Optimize Your Software Selection Process: Why 5 and 30 Are the Magic Numbers

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  • Software selection takes forever. The process of choosing even the smallest apps can drag on for years: sometimes in perpetuity. Software selection teams are sprawling, leading to scheduling slowdowns and scope creep. Moreover, cumbersome or ad hoc selection processes lead to business-driven software selection.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Maximize project effectiveness with a five-person team. Project satisfaction and effectiveness is stagnant or decreases once the team grows beyond five people.
  • Tight project timelines are critical. Keep stakeholders engaged with a defined application selection timeline that moves the project forward briskly – 30 days is optimal.
  • Empower both IT and end users with a standardized selection process to consistently achieve high satisfaction coming out of software selection projects.

Impact and Result

  • Shatter stakeholder expectations with truly rapid application selections.
  • Put the “short” back in shortlist by consolidating the vendor shortlist up-front and reducing downstream effort.
  • Identify high-impact software functionality by evaluating fewer use cases.
  • Lock in hard savings and do not pay list price by using data-driven tactics.

Optimize Your Software Selection Process: Why 5 and 30 Are the Magic Numbers Research & Tools

Discover the Magic Numbers

Increase project satisfaction with a five-person core software selection team that will close out projects within 30 days.

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

  • Optimize Your Software Selection Process: Why 5 and 30 Are the Magic Numbers Storyboard

1. Align and eliminate elapsed time

Ensure a formal selection process is in place and make a concerted effort to align stakeholder calendars.

2. Reduce low-impact activities

Reduce time spent watching vendor dog and pony shows, while reducing the size of your RFPs or skipping them entirely.

3. Focus on high-impact activities

Narrow the field to four contenders prior to in-depth comparison and engage in accelerated enterprise architecture oversight.

4. Use these rapid and essential selection tools

Focus on key use cases rather than lists of features.

  • The Software Selection Workbook
  • The Vendor Evaluation Workbook
  • The Guide to Software Selection: A Business Stakeholder Manual

5. Engage Two Viable Vendors in Negotiation

Save more by bringing two vendors to the final stage of the project and surfacing a consolidated list of demands prior to entering negotiation.

[infographic]

Further reading

Optimize Your Software Selection Process: Why 5 and 30 Are the Magic Numbers

Select your applications better, faster, and cheaper.

How to Read This Software Selection Insight Primer

  1. 43,000 Data Points
  2. This report is based on data gathered from a survey of 43,000 real-world IT practitioners.

  3. Aggregating Feedback
  4. The data is compiled from SoftwareReviews (a sister company of Info-Tech Research Group), which collects and aggregates feedback on a wide variety of enterprise technologies.

  5. Insights Backed by Data
  6. The insights, charts, and graphs in this presentation are all derived from data submitted by real end users.

The First Magic Number Is Five

The optimal software selection team comprises five people

  • Derived from 43,000 data points. Analysis of thousands of software selection projects makes it clear a tight core selection team accelerates the selection process.
  • Five people make up the core team. A small but cross-functional team keeps the project moving without getting bogged down on calendar alignment and endless back-and-forth.
  • It is a balancing act. Having too few stakeholders on the core selection team will lead to missing valuable information, while having too many will lead to delays and politically driven inefficiencies.

There Are Major Benefits to Narrowing the Selection Team Size to Five

Limit the risk of ineffective “decision making by committee”

Expedite resolution of key issues and accelerate crucial decisions

Achieve alignment on critical requirements

Streamline calendar management

Info-Tech Insight

Too many cooks spoil the broth: create a highly focused selection team that can devote the majority of its time to the project while it’s in flight to demonstrate faster time to value.

Arm Yourself With Data to Choose the Right Plays for Selection

Software selection takes forever. The process of choosing even the smallest apps can drag on for years: sometimes in perpetuity.

Organizations keep too many players on the field, leading to scheduling slowdowns and scope creep.

Keeping the size of the core selection team down, while liaising with more stakeholders and subject matter experts (SMEs), leads to improved results.

Maximize project effectiveness with a five-person team. Project satisfaction and effectiveness are stagnant or decrease once the team grows beyond five people.

Cumbersome or ad hoc selection processes lead to business-driven software selection.

Increase stakeholder satisfaction by using a consistent selection framework that captures their needs while not being a burden.

Empower both IT and end users with a standardized selection process to consistently achieve high satisfaction coming out of software selection projects.

The image contains a graph that is titled: A compact selection team can save you weeks. The graph demonstrates time saved with a five person team in comparison to larger teams.

Project Satisfaction and Effectiveness Are Stagnant Once the Team Grows Beyond Five People

The image contains a graph to demonstrate project satisfaction and effectiveness being stagnant with a team larger than five.
  • There is only a marginal difference in selection effectiveness when more people are involved, so why include so many? It only bogs down the process!
  • Full-time resourcing: At least one member of the five team members must be allocated to the selection initiative as a full-time resource.

Info-Tech Insight

It sounds natural to include as many players as possible in the core selection group; however, expanding the group beyond five people does not lead to an increase in satisfaction. Consider including a general stakeholder feedback working session instead.

Shorten Project Duration by Capping the Selection Team at Five People

However, it is important to make all stakeholders feel heard

The image contains a graph to demonstrate that an increase in time and effort connects with an increase in total number of people involved.

Exclusion is not the name of the game.

  • Remember, we are talking about the core selection team.
  • Help stakeholders understand their role in the project.
  • Educate stakeholders about your approach to selection.
  • Ensure stakeholders understand why the official selection team is being capped at five people.
  • Soliciting requirements and feedback from a broader array of stakeholders is still critical.

Large Organizations Benefit From Compact Selection Teams Just as Much as Small Firms

Think big even if your organization is small

Small organizations

Teams smaller than five people are common due to limited resources.

Medium organizations

Selection project satisfaction peaks with teams of fewer than two people. Consider growing the team to about five people to make stakeholders feel more included with minimal drops in satisfaction.

Large organizations

Satisfaction peaks when teams are kept to three to five people. With many SMEs available, it is critical to choose the right players for your team.

The image contains a multi bar graph to demonstrate the benefits of compact selection teams depending on the size of the company, small, medium, or large.

Keep the Core Selection Team to Five People Regardless of the Software Category

Smaller selection teams yield increased satisfaction across software categories

Info-Tech Insight

Core team size remains the same regardless of the application being selected. However, team composition will vary depending on the end users being targeted.

Think beyond application complexity

  • Our instinct is to vary the size of the core selection team based on perceived application complexity.
  • The data has demonstrated that a small team yields increased satisfaction for applications across a wide array of application complexity profiles.
  • The real differentiator for complex applications will be the number of stakeholders that the core selection team liaise with, particularly for defining strong requirements.

The image contains a graph to demonstrate satisfaction across software categories increases with smaller selection teams.

The Second Magic Number Is 30

Finish the project while stakeholders are still fully engaged in order to maximize satisfaction

  • 30- to 60-day project timelines are critical. Keep stakeholders engaged with a defined application selection timeline that moves the project forward briskly.
  • Strike while the iron is hot. Deliver applications in a timely manner after the initial request. Don’t let IT become the bottleneck for process optimization.
  • Minimize scope creep: As projects drag on in perpetuity, the scope of the project balloons to something that cannot possibly achieve key business objectives in a timely fashion.

Aggressively Timeboxing the Project Yields Benefits Across Multiple Software Categories

After four weeks, stakeholder satisfaction is variable

The image contains a graph to demonstrate that aggressively timeboxing the project yields benefits across multiple software categories.
Only categories with at least 1,000 responses were included in the analysis.

Achieve peak satisfaction by allotting 30 days for an application selection project.

  • Spending two weeks or less typically leads to higher levels of satisfaction for each category because it leaves more time for negotiation, implementation, and making sure everything works properly (especially if there is a time constraint).
  • Watch out for the “satisfaction danger zone” once project enters the 6- to 12-week mark. Completing a selection in four weeks yields greater satisfaction.

