Embed Business Relationship Management in IT

Allison Straker
Research Director, CIO Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

I don’t know what my business needs and so we can’t add as much value as we’d like.

My partners don’t give us the opportunity to provide new ideas to solve business problems

My partners listen to third parties before they listen to IT.

We’re too busy and don’t have the capacity to help my partners.

IT does not create and deliver valuable services/solutions that resolve my business pain points.

IT does not come to me with innovative solutions to my business problems/challenges/issues.

IT blocks my efforts to drive the business forward using innovative technology solutions.

IT does not advocate for my needs with the decision makers in the organization.

IT Benefits

• Provides IT with a view of the lines of business they empower
• Allows IT to be more proactive in providing solutions that help business partner teams
• Allows IT to better manage their workload, as new requests can be prioritized and understood

Business Benefits

• Provides business teams with a view of the services that IT can help them with
• Brings IT to the table with value-driven solutions
• Creates an overall roadmap aligning both partners

• Drive business value into the organization via innovative technology solutions.
• Improve ability to meet and exceed business goals and objectives, resulting in more satisfied stakeholders (C-suite, board of directors).
• Enhance ability to execute business activities to meet end-customer requirements and expectations, resulting in more satisfied customers.

Increase your business benefits by moving up higher – from operational to tactical to strategic.

A tale of two IT partners

One IT partner approached their business partner without sufficient background knowledge to provide insights.

The relationship was not strong and did not provide the business with the value they desired.

Research your business and be prepared to apply your knowledge to be a better partner.

The other IT partner approached with knowledge of the business and external parties (vendors, competitors, industry).

The business partners received this positively. They invited the IT partners to meetings as they knew IT would bring value to their sessions.

Business satisfaction survey

• Audience: Business leaders
• Frequency: Annual
• Metrics:
  • Overall Satisfaction score
  • Overall Value score
  • Relationship Satisfaction:
    • Understand needs
    • Meet needs
    • Communication

STRATEGIC

Strategic view of IT and the business with knowledge of the market and trends; a connector driving value-added services.

TACTICAL

Two-way voice between IT and business, understanding business processes and activities including IT touchpoints and growing tactical and strategic view of services and value.

OPERATIONAL

Communication, service, and project delivery and fulfillment, initial engagement with and knowledge of the business.

Strategic Partner

Shared goals for maximizing value and shared risk and reward

5

Strategic view of IT and the business with knowledge of the market and trends; a connector driving value-added services.

Value Creator and Innovator

See partners as integral to business success and growth

Focus on continuous learning and improvement.

Trusted Advisor

Cooperation based on mutual respect and understanding

4

Partners understand, work with, and help improve capabilities.

Influencer and Advocate

Sees IT as helpful and reliable

Strategic: IT needs to demonstrate and apply knowledge of business, industry, and external influences.

Service Provider

Routine – innovation is a challenge

3

Two-way voice between IT and business; understanding business processes and activities including IT touchpoints and growing tactical and strategic view of services and value.

Priorities set but still always falling behind.

Views IT as helpful but they don’t provide guidance

IT needs to excel in portfolio and transition management.

Business needs to engage IT in strategy.

Order Taker

Distrust, reactive

2

Focuses on communication, service, and project delivery and fulfillment, initial engagement with and knowledge of the business.

Delivery Service

Engages with IT on an as-needed basis

Improve Tactical: IT needs to demonstrate knowledge of the business they are in. IT to improve BRM and service management.

Business needs to embrace BRM role and service management.

Ad Hoc

Loudest in, first out

1

Too busy doing the basics; in firefighter mode.

Low satisfaction (cost, duration, quality)

Improve Operational Behavior: IT to show value with “table stakes” – communication, service delivery, project delivery.

IT needs to establish intake/demand management.

Business to embrace a new way of approaching their partnership with IT.

