery model
    • Support model

    4.3 Create a cloud vision statement

    5.1 Build the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation
    Deliverables
    1. Corporate goals and cloud drivers
    2. Success indicators
    3. Current state summaries
    4. List of workloads for further analysis
    1. Completed workload assessments
    2. Workload summary statements
    1. List of risks and roadblocks, categorized
    2. List of mitigations
    3. List of initiatives
    1. Finalized task list
    2. Formal cloud decision rubric
    3. Cloud vision statement
    1. Completed cloud strategy executive presentation
    2. Completed cloud vision workbook

    Understand the cloud

    Build the foundations of your cloud vision

    Phase 1

    Phase 1

    Understand the Cloud

    Phase 1

    1.1 Generate goals and drivers

    1.2 Explore cloud characteristics

    1.3 Create a current state summary

    1.4 Select workloads for analysis

    Phase 2

    2.1 Conduct workload assessments

    2.2 Determine workload future states

    Phase 3

    3.1 Generate risks and roadblocks

    3.2 Mitigate risks and roadblocks

    3.3 Define roadmap initiatives

    Phase 4

    4.1 Review and assign work items

    4.2 Finalize cloud decision framework

    4.3 Create cloud vision

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1.1.1 Generate organizational goals

    1.1.2 Define cloud drivers

    1.1.3 Define success indicators

    1.3.1 Record your current state

    1.4.1 Select workloads for further assessment

    This phase involves the following participants:

    IT management, the core working group, security, infrastructure, operations, architecture, engineering, applications, non-IT stakeholders.

    It starts with shared understanding

    Stakeholders must agree on overall goals and what “cloud” means

    The cloud is a nebulous term that can reasonably describe services ranging from infrastructure as a service as delivered by providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft through its Azure platform, right up to software as a service solutions like Jira or Salesforce. These solutions solve different problems – just because your CRM would be a good fit for a migration to Salesforce doesn’t mean the same system would make sense in Azure or AWS.

    This is important because the language we use to talk about the cloud can color our approach to cloud services. A “cloud-first” strategy will mean something different to a CEO with a concept of the cloud rooted in Salesforce than it will to a system administrator who interprets it to mean a transition to cloud-hosted virtual machines.

    Add to this the fact that not all cloud services are hosted externally by providers (public clouds) and the fact that multiple delivery models can be engaged at once through hybrid or multi-cloud approaches, and it’s apparent that a shared understanding of the cloud is necessary for a coherent strategy to take form.

    This phase proceeds in four steps, each governed by the principle of shared understanding. The first requires a shared understanding of corporate goals and drivers. Step 2 involves coming to a shared understanding of the cloud’s unique characteristics. Step 3 requires a review of the current state. Finally, in Step 4, participants will identify workloads that are suitable for analysis as candidates for the cloud.

    Step 1.1

    Generate goals and drivers

    Activities

    1.1.1 Define organizational goals

    1.1.2 Define cloud drivers

    1.1.3 Define success indicators

    Generate goals and drivers

    Explore cloud characteristics

    Create a current state summary

    Select workloads for analysis

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT management
    • Core working group
    • Security
    • Applications
    • Infrastructure
    • Service management
    • Leadership

    Outcomes of this step

    • List of organizational goals
    • List of cloud drivers
    • Defined success indicators

    What can the cloud do for you?

    The cloud is not valuable for its own sake, and not all users derive the same value

    • The cloud is characterized by on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service. Any or all of those characteristics might be enough to make the cloud appealing, but in most cases, there is an overriding driver.
    • Multiple paths may lead to the cloud. Consider an organization with a need to control costs by showing back to business units, or perhaps by reducing capital expenditure – the cloud may be the most appropriate way to effect these changes. Conversely, an organization expanding rapidly and with a need to access the latest and greatest technology might benefit from the elasticity and pooled resources that major cloud providers can offer.
    • In these cases, the destination might be the same (a cloud solution) but the delivery model – public, private, or hybrid – and the decisions made around the key strategy components, including architecture, provisioning, and cost management, will almost certainly be different.
    • Defining goals, understanding cloud drivers, and – crucially – understanding what success means, are all therefore essential elements of the cloud vision process.

    1.1.1 Generate organizational goals

    1-3 hours

    Input

    • Strategy documentation

    Output

    • Organizational goals

    Materials

    • Whiteboard (digital/physical)

    Participants

    • IT leadership
    • Infrastructure
    • Applications
    • Security
    1. As a group, brainstorm organizational goals, ideally based on existing documentation
      • Review relevant corporate and IT strategies.
      • If you do not have access to internal documentation, review the standard goals on the next slide and select those that are most relevant for you.
    2. Record the most important business goals in the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation. Include descriptions where possible to ensure wide readability.
    3. Make note of these goals. They should inform the answers to prompts offered in the Cloud Vision Workbook and should be a consistent presence in the remainder of the visioning exercise. If you’re conducting the session in person, leave the goals up on a whiteboard and make reference to them throughout the workshop.

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Standard COBIT 19 enterprise goals

    1. Portfolio of competitive products and services
    2. Managed business risk
    3. Compliance with external laws and regulations
    4. Quality of financial information
    5. Customer-oriented service culture
    6. Business service continuity and availability
    7. Quality of management information
    8. Optimization of internal business process functionality
    9. Optimization of business process costs
    10. Staff skills, motivation, and productivity
    11. Compliance with internal policies
    12. Managed digital transformation programs
    13. Product and business innovation

    1.1.2 Define cloud drivers

    30-60 minutes

    Input

    • Organizational goals
    • Strategy documentation
    • Management/staff perspective

    Output

    • List of cloud drivers

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • IT leadership
    • Infrastructure
    • Applications
    • Security
    1. Cloud drivers sit at a level of abstraction below organizational goals. Keeping your organizational goals in mind, have each participant in the session write down how they expect to benefit from the cloud on a sticky note.
    2. Solicit input one at a time and group similar responses. Encourage participants to bring forward their cloud goals even if similar goals have been mentioned previously. The number of mentions is a useful way to gauge the relative weight of the drivers.
    3. Once this is done, you should have a few groups of similar drivers. Work with the group to name each category. This name will be the driver reported in the documentation.
    4. Input the results of the exercise into the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation, and include descriptions based on the constituent drivers. For example, if a driver is titled “do more valuable work,” the constituent drivers might be “build cloud skills,” “focus on core products,” and “avoid administration work where possible.” The description would be based on these components.

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    1.1.3 Define success indicators

    1 hour

    Input

    • Cloud drivers
    • Organizational goals

    Output

    • List of cloud driver success indicators

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • IT leadership
    • Infrastructure
    • Applications
    • Security
    1. On a whiteboard, draw a table with each of the cloud drivers (identified in 1.1.2) across the top.
    2. Work collectively to generate success indicators for each cloud driver. In this case, a success indicator is some way you can report your progress with the stated driver. It is a real-world proxy for the sometimes abstract phenomena that make up your drivers. Think about what would be true if your driver was realized.
      1. For example, if your driver is “faster access to resources,” you might consider indicators like developer satisfaction, project completion time, average time to provision, etc.
    3. Once you are satisfied with your list of indicators, populate the slide in the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation for validation from stakeholders.

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Step 1.2

    Explore cloud characteristics

    Activities

    Understand the value of the cloud:

    • Review delivery models
    • Review support models
    • Review service models
    • Review migration paths

    Understand the Cloud

    Generate goals and drivers

    Explore cloud characteristics

    Create a current state summary

    Select workloads for analysis

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Architecture
    • Engineering
    • Security

    Outcomes of this step

    • Understanding of cloud service models and value

    Defining the cloud

    Per NIST, the cloud has five fundamental characteristics. All clouds have these characteristics, even if they are executed in somewhat different ways between delivery models, service models, and even individual providers.

    Cloud characteristics

    On-demand self-service

    Cloud customers are capable of provisioning cloud resources without human interaction (e.g. contacting sales), generally through a web console.

    Broad network access

    Capabilities are designed to be delivered over a network and are generally intended for access by a wide variety of platform types (cloud services are generally device-agnostic).

    Resource pooling

    Multiple customers (internal, in the case of private clouds) make use of a highly abstracted shared infrastructure managed by the cloud provider.

    Rapid elasticity

    Customers are capable of provisioning additional resources as required, pulling from a functionally infinite pool of capacity. Cloud resources can be spun-down when no longer needed.

    Measured service

    Consumption is metered based on an appropriate unit of analysis (number of licenses, storage used, compute cycles, etc.) and billing is transparent and granular.

    Cloud delivery models

    The NIST definition of cloud computing outlines four cloud delivery models: public, private, hybrid, and community clouds. A community cloud is like a private cloud, but it is provisioned for the exclusive use of a like-minded group of organizations, usually in a mutually beneficial, non-competitive arrangement. Universities and hospitals are examples of organizations that can pool their resources in this way without impacting competitiveness. The Info-Tech model covers three key delivery models – public, private, and hybrid, and an overarching model (multi-cloud) that can comprise more than one of the other models – public + public, public + hybrid, etc.

    Public

    The cloud service is provisioned for access by the general public (customers).

    Private

    A private cloud has the five key characteristics, but is provisioned for use by a single entity, like a company or organization.

    Hybrid

    Hybridity essentially refers to interoperability between multiple cloud delivery models (public +private).

    Multi

    A multi-cloud deployment requires only that multiple clouds are used without any necessary interoperability (Nutanix, 2019).

    Public cloud

    This is what people generally think about when they talk about cloud

    • The public cloud is, well, public! Anyone can make use of its resources, and in the case of the major providers, capacity is functionally unlimited. Need to store exabytes of data in the cloud? No problem! Amazon will drive a modified shipping container to your datacenter, load it up, and “migrate” it to a datacenter.
    • Public clouds offer significant variety on the infrastructure side. Major IaaS providers, like Microsoft and Amazon, offer dozens of services across many different categories including compute, networking, and storage, but also identity, containers, machine learning, virtual desktops, and much, much more. (See a list from Microsoft here, and Amazon here)
    • There are undoubtedly strengths to the public cloud model. Providers offer the “latest and greatest” and customers need not worry about the details, including managing infrastructure and physical locations. Providers offer built-in redundancy, multi-regional deployments, automation tools, management and governance solutions, and a variety of leading-edge technologies that would not be feasible for organizations to run in-house, like high performance compute, blockchain, or quantum computing.
    • Of course, the public cloud is not all sunshine and rainbows – there are downsides as well. It can be expensive; it can introduce regulatory complications to have to trust another entity with your key information. Additionally, there can be performance hiccups, and with SaaS products, it can be difficult to monitor at the appropriate (per-transaction) level.

    Prominent examples include:

    AWS

    Microsoft

    Azure

    Salesforce.com

    Workday

    SAP

    Private cloud

    A lower-risk cloud for cloud-averse customers?

    • A cloud is a cloud, no matter how small. Some IT shops deploy private clouds that make use of the five key cloud characteristics but provisioned for the exclusive use of a single entity, like a corporation.
    • Private clouds have numerous benefits. Some potential cloud customers might be uncomfortable with the shared responsibility that is inherent in the public cloud. Private clouds allow customers to deliver flexible, measured services without having to surrender control, but they require significant overhead, capital expenditure, administrative effort, and technical expertise.
    • According to the 2021 State of the Cloud Report, private cloud use is common, and the most frequently cited toolset is VMware vSphere, followed by Azure Stack, OpenStack, and AWS Outposts. Private cloud deployments are more common in larger organizations, which makes sense given the overhead required to manage such an environment.

    Private cloud adoption

    The images shows a graph titled Private Cloud Adoption for Enterprises. It is a horizontal bar graph, with three segments in each bar: dark blue marking currently use; mid blue marking experimenting; and light blue marking plan to use.

    VMware and Microsoft lead the pack among private cloud customers, with Amazon and Red Hat also substantially present across private cloud environments.

    Hybrid cloud

    The best of both worlds?

    Hybrid cloud architectures combine multiple cloud delivery models and facilitate some level of interoperability. NIST suggests bursting and load balancing as examples of hybrid cloud use cases. Note: it is not sufficient to simply have multiple clouds running in parallel – there must be a toolset that allows for an element of cross-cloud functionality.

    This delivery model is attractive because it allows users to take advantage of the strengths of multiple service models using a single management pane. Bursting across clouds to take advantage of additional capacity or disaster recovery capabilities are two obvious use cases that appeal to hybrid cloud users.

    But while hybridity is all the rage (especially given the impact Covid-19 has had on the workplace), the reality is that any hybrid cloud user must take the good with the bad. Multiple clouds and a management layer can be technically complex, expensive, and require maintaining a physical infrastructure that is not especially valuable (“I thought we were moving to the cloud to get out of the datacenter!”).

    Before selecting a hybrid approach through services like VMware Cloud on AWS or Microsoft’s Azure Stack, consider the cost, complexity, and actual expected benefit.

    Amazon, Microsoft, and Google dominate public cloud IaaS, but IBM is betting big on hybrid cloud:

    The image is a screencap of a tweet from IBM News. The tweet reads: IBM CEO Ginni Rometty: Hybrid cloud is a trillion dollar market and we'll be number one #Think2019.

    With its acquisition of Red Hat in 2019 for $34 billion, Big Blue put its money where its mouth is and acquired a substantial hybrid cloud business. At the time of the acquisition, Red Hat’s CEO, Jim Whitehurst, spoke about the benefit IBM expected to receive:

    “Joining forces with IBM gives Red Hat the opportunity to bring more open source innovation to an even broader range of organizations and will enable us to scale to meet the need for hybrid cloud solutions that deliver true choice and agility” (Red Hat, 2019).

    Multi-cloud

    For most organizations, the multi-cloud is the most realistic option.

    Multi-cloud is popular!

    The image shows a graph titled Multi-Cloud Architectures Used, % of all Respondents. The largest percentage is Apps siloed on different clouds, followed by DAta integration between clouds.

    Multi-cloud solutions exist at a different layer of abstraction from public, private, and even hybrid cloud delivery models. A multi-cloud architecture, as the name suggests, requires the user to be a customer of more than one cloud provider, and it can certainly include a hybrid cloud deployment, but it is not bound by the same rules of interoperability.

    Many organizations – especially those with fewer resources or a lack of a use case for a private cloud – rely on a multi-cloud architecture to build applications where they belong, and they manage each environment separately (or occasionally with the help of cloud management platforms).

    If your data team wants to work in AWS and your enterprise services run on basic virtual machines in Azure, that might be the most effective architecture. As the Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud Report suggests, this architecture is far more common than the more complicated bursting or brokering architectures characteristic of hybrid clouds.

    NIST cloud service models

    Software as a service

    SaaS has exploded in popularity with consumers who wish to avail themselves of the cloud’s benefits without having to manage underlying infrastructure components. SaaS is simple, generally billed per-user per-month, and is almost entirely provider-managed.

    Platform as a service

    PaaS providers offer a toolset for their customers to run custom applications and services without the requirement to manage underlying infrastructure components. This service model is ideal for custom applications/services that don’t benefit from highly granular infrastructure control.

    Infrastructure as a service

    IaaS represents the sale of components. Instead of a service, IaaS providers sell access to components, like compute, storage, and networking, allowing for customers to build anything they want on top of the providers’ infrastructure.

    Cloud service models

    • This research focuses on five key service models, each of which has its own strengths and weaknesses. Moving right from “on-prem,” customers gradually give up more control over their environments to cloud service providers.
    • An entirely premises-based environment means that the customer is responsible for everything ranging from the dirt under the datacenter to application-level configurations. Conversely, in a SaaS environment, the provider is responsible for everything but those top-level application configurations.
    • A managed service provider or other third party can manage any or of the components of the infrastructure stack. A service provider may, for example, build a SaaS solution on top of another provider’s IaaS, or might offer configuration assistance with a commercially available SaaS.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Not all workloads fit well in the cloud. Many environments will mix service models (e.g. SaaS for some workloads, some in IaaS, some on-premises), and this can be perfectly effective. It must be consistent and intentional, however.

    On-prem Co-Lo IaaS PaaS SaaS
    Application Application Application Application Application
    Database Database Database Database Database
    Runtime/ Middleware Runtime/ Middleware Runtime/ Middleware Runtime/ Middleware Runtime/ Middleware
    OS OS OS OS OS
    Hypervisor Hypervisor Hypervisor Hypervisor Hypervisor
    Server Network Storage Server Network Storage Server Network Storage Server Network Storage Server Network Storage
    Facilities Facilities Facilities Facilities Facilities

    Organization has control

    Organization or vendor may control

    Vendor has control

    Analytics folly

    SaaS is good, but it’s not a panacea

    Industry: Healthcare

    Source: Info-Tech workshop

    Situation

    A healthcare analytics provider had already moved a significant number of “non-core workloads” to the cloud, including email, HRIS, and related services.

    The company CEO was satisfied with the reduced effort required by IT to manage SaaS-based workloads and sought to extend the same benefits to the core analytics platform where there was an opportunity to reduce overhead.

    Complication

    Many components of the health analytics service were designed to run specifically in a datacenter and were not ready to be migrated to the cloud without significant effort/refactoring. SaaS was not an option because this was a core platform – a SaaS provider would have been the competition.

    That left IaaS, which was expensive and would not bring the expected benefits (reduced overhead).

    Results

    The organization determined that there were no short-term gains from migrating to the cloud. Due to the nature of the application (its extensive customization, the fact that it was a core product sold by the company) any steps to reduce operational overhead were not feasible.

    The CEO recognized that the analytics platform was not a good candidate for the cloud and what distinguished the analytics platform from more suitable workloads.

    Migration paths

    In a 2016 blog post, Amazon Web Services articulated a framework for cloud migration that incorporates elements of the journey as well as the destination. If workload owners do not choose to retain or retire their workloads, there are four alternatives. These alternatives all stack up differently along five key dimensions:

    1. Value: does the workload stand to benefit from unique cloud characteristics? To what degree?
    2. Effort: how much work would be required to make the transition?
    3. Cost: how much money is the migration expected to cost?
    4. Time: how long will the migration take?
    5. Skills: what skills must be brought to bear to complete the migration?

    Not all migration paths can lead to all destinations. Rehosting generally means IaaS, while repurchasing leads to SaaS. Refactoring and replatforming have some variety of outcomes, and it becomes possible to take advantage of new IaaS architectures or migrate workloads over fully to SaaS.

    As part of the workload assessment process, use the five dimensions (expanded upon on the next slide) to determine what migration path makes sense. Preferred migration paths form an important part of the overall cloud vision process.

    Retain (Revisit)

    • Keep the application in its current form, at least for now. This doesn’t preclude revisiting it in the future.

    Retire

    • Get rid of the application completely.

    Rehost

    • Move the application to the cloud (IaaS) and continue to run it in more or less the same form as it currently runs.

    Replatform

    • Move the application to the cloud and perform a few changes for cloud optimizations.

    Refactor

    • Rewrite the application, taking advantage of cloud native architectures.

    Repurchase

    • Replace with an alternative, cloud-native application and migrate the data.

    Migration paths – relative value

    Migration path Value Effort Cost Time Skills
    Retain No real change in the absolute value of the workload if it is retained. No effort beyond ongoing workload maintenance. No immediate hard dollar costs, but opportunity costs and technical debt abound. No time required! (At least not right away…) Retaining requires the same skills it has always required (which may be more difficult to acquire in the future).
    Rehire A retired workload can provide no value, but it is not a drain! Spinning a service down requires engaging that part of the lifecycle. N/A Retiring the service may be simple or complicated depending on its current role. N/A
    Rehost Some value comes with rehosting, but generally components stay the same (VM here vs. a VM there). Minimal effort required, especially with automated tools. The effort will depend on the environment being migrated. Relatively cheap compared to other options. Rehosting infrastructure is the simplest cloud migration path and is useful for anyone in a hurry. Rehosting is the simplest cloud migration path for most workloads, but it does require basic familiarity with cloud IaaS.

    Replatform

    Replatformed workloads can take advantage of cloud-native services (SQL vs. SQLaaS). Replatforming is more effortful than rehosting, but less effortful than refactoring. Moderate cost – does not require fundamental rearchitecture, just some tweaking. Relatively more complicated than a simple rehost, but less demanding than a refactor. Platform and workload expertise is required; more substantial than a simple rehost.
    Refactor A fully formed, customized cloud-based workload that can take advantage of cloud-native architectures is generally quite valuable. Significant effort required based on the requirement to engage the full SDLC. Significant cost required to engage SDLC and rebuild the application/service. The most complicated and time-consuming. The most complicated and time-consuming.
    Repurchase Repurchasing is the quickest way to achieve cloud-native value. There are compromises, however (high cost, vendor-lock-in). Repurchasing is the quickest way to achieve cloud-native value. There are compromises, however (high cost, vendor-lock-in). Repurchasing is the quickest way to achieve cloud-native value. There are compromises, however (high cost, vendor-lock-in). Configuration – especially for massive projects – can be time consuming, but in general repurchasing can be quite fast. Buying software does require knowledge of requirements and integrations, but is otherwise quite simple.

    Where should you get your cloud skills?

    Cloud skills are certainly top of mind right now. With the great upheaval in both work patterns and in the labor market more generally, expertise in cloud-related areas is simultaneously more valuable and more difficult to procure. According to Pluralsight’s 2021 “State of Upskilling” report, 44% of respondents report themselves under-skilled in the cloud management area, making cloud management the most significant skill gap reported on the survey.

    Everyone left the office. Work as we know it is fundamentally altered for a generation or more. Cloud services shot up in popularity by enabling the transition. And yet there is a gap – a prominent gap – in skilling up for this critically important future. What is the cloud manager to do?

    Per the framework presented here, that manager has three essential options. They may take somewhat different forms depending on specific requirements and the quirks of the local market, but the options are:

    1. Train or hire internal resources: This might be easier said than done, especially for more niche skills, but makes sense for workloads that are critical to operations for the long term.
    2. Engage a managed service provider: MSPs are often engaged to manage services where internal IT lacks bandwidth or expertise.
    3. Hire a consultant: Consultants are great for time-bound implementation projects where highly specific expertise is required, such as a migration or implementation project.

    Each model makes sense to some degree. When evaluating individual workloads for cloud suitability, it is critical to consider the support model – both immediate and long term. What makes sense from a value perspective?

    Cloud decisions – summary

    A key component of the Info-Tech cloud vision model is that it is multi-layered. Not every decision must be made at every level. At the workload level, it makes sense to select service models that make sense, but each workload does not need its own defined vision. Workload-level decisions should be guided by an overall strategy but applied tactically, based on individual workload characteristics and circumstances.

    Conversely, some decisions will inevitably be applied at the environment level. With some exceptions, it is unlikely that cloud customers will build an entire private/hybrid cloud environment around a single solution; instead, they will define a broader strategy and fit individual workloads into that strategy.

    Some considerations exist at both the workload and environment levels. Risks and roadblocks, as well as the preferred support model, are concerns that exist at both the environment level and at the workload level.

    The image is a Venn diagram, with the left side titled Workload level, and the right side titled Environment Level. In the left section are: service model and migration path. On the right section are: Overall vision and Delivery model. In the centre section are: support model and Risks and roadblocks.

    Step 1.3

    Create a current state summary

    Activities

    1.3.1 Record your current state

    Understand the Cloud

    Generate goals and drivers

    Explore cloud characteristics

    Create a current state summary

    Select workloads for analysis

    This step involves the following participants: Core working group

    Outcomes of this step

    • Current state summary of cloud solutions

    1.3.1 Record your current state

    30 minutes

    Input

    • Knowledge of existing cloud workloads

    Output

    • Current state cloud summary for service, delivery, and support models

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Infrastructure team
    • Service owners
    1. On a whiteboard (real or virtual) draw a table with each of the cloud service models across the top. Leave a cell below each to list examples.
    2. Under each service model, record examples present in your environment. The purpose of the exercise is to illustrate the existence of cloud services in your environment or the lack thereof, so there is no need to be exhaustive. Complete this in turn for each service model until you are satisfied that you have created an effective picture of your current cloud SaaS state, IaaS state, etc.
    3. Input the results into their own slide titled “current state summary” in the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation.
    4. Repeat for the cloud delivery models and support models and include the results of those exercises as well.
    5. Create a short summary statement (“We are primarily a public cloud consumer with a large SaaS footprint and minimal presence in PaaS and IaaS. We retain an MSP to manage our hosted telephony solution; otherwise, everything is handled in house.”

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Step 1.4

    Select workloads for current analysis

    Activities

    1.4.1 Select workloads for assessment

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group

    Outcomes of this step

    • List of workloads for assessment

    Understand the cloud

    Generate goals and drivers

    Explore cloud characteristics

    Create a current state summary

    Select workloads for analysis

    1.4.1 Select workloads for assessment

    30 minutes

    Input

    • Knowledge of existing cloud workloads

    Output

    • List of workloads to be assessed

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Cloud Vision Workbook

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • IT management
    1. In many cases, the cloud project is inspired by a desire to move a particular workload or set of workloads. Solicit feedback from the core working group about what these workloads might be. Ask everyone in the meeting to suggest a workload and record each one on a sticky note or white board (virtual or physical).
    2. Discuss the results with the group and begin grouping similar workloads together. They will be subject to the assessments in the Cloud Vision Workbook, so try to avoid selecting too many workloads that will produce similar answers. It might not be obvious, but try to think about workloads that have similar usage patterns, risk levels, and performance requirements, and select a representative group.
    3. You should embrace counterintuition by selecting a workload that you think is unlikely to be a good fit for the cloud if you can and subjecting it to the assessment as well for validation purposes.
    4. When you have a list of 4-6 workloads, record them on tab 2 of the Cloud Vision Workbook.

    Cloud Vision Workbook

    Assess your cloud workloads

    Build the foundations of your cloud vision

    Phase 2

    Phase 2

    Evaluate Cloud Workloads

    Phase 1

    1.1 Generate goals and drivers

    1.2 Explore cloud characteristics

    1.3 Create a current state summary

    1.4 Select workloads for analysis

    Phase 2

    2.1 Conduct workload assessments

    2.2 Determine workload future states

    Phase 3

    3.1 Generate risks and roadblocks

    3.2 Mitigate risks and roadblocks

    3.3 Define roadmap initiatives

    Phase 4

    4.1 Review and assign work items

    4.2 Finalize cloud decision framework

    4.3 Create cloud vision

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Conduct workload assessments
    • Determine workload future state

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Subject matter experts
    • Core working group
    • IT management

    Define Your Cloud Vision

    Work from the bottom up and assess your workloads

    A workload-first approach will help you create a realistic vision.

    The concept of a cloud vision should unquestionably be informed by the nature of the workloads that IT is expected to provide for the wider organization. The overall cloud vision is no greater than the sum of its parts. You cannot migrate to the cloud in the abstract. Workloads need to go – and not all workloads are equally suitable for the transition.

    It is therefore imperative to understand which workloads are a good fit for the cloud, which cloud service models make the most sense, how to execute the migration, what support should look like, and what risks and roadblocks you are likely to encounter as part of the process.

    That’s where the Cloud Vision Workbook comes into play. You can use this tool to assess as many workloads as you’d like – most people get the idea after about four – and by the end of the exercise, you should have a pretty good idea about where your workloads belong, and you’ll have a tool to assess any net new or previously unconsidered workloads.

    It’s not so much about the results of the assessment – though these are undeniably important – but about the learnings gleaned from the collaborative assessment exercise. While you can certainly fill out the assessment without any additional input, this exercise is most effective when completed as part of a group.

    Introducing the Cloud Vision Workbook

    • The Cloud Vision Workbook is an Excel tool that answers the age old question: “What should I do with my workloads?”
    • It is divided into eight tabs, each of which offers unique value. Start by reading the introduction and inputting your list of workloads. Work your way through tabs 3-6, completing the suitability, migration, management, and risk and roadblock assessments, and review the results on tab 7.
    • If you choose to go through the full battery of assessments for each workload, expect to answer and weight 111 unique questions across the four assessments. This is an intensive exercise, so carefully consider which assessments are valuable to you, and what workloads you have time to assess.
    • Tab 8 hosts the milestone timeline and captures the results of the phase 3 risk and mitigation exercise.

    Understand Cloud Vision Workbook outputs

    The image shows a graphic with several graphs and lists on it, with sections highlighted with notes. At the top, there's the title Database with the note Workload title (populated from tab 2). Below that, there is a graph with the note Relative suitability of the five service models. The Risks and roadblocks section includes the note: The strategy components – the risks and roadblocks – are captured relative to one another to highlight key focus areas. To the left of that, there is a Notes section with the note Notes populated based on post-assessment discussion. At the bottom, there is a section titled Where should skills be procured?, with the note The radar diagram captures the recommended support model relative to the others (MSP, consultant, internal IT). To the right of that, there is a section titled Migration path, with the note that Ordered list of migration paths. Note: a disconnect here with the suggested service model may indicate an unrealistic goal state.

    Step 2.1

    Conduct workload assessments

    Activities

    2.1.1 Conduct workload assessments

    2.1.2 Interpret your results

    Phase Title

    Conduct workload assessments

    Determine workload future state

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Workload subject matter experts

    Outcomes of this step

    • Completed workload assessments

    2.1.1 Conduct workload assessments

    2 hours per workload

    Input

    • List of workloads to be assessed

    Output

    • Completed cloud vision assessments

    Materials

    • Cloud Vision Workbook

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Service owners/workload SMEs
    1. The Cloud Vision Workbook is your one stop shop for all things workload assessment. Open the tool to tab 2 and review the workloads you identified at the end of phase 1. Ensure that these are correct. Once satisfied, project the tool (virtually, if necessary) so that all participants can see the assessment questions.
    2. Work through tabs 3-6, answering the questions and assigning a multiplier for each one. A higher multiplier increases the relative weight of the question, giving it a greater impact on the overall outcome.
    3. Do your best to induce participants to offer opinions. Consensus is not absolutely necessary, but it is a good goal. Ask your participants if they agree with initial responses and occasionally take the opposite position (“I’m surprised you said agree – I would have thought we didn’t care about CapEx vs. OpEx”). Stimulate discussion.
    4. Highlight any questions that you will need to return to or run by someone not present. Include a placeholder answer, as the tool requires all cells to be filled for computation.

    Cloud Vision Workbook

    2.1.2 Interpret your results

    10 minutes

    Input

    • Completed cloud vision assessments

    Output

    • Shared understanding of implications

    Materials

    • Cloud Vision Workbook

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Service owners/workload SMEs
    1. Once you’ve completed all 111 questions for each workload, you can review your results on tab 7. On tab 7, you will see four populated graphics: cloud suitability, migration path, “where should skills be procured?”, and risks and roadblocks. These represent the components of the overall cloud vision that you will present to stakeholders.
    2. The “cloud suitability” chart captures the service model that the assessment judges to be most suitable for the workload. Ask those present if any are surprised by the output. If there is any disagreement, discuss the source of the surprise and what a more realistic outcome would be. Revisit the assessment if necessary.
    3. Conduct a similar exercise with each of the other outputs. Does it make sense to refactor the workload based on its cloud suitability? Does the fact that we scored so highly on the “consultant” support model indicate something about how we handle upskilling internally? Does the profile of risks and roadblocks identified here align with expectations? What should be ranked higher? What about lower?
    4. Once everyone is generally satisfied with the results, close the tool and take a break! You’ve earned it.

    Cloud Vision Workbook

    Understand the cloud strategy components

    Each cloud strategy will take a slightly different form, but all should contain echoes of each of these components. This process will help you define your vision and direction, but you will need to take steps to execute on that vision. The remainder of the cloud strategy, covered in the related blueprint Document Your Cloud Strategy comprises these fourteen topics divided across three categories: people, governance, and technology. The workload assessment covers these under risks and roadblocks and highlights areas that may require specific additional attention. When interpreting the results, think of these areas as comprising things that you will need to do to make your vision a reality.

    People

    • Skills and roles
    • Culture and adoption
    • Governing bodies

    Governance

    • Architecture
    • Integration and interoperability
    • Operations management
    • Cloud portfolio management
    • Cloud vendor management
    • Finance management
    • Security
    • Data controls

    Technology

    • Monitoring
    • Provisioning
    • Migration

    Strategy component: People

    People form the core of any good strategy. As part of your cloud vision, you will need to understand the implications a cloud transition will have on your staff and users, whether those users are internal or external.

    Component Description Challenges
    Skills and roles The move to the cloud will require staff to learn how to handle new technology and new operational processes. The cloud is a different way of procuring IT resources and may require the definition of new roles to handle things like cost management and provisioning. Staff may not have the necessary experience to migrate to a cloud environment or to effectively manage resources once the cloud transition is made. Cloud skills are difficult to hire for, and with the ever-changing nature of the platforms themselves, this shows no sign of abating. Redefining roles can also be politically challenging and should be done with due care and consideration.
    Culture and adoption If you build it, they will come…right? It is not always the case that a new service immediately attracts users. Ensuring that organizational culture aligns with the cloud vision is a critical success factor. Equally important is ensuring that cloud resources are used as intended. Those unfamiliar with cloud resources may be less willing to learn to use them. If alternatives exist (e.g. a legacy service that has not been shut down), or if those detractors are influential, this resistance may impede your cloud execution. Also, if the cloud transition involves significant effort or a fundamental rework (e.g. a DevOps transition) this role redefinition could cause some internal turmoil.
    Governing bodies A large-scale cloud deployment requires formal governance. Formal governance requires a governing body that is ultimately responsible for designing the said governance. This could take the form of a “center of excellence” or may rest with a single cloud architect in a smaller, less complicated environment. Governance is difficult. Defining responsibilities in a way that includes all relevant stakeholders without paralyzing the decision-making process is difficult. Implementing suggestions is a challenge. Navigating the changing nature of service provision (who can provision their own instances or assign licenses?) can be difficult as well. All these concerns must be addressed in a cloud strategy.

    Strategy component: Governance

    Without guardrails, the cloud deployment will grow organically. This has strengths (people tend to adopt solutions that they select and deploy themselves), but these are more than balanced out by the drawbacks that come with inconsistency, poor administration, duplication of services, suboptimal costing, and any number of other unique challenges. The solution is to develop and deploy governance. The following list captures some of the necessary governance-related components of a cloud strategy.

    Component Description Challenges
    Architecture Enterprise architecture is an important function in any environment with more than one interacting workload component (read: any environment). The cloud strategy should include an approach to defining and implementing a standard cloud architecture and should assign responsibility to an individual or group. Sometimes the cloud transition is inspired by the desire to rearchitect. The necessary skills and knowledge may not be readily available to design and transition to a microservices-based environment, for example, vs. a traditional monolithic application architecture. The appropriateness of a serverless environment may not be well understood, and it may be the case that architects are unfamiliar with cloud best practices and reference architectures.
    Integration and interoperability Many services are only highly functional when integrated with other services. What is a database without its front-end? What is an analytics platform without its data lake? For the cloud vision to be properly implemented, a strategy for handling integration and interoperability must be developed. It may be as simple as “all SaaS apps must be compatible with Okta” but it must be there. Migration to the cloud may require a fundamentally new approach to integration, moving away from a point-to-point integrations and towards an ESB or data lake. In many cases, this is easier said than done. Centralization of management may be appealing, but legacy applications – or those acquired informally in a one-off fashion – might not be so easy to integrate into a central management platform.
    Operations management Service management (ITIL processes) must be aligned with your overall cloud strategy. Migrating to the cloud (where applicable) will require refining these processes, including incident, problem, request, change, and configuration management, to make them more suitable for the cloud environment. Operations management doesn’t go away in the cloud, but it does change in line with the transition to shared responsibility. Responding to incidents may be more difficult on the cloud when troubleshooting is a vendor’s responsibility. Change management in a SaaS environment may be more receptive than staff are used to as cloud providers push changes out that cannot be rolled back.

    Strategy component: Governance (cont.)

    Component Description Challenges
    Cloud portfolio management This component refers to the act of managing the portfolio of cloud services that is available to IT and to business users. What requirements must a SaaS service meet to be onboarded into the environment? How do we account for exceptions to our IaaS policy? What about services that are only available from a certain provider? Rationalizing services offers administrative benefits, but may make some tasks more difficult for end users who have learned things a certain way or rely on niche toolsets. Managing access through a service catalog can also be challenging based on buy-in and ongoing administration. It is necessary to develop and implement policy.
    Cloud vendor management Who owns the vendor management function, and what do their duties entail? What contract language must be standard? What does due diligence look like? How should negotiations be conducted? What does a severing of the relationship look like? Cloud service models are generally different from traditional hosted software and even from each other (e.g. SaaS vs. PaaS). There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to dealing with vendors. Also relevant: the skills that it takes to build and maintain a system are not necessarily the same as those required to coherently interact with a cloud vendor.
    Finance management Cloud services are, by definition, subject to a kind of granular, operational billing that many shops might not be used to. Someone will need to accurately project and allocate costs, while ensuring that services are monitored for cost abnormalities. Cloud cost challenges often relate to overall expense (“the cloud is more expensive than an alternative solution”), expense variability (“I don’t know what my budget needs to be this quarter”), and cost complexity (“I don’t understand what I’m paying for – what’s an Elastic Beanstalk?”).
    Security The cloud is not inherently more or less secure than a premises-based alternative, though the risk profile can be different. Applying appropriate security governance to ensure workloads are compliant with security requirements is an essential component of the strategy.

    Technical security architecture can be a challenge, as well as navigating the shared responsibility that comes with a cloud transition. There are also a plethora of cloud-specific security tools like cloud access security brokers (CASBs), cloud security posture management (CSPM) solutions, and even secure access services edge (SASE) technology.

    Data controls Data residency, classification, quality, and protection are important considerations for any cloud strategy. With cloud providers taking on outsized responsibility, understanding and governing data is essential. Cloud providers like to abstract away from the end user, and while some may be able to guarantee residency, others may not. Additionally, regulations may prevent some data from going to the cloud, and you may need to develop a new organizational backup strategy to account for the cloud.

    Strategy component: Technology

    Good technology will never replace good people and effective process, but it remains important in its own right. A migration that neglects the undeniable technical components of a solid cloud strategy is doomed to mediocrity at best and failure at worst. Understanding the technical implications of the cloud vision – particularly in terms of monitoring, provisioning, and migration – makes all the difference. You can interpret the results of the cloud workload assessments by reviewing the details presented here.

    Component Description Challenges
    Monitoring The cloud must be monitored in line with performance requirements. Staff must ensure that appropriate tools are in place to properly monitor cloud workloads and that they are capturing adequate and relevant data. Defining requirements for monitoring a potentially unfamiliar environment can be difficult, as can consolidating on a monitoring solution that both meets requirements and covers all relevant areas. There may be some upskilling and integration work required to ensure that monitoring works as required.
    Provisioning How will provisioning be done? Who will be responsible for ensuring the right people have access to the right resources? What tooling must be deployed to support provisioning goals? What technical steps must be taken to ensure that the provisioning is as seamless as possible? There is the inevitable challenge of assigning responsibility and accountability in a changing infrastructure and operations environment, especially if the changes are substantial (e.g. a fundamental operating model shift, reoriented around the cloud). Staff may also need to familiarize themselves with cloud-based provisioning tools like Ansible, Terraform, or even CloudFormation.
    Migration The act of migrating is important as well. In some cases, the migration is as simple as configuring the new environment and turning it up (e.g. with a net new SaaS service). In other cases, the migration itself can be a substantial undertaking, involving large amounts of data, a complicated replatforming/refactoring, and/or a significant configuration exercise.

    Not all migration journeys are created equal, and challenges include a general lack of understanding of the requirements of a migration, the techniques that might be necessary to migrate to a particular cloud (there are many) and the disruption/risk associated with moving large amounts of data. All of these challenges must be considered as part of the overall cloud strategy, whether in terms of architectural principles or skill acquisition (or both!).

    Step 2.2

    Determine workload future state

    Activities

    2.2.1 Determine workload future state

    Conduct workload assessments

    Determine workload future state

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT management
    • Core working group

    Outcomes of this step

    • Completed workload assessments
    • Defined workload future state

    2.2.1 Determine workload future state

    1-3 hours

    Input

    • Completed workload assessments

    Output

    • Preliminary future state outputs

    Materials

    • Cloud Vision Workbook
    • Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Service owners
    • IT management
    1. After you’ve had a chance to validate your results, refer to tab 7 of the tool, where you will find a blank notes section.
    2. With the working group, capture your answers to each of the following questions:
      1. What service model is the most suitable for the workload? Why?
      2. How will we conduct the migration? Which of the six models makes the most sense? Do we have a backup plan if our primary plan doesn’t work out?
      3. What should the support model look like?
      4. What are some workload-specific risks and considerations that must be taken into account for the workload?
    3. Once you’ve got answers to each of these questions for each of the workloads, include your summary in the “notes” section of tab 7.

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Paste the output into the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    • The Cloud Vision Workbook output is a compact, consumable summary of each workload’s planned future state. Paste each assessment in as necessary.
    • There is no absolutely correct way to present the information, but the output is a good place to start. Do note that, while the presentation is designed to lead with the vision statement, because the process is workload-first, the assessments are populated prior to the overall vision in a bottom-up manner.
    • Be sure to anticipate the questions you are likely to receive from any stakeholders. You may consider preparing for questions like: “What other workloads fit this profile?” “What do we expect the impact on the budget to be?” “How long will this take?” Keep these and other questions in mind as you progress through the vision definition process.

    The image shows the Cloud Vision Workbook output, which was described in an annotated version in an earlier section.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Keep your audience in mind. You may want to include some additional context in the presentation if the results are going to be presented to non-technical stakeholders or those who are not familiar with the terms or how to interpret the outputs.

    Identify and Mitigate Risks

    Build the foundations of your cloud vision

    PHASE 3

    Phase 3

    Identify and Mitigate Risks

    Phase 1

    1.1 Generate goals and drivers

    1.2 Explore cloud characteristics

    1.3 Create a current state summary

    1.4 Select workloads for analysis

    Phase 2

    2.1 Conduct workload assessments

    2.2 Determine workload future states

    Phase 3

    3.1 Generate risks and roadblocks

    3.2 Mitigate risks and roadblocks

    3.3 Define roadmap initiatives

    Phase 4

    4.1 Review and assign work items

    4.2 Finalize cloud decision framework

    4.3 Create cloud vision

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Generate risks and roadblocks
    • Mitigate risks and roadblocks
    • Define roadmap initiatives

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Workload subject matter experts

    You know what you want to do, but what do you have to do?

    What questions remain unanswered?

    There are workload-level risks and roadblocks, and there are environment-level risks. This phase is focused primarily on environment-level risks and roadblocks, or those that are likely to span multiple workloads (but this is not hard and fast rule – anything that you deem worth discussing is worth discussing). The framework here calls for an open forum where all stakeholders – technical and non-technical, pro-cloud and anti-cloud, management and individual contributor – have an opportunity to articulate their concerns, however specific or general, and receive feedback and possible mitigation.

    Start by soliciting feedback. You can do this over time or in a single session. Encourage anyone with an opinion to share it. Focus on those who are likely to have a perspective that will become relevant at some point during the creation of the cloud strategy and the execution of any migration. Explain the preliminary direction; highlight any major changes that you foresee. Remind participants that you are not looking for solutions (yet), but that you want to make sure you hear any and every concern as early as possible. You will get feedback and it will all be valuable.

    Before cutting your participants loose, remind them that, as with all business decisions, the cloud comes with trade-offs. Not everyone will have every wish fulfilled, and in some cases, significant effort may be needed to get around a roadblock, risks may need to be accepted, and workloads that looked like promising candidates for one service model or another may not be able to realize that potential. This is a normal and expected part of the cloud vision process.

    Once the risks and roadblocks conversation is complete, it is the core working group’s job to propose and validate mitigations. Not every risk can be completely resolved, but the cloud has been around for decades – chances are someone else has faced a similar challenge and made it through relatively unscathed. That work will inevitably result in initiatives for immediate execution. Those initiatives will form the core of the initiative roadmap that accompanies the completed Cloud Vision Executive Presentation.

    Step 3.1

    Generate risks and roadblocks

    Activities

    3.1.1 Generate risks and roadblocks

    3.1.2 Generate mitigations

    Identify and mitigate risks

    Generate risks and roadblocks

    Mitigate risks and roadblocks

    Define roadmap initiatives

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • IT management
    • Infrastructure
    • Applications
    • Security
    • Architecture

    Outcomes of this step

    • List of risks and roadblocks

    Understand risks and roadblocks

    Risk

    • Something that could potentially go wrong.
    • You can respond to risks by mitigating them:
      • Eliminate: take action to prevent the risk from causing issues.
      • Reduce: take action to minimize the likelihood/severity of the risk.
      • Transfer: shift responsibility for the risk away from IT, towards another division of the company.
      • Accept: where the likelihood or severity is low, it may be prudent to accept that the risk could come to fruition.

    Roadblock

    • There are things that aren’t “risks” that we care about when migrating to the cloud.
    • We know, for example, that a complicated integration situation will create work items for any migration – this is not an “unknown.”
    • We respond to roadblocks by generating work items.

    3.1.1 Generate risks and roadblocks

    1.5 hours

    Input

    • Completed cloud vision assessments

    Output

    • List of risks and roadblocks

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Sticky notes

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Service owners/workload SMEs
    • Anyone with concerns about the cloud
    1. Gather your core working group – and really anyone with an intelligent opinion on the cloud – into a single meeting space. Give the group 5-10 minutes to list anything they think could present a difficulty in transitioning workloads to the cloud. Write each risk/roadblock on its own sticky note. You will never be 100% exhaustive, but don’t let anything your users care about go unaddressed.
    2. Once everyone has had time to write down their risks and roadblocks, have everyone share one by one. Make sure you get them all. Overlap in risks and roadblocks is okay! Group similar concerns together to give a sort of heat map of what your participants are concerned about. (This is called “affinity diagramming.”)
    3. Assign names to these categories. Many of these categories will align with the strategy components discussed in the previous phase (governance, security, etc.) but some will be specific whether by nature or by degree.
    4. Sort each of the individual risks into its respective category, collapsing any exact duplicates, and leaving room for notes and mitigations (see the next slide for a visual).

    Understand risks and roadblocks

    The image is two columns--on the left, the column is titled Affinity Diagramming. Below the title, there are many colored blocks, randomly arranged. There is an arrow pointing right, to the same coloured blocks, now sorted by colour. In the right column--titled Categorization--each colour has been assigned a category, with subcategories.

    Step 3.2

    Mitigate risks and roadblocks

    Activities

    3.2.1 Generate mitigations

    Identify and mitigate risks

    Generate risks and roadblocks

    Mitigate risks and roadblocks

    Define roadmap initiatives

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group

    Outcomes of this step

    • List of mitigations

    Is the public cloud less secure?

    This is the key risk-related question that most cloud customers will have to answer at some point: does migrating to the cloud for some services increase their exposure and create a security problem?

    As with all good questions, the answer is “it depends.” But what does it depend on? Consider these cloud risks and potential mitigations:

    1. Misconfiguration: An error grants access to unauthorized parties (as happened to Capital One in 2019). This can be mitigated by careful configuration management and third-party tooling.
    2. Unauthorized access by cloud provider/partner employees: Though rare, it is possible that a cloud provider or partner can be a vector for a breach. Careful contract language, choosing to own your own encryption keys, and a hybrid approach (storing data on-premises) are some possible ways to address this problem.
    3. Unauthorized access to systems: Cloud services are designed to be accessed from anywhere and may be accessed by malicious actors. Possible mitigations include risk-based conditional access, careful identity access management, and logging and detection.

    “The cloud is definitely more secure in that you have much more control, you have much more security tooling, much more visibility, and much more automation. So it is more secure. The caveat is that there is more risk. It is easier to accidentally expose data in the cloud than it is on-premises, but, especially for security, the amount of tooling and visibility you get in cloud is much more than anything we’ve had in our careers on-premises, and that’s why I think cloud in general is more secure.” –Abdul Kittana, Founder, ASecureCloud

    Breach bests bank

    No cloud provider can protect against every misconfiguration

    Industry: Finance

    Source: The New York Times, CNET

    Background

    Capital One is a major Amazon Web Services customer and is even featured on Amazon’s site as a case study. That case study emphasizes the bank’s commitment to the cloud and highlights how central security and compliance were. From the CTO: “Before we moved a single workload, we engaged groups from across the company to build a risk framework for the cloud that met the same high bar for security and compliance that we meet in our on-premises environments. AWS worked with us every step of the way.”

    Complication

    The cloud migration was humming along until July 2019, when the bank suffered a serious breach at the hands of a hacker. That hacker was able to steal millions of credit card applications and hundreds of thousands of Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, and Canadian social insurance numbers.

    According to investigators and to AWS, the breach was caused by an open reverse proxy attack against a misconfigured web app firewall, not by an underlying vulnerability in the cloud infrastructure.

    Results

    Capital One reported that the breach was expected to cost it $150 million, and AWS fervently denied any blame. The US Senate got involved, as did national media, and Capital One’s CEO issued a public apology, writing, “I sincerely apologize for the understandable worry this incident must be causing those affected, and I am committed to making it right.”

    It was a bad few months for IT at Capital One.

    3.2.1 Generate mitigations

    3-4.5 hours

    Input

    • Completed cloud vision assessments

    Output

    • List of risks and roadblocks

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Sticky notes

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Service owners/workload SMEs
    • Anyone with concerns about the cloud
    1. Recall the four mitigation strategies: eliminate, reduce, transfer, or accept. Keep these in mind as you work through the list of risks and roadblocks with the core working group. For every individual risk or roadblock raised in the initial generation session, suggest a specific mitigation. If the concern is “SaaS providers having access to confidential information,” a mitigation might be encryption, specific contract language, or proof of certifications (or all the above).
    2. Work through this for each of the risks and roadblocks, identifying the steps you need to take that would satisfy your requirements as you understand them.
    3. Once you have gone through the whole list – ideally with input from SMEs in particular areas like security, engineering, and compliance/legal – populate the Cloud Vision Workbook (tab 8) with the risks, roadblocks, and mitigations (sorted by category). Review tab 8 for an example of the output of this exercise.

    Cloud Vision Workbook

    Cloud Vision Workbook – mitigations

    The image shows a large chart titled Risks, roadblocks, and mitigations, which has been annotated with notes.

    Step 3.3

    Define roadmap initiatives

    Activities

    3.3.1 Generate roadmap initiatives

    Identify and mitigate risks

    Generate risks and roadblocks

    Mitigate risks and roadblocks

    Define roadmap initiatives

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group

    Outcomes of this step

    • Defined roadmap initiatives

    3.3.1 Generate roadmap initiatives

    1 hour

    Input

    • List of risk and roadblock mitigations

    Output

    • List of cloud initiatives

    Materials

    • Cloud Vision Workbook

    Participants

    • Core working group
    1. Executing on your cloud vision will likely require you to undertake some key initiatives, many of which have already been identified as part of your mitigation exercise. On tab 8 of the Cloud Vision Workbook, review the mitigations you created in response to the risks and roadblocks identified. Initiatives should generally be assignable to a party and should have a defined scope/duration. For example, “assess all net new applications for cloud suitability” might not be counted as an initiative, but “design a cloud application assessment” would likely be.
    2. Design a timeline appropriate for your specific needs. Generally short-term (less than 3 months), medium-term (3-6 months), and long-term (greater than 6 months) will work, but this is entirely based on preference.
    3. Review and validate the parameters with the working group. Consider creating additional color-coding (highlighting certain tasks that might be dependent on a decision or have ongoing components).

    Cloud Vision Workbook

    Bridge the gap and create the vision

    Build the foundations of your cloud vision

    Phase 4

    Phase 4

    Bridge the Gap and Create the Vision

    Phase 1

    1.1 Generate goals and drivers

    1.2 Explore cloud characteristics

    1.3 Create a current state summary

    1.4 Select workloads for analysis

    Phase 2

    2.1 Conduct workload assessments

    2.2 Determine workload future states

    Phase 3

    3.1 Generate risks and roadblocks

    3.2 Mitigate risks and roadblocks

    3.3 Define roadmap initiatives

    Phase 4

    4.1 Review and assign work items

    4.2 Finalize cloud decision framework

    4.3 Create cloud vision

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Assign initiatives and propose timelines
    • Build a delivery model rubric
    • Build a service model rubric
    • Built a support model rubric
    • Create a cloud vision statement
    • Map cloud workloads
    • Complete the Cloud Vision presentation

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT management, the core working group, security, infrastructure, operations, architecture, engineering, applications, non-IT stakeholders

    Step 4.1

    Review and assign work items

    Activities

    4.1.1 Assign initiatives and propose timelines

    Bridge the gap and create the vision

    Review and assign work items

    Finalize cloud decision framework

    Create cloud vision

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • IT management

    Outcomes of this step

    • Populated cloud vision roadmap

    4.1.1 Assign initiatives and propose timelines

    1 hour

    Input

    • List of cloud initiatives

    Output

    • Initiatives assigned by responsibility and timeline

    Materials

    • Cloud Vision Workbook

    Participants

    • Core working group
    1. Once the list is populated, begin assigning responsibility for execution. This is not a RACI exercise, so focus on the functional responsibility. Once you have determined who is responsible, assign a timeline and include any notes. This will form the basis of a more formal project plan.
    2. To assign the initiative to a party, consider 1) who will be responsible for execution and 2) if that responsibility will be shared. Be as specific as possible, but be sure to be consistent to make it easier for you to sort responsibility later on.
    3. When assigning timelines, we suggest including the end date (when you expect the project to be complete) rather than the start date, though whatever you choose, be sure to be consistent. Make use of the notes column to record anything that you think any other readers will need to be aware of in the future, or details that may not be possible to commit to memory.

    Cloud Vision Workbook

    Step 4.2

    Finalize cloud decision framework

    Activities

    4.2.1 Build a delivery model rubric

    4.2.2 Build a service model rubric

    4.2.3 Build a support model rubric

    Bridge the gap and create the vision

    Review and assign work items

    Finalize cloud decision framework

    Create cloud vision

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group

    Outcomes of this step

    • Cloud decision framework

    4.2.1 Build a delivery model rubric

    1 hour

    Input

    • List of cloud initiatives

    Output

    • Initiatives assigned by responsibility and timeline

    Materials

    Participants

    • Core working group
    1. Now that we have a good understanding of the cloud’s key characteristics, the relative suitability of different workloads for the cloud, and a good understanding of some of the risks and roadblocks that may need to be overcome if a cloud transition is to take place, it is time to formalize a delivery model rubric. Start by listing the delivery models on a white board vertically – public, private, hybrid, and multi-cloud. Include a community cloud option as well if that is feasible for you. Strike any models that do not figure into your vision.
    2. Create a table style rubric for each delivery model. Confer with the working group to determine what characteristics best define workloads suitable for each model. If you have a hybrid cloud option, you may consider workloads that are highly dynamic; a private cloud hosted on-premises may be more suitable for workloads that have extensive regulatory requirements.
    3. Once the table is complete, include it in the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation.

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Vision for the cloud future state (example)

    Delivery model Decision criteria
    Public cloud
    • Public cloud is the primary destination for all workloads as the goal is to eliminate facilities and infrastructure management
    • Offers features, broad accessibility, and managed updates along with provider-managed facilities and hardware
    Legacy datacenter
    • Any workload that is not a good fit for the public cloud
    • Dependency (like a USB key for license validation)
    • Performance requirements (e.g. workloads highly sensitive to transaction thresholds)
    • Local infrastructure components (firewall, switches, NVR)

    Summary statement: Everything must go! Public cloud is a top priority. Anything that is not compatible (for whatever reason) with a public cloud deployment will be retained in a premises-based server closet (downgraded from a full datacenter). The private cloud does not align with the overall organizational vision, nor does a hybrid solution.

    4.2.2 Build a service model rubric

    1 hour

    Input

    • Output of workload assessments
    • Output of risk and mitigation exercise

    Output

    • Service model rubric

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Participants

    • Core working group
    1. This next activity is like the delivery model activity, but covers the relevant cloud service models. On a whiteboard, make a vertical list of the cloud service models (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.) that will be considered for workloads. If you have an order of preference, place your most preferred at the top, your least preferred at the bottom.
    2. Describe the circumstances under which you would select each service model. Do your best to focus on differentiators. If a decision criterion appears for multiple service models, consider refining or excluding it. (For additional information, check out Info-Tech’s Reimagine IT Operations for a Cloud-First World blueprint.)
    3. Create a summary statement to capture your overall service model position. See the next slide for an example. Note: this can be incorporated into your cloud vision statement, so be sure that it reflects your genuine cloud preferences.
    4. Record the results in the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation.

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Vision for the cloud future state (example)

    Service model Decision criteria
    SaaS

    SaaS first; opt for SaaS when:

    • A SaaS option exists that meets all key business requirements
    • There is a strong desire to have someone else (the vendor) manage infrastructure components/the platform
    • Not particularly sensitive to performance thresholds
    • The goal is to transition management of the workload outside of IT
    • SaaS is the only feasible way to consume the desired service
    PaaS
    • Highly customized service/workload – SaaS not feasible
    • Still preferable to offload as much management as possible to third parties
    • Customization required, but not at the platform level
    • The workload is built using a standard framework
    • We have the time/resources to replatform
    IaaS
    • Service needs to be lifted and shifted out of the datacenter quickly
    • Customization is required at the platform level/there is value in managing components
    • There is no need to manage facilities
    • Performance is not impacted by hosting the workload offsite
    • There is value in right-sizing the workload over time
    On-premises Anything that does not fit in the cloud for performance or other reasons (e.g. licensing key)

    Summary statement: SaaS will be the primary service model. All workloads will migrate to the public cloud where possible. Anything that cannot be migrated to SaaS will be migrated to PaaS. IaaS is a transitory step.

    4.2.3 Build a support model rubric

    1 hour

    Input

    • Results of the cloud workload assessments

    Output

    • Support model rubric

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Participants

    • Core working group
    1. The final rubric covered here is that for the support model. Where will you procure the skills necessary to ensure the vision’s proper execution? Much like the other rubric activities, write the three support models vertically (in order of preference, if you have one) on a whiteboard.
    2. Next to each model, describe the circumstances under which you would select each support model. Focus on the dimensions: the duration of the engagement, specialization required, and flexibility required. If you have existing rules/practices around hiring consultants/MSPs, consider those as well.
    3. Once you have a good list of decision criteria, form a summary statement. This should encapsulate your position on support models and should mention any notable criteria that will contribute to most decisions.
    4. Record the results in the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation.

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Vision for the cloud future state (example)

    Support model Decision criteria
    Internal IT

    The primary support model will be internal IT going forward

    • Chosen where the primary work required is administrative
    • Where existing staff can manage the service in the cloud easily and effectively
    • Where the chosen solution fits the SaaS service model
    Consultant
    • Where the work required is time-bound (e.g. a migration/refactoring exercise)
    • Where the skills do not exist in house, and where the skills cannot easily be procured (specific technical expertise required in areas of the cloud unfamiliar to staff)
    • Where opportunities for staff to learn from consultant SMEs are valuable
    • Where ongoing management and maintenance can be handled in house
    MSP
    • Where an ongoing relationship is valued
    • Where ongoing administration and maintenance are disproportionately burdensome on IT staff (or where this administration and maintenance is likely to be burdensome)
    • Where the managed services model has already been proven out
    • Where specific expertise in an area of technology is required but this does not rise to the need to hire an FTE (e.g. telephony)

    Summary statement: Most workloads will be managed in house. A consultant will be employed to facilitate the transition to micro-services in a cloud container environment, but this will be transitioned to in-house staff. An MSP will continue to manage backups and telephony.

    Step 4.3

    Create cloud vision

    Activities

    4.3.1 Create a cloud vision statement

    4.3.2 Map cloud workloads

    4.3.3 Complete the Cloud Vision Presentation

    Review and assign work items

    Finalize cloud decision framework

    Create cloud vision

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • IT management

    Outcomes of this step

    Completed Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    4.3.1 Create a cloud vision statement

    1 hour

    Input

    • List of cloud initiatives

    Output

    • Initiatives assigned by responsibility and timeline

    Materials

    • Cloud Vision Workbook

    Participants

    • Core working group
    1. Now that you know what service models are appropriate, it’s time to summarize your cloud vision in a succinct, consumable way. A good vision statement should have three components:
      • Scope: Which parts of the organization will the strategy impact?
      • Goal: What is the strategy intended to accomplish?
      • Key differentiator: What makes the new strategy special?
    2. On a whiteboard, make a chart with three columns (one column for each of the features of a good mission statement). Have the group generate a list of words to describe each of the categories. Ideally, the group will produce multiple answers for each category.
    3. Once you’ve gathered a few different responses for each category, have the team put their heads down and generate pithy mission statements that capture the sentiments underlying each category.
    4. Have participants read their vision statements in front of the group. Use the rest of the session to produce a final statement. Record the results in the Cloud Strategy Executive Presentation.

    Example vision statement outputs

    “IT at ACME Corp. hereby commits to providing clients and end users with an unparalleled, productivity-enabling technology experience, leveraging, insofar as it is possible and practical, cloud-based services.”

    “At ACME Corp. our employees and customers are our first priority. Using new, agile cloud services, IT is devoted to eliminating inefficiency, providing cutting-edge solutions for a fast-paced world, and making a positive difference in the lives of our colleagues and the people we serve.”

    As a global leader in technology, ACME Corp. is committed to taking full advantage of new cloud services, looking first to agile cloud options to optimize internal processes wherever efficiency gaps exist. Improved efficiency will allow associates to spend more time on ACME’s core mission: providing an unrivalled customer experience.”

    Scope

    Goal

    Key differentiator

    4.3.2 Map cloud workloads

    1 hour

    Input

    • List of workloads
    • List of acceptable service models
    • List of acceptable migration paths

    Output

    • Workloads mapped by service model/migration path

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Sticky notes

    Participants

    • Core working group
    1. Now that you have defined your overall cloud vision as well as your service model options, consider aligning your service model preferences with your migration path preferences. Draw a table with your expected migration strategies across the top (retain, retire, rehost, replatform, refactor, repurchase, or some of these) and your expected service models across the side.
    2. On individual sticky notes, write a list of workloads in your environment. In a smaller environment, this list can be exhaustive. Otherwise take advantage of the list you created as part of phase 1 along with any additional workloads that warrant discussion.
    3. As a group, go through the list, placing the sticky notes first in the appropriate row based on their characteristics and the decision criteria that have already been defined, and then in the appropriate column based on the appropriate migration path. (See the next slide for an example of what this looks like.)
    4. Record the results in the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation. Note: not every cell will be filled; some migration path/service model combinations are impossible or otherwise undesirable.

    Cloud Vision Executive Presentation

    Example cloud workload map

    Repurchase Replatform Rehost Retain
    SaaS

    Office suite

    AD

    PaaS SQL Database
    IaaS File Storage DR environment
    Other

    CCTV

    Door access

    4.3.3 Complete the Cloud Vision Presentation

    1 hour

    Input

    • List of cloud initiatives

    Output

    • Initiatives assigned by responsibility and timeline

    Materials

    • Cloud Vision Workbook

    Participants

    • Core working group
    1. Open the Cloud Vision Executive Presentation to the second slide and review the templated executive brief. This comprises several sections (see the next slide). Populate each one:
      • Summary of the exercise
      • The cloud vision statement
      • Key cloud drivers
      • Risks and roadblocks
      • Top initiatives and next steps
    2. Review the remainder of the presentation. Be sure to elaborate on any significant initiatives and changes (where applicable) and to delete any slides that you no longer require.

    Cloud Vision Workbook

    Sample cloud vision executive summary

    • From [date to date], a cross-functional group representing IT and its constituents met to discuss the cloud.
    • Over the course of the week, the group identified drivers for cloud computing and developed a shared vision, evaluated several workloads through an assessment framework, identified risks, roadblocks, and mitigations, and finally generated initiatives and next steps.
    • From the process, the group produced a summary and a cloud suitability assessment framework that can be applied at the level of the workload.

    Cloud Vision Statement

    [Organization] will leverage public cloud solutions and retire existing datacenter and colocation facilities. This transition will simplify infrastructure administration, support, and security, while modernizing legacy infrastructure and reducing the need for additional capital expenditure.

    Cloud Drivers Retire the datacenter Do more valuable work
    Right-size the environment Reduce CapEx
    Facilitate ease of mgmt. Work from anywhere
    Reduce capital expenditure Take advantage of elasticity
    Performance and availability Governance Risks and roadblocks
    Security Rationalization
    Cost Skills
    Migration Remaining premises resources
    BC, backup, and DR Control

    Initiatives and next steps

    • Close the datacenter and colocation site in favor of a SaaS-first cloud approach.
    • Some workloads will migrate to infrastructure-as-a-service in the short term with the assistance of third-party consultants.

    Document your cloud strategy

    You did it!

    Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far, you’ve successfully articulated a cloud vision, assessed workloads, developed an understanding (shared with your team and stakeholders) of cloud concepts, and mitigated risks and roadblocks that you may encounter along your cloud journey. From this exercise, you should understand your mission and vision, how your cloud plans will interact with any other relevant strategic plans, and what successful execution looks like, as well as developing a good understanding of overall guiding principles. These are several components of your overall strategy, but they do not comprise the strategy in its entirety.

    How do you fix this?

    First, validate the results of the vision exercise with your stakeholders. Socialize it and collect feedback. Make changes where you think changes should be made. This will become a key foundational piece. The next step is to formally document your cloud strategy. This is a separate project and is covered in the Info-Tech blueprint Document Your Cloud Strategy.

    The vision exercise tells you where you want to go and offers some clues as to how to get there. The formal strategy exercise is a formal documentation of the target state, but also captures in detail the steps you’ll need to take, the processes you’ll need to refine, and the people you’ll need to hire.

    A cloud strategy should comprise your organizational stance on how the cloud will change your approach to people and human resources, technology, and governance. Once you are confident that you can make and enforce decisions in these areas, you should consider moving on to Document Your Cloud Strategy. This blueprint, Define Your Cloud Vision, often serves as a prerequisite for the strategy documentation conversation(s).

    Appendix

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Additional Support

    Research Contributors

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Vendor Resources

    Bibliography

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    You have now documented what you want from the cloud, what you mean when you say “cloud,” and some preliminary steps you can take to make your vision a reality.

    You now have at your disposal a framework for identifying and evaluating candidates for their cloud suitability, as well as a series of techniques for generating risks and mitigations associated with your cloud journey. The next step is to formalize your cloud strategy using the takeaways from this exercise. You’re well on your way to a completed cloud strategy!

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

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Additional Support

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

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

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

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

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

    Generate drivers for cloud adoption

    Work with stakeholders to understand the expected benefits of the cloud migration and how these drivers will impact the overall vision.

    Conduct workload assessments

    Assess your individual cloud workloads for their suitability as candidates for the cloud migration.

    Bibliography

    “2021 State of the Cloud Report.” Flexera, 2021. Web.

    “2021 State of Upskilling Report.” Pluralsight, 2021. Web.

    “AWS Snowmobile.” Amazon Web Services, n.d. Web.

    “Azure products.” Microsoft, n.d. Web.

    “Azure Migrate Documentation.” Microsoft, n.d. Web.

    Bell, Harold. “Multi-Cloud vs. Hybrid Cloud: What’s the Difference?” Nutanix, 2019. Web.

    “Cloud Products.” Amazon Web Services, n.d. Web.

    “COBIT 2019 Framework: Introduction and Methodology.” ISACA, 2019. Web.

    Edmead, Mark T. “Using COBIT 2019 to Plan and Execute an Organization’s Transformation Strategy.” ISACA, 2020. Web.

    Flitter, Emily, and Karen Weise. “Capital One Data Breach Compromises Data of Over 100 Million.” The New York Times, 29 July 2019. Web.

    Gillis, Alexander S. “Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM).” TechTarget, 2021. Web.

    “’How to Cloud’ with Capital One.” Amazon Web Services, n.d. Web.

    “IBM Closes Landmark Acquisition of Red Hat for $34 Billion; Defines Open, Hybrid Cloud Future.” Red Hat, 9 July 2019. Web.

    Mell, Peter, and Timothy Grance. “The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing.” National Institute of Standards and Technology, Sept. 2011. Web.

    Ng, Alfred. “Amazon Tells Senators it Isn't to Blame for Capital One Breach.” CNET, 2019. Web.

    Orban, Stephen. “6 Strategies for Migrating Applications to the Cloud.” Amazon Web Services, 2016. Web.

    Sullivan, Dan. “Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB).” TechTarget, 2021. Web.

    “What Is Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)?” Cisco, n.d. Web.

    Master the Art of Stakeholder Management in Small Enterprise Environments

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}572|cart{/j2store}
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    • member rating average dollars saved: N/A
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    • Parent Category Name: Stakeholder Management
    • Parent Category Link: /stakeholder-management
    • IT hasn’t taken into account critical stakeholders and their concerns and preferences as they plan projects or operate on daily business.
    • It is difficult to tailor communication and messaging to all of the different personal and professional styles and motivations of stakeholders.
    • Access to stakeholders and getting an accurate understanding of their needs and concerns regarding IT can be difficult to obtain.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Small enterprises have an advantage in stakeholder management. Less people and fewer barriers create opportunities for more productive interactions and stronger relationships.
    • The guiding principles for effective stakeholder management are common concepts, but unfortunately not common practice.
    • By stepping back and taking the time to thoughtfully consider the dynamics and needs of important IT stakeholders, you will be better able to position yourself and your department.

    Impact and Result

    • Info-Tech’s guiding principles provide clear and feasible recommendations for how to incorporate stakeholder management into daily interactions.
    • This blueprint’s guidance will enable IT leaders to tailor communication and interactions that will enable them to build stronger and more meaningful relationships with stakeholders.
    • Following this approach and its guiding principles will make IT projects be more successful by reducing their risk of failure due to issues of buy-in, misunderstanding of priorities, or a lack of support from critical stakeholders.

    Master the Art of Stakeholder Management in Small Enterprise Environments Research & Tools

    Executive Overview

    Use Info-Tech’s approach to stakeholder management to guide you in building stronger and more beneficial relationships, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    • Master the Art of Stakeholder Management in Small Enterprise Environments Storyboard
    • None
    • None

    1. Identify stakeholders

    Determine the stakeholders for an IT department of a singular initiative.

    • Stakeholder Management Analysis Tool

    2. Analyze stakeholders

    Use the guidance of this section to analyze stakeholders on both a professional and personal level.

    3. Manage stakeholders

    Use Info-Tech’s guiding principles of stakeholder management to direct how to best engage key stakeholders.

    4. Review case studies

    Use real-life experiences from Info-Tech’s analysts to understand how to use and apply stakeholder management techniques.

    [infographic]

    Optimize Your SQA Practice Using a Full Lifecycle Approach

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 10.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.
    • member rating average days saved: Read what our members are saying
    • Parent Category Name: Testing, Deployment & QA
    • Parent Category Link: /testing-deployment-and-qa
    • Your software quality assurance (SQA) program is using the wrong set of metrics to measure how process improvements influence product quality improvements.
    • Roles & responsibilities and quality assurance initiatives are not well defined and need to be allocated to individuals that can be held responsible for quality-related issues.
    • You are finding it hard to determine a causation between SQA process improvements and an improvement in product quality.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Your product is only as good as your process. A robust development and SQA process creates artifacts that are highly testable, easily maintained, and strongly traceable across the development lifecycle, ensuring that the product delivered meets expectations set out by the business.
    • A small issue within your development process can have a ripple effect on the level of product quality. Discover what you don’t know and identify areas within your SQA practice that require attention.

    Impact and Result

    • SQA must be viewed as more than defect analysis and testing. Instead, place greater emphasis on preventative measures to ensure application quality across the entire development lifecycle.
    • IT must create a comprehensive SQA plan that delineates roles and responsibilities as they relate to quality assurance. Ensure tasks and procedures improve process efficiency and quality, and formalize metrics that help to implement a continuous improvement cycle for SQA.
    • Our methodology provides simple-to-follow steps to develop an SQA plan that provides clear insight into your current quality assurance practices.
    • Establish a synchronous relationship between the business and IT to help stakeholders understand the importance and relative value of quality assurance tasks to current costs.

    Optimize Your SQA Practice Using a Full Lifecycle Approach Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should optimize your SQA practice using a full lifecycle approach, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess your current SQA capabilities

    Evaluate and understand your current SQA capabilities, as well as the degree to which metric objectives are being met.

    • Optimize Your SQA Practice Using a Full Lifecycle Approach – Phase 1: Assess Your Current SQA Capabilities
    • Software Quality Assurance Current State Assessment Tool
    • Software Quality Assurance Assessment Workbook

    2. Define SQA target state processes

    Identify and define SQA processes and metrics needed to meet quality objectives set by development teams and the business.

    • Optimize Your SQA Practice Using a Full Lifecycle Approach – Phase 2: Define SQA Target State Processes

    3. Determine optimization initiatives for improving your SQA practice

    Build your SQA plan and optimization roadmap.

    • Optimize Your SQA Practice Using a Full Lifecycle Approach – Phase 3: Determine Optimization Initiatives
    • Software Quality Assurance Plan Template
    • Software Quality Assurance Optimization Roadmap Tool
    • Software Quality Assurance Communication Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Optimize Your SQA Practice Using a Full Lifecycle Approach

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Assess Your Current SQA Capabilities

    The Purpose

    To help you assess and understand your current SQA capabilities as well as the degree to which metric objectives are being met.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An analysis of current SQA practices to provide insight into potential inefficiencies, opportunities, and to provide the business with sufficient rationale for improving current quality assurance initiatives.

    Activities

    1.1 Conduct a high-level assessment of where to focus your current state analysis.

    1.2 Document your high-level development process.

    1.3 Create a RACI chart to understand roles and responsibilities.

    1.4 Perform a SIPOC-MC analysis for problem areas identified in your SDLC.

    1.5 Identify the individual control points involved with passing software artifacts through SDLC stages being assessed.

    1.6 Identify problem areas within your SDLC as they relate to SQA.

    Outputs

    Understanding of current overall development process and where it is most weak in the context of quality assurance

    Understanding of assigned roles and responsibilities across development teams, including individuals who are involved with making quality-related decisions for artifact hand-off

    Identification of problem areas within SQA process for further analysis

    2 Define SQA Target State Processes

    The Purpose

    To help you identify and define SQA processes and metrics needed to meet quality objectives set out by development teams and the business.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A revised list of key SQA tasks along with metrics and associated tolerance limits used universally for all development projects.

    Activities

    2.1 Establish SQA metrics and tolerance limits across your SDLC.

    2.2 Determine your target state for SQA processes within the define/design stage of the SDLC.

    2.3 Determine your target state for SQA processes within the development stage of the SDLC.

    2.4 Determine your target state for SQA processes within the testing stage of the SDLC.

    2.5 Determine your target state for SQA processes within the deploy/release stage of the SDLC.

    Outputs

    Identification of the appropriate metrics and their associated tolerance limits to provide insights into meeting quality goals and objectives during process execution

    Identification of target state SQA processes that are required for ensuring quality across all development projects

    3 Prioritize SQA Optimization Initiatives and Develop Optimization Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Based on discovered inefficiencies, define optimization initiatives required to improve your SQA practice.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Optimization initiatives and associated tasks required to address gaps and improve SQA capabilities.

    Activities

    3.1 Determine optimization initiatives for improving your SQA process.

    3.2 Gain the full scope of effort required to implement your SQA optimization initiatives.

    3.3 Identify the enablers and blockers of your SQA optimization.

    3.4 Define your SQA optimization roadmap.

    Outputs

    Prioritized list of optimization initiatives for SQA

    Assessment of level of effort for each SQA optimization initiative

    Identification of enablers and blockers for optimization initiatives

    Identification of roadmap timeline for implementing optimization initiatives

    Adopt Change Management Practices and Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign

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    • Parent Category Name: Organizational Design
    • Parent Category Link: /organizational-design

    Organizational redesigns frequently fail when it comes to being executed. This leads to:

    • The loss of critical talent and institutional knowledge.
    • An inability to deliver on strategic goals and objectives.
    • Financial and time losses to the organization.

    Organizational redesigns fail during implementation primarily because they do not consider the change management required to succeed.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Implementing your organizational design with good change management practices is more important than defining the new organizational structure.

    Implementation is often negatively impacted due to:

    • Employees not understanding the need to redesign the organizational structure or operating model.
    • Employees not being communicated with or engaged throughout the process, which can cause chaos.
    • Managers not being prepared or trained to have difficult conversations with employees.

    Impact and Result

    When good change management practices are used and embedded into the implementation process:

    • Employees feel respected and engaged, reducing turnover and productivity loss.
    • The desired operating structure can be implemented faster, enabling the delivery of strategic objectives.
    • Gaps and disorganization are avoided, saving the organization time and money.

    Invest change management for your IT redesign.

    Adopt Change Management Practices and Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Adopt Change Management Practices and Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign Deck – Succeed at implementing your IT organizational structure by adopting the necessary change management practices.

    The best IT organizational structure will still fail to be implemented if the organization does not leverage and use good change management practices. Consider practices such as aligning the structure to a meaningful vision, preparing leadership, communicating frequently, including employees, and measuring adoption to succeed at organizational redesign implementation.

    • Adopt Change Management Practices and Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign Storyboard

    2. IT Organizational Redesign Pulse Survey Template – A survey template that can be used to measure the success of your change management practices during organizational redesign implementation.

    Taking regular pulse checks of employees and managers during the transition will enable IT Leaders to focus on the right practices to enable adoption.

    • IT Organizational Redesign Pulse Survey Template
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Adopt Change Management Practices & Succeed at IT Organizational Redesign

    The perfect IT organizational structure will fail to be implemented if there is no change management.

    Analyst Perspective

    Don’t doom your organizational redesign efforts

    The image contains a picture of Brittany Lutes.

    After helping hundreds of organizations across public and private sector industries redesign their organizational structure, we can say there is one thing that will always doom this effort: A failure to properly identify and implement change management efforts into the process.

    Employees will not simply move forward with the changes you suggest just because you as the CIO are making them. You need to be prepared to describe the individual benefits each employee can expect to receive from the new structure. Moreover, it has to be clear why this change was needed in the first place. Redesign efforts should be driven by a clear need to align to the organization’s vision and support the various objectives that will need to take place.

    Most organizations do a great job defining a new organizational structure. They identify a way of operating that tells them how they need to align their IT capabilities to deliver on strategic objectives. What most organizations do poorly is invest in their people to ensure they can adopt this new way of operating.

    Brittany Lutes
    Research Director, Organizational Transformation

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Organizational redesigns frequently fail when it comes to being executed. This leads to:

    • The loss of critical talent and institutional knowledge.
    • An inability to deliver on strategic goals and objectives.
    • Financial and time losses to the organization.

    Organizational redesigns fail during implementation primarily because they do not consider the change management required to succeed.

    Implementation of the organizational redesign is often impacted when:

    • Employees do not understand the need to redesign the organizational structure or operating model.
    • Employees are not communicated with or engaged throughout the process, which can cause chaos.
    • Managers are not prepared or trained to have difficult conversations with employees.

    Essentially, implementation is impacted when change management is not included in the redesign process.

    When good change management practices are used and embedded into the implementation process:

    • Employees feel respected and engaged, reducing turnover and productivity loss.
    • The desired operating structure can be implemented faster, enabling the delivery of strategic objectives.
    • Gaps and disorganization are avoided, saving the organization time and money.

    Invest in change management for your IT redesign.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Implementing your organizational design with good change management practices is more important than defining the new organizational structure.

    Your challenge

    This research enables organizations to succeed at their organizational redesign:

    • By implementing the right change management practices. These methods prevent:
      • The loss of critical IT employees who will voluntarily exit the organization.
      • Employees from creating rumors that will be detrimental to the change.
      • Confusion about why the change was needed and how it will benefit the strategic objectives the organization is seeking to achieve.
      • Spending resources (time, money, and people) on the initiative longer than is necessary.

    McKinsey reported less than 25% of organizational redesigns are successful. Which is worse than the average change initiative, which has a 70% failure rate.

    Source: AlignOrg, 2020.

    The value of the organizational redesign efforts is determined by the percentage of individuals who adopt the changes and operate in the desired way of working.

    When organizations properly use organizational design processes, they are:

    4× more likely to delight customers

    13× more effective at innovation

    27× more likely to retain employees

    Source: The Josh Bersin Company, 2022

    Common obstacles

    These barriers make implementing an organizational redesign difficult to address for many organizations:

    • You communicated the wrong message to the wrong audience at the wrong time. Repeatedly.
    • There is a lack of clarity around the drivers for an organizational redesign.
    • A readiness assessment was not completed ahead of the changes.
    • There is no flexibility built into the implementation approach.
    • The structure is not aligned to the strategic goals of IT and the organization.
    • IT leadership is not involved in their staff’s day-to-day activities, making it difficult to suggest realistic changes.

    Don’t doom your organizational redesign with poor change management

    Only 17% of frontline employees believe the lines of communication are open.

    Source: Taylor Reach Group, 2019

    43% Percentage of organizations that are ineffective at the organizational design methodology.

    Source: The Josh Bersin Company, 2022.

    Change management is a must for org design

    Forgetting change management is the easiest way to fail at redesigning your IT organizational structure

    • Change management is not a business transformation.
    • Change management consists of the practices and approaches your organization takes to support your people through a transformation.
    • Like governance, change management happens regardless of whether it is planned or ad hoc.
    • However, good change management will be intentional and agile, using data to help inform the next action steps you will take.
    • Change management is 100% focused on the people and how to best support them as they learn to understand the need for the change, what skills they must have to support and adopt the change, and eventually to advocate for the change.

    "Organizational transformation efforts rarely fail because of bad design, but rather from lack of sufficient attention to the transition from the old organization to the new one."

    – Michael D. Watkins & Janet Spencer. ”10 Reason Why Organizational Change Fails.”

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Redesigning the IT structure depends on good change management

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's approach, and good change management.

    Common changes in organizational redesigns

    Entirely New Teams

    Additions, reductions, or new creations. The individuals that make up a functional team can shift.

    New Team Members

    As roles become defined, some members might be required to shift and join already established groups.

    New Responsibilities

    The capabilities individuals will be accountable or responsible for become defined.

    New Ways of Operating

    From waterfall to Agile, collaborative to siloed, your operating model provides insight into the ways roles will engage one another.

    Top reasons organizational redesigns fail

    1. The rationale for the redesign is not clear.
    2. Managers do not have the skills to lead their teams through a change initiative like organizational redesign.
    3. You communicated the wrong messages at the wrong times to the wrong audiences.
    4. Frontline employees were not included in the process.
    5. The metrics you have to support the initiative are countering one another – if you have metrics at all.
    6. Change management and project management are being treated interchangeably.

    Case study: restructuring to reduce

    Clear Communication & Continuous Support

    Situation

    On July 26th, 2022, employees at Shopify – an eCommerce platform – were communicated to by their CEO that a round of layoffs was about to take place. Effective that day, 1,000 employees or 10% of the workforce would be laid off.

    In his message to staff, CEO Tobi Lutke admitted he had assumed continual growth in the eCommerce market when the COVID-19 pandemic forced many consumers into online shopping. Unfortunately, it was clear that was not the case.

    In his communications, Tobi let people know what to expect throughout the day, and he informed people what supports would be made available to those laid off. Mainly, employees could expect to see a transparent approach to severance pay; support in finding new jobs through coaching, connections, or resume creation; and ongoing payment for new laptops and internet to support those who depend on this connectivity to find new jobs.

    Results

    Unlike many of the other organizations (e.g. Wayfair and Peloton) that have had to conduct layoffs in 2022, Shopify had a very positive reaction. Many employees took to LinkedIn to thank their previous employer for all that they had learned with the organization and to ask their network to support them in finding new opportunities. Below is a letter from the CEO:

    The image contains a screenshot of a letter from the CEO.

    Shopify, 2022.
    Forbes, 2022.

    Aligned to a Meaningful Vision

    An organizational redesign must be aligned to a clear and meaningful vision of the organization.

    Define the drivers for organizational redesign

    And align the structure to execute on those drivers.

    • Your structure should follow your strategy. However, 83% of people in an organization do not fully understand the strategy (PWC, 2017).
    • How can employees be expected to understand why the IT organization needs to be restructured to meet a strategy if the strategy itself is still vague and unclear?
    • When organizations pursue a structural redesign, there are often a few major reasons:
      • Digital/organizational transformation
      • New organizational strategy
      • Acquisition or growth of products, services, or capabilities
      • The need to increase effectiveness
      • Cost savings
    • Creating a line of sight for your employees and leadership team will increase the likelihood that they want to adopt this structure.

    “The goal is to align your operating model with your strategy, so it directly supports your differentiating capabilities.”

    – PWC, 2017.

    How to align structure to strategy

    Recommended action steps:

    • Describe the end state of the organizational structure and how long you anticipate it will take to reach that state. It's important that employees be able to visualize the end state of the changes being made.
    • Ensure people understand the vision and goals of the IT organization. Are you having discussions about these? Are managers discussing these? Do people understand that their day-to-day job is intended to support those goals?
    • Create a visual:
      • The goals of the organization → align to the initiatives IT → which require this exact structure to deliver.
    • Do not assume people are willing to move forward with this vision. If people are not willing, assess why and determine if there are benefits specific to the individual that can support them in adopting the future state.
    • Define and communicate the risks of not making the organizational structure changes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A trending organizational structure or operating model should never be the driver for an organizational redesign.

    IT Leaders Are Not Set Up To Succeed

    Empower these leaders to have difficult conversations.

    Lacking key leadership capabilities in managers

    Technical leaders are common in IT, but people leaders are necessary during the implementation of an organizational structure.

    • Managers are important during a transformational change for many reasons:
      • Managers play a critical role in being able to identify the skill gaps in employees and to help define the next steps in their career path.
      • After the sponsor (CIO) has communicated to the group the what and the why, the personal elements of the change fall to managers.
      • Managers’ displays of disapproval for the redesign can halt the transformation.
    • However, many managers (37%) feel uncomfortable talking to employees and providing feedback if they think it will elicit a negative response (Taylor Reach Group, 2019).
    • Unfortunately, organizational redesign is known for eliciting negative responses from employees as it generates fears around the unknown.
    • Therefore, managers must be able to have conversations with employees to further the successful implementation and adoption of the structure.

    “Successful organizational redesign is dependent on the active involvement of different managerial levels."

    – Marianne Livijn, “Managing Organizational Redesign: How Organizations Relate Macro and Micro Design.”

    They might be managers, but are they leaders?

    Recommended action steps:

    • Take time to speak with managers one on one and understand their thoughts, feelings, and understanding of the change.
    • Ensure that middle-managers have an opportunity to express the benefits they believe will be realized through the proposed changes to the organizational chart.
    • Provide IT leaders with leadership training courses (e.g. Info-Tech’s Leadership Programs).
    • Do not allow managers to start sharing and communicating the changes to the organizational structure if they are not demonstrating support for this change. Going forward, the group is all-in or not, but they should never demonstrate not being bought-in when speaking to employees.
    • Ensure IT leaders want to manage people, not just progress to a management position because they cannot climb a technical career ladder within the proposed structure. Provide both types of development opportunities to all employees.
    • Reduce the managers’ span of control to ensure they can properly engage all direct reports and there is no strain on the managers' time.

    Info-Tech Insight

    47% of direct reports do not agree that their leader is demonstrating the change behaviors. Often, a big reason is that many middle-managers do not understand their own attitudes and beliefs about the change.

    Source: McKinsey & Company “How Do We Manage the Change Journey?”

    Check out Info-Tech’s Build a Better Manager series to support leadership development

    These blueprints will help you create strong IT leaders who can manage their staff and themselves through a transformation.

    Build a Better Manager: Basic Management Skills

    Build a Better Manager: Personal Leadership

    Build a Better Manager: Manage Your People

    Build Successful Teams

    Transparent & Frequent Communication

    Provide employees with several opportunities to hear information and ask questions about the changes.

    Communication must be done with intention

    Include employees in the conversation to get the most out of your change management.

    • Whether it is a part of a large transformation or a redesign to support a specific goal of IT, begin thinking about how you will communicate the anticipated changes and who you will communicate those changes to right away.
    • The first group of people who need to understand why this initiative is important are the other IT leaders. If they are not included in the process and able to understand the foundational drivers of the initiative, you should not continue to try and gain the support of other members within IT.
    • Communication is critical to the success of the organizational redesign.
    • Communicating the right information at the right time will make the difference between losing critical talent and emerging from the transition successfully.
    • The sponsor of this redesign initiative must be able to communicate the rationale of the changes to the other members of leadership, management, and employees.
    • The sponsor and their change management team must then be prepared to accept the questions, comments, and ideas that members of IT might have around the changes.

    "Details about the new organization, along with details of the selection process, should be communicated as they are finalized to all levels of the organization.”

    – Courtney Jackson, “7 Reasons Why Organizational Structures Fail.”

    Two-way communication is necessary

    Recommended action steps:

    • Don't allow rumors to disrupt this initiative – be transparent with people as early as possible.
    • If the organizational restructure will not result in a reduction of staff – let them know! If someone's livelihood (job) is on the line, it increases the likelihood of panic. Let's avoid panic.
    • Provide employees with an opportunity to voice their concerns, questions, and recommendations – so long as you are willing to take that information and address it. Even if the answer to a recommendation is "no" or the answer to a question is "I don't know, but I will find out," you've still let them know their voice was heard in the process.
    • As the CIO, ensure that you are the first person to communicate the changes. You are the sponsor of this initiative – no one else.
    • Create communications that are clear and understandable. Imagine someone who does not work for your organization is hearing the information for the first time. Would they be able to comprehend the changes being suggested?
    • Conduct a pulse survey on the changes to identify whether employees understand the changes and feel heard by the management team.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The project manager of the organizational redesign should not be the communicator. The CIO and the employees’ direct supervisor should always be the communicators of key change messages.

    Communication spectrum

    An approach to communication based on the type of redesign taking place

    ← Business-Mandated Organizational Redesign

    Enable Alignment & Increased Effectiveness

    IT-Driven & Strategic Organizational Redesign →

    Reduction in roles

    Cost savings

    Requires champions who will maintain employee morale throughout

    Communicate with key individuals ahead of time

    Restructure of IT roles

    Increase effectiveness

    Lean on managers & supervisors to provide consistent messaging

    Communicate the individual benefits of the change

    Increase in IT Roles

    Alignment to business model

    Frequent and ongoing communication from the beginning

    Collaborate with IT groups for input on best structure

    Include Employees in the Redesign Process

    Stop talking at employees and ensure they are involved in the changes impacting their day-to-day lives.

    Employees will enable the change

    Old-school approaches to organizational redesign have argued employee engagement is a hinderance to success – it’s not.

    • We often fail to include the employees most impacted by a restructuring in the redesign process. As a result, one of the top reasons employees do not support the change is that they were not included in the change.
    • A big benefit of including employees in the process is it mitigates the emergence of a rumor mill.
    • Moreover, being open to suggestions from staff will help the transformation succeed.
    • Employees can best describe what this transition might entail on a day-to-day basis and the supports they will require to succeed in moving from their current state to their future state.
      • CIOs and other IT leaders are often too far removed from the day-to-day to best describe what will or will not work.
    • When employees feel included in the process, they are more likely to feel like they had a choice in what and how things change.

    "To enlist employees, leadership has to be willing to let things get somewhat messy, through intensive, authentic engagement and the involvement of employees in making the transformation work."

    – Michael D. Watkins & Janet Spencer, “10 Reasons Why Organizational Change Fails.”

    Empowering employees as change agents

    Recommended action steps:

    • Do not tell employees what benefits they will gain from this new change. Instead, ask them what benefits they anticipate.
    • Ask employees what challenges they anticipate, and identify actions that can be taken to minimize those challenges.
    • Identify who the social influencers are in the organization by completing an influencer map. The informal social networks in your organization can be powerful drivers of change when the right individuals are brought onboard.
    • Create a change network using those influencers. The change network includes individuals who represent all levels within the organization and can represent the employee perspective. Use them to help communicate the change and identify opportunities to increase the success of adoption: “Engaging influencers in change programs makes them 3.8 times more likely to succeed," (McKinsey & Company, 2020).
    • Ask members of the change network to identify possible resistors of the new IT structure and inform you of why they might be resisting the changes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Despite the persistent misconceptions, including employees in the process of a redesign reduces uncertainty and rumors.

    Monitor employee engagement & adoption throughout the redesign

    Only 22% of organizations include the employee experience as a part of the design process

    – The Josh Bersin Company, 2022.
    1 2 3
    Monitor IT Employee Experience

    When Prosci designed their Change Impact Analysis, they identified the ways in which roles will be impacted across 10 different components:

    • Location
    • Process
    • Systems
    • Tools
    • Job roles
    • Critical behaviors
    • Mindset/attitudes/beliefs
    • Reporting structure
    • Performance reviews
    • Compensation

    Engaging employees in the process so that they can define how their role might be impacted across these 10 categories not only empowers the employee, but also ensures they are a part of the process.

    Source: Prosci, 2019.

    Conduct an employee pulse survey

    See the next slide for more information on how to create and distribute this survey.

    Employee Pulse Survey

    Conduct mindful and frequent check-ins with employees

    Process to conduct survey:

    1. Using your desired survey solution (e.g. MS Forms, SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics) input the questions into the survey and send to staff. A template of the survey in MS Forms is available here: IT Organizational Redesign Pulse Survey Template.
    2. When sending to staff, ensure that the survey is anonymous and reinforce this message.
    3. Leverage the responses from the survey to learn where there might be opportunities to improve the transformation experience (aligning the structure to the vision, employee inclusion, communication, or managerial support for the change). Review the recommended action steps in this research set for help.
    4. This assessment is intended for frequent but purposeful use. Only send out the survey when you have taken actions in order to improve adoption of the change or have provided communications. The Employee Pulse Survey should be reevaluated on a regular basis until adoption across all four categories reaches the desired state (80-100% adoption is recommended).

    The image contains a screenshot of the employee pulse survey.

    Define Key Metrics of Adoption & Success

    Metrics have a dual benefit of measuring successful implementation and meeting the original drivers.

    Measuring the implementation is a two-pronged approach

    Both employee adoption and the transformation of the IT structure need to be measured during implementation

    • Organizations that are going through any sort of transformation – such as organizational redesign – should be measuring whether they are successfully on track to meet their target or have already met that goal.
    • Throughout the organizational structure transition, a major factor that will impact the success of that goal is employee willingness to move forward with the changes.
    • However, rather than measuring these two components using hard data, we rely on gut checks that let us know if we think we are on track to gaining adoption and operating in the desired future state.
    • Given how fluid employees and their responses to change can be, conducting a pulse survey at a regular (but strategically identified) interval will provide insight into where the changes will be adopted or resisted.

    “Think about intentionally measuring at the moments in the change storyline where feedback will allow leaders to make strategic decisions and interventions.”

    – Bradley Wilson, “Employee Survey Questions: The Ultimate Guide.”

    Report that the organizational redesign for IT was a success

    Recommended action steps:

    • Create clear metrics related to how you will measure the success of the organizational redesign, and communicate those metrics to people. Ensure the metrics are not contrary to the goals of other initiatives or team outcomes.
    • Create one set of metrics related to adoption and another set of metrics tied to the successful completion of the project objective.
      • Are people changing their attitudes and behaviors to reflect the required outcome?
      • Are you meeting the desired outcome of the organizational redesign?
    • Use the metrics to inform how you move forward. Do not attempt the next phase of the organizational transformation before employees have clearly indicated a solid understanding of the changes.
    • Ensure that any metrics used to measure success will not negatively interfere with another team’s progress. The metrics of the group need to work together, not against each other.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Getting 100% adoption from employees is unlikely. However, if employee adoption is not sitting in the 80-90% range, it is not recommended that you move forward with the next phase of the transformation.

    Example sustainment metrics

    Driver Goal Measurement Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
    Workforce Challenges and Increased Effectiveness Employee Engagement The change in employee engagement before, during, and after the new organizational structure is communicated and implemented.
    Increased Effectiveness Alignment of Demand to Resources Does your organization have sufficient resources to meet the demands being placed on your IT organization?
    Increased Effectiveness and Workforce Challenges Role Clarity An increase in role clarity or a decrease in role ambiguity.

    Increased Effectiveness

    Reduction in Silos

    Employee effectiveness increases by 27% and efficiency by 53% when provided with role clarity (Effectory, 2019).
    Increased Effectiveness Reduction in Silos Frequency of communication channels created (scrum meetings, Teams channels, etc.) specific to the organizational structure intended to reduce silos.
    Operating in a New Org. Structure Change Adoption Rate The percentage of employees who have adopted their defined role within the new organizational chart in 3-, 6-, and 12-month increments.
    Workforce Challenges Turnover Rate The number of employees who voluntarily leave the organization, citing the organizational redesign.
    Workforce Challenges Active Resistors The number of active resistors anticipated related to the change in organizational structure versus the number of active resistors that actually present themselves to the organizational restructuring.
    New Capabilities Needed Gap in Capability Delivery The increase in effectiveness in delivering on new capabilities to the IT organization.
    Operating in a New Org. Structure Change Adoption Rate The percentage of employees who found the communication around the new organizational structure clear, easy to understand, and open to expressing feedback.
    Lack of Business Understanding or Increased Effectiveness Business Satisfaction with IT Increase in business satisfaction toward IT products and services.
    Workforce Challenges Employee Performance Increase in individual employee performances on annual/bi-annual reviews.
    Adoption Pulse Assessment Increase in overall adoption scores on pulse survey.
    Adoption Communication Effectiveness Reduction in the number of employees who are still unsure why the changes are required.
    Adoption Leadership Training Percentage of members of leadership attending training to support their development at the managerial level.

    Change Management ≠ Project Management

    Stop treating the two interchangeably.

    IT organizations struggle to mature their OCM capabilities

    Because frankly they didn’t need it

    • Change management is all about people.
    • If the success of your organization is dependent on this IT restructuring, it is important to invest the time to do it right.
    • This means it should not be something done off the side of someone's desk.
    • Hire a change manager or look to roles that have a responsibility to deliver on organizational change management.
    • While project success is often measured by if it was delivered on time, on budget, and in scope, change management is adaptable. It can move backward in the process to secure people's willingness to adopt the required behaviors.
    • Strategic organizations recognize it’s not just about pushing an initiative or project forward. It’s about making sure that your employees are willing to move that initiative forward too.
    • A major organizational transformation initiative like restructuring requires you lean into employee adoption and buy-in.

    “Only if you have your employees in mind can you implement change effectively and sustainably.”

    – Creaholic Pulse Feedback, “Change Management – And Why It Has to Change.”

    Take the time to educate & communicate

    Recommended action steps:

    • Do not treat change management and project management as synonymous.
    • Hire a change manager to support the organizational redesign transformation.
    • Invest the resources (time, money, people) that can support the change and enable its success. This can look like:
      • Training and development.
      • Hiring the right people.
      • Requesting funds during the redesign process to support the transition.
    • Create a change management plan – and be willing to adjust the timelines or actions of this plan based on the feedback you receive from employees.
    • Implement the new organizational structure in a phased approach. This allows time to receive feedback and address any fears expressed by staff.

    Info-Tech Insight

    OCM is often not included or used due to a lack of understanding of how it differs from project management.

    And an additional five experts across a variety of organizations who wish to remain anonymous.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Amanda Mathieson Research Director Heather Munoz Executive Counselor Valence Howden Principal Research Director
    Ugbad Farah Research Director Lisa Hager Duncan Executive Counselor Alaisdar Graham Executive Counselor
    Carlene McCubbin Practice Lead

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

    Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

    • Organizational redesign is only as successful as the process leaders engage in.
    • Benchmarking your organizational redesign to other organizations will not work.
    • You could have the best IT employees in the world, but if they aren’t structured well, your organization will still fail in reaching its vision.
    • A well-defined strategic workforce plan (SWP) isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.
    • Integrate as much data as possible into your workforce plan to best prepare you for the future. Without knowledge of your future initiatives, you are filling hypothetical holes.
    • To be successful, you need to understand your strategic initiatives, workforce landscape, and external and internal trends.
    • Organizational design implementations can be highly disruptive for IT staff and business partners. Without a structured approach, IT leaders may experience high turnover, decreased productivity, and resistance to change.
    • CIOs walk a tightrope as they manage operational and emotional turbulence while aiming to improve business satisfaction with IT. Failure to achieve balance could result in irreparable failure.

    Bibliography

    Aronowitz, Steven, et al. “Getting Organizational Design Right,” McKinsey, 2015. Web.
    Ayers, Peg. “5 Ways to Engage Your Front-Line Staff.” Taylor Reach Group, 2019. Web.
    Bushard, Brian, and Carlie Porterfield. “Meta Reportedly Scales Down, Again – Here Are the Major US Layoffs This Year.” Forbes, September 28, 2022. Web.
    Caruci, Ron. “4 Organizational Design Issues that Most Leaders Misdiagnose.” Harvard Business Review, 2019.
    “Change Management – And Why It Has to Change.” Creaholic Pulse Feedback. Web.
    “Communication Checklist for Achieving Change Management.” Prosci, 27 Oct. 2022. Web.
    “Defining Change Impact.” Prosci. 29 May 2019. Web.
    “The Definitive Guide To Organization Design.” The Josh Bersin Company, 2022.
    Deshler, Reed. “Five Reasons Organizational Redesigns Fail to Deliver.” AlignOrg. 28 Jan. 2020. Web.
    The Fit for Growth Mini Book. PwC, 12 Jan. 2017.
    Helfand, Heidi. Dynamic Reteaming: The Art and Wisdom of Changing Teams. 2nd ed., O’Reilly Media, 2020.
    Jackson, Courtney. “7 Reasons Why Organizational Structures Fail.” Scott Madden Consultants. Web.
    Livijn, Marianne. Managing Organizational Redesign: How Organizations Relate Macro and Micro Design. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Management, Aarhus University, 2020.
    Lutke, Tobias. “Changes to Shopify’s Team.” Shopify. 26 July 2022.
    McKinsey & Company. “How Do We Manage the Change Journey?” McKinsey & Company.2020.
    Pijnacker, Lieke. “HR Analytics: Role Clarity Impacts Performance.” Effectory, 29 Sept. 2019. Web.
    Tompkins, Teri C., and Bruce G. Barkis. “Conspiracies in the Workplace: Symptoms and Remedies.” Graziadio Business Review, vol. 21, no. 1, 2021.Web.
    “Understanding Organizational Structures.” SHRM,2022.
    Watkins, Michael D., and Janet Spencer. “10 Reasons Why Organizational Change Fails.” I by IMD, 10 March 2021. Web.
    Wilson, Bradley. “Employee Survey Questions: The Ultimate Guide.” Perceptyx, 1 July 2020. Web.