Spend Your Time Wisely to Complete the Selection in 30 Days

Save time in the first three phases of the selection project

Awareness

Education & Discovery

Evaluation

Reduce Time

Reduce Time

Reduce Time

Save time duplicating existing market research. Save time and maintain alignment with focus groups.

Save time across tedious demos and understanding the marketplace.

Save time gathering detailed historical requirements. Instead, focus on key issues.

Info-Tech Insight – Awareness

Timebox the process of impact analysis. More time should be spent performing the action than building a business case.

Info-Tech Insight – Education

Save time duplicating existing market research. Save time and maintain alignment with focus groups.

Info-Tech Insight – Evaluation

Decision committee time is valuable. Get up to speed using third-party data and written collateral. Use committee time to conduct investigative interviews instead. Salesperson charisma and marketing collateral quality should not be primary selection criteria. Sadly, this is the case far too often.

Limit Project Duration to 30 Days Regardless of the Application Being Selected

Timeboxing application selection yields increased satisfaction across software categories

The image contains a graph to demonstrate selection effort in weeks by satisfaction. The graph includes informal and formal methods on the graph across the software categories.

Info-Tech Insight

Office collaboration tools are a great case study for increasing satisfaction with decreased time to selection. Given the sharp impetus of COVID-19, many organizations quickly selected tools like Zoom and Teams, enabling remote work with very high end-user satisfaction.

There are alternative approaches for enterprise-sized applications:

  • New applications that demand rigorous business process improvement efforts may require allotting time for prework before engaging in the 30-day selection project.
  • To ensure that IT is using the right framework, understand the cost and complexity profile of the application you’re looking to select.

The Data Also Shows That There Are Five Additional Keys to Improving Your Selection Process

1. ALIGN & ELIMINATE ELAPSED TIME
  • Ensure a formal selection process is in place.
  • Balance the core selection team’s composition.
  • Make a concerted effort to align stakeholder calendars.
2. REDUCE TIME SPENT ON LOW-IMPACT ACTIVITIES
  • Reduce time spent on internet research. Leverage hard data and experts.
  • Reduce RFP size or skip RFPs entirely.
  • Reduce time spent watching vendor dog and pony shows.
3. FOCUS ON HIGH- IMPACT ACTIVITIES
  • Narrow the field to four contenders prior to in-depth comparison.
  • Identify portfolio overlap with accelerated enterprise architecture oversight.
  • Focus on investigative interviews and proof of concept projects.
4. USE RAPID & ESSENTIAL ASSESSMENT TOOLS
  • Focus on key use cases, not lists of features.
  • You only need three essential tools: Info-Tech’s Vendor Evaluation Workbook, Software Selection Workbook, and Business Stakeholder Manual.
5. ENGAGE TWO VIABLE VENDORS IN NEGOTIATION
  • Save more during negotiation by selecting two viable alternatives.
  • Surface a consolidated list of demands prior to entering negotiation.
  • Communicate your success with the organization.

1. Align & Eliminate Elapsed Time

✓ Ensure a formal selection process is in place.

✓ Reduce time by timeboxing the project to 30 days.

✓ Align the calendars of the five-person core selection team.

Improving Your IT Department’s Software Selection Capability Yields Big Results

Time spent building a better process for software selection is a great investment

  • Enterprise application selection is an activity that every IT department must embark on, often many times per year.
  • The frequency and repeatability of software selection means it is an indispensable process to target for optimization.
  • A formal process is not always synonymous with a well-oiled process.
  • Even if you have a formal selection process already in place, it’s imperative to take a concerted approach to continuous improvement.

It is critical to improve the selection process before formalizing

Leverage Info-Tech’s Rapid Application Selection Framework to gain insights on how you can fine-tune and accelerate existing codified approaches to application selection.

Before Condensing the Selection Team, First Formalize the Software Selection Process

Software selection processes are challenging

Vendor selection is politically charged, requiring Procurement to navigate around stakeholder biases and existing relationships.

Stakeholders

The process is time consuming and often started too late. In the absence of clarity around requirements, it is easy to default to looking at price instead of best functional and architectural fit.

Timing

Defining formal process and methodology

Formal selection methodologies are repeatable processes that anybody can consistently follow to quickly select new technology.

Repeatable

The goal of formalizing the approach is to enable IT to deliver business value consistently while also empowering stakeholders to find tools that meet their needs. Remember! A formal selection process is synonymous with a bureaucratic, overblown approach.

Driving Value

Most Organizations Are Already Using a Formal Software Selection Methodology

Don’t get left behind!

  • A common misconception for software selection is that only large organizations have formal processes.
  • The reality is that organizations of all sizes are making use of formal processes for software selection.
  • Moreover, using a standardized method to evaluate new technology is most likely common practice among your competitors regardless of their size.
  • It is important to remember that the level of rigor for the processes will vary based not only on project size but also on organization size.
Only categories with at least 1,000 responses were included in the analysis.

The image contains a double bar graph that compares the sizes of companies using formal or informal evaluation and selection methodology.

Use a Formal Evaluation and Selection Methodology to Achieve Higher Satisfaction

A formal selection process does not equal a bloated selection process

  • No matter what process is being used, you should consider implementing a formal methodology to reduce the amount of time required to select the software. This trend continues across different levels of software (commodity, complex, and enterprise).
  • It is worth noting that using a process can actually add more time to the selection process, so it is important to know how to use it properly.
  • Don’t use just one process: you should use a combination, but don’t use more than three when selecting your software.
The image contains a double bar graph to demonstrate the difference between formal and informal evaluation to achieve a higher satisfaction.

Hit a Home Run With Your Business Stakeholders

Use a data-driven approach to select the right application vendor for their needs – fast

The image contains a screenshot of the data-drive approach. The approach includes: awareness, education & discovery, evaluation, selection, negotiation & configuration.

Investing time improving your software selection methodology has big returns.

Info-Tech Insight

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

Lock Down the Key Players Before Setting Up the Relevant Timeline

You are the quarterback of your selection team

Don’t get bogged down “waiting for the stars to align” in terms of people’s availability: if you wait for the perfect alignment, the project may never get done.

If a key stakeholder is unavailable for weeks or months due to PTO or other commitments, don’t jeopardize project timelines to wait for them to be free. Find a relevant designate that can act in their stead!

You don’t need the entire team on the field at once. Keep certain stakeholders on the bench to swap in and out as needed.

Info-Tech Insight

Assemble the key stakeholders for project kick-off to synchronize the application selection process and limit elapsed time. Getting all parties on the same page increases output satisfaction and eliminates rework. Save time and get input from key stakeholders at the project kick-off.

Assemble a Cross-Functional Team for Best Results

A blend of both worlds gets the best of both worlds from domain expertise (technical and business)

The image contains a graph labelled: Likeliness to recommend. It is described in the text below.

How to manage the cross-functional selection team:

  • There should be a combination of IT and businesspeople involved in the selection process, and ideally the ratio would be balanced.
  • No matter what you are looking for, you should never include more than five people in the selection process.
  • You can keep key stakeholders and other important individuals informed with what is going on, but they don’t necessarily have to be involved in the selection process.

Leverage a Five-Person Team With Players From Both IT and the Business

For maximum effectiveness, assign at least one resource to the project on a full-time basis

IT Leader

Technical IT

Business Analyst/ Project Manager

Business Lead

Process Expert

This team member is an IT director or CIO who will provide sponsorship and oversight from the IT perspective.

This team member will focus on application security, integration, and enterprise architecture.

This team member elicits business needs and translates them into technology requirements.

This team member will provide sponsorship from the business needs perspective.

This team member will contribute their domain-specific knowledge around the processes that the new application supports.

Info-Tech Insight

It is critical for the selection team to determine who has decision rights. Organizational culture will play the largest role in dictating which team member holds the final say for selection decisions.

Ensure That Your Project Has the Right Mix of the Core Team and Ancillary Stakeholders

Who is involved in selecting the new application?