DIY Toolkit

Guided Implementation

Workshop

Consulting

Executive Buy-In and Communication Presentation Template

Explain the need for the BRM practice and obtain buy-in from leadership and staff across the organization.

BRM Workbook

Capture the thinking behind your organization’s BRM program.

BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet

Worksheet to capture how the BRM practice will engage with stakeholders across the organization.

BRM Role Expectations Worksheet

How business relationship management will be supported throughout the organization at a strategic, tactical, and operational level.

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4

Phase 5

Call #2: Examine business satisfaction and discuss results of SWOT.

Call #5: Establish the BRM operating model and role expectations.

Call #8: Develop a communication or rollout plan.

Workshop Overview

Complete the CIO-Business Vision diagnostic prior to the workshop.

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889

Set the Foundation

Define the Operating Model

Define Engagement

Implement BRM

Next steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

1.1 Discuss rationale and importance of business relationship management

1.2 Review CIO BV results

1.3 Conduct SWOT analysis (analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats)

1.4 Establish BRM vision and mission

1.5 Define objectives and goals for maturing the practice

2.1 Create your list of guiding principles (optional)

2.2 Define business value

2.3. Establish the operating model for the BRM practice

2.4 Define capabilities

3.1. Identify key stakeholders

3.2 Map, prioritize, and categorize the stakeholders

3.4 Create an engagement plan

4,1 Define metrics

4.2 Identify remaining enablers/blockers for practice implementation

4.3 Create roadmap

4.4 Create 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

1. Summary of CIO Business Vision results
2. Vision and list of objectives for the BRM program
3. List of business and IT pain points

1. BRM role descriptions, capabilities, and ownership definitions

1. BRM reporting structure
2. BRM engagement plans

1. BRM communication plan
2. BRM metrics tracking plan
3. Action plan and next step

1. Workshop Report

2.1 Create Vision

2.2 Create the BRM Mission

2.3 Establish Goals

3.1 Establish Guiding Principles

3.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

3.3 Establish BRM Expectations

3.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

3.5 Align Capabilities

4.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

4.2 Identify Key Influencers

4.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

4.4 Create the Prioritization Map

4.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

5.1 Create Metrics

5.2 Prioritize Your Projects

5.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

5.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

5.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

5.6 Create Your Communication Plan

Connect partners (IT and other business) with the resources needed.

Help stakeholders navigate the organization and find the best path to business value.

• Order taker
• Service desk
• Project manager
• Business analyst
• Service delivery manager
• Service owner
• Change manager

• Value creator
• Innovator
• Trusted advisor
• Strategic partner
• Influencer
• Business subject matter expert
• Advocate for the business
• Champion for business process improvement

• The organization’s view on satisfaction and importance of core IT services
• Satisfaction across business priorities
• IT’s capacity to meet business needs

Contact your Account Representative to get started

Strengths (Internal)

• What competitive advantage does your organization have?
• What do you do better than anyone else?
• What makes you unique (human resources, product offering, experience, etc.)?
• Do you have location, price, cost, or quality advantages?
• Does your organizational culture offer an advantage (hiring the best people, etc.)?
• Do you have a high level of customer engagement or satisfaction?

Weaknesses (Internal)

• What areas of your business require improvement?
• Are there gaps in capabilities?
• Do you have financial vulnerabilities?
• Are there leadership gaps (succession, poor management, etc.)?
• Are there reputational issues?
• Are there factors contributing to declining sales?

Opportunities (External)

• Are there market developments or new markets?
• Are there industry or lifestyle trends (move to mobile, etc.)?
• Are there geographical changes in the market?
• Are there new partnerships or mergers and acquisitions (M&A) opportunities?
• Are there seasonal factors that can be used to the advantage of the business?
• Are there demographic changes that can be used to the advantage of the business?

Threats (External)

• Are there obstacles that the organization must face?
• Are there issues with respect to sourcing of staff or technologies?
• Are there changes in market demand?
• Are your competitors making changes that you are not making?
• Are there economic issues that could affect your business?