    Application Development Quality

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    Apply quality assurance across your critical development process steps to secure quality to product delivery

    Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service

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    • Parent Category Name: Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
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    • Vendor security risk management is a growing concern for many organizations. Whether suppliers or business partners, we often trust them with our most sensitive data and processes.
    • More and more regulations require vendor security risk management, and regulator expectations in this area are growing.
    • However, traditional approaches to vendor security assessments are seen by business partners and vendors as too onerous and are unsustainable for information security departments.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • An efficient and effective assessment process can only be achieved when all stakeholders are participating.
    • Security assessments are time-consuming for both you and your vendors. Maximize the returns on your effort with a risk-based approach.
    • Effective vendor security risk management is an end-to-end process that includes assessment, risk mitigation, and periodic re-assessments.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop an end-to-end security risk management process that includes assessments, risk treatment through contracts and monitoring, and periodic re-assessments.
    • Base your vendor assessments on the actual risks to your organization to ensure that your vendors are committed to the process and you have the internal resources to fully evaluate assessment results.
    • Understand your stakeholder needs and goals to foster support for vendor security risk management efforts.

    Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a vendor security assessment service, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the three ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Define governance and process

    Determine your business requirements and build your process to meet them.

    • Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service – Phase 1: Define Governance and Process
    • Vendor Security Policy Template
    • Vendor Security Process Template
    • Vendor Security Process Diagram (Visio)
    • Vendor Security Process Diagram (PDF)

    2. Develop assessment methodology

    Develop the specific procedures and tools required to assess vendor risk.

    • Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service – Phase 2: Develop Assessment Methodology
    • Service Risk Assessment Questionnaire
    • Vendor Security Questionnaire
    • Vendor Security Assessment Inventory

    3. Deploy and monitor process

    Implement the process and develop metrics to measure effectiveness.

    • Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service – Phase 3: Deploy and Monitor Process
    • Vendor Security Requirements Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Vendor Security Assessment Service

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Define Governance and Process

    The Purpose

    Understand business and compliance requirements.

    Identify roles and responsibilities.

    Define the process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of key goals for process outcomes.

    Documented service that leverages existing processes.

    Activities

    1.1 Review current processes and pain points.

    1.2 Identify key stakeholders.

    1.3 Define policy.

    1.4 Develop process.

    Outputs

    RACI Matrix

    Vendor Security Policy

    Defined process

    2 Define Methodology

    The Purpose

    Determine methodology for assessing procurement risk.

    Develop procedures for performing vendor security assessments.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standardized, repeatable methodologies for supply chain security risk assessment.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify organizational security risk tolerance.

    2.2 Develop risk treatment action plans.

    2.3 Define schedule for re-assessments.

    2.4 Develop methodology for assessing service risk.

    Outputs

    Security risk tolerance statement

    Risk treatment matrix

    Service Risk Questionnaire

    3 Continue Methodology

    The Purpose

    Develop procedures for performing vendor security assessments.

    Establish vendor inventory.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standardized, repeatable methodologies for supply chain security risk assessment.

    Activities

    3.1 Develop vendor security questionnaire.

    3.2 Define procedures for vendor security assessments.

    3.3 Customize the vendor security inventory.

    Outputs

    Vendor security questionnaire

    Vendor security inventory

    4 Deploy Process

    The Purpose

    Define risk treatment actions.

    Deploy the process.

    Monitor the process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of how to treat different risks according to the risk tolerance.

    Defined implementation strategy.

    Activities

    4.1 Define risk treatment action plans.

    4.2 Develop implementation strategy.

    4.3 Identify process metrics.

    Outputs

    Vendor security requirements

    Understanding of required implementation plans

    Metrics inventory

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

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    • Parent Category Name: Cost & Budget Management
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    Cost optimization is misunderstood and inadequately tackled. IT departments face:

    • Top-down budget cuts within a narrow time frame
    • Absence of adequate governance: financial, project, data, etc.
    • Long-standing bureaucratic practices slowing down progress
    • Short-term thinking

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Cost optimization is not just about reducing costs. In fact, you should aim to achieve three objectives:

    • Reduce your unwarranted IT spending.
    • Optimize your cost-to-value.
    • Sustain your cost optimization.

    Impact and Result

    • Follow Info-Tech’s approach to develop a 12-month cost optimization roadmap.
    • Develop an IT cost optimization strategy based on your specific circumstances and timeline.
    • Info-Tech’s methodology helps you maintain sustainable cost optimization across IT by focusing on four levers: assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce.

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Deck – A step-by-step methodology to achieve sustainable cost optimization and effectively communicate your strategy to stakeholders.

    This blueprint will help you understand your IT cost optimization mandate, identify your journey, assess your IT spend across four levers, develop your IT cost optimization roadmap, and craft a related communication strategy.

    • Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap – Phases 1-4

    2. IT Cost Optimization Workbook – A structured tool to help you document your IT cost optimization goals and outline related initiatives to develop an effective 12-month roadmap.

    This tool guides an IT department in planning and prioritization activities to build an effective IT cost optimization strategy. The outputs include visual charts and a 12-month roadmap to showcase the implementation timelines and potential cost savings.

    • IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    3. IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates – A proactive journey template to help you communicate your IT cost optimization strategy to stakeholders in a clear, concise, and compelling manner.

    This presentation template uses sample data from "Acme Corp" to demonstrate an IT cost optimization strategy following a proactive journey. Use this template to document your final IT cost optimization strategy outputs, including the adopted journey, IT cost optimization goals, related key initiatives, potential cost savings, timelines, and 12-month roadmap.

    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand Your Mandate & Objectives

    The Purpose

    Determine your organization’s current context and its cost optimization objectives, IT’s corresponding cost optimization journey, and goals.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A business-aligned set of specific IT cost optimization goals.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand your organization’s cost optimization objectives and how this impacts IT.

    1.2 Review potential cost optimization target areas based on your ITFM Benchmarking Report.

    1.3 Identify factors constraining cost optimization options.

    1.4 Set concrete IT cost optimization goals.

    1.5 Identify inputs required for decision making.

    Outputs

    IT cost optimization journey and guiding principles for making corresponding decisions

    2 Outline Initiatives for Vendors & Assets

    The Purpose

    Create a longlist of potential cost optimization initiatives focused on two cost optimization levers: assets and vendors.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A comprehensive list of potential asset- and vendor-focused initiatives including cost savings estimates.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify a longlist of possible initiatives around asset lifecycle management, investment deferral, repurposing, etc., and vendor contract renegotiation, cancelation, etc.

    2.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives.

    Outputs

    Longlist of potential vendor management and asset optimization IT cost optimization initiatives

    3 Outline Initiatives for Projects & Workforce

    The Purpose

    Create a longlist of potential cost optimization initiatives focused on two cost optimization levers: project portfolio and workforce.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A comprehensive list of potential initiatives focused on project portfolio and workforce including cost savings estimates.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify a longlist of possible initiatives around project priorities, project backlog reduction, project intake restructuring, etc., and workforce productivity, skills, redeployment, etc.

    3.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives.

    Outputs

    Longlist of possible cost optimization initiatives and their potential cost savings for project portfolio and workforce levers.

    4 Build an IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Develop a visual IT cost optimization roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A prioritized, business-aligned IT cost optimization roadmap

    Activities

    4.1 Assess feasibility of each initiative (effort and risk profile) given cost optimization goals.

    4.2 Prioritize cost optimization initiatives to create a final shortlist.

    4.3 Fine-tune key information about your final cost optimization initiatives and develop a cost optimization roadmap for proposal.

    Outputs

    Prioritized list of key cost optimization initiatives, descriptions, estimated impact, and roadmap.

    5 Communicate & Execute

    The Purpose

    Develop a communication plan and executive presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A boardroom-ready set of communication materials for gaining buy-in and support for your IT cost optimization roadmap.

    Activities

    5.1 Outline components of a communication plan, including approvers, stakeholders, and governance and management mechanisms to be used.

    5.2 Create an executive presentation.

    5.3 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and post-workshop activities.

    Outputs

    IT cost optimization communication plan and presentation strategy.

    IT Cost Optimization Executive Presentation

    Further reading

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Improve cost-to-value in a sustainable manner.

    Analyst Perspective

    Optimize your cost sustainably.

    Whether the industry is in an economic downturn, or your business is facing headwinds in the market, pressure to reduce spending across organizations is inevitable. When it comes to the IT organization, it is often handled as a onetime event. Cost optimization is an industry standard term, but it usually translates into cost cutting. How do you manage this challenge given the day-to-day demands placed on IT? Do you apply cost reduction equally across the IT landscape, or do you apply reductions using a targeted approach? How do you balance the business demands regarding innovation with keeping the lights on? What is the best path forward?

    While the situation isn't unique, all too often the IT organization response is too shortsighted.

    By using the Info-Tech methodology and tools, you will be able to develop an IT cost optimization roadmap based on your specific circumstances and timeline.

    A well-thought-out strategy should help you achieve three objectives:

    1. Reduce your unwarranted IT spending.
    2. Optimize your cost-to-value.
    3. Sustain your cost optimization.

    This blueprint will guide you to understand your mandate, identify your cost optimization journey (reactive, proactive, or strategic), and assess your IT spend across four levers (assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce).

    Finally, keep in mind that cost optimization is not a project to be completed, but an ongoing process to be exercised.

    Bilal Alberto Saab, Research Director, IT Financial Management

    Bilal Alberto Saab
    Research Director, IT Financial Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Cost optimization is misunderstood and inadequately tackled Common obstacles Follow Info-Tech's approach to develop a 12-month cost optimization roadmap
    • Top-down budget cut within a narrow time frame.
    • Absence of adequate governance: financial, project, data, etc.
    • Long-standing bureaucratic practices slowing down progress.
    • Short-term thinking.
    • Lack of alignment and collaboration among stakeholders: communication and relationships.
    • Absence of a clear plan and adequate process.
    • Lack of knowledge, expertise, and skill set.
    • Inadequate funding and no financial transparency.
    • Poor change management practices.

    Develop an IT cost optimization strategy based on your specific circumstances and timeline.

    Info-Tech's methodology helps you maintain sustainable cost optimization across IT by focusing on four levers:

    1. Assets
    2. Vendors
    3. Project Portfolio
    4. Workforce

    Info-Tech Insight
    Cost optimization is not just about reducing costs. In fact, you should aim to achieve three objectives: (1) reduce your unwarranted IT spending, (2) optimize your cost-to-value, and (3) sustain your cost optimization.

    Your challenge

    IT leaders are often asked to cut costs.

    • Cost management is a long-term challenge. Businesses and IT departments look to have a flexible cost structure focused on maximizing business value while maintaining the ability to adapt to market pressure. However, businesses must also be able to respond to unexpected events.
    • In times of economic downturn, many CEOs and CFOs shift their thinking from growth to value protection. This can force a round of cost cutting across all departments focused on short-term, immediate, and measurable objectives.
    • Many IT departments are then faced with the challenge of meeting cost cutting targets. No one knows exactly how markets will behave, but the effects of rising inflation and increasing interest rates, for example, can manifest very quickly.

    When crisis hits, does IT's hard-won gains around being seen as a partner to the business suddenly disappear and IT becomes just a cost center all over again?

    In times of economic slowdown or downturn, the key challenge of IT leaders is to optimize costs without jeopardizing their strategic and innovative contribution.

    Common obstacles

    The 90% of the budget you keep is more important than the 10% of the budget you cut.

    • While the business responds to fluctuating economic conditions, IT must ensure that its budget remains fully aligned with business strategy and expected business value.
    • However, in the face of sudden pressures, a common tendency is to make quick decisions without fully considering their long-term implications.
    • Avoid costly mistakes with a proactive and strategic mindset. Put in place a well-communicated cost optimization strategy rather than hastily cutting back the biggest line items in your budget.

    How can IT optimize costs to achieve a corporate impact, but not cut so deep that the organization can't take advantage of opportunities to recover and thrive?

    Know how you will strategically optimize IT costs before you are forced to cut cost aggressively in a reactive fashion.

    What is cost optimization?

    It's not just about cutting costs

    • While cost optimization may involve cutting costs, it is more about making smart spend and investment decisions.
    • At its core, cost optimization is a strategic decision-making process that sets out to minimize waste and get the most value for money.
    • Cost optimization encompasses near-term, mid-term, and long-term objectives, all of which are related and build upon one another. It is an accumulative practice, not a onetime exercise.
    • A sound cost optimization practice is inherently flexible, sustainable, and consequence-oriented with the positive goal of generating net benefit for the organization over time.

    Change your mindset ...

    An Info-Tech survey of IT staff reveals that while most agree that cost optimization is an important IT process, nearly 20% fewer of them agree that it's being managed well.

    Chart of cost optimization

    Info-Tech IT Management & Governance Diagnostic, 2022.

    A starting point for cost optimization improvement is adjusting your frame of mind. Know that it's not just about making difficult cuts - in reality, it's a creative pursuit that's about thriving in all circumstances, not just surviving.

    Slow revenue growth expectations generate urgency

    Many IT organizations will be directed to trim costs during turbulent times.

    • Cost optimization implies continuous cost management, which entails long-term strategic initiatives (i.e. organizations and their IT departments seek flexible cost structures and practices focused on maximizing business value while maintaining the ability to adapt to changes in the broader economic environment). However, organizations must also be able to respond to unexpected events.
    • During times of turmoil – poor economic outlook expected to negatively impact an organization's bottom line – CEOs and CFOs think more about survival than growth, driving cost cutting across all departments to create short-term, immediate, and measurable financial benefits.
    • In such situations, many IT departments will be hard-pressed to meet cost cutting targets at short notice. If not planned correctly, with a tunnel vision focus instead of a strategic one, you can end up hurting yourself in the not-so-distant future.

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Insight summary

    Sustain an optimal cost-to-value ratio across four levers:

    1. Assets
    2. Vendors
    3. Project Portfolio
    4. Workforce

    Cost optimization is not just about reducing costs

    In fact, you should aim to achieve three objectives:
    (1) reduce your unwarranted IT spending, (2) optimize your cost-to-value, and (3) sustain your cost optimization.

    Reduce unwarranted IT spending

    Stop the bleeding or go for quick wins
    Start by reducing waste and bad spending habits while clearly communicating your intentions to your stakeholders – get buy-in.

    Optimize cost-to-value

    Value means tradeoffs
    Pursue value but know that it will lead you to make tradeoffs between cost, performance, and risk.

    Sustain cost optimization

    Think about tomorrow: reduce, reuse, recalibrate, and repeat
    Standardize and automate your cost optimization processes around a proper governance framework. Cost optimization is not a onetime exercise.

    Info-Tech's methodology for building your IT cost optimization roadmap

    Phase 1: Understand Your Mandate & Objectives

    Know where you stand and where you're going.

    Understand your cost optimization mandate within the context of your organization's situation and direction.

    Phase 2: Outline Your Initiatives

    Evaluate many, pick a few.

    Think of all possible cost optimization initiatives across the four optimization levers (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, and Workforce), but only keep the ones that best help you fulfill your goals.

    Phase 3: Develop Your Roadmap

    Keep one eye on today and the other on tomorrow.

    Prioritize cost optimization initiatives that would help you achieve your near-term objectives first, but don't forget about the medium and long term.

    Phase 4: Communicate and Execute

    Communicate and collaborate - you are not a one-person show.

    Reach out to other business units where necessary. Your success relies on getting buy-in from various stakeholders, especially when cost optimization initiatives impact them in one way or another.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates
    Templates including an abbreviated executive presentation and a final communication presentation based on a 12-month cost optimization roadmap.

    IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    A workbook generating a 12-month cost optimization roadmap.

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Maintain an optimal IT cost-to-organization revenue ratio.

    This blueprint will guide you to set cost optimization goals across one to three main objectives, depending on your identified journey (reactive, proactive, or strategic):

    • Reduce unwarranted IT spending.
    • Optimize cost-to value.
    • Sustain cost optimization.

    In phase 1 of this blueprint, we will help you establish your goals to satisfy your organization's needs.

    In phase 3, we will help you develop a game plan and a roadmap for achieving those metrics.

    Once you implement your 12-month roadmap, start tracking the metrics below over the next fiscal year (FY) to assess the effectiveness of undertaken measures.

    Cost Optimization Objective Key Success Metric
    Reduce unwarranted IT spending Decrease IT cost in identified key areas
    Optimize cost-to-value Decrease IT cost per IT employee
    Sustain cost optimization Decrease IT cost-to-organization revenue

    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

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
    Call #1:
    • Identify cost optimization scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
    • Review and assess cost optimization goals and objectives.
    Call #2:

    Review potential cost optimization initiatives for assets and vendors levers.

    Call #3:

    Assess cost optimization initiatives' cost and feasibility - for assets and vendors levers.

    Call #4:

    Review potential cost optimization initiatives for project portfolio and workforce levers.

    Call #5:

    Assess cost optimization initiatives' cost and feasibility - for project portfolio and workforce levers.

    Call #6:
    • Identify final decision criteria for cost optimization prioritization.
    • Review prioritized cost optimization initiatives and roadmap outputs.
    Call #7:
    • Review the Cost Optimization Communication Plan and IT Cost Optimization Executive Presentation.
    • Discuss next steps.

    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 will include multiple calls over the course of one to two months.

    IT cost analysis and optimization workshop overview

    Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Session 5
    Activities Understand Your Mandate and Objectives Outline Initiatives for Assets and Vendors Outline Initiatives for Projects and Workforce Develop an IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Communicate and Execute
    1.1 Understand your organization's cost optimization objectives and how this impacts IT.
    1.2 Review potential cost optimization target areas based on your IT financial management benchmarking report.
    1.3 Identify factors constraining cost optimization options.
    1.4 Set concrete IT cost optimization goals.
    1.5 Identify inputs required for decision making.
    2.1 Identify a longlist of possible initiatives around:
    1. Asset lifecycle management, investment deferral, repurposing, etc.
    2. Vendor contract renegotiation, cancelation, etc.
    2.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives.
    3.1 Identify a longlist of possible initiatives around:
    1. Project priorities, project backlog reduction, project intake restructuring, etc.
    2. Workforce productivity, skills, redeployment, etc.
    3.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives.
    4.1 Assess the feasibility of each initiative (effort and risk profile) given cost optimization goals.
    4.2 Prioritize cost optimization initiatives to create a final shortlist.
    4.3 Fine-tune key information about your final cost optimization initiatives and develop a cost optimization roadmap for proposal.
    5.1 Outline components of a communication plan, including approvers, stakeholders, and governance and management mechanisms to be used.
    5.2 Create an executive presentation.
    5.3 Set up review time for workshop deliverables and post-workshop activities.
    Output
    • IT cost optimization journey and guiding principles for making corresponding decisions.
    • Long list of possible cost optimization initiatives and their potential cost savings for assets and vendors levers.
    • Long list of possible cost optimization initiatives and their potential cost savings for project portfolio and workforce levers.
    • Prioritized list of key cost optimization initiatives, descriptions, estimated impact, and roadmap.
    • IT cost optimization communication plan and presentation strategy.

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

    Phase 1

    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 1
    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 2
    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 3
    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 4
    Communicate and Execute

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Business context and cost optimization journey
    • Cost constraints and parameters
    • Cost optimization goals

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    1.1 Gain consensus on the business context and IT cost optimization journey

    60 minutes

    • Using the questions on slide 20, conduct a brief journey assessment to ensure consensus on the direction you are planning to take.
    • Document your findings in the provided template.
    Input Output
    • Understanding business objectives and identifying your IT mandate
    • Determining the cost optimization journey: reactive, proactive, or strategic
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Journey assessment template
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    See the next three slides for guidelines and the journey assessment questions and template.

    Distinguishing between three journeys

    By considering business objectives without forgoing your IT mandate.

    Journey Reactive Proactive Strategic
    Description
    • Business objectives are closely tied to cost reduction, forcing cost cutting across IT.
    • Typically occurs during turbulent economic times, when slow revenue growth is expected.
    • Business objectives do not include clear cost optimization initiatives but mandates IT to be fiscally conservative.
    • Typically occurs when economic turbulence is on the horizon and the organization's revenue is stable - executives only have a fiscal discipline guidance.
    • Business objectives do not include clear cost optimization initiatives.
    • Typically occurs when the overall economy is in good shape and the organization is in positive revenue growth territory.
    Main Focus
    • Quick-to-execute measures with few dependencies and concrete impact in response to business urgency and/or executive directive.
    • Enabling the organization to respond to different types and magnitudes of business change in a more planned and controlled manner.
    • Establishing an efficient, agile, sustainable, and strategically aligned cost optimization practice across all stages of the business cycle, regardless of business conditions.

    Questions to help determine your journey

    Business Objectives Business Strategy
    • What are the current business objectives?
    • Are there any stated cost-related objectives? If yes, what cost-related objectives have been stated by organizational leadership, such as cuts, areas of investment, and any targets for both?
    • Does the organization have a business strategy in place?
    • Was the business strategy reviewed or revised recently?
    • What's the business strategy focus for the next 12 months?
    • Are there any cost optimization implications within the current business strategy?
    IT Objectives IT Strategy and Mandate
    • What are your current IT objectives?
    • Are your IT objectives aligned to business objectives?
    • Do you have any IT cost-related objectives? If yes, what are your current IT cost-related objectives?
    • Are your IT cost-related objectives aligned to business objectives?
    • Do you have an IT strategy in place?
    • Is your IT strategy aligned to your organization's business strategy?
    • Do you have a cost optimization mandate? If yes, what is your cost optimization mandate?
    • What's the fiscal guidance and direction in IT?
    Journey
    Agreed-upon journey: reactive, proactive, or strategic.

    Template & Example

    Journey assessment

    Business Objectives Business Strategy
    • The founder's mission around quality persists despite ownership/leadership changes. Reliability and dependability are really important to everyone.
    • Increase visibility and interconnectivity across the supply chain.
    • Increase market share: younger markets and emerging foreign markets.
    • Economic outlook expected to negatively affect the bottom line - will need to trim and protect the core.
    • Grow Gizmo product sales by 10%.
    • Lower production cost of Gizmo product by 5%.
    IT Objectives IT Strategy and Mandate
    • IT/OT convergence, process automation, and modernization are major opportunities to better position the business for the future and introduce more agility into operations and reduce production cost.
    • Very mature and stable production processes with 100% uptime is a priority.
    • Lower IT cost related to Gizmo product.
    • There's no clear cost optimization mandate, but a fiscally conservative budget is recommended.
    Journey
    Agreed-upon journey: proactive.

    1.2 Review internal and external benchmarking reports

    60-90 minutes

    1. Review the IT spend and staffing results, summarized in your Info-Tech IT Spend & Staffing Benchmarking report.
    2. Identify areas where your IT spend is disproportionately high or low in comparison with your industry peers.
    3. Review and document any causes or rationales for high or low spend in each area identified. Do not be specific about any actual optimization targets or actions at this stage - simply make notes.
    4. Start a list of potential cost optimization initiatives to be further analyzed and investigated for feasibility at a later stage (see next slides for guidance, example, and template).
    InputOutput
    • IT Spend & Staffing Benchmarking report
    • A list of potential cost optimization focus areas
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Potential cost optimization initiatives list template
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    Info-Tech's approach

    Our IT cost model maps your IT spending and staffing according to four key views, putting IT spend in language that stakeholders across the organization can relate to.

    IT cost model maps

    Template & Example

    Potential cost optimization initiatives list

    Brainstorm and list potential cost optimization initiatives at a macro level.

    Potential Initiative Source Source Contact Notes
    Reduce application maintenance cost Internal Benchmarking Report CIO Based on current year report
    Rationalize software applications Info-Tech IT Benchmarking Report CIO Based on current year report
    Migrate key business applications to the cloud Latest iteration of the IT strategy CIO New IT strategy will be in development concurrent with cost optimization strategy development
    Align job roles to the current IT structure IT org. chart and salaries HR, CIO Based on information of the current year and will likely change in a few months (beginning of a new year)
    Renegotiate the top five vendor contracts up for renewal this year List of IT vendors Procurement office, CIO, IT infrastructure director, IT applications director, IT services manager Based on a list consolidated last week

    Want help with your IT spend transparency and benchmarking efforts?

    Let us fast-track your IT spend journey.

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    This unique service features:

    • A client-proven approach to meet your IT spend transparency goals.
    • Spend and staff mapping that reveals business consumption of IT.
    • Industry benchmarking to compare your spending and staffing to that of your peers.
    • Results in a fraction of the time with much less effort than going it alone.
    • Expert review of results and ongoing discussions with Info-Tech analysts.

    If you'd like Info-Tech to pave the way to IT spend transparency, contact your account manager for more information - we're happy to talk anytime.

    1.3 Identify your overarching constraints

    30 minutes

    1. Assess where spend change opportunities are currently limited or nonexistent due to organization edict or policy, industry regulatory requirements, or active contracts. Ask yourself:
      1. Where do IT spend bottlenecks exist and what are they?
      2. What IT spend objectives and practices are absolutely mandatory and nonnegotiable from both a business and an IT perspective?
      3. Are there areas where spend change is possible but would be very difficult to execute due to the stakeholders involved, governance processes, time frames, or another constraining factor?
    2. Identify where reduction or elimination of an IT service would negatively affect required service levels and business continuity or recovery.
    3. List constraints as negotiable or nonnegotiable on the template provided.
    4. Remove areas of focus from your cost optimization scope that land outside achievable parameters, and flag those that are difficult but still possible.
    InputOutput
    • Situational awareness and current state understanding
    • List of negotiable constraints to act on
    • Delimiting the cost optimization scope
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Constraints assessment template
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    See the next slides for additional guidance and a constraints assessment template.

    Acknowledge your limitations

    By recognizing your constraints, which will lead you to define your cost optimization scope.

    Constraints Organizational Legal/Regulatory Other
    What An organizational constraint is any work condition that hinders an employee's performance - be it physical, emotional, or otherwise. A legal or regulatory constraint is any law, rule, standard, or regulation - be it industry specific or otherwise - limiting the ability of any stakeholder to get the most out of a certain activity, initiative, or project. Other types of constraints affecting business units.
    Who Collaborate with your IT leaders and business partners to identify all major constraints that would affect cost optimization initiatives.
    How Discussions and information sessions to distinguish between negotiable and nonnegotiable constraints that would thwart cost optimization efforts:
    • Legal/regulatory requirements and related initiatives (past, ongoing, and planned/expected).
      Example: projects cannot be delayed, processes are difficult to simplify, etc.
    • Operational governance - organization policies, processes, methodologies, structure, etc.
      Example: adopting a waterfall model for development instead of an agile one.
    • Financial and accounting practices.
      Example: capital expenditure and operational expenditure classification.
    Challenge Degree to which you can influence certain outcomes within a set time frame:
    • Prioritize negotiating constraints where you can influence the outcome or maximize cost optimization benefits.

    We define a constraint as a restriction controlling the behavior of any of your stakeholders, hence preventing a desired outcome.

    In our context, constraints will determine your playing field: the boundaries of your cost optimization scope.

    Distinguish between constraints

    Negotiable vs. nonnegotiable to delimit your cost optimization scope.

    Distinguish between constraints

    Template & Example

    Constraints assessment

    List high-level limitations that hinder your cost optimization options.

    Nonnegotiable constraints
    Organizational Legal/Regulatory IT/Other
    Prioritization of sales/customer service activities SEC compliance/reporting mandates Production unit incident response service levels
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    Negotiable constraints
    Organizational Legal/Regulatory IT/Other
    Core business operations process design Vendor contracts up for near-term renewal Current capital project commitments
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]
    [Constraint] [Constraint] [Constraint]

    1.4 Establish overarching cost optimization goals

    60-90 minutes

    1. Establish specific IT cost optimization goals. Depending on your journey, step 1.1. You will have one to three overarching cost optimization goals, as follows:
      1. Reactive: Cost-cutting goal to reduce unwarranted IT spending.
      2. Proactive: Cost-to-value optimization goal.
      3. Strategic: Cost optimization sustainability goal.
      Consider amounts and time frames, as well as likely/suitable approaches you plan to employ to achieve these goals.
    2. Document your final cost optimization goals in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.
    3. Revisit your goals after outlining your initiatives (phase 2) to ensure feasibility depending on your journey.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Situational awareness and current state understanding
    • Defined goals for IT cost optimization
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Set Cost Optimization Goals tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    Template & Example

    Document your overarching goals

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Set Optimization Goals Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to document your goals based on your journey:

    Table of Overarching Goals

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Dropdown Select the appropriate journey: Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic.
    C Dropdown Select the appropriate cost optimization objective: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, Sustain Cost Optimization.
    D Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending goal is the first priority, followed by Optimize Cost-to-Value, and Sustain Cost Optimization goals, respectively.
    E Text Enter the overarching goal related to each objective.

    Complete the following fields for each goal depending on your journey in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Set Cost Optimization Goals tab.
    2. Identify your journey and objective for each goal.
    3. Document your goal(s).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Template & Example

    Break down your goals per quarter

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Set Cost Optimization Goals Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to break down your goals per quarter and track your progress:

    Table break down your goals per quarter

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    F, G, H, I Text Enter the target per quarter: It could be a percentage, dollar amount, or description of the breakdown, depending on the cost optimization goal and objective.

    Complete the following fields for each goal depending on your journey in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Set Cost Optimization Goals tab.
    2. Determine your target per quarter for every goal.
    3. Document your targets.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    1.5 Identify inputs required for decision making

    60-90 minutes

    1. Each of the optimization levers (assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce) will require specific and unique sources of information which you will need to collect before moving forward. Examples of important sources of information include:
      1. Latest iteration of the IT strategy.
      2. List of IT assets (hardware, software).
      3. List of IT services or IT service catalog.
      4. List of current and planned IT projects and their resourcing allocations.
      5. List of largest vendor contracts and their key details, such as their expiration/renewal date.
      6. IT department organizational chart and salaries (by role).
    2. Review and analyze each of the documents.
    3. Continue to list potential cost optimization initiatives (step 1.2) to be further analyzed and investigated for feasibility at a later stage.
    InputOutput
    • IT strategy
    • Lists of IT assets, services, and projects
    • Top vendor contracts
    • IT org. chart and salaries
    • Macrolevel list of potential cost optimization initiatives
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Potential cost optimization initiatives list template (slide 24)
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead

    Prepare all pertinent sources of information

    And start drafting your cost optimization laundry list.

    Documents Benchmarking IT Strategy Other Information Sources
    What
    • Review:
      • Your IT spend trend across several years (ideally three to five years): internal benchmarking report.
      • Your IT spend compared to industry peers: external benchmarking report.
    • Analyze your internal and external benchmarking reports across the four views: service, expense, business, and innovation.
    • Review your business aligned IT strategy to identify cost optimization related initiatives.
    • At a later stage, exploit your IT strategy to prioritize cost optimization initiatives as needed.
    • Review your IT organization chart and salaries to determine whether the IT organization structure is optimal, job descriptions are mapped to the desired structure, employee skillsets and salary scale are adequate and aligned to the job description, etc.
    • Compile and examine lists of assets, vendors, projects, and services.
    • Prepare any other information sources you deem meaningful.
    Who Collaborate with your IT leaders and business partners to:
    • Prepare the necessary reports, documents, and required sources of information.
    • Identify potential cost optimization initiatives around areas of improvement.
    How Discussions and information sessions to analyze and deep dive on raw findings.
    Challenge Time to compile and analyze reports without affecting day-to-day operations:
    • Outsource some activities such as external benchmarking to organizations like Info-Tech.
    • Get consulting support on specific reports or tasks through workshops, calls, etc.

    Phase 2

    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 1
    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 2
    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 3
    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 4
    Communicate and Execute

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • IT cost optimization initiatives
    • IT cost optimization workbook

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • IT vendor management lead
    • PMO lead
    • IT talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Outline your cost optimization initiatives

    Across Info-Tech's four levers.

    Levers ASSETS VENDORS PROJECT PORTFOLI WORKFORCE
    What
    • Maintain trustworthy data to optimize cost, reduce risk, and improve services in line with business priorities and requirements:
      • Optimize cost: reallocate unused hardware and software, end unneeded service agreements, and manage renewals and audits.
      • Reduce risk: provide comprehensive asset data for security controls development and incident management - manage equipment disposal.
      • Improve IT service: support incident, problem, request, and change management with ITAM data.
    • Examine your vendor contracts and vendor management practices to optimize your expected value from every IT provider you deal with.
    • Treat vendor management as a proactive, cross-functional practice aiming to create value by improving communication, relationships, processes, performance, and ultimately reducing cost.
    • Reassess your project portfolio to maximize total value in line with business objectives and strategy.
    • Reduce resource waste with a strategic approach to project portfolio management:
      • Ensure that approved projects can be completed by aligning intake with real project capacity.
      • Minimize over-allocation of resources by allocating based on the proportion of project vs. non-project work.
      • Forecast future resource requirements by maintaining accurate resource capacity data.
    • Review your strategic workforce plan to identify cost optimization opportunities.
    • Determine capability gaps to train or develop current staff and minimize the need for severance payouts and hiring costs, while providing clear career paths to retain high performers.
    • Link workforce planning with strategic planning to ensure that you have the right people in the right positions, in the right places, at the right time, with the knowledge, skills, and attributes to deliver on strategic business goals.
    Who Collaborate with your IT leaders and business partners to:
    • Prepare the necessary reports, documents, and required sources of information.
    • Determine cost optimization initiatives across the four levers.
    How You will decide on the best course of action depending on your journey.

    Most common cost optimization challenges

    Across Info-Tech's four levers.

    Levers ASSETS VENDORS PROJECT PORTFOLI WORKFORCE
    Challenge
    • Incomplete or inaccurate data, poor processes, inadequate tools, and lack of support across the organization is leading to bad decision making while damaging value.
    • Spending on IT providers is increasing while vendor contract expected value - results, output, performance, solutions, or outcomes - is not realized.
    • Poor planning, conflicting priorities, and resource scarcity is affecting project outcomes, resulting in suboptimal value.
    • Talent shortages, lack of prioritization, and experience in managing an IT workforce is leading to higher costs and a loss in value.
    Solution
    • Develop a sustainable IT asset management (ITAM) strategy aligned with your business priorities.
    • Establish a vendor management initiative (VMI) with a solid foundation to fit your organization's culture, environment, and goals.
    • Create a coherent strategy to maximize the total value that projects deliver as a portfolio, rather than a collection of individual projects.
    • Develop a strategic workforce plan (SWP) to ensure you have the right people in place at the right time.
    Related Info-Tech Research Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy Jump-start Your Vendor Management Initiative Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

    2.1 Determine your cost optimization initiatives

    8 hours

    Now that you have identified your journey and understood your constraints:

    1. Review your list of potential cost optimization initiatives and document viable ones in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.
    2. Think of potential cost optimization initiatives within the four levers: assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce. The following slides will help you in this endeavor.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Potential cost optimization initiatives list
    • Outline Initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Other IT management - depending on the optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce)

    Plan your cost optimization initiatives

    Your initiatives will differ depending on your journey

    In terms of aggressiveness and objectives.

    Plan cost optimization initiatives

    Cost optimization initiatives pertaining to a reactive journey are characterized by aggressive cost reduction.

    On the other hand, cost optimization initiatives within a strategic journey can vary in aggressiveness across objectives.

    2.1.1 Identify asset optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review the IT asset management strategy if available. Compile a list of all hardware, software, and facility asset costs for delivery of IT services.
    2. Analyze hardware and software assets for opportunities to consolidate, reduce, eliminate, and/or enhance functionality/automation. Look for:
      1. Redundancy or duplication of functionality not necessary for disaster recovery or business continuity purposes.
      2. Low or no-use software.
      3. Homegrown or legacy systems with high maintenance/support burdens.
      4. Multiple, old, or unsupported versions of current-use software.
      5. Opportunities to delay hardware/software refreshes or upgrades.
      6. Cloud/outsourced options.
      7. Instances of unsanctioned shadow IT.
    3. Reassess your in-house asset management processes to see where efficiency and effectiveness could be improved overall.
    4. Document cost optimization initiatives that could be driven by asset optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • IT asset management strategy
    • List of current assets including hardware, software, and facilities
    • Outline Initiatives driven by asset optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • Other IT management

    Example

    Asset optimization

    Some examples to get you started

    Journey Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic Proactive or Strategic Strategic
    Initiatives
    • Validate the license cost of performance optimization.
    • Review the utilization of software/hardware before renewal or purchase of additional hardware or software.
    • Assess new license cost against projects to determine possibility of differing or canceling software.
    • Postpone the purchases of hardware.
    • Extend the life of hardware.
    • Consolidate and reconfigure hardware.
    • Return damaged/malfunctioning hardware under warranty.
    • Consolidate and reconfigure software.
    • Optimize software/hardware functionality.
    • Implement hardware/software standard or policy.
    • Develop an infrastructure management outsourcing strategy.
    • Optimize cloud management: review utilization, licensing, cost, etc.
    • Develop a sustainable IT asset management (ITAM) strategy aligned with your business priorities.
    • Minimize shadow IT by creating a policy and improving the service request process.
    • Develop or assess a cloud strategy for a certain service.
    No initiatives for the reactive journey. No initiatives for the reactive or proactive journeys.
    Objective Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending Optimize Cost-to-Value Sustain Cost Optimization

    Template & Example

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to input your asset optimization initiatives and related objectives:

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will update once there's an input in column E.
    C Dropdown Select an optimization lever: Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce.
    D Dropdown Select an initiative focus from the dropdown list - this will help you think of initiatives.
    E Text Enter your initiative.
    F Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing a cost optimization rationale.
    G Dropdown Select the cost type per initiative: OpEx (operating expenditure) or CapEx (capital expenditure).
    H Dropdown Select 1 of 3 objectives for each initiative: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, or Sustain Cost Optimization.

    List your initiatives in the provided Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Enter all your initiatives driven by the asset optimization lever.
    3. Determine the cost optimization objective per initiative.

    2.1.2 Identify vendor optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Revisit the IT vendor classification if available. Identify all existing vendor contracts up for renewal within the current fiscal year and create an inventory.
    2. Examine your vendor contracts to optimize your expected value from every IT provider you deal with. For each contract:
      1. Identify the business purpose/drivers.
      2. Identify the expiration/renewal date to determine time frames for action.
      3. Determine if there is an opportunity to rightsize, cancel, renegotiate costs/service levels, or postpone renewal/purchase.
      4. Identify integrations and interdependencies with other hardware and software systems to understand scope and impact of potential changes.
    3. Reassess your in-house vendor management processes to see where efficiency and effectiveness could be improved overall.
    4. Document cost optimization initiatives that could be driven by vendor optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Vendor classification
    • Vendors contracts
    • Outline Initiatives driven by vendor optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT vendor management lead
    • Other IT management

    Example

    Vendor optimization

    Some examples to get you started.

    Journey Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic Proactive or Strategic Strategic
    Initiatives
    • Renegotiate and rightsize a vendor contract:
      • Cancel vendor/service/type application contract.
      • Renegotiate vendor/service/type contract.
      • Cancel vendor/service/type licenses.
      • Rationalize number of vendor/service/type licenses.
    • Consolidate vendors/resellers with similar services, products and features.
    • Implement a vendor management initiative to maximize value and minimize risk.
    • Consolidate contracts to take advantage of spending power and volume.
    • Set up custom vendor performance metrics.
    • Establish ongoing monitoring of vendor risk (financial, security, etc.).
    No initiatives for the reactive journey. No initiatives for the reactive or proactive journeys.
    Objective Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending Optimize Cost-to-Value Sustain Cost Optimization

    Template & Example

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to input your vendor optimization initiatives and related objectives:

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will update once there's an input in column E.
    C Dropdown Select an optimization lever: Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce.
    D Dropdown Select an initiative focus from the dropdown list - this will help you think of initiatives.
    E Text Enter your initiative.
    F Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing a cost optimization rationale.
    G Dropdown Select the cost type per initiative: OpEx (operating expenditure) or CapEx (capital expenditure).
    H Dropdown Select 1 of 3 objectives for each initiative: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, or Sustain Cost Optimization.

    List your initiatives in the provided Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Enter all your initiatives driven by the vendor optimization lever.
    3. Determine the cost optimization objective per initiative.

    2.1.3 Identify project portfolio optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review the IT Project Portfolio Strategy if available, and the list of both in-flight and planned projects.
    2. Reassess your project portfolio to maximize total value in line with business objectives and strategy. For each current and pending project on the list, identify a cost optimization initiative, including:
      1. Revisiting, confirming, and documenting actual project rationale with the business in relation to strategic goals.
      2. Rescoping existing projects that are underway.
      3. Accelerating planned or existing projects that enable business cost savings or competitive advantage and revenue growth.
      4. Canceling or postponing projects that are underway or haven't started.
      5. Identifying net-new projects that enhance business capabilities or save business costs.
    3. Reassess your in-house project management and project portfolio management processes to see where efficiency and effectiveness could be improved overall.
    4. Document cost optimization initiatives that could be driven by project portfolio optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Project Portfolio Management Strategy
    • List of current and pending projects
    • Outline Initiatives driven by project portfolio optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    Materials Participants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Example

    Project portfolio optimization

    Some examples to get you started.

    Journey Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic Proactive or Strategic Strategic
    Initiatives
    • Cancel projects with no executive sponsor.
    • Cancel projects with unacceptable timelines.
    • Postpone projects where there is a more urgent need for related resources.
    • Rescope projects where a more effective business case has been identified.
    • Freeze projects where scope and resourcing are uncertain.
    • Accelerate projects that enable business cost savings or a competitive advantage with revenue growth.
    • Combine projects that are better managed by realigning project managers and coordinators.
    • Break projects into phases to front-load realized value.
    • Outsource projects with commoditized skillset requirements.
    • Reassess the technology requirements when multiple vendors are involved.
    • Reexamine project rationale with the business in relation to strategic goals.
    • Identify net-new projects that offer improved value in relation to current economics.
    • Reassess the strategic drivers for project spending in the face of shifting priorities.
    • Implement a project portfolio governance function.
    • Introduce a benefits realization discipline in relation to the benefits forecasted during project approval.
    No initiatives for the reactive journey. No initiatives for the reactive or proactive journeys.
    Objective Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending Optimize Cost-to-Value Sustain Cost Optimization

    Template & Example

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to input your project portfolio optimization initiatives and related objectives:

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will update once there's an input in column E.
    C Dropdown Select an optimization lever: Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce.
    D Dropdown Select an initiative focus from the dropdown list - this will help you think of initiatives.
    E Text Enter your initiative.
    F Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing a cost optimization rationale.
    G Dropdown Select the cost type per initiative: OpEx (operating expenditure) or CapEx (capital expenditure).
    H Dropdown Select 1 of 3 objectives for each initiative: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, or Sustain Cost Optimization.

    List your initiatives in the provided Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Enter all your initiatives driven by the project portfolio optimization lever.
    3. Determine the cost optimization objective per initiative.

    2.1.4 Identify workforce optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review the IT department's strategic workforce plan (SWP) if available, organizational chart, and salaries by role. Do not review IT staffing in terms of named individuals who occupy a given role - focus on functions, roles, and job descriptions.
    2. Determine capability gaps:
      1. Rectify efficiency, effectiveness, and other performance issues.
      2. Train IT staff to enhance or improve skills and effectiveness.
      3. Add roles, skills, or headcount to improve effectiveness.
      4. Integrate teams to improve collaboration and reduce redundancies or break out new ones to increase focus/specialization.
      5. Redesign job roles and responsibilities.
      6. Redeploy/reassign staff to other teams.
      7. Conduct layoff (as a last resort, starting by assessing contractual employees).
    3. Document cost optimization initiatives that could be driven by workforce optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Strategic workforce plan (SWP)
    • Organizational charts
    • Staff lists
    • Outline Initiatives driven by workforce optimization objectives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Example

    Workforce optimization

    Some examples to get you started.

    Journey Reactive, Proactive, or Strategic Proactive or Strategic Strategic
    Initiatives
    • Defer vacancy, position, or role.
    • Freeze all overnight and unessential IT staff travel.
    • Outsource project/function to free internal resources.
    • Postpone nonessential IT staff training as per training plans.
    • Suspend IT team discretionary spend.
    • Streamline workforce related to department/service (develop the process).
    • Relocate role or function from division or group to division or group.
    • Adjust framework and level assignments.
    • Promote and train employees for a certain objective.
    • Implement a strategic workforce plan (SWP) to ensure you have the right people in place, at the right time.
    • Set up a workforce performance monitoring framework or process to optimize staffing capabilities aligned with business value.
    No initiatives for the reactive journey. No initiatives for the reactive or proactive journeys.
    Objective Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending Optimize Cost-to-Value Sustain Cost Optimization

    Template & Example

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to input your workforce optimization initiatives and related objectives:

    List your objectives and initiatives

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will update once there's an input in column E.
    C Dropdown Select an optimization lever: Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce.
    D Dropdown Select an initiative focus from the dropdown list - this will help you think of initiatives.
    E Text Enter your initiative.
    F Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing a cost optimization rationale.
    G Dropdown Select the cost type per initiative: OpEx (operating expenditure) or CapEx (capital expenditure).
    H Dropdown Select 1 of 3 objectives for each initiative: Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, Optimize Cost-to-Value, or Sustain Cost Optimization.

    List your initiatives in the provided Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Enter all your initiatives driven by the workforce optimization lever.
    3. Determine the cost optimization objective per initiative.

    2.2 Estimate the cost savings of cost optimization initiatives

    8 hours

    Now that you have identified your initiatives:

    1. Review your cost optimization initiatives per lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, and Workforce).
    2. Determine whether the implementation cost of each of your initiatives is included as part of your budget.
    3. Estimate your cost savings.
    4. Document your assessment in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Potential cost optimization initiatives list
    • Outline Initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard or flip charts
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Other IT management - depending on the optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce)

    2.2.1 Estimate the costs impacting your asset optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review each asset optimization initiative to estimate cost implications.
    2. Consider implementation cost in terms of your budget, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Is the implementation cost of the underlying initiative considered in your current budget? If not, move to the next initiative. You will assess the flagged initiative independently at a later stage if deemed necessary.
    3. Estimate the current cost related to the initiative (including implementation cost), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the first of two inputs needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.
    4. Estimate the expected cost, post initiative execution, of the underlying initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the second and last input needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Asset optimization initiatives
    • Cost and budget information
    • Cost estimates of asset optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your cost

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete cost estimates for each asset optimization initiative:

    Estimate your cost

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    I Dropdown Select if the implementation cost is considered within your budget or not. If not, the initiative will be flagged to be reviewed, and no further entry is required; move to the next initiative. Implementation cost represents your cost for planning, executing, and monitoring the related initiative.
    J, K Whole Number Input a dollar amount. Current cost represents the yearly cost including implementing the initiative, while the expected cost represents the yearly cost after implementing the initiative.
    L Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The difference between current cost and expected cost.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine if the implementation cost is considered within the budget.
    3. If yes, estimate the current cost, and expected cost of the underlying initiative.

    2.2.2 Estimate the costs impacting your vendor optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review each vendor optimization initiative to estimate cost implications.
    2. Consider implementation cost in terms of your budget, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Is the implementation cost of the underlying initiative considered in your current budget? If not, move to the next initiative. You will assess the flagged initiative independently at a later stage if deemed necessary.
    3. Estimate the current cost related to the initiative (including implementation cost), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the first of two inputs needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.
    4. Estimate the expected cost, post initiative execution, of the underlying initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the second and last input needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Vendor optimization initiatives
    • Cost and budget information
    • Cost estimates of vendor optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT vendor management lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your cost

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete cost estimates for each vendor optimization initiative:

    Estimate your cost

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    I Dropdown Select if the implementation cost is considered within your budget or not. If not, the initiative will be flagged to be reviewed, and no further entry is required; move to the next initiative. Implementation cost represents your cost for planning, executing, and monitoring the related initiative.
    J, K Whole Number Input a dollar amount. Current cost represents the yearly cost including implementing the initiative, while the expected cost represents the yearly cost after implementing the initiative.
    L Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The difference between current cost and expected cost.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine if the implementation cost is considered within the budget.
    3. If yes, estimate the current cost, and expected cost of the underlying initiative.

    2.2.3 Estimate the costs impacting your project portfolio optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review each project portfolio optimization initiative to estimate cost implications.
    2. Consider implementation cost in terms of your budget, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Is the implementation cost of the underlying initiative considered in your current budget? If not, move to the next initiative. You will assess the flagged initiative independently at a later stage if deemed necessary.
    3. Estimate the current cost related to the initiative (including implementation cost), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the first of two inputs needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.
    4. Estimate the expected cost, post initiative execution, of the underlying initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the second and last input needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Project portfolio optimization initiatives
    • Cost and budget information
    • Cost estimates of project portfolio optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your cost

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete cost estimates for each project portfolio optimization initiative:

    Estimate your cost

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    I Dropdown Select if the implementation cost is considered within your budget or not. If not, the initiative will be flagged to be reviewed, and no further entry is required; move to the next initiative. Implementation cost represents your cost for planning, executing, and monitoring the related initiative.
    J, K Whole Number Input a dollar amount. Current cost represents the yearly cost including implementing the initiative, while the expected cost represents the yearly cost after implementing the initiative.
    L Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The difference between current cost and expected cost.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine if the implementation cost is considered within the budget.
    3. If yes, estimate the current cost, and expected cost of the underlying initiative.

    2.2.4 Estimate the costs impacting your workforce optimization initiatives

    2 hours

    1. Review each workforce optimization initiative to estimate cost implications.
    2. Consider implementation cost in terms of your budget, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Is the implementation cost of the underlying initiative considered in your current budget? If not, move to the next initiative. You will assess the flagged initiative independently at a later stage if deemed necessary.
    3. Estimate the current cost related to the initiative (including implementation cost), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the first of two inputs needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.
    4. Estimate the expected cost, post initiative execution, of the underlying initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). This will be the second and last input needed to calculate the initiative's potential cost savings.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Workforce optimization initiatives
    • Cost and budget information
    • Cost estimates of workforce optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your cost

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization –i Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete cost estimates for each workforce optimization initiative:

    Estimate your cost

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    I Dropdown Select if the implementation cost is considered within your budget or not. If not, the initiative will be flagged to be reviewed, and no further entry is required; move to the next initiative. Implementation cost represents your cost for planning, executing, and monitoring the related initiative.
    J, K Whole Number Input a dollar amount. Current cost represents the yearly cost including implementing the initiative, while the expected cost represents the yearly cost after implementing the initiative.
    L Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The difference between current cost and expected cost.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine if the implementation cost is considered within the budget.
    3. If yes, estimate the current cost, and expected cost of the underlying initiative.

    Phase 3

    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 1
    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 2
    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 3
    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 4
    Communicate and Execute

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • IT cost optimization workbook
    • IT cost optimization roadmap

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • IT vendor management lead
    • PMO lead
    • IT talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Develop your prioritized and aligned cost optimization roadmap

    The process of developing your roadmap is where you set final cost optimization priorities, conduct a final rationalization to decide what's in and what's out, and document your proposed plan of action.

    First, take a moment to consider if you missed anything. Too often, only the cost cutting elements of the cost optimization equation get attention. Remember that cost optimization also includes making smart investments. Sometimes adding and expanding is better for the business than removing or contracting.

    • Do your proposed initiatives help position the organization to recover quickly if you're dealing with a downturn or recession scenario?
    • Have you fully considered growth or innovation opportunities that will help optimize costs in the long run?

    Feasibility
    Eliminate initiatives from the longlist of potential initiatives that cannot be achieved given the cost optimization goals you determined at the beginning of this exercise.

    Priority
    Rank order the remaining initiatives according to their ability to contribute to goal attainment and dependency relationships with external constraints and one another.

    Action Plan
    Create an overarching visual roadmap that shows how you intend to achieve your cost optimization goals over the short, medium, and long-term.

    3.1 Assess the feasibility of your cost optimization initiatives

    4 hours

    Now that you have identified your initiatives across the four levers and understood the business impacts:

    1. Review each of your cost optimization initiatives and estimate the feasibility in terms of:
      1. Effort required to implement.
      2. Risk: Likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
      3. Approval rights: Within the IT or finance's accountability/domain or not.
    2. Document your assessment in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Cost optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Other IT management - depending on the optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce)

    3.1.1 Estimate the feasibility of your asset optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each asset optimization initiative to estimate feasibility implications.
    2. Start by defining the effort required variables. Think in terms of how many dedicated full-time employees you would need to implement the initiative. Document your definition for each of the three variables (High, Medium, or Low) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Then, estimate the effort required to implement the related initiative. Consider complexity, scope, and resource availability, before you document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Define your likelihood of failure variables. Think in terms of probability of failure or percent chance the underlying initiative will not succeed. Document your definition for each of the three variables (High, Medium, or Low) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides). Then, estimate the likelihood of failure to implement the related initiative, and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    4. Consider the initiative's impact on performance. Would implementing the initiative hinder IT or business performance? If you are on a reactive journey, would it impede business recovery in any way, shape, or form? Document the impact (Positive Impact, No Impact, or Negative Impact) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Determine who is responsible for approving the initiative. Does it fall within your jurisdiction, responsibility, or accountability? If not, it would mean that it might be more difficult to implement the initiative. Document approval rights (within accountability or not within accountability) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Asset optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of asset optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    Materials Participants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Define your feasibility variables

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Define Variables Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to define your feasibility variables for standardization purposes. You can adopt a different definition per optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, and Workforce), or maintain the same one across initiatives, depending on what makes sense for your organization:

    Define your feasibility variables

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    B, G Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The ID will populate automatically.
    C, H Text No entry required. Three variables identified: High, Medium, Low.
    D, E Whole Number Review and input the range of each effort required variable, based on the number of dedicated full-time employees needed to implement an initiative, as it works best for your organization.
    I, J Whole Number Review and input the range of each likelihood of failure variable, based on the probability of failure of an initiative, as it works best for your organization. This example should work for most organizations.

    Define your feasibility variables in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Define Variables tab.
    2. Review and enter the range of each effort required and likelihood of failure variable as you see fit for your organization.

    Template & Example

    Estimate your feasibility

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete feasibility estimates for each asset optimization initiative:

    Estimate your feasibility

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    M Dropdown Select the effort required estimate based on your defined variables. Effort required represents the number of dedicated employees needed to plan, execute, and monitor the underlying initiative, based on the level of maturity and readiness; consider complexity, scope, and resource availability.
    N Dropdown Select the likelihood of failure estimate based on your defined variables. Likelihood of failure represents the probability of failure of the underlying initiative.
    O Dropdown Select the impact on performance estimate related to the implementation of the underlying initiative. Consider the impact on IT and on business (including business recovery if on a reactive journey).
    P Dropdown Select the appropriate approval right related to the underlying initiative. Determine if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability or not.
    Q Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing an impact rationale and identifying the approver where possible.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate effort required to implement the underlying initiative.
    3. Identify the risk of each initiative: likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
    4. Choose the adequate approval right classification for each initiative.

    3.1.2 Estimate the feasibility of your vendor optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each vendor optimization initiative to estimate feasibility implications, along with previously defined variables (see slides 64 and 65).
    2. Consider the initiative's impact on performance. Would implementing the initiative hinder IT or business performance? If you are on a reactive journey, would it impede business recovery in any way, shape, or form? Document the impact (Positive Impact, No Impact, or Negative Impact) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Determine who is responsible for approving the initiative. Does it fall within your jurisdiction, responsibility, or accountability? If not, it would mean that it might be more difficult to implement the initiative. Document approval rights (within accountability or not within accountability) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Vendor optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of vendor optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT vendor management lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your feasibility

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete feasibility estimates for each vendor optimization initiative:

    Estimate your feasibility

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    M Dropdown Select the effort required estimate based on your defined variables. Effort required represents the number of dedicated employees needed to plan, execute, and monitor the underlying initiative, based on the level of maturity and readiness; consider complexity, scope, and resource availability.
    N Dropdown Select the likelihood of failure estimate based on your defined variables. Likelihood of failure represents the probability of failure of the underlying initiative.
    O Dropdown Select the impact on performance estimate related to the implementation of the underlying initiative. Consider the impact on IT and on business (including business recovery if on a reactive journey).
    P Dropdown Select the appropriate approval right related to the underlying initiative. Determine if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability or not.
    Q Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing an impact rationale and identifying the approver where possible.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate effort required to implement the underlying initiative.
    3. Identify the risk of each initiative: likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
    4. Choose the adequate approval right classification for each initiative.

    3.1.3 Estimate the feasibility of your project portfolio optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each project portfolio optimization initiative to estimate feasibility implications, along with previously defined variables (see slides 64 and 65).
    2. Consider the initiative's impact on performance. Would implementing the initiative hinder IT or business performance? If you are on a reactive journey, would it impede business recovery in any way, shape, or form? Document the impact (Positive Impact, No Impact, or Negative Impact) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Determine who is responsible for approving the initiative. Does it fall within your jurisdiction, responsibility, or accountability? If not, it would mean that it might be more difficult to implement the initiative. Document approval rights (within accountability or not within accountability) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Project portfolio optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of vendor optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your feasibility

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete feasibility estimates for each project portfolio optimization initiative:

    Estimate your feasibility

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    M Dropdown Select the effort required estimate based on your defined variables. Effort required represents the number of dedicated employees needed to plan, execute, and monitor the underlying initiative, based on the level of maturity and readiness; consider complexity, scope, and resource availability.
    N Dropdown Select the likelihood of failure estimate based on your defined variables. Likelihood of failure represents the probability of failure of the underlying initiative.
    O Dropdown Select the impact on performance estimate related to the implementation of the underlying initiative. Consider the impact on IT and on business (including business recovery if on a reactive journey).
    P Dropdown Select the appropriate approval right related to the underlying initiative. Determine if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability or not.
    Q Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing an impact rationale and identifying the approver where possible.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate effort required to implement the underlying initiative.
    3. Identify the risk of each initiative: likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
    4. Choose the adequate approval right classification for each initiative.

    3.1.4 Estimate the feasibility of your workforce optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each workforce optimization initiative to estimate feasibility implications, along with previously defined variables (see slides 64 and 65).
    2. Consider the initiative's impact on performance. Would implementing the initiative hinder IT or business performance? If you are on a reactive journey, would it impede business recovery in any way, shape, or form? Document the impact (Positive Impact, No Impact, or Negative Impact) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Determine who is responsible for approving the initiative. Does it fall within your jurisdiction, responsibility, or accountability? If not, it would mean that it might be more difficult to implement the initiative. Document approval rights (within accountability or not within accountability) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Workforce optimization initiatives
    • Feasibility estimates of workforce optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Variables tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Estimate your feasibility

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete feasibility estimates for each workforce optimization initiative:

    Estimate your feasibility

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    M Dropdown Select the effort required estimate based on your defined variables. Effort required represents the number of dedicated employees needed to plan, execute, and monitor the underlying initiative, based on the level of maturity and readiness; consider complexity, scope, and resource availability.
    N Dropdown Select the likelihood of failure estimate based on your defined variables. Likelihood of failure represents the probability of failure of the underlying initiative.
    O Dropdown Select the impact on performance estimate related to the implementation of the underlying initiative. Consider the impact on IT and on business (including business recovery if on a reactive journey).
    P Dropdown Select the appropriate approval right related to the underlying initiative. Determine if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability or not.
    Q Text Write a brief description per initiative, providing an impact rationale and identifying the approver where possible.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate effort required to implement the underlying initiative.
    3. Identify the risk of each initiative: likelihood of failure and impact on performance.
    4. Choose the adequate approval right classification for each initiative.

    3.2 Prioritize cost optimization initiatives to create a final shortlist

    4 hours

    Now that you have your cost and feasibility for each cost optimization initiative:

    1. Review each of your cost optimization initiatives and estimate the time and priority by considering:
      1. Preliminary priority assessment based on your cost and feasibility input.
      2. Time frame: start and end date of each initiative.
      3. Current budget cycle: time remaining in the current budget cycle and potential cost savings in this fiscal year.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative and decide whether you want to include it in your 12-month roadmap.
    3. Document your assessment in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Cost optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Other IT management - depending on the optimization lever (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, or Workforce)

    3.2.1 Prioritize your asset optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each asset optimization initiative to set the priority.
    2. Validate your cost and feasibility estimates and consider the automated evaluation, in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, providing you with a preliminary priority based on your cost and feasibility estimates (see next slides).
    3. Revisit your overarching goals (step 1.4) as you will assess the time it will take you to complete your initiatives and prioritize accordingly.
    4. Determine your start and end date for each initiative based on your journey, objectives, and overarching goals. Consider the urgency of each initiative. Document the quarter and year for your start and end dates in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of each initiative to get a cost savings estimate for the current fiscal year. Document the number of remaining quarters (0, 1, 2, 3, or 4) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    6. Decide on the priority of each initiative (High, Medium, or Low), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    7. Revisit the priority decision after prioritizing all your initiatives and determine which ones to include in your 12-month roadmap; consider the number of initiatives you can tackle at the same time within a 12-month period. Document your final decision (Yes or No) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Asset optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT asset manager
    • IT infrastructure manager
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Understand your priority assessment

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how the preliminary priority assessment is assigned, for each asset optimization initiative, noting that columns Q to X are hidden automatic calculations and should not be touched:

    Understand your priority assessment

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    R Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Rank of estimate cost savings (per year) in ascending order (higher cost savings implies a higher rank).
    S Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Savings Score on a scale of 1 to 3, where the top third in Cost Savings Rank are assigned a score of 1, the bottom third a score of 3, and in between a score of 2, noting that negative cost savings would imply a -1 score.
    T Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Score adds 1 to the Cost Savings Score if the underlying initiative is within the budget.
    U, V, W Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. A score on a scale of 1 to 3 based on input of columns M, N, and O, where Low or Positive Impact is assigned a score of 3, Medium or No Impact a score of 2, and High or Negative Impact a score of 1.
    X Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The rounding of the average of columns U, V, and W, adding 1 to the result if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability (column P).
    Y Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The sum of columns T and X, adding 3 for Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, and 1 to Optimize Cost-to-value (column H).
    Z Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Preliminary priority assessment based on the Define Priority Threshold worksheet (hidden, see next slide).

    Review the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Validate cost and feasibility estimates (columns I to P previously filled - steps 2.2 and 3.1) driving the Priority Score and Preliminary Priority Assessment.

    Template & Example

    Priority threshold rationale

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Define Priority Threshold Worksheet

    Refer to the screenshot of the Define Priority Threshold worksheet below to understand the rationale behind the priority score and priority level:

    Priority threshold rationale

    Template & Example

    Estimate your timeline

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete timeline estimates for each asset optimization initiative:

    Estimate your timeline

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    AA, AC Dropdown Select the quarter(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AB, AD Dropdown Select the year(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AE Dropdown Select the number of remaining quarters, in the current fiscal year, after you complete the initiative (0 to 4); based on columns AA to AD.
    AF Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Estimate of cost savings in the current fiscal year, based on the remaining quarters after implementation. The entry in column AE is divided by 4, and the result is multiplied by the related estimated cost savings per year (entry in column L).
    AG Dropdown Select if cost savings after the implementation of the underlying initiative will be permanent or temporary.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate quarter and year to start and complete the initiative.
    3. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of the initiative.

    Template & Example

    Make your final decisions

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to assign the final priority for each asset optimization initiative, and include it in your 12-month roadmap:

    Make your final decisions

    Column ID Row ID Input Type Guidelines
    AH - Dropdown Select your final priority decision after reviewing the preliminary priority assessment (column Z) and timeline estimates (columns AA to AG).
    AI - Dropdown Select whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap (Yes or No).
    AK, AL 5 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The total number of initiatives you decided to include in your 12-month roadmap; based on column AI when Yes is selected.
    AK, AL 6 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings per year after the initiative's completion; based on column L when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    AK, AL 7 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings in the current fiscal year; based on column AF when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    • Estimated cost savings per year refer to cost savings fully realized by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, following the initiatives' implementation.
    • Estimated cost savings in the current budget cycle, refer to cost savings partially realized in the current fiscal year, after the initiatives' implementation.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative.
    3. Decide whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap.

    3.2.2 Prioritize your vendor optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each vendor optimization initiative to set the priority.
    2. Validate your cost and feasibility estimates and consider the automated evaluation, in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, providing you with a preliminary priority based on your cost and feasibility estimates (see next slides).
    3. Revisit your overarching goals (step 1.4) as you will assess the time it will take you to complete your initiatives and prioritize accordingly.
    4. Determine your start and end date for each initiative based on your journey, objectives, and overarching goals. Consider the urgency of each initiative. Document the quarter and year for your start and end dates in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of each initiative to get a cost savings estimate for the current fiscal year. Document the number of remaining quarters (0, 1, 2, 3, or 4) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    6. Decide on the priority of each initiative (High, Medium, or Low), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    7. Revisit the priority decision after prioritizing all your initiatives and determine which ones to include in your 12-month roadmap; consider the number of initiatives you can tackle at the same time within a 12-month period. Document your final decision (Yes or No) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Vendor optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    Materials Participants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • IT vendor management lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Understand your priority assessment

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how the preliminary priority assessment is assigned, for each vendor optimization initiative, noting that columns Q to X are hidden automatic calculations and should not be touched:

    Understand your priority assessment

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    R Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Rank of estimate cost savings (per year) in ascending order (higher cost savings implies a higher rank).
    S Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Savings Score on a scale of 1 to 3, where the top third in Cost Savings Rank are assigned a score of 1, the bottom third a score of 3, and in between a score of 2, noting that negative cost savings would imply a -1 score.
    T Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Score adds 1 to the Cost Savings Score if the underlying initiative is within the budget.
    U, V, W Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. A score on a scale of 1 to 3 based on input of columns M, N, and O, where Low or Positive Impact is assigned a score of 3, Medium or No Impact a score of 2, and High or Negative Impact a score of 1.
    X Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The rounding of the average of columns U, V, and W, adding 1 to the result if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability (column P).
    Y Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The sum of columns T and X, adding 3 for Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, and 1 to Optimize Cost-to-Value (column H).
    Z Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Preliminary priority assessment based on the Define Priority Threshold worksheet (hidden, see next slide).

    Review the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Validate cost and feasibility estimates (columns I to P previously filled - steps 2.2 and 3.1) driving the Priority Score and Preliminary Priority Assessment.

    Template & Example

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Define Priority Threshold Worksheet

    Refer to the screenshot of the Define Priority Threshold worksheet below to understand the rationale behind the Priority Score and Priority Level:

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Template & Example

    Estimate your timeline

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization – Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete timeline estimates for each vendor optimization initiative:

    Estimate your timeline

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    AA, AC Dropdown Select the quarter(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AB, AD Dropdown Select the year(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AE Dropdown Select the number of remaining quarters, in the current fiscal year, after you complete the initiative (0 to 4); based on columns AA to AD.
    AF Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Estimate of cost savings in the current fiscal year, based on the remaining quarters after implementation. The entry in column AE is divided by 4, and the result is multiplied by the related estimated cost savings per year (entry in column L).
    AG Dropdown Select if cost savings after the implementation of the underlying initiative will be Permanent or Temporary.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate quarter and year to start and complete the initiative.
    3. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of the initiative.

    Template & Example

    Make your final decisions

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to assign the final priority for each vendor optimization initiative, and include it in your 12-month roadmap:

    Make your final decisions

    Column ID Row ID Input Type Guidelines
    AH - Dropdown Select your final priority decision after reviewing the preliminary priority assessment (column Z) and timeline estimates (columns AA to AG).
    AI - Dropdown Select whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap (Yes or No).
    AK, AL 5 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The total number of initiatives you decided to include in your 12-month roadmap; based on column AI when Yes is selected.
    AK, AL 6 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings per year after the initiative's completion; based on column L when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    AK, AL 7 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings in the current fiscal year; based on column AF when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    • Estimated cost savings per year refer to cost savings fully realized by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, following the initiatives' implementation.
    • Estimated cost savings in the current budget cycle, refer to cost savings partially realized in the current fiscal year, after the initiatives' implementation.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative.
    3. Decide whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap.

    3.2.3 Prioritize your project portfolio optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each project portfolio optimization initiative to set the priority.
    2. Validate your cost and feasibility estimates and consider the automated evaluation, in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, providing you with a preliminary priority based on your cost and feasibility estimates (see next slides).
    3. Revisit your overarching goals (step 1.4) as you will assess the time it will take you to complete your initiatives and prioritize accordingly.
    4. Determine your start and end date for each initiative based on your journey, objectives, and overarching goals. Consider the urgency of each initiative. Document the quarter and year for your start and end dates in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of each initiative to get a cost savings estimate for the current fiscal year. Document the number of remaining quarters (0, 1, 2, 3, or 4) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    6. Decide on the priority of each initiative (High, Medium, or Low), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    7. Revisit the priority decision after prioritizing all your initiatives and determine which ones to include in your 12-month roadmap; consider the number of initiatives you can tackle at the same time within a 12-month period. Document your final decision (Yes or No) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Project portfolio optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Understand your priority assessment

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how the preliminary priority assessment is assigned, for each project portfolio optimization initiative, noting that columns Q to X are hidden automatic calculations and should not be touched:

    Understand your priority assessment

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    R Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Rank of Estimate Cost Savings (per year) in ascending order (higher cost savings implies a higher rank).
    S Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Savings Score on a scale of 1 to 3, where the top third in Cost Savings Rank are assigned a score of 1, the bottom third a score of 3, and in between a score of 2, noting that negative cost savings would imply a -1 score.
    T Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Score adds 1 to the Cost Savings Score if the underlying initiative is within the budget.
    U, V, W Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. A score on a scale of 1 to 3 based on input of columns M, N, and O, where Low or Positive Impact is assigned a score of 3, Medium or No Impact a score of 2, and High or Negative Impact a score of 1.
    X Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The rounding of the average of columns U, V, and W, adding 1 to the result if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability (column P).
    Y Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The sum of columns T and X, adding 3 for Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, and 1 to Optimize Cost-to-Value (column H).
    Z Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Preliminary Priority Assessment based on the Define Priority Threshold worksheet (hidden, see next slide).

    Review the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Validate cost and feasibility estimates (columns I to P previously filled - steps 2.2 and 3.1) driving the Priority Score and Preliminary Priority Assessment.

    Template & Example

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Define Priority Threshold Worksheet

    Refer to the screenshot of the Define Priority Threshold worksheet below to understand the rationale behind the Priority Score and Priority Level:

    Priority threshold rationale

    Template & Example

    Estimate your timeline

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete timeline estimates for each project portfolio optimization initiative:

    Estimate your timeline

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    AA, AC Dropdown Select the quarter(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AB, AD Dropdown Select the year(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AE Dropdown Select the number of remaining quarters, in the current fiscal year, after you complete the initiative (0 to 4); based on columns AA to AD.
    AF Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Estimate of cost savings in the current fiscal year, based on the remaining quarters after implementation. The entry in column AE is divided by 4, and the result is multiplied by the related estimated cost savings per year (entry in column L).
    AG Dropdown Select if cost savings after the implementation of the underlying initiative will be Permanent or Temporary.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate quarter and year to start and complete the initiative.
    3. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of the initiative.

    Template & Example

    Make your final decisions

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to assign the final priority for each project portfolio optimization initiative and include it in your 12-month roadmap:

    Make your final decisions

    Column ID Row ID Input Type Guidelines
    AH - Dropdown Select your final priority decision after reviewing the preliminary priority assessment (column Z) and timeline estimates (columns AA to AG).
    AI - Dropdown Select whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap (Yes or No).
    AK, AL 5 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The total number of initiatives you decided to include in your 12-month roadmap; based on column AI when Yes is selected.
    AK, AL 6 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings per year after the initiative's completion; based on column L when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    AK, AL 7 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings in the current fiscal year; based on column AF when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    • Estimated cost savings per year refer to cost savings fully realized by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, following the initiatives' implementation.
    • Estimated cost savings in the current budget cycle, refer to cost savings partially realized in the current fiscal year, after the initiatives' implementation.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative.
    3. Decide whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap.

    3.2.4 Prioritize your workforce optimization initiatives

    1 hour

    1. Review each workforce optimization initiative to set the priority.
    2. Validate your cost and feasibility estimates and consider the automated evaluation, in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, providing you with a preliminary priority based on your cost and feasibility estimates (see next slides).
    3. Revisit your overarching goals (step 1.4) as you will assess the time it will take you to complete your initiatives and prioritize accordingly.
    4. Determine your start and end date for each initiative based on your journey, objectives, and overarching goals. Consider the urgency of each initiative. Document the quarter and year for your start and end dates in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    5. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of each initiative to get a cost savings estimate for the current fiscal year. Document the number of remaining quarters (0, 1, 2, 3, or 4) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    6. Decide on the priority of each initiative (High, Medium, or Low), and document it in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    7. Revisit the priority decision after prioritizing all your initiatives and determine which ones to include in your 12-month roadmap; consider the number of initiatives you can tackle at the same time within a 12-month period. Document your final decision (Yes or No) in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Workforce optimization initiatives
    • Time and priority estimates of cost optimization initiatives in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Define Priority Threshold tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • Talent management representative
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Understand your priority assessment

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how the preliminary priority assessment is assigned, for each workforce optimization initiative, noting that columns Q to X are hidden automatic calculations and should not be touched:

    Understand your priority assessment

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    R Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Rank of Estimate Cost Savings (per year) in ascending order (higher cost savings implies a higher rank).
    S Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Savings Score on a scale of 1 to 3, where the top third in Cost Savings Rank are assigned a score of 1, the bottom third a score of 3, and in between a score of 2, noting that negative cost savings would imply a -1 score.
    T Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Cost Score adds 1 to the Cost Savings Score if the underlying initiative is within the budget.
    U, V, W Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. A score on a scale of 1 to 3 based on input of columns M, N, and O, where Low or Positive Impact is assigned a score of 3, Medium or No Impact a score of 2, and High or Negative Impact a score of 1.
    X Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The rounding of the average of columns U, V, and W, adding 1 to the result if the initiative's approval falls within your accountability (column P).
    Y Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. The sum of columns T and X, adding 3 for Reduce Unwarranted IT Spending, and 1 to Optimize Cost-to-Value (column H).
    Z Formula Hidden automatic calculation, no entry required. Preliminary Priority Assessment based on the Define Priority Threshold worksheet (hidden, see next slide).

    Review the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Validate cost and feasibility estimates (columns I to P previously filled - steps 2.2 and 3.1) driving the Priority Score and Preliminary Priority Assessment.

    Template & Example

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Define Priority Threshold

    Refer to the screenshot of the Define Priority Threshold worksheet below to understand the rationale behind the Priority Score and Priority Level:

    Priority Threshold Rationale

    Template & Example

    Estimate your timeline

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to complete timeline estimates for each workforce optimization initiative:

    Estimate your timeline

    Column ID Input Type Guidelines
    AA, AC Dropdown Select the quarter(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AB, AD Dropdown Select the year(s) in which you plan to begin and complete your initiative.
    AE Dropdown Select the number of remaining quarters, in the current fiscal year, after you complete the initiative (0 to 4); based on columns AA to AD.
    AF Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Estimate of cost savings in the current fiscal year, based on the remaining quarters after implementation. The entry in column AE is divided by 4, and the result is multiplied by the related estimated cost savings per year (entry in column L).
    AG Dropdown Select if cost savings after the implementation of the underlying initiative will be Permanent or Temporary.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the appropriate quarter and year to start and complete the initiative.
    3. Identify the time remaining in your current budget cycle after the completion of the initiative.

    Template & Example

    Make your final decisions

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Worksheet

    Refer to the example and guidelines below on how to assign the final priority for each workforce optimization initiative, and include it in your 12-month roadmap:

    Make your final decisions

    Column ID Row ID Input Type Guidelines
    AH - Dropdown Select your final priority decision after reviewing the preliminary priority assessment (column Z) and timeline estimates (columns AA to AG).
    AI - Dropdown Select whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap (Yes or No).
    AK, AL 5 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. The total number of initiatives you decided to include in your 12-month roadmap; based on column AI when Yes is selected.
    AK, AL 6 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings per year after the initiative's completion; based on column L when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    AK, AL 7 Formula Automatic calculation, no entry required. Total estimated cost savings in the current fiscal year; based on column AF when included in the 12-month roadmap (column AI when Yes is selected)
    • Estimated cost savings per year refer to cost savings fully realized by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, following the initiatives' implementation.
    • Estimated cost savings in the current budget cycle, refer to cost savings partially realized in the current fiscal year, after the initiatives' implementation.

    Complete the following fields for each initiative in the Excel Workbook as per guidelines:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives tab.
    2. Determine the final priority of the initiative.
    3. Decide whether you want to include the initiative in your 12-month roadmap.

    3.3 Develop your cost optimization roadmap

    1 hour

    1. Conduct a final evaluation of your timeline, priority decision, and initiatives you wish to include in your 12-month roadmap. Do they make sense, are they achievable, and do they all contribute individually and collectively to reaching your cost optimization goals?
    2. Review your 12-month roadmap outputs in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slides).
    3. Make adjustments to your 12-month roadmap by adding or removing initiatives as you deem necessary (step 3.2).
    4. Document your final roadmap - including initiatives and relative time frames for execution - in the IT Cost Optimization Roadmap templates provided (see slide 97). The 12-month roadmap outputs from the IT Cost Optimization Workbook (see next slide) can facilitate this task.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    Input Output
    • Outline Initiatives tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook, output from previous steps
    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap
    Materials Participants
    • Outline Initiatives Charts tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Diagram Results tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • List Results tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Timeline Result tab in the IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT financial lead
    • Other IT management

    Template & Example

    Potential Cost Savings Per Year

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Outline Initiatives Charts Worksheet

    Refer to the example below on charts depicting different views of estimated cost savings per year across the four optimization levers (Assets, Vendors, Project Portfolio, and Workforce) that could help you in your assessment and decision making.

    Potential cost savings per year

    From the Excel Workbook, after completing your potential initiatives and filling all related entries in the Outline Initiatives tab:

    1. Navigate to the Outline Initiatives Charts tab.
    2. Review each of the charts.
    3. Navigate back to the Outline Initiatives tab to examine, drill down, and amend individual initiative entries or final decisions as you deem necessary.

    Template & Example

    12-month Roadmap Outputs

    Excel Workbook: IT Cost Optimization - Diagram Results, List Results, and Timeline Result Worksheets

    Refer to the example below depicting different roadmap output that could help you in presentations, assessment, and decision making.

    12-month Roadmap Outputs

    From the Excel Workbook:

    1. Navigate to the Diagram Results tab. This bubble diagram represent cost optimization initiatives by objective where each bubble size is determined by its estimated cost saving per year.
    2. Navigate to the List Results tab. You will find a list of the cost optimizations initiatives you've chosen to include in your roadmap and related charts.
    3. Navigate to the Timeline Result tab. This Gantt chart is a timeline view of the cost optimizations initiatives you've chosen to include in your roadmap.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    IT cost optimization roadmap

    Phase 4

    Communicate and Execute

    Phase 1
    Understand Your Mandate and Objectives

    Phase 2
    Outline Your Cost Optimization Initiatives

    Phase 3
    Develop Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    Phase 4
    Communicate and Execute

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Cost optimization communication plan
    • Cost optimization executive presentation

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO/IT director
    • IT finance lead
    • PMO lead
    • Other IT management

    Build Your IT Cost Optimization Roadmap

    4.1 Build the communication plan

    45 to 60 minutes

    1. Use the Cost Optimization Communication Plan templates and guidance on the following slides.
    2. Complete the template to develop your communication plan for your cost optimization proposal and initiatives. At a minimum, it should include:
      1. Steps for preparing and presenting your proposal to decision-makers, sponsors, and other stakeholders, including named presenters and points of contact in IT.
      2. Checkpoints for communication throughout the execution of each initiative and the cost optimization roadmap overall, including target audiences, accountabilities, modes and methods of communication, type/scope of information to be communicated at each checkpoint, and any decision/approval steps.

    Download the IT Cost Optimization Workbook

    InputOutput
    • Cost optimization roadmap
    • Completed draft of the Cost Optimization Communication Plan
    MaterialsParticipants
    • IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap
    • Info-Tech's Cost Optimization Communication Plan template
    • CIO/IT director
    • IT financial lead
    • Other IT management

    Understand a communication strategy's purpose

    Put as much effort into developing your communication strategy as you would into planning and executing the cost optimization initiatives themselves. Don't skip this part.

    Your communication strategy has two major components ...

    1. A tactical plan for how and when you'll communicate with stakeholders about your proposals, activities, and progress toward meeting cost optimization goals.
    2. An executive or board presentation that outlines your final proposed cost optimization initiatives, their respective business cases, and resources/support required with the goal of gaining approval to execute.

    Your communication strategy will need to ...

    • Provide answers to the "What's in it for me?" question from all impacted stakeholders.
    • Roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities before, during, and after initiatives are completed.
    • Descriptions and high-level information about dates, deliverables, and impacts of the specific changes being made.

    You will also develop more detailed operational and project plans for each initiative. IT will use these plans to manage and track the execution of individual initiatives when the time comes.

    Template & Example

    Document the overall what and why of your planned communications

    Component Purpose Context Key Messages Intended Outcomes
    Definition Description of the topic and why you're communicating with this specific audience right now. Background information about the broader situation and how you got to where you are today. The main points you want your target audience to hear/read, absorb, and remember. What you hope you and your audience will get at the end of the communication or effort.
    Our Language
    • IT is proposing an organization-wide array of initiatives in order to reduce IT costs. We are seeking your approval and support to carry out these initiatives.
    • [Purpose]
    • The economy is in active downturn and may become a full recession.
    • IT is anticipating mandatory cost reductions and has opted to take a proactive position.
    • We used an analytical framework to look at all areas of the organization to identify and prioritize IT cost-reduction opportunities.
    • [Context]
    • IT is being proactive.
    • IT is sensitive to the business.
    • IT needs your support.
    • IT is committed to keeping you informed at every step.
    • IT wants to position the organization for rapid recovery when the economy improves.
    • [Message]
    • Buy-in, approval, and ongoing support for cost optimization initiatives proposed.
    • Update on the status of specific initiatives, including what's happened, progress, and what's coming next.
    • [Outcome]

    Template & Example

    Next, note the who, how, and when of your communication plan

    Stakeholder/Approver Initiatives Impact Format Time frame Messenger
    CEO
    • Reduce number of Minitab licenses
    • Defer hiring of new data architecture position
    • Cancel VR simulation project
    Indefinitely delays current strategic projects Monthly meeting discussion Last Wednesday of every month starting Oct. 26, FY1 CIO, IT data analytics project lead, IT VR project lead
    IT Steering Committee
    • Adjust service level framework and level assignments
    • Postpone purchases for network modernization
    • Postpone workstation/laptop upgrades for non-production functions
    • Outsource data analytics project
    Nearly all of these initiatives are enterprise-wide or affect multiple departments. Varying direct and indirect impacts will need to be independently communicated for each initiative if approved by the ITS.

    Formal presentation at quarterly ITS meetings

    Monthly progress updates via email bulletin

    Approval presentation: Oct. 31, FY1

    Quarterly updates: Jan. 31, Apr. 28, and Jul. 28, FY2

    CIO, IT service director, IT infrastructure director, IT data analytics project lead
    VP of Sales
    • Pause Salesforce view redesign project
    Delays new sales tool efficiency improvement. Meeting discussion Nov. FY1 CIO, IT Salesforce view redesign project lead
    [Name/Title/Group]
    • [Initiative]
    • [Initiative]
    [Impact statement] [Format] [Date/Period] [Name/Title]
    [Name/Title/Group]
    • [Initiative]
    • [Initiative]
    [Impact statement] [Format] [Date/Period] [Name/Title]
    [Name/Title/Group]
    • [Initiative]
    • [Initiative]
    [Impact statement] [Format] [Date/Period] [Name/Title]

    4.2 Build the executive presentation

    45-60 minutes

    1. Download Info-Tech's IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates.
    2. Update the content with the outputs of your cost optimization roadmap and data/graph elements from the IT Cost Optimization Workbook. Refer to your organization's standards and norms for executive-level presentations and adapt accordingly.

    Download IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates

    Input Output
    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap
    • IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • Completed draft of the IT Cost Optimization Executive Presentation
    Materials Participants
    • IT Cost Optimization Workbook
    • IT Cost Optimization Roadmap Samples and Templates
    • CIO/IT directors
    • IT financial lead
    • Other IT management

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Congratulations! You now have an IT cost optimization strategy and a communication plan.

    Throughout this blueprint, you have:

    1. Identified your IT mandate and cost optimization journey.
    2. Outlined your initiatives across the four levers (assets, vendors, project portfolio, and workforce).
    3. Put together a 12-month IT cost optimization roadmap.
    4. Developed a communication strategy and crafted an executive presentation - your initial step to communicate and discuss IT cost optimization initiatives with your key stakeholders.

    What's next?

    Communicate with your stakeholders, then follow your internal project policies and procedures to get the necessary approvals as required. Once obtained, you can start the execution and implementation of your IT cost optimization strategy.

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

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Jennifer Perrier, Principal Research Director, IT Financial Management

    Jennifer Perrier
    Principal Research Director, IT Financial Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Jack Hakimian, Senior Vice President, Research Development

    Jack Hakimian
    Senior Vice President, Research Development
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Graham Price, Senior Executive Counselor, Executive Services

    Graham Price
    Senior Executive Counselor, Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Travis Duncan, Research Director, Project & Portfolio Management

    Travis Duncan
    Research Director, Project & Portfolio Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Dave Kish, Practice Lead, IT Financial Management

    Dave Kish
    Practice Lead, IT Financial Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Baird Miller, PhD, Senior Executive Advisor, Executive Services

    Baird Miller, PhD
    Senior Executive Advisor, Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Other Research Contributors and Experts

    Monica Braun
    Research Director, IT Financial Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Sandi Conrad
    Principal Advisory Director, Infrastructure & Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Phil Bode
    Principal Advisory Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Donna Glidden
    Advisory Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Barry Cousins
    Distinguished Analyst & Research Fellow
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Andrew Sharp
    Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Frank Sewell
    Advisory Director, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Achieve IT Spend & Staffing Transparency
    Most CIOs, CFOs, and business function leaders don't enjoy a shared vocabulary when it comes to talking about technology spend. As a result, truly meaningful conversations about where and how to spend technology funds in support of business goals are rare. Enable these important conversations by transparently mapping your IT spend data against four key stakeholder views.

    Reduce Shadow IT With a Service Request Catalog
    As the business gets more innovative to solve its problems, IT finds itself in reactive mode, dealing with software bloat, managing surprise SaaS renewals, and having to integrate products that they didn't know were purchased. To solve this, IT needs to focus on service and visibility to counter Shadow IT.

    Bibliography

    "A Short Guide to Structured Cost Reduction." National Audit Office, 18 June 2010. Web.

    "IT Cost Savings: A Guide to Application Rationalization." LeanIX, 2021. Web.

    Jouravlev, Roman. "Service Financial Management: ITIL 4 Practice Guide." Axelos, 30 April 2020. Web.

    Leinwand, Paul, and Vinay Couto. "How to Cut Costs More Strategically." Harvard Business Review, March 2017. Web.

    "Role & Influence of the Technology Decision-Maker 2022." Foundry, 2022. Web.

    "State of the CIO 2022." CIO, 2022. Web.

    "The Definitive Guide to IT Cost Optimization." LeanIX, n.d. Web.

    "Understand the Principles of Cost Optimization." Google Cloud, n.d. Web.

    Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}542|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Attract & Select
    • Parent Category Link: /attract-and-select
    • Workplace flexibility continues to be top priority for IT employees. Organizations who fail to offer flexibility will have a difficult time attracting, recruiting, and retaining talent.
    • When the benefits of remote work are not available to everyone, this raises fairness and equity concerns.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    IT excels at hybrid location work and is more effective as a business function when location flexibility is an option for its employees. But hybrid work is just a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location, so organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent.

    Impact and Result

    • Uncover the needs of unique employee segments to shortlist flexible work options that employees want and will use.
    • Assess the feasibility of various flexible work options and select ones that meet employee needs and are feasible for the organization.
    • Equip leaders with the information and tools needed to implement and sustain a flexible work program.

    Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess employee and organizational flexibility needs

    Identify prioritized employee segments, flexibility challenges, and the desired state to inform program goals.

    • Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT – Phases 1-3
    • Talent Metrics Library
    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    2. Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility

    Review, shortlist, and assess the feasibility of common types of flexible work. Identify implementation issues and cultural barriers.

    • Flexible Work Focus Group Guide
    • Flexible Work Options Catalog

    3. Implement selected option(s)

    Equip managers and employees to adopt flexible work options while addressing implementation issues and cultural barriers and aligning HR programs.

    • Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees
    • Flexible Work Time Policy
    • Flexible Work Time Off Policy
    • Flexible Work Location Policy

    Infographic

    Workshop: Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Prepare to Assess Flex Work Feasibility

    The Purpose

    Gather information on organizational and employee flexibility needs.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand the flexibility needs of the organization and its employees to inform a targeted flex work program.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify employee and organizational needs.

    1.2 Identify employee segments.

    1.3 Establish program goals and metrics.

    1.4 Shortlist flexible work options.

    Outputs

    Organizational context summary

    List of shortlisted flex work options

    2 Assess Flex Work Feasibility

    The Purpose

    Perform a data-driven feasibility analysis on shortlisted work options.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A data-driven feasibility analysis ensures your flex work program meets its goals.

    Activities

    2.1 Conduct employee/manager focus groups to assess feasibility of flex work options.

    Outputs

    Summary of flex work options feasibility per employee segment

    3 Finalize Flex Work Options

    The Purpose

    Select the most impactful flex work options and create a plan for addressing implementation challenge

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A data-driven selection process ensures decisions and exceptions can be communicated with full transparency.

    Activities

    3.1 Finalize list of approved flex work options.

    3.2 Brainstorm solutions to implementation issues.

    3.3 Identify how to overcome cultural barriers.

    Outputs

    Final list of flex work options

    Implementation barriers and solutions summary

    4 Prepare for Implementation

    The Purpose

    Create supporting materials to ensure program implementation proceeds smoothly.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Employee- and manager-facing guides and policies ensure the program is clearly documented and communicated.

    Activities

    4.1 Design employee and manager guide prototype.

    4.2 Align HR programs and policies to support flexible work.

    4.3 Create a communication plan.

    Outputs

    Employee and manager guide to flexible work

    Flex work roadmap and communication plan

    5 Next Steps and Wrap-Up

    The Purpose

    Put everything together and prepare to implement.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Our analysts will support you in synthesizing the workshop’s efforts into a cohesive implementation strategy.

    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.

    Outputs

    Completed flexible work feasibility workbook

    Flexible work communication plan

    Further reading

    Develop a Targeted Flexible Work Program for IT

    Select flexible work options that balance organizational and employee needs to drive engagement and improve attraction and retention.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • IT leaders continue to struggle with workplace flexibility, and it is a top priority for IT employees; as a result, organizations who fail to offer flexibility will have a difficult time attracting, recruiting, and retaining talent.
    • The benefits of remote work are not available to everyone, raising fairness and equity concerns for employees.

    Common Obstacles

    • A one-size-fits-all approach to selecting and implementing flexible work options fails to consider unique employee needs and will not reap the benefits of offering a flexible work program (e.g. higher engagement or enhanced employer brand).
    • Improper structure and implementation of flexible work programs exacerbates existing challenges (e.g. high turnover) or creates new ones.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    • Uncover the needs of unique employee segments to shortlist flexible work options that employees want and will use.
    • Assess the feasibility of various flexible work options and select ones that meet employee needs and are feasible for the organization.
    • Equip leaders with the information and tools needed to implement and sustain a flexible work program.

    Info-Tech Insight

    IT excels at hybrid location work and is more effective as a business function when location flexibility is an option for its employees. But hybrid work is just a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location, so organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent.

    Flexible work arrangements are a requirement in today's world of work

    Flexible work continues to gain momentum…

    A 2022 LinkedIn report found that the following occurred between 2019 and 2021:

    +362%

    Increase in LinkedIn members sharing content with the term "flexible work."

    +83%

    Increase in job postings that mention "flexibility."
    (LinkedIn, 2022)

    In 2022, Into-Tech found that hybrid was the most commonly used location work model for IT across all industries.

    ("State of Hybrid Work in IT," Info-Tech Research Group, 2022)

    …and employees are demanding more flexibility

    90%

    of employees said they want schedule and location flexibility ("Global Employee Survey," EY, 2021).

    17%

    of resigning IT employees cited lack of flexible work options as a reason ("IT Talent Trends 2022," Info-Tech Research Group, 2022).

    71%

    of executives said they felt "pressure to change working models and adapt workplace policies to allow for greater flexibility" (LinkedIn, 2021).

    Therefore, organizations who fail to offer flexibility will be left behind

    Difficulty attracting and retaining talent

    98% of IT employees say flexible work options are important in choosing an employer ("IT Talent Trends 2022," Info-Tech Research Group, 2022).

    Worsening employee wellbeing and burnout

    Knowledge workers with minimal to no schedule flexibility are 2.2x more likely to experience work-related stress and are 1.4x more likely to suffer from burnout (Slack, 2022; N=10,818).

    Offering workplace flexibility benefits organizations and employees

    Higher performance

    IT departments that offer some degree of location flexibility are more effective at supporting the organization than those who do not.

    35% of service desk functions report improved service since implementing location flexibility.
    ("State of Hybrid Work in IT," Info-Tech Research Group, 2023).

    Enhanced employer brand

    Employees are 2.1x more likely to recommend their employer to others when they are satisfied with their organization's flexible work arrangements (LinkedIn, 2021).

    Improved attraction

    41% of IT departments cite an expanded hiring pool as a key benefit of hybrid work.

    Organizations that mention "flexibility" in their job postings have 35% more engagement with their posts (LinkedIn, 2022).

    Increased job satisfaction

    IT employees who have more control over their working arrangement experience a greater sense of contribution and trust in leadership ("State of Hybrid Work in IT," Info-Tech Research Group, 2023).

    Better work-life balance

    81% of employees say flexible work will positively impact their work-life balance (FlexJobs, 2021).

    Boosted inclusivity

    • Caregivers regardless of gender, supporting them in balancing responsibilities
    • Individuals with disabilities, enabling them to work from the comfort of their homes
    • Women who may have increased responsibilities
    • Women of color to mitigate the emotional tax experienced at work

    Info-Tech Insight

    Flexible work options are not a concession to lower productivity. Properly implemented, flex work enables employees to be more productive at reaching business goals.

    Despite the popularity of flexible work options, not all employees can participate

    IT organizations differ on how much flexibility different roles can have.

    IT employees were asked what percentage of IT roles were currently in a hybrid or remote work arrangement ("State of Hybrid Work in IT," Info-Tech Research Group, 2023).

    However, the benefits of remote work are not available to all, which raises fairness and equity concerns between remote and onsite employees.

    45%

    of employers said, "one of the biggest risks will be their ability to establish fairness and equity among employees when some jobs require a fixed schedule or location, creating a 'have and have not' dynamic based on roles" ("Businesses Suffering," EY, 2021).

    Offering schedule flexibility to employees who need to be fully onsite can be used to close the fairness and equity gap.

    When offered the choice, 54% of employees said they would choose schedule flexibility over location flexibility ("Global Employee Survey," EY, 2021).

    When employees were asked "What choice would you want your employer to provide related to when you have to work?" The top three choices were:

    68%

    Flexibility on when to start and finish work

    38%

    Compressed or four-day work weeks

    33%

    Fixed hours (e.g. 9am to 5pm)

    Disclaimer: "Percentages do not sum to 100%, as each respondent could choose up to three of the [five options provided]" ("Global Employee Survey," EY, 2021).

    Beware of the "all or nothing" approach

    There is no one-size-fits-all approach to workplace flexibility.

    Understanding the needs of various employee segments in the organization is critical to the success of a flexible work program.

    Working parents want more flexibility

    82%

    of working mothers desire flexibility in where they work.

    48%

    of working fathers "want to work remotely 3 to 5 days a week."

    Historically underrepresented groups value more flexibility

    38%

    "Thirty-eight percent of Black male employees and 33% of Black female employees would prefer a fully flexible schedule, compared to 25% of white female employees and 26% of white male employees."
    (Slack, 2022; N=10,818)

    33%

    Workplace flexibility must be customized to the organization to avoid longer working hours and heavy workloads that impact employee wellbeing

    84%

    of remote workers and 61% of onsite workers reported working longer hours post pandemic. Longer working hours were attributed to reasons such as pressure from management and checking emails after working hours (Indeed, 2021).

    2.6x

    Respondents who either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "Generally, I find my workload reasonable" were 2.6x more likely to be engaged compared to those who stated they disagreed or strongly disagreed (McLean & Company Engagement Survey Database;2022; N=5,615 responses).

    Longer hours and unsustainable workloads can contribute to stress and burnout, which is a threat to employee engagement and retention. With careful management (e.g. setting clear expectations and establishing manageable workloads), flexible work arrangement benefits can be preserved.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Employees' lived experiences and needs determine if people use flexible work programs – a flex program that has limited use or excludes people will not benefit the organization.

    Develop a flexible work program that meets employee and organizational needs

    This is an image of a sample flexible work program which meets employee and organizational needs.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight: IT excels at hybrid location work and is more effective as a business function when location, time, and time-off flexibility are an option for its employees.

    Introduction

    Step 1 insight

    Step 2 insight

    Step 3 insight

    • Flexible work options are not a concession to lower productivity. Properly implemented, flex work enables employees to be more productive at reaching business goals.
    • Employees' lived experiences and needs determine if people use flexible work programs – a flex program that has limited use or excludes people will not benefit the organization.
    • Flexible work benefits everyone. IT employees experience greater engagement, motivation, and company loyalty. IT organizations realize benefits such as better service coverage, reduced facilities costs, and increased productivity.
    • Hybrid work is a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location to flexible time and time off. Organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent. Provide greater inclusivity to employees by broadening the scope to include flex location, flex time, and flex time off.
    • No two employee segments are the same. To be effective, flexible work options must align with the expectations and working processes of each segment.
    • Every role is eligible for hybrid location work. If onsite work duties prevent an employee group from participating, see if processes can be digitized or automated. Flexible work is an opportunity to go beyond current needs to future proofing your organization.
    • Flexible work options must balance organizational and employee needs. If an option is beneficial to employees but there is little or no benefit to the organization, or if the cost of the option is too high, it will not support the long-term success of the organization.
    • Prioritize flexible work options that employees want. Providing too many options often leads to information overload and results in employees not understanding what is available, lowering adoption of the flexible work program.
    • Leaders' collective support of the flexible program determines the program's successful adoption. Don't sweep cultural barriers under the rug; acknowledge and address them to overcome them.
    • Negative performance of a flexible work option does not necessarily mean failure. Take the time to evaluate whether the option simply needs to be tweaked or whether it truly isn't working for the organization.
    • A set of formal guidelines for IT ensures flexible work is:
      1. Administered fairly across all IT employees.
      2. Defensible and clear.
      3. Scalable to the rest of the organization.

    Case Study

    Expanding hybrid work at Info-Tech

    Challenge

    In 2020, Info-Tech implemented emergency work-from-home for its IT department, along with the rest of the organization. Now in 2023, hybrid work is firmly embedded in Info-Tech's culture, with plans to continue location flexibility for the foreseeable future.

    Adjusting to the change came with lessons learned and future-looking questions.

    Lessons Learned

    Moving into remote work was made easier by certain enablers that had already been put in place. These included issuing laptops instead of desktops to the user base and using an existing cloud-based infrastructure. Much support was already being done remotely, making the transition for the support teams virtually seamless.

    Continuing hybrid work has brought benefits such as reduced commuting costs for employees, higher engagement, and satisfaction among staff that their preferences were heard.

    Looking Forward

    Every flexible work implementation is a work in progress and must be continually revisited to ensure it continues to meet organizational and employee needs. Current questions being explored at Info-Tech are:

    • The concept of the "office as a tool" – how does use of the office change when it is used for specific collaboration-related tasks, rather than everything? How should the physical space change to support this?
    • What does a viable replacement for quick hallway meetings look like in a remote world where communication is much more deliberate? How can managers adjust their practices to ensure the benefits of informal encounters aren't lost?

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Preparation

    Step 1

    Step 2

    Step 3

    Follow-up

    Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #2: Assess employee and organizational needs.

    Call #3: Shortlist flex work options and assess feasibility.

    Call #4: Finalize flex work options and create rollout plan.

    Call #5: (Optional) Review rollout progress or evaluate pilot success.

    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 3 to 5 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Activities

    Prepare to assess flex work feasibility

    Assess flex work feasibility

    Finalize flex work options

    Prepare for implementation

    Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    1.1 Identify employee and organizational needs.

    1.2 Identify employee segments.

    1.3 Establish program goals and metrics.

    1.4 Shortlist flex work options.

    2.1 Conduct employee/manager focus groups to assess feasibility of flex work options.

    3.1 Finalize list of approved flex work options.

    3.2 Brainstorm solutions to implementation issues.

    3.2 Identify how to overcome cultural barriers.

    4.1 Design employee and manager guide prototype.

    4.2 Align HR programs and policies to support flexible work.

    4.3 Create a communication plan.

    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. Organizational context summary
    2. List of shortlisted flex work options
    1. Summary of flex work options' feasibility per employee segment
    1. 1.Final list of flex work options
    2. 2.Implementation barriers and solutions summary
    1. Employee and manager guide to flexible work
    2. Flex work roadmap and communication plan
    1. Completed flexible work feasibility workbook
    2. Flexible work communication plan

    Step 1

    Assess employee and organizational needs

    1. Assess employee and organizational flexibility needs
    2. Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility
    3. Implement selected option(s)

    After completing this step you will have:

    • Identified key stakeholders and their responsibilities
    • Uncovered the current and desired state of the organization
    • Analyzed feedback to identify flexibility challenges
    • Identified and prioritized employee segments
    • Determined the program goals
    • Identified the degree of flexibility for work location, timing, and deliverables

    Identify key stakeholders

    Organizational flexibility requires collaborative and cross-functional involvement to determine which flexible options will meet the needs of a diverse workforce. HR leads the project to explore flexible work options, while other stakeholders provide feedback during the identification and implementation processes.