  • Core selection team:
    • The core team ideally comprises just five members.
    • There will be representatives from IT and the specific business function that is most impacted by the application.
    • The team is typically anchored by a business analyst or project management professional.
    • This is the team that is ultimately accountable for ensuring that the project stays on track and that the right vendor is selected.
  • Ancillary stakeholders:
    • These stakeholders are brought into the selection project on an as-needed basis. They offer commentary on requirements and technical know-how.
    • They will be impacted by the project outcome but they do not bear ultimate accountability for selecting the application.
The image contains an outer circle that lists Ancillary Stakeholders, and an inner selection team that lists core selection teams.

Tweak the Team Composition Based on the Application Category in Question

All applications are different. Some categories may require a slightly different balance of business and IT users.

When to adjust the selection team’s business to IT ratio:

  • Increase the number of business stakeholders for customer-centric applications like customer relationship management and customer service management.
  • Keep projects staffed with more technical resources when selecting internal-facing tools like network monitoring platforms, next-generation firewalls, and endpoint protection systems.
The image contains a graph to demonstrate how to tweak the team composition based on the application category.

When to adjust the selection team’s business to IT ratio:

  • Increase the number of business stakeholders for customer-centric applications like customer relationship management and customer service management.
  • Keep projects staffed with more technical resources when selecting internal-facing tools like network monitoring platforms, next-generation firewalls, and endpoint protection systems.

Balance the Selection Team With Decision Makers and Front-Line Resources

Find the right balance!

  • Make sure to include key decision makers to increase the velocity of approvals.
  • However, it is critical to include the right number of front-line resources to ensure that end-user needs are adequately reflected in the requirements and decision criteria used for selection.

The image contains a graph on the team composition with number of decision makers involved.

Info-Tech Insight

When selecting their software, organizations have an average of two to four business and IT decision makers/influencers on the core selection team.

Optimize Meeting Cadence to Complete Selection in 30 Days

Project Cadence:

  • Execute approximately one phase per week.
  • Conduct weekly checkpoints to move through your formal selection framework.
  • Allot two to four hours per touchpoint.

The image contains a calendar with the five phases spread put over five weeks.

Info-Tech Insight

Use weekly touchpoints with the core selection team to eliminate broken telephone. Hold focus groups and workshops to take a more collaborative, timely, and consensus-driven approach to zero in on critical requirements.

2. Reduce Time Spent on Low-Impact Activities

✓ Reduce time spent on internet research. Leverage hard data and experts.

✓ Reduce RFP size or skip RFPs entirely.

✓ Reduce time spent watching vendor dog and pony shows.

Reduce Time Spent on Internet Research by Leveraging Hard Data and Experts

REDUCE BIAS

Taking a data-driven approach to vendor selection ensures that decisions are made in a manner that reduces human bias and exposure to misaligned incentives.

SCORING MODELS

Create a vendor scoring model that uses several different scored criteria (alignment to needs, alignment to architecture, cost, relationship, etc.) and weight them.

AGGREGATE EXPERIENCES

When you leverage services such as SoftwareReviews, you’re relying on amalgamated data from hundreds of others that have already been down this path: benefit from their experience!

PEER-DRIVEN INSIGHTS

Formally incorporate a review of Category Reports from SoftwareReviews into your vendor selection process to take advantage of peer-driven expert insights.

Contact Us

Info-Tech is just a phone call away. Our expert analysts can guide you to successful project completion at no additional cost to you.

Bloated RFPs Are Weighing You Down

Avoid “RFP overload” – parse back deliverables for smaller projects

  1. Many IT and procurement professionals are accustomed to deliverable-heavy application selection projects.
  2. Massive amounts of effort is spent creating onerous RFIs, RFPs, vendor demo scripts, reference guides, and Pugh matrices – with only incremental (if any) benefits.
  3. For smaller projects, focus on creating a minimum viable RFP that sketches out a brief need statement and highlights three or four critical process areas to avoid RFP fatigue.

Draft a lightweight RFI (or minimum viable RFP) to give vendors a snapshot of your needs while managing effort

An RFI or MV-RFP is a truncated RFP document that highlights core use cases to vendors while minimizing the amount of time the team has to spend building it.

You may miss out on the right vendor if:

  • The RFP is too long or cumbersome for the vendor to respond.
  • Vendors believe their time is better spent relationship selling.
  • The RFP is unclear and leads them to believe they won’t be successful.
  • The vendor was forced to guess what you were looking for.

How to write a successful RFI/MV-RFP:

  • Expend your energy relative to the complexity of the required solution or product you’re seeking.
  • A good MV-RFP is structured as follows: a brief description of your organization, business context, and key requirements. It should not exceed a half-dozen pages in length.
  • Be transparent.
  • This could potentially be a long-term relationship, so don’t try to trick suppliers.
  • Be clear in your expectations and focus on the key aspects of what you’re trying to achieve.

Use the appropriate Info-Tech template for your needs (RFI, RFQ, or RFP). The Request for Information Template is best suited to the RASF approach.

If Necessary, Make Sure That You Are Going About RFPs the Right Way

RFPs only add satisfaction when done correctly

The image contains a graph to demonstrate RFP and satisfaction.

Info-Tech Insight

Prescriptive yet flexible: Avoid RFP overload when selecting customer experience–centric applications, but a formal approach to selection is still beneficial.

When will an RFP increase satisfaction?

  • Satisfaction is increased when the RFP is used in concert with a formal selection methodology. An RFP on its own does not drive significant value.
  • RFPs that focus on an application’s differentiating features lead to higher satisfaction with the selection process.
  • Using the RFP to evaluate mandatory or standard and/or mandatory features yields neutral results.

Reduce Time Spent Watching Vendor Dog and Pony Shows

Salesperson charisma and marketing collateral quality should not be primary selection criteria. Sadly, this is the case far too often.

Use data to take control back from the vendor

  • Taking a data-driven approach to vendor selection ensures that decisions are made in a manner that reduces human bias and exposure to misaligned incentives.
  • When you leverage services such as SoftwareReviews, you’re relying on amalgamated data from hundreds of others that have already been down this path: benefit from their collective experience!

Kill the “golf course effect” and eliminate stakeholder bias

  • A leading cause of selection failure is human bias. While rarely malicious, the reality is that decision makers and procurement staff can become unduly biased over time by vendor incentives. Conference passes, box seats, a strong interpersonal relationship – these are all things that may be valuable to a decision maker but have no bearing on the efficacy of an enterprise application.
  • A strong selection process mitigates human bias by using a weighted scoring model and basing decisions on hard data: cost, user satisfaction scores, and trusted third-party data from services such as SoftwareReviews.

Conduct a Day of Rapid-Fire Investigative Interviews

Zoom in on high-value use cases and answers to targeted questions

Make sure the solution will work for your business

Give each vendor 60 to 90 minutes to give a rapid-fire presentation. We suggest the following structure:

  • 20 minutes: company introduction and vision
  • 20 minutes: one high-value scenario walkthrough
  • 20-40 minutes: targeted Q&A from the business stakeholders and procurement team

To ensure a consistent evaluation, vendors should be asked analogous questions, and a tabulation of answers should be conducted.

How to challenge the vendors in the investigative interview

  • Change the visualization/presentation.
  • Change the underlying data.
  • Add additional data sets to the artifacts.
  • Collaboration capabilities.
  • Perform an investigation in terms of finding BI objects and identifying previous changes and examine the audit trail.

Rapid-Fire Vendor Investigative Interview

Invite vendors to come onsite (or join you via videoconference) to demonstrate the product and to answer questions. Use a highly targeted demo script to help identify how a vendor’s solution will fit your organization’s particular business capability needs.

Spend Your Time Wisely and Accelerate the Process

Join the B2B software selection r/evolution

Awareness

Education & Discovery

Evaluation

Selection

Negotiation & Configuration

Reduce Time

Reduce Time

Reduce Time

Reduce Time

Reduce Time

Save time
duplicating existing market research. Save time and maintain alignment with focus groups.

Save time across tedious demos and understanding the marketplace.

Save time gathering detailed historical requirements. Instead, focus on key issues.

Use your time to validate how the solution will handle mission-critical requirements.

Spend time negotiating with two viable alternatives to reduce price by up to 50%.

Use a tier-based model to accelerate commodity and complex selection projects.