1.1 Define BRM

1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

1.3 Assess SWOT

3.1 Establish Guiding Principles

3.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

3.3 Establish BRM Expectations

3.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

3.5 Align Capabilities

4.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

4.2 Identify Key Influencers

4.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

4.4 Create the Prioritization Map

4.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

5.1 Create Metrics

5.2 Prioritize Your Projects

5.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

5.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

5.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

5.6 Create Your Communication Plan

The vision will also help motivate and inspire your team members so they understand how they contribute to the organization.

Your strategy must align with and support your organization’s strategy.

• Attainable – Aspirational but still within reach
• Communicable – Easy to comprehend
• Memorable – Not easily forgotten
• Practical – Solid, realistic
• Shared – Create a culture of shared ownership across the team/company

• Not Shared: Lack of buy-in, no alignment with stakeholders
• Impractical: No plan or strategy to deliver on the vision
• Unattainable: Set too far in the future
• Forgettable: Not championed, not kept in mind

• Describe a desired future
• Focus on ends, not means
• Communicate promise
• Concise, no unnecessary words

• Compelling
• Achievable
• Inspirational
• Memorable

The questions:

• What does the organization do?
• How does the organization do it?
• For whom does the organization do it?
• What value is the organization bringing?

Sample mission statements

To enhance the lives of our end users through our products so that our brand becomes synonymous with user-centricity.

To enable innovative services that are seamless and enjoyable to our customers so that together we can inspire change.

Apple’s mission statement: “To bring the best user experience to its customers through its innovative hardware, software, and services.” (Mission Statement Academy, May 2019.)

Coca Cola’s mission statement: “To refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions, and to create value and make a difference.” (Mission Statement Academy, August 2019.)

Tip: Using the “To … so that” format helps to keep your mission focused on the “why.”

• Tracks and reviews performance
• Identifies ways to increase business value
• Provides insights on the results of business change/initiatives

• Isn’t just demand/intake management
• Surfaces and shapes business demand
• Is influenced by knowledge of the overall business and external entities

• Coordinates resources
• Manages expectations
• Facilitates business strategy, business capability road-mapping, and portfolio and program management

• Identifies and rationalizes demand
• Reviews new business, technology, and industry insights
• Identifies business value initiatives

• Understand the drivers and what the business needs to attain
• Demonstrate focus on value in discussions
• Ensure value is achieved, tracking it during and beyond deployment

• Understand the business
• Are engaged at business meetings (invited to the table)
• Understand IT; communicate clarity around IT to the business
• Help IT prioritize needs

• Understand IT services and service levels that are required
• Provide clarity around services and communicate costs and risks

• Surface new opportunities based on understanding of pain points and growth needs
• Research and partner with others to further the business
• Engage resources with a focus on the value to be delivered

1.1 Define BRM

1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

1.3 Assess SWOT

2.1 Create Vision

2.2 Create the BRM Mission

2.3 Establish Goals

4.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

4.2 Identify Key Influencers

4.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

4.4 Create the Prioritization Map

4.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

5.1 Create Metrics

5.2 Prioritize Your Projects

5.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

5.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

5.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

5.6 Create Your Communication Plan

Your guiding principles should define a set of loose rules that can be used to design your BRM practice to the specific needs of the organization and work that needs to be done.

These rules will guide you through the establishment of your BRM practice and help you explain to your stakeholders the rationale behind organizing in a specific way.

This approach can allow you to find a champion group and establish quick wins.

This approach can allow you to establish significant wins, providing new opportunities for value.

Provide the largest positive impact on your portfolio’s ability to drive business value; for large strategic or transformative goals.

This approach addresses a single business process or operation that exists across business units, departments, or locations. This, again, will allow you to limit the number of stakeholders.