    HR

    • Assist with the design, implementation, and maintenance of the program.
    • Provide managers and employees with guidance to establish successful flexible work arrangements.
    • Help develop communications to launch and maintain the program.

    Senior Leaders

    • Champion the project by modeling and promoting flexible work options
    • Help develop and deliver communications; set the tone for flexible work at the organization.
    • Provide input into determining program goals.

    Managers

    • Model flexible work options and encourage direct reports to request and discuss options.
    • Use flexible work program guidelines to work with direct reports to select suitable flexible work options.
    • Develop performance metrics and encourage communication between flexible and non-flexible workers.

    Flexible Workers

    • Indicate preferences of flexible work options to the manager.
    • Identify ways to maintain operational continuity and communication while working flexibly.
    • Flag issues and suggest improvements to the manager.
    • Develop creative ways to work with colleagues who don't work flexibly.

    Non-Flexible Workers

    • Share feedback on issues with flexible arrangements and their impact on operational continuity.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Flexible work is a holistic team effort. Leaders, flexible workers, teammates, and HR must clearly understand their roles to ensure that teams are set up for success.

    Uncover the current and desired state of flexibility in the organization

    Current State

    Target State

    Review:

    • Existing policies related to flexibility (e.g. vacation, work from anywhere)
    • Existing flexibility programs (e.g. seasonal hours) and their uptake
    • Productivity of employees
    • Current culture at the organization. Look for:
      • Employee autonomy
      • Reporting structure and performance management processes
      • Trust and psychological safety of employees
      • Leadership behavior (e.g. do leaders model work-life balance, or does the organization have a work 24/7 mentality?)

    Identify what is driving the need for flexible work options. Ask:

    • Why does the organization need flexible options?
      • For example, the introduction of flexibility for some employees has created a "have and have not" dynamic between roles that must be addressed.
    • What does the organization hope to gain from implementing flexible options? For example:
      • Improved retention
      • Increased attraction, remaining competitive for talent
      • Increased work-life balance for employees
      • Reduced burnout
    • What does the organization aspire to be?
      • For example, an organization that creates an environment that values output, not face time.

    These drivers identify goals for the organization to achieve through targeted flexible work options.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Hybrid work is a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location, so organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent. Provide greater inclusivity to employees by broadening the scope to include flex location, flex time, and flex time off.

    Identify employee segments

    Using the data, feedback, and challenges analyzed and uncovered so far, assess the organization and identify employee segments.

    Identify employee segments with common characteristics to assess if they require unique flexible work options. Assess the feasibility options for the segments separately in Step 2.

    • Segments' unique characteristics include:
      • Role responsibilities (e.g. interacting with users, creating reports, development and testing)
      • Work location/schedule (e.g. geographic, remote vs. onsite, 9 to 5)
      • Work processes (e.g. server maintenance, phone support)
      • Group characteristics (e.g. specific teams, new hires)

    Identify employee segments and sort them into groups based on the characteristics above.

    Examples of segments:

    • Functional area (e.g. Service Desk, Security)
    • Job roles (e.g. desktop support, server maintenance)
    • Onsite, remote, or hybrid
    • Full-time or part-time
    • Job level (e.g. managers vs. independent contributors)
    • Employees with dependents

    Prioritize employee segments

    Determine whether the organization needs flexible work options for the entire organization or specific employee segments.
    For specific employee segments:

    • Answer the questions on the right to identify whether an employee segment is high, medium, or low priority. Complete slides 23 to 25 for each high-priority segment, repeating the process for medium-priority segments when resources allow.

    For the entire organization:

    • When identifying an option for the entire organization, consider all segments. The approach must create consistency and inclusion; keep this top of mind when identifying flexibility on slides 23 to 25. For example, the work location flexibility would be low in an organization where some segments can work remotely and others must be onsite due to machinery requirements.

    High priority: The employee segment has the lowest engagement scores or highest turnover within the organization. Segment sentiment is that current flexibility is nonexistent or not sufficiently meeting needs.
    Medium priority: The employee segment has low engagement or high turnover. Segment sentiment is that currently available flexibility is minimal or not sufficiently meeting needs.
    Low priority: The segment does not have the lowest engagement or the highest turnover rate. Segment sentiment is that currently available flexibility is sufficiently meeting needs.

    1. What is the impact on the organization if this segment's challenges aren't addressed (e.g. if low engagement and high turnover are not addressed)?
    2. How critical is flexibility to the segment's needs/engagement?
    3. How time sensitive is it to introduce flexibility to this segment (e.g. is the organization losing employees in this segment at a high rate)?
    4. Will providing flexibility to this segment increase organizational productivity or output

    Identify challenges to address with flexibility

    Uncover the lived experiences and expectations of employees to inform selection of segments and flexible options.

    1. Collect data from existing sources, such as:
      • Engagement surveys
      • New hire/exit surveys
      • Employee experience monitor surveys
      • Employee retention pulse surveys
      • Burnout surveys
      • DEI pulse surveys
    2. Analyze employee feedback on experiences with:
      • Work duties
      • Workload
      • Work-life balance
      • Operating processes and procedures
      • Achieving operational outcomes
      • Collaboration and communication
      • Individual experience and engagement
    3. Evaluate the data and identify challenges

    Example challenges:

    • Engagement: Low average score on work-life balance question; flexible work suggested in open-ended responses.
    • Retention: Exit survey indicating that lack of work-life balance is consistently a reason employees leave. Include the cost of turnover (e.g. recruitment, training, severance).
    • Burnout: Feedback from employees through surveys or HR business partner anecdotes indicating high burnout; high usage of wellness services or employee assistance programs.
    • Absenteeism: High average number of days employees were absent in the past year. Include the cost of lost productivity.
    • Operational continuity: Provide examples of when flexible work would have enabled operational continuity in the case of disaster or extended customer service coverage.
    • Program uptake: If the organization already has a flexible work program, provide data on the low proportion of eligible employees using available options.

    1.1 Prepare to evaluate flexible work options

    1-3 hours

    Follow the guidance on preceding slides to complete the following activities.
    Note: If you are only considering remote or hybrid work, use the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook. Otherwise, proceed with the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook.

    1. Identify key stakeholders. Be sure to record the level of involvement and responsibility expected from each stakeholder. Use the "Stakeholders" tab of the workbook.
    2. Uncover current and desired state. Review and record your current state with respect to culture, productivity, and current flexible work options, if any. Next, record your desired future state, including reasons for implementing flexible work, and goals for the program. Record this in the "Current and Desired State" tab of the workbook.
    3. Identify and prioritize employee segments. Identify and record employee segments. Depending on the size of your department, you may identify a few or many. Be as granular as necessary to fully separate employee groups with different needs. If your resources or needs prevent you from rolling out flexible work to the entire department, record the priority level of each segment so you can focus on the highest priority first.
    4. Identify challenges with flexibility. With each employee segment in mind, analyze your available data to identify and record each segment's main challenges regarding flexible work. These will inform your program goals and metrics.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Download the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • List of departmental roles
    • Data on employee engagement, productivity, sentiment regarding flexible work, etc.

    Output

    • List of stakeholders and responsibilities
    • Flexible work challenges and aims
    • Prioritized list of employee segments

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
      Or
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • IT department head
    • HR business partner
    • Flexible work program committee

    Determine goals and metrics for the flexible work program

    Sample program goals

    Sample metrics

    Increase productivity

    • Employee, team, and department key performance indicators (KPIs) before and after flexible work implementation
    • Absenteeism rate (% of lost working days due to all types of absence)

    Improve business satisfaction and perception of IT value

    Increase retention

    • % of exiting employees who cite lack of flexible work options or poor work-life balance as a reason they left
    • Turnover and retention rates

    Improve the employee value proposition (EVP) and talent attraction

    • # of responses on the new hire survey where flexible work options or work-life balance are cited as a reason for accepting an employment offer
    • # of views of career webpage that mentions flexible work program
    • Time-to-fill rates

    Improve engagement and work-life balance

    • Overall engagement score – deploy Info-Tech's Employee Engagement Diagnostics
    • Score for questions about work-life balance on employee engagement or pulse survey, including:
      • "I am able to maintain a balance between my work and personal life."
      • "I find my stress levels at work manageable."

    Info-Tech Insight

    Implementing flex work without solid performance metrics means you won't have a way of determining whether the program is enabling or hampering your business practices.

    1.2 Determine goals and metrics

    30 minutes

    Use the examples on the preceding slide to identify program goals and metrics:

    1. Brainstorm program goals. Be sure to consider both the business benefits (e.g. productivity, retention) and the employee benefits (work-life balance, engagement). A successful flexible work program benefits both the organization and its employees.
    2. Brainstorm metrics for each goal. Identify metrics that are easy to track accurately. Use Info-Tech's IT and HR metrics libraries for reference. Ideally, the metrics you choose should already exist in your organization so no extra effort will be necessary to implement them. It is also important to have a baseline measure of each one before flexible work is rolled out.
    3. Record your outputs on the "Goals and Metrics" tab of the workbook.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Download the IT Metrics Library

    Download the HR Metrics Library

    Input

    • Organizational and departmental strategy

    Output

    • List of program goals and metrics

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
      Or
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee

    Determine work location flexibility for priority segments

    Work location looks at where a segment can complete all or some of their tasks (e.g. onsite vs. remote). For each prioritized employee segment, evaluate the amount of location flexibility available.

    Work Duties

    Processes

    Operational Outcomes

    High degree of flexibility

    • Low dependence on onsite equipment
    • Work easily shifts to online platforms
    • Low dependence on onsite external interactions (e.g. clients, customers, vendors)
    • Low interdependence of work duties internally (most work is independent)
    • Work processes and expectations are or can be formally documented
    • Remote work processes are sustainable long term

    Most or all operational outcomes can be achieved offsite (e.g. products/service delivery not impacted by WFH)

    • Some dependence on onsite equipment
    • Some work can shift to online platforms
    • Some dependence on onsite external interactions
    • Some interdependence of work duties internally (collaboration is critical)
    • Most work processes and expectations have been or can be formally documented
    • Remote work processes are sustainable (e.g. workarounds can be supported and didn't add work)

    Some operational outcomes can be achieved offsite (e.g. some impact of WFH on product/service delivery)

    Low degree of flexibility

    • High dependence on onsite equipment
    • Work cannot shift to online platforms
    • High dependence on onsite external interactions
    • High interdependence of work duties internally (e.g. line work)
    • Few work processes and expectations can be formally documented
    • Work processes cannot be done remotely, and workarounds for remote work are not sustainable long term

    Operational outcomes cannot be achieved offsite (e.g. significant impairment to product/service delivery)

    Note

    If roles within the segment have differing levels of location flexibility, use the lowest results (e.g. if role A in the segment has a high degree of flexibility for work duties and role B has a low degree of flexibility, use the results for role B).

    Identify work timing for priority segments

    Work timing looks at when work can or needs to be completed (e.g. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).

    Work Duties

    Processes

    Operational Outcomes

    High degree of flexibility

    • No need to be available to internal and/or external customers during standard work hours
    • Equipment is available at any time
    • Does not rely on synchronous (occurring at the same time) work duties internally
    • Work processes and expectations are or can be formally documented
    • Low reliance on collaboration
    • Work is largely asynchronous (does not occur at the same time)

    Most or all operational outcomes are not time sensitive

    • Must be available to internal and/or external customers during some standard work hours
    • Some reliance on synchronous work duties internally (collaboration is critical)
    • Most work processes and expectations have been or can be formally documented
    • Moderate reliance on collaboration
    • Some work is synchronous

    Some operational outcomes are time sensitive and must be conducted within set date or time windows

    Low degree of flexibility

    • Must be available to internal and/or external customers during all standard work hours (e.g. Monday to Friday 9 to 5)
    • High reliance on synchronous work duties internally (e.g. line work)
    • Few work processes and expectations can be formally documented
    • High reliance on collaboration
    • Most work is synchronous

    Most or all operational outcomes are time sensitive and must be conducted within set date or time windows

    Note

    With additional coordination, flex time or flex time off options are still possible for employee segments with a low degree of flexibility. For example, with a four-day work week, the segment can be split into two teams – one that works Monday to Thursday and one that works Tuesday to Friday – so that employees are still available for clients five days a week.

    Examine work deliverables for priority segments

    Work deliverables look at the employee's ability to deliver on their role expectations (e.g. quota or targets) and whether reducing the time spent working would, in all situations, impact the work deliverables (e.g. constrained vs. unconstrained).

    Work Duties

    Operational Outcomes

    High degree of flexibility

    • Few or no work duties rely on equipment or processes that put constraints on output (unconstrained output)
    • Employees have autonomy over which work duties they focus on each day
    • Most or all operational outcomes are unconstrained (e.g. a marketing analyst who builds reports and strategies for clients can produce more reports, produce better reports, or identify new strategies)
    • Work quota or targets are achievable even if working fewer hours
    • Some work duties rely on equipment or processes that put constraints on output
    • Employees have some ability to decide which work duties they focus on each day
    • Some operational outcomes are constrained or moderately unconstrained (e.g. an analyst build reports based on client data; while it's possible to find efficiencies and build reports faster, it's not possible to attain the client data any faster)
    • Work quota or targets may be achievable if working fewer hours

    Low degree of flexibility

    • Most or all work duties rely on equipment or processes that put constraints on output (constrained output)
    • Daily work duties are prescribed (e.g. a telemarketer is expected to call a set number of people per day using a set list of contacts and a defined script)
    • Most or all operational outcomes are constrained (e.g. a machine operator works on a machine that produces 100 parts an hour; neither the machine nor the worker can produce more parts)
    • Work quota or targets cannot be achieved if fewer hours are worked

    Note

    For segments with a low degree of work deliverable flexibility (e.g. very constrained output), flexibility is still an option, but maintaining output would require additional headcount.

    1.3 Determine flexibility needs and constraints

    1-2 hours

    Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to document the parameters of each work segment.

    1. Determine work location flexibility. Work location looks at where a segment can complete all or some of their tasks (e.g. onsite vs. remote). For each prioritized employee segment, evaluate the amount of location flexibility available.
    2. Identify work timing. Work timing looks at when work can or needs to be completed (e.g. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).
    3. Examine work deliverables. Work deliverables look at the employee's ability to deliver on their role expectations (e.g. quota or targets) and whether reducing the time spent working would, in all situations, impact the work deliverables (e.g. constrained vs. unconstrained).
    4. Record your outputs on the "Current and Desired State" tab of the workbook.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • List of employee segments

    Output

    • Summary of flexibility needs and constraints for each employee segment

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
      Or
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee
    • Employee segment managers

    Step 2

    Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility

    1. Assess employee and organizational flexibility needs
    2. Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility
    3. Implement selected option(s)

    After completing this step you will have:

    • Created a shortlist of potential options for each prioritized employee segment
    • Evaluated the feasibility of each potential option
    • Determined the cost and benefit of each potential option
    • Gathered employee sentiment on potential options
    • Finalized options with senior leadership

    Prepare to identify and assess the feasibility of potential flexible work options

    First, review the Flexible Work Solutions Catalog

    Before proceeding to the next slide, review the Flexible Work Options Catalog to identify and shortlist five to seven flexible work options that are best suited to address the challenges faced for each of the priority employee segments identified in Step 1.

    Then, assess the feasibility of implementing selected options using slides 29 to 32

    Assess the feasibility of implementing the shortlisted solutions for the prioritized employee segments against the feasibility factors in this step. Repeat for each employee segment. Use the following slides to consult with and include leaders when appropriate.

    • Document your analysis in tabs 6 to 8 of the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook.
    • Note implementation issues throughout the assessment and record them in the tool. They will be addressed in Step 3: Implement Selected Program(s). Don't rule out an option simply because it presents some challenges; careful implementation can overcome many challenges.
    • At the end of this step, determine the final list of flexible work options and gain approval from senior leaders for implementation.

    Evaluate feasibility by reviewing the option's impact on continued operations and job performance

    Operational coverage

    Synchronous communication

    Time zones

    Face-to-face

    communication

    To what extent are employees needed to deliver products or services?

    • If constant customer service is required, stagger employees' schedules (e.g. one team works Monday-Thursday while another works Tuesday-Friday).

    To what extent do employees need to communicate with each other synchronously?

    • Break the workflow down and identify times when employees do and do not have to work at the same time to communicate with each other.

    To what extent do employees need to coordinate work across time zones?

    • If the organization already operates in different time zones, ensure that the option does not impact operations requiring continuous coverage.
    • When employees are located in different time zones, coordinate schedules based on the other operational factors.

    When do employees need to interact with each other or clients in person?

    • Examine the workflow closely to identify times when face-to-face communication is not required. Schedule "office days" for employees to work together when in-person interaction is needed.
    • When the interaction is only required with clients, determine whether employees are able to meet clients offsite.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Every role is eligible for hybrid location work. If onsite work duties prevent an employee group from participating, see if processes can be digitized or automated. Flexible work is an opportunity to go beyond current needs to future-proof your organization.

    Assess the option's alignment with organizational culture

    Symbols

    Values

    Behaviors

    How supportive of flexible work are the visible aspects of the organization's culture?

    • For example, the mission statement, newsletters, or office layout.
    • Note: Visible elements will need to be adapted to ensure they reinforce the value of the flexible work option.

    How supportive are both the stated and lived values of the organization?

    • When the flexible work option includes less direct supervision, assess how empowered employees feel to make decisions.
    • Assess whether all types of employees (e.g. virtual) are included, valued, and supported.

    How supportive are the attitudes and behaviors, especially of leaders?

    • Leaders set the expectations for acceptable behaviors in the organization. Determine how supportive leaders are toward flexible workers by examining their attitudes and perceptions.
    • Identify if employees are open to different ways of doing work.

    Determine the resources required for the option

    People

    Process

    Technology

    Do employees have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to adopt this option?

    • Identify any areas (e.g. process, technology) employees will need to be trained on and assess the associated costs.
    • Determine whether the option will require additional headcount to ensure operational continuity (e.g. two part-time employees in a job-sharing arrangement) and calculate associated costs (e.g. recruitment, training, benefits).

    How much will work processes need to change?

    • Interview organizational leaders with knowledge of the employee segment's core work processes. Determine whether a significant change will be required.
    • If a significant change is required, evaluate whether the benefits of the option outweigh the costs of the process and behavioral change (see the "net benefit" factor on slide 33).

    What new technologies will be required?

    • Identify the technology (e.g. that supports communication, work processes) required to enable the flexible work option.
    • Note whether existing technology can be used or additional technology will be required, and further investigate the viability and costs of these options.

    Examine the option's risks

    Data

    Health & Safety

    Legal

    How will data be kept secure?

    • Determine whether the organization's data policy and technology covers employees working remotely or other flexible work options.
    • If the employee segment handles sensitive data (e.g. personal employee information), consult relevant stakeholders to determine how data can be kept secure and assess any associated costs.

    How will employees' health and safety be impacted?

    • Consult your organization's legal counsel to determine whether the organization will be liable for the employees' health and safety while working from home or other locations.
    • Determine whether the organization's policies and processes will need to be modified.

    What legal risks might be involved?

    • Identify any policies in place or jurisdictional requirements to avoid any legal risks. Consult your organization's legal counsel about the situations below.
      • If the option causes significant changes to the nature of jobs, creating the risk of constructive dismissal.
      • If there are any risks to providing less supervision (e.g. higher chance of harassment).
      • When only some employee segments are eligible for the option, determine whether there is a risk of inequitable access.
      • If the option impacts any unionized employees or collective agreements.

    Determine whether the benefits of the option outweigh the costs

    Include senior leadership in the net benefit process to ensure any unfeasible options are removed from consideration before presenting to employees.

    1. Document the employee and employer benefits of the option from the previous feasibility factors on slides 29 to 32.
    • Include the benefits of reaching program goals identified in Step 1.
    • Quantify the benefits in dollar value where possible.
  • Document the costs and risks of the option, referring to the costs noted from previous feasibility factors.
    • Quantify the costs in dollar value where possible.
  • Compare the benefits and costs.
    • Add an option to your final list if the benefits are greater than the costs.
  • This is an image of a table with the main heading being Net Benefit, with the following subheadings: Benefits to organization; Benefits to employees; Costs.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Flexible work options must balance organizational and employee needs. If an option is beneficial to employees but there is little or no benefit to the organization as a whole, or if the cost of the option is too high, it will not support the long-term success of the organization.

    2.1a Identify and evaluate flexible work options

    30 minutes per employee segment per work option

    If you are only considering hybrid or remote work, skip to activity 2.1b. Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to conduct feasibility assessments.

    1. Shortlist flexible work options. Review the Flexible Work Options Catalog to identify and shortlist five to seven flexible work options that are best suited to address the challenges faced for each of the priority employee segments. Record these on the "Options Shortlist" tab of the workbook. Even if the decision is simple, ensure you record the rationale to help communicate your decision to employees. Transparent communication is the best way to avoid feelings of unfairness if desired work options are not implemented.
    2. Evaluate option feasibility. For each of the shortlisted options, complete one "Feasibility - Option" tab in the workbook. Make as many copies of this tab as needed.
      • When evaluating each option, consider each employee segment individually as you work through the prompts in the workbook. You may find that segments differ greatly in the feasibility of various types of flexible work. You will use this information to inform your overall policy and any exceptions to it.
      • You may need to involve each segment's management team to get an accurate picture of day-to-day responsibilities and flexible work feasibility.
    3. Weigh benefits and costs. At the end of each flexible work option evaluation, record the anticipated costs and benefits. Discuss whether this balance renders the option viable or rules it out.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Download the Flexible Work Options Catalog

    Input

    • List of employee segments

    Output

    • Shortlist of flexible work options
    • Feasibility analysis for each work option

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
    • Flexible Work Options Catalog

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee
    • Employee segment managers

    2.1b Assess hybrid work feasibility

    30 minutes per employee segment

    Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to conduct a feasibility assessment. This exercise relies on having trialed hybrid or remote work before. If you have never implemented any degree of remote work, consider completing the full feasibility assessment in activity 2.1a.

    1. Evaluate hybrid work feasibility. Review the feasibility prompts on the "Work Unit Remote Work Assessment" tab and record your insight for each employee segment.
      • When evaluating each option, consider each employee segment individually as you work through the prompts in the workbook. You may find that segments differ greatly in their ability to accommodate hybrid work. You will use this information to inform your overall policy and any exceptions to it.
      • You may need to involve each segment's management team to get an accurate picture of day-to-day responsibilities and hybrid work feasibility.

    Download the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • List of employee segments

    Output

    • Feasibility analysis for each work option

    Materials

    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee
    • Employee segment managers

    Ask employees which options they prefer and gather feedback for implementation

    Deliver a survey and/or conduct focus groups with a selection of employees from all prioritized employee segments.

    Share

    • Present your draft list of options to select employees.
    • Communicate that the organization is in the process of assessing the feasibility of flexible work options and would like employee input to ensure flex work meets needs.
    • Be clear that the list is not final or guaranteed.

    Ask

    • Ask which options are preferred more than others.
    • Ask for feedback on each option – how could it be modified to meet employee needs better? Use this information to inform implementation in Step 3.

    Decide

    • Prioritize an option if many employees indicated an interest in it.
    • If employees indicate no interest in an option, consider eliminating it from the list, unless it will be required. There is no value in providing an option if employees won't use it.

    Survey

    • List the options and ask respondents to rate each on a Likert scale from 1 to 5.
    • Ask some open-ended questions with comment boxes for employee suggestions.

    Focus Group

    • Conduct focus groups to gather deeper feedback.
    • See Appendix I for sample focus group questions.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Prioritize flexible work options that employees want. Providing too many options often leads to information overload and results in employees not understanding what is available, lowering adoption of the flexible work program.

    Finalize options list with senior leadership

    1. Select one to three final options and outline the details of each. Include:
      • Scope: To what extent will the option be applied? E.g. work-from-home one or two days a week.
      • Eligibility: Which employee segments are eligible?
      • Cost: What investment will be required?
      • Critical implementation issues: Will any of the implementation issues identified for each feasibility factor impact whether the option will be approved?
      • Resources: What additional resources will be required (e.g. technology)?
    2. Present the options to stakeholders for approval. Include:
      • An outline of the finalized options, including what the option is and the scope, eligibility, and critical implementation issues.
      • The feasibility assessment results, including benefits, costs, and employee preferences. Have more detail from the other factors ready if leaders ask about them.
      • The investment (cost) required to implement the option.
    3. Proceed to Step 3 to implement approved options.

    Running an IT pilot of flex work

    • As a technology department, IT typically doesn't own flexible work implementation for the entire organization. However, it is common to trial flexible work options for IT first, before rolling out to the entire organization.
    • During a flex work pilot, ensure you are working closely with HR partners, especially regarding regulatory and compliance issues.
    • Keep the rest of the organizational stakeholders in the loop, especially regarding their agreement on the metrics by which the pilot's success will be evaluated.

    2.2a Finalize flexible work options

    2-3 hours + time to gather employee feedback

    If you are only considering hybrid or remote work, skip to activity 2.2b. Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to gather final feedback and finalize work option selections.

    1. Gather employee feedback. If employee preferences are already known, skip this step. If they are not, gather feedback to ascertain whether any of the shortlisted options are preferred. Remember that a successful flexible work program balances the needs of employees and the business, so employee preference is a key determinant in flexible work program success. Document this on the "Employee Preferences" tab of the workbook.
    2. Finalize flexible work options. Use your notes on the cost-benefit balance for each option, along with employee preferences, to decide whether the move forward with it. Record this decision on the "Options Final List" tab. Include information about eligible employee segments and any implementation challenges that came up during the feasibility assessments. This is the final decision summary that will inform your flexible program parameters and policies.

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • Flexible work options shortlist

    Output

    • Final flexible work options list

    Materials

    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee

    2.2b Finalize hybrid work parameters

    2-3 hours + time to gather employee feedback

    Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to gather final feedback and finalize work option selections.

    1. Summarize feasibility analysis. On the "Program Parameters" tab, record the main insights from your feasibility analysis. Finalize important elements, including eligibility for hybrid/remote work by employee segment. Additionally, record the standard parameters for the program (i.e. those that apply to all employee segments) and variable parameters (i.e. ones that differ by employee segment).

    Download the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • Hybrid work feasibility analysis

    Output

    • Final hybrid work program parameters

    Materials

    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee

    Step 3

    Implement selected option(s)

    1. Assess employee and organizational flexibility needs
    2. Identify potential flex options and assess feasibility
    3. Implement selected option(s)

    After completing this step, you will have:

    • Addressed implementation issues and cultural barriers
    • Equipped the organization to adopt flexible work options successfully
    • Piloted the program and assessed its success
    • Developed a plan for program rollout and communication
    • Established a program evaluation plan
    • Aligned HR programs to support the program

    Solve the implementation issues identified in your feasibility assessment

    1. Identify a solution for each implementation issue documented in the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook. Consider the following when identifying solutions:
      • Scope: Determine whether the solution will be applied to one or all employee segments.
      • Stakeholders: Identify stakeholders to consult and develop a solution. If the scope is one employee segment, work with organizational leaders of that segment. When the scope is the entire organization, consult with senior leaders.
      • Implementation: Collaborate with stakeholders to solve implementation issues. Balance the organizational and employee needs, referring to data gathered in Steps 1 and 2.

    Example:

    Issue

    Solution

    Option 1: Hybrid work

    Brainstorming at the beginning of product development benefits from face-to-face collaboration.

    Block off a "brainstorming day" when all team members are required in the office.

    Employee segment: Product innovation team

    One team member needs to meet weekly with the implementation team to conduct product testing.

    Establish a schedule with rotating responsibility for a team member to be at the office for product testing; allow team members to swap days if needed.

    Address cultural barriers by involving leaders

    To shift a culture that is not supportive of flexible work, involve leaders in setting an example for employees to follow.

    Misconceptions

    Tactics to overcome them

    • Flexible workers are less productive.
    • Flexible work disrupts operations.
    • Flexible workers are less committed to the organization.
    • Flexible work only benefits employees, not the organization.
    • Employees are not working if they aren't physically in the office.

    Make the case by highlighting challenges and expected benefits for both the organization and employees (e.g. same or increased productivity). Use data in the introductory section of this blueprint.

    Demonstrate operational feasibility by providing an overview of the feasibility assessment conducted to ensure operational continuity.

    Involve most senior leadership in communication.

    Encourage discovery and exploration by having managers try flexible work options themselves, which will help model it for employees.

    Highlight success stories within the organization or from competitors or similar industries.

    Invite input from managers on how to improve implementation and ownership, which helps to discover hidden options.

    Shift symbols, values, and behaviors

    • Work with senior leaders to identify symbols, values, and behaviors to modify to align with the selected flexible work options.
    • Validate that the final list aligns with your organization's mission, vision, and values.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Leaders' collective support of the flexible program determines the program's successful adoption. Don't sweep cultural barriers under the rug; acknowledge and address them to overcome them.

    Equip the organization for successful implementation

    Info-Tech recommends providing managers and employees with a guide to flexible work, introducing policies, and providing training for managers.

    Provide managers and employees with a guide to flexible work

    Introduce appropriate organization policies

    Equip managers with the necessary tools and training

    Use the guide to:

    • Familiarize employees and managers with the flexible work program.
    • Gain employee and manager buy-in and support for the program.
    • Explain the process and give guidance on selecting flexible work options and working with their colleagues to make it a success.

    Use Info-Tech's customizable policy templates to set guidelines, outline arrangements, and scope the organization's flexible work policies. This is typically done by, or in collaboration with, the HR department.

    Download the Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees

    Download the Flex Location Policy

    Download the Flex Time-Off Policy

    Download the Flex Time Policy

    3.1 Prepare for implementation

    2-3 hours

    Use the guidelines on the preceding slides to brainstorm solutions to implementation issues and prepare to communicate program rollout to stakeholders.

    1. Solve implementation issues.
      • If you are working with the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook: For each implementation challenge identified on the "Final Options List" tab, brainstorm solutions. If you are working with the Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook: Work through the program enablement prompts on the "Program Enablement" tab.
      • You may need to involve relevant stakeholders to help you come up with appropriate solutions for each employee segment.
      • Ensure that any anticipated cultural barriers have been documented and are addressed during this step. Don't underestimate the importance of a supportive organizational culture to the successful rollout of flexible work.
    2. Prepare the employee guide. Modify the Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees template to reflect your final work options list and the processes and expectations employees will need to follow.
    3. Create a communication plan. Use Info-Tech's Communicate Any IT Initiative blueprint and Appendix II to craft your messaging.

    Download the Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees

    Download the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook

    Input

    • Flexible work options final list

    Output

    • Employee guide to flexible work
    • Flexible work rollout communication plan

    Materials

    • Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees
    • Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook
      Or
    • Fast-Track Hybrid Work Program Workbook

    Participants

    • Flexible work program committee
    • Employee segment managers

    Run an IT pilot for flexible work

    Prepare for pilot

    Launch Pilot

    Identify the flexible work options that will be piloted.

    • Refer to the final list of selected options for each priority segment to determine which options should be piloted.

    Select pilot participants.

    • If not rolling out to the entire IT department, look for the departments and/or team(s) where there is the greatest need and the biggest interest (e.g. team with lowest engagement scores).
    • Include all employees within the department, or team if the department is too large, in the pilot.
    • Start with a group whose managers are best equipped for the new flexibility options.

    Create an approach to collect feedback and measure the success of the pilot.

    • Feedback can be collected using surveys, focus groups, and/or targeted in-person interviews.

    The length of the pilot will greatly vary based on which flexible work options were selected (e.g. seasonal hours will require a shorter pilot period compared to implementing a compressed work week). Use discretion when deciding on pilot length and be open to extending or shortening the pilot length as needed.

    Launch pilot.

    • Launch the program through a town hall meeting or departmental announcement to build excitement and buy-in.
    • Develop separate communications for employee segments where appropriate. See Appendix II for key messaging to include.

    Gather feedback.

    • The feedback will be used to assess the pilot's success and to determine what modifications will be needed later for a full-scale rollout.
    • When gathering feedback, tailor questions based on the employee segment but keep themes similar. For example:
      • Employees: "How did this help your day-to-day work?"
      • Managers: "How did this improve productivity on your team?"

    Track metrics.

    • The success of the pilot is best communicated using your department's unique KPIs.
    • Metrics are critical for:
      • Accurately determining pilot success.
      • Getting buy-in to expand the pilot beyond IT.
      • Justifying to employees any changes made to the flexible work options.

    Assess the pilot's success and determine next steps

    Review the feedback collected on the previous slide and use this decision tree to decide whether to relaunch a pilot or proceed to a full-scale rollout of the program.

    This is an image of the flow chart used to assess the pilot's success and determine the next steps.  It will help you to determine whether you will Proceed to full-scale rollout on next slide, Major modifications to the option/launch (e.g. change operating time) – adjust and relaunch pilot or select a new employee segment and relaunch pilot, Minor modifications to the option/launch (e.g. introduce additional communications) – adjust and proceed to full scale rollout, or Return to shortlist (Step 2) and select a different option or launch pilot with a different employee segment.

    Prepare for full-scale rollout

    If you have run a team pilot prior to rolling out to all of IT, or run an IT pilot before an organizational rollout, use the following steps to transition from pilot to full rollout.

    1. Determine modifications
      • Review the feedback gathered during the pilot and determine what needs to change for a full-scale implementation.
      • Update HR policies and programs to support flexible work. Work closely with your HR business partner and other organizational leaders to ensure every department's needs are understood and compliance issues are addressed.
    2. Roll out and evaluate
      • Roll out the remainder of the program (e.g. to other employee segments or additional flexible work options) once there is significant uptake of the pilot by the target employee group and issues have been addressed.
      • Determine how feedback will be gathered after implementation, such as during engagement surveys, new hire and exit surveys, stay interviews, etc., and assess whether the program continues to meet employee and organizational needs.

    Rolling out beyond IT

    For a rollout beyond IT, HR will likely take over.

    However, this is your chance to remain at the forefront of your organization's flexible work efforts by continuing to track success and gather feedback within IT.

    Align HR programs and organizational policies to support flexible work

    Talent Management

    Learning & Development

    Talent Acquisition

    Reinforce managers' accountability for the success of flexible work in their teams:

    • Include "managing virtual teams" in the people management leadership competency.
    • Recognize managers who are modeling flexible work.

    Support flexible workers' career progression:

    • Monitor the promotion rates of flexible workers vs. non-flexible workers.
    • Make sure flexible workers are discussed during talent calibration meetings and have access to career development opportunities.

    Equip managers and employees with the knowledge and skills to make flexible work successful.

    • Provide guidance on selecting the right options and maintaining workflow.
    • If moving to a virtual environment, train managers on how to make it a success.

    Incorporate the flexible work program into the organization's employee value proposition to attract top talent who value flexible work options.

    • Highlight the program on the organization's career site and in job postings.

    Organizational policies

    Determine which organizational policies will be impacted as a result of the new flexible work options. For example, the introduction of flex time off can result in existing vacation policies needing to be updated.

    Plan to re-evaluate the program and make improvements

    Collect data

    Collect data

    Act on data

    Uptake

    Gather data on the proportion of employees eligible for each option who are using the option.

    If an option is tracking positively:

    • Maintain or expand the program to more of the organization.
    • Conduct a feasibility assessment (Step 2) for new employee segments.

    Satisfaction

    Survey managers and employees about their satisfaction with the options they are eligible for and provide an open box for suggestions on improvements.

    If an option is tracking negatively:

    • Investigate why. Gather additional data, interview organizational leaders, and/or conduct focus groups to gain deeper insight.
    • Re-assess the feasibility of the option (Step 2). If the costs outweigh the benefits based on new data, determine whether to cancel the option.
    • Take appropriate action based on the outcome of the evaluation, such as modifying or cancelling the option or providing employees with more support.
      • Note: Cancelling an option can impact the engagement of employees using the option. Ensure that the data, reasons for cancelling the option, and potential substitute options are communicated to employees in advance.

    Program goal progress

    Monitor progress against the program goals and metrics identified in Step 1 to evaluate the impact on issues that matter to the organization (e.g. retention, productivity, diversity).

    Career progression

    Evaluate flexible workers' promotion rates and development opportunities to determine if they are developing.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Negative performance of a flexible work option does not necessarily mean failure. Take the time to evaluate whether the option simply needs to be tweaked or whether it truly isn't working for the organization.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight: IT excels at hybrid location work and is more effective as a business function when location, time, and time-off flexibility are an option for its employees.

    Introduction

    • Flexible work options are not a concession to lower productivity. Properly implemented, flex work enables employees to be more productive at reaching business goals.
    • Employees' lived experiences and needs determine if people use flexible work programs – a flex program that has limited use or excludes people will not benefit the organization.
    • Flexible work benefits everyone. IT employees experience greater engagement, motivation, and company loyalty. IT organizations realize benefits such as better service coverage, reduced facilities costs, and increased productivity.

    Step 1 insight

    • Hybrid work is a start. A comprehensive flex work program extends beyond flexible location to flexible time and time off. Organizations must understand the needs of unique employee groups to uncover the options that will attract and retain talent. Provide greater inclusivity to employees by broadening the scope to include flex location, flex time, and flex time off.
    • No two employee segments are the same. To be effective, flexible work options must align with the expectations and working processes of each segment.

    Step 2 insight

    • Every role is eligible for hybrid location work. If onsite work duties prevent an employee group from participating, see if processes can be digitized or automated. Flexible work is an opportunity to go beyond current needs to future proofing your organization.
    • Flexible work options must balance organizational and employee needs. If an option is beneficial to employees but there is little or no benefit to the organization, or if the cost of the option is too high, it will not support the long-term success of the organization.
    • Prioritize flexible work options that employees want. Providing too many options often leads to information overload and results in employees not understanding what is available, lowering adoption of the flexible work program.

    Step 3 insight

    • Leaders' collective support of the flexible program determines the program's successful adoption. Don't sweep cultural barriers under the rug; acknowledge and address them to overcome them.
    • Negative performance of a flexible work option does not necessarily mean failure. Take the time to evaluate whether the option simply needs to be tweaked or whether it truly isn't working for the organization.
    • A set of formal guidelines for IT ensures flexible work is:
      1. Administered fairly across all IT employees.
      2. Defensible and clear.
      3. Scalable to the rest of the organization.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Quinn Ross
    CEO
    The Ross Firm Professional Corporation

    Margaret Yap
    HR Professor
    Ryerson University

    Heather Payne
    CEO
    Juno College

    Lee Nguyen
    HR Specialist
    City of Austin

    Stacey Spruell
    Division HR Director
    Travis County

    Don MacLeod
    Chief Administrative Officer
    Zorra Township

    Stephen Childs
    CHRO
    Panasonic North America

    Shawn Gibson
    Sr. Director
    Info Tech Research Group

    Mari Ryan
    CEO/Founder
    Advancing Wellness

    Sophie Wade
    Founder
    Flexcel Networks

    Kim Velluso
    VP Human Resources
    Siemens Canada

    Lilian De Menezes
    Professor of Decision Sciences
    Cass Business School, University of London

    Judi Casey
    WorkLife Consultant and former Director, Work and Family Researchers Network
    Boston College

    Chris Frame
    Partner – Operations
    LiveCA

    Rose M. Stanley, CCP, CBP, WLCP, CEBS
    People Services Manager
    Sunstate Equipment Co., LLC

    Shari Lava
    Director, Vendor Research
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Carol Cochran
    Director of People & Culture
    FlexJobs

    Kidde Kelly
    OD Practitioner

    Dr. David Chalmers
    Adjunct Professor
    Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University

    Kashmira Nagarwala
    Change Manager
    Siemens Canada

    Dr. Isik U. Zeytinoglu
    Professor of Management and Industrial Relations McMaster University, DeGroote School of Business

    Claire McCartney
    Diversity & Inclusion Advisor
    CIPD

    Teresa Hopke
    SVP of Client Relations
    Life Meets Work – www.lifemeetswork.com

    Mark Tippey
    IT Leader and Experienced Teleworker

    Dr. Kenneth Matos
    Senior Director of Research
    Families and Work Institute

    1 anonymous contributor

    Appendix I: Sample focus group questions

    See Info-Tech's Focus Group Guidefor guidance on setting up and delivering focus groups. Customize the guide with questions specific to flexible work (see sample questions below) to gain deeper insight into employee preferences for the feasibility assessment in Step 2 of this blueprint.

    Document themes in the Targeted Flexible Work Program Workbook.

    • What do you need to balance/integrate your work with your personal life?
    • What challenges do you face in achieving work-life balance/integration?
    • What about your job is preventing you from achieving work-life balance/integration?
    • How would [flexible work option] help you achieve work-life balance/integration?
    • How well would this option work with the workflow of your team or department? What would need to change?
    • What challenges do you see in adopting [flexible work option]?
    • What else would be helpful for you to achieve work-life balance/integration?
    • How could we customize [flexible work option] to ensure it meets your needs?
    • If this program were to fail, what do you think would be the top reasons and why?

    Appendix II: Communication key messaging

    1. Program purpose

    Start with the name and high-level purpose of the program.

    2. Business reasons for the program

    Share data you gathered in Step 1, illustrating challenges causing the need for the program and the benefits.

    3. Options selection process

    Outline the process followed to select options. Remember to share the involvement of stakeholders and the planning around employees' feedback, needs, and lived experiences.

    4. Options and eligibility

    Provide a brief overview of the options and eligibility. Specify that the organization is piloting these options and will modify them based on feedback.

    5. Approval not guaranteed

    Qualify that employees need to be "flexible about flexible work" – the options are not guaranteed and may sometimes be unavailable for business reasons.

    6. Shared responsibility

    Highlight the importance of everyone (managers, flexible workers, the team) working together to make flexible work achievable.

    7. Next steps

    Share any next steps, such as where employees can find the organization's Guide to Flexible Work for Managers and Employees, how to make flexible work a success, or if managers will be providing further detail in a team meeting.

    8. Ongoing communications

    Normalize the program and embed it in organizational culture by continuing communications through various media, such as the organization's newsletter or announcements in town halls.

    Works Cited

    Baziuk, Jennifer, and Duncan Meadows. "Global Employee Survey - Key findings and implications for ICMIF." EY, June 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    "Businesses suffering 'commitment issues' on flexible working," EY, 21 Sep. 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    "IT Talent Trends 2022". Info-Tech Research Group, 2022.
    "Jabra Hybrid Ways of Working: 2021 Global Report." Jabra, Aug. 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    LinkedIn Talent Solutions. "2022 Global Talent Trends." LinkedIn, 2022. Accessed May 2022.
    Lobosco, Mark. "The Future of Work is Flexible: 71% of Leaders Feel Pressure to Change Working Models." LinkedIn, 9 Sep. 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    Ohm, Joy, et al. "Covid-19: Women, Equity, and Inclusion in the Future of Work." Catalyst, 28 May 2020. Accessed May 2022.
    Pelta, Rachel. "Many Workers Have Quit or Plan to After Employers Revoke Remote Work." FlexJobs, 2021. Accessed May 2022.
    Slack Future Forum. "Inflexible return-to-office policies are hammering employee experience scores." Slack, 19 April 2022. Accessed May 2022.
    "State of Hybrid Work in IT: A Trend Report". Info-Tech Research Group, 2023.
    Threlkeld, Kristy. "Employee Burnout Report: COVID-19's Impact and 3 Strategies to Curb It." Indeed, 11 March 2021. Accessed March 2022.

    Create and Implement an IoT Strategy

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    While the Internet of Things (IoT) or smart devices have the potential to transform businesses, they have to be implemented strategically to drive value. The business often engages directly with vendors, and many IoT solutions are implemented as point solutions with IT being brought in very late in the process.

    This leads to challenges with integration, communication, and data aggregation and storage. IT is often also left grappling with many new devices that need to be inventoried, added to lifecycle management practices, and secured.

    Unlock the true potential of IoT with early IT involvement

    As IoT solutions become more common, IT leaders must work closely with business stakeholders early in the process to ensure that IoT solutions make the most of opportunities and mitigate risks.

    1. Ensure that IoT solutions meet business needs: Assess IoT solutions to ensure that they meet business requirements and align with business strategy.
    2. Make integration and management smooth: Build and execute plans so IoT devices integrate with existing infrastructure and multiple devices can be managed efficiently.
    3. Ensure privacy and security: IoT solutions should meet clearly outlined privacy and security requirements and comply with regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.
    4. Collect and store data systematically: Manage what data will be collected and aggregated and how it will be stored so that the business can recognize value from the data with minimal risk.

    Create and Implement an IoT Strategy Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Create and Implement an IoT Strategy Deck – A framework to assess and onboard IoT devices into your environment.

    The storyboard will help to create a steering committee and a playbook to quickly assess IoT ideas to determine the best way to support these ideas, test them in Proof of concepts, when appropriate, and give the business the confidence they need to get the right solution for the job and to know that IT can support them long term.

    • Create and Implement an IoT Strategy – Phases 1-3

    2. Steering Committee Charter Template – Improve governance starting with a steering committee charter to help you clearly define the role of the steering committee to improve outcomes.

    Create a steering committee to improve success of IoT implementations.

    • IoT Steering Committee Charter Template

    3. IoT Solution Playbook – Create an IoT playbook to define a framework to quickly assess new solutions and determine the best time and method for onboarding into your operational environment.

    Create a framework to quickly evaluate IoT solutions to mitigate risks and increase success.

    • IoT Solution Playbook

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Create and Implement an IoT Strategy

    Gain control of your IoT environment

    Create and Implement an IoT Strategy

    Gain control of your IoT environment

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Table of Contents

    Page Contents Page Contents
    4 Analyst Perspective 27 Phase 2: Define the intake & assessment process
    5 Executive Summary 29 Define requirements for requesting new IoT solutions
    7 Common Obstacles 32 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – BA/BRM
    8 Framework 38 Define criteria for assessing proposals and projects – data specialists
    9 Insight Summary 43 Define criteria for assessing proposals & projects – Privacy & Security
    10 Blueprint deliverables 47 Define criteria for assessing proposals & projects – Infrastructure & Operations
    11 Blueprint benefits 48 Define service objectives & evaluation process
    13 Measure the value of IoT 49 Phase 3: Prepare for a proof of value
    15 Guided Implementation 58 Create a template for designing a proof of value
    16 Phase 1: Define your governance process 59 Communications
    21 Define the committee’s roles & responsibilities 60 Research contributors and experts
    23 Define the IoT steering committee’s vision statement and mandate 61 Related InfoTech Research
    26 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects

    Analyst perspective

    IoT is an extremely efficient automated data collection system which produces millions of pieces of data. Many organizations will purchase point solutions to help with their primary business function to increase efficiency, increase profitability, and most importantly provide scalable services that cannot exist without automated data collection and analytical tools.

    Most of the solutions available are designed to perform a specific function within the parameters of the devices and applications designed by vendors. As these specific use cases proliferate within any organization, the data collected can end up housed in many places, owned by each specific business unit and used only for the originally designed purpose. Imagine though, if you could take the health information of many patients, anonymize it, and compare overall health of specific regions, rather than focusing only on the patient record as a correlated point; or many data points within cities to look at pedestrian, bike, and vehicle traffic to better plan infrastructure changes, improve city plans, and monitor pollution, then compared to other cities for additional modeling.

    In order to make these dramatic shifts to using many IoT solutions, it’s time to look at creating an IoT strategy that will ensure all systems meet strategic goals and will enable disparate data to be aggregated for greater insights. The act of aggregation of systems and data will require additional scrutiny to mitigate the potential perils for privacy, management, security, and auditability

    The strategy identifies who stewards use of the data, who manages devices, and how IT enables broader use of this technology. But with the increased volume of devices and data, operational efficiency as part of the strategy will also be critical to success.

    This project takes you through the process of defining vision and governance, creating a process for evaluating proposed solutions for proof of value, and implementing operational effectiveness.

    Photo of Sandi Conrad, Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Sandi Conrad
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    The business needs to move quickly to adopt new ways to collect and analyze data or automate actions. IoT may be the right answer, but it can be complex and create new challenges for IT teams.

    Many of these solutions are implemented by vendors as point solutions, but more organizations are recognizing they need to bring the data in-house to start driving insights.

    As IoT solutions become more prolific, the need to get more involved in securing and managing these solutions has become evident.

    Common Obstacles

    The business is often engaging directly with the vendors to better understand how they can benefit from these solutions, and IT is often brought in when the solution is ready to go live.

    When IT isn’t involved early, there may be challenges around integrations, communications, and getting access to data.

    Management becomes challenging as many devices are suddenly entering the environment, which need to be inventoried, added to lifecycle management practices, and secured.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Info-Tech’s approach starts with assessing the proposed solutions to:

    • Ensure they will meet the business need.
    • Understand data structure for integration to central data store.
    • Ensure privacy and security needs can be met.
    • Determine effort and technical requirements for integration into the infrastructure and appropriate onboarding into operations.

    Early intervention will improve results. IoT is one of the biggest challenges for IT departments to manage today. The large volume of devices and lack of insight into vendor solutions is making it significantly harder to plan for upgrades and contract renewals, and to guarantee security protocols are being met. Create a multistep onboarding process, starting with an initial assessment process to increase success for the business, then look to derive additional benefits to the business and mitigate risks.

    Your challenge

    Scaling up and out from an IoT point solution is complicated and requires collaboration from stakeholders that may not have worked well together before
    • Point solutions may be installed and configured with support outsourced to vendors, where integrations may be light or non-existent.
    • Each point solution will be owned by the business, with data used for a specific purpose, and may only require infrastructure support from the internal IT department.
    • Operational needs must be met to protect the business’ investment, and without involving IT early, agreements may be signed that don’t meet long-term goals of high value at reasonable prices.
    • To fully realize value from multiple disparate systems, a cohesive strategy to bring together data will be required, but with that comes a need to improve technology, determine data ownership, and improve oversight with strengthened security, privacy, and communications.
    • Where IoT is becoming a major source of data, taking a piecemeal approach will no longer be enough to be successful.

    IoT solutions may be chosen by the business, but to be successful and meet their requirements, a partnership with IT will ensure better communications with the service provider for a less stressful implementation with governance over security needs and protection of the organization’s data, and it will ensure that continual value is enabled through effective operations.

    Pie chart titled 'IoT project success' with '12% Fully successful', '30% Mostly successful', '40% Mostly unsuccessful', and 'Not at all successful'.
    (Source: Beecham Research qtd. in Software AG)

    Common obstacles

    These barriers make IoT challenging to implement for many organizations:
    • Solutions managed outside of IT, whether through an operational technology team or an outsourced vender, will require a comprehensive approach that encourages collaboration, common understandings of risk, and the ability to embrace change.
    • Technical expertise required will be broad and deep for a multi-solution implementation. Many types of devices, with varied connections and communications methods, will need to be architected with flexibility to accommodate changing technology and scalability needs.
    • Understanding the myriad options available and where it makes sense to deploy cutting-edge vs. proven technologies, as well as edge computing and digital twins.
    • External consultants specializing in IoT may need to be engaged to make these complex solutions successful, and they also need to be skilled in facilitating discussions within teams to bring them to a common understanding.
    • Analysis skills and a data strategy will be key to successfully correlating data from multiple sources, and AI will be key to making sense of vast amounts of data available and be able to use it for predictive work. According to the Microsoft IoT Signals report of October 2020, “79% of organizations adopt AI as part of their IoT solution, and those who do perceive IoT to be more critical to their company’s success (95% vs. 82%) and are more satisfied with IoT (96% vs. 87%).“
    Pie chart with two tiers titled 'Challenges to using IT'. The inner circle are challenge categories like 'Security', 'Lack of budget/staff', and the outer circle are the more specific challenges within them, such as 'Concerned about consumer privacy' and 'No human resources to implement & manage'.
    (Source: Microsoft IoT Signals, Edition 2, October 2020 n=3,000)

    Internet of Things Framework

    Interoperability of multiple IoT systems and data will be required to maximize value.

    GOVERNANCE

    What should I build? What are my concerns?
    Where should I build it? Why does it need to be built?

    DATA MODEL ——› BUSINESS OPERATING MODEL
    Data quality
    Metadata
    Persistence
    Lifecycle
    Sales, marketing
    Product manufacturing
    Service delivery
    Operations

    |—›

    BUSINESS USE CASE

    ‹—|
    Customer facing Internal facing ROI
    ˆ
    |
    ETHICS
    Deliberate misuse
    Unintentional consequences
    Right to informed consent
    Active vs. passive consent
    Bias
    Profit vs. common good
    Acceptable/fair use
    Responsibility assignment
    Autonomous action
    Transparency
    Vendor ethical implications
    ˆ
    |
    TECHNICAL OPERATIONAL MODEL
    Personal data
    Customer data
    Non-customer data
    Public data
    Third-party business data
    Data rights/proprietary data
    Identification
    Vendor data
    Profiling (Sharing/linkage of data sets)

    CONTROLS

    How do I operate and maintain it?

    1. SECURITY
      • Risk identification and assessment
      • Threat modeling – ineffective because of scale
      • Dumb, cheap endpoints without users
      • Massive attack surface
      • Data/system availability
      • Physical access to devices
      • Response to anonymized individuals
    2. COMPLIANCE
      • Internal
      • External
        NIST, SOC, ISO
        Profession/industry
      • Ethics
      • Regulatory
        PII, GDPR, PIPEDA
        Audit process
    1. OPERATIONAL STANDARDS
      • Industry best practices
      • Open standards vs. proprietary ones
      • Standardization
      • Automation
      • Vendor management
    2. TECHNICAL OPERATIONAL MODEL
      • Platforms
      • Insourcing/outsourcing
      • Acquisition
      • Asset management
      • Patching
      • Data protection
      • Source image control
      • Software development lifecycle
      • Vendor management
      • Disposition/disposal

    BRIDGING THE PHYSICAL WORLD AND THE VIRTUAL WORLD

    How should it be built?

    Diagram with 'Physical World' 'Internet of Things Devices' on the left, connected to 'Virtual World' 'Central Compute (Cloud/Data Center)', 'Edge Computing', and 'Business Systems and Applications' via 'Data - data-verified= Data Normalization' from physical to virtual and 'Instructions' from virtual to physical.">

    Insight summary

    Real value to the business will come from insights derived from data

    Many point solutions will solve many business issues and produce many data sets. Ensure your strategy includes plans on how to leverage data to further your organizational goals. A data specialist will make a significant difference in helping you determine how best to aggregate and analyze data to meet those needs.

    Provide the right level of oversight to help the business adopt IoT

    Regardless of who is initiating the request or installing the solution, it’s critical to have a framework that protects the organization and their data and a plan for managing the devices.

    The business doesn’t always know what questions to ask, so it’s important for IT to enable them if moving to a business-led innovation model, and it’s critical to helping them achieve business value early.

    Do a pre-implementation assessment to engage early and at the right level

    Many IoT solutions are business- and vendor-led and are hosted outside of the organization or managed inside the business unit.

    Having IT engage early allows the business to determine what level of support is appropriate for them, allows IT to ensure data integrity, and allows IT to ensure that security, privacy, and long-term operational needs are managed appropriately.

    Blueprint deliverables

    IoT Steering Committee Charter

    Create a steering committee to improve success of IoT implementations

    Sample of the IoT Steering Committee Charter.

    IoT Solution Playbook

    Create a framework to quickly evaluate IoT solutions to mitigate risks and increase success

    Sample of the IoT Solution Playbook.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • Aggregation of processes and data may have compelling implications for increasing effectiveness of the business, but this may also increase risk. A framework will help to drive value while putting in appropriate guardrails.
    • IoT use cases may be varied within many industries, and the use of many types of sensors and devices complicates management and maintenance. A common understanding of how devices will be tracked, managed, and maintained is imperative to IT securing their systems and data.
    • A pilot program to evaluate effectiveness and either reject or move forward with a plan to onboard the solution as quickly as possible will ensure quick time to value and enable immediate implementation of controls to meet operational and security requirements.

    Business Benefits

    • Aggregation of many disparate groups of data can provide new insights into the way an organization interacts with its clients and how clients are using products and services.
    • As organizations innovate and new IoT solutions are introduced to the environment, solutions need to be evaluated quickly to determine if they’re going to meet the business case and then determine what needs to be put in place for technology, process, and policy to ensure success.
    • As new solutions are introduced, anyone who may be impacted through this new data-collection process will need to be informed and feel secure in the way information is analyzed and managed. This project will provide the framework to quickly assess the risks and develop a communications plan.

    Evaluate digital transformation opportunities with these guiding principles for smart solutions

    Problem & opportunity focus
    • Search for real problems to solve, with visible improvement possibilities
    • Don’t choose technology for technology’s sake
    • Keep an eye to the future
    • Strategic foresight
    Piece by piece
    • Avoid the “Big Bang” approach
    • Test technologies in multiple conditions
    • Run inexpensive pilots
    • Increase flexibility
    • Technology ecosystem
    User buy-in
    • Collaborate with the community
    • Gain and sustain support
    • Increase uptake of city technology
    • Crowdsource community ideas
    Recommendations:
    Focus on real problems • Be a fast follower • Build a technology ecosystem

    Info-Tech Insight

    When looking for a quick win, consider customer journey mapping exercises to find out what it takes to do the work today, for example, map the journey to apply for a building permit, renew a license, or register a patient.

    Measure the value of IoT

    There is a broad range of solutions for IoT all designed to collect information and execute actions in a way designed to increase profitability and/or improve services. McKinsey estimates value created through interoperability will account for 40% to 60% of the potential value of IoT applications.

    Revenue Generating
    • Production increases and efficiency
    • Reliability as data quality increases
    • New product development opportunities through better understanding of how your products are used
    • New product offerings with automated data collection and analysis of aggregated data
    Improved outcomes
    • Improved wellness programs for employees and patients through proactive health management
      • Reduction in health care/insurance costs
      • Reduction in time off for illness
    • Reduction in human error
    • Improved safety – fewer equipment malfunction incidents
    • Sustainability – reduction in emissions
    Increased access to data, especially if aggregating with other data sources, will increase opportunities for data analysis leading to more informed decision making.
    Cost Avoidance
    • Cost efficiency – lower energy consumption, less waste, improved product consumption
    • Reliability – reduced downtime of equipment due to condition-based maintenance
    • Security – decrease in malware attacks
    Operational Metrics
    • # supported devices
    • % of projects using IoT
    • % of managed systems
    • % of increase in equipment optimization

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

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

    A typical GI is between 4 to 8 calls over the course of 2 to 4 months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
    Call #1: Determine steering committee members and mandates.

    Call #2: Define process for meeting and assessing requests.

    Call #3: Define the intake process.

    Call #4: Define the role of the BRM & assessment criteria.

    Call #5: Define the process to secure funding.

    Call #6: Define assessment requirements for other IT groups.

    Call #7: Define proof of value process.

    Create and Implement an IoT Strategy

    Phase 1

    Define your governance process

    Steering Committee

    1.1 Define the committee’s roles and responsibilities in the IoT Steering Committee Charter

    1.2 Define the IoT steering committee’s vision statement and mandates

    1.3 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and roles and responsibilities

    Intake Process

    2.1 Define requirements for requesting new IoT solutions

    2.2 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – BA/BRM

    2.3 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – Data specialists

    2.4 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – Privacy & Security

    2.5 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – Infrastructure & Operations

    2.6 Define service objectives and evaluation process

    Proof of Value

    3.1 Determine the criteria for running a proof of value

    3.2 Define the template and process for running a proof of value

    This phase will provide the following activities

    • Create the steering committee project charter
    If a steering committee exists, it may be appropriate to define IoT governance under their mandate. If a committee doesn’t already exist or their mandate will not include IoT, consider creating a committee to set standards and processes and quickly evaluate solutions for feasibility and implementation.

    Create an IoT steering committee to ensure value will be realized and operational needs will be met

    The goals of the steering committee should be:

    • To align IoT initiatives with organizational goals. 
    • To effectively evaluate, approve, and prioritize IoT initiatives.
    • To approve IoT strategy & evaluation criteria.
    • To reinforce and define risk evaluation criteria as they relate to IoT technology.
    • To review pilot results and confirm the value achievement of approved IoT initiatives.
    • To ensure the investment in IoT technology can be integrated and managed using defined parameters.

    Assemble the right team to ensure the success of your IoT ecosystem

    Business stakeholders will provide clarity for their strategy and provide input into how they envision IoT solutions furthering those goals and how they may gain relevant insights from secondary data.

    As IoT solutions move beyond their primary goals, it will be critical to evaluate the continually increasing data to mitigate risks of unintended consequences as new data sets converge. The security team will need to evaluate solutions and enforce standards.

    CDO and analysts will assess opportunities for data convergence to create new insights into how your services are used.

    Lightbulb with the word 'Value' surrounded by categories relative to the adjacent paragraph, 'Data Scientists', 'Security and Privacy', 'Business Leaders', 'IT Executives', 'Operations', and 'Infrastructure & Enterprise Architects'. IT stakeholders will be driving these projects forward and ensuring all necessary resources are available and funded.

    Operational plans will include asset management, monitoring, and support to meet functional goals and manage throughout the asset lifecycle.

    Each solution added to the environment will need to be chosen and architected to meet primary functions and secondary data collection.

    Identify IoT steering committee participants to ensure broad assessment capabilities are available

    • The committee should include team members experienced enough to provide an effective assessment of IoT projects, and to provide input and oversight regarding business value, privacy, security, operational support, infrastructure, and architectural support.
    • A data specialist will be critical for evaluating opportunities to expand use of data and ensure data can be effectively validated and aggregated. Additional oversight will be needed to review aggregated data to protect against the unintended consequences of having data combined and creating personas that will identify individuals.
    • Additional experts may be invited to committee meetings as appropriate, and ideas should be discussed and clarified with the business unit bringing the ideas forward or that may be impacted by solutions.
    • Invite appropriate IT and business leaders to the initial meeting to gain agreement and form the governance model.

    Determine responsibilities of the committee to gain consensus and universal understanding

    Icon of binoculars. STRATEGIC
    ALIGNMENT
    • Define the IoT vision in alignment with the organizational strategy and mission.
    • Define strategy, policies and communication requirements for IoT projects.
    • Assess and bring forward proposals to utilize IoT to further organizational strategy.
    Icon of a person walking up an ascending bar graph. VALUE
    DELIVERY
    • Define criteria for evaluating and prioritizing proposals and projects.
    • Validate the IoT proposals to ensure value drivers are understood and achievable.
    • Identify opportunities to combine data sets for secondary analysis and insights.
    Icon of a lightbulb. RISK
    OPTIMIZATION
    • Evaluate data and combined data sets to avoid unintended consequences.
    • Ensure security standards are adhered to when integrating new solutions.
    • Reinforce privacy regulations, policy, and communications requirements.
    Icon of an arrow in a bullseye. RESOURCE
    OPTIMIZATION
    • Identify and validate investment and resource requirements.
    • Evaluate technical requirements and capabilities.
    • Align IoT management requirements to operations goals within IT.
    Icon of a handshake. PERFORMANCE
    MANAGEMENT
    • Assess validity of pilot project plan, including success criteria.
    • Identify corner cases to assess functionality and potential risks beyond core features.
    • Monitor progress, evaluate results, and ensure organizational needs will be met.
    • Evaluate pilot to determine if it will be moved into full production, reworked, or rejected.

    1.1 Exercise:
    Define the committee’s roles & responsibilities in the IoT steering committee charter

    1-3 hours

    Input: Current policies and assessment tools for security and privacy, Current IT strategy for introducing new solutions and setting standards

    Output: List of roles and responsibilities, High-level discussion points

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Steering committee workbook

    Participants: IT executive, Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s)

    1. Identify and document core and auxiliary members of the committee, ensuring all important facets of the IoT environment can be assessed.
    2. Identify and document the committee chair.
    3. Gain consensus on responsibilities of the steering committee.

    Download the IoT Steering Committee Charter

    Define the vision statement for the IoT committee to clarify mandate and communicate to stakeholders

    The vision statement will define what you’re trying to achieve and how. You may have the statement already solidified, but if not, start with brainstorming several outcomes and narrow to less than 5 focus areas.

    A vision statement should be concise and should be in support of the overall IT strategy and organizational mission. The vision statement will be used as a high-level guide for defining and assessing proposed solutions and evaluating potential outcomes. It can be used as a limiter to quickly weed out ideas that don’t fit within the mandate, but it can also inspire new ideas.

    • Support innovation
    • Enable the business
    • Enable operations for continual value

    New York City has a broad plan for implementing IoT to meet several aspects of their overall strategy and subsequently their IT strategy. Their strategic plan includes several focus areas that will benefit from IoT:
    • A vibrant democracy
    • An inclusive economy
    • Thriving neighborhoods
    • Healthy lives
    • Equity and excellence in education
    • A livable climate
    • Efficient mobility
    • Modern infrastructure
    Their overall mission is: “OneNYC 2050 is a strategy to secure our city’s future against the challenges of today and tomorrow. With bold actions to confront our climate crisis, achieve equity, and strengthen our democracy, we are building a strong and fair city. Join us.”

    In order to accomplish this overall mission, they’ve created a specific IT vision statement: “Improve digital infrastructure to meet the needs of the 21st century.”

    This may seem broad, and it includes not just IoT, but also the need to upgrade infrastructure to be able to enable IoT as a tool to meet the needs to collect data, take action, and better understand how people move and live within the city. You can read more of their strategy at this
    link: http://onenyc.cityofnewyork.us/about/

    1.2 Exercise:
    Define the IoT steering committee’s vision statement and mandate

    1 hour

    Input: Organizational vision and IT strategy

    Output: Vision statement

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Steering committee workbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: IT executive, Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s)

    1. Starting with the organizational mission statement, brainstorm areas of focus with the steering committee and narrow down the statement.
    2. Make sure it’s broad enough to encompass your goals, but succinct enough to allow you to identify projects that don’t meet the vision.
    3. Test with a few existing ideas.
    4. Document in your steering committee charter.

    Download the IoT Steering Committee Charter

    Use the COPIS methodology to define your project review process

    COPIS is a customer-focused methodology used to focus on the areas around the process, ensuring a holistic view starting with who the customer is and what they need, then building out the process and defining what will be required to be successful and who will be involved in fulfilling the work.

    Customer

    • Executive leadership
    • Business leaders

    Outputs

    • Risk assessment
    • Approvals to proceed
    • Pilot plan
    • Assessment to approve for production or reject

    Process

    • Review proposals
    • Ask questions and discuss with proposer & committee
    • Review pilot & testing plan
    • Engage with IT Team to define requirements

    Inputs

    • Request form including:
    • New idea
    • Business value defined
    • Data collected
    • Initial risk assessment
    • Implementation plan
    • Definition of success

    Suppliers

    • IT operations team
    • Device and software vendors
    • IT leaders
    • Risk committee
    Agenda & process flow



    Determine where people will access request form Ending point
    Sequence of right-facing arrows labelled 'Agenda & process flow'. Text in each arrow from left to right reads 'Confirm attendees required are in attendance', 'Review open action items', 'Assess new items', 'Assess prioritization', 'Review metrics & pilots in progress', 'Decisions & recommendations'.

    Create a committee charter to ensure roles are clarified and mandates can be met

    The purpose of the committee is to quickly assess and protect organizational interests while furthering the needs of the business

    The committee needs to be seen as an enabler to the business, not as a gatekeeper, so it must be thorough but responsive.

    The charter should include:
    • The vision to ensure clarity of purpose.
    • IoT mandates to focus the committee on assessment criteria.
    • Roles, responsibilities, and assignments to engage the right people who will provide the kind of guidance needed to ensure success.
    • Procedures to make the best use of each committee member’s time.
    • Process flow to guide evaluations to avoid unnecessary delays while reducing organizational risks.
    Stock image of someone reading on a tablet.

    1.3 Exercise:
    Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects

    2-3 hours

    Input: Schedules of committee members, Process documentation for evaluating new technology

    Output: Procedures for reviewing proposals, Reference documentation for evaluating proposals

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Steering committee workbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: IT executive, Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s)

    1. Discuss as a group how often you will meet for reviews and project updates. Which roles will have veto rights on project approvals?
    2. Define the intake process and requirements for scheduling based on average lead time to get the group together and preview documentation.
    3. Identify where process documentation already exists to use for evaluation of proposals and projects, and what needs to be created to quickly move from evaluation to action phases.
    4. Define basic rules of engagement.
    5. Define process flow using COPIS methodology as a framework. Note the different stages that may be part of the intake flow. Some business partners may bring solutions to IT, and others may just have an idea that needs to be solutioned.

    Download the IoT Steering Committee Charter

    Create and Implement an IoT Strategy

    Phase 2

    Define the intake and assessment process

    Steering Committee

    1.1 Define the committee’s roles and responsibilities in the IoT Steering Committee Charter

    1.2 Define the IoT steering committee’s vision statement and mandates

    1.3 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and roles and responsibilities

    Intake Process

    2.1 Define requirements for requesting new IoT solutions

    2.2 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – BA/BRM

    2.3 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – Data specialists

    2.4 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – Privacy & Security

    2.5 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – Infrastructure & Operations

    2.6 Define service objectives and evaluation process

    Proof of Value

    3.1 Determine the criteria for running a proof of value

    3.2 Define the template and process for running a proof of value

    This phase will provide the following activities

    • Define requirements for requesting new IoT solutions
    • Define procedures for review proposals and projects
    • Define service objectives and evaluation process for reviewing proposals and projects

    Determine what information is necessary to start the intake process

    To encourage your business leaders to engage IT in evaluating and appropriately supporting the solution, start with an intake process that is simple and easily populated with business information.
    • Review intake forms from the PMO or build your own from the IoT Solution Playbook:
    • Start by asking for a clear picture of the solution. Ensure the requester can clearly articulate the business benefit to the solution, including what issues are being resolved and what success looks like.
    • Requesters may not be expected to seek out all relevant information to make the decision.
      • Consider providing a business analyst (BA) to assist with data gathering for further assessment and to launch the review process.
      • Review may require additional steps if it is not clear the proposed solution will perform as expected and could include conversations with the vendor or a determination that a full requirements-gathering process may need to be done.
    • Typically, a BA will launch the review process to have appropriate experts assess the feasibility of the solution; assess regulatory, privacy, and security concerns; and determine the level of involvement needed by IT and the project managers.
    • Have options for different starting points. Some requesters may be further along in their research as they know exactly what they want, while others will be early in the idea stage. Don’t discourage innovation by creating more work than they’re able to execute.

    Business goals and benefits are important to ensure the completed solution meets the intended purpose and enables appropriate collection, analysis, and use of data in the larger business context.

    Ongoing operational support and service need to be considered to ensure ongoing value, and adherence to security and privacy policies is critical.

    2.1 Exercise:
    Define requirements for requesting new IoT solutions

    1 hour

    Input: Business requirements for requesting IT solutions

    Output: Request form for business users, Section 1 of the IoT Solution Playbook

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, IoT Solution Playbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: IT executive, Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s)

    1. Review template for the IoT Solution Playbook to ensure it meets your needs; modify as necessary.
    2. Determine requirements for initiating an assessment.
      1. Will a business case be necessary to start, or can the assessment feed into the business case?
      2. How can you best access the work already done by the requester to not start over?
      3. Determine the right questions to understand how they will define success to ensure this solution will do what they need.
      4. Do you need a breakdown of the way they do the job today?
      5. What level of authorization needs to be on the request to move forward?
    3. Try to balance the effort of the requester against their role. Don’t expect them to investigate solutions beyond the business value.
    4. Provide them with a means to provide you any information they have gathered, especially if they have already spoken to vendors.

    Download the IoT Solution Playbook

    Define what role the BA or BRM will play to support the request process

    Identify questions that will need to be answered in order to assess if the solution will be fit for purpose, to help build out business cases, and to enable the appropriate assessments and engagement with project managers and technical teams.
    • Project sponsorship is key to moving the project ahead. Ensure the project sponsor and business owner will be in alignment on the solution and business needs.
    • Note any information that will help to prioritize this project among all other requests. This will feed into implementation timing and the project management needs, resourcing, and vendor engagement required.
    • Determine if a proof of value would be an asset. A proof of value can be time consuming, but it can mitigate the risks of large-scale failures.
    • Ask about data collection and data type, which will be a major part of the assessment for the data team and for security, privacy, infrastructure, and operational assessments.
    • Determine if any actions will need to be taken, which might include data transfer, notifications and alerts, or others. This may require additional discussions on actuators, RPA, data stores, and integrations.
    • Determine if any automation will be part of the solution, as this will help to inform future discussions on power, connectivity, security, and privacy.

    Download the blueprint Embed Business Relationship Management in IT if you need help to support the business in a more strategic manner.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Understanding the business issue more deeply can help the business analyst determine if the solution needs a review of business process as well as helping to build out the requirements well enough to improve chances of success.

    The BA should be able to determine initial workload and involvement of project managers and evaluators.

    Clearly articulate the business benefits to secure funding and resources

    If the business users need to build a business case, the information being collected will help to define the value, estimate costs, and evaluate risk

    IoT point solutions can be straightforward to articulate the business benefits as they will have very specific benefits which will likely fit into one of these categories:
    • Financial – to increase profitability or reduce costs through predictive maintenance and efficiency.
    • Business Development – innovation for new products, services, and methodologies
    • Improve specific outcomes – typically these will be industry specific, such as improved patient health care, reduced traffic congestion or use of city resources, improved billing, or fire prevention for utility companies.

    As you start to look at the bigger picture of how these different systems can bring together disparate data sets, the benefits will be harder to define, and the costs to implement this next level of data analysis can be daunting and expensive.

    This doesn’t necessitate a complete alignment of data collection purposes; there may be benefits to improving operations in secondary areas such as updating HVAC systems to reduce energy costs in a hospital, though the updated systems may also include sensors to monitor air quality and further improve patient outcomes.

    In these cases, there may be future opportunities to use this data in unexpected ways, but even where there aren’t, applying the same standards for security, privacy, and operations should apply.

    Table titled 'Increasing productivity through efficiency and yield are the top benefits organizations expect to see from IoT implementations' with three columns, one for type of benefit (ie efficiency, yield, quality, etc), one for different IoT implementations and one for percent increase.
    (Microsoft IoT Signals Report 2020, n= 3,000 IT Professionals)

    2.2 Exercise – BA/BRM: Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects

    1 hour

    Input: Process documentation for evaluating new technology, Business case requirements

    Output: Interview questions and assessment criteria for BA/BRM

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, IoT Solution Playbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: Business analyst or business relationship manager, IT executive(s), Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s)

    1. Review template for the IoT Solution Playbook to ensure it meets your needs; modify as necessary.
    2. Identify the questions that will need to be asked of the business to determine whether the request will be fit for purpose.
    3. Additional questions may help to:
      1. Identify project sponsors to determine if requirements are defined or need to be, and who will champion this project through to implementation.
      2. Identify what additional work will be needed for you to shepherd the project through the various stage gates.
      3. Identify any prioritization criteria including business-specific milestones and outcomes.
    4. Document when a formal business case needs to be created.

    Download the IoT Solution Playbook

    Assess the vendor’s solution for accessibility to ensure data will be available and useable

    Data governance, including stewardship and ownership; lineage; and the ability to scale, deduplicate, normalize, validate, and aggregate disparate data will be critical to being able to analyze data to execute on strategic goals.

    If your organization isn’t poised to manage and make the best use of the data, see Info-Tech’s related blueprints:

    Relevant Research: Diagnostic:
    Data ownership is important to establish early on, as the owner(s) will be accountable for how data is used and accessed. Data needs to be owned by the organization (not the vendor) and needs to be accessible for:
    • Regulatory compliance.
    • Data quality and validation.
    • Data normalization.
    • Data aggregation and analysis.
    Vendor assessments need to investigate how data will be accessed, where data is normalized and how data will be validated.
    Data validation will have different levels of importance depending on the use case. Where data validation is critical, there may be a need to double up sensors in key areas, validate against adjacent sensors, better understand how and where data will be collected.
    • Infrared sensors may include intelligence to count people or objects.
    • Cameras might require manual counts but may provide better images.
    • Good quality images may require technology to distort faces for privacy.
    If data validation will include non-sensor data, such as validation against a security access database or visitor log, access to the data for validation may be required in near real time.

    Determine how often you need to access and download data

    Requirements will vary depending on whether sensors are collecting data for later analysis or if they are actuators that need to process data at the source.

    Determine where the data will reside and how it will be structured. If it will be open and controlled within your own environment, confer with your data team to ensure the solution is integrated into your data systems. If, however, the solution is a point solution which will be hosted by the vendor, understand who will be normalizing the data and how frequently you can export or transfer it into your own data repository. If APIs will need to be installed to enable data transfer, work with the vendor to test them.

    Self-contained or closed solutions may be quick to install and configure and may require minimal technical support from within your own IT team, but they will not provide visibility to the inner workings of the solution. This may create issues around integration and interoperability which could limit the functionality and usability beyond the point solution.

    If the solution chosen is a closed system, determine how you will need to interact with the vendor to gain access to the data. Interoperability may not be an option, so work with the vendor to set up a regular cadence for accessing the data.

    Questions for the vendor could include:

    1. How often can we access the data? Will the vendor push it on a regular basis? Is it on demand?
    2. Or will we need to pull the data? Is there an API?
    3. Will the data be normalized?
    4. Will the data be transferred, or will the vendor keep a historical record?
    5. Are there additional fees for archiving or for data extraction?
    Stock image of a large key inserted into the screen of a laptop.

    Identify whether digital twins are needed

    Create a virtual world to safely test and fail without impacting the real-world applications.

    As actuators are processing information and executing actions, there may be a benefit to assess the effectiveness and impact of various scenarios in a safe environment. Digital twins enable the creation of a virtual world to test these new use cases using real world scenarios.

    These virtual replicas will not be necessary for every IoT application as many solutions will be very straightforward in their application. But for those complex systems, such as smart buildings, smart cities and mechanically complex projects, digital twins can be created to run multiple simulations to aid in business continuity planning, performance assessments, R&D and more.

    Due to the expense and complexity of creating a full digital twin, carefully weighing the benefits, and identifying how it will be used, can help to build the business case to invest in the technology. Without the skills in house, reliance on a vendor to create the model and test scenarios will likely be part of the overall solution.

    The assessment will also include understanding what data will be transferred into the model, how often it will be updated, how it will be protected and who will need to be involved in the modeling process.

    Download the blueprint: Double Your Organization’s Effectiveness With a Digital Twin. if you need more information on how to leverage digital twin technology.

    Stock image of a twin mirroring the original person's action.

    To fully realize value in IoT, think beyond single use case solutions to leverage the data collected

    Expertise in data analysis will be key to moving forward with an enterprise approach to IoT and the data it produces.
    • A single IoT solution can add hundreds of sensors, collecting a wide variety of data for specific purposes. If multiple solutions are in place, there may be divergent data sets that may never be seen by anyone other than their specific data stewards.
    • Many organizations have started out with one or two solutions that support their primary business and may include some more mature offerings such as HVAC systems, which have used sensors for years. However, not all data is used today. In many cases, data is used for anomaly detection to improve operations, and only the non-standard information is used for alerting. McKinsey estimates less than 1% of data is used in these applications, with the remaining data stored or deleted, rather than used for optimization and predictive analysis.
    • Thinking beyond the initial use cases, there may be opportunities to create new services, improve services for existing products, or improve insights through analysis of juxtaposed data.
    • McKinsey reports up to $11.1 trillion a year in economic value may be possible by 2025 through the linking of the physical and digital worlds. Personal devices and all industries are potential growth areas – though factories and anywhere that could use predictive maintenance, cities, retail, and transportation will see the largest probable increases. Interoperability was identified as being required to maximize value, accounting for 40% to 60% of the potential value of IT applications.
    • Where data is used to correct and control anomalies, very little data is retained and used for optimization or predictive analysis. By taking a deliberate approach to normalize, correlate, and analyze data, organizations can gain insight into the way their products are used, benefit from predictive maintenance, improve health care, reduce costs, and more.
    (Source: McKinsey, 2015)

    By 2025 an estimated data volume of 79.4 zettabytes will be attributed to connected IoT devices. (Statistia)

    Build data governance and analysis into your strategy to find new insights from correlating new and existing data

    As a point solution, IoT provides a means to collect large amounts of data quickly and act. When determining the use case for IoT and best fit solutions, it’s important to think about what data needs to be collected and what actions will need to be coordinated. As the need for more than just a few IoT solutions surfaces, the complexity and potential usefulness of data increases. This can lead to significant changes to the scope of data collection, storage, and analysis and may lead to unintended consequences.
    • Some industries, such as governments looking to build smart cities, will have a very broad range of opportunities for IoT devices, as well as high levels of difficulty managing very disparate systems; other industries, such as healthcare, will have very focused prospects for data collection and analysis.
    • In any case, the introduction of new IoT solutions can create very large amounts of data quickly, and if used only for a single purpose, there may be lost opportunity for expanding use of data to better understand your product, customers, or environment.
    • Don’t limit analysis to only IoT-collected data, as this can be consolidated with other sources for validation, enhancement, and insights. For example, fleet transponders can be connected to travel logs and dispatch records for validation and evaluation of fuel and resource consumption.
    • Determine the best time and methods for consolidation and normalization; consider using data consolidation vendors if the expertise is not available in-house.
    • As data combines, there may be unintended consequences of unique anonymous identifiers combining to identify employees or customers, and the potential for privacy breeches will need to be evaluated as all new systems come on-line.

    “We find very little IoT data in real life flows through analytics solutions, regardless of customer size. Even in the large organizations, they tend to build at-purpose applications, rather than creating those analytical scenarios or think of consolidating the IoT data in a data lake like environment.” (Rajesh Parab, Info-Tech Research Group)

    2.3 Exercise – data specialists: Define criteria for assessing proposals and projects

    1-2 hours

    Input: Process documentation for evaluating new technology, Data governance documents

    Output: Interview questions and assessment criteria for data specialists

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, IoT Solution Playbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: Business analyst or business relationship manager, IT executive, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s), Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff

    1. Review template for the IoT Solution Playbook to ensure it meets your needs; modify as necessary.
    2. Identify the questions that will need to be asked of the solution to ensure data governance and accessibility needs will be met.
    3. Additional questions may help to:
      1. Identify data owners or stewards to determine who will have authority over data and ensure their needs will be met.
      2. Identify what additional work will be needed for the data team to access, validate, normalize, and centralize data.
      3. Identify any concerns that will identify the solution as unviable.
      4. Identify any risks to data accessibility which will require mitigation.

    This initial review is designed to identify risks to data ownership or integrity and ensure data is available for additional uses as deemed appropriate to the organizational goals. This assessment is designed to find major flaws and to mitigate and integrate should the project be approved as viable.

    Download the IoT Solution Playbook

    Security assessments will need to include risk reviews specific to IoT

    The increase of data collectors and actuators creates a large attack surface that could easily provide an entry point for hackers to connect into an organization’s network. Assess existing protocols and risk registry to ensure all IoT systems are reviewed for security threats.

    The significant increase in devices and applications will require a review of security practices related to IoT to understand and mitigate risks. Even if the data collected is not considered integral to the business, such as with automated HVAC systems or an aquarium monitoring system, the devices can provide an entry point to access the network.

    IoT and ICS devices are functionally diverse and may include more mature solutions that have been acquired many times over. There are a wide variety of protocols that may not be recognized by vulnerability scanners as safe to operate in your environment. Many of these solutions will be agentless and may not be picked up by scanners on the network. Without knowing these devices exist or understanding the data traffic patterns, protecting the devices, data, and systems they’re attached to becomes challenging.

    Discovery and vulnerability scanners tuned specifically for IoT to look for and allow unusual protocols and traffic patterns will enable these devices to operate as designed without being shut down by vulnerability scanners protecting more traditional devices and traffic on an IT network. Orphaned devices can be found and removed. Solutions that will provide detailed asset inventories and network topologies will improve vulnerability detection.

    Systems that are air gapped or completely segregated may provide a layer of protection between IoT devices and the corporate network, but this may create additional difficulties in vulnerability assessment, identifying and responding to active threats, or managing the operational side. Additionally, if there are still functional connections between these systems for traffic to flow back to central repositories, operational systems, or remote connections, there are still potential threats.

    If security controls are not yet documented, see Info-Tech’s related blueprints:

    Relevant Research: Diagnostic:

    Align risk assessments to your existing risk registry, to quickly approve low-risk solutions and mitigate high risk

    Work with the business owner to understand how these systems are designed to work. Tracking normal patterns of behavior and traffic flow may be key to fine-tuning security settings to accommodate these solutions and prevent false positive shutdowns, especially if using automated remediation. Is the business owner identified, and will they be accessible throughout the lifecycle of the solution?

    Physical security: Will these systems be accessible to the public, and can they be secured in a way to minimize theft and vandalism? Will they require additional housing or waterproofing? Could access be completely secured? For example, could anyone access and install malware on a disconnected camera’s SD card?

    Security settings: For ease of service and installation, a vendor may use default security settings and passwords. This can create easy access for hackers to access the network and access sensitive data. Is there a possibility of IP theft though access by sensors? Determine who will have remote access to the system, and if the vendor will be supporting the system, will they be using least privilege or zero trust models? Determine their adherence to your security policy.

    Internet and network access and monitoring: Review connectivity and data transmission requirements and whether these can be accommodated in a way that balances security with operational needs. Will there be a need for air gapping, firewalls, or secure tunnelling, and will these solutions allow for discovery and monitoring? Can the vendor guarantee there are no back doors built into the code? Will the system be monitored for unauthorized access and activity, and what is the response process? Can it be integrated into your security operations center?

    Failover state: IoT devices with actuators or that may impact health and safety will need to be examined. Can you ensure actions in event of a failure will not be negatively impactful? For example, a door that locks on failover and cannot be opened from the inside will create safety risks; however, a door that opens on failover could result in theft of property or IP. Who controls and can access these settings?

    Firmware updates: Assess the history of updates released by the vendor and determine how these updates are sent to the devices and validated. Ensure the product has been developed using trusted platforms with security lifecycle models. Many devices will have embedded security solutions. Ensure these can be integrated into organizational security solutions and risk mitigation strategies.

    Enterprise IoT strategy will require a focus on privacy and risk

    Data aggregation creates new privacy concerns as data may be used outside of the original project parameters. The change of scope will need to be evaluated to determine personally identifiable information and what new issues it can create for the program, organization, and your audience.

    As a point solution, IoT provides a means to collect large amounts of data and, if actuators are completing tasks, act quickly. When determining the use case for IoT and best fit solutions, it’s important to think about what data needs to be collected and what actions will need to be coordinated.

    As the need for more than just a few IoT solutions surfaces, the complexity and potential usefulness of data increases. This can lead to significant changes to the scope of data collection, storage, and analysis, and may lead to unintended consequences.

    Questions to ask your vendors:
    1. Where may there be physical access to sensors and a possibility of theft, and can the data be encrypted?
    2. What type of information is captured by sensors and stored in the solution?
    3. Where is personally identifiable information captured, and where is it stored? How will you meet regulatory requirements such as GDPR? Where does the data fit within existing retention policies, and how long should it be kept?
    4. Will there be a need to post signage or update privacy statements in response to the information being collected?

    If data classification, privacy, and security controls are not yet documented, see Info-Tech’s related blueprints:

    Relevant Research:

    Don’t make assumptions about the type of data gathered with devices – ask the vendor to clearly state how and what is collected

    Carefully review how this information can be used by machine learning, in combination with other solutions, and if there is a possibility of unintended consequences that will create issues for your customers and therefore your own data sets.

    Look for ways of capturing information that will meet your business requirements while mitigating risk of capturing personally identifiable information. Examples would be LiDAR to capture movement instead of video, or AI to blur faces or license plate numbers at time of image capture.

    This chart identifies data collected by smartphone accelerometers which could be used to identify and profile an individual and understand their behaviors.

    Mobile device accelerometer data

    Table of Mobile device accelerometer data with columns 'Detection of sound vibrations', 'Body movements', and 'Motion trajectory of the device', and a key for color-coding labelling purple items as 'Health', yellow items as 'Personality traits, moods & emotions', and green items 'Identification'.
    Overview of sensitive inferences that can be drawn from accelerometer data. (Source: Association for Computing Machinery, 2019.)

    2.4 Exercise – Privacy & Security specialists: Define criteria for assessing proposals and projects

    1-2 hours

    Input: Process documentation for evaluating new technology, Data governance documents

    Output: Interview questions and assessment criteria for Privacy & Security specialists

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, IoT Solution Playbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: Business analyst or business relationship manager, IT executive, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s), Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff

    1. Review template for the IoT Solution Playbook to ensure it meets your needs; modify as necessary.
    2. Identify the questions that will need to be asked of the solution to ensure security and privacy needs will be met.
    3. Additional questions may help to:
      1. Identify biggest risks created by a large influx of sensors and additional vendors.
      2. Identify options for mitigating risks for privacy and regulatory requirements.

    This initial review is designed to identify risks to data ownership or integrity and ensure data is available for additional uses as deemed appropriate to the organizational goals. This assessment is designed to find major flaws and to mitigate and integrate should the project be approved as viable.

    Download the IoT Solution Playbook

    Review infrastructure requirements to proactively engage with vendors

    A modernized architecture will provide needed flexibility for onboarding new IoT solutions as well as providing the structure to collect, transport, and house data; however, not everything will be on the network. Knowing requirements for integrations, communications, and support will eliminate surprises during implementation.

    The supporting applications will be collecting and analyzing data for each of these solutions, with most being hosted on public clouds or privately by the vendor. Access to the applications for data collection may require APIs or other middleware to transfer data outside of their application. Data transfer may be unimportant if the data collected will stand alone and never be integrated to other systems, but it will be critical if IoT plans include retrieving, aggregating, and analyzing data from most systems. If these systems are closed, determine the process to get this information, whether it’s through scheduled exports or batch transfers.

    Determine if data will be backed up by the vendor or if backups are the responsibility of your team. Work with the business owner to better understand business continuity requirements to plan appropriately for data transmission, storage, and archiving.

    Network and communications will vary dramatically depending on where sensors and actuators are located. On-premises solutions may rely on Wi-Fi on your network or may require an air-gapped or segregated network. External sensors may rely on public Wi-Fi, cellular, or satellite, and this may impact reliability and serviceability. If manual data collection is required, such as collecting SD cards on trail cams, who will be responsible, and will they have the tools and data repository they need to upload data manually? Are you able to work with the vendor to estimate traffic on these networks, and how will that impact costs for cellular or satellite service?

    Investigate power requirements. On-premises solutions may require additional wiring, but if using wind or solar, what is the backup? If using batteries, what is the expected lifespan? Who will be monitoring, and who will be changing the batteries?

    Determine monitoring requirements. Who should be responsible for performance monitoring, outages, data transmission, and validation? Is this a vendor premium service or a process to manage in-house? If managed by the vendor, discuss required SLAs and their ability to meet them.

    If your organization is dealing with technical debt and older architecture which could prevent progress, see Info-Tech’s related blueprints to build out the foundation.

    Relevant Research:

    Determine operational readiness to support and secure IoT solutions

    Availability and capacity planning, business continuity planning, and management of all operational and support requirements will need to be put in place. Execution of controls, maintenance plans, and operational support will be required to mitigate risks and reduce value of the solutions.

    One of the biggest challenges organizations that have already adopted IoT face is management of these systems. Without an accurate inventory, it’s impossible to know how secure the IoT systems are. Abandoned sensors, stolen cameras, and old and unpatched firmware all contribute to security risks.

    Existing asset management solutions may provide the right solution, but they are limited in many cases by the discovery tools in place. Many discovery tools are designed to scan the network and may not have access to segregated or air-gapped networks or a means to access anything in the cloud or requiring remote access. Evaluate the effectiveness of current tools, and if they prove to be inadequate, look for solutions that are geared specifically to IoT as they may provide additional useful management capabilities.

    IoT management tools will provide more than just inventory. They can discover IoT devices in a variety of environments, possibly adding micro-agents to access device attributes such as name, type, and date of build, and allowing metadata and tags to be added. Additionally, these solutions will provide the means to deploy firmware updates, change configuration settings, send notifications if devices are taken offline, and run vulnerability assessments. Some may even have diagnostics tools for troubleshooting and remediation.

    If operational processes aren’t in place, see Info-Tech’s related blueprints to build out the foundation.

    Relevant Research: Diagnostic:

    Identify what needs to happen to onboard these solutions into your support portfolio

    Evaluate support options to determine the best way to support the business. Even if support is completely outsourced, a support plan will be critical for holding vendors to account, bringing support in-house if support doesn’t meet your needs, and understanding dependencies while navigating through incidents and problem- and change-enablement processes.

    Regular maintenance for your team may include battery swaps, troubleshooting camera outages or intermittent sensors, or deploying patches. Understand the support requirements for the product lifecycle and who will be responsible for that work. If the vendor will be applying patches and upgrading firmware, get clarity on how often and how they’ll be deployed and validated. Ask the vendor about support documentation and offerings.

    Determine the best ways of collecting inventory on the solution. Determine what the solution offers to help with this process; however, if the project plan requires specific location details to add sensors, the project list may be the best way to initially onboard the sensors into inventory.

    Determine if warranty offerings are an appropriate solution for devices in each project, to schedule and record appropriate maintenance details and plan replacements as sensors reach end of life. Document dependencies for future planning.

    Stock image of an electrical worker fixing a security camera.

    2.5 Exercise – Infrastructure & Operations specialists: Define criteria for assessing proposals and projects

    1-2 hours

    Input: Process documentation for evaluating new technology, Data governance documents

    Output: Interview questions and assessment criteria for Infrastructure & Operations specialists

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, IoT Solution Playbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: Business analyst or business relationship manager, IT executive, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s), Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff

    1. Review template for the IoT Solution Playbook to ensure it meets your needs; modify as necessary.
    2. Identify the questions that will need to be asked of the solutions to ensure the solutions can be integrated into the existing environment and operational processes.
    3. Additional questions may help to:
      1. Reduce risks and project failures from solutions that will be difficult to integrate or secure.
      2. Improve project planning for projects that are often driven by the vendor and the business.
      3. Reduce operational risks due to lack of integration with asset and operational processes.

    This initial review is designed to identify risks to data ownership or integrity and ensure data is available for additional uses as deemed appropriate to the organizational goals. This assessment is designed to find major flaws and to mitigate and integrate should the project be approved as viable.

    Download the IoT Solution Playbook

    2.6 Exercise: Define service objectives and evaluation process

    1 hour

    Input: List of criteria in the playbook, Understanding of resource availability of solution evaluators

    Output: Steering committee criteria for progressing projects through the process

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, IoT Steering Committee Charter workbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: Business analyst or business relationship manager, IT executive, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s), Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff

    Now that you’ve defined the initial review requirements, meet as a group once more to finalize the process for reviewing requests. Look for ways to speed the process, including asynchronous communications and reviews. Consider meeting as a group for any solutions that may be deemed high risk or highly complex.

    1. Agree on what can be identified as a reasonable SLA to respond to the business on these requests.
    2. Agree on methods of communication between committee members and the business.
    3. Determine the criteria for determining when a proof of value should be initiated, and who will lead the process.

    Download the IoT Steering Committee Charter

    Create and Implement an IoT Strategy

    Phase 3

    Prepare for a Proof of Value

    Steering Committee

    1.1 Define the committee’s roles and responsibilities in the IoT Steering Committee Charter

    1.2 Define the IoT steering committee’s vision statement and mandates

    1.3 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and roles and responsibilities

    Intake Process

    2.1 Define requirements for requesting new IoT solutions

    2.2 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – BA/BRM

    2.3 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – Data specialists

    2.4 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – Privacy & Security

    2.5 Define procedures for reviewing proposals and projects – Infrastructure & Operations

    2.6 Define service objectives and evaluation process

    Proof of Value

    3.1 Determine the criteria for running a proof of value

    3.2 Define the template and process for running a proof of value

    This phase will provide the following activities

    • Create proof of value criteria
    • Create proof of value template

    A proof of value can quickly help you prove value or fail fast

    Investing a small amount of time and money up front will validate the possibility of your proposed solution.

    A proof of value will require a vision and definition of your criteria for success, which will be necessary to determine if the project should go ahead. It should take no longer than three months and may be as short as a week.

    When should you run a proof of value?

    • When it is difficult to confirm that the solution is fit for purpose.
    • When the value of the solution is indeterminate.
    • When the solution is early in its lifecycle and not widely proven in the marketplace.
    • When scalability is questionable or unproven.
    • When the solution requires customization or configuration.

    Info-Tech Insight
    Where a solution is well known in the market, requires minimal customization, and is proven to be fit for purpose, a shorter evaluation or conversations with reference clients or partners may be all that is necessary.

    Table titled 'Reasons IoT proof of value projects fail'. There is a column for type of project (ie Scaling, Business, etc), one for reasons, and one for percentages.
    (Microsoft IoT Signals Report 2020, n= 3,000 IT Professionals)

    3.1 Exercise: Define the criteria for running a proof of value

    1 hour

    Input: Agreement of steering committee members to create a process to mitigate risk for complex solutions.

    Output: Proof of value template for use as appropriate to evaluate IoT solutions.

    Materials: IoT Solution Playbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: Business analyst or business relationship manager, IT executive, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s), Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff

    1. As a group, review the circumstances for when to run a proof of value.
    2. Determine who will help to build the proof of value plan.
    3. Determine requirements for participation in the proof of value process. Consider project size, complexity and risk and visibility.

    Download IoT Solution Playbook

    Design your proof of value to test the viability of the solution

    Engage the right stakeholders early to gather feedback and analysis and determine suitability

    Determine the proof of value methodology to ensure plan allows for fast testing
    • Go back to the original request: What are the goals for implementing this solution? Has this been clearly defined with criteria for success?
    • Define the technical team that will configure the solution, including vendors and technicians. Ensure the vendor fully understands your use cases and goals. Identify the level of support you’ll need to be implement and assess the solution.
    • Define the testing team, including technical and business users. Complete a journey map if needed to define the use case(s) at the right level of detail.
    • Ensure the test use case(s) have been defined and they all agree on the definition of success.
    • Make sure the team is available to do the testing and provide feedback, as high adoption will improve feedback which will be critical to successfully implementing the full solution.
    • Determine how to evaluate scalability with process, resources, and capacity.
    • Evaluate the risks and obstacles to reject the solution or mitigate and prevent scope creep.
    • Evaluate the vendor’s roadmap, training materials, and technical support options.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Additional information on building out a process for testing new technology can be found in the blueprint: Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology.

    “Although scope creep is not the only nemesis a project can have, it does tend to have the farthest reach. Without a properly defined project and/or allowing numerous changes along the way, a project can easily go over budget, miss the deadline, and wreak havoc on project success.” (University Alliance, Villanova University)

    Define your objectives for the proof of value

    Referencing documents submitted to the committee, continue to refine the problem statement.

    Objectives are a key first step to show the solution will meet your needs.
    • Every technology is designed to solve a problem faced by somebody somewhere. For each technology that your team has decided to move forward with, identify and clearly state the problem it would solve.
    • A clear problem statement is a crucial part of a new technology’s business case. It is impossible to earn buy-in from the rest of the organization without demonstrating the necessity of a solution.
    • Perfection is impossible to achieve, especially during a proof of value (POV). However, knowing the pain points of the way things are done without this technology, and noting a reduction in pain and increase in efficiency and accuracy of data gathering will help in the initial feedback of the tests. Ensure the proof of value includes data validation to test accuracy.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Know your metrics going into the proof of value. Document performance, quality, and time to do the work and compare to metrics in the proof of value. Agree on what success looks like, to ensure that improvements are substantial enough to justify the expense and effort of implementing the solution.

    Questions to consider:
    • What are the project’s goals?
    • What is the desired future state?
    • What problems must be solved to call the POV a viable solution?
    • Where will the project be rolled out? Are there any concerns about communications and power that may need to be addressed?
    • Are there any risks to watch for?

    Info-Tech Insight

    Be sure to avoid scope creep! Remember: the goal of the proof of value project is to produce a minimum case for viability in a carefully defined area. Reserve a detailed accounting of costs and benefits for after the proof of value stage.

    Define use cases to test against current methods

    Outline the solution to the problem

    Determine how the solution should perform in completing tasks. Be careful not to focus too heavily on how things are done today: You’re looking for dramatic improvements, not going back to existing workarounds.
    • The use case will help to define the scope of the project, define adjacent use cases or tasks that will be out of scope, and to contain the test to a reasonable effort and time frame, while still testing core functionality.
    • Map processes based on expectations of how the solution should work, and compare these to the way things are done today. Identify if there are obvious improvements to the existing processes that if done, would change the existing results significantly. Take this into account when reviewing results. (This will also be useful if the project isn’t approved or is delayed.)
    • Identify where tasks and data collection will be automated and where they will need to stay manual or require additional integrations or solutions such as RPA. These other solutions may not factor into the proof of value but will need to be identified on the solution roadmap if it goes ahead.

    Blocks with arrows in between them, like an example of a step progression.

    Define steps to reach these goals today:
    • Discuss steps to completion
    • Effort to collect data
    • Effort to validate and correct data
    • Effort and ability to use the data for decision making, understanding your customers, and process improvements
    • Quality of data available with current methods compared to quality and volume of data using an IoT solution

    Determine the appropriate project team

    Bring in team members from the business and technical sides to test for those functions that matter most to each team. This effort will enable them to quickly identify risks and mitigate them as part of the product rollout or start the process to look at alternative solutions.
    • Stakeholders: Anyone who is impacted by the new technology and who will end up using, approving, or implementing it. Identify team members who will be willing and able to test the systems for data quality, collection, and workflow improvements.
    • Data analysts: Include someone who can validate the usefulness of data to meet the needs of the organization.
    • Security & Privacy: Include these team members to validate their expectations of how privacy and security needs can be met.
    • Infrastructure & Operations: These team members can test integrations, data collections, traffic flow, etc.
    • Vendor: Discuss what part the vendor can play in setting up the solution for running the proof of value.
    • Other business units: Identify business units that could benefit or be impacted by this solution. Invite them to participate in the roof of value, but remember to contain scope.
    Leverage the insights of the diverse working group
    • Processes are designed to transform inputs into outputs. All business activities can be mapped into processes.
    • A process map illustrates the sequence of actions and decisions that transform an input into an output.
    • Effective mapping gives managers an “aerial” view of the company’s processes, making it easier to identify inefficiencies, reduce waste, and ultimately streamline operations.
    • To identify business processes, have group members familiar with the affected business units identify how jobs are typically accomplished within those units.
    • Ensure they have the time to test the solution and provide valid feedback.