Eliminate elapsed process time with focus groups and workshops.

3. Focus on High-Impact Activities

✓ Narrow the field to four contenders prior to in-depth comparison.

✓ Identify portfolio overlap with accelerated enterprise architecture oversight.

✓ Focus on investigative interviews and proof of concept projects.

Narrow the Field to a Maximum of Four Contenders

Focus time spent on the players that we know can deliver strong value

1. ACCELERATE SELECTION

Save time by exclusively engaging vendors that support the organization’s differentiating requirements.

2. DECISION CLARITY

Prevent stakeholders from getting lost in the weeds with endless lists of vendors.

3.CONDENSED DEMOS

Limiting the project to four contenders allows you to stack demos/investigative interviews into the same day.

4. LICENSING LEVERAGE

Keep track of key differences between vendor offerings with a tight shortlist.

Rapid & Effective Selection Decisions

Consolidating the Vendor Shortlist Up-Front Reduces Downstream Effort

Put the “short” back in shortlist!

  • Radically reduce effort by narrowing the field of potential vendors earlier in the selection process. Too many organizations don’t funnel their vendor shortlist until nearing the end of the selection process. The result is wasted time and effort evaluating options that are patently not a good fit.
  • Leverage external data (such as SoftwareReviews) and expert opinion to consolidate your shortlist into a smaller number of viable vendors before the investigative interview stage and eliminate time spent evaluating dozens of RFP responses.
  • Having fewer RFP responses to evaluate means you will have more time to do greater due diligence.

Rapid Enterprise Architecture Evaluations Are High-Impact Activities

When accelerating selection decisions, finding the right EA is a balancing act

  • Neglecting enterprise architecture as a shortcut to save time often leads to downstream integration problems and decreases application satisfaction.
  • On the other hand, overly drawn out enterprise architecture evaluations can lead to excessively focusing on technology integration versus having a clear and concise understanding of critical business needs.

Info-Tech Insight

Targeting an enterprise architecture evaluation as part of your software selection process that does not delay the selection while also providing sufficient insight into platform fit is critical.

Key activities for rapid enterprise architecture evaluation include:

  1. Security analysis
  2. Portfolio overlap review + integration assessment
  3. Application standards check

The data confirms that it is worthwhile to spend time on enterprise architecture

  • Considering software architecture fit up-front to determine if new software aligns with the existing application architecture directly links to greater satisfaction.
  • Stakeholders are most satisfied with their software value when there is a good architectural platform fit.
  • Stakeholders that ranked Architectural Platform Fit lower during the selection process were ultimately more unsatisfied with their software choice.

The image contains a screenshot of data to demonstrate that it is worthwhile to spend time on enterprise architecture.

Identify Portfolio Overlap With an Accelerated Enterprise Architecture Assessment

Develop a clear view of any overlap within your target portfolio subset and clear rationalization/consolidation options

  • Application sprawl is a critical pain point in many organizations. It leads to wasted time, money, and effort as IT (and the business) maintain myriad applications that all serve the same functional purpose.
  • Opportunities are missed to consolidate and streamline associated business process management, training, and end-user adoption activities.
  • Identify which applications in your existing architecture serve a duplicate purpose: these applications are the ones you will want to target for consolidation.
  • As you select a new application, identify where it can be used to serve the goal for application rationalization (i.e. can we replace/retire existing applications in our portfolio by standardizing the new one?).

Keep the scope manageable!

  • Highlight the major functional processes that are closely related to the application you’re selecting and identify which applications support each.
  • The template below represents a top-level view of a set of customer experience management (CXM) applications. Identify linkages between sets of applications and if they’re uni- or bi-directional.
The image contains a screenshot of images that demonstrate portfolio overlap with an accelerated enterprise architecture assessment.

Rapidly Evaluate the Security & Risk Profile for a Right-Sized Enterprise Architecture Evaluation

There are four considerations for determining the security and risk profile for the new application

  1. Financial Risk
  • Consider the financial impact the new application has on the organization.
    • How significant is the investment in technology?
  • If this application fails to meet its business goals and deliver strong return on investment, will there be a significant amount of financial resources to mitigate the problem?
  • Data Sensitivity Risk
    • Understand the type of data that will be handled/stored by the application.
      • For example, a CRM will house customer personally identifiable information (PII) and an ECM will store confidential business documentation.
    • Determine the consequences of a potential breach (i.e. legal and financial).
  • Application Vulnerability Risk
    • Consider whether the application category has a historically strong security track record.
      • For example, enterprise cloud storage solutions may have a different level of vulnerability than an HRIS platform.
  • Infrastructure Risk
    • Determine whether the new application requires changes to infrastructure or additional security investments to safeguard expanded infrastructure.
    • Consider the ways in which the changes to infrastructure increase the vectors for security breaches.

    Spend More Time Validating Key Issues With Deep Technical Assessments

    The image contains a screenshot of an image of an iceberg. The top part of the iceberg is above water and labelled 40%. The rest of the iceberg is below water and is labelled 60%.

    Conversations With the Vendor

    • Initial conversations with the vendor build alignment on overall application capabilities, scope of work, and pricing.

    Pilot Projects and Trial Environments

    • Conduct a proof of concept project to ensure that the application satisfies your non-functional requirements.
    • Technical assessments not only demonstrate whether an application is compatible with your existing systems but also give your technical resources the confidence that the implementation process will be as smooth as possible.
    • Marketing collateral glosses over actual capabilities and differentiation. Use unbiased third-party data and detailed system training material.

    4. Use Rapid & Essential Assessment Tools

    ✓ Focus on key use cases, not lists of features.

    ✓ You only need three essential tools:

    1. Info-Tech’s Vendor Evaluation Workbook
    2. The Software Selection Workbook
    3. A Business Stakeholder Manual

    Focus on Key Use Cases, Not an Endless Laundry List of Table Stakes Features

    Focus on Critical Requirements

    Failure to differentiate must-have and nice-to-have use cases leads to applications full of non-critical features.

    Go Beyond the Table Stakes

    Accelerate the process by skipping common requirements that we know that every vendor will support.

    Streamline the Quantity of Use Cases

    Working with a tighter list of core use cases increases time spent evaluating the most impactful functionality.

    Over-Customization Kills Projects

    Eliminating dubious “sacred cow” requirements reduces costly and painful platform customization.

    Only Make Use of Essential Selection Artifacts

    Vendor selection projects often demand extensive and unnecessary documentation

    The Software Selection Workbook

    Work through the straightforward templates that tie to each phase of the Rapid Application Selection Framework, from assessing the business impact to requirements gathering.

    The image contains a screenshot of The Software Selection Workbook.

    The Vendor Evaluation Workbook

    Consolidate the vendor evaluation process into a single document. Easily compare vendors as you narrow the field to finalists.

    The image contains a screenshot of The Vendor Evaluation Workbook.

    The Guide to Software Selection: A Business Stakeholder Manual

    Quickly explain the Rapid Application Selection Framework to your team while also highlighting its benefits to stakeholders.

    The image contains a screenshot of The Guide to Software Selection: A Business Stakeholder Manual.

    Software Selection Engagement

    Five advisory calls over a five-week period to accelerate your selection process

    • Expert analyst guidance over five weeks on average to select and negotiate software.
    • 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 membership.
    The image contains a screenshot of the calendar over 30 days that outlines the five calls.

    Click here to book your selection engagement

    Software Selection Workshop

    With 40 hours of advisory assistance delivered online, select better software, faster.

    • 40 hours of expert analyst guidance.
    • Project and stakeholder management assistance.
    • Save money, align stakeholders, speed up the process, and make better decisions.
    • Better, faster results, guaranteed; $20K standard engagement fee.
    The image contains a screenshot of the calendar over 30 days that outlines the five calls.

    CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR WORKSHOP ENGAGEMENT

    5. Select Two Viable Options & Engage Both in Negotiation

    ✓ Save more during negotiation by selecting two viable alternatives.

    ✓ Surface a consolidated list of demands prior to entering negotiation.

    ✓ Communicate your success with the organization.