• Ongoing with broader organization-wide objectives
• A BRM’s strategic perspective is focused across projects and products

• Works within a project or product
• Accomplishes specific objectives within the project/product

• Ongoing and strategic view of entire product, with product-specific objectives

• Business Capability Manager
• Business Information Officer
• Business Relationship Manager
• Director, Technology Partner
• IT Business Relationship Manager
• People Relationship Manager
• Relationship and Strategy Officer
• Strategic Partnership Director
• Technology Partner/People Partner/Finance Partner/etc.
• Value Management Officer

Support BRM team members might have “analyst” or “coordinator” as part of their titles.

• Account Manager (do you see your stakeholders as accounts or as partners?)
• Customer Relationship Manager (do you see your stakeholders as customers or as partners?)
• People Partner (differentiate your role from HR)

• Build strong, collaborative relationships with business clients
• Build strong, collaborative relationships with IT service owners
• Track client satisfaction with services provided
• Continuously improve, based on feedback from clients

• Ensure that effective communication occurs related to service delivery and project delivery (e.g. planned downtime, changes, open tickets)
• Manage expectations of multiple business stakeholders
• Provide a clear point of contact within IT for each business stakeholder
• Act as a bridge between IT and the business

Service delivery breaks out into three activities: service status, changes, and service desk tickets

• Understand at a high level the services and technologies in use
• Work with clients to plan and make sure they understand the relevance and impact of IT changes to their operations
• Define, agree to, and report on key service metrics
• Act as an escalation point for major issues with any aspect of service delivery
• Work with service owners to develop and monitor service improvement plans

• Ensure that the project teams provide regular reports regarding project status, issues, and changes
• Work with project managers and clients to ensure project requirements are well understood and documented and approved by all stakeholders
• Ensure that the project teams provide key project metrics on a regular basis to all relevant stakeholders

Understand the main business activities for each department:

• Understand which IT services are required to complete each business activity
• Understand business processes and associated business activities for each user group within a department

• Act as an advocate for the client – be invested in client success
• Understand the strategies and plans of the clients and help develop an IT strategic plan/roadmap that maps to business strategies
• Help the business understand project governance processes
• Help clients to develop proposals and advance them through the project intake and assessment process

• Influence business and IT stakeholders at multiple levels of the organization to help clients achieve their business objectives
• Leverage existing relationships to convince decision makers to move forward with business and IT initiatives that will benefit the department and the organization as a whole
• Understand and solve issues and challenges such as differing agendas, political considerations, and resistance to change

• Understand the industry – trends, competition, future direction
• Leverage what others are doing to bring innovative ideas to the organization
• Understand what end customers expect with regards to IT services and bring this intelligence to business leaders and decision makers

• Understand how services currently offered by IT can be put to best use and create value for the business
• Work collaboratively with clients to define and prioritize technology initiatives (new or enhanced services) that will bring the most business benefit
• Lead initiatives that help the business achieve or exceed business goals and objectives
• Lead initiatives that create business value (increased revenue, lower costs, increased efficiency) for the organization

• Lead initiatives that result in new and better ways of doing business
• Identify opportunities for using IT in new and innovative ways to bring value to the business and drive the business forward
• Leverage knowledge of the business, knowledge of the industry, and knowledge of leading-edge technological solutions to transform the way the business operates and provides services to its customers

Various roles and levels within your organization may have a part of the BRM pie

Where the BRM sits will impact what they are able to get done.

The BRM role is a strategic one, but other roles in the organization have a part to play in impacting IT-partner relationship.

Some roles may have a more strategic focus, while others may have a more tactical or operational focus.

1.1 Define BRM

1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

1.3 Assess SWOT

2.1 Create Vision

2.2 Create the BRM Mission

2.3 Establish Goals

3.1 Establish Guiding Principles

3.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

3.3 Establish BRM Expectations

3.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

3.5 Align Capabilities

5.1 Create Metrics

5.2 Prioritize Your Projects

5.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

5.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

5.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

5.6 Create Your Communication Plan

Business Value Matrix Axes:

• Improved capabilities refers to the enhancement of business capabilities and skill sets.
• Financial Benefits refers to the degree in which the value source can be measured through monetary metrics and is often highly tangible.