    Estimate the resources required for the pilot

    Time, money, technology, resources

    The benefit of running a proof of value is to make a decision on viability of a solution without the expense of implementing a full solution. This isn’t necessary for low-risk, highly proven solutions, which could be validated with references instead.

    Estimate

    Estimate the number of hours needed to implement the proof of value.

    Estimate

    Estimate the hours needed for business users to test.

    Estimate

    Estimate the costs of technology. If the solution can be run in a vendor sandbox or in a test/dev instance in the cloud, you may be able to keep these costs very low.

    Determine

    Determine the appropriate number of devices to test in multiple locations and environments; work with the vendor to see if they have evaluation devices or discounts for proof of value purposes.

    Conduct a post-proof of value review to finalize the decision to move forward

    Gather evaluators together to ensure the pilot team completed their assessments. A common failure of pilots is making assumptions around the level of participation that has taken place.
    • The core working group is responsible for producing a vision of the future and outlining new technology’s disruptive potential. The actual implementation of the proof of value (purchasing the hardware, negotiating the SLA with the vendor) is beyond the committee’s responsibilities.
    • If the proof of value goes ahead, the facilitator should block some time to evaluate the completed project against the key performance indicators identified in the initial plan.
    • Use the Proof of Value Template section of the IoT Solution Playbook to document POV requirements as well as finalizing the feedback loop.
    • Determine ratings for the proof of value to identify which solutions are not viable and which levels of viability are worth moving forward. Some viable solutions may need a different vendor, and some may need customization or multiple integrations. This is important for the project team to move ahead with the implementation.
    • Encourage everyone to provide enough feedback on the various processes to be confident in their declarations of worthiness and to confirm the proof of value was thorough.
    • Communicate your working group’s findings and success to a wide audience to gain interest in IoT solutions as well as to encourage the business to work with the committee to integrate solutions into the governance and operational structure.

    3.2 Exercise: Create a template for designing a proof of value

    1-3 hours

    Input: Agreement of steering committee members to create a process to mitigate risk for complex solutions

    Output: Proof of value template for use as appropriate to evaluate IoT solutions

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, IoT Solution Playbook

    Participants: Steering committee, which may include: Business analyst or business relationship manager, IT executive, Senior data specialist, Senior business executive(s), Privacy & Security senior staff, Infrastructure & Operations senior staff

    1. As a group, review the Proof of Value Template section of the IoT Solution Playbook to determine if it will meet the needs of your business and technical groups.
    2. Determine who will work with the business to create the proof of value plan.
    3. Modify the template to suit your needs, keeping in mind a need for clarity of purpose, communications throughout the POV, and clearly stated goals and definitions of success.
    4. Set a target timeframe to run the POV, preferably no longer than 90 days.
    5. Determine appropriate steps to take for POVs that do not garner the expected participation to qualify a solution to move forward.
    6. Determine appropriate reporting for the evaluation process.

    Download IoT Solution Playbook

    Communications

    As with any new product, marketing and communications will be an important first step in letting the business know how to engage IT in its assessments of IoT innovations. As these solutions prove themselves, or even as you help the business to find better solutions, share your successes with the rest of the organization.

    Business units are already being courted by the vendors, so it’s up to IT to insert themselves in the process in a way that helps improve the success of the business team while still meeting IT’s objectives.

    Your customers will not willingly engage in highly bureaucratic processes and need to see a reason to engage.

    1. Keep the intake process simple.
    2. Provide support to answer the tough questions.
    3. Be clear on the benefits to the organization and the business unit by engaging with your group, and be clear about how you will help within a reasonable time frame.
      • IT will help navigate the vendor prerequisites, contracts, and product setup.
      • IT will assume some of the responsibility for the solution, especially around security and privacy.
      • The business unit will reap the rewards of the solution with minimal operational effort.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Consider building your playbook into your service catalog to make it easy for business users to start the request process. From there, you can create workflows and notifications, track progress, set and meet SLAs, and enable efficient asynchronous communications.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Photo of John Burwash, Senior Director, Executive Services, Info-Tech Research Group.

    John Burwash
    Senior Director, Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    INFO~TECH RESEARCH GROUP

    Info-Tech Research Group is an IT research and advisory firm with over 23 years of experience helping enterprises around the world with managing and improving core IT processes. They write highly relevant and unbiased research to help leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions.

    External contributors
    4 external contributors have asked to remain anonymous.

    Photo of Jennifer Jones, Senior Research Advisor, Industry, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Jennifer Jones
    Senior Research Advisor, Industry
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Photo of Aaron Shum, Vice President, Security, Privacy & Risk, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Aaron Shum
    Vice President, Security, Privacy & Risk
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Photo of Rajesh Parab, Research Director, Applications, Data & Analytics, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Rajesh Parab
    Research Director, Applications, Data & Analytics
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Photo of Frank Sargent, Senior Director Practice Lead, Security, Privacy & Risk, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Frank Sargent
    Senior Director Practice Lead, Security, Privacy & Risk
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Photo of Scott Young, Principal Research Advisor, Infrastructure, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Scott Young
    Principal Research Advisor, Infrastructure
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Photo of Rocco Rao, Director, Research Advisor, Industry, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Rocco Rao
    Director, Research Advisor, Industry
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Bibliography

    Ayyaswamy, Regu, et al. “IoT Is Enabling Enterprise Strategies for New Beginnings.” Tata Consulting Services, 2020. Web.

    “Data Volume of Internet of Things (IoT) Connections Worldwide in 2019 and 2025.” Statistia, 2020.

    Dos Santos, Daniel, et al. “Cybersecurity in Building Automation Systems (BAS).” Forescout, 2020. Web.

    Earle, Nick. “Overcoming the Barriers to Global IoT Connectivity: How Regional Operators Can Reap Rewards From IoT.” IoTNow, 30 June 2021. Web.

    Faludi, Rob. “How Do IoT Devices Communicate?” Digi, 26 Mar. 2021. Web.

    Halper, Fern, and Philip Russom. “TDWI IoT Data Readiness Guide, Interpreting Your Assessment Score.” Cloudera, 2018. Web.

    Horwitz, Lauren. “IoT Enterprise Deployments Continue Apace, Despite COVID-19.” IoT World Today, 22 Apr. 2021.

    “How Does IoT Data Collection Work?” Digiteum, 13 Feb. 2020. Web.

    “IoT Data: How to Collect, Process, and Analyze Them.” Spiceworks, 26 Mar. 2019. Web.

    IoT Signals Report: Edition 2, Hypothesis Group for Microsoft, Oct. 2020. Web.

    King, Stacey. “4 Key Considerations for Consistent IoT Manageability and Security.” Forescout, 22 Aug. 2019. Web.

    Krämer, Jurgen. “Why IoT Projects Fail and How to Beat the Odds.” Software AG, 2020. Web.

    Kröger, Jacob Leon, et al. “Privacy Implications of Accelerometer Data: A Review of Possible Inferences” ICCSP, Jan. 2019, pp. 81-7. Web.

    Manyika, James, et al. “Unlocking the Potential of the Internet of Things.” McKinsey Global Institute, 1 June 2015. Web.

    Ricco, Emily. “How To Run a Successful Proof of Concept – Lessons From Hubspot.” Filtered. Web.

    Rodela, Jimmy. “The Blueprint, Your Complete Guide to Proof of Concept.” Motley Fool, 2 Jan 2021. Web.

    Sánchez, Julia, et al. “An Integral Pedagogical Strategy for Teaching and Learning IoT Cybersecurity.” Sensors, vol. 20, no. 14, July 2020, p. 3970.

    The IoT Generation of Vulnerabilities. SC Media, 2020. E-book.

    Woods, James P., Jr. “How Consumer IoT Devices Can Break Your Security.” HPE, 2 Nov. 2021.

    Build a Platform-Based Organization

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}98|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
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    • The organization is riddled with bureaucracy. Some even believe that bureaucracy is inevitable and is an outcome of a complex business operating in a complex market and regulatory environment.
    • Time to market for new products and services is excruciatingly long.
    • Digital natives like Facebook, Netflix, and Spotify do not compare well with the organization and cannot be looked to for inspiration.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Large corporations often consist of a few operating units, each with its own idiosyncracies about strategies, culture, and capabilities. These tightly integrated operating units make a company prone to bureaucracy.
    • The antidote to this bureaucracy is a platform structure: small, autonomous teams operating as startups within the organization.

    Impact and Result

    • Platforms consist of related activities and associated technologies that deliver on a specific organizational goal. A platform can therefore be run as a business or as a service. This structure of small autonomous teams that are loosely joined will make your employees directly accountable to the customers. In a way, they become entrepreneurs and do not remain just employees.

    Build a Platform-Based Organization Research & Tools

    Build a platform-based organization

    Download our guide to learn how you can get started with a platform structure.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    • Build a Platform-Based Organization Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Build a Platform-Based Organization

    Use a platform structure to overcome bureaucracy.

    Analyst Perspective

    Build a platform-based organization.

    Bureaucracy saps innovation out of large corporations. Some even believe that bureaucracy is inevitable and is an outcome of a complex business operating in a complex market and regulatory environment.

    So, what is the antidote to bureaucracy? Some look to startups like Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, and Spotify, but they are digital native and don’t compare well to a large monolithic corporation.

    However, all is not lost for large corporations. Inspiration can be drawn from a company in China – Haier, which is not a typical poster child of the digital age like Spotify. In fact, three decades ago, it was a state-owned company with a shoddy product quality.

    Haier uses an intriguing organization structure based on microenterprises and platforms that has proven to be an antidote to bureaucracy.

    Vivek Mehta
    Research Director, Digital & Innovation
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    The Challenge

    Large corporations are prone to bureaucracies, which sap their organizations of creativity and make them blind to new opportunities. Though many executives express the desire to get rid of it, bureaucracy is thriving in their organizations.

    Why It Happens

    As organizations grow and become more complex over time, they yearn for efficiency and control. Some believe bureaucracy is the natural outcome of running a complex organization in a complex business and regulatory environment.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    A new organizational form – the platform structure – is challenging the bureaucratic model. The platform structure makes employees directly accountable to customers and organizes them in an ecosystem of autonomous units.

    As a starting point, sketch out a platform structure that works for your organization. Then, establish a governance model and identify and nurture key capabilities for the platform structure.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The antidote to bureaucracy is a platform structure: small, autonomous teams operating as startups within the organization.

    Executive Brief Case Study

    Small pieces, loosely joined

    Haier

    Industry: Manufacturing
    Source: Harvard Business Review November-December 2018

    Haier, based in China, is currently the world’s largest appliance maker. Zhang Ruimin, Haier’s CEO, has built an intriguing organizing structure where every employee is directly accountable to customers – internal and/or external. A large corporation often consists of a few operating units, each with its own idiosyncrasies, which makes it slow to innovate. To avoid that, Haier has divided itself into 4,000 microenterprises (MEs), most of which have ten to 15 employees. There are three types of microenterprises in Haier:

    1. Approximately 200 “transforming” MEs: market-facing units like Zhisheng, which manufactures refrigerators, a legacy Haier product, for today’s young urbanites.
    2. Approximately 50 “incubating” MEs: entirely new businesses like Xinchu that wrap existing products into entirely new business models.
    3. Approximately 3,800 “node” MEs: units that sell component products and services such as design, manufacturing, and human resources support to Haier’s market-facing MEs.

    Each ME operates as an autonomous unit with its own targets – an organizing structure that enables innovation at Haier.

    (Harvard Business Review, 2018)

    The image is a rectangular graphic with the words Refrigeration Platform in the centre. There are six text boxes around the centre, reading (clockwise from top left): Zhisheng Young urbanites; Langdu Premium; Jinchu Mid-priced; Xinchu Internet-connected; Overseas Export markets; Leader Value-priced. There are a series of white boxes bordering the graphic, with the following labels: at top--Sales nodes; at right--Support nodes (R&D, HR, supply chain, etc.); at bottom left---Design nodes; at bottom right--Production nodes.

    Markets disproportionately reward platform structure

    Tech companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Spotify are organized around a set of modular platforms run by accountable platform teams. This modular org structure enables them to experiment, learn, and scale quickly – a key attribute of innovative organizations.

    Facebook ~2,603 million monthly active users

    India ~1,353 million population

    Netflix ~183 million monthly paid subscribers

    Spotify ~130 million premium subscribers

    Canada ~37 million population

    (“Facebook Users Worldwide 2020,” “Number of Netflix Subscribers 2019,” “Spotify Users - Subscribers in 2020,” Statista.)

    1. Sketch Out the Platform Structure

    What is a platform anyway?

    A modular component of an org structure

    Platforms consist of a logical cluster of activities and associated technology that delivers on a specific business goal and can therefore be run as a business, or ‘as a service’ … Platforms focus on business solutions to serve clients (internal or external) and to supply other platforms.” – McKinsey, 2019

    Platforms operate as independent units with their own business, technology, governance, processes, and people management. As an instance, a bank could have payments platform under a joint business and IT leadership. This payments-as-a-service platform could provide know-how, processes, and technology to the bank’s internal customers such as retail and commercial business units.

    Many leading IT organizations are set up in a platform-based structure that allows them to rapidly innovate. It’s an imperative for organizations in other industries that they must pilot and then scale with a platform play.

    What a platform-based org looks like

    It looks like a multicellular organism, where each cell is akin to a platform

    An organism consists of multiple cells of different types, sizes, and shapes. Each cell is independent in its working. Regardless of the type, a cell would have three features –the nucleus, the cell membrane, and, between the two, the cytoplasm.

    Similarly, an organization could be imagined as one consisting of several platforms of different types and sizes. Each platform must be autonomous, but they all share a few common features – have a platform leader, set up and monitor targets, and enable interoperability amongst platforms. Platforms could be of three types (McKinsey, 2019):

    1. Customer-journey platforms enable customer proposition and experience built on reusable code. They provide “journey as a service”; for example, Account Opening in a bank.
    2. Business-solution platforms are modular and run as a business or as a service. They provide “company as a service”; for example, Payments or Fraud Detection in a bank.
    3. Core IT provisioning platforms provide core IT services for the organization, for example, cloud, data, automation.

    There are two images: in the lower part of the graphic shows a multicellular organism, and has text pointing to a single cell. At the top, there is a zoomed in image of that single cell, with its component parts labelled: Cell Membrane, Nucleus, and Cytoplasm.

    Case study: Payments platform in a bank

    Payments as a service to internal business units

    The payments platform is led by an SVP – the platform leader. Business and IT teams are colocated and have joint leadership. The platform team works with a mindset of a startup, serving internal customers of the bank – retail and commercial lines of business.

    A diagram showing Advisory Council in a large grey box on the left. To the right are smaller dark blue boxes labeled 'Real-time peer-to-peer payments,' Wire transfers,' 'Batch payments,' 'Mobile wallets,' and 'International payments (VISA, WU, etc.),' and one light blue box labeled 'Payments innovation.'


    Advisory Council: An Advisory Council is responsible for strategy, business, and IT architecture and for overseeing the work within the team. The Advisory Council prioritizes the work, earmarks project budgets, sets standards such as for APIs and ISO 20022, and leads vendor evaluation.

    International payments (VISA, WU, etc.): Project execution teams are structured around payment modes. Teams collaborate with each other whenever a common functionality is to be developed, like fraud check on a payment or account posting for debits and credits.

    Payments innovation: A think tank keeping track of trends in payments and conducting proof of concepts (POCs) with prospective fintech partners and with new technologies.

    Use a capability map to sketch out a platform-based structure

    Corral your organization’s activities and associated tech into a set of 20 to 40 platforms that cover customer journeys, business capabilities, and core IT. Business and IT teams must jointly work on this activity and could use a capability map as an aid to facilitate the discussion.

    The image is an example of a capability map, shown in more detail in the following section.

    An example of sketching a platform-based org structure for an insurance provider (partial)

    Design Policy Create Policy Issue Policy Service Customers Process Claims Manage Investments
    Defining Market Research & Analysis Underwriting Criteria Selection Customer Targeting Interaction Management First Notice of Loss (FNOL) Investment Strategy
    Actuarial Analysis Product Reserving Needs Assessment & Quotes Payments Claims Investigation Portfolio Management
    Catastrophe Risk Modeling Reinsurance Strategy Contract Issuance Adjustments Claims Adjudication Deposits & Disbursements
    Product Portfolio Strategy Product Prototyping Application Management Renewals Claims Recovery (Subrogation) Cash & Liquidity Management
    Rate Making Product Testing Sales Execution Offboarding Dispute Resolution Capital Allocation
    Policy Definition Product Marketing Contract Change Management

    Customer Retention

    [Servicing a customer request is a customer-journey platform.]

    Claims Inquiry

    [Filing a claim is a customer-journey platform.]

    Credit Bureau Reporting
    Shared Customer Management

    Account Management

    [Customer and account management is a business-capability platform to enable journeys.]

    Channel Management Risk Management Regulatory & Compliance Knowledge Management
    Partner Management

    Access and Identity Management

    [Access and identity management is a core IT platform.]

    Change Management Enterprise Data Management Fraud Detection [Fraud detection is a business-capability platform to enable journeys.] Product Innovation
    Enabling Corporate Governance Strategic Planning Reporting Accounting Enterprise Architecture Human Resources
    Legal Corporate Finance IT Facilities Management

    2. Establish Governance and Nurture Key Capabilities

    Two ingredients of the platform structure

    Establish a governance

    Advisory Council (AC) operates like a conductor at an orchestra, looking across all the activities to understand and manage the individual components.

    Nurture key capabilities

    Team structure, processes and technologies must be thoughtfully orchestrated and nurtured.

    Establish strong governance

    Empowerment does not mean anarchy

    While platforms are distinct units, they must be in sync with each other, like individual musicians in an orchestra. The Advisory Council (AC) must act like a conductor of the orchestra and lead and manage across platforms in three ways.

    1. Prioritize spend and effort. The AC team makes allocation decisions and prioritizes spend and effort on those platforms that can best support organizational goals and/or are in most urgent technical need. The best AC teams have enterprise architects who can understand business and dive deep enough into IT to manage critical interdependencies.
    2. Set and enforce standards. The AC team establishes both business and technology standards for interoperability. For example, the AC team can set the platform and application interfaces standards and the industry standards like ISO 20022 for payments. The AC team can also provide guidance on common apps and tools to use, for example, a reconciliation system for payments.
    3. Facilitate cross-platform work. The AC team has a unique vantage point where it can view and manage interdependencies among programs. As these complexities emerge, the AC team can step in and facilitate the interaction among the involved platform teams. In cases when a common capability is required by multiple platforms, the AC team can facilitate the dialogue to have it built out.

    Nurture the following capabilities:

    Design thinking

    “Zero distance from the customer” is the focus of platform structure. Each platform must operate with a mindset of a startup serving internal and/or external users.

    Agile delivery model

    Platform teams iteratively develop their offerings. With guidance from Advisory Council, they can avoid bottlenecks of formal alignment and approvals.

    Enterprise architecture

    The raison d'être of enterprise architecture discipline is to enable modularity in the architecture, encourage reusability of assets, and simplify design.

    Microservices

    Microservices allow systems to grow with strong cohesion and weak coupling and enable teams to scale components independently.

    APIs

    With their ability to link systems and data, APIs play a crucial role in making IT systems more responsive and adaptable.

    Machine learning

    With the drop in its cost, predictability is becoming the new electricity for business. Platforms use machine learning capability for better predictions.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Drive Digital Transformation With Platform Strategies
    Innovate and transform your business models with digital platforms.

    Implement Agile Practices That Work
    Guide your organization through its Agile transformation journey.

    Design a Customer-Centric Digital Operating Model
    Putting the customer at the center of digital transformation.

    Bibliography

    Bossert, Oliver, and Jürgen Laartz. “Perpetual Evolution—the Management Approach Required for Digital Transformation.” McKinsey, 5 June 2017. Accessed 21 May 2020.

    Bossert, Oliver, and Driek Desmet. “The Platform Play: How to Operate like a Tech Company.” McKinsey, 28 Feb. 2019. Accessed 21 May 2020.

    “Facebook Users Worldwide 2020.” Statista. Accessed 21 May 2020.

    Hamel, Gary, and Michele Zanini. “The End of Bureaucracy.” Harvard Business Review. Nov.-Dec. 2018. Accessed 21 May 2020.

    “Number of Netflix Subscribers 2019.” Statista. Accessed 21 May 2020.

    “Spotify Users - Subscribers in 2020.” Statista. Accessed 21 May 2020.

    Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

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    • A weak or poorly defined Go-to-Market strategy is often the root cause of slow product revenue growth or missed product revenue targets.
    • Many agile-driven product teams rush to release, skipping key GTM steps leaving Sales and Marketing misaligned and not ready to fully monetize precious product investments.
    • Guessing at buyer persona and journey or competitive SWOT analyses – two key deliverables of an effective GTM strategy – cause poor marketing and sales outcomes.
    • Without the sales and product-aligned business case for launch called for in a successful GTM strategy, companies see low buyer adoption, wasted sales and marketing investments, and a failure to claim product and launch campaign success.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Having an updated and compelling Go-to-Market strategy is a critical capability – as important as financial strategy, sales operations, and even corporate business development, given its huge impact on the many drivers of sustainable growth.
    • Establishing alignment through the GTM process builds long-term operational strength.
    • With a sound GTM strategy, marketers give themselves a 50% greater chance of product launch success.

    Impact and Result

    • Align stakeholders on a common vision and execution plan prior to the Build and Launch phases.
    • Build a foundation of buyer and competitive understanding to drive a successful product hypothesis, then validate with buyers.
    • Deliver a team-aligned launch plan that enables launch readiness and outlines commercial success.

    Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy Research & Tools

    Build Your Go-to-Market Strategy

    Use this storyboard and its deliverables to build a baseline market, understand your buyer, and gain competitive insights. It will also help you design your initial product and business case, and align stakeholder plans to prep for build.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    • Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy – Executive Brief

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    • Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy – Phases 1-3
    • Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template
    • Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook
    • Product Market Opportunity Sizing Workbook
    • Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Align on GTM Vision & Plan, Craft Initial Strategy

    The Purpose

    Align on GTM vision and plan; craft initial strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Confidence that market opportunity is sufficient.

    Deeper buyer understanding to drive product design and messaging and launch campaign asset design.

    Steering committee approval for next phase.

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for GTM, roles required, identify Steering Committee lead, workstream leads, and teams.

    1.2 Capture GTM strategy hypothesis by working through initial draft of the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation and business case.

    1.3 Capture team knowledge on buyer persona and journey and competitive SWOT.

    1.4 Identify info./data gaps, sources, and plan for capturing/gathering including buyer interviews.

    Outputs

    Documented Steering Committee and Working team.

    Aligned on GTM vision and process.

    Documented buyer persona and journey. Competitive SWOT analysis.

    Document team knowledge on initial GTM strategy, buyer personas, and business case.

    2 Identify Initial Business Case, Sales Forecast, and Launch Plan

    The Purpose

    Identify Initial Business Case, Sales Forecast, and Launch Plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Confidence in size of market opportunity.

    Alignment of Sales and Product on product forecast.

    Assessment of marketing tech stack.

    Initial business case.

    Activities

    2.1 Size Product Market Opportunity and initial revenue forecast.

    2.2 Craft initial product hypothesis from buyer interviews including feature priorities, pricing, packaging, competitive differentiation, channel/route to market.

    2.3 Craft initial launch campaign, product release and sales and CX readiness plans.

    2.4 Identify launch budgets across each investment area.

    2.5 Discuss initial product launch business case and key activities.

    Outputs

    Product Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM), Serviceable Available Market (SAM) and Total Available Market (TAM).

    Definition of product-market fit, uniqueness, and competitive differentiation.

    Preliminary campaign, targets, and readiness plans.

    Incremental budgets for each key stakeholder area.

    Preliminary product launch business case.

    3 Develop Launch Plans (I of II)

    The Purpose

    Develop final Launch plans and budgets in product and marketing.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Align Product release/launch plans with the marketing campaign for launch.

    Understand incremental budgets from product and marketing for launch.

    Activities

    3.1 Apply product interviews to scope, MVP, roadmap, competitive differentiation, pricing, feature prioritization, routes to market, and sales forecast.

    3.2 Develop a more detailed launch campaign plan complete with asset-types, messaging, digital plan to support buyer journey, media buy plan and campaign metrics.

    Outputs

    Minimally Viable Product defined with feature prioritization. Product competitive differentiation documented Routes to market identified Sales forecast aligned with product team expectations.

    Marketing campaign launch plan Content marketing asset-creation/acquisition plan Campaign targets and metrics.

    4 Develop Launch Plans (II of II)

    The Purpose

    Develop final Launch Plans and budgets for remaining areas.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Align Product release/launch plans with the marketing campaign for launch.

    Understand incremental budgets from Product and Marketing for launch.

    Activities

    4.1 Develop detailed launch/readiness plans with final budgets for: Sales enablement , Sales training, Tech stack, Customer onboarding & success, Product marketing, AR, PR, Corp Comms/Internal Comms, Customer Events, Employee Events, etc.

    Outputs

    Detailed launch plans, budgets for Product Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and AR/PR/Corp. Comms.

    5 Present Final Business Case

    The Purpose

    To gain approval to move to Build and Launch phases.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Align business case with Steering Committee expectations

    Approvals to Build and Launch targeted offering

    Activities

    5.1 Review final launch/readiness plans with final budgets for all key areas.

    5.2 Move all key findings into Steering Committee presentation slides.

    5.3 Present to Steering Committee; receive feedback.

    5.4 Incorporate Steering Committee feedback; update finial business case.

    Outputs

    Combined budgets across all areas. Final launch/readiness plans.

    Final Steering Committee-facing slides.

    Final approvals for Build and Launch.

    Further reading

    Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

    Maximize GTM success through deeper market and buyer understanding and competitive differentiation and launch team readiness that delivers target revenues.

    Table of Contents

    Section Title
    1 Executive Brief
    • Executive Summary
    • Analyst Perspective
    • Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy critical success factors
    • Key GTM challenges
    • Essential deliverables for GTM success
    • Benefits of a more effective GTM Strategy
    • Our methodology to support your success
    • Insight Summary
    • Blueprint deliverables and guided implementation steps
    2 Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights
    • Establish your team
    • Build buyer personas and journeys – develop initial messaging
    • Build initial product hypothesis
    • Size product market opportunity
    • Outline your key tech, app, and digital requirements
    • Develop your competitive differentiation
    • Select routes to market
    3 Design initial product and business case
    • Branding check
    • Formulate packaging and pricing
    • Craft buyer-valid product concept
    • Build campaign plan and targets
    • Develop budgets for creative, content, and media purchases
    • Draft product business case
    • Update GTM Strategy deck
    4 Align stakeholder plans to prep for build
    • Assess tech/tools support for all GTM phases
    • Outline sales enablement and customer success plan
    • Build awareness plan
    • Finalize business case
    • Final GTM plan deck

    Executive Brief

    Analyst Perspective

    Go-to-Market Strategy.

    A successful go-to-market (GTM) strategy aligns marketing, product, sales and customer success, sees decision making based on deep buyer understanding, and tests many basic assumptions often overlooked in today’s agile-driven product development/management environment.

    The disciplines you build using our methodology will not only support your team’s effort building and launching more successful products, but also can be modified for use in other strategic initiatives such as branding, M&A integration, expanding into new markets, and other initiatives that require a cross-functional and multidisciplined process.

    Photo of Jeff Golterman, Managing Director, SoftwareReviews Advisory.

    Jeff Golterman
    Managing Director
    SoftwareReviews Advisory

    Executive Summary

    An ineffective go-to-market strategy is often a root cause of:
    • Failure to attain new product revenue targets.
    • A loss of customer focus and poor new product/feature release buyer adoption.
    • Product releases misaligned with marketing, sales, and customer success readiness.
    • Low win rates compared to key competitors’.
    • Low contact-to-lead conversion rates.
    • Loss of executive/investor support for further new product development and marketing investments.
    Hurdles to go-to-market success include:
    • An unclear product-market opportunity.
    • A lack of well defined and prioritized buyer personas and needs that are well understood.
    • Poor competitive analysis that fails to pinpoint key areas of competitive differentiation.
    • Guessing at buyer journey and buyer-described ideal engagement within your lead gen engine.
    • A business case that calls for levels of customer value delivery (vs. feature MVPs) that can actually deliver wins and targeted revenue goals.
    Apply SoftwareReviews approach for greater GTM success.

    Our blueprint is designed to help you:

    • Align stakeholders on a common vision and execution plan prior to the build and launch phases.
    • Build a foundation of buyer and competitive understanding to drive a successful product hypothesis, then validate with buyers.
    • Deliver a team-aligned launch plan that enables launch readiness and outlines commercial success.

    SoftwareReviews Insight

    Creating a compelling go-to-market strategy, and keeping it current, is a critical software company function – as important as financial strategy, sales operations, and even corporate business development – given its huge impact on the many drivers of sustainable growth.

    Go-to-Market Strategy Critical Success Factors

    Your GTM Strategy is where a multi-disciplined team builds a strong foundation for overall product plan, build, launch, and manage success

    A GTM Strategy is not all art and not all science but requires both. Software leaders will establish a set of core capabilities upon which they will plan, build, launch and manage product success. Executives, when resourcing their GTM strategies, will begin with:
    • Strong Program Leadership – An experienced Program Manager will guide the team through each step of GTM Strategy and test team readiness before advancing to the next step.
    • Few Shortcuts – Successful teams will have navigated the process through all steps together at least once. Then future launches can skip steps where prior decisions still hold.
    • Stakeholder Buy-In – Strong collaboration among Sales, Marketing, and Product wins the day.
    • Strong Team Skills – Success depends on having the right talent, making the right decisions, and delivering the right outcomes enabled with the right set of technologies and integrated to reach the right buyers at the right moment.
    • Discipline and perseverance – Given that GTM Strategy is not easy, it’s not surprising that 75% of marketers cite a significant level of dissatisfaction with the outcomes of their GTM plan, build, and launch phases.
    Diagram titled 'Go-to-Market Phases' with phases 'Manage', 'Launch', 'Build', and highlighted as 'This blueprint focus': 'Plan'.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Marketers who get GTM Strategy “right” give themselves a 50% greater chance of Build and Launch success.

    Sample of the 'PLAN' section of the GTM Strategy optimization diagram shown later.

    Go-to-Market Success is Challenging

    Getting GTM right is like winning an Olympic first-place crew finish. It takes teamwork, practice, and well-functioning tools and equipment.

    Stock image of a rowing team.

    • The goal of any Go-to-Marketing Strategy is not only to do it right once, but to do it over and over consistently.
    • A lack of GTM consistency often results in decelerating growth, and a weak GTM Strategy is likely the root cause when companies observe any of the following challenges:
      • Product opportunity is unclear and well-defined business cases are lacking
      • Buyer adoption slows of new features and launch revenue targets are missed
      • Sales and marketing are not ready when development releases new features
      • Sales win/loss ratios drop as customers tell us products are not competitively differentiated
      • Loss of executive support for new product investments
    • A company experiencing any one of these symptoms will find a remedy in plugging gaps in the way they Go-to-Market.

    “Figuring out a Go-to-Market approach is no trivial exercise – it separates the companies that will be successful and sustainable from those that won’t.” (Harvard Business Review)

    Slowing growth may be due to missing GTM Strategy essentials

    Marketers – Large and Small – will further test their GTM Strategy strength by asking “Are we missing any of the following?”

    • Product, Marketing, and Sales Alignment
    • Buyer personas and journeys
    • Product market opportunity size
    • Competitively differentiated product hypothesis
    • Buyer validated commercial concept
    • Sales revenue plan and program cost budget
    • Compelling business case for build and launch

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:

    Marketers will go through the GTM Strategy process together across all disciplines at least once in order to establish a consistent process, make key foundational decisions (e.g. tech stack, channel strategy, pricing structure, etc.), and assess strengths and weaknesses to be addressed. Future releases to existing products don’t need to be re-thought but instead check-listed against prior foundational decisions.

    Is Your GTM Strategy Led and Staffed Properly?

    Staffing tree outlining GTM Strategy essentials. At the top are 'Steering Committee: CEO/GM in larger company, CFO/Senior Finance, Key functional leaders'. Next is 'Program Manager: Leads the GTM program. Workstream leads are “dotted line” for the program.' Followed by 'Workstream Leads: (PM) Product Marketing – Program leadership, (PD) Product Mgt. – Aligned with PM, (MO) Marketing Ops – SMB optional, (BR) Branding/Creative – SMB optional, (CI) Competitive Intel. – SMB optional, (DG) Demand Gen./Field Marketing. – crucial, (SE) Sales Enablement – crucial, (PR) PR/AR/Comms – SMB optional, and (CS) Customer Success – SMB optional'. In a 'Large Enterprise' each role is assigned to a separate person, but in a 'Small' Enterprise each person has multiple roles. 'SMB – as employees wear many hats, teams comprise members with requisite skills vs. specific roles/titles.'

    Benefits of a more effective go-to-market strategy

    Our research shows a more effective GTM Strategy delivers key benefits, including:
    • Increased product development ROI – with a finance-aligned business case, a buyer-validated value proposition, and the readiness of marketing and sales to product launch.
    • Launch campaign effectiveness – increases dramatically when messaging resonates with buyers and where they are in their journey.
    • Seller effectiveness – increases with buyer validated value proposition, competitive differentiation, and the ability to articulate to buyers.
    • Executive support – is achieved when an aligned sales, marketing, and product team proves consistent in delivering against release targets over and over again.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Many marketers experiencing the value of the GTM Steering Committee, extend its use into a “Product and Pricing Council” (PPC) in order to move product-related decision making from ad-hoc to structured, and to reinforce GTM Strategy guardrails and best practices across the company.

    “Go-to-Market Strategies aren’t just for new products or services, they can also be used for:
    • Acquiring other businesses
    • Changing your business’s focus
    • Announcing a new feature
    • Entering a new market
    • Rebranding
    • Positioning or repositioning

    And while each GTM strategy is unique, there are a series of steps that every product marketer should follow.” (Product Marketing Alliance)

    Is your GTM Strategy optimized?

    Large detailed layout of the steps needed to 'Make Your Go-to-Market Strategy More Successful'. 'GTM Planning Success Can Be Elusive'; '75% of high-tech marketers desire a more effective GTM strategy...'. Steps: '1 Your Challenges - Are You Feeling Any of These Pains?', '2 Framework - Stay Aligned', '3 Planning - Check Your GTM Plan Steps', '4 Insight - Deliver Key Output', and '5 Results - Reap Key Benefits'. Source: SoftwareReviews, powered by Info-Tech Research Group.

    Marketers, in order to optimize a go-to-market strategy, will:

    1. Self assess for symptoms of a sub-optimized approach.
    2. Align marketing, sales, product, and customer success with a common vision and execution plan.
    3. Diagnose for missing steps.
    4. Ensure creation of key deliverables.
    5. And then be able to reap the rewards.

    Who benefits from an optimized go-to-market strategy?

    This research is designed for:
    • High-tech marketers who are:
      • Looking to improve any aspect of their go-to-market strategy.
      • Looking for a checklist of roles and responsibilities across the product planning, build, and launch processes.
      • Looking to foster better alignment among key stakeholders such as product marketing, product management, sales, field marketing/campaigners, and customer success.
      • Looking to build a stronger business case for new product development and launch.
    This research will help you:
    • Explain the benefits of a more effective go-to-market strategy to stakeholders.
    • Size the market opportunity for a product/solution.
    • Organize stakeholders for GTM operational success.
    • More easily present the GTM strategy to executives and colleagues.
    • Build and present a solid business case for product build and launch.
    This research will also assist:
    • High-tech marketing and product leaders who are:
      • Looking for a framework of best practices to improve and scale their GTM planning.
      • Looking to align team members from all the key teams that support high-tech product planning, build, launch, and manage.
    This research will help them:
    • Align stakeholders on an overall GTM strategy.
    • Coordinate tasks and activities involved across plan, build, launch, and manage – the product lifecycle.
    • Avoid low market opportunity pursuits.
    • Avoid poorly defined product launch business cases.
    • Build competence in managing cross-functional complex programs.

    SoftwareReviews’ Approach

    1

    Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights

    Sizing your opportunity, building deep buyer understanding, competitive differentiation, and routes to market are fundamental first steps.

    2

    Design initial product and business case

    Validate positioning and messaging against brand, develop packaging and pricing, and develop digital approach, launch campaign approach and supporting budgets across all areas.

    3

    Align stakeholder plans to prep for build

    Rationalize product release and concept to sales/financial plan and further develop customer success, PR/AR, MarTech, and analytics/metrics plans.

    Our methodology provides a step-by-step approach to build a more effective go-to-market strategy

    1.Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights 2. Design initial product and business case 3. Align stakeholder plans to prep for build
    Phase Steps
    1. Select Steering Committee, GTM team, and outline roles and responsibilities. Build an aligned vision.
    2. Build initial product hypothesis based on sales and buyer “jobs to be done” research.
    3. Size the product market opportunity.
    4. Outline digital and tech requirements to support the full GTM process.
    5. Clarify target buyer personas and the buyer journey.
    6. Identify competitive gaps, parity, and differentiators.
    7. Select the most effective routes to market.
    8. Craft initial GTM Strategy presentation for executive review and status check.
    1. Compare emerging messaging and positioning with existing brand for consistency.
    2. Formulate packaging and pricing.
    3. Build a buyer-validated product concept.
    4. Build an initial campaign plan and targets.
    5. Develop initial budgets across all areas.
    6. Draft an initial product business case.
    7. Update GTM Strategy for executive review and status check.
    1. Assess technology and tools support for GTM strategy as well as future phases of GTM build, launch, and manage.
    2. Outline support for customer onboarding and ongoing engagement.
    3. Build an awareness plan covering media, social media, and industry analysts.
    4. Finalize product business case with collaborative input from product, sales, and marketing.
    5. Develop a final executive presentation for request for approval to proceed to GTM build phase.
    Phase Outcomes
    1. Properly sized market opportunity and a unique buyer value proposition
    2. Buyer persona and journey mapping with buyer needs and competitive SWOT
    3. Tech stack modernization requirements
    4. First draft of business case
    1. Customer-validated value proposition and product-market fit
    2. Initial product business case with sales alignment
    3. Initial launch plans including budgets across all areas
    1. Key stakeholders and their plans are fully aligned
    2. Executive sign-off to move to GTM build phases

    Insight summary

    Your go-to-market strategy ability is a strategic asset

    Having an updated and compelling go-to-market strategy is a critical capability – as important as financial strategy, sales operations, and even corporate business development – given its huge impact on the many drivers of sustainable growth.

    Build the GTM Steering Committee into a strategic decision-making body

    Many marketers experiencing the value of the GTM Steering Committee extend its use into a “Product and Pricing Council” (PPC) in order to move product-related decision making from ad-hoc to structured, and to reinforce GTM Strategy guardrails and best practices across the company.

    A strong MarTech apps and analytics stack differentiates GTM leaders from laggards

    Marketers that collaborate closely with Marketing Ops., Sales Ops., and IT early in the process of a go-to-market strategy will be best able to assess whether current website/digital, marketing applications, CRM/sales automation apps, and tools can support the complete Go-to-Market process effectively.

    Establishing alignment through the GTM process builds long term operational strength

    Marketers will go through the GTM Strategy process together across all disciplines at least once in order to establish a consistent process, make key foundational decisions (e.g. tech stack, channel strategy, pricing structure, etc.), and assess strengths and weaknesses to be addressed.

    Build speed and agility

    Future releases to existing products don’t need be re-thought but instead check-listed against prior foundational decisions.

    GTM Strategy builds launch success

    Marketers who get GTM Strategy “right” give themselves a 50% greater chance of build and launch success.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Key deliverable:

    Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Capture key findings for your GTM Strategy within the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template.

    Sample of the key deliverable, the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template.

    Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook

    Includes a RACI model and launch checklist that helps scope your working team’s roles and responsibilities.

    Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook deliverable.

    Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Capture launch incremental costs that, when weighed against the forecasted revenue, illustrate gross margins as a crucial part of the business case.

    Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook deliverable.

    Product Market Opportunity Sizing

    While not a deliverable of this blueprint per se, the Product Market Opportunity blueprint is required.

    Sample of the Product Market Opportunity Sizing deliverable. This blueprint calls for downloading the following additional blueprint:

    Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint

    While not a deliverable of this blueprint per se, the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint is required

    Sample of the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint deliverable.

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

    "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." "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." "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." "Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."
    Included within advisory membership Optional add-ons

    Guided Implementation

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with a SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

    For guidance on marketing applications, we can arrange a discussion with an Info-Tech analyst.

    Your engagement managers will work with you to schedule analyst calls.

    What does our GI on Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy look like?

    Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights

    Design initial product and business case

    Align stakeholder plans to prep for build

    Call #1: Share GTM vision and outline team activities for the GTM Strategy process. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #2: Outline product market opportunity approach and steps to complete. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #3: Hold a series of inquiries to do a modernization check on tech stack. Plan next call – 2 weeks.

    Call #4: Discuss buyer interview process, persona, and journey steps. Plan next call – 2 weeks.

    Call #5: Outline competitive differentiation analysis, routes to market, and review of to-date business case. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #6: Discuss brand strength/weakness, pricing, and packaging approach. Plan next call – 3 weeks.

    Call #7: Outline needs to craft assets with right messaging across campaign launch plan and budget. Outline needs to create plans and budgets across rest of marketing, sales, CX, and product. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #8: Review template and approach for initial business case and sales and product alignment. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #9: Review initial business case and launch plans across marketing, sales, CX, and product. Plan next call – 1 week.

    Call #10: Discuss plans/needs/budgets for tech stack modernization. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #11: Discuss plans/needs/budgets for CX readiness for launch. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #12: Discuss plans/needs/budgets for digital readiness for launch. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #13: Discuss plans/needs/budgets for marketing and sales readiness for launch. Plan next call – 3 days.

    Call #14: Review final business case and coach on Steering Committee Presentation. Plan next call – 1 week.

    A Go-to-Market Workshop Overview

    Contact your engagement manager for more information.
    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Align on GTM Vision & Plan, Craft Initial Strategy
    Identify Initial Business Case, Sales Forecast and Launch Plan
    Develop Launch Plans (i of ii)
    Develop Launch Plans (ii of ii)
    Present Final Business Case to Steering Committee
    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for GTM and roles required, identify Steering Committee lead, workstream leads, and teams.

    1.2 Capture GTM strategy hypothesis by working through initial draft of GTM Strategy Presentation and business case.

    1.3 Capture team knowledge on buyer persona and journey and competitive SWOT.

    1.4 Identify information/data gaps and sources and plan for capturing/gathering including buyer interviews.

    Plan next day 2-3 weeks after buyer persona/journey interviews.

    2.1 Size product market opportunity and initial revenue forecast.

    2.2 Craft initial product hypothesis from buyer interviews including feature priorities, pricing, packaging, competitive differentiation, and channel/route to market.

    2.3 Craft initial launch campaign, product release, sales, and CX readiness plans.

    2.4 Identify launch budgets across each investment area.

    2.5 Discuss initial product launch business case and key activities.

    Plan next day 2-3 weeks after product hypothesis-validation interviews with customers and prospects.

    3.1 Apply product interviews to scope, MVP, and roadmap competitive differentiation, pricing, feature prioritization, routes to market and sales forecast.

    3.2 Develop more detailed launch campaign plan complete with asset-types, messaging, digital plan to support buyer journey, media buy plan and campaign metrics.

    4.1 Develop detailed launch/readiness plans with final budgets for:

    • Sales enablement
    • Sales training
    • Tech stack
    • Customer onboarding & success
    • Product marketing
    • AR
    • PR
    • Corp comms/Internal comms
    • Customer events
    • Employee events
    • etc.

    5.1 Review final launch/readiness plans with final budgets for all key areas.

    5.2 Move all key findings up into Steering Committee presentation slides.

    5.3 Present to Steering Committee, receive feedback.

    5.4 incorporate Steering Committee feedback; update finial business case.

    Deliverables
    1. Documented Steering Committee and working team, aligned on GTM vision and process.
    2. Document team knowledge on initial GTM strategy, buyer persona and business case.
    1. Definition of product market fit, uniqueness and competitive differentiation.
    2. Preliminary product launch business case, campaign, targets, and readiness plans.
    1. Detailed launch plans, budgets for product and marketing launch.
    1. Detailed launch plans, budgets for product marketing, sales, customer success, and AR/PR/Corp. comms.
    1. Final GTM Strategy, launch plan and business case.
    2. Approvals to move to GTM build and launch phases.

    Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

    Phase 1

    Build baseline market, buyer, and competitive insights

    Phase 1

    1.1 Select Steering Cmte/team, build aligned vision for GTM

    1.2 Buyer personas, journey, initial messaging

    1.3 Build initial product hypothesis

    1.4 Size market opportunity

    1.5 Outline digital/tech requirements

    1.6 Competitive SWOT

    1.7 Select routes to market

    1.8 Craft GTM Strategy deck

    Phase 2

    2.1 Brand consistency check

    2.2 Formulate packaging and pricing

    2.3 Craft buyer-valid product concept

    2.4 Build campaign plan and targets

    2.5 Develop cost budgets across all areas

    2.6 Draft product business case

    2.7 Update GTM Strategy deck

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assess tech/tools support for all GTM phases

    3.2 Outline sales enablement and Customer Success plan

    3.3 Build awareness plan

    3.4 Finalize business case

    3.5 Final GTM Plan deck

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Steering Committee and Team formulation
    • A vision for go-to-market strategy
    • Initial product hypothesis
    • Market Opportunity sizing
    • Tech stack/digital requirements
    • Buyer persona and journey
    • Competitive gaps, parity, differentiators
    • Routes to market
    • GTM Strategy deck

    This phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Steering Committee
    • Working group leaders

    To complete this phase, you will need:

    Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint Product Market Opportunity Sizing Workbook
    Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template deliverable. Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook deliverable. Sample of the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint deliverable. Sample of the Product Market Opportunity Sizing Workbook deliverable.
    Use the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template to document the results from the following activities:
    • Documenting your GTM Strategy stakeholders
    • Documenting your GTM Strategy working team
    Use the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook to:
    • Review the scope of roles and responsibilities required
    • Document the roles and responsibilities of your teams
    Use the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint to:
    • Interview sales and customers/prospects to inform product concepts, understand persona and later, flush out buyer journey
    Use the Product Market Opportunity Sizing blueprint to:
    • Project Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM), Serviceable Available Market (SAM), and Total Available Market (TAM) from your current penetrated market

    Step 1.1

    Identify a GTM Program Steering Committee and Team. Build an Aligned Vision for Your Go-to-Market Strategy Approach

    Activities
    • 1.1.1 Identify the Steering Committee of key stakeholders whose support will be critical to success
    • 1.1.2 Select your go-to-market strategy program team
    • 1.1.3 Discuss an overview of the GTM process and program roles and responsibilities with stakeholders and GTM workstream leads
    • 1.1.4 Develop a Go-to-Market launch, tiering, time-line, and overall program plan
    • 1.1.5 Work with each workstream lead on their overall project plan and incremental budget requirements

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify stakeholders – your Steering Committee
    • Identify team members
    • Present a vision of GTM Strategy

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Steering Committee
    • Program workstream leads

    Outcomes of this step

    • Steering Committee identified
    • Team members identified
    • All aligned on the GTM process
    • Go-to-market strategy timeline and program plan
    Phase 1 - Formulate a hypothesis and run discovery on key fundamentals
    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5 Step 1.6 Step 1.7 Step 1.8

    1.1.1 Identify stakeholders critical to success

    1-2 hours

    Input: Steering Committee interviews, Recognition of Steering Committee interest

    Output: List of GTM Strategy stakeholders as Steering Committee members

    Materials: Following slide outlining the key responsibilities required of the Steering Committee members, A high-Level timeline of GTM Strategy phases and key milestone meetings

    Participants: CMO, sponsoring executive, Functional leads - Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management, Sales, Customer Success

    1. The GTM Strategy initiative manager should meet with the CMO to determine who will comprise the Steering Committee for your GTM Strategy.
    2. Finalize selection of steering committee members.
    3. Meet with members to outline their roles and responsibilities and ensure their willingness to participate.
    4. Document the steering committee members and the milestone/presentation expectations for reporting project progress and results.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Go To Market Steering Committee’s can become an important ongoing body to steer overall product, pricing and other GTM decisions. Some companies have done so by adding the CEO and CFO to this committee and designated it as a permanent body that meets monthly to give go/no decisions to “all things product related” across all products and business units. Leaders that use this tool well, stay aligned, demonstrate consistency across business units and leverage outcomes across business units to drive greater scale.

    Go-to-Market Strategy Stakeholders

    Understand that aligning key stakeholders around the way your company goes to market is an essential company function.

    Title Key Roles Supporting an Effective Go-to-Market Strategy
    Go-to-Market Strategy Sponsor
    • Owns the function at the management/C-suite level
    • Responsible for breaking down barriers and ensuring alignment with organizational strategy
    • CMO, VP of Marketing, and in SMB Providers, the CEO
    Go-to-Market Strategy Program Manager
    • Typically a senior member of the marketing team
    • Responsible for organizing the GTM Strategy process, preparing summary executive-level communications and approval requests
    • Program manages the GTM Strategy process, and in many cases, the continued phases of build and launch.
    • Product Marketing Director, or other marketing director, that has strong program management skills, has run large scale marketing and/or product programs, and is familiar with the stakeholder roles and enabling technologies
    Functional Workstream Leads
    • Works alongside the Go-to-Market Strategy Initiative Manager on a specific product launch, campaign, rebranding, new market development, etc. and ensures their functional workstreams are aligned with the GTM Strategy
    • With typical GTM B2B a representative from each of the following functions will comprise the team:
      • Product Marketing, Product Management, Field Marketing, Creative, Marketing Ops/Digital, PR/Corporate Comms/AR, Social Media Marketing, Sales Operations, Sales Enablement/Training, and Customer Success
    Digital, Marketing/Sales Ops/IT Team
    • Comprised of individuals whose application and tech tools knowledge and skills are crucial to supporting the entire marketing tech stack and its integration with Sales/CRM
    • Responsible for choosing technology that supports the business requirements behind Go-to-Market Strategy, and eventually the build and launch phases as well
    • Digital Platforms, CRM, Marketing Applications and Analytics managers
    Steering Committee
    • Comprised of C-suite/management-level individuals that guide key decisions, approve of requests, and mitigate any functional conflicts
    • Responsible for validating goals and priorities, defining the scope, enabling adequate resourcing, and managing change especially among C-level leaders in Sales & Product
    • CMO, CTO/CPO, CRO, Head of Customer Success

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Roles vary by company size. Launch success depends on clear responsibilities

    Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook

    Success improves when you align & assign
    • Go-to-Market, build, and launch success improves when:
      • Phases and steps are outlined
      • Key activities are documented
      • Roles/functions are described
      • At the intersection of activities and role, whether the role is “Responsible,” “Accountable,” “Consulted,” or “Informed” is established across the team
    • Leaders will hold a workshop to establish RACI that fits with the scope and scale of your organization.
    • Confusion, conflict, and friction can be dramatically reduced/eliminated with RACI adoption and practice.
    • Review the RACI model and launch checklist within the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook in order to identify the full scope of roles and responsibilities needed.

    Go-to-Market Strategy Working Team

    Consider the skills and knowledge required for GTM Strategy as well as build and launch functions when choosing teams.

    Work with functional leaders to select workstream leads

    Workstream leads should be strong in collaboration, coordination of effort among others, knowledgeable about their respective function, and highly organized as they may be managing a team of colleagues within their function to deliver their responsible portion of GTM.

    Required Skills/Knowledge

    • Target Buyer
    • Product Roadmap
    • Brand
    • Competitors
    • Campaigns/Lead Gen
    • Sales Enablement
    • Media/Analysts
    • Customer satisfaction

    Suggested Functions

    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Creative Director
    • Competitive Intelligence
    • Demand Gen./Field Marketing
    • Sales Ops/Training/Enablement
    • PR/AR/Corporate Comms.
    • Customer Success
    Roles Required in Successful GTM Strategy
    For SMB companies, as employees wear many different hats, assign people that have the requisite skills and knowledge vs. the role title.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook

    1.1.2 Select the GTM Strategy working team

    1-2 hours

    Input: Stakeholders and leaders across the various functions outlined to the left

    Output: List of go-to-market strategy team members

    Materials: Go-to-Market Strategy Workbook

    Participants: Initiative Manager, CMO, Sponsoring executive, Departmental Leads – Sales, Marketing, Product Marketing, Product Management (and others), Marketing Applications Director, Senior Digital Business Analyst

    1. The GTM Strategy Initiative Manager should meet with the GTM Strategy Sponsor and functional leaders of workstream areas/functions to determine which team members will serve as Steering Committee members and who will serve as workstream leads.
    2. The working team for your go-to-market strategy should have the following roles represented in the working team:
      • Depending on the initiative and the size of the organization, the team will vary.
      • Key business leaders in key areas – Product Marketing, Field Marketing, Digital Marketing, Inside Sales, Sales, Marketing Ops., Product Management, and IT – should be involved.
    3. Document the members of your go-to-market strategy team in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation slide entitled “Our Team.”

    Download the Go-To-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook

    1.1.3 Develop a timeline for key milestones

    1 hour

    Timeline for Key Milestones with row headers 'Go-to-Market Phases', 'Major Milestones', and 'Key Phase Activities'. The phases (each column) and their associated activities are 'PLAN - Create buyer-validated product concept, size opportunity, and build business case', 'BUILD - Build product and enable readiness across the rest of marketing sales and customer success', 'LAUNCH - Release product, launch campaigns, and measure progress toward objectives', and then post-phase is 'MANAGE'. Notes in the 'Major Milestones' row: 'Outline key dates', 'Update with 'Today's Date' as you make progress', and 'Use GTM Plan major milestones or create your own'.

    GTM Program Managers:

    1. Will establish key program milestones working collaboratively with the Steering Cmte. and workstream leads.
    2. Outline key ”Market-facing” or external deliverables & dates, as well as internal.
    3. More detailed deliverable plans are called for working with workstream leads.
    4. This high-level overview will be used in regular Steering Cmte. and working team meets
    5. Record in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    1.1.5 Share your GTM strategy vision with your team

    1-2 hours

    Input: N/A

    Output: Team understanding of an effective go-to-market strategy, team roles and responsibilities and initial product and launch concept.

    Materials: The Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy Executive Brief

    Participants: GTM Program Manager, CMO, Sponsoring executive, Workstream leads

    1. Download the Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy Executive Brief and add the additional slides on Team Composition and Key Milestones you have created in prior steps as appropriate.
    2. Convene the Steering Committee and Working Team and take them through the Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy Executive Brief with your additional slides to:
      1. Communicate team composition, roles and responsibilities, and key GTM Strategy program milestones.
      2. Educate them on what comprises a complete GTM Strategy from the Executive Brief.
    3. Optional: As a SoftwareReviews Advisory client, invite a SoftwareReviews analyst to present the Executive Brief if that is of help to you and your team.

    Go to the Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy Executive Brief

    GTM program managers and workstream leads will collaborate on detailed project plans

    Timeline titled 'Workstreams Status' with a legend of shapes and colors, activities listed as row headers, timeline sections 'EXPLORE', 'DESIGN', 'ALIGN', and 'BUILD', and a column at the end of the timelines for the name of the workstream lead. Notes: 'Change names to actual workstream. Create separate pages for each', 'Overlay colored bars to indicate on/off track', 'Describe major deliverables & due dates', 'Outline major milestones', 'Update with your actual month and week-ending dates', 'Add workstream lead names'.

    Program managers will:

    • Outline an overall more detailed way of tracking GTM program workstreams, key dates and on/off track status

    Program managers & workstream leads will:

    • Call out each key workstream and workstream lead
    • Outline key deliverables and due dates
    • Track weekly for communicating status to Steering Cmte and working team meetings

    Use the Launch Checklist when building out full project plans

    Sample Launch Checklist table with project info above, and table columns 'Component', 'Owner', 'Start Date', 'Finish Date', 'G2M Plan', and 'Build'.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook

    Continuous improvement is enabled with a repeatable process
    • With ownership assigned and set-back schedules in place, product marketing and management leaders can take the guesswork out of the GTM plan and build and launch process for the entire team.
    • “Lighter” versions are created for lower-tier releases.
    • Checklists ensure “we haven’t missed anything” and drive clarity among the team.
    • Articulating where we are now and what’s next increases management confidence.
    • Rinse and repeat improves overall quality and drives scale.

    1.1.6 Develop a project plan for each workstream

    Work with your workstream leads to see them develop a detailed project plan that spans all their deliverables for a GTM Strategy
    1. It’s essential that GTM initiative managers can rely upon workstream leads to provide the status of their respective workstreams in a shared environment for easy weekly updating and reporting.
    2. We suggest the following approach:
      1. GTM initiative managers should maintain a copy of the GTM Strategy Presentation in a shared drive so workstream leads can provide updates.
      2. Workstream leads should work with their GTM initiative manager to populate a version of the workstream tracker shown on the previous slide that enables team status reporting.
      3. Additional slides that actually show “work completed” (e.g. images of assets created, training plans, screen caps of software functionality, etc.) should be reviewed each week as well.
      4. GTM initiative leaders/program managers are advised to summarize the to-date work completed across the team into the Go-To-Market Product and Launch Business Case slides to demonstrate progress to the Steering Committee.
    3. The goal is to keep tracking manageable. Because status is most easily shown during Steering Committee and Working Team meetings using PowerPoint, we recommend a simple approach to program management by using PowerPoint.
    Using the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation:
    3-4 hours Initial, 1-2 hours weekly
    1. Work with your workstream leads to create a slide for each workstream that will contain all the key milestones.
    2. Some teams will choose to use project management software, others a PowerPoint representation, which makes for easy presentation during status meets.
    3. Use the following resources:
      • In the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook, reference the Launch Checklist.
      • In the Go-to-Market Presentation, use the Appendix slides and complete for each workstream.
    4. The GTM initiative manager must be able to track status with workstream leads and present status to the rest of the team during Steering Committee and workstream lead meetings.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Download the Go-To-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook

    Step 1.2

    Hold Interviews With Sales Then Customers and Prospects to Inform Your Initial Product Concept

    Activities
    • 1.2.1 Use the SoftwareReviews Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool found within the SoftwareReviews Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint.
    • 1.2.2 Follow the instructions within the above blueprint and hold interviews with Sales and customers and prospects to inform your buyer persona, initial product hypothesis, and buyer journey.
    • 1.2.3 Flush out the initial product and launch concept using the slides found within the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template. You will continually refine the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template such that you turn the Product and Launch descriptions into a business case for product build and launch. We advise you and your team to populate the slides to begin to inform an initial concept, then hold interviews with Sales, customers, and prospects to refine. The best way to capture customer and prospect insights is to use the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Schedule time with sales/sales advisory to flush out the product concept
    • Develop your customer and prospect interviewee list
    • Consolidate findings for your GTM Strategy program slide deck

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Sales/sales advisory, product management, initiative leader (product marketing)
    • Customers and prospects

    Outcomes of this step

    • Guidance from sales on product concept
    • Initial guidance from customers and prospective buyers
    • Agreement to proceed further

    Phase 1 - Formulate a hypothesis and run discovery on key fundamentals

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5 Step 1.6 Step 1.7 Step 1.8

    Documenting buyer personas enables success beyond marketing

    Documenting buyer personas has several essential benefits to marketing, sales, and product teams:
    • Achieve a better understanding of your target buyer – by building a detailed buyer persona for each type of buyer and keeping it fresh, you take a giant step in becoming a customer-centric organization.
    • Align the team on a common definition – will happen when you build buyer personas collaboratively and among teams that touch the customer.
    • Improved lead generation – increases dramatically when messaging and marketing assets across your lead generation engine better resonate with buyers because you have taken the time to understand them deeply.
    • More effective selling – is possible when sellers apply persona development output to their interactions with prospects and customers.
    • Better product-market fit – increases when product teams more deeply understand for whom they are designing products. Documenting buyer challenges, pain points, and unmet buyer needs gives product teams what they need to optimize product adoption.
    “It’s easier buying gifts for your best friend or partner than it is for a stranger, right? You know their likes and dislikes, you know the kind of gifts they’ll have use for, or the kinds of gifts they’ll get a kick out of. Customer personas work the same way. By knowing what your customer wants and needs, you can present them with content targeted specifically to those wants and needs.” (Emma Bilardi, Product Marketing Alliance, July 8, 2020)

    Buyer persona attributes that need defining

    A well defined buyer persona enables us to:

    • Clarify target org-types, identify buying decision makers and key personas, and determine how they make decisions
    • Align colleagues around a common definition of target buyer(s) to drive improvements in messaging and engagement across marketing, sales, and customer success
    • Identify specific asset-types and tools that, when activated within our lead gen engine and in the hands of sellers, helps a buyer move through a decision process
    Functional – “to find them”
    Job Role Titles Org Chart Dynamics Buying Center Firmographics

    Emotive – “what they do and jobs to be done”
    Initiatives – What programs/projects the persona is tasked with and what are their feelings and aspirations about these initiatives? Motivations? Build credibility? Get promoted? Challenges – Identify the business issues, problems, and pain points, that impede attainment of objectives. What are their fears, uncertainties, and doubts about these challenges? Buyer need – They may have multiple needs; which need is most likely met with the offering? Terminology – What are the keywords/phrases they organically use to discuss the buyer need or business issue?

    Decision Criteria – “how they decide”
    Buyer role – List decision-making criteria and power level. The five common buyer roles are champion, influencer, decision maker, user, and ratifier (purchaser/negotiator). Evaluation and decision criteria – The lens, either strategic, financial, or operational, through which the persona evaluates the impact of purchase.

    Solution Attributes – “what the ideal solution looks like”
    Steps in “Jobs to be Done” Elements of the “Ideal Solution” Business outcomes from ideal solution Opportunity scope – other potential users Acceptable price for value delivered Alternatives that see consideration Solution sourcing – channel, where to buy

    Behavioral Attributes – “how to approach them successfully”
    Content preferences – List the persona’s content preferences, could be blog, infographic, demo, video, or other, vs. long-form assets (e.g. white paper, presentation, analyst report). Interaction preferences – Which among in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, video conferencing, conducting research via web, mobile, and social. Watering holes – Which physical or virtual places do they go to network or exchange info with peers e.g. LinkedIn, etc.

    Buyer journeys are constantly shifting

    If you haven’t re-mapped buyer journeys recently, you may be losing to competitors that have. Leaders re-map buyer journeys frequently.
    • The multi-channel buyer journey is constantly changing – today’s B2B buyer uses industry research sites, vendor content marketing assets, software reviews sites, contacts with vendor salespeople, events participation, peer networking, consultants, emails, social media sites, and electronic media to research purchasing decisions.
    • COVID has dramatically decreased face-to-face – we estimate a B2B buyer spent between 20-25% more time online researching software buying decisions in 2021 than they did pre-COVID. This has diminished the importance of face-to-face selling and has given dramatic rise to digital selling and outbound marketing.
    • Content marketing has exploded – but without mapping the buyer journey and knowing where (by channel) and when (which buyer journey step) to offer content marketing assets, we will fail to convert prospects into buyers.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Marketers are advised to update their buyer journey annually and with greater frequency when the human vs. digital mix is effected due to events such as COVID, and as emerging media such as Augmented Reality shifts asset-type usage and engagement options.

    “Two out of three B2B buyers today prefer remote human interactions or digital self service.

    And during August 2020-February 2021, use of digital self service leapt by 10%” (McKinsey & Company, 2021.)

    Challenges of not mapping persona and journey

    A lack of buyer persona and journey understanding is frequently the root cause of the following symptoms:
    • Lead generation results are way below expectations.
    • Inconsistent product-market fit.
    • Sellers have low success rates doing discovery with new prospects.
    • Website abandonment rates are really high.

    These challenges are often attributed to messaging and talk tracks that fail to resonate with prospects and products that fail to meet the needs of targeted buyers.

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Marketers developing buyer personas and journeys that lack agreement among Marketing, Sales, and Product of personas to target will squander precious time and resources throughout the customer targeting and acquisition process.

    “Forty-four percent of B2B marketers have already discovered the power of personas.” (Boardview, 2016.)

    1.2.1 Interview Sales and customers/prospects

    12 - 15 Hours, over course of 2-3 weeks

    Input: Insights from Sellers, Insights from customers and prospects

    Output: Completed slides outlining buyer persona, buyer journey, overall product concept, and detailed features and capabilities needed

    Materials: Create a Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint, Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation

    Participants: Product management lead, GTM Program Manager, Select sellers, Workstream leads that wish to participate in interviews

    1. Using the Create a Buyer Journey and Persona Journey blueprint:
      • Follow the instructions to interview a group of Sellers, and most importantly, several customers and prospects
        • For this stage in the GTM Strategy process, the goal is to validate your initial product and launch concept.
        • We urge getting through all the interview questions with interviewees as the answers inform:
          • Product market fit and Minimal Viable Product
          • Competitive differentiation
          • Messaging, positioning, and campaign targeting
          • Launch campaign asset creation.
      • Place summary findings into the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation, and for reference, place the Buyer Persona and Journey Summaries into the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Appendix.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Download the Create a Buyer Journey and Persona Journey blueprint

    Step 1.3

    Update Your Product Concept

    Activities
    • 1.3.1 Based on Sales and Customer/Prospect interviews, update:
      • Your product concept slide
      • Detailed prioritization of features and capabilities

    This step calls for the following activities:

    • Update the product concept slide based on interview findings
    • Update/create the stack-ranking of buyer requested feature and capability priorities

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Product management lead
    • GTM initiative leader
    • Select workstream leads who sat in on interview findings

    Outcomes of this step

    • Advanced product concept
    • Prioritized features for development during Build phase
    • Understanding of MVP to deliver customer value and deal “wins”

    Phase 1 - Formulate a hypothesis and run discovery on key fundamentals

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5 Step 1.6 Step 1.7 Step 1.8

    1.3.1 Update Product and Launch concept

    2 Hours

    Input: Insights from Sellers, Insights from customers and prospects

    Output: Completed slides outlining product concept and detailed features and capabilities needed

    Materials: Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation

    Participants: Product management lead, GTM Program Manager, Select sellers, Workstream leads that wish to participate in interviews

    1. Using the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation:
      • With interview findings, update the Product and Launch Concept, Buyer Journey, and Capture Key Features/Capabilities of High Importance to Buyers slides

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Product and Launch Concept

    At this early stage, summarize findings from concept interviews to guide further discovery, as well as go-to-market concepts and initial campaign concepts in upcoming steps.

    Job Function Attributes

    Target Persona(s):
    Typical Title:
    Buying Center/functional area/dept.:

    Firmographics:
    Industry specific/All:
    Industry subsegments:
    Sizes (by revenues, # of employees):
    Geographical focus:

    Emotive Attributes

    Initiative descriptions: Buyer description of project/program/initiative. What terms used?

    Business issues: What are the business issues related to this initiative? How is this linked to a CEO-level mission-critical priority?

    Key challenges: What business/process hurdles need to be overcome?

    Pain points: What are the pain points to the business/personally in their role related to the challenges that drove them to seek a solution?

    Success motivations: What motivates our persona to be successful in this area?

    Solution and Opportunity

    Steps to do the job: What are the needed steps to do this job today?

    Key features and capabilities: What are the key solution elements the buyer sees in the ideal solution? (See additional detail slide with prioritized features.)

    Key business outcomes: In business terms, what value (e.g. cost/time/FTE savings, deals won, smarter, etc.) is expected by implementing this solution?

    Other users/opportunities: Are there other users in the role team/company that would benefit from this solution?

    Pricing/Packaging

    What is an acceptable price to pay for this solution? Based on financial benefits and ROI hurdles, what’s a good price to pay? A high price? What are packaging options? Any competitive pricing to compare?

    Alternatives/Competition

    What are alternatives to this solution: How else would you solve this problem? Are there other solutions you’ve investigated?

    Channel Preferences

    Where would it be most convenient to buy?: Direct from provider? Channel partner/reseller? Download from the web?

    Decision Criteria Attributes

    Decision maker – Role, criteria/decision lens:
    User(s) – Role, criteria/decision lens:
    Influencer(s) – Role, criteria/decision lens:
    Ratifier(s) – Role, criteria/decision lens:

    Behavioral Attributes

    Interaction preferences: Best way for us to reach this role? Email? At events? Texting? Video calls?

    Content types: Which content types (specifics; videos, short blog/article, longer whitepapers, etc.) help us stay educated about this initiative area?

    Content sources: What news, data, and insight sources (e.g. specifics) do you use to stay abreast of what’s important for this initiative area?

    Update the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation with findings from Sales and customer/prospect interviews.

    Capture key features/capabilities of high importance to buyers

    Ask buyers during interviews, as outlined in the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint, to describe and rate key features by need. You will also review with buyers during the GTM Build phase, so it’s important to establish high priority features now.

    Example bar chart for 'Buyer Feature Importance Ratings' where 'Buyer Need' is rated for each 'Feature'.
    • List key feature areas for buyer importance rating.
    • Establish a rating scheme.
        E.g. a rating of:
      • 4.5 or higher = critical ROI driver
      • 3.5 to 4.5 = must haves
      • 2 to 3.5 = nice to have
      • Less than 2 = low importance
    • Have buyers rate each possible feature 0-5 after explaining the rating scheme. Ask – are we missing any key features?
    • Update this slide, found within the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation, with customer/prospect interview findings.
    Perform the same buyer interviews for non-feature “capabilities” such as:
    • Ease of use, security, availability of training, service model, etc. – and other “non-feature” areas that you need for your product hypothesis.

    Step 1.4

    Size the Product Market Opportunity

    Activities
    • 1.3.1 Based on the product concept, size, and the product market opportunity and with a focus on your “Obtainable Market”:
      • Clarify the definitions used to size market opportunity.
      • Source data both internally and externally.
      • Calculate the available, obtainable market for your software product.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Review market sizing definitions and identify required data
    • Identify the target market for your software application
    • Source market and internal data that will support your market sizing
    • Document and validate with team members

    This step involves the following participants:

    • GTM initiative leader
    • CMO, select workstream leads

    Outcomes of this step

    • Definitions on market sizing views
    • Data sourcing established
    • Market sizing and estimated penetration calculations

    Phase 1 - Formulate a hypothesis and run discovery on key fundamentals

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5 Step 1.6 Step 1.7 Step 1.8

    Market opportunity sizing definitions

    Your goal is to assess whether or not the opportunity is significantly sized and if you are well positioned to capture it

    1. This exercise is designed to help size the market opportunity for this particular product GTM launch and not the market opportunity for the entire product line or company. First a few market sizes to define:
      1. Penetrated – is your current revenues and can be expressed in your percentage vs. competitors’.
      2. Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) – larger than your currently penetrated market, and a percentage of SAM that can realistically be achieved. It accounts for your current limitations to reach and your ability to sell to buyers. It is restricted by your go-to-market ability and reduced by competitive market share. SOM answers: What increased market can we obtain by further penetrating accounts within current geographical coverage and go-to-market abilities and within our ability to finance our growth?
      3. Serviceable Available Market (SAM) – larger than SOM yet smaller than TAM, SAM accounts for current products and current go-to-market capabilities and answers: What if every potential buyer bought the products we have today and via the type of go-to-market (GTM) especially geographical coverage, we have today? SAM calls for applying our current GTM into unpenetrated portions of currently covered customer segments and regions.
      4. Total Available Market (TAM) – larger than SAM, TAM sizes a market assuming we could penetrate other customer segments within currently covered regions without regard for resources, capabilities, or competition. It answers the question: If every potential buyer within our available market – covered regions – bought, how big would the market be?
      5. Total Global Market – estimates market opportunity if all orgs in all segments and regions bought – with full disregard for resources and without the restrictions of our current GTM abilities.
      6. Develop your market opportunity sizing using the Product Market Opportunity Sizing Workbook.

    Download the Product Market Opportunity Sizing Workbook

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Product marketers that size the product market opportunity and account for the limitations posed by competitors, current sales coverage, brand permission, and awareness, provide their organizations with valuable insights into which inhibitors to growth should be addressed.

    Visualization of market opportunity sizes as circles within bigger circles, 'Penetrated Market' being the smallest and 'Global Market' being the largest.

    1.4.1 Size the product market opportunity

    Your goal is two-fold: Determine the target market size, and develop a realistic 12–24 month forecast to support your business case
    1. Open the Product Market Opportunity Sizing Workbook.
    2. Follow the instructions within.
    3. When finished, download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation and update the Product Market Opportunity Size slide with your calculated Product Market Opportunity Size.

    Download the Product Market Opportunity Sizing Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    “Segmentation, targeting and positioning are the three pillars of modern marketing. Great segmentation is the bedrock for GTM success but is overlooked by so many.” (Product Marketing Alliance)

    Step 1.5

    Outline Digital and Tech Requirements

    Activities

    Designing your go-to-market strategy does not require a robust customer experience management (CXM) platform, but implementing your strategy during the next steps of Go-to-Market – Build then Launch – certainly does.

    Review info-Tech’s CXM blueprint to build a more complete, end-to-end customer interaction solution portfolio that encompasses CRM alongside other critical components.

    The CXM blueprint also allows you to develop strategic requirements for CRM based on customer personas and external market analysis called for during your GTM Strategy design.

    Diagram of 'Customer Relationship Management' surrounded by its components: 'Web Experience Management Platform', 'E-Commerce & Point-of-Sale Solutions', 'Social Media Management Platform', 'Customer Intelligence Platform', 'Customer Service Management Tools', and 'Marketing Management Suite'.

    These steps outlined in the CXM blueprint, will help you:

    • Assess your CRM application(s) and the environment in which they exist. Take a business-first strategy to prioritize optimization efforts.
    • Validate CRM capabilities, user satisfaction, issues around data, vendor management, and costs to build out an optimization strategy
    • Pull this all together to develop a prioritized optimization roadmap.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Marketing Operations, Digital, IT
    • Project workstream leads as appropriate

    Outcomes of this step

    • After inquiries with appropriate analysts, client will be able to assess what new application and technology support is required to support Go To Market process.

    Phase 1 - Formulate a hypothesis and run discovery on key fundamentals

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5 Step 1.6 Step 1.7 Step 1.8

    Step 1.6

    Identify features and capabilities that will drive competitive differentiation

    Activities
    • 1.6.1 Hold a session with key stakeholders including sales, customer success, product, and product marketing to develop a hypothesis of features and capabilities vs. competitors: differentiators, parity areas, and gaps (DPG).
    • Optional for clients with buyer reviews and key competitive reviews within target product category:
      • 1.6.2 Request from SoftwareReviews a 2X2 Matrix Report of Importance vs. Satisfaction for both features and capabilities within your product market/category to identify areas of competitive DPG.
      • 1.6.3 Hold an Inquiry with covering ITRG analysts in your product category to have them validate key areas of competitive DPG.
    • 1.6.4 Document competitive DPG and build out your hypothesis for product build as you ready for customer interviews to validate that hypothesis.

    This step will provide processes to help you:

    • Understand and document competitive differentiation, parity, and gaps

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project workstream leads in product marketing, competitive intelligence, product management, and customer success

    Outcomes of this step

    • Develop a clear understanding of what differentiated capabilities to promote, which parity items to mention in marketing, and which areas are competitive gaps
    • Develop a hypothesis of what areas need to be developed during the Build phase of the Go-to-Market lifecycle

    Phase 1 - Formulate a hypothesis and run discovery on key fundamentals

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5 Step 1.6 Step 1.7 Step 1.8

    Assess current capabilities and competitive differentiation vs. buyer needs

    Taking buyer needs ratings from step 1.3, assess your current and key competitive capabilities against buyer needs for both feature and non-feature capabilities. Incorporate into your initial product hypothesis.

    Example bar chart for 'Competitive Differentiation, Parity and Gaps – Features' comparing ratings of 'Buyer Need', 'Our Current Capabilities', and 'Competitive Capabilities' for each 'Feature'.

    • Rank features in order of buyer need from step 1.3.
    • Prioritize development needs where current capabilities are rated low. Spot areas for competitive differentiation especially in high buyer-need areas.
    Perform the analysis for non-feature capabilities such as:
    • ease of use
    • security
    • availability of training
    • service model

    Optional: Validate feature and capability importance with buyer reviews

    Request from your SoftwareReviews Engagement Manager the “Importance vs. Satisfaction” analysis for your product(s) feature and non-feature capabilities under consideration for your GTM Strategy

    Satisfaction
    Fix Promote
    Importance

    Low Satisfaction
    High Importance

    These features are important to their market and will highlight any differentiators to avoid market comparison.

    High Satisfaction
    High Importance

    These are real strengths for the organization and should be promoted as broadly as possible.

    Low Satisfaction
    Low Importance

    These features are not important for the market and are unlikely to drive sales if marketing material focuses on them. Rationalize investment in these areas.

    High Satisfaction
    Low Importance

    Features are relatively strong, so highlight that these features can meet customer needs
    Review Maintain

    Overall Category Product Feature Satisfaction Importance

    • Importance is based on how strongly satisfaction for a feature of a software suite correlates to the overall Likeliness to Recommend
    • Importance is relative – low scores do not necessarily indicate the product is not important, just that it’s not as important as other features

    (Optional for clients with buyer reviews and key competitive reviews within target product category.)

    Optional: Feature importance vs. satisfaction

    Example: ERP “Vendor A” ratings and recommended key actions. Incorporate this analysis into your product concept if updating an existing solution. Have versions of the below run for specific competitors.

    Importance vs. Satisfaction map for Features, as shown on the previous slide, but with examples mapped onto it using a legend, purple squares are 'Enterprise Resource Planning' and green triangles are 'Vendor A'.

    Features in the “Fix” quadrant should be addressed in this GTM Strategy cycle.

    Features in the “Review” quadrant are low in both buyer satisfaction and importance, so vendors are wise to hold on further investments and instead focus on “Fix.”

    Features in the “Promote” quadrant are high in buyer importance and satisfaction, and should be called out in marketing and selling.

    Features in the “Maintain” quadrant are high in buyer satisfaction, but lower in importance than other features – maintain investments here.

    (Optional for clients with buyer reviews and key competitive reviews within target product category.)

    Optional: Capabilities importance vs. satisfaction

    Example: ERP “Vendor A” capabilities ratings and recommended key actions. Incorporate this analysis into your product concept for non-feature areas if updating an existing solution. Have versions of the below run for specific competitors.

    Importance vs. Satisfaction map for Capabilities with examples mapped onto it using a legend, purple squares are 'Enterprise Resource Planning' and green triangles are 'Vendor A'.

    Capabilities in the “Fix” quadrant should be addressed in this GTM Strategy cycle.

    Capabilities in the “Review” quadrant are low in both buyer satisfaction and importance, so vendors are wise to hold on further investments and instead focus on “Fix.”

    Capabilities in the “Promote” quadrant are high in buyer importance and satisfaction, and should be called out in marketing and selling.

    Capabilities in the “Maintain” quadrant are high in buyer satisfaction, but lower in importance than other features – maintain investments here.

    (Optional for clients with buyer reviews and key competitive reviews within target product category.)

    Develop a competitively differentiated value proposition

    Combining internal competitive knowledge with insights from buyer interviews and buyer reviews; establish which key features that will competitively differentiate your product when delivered

    Example bar chart for 'Competitive Differentiation, Parity and Gaps – Features and Capabilities' comparing ratings of 'Your Product' and 'Competitor A' with high buyer importance at the top, low at the bottom, and rankings of each 'Differentiator', 'Parity', and 'Gap'.

    • Identify what buyers need that will differentiate your product features and company capabilities from key competitors.
    • Determine which features and company capabilities, ideally lower in buyer importance, can achieve/maintain competitive parity.
    • Determine which features and company capabilities, ideally much lower in buyer importance, that can exist in a state of competitive gap.

    Step 1.7

    Select the Most Effective Routes to Market

    Activities
    • 1.7.1 Understand a framework for deciding how to approach evaluating each available channel including freemium/ecommerce, inside sales, field sales, and channel partner.
    • 1.7.2 Gather data that will inform option consideration.
    • 1.7.3 Apply to decision framework and present to key stakeholders for a decision.

    This step will provide processes to help you:

    • Understand the areas to consider when choosing a sales channel
    • Support your decision by making a specific channel recommendation

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project workstream leads in Sales, Sales Operations, Product Marketing, and Customer Success

    Outcomes of this step

    • Clarity around channel choice for this specific go-to-market strategy cycle
    • Pros and cons of choices with rationale for selected channel

    Phase 1 - Formulate a hypothesis and run discovery on key fundamentals

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5 Step 1.6 Step 1.7 Step 1.8

    Your “route-to-market” – channel strategy

    Capture buyer channel preferences in Step 1.3, and research alternatives using the following framework

    Inside vs. Field Sales – Selling software during COVID has taught us that you can successfully sell software using virtual conferencing tools, social media, the telephone, and even texting and webchat – so is the traditional model of field/territory-based sellers being replaced with inside/virtual sellers who can either work at home, or is there a benefit to being in the office with colleagues?

    Solutions vs. Individual Products – Do your buyers prefer to buy a complete solution from a channel partner or a solutions integrator that puts all the pieces together, and can handle training and servicing, for a more complete buyer solution?

    Channel Partner vs. Build Sales Force – Are there channel partners that, given your product is targeting a new buyer with whom you have no relationship, can leverage their existing relationships, quicken adoption of your products, and lower your cost of sales?

    Fully Digital – Is your application one where users can get started for free then upgrade with more advanced features without the use of a field or inside sales person? Do you possess the e-commerce platform to support this?

    While there are other considerations beyond the above to consider, decide which channel approach will work best for this GTM Strategy.

    Flowchart on how to capture 'Buyer Channel Preferences' with five possible outcomes: 'Freemium/e-commerce', 'Use specified channel partner', 'Establish channel partner', 'Use Inside Sales', and 'Use Field Sales'.

    Channel Partnerships are Expanding

    “One estimate is that for every dollar a firm spends on its SaaS platform, it spends four times that amount with systems integrators and other channel partners.

    And as technologies are embedded inside other products, services, and solutions, effective selling requires more partners.

    Salesforce, for example, is recruiting thousands of new partners, while Microsoft is reportedly adding over 7,000 partners each month.” (HBR, 2021)

    Step 1.8

    Craft an Initial GTM Strategy Presentation for Executive Review and Status Check

    Activities
    • 1.8.1 Finalize the set of slides within the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation that best illustrates the many key findings and recommended decisions that have been made during the Explore phase of the GTM Strategy.
      • Test whether all key deliverables have been created, especially those that must be in place in order to support future phases and steps.
      • Schedule a Steering Committee meeting and present your findings with the goal to gain support to proceed to the Design phase of GTM Strategy.

    This step will provide processes to help you:

    • Work with your colleagues to consolidate the findings from Phase 1 of the GTM Strategy
    • Create a slide deck with your colleagues for presentation to the Steering Committee to gain approvals to proceed to Phase 2

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project workstream leads in Sales, Sales Operations, Product Marketing, and Customer Success
    • Steering Committee

    Outcomes of this step

    • Slide deck to present to the Steering Committee
    • Approvals to move to Phase 2 of the GTM Strategy

    Phase 1 - Formulate a hypothesis and run discovery on key fundamentals

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2 Step 1.3 Step 1.4 Step 1.5 Step 1.6 Step 1.7 Step 1.8

    1.8.1 Build your GTM Strategy deck for Steering Committee approval

    1. As you near completion of the Go-to-Market Strategy Phase, Explore Step, an important test to pass before proceeding to the Design step of GTM Strategy, is to answer several key questions:
      1. Have you properly sized the market opportunity for the focus of this GTM cycle?
      2. Have you defined a unique value proposition of what buyers are looking for?
      3. And have you aligned stakeholders on the target customer persona and flushed out an accurate buyer journey?
    2. If the answer is “no” you need to return to these steps and ensure completion.
    3. Pull together a summary review deck, schedule a meeting with the Steering Committee, present to-date findings for approval to move on to Phase 2.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Sample of the 'PLAN' section of the GTM Strategy optimization diagram with 'GTM Explore Review' circled in red.

    The presentation you create contains:

    • Team composition and roles and responsibilities
    • Steps in overall process
    • Goals and objectives
    • Timelines and work plan
    • Initial product and launch concept
    • Buyer persona and journey
    • Competitive differentiation
    • Channel strategy

    Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

    Phase 2

    Design your initial product and business case

    Phase 1

    1.1 Select Steering Cmte/team, build aligned vision for GTM

    1.2 Buyer personas, journey, initial messaging

    1.3 Build initial product hypothesis

    1.4 Size market opportunity

    1.5 Outline digital/tech requirements

    1.6 Competitive SWOT

    1.7 Select routes to market

    1.8 Craft GTM Strategy deck

    Phase 2

    2.1 Brand consistency check

    2.2 Formulate packaging and pricing

    2.3 Craft buyer-valid product concept

    2.4 Build campaign plan and targets

    2.5 Develop cost budgets across all areas

    2.6 Draft product business case

    2.7 Update GTM Strategy deck

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assess tech/tools support for all GTM phases

    3.2 Outline sales enablement and Customer Success plan

    3.3 Build awareness plan

    3.4 Finalize business case

    3.5 Final GTM Plan deck

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Branding consistency check
    • Formulate packaging and pricing
    • Craft buyer-validated product concept
    • Build initial campaign plan and targets
    • Develop budgets for creative, content, and media purchases
    • Draft product business case
    • Update GTM Strategy deck

    This phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Steering Committee
    • Working group leaders

    To complete this phase, you will need:

    Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation TemplateGo-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist WorkbookBuyer Persona and Journey blueprintGo-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook
    Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template deliverable.Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook deliverable.Sample of the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint deliverable.Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook deliverable.
    Use the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template to document the results from the following activities:
    • Documenting your GTM strategy stakeholders
    • Documenting your GTM strategy working team
    Use the Go-to-Market Strategy RACI and Launch Checklist Workbook to:
    • Review the scope of roles and responsibilities required
    • Document the roles and responsibilities of your teams
    Use the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint to:
    • Interview sales and customers/prospects to inform product concepts, understand persona and later, flesh out buyer journeys
    Use the Go-to-Market Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook to:
    • Tally budgets from across key functions involved in GTM Strategy
    • Compare with forecasted revenues to assess gross margins

    Step 2.1

    Compare Emerging Messaging and Positioning With Existing Brand for Consistency

    Activities

    Share messaging documented with the buyer journey with branding/creative and/or Marketing VP/CMO to ensure consistency with overall corporate messaging. Use the “Brand Diagnostic” on the following slide as a quick check.

    For those marketers that see the need for a re-brand, please:
    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Later during the Build phase of GTM, marketing assets, digital platforms, sales enablement, and sales training will be created where actual messaging can be written with brand guidelines aligned.

    This step is to assess whether you we need to budget extra funds for any rebranding.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • After completing the buyer journey and identifying messaging, test with branding/CMO that new messaging aligns with current:
      • Company positioning
      • Messaging
      • Brand imagery

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Product marketing
    • Branding/creative
    • CMO

    Outcomes of this step

    • Check – Y/N on brand alignment
    • Adjustments made to current branding or new product messaging to gain alignment

    Phase 2 – Validate designs with buyers and solidify product business case

    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4 Step 2.5 Step 2.6 Step 2.7

    Brand identity

    Re-think tossing a new product into the same old marketing engine. Ask if your branding today and on this new offering needs help.

    If you answer “no” to any of the following questions, you may need to re-think your brand. Does your brand:

    • recognize buyer pain points and convey clear pain-relief?
    • convey unique value that is clearly distanced from key competitors?
    • resonate with how target personas see themselves (e.g. rebellious, intelligent, playful, wise, etc.) and convey the “feeling” (e.g. relief, security, confidence, inspiration, etc.) buyers seek?
    • offer proof points via customer testimonials (vs. claimed value)?
    • tell a truly customer-centric story that is all about them (vs. what you want them to know about you)?
    • use words (e.g. quality, speed, great service, etc.) that equate to how buyers actually see you? Is your tone of voice going to resonate with your target buyer?
    • present in a clean, simple, and truly unique way? And will your brand identity stand the test of time?
    • represent feedback gleaned from prospects as well as customers?

    “Nailing an impactful brand identity is a critical part of Growth Marketing.

    Without a well-crafted and maintained brand identity, your marketing will always feel flat and one-dimensional.” (Lean Labs, 2021)

    Step 2.2

    Formulate Packaging and Pricing

    Activities
    • 2.2.1 Leverage what was learned in Phase 1 from buyer interviews to create an initial packaging and initial pricing approach.
      • Packaging success is driven by knowing what the buyer values are, how newly proposed functionality may work with other applications, and how well the buyer(s) work in teams.
      • Develop pricing using cost-plus, value/ROI, and competitive/market pricing comparisons.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Approaches to establishing price points for software products
    • Checking if pricing supports emerging product revenue plan

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Pricing (if a function)

    Outcomes of this step

    • Pricing that is validated through buyer interviews and consistent with overall company pricing guardrails
    • Packaging that can be delivered

    Phase 2 – Validate designs with buyers and solidify product business case

    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4 Step 2.5 Step 2.6 Step 2.7

    2.2.1 Formulate packaging and pricing

    Goal: Incorporate buyer benefits into your MVP that delivers the buyer value that compels them to purchase and drives the business case

    1. Leverage findings from buyer interviews and feature prioritization found in Step 1.3 to arrive at initial feature inclusion.
    2. Leverage feedback from customer interviews and competitive pricing analysis to arrive at an initial target price offer.
    3. Go to the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation and use the slides labeled “Go-to-Market Strategy, Overall Project Plan.”

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Refer to the findings from buyer persona interviews

    Sample of the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint deliverable.

    Step 2.3

    Build a Buyer-Validated Product Concept

    Activities
    • 2.2.1 Add to your initial product concept from Phase 1, the pricing and packaging approach.
      • Take the concept out to buyers to get their feedback – not on UX design, that will come later, but to ensure the value is clear to the buyers, and to raise confidence in the product concept.
      • As with previous customer and prospect interviews, use the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint with its accompanying interview guide and focus on the product related questions.
      • Generate your slides to present and discuss with buyers, capture feedback, and refine the product concept.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Hold buyer interviews to review the product design
    • Validate concept and commercial variables – not UX design, that comes later

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management

    Outcomes of this step

    • Customer validated product concept that meets the business plan

    Phase 2 – Validate designs with buyers and solidify product business case

    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4 Step 2.5 Step 2.6 Step 2.7

    2.3.1 The best new product hypothesis doesn’t always come from your best customers

    Goal: Validate your product concept and business case

    1. Key areas to validate during product concept feedback:
      1. Feature/capability-build priorities – Which set of features and capabilities (i.e. service model, etc.) must be delivered in a minimum viable product (MVP) that delivers unique and competitively differentiating buyer value so we have win rates that support the business case?
      2. Packaging/Pricing – Are their features/capabilities that are not in base offering but offered as add-ons or not at all? Are their different packaging options that must be delivered given different customer segments and appropriate price points? (E.g. a small- to-medium sized business (SMB) version, Freemium, or Basic vs. Premium offerings?
      3. Routes to Market/Channel – Ensure you validate your channel strategy as work/effort will be needed to arrive at channel sales and marketing enablement.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    “Innovation opportunities almost always come from understanding a company’s worst customers or customers it doesn’t serve” (Harvard Business School Press, 1997)

    2.3.2 How your prospects buy will inform upcoming campaign design

    Goal: During product validation interviews, further validate the buyer journey to identify asset types to be created/sourced for launch campaign design

    1. Leverage findings from buyer interviews with a focus on buyer journey questions/answers found in Step 1.3 and further validated during product concept feedback in step 2.3.
    2. Your goal is to uncover the following key areas (see next slide for illustration):
      1. Validate the steps buyers take throughout the buyer journey – when you validate buyer steps and what the buyer is doing and thinking as they make a buying decision determines if you are supporting the right process.
      2. Validate the human vs. non-human/digital interaction type for each step – this determines whether your lead gen engine or your salesforce (or channel partner) will deliver the marketing assets and sales collateral.
      3. Describe the asset-types most valued by buyers during each step – this will provide the guidance your demand gen/field marketers need to either work with product marketing and creative to design and build, or source the right marketing asset and sales collateral for your lead gen engine and to support sales enablement.
      4. Identify which channels – this will give your digital team the guidance they need to design the “where” to place the assets within your lead gen engine. Feedback from customer interviews and competitive pricing analysis to arrive at an initial target price for offering is shown on the next slide.
    3. Use the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation to complete the buyer journey slide with key findings.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Refer to the findings from buyer persona interviews

    Sample of the Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint deliverable.

    Answers you need to map buyer journey

    Your buyer interviews – whether during earlier steps or here during product concept validation – will give specific answers to all areas in green text below. Understanding channels, asset-types, and crafting your key messaging are essential for next steps.

    Table outlining an example buyer's journey with fields in green text that are to be to replaced with answers from your buyer interviews.

    Step 2.4

    Build Your Initial Campaign Plan and Targets

    Activities
    • 2.4.1. While product management and marketing is working on the business case, the campaign team is designing their launch campaign.
    • Expand from the product concept and build out the entire launch campaign identifying dates, CTA’s, channels, and asset types needed that will be built during the Build phase.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Outline deployment plan of activities and outcomes
    • Draw up specs for needed assets, web-page changes, emails, target segments, and targets for leads generated

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Field Marketing
    • Product Marketing

    Outcomes of this step

    • The initial draft of the campaign plan that outlines multichannel activities, dates, and assets that need to be sourced and/or created

    Phase 2 – Validate designs with buyers and solidify product business case

    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4 Step 2.5 Step 2.6 Step 2.7

    2.4.1 Document your campaign plan

    2 hours

    On the following Awareness and Lead Gen Engine slide:
    1. Tailor the slide to describe your lead generation engine as you will use it when you get to latter steps to describe the activities in your lead gen engine and weigh them for go-to-market strategy.
    2. Use the template to see what makes up a typical lead gen and awareness building engine to see what you may be missing, as well as to record your current engine “parts.”
      • Note: The “Goal” image in upper right is meant as a reminder that marketers should establish a goal for Sales Qualified Leads (SQL’s) delivered to field sales for each campaign.

    On the Product and Launch Concept slides:

    1. Update the slides with findings from 2.3 and 2.4.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    “Only 32% of marketers – and 29% of B2B marketers – said the process of planning campaigns went very well. Just over half were sure they had selected the right business goal for a given marketing project and only 42% were confident they identified the right audience – which is, of course, a critical determinant for achieving success.” (MIT Sloan Management Review)

    Launch campaign

    Our Goal for [Campaign name] is to generate X SQL’s

    Flowchart of the steps to take when a campaign is launched, from 'Organic Website Visits' and 'Go Live' to future 'Sales Opportunities'. A key is present to decipher various icons.

    Awareness

    PR/EXTERNAL COMMS:

    Promote release in line with company story

    • [Executive Name] interview with [Publication Y] on [Launch Topic X] – Mo./Day
    • Press Release on new enhancements – Mo./Day
    • [Executive Name] interview with [Publication Z] on [Launch Topic X] – Mo./Day
    ANALYST RELATIONS:

    Receive analyst feedback pre-launch and brief with final releases messaging/positioning

    • Inquiry with [Key Analysts] on [Launch Topic X] – Mo./Day, pre launch
    • Press Release shared on new enhancements – Launch day minus two days
    • Analyst briefing with [Key Analysts] on [Launch Topic X] – Launch day minus two days

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    2.4.2 Campaign targets

    Goal: Establish a Marketing-Influenced Win target that will be achieved for this launch

    We advise setting a target for the launch campaign. Here is a suggested approach:
    1. Understand what % of all sales wins are touched by marketing either through first or last touch attribution. This is the % of Marketing-Influenced Wins (MIWs).
    2. Determine what sales wins are needed to attain product revenue targets for this launch.
    3. Apply the actual company MIW % to the number of deals that must be closed to achieve target product launch revenues. This becomes the MIW target for this launch campaign.
    4. Then, using your average marketing funnel conversion rates working backwards from MIWs to Opportunities, Sales Accepted Leads (SALs), Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), up to website visits.
    5. Update the slides with findings from 2.3 and 2.4.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    “Marketing should quantify its contribution to the business. One metric many clients have found valuable is Marketing Influenced Wins (MIW). Measured by what % of sales wins had a last-touch marketing attribution, marketers in the 30% – 40% MIW range are performing well.” (SoftwareReviews Advisory Research)

    Step 2.5

    Develop Initial Budgets Across All Areas

    Activities
    • 2.5.1 Use the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook and work with your workstream leads.
      • Capture the costs associated with this GTM Strategy and Launch.
      • Summarize your GTM budget in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation, including the details behind the gross margin calculation for your GTM Strategy/campaign if required.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Field marketing, product marketing, creative, others to identify the specific budget elements needed for this campaign/launch

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Field Marketing
    • Product Marketing
    • Branding/creative

    Outcomes of this step

    • The initial marketing budget for this campaign/launch

    Phase 2 – Validate designs with buyers and solidify product business case

    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4 Step 2.5 Step 2.6 Step 2.7

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    2.5.1 Develop your GTM Strategy/product launch campaign budget

    Goal: Work with your workstream leads to identify all incremental costs associated with this GTM strategy and product launch

    1. Use the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook and adjust to include the areas that are identified by your workstream leads as being applicable to this GTM Strategy and Launch.
      • These should be incremental costs to normal operating and capital budgets and those areas that are fully approved for inclusion by your Steering Committee/Sponsoring Executive.
    2. Begin to Catalog all applicable costs to include all key areas such as:
      • Technology costs for internal use (typically from Marketing Ops), and “core” to product technology costs working with the product team
      • Channel marketing programs, agency (e.g. branding, naming, web design, SEO, content marketing, etc.), T&E, paid media, events, marketing assets, etc.
    3. Note that in the Align Step – Step 3, you will see your workstream leads each develop their individual contributions to both the launch plan as well a budget.

    4. Summarize your initial GTM budget findings in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation, including the details behind the gross margin calculation for your GTM Strategy/campaign if required. Again, you will flush out the final costs within each workstream areas in Phase 3, ”Align.”

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Step 2.6

    Draft Initial Product Business Case

    Activities
    • 2.6.1 Here’s where you begin to pull together all the essential elements of your final business case.
      • For many organizations that require a view of return on investment, you will begin here to shape the key elements that your organization requires for a complete business case to go ahead with the needed investments.
      • The goal is to compare estimated costs to estimated revenues to ensure acceptable margins will be delivered for this GTM strategy/product launch.
      • The culmination of work to get to this calculation will continue through Phase 3; however, the following slide illustrates the kind of visualization that will be possible with our approach.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • A product revenue forecast is created, alignment with sales/sales targets is created for a minimum viable product (MVP) that meets the buyer’s needs at the price point established/validated

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Product management
    • Product marketing
    • Sales leadership

    Outcomes of this step

    • The important measures of:
      • Product revenue forecast
      • Supported MVP features

    Phase 2 – Validate designs with buyers and solidify product business case

    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4 Step 2.5 Step 2.6 Step 2.7

    Gross Margin Estimates – part of a complete product business case

    Your goal: Earn more than you spend! This projection of estimated gross margins should be part of your product launch business case. The GTM initiative lead and workstream leads are charged with estimating incremental costs, and product and sales must work together on the revenue forecast.

    Net Return

    We estimate our 12 month gross profit to be ….

    Quarterly Revenues

    Based on sales forecast, our quarterly/monthly revenues are ….

    Estimated Expenses

    Incremental up-front costs are expected to be ….

    Example 'P&L waterfall for Product X Launch' with notes. Green bars are 'Increase', red bars are 'Decrease', and blue bars are 'Total'. Red bar note: 'Your estimated incremental up-front costs', Green bar note: 'Your estimated net incremental revenues vs. costs', Blue bar note: 'Your estimated net gross profit for this product launch and campaign', 'END' note: 'Extend for suitable period'.

    2.6.1 Develop your initial product business case

    Goal: Focused on the Product Concept areas related to product Market Fit, Buyer Needs and Market Opportunity, Product Managers will summarize in order to gain approval for Build

    1. Using the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation, product managers should ensure the product concept slide(s) support the rationale to move to Build phase. Key areas include:
      1. Adequate market opportunity size – that is worth the incremental investment
      2. Acceptable costs/investment to pursue the opportunity – design, creative services for branding, web design, product naming, asset creation, copywriting, translation services not available in-house
      3. Well-defined product market fit – review buyer interviews that identify buyer pain points and ideas that will deliver needed business value
      4. Buyer-validated commercials – buyer-validated pricing and packaging
      5. Product development budget and staffing support to build viable MVP & beyond roadmap – development budget and staffing is in place/budgeted to deliver MVP by target date and continue to ensure attainment of product revenue targets
      6. Unique product value proposition that is competitively differentiated – to drive acceptable win rates
      7. Product Sales Forecast – that when compared to costs meets company investment hurdle rates
      8. Sales Leadership support for achieving sales forecast and supported sales/channel resourcing plan – sales leadership has taken on forecasted revenues as an incremental sales quota and has budget for additional hiring, enablement, and training for attainment.
    2. Go to the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation and complete the slides summarizing these key areas that support the business case for the next phases of Build and Launch.