    Save More During Negotiation by Selecting Two Viable Alternatives

    VENDOR 1

    Build in a realistic plan B that allows you to apply leverage to the incumbent or primary vendor of choice.

    VENDOR 2

    If the top contender is aware that they do not have competition, they will be less inclined to make concessions.

    Maintain momentum with two options

    • Should you realize that the primary contender is no longer a viable option (i.e. security concerns), keeping a second vendor in play enables you to quickly pivot without slowing down the selection project.

    Secure best pricing by playing vendors off each other

    • Vendors are more likely to give concessions on the base price once they become aware that a direct competitor has entered the evaluation.

    Truly commit to a thorough analysis of alternatives

    • By evaluating competitive alternatives, you’ll get a more comprehensive view on market standards for a solution and be able to employ a range of negotiation tactics.

    Focus on 5-10 Specific Contract Change Requests

    Accelerate negotiation by picking your battles

    ANALYZE

    DOCUMENT

    CONSOLIDATE

    PRESENT

    • Parse the contract, order form, and terms & conditions for concerning language.
    • Leverage expertise from internal subject matter experts in addition to relevant legal council.
    • Document all concerns and challenges with the language in the vendor contract in a single spreadsheet.
    • Make vendors more receptive to your cause by going one step beyond writing what the change should be. Provide the reasoning behind the change and even the relevant context.
    • Identify the change requests that are most important for the success of the selection project.
    • Compile a list of the most critical change requests.
    • Consider including nice-to-have requests that you can leverage as strategic concessions.
    • Present the consolidated list of critical change requests to the vendor rather than sharing the entire range of potential changes to the contract.
    • Make sure to include context and background for each request.
    • Eliminate potential delays by proactively establishing a timeline for the vendor’s response.

    Share Stories of Cost Savings With the Organization

    Secure IT’s seat at the table

    Hard cost savings speak louder than words. Executive leadership will see IT as the go-to team for driving business value quickly, yet responsibly.

    Build hype around the new software

    Generate enthusiasm by highlighting the improved user experience provided by the new software that was has just been selected.

    Drive end-user adoption

    Position the cost savings as an opportunity to invest in onboarding. An application is only as valuable as your employees’ ability to effectively use it.

    Keep the process rolling

    Use the momentum from the project and its successful negotiation to roll out the accelerated selection approach to more departments across the organization.

    Overall: The Magic Number Saves You Time and Money

    Software selection takes forever. The process of choosing even the smallest apps can drag on for years: sometimes in perpetuity.

    Organizations keep too many players on the field, leading to scheduling slowdowns and scope creep.

    Keeping the size of the core selection team down, while liaising with more stakeholders and subject matter experts (SMEs), leads to improved results.

    Maximize project effectiveness with a five-person team. Project satisfaction and effectiveness are stagnant or decrease once the team grows beyond five people.

    Cumbersome or ad hoc selection processes lead to business-driven software selection.

    Increase stakeholder satisfaction by using a consistent selection framework that captures their needs while not being a burden.

    Empower both IT and end users with a standardized selection process to consistently achieve high satisfaction coming out of software selection projects.

    The image contains a graph that is titled: A compact selection team can save you weeks. The graph demonstrates time saved with a five person team in comparison to larger teams.

    Key Takeaways for Improving Your Selection Process

    1. ALIGN & ELIMINATE ELAPSED TIME

    • Ensure a formal selection process is in place and reduce time by timeboxing the project to 30 days.
    • Align the calendars of the five-person core selection team to maximize efficiency.

    2. REDUCE TIME SPENT ON LOW-IMPACT ACTIVITIES

    • Go beyond the table stakes and accelerate the process by skipping common requirements that we know that every vendor will support.
    • Only make use of essential selection artifacts.

    3. FOCUS ON HIGH- IMPACT ACTIVITIES

    • Skip the vendor dog and pony shows with investigative interviews.
    • Minimize time spent on novel-sized RFPs; instead highlight three or four critical process areas.

    4. USE RAPID & ESSENTIAL ASSESSMENT TOOLS

    • Consolidating the vendor shortlist up-front reduces downstream effort.
    • Application sprawl is a critical pain point in many organizations that leads to wasted time and money.

    5. ENGAGE TWO VIABLE VENDORS IN NEGOTIATION

    • Build in a realistic plan B that allows you to apply leverage to the incumbent or primary vendor of choice.
    • Pick your battles and focus on 5-10 specific contract change requests.

    Appendix

    This study is based on a survey of 43,000 real-world IT practitioners.

    • SoftwareReviews (a sister company of Info-Tech Research Group) collects and aggregates feedback on a wide variety of enterprise technologies.
    • The practitioners are actual end users of hundreds of different enterprise application categories.
    • The following slides highlight the supplementary data points from the comprehensive survey.

    Methodology

    A comprehensive study based on the responses of thousands of real-world practitioners.

    Qualitative & Secondary

    Using comprehensive statistical techniques, we surveyed what our members identified as key drivers of success in selecting enterprise software. Our goal was to determine how organizations can accelerate selection processes and improve outcomes by identifying where people should spend their time for the best results.

    Large-n Survey

    To determine the “Magic Numbers,” we used a large-n survey: 40,000 respondents answered questions about their applications, selection processes, organizational firmographics, and personal characteristics. We used this data to determine what drives satisfaction not only with the application but with the selection process itself.

    Quantitative Drill-Down

    We used the survey to narrow the list of game-changing practices. We then conducted additional quantitative research to understand why our respondents may have selected the responses they did.

    Renovate the Data Center

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}497|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: Data Center & Facilities Optimization
    • Parent Category Link: /data-center-and-facilities-optimization
    • 33% of enterprises will be undertaking facility upgrades or refreshes in 2010 aimed at extending the life of their existing data centers.
    • Every upgrade or refresh targeting specific components in the facility to address short-term pain will have significant impact on the data center environment as a whole. Planning upfront and establishing a clear project scope will minimize expensive changes in later years.
    • This solution set will provide you with step-by-step design, planning, and selection tools to define a Data Center renovation plan to reduce cost and risk while supporting cost-effective long-term growth for power, cooling, standby power, and fire protection renovations.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • 88% of organizations cited they would spend more time and effort on documenting and identifying facility requirements for initial project scoping. Organizations can prevent scope creep by conducting the necessary project planning up front and identify requirements and the effect that the renovation project will have in all areas of the data center facility.
    • Data Center facilities renovations must include the specific requirements related to power provisioning, stand-by power, cooling, and fire protection - not just the immediate short-term pain.
    • 39% of organizations cited they would put more emphasis on monitoring contractor management and performance to improve the outcome of the data center renovation project.

    Impact and Result

    • Early internal efforts to create a budget and facility requirements yields better cost and project outcomes when construction begins. Each data center renovation project is unique and should have its own detailed budget.
    • Upfront planning and detailed project scoping can prevent a cascading impact on data center renovation projects to other areas of the data center that can increase project size, scope and spend.
    • Contractor selection is one of the most important first steps in a complex data center renovation. Organizations must ensure the contractor selected has experience specifically in data center renovation.

    Renovate the Data Center Research & Tools

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

    1. Identify and understand the renovation project.

    • Storyboard: Renovate the Data Center
    • None
    • Data Center Annual Review Checklist

    2. Renovate power in the data center.

    • Data Center Power Requirements Calculator

    3. Renovate cooling in the data center.

    • Data Center Cooling Requirements Calculator

    4. Renovate standby power in the data center.

    • Data Center Standby Power Requirements Calculator

    5. Define current and future fire protection requirements.

    • Fire Protection & Suppression Engineer Selection Criteria Checklist
    • None

    6. Assess the opportunities and establish a clear project scope.

    • Data Center Renovation Project Charter
    • Data Center Renovation Project Planning & Monitoring Tool

    7. Establish a budget for the data center renovation project.

    • Data Center Renovation Budget Tool

    8. Select a general contractor to execute the project.

    • None
    • Data Center Renovation Contractor Scripted Interview
    • Data Center Renovation Contractor Scripted Interview Scorecard
    • Data Center Renovation Contractor Reference Checklist
    [infographic]

    Harness Configuration Management Superpowers

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}303|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 8.5/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $12,999 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 10 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Asset Management
    • Parent Category Link: /asset-management
    • Configuration management databases (CMDB) are a lot of work to build and maintain. Starting down this process without the right tools, processes, and buy-in is a lot of work with very little reward.
    • If you decide to just build it and expect they will come, you may find it difficult to articulate the value, and you will be disappointed by the lack of visitors.
    • Relying on manual entry or automated data collection without governance may result in data you can’t trust, and if no one trusts the data, they won’t use it.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The right mindset is just as important as the right tools. By involving everyone early, you can ensure the right data is captured and validated and you can make maintenance part of the culture. This is critical to reaching early and continual value with a CMDB.