• Inward refers to value sources that have an internal impact an organization’s effectiveness and efficiency in performing its operations.
• Outward refers to value sources that come from interactions with external factors, such as the market or your customers.

Use the BRM Workbook to capture sources of business value

See appendix for more information on value drivers:

A stakeholder is any group or individual who is impacted by (or impacts) your objectives.

Challenges with stakeholder management can result from a self-focused point of view. Avoid these challenges by taking on the other’s perspectives – what’s in it for them.

The key objectives of stakeholder management are to improve outcomes, increase confidence, and enhance trust in IT.

• Obtain commitment of executive management for IT-related objectives.
• Enhance alignment between IT and the business.
• Improve understanding of business requirements.
• Improve implementation of technology to support business processes.
• Enhance transparency of IT costs, risks, and benefits.

Challenges

• Stakeholders are missed or new stakeholders are identified too late.
• IT has a tendency to only look for direct stakeholders. Indirect and hidden stakeholders are not considered.
• Stakeholders may have conflicting priorities, different visions, and different needs. Keeping every stakeholder happy is impossible.
• IT has a lack of business understanding and uses jargon and technical language that is not understood by stakeholders.

Implications

• Unanticipated stakeholders and negative changes in stakeholder sentiment can derail initiatives.
• Direct stakeholders are identified, but unidentified indirect or hidden stakeholders cause a major impact to the initiative.
• The CIO attempts to trade off competing agendas and ends up caught in the middle and pleasing no one.
• There is a failure in understanding and communications, leading stakeholders to become disenchanted with IT.

• Who will be adversely affected by potential environmental and social impacts in areas of influence that are affected by what you are doing?
• At which stage will stakeholders be most affected (e.g. procurement, implementation, operations, decommissioning)?
• Will other stakeholders emerge as the phases are started and completed?
• Who is sponsoring the initiative?

• Who benefits from the initiative?
• Who loses from the initiative?
• Who can make approvals?
• Who controls resources?
• Who has specialist skills?
• Who implements the changes?
• Who are the owners, governors, customers, and suppliers to impacted capabilities or functions?

Executives

Peers

Direct reports

Partners

Customers

Subcontractors

Suppliers

Contractors

Lobby groups

Regulatory agencies

Use the BRM Workbook to capture stakeholders

1. Identify your stakeholder’s interest in and influence on your BRM program.
2. Map your results to the quadrant in your workbook to determine each stakeholder’s category.

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

Use the BRM Workbook to map your stakeholders

Blockers

Pay attention to your “blockers,” especially those that appear in the high influence and high interest part of the quadrant. Consider how your engagement with them varies from supporters in this quadrant. Consider what is valuable to these stakeholders and focus your conversations on “what’s in this for them.”

Neutral & Evangelists

Stakeholders that are neutral or evangelists do not require as much attention as blockers and supporters, but they still can’t be ignored – especially those who are players (high influence and engagement). Focus on what’s in it for them to move them to become supporters.

Supporters

Do not neglect supporters – continue to engage with them to ensure that they remain supporters. Focus on the supporters that are influential and impacted, rather than the “spectators.”

Download and use the BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan

• Summary of current and upcoming projects and initiatives

• Business pain points for the department
• Proposed solutions to address business pain points

• Innovative solutions to improve business processes and drive value for the department and the organization

• Summary of recent and upcoming changes
• Summary of current and upcoming projects and initiatives

• Business pain points for the department
• Proposed business process improvements
• Current and upcoming project proposals to address business pain points

• Innovative solutions to help the department achieve its business goals and objectives

• Summary of service desk tickets
• Summary of recent and upcoming changes
• Summary of current and upcoming projects and initiatives

• Business pain points for the team
• Proposed business activity improvements
• Current and upcoming projects to address business pain points