    Product Business Case Checklist:

    • Acceptably large enough product market opportunity
    • Well-defined competitive differentiation
    • Buyer-validated product-market fit
    • Buyer-validated and competitive commercials (i.e. pricing, packaging)
    • An MVP with roadmap that aligns to buyer needs and buyer-validated price points
    • A 24–36 month sales forecast with CRO sign-up and support for attainment
    • Costs of launch vs. forecasted revenues to gauge gross margins

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Step 2.7

    Update the GTM Strategy Presentation Deck for Executive Review and Sign-off

    Activities
    • 2.7.1 Update the deck with Phase 2 findings culminating in the business case.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Drop into the GTM Strategy deck the summary findings from the team’s work
    • Write an executive summary that garners executive support for needed funds, signed-up-for sales targets, agreed upon launch timing
    • Steering Committee alignment on above and next steps

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Steering Committee
    • Workstream leads

    Outcomes of this step

    • Executive support for the GTM Strategy plan and approval to proceed to Phase 3

    Phase 2 – Validate designs with buyers and solidify product business case

    Step 2.1 Step 2.2 Step 2.3 Step 2.4 Step 2.5 Step 2.6 Step 2.7

    2.7.1 Update your GTM Strategy deck for Design Steering Committee approval

    1. As you near completion of the Go-to-Market Strategy Phase – Design Step, while your emerging business case is important, it will be finalized in the Align Step.
    2. An important test to pass before proceeding to the Align step of the GTM Strategy, is to answer several key questions:
      1. Have you validated the product value proposition with buyers?
      2. Is the competitive differentiation clear for this offering?
      3. Did Sales support the business case by signing up for the incremental quota?
      4. Has product defined an MVP that aligns with the buyer value needed to drive purchases?
      • If the answer is “no” you need to return to these steps and ensure completion
    3. Pull together a summary review deck, schedule a meeting with the Steering Committee, and present to-date findings for approval to move onto Phase 3.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Sample of the 'PLAN' section of the GTM Strategy optimization diagram with 'GTM Design Review' circled in red.

    The presentation you create contains:

    • Timelines and a work plan
    • Expanded product concept to include your packaging and pricing approach
    • Feedback from buyers on validated product concept especially commercial elements
    • Expanded campaign plan and marketing budget
    • Initial product business case

    Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

    Phase 3

    Align stakeholder plans to prep for build

    Phase 1

    1.1 Select Steering Cmte/team, build aligned vision for GTM

    1.2 Buyer personas, journey, initial messaging

    1.3 Build initial product hypothesis

    1.4 Size market opportunity

    1.5 Outline digital/tech requirements

    1.6 Competitive SWOT

    1.7 Select routes to market

    1.8 Craft GTM Strategy deck

    Phase 2

    2.1 Brand consistency check

    2.2 Formulate packaging and pricing

    2.3 Craft buyer-valid product concept

    2.4 Build campaign plan and targets

    2.5 Develop cost budgets across all areas

    2.6 Draft product business case

    2.7 Update GTM Strategy deck

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assess tech/tools support for all GTM phases

    3.2 Outline sales enablement and Customer Success plan

    3.3 Build awareness plan

    3.4 Finalize business case

    3.5 Final GTM Plan deck

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1. Assess tech/tools support for all GTM phases
    2. Map lead generation plan
    3. Outline Customer Success plan
    4. Build awareness plan (PR/AR, etc.)
    5. Finalize product business case
    6. Final GTM planning deck and Steering Committee review

    This phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Steering Committee
    • Working group leaders

    To complete this phase, you will need:

    Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook
    Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template deliverable. Sample of the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook deliverable.
    Use the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template to document the results from the following activities:
    • Documenting your GTM Strategy Stakeholders
    • Documenting your GTM Strategy Working Team
    Use the Go-to-Market Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook to:
    • Tally budgets from across key functions involved in the GTM Strategy
    • Compare with forecasted revenues to assess gross margins

    Step 3.1

    Assess Technology and Tools Support for Your GTM Strategy as Well as Future Phases of GTM

    Activities
    • 3.1.1 Have Marketing Operations document what tech stack improvements are required in order to get the team to a successful launch. Understand costs and implementation timelines and work it into the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • After completing your initial survey in Step 1, complete requirements building for needed technology and tools acquisition/upgrade in campaign management, sales opportunity management, and analytics.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Marketing operations/digital
    • IT

    Outcomes of this step

    • Build a business requirement against which to evaluate new/upgraded vendor tools to support the entire GTM process

    Phase 3 – Align functional plans with a compelling business case for product build

    Step 3.1 Step 3.2 Step 3.3 Step 3.4 Step 3.5

    3.1.1 Technology plan and investments

    Goal: Outline the results of our analysis and Info-Tech analyst guidance regarding supporting systems, tools, and technologies to support our go-to-market strategy

    1. Plans, timings, and incremental costs related to, but not limited to, the following apps/tools/technologies:
      1. Lead management/Marketing automation
      2. Marketing analytics
      3. Sales Opportunity Management System (OMS) and Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ) applications
      4. Sales engagement
      5. Sales analytics
      6. Customer service and support/Customer interaction hub
      7. Customer data management and analytics
      8. Customer experience platforms
      9. Marketing content management
      10. Creative tools
      11. Share of voice and social platform management
      12. Etc.
    2. Go to the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook and complete by adding costs identified in above areas that are specific to this go-to-market strategy, Build, and Launch initiative. Record in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation completing the areas within the slides related to the Product and Launch Concepts and Business Case.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Step 3.2

    Outline Sales Enablement and Support for Customer Success to Include Onboarding and Ongoing Engagement

    Activities
    • 3.3.1 Sales Enablement – develop the sales enablement and training plan for Launch to include activities, responsible parties, dates for delivery, etc.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Finalize the customer success training and support plan
    • Onboarding scripts
    • Changes to help screens in application
    • Timing to plan for Quality Acceptance

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Customer Success lead
    • Product management
    • Product marketing

    Outcomes of this step

    • Plan for creation of copy, assets, and rollout pan to support clients and client segments for Launch

    Phase 3 – Align functional plans with a compelling business case for product build

    Step 3.1 Step 3.2 Step 3.3 Step 3.4 Step 3.5

    3.2.1 Outline sales enablement

    Goal: Outline sales collateral, updates to sales proposals, CPQ, Opportunity Management Systems, and sales training

    1. Describe the requirements for sales enablement to include elements such as:
      1. Sales collateral
      2. Client-facing presentations
      3. Sales proposal updates
      4. Updates to Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ) applications
      5. Updates to Opportunity Management System (OMS) applications
      6. Sales demo versions of the new product
      7. Sales communication plans
      8. Sales training and certification programs
    2. Go to the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook and add the costs identified in above areas that are specific to this go-to-market strategy, Build, and Launch initiative. Record as well in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation completing the areas within the slides related to the Product and Launch Concepts and Business Case.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    3.2.2 Outline customer success

    Goal: Outline customer support/success requirements and plan

    1. Plans, timings, and incremental costs for the following:
      1. Onboarding scripts for the new solution
      2. Updates to retention lifecycle
      3. FAQ answers
      4. Updates to online help/support system
      5. “How-to” videos
      6. Live chat updates
      7. Updates to “provide feedback” system
      8. Updates to Quarterly Business Review slides
    2. Go to the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook and add the costs identified in above areas that are specific to this go-to-market strategy, Build, and Launch initiative. Record in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation and complete the areas within the slides related to the Product and Launch Concepts and Business Case.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Step 3.3

    Build an Awareness Plan Covering Media, Social Media, and Industry Analysts

    Activities
    • 3.4.1 Corp Comms/PR/AR – develop the overall awareness plans for executive interviews, articles placed, social drops, analyst briefing dates, and internal associate comms if required.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Outline outbound communications plans including press releases, social posts, etc.
    • Describe dates for AR outreach to covering analysts
    • Develop the internal communications plan

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Corporate Comms lead
    • Creative
    • Analyst relations
    • Social media marketing lead

    Outcomes of this step

    • Plan for creation of copy, assets, and rollout pan to support awareness building, external communications, and internal communications if required

    Phase 3 – Align functional plans with a compelling business case for product build

    Step 3.1 Step 3.2 Step 3.3 Step 3.4 Step 3.5

    3.3.1 Internal communications plan

    Goal: Outline complete internal communications plan. For large-scale changes (i.e. rebranding, M&A, etc.) HR may drive significant volume of employee communications working with Corporate Comms

    1. Plans, timings, and incremental costs for the following:
      1. Complete a comms plan with dates, messages, and channels
      2. Team member roles and responsibilities
      3. Intranet article and posting schedules
      4. Creation of new office signage, merchandise, etc. for employee kits
      5. Pre-launch announcements schedule
      6. Launch day communications, events, and activities
      7. Post launch update schedule and messages for launch success
      8. Incremental staffing and resources/budget requirements
    2. Go to the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook and add costs identified in above areas that are specific to this go-to-market strategy, Build, and Launch initiative. Record as well in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation completing the areas related to the Product and Launch Concepts and Business Case.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    3.3.2 PR and External Communications Plan

    Goal: Outline complete internal communications plan. For large scale changes (i.e. rebranding, M&A, etc.) HR may drive significant volume of employee communications working with Corporate Comms

    1. Plans, timings, and incremental costs for the following:
      1. List of Tier 1 and Tier 2 media authors covering the [product/initiative] market area
      2. Schedule of launch briefings, with any non-analyst influencers
      3. Timing of press releases
      4. Required supporting executives and stakeholders for each of the above meetings
      5. Slide deck/media kit for the above and planned questions to support needed feedback
      6. Media Site materials especially to support media questions and requests for briefings
      7. Social postings calendar of activities and key messages plan
      8. Publish data of [product/initiative] relevant articles with set-back schedules
      9. Cultivation of reference customers and client testimonials for media outreach
      10. Requirements for additional staffing to cover product/initiative new market and analysts
      11. Internal and external events calendar to invite media
    2. Go to the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook and add the costs identified in the above areas that are specific to this go-to-market strategy, Build, and Launch initiative. Record in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation by completing the areas related to the Product and Launch Concepts and Business Case.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    3.3.3 Analyst relations plan

    Goal: Outline incremental costs in analyst communications, engagement, and access to research

    1. Plans, timings, and incremental costs for the following:
      1. List of Tier 1 and Tier 2 analysts for the [product/initiative] market area
      2. Schedule of inquiries, pre-launch briefings, launch briefings, and post-launch feedback
      3. Required supporting executives and stakeholders for each of the above meetings
      4. Analyst deck for each of the above and planned questions to support needed feedback
      5. Analyst Site materials to support 2nd and 3rd Tier analysts’ questions and requests for briefings
      6. Social postings calendar of activities and key messages
      7. Resources to respond to analyst blogs and/or social posts regarding your product/initiative area
      8. Timing of important and relevant analyst document/methodology publishing dates with set-back schedules
      9. Cultivation of reference customers and client testimonials to coincide with analyst outreach for research and for buyer review sites/reviews data gathering
      10. Requirements for additional staffing to cover product/initiative new market and analysts
      11. Events calendar where analysts will be presenting on this product/initiative market
    2. Go to the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook and add the costs identified in the above areas that are specific to this go-to-market strategy, Build and Launch initiative. Record in the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation by completing the areas related to the Product and Launch Concepts and Business Case.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Step 3.4

    Finalize Product Business Case With Collaborative Input From Product, Sales, and Marketing

    Activities
    • 3.5.1 Convene the team to align sales, marketing, and product around the business case.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Refine the product business case initiated in Phase 2
    • Align product revenue forecast with sales revenue forecast
    • Align MVP features to be developed during “GTM – Build” with customer validated product-market fit

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project lead
    • Product management
    • Product marketing

    Outcomes of this step

    • Product business case

    Phase 3 – Align functional plans with a compelling business case for product build

    Step 3.1 Step 3.2 Step 3.3 Step 3.4 Step 3.5

    3.4.1 Final product Build and Launch business case

    Goal: Beyond the product business case, factor in costs for technology, campaigning, sales enablement, and customer success in order to gain approval for Build and Launch

    1. Using the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation, workstream leads and Go-to-Market Initiative leaders will finalize the anticipated incremental costs, and when compared to projected product revenues, present to the Steering Committee including CFO for final approval before moving to Build and Launch.
    2. To present a complete business case, key cost areas include:
      1. All the areas outlined up through Step 3.4 plus:
      2. Technology/MarTech Stack incremental costs
      3. Channel programs, branding/agency, pricing, packaging/product, and T&E incremental costs
      4. Campaign related – creative, content marketing, paid media, events, SEO, lists/data
      5. Sales Enablement, Customer Support/Success incremental costs
      6. Internal communications/events/activities/signage costs
      7. PR/AR/Media incremental costs
    3. Compare to final Sales/Product agreed projected revenues, in order to calculate estimated gross margins

    Go to the Go-to-Market Budget Workbook as outlined in prior steps and document final incremental costs and projected revenues and summarize within the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Cost Budget and Revenue Forecast Workbook

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

    Product Build and Launch Business Case Checklist:

    • Acceptably large enough product market opportunity
    • Well-defined competitive differentiation
    • Buyer-validated product-market fit
    • Buyer-validated and competitive commercials (i.e. pricing, packaging)
    • An MVP with roadmap that aligns with buyer needs and buyer validated price points
    • A 24–36 month sales forecast with CRO sign-up and support for attainment
    • Incremental product development, tech, marketing, sales, customer success, AR/PR costs vs. forecasted revenues fall within acceptable margins

    Step 3.5

    Develop Your Final Executive Presentation to Request Approval and Proceed to GTM Build Phase

    Activities
    • 3.6.1 Update the Product, Launch, Journey, and Business Case slides included within the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template with Phase 3 findings culminating in the business case.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Update the previously created slides with findings from Phase 3
    • Hold a Steering Committee meeting and present findings for approval

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Steering Committee
    • Workstream leads

    Outcomes of this step

    • GTM Strategy approved to move to GTM Build

    Phase 3 – Align functional plans with a compelling business case for product build

    Step 3.1 Step 3.2 Step 3.3 Step 3.4 Step 3.5

    3.5.1 Update your GTM Strategy deck for Align Steering Committee approval

    1. As you near completion of the Go-to-Market Strategy Phase – Align Step, an important test to pass before proceeding to the Design step of GTM Strategy, is to answer several key questions:
      1. Are Sales, Product, and Marketing all aligned and in agreement on the business case?
      2. Are the gross margin calculations acceptable to the Steering Committee? CFO? CEO?
    2. If the answer is “no” you need to return to prior steps and ensure completion.
    3. Pull together a summary review deck, schedule a meeting with the Steering Committee, present to-date findings for approval to move on to Build Phase.
    4. Once your final business case is accepted, you are ready to move on to the GTM Build and Launch phases. These phases are covered in sperate SoftwareReviews blueprints.

    Download the Go-to-Market Strategy Presentation Template

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    Bibliography

    Acosta, Danette. “Average Customer Retention Rate by Industry.” Profitwell.com. Accessed Jan. 2022.

    Ashkenas, Ron, and Patrick Finn. “The Go-To-Market Approach Startups Need to Adopt.” Harvard Business Review, June 2016. Accessed Jun. 2021.

    Bilardi, Emma. “ How to Create Buyer Personas.” Product Marketing Alliance, July 2020. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Cespedes, Frank V. “Defining a Post-Pandemic Channel Strategy.” Harvard Business Review, Apr. 2021. Accessed Jul. 2021.

    Chapman, Lawrence. “A Visual Guide to Product Launches.” Product Marketing Alliance. Accessed Jul. 2021.

    Chapman, Lawrence. “Everything You Need To Know About Go-To-Market Strategies.” Product Marketing Alliance. Accessed Jul. 2021.

    Christiansen, Clayton. “The Innovators Dilemma.” Harvard Business School Press, 1997.

    Drzewicki, Matt. “Digital Marketing Maturity: The Path to Success.” MIT Sloan Management Review. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    “Go-To-Market Refresher,” Product Marketing Alliance. Accessed Jul. 2021

    Harrison, Liz; Dennis Spillecke, Jennifer Stanley, and Jenny Tsai. “Omnichannel in B2B sales: The new normal in a year that has been anything but.” McKinsey & Company, 15 March, 2021. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Jansen, Hasse. “Buyer Personas – 33 Mind Blowing Stats.” Boardview, 19 Feb. 2016. Accessed Jan. 2022.

    Scott, Ryan. “Creating a Brand Identity: 20 Questions to Consider.” Lean Labs, Jun 2021. Accessed Jul. 2021.

    Smith, Michael L., and James Erwin. “Role and Responsibility Charting (RACI).” DOCSearch. Accessed Jan. 2022. Web.

    “What is the Total Addressable Market (TAM).” Corporate Finance Institute (CFI), n.d. Accessed Jan. 2022.

    Related Software Reviews Research

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    Accelerate Your Automation Processes

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
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    Your organization needs to:

    • Define an automation suite for the business.
    • Specify the business goals for your automation suite.
    • Roadmap your automation modules to continually grow your automation platform.
    • Identify how an automation suite can help the organization improve.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Start small and do it right:

    • Assess if a particular solution works for your organization and continually invest in it if it does before moving onto the next solution.
    • Overwhelming your organization with a plethora of automation solutions can lead to a lack of management for each solution and decrease your overall return on investment.

    Impact and Result

    • Define your automation suite in terms of your business goals.
    • Take stock of what you have now: RPA, AIOps, chatbots.
    • Think about how to integrate and optimize what you have now, as well as roadmap your continual improvement.

    Accelerate Your Automation Processes Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to find out why your organization should accelerate your automation processes, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the ways Info-Tech can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Discover automation suite possibilities

    Take hold of your current state and assess where you would like to improve. See if adding a new automation module or investing in your current modules is the right decision.

    • Automation Suite Maturity Assessment Tool

    2. Chart your automation suite roadmap

    Build a high-level roadmap of where you want to bring your organization's automation suite in the future.

    • Automation Suite Roadmap Tool
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    2020 CIO Priorities Report

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    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
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    • The velocity and magnitude of technology changes today has increased dramatically compared to anything that has come before.
    • The velocity and magnitude of advancements in technology has always seemed unprecedented in every wave of technology change we have experienced over the past 40 years. With each new wave of innovation, “unprecedented” is redefined to a new level, and so it remains true that today’s CIO is faced with unprecedented levels of change as a direct result of emerging technologies.
    • What is different today is that we are at the point where the emerging technology itself is now capable of accelerating the pace of change even more through artificial intelligence capabilities.
    • If we are to realize the business value through the adoption of emerging technologies, CIOs must address significant challenges. We believe addressing these challenges lies in the CIO priorities for 2020.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • First there was IT/business alignment, then there was IT/business integration – both states characterized as IT “getting on the same page” as the business. In the context of emerging technologies, the CIO should no longer be focused on getting on the same page as the CEO.
    • Today it is about the CEO and the CIO collaborating to write a new book about convergence of all things: technology (infrastructure and applications), people (including vendors), process, and data.
    • Digital transformation and adoption of emerging technologies is not a goal, it is a journey – a means to the end, not the end unto itself.

    Impact and Result

    • Use Info-Tech's 2020 CIO Priorities Report to ascertain, based on our research, what areas of focus for 2020 are critical for success in adopting emerging technologies.
    • Adopting these technologies requires careful planning and consideration for what is critical to your business customers.
    • This report provides focus on the business benefits of the technology and not just the capabilities themselves. It puts the CIO in a position to better understand the true value proposition of any of today’s technology advancements.

    2020 CIO Priorities Report Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to understand the top five priorities for CIOs in 2020 and why these are so critical to success.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Refine and adapt processes

    Learn about how processes can make or break your adoption of emerging technologies.

    • 2020 CIO Priorities Report – Priority 1: Refine and Adapt Processes

    2. Re-invent IT as collaboration engine

    Learn about how IT can transform its role within the organization to optimize business value.

    • 2020 CIO Priorities Report – Priority 2: Re-Invent IT as Collaboration Engine

    3. Acquire and retain talent for roles in emerging technologies

    Learn about how IT can attract and keep employees with the skills and knowledge needed to adopt these technologies for the business.

    • 2020 CIO Priorities Report – Priority 3: Acquire and Retain Talent for Roles in Emerging Technologies

    4. Define and manage cybersecurity and cyber resilience requirements related to emerging technologies

    Understand how the adoption of emerging technologies has created new levels of risk and how cybersecurity and resilience can keep pace.

    • 2020 CIO Priorities Report – Priority 4: Define and Manage Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Requirements Related to Emerging Technologies

    5. Leverage emerging technology to create Wow! customer experiences

    Learn how IT can leverage emerging technology for its own customers and those of its business partners.

    • 2020 CIO Priorities Report – Priority 5: Leverage Emerging Technology to Create Wow! Customer Experiences
    [infographic]

    Mergers & Acquisitions: The Sell Blueprint

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    There are four key scenarios or entry points for IT as the selling/divesting organization in M&As:

    • IT can suggest a divestiture to meet the business objectives of the organization.
    • IT is brought in to strategy plan the sale/divestiture from both the business’ and IT’s perspectives.
    • IT participates in due diligence activities and complies with the purchasing organization’s asks.
    • IT needs to reactively prepare its environment to enable the separation.

    Consider the ideal scenario for your IT organization.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Divestitures are inevitable in modern business, and IT’s involvement in the process should be too. This progression is inspired by:

    • The growing trend for organizations to increase, decrease, or evolve through these types of transactions.
    • A maturing business perspective of IT, preventing the difficulty that IT is faced with when invited into the transaction process late.
    • Transactions that are driven by digital motivations, requiring IT’s expertise.
    • There never being such a thing as a true merger, making the majority of M&A activity either acquisitions or divestitures.

    Impact and Result

    Prepare for a sale/divestiture transaction by:

    • Recognizing the trend for organizations to engage in M&A activity and the increased likelihood that, as an IT leader, you will be involved in a transaction in your career.
    • Creating a standard strategy that will enable strong program management.
    • Properly considering all the critical components of the transaction and integration by prioritizing tasks that will reduce risk, deliver value, and meet stakeholder expectations.

    Mergers & Acquisitions: The Sell Blueprint Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how your organization can excel its reduction strategy by engaging in M&A transactions. Review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Proactive Phase

    Be an innovative IT leader by suggesting how and why the business should engage in an acquisition or divestiture.

    • One-Pager: M&A Proactive
    • Case Study: M&A Proactive
    • Information Asset Audit Tool
    • Data Valuation Tool
    • Enterprise Integration Process Mapping Tool
    • Risk Register Tool
    • Security M&A Due Diligence Tool
    • Service Catalog Internal Service Level Agreement Template

    2. Discovery & Strategy

    Create a standardized approach for how your IT organization should address divestitures or sales.

    • One-Pager: M&A Discovery & Strategy – Sell
    • Case Study: M&A Discovery & Strategy – Sell

    3. Due Diligence & Preparation

    Comply with due diligence, prepare the IT environment for carve-out possibilities, and establish the separation project plan.

    • One-Pager: M&A Due Diligence & Preparation – Sell
    • Case Study: M&A Due Diligence & Preparation – Sell
    • IT Due Diligence Charter
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    • M&A Separation Project Management Tool (Excel)

    4. Execution & Value Realization

    Deliver on the separation project plan successfully and communicate IT’s transaction value to the business.

    • One-Pager: M&A Execution & Value Realization – Sell
    • Case Study: M&A Execution & Value Realization – Sell

    Infographic

    Workshop: Mergers & Acquisitions: The Sell Blueprint

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Pre-Transaction Discovery & Strategy

    The Purpose

    Establish the transaction foundation.

    Discover the motivation for divesting or selling.

    Formalize the program plan.

    Create the valuation framework.

    Strategize the transaction and finalize the M&A strategy and approach.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    All major stakeholders are on the same page.

    Set up crucial elements to facilitate the success of the transaction.

    Have a repeatable transaction strategy that can be reused for multiple organizations.

    Activities

    1.1 Conduct the CIO Business Vision and CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostics.

    1.2 Identify key stakeholders and outline their relationship to the M&A process.

    1.3 Understand the rationale for the company's decision to pursue a divestiture or sale.

    1.4 Assess the IT/digital strategy.

    1.5 Identify pain points and opportunities tied to the divestiture/sale.

    1.6 Create the IT vision statement and mission statement and identify IT guiding principles and the transition team.

    1.7 Document the M&A governance.

    1.8 Establish program metrics.

    1.9 Create the valuation framework.

    1.10 Establish the separation strategy.

    1.11 Conduct a RACI.

    1.12 Create the communication plan.

    1.13 Prepare to assess target organizations.

    Outputs

    Business perspectives of IT

    Stakeholder network map for M&A transactions

    Business context implications for IT

    IT’s divestiture/sale strategic direction

    Governance structure

    M&A program metrics

    IT valuation framework

    Separation strategy

    RACI

    Communication plan

    Prepared to assess target organization(s)

    2 Mid-Transaction Due Diligence & Preparation

    The Purpose

    Establish the foundation.

    Discover the motivation for separation.

    Identify expectations and create the carve-out roadmap.

    Prepare and manage employees.

    Plan the separation roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    All major stakeholders are on the same page.

    Methodology identified to enable compliance during due diligence.

    Employees are set up for a smooth and successful transition.

    Separation activities are planned and assigned.

    Activities

    2.1 Gather and evaluate the stakeholders involved, M&A strategy, future-state operating model, and governance.

    2.2 Review the business rationale for the divestiture/sale.

    2.3 Establish the separation strategy.

    2.4 Create the due diligence charter.

    2.5 Create a list of IT artifacts to be reviewed in the data room.

    2.6 Create a carve-out roadmap.

    2.7 Create a service/technical transaction agreement.

    2.8 Measure staff engagement.

    2.9 Assess the current culture and identify the goal culture.

    2.10 Create employee transition and functional workplans.

    2.11 Establish the separation roadmap.

    2.12 Establish and align project metrics with identified tasks.

    2.13 Estimate integration costs.

    Outputs

    Stakeholder map

    IT strategy assessed

    IT operating model and IT governance structure defined

    Business context implications for IT

    Separation strategy

    Due diligence charter

    Data room artifacts

    Carve-out roadmap

    Service/technical transaction agreement

    Engagement assessment

    Culture assessment

    Employee transition and functional workplans

    Integration roadmap and associated resourcing

    3 Post-Transaction Execution & Value Realization

    The Purpose

    Establish the transaction foundation.

    Discover the motivation for separation.

    Plan the separation roadmap.

    Prepare employees for the transition.

    Engage in separation.

    Assess the transaction outcomes.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    All major stakeholders are on the same page.

    Separation activities are planned and assigned.

    Employees are set up for a smooth and successful transition.

    Separation strategy and roadmap are executed to benefit the organization.

    Review what went well and identify improvements to be made in future transactions.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify key stakeholders and outline their relationship to the M&A process.

    3.2 Gather and evaluate the M&A strategy, future-state operating model, and governance.

    3.3 Review the business rationale for the divestiture/sale.

    3.4 Establish the separation strategy.

    3.5 Prioritize separation tasks.

    3.6 Establish the separation roadmap.

    3.7 Establish and align project metrics with identified tasks.

    3.8 Estimate separation costs.

    3.9 Measure staff engagement.

    3.10 Assess the current culture and identify the goal culture.

    3.11 Create employee transition and functional workplans.

    3.12 Complete the separation by regularly updating the project plan.

    3.13 Assess the service/technical transaction agreement.

    3.14 Confirm separation costs.

    3.15 Review IT’s transaction value.

    3.16 Conduct a transaction and separation SWOT.

    3.17 Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions.

    Outputs

    M&A transaction team

    Stakeholder map

    IT strategy assessed

    IT operating model and IT governance structure defined

    Business context implications for IT

    Separation strategy

    Separation roadmap and associated resourcing

    Engagement assessment

    Culture assessment

    Employee transition and functional workplans

    Updated separation project plan

    Evaluated service/technical transaction agreement

    SWOT of transaction

    M&A Sell Playbook refined for future transactions

    Further reading

    Mergers & Acquisitions: The Sell Blueprint

    For IT leaders who want to have a role in the transaction process when their business is engaging in an M&A sale or divestiture.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Don’t wait to be invited to the M&A table, make it.

    Photo of Brittany Lutes, Research Analyst, CIO Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.
    Brittany Lutes
    Research Analyst,
    CIO Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Photo of Ibrahim Abdel-Kader, Research Analyst, CIO Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.
    Ibrahim Abdel-Kader
    Research Analyst,
    CIO Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    IT has always been an afterthought in the M&A process, often brought in last minute once the deal is nearly, if not completely, solidified. This is a mistake. When IT is brought into the process late, the business misses opportunities to generate value related to the transaction and has less awareness of critical risks or inaccuracies.

    To prevent this mistake, IT leadership needs to develop strong business relationships and gain respect for their innovative suggestions. In fact, when it comes to modern M&A activity, IT should be the ones suggesting potential transactions to meet business needs, specifically when it comes to modernizing the business or adopting digital capabilities.

    IT needs to stop waiting to be invited to the acquisition or divestiture table. IT needs to suggest that the table be constructed and actively work toward achieving the strategic objectives of the business.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    There are four key scenarios or entry points for IT as the selling/divesting organization in M&As:

    • IT can suggest a divestiture to meet the business objectives of the organization.
    • IT is brought in to strategy plan the sale/divestiture from both the business’ and IT’s perspectives.
    • IT participates in due diligence activities and complies with the purchasing organization’s asks.
    • IT needs to reactively prepare its environment to enable the separation.

    Consider the ideal scenario for your IT organization.

    Common Obstacles

    Some of the obstacles IT faces include:

    • IT is often told about the transaction once the deal has already been solidified and is now forced to meet unrealistic business demands.
    • The business does not trust IT and therefore does not approach IT to define value or reduce risks to the transaction process.
    • The people and culture element is forgotten or not given adequate priority.

    These obstacles often arise when IT waits to be invited into the transaction process and misses critical opportunities.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Prepare for a sale/divestiture transaction by:

    • Recognizing the trend for organizations to engage in M&A activity and the increased likelihood that, as an IT leader, you will be involved in a transaction in your career.
    • Creating a standard strategy that will enable strong program management.
    • Properly considering all the critical components of the transaction and integration by prioritizing tasks that will reduce risk, deliver value, and meet stakeholder expectations.

    Info-Tech Insight

    As the number of merger, acquisition, and divestiture transactions continues to increase, so too does IT’s opportunity to leverage the growing digital nature of these transactions and get involved at the onset.

    The changing M&A landscape

    Businesses will embrace more digital M&A transactions in the post-pandemic world

    • When the pandemic occurred, businesses reacted by either pausing (61%) or completely cancelling (46%) deals that were in the mid-transaction state (Deloitte, 2020). The uncertainty made many organizations consider whether the risks would be worth the potential benefits.
    • However, many organizations quickly realized the pandemic is not a hindrance to M&A transactions but an opportunity. Over 16,000 American companies were involved in M&A transactions in the first six months of 2021 (The Economist). For reference, this had been averaging around 10,000 per six months from 2016 to 2020.
    • In addition to this transaction growth, organizations have increasingly been embracing digital. These trends increase the likelihood that, as an IT leader, you will engage in an M&A transaction. However, it is up to you when you get involved in the transactions.

    The total value of transactions in the year after the pandemic started was $1.3 billion – a 93% increase in value compared to before the pandemic. (Nasdaq)

    71% of technology companies anticipate that divestitures will take place as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. (EY, 2020)

    Your challenge

    IT is often not involved in the M&A transaction process. When it is, it’s often too late.

    • The most important driver of an acquisition is the ability to access new technology (DLA Piper), and yet 50% of the time, IT isn’t involved in the M&A transaction at all (IMAA Institute, 2017).
    • Additionally, IT’s lack of involvement in the process negatively impacts the business:
      • Most organizations (60%) do not have a standardized approach to integration (Steeves and Associates), let alone separation.
      • Two-thirds of the time, the divesting organization and acquiring organization will either fail together or succeed together (McKinsey, 2015).
      • Less than half (47%) of organizations actually experience the positive results sought by the M&A transaction (Steeves and Associates).
    • Organizations pursuing M&A and not involving IT are setting themselves up for failure.

    Only half of M&A deals involve IT (Source: IMAA Institute, 2017)

    Common Obstacles

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

    • IT is rarely afforded the opportunity to participate in the transaction deal. When IT is invited, this often happens later in the process where separation will be critical to business continuity.
    • IT has not had the opportunity to demonstrate that it is a valuable business partner in other business initiatives.
    • One of the most critical elements that IT often doesn’t take the time or doesn’t have the time to focus on is the people and leadership component.
    • IT waits to be invited to the process rather then actively involving themselves and suggesting how value can be added to the process.

    In hindsight, it’s clear to see: Involving IT is just good business.

    47% of senior leaders wish they would have spent more time on IT due diligence to prevent value erosion. (Source: IMAA Institute, 2017)

    “Solutions exist that can save well above 50 percent on divestiture costs, while ensuring on-time delivery.” (Source: SNP)

    Info-Tech's approach

    Acquisitions & Divestitures Framework

    Acquisitions and divestitures are inevitable in modern business, and IT’s involvement in the process should be too. This progression is inspired by:

    1. The growing trend for organizations to increase, decrease, or evolve through these types of transactions.
    2. Transactions that are driven by digital motivations, requiring IT’s expertise.
    3. A maturing business perspective of IT, preventing the difficulty that IT is faced with when invited into the transaction process late.
    4. There never being such a thing as a true merger, making the majority of M&A activity either acquisitions or divestitures.
    A diagram highlighting the 'IT Executives' Role in Acquisitions and Divestitures' when they are integrated at different points in the 'Core Business Timeline'. There are four main entry points 'Proactive', 'Discovery and Strategy', 'Due Diligence and Preparation', and 'Execution and Value Realized'. It is highlighted that IT can and should start at 'Proactive', but most organizations start at 'Execution and Value Realized'. 'Proactive': suggest opportunities to evolve the organization; prove IT's value and engage in growth opportunities early. Innovators start here. Steps of the business timeline in 'Proactive' are 'Organization strategies are defined' and 'M and A is considered to enable strategy'. After a buy or sell transaction is initiated is 'Discovery and Strategy': pre-transaction state. If it is a Buy transaction, 'Establish IT's involvement and approach'. If it is a Sell transaction, 'Prepare to engage in negotiations'. Business Partners start here. Steps of the business timeline in 'Discovery and Strategy' are 'Searching criteria is set', 'Potential candidates are considered', and 'LOI is sent/received'. 'Due Diligence and Preparation': mid-transaction state. If it is a Buy transaction, 'Identify potential transaction benefits and risks'. If it is a Sell transaction, 'Comply, communicate, and collaborate in transaction'. Trusted Operators start here. Steps of the business timeline in 'Due Diligence and Preparation' are 'Due diligence engagement occurs', 'Final agreement is reached', and 'Preparation for transaction execution occurs'. 'Execution and Value Realization': post-transaction state. If it is a Buy transaction, 'Integrate the IT environments and achieve business value'. If it is a Sell transaction, 'Separate the IT environment and deliver on transaction terms'. Firefighters start here. Steps of the business timeline in 'Execution and Value Realization' are 'Staff and operations are addressed appropriately', 'Day 1 of implementation and integration activities occurs', '1st 100 days of new entity state occur' and 'Ongoing risk mitigating and value creating activities occur'.

    The business’ view of IT will impact how soon IT can get involved

    There are four key entry points for IT

    A colorful visualization of the four key entry points for IT and a fifth not-so-key entry point. Starting from the top: 'Innovator', Information and Technology as a Competitive Advantage, 90% Satisfaction; 'Business Partner', Effective Delivery of Strategic Business Projects, 80% Satisfaction; 'Trusted Operator', Enablement of Business Through Application and Work Orders, 70% Satisfaction; 'Firefighter', Reliable Infrastructure and IT Service Desk, 60% Satisfaction; and then 'Unstable', Inability to Consistently Deliver Basic Services, <60% Satisfaction.
    1. Innovator: IT suggests a sale or divestiture to meet the business objectives of the organization.
    2. Business Partner: IT is brought in to strategy plan the sale/divestiture from both the business’ and IT’s perspective.
    3. Trusted Operator: IT participates in due diligence activities and complies with the purchasing organization’s asks.
    4. Firefighter: IT needs to reactively prepare its environment in order to enable the separation.

    Merger, acquisition, and divestiture defined

    Merger

    A merger looks at the equal combination of two entities or organizations. Mergers are rare in the M&A space, as the organizations will combine assets and services in a completely equal 50/50 split. Two organizations may also choose to divest business entities and merge as a new company.

    Acquisition

    The most common transaction in the M&A space, where an organization will acquire or purchase another organization or entities of another organization. This type of transaction has a clear owner who will be able to make legal decisions regarding the acquired organization.

    Divestiture

    An organization may decide to sell partial elements of a business to an acquiring organization. They will separate this business entity from the rest of the organization and continue to operate the other components of the business.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A true merger does not exist, as there is always someone initiating the discussion. As a result, most M&A activity falls into acquisition or divestiture categories.

    Selling vs. buying

    The M&A process approach differs depending on whether you are the selling or buying organization

    This blueprint is only focused on the sell side:

    • Examples of sell-related scenarios include:
      • Your organization is selling to another organization with the intent of keeping its regular staff, operations, and location. This could mean minimal separation is required.
      • Your organization is selling to another organization with the intent of separating to be a part of the purchasing organization.
      • Your organization is engaging in a divestiture with the intent of:
        • Separating components to be part of the purchasing organization permanently.
        • Separating components to be part of a spinoff and establish a unit as a standalone new company.
    • As the selling organization, you could proactively seek out suitors to purchase all or components of your organization, or you could be approached by an organization.

    The buy side is focused on:

    • More than two organizations could be involved in a transaction.
    • Examples of buy-related scenarios include:
      • Your organization is buying another organization with the intent of having the purchased organization keep its regular staff, operations, and location. This could mean minimal integration is required.
      • Your organization is buying another organization in its entirety with the intent of integrating it into your original company.
      • Your organization is buying components of another organization with the intent of integrating them into your original company.
    • As the purchasing organization, you will probably be initiating the purchase and thus will be valuating the selling organization during due diligence and leading the execution plan.

    For more information on acquisitions or purchases, check out Info-Tech’s Mergers & Acquisitions: The Buy Blueprint.

    Core business timeline

    For IT to be valuable in M&As, you need to align your deliverables and your support to the key activities the business and investors are working on.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for Selling Organizations in Mergers, Acquisitions, or Divestitures

    1. Proactive

    2. Discovery & Strategy

    3. Due Diligence & Preparation

    4. Execution & Value Realization

    Phase Steps

    1. Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
    2. Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
    3. Drive Innovation and Suggest Growth Opportunities
    1. Establish the M&A Program Plan
    2. Prepare IT to Engage in the Separation or Sale
    1. Engage in Due Diligence and Prepare Staff
    2. Prepare to Separate
    1. Execute the Transaction
    2. Reflection and Value Realization

    Phase Outcomes

    Be an innovative IT leader by suggesting how and why the business should engage in an acquisition or divestiture.

    Create a standardized approach for how your IT organization should address divestitures or sales.

    Comply with due diligence, prepare the IT environment for carve-out possibilities, and establish the separation project plan.

    Deliver on the separation project plan successfully and communicate IT’s transaction value to the business.

    Metrics for each phase

    1. Proactive

    2. Discovery & Strategy

    3. Valuation & Due Diligence

    4. Execution & Value Realization

    • % Share of business innovation spend from overall IT budget
    • % Critical processes with approved performance goals and metrics
    • % IT initiatives that meet or exceed value expectation defined in business case
    • % IT initiatives aligned with organizational strategic direction
    • % Satisfaction with IT's strategic decision-making abilities
    • $ Estimated business value added through IT-enabled innovation
    • % Overall stakeholder satisfaction with IT
    • % Percent of business leaders that view IT as an Innovator
    • % IT budget as a percent of revenue
    • % Assets that are not allocated
    • % Unallocated software licenses
    • # Obsolete assets
    • % IT spend that can be attributed to the business (chargeback or showback)
    • % Share of CapEx of overall IT budget
    • % Prospective organizations that meet the search criteria
    • $ Total IT cost of ownership (before and after M&A, before and after rationalization)
    • % Business leaders that view IT as a Business Partner
    • % Defects discovered in production
    • $ Cost per user for enterprise applications
    • % In-house-built applications vs. enterprise applications
    • % Owners identified for all data domains
    • # IT staff asked to participate in due diligence
    • Change to due diligence
    • IT budget variance
    • Synergy target
    • % Satisfaction with the effectiveness of IT capabilities
    • % Overall end-customer satisfaction
    • $ Impact of vendor SLA breaches
    • $ Savings through cost-optimization efforts
    • $ Savings through application rationalization and technology standardization
    • # Key positions empty
    • % Frequency of staff turnover
    • % Emergency changes
    • # Hours of unplanned downtime
    • % Releases that cause downtime
    • % Incidents with identified problem record
    • % Problems with identified root cause
    • # Days from problem identification to root cause fix
    • % Projects that consider IT risk
    • % Incidents due to issues not addressed in the security plan
    • # Average vulnerability remediation time
    • % Application budget spent on new build/buy vs. maintenance (deferred feature implementation, enhancements, bug fixes)
    • # Time (days) to value realization
    • % Projects that realized planned benefits
    • $ IT operational savings and cost reductions that are related to synergies/divestitures
    • % IT staff–related expenses/redundancies
    • # Days spent on IT separation
    • $ Accurate IT budget estimates
    • % Revenue growth directly tied to IT delivery
    • % Profit margin growth

    IT's role in the selling transaction

    And IT leaders have a greater likelihood than ever of needing to support a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.

    1. Reduced Risk

      IT can identify risks that may go unnoticed when IT is not involved.
    2. Increased Accuracy

      The business can make accurate predictions around the costs, timelines, and needs of IT.
    3. Faster Integration

      Faster integration means faster value realization for the business.
    4. Informed Decision Making

      IT leaders hold critical information that can support the business in moving the transaction forward.
    5. Innovation

      IT can suggest new opportunities to generate revenue, optimize processes, or reduce inefficiencies.

    The IT executive’s critical role is demonstrated by:

    • Reduced Risk

      47% of senior leaders wish they would have spent more time on IT due diligence to prevent value erosion (IMAA Institute, 2017).
    • Increased Accuracy

      Sellers often only provide 15 to 30 days for the acquiring organization to decide (Forbes, 2018), increasing the necessity of accurate pricing.
    • Faster Integration

      36% of CIOs have visibility into only business unit data, making the divestment a challenge (EY, 2021).
    • Informed Decision Making

      Only 38% of corporate and 22% of private equity firms include IT as a significant aspect in their transaction approach (IMAA Institute, 2017).
    • Innovation

      Successful CIOs involved in M&As can spend 70% of their time on aspects outside of IT and 30% of their time on technology and delivery (CIO).

    Playbook benefits

    IT Benefits

    • IT will be seen as an innovative partner to the business, and its suggestions and involvement in the organization will lead to benefits, not hindrances.
    • Develop a streamlined method to prepare the IT environment for potential carve-out and separations, ensuring risk management concerns are brought to the business’ attention immediately.
    • Create a comprehensive list of items that IT needs to do during the separation that can be prioritized and actioned.

    Business Benefits

    • The business will get accurate and relevant information about its IT environment in order to sell or divest the company to the highest bidder for a true price.
    • Fewer business interruptions will happen, because IT can accurately plan for and execute the high-priority separation tasks.
    • The business can obtain a high-value offer for the components of IT being sold and can measure the ongoing value the sale will bring.

    Insight summary

    Overarching Insight

    IT controls if and when it gets invited to support the business through a purchasing growth transaction. Take control of the process, demonstrate the value of IT, and ensure that separation of IT environments does not lead to unnecessary and costly decisions.

    Proactive Insight

    CIOs on the forefront of digital transformation need to actively look for and suggest opportunities to acquire or partner on new digital capabilities to respond to rapidly changing business needs.

    Discovery & Strategy Insight

    IT organizations that have an effective M&A program plan are more prepared for the transaction, enabling a successful outcome. A structured strategy is particularly necessary for organizations expected to deliver M&As rapidly and frequently.

    Due Diligence & Preparation Insight

    IT often faces unnecessary separation challenges because of a lack of preparation. Secure the IT environment and establish how IT will retain employees early in the transaction process.

    Execution & Value Realization Insight

    IT needs to demonstrate value and cost savings within 100 days of the transaction. The most successful transactions are when IT continuously realizes synergies a year after the transaction and beyond.

    Blueprint deliverables

    Key Deliverable: M&A Sell Playbook

    The M&A Sell Playbook should be a reusable document that enables your IT organization to successfully deliver on any divestiture transaction.

    Screenshots of the 'M and A Sell Playbook' deliverable.

    M&A Sell One-Pager

    See a one-page overview of each phase of the transaction.

    Screenshots of the 'M and A Sell One-Pagers' deliverable.

    M&A Sell Case Studies

    Read a one-page case study for each phase of the transaction.

    Screenshots of the 'M and A Sell Case Studies' deliverable.

    M&A Separation Project Management Tool (SharePoint)

    Manage the separation process of the divestiture/sale using this SharePoint template.

    Screenshots of the 'M and A Separation Project Management Tool (SharePoint)' deliverable.

    M&A Separation Project Management Tool (Excel)

    Manage the separation process of the divestiture/sale using this Excel tool if you can’t or don’t want to use SharePoint.

    Screenshots of the 'M and A Separation Project Management Tool (Excel)' deliverable.

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

    A typical GI is between 6 to 10 calls over the course of 2 to 4 months.

      Proactive Phase

    • Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
    • Discovery & Strategy Phase

    • Call #2: Determine stakeholders and business perspectives on IT.
    • Call #3: Identify how M&A could support business strategy and how to communicate.
    • Due Diligence & Preparation Phase

    • Call #4: Establish a transaction team and divestiture/sale strategic direction.
    • Call #5: Create program metrics and identify a standard separation strategy.
    • Call #6: Prepare to carve out the IT environment.
    • Call #7: Identify the separation program plan.
    • Execution & Value Realization Phase

    • Call #8: Establish employee transitions to retain key staff.
    • Call #9: Assess IT’s ability to deliver on the divestiture/sale transaction.

    The Sell Blueprint

    Phase 1

    Proactive

    Phase 1

    Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
    • 1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
    • 1.2 Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
    • 1.3 Drive Innovation and Suggest Reduction Opportunities
    • 2.1 Establish the M&A Program Plan
    • 2.2 Prepare IT to Engage in the Separation or Sale
    • 3.1 Engage in Due Diligence and Prepare Staff
    • 3.2 Prepare to Separate
    • 4.1 Execute the Transaction
    • 4.2 Reflection and Value Realization

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Conduct the CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic
    • Conduct the CIO Business Vision diagnostic
    • Visualize relationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers
    • Group stakeholders into categories
    • Prioritize your stakeholders
    • Plan to communicate
    • Valuate IT
    • Assess the IT/digital strategy
    • Determine pain points and opportunities
    • Align goals to opportunities
    • Recommend reduction opportunities

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT and business leadership

    What is the Proactive phase?

    Embracing the digital drivers

    As the number of merger, acquisition, or divestiture transactions driven by digital means continues to increase, IT has an opportunity to not just be involved in a transaction but actively seek out potential deals.

    In the Proactive phase, the business is not currently considering a transaction. However, the business could consider one to reach its strategic goals. IT organizations that have developed respected relationships with the business leaders can suggest these potential transactions.

    Understand the business’ perspective of IT, determine who the critical M&A stakeholders are, valuate the IT environment, and examine how it supports the business goals in order to suggest an M&A transaction.

    In doing so, IT isn’t waiting to be invited to the transaction table – it’s creating it.

    Goal: To support the organization in reaching its strategic goals by suggesting M&A activities that will enable the organization to reach its objectives faster and with greater-value outcomes.

    Proactive Prerequisite Checklist

    Before coming into the Proactive phase, you should have addressed the following:

    • Understand what mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures are.
    • Understand what mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures mean for the business.
    • Understand what mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures mean for IT.

    Review the Executive Brief for more information on mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures for selling organizations.

    Proactive

    Step 1.1

    Identify M&A Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT

    Activities

    • 1.1.1 Conduct the CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic
    • 1.1.2 Conduct the CIO Business Vision diagnostic
    • 1.1.3 Visualize relationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers
    • 1.1.4 Group stakeholders into categories
    • 1.1.5 Prioritize your stakeholders
    • 1.16 Plan to communicate

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive leader
    • IT leadership
    • Critical M&A stakeholders

    Outcomes of Step

    Understand how the business perceives IT and establish strong relationships with critical M&A stakeholders.

    Business executives' perspectives of IT

    Leverage diagnostics and gain alignment on IT’s role in the organization

    • To suggest or get involved with a merger, acquisition, or divestiture, the IT executive leader needs to be well respected by other members of the executive leadership team and the business.
    • Specifically, the Proactive phase relies on the IT organization being viewed as an Innovator within the business.
    • Identify how the CEO/business executive currently views IT and where they would like IT to move within the Maturity Ladder.
    • Additionally, understand how other critical department leaders view IT and how they view the partnership with IT.
    A colorful visualization titled 'Maturity Ladder' detailing levels of IT function that a business may choose from based on the business executives' perspectives of IT. Starting from the bottom: 'Struggle', Does not embarrass, Does not crash; 'Support', Keeps business happy, Keeps costs low; 'Optimize', Increases efficiency, Decreases costs; 'Expand', Extends into new business, Generates revenue; 'Transform', Creates new industry.

    Misalignment in target state requires further communication between the CIO and CEO to ensure IT is striving toward an agreed-upon direction.

    Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision (CIO BV) diagnostic measures a variety of high-value metrics to provide a well-rounded understanding of stakeholder satisfaction with IT.

    Sample of Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision diagnostic measuring percentages of high-value metrics like 'IT Satisfaction' and 'IT Value' regarding business leader satisfaction. A note for these two reads 'Evaluate business leader satisfaction with IT this year and last year'. A section titled 'Relationship' has metrics such as 'Understands Needs' and 'Trains Effectively'. A note for this section reads 'Examine relationship indicators between IT and the business'. A section titled 'Security Friction' has metrics such as 'Regulatory Compliance-Driven' and 'Office/Desktop Security'.

    Business Satisfaction and Importance for Core Services

    The core services of IT are important when determining what IT should focus on. The most important services with the lowest satisfaction offer the largest area of improvement for IT to drive business value.

    Sample of Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision diagnostic specifically comparing the business satisfaction of 12 core services with their importance. Services listed include 'Service Desk', 'IT Security', 'Requirements Gathering', 'Business Apps', 'Data Quality', and more. There is a short description of the services, a percentage for the business satisfaction with the service, a percentage comparing it to last year, and a numbered ranking of importance for each service. A note reads 'Assess satisfaction and importance across 12 core IT capabilities'.

    1.1.1 Conduct the CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic

    2 weeks

    Input: IT organization expertise and the CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic

    Output: An understanding of an executive business stakeholder’s perception of IT

    Materials: M&A Sell Playbook, CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, Business executive/CEO

    1. The CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic can be a powerful input. Speak with your Info-Tech account representative to conduct the diagnostic. Use the results to inform current IT capabilities.
    2. You may choose to debrief the results of your diagnostic with an Info-Tech analyst. We recommend this to help your team understand how to interpret and draw conclusions from the results.
    3. Examine the results of the survey and note where there might be specific capabilities that could be improved.
    4. Determine whether there are any areas of significant disagreement between the you and the CEO. Mark down those areas for further conversations. Additionally, take note of areas that could be leveraged to support transactions or support your rationale in recommending transactions.

    Download the sample report.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    1.1.2 Conduct the CIO Business Vision diagnostic

    2 weeks

    Input: IT organization expertise, CIO BV diagnostic

    Output: An understanding of business stakeholder perception of certain IT capabilities and services

    Materials: M&A Buy Playbook, CIO Business Vision diagnostic

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, Senior business leaders

    1. The CIO Business Vision (CIO BV) diagnostic can be a powerful tool for identifying IT capability focus areas. Speak with your account representative to conduct the CIO BV diagnostic. Use the results to inform current IT capabilities.
    2. You may choose to debrief the results of your diagnostic with an Info-Tech analyst. We recommend this to help your team understand how to interpret the results and draw conclusions from the diagnostic.
    3. Examine the results of the survey and take note of any IT services that have low scores.
    4. Read through the diagnostic comments and note any common themes. Especially note which stakeholders identified they have a favorable relationship with IT and which stakeholders identified they have an unfavorable relationship. For those who have an unfavorable relationship, identify if they will have a critical role in a growth transaction.

    Download the sample report.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Create a stakeholder network map for M&A transactions

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

    Example:

    Diagram of stakeholders and their relationships with other stakeholders, such as 'Board Members', 'CFO/Finance', 'Compliance', etc. with 'CIO/IT Leader' highlighted in the middle. There are unidirectional black arrows and bi-directional green arrows indicating each connection.

      Legend
    • Black arrows indicate the direction of professional influence
    • Dashed green arrows indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your stakeholder map defines the influence landscape that the M&A transaction will occur within. This will identify who holds various levels of accountability and decision-making authority when a transaction does take place.

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

    1.1.3 Visualize relationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers

    1-3 hours

    Input: List of M&A stakeholders

    Output: Relationships among M&A stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Flip charts, Markers, Sticky notes, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive leadership

    1. The purpose of this activity is to list all the stakeholders within your organization that will have a direct or indirect impact on the M&A transaction.
    2. Determine the critical stakeholders, and then determine the stakeholders of your stakeholders and consider adding each of them to the stakeholder list.
    3. Assess who has either formal or informal influence over your stakeholders; add these influencers to your stakeholder list.
    4. Construct a diagram linking stakeholders and their influencers together.
      • Use black arrows to indicate the direction of professional influence.
      • Use dashed green arrows to indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Categorize your stakeholders with a prioritization map

    A stakeholder prioritization map helps IT leaders categorize their stakeholders by their level of influence and ownership in the merger, acquisition, or divestiture process.

    A prioritization map of stakeholder categories split into four quadrants. The vertical axis is 'Influence', from low on the bottom to high on top. The horizontal axis is 'Ownership/Interest', from low on the left to high on the right. 'Spectators' are low influence, low ownership/interest. 'Mediators' are high influence, low ownership/interest. 'Noisemakers' are low influence, high ownership/interest. 'Players' are high influence, high ownership/interest.

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

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

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

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

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

    1.1.4 Group stakeholders into categories

    30 minutes

    Input: Stakeholder map, Stakeholder list

    Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Flip charts, Markers, Sticky notes, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive leadership, Stakeholders

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

    Same prioritization map of stakeholder categories as before. This one has specific stakeholders mapped onto it. 'CFO' is mapped as low interest and middling influence, between 'Mediator' and 'Spectator'. 'CIO' is mapped as higher than average interest and high influence, a 'Player'. 'Board Member' is mapped as high interest and high influence, a 'Player'.

    Level of Influence
    • Power: Ability of a stakeholder to effect change.
    • Urgency: Degree of immediacy demanded.
    • Legitimacy: Perceived validity of stakeholder’s claim.
    • Volume: How loud their “voice” is or could become.
    • Contribution: What they have that is of value to you.
    Level of Interest

    How much are the stakeholder’s individual performance and goals directly tied to the success or failure of the product?

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Prioritize your stakeholders

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

    Level of Support

    Supporter

    Evangelist

    Neutral

    Blocker

    Stakeholder Category Player Critical High High Critical
    Mediator Medium Low Low Medium
    Noisemaker High Medium Medium High
    Spectator Low Irrelevant Irrelevant Low

    Consider the three dimensions for stakeholder prioritization: influence, interest, and support. Support can be determined by answering the following question: How significant is that stakeholder to the M&A or divestiture process?

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

    1.1.5 Prioritize your stakeholders

    30 minutes

    Input: Stakeholder matrix

    Output: Stakeholder and influencer prioritization

    Materials: Flip charts, Markers, Sticky notes, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive leadership, M&A/divestiture stakeholders

    1. Identify the level of support of each stakeholder by answering the following question: How significant is that stakeholder to the M&A transaction process?
    2. Prioritize your stakeholders using the prioritization scheme on the previous slide.

    Stakeholder

    Category

    Level of Support

    Prioritization

    CMO Spectator Neutral Irrelevant
    CIO Player Supporter Critical

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Define strategies for engaging stakeholders by type

    A revisit to the map of stakeholder categories, but with strategies listed for each one, and arrows on the side instead of an axis. The vertical arrow is 'Authority', which increases upward, and the horizontal axis is Ownership/Interest which increases as it moves to the right. The strategy for 'Players' is 'Engage', for 'Mediators' is 'Satisfy', for 'Noisemakers' is 'Inform', and for 'Spectators' is 'Monitor'.

    Type

    Quadrant

    Actions

    Players High influence, high interest – actively engage Keep them updated on the progress of the project. Continuously involve Players in the process and maintain their engagement and interest by demonstrating their value to its success.
    Mediators High influence, low interest – keep satisfied They can be the game changers in groups of stakeholders. Turn them into supporters by gaining their confidence and trust and including them in important decision-making steps. In turn, they can help you influence other stakeholders.
    Noisemakers Low influence, high interest – keep informed Try to increase their influence (or decrease it if they are detractors) by providing them with key information, supporting them in meetings, and using Mediators to help them.
    Spectators Low influence, low interest – monitor They are followers. Keep them in the loop by providing clarity on objectives and status updates.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    1.1.6 Plan to communicate

    30 minutes

    Input: Stakeholder priority, Stakeholder categorization, Stakeholder influence

    Output: Stakeholder communication plan

    Materials: Flip charts, Markers, Sticky notes, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive leadership, M&A/divestiture stakeholders

    The purpose of this activity is to make a communication plan for each of the stakeholders identified in the previous activities, especially those who will have a critical role in the M&A transaction process.

    1. In the M&A Sell Playbook, input the type of influence each stakeholder has on IT, how they would be categorized in the M&A process, and their level of priority. Use this information to create a communication plan.
    2. Determine the methods and frequency of communication to keep the necessary stakeholder satisfied and maintain or enhance IT’s profile within the organization.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Proactive

    Step 1.2

    Assess IT’s Current Value and Method to Achieve a Future State

    Activities

    • 1.2.1 Valuate IT
    • 1.2.2 Assess the IT/digital strategy

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive leader
    • IT leadership
    • Critical stakeholders to M&A

    Outcomes of Step

    Identify critical opportunities to optimize IT and meet strategic business goals through a merger, acquisition, or divestiture.

    How to valuate your IT environment

    And why it matters so much

    • Valuating your current organization’s IT environment is a critical step that all IT organizations should take, whether involved in an M&A or not, to fully understand what it might be worth.
    • The business investments in IT can be directly translated into a value amount. For every $1 invested in IT, the business might be gaining $100 in value back or possibly even loosing $100.
    • Determining, documenting, and communicating this information ensures that the business takes IT’s suggestions seriously and recognizes why investing in IT is so critical.
    • There are three ways a business or asset can be valuated:
      • Cost Approach: Look at the costs associated with building, purchasing, replacing, and maintaining a given aspect of the business.
      • Market Approach: Look at the relative value of a particular aspect of the business. Relative value can fluctuate and depends on what the markets and consequently society believe that particular element is worth.
      • Discounted Cash Flow Approach: Focus on what the potential value of the business could be or the intrinsic value anticipated due to future profitability.
    • (Source: “Valuation Methods,” Corporate Finance Institute)

    Four ways to create value through digital

    1. Reduced costs
    2. Improved customer experience
    3. New revenue sources
    4. Better decision making
    5. (Source: McKinsey & Company)

    1.2.1 Valuate IT

    1 day

    Input: Valuation of data, Valuation of applications, Valuation of infrastructure and operations, Valuation of security and risk

    Output: Valuation of IT

    Materials: Relevant templates/tools listed on the following slides, Capital budget, Operating budget, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership

    The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate that IT is not simply an operational functional area that diminishes business resources. Rather, IT contributes significant value to the business.

    1. Review each of the following slides to valuate IT’s data, applications, infrastructure and operations, and security and risk. These valuations consider several tangible and intangible factors and result in a final dollar amount.
    2. Input the financial amounts identified for each critical area into a summary slide. Use this information to determine where IT is delivering value to the organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Consistency is key when valuating your IT organization as well as other IT organizations throughout the transaction process.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Data valuation

    Data valuation identifies how you monetize the information that your organization owns.

    Create a data value chain for your organization

    When valuating the information and data that exists in an organization, there are many things to consider.

    Info-Tech has two tools that can support this process:

    1. Information Asset Audit Tool: Use this tool first to take inventory of the different information assets that exist in your organization.
    2. Data Valuation Tool: Once information assets have been accounted for, valuate the data that exists within those information assets.

    Data Collection

    Insight Creation

    Value Creation

    Data Valuation

    01 Data Source
    02 Data Collection Method
    03 Data
    04 Data Analysis
    05 Insight
    06 Insight Delivery
    07 Consumer
    08 Value in Data
    09 Value Dimension
    10 Value Metrics Group
    11 Value Metrics
    Screenshots of Tab 2 of Info-Tech's Data Valuation Tool.

    Instructions

    1. Using the Data Valuation Tool, start gathering information based on the eight steps above to understand your organization’s journey from data to value.
    2. Identify the data value spectrum. (For example: customer sales service, citizen licensing service, etc.)
    3. Fill out the columns for data sources, data collection, and data first.
    4. Capture data analysis and related information.
    5. Then capture the value in data.
    6. Add value dimensions such as usage, quality, and economic dimensions.
      • Remember that economic value is not the only dimension, and usage/quality has a significant impact on economic value.
    7. Collect evidence to justify your data valuation calculator (market research, internal metrics, etc.).
    8. Finally, calculate the value that has a direct correlation with underlying value metrics.

    Application valuation

    Calculate the value of your IT applications

    When valuating the applications and their users in an organization, consider using a business process map. This shows how business is transacted in the company by identifying which IT applications support these processes and which business groups have access to them. Info-Tech has a business process mapping tool that can support this process:

    • Enterprise Integration Process Mapping Tool: Complete this tool first to map the different business processes to the supporting applications in your organization.

    Instructions

    1. Start by calculating user costs. This is the multiplication of: (# of users) × (% of time spent using IT) × (fully burdened salary).
    2. Identify the revenue per employee and divide that by the average cost per employee to calculate the derived productivity ratio (DPR).
    3. Once you have calculated the user costs and DPR, multiply those total values together to get the application value.
    4. User Costs

      Total User Costs

      Derived Productivity Ratio (DPR)

      Total DPR

      Application Value

      # of users % time spent using IT Fully burdened salary Multiply values from the 3 user costs columns Revenue per employee Average cost per employee (Revenue P.E) ÷ (Average cost P.E) (User costs) X (DPR)

    5. Once the total application value is established, calculate the combined IT and business costs of delivering that value. IT and business costs include inflexibility (application maintenance), unavailability (downtime costs, including disaster exposure), IT costs (common costs statistically allocated to applications), and fully loaded cost of active (full-time equivalent [FTE]) users.
    6. Calculate the net value of applications by subtracting the total IT and business costs from the total application value calculated in step 3.
    7. IT and Business Costs

      Total IT and Business Costs

      Net Value of Applications

      Application maintenance Downtime costs (include disaster exposure) Common costs allocated to applications Fully loaded costs of active (FTE) users Sum of values from the four IT and business costs columns (Application value) – (IT and business costs)

    (Source: CSO)

    Infrastructure valuation

    Assess the foundational elements of the business’ information technology

    The purpose of this exercise is to provide a high-level infrastructure valuation that will contribute to valuating your IT environment.

    Calculating the value of the infrastructure will require different methods depending on the environment. For example, a fully cloud-hosted organization will have different costs than a fully on-premises IT environment.

    Instructions:

    1. Start by listing all of the infrastructure-related items that are relevant to your organization.
    2. Once you have finalized your items column, identify the total costs/value of each item.
      • For example, total software costs would include servers and storage.
    3. Calculate the total cost/value of your IT infrastructure by adding all of values in the right column.

    Item

    Costs/Value

    Hardware Assets Total Value +$3.2 million
    Hardware Leased/Service Agreement -$
    Software Purchased +$
    Software Leased/Service Agreement -$
    Operational Tools
    Network
    Disaster Recovery
    Antivirus
    Data Centers
    Service Desk
    Other Licenses
    Total:

    For additional support, download the M&A Runbook for Infrastructure and Operations.

    Risk and security

    Assess risk responses and calculate residual risk

    The purpose of this exercise is to provide a high-level risk assessment that will contribute to valuating your IT environment. For a more in-depth risk assessment, please refer to the Info-Tech tools below:

    1. Risk Register Tool
    2. Security M&A Due Diligence Tool

    Instructions

    1. Review the probability and impact scales below and ensure you have the appropriate criteria that align to your organization before you conduct a risk assessment.
    2. Identify the probability of occurrence and estimated financial impact for each risk category detail and fill out the table on the right. Customize the table as needed so it aligns to your organization.
    3. Probability of Risk Occurrence

      Occurrence Criteria
      (Classification; Probability of Risk Event Within One Year)

      Negligible Very Unlikely; ‹20%
      Very Low Unlikely; 20 to 40%
      Low Possible; 40 to 60%
      Moderately Low Likely; 60 to 80%
      Moderate Almost Certain; ›80%

    Note: If needed, you can customize this scale with the severity designations that you prefer. However, make sure you are always consistent with it when conducting a risk assessment.

    Financial & Reputational Impact

    Budgetary and Reputational Implications
    (Financial Impact; Reputational Impact)

    Negligible (‹$10,000; Internal IT stakeholders aware of risk event occurrence)
    Very Low ($10,000 to $25,000; Business customers aware of risk event occurrence)
    Low ($25,000 to $50,000; Board of directors aware of risk event occurrence)
    Moderately Low ($50,000 to $100,000; External customers aware of risk event occurrence)
    Moderate (›$100,000; Media coverage or regulatory body aware of risk event occurrence)

    Risk Category Details

    Probability of Occurrence

    Estimated Financial Impact

    Estimated Severity (Probability X Impact)

    Capacity Planning
    Enterprise Architecture
    Externally Originated Attack
    Hardware Configuration Errors
    Hardware Performance
    Internally Originated Attack
    IT Staffing
    Project Scoping
    Software Implementation Errors
    Technology Evaluation and Selection
    Physical Threats
    Resource Threats
    Personnel Threats
    Technical Threats
    Total:

    1.2.2 Assess the IT/digital strategy

    4 hours

    Input: IT strategy, Digital strategy, Business strategy

    Output: An understanding of an executive business stakeholder’s perception of IT, Alignment of IT/digital strategy and overall organization strategy

    Materials: Computer, Whiteboard and markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, Business executive/CEO

    The purpose of this activity is to review the business and IT strategies that exist to determine if there are critical capabilities that are not being supported.

    Ideally, the IT and digital strategies would have been created following development of the business strategy. However, sometimes the business strategy does not directly call out the capabilities it requires IT to support.

    1. On the left half of the corresponding slide in the M&A Sell Playbook, document the business goals, initiatives, and capabilities. Input this information from the business or digital strategies. (If more space for goals, initiatives, or capabilities is needed, duplicate the slide).
    2. On the other half of the slide, document the IT goals, initiatives, and capabilities. Input this information from the IT strategy and digital strategy.

    For additional support, see Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Proactive

    Step 1.3

    Drive Innovation and Suggest Growth Opportunities

    Activities

    • 1.3.1 Determine pain points and opportunities
    • 1.3.2 Align goals with opportunities
    • 1.3.3 Recommend reduction opportunities

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive leader
    • IT leadership
    • Critical M&A stakeholders

    Outcomes of Step

    Establish strong relationships with critical M&A stakeholders and position IT as an innovative business partner that can suggest reduction opportunities.

    1.3.1 Determine pain points and opportunities

    1-2 hours

    Input: CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic, CIO Business Vision diagnostic, Valuation of IT environment, IT-business goals cascade

    Output: List of pain points or opportunities that IT can address

    Materials: Computer, Whiteboard and markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Business stakeholders

    The purpose of this activity is to determine the pain points and opportunities that exist for the organization. These can be external or internal to the organization.

    1. Identify what opportunities exist for your organization. Opportunities are the potential positives that the organization would want to leverage.
    2. Next, identify pain points, which are the potential negatives that the organization would want to alleviate.
    3. Spend time considering all the options that might exist, and keep in mind what has been identified previously.

    Opportunities and pain points can be trends, other departments’ initiatives, business perspectives of IT, etc.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    1.3.2 Align goals with opportunities

    1-2 hours

    Input: CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostic, CIO Business Vision diagnostic, Valuation of IT environment, IT-business goals cascade, List of pain points and opportunities

    Output: An understanding of an executive business stakeholder’s perception of IT, Foundations for reduction strategy

    Materials: Computer, Whiteboard and markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Business stakeholders

    The purpose of this activity is to determine whether a growth or separation strategy might be a good suggestion to the business in order to meet its business objectives.

    1. For the top three to five business goals, consider:
      1. Underlying drivers
      2. Digital opportunities
      3. Whether a growth or reduction strategy is the solution
    2. Just because a growth or reduction strategy is a solution for a business goal does not necessarily indicate M&A is the way to go. However, it is important to consider before you pursue suggesting M&A.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    1.3.3 Recommend reduction opportunities

    1-2 hours

    Input: Growth or separation strategy opportunities to support business goals, Stakeholder communication plan, Rationale for the suggestion

    Output: M&A transaction opportunities suggested

    Materials: M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, Business executive/CEO

    The purpose of this activity is to recommend a merger, acquisition, or divestiture to the business.

    1. Identify which of the business goals the transaction would help solve and why IT is the one to suggest such a goal.
    2. Leverage the stakeholder communication plan identified previously to give insight into stakeholders who would have a significant level of interest, influence, or support in the process.

    Info-Tech Insight

    With technology and digital driving many transactions, leverage your organizations’ IT environment as an asset and reason why the divestiture or sale should happen, suggesting the opportunity yourself.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    By the end of this Proactive phase, you should:

    Be prepared to suggest M&A opportunities to support your company’s goals through sale or divestiture transactions

    Key outcome from the Proactive phase

    Develop progressive relationships and strong communication with key stakeholders to suggest or be aware of transformational opportunities that can be achieved through sale or divestiture strategies.

    Key deliverables from the Proactive phase
    • Business perspective of IT examined
    • Key stakeholders identified and relationship to the M&A process outlined
    • Ability to valuate the IT environment and communicate IT’s value to the business
    • Assessment of the business, digital, and IT strategies and how M&As could support those strategies
    • Pain points and opportunities that could be alleviated or supported through an M&A transaction
    • Sale or divestiture recommendations

    The Sell Blueprint

    Phase 2

    Discovery & Strategy

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3Phase 4
    • 1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
    • 1.2 Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
    • 1.3 Drive Innovation and Suggest Reduction Opportunities
    • 2.1 Establish the M&A Program Plan
    • 2.2 Prepare IT to Engage in the Separation or Sale
    • 3.1 Engage in Due Diligence and Prepare Staff
    • 3.2 Prepare to Separate
    • 4.1 Execute the Transaction
    • 4.2 Reflection and Value Realization

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Create the mission and vision
    • Identify the guiding principles
    • Create the future-state operating model
    • Determine the transition team
    • Document the M&A governance
    • Create program metrics
    • Establish the separation strategy
    • Conduct a RACI
    • Create the communication plan
    • Assess the potential organization(s)

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT executive/CIO
    • IT senior leadership
    • Company M&A team

    Workshop Overview

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

    Pre-Work

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Establish the Transaction FoundationDiscover the Motivation for Divesting or SellingFormalize the Program PlanCreate the Valuation FrameworkStrategize the TransactionNext Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    • 0.1 Conduct the CIO Business Vision and CEO-CIO Alignment diagnostics
    • 0.2 Identify key stakeholders and outline their relationship to the M&A process
    • 0.3 Identify the rationale for the company's decision to pursue a divestiture or sale
    • 1.1 Review the business rationale for the divestiture/sale
    • 1.2 Assess the IT/digital strategy
    • 1.3 Identify pain points and opportunities tied to the divestiture/sale
    • 1.4 Create the IT vision statement, create the IT mission statement, and identify IT guiding principles
    • 2.1 Create the future-state operating model
    • 2.2 Determine the transition team
    • 2.3 Document the M&A governance
    • 2.4 Establish program metrics
    • 3.1 Valuate your data
    • 3.2 Valuate your applications
    • 3.3 Valuate your infrastructure
    • 3.4 Valuate your risk and security
    • 3.5 Combine individual valuations to make a single framework
    • 4.1 Establish the separation strategy
    • 4.2 Conduct a RACI
    • 4.3 Review best practices for assessing target organizations
    • 4.4 Create the communication plan
    • 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. Business perspectives of IT
    2. Stakeholder network map for M&A transactions
    1. Business context implications for IT
    2. IT’s divestiture/sale strategic direction
    1. Operating model for future state
    2. Transition team
    3. Governance structure
    4. M&A program metrics
    1. IT valuation framework
    1. Separation strategy
    2. RACI
    3. Communication plan
    1. Completed M&A program plan and strategy
    2. Prepared to assess target organization(s)

    What is the Discovery & Strategy phase?

    Pre-transaction state

    The Discovery & Strategy phase during a sale or divestiture is a unique opportunity for many IT organizations. IT organizations that can participate in the transaction at this stage are likely considered a strategic partner of the business.

    For one-off sales/divestitures, IT being invited during this stage of the process is rare. However, for organizations that are preparing to engage in many divestitures over the coming years, this type of strategy will greatly benefit from IT involvement. Again, the likelihood of participating in an M&A transaction is increasing, making it a smart IT leadership decision to, at the very least, loosely prepare a program plan that can act as a strategic pillar throughout the transaction.

    During this phase of the pre-transaction state, IT may be asked to participate in ensuring that the IT environment is able to quickly and easily carve out components/business lines and deliver on service-level agreements (SLAs).

    Goal: To identify a repeatable program plan that IT can leverage when selling or divesting all or parts of the current IT environment, ensuring customer satisfaction and business continuity

    Discovery & Strategy Prerequisite Checklist

    Before coming into the Discovery & Strategy phase, you should have addressed the following:

    • Understand the business perspective of IT.
    • Know the key stakeholders and have outlined their relationship to the M&A process.
    • Be able to valuate the IT environment and communicate IT's value to the business.
    • Understand the rationale for the company's decision to pursue a sale or divestiture and the opportunities or pain points the sale should address.

    Discovery & Strategy

    Step 2.1

    Establish the M&A Program Plan

    Activities

    • 2.1.1 Create the mission and vision
    • 2.1.2 Identify the guiding principles
    • 2.1.3 Create the future-state operating model
    • 2.1.4 Determine the transition team
    • 2.1.5 Document the M&A governance
    • 2.1.6 Create program metrics

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive/CIO
    • IT senior leadership
    • Company M&A team

    Outcomes of Step

    Establish an M&A program plan that can be repeated across sales/divestitures.

    The vision and mission statements clearly articulate IT’s aspirations and purpose

    The IT vision statement communicates a desired future state of the IT organization, whereas the IT mission statement portrays the organization’s reason for being. While each serves its own purpose, they should both be derived from the business context implications for IT.

    Vision Statements

    Mission Statements

    Characteristics

    • Describe a desired future
    • Focus on ends, not means
    • Concise
    • Aspirational
    • Memorable
    • Articulate a reason for existence
    • Focus on how to achieve the vision
    • Concise
    • Easy to grasp
    • Sharply focused
    • Inspirational

    Samples

    To be a trusted advisor and partner in enabling business innovation and growth through an engaged IT workforce. (Source: Business News Daily) IT is a cohesive, proactive, and disciplined team that delivers innovative technology solutions while demonstrating a strong customer-oriented mindset. (Source: Forbes, 2013)

    2.1.1 Create the mission and vision statements

    2 hours

    Input: Business objectives, IT capabilities, Rationale for the transaction

    Output: IT’s mission and vision statements for reduction strategies tied to mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures

    Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to create mission and vision statements that reflect IT’s intent and method to support the organization as it pursues a reduction strategy.

    1. Review the definitions and characteristics of mission and vision statements.
    2. Brainstorm different versions of the mission and vision statements.
    3. Edit the statements until you get to a single version of each that accurately reflects IT’s role in the reduction process.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Guiding principles provide a sense of direction

    IT guiding principles are shared, long-lasting beliefs that guide the use of IT in constructing, transforming, and operating the enterprise by informing and restricting IT investment portfolio management, solution development, and procurement decisions.

    A diagram illustrating the place of 'IT guiding principles' in the process of making 'Decisions on the use of IT'. There are four main items, connecting lines naming the type of process in getting from one step to the next, and a line underneath clarifying the questions asked at each step. On the far left, over the question 'What decisions should be made?', is 'Business context and IT implications'. This flows forward to 'IT guiding principles', and they are connected by 'Influence'. Next, over the question 'How should decisions be made?', is the main highlighted section. 'IT guiding principles' flows forward to 'Decisions on the use of IT', and they are connected by 'Guide and inform'. On the far right, over the question 'Who has the accountability and authority to make decisions?', is 'IT policies'. This flows back to 'Decisions on the use of IT', and they are connected by 'Direct and control'.

    IT principles must be carefully constructed to make sure they are adhered to and relevant

    Info-Tech has identified a set of characteristics that IT principles should possess. These characteristics ensure the IT principles are relevant and followed in the organization.

    Approach focused. IT principles should be focused on the approach – how the organization is built, transformed, and operated – as opposed to what needs to be built, which is defined by both functional and non-functional requirements.

    Business relevant. Create IT principles that are specific to the organization. Tie IT principles to the organization’s priorities and strategic aspirations.

    Long lasting. Build IT principles that will withstand the test of time.

    Prescriptive. Inform and direct decision making with actionable IT principles. Avoid truisms, general statements, and observations.

    Verifiable. If compliance can’t be verified, people are less likely to follow the principle.

    Easily Digestible. IT principles must be clearly understood by everyone in IT and by business stakeholders. IT principles aren’t a secret manuscript of the IT team. IT principles should be succinct; wordy principles are hard to understand and remember.

    Followed. Successful IT principles represent a collection of beliefs shared among enterprise stakeholders. IT principles must be continuously communicated to all stakeholders to achieve and maintain buy-in.

    In organizations where formal policy enforcement works well, IT principles should be enforced through appropriate governance processes.

    Consider the example principles below

    IT Principle Name

    IT Principle Statement

    1. Risk Management We will ensure that the organization’s IT Risk Management Register is properly updated to reflect all potential risks and that a plan of action against those risks has been identified.
    2. Transparent Communication We will ensure employees are spoken to with respect and transparency throughout the transaction process.
    3. Separation for Success We will create a carve-out strategy that enables the organization and clearly communicates the resources required to succeed.
    4. Managed Data We will handle data creation, modification, separation, and use across the enterprise in compliance with our data governance policy.
    5.Deliver Better Customer Service We will reduce the number of products offered by IT, enabling a stronger focus on specific products or elements to increase customer service delivery.
    6. Compliance With Laws and Regulations We will operate in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations for both our organization and the potentially purchasing organization.
    7. Defined Value We will create a plan of action that aligns with the organization’s defined value expectations.
    8. Network Readiness We will ensure that employees and customers have immediate access to the network with minimal or no outages.
    9. Value Generator We will leverage the current IT people, processes, and technology to turn the IT organization into a value generator by developing and selling our services to purchasing organizations.

    2.1.2 Identify the guiding principles

    2 hours

    Input: Business objectives, IT capabilities, Rationale for the transaction, Mission and vision statements

    Output: IT’s guiding principles for reduction strategies tied to mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures

    Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to create the guiding principles that will direct the IT organization throughout the reduction strategy process.

    1. Review the role of guiding principles and the examples of guiding principles that organizations have used.
    2. Brainstorm different versions of the guiding principles. Each guiding principle should start with the phrase “We will…”
    3. Edit and consolidate the statements until you have a list of approximately eight to ten statements that accurately reflect IT’s role in the reduction process.
    4. Review the guiding principles every six months to ensure they continue to support the delivery of the business’ reduction strategy goals.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Create two IT teams to support the transaction

    IT M&A Transaction Team

    • The IT M&A Transaction Team should consist of the strongest members of the IT team who can be expected to deliver on unusual or additional tasks not asked of them in normal day-to-day operations.
    • The roles selected for this team will have very specific skills sets or deliver on critical separation capabilities, making their involvement in the combination of two or more IT environments paramount.
    • These individuals need to have a history of proving themselves very trustworthy, as they will likely be required to sign an NDA as well.
    • Expect to have to certain duplicate capabilities or roles across the M&A Team and Operational Team.

    IT Operational Team

    • This group is responsible for ensuring the business operations continue.
    • These employees might be those who are newer to the organization but can be counted on to deliver consistent IT services and products.
    • The roles of this team should ensure that end users or external customers remain satisfied.

    Key capabilities to support M&A

    Consider the following capabilities when looking at who should be a part of the IT Transaction Team.

    Employees who have a significant role in ensuring that these capabilities are being delivered will be a top priority.

    Infrastructure & Operations

    • System Separation
    • Data Management
    • Helpdesk/Desktop Support
    • Cloud/Server Management

    Business Focus

    • Service-Level Management
    • Enterprise Architecture
    • Stakeholder Management
    • Project Management

    Risk & Security

    • Privacy Management
    • Security Management
    • Risk & Compliance Management

    Build a lasting and scalable operating model

    An operating model is an abstract visualization, used like an architect’s blueprint, that depicts how structures and resources are aligned and integrated to deliver on the organization’s strategy.

    It ensures consistency of all elements in the organizational structure through a clear and coherent blueprint before embarking on detailed organizational design.

    The visual should highlight which capabilities are critical to attaining strategic goals and clearly show the flow of work so that key stakeholders can understand where inputs flow in and outputs flow out of the IT organization.

    As you assess the current operating model, consider the following:

    • Does the operating model contain all the necessary capabilities your IT organization requires to be successful?
    • What capabilities should be duplicated?
    • Are there individuals with the skill set to support those roles? If not, is there a plan to acquire or develop those skills?
    • A dedicated project team strictly focused on M&A is great. However, is it feasible for your organization? If not, what blockers exist?
    A diagram with 'Initiatives' and 'Solutions' on the left and right of an area chart, 'Customer' at the top, the area between them labelled 'Functional Area n', and six horizontal bars labelled 'IT Capability' stacked on top of each other. The 'IT Capability' bars are slightly skewed to the 'Solutions' side of the chart.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Investing time up-front getting the operating model right is critical. This will give you a framework to rationalize future organizational changes, allowing you to be more iterative and allowing your model to change as the business changes.

    2.1.3 Create the future-state operating model

    4 hours

    Input: Current operating model, IT strategy, IT capabilities, M&A-specific IT capabilities, Business objectives, Rationale for the transaction, Mission and vision statements

    Output: Future-state operating model for divesting organizations

    Materials: Operating model, Capability overlay, Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to establish what the future-state operating model will be if your organization needs to adjust to support a divestiture transaction. If your organization plans to sell in its entirety, you may choose to skip this activity.

    1. Ensuring that all the IT capabilities are identified by the business and IT strategy, document your organization’s current operating model.
    2. Identify what core capabilities would be critical to the divesting transaction process and separation. Highlight and make copies of those capabilities in the M&A Sell Playbook. As a result of divesting, there may also be capabilities that will become irrelevant in your future state.
    3. Ensure the capabilities that will be decentralized are clearly identified. Decentralized capabilities do not exist within the central IT organization but rather in specific lines of businesses, products, or locations to better understand needs and deliver on the capability.

    An example operating model is included in the M&A Sell Playbook. This process benefits from strong reference architecture and capability mapping ahead of time.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    2.1.4 Determine the transition team

    3 hours

    Input: IT capabilities, Future-state operating model, M&A-specific IT capabilities, Business objectives, Rationale for the transaction, Mission and vision statements

    Output: Transition team

    Materials: Reference architecture, Organizational structure, Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to create a team that will support your IT organization throughout the transaction. Determining which capabilities and therefore which roles will be required ensures that the business will continue to get the operational support it needs.

    1. Based on the outcome of activity 2.1.3, review the capabilities that your organization will require on the transition team. Group capabilities into functional groups containing capabilities that are aligned well with one another because they have similar responsibilities and functionalities.
    2. Replace the capabilities with roles. For example, stakeholder management, requirements gathering, and project management might be one functional group. Project management and stakeholder management might combine to create a project manager role.
    3. Review the examples in the M&A Sell Playbook and identify which roles will be a part of the transition team.

    For more information, see Redesign Your Organizational Structure

    What is governance?

    And why does it matter so much to IT and the M&A process?

    • Governance is the method in which decisions get made, specifically as they impact various resources (time, money, and people).
    • Because M&A is such a highly governed transaction, it is important to document the governance bodies that exist in your organization.
    • This will give insight into what types of governing bodies there are, what decisions they make, and how that will impact IT.
    • For example, funds to support separation need to be discussed, approved, and supplied to IT from a governing body overseeing the acquisition.
    • A highly mature IT organization will have automated governance, while a seemingly non-existent governance process will be considered ad hoc.
    A pyramid with four levels representing the types of governing bodies that are available with differing levels of IT maturity. An arrow beside the pyramid points upward. The bottom of the arrow is labelled 'Traditional (People and document centric)' and the top is labelled 'Adaptive (Data centric)'. Starting at the bottom of the pyramid is level 1 'Ad Hoc Governance', 'Governance that is not well defined or understood within the organization. It occurs out of necessity but often not by the right people'. Level 2 is 'Controlled Governance', 'Governance focused on compliance and decisions driven by hierarchical authority. Levels of authority are defined and often driven by regulatory'. Level 3 is 'Agile Governance', 'Governance that is flexible to support different needs and quick response in the organization. Driven by principles and delegated throughout the company'. At the top of the pyramid is level 4 'Automated Governance', 'Governance that is entrenched and automated into organizational processes and product/service design. Empowered and fully delegated governance to maintain fit and drive organizational success and survival'.

    2.1.5 Document M&A governance

    1-2 hours

    Input: List of governing bodies, Governing body committee profiles, Governance structure

    Output: Documented method on how decisions are made as it relates to the M&A transaction

    Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to determine the method in which decisions are made throughout the M&A transaction as it relates to IT. This will require understanding both governing bodies internal to IT and those external to IT.

    1. First, determine the other governance structures within the organization that will impact the decisions made about M&A. List out these bodies or committees.
    2. Create a profile for each committee that looks at the membership, purpose of the committee, decision areas (authority), and the process of inputs and outputs. Ensure IT committees that will have a role in this process are also documented. Consider the benefits realized, risks, and resources required for each.
    3. Organize the committees into a structure, identifying the committees that have a role in defining the strategy, designing and building, and running.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Current-state structure map – definitions of tiers

    Strategy: These groups will focus on decisions that directly connect to the strategic direction of the organization.

    Design & Build: The second tier of groups will oversee prioritization of a certain area of governance as well as design and build decisions that feed into strategic decisions.

    Run: The lowest level of governance will be oversight of more-specific initiatives and capabilities within IT.

    Expect tier overlap. Some committees will operate in areas that cover two or three of these governance tiers.

    Measure the IT program’s success in terms of its ability to support the business’ M&A goals

    Upper management will measure IT’s success based on your ability to support the underlying reasons for the M&A. Using business metrics will help assure business stakeholders that IT understands their needs and is working with the business to achieve them.

    Business-Specific Metrics

    • Revenue Growth: Increase in the top line as seen by market expansion, product expansion, etc. by percentage/time.
    • Synergy Extraction: Reduction in costs as determined by the ability to identify and eliminate redundancies over time.
    • Profit Margin Growth: Increase in the bottom line as a result of increased revenue growth and/or decreased costs over time.

    IT-Specific Metrics

    • IT operational savings and cost reductions due to synergies: Operating expenses, capital expenditures, licenses, contracts, applications, infrastructure over time.
    • Reduction in IT staff expense and headcount: Decreased budget allocated to IT staff, and ability to identify and remove redundancies in staff.
    • Meeting or improving on IT budget estimates: Delivering successful IT separation on a budget that is the same or lower than the budget estimated during due diligence.
    • Meeting or improving on IT time-to-separation estimates: Delivering successful IT carve-out on a timeline that is the same or shorter than the timeline estimated during due diligence.
    • Business capability support: Delivering the end state of IT that supports the expected business capabilities and growth.

    Establish your own metrics to gauge the success of IT

    Establish SMART M&A Success Metrics

    S pecific Make sure the objective is clear and detailed.
    M easurable Objectives are measurable if there are specific metrics assigned to measure success. Metrics should be objective.
    A ctionable Objectives become actionable when specific initiatives designed to achieve the objective are identified.
    R ealistic Objectives must be achievable given your current resources or known available resources.
    T ime-Bound An objective without a timeline can be put off indefinitely. Furthermore, measuring success is challenging without a timeline.
    • What should IT consider when looking to identify potential additions, deletions, or modifications that will either add value to the organization or reduce costs/risks?
    • Provide a definition of synergies.
    • IT operational savings and cost reductions due to synergies: Operating expenses, capital expenditures, licenses, contracts, applications, infrastructure.
    • Reduction in IT staff expense and headcount: Decreased budget allocated to IT staff, and ability to identify and remove redundancies in staff.
    • Meeting or improving on IT budget estimates: Delivering successful IT separation on a budget that is the same or lower than the budget estimated during due diligence.
    • Meeting or improving on IT time-to-separation estimates: Delivering successful IT carve-out on a timeline that is the same or shorter than the timeline estimated during due diligence.
    • Revenue growth: Increase in the top line as a result, as seen by market expansion, product expansion, etc., as a result of divesting lines of the business and selling service-level agreements to the purchasing organization.
    • Synergy extraction: Reduction in costs, as determined by the ability to identify and eliminate redundancies.
    • Profit margin growth: Increase in the bottom line as a result of increased revenue growth and/or decreased costs.

    Metrics for each phase

    1. Proactive

    2. Discovery & Strategy

    3. Valuation & Due Diligence

    4. Execution & Value Realization

    • % Share of business innovation spend from overall IT budget
    • % Critical processes with approved performance goals and metrics
    • % IT initiatives that meet or exceed value expectation defined in business case
    • % IT initiatives aligned with organizational strategic direction
    • % Satisfaction with IT's strategic decision-making abilities
    • $ Estimated business value added through IT-enabled innovation
    • % Overall stakeholder satisfaction with IT
    • % Percent of business leaders that view IT as an Innovator
    • % IT budget as a percent of revenue
    • % Assets that are not allocated
    • % Unallocated software licenses
    • # Obsolete assets
    • % IT spend that can be attributed to the business (chargeback or showback)
    • % Share of CapEx of overall IT budget
    • % Prospective organizations that meet the search criteria
    • $ Total IT cost of ownership (before and after M&A, before and after rationalization)
    • % Business leaders that view IT as a Business Partner
    • % Defects discovered in production
    • $ Cost per user for enterprise applications
    • % In-house-built applications vs. enterprise applications
    • % Owners identified for all data domains
    • # IT staff asked to participate in due diligence
    • Change to due diligence
    • IT budget variance
    • Synergy target
    • % Satisfaction with the effectiveness of IT capabilities
    • % Overall end-customer satisfaction
    • $ Impact of vendor SLA breaches
    • $ Savings through cost-optimization efforts
    • $ Savings through application rationalization and technology standardization
    • # Key positions empty
    • % Frequency of staff turnover
    • % Emergency changes
    • # Hours of unplanned downtime
    • % Releases that cause downtime
    • % Incidents with identified problem record
    • % Problems with identified root cause
    • # Days from problem identification to root cause fix
    • % Projects that consider IT risk
    • % Incidents due to issues not addressed in the security plan
    • # Average vulnerability remediation time
    • % Application budget spent on new build/buy vs. maintenance (deferred feature implementation, enhancements, bug fixes)
    • # Time (days) to value realization
    • % Projects that realized planned benefits
    • $ IT operational savings and cost reductions that are related to synergies/divestitures
    • % IT staff–related expenses/redundancies
    • # Days spent on IT separation
    • $ Accurate IT budget estimates
    • % Revenue growth directly tied to IT delivery
    • % Profit margin growth

    2.1.6 Create program metrics

    1-2 hours

    Input: IT capabilities, Mission, vision, and guiding principles, Rationale for the acquisition

    Output: Program metrics to support IT throughout the M&A process

    Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to determine how IT’s success throughout a growth transaction will be measured and determined.

    1. Document a list of appropriate metrics on the whiteboard. Remember to include metrics that demonstrate the business impact. You can use the sample metrics listed on the previous slide as a starting point.
    2. Set a target and deadline for each metric. This will help the group determine when it is time to evaluate progression.
    3. Establish a baseline for each metric based on information collected within your organization.
    4. Assign an owner for tracking each metric as well as someone to be accountable for performance.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Discovery & Strategy

    Step 2.2

    Prepare IT to Engage in the Separation or Sale

    Activities

    • 2.2.1 Establish the separation strategy
    • 2.2.2 Conduct a RACI
    • 2.2.3 Create the communication plan
    • 2.2.4 Assess the potential organization(s)

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive/CIO
    • IT senior leadership
    • Company M&A team

    Outcomes of Step

    Identify IT’s plan of action when it comes to the separation/sale and align IT’s separation/sale strategy with the business’ M&A strategy.

    Separation strategies

    There are several IT separation strategies that will let you achieve your target technology environment.

    IT Separation Strategies
    • Divest. Carve out elements of the IT organization and sell them to a purchasing organization with or without a service-level agreement.
    • Sell. Sell the entire IT environment to a purchasing organization. The purchasing organization takes full responsibility in delivering and running the IT environment.
    • Spin-Off Joint Venture. Carve out elements of the IT organization and combine them with elements of a new or purchasing organization to create a new entity.

    The approach IT takes will depend on the business objectives for the M&A.

    • Generally speaking, the separation strategy is well understood and influenced by the frequency of and rationale for selling.
    • Based on the initiatives generated by each business process owner, you need to determine the IT separation strategy that will best support the desired target technology environment, especially if you are still operating or servicing elements of that IT environment.

    Key considerations when choosing an IT separation strategy include:

    • What are the main business objectives of the M&A?
    • What are the key synergies expected from the transaction?
    • What IT separation strategy best helps obtain these benefits?
    • What opportunities exist to position the business for sustainable and long-term growth?

    Separation strategies in detail

    Review highlights and drawbacks of different separation strategies

    Divest
      Highlights
    • Recommended for businesses striving to reduce costs and potentially even generate revenue for the business through the delivery of SLAs.
    • Opportunity to reduce or scale back on lines of business or products that are not driving profits.
      Drawbacks
    • May be forced to give up critical staff that have been known to deliver high value.
    • The IT department is left to deliver services to the purchasing organization with little support or consideration from the business.
    • There can be increased risk and security concerns that need to be addressed.
    Sell
      Highlights
    • Recommended for businesses looking to gain capital to exit the market profitably or to enter a new market with a large sum of capital.
    • The business will no longer exist, and as a result all operational costs, including IT, will become redundant.
      Drawbacks
    • IT is no longer needed as an operating or capital service for the organization.
    • Lost resources, including highly trained and critical staff.
    • May require packaging employees off and using the profit or capital generated to cover any closing costs.
    Spin-Off or Joint Venture
      Highlights
    • Recommended for businesses looking to expand their market presence or acquire new products. Essentially aligning the two organizations in the same market.
    • Each side has a unique offering but complementing capabilities.
      Drawbacks
    • As much as the organization is going through a separation from the original company, it will be going through an integration with the new company.
    • There could be differences in culture.
    • This could require a large amount of investment without a guarantee of profit or success.

    2.2.1 Establish the separation strategy

    1-2 hours

    Input: Business separation strategy, Guiding principles, M&A governance

    Output: IT’s separation strategy

    Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to determine IT’s approach to separating or selling. This approach might differ slightly from transaction to transaction. However, the businesses approach to transactions should give insight into the general separation strategy IT should adopt.

    1. Make sure you have clearly articulated the business objectives for the M&A, the technology end state for IT, and the magnitude of the overall separation.
    2. Review and discuss the highlights and drawbacks of each type of separation.
    3. Use Info-Tech’s Separation Posture Selection Framework on the next slide to select the separation posture that will appropriately enable the business. Consider these questions during your discussion:
      1. What are the main business objectives of the M&A? What key IT capabilities will need to support business objectives?
      2. What key synergies are expected from the transaction? What opportunities exist to position the business for sustainable growth?
      3. What IT separation best helps obtain these benefits?

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Separation Posture Selection Framework

    Business M&A Strategy

    Resultant Technology Strategy

    M&A Magnitude (% of Seller Assets, Income, or Market Value)

    IT Separation Posture

    A. Horizontal Adopt One Model ‹100% Divest
    ›99% Sell
    B. Vertical Create Links Between Critical Systems Any Divest
    C. Conglomerate Independent Model Any Joint Venture
    Divest
    D. Hybrid: Horizontal & Conglomerate Create Links Between Critical Systems Any Divest
    Joint Venture

    M&A separation strategy

    Business M&A Strategy Resultant Technology Strategy M&A Magnitude (% of Seller Assets, Income, or Market Value) IT Separation Posture

    You may need a hybrid separation posture to achieve the technology end state.

    M&A objectives may not affect all IT domains and business functions in the same way. Therefore, the separation requirements for each business function may differ. Organizations will often choose to select and implement a hybrid separation posture to realize the technology end state.

    Each business division may have specific IT domain and capability needs that require an alternative separation strategy.

    • Example: Even when conducting a joint venture by forming a new organization, some partners might view themselves as the dominant partner and want to influence the IT environment to a greater degree.
    • Example: Some purchasing organizations will expect service-level agreements to be available for a significant period of time following the divestiture, while others will be immediately independent.

    2.2.2 Conduct a RACI

    1-2 hours

    Input: IT capabilities, Transition team, Separation strategy

    Output: Completed RACI for Transition team

    Materials: Reference architecture, Organizational structure, Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to identify the core accountabilities and responsibilities for the roles identified as critical to your transition team. While there might be slight variation from transaction to transaction, ideally each role should be performing certain tasks.

    1. First, identify a list of critical tasks that need to be completed to support the sale or separation. For example:
      • Communicate with the company M&A team.
      • Identify the key IT solutions that can and cannot be carved out.
      • Gather data room artifacts and provide them to acquiring organization.
    2. Next, identify at the activity level which role is accountable or responsible for each activity. Enter an A for accountable, R for responsible, or A/R for both.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Communication and change

    Prepare key stakeholders for the potential changes

    • Anytime you are starting a project or program that will depend on users and stakeholders to give up their old way of doing things, change will force people to become novices again, leading to lost productivity and added stress.
    • Change management can improve outcomes for any project where you need people to adopt new tools and procedures, comply with new policies, learn new skills and behaviors, or understand and support new processes.
    • M&As move very quickly, and it can be very difficult to keep track of which stakeholders you need to be communicating with and what you should be communicating.
    • Not all organizations embrace or resist change in the same ways. Base your change communications on your organization’s cultural appetite for change in general.
      • Organizations with a low appetite for change will require more direct, assertive communications.
      • Organizations with a high appetite for change are more suited to more open, participatory approaches.

    Three key dimensions determine the appetite for cultural change:

    • Power Distance. Refers to the acceptance that power is distributed unequally throughout the organization.
      In organizations with a high power distance, the unequal power distribution is accepted by the less powerful employees.
    • Individualism. Organizations that score high in individualism have employees who are more independent. Those who score low in individualism fall into the collectivism side, where employees are strongly tied to one another or their groups.
    • Uncertainty Avoidance. Describes the level of acceptance that an organization has toward uncertainty. Those who score high in this area find that their employees do not favor uncertain situations, while those that score low in this area find that their employees are comfortable with change and uncertainty.

    2.2.3 Create the communication plan

    1-2 hours

    Input: IT’s M&A mission, vision, and guiding principles, M&A transition team, IT separation strategy, RACI

    Output: IT’s M&A communication plan

    Materials: Flip charts/whiteboard, Markers, RACI, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to create a communication plan that IT can leverage throughout the initiative.

    1. Create a structured communication plan that allows for continuous communication with the integration management office, senior management, and the business functional heads.
    2. Outline key topics of communication, with stakeholders, inputs, and outputs for each topic.
    3. Review Info-Tech’s example communication plan in the M&A Sell Playbook and update it with relevant information.
    4. Does this communication plan make sense for your organization? What doesn’t make sense? Adjust the communication guide to suit your organization.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Assessing potential organizations

    As soon as you have identified organizations to consider, it’s imperative to assess critical risks. Most IT leaders can attest that they will receive little to no notice when the business is pursuing a sale and IT has to assess the IT organization. As a result, having a standardized template to quickly assess the potential acquiring organization is important.

    Ways to Assess

    1. News: Assess what sort of news has been announced in relation to the organization. Have they had any risk incidents? Has a critical vendor announced working with them?
    2. LinkedIn: Scan through the LinkedIn profiles of employees. This will give you a sense of what platforms they have based on employees. It will also give insight into positive or negative employee experiences that could impact retention.
    3. Trends: Some industries will have specific solutions that are relevant and popular. Assess what the key players are (if you don’t already know) to determine the solution.
    4. Business Architecture: While this assessment won’t perfect, try to understand the business’ value streams and the critical business and IT capabilities that would be needed to support them. Will your organization or employee skills be required to support these long term?

    Info-Tech Insight

    Assessing potential organizations is not just for the purchaser. The seller should also know what the purchasing organization’s history with M&As is and what potential risks could occur if remaining connected through ongoing SLAs.

    2.2.4 Assess the potential organization(s)

    1-2 hours

    Input: Publicized historical risk events, Solutions and vendor contracts likely in the works, Trends

    Output: IT’s valuation of the potential organization(s) for selling or divesting

    Materials: M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO

    The purpose of this activity is to assess the organization(s) that your organization is considering selling or divesting to.