    Impact and Result

    • Define your use cases: Identify the use cases and prioritize those objectives into phases. Define what information will be needed to meet the use cases and how that information will be populated.
    • Understand and design the CMDB data model: Define services and undiscoverable configuration items (CI) and map them to the discoverable CIs.
    • Operationalize configuration record updates: Define data stewards and governance processes and integrate your configuration management practice with existing practices and lifecycles.

    Harness Configuration Management Superpowers Research & Tools

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

    1. Harness Configuration Management Superpowers Deck – A step-by-step document that walks you through creating a configuration management program.

    Use this blueprint to create a configuration management program that provides immediate value.

    • Harness Configuration Management Superpowers – Phases 1-4

    2. Configuration Management Project Charter Template – A project charter template to help you build a concise document for communicating appropriate project details to stakeholders.

    Use this template to create a project charter to launch the configuration management project.

    • Configuration Management Project Charter

    3. Configuration Control Board Charter Template – A board charter template to help you define the roles and responsibilities of the configuration control board.

    Use this template to create your board charter for your configuration control board (CCB). Define roles and responsibilities and mandates for the CCB.

    • Configuration Control Board Charter

    4. Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Template – An SOP template to describe processes and procedures for ongoing maintenance of the CMDB under the configuration management program.

    Use this template to create and communicate your SOP to ensure ongoing maintenance of the CMDB under the configuration management program.

    • Configuration Management Standard Operation Procedures

    5. Configuration Management Audit and Validation Checklist Template – A template to be used as a starting point to meet audit requirements under NIST and ITIL programs.

    Use this template to assess capability to pass audits, adding to the template as needed to meet internal auditors’ requirements.

    • Configuration Management Audit and Validation Checklist

    6. Configuration Management Policy Template – A template to be used for building out a policy for governance over the configuration management program.

    Use this template to build a policy for your configuration management program.

    • Configuration Management Policy

    7. Use Cases and Data Worksheet – A template to be used for validating data requirements as you work through use cases.

    Use this template to determine data requirements to meet use cases.

    • Use Cases and Data Worksheet

    8. Configuration Management Diagram Template Library – Examples of process workflows and data modeling.

    Use this library to view sample workflows and a data model for the configuration management program.

    • Configuration Management Diagram Template Library (Visio)
    • Configuration Management Diagram Template Library (PDF)

    9. Configuration Manager Job Description – Roles and responsibilities for the job of Configuration Manager.

    Use this template as a starting point to create a job posting, identifying daily activities, responsibilities, and required skills as you create or expand your configuration management program.

    • Configuration Manager

    Infographic

    Workshop: Harness Configuration Management Superpowers

    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 Configuration Management Strategy

    The Purpose

    Define the scope of your service configuration management project.

    Design the program to meet specific stakeholders needs

    Identify project and operational roles and responsibilities.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Designed a sustainable approach to building a CMDB.

    Activities

    1.1 Introduction

    1.2 Define challenges and goals.

    1.3 Define and prioritize use cases.

    1.4 Identify data needs to meet these goals.

    1.5 Define roles and responsibilities.

    Outputs

    Data and reporting use cases based on stakeholder requirements

    Roles and responsibility matrix

    2 CMDB Data Structure

    The Purpose

    Build a data model around the desired use cases.

    Identify the data sources for populating the CMDB.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identified which CIs and relationships will be captured in the CMDB.

    Activities

    2.1 Define and prioritize your services.

    2.2 Evaluate CMDB default classifications.

    2.3 Test configuration items against existing categories.

    2.4 Build a data model diagram.

    Outputs

    List of CI types and relationships to be added to default settings

    CMDB data model diagram

    3 Processes

    The Purpose

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Built a right-sized approach to configuration record updates and data validation.

    Activities

    3.1 Define processes for onboarding, offboarding, and maintaining data in the CMDB.

    3.2 Define practices for configuration baselines.

    3.3 Build a data validation and auditing plan.

    Outputs

    Documented processes and workflows

    Data validation and auditing plan

    4 Communications & Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Metrics program defined

    Communications designed

    Activities

    4.1 Define key metrics for configuration management.

    4.2 Define metrics for supporting services.

    4.3 Build configuration management policies.

    4.4 Create a communications plan.

    4.5 Build a roadmap

    Outputs

    Policy for configuration management

    Communications documents

    Roadmap for next steps

    Further reading

    Harness Configuration Management Superpowers

    Create a configuration management practice that will provide ongoing value to the organization.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    A robust configuration management database (CMDB) can provide value to the business and superpowers to IT. It's time to invest smartly to reap the rewards.

    IT environments are becoming more and more complex, and balancing demands for stability and demands for faster change requires visibility to make the right decisions. IT needs to know their environment intimately. They need to understand dependencies and integrations and feel confident they are making decisions with the most current and accurate view.

    Solutions for managing operations rely on the CMDB to bring visibility to issues, calculate impact, and use predictive analytics to fix performance issues before they become major incidents. AIOps solutions need accurate data, but they can also help identify configuration drift and flag changes or anomalies that need investigation.

    The days of relying entirely on manual entry and updates are all but gone, as the functionality of a robust configuration management system requires daily updates to provide value. We used to rely on that one hero to make sure information was up to date, but with the volume of changes we see in most environments today, it's time to improve the process and provide superpowers to the entire IT department.

    This is a picture of Sandi Conrad

    Sandi Conrad, ITIL Managing Professional
    Principal Research Director, IT Infrastructure & Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Build a configuration management database (CMDB): You need to implement a CMDB, populate it with records and relationships, and integrate it with discovery and management tools.
    • Identify the benefits of a CMDB: Too many CMDB projects fail because IT tries to collect everything. Base your data model on the desired use cases.
    • Define roles and responsibilities: Keeping data accurate and updated is difficult. Identify who will be responsible for helping

    Common Obstacles

    • Significant process maturity is required: Service configuration management (SCM) requires high maturity in change management, IT asset management, and service catalog practices.
    • Large investment: Building a CMDB takes a large amount of effort, process, and expertise.
    • Tough business case: Configuration management doesn't directly provide value to the business, but it requires a lot of investment from IT.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    • Define your scope and objectives: Identify the use cases for SCM and prioritize those objectives into phases.
    • Design the CMDB data model: Align with your existing configuration management system's data model.
    • Operationalize configuration record updates: Integrate your SCM practice with existing practices and lifecycles.

    Start small

    Scope creep is a serial killer of configuration management databases and service configuration management practices.

    Insight summary

    Many vendors are taking a CMDB-first approach to enable IT operations or sometimes asset management. It's important to ensure processes are in place immediately to ensure the data doesn't go stale as additional modules and features are activated.

    Define processes early to ensure success

    The right mindset is just as important as the right tools. By involving everyone early, you can ensure the right data is captured and validated and you can make maintenance part of the culture. This is critical to reaching early and continual value with a CMDB.

    Identify use cases

    The initial use case will be the driving force behind the first assessment of return on investment (ROI). If ROI can be realized early, momentum will increase, and the team can build on the initial successes.

    If you don't see value in the first year, momentum diminishes and it's possible the project will never see value.

    Keep the initial scope small and focused

    Discovery can collect a lot of data quickly, and it's possible to be completely overwhelmed early in the process.

    Build expertise and troubleshoot issues with a smaller scope, then build out the process.