• Innovative solutions to help business users perform their daily business activities more effectively and efficiently

1.1 Define BRM

1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

1.3 Assess SWOT

2.1 Create Vision

2.2 Create the BRM Mission

2.3 Establish Goals

3.1 Establish Guiding Principles

3.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

3.3 Establish BRM Expectations

3.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

3.5 Align Capabilities

4.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

4.2 Identify Key Influencers

4.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

4.4 Create the Prioritization Map

4.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

Measure your BRM practice success

• Metrics are powerful because they drive behavior.
• Metrics are also dangerous because they often lead to unintended negative outcomes.
• Metrics should be chosen carefully to avoid getting “what you asked for” instead of “what you intended.”

1. What are the leading indicators of BRM effectively supporting the business’ strategic direction?
2. How are success metrics aligned with the objectives of other functional groups?

S pecific

M easurable

A chievable

R ealistic

T ime-bound

Ensure that the metrics your practice is measured against reflect realistic and tangible business expectations. Overpromising the impact the practice will have can lead to long-term implementation challenges.

1

Leverage the CIO Business Vision on a regular interval – most find that annual assessments drive success.

Evaluate whether the addition or increased maturity of your BRM practice has improved satisfaction with IT.

Business satisfaction survey

• Audience: Business leaders
• Frequency: Annual
• Metrics:
  • Overall Satisfaction score
  • Overall Value score
  • Relationship Satisfaction:
    • Understand needs
    • Meet needs
    • Communication

2

Evaluate whether the BRM practice has helped IT to meet the goals that you’ve established.

For each of your goals, create metrics to establish how you will know if you’ve been successful. This might be how many or what type of interactions you have with your stakeholders, and/or it could be new connections with internal or external partners.

Ensure you have established metrics to measure success at your goals.

Use the BRM Workbook

Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements. Use a scale of 1-5, where 1 is low agreement and 5 indicates strong agreement:

Demand Shaping: My BRM is at the table and seeks to understand my business. They help me understand IT and helps IT prioritize my needs.

Exploring: My BRM surfaces new opportunities based on their understanding of my pain points and growth needs. They engage resources with a focus on the value to be delivered.

Servicing: The BRM obtains an understanding of the services and service levels that are required, clarifies them, and communicates costs and risks.

Value Harvesting: Focus on value is evident in discussions – the BRM supports IT in ensuring value realization is achieved and tracks value during and beyond deployment.

Partner with the appropriate resources (Project Management Office, Product Owners, System Owners, and/or others as appropriate within your organization) to ensure that all initiatives focus on value.

Info-Tech Insight

Not every organization will balance their portfolio in the same way. Some organizations have higher risk tolerance and so their higher priority goals may require that they accept more risk to potentially reap more returns.

80% of organizations feel their portfolios are dominated by low-value initiatives that do not deliver value to the business. (Source: Stage-Gate International and Product Development Institute, March/April 2009)

All new requests are not the same; establish a process for intake and manage expectations and IT’s capacity to deliver value.

Ensure you communicate your process to support new ideas with your stakeholders. They’ll be clear on the steps to bring new initiatives into IT and will understand and be engaged in the process to demonstrate value.

Use value as your criteria to evaluate initiatives

Work with project managers to ensure that all projects are executed in a way that meets business expectations.

Download Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.

Visualize where investments add value through an initiative portfolio map

An initiative portfolio map is a graphic visualization of strategic initiatives overlaid on a business capability map.

Leverage the initiative portfolio map to communicate the value of what IT is working on to your stakeholders.

Info-Tech Insight

Projects will often impact one or more capabilities. As such, your portfolio map will help you identify cross-dependencies when scaling up or scaling down initiatives.