    1. Complete the Historical Valuation Worksheet in the M&A Sell Playbook to understand the type of IT organization that your company may support.
      • The business likely isn’t looking for in-depth details at this time. However, as the IT leader, it is your responsibility to ensure critical risks are identified and communicated to the business.
    2. Use the information identified to help the business narrow down which organizations could be the right organizations to sell or divest to.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    By the end of this pre-transaction phase you should:

    Have a program plan for M&As and a repeatable M&A strategy for IT when engaging in reduction transactions

    Key outcomes from the Discovery & Strategy phase
    • Prepare the IT environment to support the potential sale or divestiture by identifying critical program plan elements and establishing a separation or carve-out strategy that will enable the business to reach its goals.
    • Create a M&A strategy that accounts for all the necessary elements of a transaction and ensures sufficient governance, capabilities, and metrics exist.
    Key deliverables from the Discovery & Strategy phase
    • Create vision and mission statements
    • Establish guiding principles
    • Create a future-state operating model
    • Identify the key roles for the transaction team
    • Identify and communicate the M&A governance
    • Determine target metrics
    • Identify the M&A operating model
    • Select the separation strategy framework
    • Conduct a RACI for key transaction tasks for the transaction team
    • Document the communication plan

    M&A Sell Blueprint

    Phase 3

    Due Diligence & Preparation

    Phase 1Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4
    • 1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
    • 1.2 Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
    • 1.3 Drive Innovation and Suggest Reduction Opportunities
    • 2.1 Establish the M&A Program Plan
    • 2.2 Prepare IT to Engage in the Separation or Sale
    • 3.1 Engage in Due Diligence and Prepare Staff
    • 3.2 Prepare to Separate
    • 4.1 Execute the Transaction
    • 4.2 Reflection and Value Realization

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Drive value with a due diligence charter
    • Gather data room artifacts
    • Measure staff engagement
    • Assess culture
    • Create a carve-out roadmap
    • Prioritize separation tasks
    • Establish the separation roadmap
    • Identify the buyer’s IT expectations
    • Create a service/transaction agreement
    • Estimate separation costs
    • Create an employee transition plan
    • Create functional workplans for employees
    • Align project metrics with identified tasks

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT executive/CIO
    • IT senior leadership
    • Company M&A team
    • Business leaders
    • Purchasing organization
    • Transition team

    Workshop Overview

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

    Pre-Work

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Day 4

    Day 5

    Establish the Transaction FoundationDiscover the Motivation for SeparationIdentify Expectations and Create the Carve-Out RoadmapPrepare and Manage EmployeesPlan the Separation RoadmapNext Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    • 0.1 Identify the rationale for the company's decision to pursue a divestiture/sale.
    • 0.2 Identify key stakeholders and determine the IT transaction team.
    • 0.3 Gather and evaluate the M&A strategy, future-state operating model, and governance.
    • 1.1 Review the business rationale for the divestiture/sale.
    • 1.2 Identify pain points and opportunities tied to the divestiture/sale.
    • 1.3 Establish the separation strategy.
    • 1.4 Create the due diligence charter.
    • 2.1 Identify the buyer’s IT expectations.
    • 2.2 Create a list of IT artifacts to be reviewed in the data room.
    • 2.3 Create a carve-out roadmap.
    • 2.4 Create a service/technical transaction agreement.
    • 3.1 Measure staff engagement.
    • 3.2 Assess the current culture and identify the goal culture.
    • 3.3 Create an employee transition plan.
    • 3.4 Create functional workplans for employees.
    • 4.1 Prioritize separation tasks.
    • 4.2 Establish the separation roadmap.
    • 4.3 Establish and align project metrics with identified tasks.
    • 4.4 Estimate separation costs.
    • 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. IT strategy
    2. IT operating model
    3. IT governance structure
    4. M&A transaction team
    1. Business context implications for IT
    2. Separation strategy
    3. Due diligence charter
    1. Data room artifacts identified
    2. Carve-out roadmap
    3. Service/technical transaction agreement
    1. Engagement assessment
    2. Culture assessment
    3. Employee transition plans and workplans
    1. Separation roadmap and associated resourcing
    1. Divestiture separation strategy for IT

    What is the Due Diligence & Preparation phase?

    Mid-transaction state

    The Due Diligence & Preparation phase during a sale or divestiture is a critical time for IT. If IT fails to proactively participate in this phase, IT will have to merely react to separation expectations set by the business.

    If your organization is being sold in its entirety, staff will have major concerns about their future in the new organization. Making this transition as smooth as possible and being transparent could go a long way in ensuring their success in the new organization.

    In a divestiture, this is the time to determine where it’s possible for the organization to divide or separate from itself. A lack of IT involvement in these conversations could lead to an overcommitment by the business and under-delivery by IT.

    Goal: To ensure that, as the selling or divesting organization, you comply with regulations, prepare staff for potential changes, and identify a separation strategy if necessary

    Due Diligence Prerequisite Checklist

    Before coming into the Due Diligence & Preparation phase, you must have addressed the following:

    • Understand the rationale for the company's decision to pursue a sale or divestiture and what opportunities or pain points the sale should alleviate.
    • Identify the key roles for the transaction team.
    • Identify the M&A governance.
    • Determine target metrics.
    • Select a separation strategy framework.
    • Conduct a RACI for key transaction tasks for the transaction team.

    Before coming into the Due Diligence & Preparation phase, we recommend addressing the following:

    • Create vision and mission statements.
    • Establish guiding principles.
    • Create a future-state operating model.
    • Identify the M&A operating model.
    • Document the communication plan.
    • Examine the business perspective of IT.
    • Identify key stakeholders and outline their relationship to the M&A process.
    • Be able to valuate the IT environment and communicate IT’s value to the business.

    The Technology Value Trinity

    Delivery of Business Value & Strategic Needs

    • Digital & Technology Strategy
      The identification of objectives and initiatives necessary to achieve business goals.
    • IT Operating Model
      The model for how IT is organized to deliver on business needs and strategies.
    • Information & Technology Governance
      The governance to ensure the organization and its customers get maximum value from the use of information and technology.

    All three elements of the Technology Value Trinity work in harmony to deliver business value and achieve strategic needs. As one changes, the others need to change as well.

    • Digital and IT Strategy tells you what you need to achieve to be successful.
    • IT Operating Model and Organizational Design is the alignment of resources to deliver on your strategy and priorities.
    • Information & Technology Governance is the confirmation of IT’s goals and strategy, which ensures the alignment of IT and business strategy. It’s the mechanism by which you continuously prioritize work to ensure that what is delivered is in line with the strategy. This oversight evaluates, directs, and monitors the delivery of outcomes to ensure that the use of resources results in the achieving the organization’s goals.

    Too often strategy, operating model and organizational design, and governance are considered separate practices. As a result, “strategic documents” end up being wish lists, and projects continue to be prioritized based on who shouts the loudest – not based on what is in the best interest of the organization.

    Due Diligence & Preparation

    Step 3.1

    Engage in Due Diligence and Prepare Staff

    Activities

    • 3.1.1 Drive value with a due diligence charter
    • 3.1.2 Gather data room artifacts
    • 3.1.3 Measure staff engagement
    • 3.1.4 Assess culture

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive/CIO
    • IT senior leadership
    • Company M&A team
    • Business leaders
    • Prospective IT organization
    • Transition team

    Outcomes of Step

    This step of the process is when IT should prepare and support the business in due diligence and gather the necessary information about staff changes.

    3.1.1 Drive value with a due diligence charter

    1-2 hours

    Input: Key roles for the transaction team, M&A governance, Target metrics, Selected separation strategy framework, RACI of key transaction tasks for the transaction team

    Output: IT Due Diligence Charter

    Materials: M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to create a charter leveraging the items completed in the previous phase, as listed on the Due Diligence Prerequisite Checklist slide, to gain executive sign-off.

    1. In the IT Due Diligence Charter in the M&A Sell Playbook, complete the aspects of the charter that are relevant for you and your organization.
    2. We recommend including these items in the charter:
      • Communication plan
      • Transition team roles
      • Goals and metrics for the transaction
      • Separation strategy
      • Sale/divestiture RACI
    3. Once the charter has been completed, ensure that business executives agree to the charter and sign off on the plan of action.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    3.1.2 Gather data room artifacts

    4 hours

    Input: Future-state operating model, M&A governance, Target metrics, Selected separation strategy framework, RACI of key transaction tasks for the transaction team

    Output: List of items to acquire and verify can be provided to the purchasing organization while in the data room

    Materials: Critical domain lists on following slides, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team, Transition team, Legal team, Compliance/privacy officers

    The purpose of this activity is to create a list of the key artifacts that you could be asked for during the due diligence process.

    1. Review the lists on the following pages as a starting point. Identify which domains, stakeholders, artifacts, and information should be requested for the data room.
    2. IT leadership may or may not be asked to enter the data room directly. The short notice for having to find these artifacts for the purchasing organization can leave your IT organization scrambling. Identify the critical items worth obtaining ahead of time.
    3. Once you have identified the artifacts, provide the list to the legal team or compliance/privacy officers and ensure they also agree those items can be provided. If changes to the documents need to be made, take the time to do so.
    4. Store all items in a safe and secure file or provide to the M&A team ahead of due diligence.

    **Note that if your organization is not leading/initiating the data room, then you can ignore this activity.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Critical domains

    Understand the key stakeholders and outputs for each domain

    Domain

    Stakeholders

    Key Artifacts

    Key Information to request

    Business
    • Enterprise Architecture
    • Business Relationship Manager
    • Business Process Owners
    • Business capability map
    • Capability map (the M&A team should be taking care of this, but make sure it exists)
    • Business satisfaction with various IT systems and services
    Leadership/IT Executive
    • CIO
    • CTO
    • CISO
    • IT budgets
    • IT capital and operating budgets (from current year and previous year)
    Data & Analytics
    • Chief Data Officer
    • Data Architect
    • Enterprise Architect
    • Master data domains, system of record for each
    • Unstructured data retention requirements
    • Data architecture
    • Master data domains, sources, and storage
    • Data retention requirements
    Applications
    • Applications Manager
    • Application Portfolio Manager
    • Application Architect
    • Applications map
    • Applications inventory
    • Applications architecture
    • Copy of all software license agreements
    • Copy of all software maintenance agreements
    Infrastructure
    • Head of Infrastructure
    • Enterprise Architect
    • Infrastructure Architect
    • Infrastructure Manager
    • Infrastructure map
    • Infrastructure inventory
    • Network architecture (including which data centers host which infrastructure and applications)
    • Inventory (including separation capabilities of vendors, versions, switches, and routers)
    • Copy of all hardware lease or purchase agreements
    • Copy of all hardware maintenance agreements
    • Copy of all outsourcing/external service provider agreements
    • Copy of all service-level agreements for centrally provided, shared services and systems
    Products and Services
    • Product Manager
    • Head of Customer Interactions
    • Product lifecycle
    • Product inventory
    • Customer market strategy

    Critical domains (continued)

    Understand the key stakeholders and outputs for each domain

    Domain

    Stakeholders

    Key Artifacts

    Key Information to request

    Operations
    • Head of Operations
    • Service catalog
    • Service overview
    • Service owners
    • Access policies and procedures
    • Availability and service levels
    • Support policies and procedures
    • Costs and approvals (internal and customer costs)
    IT Processes
    • CIO
    • IT Management
    • VP of IT Governance
    • VP of IT Strategy
    • IT process flow diagram
    • Processes in place and productivity levels (capacity)
    • Critical processes/processes the organization feels they do particularly well
    IT People
    • CIO
    • VP of Human Resources
    • IT organizational chart
    • Competency & capacity assessment
    • IT organizational structure (including resources from external service providers such as contractors) with appropriate job descriptions or roles and responsibilities
    • IT headcount and location
    Security
    • CISO
    • Security Architect
    • Security posture
    • Information security staff
    • Information security service providers
    • Information security tools
    • In-flight information security projects
    Projects
    • Head of Projects
    • Project portfolio
    • List of all future, ongoing, and recently completed projects
    Vendors
    • Head of Vendor Management
    • License inventory
    • Inventory (including what will and will not be transitioning, vendors, versions, number of licenses)

    Retain top talent throughout the transition

    Focus on retention and engagement

    • People are such a critical component of this process, especially in the selling organization.
    • Retaining employees, especially the critical employees who hold specific skills or knowledge, will ensure the success and longevity of the divesting organization, purchasing organization, or the new company.
    • Giving employees a role in the organization and ensuring they do not see their capabilities as redundant will be critical to the process.
    • It is okay if employees need to change what they were doing temporarily or even long-term. However, being transparent about these changes and highlighting their value to the process and organization(s) will help.
    • The first step to moving forward with retention is to look at the baseline engagement and culture of employees and the organization. This will help determine where to focus and allow you to identify changes in engagement that resulted from the transaction.
    • Job engagement drivers are levers that influence the engagement of employees in their day-to-day roles.
    • Organizational engagement drivers are levers that influence an employee’s engagement with the broader organization.
    • Retention drivers are employment needs. They don’t necessarily drive engagement, but they must be met for engagement to be possible.

    3.1.3 Measure staff engagement

    3-4 hours

    Input: Engagement survey

    Output: Baseline engagement scores

    Materials: Build an IT Employee Engagement Program

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, IT employees of current organization

    The purpose of this activity is to measure current staff engagement to have a baseline to measure against in the future state. This is a good activity to complete if you will be divesting or selling in entirety.

    The results from the survey should act as a baseline to determine what the organization is doing well in terms of employee engagement and what drivers could be improved upon.

    1. Review Info-Tech’s Build an IT Employee Engagement Program research and select a survey that will best meet your needs.
    2. Conduct the survey and note which drivers employees are currently satisfied with. Likewise, note where there are opportunities.
    3. Document actions that should be taken to mitigate the negative engagement drivers throughout the transaction and enhance or maintain the positive engagement drivers.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Assess culture as a part of engagement

    Culture should not be overlooked, especially as it relates to the separation of IT environments

    • There are three types of culture that need to be considered.
    • Most importantly, this transition is an opportunity to change the culture that might exist in your organization’s IT environment.
    • Make a decision on which type of culture you’d like IT to have post transition.

    Target Organization's Culture. The culture that the target organization is currently embracing. Their established and undefined governance practices will lend insight into this.

    Your Organization’s Culture. The culture that your organization is currently embracing. Examine people’s attitudes and behaviors within IT toward their jobs and the organization.

    Ideal Culture. What will the future culture of the IT organization be once separation is complete? Are there aspects that your current organization and the target organization embrace that are worth considering?

    Culture categories

    Map the results of the IT Culture Diagnostic to an existing framework

    Competitive
    • Autonomy
    • Confront conflict directly
    • Decisive
    • Competitive
    • Achievement oriented
    • Results oriented
    • High performance expectations
    • Aggressive
    • High pay for good performance
    • Working long hours
    • Having a good reputation
    • Being distinctive/different
    Innovative
    • Adaptable
    • Innovative
    • Quick to take advantage of opportunities
    • Risk taking
    • Opportunities for professional growth
    • Not constrained by rules
    • Tolerant
    • Informal
    • Enthusiastic
    Traditional
    • Stability
    • Reflective
    • Rule oriented
    • Analytical
    • High attention to detail
    • Organized
    • Clear guiding philosophy
    • Security of employment
    • Emphasis on quality
    • Focus on safety
    Cooperative
    • Team oriented
    • Fair
    • Praise for good performance
    • Supportive
    • Calm
    • Developing friends at work
    • Socially responsible

    Culture Considerations

    • What culture category was dominant for each IT organization?
    • Do you share the same dominant category?
    • Is your current dominant culture category the most ideal to have post-separation?

    3.1.4 Assess Culture

    3-4 hours

    Input: Cultural assessments for current IT organization, Cultural assessment for target IT organization

    Output: Goal for IT culture

    Materials: IT Culture Diagnostic

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, IT employees of current organization, IT employees of target organization, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to assess the different cultures that might exist within the IT environments of the organizations involved. By understanding the culture that exists in the purchasing organization, you can identify the fit and prepare impacted staff for potential changes.

    1. Complete this activity by leveraging the blueprint Fix Your IT Culture, specifically the IT Culture Diagnostic.
    2. Fill out the diagnostic for the IT department in your organization:
      1. Answer the 16 questions in tab 2, Diagnostic.
      2. Find out your dominant culture and review recommendations in tab 3, Results.
    3. Document the results from tab 3, Results, in the M&A Sell Playbook if you are trying to record all artifacts related to the transaction in one place.
    4. Repeat the activity for the purchasing organization.
    5. Leverage the information to determine what the goal for the culture of IT will be post-separation if it will differ from the current culture.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Due Diligence & Preparation

    Step 3.2

    Prepare to Separate

    Activities

    • 3.2.1 Create a carve-out roadmap
    • 3.2.2 Prioritize separation tasks
    • 3.2.3 Establish the separation roadmap
    • 3.2.4 Identify the buyer’s IT expectations
    • 3.2.5 Create a service/transaction agreement
    • 3.2.6 Estimate separation costs
    • 3.2.7 Create an employee transition plan
    • 3.2.8 Create functional workplans for employees
    • 3.2.9 Align project metrics with identified tasks

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive/CIO
    • IT senior leadership
    • Transition team
    • Company M&A team
    • Purchasing organization

    Outcomes of Step

    Have an established plan of action toward separation across all domains and a strategy toward resources.

    Don’t underestimate the importance of separation preparation

    Separation involves taking the IT organization and dividing it into two or more separate entities.

    Testing the carve capabilities of the IT organization often takes 3 months. (Source: Cognizant, 2014)

    Daimler-Benz lost nearly $19 billion following its purchase of Chrysler by failing to recognize the cultural differences that existed between the two car companies. (Source: Deal Room)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Separating the IT organization requires more time and effort than business leaders will know. Frequently communicate challenges and lost opportunities when carving the IT environment out.

    Separation needs

    Identify the business objectives of the sale to determine the IT strategy

    Set up a meeting with your IT due diligence team to:

    • Ensure there will be no gaps in the delivery of products and services in the future state.
    • Discuss the people and processes necessary to achieve the target technology environment and support M&A business objectives.

    Use this opportunity to:

    • Identify data and application complexities between the involved organizations.
    • Identify the IT people and process gaps, initiatives, and levels of support expected.
    • Determine your infrastructure needs to ensure effectiveness and delivery of services:
      • Does IT have the infrastructure to support the applications and business capabilities?
      • Identify any gaps between the current infrastructure in both organizations and the infrastructure required.
      • Identify any redundancies/gaps.
      • Determine the appropriate IT separation strategies.
    • Document your gaps, redundancies, initiatives, and assumptions to help you track and justify the initiatives that must be undertaken and help estimate the cost of separation.

    Separation strategies

    There are several IT separation strategies that will let you achieve your target technology environment.

    IT Separation Strategies
    • Divest. Carve out elements of the IT organization and sell them to a purchasing organization with or without a service-level agreement.
    • Sell. Sell the entire IT environment to a purchasing organization. The purchasing organization takes full responsibility in delivering and running the IT environment.
    • Spin-Off Joint Venture. Carve out elements of the IT organization and combine them with elements of a new or purchasing organization to create a new entity.

    The approach IT takes will depend on the business objectives for the M&A.

    • Generally speaking, the separation strategy is well understood and influenced by the frequency of and rationale for selling.
    • Based on the initiatives generated by each business process owner, you need to determine the IT separation strategy that will best support the desired target technology environment, especially if you are still operating or servicing elements of that IT environment.

    Key considerations when choosing an IT separation strategy include:

    • What are the main business objectives of the M&A?
    • What are the key synergies expected from the transaction?
    • What IT separation strategy best helps obtain these benefits?
    • What opportunities exist to position the business for sustainable and long-term growth?

    Separation strategies in detail

    Review highlights and drawbacks of different separation strategies

    Divest
      Highlights
    • Recommended for businesses striving to reduce costs and potentially even generate revenue for the business through the delivery of SLAs.
    • Opportunity to reduce or scale back on lines of business or products that are not driving profits.
      Drawbacks
    • May be forced to give up critical staff that have been known to deliver high value.
    • The IT department is left to deliver services to the purchasing organization with little support or consideration from the business.
    • There can be increased risk and security concerns that need to be addressed.
    Sell
      Highlights
    • Recommended for businesses looking to gain capital to exit the market profitably or to enter a new market with a large sum of capital.
    • The business will no longer exist, and as a result all operational costs, including IT, will become redundant.
      Drawbacks
    • IT is no longer needed as an operating or capital service for the organization.
    • Lost resources, including highly trained and critical staff.
    • May require packaging employees off and using the profit or capital generated to cover any closing costs.
    Spin-Off or Joint Venture
      Highlights
    • Recommended for businesses looking to expand their market presence or acquire new products. Essentially aligning the two organizations in the same market.
    • Each side has a unique offering but complementing capabilities.
      Drawbacks
    • As much as the organization is going through a separation from the original company, it will be going through an integration with the new company.
    • There could be differences in culture.
    • This could require a large amount of investment without a guarantee of profit or success.

    Preparing the carve-out roadmap

    And why it matters so much

    • When carving out the IT environment in preparation for a divestiture, it’s important to understand the infrastructure, application, and data connections that might exist.
    • Much to the business’ surprise, carving out the IT environment is not easy, especially when considering the services and products that might depend on access to certain applications or data sets.
    • Once the business has indicated which elements they anticipate divesting, be prepared for testing the functionality and ability of this carve-out, either through automation or manually. There are benefits and drawbacks to both methods:
      • Automated requires a solution and a developer to code the tests.
      • Manual requires time to find the errors, possibly more time than automated testing.
    • Identify if there are dependencies that will make the carve-out difficult.
      • For example, the business is trying to divest Product X, but that product is integrated with Product Y, which is not being sold.
      • Consider all the processes and products that specific data might support as well.
      • Moreover, the data migration tool will need to enter the ERP system and identify not just the data but all supporting and historical elements that underlie the data.

    Critical components to consider:

    • Selecting manual or automated testing
    • Determining data dependencies
    • Data migration capabilities
    • Auditing approval
    • People and skills that support specific elements being carved out

    3.2.1 Create a carve-out roadmap

    6 hours

    Input: Items included in the carve-out, Dependencies, Whether testing is completed, If the carve-out will pass audit, If the carve-out item is prepared to be separated

    Output: Carve-out roadmap

    Materials: Business’ divestiture plan, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Business leaders, Transition team

    The purpose of this activity is to prepare the IT environment by identifying a carve-out roadmap, specifically looking at data, infrastructure, and applications. Feel free to expand the roadmap to include other categories as your organization sees fit.

    1. In the Carve-Out Roadmap in the M&A Sell Playbook, identify the key elements of the carve-out in the first column.
    2. Note any dependencies the items might have. For example:
      • The business is selling Product X, which is linked to Data X and Data Y. The organization does not want to sell Data Y. Data X would be considered dependent on Data Y.
    3. Once the dependencies have been confirmed, begin automated or manual testing to examine the possibility of separating the data sets (or other dependencies) from one another.
    4. After identifying an acceptable method of separation, inform the auditing individual or body and confirm that there would be no repercussions for the planned process.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    3.2.2 Prioritize separation tasks

    2 hours

    Input: Separation tasks, Transition team, M&A RACI

    Output: Prioritized separation list

    Materials: Separation task checklist, Separation roadmap

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to prioritize the different separation tasks that your organization has identified as necessary to this transaction. Some tasks might not be relevant for this particular transaction, and others might be critical.

    1. Begin by downloading the SharePoint or Excel version of the M&A Separation Project Management Tool.
    2. Identify which separation tasks you want to have as part of your project plan. Alter or remove any tasks that are irrelevant to your organization. Add in tasks you think are missing.
    3. When deciding criticality of the task, consider the effect on stakeholders, those who are impacted or influenced in the process of the task, and dependencies (e.g. data strategy needs to be addressed first before you can tackle its dependencies, like data quality).
    4. Feel free to edit the way you measure criticality. The standard tool leverages a three-point scale. At the end, you should have a list of tasks in priority order based on criticality.

    Record the updates in the M&A Separation Project Management Tool (SharePoint).

    Record the updates in the M&A Separation Project Management Tool (Excel).

    Separation checklists

    Prerequisite Checklist
    • Build the project plan for separation and prioritize activities
      • Plan first day
      • Plan first 30/100 days
      • Plan first year
    • Create an organization-aligned IT strategy
    • Identify critical stakeholders
    • Create a communication strategy
    • Understand the rationale for the sale or divestiture
    • Develop IT's sale/divestiture strategy
      • Determine goal opportunities
      • Create the mission and vision statements
      • Create the guiding principles
      • Create program metrics
    • Consolidate reports from due diligence/data room
    • Conduct culture assessment
    • Create a transaction team
    • Establish a service/technical transaction agreement
    • Plan and communicate culture changes
    • Create an employee transition plan
    • Assess baseline engagement
    Business
    • Design an enterprise architecture
    • Document your business architecture
    • Meet compliance and regulatory standards
    • Identify and assess all of IT's risks
    Applications
    • Prioritize and address critical applications
      • CRM
      • HRIS
      • Financial
      • Sales
      • Risk
      • Security
      • ERP
      • Email
    • Develop method of separating applications
    • Model critical applications that have dependencies on one another
    • Identify the infrastructure capacity required to support critical applications
    • Prioritize and address critical applications
    Leadership/IT Executive
    • Build an IT budget
    • Structure operating budget
    • Structure capital budget
    • Identify the workforce demand vs. capacity
    • Establish and monitor key metrics
    • Communicate value realized/cost savings
    Data
    • Confirm data strategy
    • Confirm data governance
    • Build a data architecture roadmap
    • Analyze data sources and domains
    • Evaluate data storage (on-premises vs. cloud)
    • Develop an enterprise content management strategy and roadmap
    • Ensure cleanliness/usability of data sets
    • Identify data sets that can remain operational if reduced/separated
    • Develop reporting and analytics capabilities
    • Confirm data strategy
    Operations
    • Manage sales access to customer data
    • Determine locations and hours of operation
    • Separate/terminate phone lists and extensions
    • Split email address books
    • Communicate helpdesk/service desk information

    Separation checklists (continued)

    Infrastructure
    • Manage organization domains
    • Consolidate data centers
    • Compile inventory of vendors, versions, switches, and routers
    • Review hardware lease or purchase agreements
    • Review outsourcing/service provider agreements
    • Review service-level agreements
    • Assess connectivity linkages between locations
    • Plan to migrate to a single email system if necessary
    • Determine network access concerns
    Vendors
    • Establish a sustainable vendor management office
    • Review vendor landscape
    • Identify warranty options
    • Identify the licensing grant
    • Rationalize vendor services and solutions
    People
    • Design an IT operating model
    • Design your future IT organizational structure
    • Conduct a RACI for prioritized activities
    • Conduct a culture assessment and identify goal IT culture
    • Build an IT employee engagement program
    • Determine critical roles and systems/process/products they support
    • Define new job descriptions with meaningful roles and responsibilities
    • Create employee transition plans
    • Create functional workplans
    Projects
    • Identify projects to be on hold
    • Communicate project intake process
    • Reprioritize projects
    Products & Services
    • Redefine service catalog
    • Ensure customer interaction requirements are met
    • Select a solution for product lifecycle management
    • Plan service-level agreements
    Security
    • Conduct a security assessment
    • Develop accessibility prioritization and schedule
    • Establish an information security strategy
    • Develop a security awareness and training program
    • Develop and manage security governance, risk, and compliance
    • Identify security budget
    • Build a data privacy and classification program
    IT Processes
    • Evaluate current process models
    • Determine productivity/capacity levels of processes
    • Identify processes to be changed/terminated
    • Establish a communication plan
    • Develop a change management process
    • Establish/review IT policies
    • Evaluate current process models

    3.2.2 Establish the separation roadmap

    2 hours

    Input: Prioritized separation tasks, Carve-out roadmap, Employee transition plan, Separation RACI, Costs for activities, Activity owners

    Output: Separation roadmap

    Materials: M&A Separation Project Plan Tool (SharePoint), M&A Separation Project Plan Tool (Excel), SharePoint Template: Step-by-Step Deployment Guide

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Transition team, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to create a roadmap to support IT throughout the separation process. Using the information gathered in previous activities, you can create a roadmap that will ensure a smooth separation.

    1. Use our Separation Project Management Tool to help track critical elements in relation to the separation project. There are a few options available:
      1. Follow the instructions on the next slide if you are looking to upload our SharePoint project template. Additional instructions are available in the SharePoint Template Step-by-Step Deployment Guide.
      2. If you cannot or do not want to use SharePoint as your project management solution, download our Excel version of the tool.
        **Remember that this your tool, so customize to your liking.
    2. Identify who will own or be accountable for each of the separation tasks and establish the time frame for when each project should begin and end. This will confirm which tasks should be prioritized.

    Record the updates in the M&A Separation Project Management Tool (SharePoint).

    Record the updates in the M&A Separation Project Management Tool (Excel).

    Separation Project Management Tool (SharePoint Template)

    Follow these instructions to upload our template to your SharePoint environment

    1. Create or use an existing SP site.
    2. Download the M&A Separation Project Management Tool (SharePoint) .wsp file from the Mergers & Acquisitions: The Sell Blueprint landing page.
    3. To import a template into your SharePoint environment, do the following:
      1. Open PowerShell.
      2. Connect-SPO Service (need to install PowerShell module).
      3. Enter in your tenant admin URL.
      4. Enter in your admin credentials.
      5. Set-SPO Site https://YourDomain.sharepoint.com/sites/YourSiteHe... -DenyAddAndCustomizePages 0
      OR
      1. Turn on both custom script features to allow users to run custom
    4. Screenshot of the 'Custom Script' option for importing a template into your SharePoint environment. Feature description reads 'Control whether users can run custom script on personal sites and self-service created sites. Note: changes to this setting might take up to 24 hours to take effect. For more information, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkIn=397546'. There are options to prevent or allow users from running custom script on personal/self-service created sites.
    5. Enable the SharePoint Server feature.
    6. Upload the .wsp file in Solutions Gallery.
    7. Deploy by creating a subsite and select from custom options.
      • Allow or prevent custom script
      • Security considerations of allowing custom script
      • Save, download, and upload a SharePoint site as a template
    8. Refer to Microsoft documentation to understand security considerations and what is and isn’t supported:

    For more information, check out the SharePoint Template: Step-by-Step Deployment Guide.

    Supporting the transition and establishing service-level agreements

    The purpose of this part of the transition is to ensure both buyer and seller have a full understanding of expectations for after the transaction.

    • Once the organizations have decided to move forward with a deal, all parties need a clear level of agreement.
    • IT, since it is often seen as an operational division of an organization, is often expected to deliver certain services or products once the transaction has officially closed.
    • The purchasing organization or the new company might depend on IT to deliver these services until they are able to provide those services on their own.
    • Having a clear understanding of what the buyer’s expectations are and what your company, as the selling organization, can provide is important.
    • Have a conversation with the buyer and document those expectations in a signed service agreement.

    3.2.4 Identify the buyer's IT expectations

    3-4 hours

    Input: Carve-out roadmap, Separation roadmap, Up-to-date version of the agreement

    Output: Buyer’s IT expectations

    Materials: Questions for meeting

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team, Purchasing company M&A team, Purchasing company IT leadership

    The purpose of this activity is to determine if the buyer has specific service expectations for your IT organization. By identifying, documenting, and agreeing on what services your IT organization will be responsible for, you can obtain a final agreement to protect you as the selling organization.

    1. Buyers should not assume certain services will be provided. Organize a meeting with IT leaders and the company M&A teams to determine what services will be provided.
    2. The next slide has a series of questions that you can start from. Ensure you get detailed information about each of the services.
    3. Once you fully understand the buyer’s IT expectations, create an SLA in the next activity and obtain sign-off from both organizations.

    Questions to ask the buyer

    1. What services would you like my IT organization to provide?
    2. How long do you anticipate those services will be provided to you?
    3. How do you expect your staff/employees to communicate requests or questions to my staff/employees?
    4. Are there certain days or times that you expect these services to be delivered?
    5. How many staff do you expect should be available to support you?
    6. What should be the acceptable response time on given service requests?
    7. When it comes to the services you require, what level of support should we provide?
    8. If a service requires escalation to Level 2 or Level 3 support, are we still expected to support this service? Or are we only Level 1 support?
    9. What preventative security methods does your organization have to protect our environment during this agreement period?

    3.2.5 Create a service/ transaction agreement

    6 hours

    Input: Buyer's expectations, Separation roadmap

    Output: SLA for the purchasing organization

    Materials: Service Catalog Internal Service Level Agreement Template, M&A Separation Project Plan Tool (SharePoint), M&A Separation Project Plan Tool (Excel)

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team, Purchasing company M&A team, Purchasing company IT leadership

    The purpose of this activity is to determine if the buyer has specific service expectations for your IT organization post-transaction that your IT organization is agreeing to provide.

    1. Document the expected services and the related details in a service-level agreement.
    2. Provide the SLA to the purchasing organization.
    3. Obtain sign-off from both organizations on the level of service that is expected of IT.
    4. Update the M&A Separation Project Management Tool Excel or SharePoint document to reflect any additional items that the purchasing organization identified.

    *For organizations being purchased in their entirety, this activity may not be relevant.

    Modify the Service Catalog Internal Service Level Agreement with the agreed-upon terms of the SLA.

    Importance of estimating separation costs

    Change is the key driver of separation costs

    Separation costs are dependent on the following:
    • Meeting synergy targets – whether that be cost saving or growth related.
      • Employee-related costs, licensing, and reconfiguration fees play a huge part in meeting synergy targets.
    • Adjustments related to compliance or regulations – especially if there are changes to legal entities, reporting requirements, or risk mitigation standards.
    • Governance or third party–related support required to ensure timelines are met and the separation is a success.
    Separation costs vary by industry type.
    • Certain industries may have separation costs made up of mostly one type, differing from other industries, due to the complexity and demands of the transaction. For example:
      • Healthcare separation costs are mostly driven by regulatory, safety, and quality standards, as well as consolidation of the research and development function.
      • Energy and Utilities tend to have the lowest separation costs due to most transactions occurring within the same sector rather than as cross-sector investments. For example, oil and gas transactions tend to be for oil fields and rigs (strategic fixed assets), which can easily be added to the buyer’s portfolio.

    Separation costs are more related to the degree of change required than the size of the transaction.

    3.2.6 Estimate separation costs

    3-4 hours

    Input: Separation tasks, Transition team, Valuation of current IT environment, Valuation of target IT environment, Outputs from data room, Technical debt, Employees

    Output: List of anticipated costs required to support IT separation

    Materials: Separation task checklist, Separation roadmap, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team, Transition team

    The purpose of this activity is to estimate the costs that will be associated with the separation. Identify and communicate a realistic figure to the larger M&A team within your company as early in the process as possible. This ensures that the funding required for the transaction is secured and budgeted for in the overarching transaction.

    1. On the associated slide in the M&A Sell Playbook, input:
      • Task
      • Domain
      • Cost type
      • Total cost amount
      • Level of certainty around the cost
    2. Provide a copy of the estimated costs to the company’s M&A team. Also provide any additional information identified earlier to help them understand the importance of those costs.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Employee transition planning

    Considering employee impact will be a huge component to ensure successful separation

    • Meet With Leadership
    • Plan Individual and Department Redeployment
    • Plan Individual and Department Layoffs
    • Monitor and Manage Departmental Effectiveness
    • For employees, the transition could mean:
      • Changing from their current role to a new role to meet requirements and expectations throughout the transition.
      • Being laid off because the role they are currently occupying has been made redundant.
    • It is important to plan for what the M&A separation needs will be and what the IT operational needs will be.
    • A lack of foresight into this long-term plan could lead to undue costs and headaches trying to retain critical staff, rehiring positions that were already let go, and keeping redundant employees longer then necessary.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Being transparent throughout the process is critical. Do not hesitate to tell employees the likelihood that their job may be made redundant. This will ensure a high level of trust and credibility for those who remain with the organization after the transaction.

    3.2.7 Create an employee transition plan

    3-4 hours

    Input: IT strategy, IT organizational design

    Output: Employee transition plans

    Materials: M&A Sell Playbook, Whiteboard, Sticky notes, Markers

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company M&A team, Transition team

    The purpose of this activity is to create a transition plan for employees.

    1. Transition planning can be done at specific individual levels or more broadly to reflect a single role. Consider these four items in the transition plan:
      • Understand the direction of the employee transitions.
      • Identify employees that will be involved in the transition (moved or laid off).
      • Prepare to meet with employees.
      • Meet with employees.
    2. For each employee that will be facing some sort of change in their regular role, permanent or temporary, create a transition plan.
    3. For additional information on transitioning employees, review the blueprint Streamline Your Workforce During a Pandemic.

    **Note that if someone’s future role is a layoff, then there is no need to record anything for skills needed or method for skill development.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    3.2.8 Create functional workplans for employees

    3-4 hours

    Input: Prioritized separation tasks, Employee transition plan, Separation RACI, Costs for activities, Activity owners

    Output: Employee functional workplans

    Materials: M&A Sell Playbook, Learning and development tools

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, IT management team, Company M&A team, Transition team

    The purpose of this activity is to create a functional workplan for the different employees so that they know what their key role and responsibilities are once the transaction occurs.

    1. First complete the transition plan from the previous activity (3.2.7) and the separation roadmap. Have these documents ready to review throughout this process.
    2. Identify the employees who will be transitioning to a new role permanently or temporarily. Creating a functional workplan is especially important for these employees.
    3. Identify the skills these employees need to have to support the separation. Record this in the corresponding slide in the M&A Sell Playbook.
    4. For each employee, identify someone who will be a point of contact for them throughout the transition.

    It is recommended that each employee have a functional workplan. Leverage the IT managers to support this task.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Metrics for separation

    Valuation & Due Diligence

    • % Defects discovered in production
    • $ Cost per user for enterprise applications
    • % In-house-built applications vs. enterprise applications
    • % Owners identified for all data domains
    • # IT staff asked to participate in due diligence
    • Change to due diligence
    • IT budget variance
    • Synergy target

    Execution & Value Realization

    • % Satisfaction with the effectiveness of IT capabilities
    • % Overall end-customer satisfaction
    • $ Impact of vendor SLA breaches
    • $ Savings through cost-optimization efforts
    • $ Savings through application rationalization and technology standardization
    • # Key positions empty
    • % Frequency of staff turnover
    • % Emergency changes
    • # Hours of unplanned downtime
    • % Releases that cause downtime
    • % Incidents with identified problem record
    • % Problems with identified root cause
    • # Days from problem identification to root cause fix
    • % Projects that consider IT risk
    • % Incidents due to issues not addressed in the security plan
    • # Average vulnerability remediation time
    • % Application budget spent on new build/buy vs. maintenance (deferred feature implementation, enhancements, bug fixes)
    • # Time (days) to value realization
    • % Projects that realized planned benefits
    • $ IT operational savings and cost reductions that are related to synergies/divestitures
    • % IT staff–related expenses/redundancies
    • # Days spent on IT separation
    • $ Accurate IT budget estimates
    • % Revenue growth directly tied to IT delivery
    • % Profit margin growth

    3.2.9 Align project metrics with identified tasks

    3-4 hours

    Input: Prioritized separation tasks, Employee transition plan, Separation RACI, Costs for activities, Activity owners, M&A goals

    Output: Separation-specific metrics to measure success

    Materials: Separation roadmap, M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Transition team

    The purpose of this activity is to understand how to measure the success of the separation project by aligning metrics to each identified task.

    1. Review the M&A goals identified by the business. Your metrics will need to tie back to those business goals.
    2. Identify metrics that align to identified tasks and measure achievement of those goals. For each metric you consider, ask the following questions:
      • What is the main goal or objective that this metric is trying to solve?
      • What does success look like?
      • Does the metric promote the right behavior?
      • Is the metric actionable? What is the story you are trying to tell with this metric?
      • How often will this get measured?
      • Are there any metrics it supports or is supported by?

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    By the end of this mid-transaction phase you should:

    Have successfully evaluated your IT people, processes, and technology to determine a roadmap forward for separating or selling.

    Key outcomes from the Due Diligence & Preparation phase
    • Participate in due diligence activities to comply with regulatory and auditing standards and prepare employees for the transition.
    • Create a separation roadmap that considers the tasks that will need to be completed and the resources required to support separation.
    Key deliverables from the Due Diligence & Preparation phase
    • Drive value with a due diligence charter
    • Gather data room artifacts
    • Measure staff engagement
    • Assess culture
    • Create a carve-out roadmap
    • Prioritize separation tasks
    • Establish the separation roadmap
    • Identify the buyer’s IT expectations
    • Create a service/transaction agreement
    • Estimate separation costs
    • Create an employee transition plan
    • Create functional workplans for employees
    • Align project metrics with identified tasks

    M&A Sell Blueprint

    Phase 4

    Execution & Value Realization

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3

    Phase 4

    • 1.1 Identify Stakeholders and Their Perspective of IT
    • 1.2 Assess IT’s Current Value and Future State
    • 1.3 Drive Innovation and Suggest Reduction Opportunities
    • 2.1 Establish the M&A Program Plan
    • 2.2 Prepare IT to Engage in the Separation or Sale
    • 3.1 Engage in Due Diligence and Prepare Staff
    • 3.2 Prepare to Separate
    • 4.1 Execute the Transaction
    • 4.2 Reflection and Value Realization

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Monitor service agreements
    • Continually update the project plan
    • Confirm separation costs
    • Review IT’s transaction value
    • Conduct a transaction and separation SWOT
    • Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT executive/CIO
    • IT senior leadership
    • Vendor management team
    • IT transaction team
    • Company M&A team

    Workshop Overview

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

    Pre-Work

    Day 1

    Day 2

    Day 3

    Engage in Separation

    Day 4

    Establish the Transaction FoundationDiscover the Motivation for IntegrationPlan the Separation RoadmapPrepare Employees for the TransitionEngage in SeparationAssess the Transaction Outcomes (Must be within 30 days of transaction date)

    Activities

    • 0.1 Identify the rationale for the company's decision to pursue a divestiture/sale.
    • 0.2 Identify key stakeholders and determine the IT transaction team.
    • 0.3 Gather and evaluate the M&A strategy, future-state operating model, and governance.
    • 1.1 Review the business rationale for the divestiture/sale.
    • 1.2 Identify pain points and opportunities tied to the divestiture/sale.
    • 1.3 Establish the separation strategy.
    • 1.4 Create the due diligence charter.
    • 2.1 Prioritize separation tasks.
    • 2.2 Establish the separation roadmap.
    • 2.3 Establish and align project metrics with identified tasks.
    • 2.4 Estimate separation costs.
    • 3.1 Measure staff engagement
    • 3.2 Assess the current culture and identify the goal culture.
    • 3.3 Create an employee transition plan.
    • 3.4 Create functional workplans for employees.
    • S.1 Complete the separation by regularly updating the project plan.
    • S.2 Assess the service/technical transaction agreement.
    • 4.1 Confirm separation costs.
    • 4.2 Review IT’s transaction value.
    • 4.3 Conduct a transaction and separation SWOT.
    • 4.4 Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions.

    Deliverables

    1. IT strategy
    2. IT operating model
    3. IT governance structure
    4. M&A transaction team
    1. Business context implications for IT
    2. Separation strategy
    3. Due diligence charter
    1. Separation roadmap and associated resourcing
    1. Engagement assessment
    2. Culture assessment
    3. Employee transition plans and workplans
    1. Evaluate service/technical transaction agreement
    2. Updated separation project plan
    1. SWOT of transaction
    2. M&A Sell Playbook refined for future transactions

    What is the Execution & Value Realization phase?

    Post-transaction state

    Once the transaction comes to a close, it’s time for IT to deliver on the critical separation tasks. As the selling organization in this transaction, you need to ensure you have a roadmap that properly enables the ongoing delivery of your IT environment while simultaneously delivering the necessary services to the purchasing organization.

    Throughout the separation transaction, some of the most common obstacles IT should prepare for include difficulty separating the IT environment, loss of key personnel, disengaged employees, and security/compliance issues.

    Post-transaction, the business needs to understands the value they received by engaging in the transaction and the ongoing revenue they might obtain as a result of the sale. You also need to ensure that the IT environment is functioning and mitigating any high-risk outcomes.

    Goal: To carry out the planned separation activities and deliver the intended value to the business.

    Execution Prerequisite Checklist

    Before coming into the Execution & Value Realization phase, you must have addressed the following:

    • Understand the rationale for the company's decisions to pursue a sale or divestiture and what opportunities or pain points the sale should alleviate.
    • Identify the key roles for the transaction team.
    • Identify the M&A governance.
    • Determine target metrics.
    • Select a separation strategy framework.
    • Conduct a RACI for key transaction tasks for the transaction team.
    • Create a carve-out roadmap.
    • Prioritize separation tasks.
    • Establish the separation roadmap.
    • Create employee transition plans.

    Before coming into the Execution & Value Realization phase, we recommend addressing the following:

    • Create vision and mission statements.
    • Establish guiding principles.
    • Create a future-state operating model.
    • Identify the M&A operating model.
    • Document the communication plan.
    • Examine the business perspective of IT.
    • Identify key stakeholders and outline their relationship to the M&A process.
    • Establish a due diligence charter.
    • Be able to valuate the IT environment and communicate IT’s value to the business.
    • Gather and present due diligence data room artifacts.
    • Measure staff engagement.
    • Assess and plan for culture.
    • Estimate separation costs.
    • Create functional workplans for employees.
    • Identify the buyer’s IT expectations.
    • Create a service/ transaction agreement.

    Separation checklists

    Prerequisite Checklist
    • Build the project plan for separation and prioritize activities
      • Plan first day
      • Plan first 30/100 days
      • Plan first year
    • Create an organization-aligned IT strategy
    • Identify critical stakeholders
    • Create a communication strategy
    • Understand the rationale for the sale or divestiture
    • Develop IT's sale/divestiture strategy
      • Determine goal opportunities
      • Create the mission and vision statements
      • Create the guiding principles
      • Create program metrics
    • Consolidate reports from due diligence/data room
    • Conduct culture assessment
    • Create a transaction team
    • Establish a service/technical transaction agreement
    • Plan and communicate culture changes
    • Create an employee transition plan
    • Assess baseline engagement
    Business
    • Design an enterprise architecture
    • Document your business architecture
    • Meet compliance and regulatory standards
    • Identify and assess all of IT's risks
    Applications
    • Prioritize and address critical applications
      • CRM
      • HRIS
      • Financial
      • Sales
      • Risk
      • Security
      • ERP
      • Email
    • Develop method of separating applications
    • Model critical applications that have dependencies on one another
    • Identify the infrastructure capacity required to support critical applications
    • Prioritize and address critical applications
    Leadership/IT Executive
    • Build an IT budget
    • Structure operating budget
    • Structure capital budget
    • Identify the workforce demand vs. capacity
    • Establish and monitor key metrics
    • Communicate value realized/cost savings
    Data
    • Confirm data strategy
    • Confirm data governance
    • Build a data architecture roadmap
    • Analyze data sources and domains
    • Evaluate data storage (on-premises vs. cloud)
    • Develop an enterprise content management strategy and roadmap
    • Ensure cleanliness/usability of data sets
    • Identify data sets that can remain operational if reduced/separated
    • Develop reporting and analytics capabilities
    • Confirm data strategy
    Operations
    • Manage sales access to customer data
    • Determine locations and hours of operation
    • Separate/terminate phone lists and extensions
    • Split email address books
    • Communicate helpdesk/service desk information

    Separation checklists (continued)

    Infrastructure
    • Manage organization domains
    • Consolidate data centers
    • Compile inventory of vendors, versions, switches, and routers
    • Review hardware lease or purchase agreements
    • Review outsourcing/service provider agreements
    • Review service-level agreements
    • Assess connectivity linkages between locations
    • Plan to migrate to a single email system if necessary
    • Determine network access concerns
    Vendors
    • Establish a sustainable vendor management office
    • Review vendor landscape
    • Identify warranty options
    • Identify the licensing grant
    • Rationalize vendor services and solutions
    People
    • Design an IT operating model
    • Design your future IT organizational structure
    • Conduct a RACI for prioritized activities
    • Conduct a culture assessment and identify goal IT culture
    • Build an IT employee engagement program
    • Determine critical roles and systems/process/products they support
    • Define new job descriptions with meaningful roles and responsibilities
    • Create employee transition plans
    • Create functional workplans
    Projects
    • Identify projects to be on hold
    • Communicate project intake process
    • Reprioritize projects
    Products & Services
    • Redefine service catalog
    • Ensure customer interaction requirements are met
    • Select a solution for product lifecycle management
    • Plan service-level agreements
    Security
    • Conduct a security assessment
    • Develop accessibility prioritization and schedule
    • Establish an information security strategy
    • Develop a security awareness and training program
    • Develop and manage security governance, risk, and compliance
    • Identify security budget
    • Build a data privacy and classification program
    IT Processes
    • Evaluate current process models
    • Determine productivity/capacity levels of processes
    • Identify processes to be changed/terminated
    • Establish a communication plan
    • Develop a change management process
    • Establish/review IT policies
    • Evaluate current process models

    Execution & Value Realization

    Step 4.1

    Execute the Transaction

    Activities

    • 4.1.1 Monitor service agreements
    • 4.1.2 Continually update the project plan

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Monitor service agreements
    • Continually update the project plan

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive/CIO
    • IT senior leadership
    • Vendor management team
    • IT transaction team
    • Company M&A team

    Outcomes of Step

    Successfully execute the separation of the IT environments and update the project plan, strategizing against any roadblocks as they come.

    Key concerns to monitor during separation

    If you are entering the transaction at this point, consider and monitor the following three items above all else.

    Your IT environment, reputation as an IT leader, and impact on key staff will depend on monitoring these aspects.

    • Risk & Security. Make sure that the channels of communication between the purchasing organization and your IT environment are properly determined and protected. This might include updating or removing employees’ access to certain programs.
    • Retaining Employees. Employees who do not see a path forward in the organization or who feel that their skills are being underused will be quick to move on. Make sure they are engaged before, during, and after the transaction to avoid losing employees.
    • IT Environment Dependencies. Testing the IT environment several times and obtaining sign-off from auditors that this has been completed correctly should be completed well before the transaction occurs. Have a strong architecture outlining technical dependencies.

    For more information, review:

    • Reduce and Manage Your Organization’s Insider Threat Risk
    • Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure Operations Organization
    • Build a Data Architecture Roadmap

    4.1.1 Monitor service agreements

    3-6 months

    Input: Original service agreement, Risk register

    Output: Service agreement confirmed

    Materials: Original service agreement

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, External organization IT senior leadership

    The purpose of this activity is to monitor the established service agreements on an ongoing basis. Your organization is most at risk during the initial months following the transaction.

    1. Ensure the right controls exist to prevent the organization from unnecessarily opening itself up to risks.
    2. Meet with the purchasing organization/subsidiary three months after the transaction to ensure that everyone is satisfied with the level of services provided.
    3. This is not a quick and completed activity, but one that requires ongoing monitoring. Repeatedly identify potential risks worth mitigating.

    For additional information and support for this activity, see the blueprint Build an IT Risk Management Program.

    4.1.2 Continually update the project plan

    Reoccurring basis following transition

    Input: Prioritized separation tasks, Separation RACI, Activity owners

    Output: Updated separation project plan

    Materials: M&A Separation Project Plan Tool (SharePoint), M&A Separation Project Plan Tool (Excel)

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, IT transaction team, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to ensure that the project plan is continuously updated as your transaction team continues to execute on the various components outlined in the project plan.

    1. Set a regular cadence for the transaction team to meet, update the project plan, review the status of the various separation task items, and strategize how to overcome any roadblocks.
    2. Employ governance best practices in these meetings to ensure decisions can be made effectively and resources allocated strategically.

    Record the updates in the M&A Separation Project Management Tool (SharePoint).

    Record the updates in the M&A Separation Project Management Tool (Excel).

    Execution & Value Realization

    Step 4.2

    Reflection and Value Realization

    Activities

    • 4.2.1 Confirm separation costs
    • 4.2.2 Review IT’s transaction value
    • 4.2.3 Conduct a transaction and separation SWOT
    • 4.2.4 Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT executive/CIO
    • IT senior leadership
    • Transition team
    • Company M&A team

    Outcomes of Step

    Review the value that IT was able to generate around the transaction and strategize about how to improve future selling or separating transactions.

    4.2.1 Confirm separation costs

    3-4 hours

    Input: Separation tasks, Carve-out roadmap, Transition team, Previous RACI, Estimated separation costs

    Output: Actual separation costs

    Materials: M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Transaction team, Company M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to confirm the associated costs around separation. While the separation costs would have been estimated previously, it’s important to confirm the costs that were associated with the separation in order to provide an accurate and up-to-date report to the company’s M&A team.

    1. Taking all the original items identified previously in activity 3.2.6, identify if there were changes in the estimated costs. This can be an increase or a decrease.
    2. Ensure that each cost has a justification for why the cost changed from the original estimation.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    Track cost savings and revenue generation

    Throughout the transaction, the business would have communicated its goals, rationales, and expectations for the transaction. Sometimes this is done explicitly, and other times the information is implicit. Either way, IT needs to ensure that metrics have been defined and are measuring the intended value that the business expects. Ensure that the benefits realized to the organization are being communicated regularly and frequently.

    1. Define Metrics: Select metrics to track synergies through the separation.
      1. You can track value by looking at percentages of improvement in process-level metrics depending on the savings or revenue being pursued.
      2. For example, if the value being pursued is decreasing costs, metrics could range from capacity to output, highlighting that the output remains high despite smaller IT environments.
    2. Prioritize Value-Driving Initiatives: Estimate the cost and benefit of each initiative's implementation to compare the amount of business value to the cost. The benefits and costs should be illustrated at a high level. Estimating the exact dollar value of fulfilling a synergy can be difficult and misleading.
        Steps
      • Determine the benefits that each initiative is expected to deliver.
      • Determine the high-level costs of implementation (capacity, time, resources, effort).
    3. Track Cost Savings and Revenue Generation: Develop a detailed workplan to resource the roadmap and track where costs are saved and revenue is generated as the initiatives are undertaken.

    4.2.2 Review IT’s transaction value

    3-4 hours

    Input: Prioritized separation tasks, Separation RACI, Activity owners, M&A company goals

    Output: Transaction value

    Materials: M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Company's M&A team

    The purpose of this activity is to track how your IT organization performed against the originally identified metrics.

    1. If your organization did not have the opportunity to identify metrics, determine from the company M&A what those metrics might be. Review activity 3.2.9 for more information on metrics.
    2. Identify whether the metric (which should support a goal) was at, below, or above the original target metric. This is a very critical task for IT to complete because it allows IT to confirm that they were successful in the transaction and that the business can count on them in future transactions.
    3. Be sure to record accurate and relevant information on why the outcomes (good or bad) are supporting the M&A goals set out by the business.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    4.2.3 Conduct a transaction and separation SWOT

    2 hours

    Input: Separation costs, Retention rates, Value that IT contributed to the transaction

    Output: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

    Materials: Flip charts, Markers, Sticky notes

    Participants: IT executive/CIO, IT senior leadership, Business transaction team

    The purpose of this activity is to assess the positive and negative elements of the transaction.

    1. Consider the internal and external elements that could have impacted the outcome of the transaction.
      • Strengths. Internal characteristics that are favorable as they relate to your development environment.
      • Weaknesses Internal characteristics that are unfavorable or need improvement.
      • Opportunities External characteristics that you may use to your advantage.
      • Threats External characteristics that may be potential sources of failure or risk.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    M&A Sell Playbook review

    With an acquisition complete, your IT organization is now more prepared then ever to support the business through future M&As

    • Now that the transaction is more than 80% complete, take the opportunity to review the key elements that worked well and the opportunities for improvement.
    • Critically examine the M&A Sell Playbook your IT organization created and identify what worked well to help the transaction and where your organization could adjust to do better in future transactions.
    • If your organization were to engage in another sale or divestiture under your IT leadership, how would you go about the transaction to make sure the company meets its goals?

    4.2.4 Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions

    4 hours

    Input: Transaction and separation SWOT

    Output: Refined M&A playbook

    Materials: M&A Sell Playbook

    Participants: IT executive/CIO

    The purpose of this activity is to revise the playbook and ensure it is ready to go for future transactions.

    1. Using the outputs from the previous activity, 4.2.3, determine what strengths and opportunities there were that should be leveraged in the next transaction.
    2. Likewise, determine which threats and weaknesses could be avoided in the future transactions.
      Remember, this is your M&A Sell Playbook, and it should reflect the most successful outcome for you in your organization.

    Record the results in the M&A Sell Playbook.

    By the end of this post-transaction phase you should:

    Have completed the separation post-transaction and be fluidly delivering the critical value that the business expected of IT.

    Key outcomes from the Execution & Value Realization phase
    • Ensure the separation tasks are being completed and that any blockers related to the transaction are being removed.
    • Determine where IT was able to realize value for the business and demonstrate IT’s involvement in meeting target goals.
    Key deliverables from the Execution & Value Realization phase
    • Monitor service agreements
    • Continually update the project plan
    • Confirm separation costs
    • Review IT’s transaction value
    • Conduct a transaction and separation SWOT
    • Review the playbook and prepare for future transactions

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    Congratulations, you have completed the M&A Sell Blueprint!

    Rather than reacting to a transaction, you have been proactive in tackling this initiative. You now have a process to fall back on in which you can be an innovative IT leader by suggesting how and why the business should engage in a separation or sale transaction. You have:

    • Created a standardized approach for how your IT organization should address divestitures or sales.
    • Retained critical staff and complied with any regulations throughout the transaction.
    • Delivered on the separation project plan successfully and communicated IT’s transaction value to the business.

    Now that you have done all of this, reflect on what went well and what can be improved if you were to engage in a similar divestiture or sale again.

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

    Contact your account representative for more information
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8899

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Ibrahim Abdel-Kader
    Research Analyst | CIO
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Brittany Lutes
    Senior Research Analyst | CIO
    Info-Tech Research Group
    John Annand
    Principal Research Director | Infrastructure
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Scott Bickley
    Principal Research Director | Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Cole Cioran
    Practice Lead | Applications
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Dana Daher
    Research Analyst | Strategy & Innovation
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Eric Dolinar
    Manager | M&A Consulting
    Deloitte Canada
    Christoph Egel
    Director, Solution Design & Deliver
    Cooper Tire & Rubber Company
    Nora Fisher
    Vice President | Executive Services Advisory
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Larry Fretz
    Vice President | Industry
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Research Contributors and Experts

    David Glazer
    Vice President of Analytics
    Kroll
    Jack Hakimian
    Senior Vice President | Workshops and Delivery
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Gord Harrison
    Senior Vice President | Research & Advisory
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Valence Howden
    Principal Research Director | CIO
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Jennifer Jones
    Research Director | Industry
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Nancy McCuaig
    Senior Vice President | Chief Technology and Data Office
    IGM Financial Inc.
    Carlene McCubbin
    Practice Lead | CIO
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Kenneth McGee
    Research Fellow | Strategy & Innovation
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Nayma Naser
    Associate
    Deloitte
    Andy Neill
    Practice Lead | Data & Analytics, Enterprise Architecture
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Rick Pittman
    Vice President | Research
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Rocco Rao
    Research Director | Industry
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Mark Rosa
    Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer
    Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment
    Tracy-Lynn Reid
    Research Lead | People & Leadership
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Jim Robson
    Senior Vice President | Shared Enterprise Services (retired)
    Great-West Life
    Steven Schmidt
    Senior Managing Partner Advisory | Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Nikki Seventikidis
    Senior Manager | Finance Initiative & Continuous Improvement
    CST Consultants Inc.
    Allison Straker
    Research Director | CIO
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Justin Waelz
    Senior Network & Systems Administrator
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Sallie Wright
    Executive Counselor
    Info-Tech Research Group

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    Nash, Kim S. “CIOs Take Larger Role in Pre-IPO Prep Work.” The Wall Street Journal, 5 March 2015. Web.

    O'Connell, Sean, et al. “Divestitures: How to Invest for Success.” McKinsey, 1 Aug. 2015. Web

    Paszti, Laila. “Canada: Emerging Trends In Information Technology (IT) Mergers And Acquisitions.” Mondaq, 24 Oct. 2019. Web.

    Patel, Kiison. “The 8 Biggest M&A Failures of All Time” Deal Room, 9 Sept. 2021. Web.

    Peek, Sean, and Paula Fernandes. “What Is a Vision Statement?” Business News Daily, 7 May 2020. Web.

    Ravid, Barak. “How divestments can re-energize the technology growth story.” EY, 14 July 2021. Web.

    Ravid, Barak. “Tech execs focus on growth amid increasingly competitive M&A market.” EY, 28 April 2021. Web.

    Resch, Scott. “5 Questions with a Mergers & Acquisitions Expert.” CIO, 25 June 2019. Web.

    Salsberg, Brian. “Four tips for estimating one-time M&A integration costs.” EY, 17 Oct. 2019. Web.

    Samuels, Mark. “Mergers and acquisitions: Five ways tech can smooth the way.” ZDNet, 15 Aug. 2018. Web.

    “SAP Divestiture Projects: Options, Approach and Challenges.” Cognizant, May, 2014. Web.

    Steeves, Dave. “7 Rules for Surviving a Merger & Acquisition Technology Integration.” Steeves and Associates, 5 Feb. 2020. Web.

    Tanaszi, Margaret. “Calculating IT Value in Business Terms.” CSO, 27 May 2004. Web.

    “The CIO Playbook. Nine Steps CIOs Must Take For Successful Divestitures.” SNP, 2016. Web.

    “The Role of IT in Supporting Mergers and Acquisitions.” Cognizant, Feb. 2015. Web.

    Torres, Roberto. “M&A playbook: How to prepare for the cost, staff and tech hurdles.” CIO Dive, 14 Nov. 2019. Web.

    “Valuation Methods.” Corporate Finance Institute, n.d. Web.

    Weller, Joe. “The Ultimate Guide to the M&A Process for Buyers and Sellers.” Smartsheet, 16 May 2019. Web.

    Implement a Social Media Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
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    • IT is being caught in the middle of various business units, all separately attempting to create, staff, implement, and instrument a social media program.
    • Requests for procuring social media tools and integrating with CRM systems are coming from all directions, with no central authority governing a social media program or coordinating business goals.
    • Public Relations and Corporate Communications groups have been acting as the first level of response to social media channels since the company’s first Twitter account went live, but the volume of inquiries received through social channels has become too great for these groups to continue in a first responder role.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Social media immaturity is an opportunity for IT leadership. As with so many of the “next new things,” IT has an opportunity to help the business understand social media technologies, trends, and risks, and coordinate efforts to approach social media as a united company.
    • Social media maturity must reach the Social Media Steering Committee stage before major investments in technology can proceed. As with all business initiatives, technology automation decisions cannot be made without respect to organizational and process maturity. Social media strategy stakeholders must join together and form a steering committee to create policies and procedures, govern strategy, develop workflows, and facilitate technology selection processes. IT not only belongs on such a steering committee, but it can also be instrumental in the formation of it.
    • Info-Tech’s research repeatedly indicates that the greatest return from social media investments is in the customer service domain, by reacting to incoming social inquiries and proactively listening to social conversations for product and service inquiry opportunities. This means CRM integration is essential to long-term social media program success.

    Impact and Result

    • Assess your organization’s social maturity to know where to begin and where to go in implementation of a social media program.
    • Form a social media steering committee to bring order to chaos among different business units.
    • Develop comprehensive workflows to categorize and prioritize inquiries, and then route them to the appropriate part of the business for resolution.
    • Consider creating one or more physical social media command centers to process large volumes of social inquiries more efficiently and monitor real-time social media metrics to improve critical response times.

    Implement a Social Media Program Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Assess your organization's social maturity

    Know where to begin and where to go in implementation of a social media program.

    • Storyboard: Implement a Social Media Program
    • Social Media Maturity Assessment Tool

    2. Form a social media steering committee

    Bring order to chaos among different business units.

    • Social Media Steering Committee Charter Template
    • Social Media Acceptable Use Policy
    • Blogging and Microblogging Guidelines Template

    3. Consider creating one or more physical social media command centers

    Process large volumes of social inquiries more efficiently, and monitor real-time social media metrics to improve critical response times.

    • Social Media Representative
    • Social Media Manager
    [infographic]

    Change Management

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    Every company needs some change management. Both business and IT teams benefit from knowing what changes when.

    incident, problem, problemchange

    Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management

    Organizations can struggle to understand what service-level agreements (SLAs) are required and how they can differ depending on the service type. In addition, these other challenges can also cloud an organization’s knowledge of SLAs:

    • No standardized SLAs documents, service levels, or metrics
    • Dealing with lost productivity and revenue due to persistent downtime
    • Not understanding SLAs components and what service levels are required for a particular service
    • How to manage the SLA and hold the vendor accountable

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    SLAs need to have clear, easy-to-measure objectives, to meet expectations and service level requirements, including meaningful reporting and remedies to hold the provider accountable to its obligations.

    Impact and Result

    This project will provide several benefits and learnings for almost all IT workers:

    • Better understanding of an SLA framework and required SLA elements
    • Standardized service levels and metrics aligned to the organization’s requirements
    • Reduced time in reviewing, evaluating, and managing service provider SLAs

    Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements Research & Tools

    Start here – Read our Executive Brief

    Understand how to resolve your challenges with SLAs and their components and ensuring adequate metrics. Learn how to create meaningful SLAs that meet your requirements and manage them effectively.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Understand SLA elements – Understand the elements of SLAs, service types, service levels, metrics/KPIs, monitoring, and reporting

    • SLA Checklist
    • SLA Evaluation Tool

    2. Create requirements – Create your own SLA criteria and templates that meet your organization’s requirements

    • SLA Template & Metrics Reference Guide

    3. Manage obligations – Learn the SLA Management Framework to track providers’ performance and adherence to their commitments.

    • SLO Tracker & Trending Tool

    Infographic

    Workshop: Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Understand the Elements of SLAs

    The Purpose

    Understand key components and elements of an SLA.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Properly evaluate an SLA for required elements.

    Activities

    1.1 SLA overview, objectives, SLA types, service levels

    1.2 SLA elements and objectives

    1.3 SLA components: monitoring, reporting, and remedies

    1.4 SLA checklist review

    Outputs

    SLA Checklist 

    Evaluation Process

    SLA Checklist

    Evaluation Process

    SLA Checklist

    Evaluation Process

    SLA Checklist

    Evaluation Process

    2 Create SLA Criteria and Management Framework

    The Purpose

    Apply knowledge of SLA elements to create internal SLA requirements.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Templated SLAs that meet requirements.

    Framework to manage SLOs.

    Activities

    2.1 Creating SLA criteria and requirements

    2.2 SLA templates and policy

    2.3 SLA evaluation activity

    2.4 SLA Management Framework

    2.5 SLA monitoring, tracking, and remedy reconciliation

    Outputs

    Internal SLA Management Framework

    Evaluation of current SLAs

    SLA tracking and trending

    Internal SLA Management Framework

    Evaluation of current SLAs

    SLA tracking and trending

    Internal SLA Management Framework

    Evaluation of current SLAs

    SLA tracking and trending

    Internal SLA Management Framework

    Evaluation of current SLAs

    SLA tracking and trending

    Internal SLA Management Framework

    Evaluation of current SLAs

    SLA tracking and trending

    Further reading

    Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

    Hold Service Providers more accountable to their contractual obligations with meaningful SLA components & remedies

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

    Every year organizations outsource more and more IT infrastructure to the cloud, and IT operations to managed service providers. This increase in outsourcing presents an increase in risk to the CIO to save on IT spend through outsourcing while maintaining required and expected service levels to internal customers and the organization. Ensuring that the service provider constantly meets their obligations so that the CIO can meet their obligation to the organization can be a constant challenge. This brings forth the importance of the Service Level Agreement.

    Research clearly indicates that there is a general lack of knowledge when comes to understanding the key elements of a Service Level Agreement (SLA). Even less understanding of the importance of the components of Service Levels and the Service Level Objectives (SLO) that service provider needs to meet so that the outsourced service consistently meets requirements of the organization. Most service providers are very good at providing the contracted service and they all are very good at presenting SLOs that are easy to meet with very few or no ramifications if they don’t meet their objectives. IT leaders need to be more resolute in only accepting SLOs that are meaningful to their requirements and have meaningful, proactive reporting and associated remedies to hold service providers accountable to their obligations.

    Ted Walker

    Principal Research Director, Vendor Practice

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Brief

    Vendors provide service level commitments to customers in contracts to show a level of trust, performance, availability, security, and responsiveness in an effort create a sense of confidence that their service or platform will meet your organization’s requirements and expectations. Sifting through these promises can be challenging for many IT Leaders. Customers struggle to understand and evaluate what’s in the SLA – are they meaningful and protect your investment? Not understanding the details of SLAs applicable to various types of Service (SaaS, MSP, Service Desk, DR, ISP) can lead to financial and compliance risk for the organization as well as poor customer satisfaction.

    This project will provide IT leadership the knowledge & tools that will allow them to:

    • Understand what SLAs are and why they need them.
    • Develop standard SLAs that meet the organization’s requirements.
    • Negotiate meaningful remedies aligned to Service Levels metrics or KPIs.
    • Create SLA monitoring & reporting and remedies requirements to hold the provider accountable.

    This research:

    1. Is designed for:
    • The CIO or CFO who needs to better understand their provider’s SLAs.
    • The CIO or BU that could benefit from improved service levels.
    • Vendor management who needs to standardize SLAs for the organization IT leadership that needs consistent service levels to the business
    • The contract manager who needs a better understanding of contact SLAs
  • Will help you:
    • Understand what a Service Level Agreement is and what it’s for
    • Learn what the components are of an SLA and why you need them
    • Create a checklist of required SLA elements for your organization
    • Develop standard SLA template requirements for various service types
    • Learn the importance of SLA management to hold providers accountable
  • Will also assist:
    • Vendor management
    • Procurement and sourcing
    • Organizations that need to understand SLAs within contract language
    • With creating standardized monitoring & reporting requirements
    • Organizations get better position remedies & credits to hold vendors accountable to their commitments
  • Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)

    Hold service providers more accountable to their contractual obligations with meaningful SLA components and remedies

    The Problem

    IT Leadership doesn't know how to evaluate an SLA.

    Misunderstanding of obligations given the type of service provided (SAAS, IAAS, DR/BCP, Service Desk)

    Expectations not being met, leading to poor service from the provider.

    No way to hold provider accountable.

    Why it matters

    SLAS are designed to ensure that outsourced IT services meet the requirements and expectations of the organization. Well-written SLAs with all the required elements, metrics, and remedies will allow IT departments to provide the service levels to their customer and avoid financial and contractual risk to the organization.

    The Solution

    1. Understand the key service elements within an SLA
    • Develop a solid understanding of the key elements within an SLA and why they're important.
  • Establish requirements to create SLA criteria
    • Prioritize contractual services and establish concise SLA checklists and performance metrics.
  • Manage SLA obligations to ensure commitments are met
    • Review the five steps for effective SLA management to track provider performance and deal with chronic issues.
  • Service types

    • Availability/Uptime
    • Response Times
    • Resolution Time
    • Accuracy
    • First-Call Resolution

    Agreement Types

    • SaaS/IaaS
    • Service Desk
    • MSP
    • Co-Location
    • DR/BCP
    • Security Ops

    Performance Metrics

    • Reporting
    • Remedies & Credits
    • Monitoring
    • Exclusion

    Example SaaS Provider

    • Response Times ✓
    • Availability/Uptime ✓
    • Resolution Time ✓
    • Update Times ✓
    • Coverage Time ✓
    • Monitoring ✓
    • Reporting ✓
    • Remedies/Credits ✓

    SLA Management Framework

    1. SLO Monitoring
    • SLOs must be monitored by the provider, otherwise they can't be measured.
  • Concise Reporting
    • This is the key element for the provider to validate their performance.
  • Attainment Tracking
    • Capturing SLO metric attainment provides performance trending for each provider.
  • Score carding
    • Tracking details provide input into overall vendor performance ratings.
  • Remedy Reconciliation
    • From SLO tracking, missed SLOs and associated credits needs to be actioned and consumed.
  • Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    To understand which SLAs are required for your organization and how they can differ depending on the service type. In addition, these other challenges can also cloud your knowledge of SLAs

    • No standardized SLA documents, Service levels, or metrics
    • Dealing with lost productivity & revenue due to persistent downtime
    • Understanding SLA components and what service levels are requires for a particular service
    • How to manage the SLA and hold the vendor accountable

    Common Obstacles

    There are several unknowns that SLA can present to different departments within the organization:

    • Little knowledge of what service levels are required
    • Not knowing SLO standards for a service type
    • Lack of resources to manage vendor obligations
    • Negotiating required metrics/KPIs with the provider
    • Low understanding of the risk that poor SLAs can present to the organization

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Info-Tech has a three-step approach to effective SLAs

    • Understand the elements of an SLA
    • Create Requirements for your organization
    • Manage the SLA obligations

    There are some basic components that every SLA should have – most don’t have half of what is required

    Info-Tech Insight

    SLAs need to have clear, easy to measure objectives to meet your expectations and service level requirements, including meaningful reporting and remedies to hold the provider accountable to their obligations.

    Your challenge

    This research is designed to help organizations gain a better understanding of what an SLA is, understand the importance of SLAs in IT contracts, and ensure organizations are provided with rock-solid SLAs that meet their requirements and not just what the vendor wants to provide.

    • Vendors can make SLAs weak and difficult to understand; sometimes the metrics are meaningless. Not fully understanding what makes up a good SLA can bring unknown risks to the organization.
    • Managing vendor SLA obligations effectively is important. Are adequate resources available? Does the vendor provide manual vs. automated processes and which do you need? Is the process proactive from the vendor or reactive from the customer?

    SLAs come in many variations and for many service types. Understanding what needs to be in them is one of the keys to reducing risk to your organization.

    “One of the biggest mistakes an IT leader can make is ignoring the ‘A’ in SLA,” adds Wendy M. Pfeiffer, CIO at Nutanix. “

    An agreement isn’t a one-sided declaration of IT capabilities, nor is it a one-sided demand of business requirements,” she says. “An agreement involves creating a shared understanding of desired service delivery and quality, calculating costs related to expectations, and then agreeing to outcomes in exchange for investment.” (15 SLA mistakes IT leaders still make | CIO)

    Common obstacles

    There are typically a lot of unknowns when it comes to SLAs and how to manage them.

    Most organizations don’t have a full understanding of what SLAs they require and how to ensure they are met by the vendor. Other obstacles that SLAs can present are:

    • Inadequate resources to create and manage SLAs
    • Poor awareness of standard or required SLA metrics/KPIs
    • Lack of knowledge about each provider’s commitment as well as your obligations
    • Low vendor willingness to provide or negotiate meaningful SLAs and credits
    • The know-how or resources to effectively monitor and manage the SLA’s performance

    SLAs need to address your requirements

    55% of businesses do not find all of their service desk metrics useful or valuable (Freshservice.com)

    27% of businesses spend four to seven hours a month collating metric reports (Freshservice.com)

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Understand the elements of an SLA
      • Availability
      • Monitoring
      • Response Times
      • SLO Calculation
      • Resolution Time
      • Reporting
      • Milestones
      • Exclusions
      • Accuracy
      • Remedies & Credits
    • Create standard SLA requirements and criteria
      • SLA Element Checklist
      • Corporate Requirements and Standards
      • SLA Templates and Policy
    • Effectively Manage the SLA Obligations
      • SLA Management Framework
        • SLO Monitoring
        • Concise Reporting
        • Attainment Tracking
        • Score Carding
        • Remedy Reconciliation

    Info-Tech’s three phase approach

    Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

    Phase 1

    Understand SLA Elements

    Phase Content:

    • 1.1 What are SLAs, types of SLAs, and why are they needed?
    • 1.2 Elements of an SLA
    • 1.3 Obligation management monitoring, Reporting requirements
    • 1.4 Exclusions
    • 1.5 SLAs vs. SLOs vs. SLIs

    Outcome:

    This phase will present you with an understanding of the elements of an SLA: What they are, why you need them, and how to validate them.

    Phase 2

    Create Requirements

    Phase Content:

    • 2.1 Create a list of your SLA criteria
    • 2.2 Develop SLA policy & templates
    • 2.3 Create a negotiation strategy
    • 2.4 SLA Overachieving discussion

    Outcome:

    This phase will leverage knowledge gained in Phase 1 and guide you through the creation of SLA requirements, criteria, and templates to ensure that providers meet the service level obligations needed for various service types to meet your organization’s service expectations.

    Phase 3

    Manage Obligations

    Phase Content:

    • 3.1 SLA Monitoring, Tracking
    • 3.2 Reporting
    • 3.3 Vendor SLA Reviews & Optimizing
    • 3.4 Performance management

    Outcome:

    This phase will provide you with an SLA management framework and the best practices that will allow you to effectively manage service providers and their SLA obligations.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight

    SLAs need to have clear, easy-to-measure objectives to meet your expectations and service level requirements, including meaningful reporting and remedies to hold the provider accountable to their obligations.

    Phase 1 insight

    Not understanding the required elements of an SLA and not having meaningful remedies to hold service providers accountable to their obligations can present several risk factors to your organization.

    Phase 2 insight

    Creating standard SLA criteria for your organization’s service providers will ensure consistent service levels for your business units and customers.

    Phase 3 insight

    SLAs can have appropriate SLOs and remedies but without effective management processes they could become meaningless.

    Tactical insight

    Be sure to set SLAs that are easily measurable from regularly accessible data and that are straight forward to interpret.

    Tactical insight

    Beware of low, easy to attain service levels and metrics/KPIs. Service levels need to meet your expectations and needs not the vendor’s.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    SLA Tracker & Trending Tool

    Track the provider’s SLO attainment and see how their performance is trending over time

    SLA Evaluation Tool

    Evaluate SLA service levels, metrics, credit values, reporting, and other elements

    SLA Template & Metrics Reference Guide

    Reference guide for typical SLA metrics with a generic SLA Template

    Service-Level Agreement Checklist

    Complete SLA component checklist for core SLA and contractual elements.

    Key deliverable:

    Service-Level Agreement Evaluation Tool

    Evaluate each component of the SLA , including service levels, metrics, credit values, reporting, and processes to meet your requirements

    Blueprint objectives

    Understand the components of an SLA and effectively manage their obligations

    • To provide an understanding of different types of SLAs, their required elements, and what they mean to your organization. How to identify meaningful service levels based on service types. We will break down the elements of the SLA such as service types and define service levels such as response times, availability, accuracy, and associated metrics or KPIs to ensure they are concise and easy to measure.
    • To show how important it is that all metrics have remedies to hold the service provider accountable to their SLA obligations.

    Once you have this knowledge you will be able to create and negotiate SLA requirements to meet your organization’s needs and then manage them effectively throughout the term of the agreement.

    InfoTech Insight:

    Right-size your requirements and create your SLO criteria based on risk mitigation and create measurements that motivate the desired behavior from the SLA.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • An understanding of standard SLA service levels and metrics
    • Reduced financial risk through clear and concise easy-to-measure metrics and KPIs
    • Improved SLA commitments from the service provider
    • Meaningful reporting and remedies to hold the provider accountable
    • Service levels and metrics that meet your requirements to support your customers

    Business Benefits

    • Better understanding of an SLA framework and required SLA elements
    • Improved vendor performance
    • Standardized service levels and metrics aligned to your organization’s requirements
    • Reduced time in reviewing and comprehending vendor SLAs
    • Consistent performance from your service providers

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    1. Dollars Saved
    • Improved performance from your service provider
    • Reduced financial risk through meaningful service levels & remedies
    • Dollars gained through:
      • Reconciled credits from obligation tracking and management
      • Savings due to automated processes
  • Time Saved
    • Reduced time in creating effective SLAs through requirement templates
    • Time spent tracking and managing SLA obligations
    • Reduced negotiation time
    • Time spent tracking and reconciling credits
  • Knowledge Gained
    • Understanding of SLA elements, service levels, service types, reporting, and remedies
    • Standard metrics and KPIs required for various service types and levels
    • How to effectively manage the service provider obligations
    • Tactics to negotiate appropriate service levels to meet your requirements
  • 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 wound help keep us on track."

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

    A typical GI is between three to six calls over the course of two to three months.

    Phase 1 - Understand

    • Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific SLA challenges

    Phase 2 - Create Requirements

    • Call #2: Review key SLA and how to identify them
    • Call #3: Deep dive into SLA elements and why you need them
    • Call #4: Review your service types and SLA criteria
    • Call #5: Create internal SLA requirements and templates

    Phase 3 - Management

    • Call #6: Review SLA Management Framework
    • Call #7: Review and create SLA Reporting and Tracking

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    Day 1 Day 2
    Understanding SLAs SLA Templating & Management
    Activities

    1.1 SLA overview, objectives, SLA types, service levels

    1.2 SLA elements and objectives

    1.3 SLA components – monitoring, reporting, remedies

    1.4 SLA Checklist review

    2.1 Creating SLA criteria and requirements

    2.2 SLA policy & template

    2.3 SLA evaluation activity

    2.4 SLA management framework

    2.5 SLA monitoring, tracking, remedy reconciliation

    Deliverables
    1. SLA Checklist
    2. SLA policy & template creation
    3. SLA management gap analysis
    1. Evaluation of current SLAs
    2. SLA tracking and trending
    3. Create internal SLA management framework

    Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

    Phase 1

    Phase 1

    Understand SLA Elements

    Phase Steps

    • 1.1 What are SLAs, the types of SLAs, and why are they needed?
    • 1.2 Elements of an SLA
    • 1.3 Obligation management monitoring, Reporting requirements
    • 1.4 Exclusions and exceptions
    • 1.5 SLAs vs. SLOs vs. SLIs

    Create Requirements

    Manage Obligations

    1.1 What are SLAs, the types of SLAs, and why are they needed?

    SLA Overview

    What is a Service Level Agreement?

    An SLA is an overarching contractual agreement between a service provider and a customer (can be external or internal) that describes the services that will be delivered by the provider. It describes the service levels and associated performance metrics and expectations, how the provider will show it has attained the SLAs, and defines any remedies or credits that would apply if the provider fails to meet its commitments. Some SLAs also include a change or revision process.

    SLAs come in a few forms. Some are unique, separate, standalone documents that define the service types and levels in more detail and is customized to your needs. Some are separate documents that apply to a service and are web posted or linked to an MSA or SSA. The most common is to have them embedded in, or as an appendix to an MSA or SSA. When negotiating an MSA it’s generally more effective to negotiate better service levels and metrics at the same time.

    Objectives of an SLA

    To be effective, SLAs need to have clearly described objectives that define the service type(s) that the service provider will perform, along with commitment to associated measurable metrics or KPIs that are sufficient to meet your expectations. The goal of these service levels and metrics is to ensure that the service provider is committed to providing the service that you require, and to allow you to maintain service levels to your customers whether internal or external.

    1.1 What are SLAs, the types of SLAs, and why are they needed?

    Key Elements of an SLA

    Principle service elements of an SLA

    There are several more common service-related elements of an SLA. These generally include:

    • The Agreement – the document that defines service levels and commitments.
    • The service types – the type of service being provided by the vendor. These can include SaaS, MSP, Service Desk, Telecom/network, PaaS, Co-Lo, BCP, etc.
    • The service levels – these are the measurable performance objectives of the SLA. They include availability (uptime), response times, restore times, priority level, accuracy level, resolution times, event prevention, completion time, etc.
    • Metrics/KPIs – These are the targets or commitments associated to the service level that the service provider is obligated to meet.
    • Other elements – Reporting requirements, monitoring, remedies/credit values and process.

    Contractual Construct Elements

    These are construct components of an SLA that outline their roles and responsibilities, T&Cs, escalation process, etc.

    In addition, there are several contractual-type elements including, but not limited to:

    • A statement regarding the purpose of the SLA.
    • A list of services being supplied (service types).
    • An in-depth description of how services will be provided and when.
    • Vendor and customer requirements.
    • Vendor and customer obligations.
    • Acknowledgment/acceptance of the SLA.
    • They also list each party’s responsibilities and how issues will be escalated and resolved.

    Common types of SLAs explained

    Service-level SLA

    • This service-level agreement construct is the Service-based SLA. This SLA covers an identified service for all customers in general (for example, if an IT service provider offers customer response times for a service to several customers). In a service-based agreement, the response times would be the same and apply to all customers using the service. Any customer using the service would be provided the same SLA – in this case the same defined response time.

    Customer-based SLA

    • A customer-based SLA is a unique agreement with one customer. The entire agreement is defined for one or all service levels provided to a particular customer (for example, you may use several services from one telecom vendor). The SLAs for these services would be covered in one contract between you and the vendor, creating a unique customer-based vendor agreement. Another scenario could be where a vendor offers general SLAs for its services but you negotiate a specific SLA for a particular service that is unique or exclusive to you. This would be a customer-based SLA as well.

    Multi-level SLA

    • This service-level agreement construct is the multi-level SLA. In a multi-level SLA, components are defined to the organizational levels of the customer with cascading coverage to sublevels of the organization. The SLA typically entails all services and is designed to the cover each sub-level or department within the organization. Sometimes the multi-level SLA is known as a master organization SLA as it cascades to several levels of the organization.

    InfoTech Insight: Beware of low, easy to attain Service levels and metrics/KPIs. Service levels need to meet your requirements, expectations, and needs not the vendor’s.

    1.2 Elements of SLA-objectives, service types, and service levels

    Objectives of Service Levels

    The objective of the service levels and service credits are to:

    • Ensure that the services are of a consistently high quality and meet the requirements of the customer
    • Provide a mechanism whereby the customer can attain meaningful recognition of the vendors failure to deliver the level of service for which it was contracted to deliver
    • Incentivize the vendor or service provider to comply with and to expeditiously provide a remedy for any failure to attain the service levels committed to in the SLA
    • To ensure that the service provider fulfills the defined objectives of the outsourced service

    Service types

    There are several service types that can be part of an SLA. Service types are the different nature of services associated with the SLA that the provider is performing and being measured against. These can include:

    Service Desk, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, ISP/Telecom/Network MSP, DR & BCP, Co-location security ops, SOW.

    Each service type should have standard service level targets or obligations that can vary depending on your requirements and reliance on the service being provided.

    Service levels

    Service levels are measurable targets, metrics, or KPIs that the service provider has committed to for the particular service type. Service levels are the key element of SLAs – they are the performance expectations set between you and the provider. The service performance of the provider is measured against the service level commitments. The ability of the provider to consistently meet these metrics will allow your organization to fully benefit from the objectives of the service and associated SLAs. Most service levels are time related but not all are.

    Common service levels are:

    Response times, resolution times per percent, restore/recovery times, accuracy, availability/uptime, completion/milestones, updating/communication, latency.

    Each service level has standard or minimum metrics for the provider. The metrics, or KPIs, should be relatively easy to measure and report against on a regular basis. Service levels are generally negotiable to meet your requirements.

    1.2.1 Activity SLA Checklist Tool

    1-2 hours

    Input

    • SLA content, Service elements
    • Contract terms & exclusions
    • Service metrices/KPIs

    Output

    • A concise list of SLA components
    • A list of missing SLA elements
    • Evaluation of the SLA

    Materials

    • Comprehensive checklist
    • Service provider SLA
    • Internal templates or policies

    Participants

    • Vendor or contract manager
    • IT or business unit manager
    • Legal
    • Finance

    Using this checklist will help you review a provider’s SLA to ensure it contains adequate service levels and remedies as well as contract-type elements.

    Instructions:

    Use the checklist to identify the principal service level elements as well as the contractual-type elements within the SLA.

    Review the SLA and use the dropdowns in the checklist to verify if the element is in the SLA and whether it is within acceptable parameters as well the page or section for reference.

    The checklist contains a list of service types that can be used for reference of what SLA elements you should expect to see in that service type SLA.

    Download the SLA Checklist Tool

    1.3 Monitoring, reporting requirements, remedies/credit process

    Monitoring & Reporting

    As mentioned, well-defined service levels are key to the success of the SLA. Validating that the metrics/KPIs are being met on a consistent basis requires regular monitoring and reporting. These elements of the SLA are how you hold the provider accountable to the SLA commitments and obligations. To achieve the service level, the service must be monitored to validate that timelines are met and accuracy is achieved.

    • Data or details from monitoring must then be presented in a report and delivered to the customer in an agreed-upon format. These formats can be in a dashboard, portal, spreadsheet, or csv file, and they must have sufficient criteria to validate the service-level metric. Reports should be kept for future review and to create historical trending.
    • Monitoring and reporting should be the responsibility of the service provider. This is the only way that they can validate to the customer that a service level has been achieved.
    • Reporting criteria and delivery timelines should be defined in the SLA and can even have a service level associated with it, such as a scheduled report delivery on the fifth day of the following month.
    • Reports need to be checked and balanced. When defining report criteria, be sure to define data source(s) that can be easily validated by both parties.
    • Report criteria should include compliance requirements, target metric/KPIs, and whether they were attained.
    • The report should identify any attainment shortfall or missed KPIs.

    Too many SLAs do not have these elements as often the provider tries to put the onus on the customer to monitor their performance of the service levels. .

    1.3.1 Monitoring, reporting requirements, remedies/credit process

    Remedies and Credits

    Service-level reports validate the performance of the service provider to the SLA metrics or KPIs. If the metrics are met, then by rights, the service provider is doing its job and performing up to expectations of the SLA and your organization.

    • What if the metrics are not being met either periodically or consistently? Solving this is the goal of remedies. Remedies are typically monetary costs (in some form) to the provider that they must pay for not meeting a service-level commitment. Credits can vary significantly and should be aligned to the severity of the missed service level. Sometimes there no credits offered by the vendor. This is a red flag in an SLA.
    • Typically expressed as a monetary credit, the SLA will have service levels and associated credits if the service-level metric/KPI is not met during the reporting period. Credits can be expressed in a dollar format, often defined as a percentage of a monthly fee or prorated annual fee. Although less common, some SLAs offer non-financial credits. These could include: an extension to service term, additional modules, training credits, access to a higher support level, etc.
    • Regardless of how the credit is presented, this is typically the only way to hold your provider accountable to their commitments and to ensure they perform consistently to expectations. You must do a rough calculation to validate the potential monetary value and if the credit is meaningful enough to the provider.

    Research shows that credit values that equate to just a few dollars, when you are paying the provider tens of thousands of dollars a month for a service or product, the credit is insignificant and therefore doesn’t incent the provider to achieve or maintain a service level.

    1.3.2 Monitoring, reporting requirements, remedies/credit process

    Credit Process

    Along with meaningful credit values, there must be a defined credit calculation method and credit redemption process in the SLA.

    Credit calculation. The credit calculation should be simple and straight forward. Many times, we see providers define complicated methods of calculating the credit value. In some cases complicated service levels require higher effort to monitor and report on, but this shouldn’t mean that the credit for missing the service level needs to require the same effort to calculate. Do a sample credit calculation to validate if the potential credit value is meaningful enough or meets your requirements.

    Credit redemption process. The SLA should define the process of how a credit is provided to the customer. Ideally the process should be fairly automated by the service provider. If the report shows a missed service level, that should trigger a credit calculation and credit value posted to account followed by notification. In many SLAs that we review, the credit process is either poorly defined or not defined at all. When it is defined, the process typically requires the customer to follow an onerous process and submit a credit request that must then be validated by the provider and then, if approved, posted to your account to be applied at year end as long as you are in complete compliance with the agreement and up-to-date on your account etc. This is what we need to avoid in provider-written SLAs. You need a proactive process where the service provider takes responsibility for missing an SLA and automatically assigns an accurate credit to your account with an email notice.

    Secondary level remedies. These are remedies for partial performance. For example, the platform is accessible but some major modules are not working (i.e.: the payroll platform is up and running and accessible but the tax table is not working properly so you can’t complete your payroll run on-time). Consider the requirement of a service level, metric, and remedy for critical components of a service and not just the platform availability.

    Info-Tech Insight SLA’s without adequate remedies to hold the vendor accountable to their commitments make the SLAs essentially meaningless.

    1.4 Exclusions indemnification, force majeure, scheduled maintenance

    Contract-Related Exclusions

    Attaining service-level commitments by the provider within an SLA can depend on other factors that could greatly influence their performance to service levels. Most of these other factors are common and should be defined in the SLA as exclusions or exceptions. Exceptions/exclusions can typically apply to credit calculations as well. Typical exceptions to attaining service levels are:

    • Denial of Service (DoS) attacks
    • Communication/ISP outage
    • Outages of third-party hosting
    • Actions or inactions of the client or third parties
    • Scheduled maintenance but not emergency maintenance
    • Force majeure events which can cover several different scenarios

    Attention should be taken to review the exceptions to ensure they are in fact not within the reasonable control of the provider. Many times the provider will list several exclusions. Often these are not reasonable or can be avoided, and in most cases, they allow the service provider the opportunity to show unjustified service-level achievements. These should be negotiated out of the SLA.

    1.5 Activity SLA Evaluation Tool

    1-2 hours

    Input

    • SLA content
    • SLA elements
    • SLA objectives
    • SLO calculation methods

    Output

    • Rating of the SLA service levels and objectives
    • Overall rating of the SLA content
    • Targeted list of required improvements

    Materials

    • SLA comprehensive checklist
    • Service provider SLA

    Participants

    • Vendor or contract manager
    • IT manager or leadership
    • Application or business unit manager

    The SLA Evaluation Tool will allow you evaluate an SLA for content. Enter details into the tool and evaluate the service levels and SLA elements and components to ensure the agreement contains adequate SLOs to meet your organization’s service requirements.

    Instructions:

    Review and identify SLA elements within the service provider’s SLA.

    Enter service-level details into the tool and rate the SLOs.

    Enter service elements details, validate that all required elements are in the SLA, and rate them accordingly.

    Capture and evaluate service-level SLO calculations.

    Review the overall rating for the SLA and create a targeted list for improvements with the service provider.

    Download the SLA Evaluation Tool

    1.5 Clarification: SLAs vs. SLOs vs. SLIs

    SLA – Service-Level Agreement The promise or commitment

    • This is the formal agreement between you and your service provider that contains their service levels and obligations with measurable metrics/KPIs and associated remedies. SLAs can be a separate or unique document, but are most commonly embedded within an MSA, SOW, SaaS, etc. as an addendum or exhibit.

    SLO – Service-Level Objective The goals or targets

    • This service-level agreement construct is the customer-based SLA. A Customer-based SLA is a unique agreement with one customer. The entire agreement is defined for one or all service levels provided to a particular customer. For example, you may use several services from one telecom vendor. The SLAs for these services would be covered in one contract between you and the Telco vendor, creating a unique customer-based to vendor agreement. Another scenario: a vendor offers general SLAs for its services and you negotiate a specific SLA for a particular service that is unique or exclusive to you. This would be a customer-based SLA as well.

    Other common names are Metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs )

    SLI – Service-Level Indicator How did we do? Did we achieve the objectives?

    • An SLI is the actual metric attained after the measurement period. SLI measures compliance with an SLO (service level objective). So, for example, if your SLA specifies that your systems will be available 99.95% of the time, your SLO is 99.95% uptime and your SLI is the actual measurement of your uptime. Maybe it’s 99.96%. maybe 99.99% or even 99.75% For the vendor to be compliant to the SLA, the SLI(s) must meet or exceed the SLOs within the SLA document.

    Other common names: attainment, results, actual

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Web-posted SLAs that are not embedded within a signed MSA, can present uncertainty and risk as they can change at any time and typically without direct notice to the customer

    Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

    Phase 2

    Understand SLA Elements

    Phase 2

    Create Requirements

    Phase Steps

    • 2.1 Create a list of your SLA criteria
    • 2.2 Develop SLA policy & templates
    • 2.3 Create a negotiation strategy
    • 2.4 SLA overachieving discussion

    Manage Obligations

    2.1 Create a list of your SLA criteria

    Principle Service Elements

    With your understanding of the types of SLAs and the elements that comprise a well-written agreement

    • The next step is to start to create a set of SLA criteria for service types that your organization outsources or may require in the future.
    • This criteria should define the elements of the SLA with tolerance levels that will require the provider to meet your service expectations.
    • Service levels, metrics/KPIs, associated remedies and reporting criteria. This criteria could be captured into table-like templates that can be referenced or inserted into service provider SLAs.
    • Once you have defined minimum service-level criteria, we recommend that you do a deeper review of the various service provider types that your organization has in place. The goal of the review is to understand the objective of the service type and associated service levels and then compare them to your requirements for the service to meet your expectations. Service levels and KPIs should be no less than if your IT department was providing the service with its own resources and infrastructure.
    • Most IT departments have service levels that they are required to meet with their infrastructure to the business units or organization, whether it’s App delivery, issue or problem resolution, availability etc. When any of these services are outsourced to an external service provider, you need to make all efforts to ensure that the service levels are equal to or better than the previous or existing internal expectations.
    • Additionally, the goal is to identify service levels and metrics that don’t meet your requirements or expectations and/or service levels that are missing.

    2.2 Develop SLA policies and templates

    Contract-type Elements

    After creating templates for minimum-service metrics & KPIs, reporting criteria templates, process, and timing, the next step should be to work on contract-type elements and additional service-level components. These elements should include:

    • Reporting format, criteria, and timelines
    • Monitoring requirements
    • Minimum acceptable remedy or credits process; proactive by provider vs. reactive by customer
    • Roles & responsibilities
    • Acceptable exclusion details
    • Termination language for persistent failure to meet SLOs

    These templates or criteria minimums can be used as guidelines or policy when creating or negotiating SLAs with a service provider.

    Start your initial element templates for your strategic vendors and most common service types: SaaS, IaaS, Service Desk, SecOps, etc. The goal of SLA templates is to create simple minimum guidelines for service levels that will allow you to meet your internal SLAs and expectations. Having SLA templates will show the service provider that you understand your requirements and may put you in a better negotiating position when reviewing with the provider.

    When considering SLO metrics or KPIs consider the SMART guidance:

    Simple: A KPI should be easy to measure. It should not be complicated, and the purpose behind recording it must be documented and communicated.

    Measurable: A KPI that cannot be measured will not help in the decision-making process. The selected KPIs must be measurable, whether qualitatively or quantitatively. The procedure for measuring the KPIs must be consistent and well-defined.

    Actionable: KPIs should contribute to the decision-making process of your organization. A KPI that does not make any such contributions serves no purpose.

    Relevant: KPIs must be related to operations or functions that a security team seeks to assess.

    Time-based: KPIs should be flexible enough to demonstrate changes over time. In a practical sense, an ideal KPI can be grouped together by different time intervals.

    (Guide for Security Operations Metrics)

    2.2.1 Activity: Review SLA Template & Metrics Reference Guide

    1-2 hours

    Input

    • Service level metrics
    • List of who is accountable for PPM decisions

    Output

    • SLO templates for service types
    • SLA criteria that meets your organization’s requirements

    Materials

    • SLA Checklist
    • SLA criteria list with SLO & credit values
    • PPM Decision Review Workbook

    Participants

    • Vendor manager
    • IT leadership
    • Procurement or contract manager
    1. Review the SLA Template and Metrics Reference Guide for common metrics & KPIs for the various service types. Each Service Type tab has SLA elements and SLO metrics typically associated with the type of service.
    2. Some service levels have common or standard credits* that are typically associated with the service level or metric.
    3. Use the SLA Template to enter service levels, metrics, and credits that meet your organization’s criteria or requirements for a given service type.

    Download the SLA Template & Metrics Reference Guide

    *Credit values are not standard values, rather general ranges that our research shows to be the typical ranges that credit values should be for a given missed service level

    2.3 Create a negotiation strategy

    Once you have created service-level element criteria templates for your organization’s requirements, it’s time to document a negotiation position or strategy to use when negotiating with service providers. Not all providers are flexible with their SLA commitments, in fact most are reluctant to change or create “unique” SLOs for individual customers. Particularly cloud vendors providing IaaS, SaaS, or PaaS, SLAs. ISP/Telcom, Co-Lo and DR/BU providers also have standard SLOs that they don’t like to stray far from. On the other hand, security ops (SIEM), service desk, hardware, and SOW/PS providers who are generally contracted to provide variable services are somewhat more flexible with their SLAs and more willing to meet your requirements.

    • Service providers want to avoid being held accountable to SLOs, and their SLAs are typically written to reflect that.

    The goal of creating internal SLA templates and policies is to set a minimum baseline of service levels that your organization is willing to accept, and that will meet their requirements and expectations for the outsourced service. Using these templated SLOs will set the basis for negotiating the entire SLA with the provider. You can set the SLA purpose, objectives, roles, and responsibilities and then achieve these from the service provider with solid SLOs and associated reporting and remedies.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Web-posted SLAs that are not embedded within a signed MSA can present uncertainty and risk as they can change at any time and typically without direct notice to the customer

    2.3.1 Negotiating strategy guidance

    • Be prepared. Create a negotiating plan and put together a team that understands your organization’s requirements for SLA.
    • Stay informed. Request provider’s recent performance data and negotiate SLOs to the provider’s average performance.
    • Know what you need. Corporate SLA templates or policies should be positioned to service providers as baseline minimums.
    • Show some flexibility. Be willing to give up some ground on one SLO in exchange for acceptance of SLOs that may be more important to your organization.
    • Re-group. Have a fallback position or Plan B. What if the provider can’t or won’t meet your key SLOs? Do you walk?
    • Do your homework. Understand what the typical standard SLOs are for the type of service level.

    2.4 SLO overachieving incentive discussion

    Monitoring & Reporting

    • SLO overachieving metrics are seen in some SLAs where there is a high priority for a service provider to meet and or exceed the SLOs within the SLA. These are not common terms but can be used to improve the overall service levels of a provider. In these scenarios the provider is sometimes rewarded for overachieving on the SLOs, either consistently or on a monthly or quarterly basis. In some cases, it can make financial sense to incent the service provider to overachieve on their commitments. Incentives can drive behaviors and improved performance by the provider that can intern improve the benefits to your organization and therefore justify an incent of some type.
    • Example: You could have an SLO for invoice accuracy. If not achieved, it could cost the vendor if they don’t meet the accuracy metric, however if they were to consistently overachieve the metric it could save accounts payable hours of time in validation and therefore you could pass on some of these measurable savings to the provider.
    • Overachieving incentives can add complexity to the SLA so they need to be easily measurable and simple to manage.
    • Overachieving incentives can also be used in provider performance improvement plans, where a provider might have poor trending attainment and you need to have them improve their performance in a short period of time. Incentives typically will motivate provider improvement and generally will cost much less than replacing the provider.
    • There is another school of thought that you shouldn’t have to pay a provider for doing their job; however, others are of the opinion that incentives or bonuses improve the overall performance of individuals or teams and are therefore worth consideration if both parties benefit from the over performance.

    Reduce Risk With Rock-Solid Service-Level Agreements

    Phase 3

    Understand SLA Elements

    Create Requirements

    Phase 3

    Manage Obligations

    Phase Steps

    • 3.1 SLA monitoring and tracking
    • 3.2 Reporting
    • 3.3 Vendor SLA reviews & optimizing
    • 3.4 Performance management

    3.1 SLA monitoring, tracking, and remedy reconciliation

    The next step to effective SLAs is the management component. It could be fruitless if you were to spend your time and efforts negotiating your required service levels and metrics and don’t have some level of managing the SLA. In that situation you would have no way of knowing if the service provider is attaining their SLOs.