    Minimize customizations

    Most CMDBs have classes and attributes defined as defaults. Use of the defaults will enable easier implementation and faster time to value, especially where automations and integrations depend on standard terms for field mapping.

    Automate as much as possible

    In large, complex environments, the data can quickly become unmanageable. Use automation as much as possible for discovery, dependency mapping, validation, and alerts. Minimize the amount of manual work but ensure everyone is aware of where and how these manual updates need to happen to see continual value.

    Info-Tech's Harness Configuration Management Superpowers.

    Configuration management will improve functionality of all surrounding processes

    A well-functioning CMDB empowers almost all other IT management and governance practices.

    Service configuration management is about:

    • Building a system of record about IT services and the components that support those services.
    • Continuously reconciling and validating information to ensure data accuracy.
    • Ensuring the data lifecycle is defined and well understood and can pass data and process audits.
    • Accessing information in a variety of ways to effectively serve IT and the business.
    An image of Info-Tech's CMDB Configuration Management tree, breaking down aspects into the following six categories: Strategic Partner; Service Provider; Proactive; Stabilize; Core; and Foundational.

    Configuration management most closely impacts these practices

    Info-Tech Research Group sees a clear relationship.

    When an IT department reports they are highly effective at configuration management, they are much more likely to report they are highly effective at these management and governance processes:

    The following management and governance processes are listed: Quality Management; Asset Management; Performance Measurement; Knowledge Management; Release Management; Incident and Problem Management; Service Management; Change Management.

    The data is clear

    Service configuration management is about more than just doing change management more effectively.

    Source: Info-Tech Research Group, IT Management and Governance Diagnostic; N=684 organizations, 2019 to July 2022.

    Make the case to use configuration management to improve IT operations

    Consider the impact of access to data for informing innovations, optimization efforts, and risk assessments.

    75% of Uptime's 2021 survey respondents who had an outage in the past three years said the outage would have been prevented if they'd had better management or processes.(1)

    75%

    75% of Uptime's 2021 survey respondents who had an outage in the past three years said the outage would have been prevented if they'd had better management or processes.(1)

    42%

    of publicly reported outages were due to software or configuration issues. (1)

    58%

    of networking-related IT outages were due to configuration and change management failure.(1)

    It doesn't have to be that way!

    Enterprise-grade IT service management (ITSM) tools require a CMDB for the different modules to work together and to enable IT operations management (ITOM), providing greater visibility.

    Decisions about changes can be made with accurate data, not guesses.

    The CMDB can give the service desk fast access to helpful information about the impacted components, including a history of similar incidents and resolutions and the relationship between the impacted components and other systems and components.

    Turn your team into IT superheroes.

    CMDB data makes it easier for IT Ops groups to:

    • Avoid change collisions.
    • Eliminate poor changes due to lack of visibility into complex systems.
    • Identify problematic equipment.
    • Troubleshoot incidents.
    • Expand the services provided by tier 1 and through automation.

    Benefits of configuration management

    For IT

    • Configuration management will supercharge processes that have relied on inherent knowledge of the IT environment to make decisions.
    • IT will more quickly analyze and understand issues and will be positioned to improve and automate issue identification and resolution.
    • Increase confidence and reduce risks for decisions involving release and change management with access to accurate data, regardless of the complexity of the environment.
    • Reduce or eliminate unplanned work related to poor outcomes due to decisions made with incorrect or incomplete data.

    For the Business

    • Improve strategic planning for business initiatives involving IT solutions, which may include integrations, development, or security concerns.
    • More quickly deploy new solutions or updates due to visibility into complex environments.
    • Enable business outcomes with reliable and stable IT systems.
    • Reduce disruptions caused by planning without accurate data and improve resolution times for service interruptions.
    • Improve access to reporting for budgeting, showbacks, and chargebacks as well as performance metrics.

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Fast-track your planning and increase the success of a configuration management program with this blueprint

    Workshop feedback
    8.1/10

    $174,000 savings

    30 average days saved

    Guided Implementation feedback

    8.7/10

    $31,496 average savings

    41 average days saved

    "The workshop was well run, with good facilitation, and gained participation from even the most difficult parts of the audience. The best part of the experience was that if I were to find myself in the same position in the future, I would repeat the workshop."

    – University of Exeter

    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 Phase 4

    Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #2: Prioritize services and use cases.

    Call #3: Identify data needed to meet goals.

    Call #4: Define roles and responsibilities.

    Call #5: Define and prioritize your services.

    Call #6: Evaluate and test CMDB default classifications.

    Call #7: Build a data model diagram.

    Call #8: Define processes for onboarding, offboarding, and maintaining data.

    Call #9: Discuss configuration baselines.

    Call #10: Build a data validation and audit plan.

    Call #11: Define key metrics.

    Call #12: Build a configuration management policy and communications plan.

    Call #13: Build a roadmap.

    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 9 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

    Configuration Management Strategy

    CMDB Data Structure

    Process Design

    Communications & Roadmap

    Activities
    • Introduction
    • Define challenges and goals.
    • Define and prioritize use cases.
    • Identify data needed to meet goals.
    • Define roles and responsibilities.
    • Define and prioritize your services.
    • Evaluate CMDB default classifications.
    • Test configuration items against existing categories.
    • Build a data model diagram.
    • Define processes for onboarding, offboarding, and maintaining data in the CMDB.
    • Define practices for configuration baselines.
    • Build a data validation and auditing plan.
    • Define key metrics for configuration management.
    • Define metrics for supporting services.
    • Build configuration management policies.
    • Create a communications plan.
    • Build a roadmap.

    Deliverables

    • Roles and responsibility matrix
    • Data and reporting use cases based on stakeholder requirements
    • List of CI types and relationships to be added to default settings
    • CMDB data model diagram
    • Documented processes and workflows
    • Data validation and auditing plan
    • Policy for configuration management
    • Roadmap for next steps
    • Communications documents

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Configuration Management Project Charter

    Detail your approach to building an SCM practice and a CMDB.

    Screenshot from the Configuration Management Project Charter

    Use Cases and Data Worksheet

    Capture the action items related to your SCM implementation project.

    Screenshot from the Use Cases and Data Worksheet

    Configuration Manager Job Description

    Use our template for a job posting or internal job description.

    Screenshot from the Configuration Manager Job Description

    Configuration Management Diagram Template Library

    Use these diagrams to simplify building your SOP.

    Screenshot from the Configuration Management Diagram Template Library

    Configuration Management Policy

    Set expectations for configuration control.

    screenshot from the Configuration Management Policy

    Configuration Management Audit and Validation Checklist

    Use this framework to validate controls.

    Screenshot from the Configuration Management Audit and Validation Checklist

    Configuration Control Board Charter

    Define the board's responsibilities and meeting protocols.

    Screenshot from the Configuration Management Audit and Validation Checklist

    Key deliverable:

    Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures Template

    Outlines SCM roles and responsibilities, the CMDB data model, when records are expected to change, and configuration baselines.

    Four Screenshots from the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures Template

    Phase 1

    Configuration Management Strategy

    Strategy Data Structure Processes Roadmap
    • Challenges and Goals
    • Use Cases and Data
    • Roles and Responsibilities
    • Services
    • Classifications
    • Data Modeling
    • Lifecycle Processes
    • Baselines
    • Audit and Data Validation
    • Metrics
    • Communications Plan
    • Roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • Scope
    • Use Cases
    • Reports and Analytics

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT and business service owners
    • Business/customer relationship managers
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    Harness Service Configuration Management Superpowers

    Establish clear definitions

    Ensure everyone is using the same terms.

    Term Definition
    Configuration Management

    The purpose of configuration management is to:

    • "Ensure that accurate and reliable information about the configuration of services, and the CIs that support them, is available when and where it is needed. This includes information on how CIs are configured and the relationships between them" (AXELOS).
    • "Provide sufficient information about service assets to enable the service to be effectively managed. Assess the impact of changes and deal with service incidents" (ISACA, 2018).
    Configuration Management System (CMS) A set of tools and databases used to manage, update, and present data about all configuration items and their relationships. A CMS may maintain multiple federated CMDBs and can include one or many discovery and dependency mapping tools.
    Configuration Management Database (CMDB) A repository of configuration records. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet or as complex as an integrated database populated through multiple autodiscovery tools.
    Configuration Record Detailed information about a configuration item.
    Configuration Item (CI)

    "Any component that needs to be managed in order to deliver an IT service" (AXELOS).