• Business Feedback and Engagement
  • Engaging with your partners includes meeting with them on a regular basis. Establish this frequency and capture it in your plan. This engagement must include an understanding of their goals and challenges.
  • As Bill Gates said, “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve” (Inc.com, 2013). There are various points in the year which will provide you with the opportunity to understand your business partners’ views of IT or the BRM role. List the opportunities to reflect on this feedback in your plan.
• Business-IT Alignment
  • Bring together the views and perspectives of IT and the business.
  • List the activities that will be required to reflect business goals in IT. These include IT goals, budget, and planning.
• BRM Improvement
  • The practices put in place to support the BRM practice need to continuously evolve to support a maturing organization. The feedback from stakeholders throughout the organization will provide input into this. Ensure there are activities and time put aside to evaluate the improvements required.

Communicate using the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

Enablers

• High business engagement and buy-in
• Supportive BRM leadership
• Organizational acceptance for change
• Development process awareness by development teams
• Collaborative culture
• Existing tools can be customized for BRM

Blockers

• Pockets of management resistance
• Significant time is required to implement BRM and train resources
• Geographically distributed resources
• Difficulty injecting customers in demos

Mitigation

• BRM workshop training with all teams and stakeholders to level set expectations
• Limit the scope for pilot project to allow time to learn
• Temporarily collocate all resources and acquire virtual communication technology

The change message should:

• Explain why the change is needed.
• Summarize what will stay the same.
• Highlight what will be left behind.
• Emphasize what is being changed.
• Explain how change will be implemented.
• Address how change will affect various roles in the organization.
• Discuss the staff’s role in making the change successful.

Be Relevant

• Talk about what matters to the stakeholder. Think: “what’s in it for them?”
• Tailor the details of the message to each stakeholder’s specific concerns.
• Often we think in processes but stakeholders only care about results: talk in terms of results.

Be Clear

• Don’t use jargon.
• Choice of language is important: “Do you think this is a good idea? I think we could really benefit from your insights and experience here.” Or do you mean: “I think we should do this. I need you to do this to make it happen.”

Be Concise

• Keep communication short and to the point so key messages are not lost in the noise.
• There is a risk of diluting your key message if you include too many other details.

Be Consistent

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

Audience

All BRM Staff

Purpose

• Introduce and explain operating model
• Communicate structural changes

Communication Type

• Team Meeting

Communicator

CIO

Timing

• Sept 1 – Introduce new structure
• Sept 15 – TBD
• Sept 29 – TBD

Business Value

• Measure IT Project Value
  • Establish a process for effectively articulating and forecasting business value in projects.
• Maximize Business Value From IT through Benefits Realization
  • Integrate a consistent view of value into the enterprise through governance.

Service Catalog

• Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog
  • Provide business users with a view of IT services in a language that they can understand.

Intake Management

• Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization
  • Create an intake process aligned to project value.

Make Money

This value driver is specifically related to the impact a product or service has on your organization’s ability to show value for the investments. This is usually linked to the value for money for an organization.

Return on Investment can be derived from:

• Sustaining or increasing funding.
• Enabling data monetization.
• Improving the revenue generation of an existing service.
• Preventing the loss of a funding stream.

Be aware of the difference among your products and services that enable a revenue source and those which facilitate the flow of funding.

Save Money

This value driver relates to the impact of a product or service on cost and budgetary constraints.

Reduce costs value can be derived from:

• Reducing the cost to provide an existing product or service.
• Replacing a costly product or service with a less costly alternative.
• Bundling and reusing products or services to reduce overhead.
• Expanding the use of shared services to generate more value for the cost of existing investment.
• Reducing costs through improved effectiveness and reduction of waste.

Budgetary pressures tied to critical strategic priorities may defer or delay implementation of initiatives and revision of existing products and services.

Operations

Some products and services are in place to facilitate and support the structure of the organization. These vary depending on what is important to your organization, but should be assessed in relation to the organizational culture and structure you have identified.

• Adds or improves effectiveness for a particular service or the process and technology enabling its success.

Risk and Compliance

A product or service may be required in order to meet a regulatory requirement. In these cases, you need to be aware of the organizational risk of NOT implementing or maintaining a service in relation to those risks.