    There are several key elements to effective SLA management:

    • SLO monitoring
    • Simple, concise reporting
    • SLO attainment tracking
    • Score carding & trending
    • Remedy reconciliation

    SLA Management framework

    SLA Monitoring → Concise Reporting → Attainment Tracking → Score Carding →Remedy Reconciliation

    “A shift we’re beginning to see is an increased use of data and process discovery tools to measure SLAs,” says Borowski of West Monroe. “While not pervasive yet, these tools represent an opportunity to identify the most meaningful metrics and objectively measure performance (e.g., cycle time, quality, compliance). When provided by the client, it also eliminates the dependency on provider tools as the source-of-truth for performance data.” – Stephanie Overby

    3.1 SLA management framework

    SLA Performance Management

    • SLA monitoring provides data for SLO reports or dashboards. Reports provide attainment data for tacking over time. Attainment data feeds scorecards and allows for trending analysis. Missed attainment data triggers remedies.
    • All service providers monitor their systems, platforms, tickets, agents, sensors etc. to be able to do their jobs. Therefore, monitoring is readily available from your service provider in some form.
    • One of the key purposes of monitoring is to generate data into internal reports or dashboards that capture the performance metrics of the various services. Therefore, service-level and metric reports are readily available for all of the service levels that a service provider is contracted or engaged to provide.
    • Monitoring and reporting are the key elements that validate how your service provider is meeting its SLA obligations and thus are very important elements of an SLA. SLO report data becomes attainment data once the metric or KPI has been captured.
    • As a component of effective SLA management, this attainment data needs to be tracked/recorded in an easy-to-read format or table over a period of time. Attainment data can then be used to generate scorecards and trending reports for your review both internally and with the provider as required.
    • If attainment data shows that the service provider is meeting their SLA obligations, then the SLA is meeting your requirements and expectations. If on the other hand, attainment data shows that obligations are not being met, then actions must be taken to hold the service provider accountable. The most common method is through remedies that are typically in the form of a credit through a defined process (see Sec. 1.3). Any credits due for missed SLOs should also be tracked and reported to stakeholders and accounting for validation, reconciliation, and collection.

    3.2 Reporting

    Monitoring & Reporting

    • Many SLAs are silent on monitoring and reporting elements and require that the customer, if aware or able, to monitor the providers service levels and attainment and create their own KPI and reports. Then if SLOs are not met there is an arduous process that the customer must go through to request their rightful credit. This manual and reactive method creates all kinds of risk and cost to the customer and they should make all attempts to ensure that the service provider proactively provides SLO/KPI attainment reports on a regular basis.
    • Automated monitoring and reporting is a common task for many IT departments. There is no reason that a service provider can’t send reports proactively in a format that can be easily interpreted by the customer. The ideal state would be to capture KPI report data into a customer’s internal service provider scorecard.
    • Automated or automatic credit posting is another key element that service providers tend to ignore, primarily in hopes that the customer won’t request or go through the trouble of the process. This needs to change. Some large cloud vendors already have automated processes that automatically post a credit to your account if they miss an SLO. This proactive credit process should be at the top of your negotiation checklist. Service providers are avoiding thousands of credit dollars every year based on the design of their credit process. As more customers push back and negotiate more efficient credit processes, vendors will soon start to change and may use it as a differentiator with their service.

    3.2.1 Performance tracking and trending

    What gets measured gets done

    SLO Attainment Tracking

    A primary goal of proactive and automated reporting and credit process is to capture the provider’s attainment data into a tracker or vendor scorecard. These tracking scorecards can easily create status reports and performance trending of service providers, to IT leadership as well as feed QBR agenda content.

    Remedy Reconciliation

    Regardless of how a credit is processed it should be tracked and reconciled with internal stakeholders and accounting to ensure credits are duly applied or received from the provider and in a timely manner. Tracking and reconciliation must also align with your payment terms, whether monthly or annually.

    “While the adage, ‘You can't manage what you don't measure,’ continues to be true, the downside for organizations using metrics is that the provider will change their behavior to maximize their scores on performance benchmarks.” – Rob Lemos

    3.2.1 Activity SLA Tracker and Trending Tool

    1-2 hours setup

    Input

    • SLO metrics/KPIs from the SLA
    • Credit values associated with SLO

    Output

    • Monthly SLO attainment data
    • Credit tracking
    • SLO trending graphs

    Materials

    • Service provider SLO reports
    • Service provider SLA
    • SLO Tracker & Trending Tool

    Participants

    • Contract or vendor managers
    • Application or service managers
    • Service provider

    An important activity in the SLA management framework is to track the provider’s SLO attainment on a monthly or quarterly basis. In addition, if an SLO is missed, an associated credit needs to be tracked and captured. This activity allows you to capture the SLOs from the SLA and track them continually and provide data for trending and review at vendor performance meetings and executive updates.

    Instructions: Enter SLOs from the SLA as applicable.

    Each month, from the provider’s reports or dashboards, enter the SLO metric attainment.

    When an SLO is met, the cell will turn green. If the SLO is missed, the cell will turn red and a corresponding cell in the Credit Tracker will turn green, meaning that a credit needs to be reconciled.

    Use the Trending tab to view trending graphs of key service levels and SLOs.

    Download the SLO Tracker and Trending Tool

    3.3 Vendor SLA reviews and optimizing

    Regular reviews should be done with providers

    Collecting attainment data with scorecards or tracking tools provides summary information on the performance of the service provider to their SLA obligations. This information should be used for regular reviews both internally and with the provider.

    Regular attainment reviews should be used for:

    • Performance trending upward or downward
    • Identifying opportunities to revise or improve SLOs
    • Optimizing SLO and processes
    • Creating a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) for the service provider

    Some organizations choose to review SLA performance with providers at regular QBRs or at specific SLA review meetings

    This should be determined based on the criticality, risk, and strategic importance of the provider’s service. Providers that provide essential services like ERP, payroll, CRM, HRIS, IaaS etc. should be reviewed much more regularly to ensure that any decline in service is identified early and addressed properly in accordance with the service provider. Negative trending performance should also be documented for consideration at renewal time.

    3.4 Performance management

    Dealing with persistent poor performance and termination

    Service providers that consistently miss key service level metrics or KPIs present financial and security risk to the organization. Poor performance of a service provider reflects directly on the IT leadership and will affect many other business aspects of the organization including:

    • Ability to conduct day-to-day business activities
    • Meet internal obligations and expectations
    • Employee productivity and satisfaction
    • Maintain corporate policies or industry compliance
    • Meet security requirements

    Communication is key. Poor performance of a service provider needs to be dealt with in a timely manner in order to avoid more critical impact of the poor performance. Actions taken with the provider can also vary depending again on the criticality, risk, and strategic importance of the provider’s service.

    Performance reviews should provide the actions required with the goal of:

    • Making the performance problems into opportunities
    • Working with the provider to create a PIP with aggressive timelines and ramifications if not attained
    • Non-renewal or termination consideration, if feasible including provider replacement options, risk, costs, etc.
    • SLA renegotiation or revisions
    • Warning notifications to the service provider with concise issues and ramifications

    To avoid the issues and challenges of dealing with chronic poor performance, consider a Persistent or Chronic Failure clause into the SLA contract language. These clauses can define chronic failure, scenarios, ramifications there of, and defined options for the client including increased credit values, non-monetary remedies, and termination options without liability.

    Info-Tech Insight

    It’s difficult to prevent chronic poor performance but you can certainly track it and deal with it in a way that reduces risk and cost to your organization.

    SLA Hall of Shame

    Crazy service provider SLA content collection

    • Excessive list of unreasonable exclusions
    • Subcontractors’ behavior could be excluded
    • Downtime credit, equal to downtime percent x the MRC
    • Controllable FM events (internal labor issues, health events)
    • Difficult downtime or credit calculations that don’t make sense
    • Credits are not valid if agreement is terminated early or not renewed
    • Customer is not current on their account, SLA or credits do not count/apply
    • Total downtime = to prorated credit value (down 3 hrs = 3/720hrs = 0.4% credit)
    • SLOs don’t apply if customer fails to report the issue or request a trouble ticket
    • Downtime during off hours (overnight) do not count towards availability metrics
    • Different availability commitments based on different support-levels packages
    • Extending the agreement term by the length of downtime as a form of a remedy

    SLA Dos and Don’ts

    Dos

    • Do negotiate SLOs to vendor’s average performance
    • Do strive for automated reporting and credit processes
    • Do right-size and create your SLO criteria based on risk mitigation
    • Do review SLA attainment results with strategic service providers on a regular basis
    • Do ensure that all key elements and components of an SLA are present in the document or appendix

    Don'ts

    • Don’t accept the providers response that “we can’t change the SLOs for you because then we’d have to change them for everyone”
    • Don’t leave SLA preparation to the last minute. Give it priority as you negotiate with the provider
    • Don’t create complex SLAs with numerous service levels and SLOs that need to be reported and managed
    • Don’t aim for absolute perfection. Rather, prioritize which service levels are most important to you for the service

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    Knowledge Gained

    • Understanding of the elements and components of an SLA
    • A list of SLO metrics aligned to service types that meet your organization’s criteria
    • SLA metric/KPI templates
    • SLA Management process for your provider’s service objectives
    • Reporting and tracking process for performance trending

    Deliverables Completed

    • SLA component and contract element checklist
    • Evaluation or service provider SLAs
    • SLA templates for strategic service types
    • SLA tracker for strategic service providers

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

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Improve IT-Business Alignment Through an Internal SLA

    • Understand business requirements, clarify current capabilities, and enable strategies to close service-level gaps.

    Data center Co-location SLA & Service Definition Template

    • In essence, the SLA defines the “product” that is being purchased, permitting the provider to rationalize resources to best meet the needs of varied clients, and permits the buyer to ensure that business requirements are being met.

    Ensure Cloud Security in IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS Environments

    • Keep your information security risks manageable when leveraging the benefits of cloud computing.

    Bibliography

    Henderson, George. “3 Most Common Types of Service Level Agreement (SLA).” Master of Project Academy. N.d. Web.

    “Guide to Security Operations Metrics.” Logsign. Oct 5, 2020. Web.

    Lemos, Rob. “4 lessons from SOC metrics: What your SpecOps team needs to know.” TechBeacon. N.d. Web.

    “Measuring and Making the Most of Service Desk Metrics.” Freshworks. N.d. Web.

    Overby, Stephanie. “15 SLA Mistakes IT Leaders Still Make.” CIO. Jan 21, 2021.

    Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model

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    IT is being challenged to change how it operates to better support evolving organizations by:

    • Considering the needs of customers, end users, and organizational stakeholders simultaneously.
    • Leveraging resources strategically to support the various IT and digital services being offered.
    • Creating a digital services enablement office that can design, monitor, and continuously enhance services.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The role of IT is changing, and with that, how IT needs to operate to deliver value is also changing. Don’t get left behind with an irrelevant IT operating model.
    • Elevate your reputation as a leader beyond the CIO role. Mature your organization’s digital services by considering the customer experience first.
    • As recessions, disasters, and pandemics hit, don’t adopt old ways of operating with 2008 centralized models. Embrace a hybrid IT where value sets your organization apart.

    Impact and Result

    • Embrace the Exponential IT Operating Model so you can:
      • Say “yes” to stakeholders trying to provide a better experience for customers and consumers.
      • Leverage data more effectively across your organization.
      • Consider how to integrate and deliver services using resources effectively and strategically.

    Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model Deck – The next generation operating model for organizations embracing exponential IT.

    This research piece is for any IT leaders looking to support the organization in its post-transformation state by focusing on the customer experience when operating. CIOs struggling with outdated IT operating models can demonstrate true partnership with this digital services next-generation IT operating model.

    • Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model Storyboard

    2. Exponential IT Operating Model Readiness Assessment – A tool to assess your organization’s readiness to adopt this next generation of IT operating models.

    Use this tool to determine whether your organization has the fundamental components necessary to support the adoption of an Exponential IT operating model.

    • Exponential IT Operating Model Readiness Assessment

    3. Career Vision Roadmap Tool – A template to create a simple visual roadmap of your desired career progression from CIO to chief digital services officer (CDSO).

    Use this template to create a roadmap on how to transform your career from CIO to CDSO leveraging key strengths and relationships. Focus on opportunities to demonstrate IT’s maturity and the customer experience at the forefront of your decisions.

    • Career Vision Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Implement the Next-Generation IT Operating Model

    The operating model for organizations embracing Exponential IT and transforming into technology-first enterprises.

    Analyst Perspective

    Be the organization that can thrive in an exponential IT world.

    A picture of Carlene McCubbin A picture of Brittany Lutes

    Carlene McCubbin
    Research Practice Lead
    CIO Organizational
    Transformation Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Brittany Lutes
    Research Director,
    CIO Organization Transformation Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    IT leaders are increasingly expected to be responsible for understanding and delivering high-value customer experiences. This evolution depends on the distribution and oversight of IT capabilities that are embedded throughout the organizational structure.

    Defining digital strategic objectives, establishing governance frameworks for an autonomous culture, and enabling the organization to act on insightful data are all impossible without a new way of operating that involves the oversight and accountability of advancing IT roles. Through exponential change, functional groups can lose clarity regarding their responsibilities, creating a sense of ambiguity and disorder.

    But adopting a new way of working that supports an exponential IT organization does not have to be difficult. Leveraging Info-Tech Research Group's next-generation operating model, you can clearly demonstrate how the organization will collaborate to deliver on the various digital and IT services. This is no longer just an IT operating model, but a technology-first enterprise model.

    Included in this blueprint:

    Exponential IT Model

    Defines how the Exponential IT model operates and delivers value to the organization.
    This is done by exploring:

    • Exponential IT cultural norms and behaviors
    • Opportunities and risks of the Exponential IT model
    • A breakdown of the embedded, integrated, and centralized aspects of the model
    • Operating model value stream stages
    • An assessment on whether the Exponential IT operating model is right for your organization

    Changing Role of IT Leader

    Defines how chief information officers (CIOs) can operate or elevate their role in this changing operating model.

    • Identifies why the C-suite is changing – again
    • How IT leaders should consider where they will add value in the new operating model
    • Outlines examples of future organization-wide structures and where IT roles are positioned
    • Supports IT leaders in developing themselves to operate in this structure

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    IT is challenged to change how it operates to better support evolving organizations. IT must:

    • Consider the needs of customers, end users, and organization stakeholders simultaneously.
    • Leverage resources strategically to support the various IT and digital services being offered.
    • Create a digital services enablement office to design, monitor, and enhance services continuously.

    While many organizations have projects that support a digital strategy, few have an operating model that supports this digital services strategy.

    Common Obstacles

    Organizations struggle to support the definition and ongoing maintenance of services because:

    • The organization's Digital and IT services offerings are not clear.
    • The functional team accountable to deliver on each IT or Digital service is ambiguous.
    • There are insufficient resources to support all the IT and Digital services being offered.
    • C-suite leaders required to support the services are missing or in the wrong role to effectively lead.
    • Technology has not been standardized to ensure consistency and effectiveness.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Embrace the IT operating model that focuses on the enablement and delivery of Digital and IT services by:

    • Having technology stakeholders actively collaborate to decide on priorities and deliver on objectives.
    • Leveraging data more effectively across the organization to understand and meet user needs.
    • Ensuring technology architecture and security standards are well-established and followed by all throughout the organization.
    • Allocating dedicated and skilled resources to ensure services can be continuously delivered.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The first IT operating model where customer engagement with IT and Digital Services is at the forefront.

    What is an operating model?

    An IT operating model is a visual representation of the way your IT organization will function using a clear and coherent blueprint. This visualization demonstrates how capabilities are organized and aligned to deliver on the business mission and strategic and technological objectives.

    The should visualize the optimization and alignment of the IT organization to deliver the capabilities required to achieve business goals. Additionally, it should demonstrate the workflow so key stakeholders can understand where inputs flow in and outputs flow out of the IT organization. Investing time in the front-end to get the operating model right is critical. This will give you a framework to rationalize future organizational changes, allowing you to be more iterative and your model to change as the business changes.

    An image of a sample Operating Model


    From computerization to digitization to the new frontier in autonomization, IT has progressively matured, enabling it to actively lead this next stage of business transformation.

    EXPONENTIAL RISK
    Autonomous processes will integrate with human-led processes, creating risks to business continuity, information security, and quality of delivery. Supplier power will exacerbate business risks.

    EXPONENTIAL REWARD
    The efficiency gains and new value chains created through artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and additive manufacturing will be very significant. Most of this value will be realized through the augmentation of human labor.

    EXPONENTIAL DEMAND
    Autonomous solutions for productivity and back-office applications will eventually become commoditized and provided by a handful of large vendors. There will, however, be a proliferation of in-house algorithms and workflows to autonomize the middle and front office, offered by a busy landscape of industry-centric capability vendors.

    EXPONENTIAL IT

    Exponential IT involves IT leading the cognitive re-engineering of the organization with evolved practices for:

    • IT governance
    • Asset management
    • Vendor management
    • Data management
    • Business continuity management
    • Information security management

    To learn more about IT's journey into autonomization, check out Info-Tech Research Group's Adopt an Exponential IT Mindset blueprint.

    The IT operating model must evolve to respond to exponential change

    • Ensuring customers are not an afterthought to IT leaders. Customers inform how and where IT leaders invest resources to realize organizational objectives.
    • Adopting a formalized approach to service definition and delivery to eliminate silos.
    • Leveraging data throughout the organization to better inform and enable the various digital services in meeting customer demands.
    • Responding to employee demands for development and training opportunities by applying skills in new settings.
    • Having cross-collaboration mechanisms built into the ways of operating to reduce silos across the organization.
    • Enabling services through a strong set of governance and risk mandates and practices.
    • Eliminating the need for IT capabilities to only be within an IT department.

    IT can no longer be just a service provider:

    78% of IT leaders with established digital strategies and 45% of IT leaders with emerging digital strategies are driven by customer experiences.
    Source: Foundry "Digital Business Study,"2023

    40% - The number of CIOs that are responsible for creating new products or services to support revenue generation.
    Source: Foundry, "The State of the CIO," 2023

    This change requires a breakdown of traditional IT-business divisions

    CIOs must recognize that separating IT from the business is restrictive

    • Many organizations have recently completed or are in the process of completing a digital transformation focused on enhanced employee and customer experiences.
    • Post-transformation organizations must change how they operate to continue to deliver on those enhanced experiences, especially for the customer.
    • There must no longer be a wall between IT and the business, but a unified organization offering digital services that include IT components. Already, 81% of work is being performed across the functional boundaries created in an organization (Deloitte, 2023).
    • Effectively designing, delivering, and maintaining these services depends on a Digital Services functional layer, expanding IT's involvement into how the business delivers worthwhile experiences to customers.
    • This Digital Services functional layer will consider whether the new services are better owned by the IT group or another area of the organization.
    • CIOs need to be prepared to adopt a new way of operating or be left to manage a smaller subset of IT functions.

    "I think we've done the IT industry a disservice by constantly referring to IT and the business, artificially creating this wedge."
    – David Vidoni, VP of IT at Pegasystems
    Source: Dan Roberts, CIO, 2023

    Four trends driving an Exponential IT organization include:

    Emerging Technologies

    • 67% of respondents to KPMG's 2022 Global Tech Survey indicated they intend to embrace emerging platforms by the end of 2024.(1)
    • The technology landscape is constantly shifting with artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, 5G cellular networks, and next-generation robotics. Each of these technologies requires new capabilities and a new way in which those capabilities are organized.

    Enhanced Customer Experiences

    • 24% of CIOs have been tasked by their CEO to increase the customer experience.(3)
    • Organizations realize that to gain and retain customers, it has become necessary to consistently evaluate service offerings and identify opportunities for enhancement or new services.

    Digital Trust

    • 1/3 of CISOs plan to increase their GRC focus during the next year and 36% have already begun to implement Zero Trust components.(2)
    • Risk and security capabilities mature focusing on defined enterprise accountability, consideration of ethics and inclusivity and proactive security controls.

    Embedded Technology & Skills

    • Spending on embedded software is expected to increase to $21.5 billion by 2027.(4)
    • The technology strategy no longer resides solely within IT. The organization must take ownership of this strategy while they define their digital strategies. Technology services are also embedded.

    (1) "Global Tech Survey," KPMG, 2022
    (2) "Global Digital Trust Insights Report," PwC, 2023
    (3) "State of IT Report," Foundry, 2023
    (4) "Global surge in embedded software demand; here is why," DAC Digital, 2023

    Application of the Four Key Trends on your Exponential IT operating model:

    Respond to Emerging Technology In response to changing customer demands, organizations need to actively seek, assess, and integrate emerging technology offerings easily and effectively. By governing data at an enterprise level and implementing the necessary guardrails in the form of architecture and security standards at the technology layer, it becomes easier to adopt new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). This should be tied to any mandated objectives.
    Build Digital Trust Capabilities Finding and hiring the right security professionals has long been a challenge for organizations. In the Exponential IT model, focus on security oversight increases and fewer operational resources are required. The model sees governing IT security processes and vendor delivery as priorities to enable the right technology without exposing the organization to undue risk. There should be more security-related capabilities in your Exponential IT model.
    Elevate the Customer Experience Evolving the organization's digital offering requires understanding of and active response to the changing demands of customers. This is accomplished by leveraging information from organization-wide data sources and the modular components of the organization's current digital offerings. The components can be reconfigured (or new ones added) to create digital services for the customer.
    Formalize Embedded Business Technology & Roles Technology is actively included in the organization's business (digital) strategy. This ensures that technology remains an embedded component of how the organization competes in the market, supplies invaluable services, and delivers on strategic objectives. The separation of IT from the organization becomes redundant.
    Visualize your IT Operating Model.

    Adopting an Exponential IT operating model is typically influenced by resonating with the following drivers:

    Culture

    IT Strategy & Objectives

    Organization Operating Model

    Organization Size & Structure

    Perception of IT

    Risk Appetite

    A cooperative and innovative culture where the organization does not feel constrained by current processes. Establishing a growth mindset across all the organization's groups is reflected by the trust service owners receive.

    Focused on delivering the best customer experience. The roadmap would include ample opportunities to better support the customer in obtaining or exceeding the degree of value they receive from the organization.

    Empowering service owners across the organization to be accountable for the delivery and value of their services. Lots of collaboration among stakeholders who know what services are offered and how those services leverage technology.

    More appropriate for larger organizations due to the resources required to design and enable successful services. IT resources would also be pooled by skills.

    IT is not a service provider but an equal that enables the organization's success. Without IT involvement, digital services may be omitted and opportunities to enhance the customer experience would be missed.

    While innovation and new service offerings are critical to success, there are functional groups that remain focused on defining the level of risk tolerance that supports the appropriate risk appetite to consider new service offerings.

    Section 1: The Next-Generation Operating Model

    The Technology Value Trinity

    Delivery of Business Value & Strategic Needs

    I&T OPERATING MODEL

    DIGITAL & TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY

    I&T GOVERNANCE

    The model for how IT is organized to deliver on business needs and strategies.

    The identification of objectives and initiatives necessary to achieve business goals.

    Ensures the organization and its customers extract maximum value from the use of information and technology.

    All three elements of the Technology Value Trinity work together to deliver business value and achieve strategic needs. As one changes, the others must change as well.
    How do these three elements relate?

    • I&T Operating Model aligns resources, processes, measures, stakeholders, value streams, and decision rights to enable the delivery of your strategy and priorities. This is done by strategically structuring IT capabilities in a way that enables the organization's vision and considers the context in which the model will operate.
    • Digital and IT Strategy tells you what you must achieve to be successful. For an Exponential IT organization, customer demands and digital service offerings would drive strategic decisions.
    • I&T Governance is the confirmation of IT's goals and strategy, which ensures the alignment of IT and business strategy. This is the mechanism by which you continuously prioritize work so that what is delivered aligns with the strategy.

    Strategy, operating models, and governance are too often considered separate practices – strategies are defined without clarity on how to support. A significant change to your strategy necessitates a change to your operating model, which in turn necessitates a change to your governance and organizational structure.

    The Exponential IT operating model delivers value across seven components

    Exponential IT

    Capabilities

    Products, Services and Technology

    Performance Measures

    Stakeholder Engagement & Collaboration

    Decision Rights & Authority

    Value Streams

    Sourcing

    IT capabilities in the Exponential IT model are spread across the organization. The result removes the separation between IT and the organization. Instead, the organization takes accountability for ensuring technology capabilities are delivered.

    Digital service offerings dominate this model, focusing on providing better experiences for customers. Some technology platforms are specific to a service such as access management, while others span service offerings such as architecture or security.

    This model's success is measured by the overall ability to satisfy the customer experience through designing and delivering the right digital service offerings. Service owners are responsible for continuously monitoring and advancing the delivery of the service.

    The end-customer is the main stakeholder for this operating model, where understanding their needs and demands informs the design, maintenance, and improvement of all services. There is no longer IT vs. the business but an organizational perspective of services.

    This model's decision-making spans the organization. The service owners of digital offerings have authority and autonomy deciding which services to design, how they should be integrated with other services, and how those services will continually deliver value to customers.

    Exponential IT's five core value streams are:

    1. Identifying and prioritizing customer needs
    2. Designing IT and Digital Services
    3. Enabling IT & Digital Service success
    4. Assigning skilled employees to deliver services
    5. Owning & managing services

    Internal resource pools might need to be supplemented with contract resources when demand exceeds capacity, requiring a strong partnership with the Vendor Management Team. Service owners will also need to engage and manage the performance of their vendor solution partners.

    Organizations adopting the Exponential IT Model will experience new norms and behaviors

    Customer-Centric
    Dedicated to the customer experience and making sure that the end customer is considered first and foremost.

    "Yes" Approach
    The organization can say yes to emerging technology and customer desires because it has organized itself to be agile in its digital service offerings.

    Digital Service Ownership
    Digital service offerings are owned and managed across the organization ensuring the continuous delivery of value to customers.

    Employee Development
    Resources are organized into pods based on specific skills or functions increasing the likelihood of adopting new skills.

    Autonomization
    Centralized and accessible data provides service owners autonomy when making informed decisions that support enhanced customer experiences.

    Exponential IT is an embedded model approach

    Info-Tech has identified seven common IT operating model archetypes. Each model represents a different approach to who delivers technology services and how. Each model is designed to drive different outcomes, as the way your organization is structured will dictate the way it behaves. The Exponential IT model is an emerging archetype which capitalizes on embedded delivery.

    An image of the exponential IT embedded model approach.

    Centralized

    Shifted

    Embedded

    Owned and operated by leadership within IT. IT takes full responsibility of the functional areas and maintains control over the outcomes.

    Can be owned/operated by a variety of leadership roles throughout the organization. This can shift from IT ownership to other organizational leadership. Decisions about ownership are often made to enable quick response or mitigate risks.

    Owned/operated by leadership outside of traditional IT. Another area of the organization has taken authoritative power over the outcome of this functional area for a quicker response.

    Even as an embedded IT operating model, shifted and centralized IT functions as support

    1. Embedded functions required for scaled autonomation
      Definition and oversight of the organization's strategic direction demonstrated through a customer-first culture, data insights, and a well-defined risk appetite.
    2. Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering
      Actively considers the customer experience and designs the appropriate services to be delivered. Considers all aspects in the design and delivery of services by exploring opportunities to integrate components to enhance customer experiences or architecting new service offerings to eliminate gaps.
    3. Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources
      Technology functions continue to deliver exceptional services to the enterprise including clear standards for technology and solution architecture, application of security requirements, and resources to enable various service offerings.

    Opportunities and risks of the Exponential IT model

    Opportunities

    Risks
    • Focused on the end-customer experience and how to ensure that customer remains satisfied and loyal to the organization.
    • The capability center allows resources to be used strategically according to where they would most improve the customer experience.
    • Services are owned by the most appropriate areas within the organization—sometimes IT and other times not. In either case, services should always possess technological knowledge.
    • The organization's transformation strategy is not just driving IT's strategy but how IT should be organized and operating. This eliminates disconnect from larger strategic objectives.
    • Data intelligence and customer insights enable the shifted and centralized areas of the operating model to deliver effective and valuable experiences for all stakeholders.
    • Requires a high degree of maturity to support a variety of individuals in owning IT and digital capabilities.
    • Organizational buy-in to this operating model archetype is a must. IT cannot select this operating model without that support.
    • Processes around how all IT and Digital Services consider security and technology standards need to be well-documented and enforceable.
    • Depending on which leaders oversee the three areas of the model (embedded, shifted, or centralized), power struggles could occur which negatively impact services.
    • This model will demand governance, risk, and culture to be at the forefront of how it operates. If an accountability framework does not exist, expect this model to fail.

    The Exponential IT operating model blends embedded, shifted and centralized delivery to balance agility & risk

    An image of the Exponential IT Operating Model.

    The Exponential IT model commands a new placement and significance of IT capabilities

    Using capabilities for the operating model

    • Capabilities are focused on the entire system that would be in place to satisfy a particular need. This not only includes the people who are able to complete a specific task, but the technology, processes, and resources required to deliver.
    • Focusing on capabilities rather than the individuals in organizational redesign enables a more objective and holistic view of what your organization is striving toward.
    • Capabilities deliver on specific need(s) and how they are organized changes the way those needs are delivered.
    The Exponential IT principles as an image: Strategy and Governance, Financial Management, Service Planning and Architecture, People and Resources, Security and Risk, Applications, Data and Analytics, Infrastructure and Operations, and PPM and Projects.

    1. Embedded functions required for autonomization

    Overview of the function:

    • Focuses on a single strategy and roadmap for the organization that actively includes technology.
    • Governance, risk, compliance, and general oversight are defined and embedded throughout the organization.
    • Ensures that quality data is being generated to help inform the defined digital service offering.
    • Readies the organization to adopt emerging technology quickly and with minimal disruption to other digital service offerings.
    • A team of technical experts that decides what information should exist for operational efficiency or service innovation.

    Embedded functions required for autonomization

    2. Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering

    Overview of the function:

    • Analyzes and responds to insights about the customer experience.
    • Maintains the portfolio of the organization's digital service offerings.
    • Considers what is necessary to operate efficiently as an organization while simultaneously exploring emerging technology to optimize new or existing digital services.
    • Requires the expertise and involvement of both business-minded and technology-skilled resources.
    • The differentiating factor from other IT operating models is how it holistically considers all the components throughout the organization and how they are connected.

    Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering

    3. Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources

    Overview of the function:

    • Compared with other IT operating model archetypes, the Exponential IT model has fewer capabilities that are centralized within the technology function of an organization.
    • Architecture and standards are the foundation of successful embedded delivery, ensuring reuse, improved integration, and a unified experience. This includes technology, risk, data, AI and security architecture, models, and standards.
    • Employee resources are also organized in pods to be leveraged based on greatest need and skills availability.
    • This lets the organization be more agile when innovating and implementing new digital service offerings.

    Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources

    Exponential IT explores new value stream stages

    Customer Perspective

    The organization is continually anticipating their wants and needs and establishing mechanisms to vocalize those needs.

    Customer receives the right IT and digital services to respond to their needs.

    The service is easy to use and continuously responds to wants and needs.

    The service is meeting expectations or exceeding them.

    There is a dedicated service owner who can hear demands and feedback, then action desirable outcomes.

    Value Stream Stages

    An image of the Value Stream

    Organizational Perspective

    Expected Outcome

    Customers' wants and needs are understood and at times anticipated before the customer requests them.

    Assess needs to determine if service is already offered or needs to be created. Design services that will enhance the customer experience.

    Look for opportunities to integrate processes and resources to increase the performance of IT and Digital Services.

    Ensure that the right employees with the right skills are working to develop or enhance service offering.

    The service owner manages the ongoing lifecycle of the service and establishes a roadmap on how value will continue to be delivered.

    Critical Processes

    • Customer experience
    • Research and innovation
    • Stakeholder management
    • Research and innovation
    • Service design & portfolio management
    • Performance management
    • Continuous improvement
    • Integration planning
    • Service management
    • Resource planning and allocation
    • Service strategy & roadmap
    • Service governance
    • Service performance management

    Metrics

    • Customer satisfaction score
    • Service-to-need alignment
    • Gaps in service portfolio
    • Speed to design services
    • Service performance
    • Service adoption
    • Time to resolve customer demand
    • Frequency by which service requires enhancements
    • Service satisfaction
    • Alignment of service strategy to organization strategy

    1.1 Assess if the Exponential IT operating model is right for your organization

    1 hour

    1. Begin by downloading the Exponential IT Operating Model Assessment.
    2. Review the questions within each of the operating model components. For each question, use the drop-down menu to determine your level of agreement.
    3. The more your organization agrees with the statements, the more likely your organization is prepared to implement an Exponential IT operating model.
    4. The less your organization agrees with the statements, the more likely you should adopt a different IT operating model.
    5. For support implementing the Exponential IT or another IT operating model, explore the Visualize Your IT Operating Model blueprint (coming soon).

    Input

    • Desire to change the organization's IT & Digital operating model

    Output

    • Desire to implement the IT & Digital Service Enablement operating model

    Materials

    • Exponential IT Operating Model Assessment

    Participants

    • Executive IT leadership
    • Business leadership

    Explore other Info-Tech research to support your organization transformation initiatives

    Visualize the IT Operating Model blueprint (coming soon)

    Visualize the IT Operating Model blueprint (coming soon)

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    Section 2: Elevating the CIO Role

    The next generation of IT C-suite roles are here

    As the operating model changes and becomes increasingly embedded into the organization's delivery of IT and Digital Services, new C-suite roles are being defined

    • One of the most critical roles being defined in this change is the Chief Digital Services Officer (CDSO) who focuses on all components of the digital experience from the lens of the customer.
    • There are two directions from which the CDSO role is typically approached as it gains popularity:
      • CIOs evolve beyond just information and technology—focusing on how IT & Digital Services enhance the customer experience
      • Business leaders who have technical know-how increase their involvement and responsibility over IT related functions
    • IT leaders need to consider where they would rather sit: focused only on technology and remaining a service provider to the organization, or embedding technology into the services, products, and organization in general?

    60%

    The number of APAC CIOs who can anticipate their job to be challenged by their peers within the organization.

    Source: Singh, Yashvendra, CIO, 2023.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This is not about making the CIO report to someone else but allowing the CIO to elevate their role into that of a CDSO.

    Increasing IT leadership's span of control throughout the organization

    As maturity increases so does span of control, ownership & executive influence

    Organizations hoping to fully adopt the Exponential IT operating model require a shift in leadership expectations. Notably, these leaders will have oversight and accountability for functions beyond the traditional IT group.

    As the organization matures its governance, security, and data management practices, increasing how it delivers high-impact experiences to customers, it would have one leader who owns all the components to ensure clear alignment with goals and business strategy.

    An image of a graph where the X axis is labeled Span of Control & Influence, and the Y axis is Organization Maturity.

    Emerging Exponential IT organizations will have distributed authority

    • Organizations beginning their transition toward an exponential model often continue to have distributed leaders providing oversight of distinct functional areas.
    • Their spans of control are smaller, but very clearly defined, eliminating confusion through a transparent accountability framework.
    • Each leader strives toward optimization and efficiency regarding IT capabilities, for which they are responsible.
    1. Distributed Leadership
      Embedded functions required for scaled autonomation
      Distributed leaders identify the ways technology will enable them to advance enterprise objectives while maintaining autonomy over their own functions. They may oversee technology.
    2. Experience Officer
      Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering
      An Experience Officer will help consider the insights gained from enterprise data and make informed decisions around enterprise service offerings. They actively explore new ways to deliver high-value experiences.
    3. Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
      Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources
      A CTO will continue to oversee the core technology, including infrastructure and service management functions.

    Established organizations will be driven by a digital transformation journey

    • Organizations that have begun to deliver on their transformation journey will typically see two distinct C-suite leaders emerge—the CIO and the CDO.
    • The Chief Digital Officer (CDO) often explores ways to optimize the integration and management of data to enable insightful decision making from the organization.
    • The Chief Information Officer (CIO), however, considers mechanisms to standardize how new technologies can be integrated with the architecture.
    • While both leaders have distinct responsibilities, their roles intersect at the customer experience.

    An image of the digital transformation journey

    Advanced organizations will be managed by a single emerging role

    • A single leader will oversee all the functional areas where value is delivered and enabled by IT capabilities.
    • Through a large span of control, this leader can holistically consider opportunities to optimize the customer experience and ensure recommendations are actioned to deliver on that enhanced experience.
    • This leader's span of control will require a strong understanding of both strategic and operational functions to authoritatively oversee all aspects for which they are responsible.

    CDSO – Chief Digital Service Officer

    1. Embedded functions required for scaled autonomation
      The CDSO will set, oversee, and manage the delivery of an enterprise's digital strategy, ensuring accountability through good governance and data practices.
    2. Integrated design and optimization of the digital service offering
      They ensure that the enterprise holistically considers the various services that could be offered to exceed customer expectations through high-impact experiences.
    3. Centralized standards for IT technology, security & resources
      They also ensure stable and secure architecture standards to enable consistency across the organization and a seamless ability to integrate new technology to support service offerings.

    Evolution of the IT C-suite now includes the CDSO

    Chief Digital Service Officer

    Chief Information Officer

    Chief Digital Officer

    Chief Technology Officer

    Chief Experience Officer

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Board
    • CEO/Executive Leadership
    • Organization Leadership
    • Service Owners
    • Customers & End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Oversight of the entire portfolio of IT and Digital Services
    • Use of information & technology to meet organizational objectives

    *Some leaders in this role are being called Chief Digital Information Officer.

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Board
    • CEO/Executive Leadership
    • Organization Leadership
    • End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Oversight of the information and technology required to support and enable the organization

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Board
    • CEO/Executive Leadership
    • Customers & End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Oversight on transforming how the organization uses technology, often considering customer perspectives

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Organization Leadership
    • Customers & End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Collaborating with the CIO, the CTO leads the organization's ability to integrate and adopt necessary technology products and services

    Main Stakeholder(s):

    • Customers & End Users

    Main Responsibilities:

    • Establish the customer experience strategy
    • Create policies to support that strategy
    • Collaborate with other organizational leaders to integrate any activities around the customer experience

    Examples of what the emerging organizational structure can look like

    An image of three hierarchies, showing what the emerging organizational structure can look like.

    This is more than a new title for IT leaders

    It's about establishing a business first perspective

    • IT leaders exploring this new way of operating are not just adopting the new title of CDSO or CDIO.
    • These leaders must change how information, technology, and digital experiences are consumed across the various stakeholders – especially the end customer.
    • IT leaders who pursue this new IT operating model choose to be more than order takers for an organization.
    • They are:
      • Partners in defining the organization's digital service offerings
      • Recognizing the benefits of distributing decision-making authority for IT-related aspects to others throughout the organization
      • Prioritizing capabilities like portfolio management, architecture, vendor management, relationship management, cloud and user experience

    "'For me, the IT portfolio for the next few years and the IT architecture have taken the place that IT strategy used to have,' he adds. This view doesn't position IT outside of the organization, but rather gives it central importance in the company."
    – Bernd Rattey, Group CIO and CDO of Deutsche Bahn (DB), qtd. by Jens Dose, CIO, 2023

    1.2 Plan your career move to CDSO

    1-3 hours

    • Create a roadmap on how to move from your current role to CDSO by identifying current strengths and opportunities to improve.
    • Download the Career Vision Roadmap Tool from the website. An example of this is on the next slide.
    • Document the tagline. This is your overarching career focus and goal – what is your passion? Think beyond titles to what you want to be doing, the atmosphere you want to be in, and what you want to add value to.
    • Document the current role: what are the strengths, achievements and opportunities?
    • Consider the CDSO role: how will you build stronger relationships and competencies to elevate your profile within the organization? What is an example of what someone would display in this role?
    • Define specific roles or stakeholders that you should develop a stronger relationship with.

    Download the Career Vision Roadmap Tool

    Input

    • Desire to implement the IT & Digital Service Enablement Operating Model

    Output

    • Roadmap to elevate from a CIO to a CDSO

    Materials

    • Career Vision Roadmap
    • IT & Digital Services Enablement operating model archetype
    • CDSO job profile

    Participants

    • CIO (or any other role aspiring to eventually become a CDSO)
    • Individual activity

    Career Vision Roadmap:
    Executive Leader
    Akbar K.

    Sample

    To provide customers with an exceptional experience by ensuring all IT and Digital Services consider and anticipate their needs or wants. Enable IT and Digital Services to be successful through clear leadership, strong collaboration, and continuous improvement or innovation.

    CIO

    1. Establish technology standards that enable the organization to consistently and securely integrate platforms or solutions.
    2. Lead the project team that defined and standardized the organization's reference architecture.
    3. Need to work on listening to a variety of stakeholder demands rather than only specific roles/titles.

    Transition

    • Strengths: Technology acumen, budget planning, allocating resources
    • Enhance: Stakeholder relationship management.
    • Work with current CDO to define and implement more digital transformation initiatives.

    CDSO

    • Being responsive to customer expectations and communicating clear and realistic timelines.
    • Establish trust among the organization that services will deliver expected value.
    • Empowering service owners to manage and oversee the delivery of their services.

    Network Opportunities

    • Connect with board members and understand each of their key areas of priority.
    • Begin to interact with end customers and define ways that will enhance their customer experience.
    • Chief Digital Officer

    Actions now in line with aspiration

    Appendix: Capabilities & Capability Model

    IT and digital capabilities

    Using capabilities for the operating model:

    • Capabilities are focused on the entire system that would be in place to satisfy a particular need. This not only includes people who have skills to complete a specific task, but also the technology, processes, and resources required to deliver.
    • Focusing on capabilities rather than the individuals in organizational redesign enables a more objective and holistic view of what your organization is striving toward.
    • Capabilities deliver on specific need(s) and how they are organized changes the way those need(s) are delivered.

    An image of the IT Management and Governance Framework.

    Strategic Direction

    • IT Governance
    • Strategic Planning
    • Digital Strategy
    • Performance Measurement
    • IT Management & Policies
    • Organizational Quality Management
    • R&D and Innovation
    • Stakeholder Management

    People & Resources

    • Strategic Communications
    • People Resource Management
    • Workforce Strategy & Planning
    • Organizational Change Enablement
    • Adoption & Training
    • Financial/Budget Management
    • Vendor Portfolio Management
    • Vendor Selection & Contract Management
    • Vendor Performance Management

    Architecture & Integration

    • Enterprise Architecture Delivery
    • Business Architecture Delivery
    • Solution Architecture Delivery
    • Technology Architecture
    • Data Architecture
    • Security Architecture
    • Process Integration
    • Integration Planning

    Service Planning

    • Service Governance
    • Service Strategy & Roadmap
    • Service Management
    • Service Governance
    • Service Performance Measurement
    • Service Design & Planning
    • Service Orchestration

    Security & Risk

    • Security Strategic Planning
    • Risk Management
    • External Compliance Management
    • Security Response & Recovery Management
    • Security Management
    • Controls & Internal Audit Planning
    • Security Defense Operations
    • Security Administration
    • Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence
    • Integrated Physical/IT Security
    • OT/IoT Security
    • Data Protection & Privacy

    Application Delivery

    • Application Lifecycle Management
    • Systems Integration Management
    • Application Development
    • User Experience
    • Quality Assurance & UAT
    • Application Maintenance
    • Low Code Development

    Project Portfolio Management

    • Demand Management
    • Requirement Analysis Management
    • Portfolio Management
    • Project Management

    Data & Business Intelligence (BI)

    • Reporting & Analytics
    • Data Management
    • Data Quality
    • Data Integration
    • Enterprise Content Management
    • Data Governance
    • Data Strategy
    • AI/ML Management

    Service Delivery

    • Operations Management
    • Service Desk Management
    • Incident Management
    • Problem Management
    • Service Enhancements
    • Operational Change Enablement
    • Release Management
    • Automation Management

    Infrastructure & Operations

    • Asset Management
    • Infrastructure Portfolio Strategic Planning
    • Availability & Capacity Management
    • Network & Infrastructure Management
    • Configuration Management
    • Cloud Orchestration
    An image of the summary slide for this blueprint, with the headings: Centralized; Shifted; and Embedded.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Donna Bales
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Scott Bickley
    Practice Lead – Vendor Management Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Christine Coz
    Executive Counselor – Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Valence Howden
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Duraid Ibrahim
    Executive Counselor – Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Chris Goodhue
    Managing Partner– Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Carlene McCubbin
    Practice Lead – CIO Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Mike Tweedie
    Practice Lead – CIO Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Vicki van Alphen
    Executive Counselor – Executive Services
    Info-Tech Research Group

    *Plus an additional 5 industry experts who anonymously contributed to this research piece.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Adopt an Exponential IT Mindset

    • To succeed in the coming business transformation, IT will have to adopt different priorities in its mission, governance, capabilities, and partnerships.
    • CIOs will have to provide exceptionally mature services while owning business targets.

    Become a Transformational CIO

    • Business transformations are happening, but CIOs are often involved only when it comes time to implement change. This makes it difficult for the CIO to be perceived as an organizational leader.
    • Elevate your stature as a business leader.
    • Create a high-powered IT organization that is focused on driving lasting change, improving client experiences, and encouraging collaboration across the entire enterprise.

    Define Your Digital Business Strategy

    • Design a strategy that applies innovation to your business model, streamline and transform processes, and make use of technologies to enhance interactions with customers and employees.
    • Pre-pandemic digital strategies have been primarily focused on automation. However, your post-pandemic digital strategy must focus on driving resilience for growth opportunities.

    Bibliography

    Bennet, Trevon. "What is a Chief Experience Officer (CXO)? And what do they do?" Indeed, 14 March 2023. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/what-is-chief-experience-officer#:~:text=A%20CXO%20plans%20strategies%20and,customer%20acquisition%20and%20retention%20strategies
    Bishop, Carrie. "Five years of Digital Services in San Francisco." Medium, 20 January 2022. https://medium.com/san-francisco-digital-services/five-years-of-digital-services-in-san-francisco-805a758c2b83
    DAC Digital and Chawla, Yash. "Global surge in embedded software demand; here is why." DAC Digital, 2023 <ttps://dac.digital/global-surge-in-embedded-software-demand-here-is-why/
    Deloitte. "If you want your digital transformation to succeed, align your operating model to your strategy." Harvard Business Review, 31 January 2020. https://hbr.org/sponsored/2020/01/if-you-want-your-digital-transformation-to-succeed-align-your-operating-model-to-your-strategy.
    Deloitte. "2023 Global Human Capital Trends Report." Deloitte, 2023. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/sg/Documents/human-capital/sea-cons-hc-trends-report-2023.pdf
    Dose, Jens. "Deutsche Bahn CIO on track to decentralize IT." CIO, 19 April 2023. https://www.cio.com/article/473071/deutsche-bahn-cio-on-track-to-decentralize-it.html
    Ehrlich, Oliver., Fanderl, Harald., Maldara, David., & Mittangunta, Divya. "How the operating model can unlock the power of customer experience." McKinsey, 28 June 2022. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/how-the-operating-model-can-unlock-the-full-power-of-customer-experience
    FCW. "Digital Government Summit Agenda." FCW. 2021. https://events-archive.fcw.com/events/2021/digital-government-summit/index.html
    Foundry. "State of the CIO." IDG, 25 January 2023. https://foundryco.com/tools-for-marketers/research-state-of-the-cio/
    Foundry. "Digital Business Study 2023: IT Leaders are future-proofing their business with digital strategies." IDG, 2023. https://foundryco.com/tools-for-marketers/research-digital-business/
    Indeed Editorial Team. "Centralized vs. Decentralized Structures: 7 Key Differences." Indeed, 10 March 2023. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/centralized-vs-decentralized
    Indeed Editorial Team. "What is process integration?." Indeed, 14 November 2022. https://ca.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/process-integration#:~:text=Process%20integration%2C%20or%20business%20process,it%20reach%20its%20primary%20objectives
    KPMG International. "Global Tech Report." KPMG, 2022.
    McHugh, Brian. "Service orchestration is reshaping IT—Here's what to know." Active Batch, 8 November 2022. https://www.advsyscon.com/blog/service-orchestration-what-is/
    Morris, Chris. "IDC FutureScape: Worldwide CIO Agenda 2023 Predictions."" IDC, January, 2023. https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=AP49998523
    PwC. "Global Digital Trust Insights Report." PwC, 2023
    Roberts, Dan. "5 CIOs on building a service-oriented IT culture." CIO, 13 April 2023. https://www.cio.com/article/472805/5-cios-on-building-a-service-oriented-it-culture.html
    Singh, Yashvendra. "CIOs must evolve to stave off existential threat to their role." CIO, 30 March 2023. https://www.cio.com/article/465612/cios-must-evolve-to-stave-off-existential-threat-to-their-role.html
    Spacey, John. "16 Examples of IT Services." Simplicable, 28 January 2018. https://simplicable.com/IT/it-services

    Select a Marketing Management Suite

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}533|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Customer Relationship Management
    • Parent Category Link: /customer-relationship-management
    • Time, money, and effort are wasted on channels and campaigns that are not resonating with your customer base.
    • Email marketing, social marketing, and/or lead management alone are often not enough to meet more sophisticated marketing needs.
    • Many organizations struggle with taking a systematic approach to selection that pairs functional requirements with specific marketing workflows, and as a result they choose a marketing management suite (MMS) that is not well aligned to their needs, wasting resources and causing end-user frustration.
    • For IT managers or marketing professionals, the task to incorporate MMS technology into the organization requires not only receiving the buy-in for the MMS investment but also determining the vendor and solution that best fit the organization’s particular marketing management needs.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • An MMS enables complex campaigns across many channels, product lines, customer segments, and marketing groups throughout the enterprise.
    • Selecting an MMS has become increasingly difficult because the number of players in the marketplace has ballooned. Moreover, picking the wrong marketing solution has a direct impact on revenue.
    • Determine whether the investment in an MMS is worthwhile or the funds are better allocated elsewhere. For organizations with a large audience or varied product offerings, an MMS enables complex campaigns across many channels, product lines, customer segments, and marketing groups throughout the enterprise.

    Impact and Result

    • Maximize your success and credibility with a proposal that emphasizes the areas relevant to your situation.
    • Perform more effective customer targeting and campaign management. Having an MMS equips marketers with the tools they need to make informed decisions around campaign execution, resulting in better targeting, acquisition, and customer retention. This means more revenue.
    • Maximize marketing impact with analytics-based decision making. Understanding users’/customers’ behaviors and preferences will allow you to run effective marketing initiatives.

    Select a Marketing Management Suite Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to approach selecting an MMS, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Launch the MMS project and collect requirements

    Assess the organization’s fit for MMS technology and structure the MMS selection project.

    • Select a Marketing Management Suite – Phase 1: Launch the MMS Project and Collect Requirements
    • MMS Readiness Assessment Checklist

    2. Shortlist marketing management suites

    Produce a vendor shortlist for your MMS.

    • Select a Marketing Management Suite – Phase 2: Shortlist Marketing Management Suites

    3. Select vendor and communicate decision to stakeholders

    Evaluate RFPs, conduct vendor demonstrations, and select an MMS.

    • Select a Marketing Management Suite – Phase 3: Select Vendor and Communicate Decision to Stakeholders
    • MMS Requirements Picklist Tool
    • MMS Request for Proposal Template
    • MMS Vendor Demo Script
    • MMS Selection Executive Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select a Marketing Management Suite

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Launch the MMS Project and Collect Requirements

    The Purpose

    Determine a “right-size” approach to marketing enablement applications.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Confirmation of the goals, objectives, and direction of the organization is marketing application strategy.

    Activities

    1.1 Assess the value and identify the organization’s fit for MMS technology.

    1.2 Understand the art of the possible.

    1.3 Understand CXM strategy and identify your fit for MMS technology.

    1.4 Build procurement team and project customer experience management (CXM) strategy.

    1.5 Identify your MMS requirements.

    Outputs

    Project team list.

    Preliminary requirements list.

    2 Shortlist Marketing Management Suites

    The Purpose

    Enumerate relevant marketing management suites and point solutions.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    List of marketing enablement applications based on requirements articulated in the preliminary requirements list strategy.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify relevant use cases.

    2.2 Discuss the vendor landscape.

    Outputs

    Vendor shortlist.

    3 Select Vendor and Communicate Decision to Stakeholders

    The Purpose

    Develop a rationale for selecting a specific MMS vendor.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    MMS Vendor decision.

    A template to communicate the decision to executives.

    Activities

    3.1 Create a procurement strategy.

    3.2 Discuss the executive presentation.

    3.3 Plan the procurement process.

    Outputs

    Executive/stakeholder PowerPoint presentation.

    Selection of an MMS.

    Further reading

    Select a Marketing Management Suite

    A best-fit solution balances needs, cost, and capability.

    Table of contents

    1. Project Rationale
    2. Execute the Project/DIY Guide
    3. Appendices

    ANALYST PERSPECTIVE

    Navigate the complexity of a vast ecosystem by taking a structured approach to marketing management suite (MMS) selection.

    Marketing applications are in high demand, but it is difficult to select a suite that is right for your organization. Market offerings have grown from 50 vendors to over 800 in the past five years. Much of the process of identifying an appropriate vendor is not about the vendor at all, but rather about having a comprehensive understanding of internal needs. There are instances where a smaller-point solution is necessary to satisfy requirements and a full marketing management suite is an overinvestment.

    Likewise, a partner with differentiating features such as AI-driven workflows and a mobile software development kit can act as a powerful extension of an overall customer experience management strategy. It is crucial to make the right decision; missing the mark on an MMS selection will have a direct impact on the business’ bottom line.

    Ben Dickie
    Research Director, Enterprise Applications
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Phase milestones

    Launch the MMS Project and Collect Requirements — Phase 1

    • Understand the MMS market space.
    • Assess organizational and project readiness for MMS selection.
    • Structure your MMS selection and implementation project by refining your MMS roadmap.
    • Align organizational use-case fit with market use cases.
    • Collect, prioritize, and document MMS requirements.

    Shortlist MMS Tool — Phase 2

    • Review MMS market leaders and players within your aligned use case.
    • Review MMS vendor profiles and capabilities.
    • Shortlist MMS vendors based on organizational fit.

    Select an MMS — Phase 3

    • Submit request for proposal (RFP) to shortlisted vendors.
    • Evaluate vendor responses and develop vendor demonstration scripts.
    • Score vendor demonstrations and select the final product.

    Stop! Are you ready for this project?

    This Research Is Designed For:
    • IT applications directors and business analysts supporting their marketing teams in selecting and implementing a robust marketing solution.
    • Any organization looking to procure an MMS tool that will allow it to automate its marketing processes or learn more about the MMS vendor landscape.
    This Research Will Help You:
    • Understand today’s MMS market, specific to marketing automation, marketing intelligence, and social marketing use-case scenarios.
    • Understand MMS functionality as well as marketing terminology.
    • Follow best practices to prepare for and execute on selection, including requirements gathering and vendor evaluation.
    This Research Will Also Assist:
    • Marketing managers, brand managers, and any marketing professional looking to build a cohesive marketing platform.
    • MMS project teams or working groups tasked with managing an RFP process for vendor selection.
    This Research Will Help Them
    • Assess organizational and project readiness for embarking on MMS selection.
    • Draft an RFP, manage the vendor and product review process, and select a vendor.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    The MMS market is a landscape of vendors offering campaign management, multichannel support, analytics, and publishing tools. Many vendors specialize in some of these areas but not all. Sometimes multiple products are necessary – but determining which feature sets the organization truly needs can be a challenging task. The right technology stack is critical in order to bring automation to marketing initiatives.

    Complication

    • The first challenge is deciding whether to implement a full marketing suite or a point solution.
    • The number of marketing suites and point solutions has increased from 50 to more than 800 just in the past five years.
    • IT is receiving a growing number of marketing analytics requests and must be prepared to speak intelligently about marketing management vendor selection.

    Resolution

    • Leverage Info-Tech’s comprehensive three-phase approach to MMS selection projects: assess your organization’s preparedness to go into the selection stage, move through technology selection, and present decisions to stakeholders.
    • Conduct an MMS project preparedness assessment to ensure you maximize the value of your time, effort, and spend.
    • Determine whether your organization’s needs will best be met by a marketing management suite or a point solution.
    • Determine which use case your organization fits into and review the relevant vendor landscape, common capability, and areas of product differentiation. Consult Info-Tech’s market analysis to shortlist vendors for your RFP process.
    • Take advantage of traceable and auditable selection tools to run an effective evaluation and selection process. Be prepared to answer the retroactive question “Why this MMS?” with documentation of your selection process and outputs.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. The new MMS market. Selecting a marketing management solution has become increasingly difficult, with the number of players in the marketplace ballooning to meet buyer demand.
    2. Direct translation to revenue. Picking the wrong marketing solution has a direct impact on the bottom line. However, the right MMS can lead to a 7.3x greater year-over-year increase in annual revenue.
    3. Don’t buy best-of-breed; buy best-for-you. Base your vendor selection on your requirements and use case, not on the vendor’s overall performance.

    MMS is a key piece of the CRM puzzle

    In order to optimize cross-sell opportunities and marketing effectiveness, there needs to be a master customer database, which belongs in the customer relationship management (CRM) suite.

    When it comes to marketing automation capabilities, using CRM is like building a car from a kit. All the parts are there, but you need the time and skill to put it all together. Using marketing automation is like buying the car you want or need, with all the features you want already installed and some gas in the tank, ready to drive. In either case, you still need to know how to drive and where you want to go.” (Mac McIntosh, Marketo Inc.) 'CRM' surrounded by its components with 'MMS' highlighted. A master database – the central place where all up-to-the-minute data on a customer profile is stored – is essential for MMS success. This is particularly true for real-time capability effectiveness and to minimize customer fatigue.

    Understand what an MMS can do for you

    Take time to learn the capabilities of modern marketing applications. Understanding the “art of the possible” will help you to get the most out of your MMS.

    MMS helps marketers in two primary ways:
    1. It allows them to efficiently execute and manage campaigns across dozens of channels and products.
    2. It allows them to analyze the outcomes of campaigns.
    Marketing suites accomplish these tasks by:
    • Leveraging workflow automation to reduce the amount of time spent creating marketing campaigns
    • Using internal or third-party data to increase conversion effectiveness from customer databases across the organization
    A strong MMS provides marketers with the data they need for actionable insights about their customers.
    A marketing automation solution delivers essentially all the benefits of an email marketing solution along with integrated capabilities that would otherwise need to be cobbled together using various standalone technologies.” (Marketo Inc.)

    Review Info-Tech’s vendor profiles of the MMS market to identify vendors that meet your requirements

    Logos of multiple vendors including 'Hubspot', 'IBM', 'Salesforce marketing cloud', etc.

    Use Info-Tech’s MMS implementation methodology as a starting point for your organization’s MMS selection

    Info-Tech’s implementation methodology is not a step-by-step approach to vendor selection, but rather it highlights the pertinent considerations for MMS selection at each of the five steps outlined below.

    1

    2

    3

    4

    5

    Establish Resources Gather Requirements Write and Assemble RFP Exercise Due Diligence Evaluate Candidate Solutions
    • Determine work initiative dependencies and project milestones.
    • Establish the project timeline.
    • Designate project resources.
    • Prioritize rollout of functionality.
    • Link business goals with the MMS selection project.
    • Determine user roles and profiles.
    • Conduct stakeholder interviews.
    • Build communication and change management plan.
    • Draft an RFP.
    • Make a plan for soliciting feedback and publishing the RFP.
    • Customize a vendor demo script and scorecard.
    • Conduct vendor demos.
    • Speak with vendor references.
    • Evaluate nonfunctional requirements.
    • Understand upgrade schedules.
    • Define a vendor evaluation framework.
    • Prepare the final evaluation.
    • Prepare a presentation for management.

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Professional services provider engages Info-Tech to guide it through its MMS selection journey

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Professional Services | Source: Info-Tech Consulting

    Challenge

    A large professional services firm specializing in knowledge development was looking to modernize an outdated marketing services stack.

    Previous investments in marketing tools ranging from email automation to marketing analytics led to system fragmentation. As a result, there was no 360-degree overview of marketing operations and no way to run campaigns at scale.

    To satisfy the organization’s aspirations, a comprehensive marketing management suite had to be selected that met needs for the foreseeable future.

    Solution

    The Info-Tech consulting team was brought in to assist in the MMS selection process.

    After meeting with several stakeholders, MMS requirements were developed and weighted. An RFP was then created from these requirements.

    Following a market scan, four vendors were selected to complete the organization’s RFP. Demonstration scripts were then developed as the RFPs were completed by vendors.

    Shortlisted vendors progressed to the demonstration phase.

    Results

    Vendor scorecards were utilized during the two-day demonstrations with the core project team to score each vendor.

    During the scoring process the team also identified the need to replace the organization’s core customer repository (a legacy CRM).

    The decision was made to select a CRM before finalizing the MMS selection. Doing so ensured uniform system architecture and strong interoperability between the firm’s MMS and its CRM.

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

    DIY Toolkit

    Guided Implementation

    Workshop

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Select a Marketing Management Suite – project overview

    1. Launch the MMS Project and Collect Requirements 2. Shortlist Marketing Management Suites 3. Select Vendor and Communicate Decision to Stakeholders
    Supporting Tool icon

    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Assess the value and identify your organization’s fit for MMS technology.

    1.2 Build your procurement team and project customer experience management (CXM) strategy.

    1.3 Identify your MMS requirements.

    2.1 Produce your shortlist

    3.1 Select your MMS

    3.2 Present selection

    Guided Implementations

    • Understand CXM strategy and identify your fit for MMS technology.
    • Identify staffing needs.
    • Plan requirements gathering steps.
    • Discuss use-case fit assessment results.
    • Discuss vendor landscape.
    • Create a procurement strategy.
    • Discuss executive presentation.
    • Conduct a proposal review.
    Associated Activity icon

    Onsite Workshop

    Module 1:
    Launch Your MMS Selection Project
    Module 2:
    Analyze MMS Requirements and Shortlist Vendors
    Module 3:
    Plan Your Procurement Process
    Phase 1 Outcome:
    • Launch of MMS selection project
    Phase 2 Outcome:
    • Shortlist of vendors
    Phase 3 Outcome:
    • Selection of MMS

    Use these icons to help direct you as you navigate this research

    Use these icons to help guide you through each step of the blueprint and direct you to content related to the recommended activities.

    A small monochrome icon of a wrench and screwdriver creating an X.

    This icon denotes a slide where a supporting Info-Tech tool or template will help you perform the activity or step associated with the slide. Refer to the supporting tool or template to get the best results and proceed to the next step of the project.

    A small monochrome icon depicting a person in front of a blank slide.

    This icon denotes a slide with an associated activity. The activity can be performed either as part of your project or with the support of Info-Tech team members who will come onsite to facilitate a workshop for your organization.

    A small monochrome icon depicting a descending bar graph.

    This icon denotes a slide that pertains directly to the Info-Tech vendor profiles on marketing management technology. Use these slides to support and guide your evaluation of the MMS vendors included in the research.

    Select a Marketing Management Suite

    PHASE 1

    Launch the MMS Project and Collect Requirements

    Phase 1 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 1: Launch Your MMS Project and Collect Requirements

    Proposed Time to Completion: 3 weeks
    Step 1.2: Structure the Project Step 1.3: Gather Requirements
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Review readiness requirements for an MMS project.
    • Understand the work initiatives involved in MMS selection.
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Determine use case based on your organizational alignment.
    • Discuss core MMS requirements.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Conduct an organizational MMS readiness assessment.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Identify best-fit use case.
    • Elicit, capture, and prioritize requirements.
    With these tools & templates:
    • MMS Readiness Assessment Checklist
    With these tools & templates:
    • MMS Requirements Picklist Tool
    Phase 1 Results:
    • Completed readiness assessment.
    • Refined project plan to incorporate selection and implementation.

    Phase 1 milestones

    Launch the MMS Project and Collect Requirements — Phase 1

    • Understand the MMS market space.
    • Assess organizational and project readiness for MMS selection.
    • Structure your MMS selection and implementation project by refining your MMS roadmap.
    • Align organizational use-case fit with market use cases.
    • Collect, prioritize, and document MMS requirements.

    Shortlist MMS Tool — Phase 2

    • Review MMS market leaders and players within your aligned use case.
    • Review MMS vendor profiles and capabilities.
    • Shortlist MMS vendors based on organizational fit.

    Select an MMS — Phase 3

    • Submit request for proposal (RFP) to shortlisted vendors.
    • Evaluate vendor responses and develop vendor demonstration scripts.
    • Score vendor demonstrations and select the final product.

    Step 1.1: Understand the MMS market

    1.1

    1.2

    1.3

    Understand the MMS Market Structure the Project Gather MMS Requirements

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • MMS market overview

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project team
    • Project manager
    • Project sponsor

    Outcomes of this step

    • An understanding of the evolution of the MMS market space and how it helps today’s organizations.
    • An evaluation of new and upcoming trends sought by MMS clients.
    • Verification of whether an MMS is a fit with your organization.

    Speak the same language as the marketing department to deliver the most business value

    Marketing Management Suite Glossary

    Analytics The practice of measuring marketing performance to improve return on investment (ROI). It is often carried out through the visualization of meaningful patterns in data as a result of marketing initiatives.
    Channels The different places where marketers can reach customers (e.g. social media, print mail, television).
    Click-through rate The percentage of individuals who proceed (click-through) from one part of a marketing campaign to the next.
    Content management Curating, creating, editing, and keeping track of content and client-facing assets.
    Customer relationship management (CRM) A core enterprise application that provides a broad feature set for supporting customer interaction processes. The CRM frequently serves as a core customer data repository.
    Customer experience management (CXM) The holistic management of customer interaction processes across marketing, sales, and customer service to create valuable, mutually beneficial customer experiences.
    Engagement rate A social media metric used to describe the amount of likes, comments, shares, etc., that a piece of content receives.
    Lead An individual or organization who has shown interest in the product or service being marketed.
    Omnichannel The portfolio of interaction channels you use.

    MMS is a key piece of the customer experience ecosystem

    Within the broader CXM ecosystem, an MMS typically lives within the CRM platform. Interfacing with the CRM’s master customer database allows an MMS to optimize cross-sell opportunities and marketing effectiveness.

    A master database – the central place where all up-to-the-minute data on a customer profile is stored – is essential for MMS success. This is particularly true for real-time capability effectiveness and to minimize customer fatigue.

    If you have customer records in multiple places, you risk missing customer opportunities and potentially upsetting clients. For example, if a client has communicated preferences or disinterest through one channel, and this is not effectively recorded throughout the organization, another representative is likely to contact them in the same method again – possibly alienating the customer for good.

    A master database requires automatic synchronization with all point solutions, POS, billing systems, agencies, etc. If you don’t have up-to-the-minute information, you can’t score prospects effectively and you lose out on the benefits of the MMS.

    'CRM' surrounded by its components with 'MMS' highlighted.
    Focus on the fundamentals before proceeding. Secure organizational readiness to reduce project risk using Info-Tech’s Build a Strong Technology Foundation for CXM and Select and Implement a CRM Platform blueprints.

    Understanding the “art of the possible”

    The world of marketing technology changes rapidly! Understand how modern marketing management suites are used in most organizations.

    An MMS helps marketers in two primary ways:

    1. It allows them to efficiently execute and manage campaigns across dozens of channels and products.
    2. It allows them to analyze the outcomes of campaigns.

    Marketing suites accomplish these tasks by:

    • Leveraging workflow automation to reduce the amount of time spent creating marketing campaigns.
    • Using internal or third-party data to increase conversion effectiveness from customer databases across the organization.

    A strong MMS provides marketers with the data they need for actionable insights about their customers.

    A marketing automation solution delivers essentially all the benefits of an email marketing solution along with integrated capabilities that would otherwise need to be cobbled together using various standalone technologies.” (Marketo Inc.)

    Inform your way of thinking by understanding the capabilities of modern marketing applications.

    A tree with icons related to knowledge.

    Expect the marketing department to drive suite adoption, but don’t count out the benefits MMS will also provide to IT

    MMS adoption is driven by the need for better campaign execution and marketing intelligence. MMS technologies are adopted to create faster, easier, more intelligent, and more measurable campaigns and make managing complex channels easy and repeatable.

    Top Drivers for Adopting Marketing Management Technologies

    Bar chart of top drivers for adopting marketing management technology. The first four bars are highlighted and the largest, they are labelled 'Campaign Measurement & Effectiveness', 'Execute Multi-channel Campaigns', 'Shorten Marketing Campaign Cycle', and 'Reduce Manual Campaign Creation'.
    (Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N=23)

    The key drivers for MMS are business-related, not IT-related. However, this does not mean that there are no benefits to IT. In fact, the IT department will see numerous benefits, including time and resource savings. Further, not having an MMS creates more work for your IT department. IT must serve as a valued partner for selection and implementation.

    Additional benefits to IT driven by MMS

    Marketing management suites are ideal for large organizations with multiple product lines in complex marketing environments. IT is often more centralized than its counterparts in the business, making it uniquely positioned to encourage greater coordination by helping the business units understand the shared goals and the benefits of working together to roll out suites for marketing workflow management, intelligence, and channel management.

    Cross-Segmentation Additional Revenue Generation Real-Time Capabilities Lead Growth/ Conversion Rate
    Business Value
    • Share resources between brands and product lines.
    • Increase database size with populated client data.
    • Track customer lifetime value.
    • Increase average deal size.
    • Decrease time to execute campaigns.
    • Decrease lead acquisition costs while collecting higher quality leads.
    • Improve retention rates.
    • Reduce cost to serve.
    • Increase customer retention due to effective service.
    • Higher campaign and response rates.
    • Track, measure, and prove the value of marketing activities.
    • Broaden reach through social channels.
    IT Value
    • Reduce reliance on IT for routine tasks such as list creation and data cleansing.
    • Free up IT resources for the sectors of the business where the ROI is greatest.
    • Reduce need for IT to cleanse, modify, or merge data lists because most suites include CRM connectors.
    • Reduce need for constant customization on status reports on lead value and campaign success.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t forget that MMS technologies deliver on the overarching suite value proposition: a robust solution within one integrated offering. Without an MMS in play, organizations in need of this functionality are forced to piece together point solutions (or ad hoc management). This not only increases costs but also is an integration nightmare for IT.

    Step 1.2: Structure the project

    1.1

    1.2

    1.3

    Understand the MMS MarketStructure the ProjectGather MMS Requirements

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Determine if you are ready to kick off the MMS selection project.
    • Align project goals with CXM strategy and business goals.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core project team
    • Project manager
    • Project sponsor

    Outcomes of this step

    • Assurance that you have completed adequate preparation, obtained stakeholder and sponsor buy-in, secured sufficient resources, and completed strategy and planning activities to move forward with selection.
    • An approach to remedy organizational readiness to prepare for MMS selection.
    • An understanding of stakeholder goals.

    Identify the scope and purpose of your MMS selection process

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Sample Project Overview

    [Organization] plans to select and implement a marketing management suite in order to introduce better campaign management to the business’ processes. This procurement and implementation of an MMS tool will enable the business to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing campaign execution.

    This project will oversee the assessment and shortlisting of MMS vendors, selection of an MMS tool, the configuration of the solution, and the implementation of the technology into the business environment.

    Rationale Behind the Project

    Consider the business drivers behind the interest in MMS technology.

    Be specific to business units impacted and identify key considerations (both opportunities and risks).

    Business Drivers

    • Organizational productivity
    • Customer satisfaction
    • Marketing management costs
    • Risk management

    Info-Tech Insights

    Creating repeatable and streamlined marketing processes is a common overarching business objective that is driven by multiple factors. To ensure this objective is achieved, confirm that the primary drivers are following the implementation of the first automated marketing channels.

    Activity: Understand your business’ goals for MMS by parsing your formal CXM strategy

    Associated Activity icon 1.2.1 1 hour

    INPUT: Stakeholder user stories

    OUTPUT: Understanding of ideal outcomes from MMS implementation

    MATERIALS: Whiteboard and marker or sticky notes

    PARTICIPANTS: Project sponsor, Project stakeholders, Business analysts, Business unit reps

    Instructions

    1. Outline the purpose of the future MMS tool and the drivers behind this business decision with the project’s key stakeholders.
    2. Document plans to ensure that these drivers are taken into consideration and realized following implementation. Example:
      Improve Reduce/Eliminate KPIs
      Multichannel marketing Duplication of effort Number of customer interaction channels supported
      Social integration Process inefficiencies Number of social signals received (likes, shares, etc.)

    If you do not have a well-defined CXM strategy, leverage Info-Tech’s research to Build a Strong Technology Foundation for Customer Experience Management.

    Understanding marketing suites

    Vendor Profiles icon

    This blueprint focuses on complete, integrated marketing management suites

    An integrated suite is a single product that is designed to assist with multiple marketing processes. Information from these suites is deeply connected to the core CRM. Changing a piece of information for one process will update all affected.

    'MMS' surrounded by its integrated processes, including 'Marketing Operations Management', 'Breadth of Channel Support', 'Marketing Asset Management', etc.

    Understanding marketing point solutions

    Vendor Profiles icon

    A point solution typically interfaces with a single customer interaction channel with minimal CRM integration.

    Why use a marketing point solution?

    1. A marketing point solution is a standalone application used to manage a unique process.
    2. Point solutions can be implemented and updated relatively quickly.
    3. They cost less than full-feature, integrated marketing suites.
    4. Some point solutions integrate with CRM platforms or MMS platforms.

    Refer to Phase 2 for a bird’s-eye view of the point solution marketplace.

    Marketing Point Solutions

    • Twitter Analytics
    • Search Engine Optimization
    • Customer Portals
    • Livechat
    • Marketing Attribution
    • Demand Side Platform

    Determine if MMS is right for your organization

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Adopt an MMS if:

    1. Your organization is actively pursuing a multichannel marketing strategy, particularly if its marketing campaigns are complex and multifaceted, involving consumer-specific conditional messaging.
    2. Your enterprise serves a high volume of customers and marketing needs extend to formally managing budgets and resources, lead generation and segmentation, and measuring channel effectiveness.
    3. Your organizations has multiple product lines and is interested in increasing cross-sale opportunities.

    Bypass an MMS if:

    • Your organization does not participate in multichannel campaigns and is primarily using email or web channels to generate leads. You may find the advanced features and capabilities of an MMS to be overkill and should consider lead marketing automation (LMA) or email marketing services first.
    • You are a small to midsize business (SMB) with a limited budget or fewer than five marketing professionals. Don’t buy what you don’t need; organizations with fewer than five people in the marketing department are unlikely to need an MMS.
    • Sales generation is not a priority for the business or a primary goal for the marketing department.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Using an MMS is ideal for organizations with multiple brands and product portfolios (e.g. consumer packaged goods). Ad hoc management and email marketing services are best for small organizations with a client base that requires only bare bones engagement.

    Determine if you are ready to kick off your MMS selection and implementation project

    Supporting Tool icon 1.2.2 MMS Readiness Assessment Checklist
    Use Info-Tech’s MMS Readiness Assessment Checklist to determine if your organization has sufficient process and campaign maturity to warrant the investment in a consolidated marketing management suite.

    Sections of the Tool:

    1. Goals & Objectives
    2. Project Team
    3. Current State Understanding
    4. Future State Vision
    5. Business Process Improvement
    6. Project Metrics
    7. Executive Sponsorship
    8. Stakeholder Buy-In & Change Management
    9. Risk Management
    10. Cost & Budget

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    Sample of Info-Tech's MMS Readiness Assessment Checklist.

    Complete the MMS Readiness Assessment Checklist by following the instructions in Activity 1.2.3.

    Activity: Determine if you are ready to kick off your MMS selection project

    Associated Activity icon 1.2.3 30 minutes

    INPUT: MMS foundation, MMS strategy

    OUTPUT: Readiness remediation approach, Validation of MMS project readiness

    MATERIALS: Info-Tech’s MMS Readiness Assessment Checklist

    PARTICIPANTS: Project sponsor, Core project team

    Instructions

    1. Download the MMS Readiness Assessment Checklist.
    2. Review Section 1 of the checklist with the core project team and/or project sponsor, item by item. For completed items, tick the relative checkbox.
    3. Once the whole checklist has been reviewed, document all incomplete items in the table under Section 1 in the first table column (“Incomplete Readiness Item”).
    4. For each incomplete item, use your discretion to determine whether its completion is critical in preparation for MMS selection and implementation. This may vary given the complexity of your MMS project. If the item is critical to the project, indicate this with “Y” in the second column (“Criticality (Y/N)”).
    5. For each critical item, reflect on the barriers that have prevented or are preventing its completion. Possible barriers include incomplete task dependencies, low value-to-effort determination, lack of organizational knowledge or resources, pressure of deadlines, etc. Document these barriers in the third column (“Barriers to Completion”).
    6. Based on the barriers determined in Step 5, determine a remediation approach for each item. Document the approach in the fourth column (“Remediation Approach”).
    7. For each remediation activity, designate a due date and remediation owner. Document this in the fifth column (“Due Date & Owner”).
    8. Carry out the remediation of critical tasks and return to this blueprint to kickstart your selection and implementation project.

    Step 1.3: Gather MMS requirements

    1.1

    1.2

    1.3

    Understand the MMS MarketStructure the ProjectGather MMS Requirements

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand your MMS use case.
    • Elicit and capture your MMS requirements.
    • Prioritize your solution requirements.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core project team
    • Project manager
    • Business analysts
    • Procurement subject-matter experts (SMEs)

    Outcomes of this step

    • Project alignment with MMS market use case.
    • Inventory of categorized and prioritized MMS business requirements.

    Understand the dominant use-case scenarios for MMS across organizations

    Vendor Profiles icon

    USE CASES

    While an organization may be product- or service-centric, most fall into one of the three use cases described on this slide.

    1) Marketing Automation

    Workflow Management

    Managing complex marketing campaigns and building and tracking marketing workflows are the mainstay responsibilities of brand managers and other senior marketing professionals. In this category, we evaluated vendors that provide marketers with comprehensive tools for marketing campaign automation, workflow building and tracking, lead management, and marketing resource planning for campaigns that need to reach a large segment of customers.

    Omnichannel Management

    The proliferation of marketing channels has created significant challenges for many organizations. In this use case, we executed a special evaluation of vendors that are well suited for the intricacies of juggling multiple channels, particularly mobile, social, and email marketing.

    2) Marketing Intelligence

    Sifting through data from a myriad of sources and coming up with actionable intelligence and insights remains a critical activity for marketing departments, particularly for market researchers. In this category, we evaluated solutions that aggregate, analyze, and visualize complex marketing data from multiple sources to allow decision makers to execute informed decisions.

    3) Social Marketing

    The proliferation of social networks, customer data, and use cases has made ad hoc social media management challenging. In this category we evaluated vendors that bring uniformity to an organization’s social media capabilities and contribute to a 360-degree customer view.

    Activity: Understand which type of MMS you need

    Associated Activity icon 1.3.1 30 minutes

    INPUT: Use-case breakdown

    OUTPUT: Project use-case alignments

    Materials: Whiteboard, markers

    Participants: Project manager, Core project team (optional)

    Instructions

    1. Familiarize your team with Info-Tech’s MMS use-case breakdown from the previous slide.
    2. Determine which use case is best aligned with your organization’s MMS project objectives. If you need assistance with this, consider the relevance of the cases studies and statements on the following slides.
    3. If your team agrees with most or all statements under a given use case, this indicates strong alignment towards that use case. It is possible for an organization to align with more than one use case. Your use-case alignment will guide you in creating a vendor shortlist later in this project.

    Use Info-Tech’s vendor research and use-case scenarios to support your organization’s vendor analysis

    The use-case view of vendor and product performance provides multiple opportunities for vendors to fit into your application architecture depending on their product and market performance. The use cases selected are based on market research and client demand.

    Determining your use case is crucial for:

    1. Selecting an application that is the right fit
    2. Establishing a business case for MMS

    The following slides illustrate how the three most common use cases (marketing automation, marketing intelligence, and social marketing) align with business needs. As shown by the case studies, the right MMS can result in great benefits to your organization.

    Use-case alignment and business need

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Marketing Automation

    Marketing Need Manage customer experience across multiple channels Manage multiple campaigns simultaneously Integrate web-enabled devices (IoT) into marketing campaigns Run and track email marketing campaigns
    A line of arrows pointing down.
    Corresponding Feature End-to-end management of email marketing Visual workflow editor Customer journey mapping Business rules engine A/B tracking

    The Portland Trail Blazers utilize an MMS to amplify their message with marketing automation technology

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Entertainment | Source: Marketo

    Challenge

    The Portland Trail Blazers, an NBA franchise, were looking to expand their appeal beyond the city of Portland and into the greater Pacific Northwest Region.

    The team’s management group also wanted to showcase the full range of events that were hosted in the team’s multipurpose stadium.

    The Trail Blazers were looking to engage fans in a more targeted fashion than their CRM allowed for. Ultimately, they hoped to move from “batch and blast” email campaigns to an automated and targeted approach.

    Solution

    The Trail Blazers implemented an MMS that allowed it to rapidly build different types of campaigns. These campaigns could be executed across a variety of channels and target multiple demographics at various points in the fan journey.

    Contextual ads were implemented using the marketing suite’s automated customer journey mapping feature. Targeted ads were served based on a fan’s location in the journey and interactions with the Trail Blazers’ online collateral.

    Results

    The automated campaigns led to a 75% email open rate, which contributed to a 96% renewal rate for season ticket holders – a franchise record.

    Other benefits resulting from the improved conversion rate included an increased cohesion between the Trail Blazers’ marketing, analytics, and ticket sales operations.

    Use-case alignment and business need

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Marketing Intelligence

    Marketing Need Capture marketing- and customer-related data from multiple sources Analyze large quantities of marketing data Visualize marketing-related data in a manner that is easy for decision makers to consume Perform trend and predictive analysis
    A line of arrows pointing down.
    Corresponding Feature Integrate data across customer segments Analysis through machine learning Assign attributers to unstructured data Displays featuring data from external sources Create complex customer data visualizations

    Chico’s FAS uses marketing intelligence to drive customer loyalty

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Retail | Source: SAS

    Challenge

    Women’s apparel retailer Chico’s FAS was looking to capitalize on customer data from in-store and online experiences.

    Chico’s hoped to consolidate customer data from multiple online and brick-and-mortar retail channels to get a complete view of the customer.

    Doing so would satisfy Chico’s need to create more highly segmented, cost-effective marketing campaigns

    Solution

    Chico’s selected an MMS with strong marketing intelligence, analysis, and data visualization capability.

    The MMS could consolidate and analyze customer and transactional information. The suite’s functionality enabled Chico’s marketing team to work directly with the data, without help from statisticians or IT staff.

    Results

    The approach to marketing indigence led to customers getting deals on products that were actually relevant to them, increasing sales and brand loyalty.

    Moreover, the time it took to perform data consolidation decreased dramatically, from 17 hours to two hours, allowing the process to be performed daily instead of weekly.

    Use-case alignment and business need

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Social Marketing

    Marketing Need Understand customers' likes and dislikes Manage and analyze social media channels like Facebook and Twitter Foster a conversation around specific products Engage international audiences through regional messaging apps
    A line of arrows pointing down.
    Corresponding Feature Social listening capabilities Tools for curating customer community content Ability to aggregate social data Integration with popular social networks Ability to conduct trend reporting

    Bayer leverages MMS technology to cultivate a social presence

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Life Sciences | Source: Adobe

    Challenge

    Bayer, a Fortune 500 health and life sciences company, was looking for a new way to communicate its complex medical breakthroughs to the general public.

    The decision was made to share the science behind its products via social channels in order to generate excitement.

    Bayer needed tools to publish content across a variety of social media platforms while fostering conversations that were more focused on the science behind products.

    Solution

    Based on the requirements, Bayer decided that an MMS would be the best fit.

    After conducting a market scan, the company selected an MMS with a comprehensive social media suite.

    The suite included tools for social listening and moderation and tools to guide conversations initiated by both marketers and customers.

    Results

    The MMS provided Bayer with the toolkit to engage its audience.

    Bayer took control of the conversation about its products by serving potential customers with relevant video content on social media.

    Its social strategy coupled with advanced engagement tools resulted in new business opportunities and more than 65,000 views on YouTube and more than 87,000 Facebook views in a single month.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s requirements gathering framework to serve as the basis for capturing your MMS requirements

    An important step in selecting an MMS that will have widespread user adoption is creating archetypal customer personas. This will enable you to talk concretely about them as consumers of the application you select and allow you to build buyer scenarios around them.
    REQUIREMENTS GATHERING
    Info-Tech’s requirements gathering framework is a comprehensive approach to requirements management that can be scaled to any size of project or organization. This framework ensures that the application created will capture the needs of all stakeholders and deliver business value. Develop and right-size a proven standard operating procedure for requirements gathering with Info-Tech’s blueprint Build a Strong Approach to Business Requirements Gathering.
    Stock photo of a Jenga tower with title: Build a Strong Approach to Business Requirements Gathering
    KEY INPUTS TO MMS REQUIREMENTS GATHERING
    Requirements Gathering Methodology

    Sample of Requirements Gathering Blueprint.

    Requirements Gathering Blueprint Slide 25: Understand the best-practice framework for requirements gathering for enterprise applications projects.

    Requirements Gathering SOP

    Sample of Requirements Gathering Blueprint.

    Requirements Gathering Blueprint Activities 1.2.2-1.2.5, 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 3.1.1, 3.2.1, 4.1.1-4.1.3, 4.2.2: Consolidate outputs to right-size a best-practice SOP for your organization.

    Project Level Selection Tool

    Sample of Requirements Gathering Blueprint.

    Requirements Gathering Blueprint Activity 1.2.4: Determine project-level selection guidelines to inform the due diligence required in your MMS requirements gathering.

    Activity: Elicit and capture your MMS requirements

    Associated Activity icon 1.3.2 Varies

    INPUT: MMS tool user expertise, MMS Requirements Picklist Tool

    OUTPUT: A list of needs from the MMS tool user perspective

    Materials: Note-taking materials, Whiteboard or flip chart, markers

    Participants: MMS users in the organization, MMS selection committee

    Instructions

    1. Identify stakeholders for the requirements gathering exercise. Consider holding one-on-one sessions or large focus groups with key stakeholders or the project sponsor to gather business requirements for an MMS.
    2. Use the MMS Requirements Picklist Tool as a starting point for conducting the requirements elicitation session(s).
    3. Begin by reading the instructions in the template and then move to the “Requirements” worksheet. Read each defined requirement in the worksheet and indicate in the “Requirement Status” column whether the requirement is a “Must,” “High,” or “Low.” Confirming the status is an important part of the exercise. The status will help filter vendors for final selection later on in the process.
    4. Decide whether additional requirements are necessary by asking the MMS tool users. If so, add the requirements to the bottom of the “Requirements” worksheet and indicate their “Requirement Status.”

    Download the MMS Requirements Picklist Tool to help with completing this activity.

    Show the measurable benefits of MMS with metrics

    The return on investment (ROI) and perceived value of the organization’s marketing solution will be a critical indication of the likelihood of success of the suite’s selection and implementation.

    EXAMPLE
    METRICS

    MMS and Technology Adoption

    Marketing Performance Metrics
    Average revenue gain per campaign Quantity and quality of marketing insights
    Average time to execute a campaign Customer acquisition rates
    Savings from automated processes Marketing cycle times
    User Adoption and Business Feedback Metrics
    User satisfaction feedback User satisfaction survey with the technology
    Business adoption rates Application overhead cost reduction

    Info-Tech Insight

    Even if marketing metrics are difficult to track right now, the implementation of an MMS brings access to valuable customer intelligence from data that was once kept in silos.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech Workshop Associated Activity icon

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts:

    Photo of an Info-Tech analyst.
    • To accelerate this project, engage your IT team in an Info-Tech workshop with an Info-Tech analyst team.
    • Info-Tech analyst will join you and your team onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech's historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

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

    1.2.1

    Sample of activity 1.2.1 'Understand your business' goals for MMS by parsing your formal CXM strategy'. Align the CXM strategy value proposition to MMS capabilities

    Our facilitator will help your team identify the IT CXM strategy and marketing goals. The analyst will then work with the team to map the strategy to technological drivers available in the MMS market.

    1.3.2

    Sample of activity 1.3.2 'Elicit and capture your MMS requirements'. Define the needs of MMS users

    Our facilitator will work with your team to identify user requirements for the MMS Requirements Picklist Tool. The analyst will facilitate a discussion with your team to prioritize identified requirements.

    Select a Marketing Management Suite

    PHASE 2

    Shortlist Marketing Management Suites

    Phase 2 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 2: Shortlist Marketing Management Suites

    Proposed Time to Completion: 1-3 months
    Step 2.1: Analyze and Shortlist MMS Vendors
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Review requirements gathering findings.
    • Review the MMS market space.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Review vendor profiles and analysis.
    • Weigh the evaluation criteria’s importance in product capabilities and vendor characteristics.
    • Shortlist MMS vendors.
    With these tools & templates:
    Phase 2 Results:
    • Shortlist of MMS tools

    Phase 2 milestones

    Launch the MMS Project and Collect Requirements — Phase 1

    • Understand the MMS market space.
    • Assess organizational and project readiness for MMS selection.
    • Structure your MMS selection and implementation project by refining your MMS roadmap.
    • Align organizational use-case fit with market use cases.
    • Collect, prioritize, and document MMS requirements.

    Shortlist MMS Tool — Phase 2

    • Review MMS market leaders and players within your aligned use case.
    • Review MMS vendor profiles and capabilities.
    • Shortlist MMS vendors based on organizational fit.

    Select an MMS — Phase 3

    • Submit request for proposal (RFP) to shortlisted vendors.
    • Evaluate vendor responses and develop vendor demonstration scripts.
    • Score vendor demonstrations and select the final product.

    Step 2.1: Analyze and shortlist MMS vendors

    2.1

    Analyze and Shortlist MMS Vendors

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Review MMS vendor landscape.
    • Take note of relevant point solutions.
    • Shortlist vendors for the RFP process.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core project team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Understanding of Info-Tech’s use-case scenarios for MMS: marketing automation, marketing intelligence, and social marketing.
    • Familiarity with the MMS vendor landscape.
    • Shortlist of MMS vendors for RFP process.

    Familiarize yourself with the MMS market: How it got here

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Loosely Tied Together

    Originally the sales and marketing enterprise application space was highly fragmented, with disparate best-of-breed point solutions patched together. Soon after, vendors in the late 1990s started bundling automation technologies into a single suite offering. Marketing capabilities of CRM suites were minimal at best and often restricted to web and email only.

    Limited to Large Enterprises

    Many vendors started to combine all marketing tools into a single, comprehensive marketing suite, but cost and complexity limited them to large enterprises and marketing agencies.

    Best-of-breed solutions targeting new channels and new goals, like closed-loop sales and marketing, continued driving new marketing software genres, like dedicated lead management suites.

    In today’s volatile business environment, judgment built from past experience is increasingly unreliable. With consumer behaviors in flux, once-valid assumptions (e.g. ‘older consumers don’t use Facebook or send text messages’) can quickly become outdated.” (SAS Magazine)

    Info-Tech Insight

    As the market evolves, capabilities that were once cutting edge become default and new functionality becomes differentiating. Some features, like basic CRM integration, have become table stakes capabilities. Focus on advanced analytics features and omnichannel integration capabilities to get the best fit for your requirements.

    Familiarize yourself with the MMS market: Where it’s going

    Vendor Profiles icon

    AI and Machine Learning

    Vendors are beginning to offer AI capabilities across MMS for data-driven customer engagement scoring and social listening insights. Machine learning capability is being leveraged to determine optimal customer journey and suggest next steps to users.

    Marketplace Fragmentation

    The number of players in the marketing application space has grown exponentially. The majority of these new vendors offer point solutions rather than full-blown marketing suites. Fragmentation is leading to tougher choices when looking to augment an existing platform with specific functionality.

    Improving Application Integration

    MMS vendors are fostering deeper integrations between their marketing products and core CRM products, leading to improved data hygiene. At the same time, vendors are improving flexibility in the marketing suite so that new channels can be added easily.

    Greater Self-Service

    Vendors have an increased emphasis on application usability. Their goal is to enable marketers to execute campaigns without relying on specialists.

    There’s a firehose of customer data coming at marketers today, and with more interconnected devices emerging (wearables, smart watches, etc.), cultivating a seamless customer experience is likely to grow even more challenging.

    Building out a data-driven marketing strategy and technology stack that enables you to capture behaviors across channels is key.” (IBM, Ideas for Exceeding Customer Expectations)

    Review Info-Tech’s vendor profiles of the MMS market to identify vendors that meet your requirements

    Vendors & Products Evaluated

    Vendor logos including 'Adobe', 'ORACLE', and 'IBM'.

    VENDOR PROFILES

    Review the MMS Vendor Evaluation

    Large icon of a descending bar graph for vendor profiles title page.

    Table stakes are the minimum standard; without these, a product doesn’t even get reviewed

    Vendor Profiles icon

    TABLE STAKES

    Feature Table Stake Functionality
    Basic Workflow Automation Simple automation of common marketing tasks (e.g. handling inbound leads).
    Basic Channel Integration Integration with minimum two or more marketing channels (e.g. email and direct mail).
    Customizable User Interface A user interface that can be changed and optimized to users’ preferences. This includes customizable dashboards for displaying relevant marketing metrics.
    Basic Mobile UX Accessible from a mobile device in some fashion.
    Cloud Compatibility Able to offer integration within pre-existing or proprietary cloud server. Many vendors only have SaaS products.

    What does this mean?

    The products assessed in these vendor profiles meet, at the very least, the requirements outlined as table stakes.

    Many of the vendors go above and beyond the outlined table stakes; some even do so in multiple categories. This section aims to highlight the products’ capabilities in excess of the criteria listed here.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If table stakes are all you need from your MMS, determine whether your existing CRM platform already satisfies your requirements. Otherwise, dig deeper to find the best price-to-value ratio for your needs.

    Take a holistic approach to vendor and product evaluation

    Almost – or equally – as important as evaluating vendor feature capabilities is the need to evaluate vendor viability and non-functional aspects of the MMS. Include an evaluation of the following criteria in your vendor scoring methodology:

    Vendor Attribute Description
    Vendor Stability and Variability The vendor’s proven ability to execute on constant product improvement, deliberate strategic direction, and overall commitment to research and development efforts in responding to emerging trends.
    Security Model The potential to integrate the application to existing security models and the vendor's approach to handling customer data.
    Deployment Style The choice to deploy a single or multi-tenant SaaS environment via a perpetual license.
    Ease of Customization The relative ease with which a system can be customized to accommodate niche or industry-specific business or functional needs.
    Vendor Support Options The availability of vendor support options, including selection consulting, application development resources, implementation assistance, and ongoing support resources.
    Size of Partner Ecosystem The quantity of enterprise applications and third-party add-ons that can be linked to the MMS, as well as the number of system integrators available.
    Ease of Data Integration The relative ease with which the system can be integrated with an organization’s existing application environment, including legacy systems, point solutions, and other large enterprise applications.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Evaluate vendor capabilities, not just product capabilities. An MMS is typically a long-term commitment; ensure that your organization is teaming up with a vendor or provider that you feel you can work well with and depend on.

    Advanced features are the capabilities that allow for granular differentiation of market players and use-case performance

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Evaluation Methodology

    These product features were assessed as part of the classification of vendors into use cases. In determining use-case leaders and players, select features were considered based on best alignment with the use case.

    Feature Advanced Functionality
    Advanced Campaign Management End-to-end marketing campaign management: customer journey mapping, campaign initiation, monitoring, and dynamic reporting and adjustment.
    Marketing Asset Management Content repository functionality (or tight ECM integration) for marketing assets and campaign collateral (static, multimedia, e-commerce–related, etc.).
    Marketing Analytics
    • Predictive analytics; machine learning; capabilities for data ingestion and visualization across various marketing research/marketing intelligence categories (demographic, psychographic, etc.).
    • Data segmentation; drill-down ability to assign attributes to unstructured data; ability to construct complex customer/competitive data visualizations from segmented data.
    Breadth of Channel Support Ability to support and manage a wide range of marketing channels (e-commerce, SEO/SEM, paid advertising, email, traditional [print, multimedia], etc.).
    Marketing Workflow Management Visual workflow editors and business rules engine creation.

    Advanced features are the capabilities that allow for granular differentiation of market players and use-case performance

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Evaluation Methodology

    These product features were assessed as part of the classification of vendors into use cases. In determining use-case leaders and players, select features were considered based on best alignment with the use case.

    Feature Advanced Functionality
    Community Marketing Management Branded customer communities (e.g. community support forums) and DMB/DSP.
    Email Marketing Automation End-to-end management of email marketing: email templates, email previews, spam testing, A/B tracking, multivariate testing, and email metrics tracking.
    Social Marketing Ability to integrate with popular social media networks and manage social properties and to aggregate and analyze social data for trend reporting.
    Mobile Marketing Ability to manage SMS, push, and mobile application marketing.
    Marketing Operations Management Project management tools for marketers (timelines, performance indicators, budgeting/resourcing tools, etc.).

    Use the information in the MMS vendor profiles to streamline your vendor analysis process

    Vendor Profiles icon This section includes profiles of the vendors evaluated against the previously outlined framework.
    Review the use-case scenarios relevant to your organization’s use case to identify a vendor’s fit to your organization’s MMS needs.
    • L = Use-case leader
    • P = Use-case player
    Three column headers: 'Marketing Automation', 'Marketing Intelligence', and 'Social Media Marketing'.
    Understand your organization’s size and whether it falls within the product’s market focus.
    • Large enterprise: 2,000+ employees and revenue of $250M+
    • Small-medium enterprise: 30-2,000 employees and revenue of $25M-$250M
    Column header 'MARKET FOCUS' with row headers 'Small-Medium' and 'Large Enterprise'.
    Review the differentiating features to identify where the application performs best. A list of features.
    Colors signify a feature’s performance. A key for color-coding: Blue - 'Best of Breed', Green - 'Present: Competitive Strength', Yellow-Green - 'Present: Competitive Parity', Yellow - 'Semi-Present', Grey - 'Absent'.

    Adobe Marketing Cloud

    Vendor Profiles icon
    Logo for Adobe. FUNCTIONAL SPOTLIGHT

    Creative Cloud Integration: To make for a more seamless cross-product experience, projects can be sent between Marketing Cloud and Creative Cloud apps such as Photoshop and After Effects.

    Sensei: Adobe has revamped its machine learning and AI platform in an effort to integrate AI into all of its marketing applications. Sensei includes data from Microsoft in a new partnership program.

    Anomaly Detection: Adobe’s Anomaly Detection contextualizes data and provides a statistical method to determine how a given metric has changed in relation to previous metrics.

    USE-CASE PERFORMANCE
    Marketing
    Automation
    Marketing
    Intelligence
    Social
    Marketing

    L

    L

    P

    MARKET FOCUS
    Small-Medium
    Large Enterprise
    Adobe’s goal with Marketing Cloud is to help businesses provide customers with cohesive, seamless experiences by surfacing customer profiles in relevant situations quickly. Adobe Marketing Cloud has traditionally been used in the B2C space but has seen an increase in B2C use cases driven by the finance and technology sectors. FEATURES
    Color-coded ranking of each feature for Adobe.
    Employees (2018): 17,000 Presence: Global Founded: 1982 NASDAQ: ADBE

    HubSpot

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Logo for Hubspot.FUNCTIONAL SPOTLIGHT

    Content Optimization System (COS): The fully integrated system stores assets and serves them to their designated channels at relevant times. The COS is integrated into HubSpot's marketing platform.

    Email Automation: HubSpot provides basic email that can be linked to a specific part of an organization’s marketing funnel. These emails can also be added to pre-existing automated workflows.

    Email Deliverability Tool: HubSpot identifies HTML or content that will be flagged by spam filters. It also validates links and minimizes email load times.

    USE-CASE PERFORMANCE
    Marketing
    Automation
    Marketing
    Intelligence
    Social
    Marketing

    P

    P

    P

    MARKET FOCUS
    Small-Medium
    Large Enterprise
    Hubspot’s primary focus has been on email marketing campaigns. It has put effort into developing solid “click not code” email marketing capabilities. Also, Hubspot has an official integration with Salesforce for expanded operations management and analytics capabilities. FEATURES
    Color-coded ranking of each feature for Hubspot.
    Employees (2018): 1,400 Presence: Global Founded: 2006 NYSE: HUBS

    IBM Marketing Cloud

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Logo for IBM.FUNCTIONAL SPOTLIGHT

    Watson: IBM is leveraging its popular Watson AI brand to generate marketing insights for automated campaigns.

    Weather Effects: Set campaign rules based on connections between weather conditions and customer behavior relative to zip code made by Watson.

    Real-Time Personalization: IBM has made efforts to remove campaign interaction latency and optimize live customer engagement by acting on information about what customers are doing in the current moment.

    USE-CASE PERFORMANCE
    Marketing
    Automation
    Marketing
    Intelligence
    Social
    Marketing

    L

    L

    P

    MARKET FOCUS
    Small-Medium
    Large Enterprise
    IBM has remained ahead of the curve by incorporating its well-known AI technology throughout Marketing Cloud. The application’s integration with the wide array of IBM products makes it a powerful tool for users already in the IBM ecosystem. FEATURES
    Color-coded ranking of each feature for IBM.
    Employees (2018): 380,000 Presence: Global Founded: 1911 NYSE: IBM

    Marketo

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Logo for Marketo.FUNCTIONAL SPOTLIGHT

    Content AI: Marketo has leveraged its investments in machine learning to intelligently fetch marketing assets and serve them to customers based on their interactions with a campaign.

    Email A/B Testing: To improve lead generation from email campaigns, Marketo features the ability to execute A/B testing for customized campaigns.

    Partnership with Google: Marketo is now hosted on Google’s cloud platform, enabling it to provide support for larger enterprise clients and improve GDPR compliance.

    USE-CASE PERFORMANCE
    Marketing
    Automation
    Marketing
    Intelligence
    Social
    Marketing

    P

    P

    P

    MARKET FOCUS
    Small-Medium
    Large Enterprise
    Marketo has strong capabilities for lead management but has recently bolstered its analytics capabilities. Marketo is hoping to capture some of the analytics application market share by offering tools with varying complexity and to cater to firms with a wide range of analytics needs. FEATURES
    Color-coded ranking of each feature for Marketo.
    Employees (2018): 1,000 Presence: Global Founded: 2006 Private Corporation

    Oracle Marketing Cloud

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Logo for Oracle.FUNCTIONAL SPOTLIGHT

    Data Visualization: To make for a more seamless cross-product experience, marketing projects can be sent between Marketing Cloud and Creative Cloud apps such as Dreamweaver.