In this case, the product or service is required in order to:

• Prevent fines.
• Allow the organization to operate within a specific jurisdiction.
• Remediate audit gaps.
• Provide information required to validate compliance.

Internal Information

Understanding internal operations is also critical for many organizations. Data captured through your operations provides critical insights that support efficiency, productivity, and many other strategic goals.

Internal information value can be derived by:

• Identifying areas of improvement in the development of core offerings.
• Monitoring and tracking employee behavior and productivity.
• Monitoring resource levels.
• Monitoring inventory levels.

Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer

Communication is integral and products and services can be the link that ties your organization together.

In this case, the value generated from products and services can be to:

• Align different departments and multiple locations.
• Enable collaboration.
• Capture trade secrets and facilitate organizational learning.

Policy

Products and services can also be assessed in relation to whether they enable and support the required policies of the organization. Policies identify and reinforce required processes, organizational culture, and core values.

Policy value can be derived from:

• The service or initiative will produce outcomes in line with our core organizational values.
• It will enable or improve adherence and/or compliance to policies within the organization.

Customer Relations

Products and services are often designed to facilitate goals of customer relations; specifically, improve satisfaction, retention, loyalty, etc. This value type is most closely linked to brand management and how a product or service can help execute brand strategy. Customers, in this sense, can also include any stakeholders who consume core offerings.

Customer satisfaction value can be derived from:

• Improving the customer experience.
• Resolving a customer issue or identified pain point.
• Providing a competitive advantage for your customers.
• Helping to retain customers or prevent them from leaving.

Market Information

Understanding demand and market trends is a core driver for all organizations. Data provided through understanding the ways, times, and reasons that consumers use your services is a key driver for growth and stability.

Market information value can be achieved when an app:

• Addresses strategic opportunities or threats identified through analyzing trends.
• Prevents failures due to lack of capacity to meet demand.
• Connects resources to external sources to enable learning and growth within the organization.

Market Share

Market share represents the percentage of a market or market segment that your business controls. In essence, market share can be viewed as the potential for more or new revenue sources.

Assess the impact on market share. Does the product or service:

• Increase your market share?
• Open access to a new market?
• Help you maintain your market share?

• “What’s in it for me” & Persona development – understanding what the concerns are from the community that you will want to communicate about
• Get to know the cultures of each persona to identify how they communicate. For the faculty, Teams might not be the answer, but faculty meetings might be, or sending messages via email. Each persona group may have unique/different needs
• Meet them “where they are”: Be prepared to provide 5-minute updates (with “what’s in it for me” and personas in mind) at department meetings in cases where other communications (Teams etc.) aren’t reaching the community
• Review the business vision diagnostic report to understand what’s important to each community group and what their concerns are with IT. Definitely review the comments that users have written.

• Share success stories tailored to users needs – e.g. if they have a concern with security, and IT implemented a new secure system to better meet their needs, then telling them about the success is helpful – shows that you’re listening and have responded to meet their concerns. Demonstrates how interacting with IT has led to positive results. People can more easily relate to stories

• Consider establishing a repository (private/unlisted YouTube channel, Teams, etc.) so that the community can search to view the tip/trick they need
• Short videos are great to provide a snippet of the information you want to share

• Engage in 2-way communications – it’s about the messages IT wants to convey AND the messages you want them to convey to you. This helps to ensure that your messages aren’t just heard but are understood/resonate.
• Let people know how they should communicate with IT – whether it’s engaging through Teams, via email to a particular address, or through in person sessions

• Be prepared to experiment with the content and mediums, and use analytics to assess the results. For example if videos are posted on a site like SharePoint that already has analytics functionality, you can capture the number of views to determine how much they are viewed

• Use a combination of one-on-one interviews/meetings and focus groups to obtain feedback. You may want to start with some of the respondents who provided comments on surveys/diagnostics