    ID Graph: Use ID Graph to unite disparate data sources to form a singular profile of leads, making the personalization and contextualization of campaigns more efficient.

    Interest-Based Messaging: Pause a campaign to update a segment or content based on aggregated customer activity and interaction data.

    USE-CASE PERFORMANCE
    Marketing
    Automation
    Marketing
    Intelligence
    Social
    Marketing

    P

    P

    P

    MARKET FOCUS
    Small-Medium
    Large Enterprise
    Oracle Marketing Cloud is known for its balance between campaigns and analytics products. Oracle has taken the lead on expanding its marketing channel mix to include international options such as WeChat. Users already using Oracle’s CRM/CEM products will derive the most value from Marketing Cloud. FEATURES
    Color-coded ranking of each feature for Oracle.
    Employees (2018): 138,000 Presence: Global Founded: 1977 NYSE: ORCL

    Salesforce Marketing Cloud

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Logo for Salesforce Marketing Cloud.FUNCTIONAL SPOTLIGHT

    Einstein: Salesforce is putting effort into integrating AI into all of its applications. The Einstein AI platform provides marketers with predictive analytics and insights into customer behavior.

    Mobile Studio: Salesforce has a robust mobile marketing offering that encompasses SMS/MMS, in-app engagement, and group messaging platforms.

    Journey Builder: Salesforce created Journey Builder, which is a workflow automation tool. Its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to automate responses to customer actions.

    USE-CASE PERFORMANCE
    Marketing
    Automation
    Marketing
    Intelligence
    Social
    Marketing

    L

    P

    L

    MARKET FOCUS
    Small-Medium
    Large Enterprise
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud is primarily used by organizations in the B2C space. It has strong Sales Cloud CRM integration. Pardot is positioning itself as a tool for sales teams in addition to marketers. FEATURES
    Color-coded ranking of each feature for Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
    Employees (2018): 1,800 Presence: Global Founded: 2000 NYSE: CRM

    Salesforce Pardot

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Logo for Salesforce Pardot.FUNCTIONAL SPOTLIGHT

    Engagement Studio: Salesforce is putting marketing capabilities in the hands of sales reps by giving them access to a team email engagement platform.

    Einstein: Salesforce’s Einstein AI platform helps marketers and sales reps identify the right accounts to target with predictive lead scoring.

    Program Steps: Salesforce developed a distinct own workflow building tool for Pardot. Workflows are made of “Program Steps” that have the functionality to initiate campaigns based on insights from Einstein.

    USE-CASE PERFORMANCE
    Marketing
    Automation
    Marketing
    Intelligence
    Social
    Marketing

    P

    P

    -

    MARKET FOCUS
    Small-Medium
    Large Enterprise
    Pardot is Salesforce’s B2B marketing solution. Pardot has focused on developing tools that enable sales teams and marketers to work in lockstep in order to achieve lead-generation goals. Pardot has deep integration with Salesforce’s CRM and customer service management products. FEATURES
    Color-coded ranking of each feature for Salesforce Pardot.
    Employees (2018): 1,800 Presence: Global Founded: 2000 NYSE: CRM

    SAP Hybris Marketing

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Logo for SAP.FUNCTIONAL SPOTLIGHT

    CMO Dashboard: The specialized dashboard is aimed at providing overviews for the executive level. It includes the ability to coordinate marketing activities and project budgets, KPIs, and timelines.

    Loyalty Management: SAP features in-app tools to manage campaigns specifically geared toward customer loyalty with digital coupons and iBeacons.

    Customer Segmentation: SAP’s predictive capabilities dynamically suggest relevant customer profiles for new campaigns.

    USE-CASE PERFORMANCE
    Marketing
    Automation
    Marketing
    Intelligence
    Social
    Marketing

    P

    L

    P

    MARKET FOCUS
    Small-Medium
    Large Enterprise
    SAP Hybris Marketing Cloud optimizes marketing strategies in real time with accurate attribution and measurements. SAP’s operations management capabilities are robust, including the ability to view consolidated data streams from ongoing marketing plans, performance targets, and budgets. FEATURES
    Color-coded ranking of each feature for SAP.
    Employees (2018): 84,000 Presence: Global Founded: 1972 NYSE: SAP

    SAS Marketing Intelligence

    Vendor Profiles icon

    Logo for SAS.FUNCTIONAL SPOTLIGHT

    Activity Map: A user-friendly workflow builder that can be used to execute campaigns. Multiple activities can be simultaneously A/B tested within the Activity Map UI. The outcome of the test can automatically adjust the workflow.

    Spots: A native digital asset manager that can store property that is part of existing and future campaigns.

    Viya: A framework for fully integrating third-party data sources into SAS Marketing Intelligence. Viya assists with pairing on-premises databases with a cloud platform for use with the SAS suite.

    USE-CASE PERFORMANCE
    Marketing
    Automation
    Marketing
    Intelligence
    Social
    Marketing

    P

    L

    MARKET FOCUS
    Small-Medium
    Large Enterprise
    SAS has been a leading BI and analytics provider for more than 35 years. Rooted in statistical analysis of data, SAS products provide forward-looking strategic insights. Organizations that require extensive customer intelligence capabilities and the ability to “slice and dice” segments should have SAS on their shortlist. FEATURES
    Color-coded ranking of each feature for SAS.
    Employees (2018): 14,000 Presence: Global Founded: 1976 Private Corporation

    Consider alternative MMS vendors not included in Info-Tech’s vendor profiles

    Info-Tech evaluated only a portion of vendors in the MMS market. In order for a vendor to be included in this landscape, the company needed to meet three baseline criteria:
    1. Our clients must be talking about the solution.
    2. Our analysts must believe the solution will play well within the evaluation.
    3. The vendor must meet table stakes criteria.
    Below is a list of notable vendors in the space that did not meet all of Info-Tech’s inclusion requirements.

    Additional vendors in the MMS market:

    Logo for act-on. Logo for SharpSpring.

    See the next slides for suggested point solutions.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s WXM and SMMP vendor landscapes to select platforms that fit with your CXM strategy

    Web experience management (WXM) and social media management platforms (SMMP) act in concert with your MMS to execute complex campaigns.

    Social Media Management

    Info-Tech’s SMMP selection guide enables you to find a solution that satisfies your objectives across marketing, sales, public relations, HR, and customer service. Create a unified framework for driving successful implementation and adoption of your SMMP that fully addresses CRM and marketing automation integration, end-user adoption, and social analytics with Info-Tech’s blueprint Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform.

    Stock image with the title Select and Implement a Social Media Management Platform.
    Web Experience Management

    Info-Tech’s approach to WXM ensures you have the right suite of tools for web content management, experience design, and web analytics. Put your best foot forward by conducting due diligence as the selection project advances. Ensure that your organization will see quick results with Info-Tech’s blueprint Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution.

    Stock image with the title Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution.

    POINT SOLUTION PROFILES

    Review this cursory list of point solutions by use case

    Consider point solutions if a full suite is not required

    Large icon of a target for point solution profiles title page.

    Consider point solutions if a full suite is not required

    Email Marketing

    Logos of companies for Email Marketing including MailChimp and emma.

    Consider point solutions if a full suite is not required

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

    Logos of companies for Search Engine Optimization including SpyFu and SerpStat.

    Consider point solutions if a full suite is not required

    Demand-Side Platform (DSP)

    Logos of companies for Demand-Side Platform including MediaMath and rocketfuel.

    Consider point solutions if a full suite is not required

    Customer Portal Software

    Logos of companies for Customer Portal Software including LifeRay and lithium.

    Select a Marketing Management Suite

    PHASE 3

    Select Vendor and Communicate Decision to Stakeholders

    Phase 3 outline

    Associated Activity icon 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.

    Guided Implementation 3: Plan Your MMS Implementation

    Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks
    Step 3.1: Select Your MMS Step 3.2: Communicate the Decision to Stakeholders
    Start with an analyst kick-off call:
    • Review the MMS shortlist.
    • Discuss how to link RFP questions and demo script scenarios to gathered requirements.
    Review findings with analyst:
    • Review the alignment between MMS capability and the business’ CXM strategy.
    • Discuss how to present the decision to stakeholders.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Build a vendor response template.
    • Evaluate RFP responses from vendors.
    • Build demo scripts and set up product demonstrations.
    • Establish evaluation criteria.
    • Select MMS product and vendor.
    Then complete these activities…
    • Present decision rationale to stakeholders.
    With these tools & templates:
    • MMS Request for Proposal Template
    • MMS Vendor Demo Script
    With these tools & templates:
    • MMS Selection Executive Presentation Template
    Phase 3 Results
    • Select an MMS that meets requirements and is approved by stakeholders.

    Phase 3 milestones

    Launch the MMS Project and Collect Requirements — Phase 1

    • Understand the MMS market space.
    • Assess organizational and project readiness for MMS selection.
    • Structure your MMS selection and implementation project by refining your MMS roadmap.
    • Align organizational use-case fit with market use cases.
    • Collect, prioritize, and document MMS requirements.

    Shortlist MMS Tool — Phase 2

    • Review MMS market leaders and players within your aligned use case.
    • Review MMS vendor profiles and capabilities.
    • Shortlist MMS vendors based on organizational fit.

    Select an MMS — Phase 3

    • Submit request for proposal (RFP) to shortlisted vendors.
    • Evaluate vendor responses and develop vendor demonstration scripts.
    • Score vendor demonstrations and select the final product.

    Step 2.1: Analyze and shortlist MMS vendors

    3.1

    3.2

    Select Your MMS Communicate Decision to Stakeholders

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Build a response template to standardize potential vendor responses and streamline your evaluation process.
    • Evaluate the RFPs you receive with a clear scoring process and evaluation framework.
    • Build a demo script to evaluate product demonstrations by vendors.
    • Select your solution.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core project team
    • Procurement SMEs
    • Project sponsor

    Outcomes of this step

    • Completed MMS RFP vendor response template
    • Completed MMS demo script(s)
    • Established product and vendor evaluation criteria
    • Final MMS selection

    Activity: Shortlist vendors for the RFP process

    Associated Activity icon 3.1.1 30 minutes

    INPUT: Organizational use-case fit

    OUTPUT: MMS vendor shortlist

    Materials: Info-Tech’s MMS use cases, Info-Tech’s vendor profiles, Whiteboard, markers

    Participants: Core project team

    Instructions

    1. Collectively with the core project team, determine any knock-out criteria for shortlisting MMS vendors. For example, if your team is executing on a strategy that favors mobile deployment, vendors who do not have a mobile offering may be off the table.
    2. Based on the results in Activity 1.3.2, write a longlist of vendors. In most cases, this list will consist of all the vendors that fall into your organization’s use-case scenario. If your organization fits into more than one use case (e.g. your organization has both product-centric and service-centric MMS needs), look for the overlap of vendors between the use cases.
    3. Review the profiles of the vendors that fall into your use-case scenario. Based on your knock-out criteria established in Step 1, eliminate any vendors as applicable.
    4. Finalize and record your shortlist of MMS vendors.

    Use Info-Tech’s MMS Request for Proposal Template to document and communicate your requirements to vendors

    Supporting Tool icon 3.1.2 MMS Request for Proposal Template

    Use the MMS Request for Proposal Template as a step-by-step guide on how to request interested vendors to submit written proposals that meet your set of requirements.

    If interested in bidding for your project, vendors will respond with a description of the techniques they would employ to address your organizational challenges and meet your requirements, along with a plan of work and detailed budget for the project.

    The RFP is an important piece of setting and aligning your expectations with the vendors’ product offerings. Make sure to address the following elements in the RFP:

    Sections of the Tool:

    1. Statement of work
    2. General information
    3. Proposal preparation instructions
    4. Scope of work, specifications, and requirements
    5. Vendor qualifications and references
    6. Budget and estimated pricing
    7. Additional terms and conditions
    8. Vendor certification

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    Sample of Info-Tech's MMS Request Proposal Template.

    Complete the MMS Request for Proposal Template by following the instructions in Activity 3.1.3.

    Activity: Create an RFP to submit to MMS vendors

    Associated Activity icon 3.1.3 1-2 hours

    INPUT: Business requirements document, Procurement procedures

    OUTPUT: MMS RFP

    Materials: Internal RFP tools or templates (if available), Info-Tech’s MMS Request for Proposal Template (optional)

    Participants: Procurement SMEs, Project manager, Core project team (optional)

    Instructions

    1. Download Info-Tech’s MMS Request for Proposal Template or prepare internal best-practice RFP tools.
    2. Build your RFP:
      1. Complete the statement of work and general information sections to provide organizational context to your longlisted vendors.
      2. Outline the organization’s procurement instructions for vendors, including due diligence, assessment criteria, and dates.
      3. Input the business requirements document as created in Activity 1.3.2.
      4. Create a scenario overview to provide vendors with an opportunity to give an estimate price.
    3. Obtain approval for your RFP. Each organization has a unique procurement process; follow your own organization’s process as you submit your RFPs to vendors. Ensure compliance with your organization’s standards and gain approval for submitting your RFP.

    Establish vendor evaluation criteria

    Vendor demonstrations are an integral part of the selection process. Having clearly defined selection criteria will help with setting up relevant demos as well as inform the vendor scorecards.

    EXAMPLE EVALUATION CRITERIAPie chart indicating the weight of each 'Vendor Evaluation Criteria': 'Functionality, 30%', 'Ease of Use, 25%', 'Cost, 15%', 'Vendor, 15%', and 'Technology, 15%'.
    Functionality (30%)
    • Breadth of capability
    • Tactical capability
    • Operational capability
    Ease of Use (25%)
    • End-user usability
    • Administrative usability
    • UI attractiveness
    • Self-service options
    Cost (15%)
    • Maintenance
    • Support
    • Licensing
    • Implementation (internal and external costs)
    Vendor (15%)
    • Support model
    • Customer base
    • Sustainability
    • Product roadmap
    • Proof of concept
    • Implementation model
    Technology (15%)
    • Configurability options
    • Customization requirements
    • Deployment options
    • Security and authentication
    • Integration environment
    • Ubiquity of access (mobile)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Base your vendor evaluations not on the capabilities of the solutions but instead on how the solutions align with your organization’s process automation requirements and considerations.

    Vendor demonstrations

    Examine how the vendor’s solution performs against your evaluation framework.

    What is the value of a vendor demonstration?

    Vendor demonstrations create a valuable opportunity for your organization to confirm that the vendor’s claims in the RFP are actually true.

    A display of the vendor’s functional capabilities and its execution of the scenarios given in your demo script will help to support your assessment of whether a vendor aligns with your MMS requirements.

    What should be included in a vendor demonstration?

    1. Vendor’s display of its solution for the scenarios provided in the demo script.
    2. Display of functional capabilities of the tool.
    3. Briefing on integration capabilities.

    Activity: Invite top performing vendors for product demonstrations

    Associated Activity icon 3.1.4 1-2 hours

    INPUT: Business requirements document, Logistical considerations, Usage scenarios by functional area

    OUTPUT: MMS demo script

    Materials: Info-Tech’s MMS Vendor Demo Script

    Participants: Procurement SMEs, Core project team

    Instructions

    1. Have your evaluation team (selected at the onset of the project) present to evaluate each vendor’s presentation. In some cases you may choose to bring in a subject matter expert (SME) to evaluate a specific area of the tool.
    2. Outline the logistics of the demonstration in the Introduction section of the template. Be sure to outline the total length of the demo and the amount of time that should be dedicated to the following:
      • Product demonstration in response to the demo script
      • Showcase of unique product elements, not reflective of the demo script
      • Question and answer session
      • Breaks and other potential interruptions
    3. Provide prompts for the vendor to display the capabilities by listing and describing usage scenarios by functional area. For example, when asking a vendor to demo financial and accounting management capabilities, you may break scenarios out by task (e.g. general ledger, accounts payable) or user role (e.g. finance manager, administrator).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Challenge vendor project teams during product demonstrations. Asking the vendor to make adjustments or customizations on the fly will allow you to get an authentic feel of product capability and flexibility, as well as of the degree of adaptability of the vendor project team. Ask the vendor to demonstrate how to do things not listed in your user scenarios, such as change system visualizations or design, change underlying data, add additional datasets, demonstrate analytics capabilities, or channel specific automation.

    Use Info-Tech’s MMS Vendor Demo Script template to set expectations for vendor product demonstration

    Vendor Profiles icon MMS Vendor Demo Script

    Customize and use Info-Tech’s MMS Vendor Demo Script to help identify how a vendor’s solution will fit your organization’s particular business capability needs.

    This tool assists with outlining logistical considerations for the demo itself and the scenarios with which the vendors should script their demonstration.

    Sections of the Tool:

    1. Introduction
    2. Demo scenarios by functional area

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Avoid providing vendors with a rigid script for product demonstration; instead, provide user scenarios. Part of the value of a vendor demonstration is the opportunity to assess whether or not the vendor project team has a solid understanding of your organization’s MMS challenges and requirements and can work with your team to determine the best solution possible. A rigid script may result in your inability to assess whether the vendor will adjust for and scale with your project and organization as a technology partner.

    INFO-TECH DELIVERABLE

    Sample of Info-Tech's MMS Vendor Demo Script.

    Use the MMS Vendor Demo Script by following the instructions in Activity 3.1.4.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s vendor selection and negotiation models as the basis for a streamlined MMS selection process

    Design a procurement process that is robust, ruthless, and reasonable. Rooting out bias during negotiation is vital to making unbiased vendor selections.

    Vendor Selection

    Info-Tech’s approach to vendor selection gets you to design a procurement process that is robust, ruthless, and reasonable. This approach enables you to take control of vendor communications. Implement formal processes with an engaged team to achieve the right price, the right functionality, and the right fit for the organization with Info-Tech's blueprint Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process.

    Stock image with the title Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process.
    Vendor Negotiation

    Info-Tech’s SaaS negotiation strategy focuses on taking control of implementation from the beginning. The strategy allows you to work with your internal stakeholders to make sure they do not team up with the vendor instead of you. Reach an agreement with your vendor that takes into account both parties’ best interests with Info-Tech’s blueprint Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last.

    Stock image with the title Negotiate SaaS Agreements That Are Built to Last.

    Step 3.2: Communicate decision to stakeholders

    3.1

    3.2

    Select Your MMS Communicate Decision to Stakeholders

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Collect project rationale documentation.
    • Create a presentation to communicate your selection decision to stakeholders.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core project team
    • Procurement SMEs
    • Project sponsor
    • Business stakeholders
    • Relevant management

    Outcomes of this step

    • Completed MMS Selection Executive Presentation Template
    • Affirmation of MMS selection by stakeholders

    Inform internal stakeholders of the final decision

    Ensure traceability from the selected tool to the needs identified in the first phase. Internal stakeholders must understand the reasoning behind the final selection and see the alignment to their defined requirements and needs.

    Document the selection process to show how the selected tool aligns to stakeholder needs:

    A large arrow labelled 'Application Benefits', underlaid beneath two smaller arrows labelled 'MMS stakeholder needs' and 'MMS technology needs', all pointing to the right.

    Documentation will assist with:

    1. Adopting the selected MMS.
    2. Demonstrating that proper due diligence was performed during the selection process.
    3. Providing direct traceability between the selected applications and internal stakeholder needs.

    Activity: Prepare a presentation deck to communicate the selection process and decision to internal stakeholders

    Associated Activity icon 3.2.1 1 week

    INPUT: MMS tool selection committee expertise

    OUTPUT: Decision to invest or not invest in an MMS tool

    Materials: Note-taking materials, Whiteboard or flip chart, markers

    Participants: MMS tool selection committee

    Instructions

    1. Download Info-Tech’s MMS Selection Executive Presentation Template.
    2. Read the instructions on slide 2 of the template. Then, on slide 3, decide if any portion of the selection process should be removed from the communication. Discuss with the team and make adjustments to slide 3 as necessary.
    3. Work with the MMS selection committee to populate the slides that remain after the adjustments. Follow the instructions on each slide to help complete the content.
    4. Refer to the square brackets on each slide (e.g. [X.X]) to identify the activity numbers in this storyboard that correspond to the slide in the MMS Selection Executive Presentation Template. Use the outputs produced from the corresponding activities in this deck and populate each slide in the MMS Selection Executive Presentation Template.
    5. Use the completed template to present to internal stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Documenting the process of how the selection decision was made will avoid major headaches down the road. Without a documented process, internal stakeholders and even vendors can challenge and discredit the selection process.

    Vendor participation

    Vendors Who Briefed with Info-Tech Research Group

    Logos of vendors who participated in this blueprint: Salesforce Pardot, SAS, Adobe, Marketo, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

    Professionals Who Contributed to Our Evaluation and Research

    • Sara Camden, Digital Change Agent, Equifax
    • Caren Carrasco, Lifecycle Marketing and Automation, Benjamin David Group
    • 10 anonymous contributors participated in the vendor briefings

    Works cited

    Adobe Systems Incorporated. “Bayer builds understanding, socially.” Adobe.com, 2017. Web.

    IBM Corporation, “10 Key Marketing Trends for 2017.” IBM.com, 2017. Web.

    Marketo, Inc. “The Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation.” Marketo.com, 2013. Web.

    Marketo, Inc. “NBA franchise amplifies its message with help from Marketo’s marketing automation technology.” Marketo.com, 2017. Web.

    Salesforce Pardot. “Marketing Automation & Your CRM: The Dynamic Duo.” Pardot.com, 2017. Web.

    SAS Institute Inc. “Marketing Analytics: How, why and what’s next.” SAS Magazine, 2013. Web.

    SAS Institute Inc. “Give shoppers offers they’ll love.” SAS.com, 2017. Web.

    Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}395|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.3/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $62,821 Average $ Saved
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    • Parent Category Name: Service Management
    • Parent Category Link: /service-management
    • Business users don’t know what breadth of services are available to them.
    • It is difficult for business users to obtain useful information regarding services because they are often described in technical language.
    • Business users have unrealistic expectations of what IT can do for them.
    • There is no defined agreement on what is available, so the business assumes everything is.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Define services from the business user’s perspective, not IT’s perspective.
      • A service catalog is of no use if a user looks at it and sees a significant amount of information that doesn’t apply to them.
    • Separate the enterprise services from the Line of Business (LOB) services.
      • This will simplify the process of documenting your service definitions and make it easier for users to navigate, which leads to a higher chance of user acceptance.

    Impact and Result

    • Our program helps you organize your services in a way that is relevant to the users, and practical and manageable for IT.
    • Our approach to defining and categorizing services ensures your service catalog remains a living document. You may add or revise your service records with ease.
    • Our program creates a bridge between IT and the business. Begin transforming IT’s perception within the organization by communicating the benefits of the service catalog.

    Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise executive brief to understand why building a Service Catalog is a good idea for your business, and how following our approach will help you accomplish this difficult task.

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Launch the project

    The Launch the Project phase will walk through completing Info-Tech's project charter template. This phase will help build a balanced project team, create a change message and communication plan, and achieve buy-in from key stakeholders.

    • Design & Build a User-Facing Service Catalog – Phase 1: Launch the Project
    • Service Catalog Project Charter

    2. Identify and define enterprise services

    The Identify and Define Enterprise Services phase will help to target enterprise services offered by the IT team. They are offered to everyone in the organization, and are grouped together in logical categories for users to access them easily.

    • Design & Build a User-Facing Service Catalog – Phase 2: Identify and Define Enterprise Services
    • Sample Enterprise Services

    3. Identify and define Line of Business (LOB) services

    After completing this phase, all services IT offers to each LOB or functional group should have been identified. Each group should receive different services and display only these services in the catalog.

    • Design & Build a User-Facing Service Catalog – Phase 3: Identify and Define Line of Business Services
    • Sample LOB Services – Industry Specific
    • Sample LOB Services – Functional Group

    4. Complete the Services Definition Chart

    Completing the Services Definition Chart will help the business pick which information to include in the catalog. This phase also prepares the catalog to be extended into a technical service catalog through the inclusion of IT-facing fields.

    • Design & Build a User-Facing Service Catalog – Phase 4: Complete Service Definitions
    • Services Definition Chart
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog

    Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

    1 Launch the Project

    The Purpose

    The purpose of this module is to help engage IT with business decision making.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    This module will help build a foundation for the project to begin. The buy-in from key stakeholders is key to having them take onus on the project’s completion.

    Activities

    1.1 Assemble the project team.

    1.2 Develop a communication plan.

    1.3 Establish metrics for success.

    1.4 Complete the project charter.

    Outputs

    A list of project members, stakeholders, and a project leader.

    A change message, communication strategy, and defined benefits for each user group.

    Metrics used to monitor the usefulness of the catalog, both from a performance and monetary perspective.

    A completed project charter to engage users in the initiative.

    2 Identify and Define Enterprise Services

    The Purpose

    The purpose of this module is to review services which are offered across the entire organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A complete list of enterprise services defined from the user’s perspective to help them understand what is available to them.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify enterprise services used by almost everyone across the organization.

    2.2 Categorize services into logical groups.

    2.3 Define the services from the user’s perspective.

    Outputs

    A complete understanding of enterprise services for both IT service providers and business users.

    Logical groups for organizing the services in the catalog.

    Completed definitions in business language, preferably reviewed by business users.

    3 Identify and Define Line of Business (LOB) Services

    The Purpose

    The purpose of this module is to define the remaining LOB services for business users, and separate them into functional groups.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Business users are not cluttered with LOB definitions that do not pertain to their business activities.

    Business users are provided with only relevant IT information.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify the LOBs.

    3.2 Determine which one of two methodologies is more suitable.

    3.3 Identify LOB services using appropriate methodology.

    3.4 Define services from a user perspective.

    Outputs

    A structured view of the different functional groups within the business.

    An easy to follow process for identifying all services for each LOB.

    A list of every service for each LOB.

    Completed definitions in business language, preferably reviewed by business users.

    4 Complete the Full Service Definitions

    The Purpose

    The purpose of this module is to guide the client to completing their service record definitions completely.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    This module will finalize the deliverable for the client by defining every user-facing service in novice terms.

    Activities

    4.1 Understand the components to each service definition (information fields).

    4.2 Pick which information to include in each definition.

    4.3 Complete the service definitions.

    Outputs

    A selection of information fields to be included in the service catalog.

    A selection of information fields to be included in the service catalog.

    A completed service record design, ready to be implemented with the right tool.

    Further reading

    Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog

    Improve user satisfaction with IT with a convenient menu-like catalog.

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • CIOs
    • Directors and senior managers within IT and the business

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Articulate all of the services IT provides to the business in a language the business users understand.
    • Improve IT and business alignment through a common understanding of service features and IT support.

    This Research Will Help Them

    • Standardize and communicate how users request access to services.
    • Standardize and communicate how users obtain support for services.
    • Clearly understand IT’s role in providing each service.

    What is a service catalog?

    The user-facing service catalog is the go-to place for IT service-related information.

    The catalog defines, documents, and organizes the services that IT delivers to the organization. The catalog also describes the features of the services and how the services are intended to be used.

    The user-facing service catalog creates benefits for both the business and IT.

    For business users, the service catalog:

    1. Documents how to request access to the service, hours of availability, delivery timeframes, and customer responsibilities.
    2. Specifies how to obtain support for the services, support hours, and documentation.

    For IT, the service catalog:

    1. Identifies who owns the services and who is authorized to use the services.
    2. Specifies IT support requirements for the services, including support hours and documentation.

    What is the difference between a user-facing service catalog and a technical service catalog?

    This blueprint is about creating a user-facing service catalog written and organized in a way that focuses on the services from the business’ view.

    User facing

    User-friendly, intuitive, and simple overview of the services that IT provides to the business.

    The items you would see on the menu at a restaurant are an example of User Facing. The content is relatable and easy to understand.

    Technical

    Series of technical workflows, supporting services, and the technical components that are required to deliver a service.

    The recipe book with cooking instructions is an example of Technical Facing. This catalog is intended for the IT teams and is “behind the scene.”

    What is a service and what does it mean to be service oriented?

    The sum of the people, processes, and technologies required to enable users to achieve a business outcome is a Service.

    A service is used directly by the end users and is perceived as a coherent whole.

    Business Users →Service = Application & Systems + People & Processes

    Service Orientation is…

    • A focus on business requirements and business value, rather than IT driven motives.
    • Services are designed to enable required business activities.
    • Services are defined from the business perspective using business language.

    In other words, put on your user hat and leave behind the technical jargons!

    A lack of a published user-facing service catalog could be the source of many pains throughout your organization

    IT Pains

    • IT doesn’t understand all the services they provide.
    • Business users would go outside of IT for solutions, proliferating shadow IT.
    • Business users have a negative yet unrealistic perception of what IT is capable of.
    • IT has no way of managing expectations for their users, which tend to inflate.
    • There is often no defined agreement on services; the business assumes everything is available.

    Business Pains

    • Business users don’t know what services are available to them.
    • It is difficult to obtain useful information regarding a service because IT always talks in technical language.
    • Without a standard process in place, business users don’t know how to request access to a service with multiple sources of information available.
    • Receiving IT support is a painful, long process and IT doesn’t understand what type of support the business requires.

    An overwhelming majority of IT organizations still need to improve how they demonstrate their value to the business

    This image contains a pie chart with a slice representing 23% of the circle This image contains a pie chart with a slice representing 47% of the circle This image contains a pie chart with a slice representing 92% of the circle

    23% of IT is still viewed as a cost center.

    47% of business executives believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT.

    92% of IT leaders see the need to prove the business value of IT’s contribution.

    How a Service Catalog can help:

    Use the catalog to demonstrate how IT is an integral part of the organization and IT services are essential to achieve business objectives.

    Source: IT Communication in Crisis Report

    Transform the perception of IT by articulating all the services that are provided through the service catalog in a user-friendly language.

    Source: Info-Tech Benchmarking and Diagnostic Programs

    Increase IT-business communication and collaboration through the service catalog initiative. Move from technology focused to service-oriented.

    Source: IT Communication in Crisis Report

    Project Steps

    Phase 1 – Project Launch

    1.2 Project Team

    The team must be balanced between representatives from the business and IT.

    1.2 Communication Plan

    Communication plan to facilitate input from both sides and gain adoption.

    1.3 Identify Metrics

    Metrics should reflect the catalog benefits. Look to reduced number of service desk inquiries.

    1.4 Project Charter

    Project charter helps walk you through project preparation.

    This blueprint separates enterprise service from line of business service.

    This image contains a comparison between Enterprise IT Service and Line of Business Service, which will be discussed in further detail later in this blueprint.

    Project steps

    Phase 2 – Identify and Define Enterprise Services

    2.1 Identify the services that are used across the entire organization.

    2.2 Users must be able to identify with the service categories.

    2.3 Create basic definitions for enterprise services.

    Phase 3 – Identify and Define Line of Business Services

    3.1 Identify the different lines of business (LOBs) in the organization.

    3.2 Understand the differences between our two methodologies for identifying LOB services.

    3.3 Use methodology 1 if you have thorough knowledge of the business.

    3.4 Use methodology 2 if you only have an IT view of the LOB.

    Phase 4 – Complete Service Definitions

    4.1 Understand the different components to each service definition, or the fields in the service record.

    4.2 Identify which information to include for each service definition.

    4.3 Define each enterprise service according to the information and field properties.

    4.3 Define each LOB service according to the information and field properties.

    Define your service catalog in bundles to achieve better catalog design in the long run

    Trying to implement too many services at once can be overwhelming for both IT and the users. You don’t have to define and implement all of your services in one release of the catalog.

    Info-Tech recommends implementing services themselves in batches, starting with enterprise, and then grouping LOB services into separate releases. Why? It benefits both IT and business users:

    • It enables a better learning experience for IT – get to test the first release before going full-scale. In other words, IT gets a better understanding of all components of their deliverable before full adoption.
    • It is easier to meet customer agreements on what is to be delivered early, and easier to be able to meet those deadlines.
    This image depicts how you can use bundles to simplify the process of catalog design using bundles. The cycle includes the steps: Identify Services; Select a Service Bundle; Review Record Design; followed by a cycle of: Pick a service; Service X; Service Data Collection; Create Service Record, followed by Publish the bundle; Communicate the bundle; Rinse and Repeat.

    After implementing a service catalog, your IT will be able to:

    Use the service catalog to communicate all the services that IT provides to the business.

    Improve IT’s visibility within the organization by creating a single source of information for all the value creating services IT has to offer. The service catalog helps the business understand the value IT brings to each service, each line of business, and the overall organization.

    Concentrate more on high-value IT services.

    The service catalog contains information which empowers business users to access IT services and information without the help of IT support staff. The reduction in routine inquiries decreases workload and increases morale within the IT support team, and allows IT to concentrate on providing higher value services.

    Reduce shadow IT and gain control of services.

    Service catalog brings more control to your IT environment by reducing shadow IT activities. The service catalog communicates business requests responsively in a language the business users understand, thus eliminating the need for users to seek outside help.

    After implementing a service catalog, your business will be able to:

    Access IT services with ease.

    The language of IT is often confusing for the business and the users don’t know what to do when they have a concern. With a user-facing service catalog, business users can access information through a single source of information, and better understand how to request access or receive support for a service through clear, consistent, and business-relevant language.

    Empower users to self-serve.

    The service catalog enables users to “self-serve” IT services. Instead of calling the service desk every time an issue occurs, the users can rely on the service catalog for information. This simplified process not only reduces routine service requests, but also provides information in a faster, more efficient manner that increases productivity for both IT and the business.

    Gain transparency on the IT services provided.

    With every service clearly defined, business users can better understand the current support level, communicate their expectation for IT accountability, and help IT align services with critical business strategies.

    Leverage the different Info-Tech deliverable tools to help you along the way

    1. Project Charter

    A project charter template with a few samples completed. The project charter helps you govern the project progress and responsibilities.

    2. Enterprise Service Definitions

    A full list of enterprise definitions with features and descriptions pre-populated. These are meant to get you on your feet defining your own enterprise services, or editing the ones already there.

    3. Basic Line of Business Service Definitions

    Similar to the enterprise services deliverable, but with two separate deliverables focusing on different perspectives – functional groups services (e.g. HR and finance) and industry-specific services (e.g. education and government).

    Service Definitions & Service Record Design

    Get a taste of a completed service catalog with full service definitions and service record design. This is the final product of the service catalog design once all the steps and activities have been completed.

    The service catalog can be the foundation of your future IT service management endeavors

    After establishing a catalog of all IT services, the following projects are often pursued for other objectives. Service catalog is a precursor for all three.

    1. Technical Service Catalog

    Need an IT-friendly breakdown of each service?
    Keep better record of what technical components are required to deliver a service. The technical service catalog is the IT version of a user-facing catalog.

    2. Service-Based Costing

    Want to know how much each IT service is costing you?
    Get a better grip on the true cost of IT. Using service-based costing can help justify IT expenses and increase budgetary allotment.

    3. Chargeback

    Want to hold each business unit accountable for the IT services they use?
    Some business units abuse their IT services because they are thought to be free. Keep them accountable and charge them for what they use.

    The service catalog need not be expensive – organizations of all sizes (small, medium, large) can benefit from a service catalog

    No matter what size organization you may be, every organization can create a service catalog. Small businesses can benefit from the catalog the same way a large organization can. We have an easy step-by-step methodology to help introduce a catalog to your business.

    It is common that users do not know where to go to obtain services from IT… We always end up with a serious time-crunch at the beginning of a new school year. With automated on- and off-boarding services, this could change for the better.Dean Obermeyer, Technology Coordinator, Los Alamos Public Schools

    CIO Call to Action

    As the CIO and the project sponsor, you need to spearhead the development of the service catalog and communicate support to drive engagement and adoption.

      Start

    1. Select an experienced project leader
    2. Identify stakeholders and select project team members with the project leader
    3. Throughout the project

    4. Attend or lead the project kick-off meeting
    5. Create checkpoints to regularly touch base with the project team
    6. Service catalog launch

    7. Communicate the change message from beginning to implementation

    Identify a project leader who will drive measurable results with this initiative

    The project leader acts on behalf of the CIO and must be a senior level staff member who has extensive knowledge of the organization and experiences marshalling resources.

    Influential & Impactful

    Developing a service catalog requires dedication from many groups within IT and outside of IT.
    The project leader must hold a visible, senior position and can marshal all the necessary resources to ensure the success of the project. Ability to exert impact and influence around both IT and the business is a must.

    Relationship with the Business

    The user-facing service catalog cannot be successful if business input is not received.
    The project leader must leverage his/her existing relationship with the business to test out the service definitions and the service record design.

    Results Driven

    Creating a service catalog is not an easy job and the project leader must continuously engage the team members to drive results and efficiency.
    The highly visible nature of the service catalog means the project leader must produce a high-quality outcome that satisfies the business users.

    Info-Tech’s methodology helps organization to standardize how to define services

    CASE STUDY A
    Industry Municipal Government
    Source Onsite engagement

    Municipal Government
    The IT department of a large municipal government in the United States provides services to a large number of customers in various government agencies.
    Service Catalog Initiative
    The municipal government allocated a significant amount of resources to answer routine inquiries that could have been avoided through user self-service. The government also found that they do not organize all the services IT provides, and they could not document and publish them to the customer. The government has already begun the service catalog initiative, but was struggling with how to identify services. Progress was slow because people were arguing amongst themselves – the project team became demoralized and the initiative was on the brink of failure.
    Results
    With Info-Tech’s onsite support, the government was able to follow a standardized methodology to identify and define services from the user perspective. The government was able to successfully communicate the initiative to the business before the full adoption of the service catalog.

    We’re in demos with vendors right now to purchase an ITSM tool, and when the first vendor looked at our finished catalog, they were completely impressed.- Client Feedback

    [We feel] very confident. The group as a whole is pumped up and empowered – they're ready to pounce on it. We plan to stick to the schedule for the next three months, and then review progress/priorities. - Client Feedback

    CASE STUDY B
    Industry Healthcare
    Source Onsite engagement

    Healthcare Provider
    The organization is a healthcare provider in Canada. It treats patients with medical emergencies, standard operations, and manages a faculty of staff ranging from nurses and clerks, to senior doctors. This organization is run across several hospitals, various local clinics, and research centers.
    Service Catalog Initiative
    Because the organization is publicly funded, it is subject to regular audit requirements – one of which is to have a service catalog in place.
    The organization also would like to charge back its clients for IT-related costs. In order to do this, the organization must be able to trace it back to each service. Therefore, the first step would be to create a user-facing service catalog, followed by the technical service catalog, which then allows the organization to do service-based costing and chargeback.
    Results
    By leveraging Info-Tech’s expertise on the subject, the healthcare provider was able to fast-track its service catalog development and establish the groundwork for chargeback abilities.

    "There is always some reticence going in, but none of that was apparent coming out. The group dynamic was very good. [Info-Tech] was able to get that response, and no one around the table was silent.
    The [expectation] of the participants was that there was a purpose in doing the workshop. Everybody knew it was for multiple reasons, and everyone had their own accountability/stakes in the development of it. Highly engaged."
    - Client Feedback

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

    Launch the Project

    Identify Enterprise Services

    Identify Line of Business Services

    Complete Service Definitions

    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Assemble the project team.

    1.2 Develop a communication plan.

    1.3 Establish metrics for success.

    1.4 Complete the project charter.

    2.1 Identify services available organization-wide.

    2.2 Categorize services into logical groups.

    2.3 Define the services.

    3.1 Identify different LOBs.

    3.2 Pick one of two methodologies.

    3.3 Use method to identify LOB services.

    4.1 Learn components to each service definition.

    4.2 Pick which information to include in each definition.

    4.3 Define each service accordingly.

    Guided Implementations Identify the project leader with the appropriate skills.

    Assemble a well-rounded project team.

    Develop a mission statement and change messages.

    Create a comprehensive list of enterprise services that are used across the organization.

    Create a categorization scheme that is based on the needs of the business users.

    Walk through the two Info-Tech methodologies and understand which one is applicable.

    Define LOB services using the appropriate methodology.

    Decide what should be included and what should be kept internal for the service record design.

    Complete the full service definitions.

    Onsite Workshop Phase 1 Results:

    Clear understanding of project objectives and support obtained from the business.

    Phase 2 Results:

    Enterprise services defined and categorized.

    Phase 3 Results:

    LOB services defined based on user perspective.

    Phase 4 Results:

    Service record designed according to how IT wishes to communicate to the business.

    Workshop overview

    Contact your account representative or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.

    Workshop Day 1 Workshop Day 2 Workshop Day 3 Workshop Day 4
    Activities

    Launch the Project

    Identify Enterprise Services

    Identify Line of Business Services

    Complete Service Definitions

    1.1 Assemble the project team.

    1.2 Develop a communication plan.

    1.3 Establish metrics for success.

    1.4 Complete the project charter.

    2.1 Identify services available organization-wide.

    2.2 Categorize services into logical groups.

    2.3 Define the services.

    3.1 Identify different LOBs.

    3.2 Pick one of two methodologies.

    3.3 Use method to identify LOB services.

    4.1 Learn components to each service definition.

    4.2 Pick which information to include in each definition.

    4.3 Define each service accordingly.

    Deliverables
    • Service Catalog Project Charter
    • Enterprise Service Definitions
    • LOB Service Definitions – Functional groups
    • LOB Service Definitions – Industry specific
    • Service Definitions Chart

    PHASE 1

    Launch the Project

    Design & Build a User-Facing Service Catalog

    Step 1 – Create a project charter to launch the initiative

    1. Complete the Project Charter
    2. Create Enterprise Services Definitions
    3. Create Line of Business Services Definitions
    4. Complete Service Definitions

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Develop a mission statement to obtain buy-ins from both IT and business stakeholders.
    • Assemble a well-rounded project team to increase the success of the project.
    • Identify and obtain support from stakeholders.
    • Create an impactful change message to the organization to promote the service catalog.
    • Determine project metrics to measure the effectiveness and value of the initiative.

    Step Insights

    • The project leader must have a strong relationship with the business, the ability to garner user input, and the authority to lead the team in creating a user-facing catalog that is accessible and understandable to the user.
    • Having two separate change messages prepared for IT and the business is a must. The business change message advocates how the catalog will make IT more accessible to users, and the IT message centers around how the catalog will make IT’s life easier through a standardized request process.

    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.

    Guided Implementation 1: Launch the project
    Proposed Time to Completion: 2 weeks
    Step 1.2: Create change messages

    Step 1.2: Create change messages

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Identify the key objectives of creating a user-facing service catalog.
    • Identify the necessary members of the project team.

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Prioritize project stakeholders according to their involvement and influence.
    • Create a change message for IT and the business articulating the benefits.

    Then complete these activities…

  • Assemble a team with representatives from all areas of IT.
  • Identify the key project stakeholders.
  • Create a project mission statement.
  • Then complete these activities…

  • Create a separate change message for IT and the business.
  • Determine communication methods and channels.
  • With these tools & templates: Service

    Catalog Project Charter

    With these tools & templates:

    Service Catalog Project Charter

    Use Info-Tech’s Service Catalog Project Charter to begin your initiative

    1.1 Project Charter

    The following section of slides outline how to effectively use Info-Tech’s sample project charter.

    The Project Charter is used to govern the initiative throughout the project. IT should provide the foundation for project communication and monitoring.

    It has been pre-populated with information appropriate for Service Catalog projects. Please review this sample text and change, add, or delete information as required.

    Building the charter as a group will help you to clarify your key messages and help secure buy-in from critical stakeholders upfront.

    You may feel like a full charter isn’t necessary, and depending on your organizational size, it might not be. However, the exercise of building the charter is important none-the-less. No matter your current climate, some elements of communicating the value and plans for implementing the catalog will be necessary.

    The Charter includes the following sections:

    • Mission Statement
    • Project team members
    • Project stakeholders
    • Change message
    • Communication and organizational plan
    • Metrics

    Use Info-Tech’s Service Catalog Project Charter.

    Create a mission statement to articulate the purpose of this project

    The mission statement must be compelling because embarking on creating a service catalog is no easy task. It requires significant commitment from different people in different areas of the business.

    Good mission statements are directive, easy to understand, narrow in focus, and favor substance over vagueness.

    While building your mission statement, think about what it is intended to do, i.e. keep the project team engaged and engage others to adopt the service catalog. Included in the project charter’s mission statement section is a brief description of the goals and objectives of the service catalog.

    Ask yourself the following questions:

    1. What frustrations does your business face regarding IT services?
    2. f our company continues growing at this rate, will IT be able to manage service levels?
    3. How has IT benefited from consolidating IT services into a user perspective?

    Project Charter

    Info-Tech’s project charter contains two sample mission statements, along with additional tips to help you create yours.

    Tackle the project with a properly assembled team to increase the speed and quality in which the catalog will be created

    Construct a well-balanced project team to increase your chances of success.

    Project Leader

    Project leader will be the main catalyst for the creation of the catalog. This person is responsible for driving the whole initiative.

    Project Participants

    IT project participants’ input and business input will be pivotal to the creation of the catalog.

    Project Stakeholders

    The project stakeholders are the senior executives who have a vested interest in the service catalog. IT must produce periodic and targeted communication to these stakeholders.

    Increase your chances of success by creating a dynamic group of project participants

    Your project team will be a major success factor for your service catalog. Involvement from IT management and the business is a must.

    IT Team Member

    IT Service Desk Manager

    • The Service Desk team will be an integral part of the service catalog creation. Because of their client-facing work, service desk technicians can provide real feedback about how users view and request services.

    Senior Manager/Director of Application

    • The Application representative provides input on how applications are used by the business and supported by IT.

    Senior Manager/Director of Infrastructure

    • The infrastructure representative provides input on services regarding data storage, device management, security, etc.

    Business Team Member

    Business IT Liaison

    • This role is responsible for bridging the communication between IT and the business. This role could be fulfilled by the business relationship manager, service delivery manager, or business analyst. It doesn’t have to be a dedicated role; it could be part of an existing role.

    Business representatives from different LOBs

    • Business users need to validate the service catalog design and ensure the service definitions are user facing and relevant.

    Project Charter

    Input your project team, their roles, and relevant contact information into your project charter, Section 2.

    Identify the senior managers who are the stakeholders for the service catalog

    Obtain explicit buy-in from both IT and business stakeholders.

    The stakeholders could be your biggest champions for the service catalog initiative, or they could pull you back significantly. Engage the stakeholders at the start of the project and communicate the benefits of the service catalog to them to gain their approval.

    Stakeholders

    Benefits

    CIO
    • Improved visibility and perception for IT
    • Ability to better manage business expectation

    Manager of Service Desk

    • Reduced number of routine inquires
    • Respond to business needs faster and uniformly

    Senior Manager/Director of Application & Infrastructure

    • Streamlined and standardized request/support process
    • More effective communication with the business

    Senior Business Executives from Major LOBs

    • Self-service increases user productivity for business users
    • Better quality of services provided by IT

    Project Charter

    Document a list of stakeholders, their involvement in the process (why they are stakeholders), and their contact information in Section 3.

    Articulate the creation of the service catalog to the organization

    Spread the word of service catalog implementation. Bring attention to your change message through effective mediums and organizational changes.

    Key aspects of a communication plan

    The methods of communication (e.g. newsletters, email broadcast, news of the day, automated messages) notify users of implementation.

    In addition, it is important to know who will deliver the message (delivery strategy). Talking to the business leaders is very important, and you need IT executives to deliver the message. Work hard on obtaining their support as they are the ones communicating to their staff and could be your project champions.

    Recommended organizational changes

    The communication plan should consist of changes that will affect the way users interact with the catalog. Users should know of any meetings pertinent to the maintenance and improvement of the catalog, and ways to access the catalog (e.g. link on desktop/start menu).

    This image depicts the cycle of communicating change. the items in the cycle include: What is the change?; Why are we doing it?; How are we going to go about it?; What are we trying to achieve?; How often will we be updated?

    The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change

    Project Charter

    Your communication plan should serve as a rough guide. Communication happens in several unpredictable happenstances, but the overall message should be contained within.

    Ensure you get the whole company on board for the service catalog with a well practiced change message

    The success of your catalog implementation hinges on the business’ readiness.

    One of the top challenges for organizations that are implementing a service catalog is the acceptance and adoption of the change. Effective planning for implementation and communication is pivotal. Ensure you create tailored plans for communication and understand how the change will impact staff.

    1. Draft your change message
    2. “Better Service, Better Value.” It is important to have two change messages prepared: one for the IT department and one for business users.
      Outline a few of the key benefits each user group will gain from adopting the service catalog (e.g. Faster, ease of use, convenient, consistent…)

    3. Address feedback
    4. Anticipate some resistances of service catalog adoption and prepare responses. These may be the other benefits which were not included in the change message (e.g. IT may be reluctant to think in business language.)

    5. Conduct training sessions
    6. Host lunch & learns to demonstrate the value of the service catalog to both business and IT user groups.
      These training sessions also serve as a great way to gather feedback from users regarding style and usability.

    Project Charter

    Pick your communication medium, and then identify your target audience. You should have a change message for each: the IT department and the business users. Pay careful consideration to wording and phrasing with regard for each.

    Track metrics throughout the project to keep stakeholders informed

    In order to measure the success of your service catalog, you must establish baseline metrics to determine how much value the catalog is creating for your business.

    1. Number of service requests via the service catalog
    2. The number of service catalog requests should be carefully monitored so that it does not fluctuate too greatly. In general, the number of requests via the service catalog should increase, which indicates a higher level of self-serve.

    3. Number of inquiry calls to the service desk
    4. The number of inquiry calls should decrease because customers are able to self-serve routine IT inquiries that would otherwise have gone through the service desk.

    5. Customer satisfaction – specific questions
    6. The organization could adopt the following sample survey questions:
      From 0-5: How satisfied are you with the functionality of the service catalog? How often do you turn to the service catalog first to solve IT problems?

    7. Number of non-standard requests
    8. The number of non-standard requests should decrease because a majority of services should eventually be covered in the service catalog. Users should be able to solve nearly any IT related problem through navigating the service catalog.

    Metric Description Current Metric Future Goal
    Number of service requests via the Service Catalog
    Number of inquiry calls to the service desk
    Customer Satisfaction – specific question
    Number of non-standard requests

    Use metrics to monitor the monetary improvements the service catalog creates for the business

    When measuring against your baseline, you should expect to see the following two monetary improvements:

    1. Improved service desk efficiency
    2. (# of routine inquiry calls reduced) x (average time for a call) x (average service desk wage)

      Routine inquiries often take up a significant portion of the service desk’s effort, and the majority of them can be answered via the service catalog, thus reducing the amount of time required for a service desk employee to engage in routine solutions. The reduction in routine inquiries allows IT to allocate resources to high-value services and provide higher quality of support.

    Example

    Originally, the service desk of an organization answers 850 inquiries per month, and around 540 of them are routine inquiries requesting information on when a service is available, who they can contact if they want to receive a service, and what they need to do if they want access to a service, etc.

    IT successfully communicated the introduction of the service catalog to the business and 3 months after the service catalog was implemented, the number of routine inquiries dropped to 60 per month. Given that the average time for IT to answer the inquiry is 10 minutes (0.167 hour) and the hourly wage of a service desk technician is $25, the monthly monetary cost saving of the service catalog is:

    (540 – 60) x 0.167 x 25 = $2004.00

    • Reduced expense by eliminating non-standard requests

    (Average additional cost of non-standard request) x (Reduction of non-standard request)
    +
    (Extra time IT spends on non-standard request fulfilment) x (Average wage)

    Non-standard requests require a lot of time, and often a lot of money. IT frequently incurs additional cost because the business is not aware of how to properly request service or support. Not only can the service catalog standardize and streamline the service request process, it can also help IT define its job boundary and say no to the business if needed.

    Example

    The IT department of an organization often finds itself dealing with last-minute, frustrating service requests from the business. For example, although equipment requests should be placed a week in advance, the business often requests equipment to be delivered the next day, leaving IT to pay for additional expedited shipping costs and/or working fanatically to allocate the equipment. Typically, these requests happen 4 times a month, with an additional cost of $200.00. IT staff work an extra 6 hours per each non-standard request at an hourly wage of $30.00.

    With the service catalog, the users are now aware of the rules that are in place and can submit their request with more ease. IT can also refer the users to the service catalog when a non-standard request occurs, which helps IT to charge the cost to the department or not meet the terms of the business.

    The monthly cost saving in this case is:

    $200.00 x 4 + 6 hours x 30 = $980.00

    Create your project charter for the service catalog initiative to get key stakeholders to buy in

    1.1 2-3 hours

    The project charter is an important document to govern your project process. Support from the project sponsors is important and must be documented. Complete the following steps working with Info-Tech’s sample Project Charter.

    1. The project leader and the core project team must identify key reasons for creating a service catalog. Document the project objectives and benefits in the mission statement section.
    2. Identify and document your project team. The team must include representatives from the Infrastructure, Applications, Service desk, and a Business-IT Liaison.
    3. Identify and document your project stakeholders. The stakeholders are those who have interest in seeing the service catalog completed. Stakeholders for IT are the CIO and management of different IT practices. Stakeholders for the business are executives of different LOBs.
    4. Identify your target audience and choose the communication medium most effective to reach them. Draft a communication message hitting all key elements.
      Info-Tech’s project charter contains sample change messages for the business and IT.
    5. Develop a strategy as to how the change message will be distributed, i.e. the communication and organizational change plan.
    6. Use the metrics identified as a base to measure your service catalog’s implementation. If you have identified any other objectives, add new metrics to monitor your progress from the baseline to reaching those objectives.
    7. Sign and date the project charter to officiate commitment to completing the project and reaching your objectives. Have the signed and dated charter available to members of the project team.

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion between team members

    OUTPUT

    • Thorough briefing for project launch
    • A committed team

    Materials

    • Communication message and plan
    • Metric tracking

    Participants

    • Project leader
    • Core project team

    Obtain buy-in from business users at the beginning of the service catalog initiative

    CASE STUDY A
    Industry Government
    Source Onsite engagement

    Challenge

    The nature of government IT is quite complex: there are several different agencies located in a number of different areas. It is extremely important to communicate the idea of the service catalog to all the users, no matter the agency or location.

    The IT department had yet to let business leaders of the various agencies know about the initiative and garner their support for the project. This has proven to be prohibitive for gaining adoption from all users.

    Solution

    The IT leaders met and identified all the opportunities to communicate the service catalog to the business leaders and end users.

    To meet with the business leaders, IT leaders hosted a service level meeting with the business directors and managers. They adopted a steering committee for the continuation of the project.

    To communicate with business users, IT leaders published announcements on the intranet website before releasing the catalog there as well.

    Results

    Because IT communicated the initiative, support from business stakeholders was obtained early and business leaders were on board shortly after.

    IT also managed to convince key business stakeholders to become project champions, and leveraged their network to communicate the initiative to their employees.

    With this level of adoption, it meant that it was easier for IT to garner business participation in the project and to obtain feedback throughout.

    Info-Tech assists project leader to garner support from the project team

    CASE STUDY A
    Industry Government
    Source Onsite engagement

    Challenge

    The project received buy-in from the CIO and director of infrastructure. Together they assembled a team and project leader.

    The two struggled to get buy-in from the rest of the team, however. They didn’t understand the catalog or its benefits and objectives. They were reluctant to change their old ways. They didn’t know how much work was required from them to accomplish the project.

    Solution

    With the Info-Tech analyst on site, the client was able to discuss the benefits within their team as well as the project team responsibilities.

    The Info-Tech analyst convinced the group to move towards focusing on a business- and service-oriented mindset.

    The workshop discussion was intended to get the entire team on board and engaged with meeting project objectives.

    Results

    The project team had experienced full buy-in after the workshop. The CIO and director relived their struggles of getting project members on-board through proper communication and engagement.

    Engaging the members of the project team with the discussion was key to having them take ownership in accomplishing the project.

    The business users understood that the service catalog was to benefit their long-term IT service development.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.
    The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:
    1.1 this image contains a screenshot from section 1.1 of this blueprint. Begin your project with a mission statement
    A strong mission statement that outlines the benefits of the project is needed to communicate the purpose of the project. The onsite Info-Tech analysts will help you customize the message and establish the foundation of the project charter.
    1.2 this image contains a screenshot from section 1.2 of this blueprint.

    Identify project team members

    Our onsite analysts will help you identify high-value team members to contribute to this project.

    1.3 This image contains a screenshot from section 1.3 of this blueprint.

    Identify important business and IT stakeholders

    Buy-in from senior IT and business management is a must. Info-Tech will help you identify the stakeholders and determine their level of influence and impact.

    1.4 This image contains a screenshot from section 1.4 of this blueprint.

    Create a change message for the business and IT

    It is important to communicate changes early and the message must be tailored for each target audience. Our analysts will help you create an effective message by articulating the benefits of the service catalog to the business and to IT.

    1.5 This image contains a screenshot from section 1.5 of this blueprint.

    Determine service project metrics

    To demonstrate the value of the service catalog, IT must come up with tangible metrics. Info-Tech’s analysts will provide some sample metrics as well as facilitate a discussion around which metrics should be tracked and monitored.

    PHASE 2

    Identify and Define Enterprise Services

    Design & Build a User-Facing Service Catalog

    Step 2 – Create Enterprise Services Definitions

    1. Complete the Project Charter
    2. Create Enterprise Services Definitions
    3. Create Line of Business Services Definitions
    4. Complete Service Definitions

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify and define enterprise services that are commonly used across the organization.
    • Create service descriptions and features to accurately sum up the functionality of each service.
    • Create service categories and assign each service to a category.

    Step Insights

    • When defining services, be sure to carefully distinguish between what is a feature and what is a service. Often, separate services are defined in situations when they would be better off as features of existing services, and vice versa.
    • When coming up with enterprise services categories, ensure the categories group the services in a way that is intuitive. The users should be able to find a service easily based on the names of the categories.

    Phase 2 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.

    Guided Implementation 2: Define Enterprise Services
    Proposed Time to Completion: 4 weeks

    Step 2.1: Identify enterprise services

    Step 2.2: Create service categories

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Identify enterprise services that are commonly used.
    • Ensure the list is comprehensive and capture common IT needs.
    • Create service descriptions and features.

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review full list of identified enterprise services.
    • Identify service categories that are intuitive to the users.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Use Info-Tech’s sample enterprise service definitions as a guide, and change/add/delete the service definitions to customize them to your organization.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Group identified services into categories that are intuitive to the users.

    With these tools & templates: Service

    Sample Enterprise Services

    With these tools & templates:

    Sample Enterprise Services

    Identify enterprise services in the organization apart from the services available to lines of business

    Separating enterprise services from line of business services helps keep things simple to organize the service catalog. -

    Documentation of all business-facing IT services is an intimidating task, and a lack of parameters around this process often leads to longer project times and unsatisfactory outcomes.

    To streamline this process, separating enterprise services from line of business services allows IT to effectively and efficiently organize these services. This method increases the visibility of the service catalog through user-oriented communication plans.

    Enterprise Services are common services that are used across the organization.

    1. Common Services for all users within the organization (e.g. Email, Video Conferencing, Remote Access, Guest Wireless)
    2. Service Requests organized into Service Offerings (e.g. Hardware Provisioning, Software Deployment, Hardware Repair, Equipment Loans)
    3. Consulting Services (e.g. Project Management, Business Analysis, RFP Preparation, Contract Negotiation)

    All user groups access Enterprise Services

    Enterprise Services

    • Finance
    • IT
    • Sales
    • HR

    Ensure your enterprise services are defined from the user perspective and are commonly used

    If you are unsure whether a service is enterprise wide, ask yourself these two questions:

    This image contains an example of how you would use the two questions: Does the user directly use the service themselves?; and; Is the service used by the entire organization (or nearly everyone)?. The examples given are: A. Video Conferencing; B. Exchange Server; C. Email & Fax; D. Order Entry System

    Leverage Info-Tech’s Sample Enterprise Services definition

    2.1 Info-Tech’s Sample Enterprise Services definitions

    Included with this blueprint is Info-Tech’s Sample Enterprise Services definitions.

    The sample contains dozens of services common across most organizations; however, as a whole, they are not complete for every organization. They must be modified according to the business’ needs. Phase two will serve as a guide to identifying an enterprise service as well as how to fill out the necessary fields.

    This image contains a screenshot of definitions from Info-Tech's Sample Enterprises services

    Info-Tech Insight

    Keep track of which services you either modify or delete. You will have to change the same services in the final Info-Tech deliverable.

    The next slide will introduce you to the information for each service record that can be edited.

    Info-Tech’s Sample Enterprise Services definitions is designed to be easily customized

    2.1 Info-Tech’s Sample Enterprise Services definitions

    Below is an example of a service record and its necessary fields of information. This is information that can be kept, deleted, or expanded upon.

    Name the service unambiguously and from the user’s perspective.

    Brief description of how the service allows users to perform tasks.

    Describe the functionality of the service and how it helps users to achieve their business objectives.

    Cluster the services into logical groups.

    Service Name Description Features Category
    Email Email communication to connect with other employees, suppliers, and customers
    • Inbox
    • Calendar
    • Resource Scheduling (meeting rooms)
    • Access to shared mailboxes
    • Limit on mailbox size (‘x’ GB)
    • Address book/external contacts
    • Spam filtering, virus protection
    • Archiving and retrieval of older emails
    • Web/browser access to email
    • Mass email/notification (emergency, surveys, reporting)
    • Setting up a distribution list
    • Setting up Active Sync for email access on mobile devices
    Communications

    Distinguish between a feature and a unique service

    It can be difficult to determine what is considered a service itself, and what is a feature of another service. Use these tips and examples below to help you standardize this judgement.

    Example 1

    Web Conferencing has already been defined as a service. Is Audio Conferencing its own service or a feature of Web Conferencing?

    Info-Tech Tip: Is Audio Conferencing run by the same application as the Web Conferencing? Does it use the same equipment? If not, Audio Conferencing is probably its own service.

    Example 2

    Web Conferencing has already been defined as a service. Is “Screen Sharing” its own service or a feature of Web Conferencing?

    Info-Tech Tip: It depends on how the user interacts with Screen Sharing. Do they only screen share when engaged in a Web Conference? If so, Screen Sharing is a feature and not a service itself.

    Example 3

    VoIP is a popular alternative to landline telephone nowadays, but should it be part of the telephony service or a separate service?

    Info-Tech Tip: It depends on how the VoIP phone is set up.

    If the user uses the VoIP phone the same way they would use a landline phone – because the catalog is user facing – consider the VoIP as part of the telephone service.

    If the user uses their computer application to call and receive calls, consider this a separate service on its own.

    Info-Tech Insight

    While there are some best practices for coming up with service definitions, it is not an exact science and you cannot accommodate everyone. When in doubt, think how most users would perceive the service.

    Change or delete Info-Tech’s enterprise services definitions to make them your own

    2.1 3 hours

    You need to be as comprehensive as possible and try to capture the entire breadth of services IT provides to the business.

    To achieve this, a three-step process is recommended.

    1. First, assemble your project team. It is imperative to have representatives from the service desk. Host two separate workshops, one with the business and one with IT. These workshops should take the form of focus groups and should take no more than 1-2 hours.
    2. Business Focus Group:
    • In an open-forum setting, discuss what the business needs from IT to carry out their day-to-day activities.
    • Engage user-group representatives and business relationship managers.

    IT Focus Group:

    • In a similar open-forum setting, determine what IT delivers to the business. Don’t think about it from a support perspective, but from an “ask” perspective – e.g. “Service Requests.
    • Engage the following individuals: team leads, managers, directors.
  • Review results from the focus groups and compare with your service desk tickets – are there services users inquire about frequently that are not included? Finalize your list of enterprise services as a group.
  • INPUT

    • Modify Info-Tech’s sample services

    OUTPUT

    • A list of some of your business’ enterprise services

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/marker
    • Info-Tech sample enterprise services

    Participants

    • Key members of the project team
    • Service desk rep
    • Business rep

    Using Info-Tech’s Sample Enterprise Services, expand upon the services to add those that we did not include

    2.2 1-3 hours (depending on size and complexity of the IT department)

    Have your user hat on when documenting service features and descriptions. Try to imagine how the users interact with each service.

    1. Once you have your service name, start with the service feature. This field lists all the functionality the service provides. Think from the user’s perspective and document the IT-related activities they need to complete.
    2. Review the service feature fields with internal IT first to make sure there isn’t any information that IT doesn’t want to publish. Afterwards, review with business users to ensure the language is easy to understand and the features are relatable.
    3. Lastly, create a high-level service description that defines the nature of the service in one or two sentences.

    INPUT

    • Collaborate and discuss to expand on Info-Tech’s example

    OUTPUT

    • A complete list of your business’ enterprise services

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/marker
    • Info-Tech sample enterprise services

    Participants

    • Key members of the project team
    • Service desk rep
    • Business rep

    Follow Info-Tech’s guidelines to establish categories for the enterprise services that IT provides to the business

    Similar to the services and their features, there is no right or wrong way to categorize. The best approach is to do what makes sense for your organization and understand what your users think.

    What are Service Categories?

    Categories organize services into logical groups that the users can identify with. Services with similar functions are grouped together in a common category.

    When deciding your categories, think about:

    • What is best for the users?
    • Look at the workflows from the user perspective: how and why do they use the service?
    • Will the user connect with the category name?
    • Will they think about the services within the category?
    Enterprise Service Categories
    Accounts and Access
    Collaboration
    Communication
    Connectivity
    Consulting
    Desktop, Equipment, & Software
    Employee Services
    Files and Documents
    Help & Support
    Training

    Sample categories

    Categorize the services from the list below; how would you think to group them?

    There is no right or wrong way to categorize services; it is subjective to how they are provided by IT and how they are used by the business. Use the aforementioned categories to group the following services. Sample solutions are provided on the following slide.

    Service Name
    Telephone
    Email
    Remote access
    Internet
    BYOD (wireless access)
    Instant Messaging
    Video Conferencing
    Audio Conferencing
    Guest Wi-Fi
    Document Sharing

    Tips and tricks:

    1. Think about the technology behind the service. Is it the same application that provides the services? For example: is instant messaging run by the same application as email?
    2. Consider how the service is used by the business. Are two services always used together? If instant messaging is always used during video conferencing, then they belong in the same category.
    3. Consider the purpose of the services. Do they achieve the same outcomes? For example, document sharing is different from video conferencing, though they both support a collaborative working environment.

    This is a sample of different categorizations – use these examples to think about which would better suit your business

    Example 1 Example 2

    Desktop, Equipment, & Software Services

    Connectivity

    Mobile Devices

    Communications

    Internet

    Telephone

    BYOD (wireless access)

    Telephone

    Guest Wi-Fi

    Internet

    Email

    Remote Access

    Instant Messaging

    Video Conferencing

    Audio Conferencing

    Communications

    Collaboration

    Storage and Retrieval

    Accounts and Access

    Telephone

    Email

    Document Sharing

    Remote access

    Email

    Instant Messaging

    Connectivity

    Mobile Devices

    Video Conferencing

    Internet

    BYOD (wireless access)

    Audio Conferencing

    Guest Wi-Fi

    Guest Wi-Fi

    Document Sharing

    Info-Tech Insight

    Services can have multiple categories only if it means the users will be better off. Try to limit this as much as possible.

    Neither of these two examples are the correct answer, and no such thing exists. The answers you came up with may well be better suited for the users in your business.

    With key members of your project team, categorize the list of enterprise services you have created

    2.3 1 hour

    Before you start, you must have a modified list of all defined enterprise services and a modified list of categories.

    1. Write down the service names on sticky notes and write down the categories either on the whiteboard or on the flipchart.
    2. Assign the service to a category one at a time. For each service, obtain consensus on how the users would view the service and which category would be the most logical choice. In some cases, discuss whether a service should be included in two categories to create better searchability for the users.
    3. If a consensus could not be reached on how to categorize a service, review the service features and category name. In some cases, you may go back and change the features or modify or create new categories if needed.

    INPUT

    • Collaborate and discuss to expand on Info-Tech’s example

    OUTPUT

    • A complete list of your business’ enterprise services

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/marker
    • Info-Tech sample enterprise services

    Participants

    • Key members of the project team
    • Service desk rep
    • Business rep

    Accounts & Access Services

    • User ID & Access
    • Remote Access
    • Business Applications Access

    Communication Services

    • Telephone
    • Email
    • Mobile devices

    Files & Documents

    • Shared Folders
    • File Storage
    • File Restoration
    • File Archiving

    Collaboration

    • Web Conferencing
    • Audio Conferencing
    • Video Conferencing
    • Chat
    • Document Sharing

    Employee Services

    • Onboarding & Off Boarding
    • Benefits Self Service
    • Time and Attendance
    • Employee Records Management

    Help & Support

    • Service Desk
    • Desk Side Support
    • After Hours Support

    Desktop, Equipment, & Software

    • Printing
    • Hardware Provisioning
    • Software Provisioning
    • Software Support
    • Device Move
    • Equipment Loaner

    Education & Training Services

    • Desktop Application Training
    • Corporate Application Training
    • Clinical Application Training
    • IT Training Consultation

    Connectivity

    • BYOD (wireless access)
    • Internet
    • Guest Wi-Fi

    IT Consulting Services

    • Project Management
    • Analysis
    • RFP Reviews
    • Solution Development
    • Business Analysis/Requirements Gathering
    • RFI/RFP Evaluation
    • Security Consulting & Assessment
    • Contract Management
    • Contract Negotiation

    IT department identifies a comprehensive list of enterprise services

    CASE STUDY A
    Industry Government
    Source Onsite engagement

    Challenge

    Because of the breadth of services IT provides across several agencies, it was challenging to identify what was considered enterprise beyond just the basic ones (email, internet, etc.)

    IT recognized that although the specific tasks of service could be different, there are many services that are offered universally across the organization and streamlining the service request and delivery process would reduce the burden on IT.

    Solution

    The client began with services that users interact with on a daily basis; this includes email, wireless, telephone, internet, printing, etc.

    Then, they focused on common service requests from the users, such as software and hardware provisioning, as well as remote access.

    Lastly, they began to think of other IT services that are provided across the organization, such as RFP/RFI support, project management analysis, employee onboarding/off-boarding, etc.

    Results

    By going through the lists and enterprise categories, the government was able to come up with a comprehensive list of all services IT provides to the business.

    Classifying services such as onboarding meant that IT could now standardize IT services for new recruits and employee termination.

    By capturing all enterprise services offered to the organization, IT centralized its management of services instead of having scattered request processes.

    Organization distinguishes features from services using Info-Tech’s tips and techniques

    CASE STUDY B
    Industry Government
    Source Onsite engagement

    Challenge

    For some services, the project team had difficulty deciding on what was a service and what was a feature. They found it hard to distinguish between a service with features or multiple services.

    For example, the client struggled to define the Wi-Fi services because they had many different user groups and different processes to obtain the service. Patients, visitors, doctors, researchers, and corporate employees all use Wi-Fi, but the service features for each user group were different.

    Solution

    The Info-Tech analyst came on-site and engaged the project team in a discussion around how the users would view the services.

    The analyst also provided tips and techniques on identifying services and their features.

    Because patients and visitors do not access Wi-Fi or receive support for the service in the same way as clinical or corporate employees, Wi-Fi was separated into two services (one for each user group).

    Results

    Using the tips and techniques that were provided during the onsite engagement, the project team was able to have a high degree of clarity on how to define the services by articulating who the authorized users are, and how to access the process.

    This allowed the group to focus on the users’ perspective and create clear, unambiguous service features so that users could clearly understand eligibility requirements for the service and how to request them.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts

    this is a picture of an Info-Tech Analyst

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.
    The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:
    2.1 This image contains a screenshot from section 2.1 of this blueprint.

    Understand what enterprise services are

    The project team must have a clear understanding of what qualifies as an enterprise service. The onsite analysts will also promote a user-oriented mindset so the catalog focuses on business needs.

    2.2 this image contains a screenshot from section 2.2 of this blueprint.

    Identify enterprise services

    The Info-Tech analysts will provide a list of ready-to-use services and will work with the project team to change, add, and delete service definitions and to customize the service features.

    2.3 this image contains a screenshot from section 2.3 of this blueprint.

    Identify categories for enterprise services

    The Info-Tech analyst will again emphasize the importance of being service-oriented rather than IT-oriented. This will allow the group to come up with categories that are intuitive to the users.

    PHASE 3

    Identify and Define Line of Business Services

    Design & Build a User-Facing Service Catalog

    Step 3 – Create Line of Business Services Definitions

    1. Complete the Project Charter
    2. Create Enterprise Services Definitions
    3. Create Line of Business Services Definitions
    4. Complete Service Definitions

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify lines of business (LOB) within the organization as well as the user groups within the different LOBs.
    • Determine which one of Info-Tech’s two approaches is more suitable for your IT organization.
    • Define and document LOB services using the appropriate approach.
    • Categorize the LOB services based on the organization’s functional structure.

    Step Insights

    • Collaboration with the business significantly strengthens the quality of line of business service definitions. A significant amount of user input is crucial to create impactful and effective service definitions.
    • If a strong relationship with the business is not in place, IT can look at business applications and the business activities they support in order to understand how to define line of business services.

    Phase 3 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.

    Guided Implementation 3: Define LOB Services

    Proposed Time to Completion: 4 weeks

    Step 3.1: Identify LOB services

    Step 3.2: Define LOB services

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Identify enterprise services that are commonly used.
    • Ensure the list is comprehensive and capture common IT needs.
    • Create service descriptions and features.

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Use either the business view or the IT view methodology to identify and define LOB services.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Select one of the methodologies and either compile a list of business applications or a list of user groups/functional departments.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Validate the service definitions and features with business users.

    With these tools & templates: Service

    LOB Services – Functional Group
    LOB Services – Industry Specific

    With these tools & templates:

    LOB Services – Functional Group
    LOB Services – Industry Specific

    Communicate with your business users to get a clear picture of each line of business

    Within a business unit, there are user groups that use unique applications and IT services to perform business activities. IT must understand which group is consuming each service to document to their needs and requirements. Only then is it logical to group services into lines of business.

    Covering every LOB service is a difficult task. Info-Tech offers two approaches to identifying LOB services, though we recommend working alongside business user groups to have input on how each service is used directly from the users. Doing so makes the job of completing the service catalog easier, and the product more detailed and user friendly.

    Some helpful questions to keep in mind when characterizing user groups:

    • Where do they fall on the organizational chart?
    • What kind of work do they do?
    • What is included in their job description?
    • What are tasks that they do in addition to their formal responsibilities?
    • What do they need from IT to do their day-to-day tasks?
    • What does their work day look like?
    • When, why, and how do they use IT services?

    Info-Tech Insight

    With business user input, you can answer questions as specific as “What requirements are necessary for IT to deliver value to each line of business?” and “What does each LOB need in order to run their operation?”

    Understand when it is best to use one of Info-Tech’s two approaches to defining LOB services

    1. Business View

    Business View is the preferred method for IT departments with a better understanding of business operations. This is because they can begin with input from the user, enabling them to more successfully define every service for each user group and LOB.

    In addition, IT will also have a chance to work together with the business and this will improve the level of collaboration and communication. However, in order to follow this methodology, IT needs to have a pre-established relationship with the business and can demonstrate their knowledge of business applications.

    2. IT View

    The IT view begins with considering each business application used within the organization’s lines of business. Start with a broad view, following with a process of narrowing down, and then iterate for each business application.

    This process leads to each unique service performed by every application within the business’ LOBs.

    The IT view does not necessarily require a substantial amount of information about the business procedures. IT staff are capable of deducing what business users often require to maintain their applications’ functionality.

    Use one of Info-Tech’s two methodologies to help you identify each LOB service

    Choose the methodology that fits your IT organization’s knowledge of the business.

    This image demonstrates a comparison between the business view of service and the IT View of Service. Under the Business View, the inputs are LOB; User Groups; and Business Activity. Under the IT View, the inputs are Business Application and Functionality, and the outputs are Business Activity; User Groups; and LOB.

    1. Business View

    If you do have knowledge of business operations, using the business view is the better option and the service definition will be more relatable to the users.

    2. IT View

    For organizations that don’t have established relationships with the business or detailed knowledge of business activities, IT can decompose the application into services. They have more familiarity and comfort with the business applications than with business activities.

    It is important to continue after the service is identified because it helps confirm and solidify the names and features. Determining the business activity and the user groups can help you become more user-oriented.

    Identifying LOB services using Info-Tech’s Business View method

    We will illustrate the two methodologies with the same example.

    If you have established an ongoing relationship with the business and you are familiar with their business operations, starting with the LOB and user groups will ensure you cover all the services IT provides to the business and create more relatable service names.

    This is a screenshot of an example of the business view of Service.

    Identifying LOB services using Info-Tech’s IT View method

    If you want to understand what services IT provides to the Sales functional group, and you don’t have comprehensive knowledge of the department, you need to start with the IT perspective.

    This is a screenshot of an example of the business view of Service.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If you are concerned about the fact that people always associate a service with an application, you can include the application in the service name or description so users can find the service through a search function.

    Group LOB services into functional groups as you did enterprise services into categories

    3.1 Sample Line of Business Services Definitions – Functional Groups & Industry Examples

    Like categories for enterprise services in Phase Two, LOB services are grouped into functional groups. Functional groups are the components of an organizational chart (HR, Finance, etc.) that are found in a company’s structure.

    Functional Groups

    Functional groups enable a clear view for business users of what services they need, while omitting services that do not apply to them. This does not overwhelm them, and provides them with only relevant information.

    Industry Services

    To be clear, industry services can be put into functional groups.

    Info-Tech provides a few sample industry services (without their functional group) to give an idea of what LOB service is specific to these industries. Try to extrapolate from these examples to create LOB services for your business.

    Use Info-Tech’s Sample LOB Services – Functional Group and Sample LOB Services – Industry Specific documents.

    This is a screenshot of Info-Tech's Functional Group Services

    Info-Tech Insight

    Keep track of which services you either modify or delete. You will have to change the same services in the final Info-Tech deliverable.

    Identify the user group and business activity within each line of business – Business view

    3.1 30-45 minutes per line of business

    Only perform this activity if you have a relationship with the business that can enable you to generate business input on service identifications and definitions.

    In a group of your project participants, repeat the sequence for each LOB.

    1. Brainstorm each user group within the LOB that is creating value for the business by performing functional activities.
    2. Think of what each individual end user must do to create their value. Think of the bigger picture rather than specifics at this point. For example, sales representatives must communicate with clients to create value.
    3. Now that you have each user group and the activities they perform, consider the specifics of how they go about doing that activity. Consider each application they use and how much they use that application. Think of any and all IT services that could occur as a result of that application usage.

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion (with a business relationship)

    OUTPUT

    • LOB services defined from the business perspective

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard/marker

    Participants

    • Members of the project team
    • Representatives from the LOBs

    Identify the user group and business activity within each line of business – IT view

    3.1 30-45 minutes per application

    Only perform this activity if you cannot generate business input through your relationships, and must begin service definitions with business applications.

    In a group of your project participants, repeat the sequence for each application.

    1. Brainstorm all applications that the business provides through IT. Cross out the ones that provide enterprise services.
    2. In broad terms, think about what the application is accomplishing to create value for the business from IT’s perspective. What are the modules? Is it recording interactions with the clients? Each software can have multiple functionalities.
    3. Narrow down each functionality performed by the application and think about how IT helps deliver that value. Create a name for the service that the users can relate to and understand.
    4. → Optional

    5. Now go beyond the service and think about the business activities. They are always similar to IT’s application functionality, but from the user perspective. How would the user think about what the application’s functionality to accomplish that particular service is? At this point, focus on the service, not the application.
    6. Determine the user groups for each service. This step will help you complete the service record design in phase 4. Keep in mind that multiple user groups may access one service.

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion (without a business relationship)

    OUTPUT

    • LOB services defined from the IT perspective

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Whiteboard/marker

    Participants

    • Members of the project team

    You must review your LOB service definitions with the business before deployment

    Coming up with LOB service definitions is challenging for IT because it requires comprehension of all lines of business within the organization as well as direct interaction with the business users.

    After completing the LOB service definitions, IT must talk to the business to ensure all the user groups and business activities are covered and all the features are accurate.

    Here are some tips to reviewing your LOB Service Catalog generated content:

    • If you plan to talk to a business SME, plan ahead to help complete the project in time for rollout.
    • Include a business relationship manager on the project team to facilitate discussion if you do not have an established relationship with the business.

    Sample Meeting Agenda

    Go through the service in batches. Present 5-10 related services to the business first. Start with the service name and then focus on the features.

    In the meeting, discuss whether the service features accurately sum up the business activities, or if there are missing key activities. Also discuss whether certain services should be split up into multiple services or combined into one.

    Organization identifies LOB services using Info-Tech’s methodologies

    CASE STUDY A
    Industry Government
    Source Onsite engagement

    Challenge

    There were many users from different LOBs, and IT provided multiple services to all of them. Tracking them and who had access to what was difficult.

    IT didn’t understand who provided the services (service owner) and who the customers were (business owner) for some of the services.

    Solution

    After identifying the different Lines of Business, they followed the first approach (Business View) for those that IT had sufficient knowledge of in terms of business operations:

    1. Identified lines of business
    2. Identified user groups
    3. Identified business activities

    For the LOBs they weren’t familiar with, they used the IT view method, beginning with the application:

    1. Identified business apps
    2. Deduced the functionalities of each application
    3. Traced the application back to the service and identified the service owner and business owner

    Results

    Through these two methodologies, IT was able to define services according to how the users both perceive and utilize them.

    IT was able to capture all the services it provides to each line of business effectively without too much help from the business representatives.

    By capturing all enterprise services offered to the organization, IT centralized its management of services instead of having scattered request processes.

    Info-Tech helps organization to identify LOB services using the IT View

    CASE STUDY B
    Industry Healthcare
    Source Onsite engagement

    Challenge
    The organization uses a major application containing several modules used by different users for various business activities.

    The challenge was to break down the application into multiple services in a way that makes sense to the business users. Users should be able to find services specific to them easily.

    Therefore, the project team must understand how to map the modules to different services and user groups.


    Solution
    The project team identified the major lines of business and took various user groups such as nurses and doctors, figured out their daily tasks that require IT services, and mapped each user-facing service to the functionality of the application.

    The project team then went back to the application to ensure all the modules and functionalities within the application were accounted for. This helped to ensure that services for all user groups were covered and prepared to be released in the catalog.


    Results
    Once the project team had come up with a comprehensive list of services for each line of business, they were able to sit with the business and review the services.

    IT was also able to use this opportunity to demonstrate all the services it provides. Having all the LOB services demonstrates IT has done its preparation and can show the value they help create for the business in a language the users can understand. The end result was a strengthened relationship between the business and the IT department.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts

    This is a picture of an Info-Tech Analyst

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.
    The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:
    3.1 this image contains a screenshot from section 3.1 of this blueprint.

    Understand what Line of Business services are

    The onsite analysts will provide a clear distinction between enterprise services and LOB services. The analysts will also articulate the importance of validating LOB services with the business.

    3.2 this image contains a screenshot from section 3.2 of this blueprint.

    Identify LOB services using the business’ view

    There are two methods for coming up with LOB services. If IT has comprehensive knowledge of the business, they can identify the services by outlining the user groups and their business activities.

    3.3 This image contains a screenshot from section 3.3 of this blueprint.

    Identify LOB services using IT’s view

    If IT does not understand the business and cannot obtain business input, Info-Tech’s analysts will present the second method, which allows IT to identify services with more comfortability through business applications/systems.

    3.4 This image contains a screenshot from section 3.4 of this blueprint.

    Categorize the LOB services into functional groups

    The analysts will help the project team categorize the LOB services based on user groups or functional departments.

    PHASE 4

    Complete Service Definitions

    Design & Build a User-Facing Service Catalog

    Step 4: Complete service definitions and service record design

    1. Complete the Project Charter
    2. Create Enterprise Services Definitions
    3. Create Line of Business Services Definitions
    4. Complete Service Definitions

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Select which fields of information you would like to include in your service catalog design.
    • Determine which fields should be kept internal for IT use only.
    • Complete the service record design with business input if possible.

    Step Insights

    • Don’t overcomplicate the service record design. Only include the pieces of information the users really need to see.
    • Don’t publish anything that you don’t want to be held accountable for. If you are not ready, keep the metrics and costs internal.
    • It is crucial to designate a facilitator and a decision maker so confusions and disagreements regarding service definitions can be resolved efficiently.

    Phase 3 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.

    Guided Implementation 4: Complete service definitions
    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4 weeks

    Step 4.1: Design service record

    Step 4.2: Complete service definitions

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Review Info-Tech’s sample service record and determine which fields to add/change/delete.
    • Determine which fields should be kept internal.

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Complete all fields in the service record for each identified service.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Finalize the design of the service record and bring over enterprise services and LOB services.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Test the service definitions with business users prior to catalog implementation.

    With these tools & templates: Service

    Services Definition Chart

    With these tools & templates:

    Services Definition Chart

    Utilize Info-Tech’s Services Definition Chart to map out your final service catalog design

    Info-Tech’s Sample Services Definition Chart

    Info-Tech has provided a sample Services Definition Chart with standard service definitions and pre-populated fields. It is up to you throughout this step to decide which fields are necessary to your business users, as well as how much detail you wish to include in each of them.

    This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Services Definition Chart.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Keep track of which services you either modify or delete. You will have to change the same services in the final Info-Tech deliverable.

    Tips and techniques for service record design

    The majority of the fields in the service catalog are user facing, which means they must be written in business language that the users can understand.

    If there is any confusion or disagreement in filling out the fields, a facilitator is required to lead the working groups in coming up with a definitive answer. If a decision is still not reached, it should be escalated to the decision maker (usually the service owner).

    IT-Facing Fields

    There are IT facing fields that should not be published to the business users – they are for the benefit of IT. For example, you may want to keep Performance Metrics internal to IT until you are ready to discuss it with the business.

    If the organization is interested in creating a Technical Service Catalog following this initiative, these fields will provide a helpful starting place for IT to identify the people, process, and technology required to support user-facing services.

    Info-Tech Insight

    It is important for IT-facing fields to be kept internal. If business users are having trouble with a service and the service owner’s name is available to them, they will phone them for support even if they are not the support owner.

    Design your service catalog with business input: have the user in mind

    When completing the service record, adopt the principle that “Less is More.” Keep it simple and write the service description from the user’s perspective, without IT language. From the list below, pick which fields of information are important to your business users.

    What do the users need to access the service quickly and with minimal assistance?

    The depicted image contains an example of an analysis of what users need to access the service quickly and with minimal assistance. The contents are as follows. Under Service Overview, Name; Description; Features; Category; and Supporting Services. Under Owners, are Service Owner; Business Owner. Under Access Policies and Procedures, are Authorized Users; Request Process; Approval Requirements/Process; Turnaround Time; User Responsibility. Under Availability and Service Levels are Support Hours; Hours of Availability; Planned Downtime; and Metrics. Under Support Policies & Procedures are Support Process; Support Owner; Support Documentation. Under Costs are Internal Cost; Customer Cost. The items which are IT Facing are coloured Red. These include Supporting Services; Service Owner; Business Owner; Metrics; Support Owner; and Internal Cost.

    Identify service overview

    “What information must I have in each service record? What are the fundamentals required to define a service?”

    Necessary Fields – Service Description:

    • Service name → a title for the service that gives a hint of its purpose.
    • Service description → what the service does and expected outcomes.
    • Service features → describe functionality of the service.
    • Service category → an intuitive way to group the service.
    • Support services → applications/systems required to support the service.

    Description: Delivers electronic messages to and from employees.

    Features:

    • Desk phone
    • Teleconference phones (meeting rooms)
    • Voicemail
    • Recover deleted voicemails
    • Team line: call rings multiple phones/according to call tree
    • Employee directory
    • Caller ID, Conference calling

    Category: Communications

    This image contains an example of a Service overview table. The headings are: Description; Features; Category; Supporting Services (Systems, Applications).

    Identify owners

    Who is responsible for the delivery of the service and what are their roles?

    Service Owner and Business Owner

    Service owner → the IT member who is responsible and accountable for the delivery of the service.

    Business owner → the business partner of the service owner who ensures the provided service meets business needs.

    Example: Time Entry

    Service Owner: Manager of Business Solutions

    Business Owner: VP of Human Resources

    This image depicts a blank table with the headings Service Owner, and Business Owner

    Info-Tech Insight

    For enterprise services that are used by almost everyone in the organization, the business owner is the CIO.

    Identify access policies and procedures

    “Who is authorized to access this service? How do they access it?”

    Access Policies & Procedures

    Authorized users → who can access the service.

    Request process → how to request access to the service.

    Approval requirement/process → what the user needs to have in place before accessing the service.

    Example: Guest Wi-Fi

    Authorized Users: All people on site not working for the company

    Request Process: Self-Service through website for external visitors

    Approval Requirement/Process: N/A

    This image depicts a blank table with the headings: Authorized Users; Request Process; Approval Requirement/Process

    Info-Tech Insight

    Clearly defining how to access a service saves time and money by decreasing calls to the service desk and getting users up and running faster. The result is higher user productivity.

    Identify access policies and procedures

    “Who is authorized to access this service? How do they access it?”

    Access Policies & Procedures

    Requirements & pre-requisites → details of what must happen before a service can be provided.

    Turnaround time → how much time it will take to grant access to the service.

    User responsibility → What the user is expected to do to acquire the service.

    Example: Guest Wi-Fi

    Requirements & Pre-requisites: Disclaimer of non-liability and acceptance

    Turnaround time: Immediate

    User Responsibility: Adhering to policies outlined in the disclaimer

    This image depicts a blank table with the headings: Authorized Users; Request Process; Approval Requirement/Process

    Info-Tech Insight

    Clearly defining how to access a service saves time and money by decreasing calls to the service desk and getting users up and running faster. The result is higher user productivity.

    Identify availability and service levels

    “When is this service available to users? What service levels can the user expect?”

    Availability & Service Levels

    Support hours → what days/times is this service available to users?

    Hours of availability/planned downtime → is there scheduled downtime for maintenance?

    Performance metrics → what level of performance can the user expect for this service?

    Example: Software Provisioning

    Support Hours: Standard business hours

    Hours of Availability/Planned Downtime: Standard business hours; can be agreed to work beyond operating hours either earlier or later

    Performance Metrics: N/A

    This image depicts a blank table with the headings: Support hours; Hours of availability/planned downtime; Performance Metrics.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Manage user expectations by clearly documenting and communicating service levels.

    Identify support policies and procedures

    “How do I obtain support for this service?”

    Support Policies & Procedures

    Support process → what is the process for obtaining support for this service?

    Support owner → who can users contact for escalations regarding this service?

    Support documentation → where can users find support documentation for this service?

    Example: Shared Folders

    Support Process: Contact help desk or submit a ticket via portal

    Support Owner: Manager, client support

    Support Documentation: .pdf of how-to guide

    This image depicts a blank table with the headings: Support Process; Support Owner; Support Documentation

    Info-Tech Insight

    Clearly documenting support procedures enables users to get the help they need faster and more efficiently.

    Identify service costs and approvals

    “Is there a cost for this service? If so, how much and who is expensing it?”

    Costs

    Internal Cost → do we know the total cost of the service?

    Customer Cost → a lot of services are provided without charge to the business; however, certain service requests will be charged to a department’s budget.

    Example: Hardware Provisioning

    Internal Cost: For purposes of audit, new laptops will be expensed to IT.

    Customer Cost: Cost to rush order 10 new laptops with retina displays for the graphics team. Charged for extra shipment cost, not for cost of laptop.

    This image depicts a blank table with the headings: Internal Costs; Customer costs

    Info-Tech Insight

    Set user expectations by clearly documenting costs associated with a service and how to obtain approval for these costs if required.

    Complete the service record design fields for every service

    4.1 3 Hours

    This is the final activity to completing the service record design. It has been a long journey to make it here; now, all that is left is completing the fields and transferring information from previous activities.

    1. Organize the services however you think is most appropriate. A common method of organization is alphabetically by enterprise category, and then each LOB functional group.
    2. Determine which fields you would like to keep or edit to be part of your design. Also add any other fields you can think of which will add value to the user or IT. Remember to keep them IT facing if necessary.
    3. Complete the fields for each service one by one. Keep in mind that for some services, a field or two may not apply to the nature of that service and may be left blank or filled with a null value (e.g. N/A).

    INPUT

    • A collaborative discussion

    OUTPUT

    • Completed service record design ready for a catalog

    Materials

    • Info-Tech sample service record design.

    Participants

    • Project stakeholders, business representatives

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t forget to delete or bring over the edited LOB and Enterprise services from the phase 2 and 3 deliverables.

    Complete the service definitions and get them ready for publication

    Now that you have completed the first run of service definitions, you can go back and complete the rest of the identified services in batches. You should observe increased efficiency and effectiveness in filling out the service definitions.

    This image depicts how you can use bundles to simplify the process of catalog design using bundles. The cycle includes the steps: Identify Services; Select a Service Bundle; Review Record Design; followed by a cycle of: Pick a service; Service X; Service Data Collection; Create Service Record, followed by Publish the bundle; Communicate the bundle; Rinse and Repeat.

    This blueprint’s purpose is to help you design a service catalog. There are a number of different platforms to build the catalog offered by application vendors. The sophistication of the catalog depends on the size of your business. It may be as simple as an Excel book, or something as complex as a website integrated with your service desk.

    Determine how you want to publish the service catalog

    There are various levels of maturity to consider when you are thinking about how to deploy your service catalog.

    1. Website/User Portal 2. Catalog Module Within ITSM Tool

    3. Homegrown Solution

    Prerequisite

    An internet website, or a user portal

    An existing ITSM tool with a built-in service catalog module

    Database development capabilities

    Website development capabilities

    Pros

    Low cost

    Low effort

    Easy to deploy

    Customized solution tailored for the organization

    High flexibility regarding how the service catalog is published

    Cons

    Not aesthetically appealing

    Lacking sophistication

    Difficult to customize to organization’s needs

    Limitation on how the service catalog info is published

    High effort

    High cost

    → Maturity Level →

    Organization uses the service catalog to outline IT’s and users’ responsibilities

    CASE STUDY A
    Industry Government
    Source Onsite engagement

    Challenge

    The client had collected a lot of good information, but they were not sure about what to include to ensure the users could understand the service clearly.

    They were also not sure what to keep internal so the service catalog did not increase IT’s workload. They want to help the business, but not appear as if they are capable of solving everything for everyone immediately. There was a fear of over-commitment.

    Solution

    The government created a Customer Responsibility field for each service, so it was not just IT who was providing solutions. Business users needed to understand what they had to do to receive some services.

    The Service Owner and Business Owner fields were also kept internal so users would go through the proper request channel instead of calling Service Owners directly.

    Lastly, the Performance Metrics field was kept internal until IT was ready to present service metrics to the business.

    Results

    The business was provided clarity on their responsibility and what was duly owed to them by IT staff. This established clear boundaries on what was to be expected of IT services projected into the future.

    The business users knew what to do and how to obtain the services provided to them. In the meantime, they didn’t feel overwhelmed by the amount of information provided by the service catalog.

    Organization leverages the service catalog as a tool to define IT workflows and business processes

    CASE STUDY B
    Industry Healthcare
    Source Onsite engagement

    Challenge

    There is a lack of clarity and a lack of agreement between the client’s team members regarding the request/approval processes for certain services. This was an indication that there is a level of ambiguity around process. Members were not sure what was the proper way to access a service and could not come up with what to include in the catalog.

    Different people from different teams had different ways of accessing services. This could be true for both enterprise and LOB services.

    Solution

    The Info-Tech analyst facilitated a discussion about workflows and business processes.

    In particular, the discussion focused around the approval/authorization process, and IT’s workflows required to deliver the service. The Info-Tech analyst on site walked the client through their different processes to determine which one should be included in the catalog.

    Results

    The discussion brought clarity to the project team around both IT and business process. Using this new information, IT was able to communicate to the business better, and create consistency for IT and the users of the catalog.

    The catalog design was a shared space where IT and business users could confer what the due process and responsibilities were from both sides. This increased accountability for both parties.

    If you want additional support, have our analysts guide you through this phase as part of an Info-Tech workshop

    Book a workshop with our Info-Tech analysts

    this is a picture of an Info-Tech Analyst

    • 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 onsite at your location or welcome you to Info-Tech’s historic Toronto office to participate in an innovative onsite workshop.
    • Contact your account manager (www.infotech.com/account), or email Workshops@InfoTech.com for more information.
    The following are sample activities that will be conducted by Info-Tech analysts with your team:
    4.1 this image contains a screenshot from section 4.1 of this blueprint.

    Determine which fields should be included in the record design

    The analysts will present the sample service definitions record and facilitate a discussion to customize the service record so unique business needs are captured.

    4.2 this image contains a screenshot from section 4.2.1 of this blueprint.

    Determine which fields should be kept internal

    The onsite analysts will explain why certain fields are used but not published. The analysts will help the team determine which fields should be kept internal.

    4.3 this image contains a screenshot from section 4.3 of this blueprint.

    Complete the service definitions

    The Info-Tech analysts will help the group complete the full service definitions. This exercise will also provide the organization with a clear understanding of IT workflows and business processes.

    Summary of accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    • Understanding why it is important to identify and define services from the user’s perspective.
    • Understand the differences between enterprise services and line of business services.
    • Distinguish service features from services.
    • Involve the business users to define LOB services using either IT’s view or LOB’s view.

    Processes Optimized

    • Enterprise services identification and documentation.
    • Line of business services identification and documentation.

    Deliverables Completed

    • Service catalog project charter
    • Enterprise services definitions
    • Line of business service definitions – functional groups
    • Line of business service definitions – industry specific
    • Service definition chart

    Project step summary

    Client Project: Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog

    1. Launch the Project – Maximize project success by assembling a well-rounded team and managing all important stakeholders.
    2. Identify Enterprise Services – Identify services that are used commonly across the organization and categorize them in a user-friendly way.
    3. Identify Line of Business Services – Identify services that are specific to each line of business using one of two Info-Tech methodologies.
    4. Complete the Service Definitions – Determine what should be presented to the users and complete the service definitions for all identified services.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This project has the ability to fit the following formats:

    • Onsite workshop by Info-Tech Research Group consulting analysts.
    • Do-it-yourself with your team.
    • Remote delivery (Info-Tech Guided Implementation).

    Related Info-Tech research

    Establish a Service-Based Costing Model

    Develop the right level of service-based costing capability by applying our methodology.

    Optimize the Mentoring Program to Build a High-Performing Learning Organization

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    • Parent Category Name: Employee Development
    • Parent Category Link: /train-and-develop
    • Many organizations have introduced mentoring programs without clearly defining and communicating the purpose and goals around having a program; they simply jumped on the mentoring bandwagon.
    • As a result, these programs have little impact. They don’t add value for mentors, mentees, or the organization.
    • It can be difficult to design a program that is well-suited to your organization, will be adopted by employees, and will drive the results you are looking for.
    • In particular, it is difficult to successfully match mentors and mentees so both derive maximum value from the endeavor.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • As workforce composition shifts, there is a need for mentoring programs to move beyond the traditional senior–junior format option; organizational culture and goals will dictate the best approach.
    • An organization’s mentoring program doesn’t need to be restricted to one format; individual preferences and goals should also factor in. Be open to choosing format on a case-by-case basis.
    • Be sure to gain upper management buy-in and support early to ensure mentoring becomes a valued part of your organization.
    • Ensure that goal setting, communication, ongoing support for participants, and evaluation all play a role in your mentoring program.

    Impact and Result

    • Mentoring can have a significant positive impact on mentor, mentee, and organization.
    • Mentees gain guidance and advice on their career path and skill development. Mentors often experience re-engagement with their job and the satisfaction of helping another person.
    • Mentoring participants benefit from obtaining different perspectives of both the business and work-related problems. Participation in a mentoring program has been linked to greater access to promotions, pay raises, and increased job satisfaction.
    • Mentoring can have a number of positive outcomes for the organization, including breaking down silos, transferring institutional knowledge, accelerating leadership skills, fostering open communication and dialogue, and resolving conflict.

    Optimize the Mentoring Program to Build a High-Performing Learning Organization Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Align the mentoring program with the organizational culture and goals

    Build a best-fit program that creates a learning culture.

    • Storyboard: Optimize the Mentoring Program to Build a High Performing Learning Organization

    2. Assess the organizational culture and current mentoring program

    Align mentoring practices with culture to improve the appropriateness and effectiveness of the program.

    • Mentoring Program Diagnostic

    3. Align mentoring practices with culture to improve the appropriateness and effectiveness of the program.

    Track project progress and have all program details defined in a central location.

    • Mentoring Project Plan Template
    • Peer Mentoring Guidelines
    • Mentoring Program Guidelines

    4. Gather feedback from the mentoring program participants

    Evaluate the success of the program.

    • Mentoring Project Feedback Surveys Template

    5. Get mentoring agreements in place

    Improve your mentoring capabilities.

    • Mentee Preparation Checklist
    • Mentoring Agreement Template
    [infographic]

    Customer Value Contribution

    I'm proud to announce our new Customer Value Contribution Calculator©, or CVCC© in short.

    It enhances and possibly replaces the BIA (Business Impact Analysis) process with a much simpler way.

    More info to follow shortly.

    Infrastructure & Operations Priorities 2022

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    • Parent Category Name: Disruptive & Emerging Technologies
    • Parent Category Link: /disruptive-emerging-technologies
    • The expectation amongst IT professionals for permanent transformational change has gone up 30% year over year. Further, 47% expect a lot of permanent change in 2022.
    • We are experiencing a great rate of change concurrent with a low degree of predictability.
    • How do you translate a general trend into a specific priority you can work on?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Trends don’t matter but pressure does: Trends can be analyzed based on the pressure they exert (or not) on your I&O practice. Organizing trends into categories based on source makes for a more successful and contextual analysis.
    • Different prioritization is being demanded in 2022. For the foreseeable future prioritization is about drawing a line, below which you can ignore items with a clean conscience.
    • The priorities you choose to advocate for will be how your leadership is evaluated in the upcoming year.

    Impact and Result

    • By reading through this publication, you will begin to address the age-old problem “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
    • More importantly you will have a framework to dive deeper into the trends most relevant to you and your organization.
    • Info-Tech can help you turn your strong opinion into a compelling case for your stakeholders.

    Infrastructure & Operations Priorities 2022 Research & Tools

    Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:

    1. Infrastructure & Operations Priorities 2022 – A framework to dive deeper into the trends most relevant to you and your organization

    Discover Info-Tech's four trends for Infrastructure & Operations leaders.

    • Infrastructure & Operations Priorities Report for 2022

    Infographic