    These components can include everything from IT services and software to user devices, IT infrastructure components, and documents (e.g. maintenance agreements).
    Attributes Characteristics of a CI included in the configuration record. Common attributes include name, version, license expiry date, location, supplier, SLA, and owner.
    Relationships Information about the way CIs are linked. A CI can be part of another CI, connect to another CI, or use another CI. A CMDB is significantly more valuable when relationships are recorded. This information allows CMDB users to identify dependencies between components when investigating incidents, performing root-cause analysis, assessing the impact of changes before deployment, and much more.

    What is a configuration management database (CMDB)?

    The CMDB is a system of record of your services and includes a record for everything you need to track to effectively manage your IT services.

    Anything that is tracked in your CMDB is called a configuration item (CI). Examples of CIs include:

    • User-Facing Services
    • IT-Facing Services
    • Business Capabilities
    • Relationships
    • IT Infrastructure Components
    • Enterprise Software
    • End-User Devices
    • Documents

    Other systems of record can refer to CIs, such as:

    • Ticket database: Tickets can refer to which CI is impacted by an incident or provided as part of a service request.
    • Asset management database (AMDB): An IT asset is often also a CI. By associating asset records with CI records, you can leverage your IT asset data in your reporting.
    • Financial systems: If done well, the CMDB can supercharge your IT financial cost model.

    CMDBs can allow you to:

    • Query multiple databases simultaneously (so long as you have the CI name field in each database).
    • Build automated workflows and chatbots that interact with data across multiple databases.
    • More effectively identify the potential impact of changes and releases.

    Do not confuse asset with configuration

    Asset and configuration management look at the same world through different lenses

    • IT asset management (ITAM) tends to focus on each IT asset in its own right: assignment or ownership, lifecycle, and related financial obligations and entitlements.
    • Configuration management is focused on configuration items (CIs) that must be managed to deliver a service and the relationships and integrations with other CIs.
    • ITAM and configuration management teams and practices should work closely together. Though asset and configuration management focus on different outcomes, they may use overlapping tools and data sets. Each practice, when working effectively, can strengthen the other.
    • Many objects will exist in both the CMDB and AMDB, and the data on those shared objects will need to be kept in sync.

    A comparison between Asset and Configuration Management Databases

    *Discovery, dependency mapping, and data normalization are often features or modules of configuration management, asset management, or IT service management tools.

    Start with ITIL 4 guiding principles to make your configuration management project valuable and realistic

    Focus on where CMDB data will provide value and ensure the cost of bringing that data in will be reasonable for its purpose. Your end goal should be not just to build a CMDB but to use a CMDB to manage workload and workflows and manage services appropriately.

    Focus on value

    Include only the relevant information required by stakeholders.

    Start where you are

    Use available sources of information. Avoid adding new sources and tools unless they are justified.

    Progress iteratively with feedback

    Regularly review information use and confirm its relevance, adjusting the CMDB scope if needed.

    Collaborate and promote visibility

    Explain and promote available sources of configuration information and the best ways to use them, then provide hints and tips for more efficient use.

    Think and work holistically

    Consider other sources of data for decision making. Do not try to put everything in the CMDB.

    Keep it simple and practical

    Provide relevant information in the most convenient way; avoid complex interfaces and reports.

    Optimize and automate

    Continually optimize resource-consuming practice activities. Automate CDMB verification, data collection, relationship discovery, and other activities.

    ITIL 4 guiding principles as described by AXELOS

    Step 1.1

    Identify use cases and desired benefits for service configuration management

    Activities

    1.1.1 Brainstorm data collection challenges

    1.1.2 Define goals and how you plan to meet them

    1.1.3 Brainstorm and prioritize use cases

    1.1.4 Identify the data needed to reach your goals

    1.1.5 Record required data sources

    This step will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • Scope
    • Use cases

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT and business service owners
    • Business/customer relationship managers
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • Project sponsor
    • Project manager

    Identify potential obstacles in your organization to building and maintaining a CMDB

    Often, we see multiple unsuccessful attempts to build out a CMDB, with teams eventually losing faith and going back to spreadsheets. These are common obstacles:

    • Significant manual data collection, which is rarely current and fully accurate.
    • Multiple discovery solutions creating duplicate records, with no clear path to deduplicate records.
    • Manual dependency mapping that isn't accurate because it's not regularly assessed and updated.
    • Hybrid cloud and on-premises environment with discovery solutions only partially collecting as the right discovery and dependency mapping solutions aren't in place.
    • Dynamic environments (virtual, cloud, or containers) that may exist for a very short time, but no one knows how they should be managed.
    • Lack of expertise to maintain and update the CMDB or lack of an assigned owner for the CMDB. If no one owns the process and is assigned as a steward of data, it will not be maintained.
    • Database that was designed with other purposes in mind and is heavily customized, making it difficult to use and maintain.

    Understanding the challenges to accessing and maintaining quality data will help define the risks created through lack of quality data.

    This knowledge can drive buy-in to create a configuration management practice that benefits the organization.

    1.1.1 Brainstorm data collection challenges

    Involve stakeholders.
    Allot 45 minutes for this discussion.

    1. As a group, brainstorm the challenges you have with data:
    2. Accuracy and trustworthiness: What challenges do you have with getting accurate data on IT services and systems?
      1. Access: Where do you have challenges with getting data to people when they need it?
      2. Manually created data: Where are you relying on data that could be automatically collected?
      3. Data integration: Where do you have issues with integrating data from multiple sources?
      4. Impact: What is the result of these challenges?
    3. Group together these challenges into similar issues and identify what goals would help overcome them.
    4. Record these challenges in the Configuration Management Project Charter, section 1.2: Project Purpose.

    Download the Configuration Management Project Charter

    Input

    Output

    • None
    • List of high-level desired benefits for SCM
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Sticky notes
    • Markers/pens
    • Configuration Management Project Charter
    • IT and business service owners
    • Business/customer relationship managers
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    Info-Tech Maturity Ladder

    Identify your current and target state

    INNOVATOR

    • Characteristics of business partner
    • Integration with orchestration tools

    BUSINESS PARTNER

    Data collection and validation is fully automated

    Integrated with several IT processes

    Meets the needs of IT and business use cases

    TRUSTED OPERATOR

    • Data collection and validation is partially or fully automated
    • Trust in data accuracy is high, meets the needs of several IT use cases

    FIREFIGHTER

    • Data collection is partially or fully automated, validation is ad hoc
    • Trust in data accuracy is variable, used for decision making

    UNSTABLE

    INNOVATOR

    • Characteristics of business partner
    • Integration with orchestration tools

    BUSINESS PARTNER

    • Data collection and validation is fully automated
    • Integrated with several IT processes
    • Meets the needs of IT and business use cases

    TRUSTED OPERATOR

    • Data collection and validation is partially or fully automated
    • Trust in data accuracy is high, meets the needs of several IT use cases

    FIREFIGHTER

    • Data collection is partially or fully automated, validation is ad hoc
    • Trust in data accuracy is variable, used for decision making

    UNSTABLE

    A tower is depicted, with arrows pointing to Current (orange) and Target(blue)

    Define goals for your CMDB to ensure alignment with all stakeholders

    • How are business or IT goals being hindered by not having the right data available?
    • If the business isn't currently asking for service-based reporting and accountability, start with IT goals. This will help to develop goals that will be most closely aligned to the IT teams' needs and may help incentivize the right behavior in data maintenance.
    • Configuration management succeeds by enabling its stakeholders to achieve their outcomes. Set goals for configuration management based on the most important outcomes expected from this project. Ask your stakeholders:
      1. What are the business' or IT's planned transformational initiatives?
      2. What are your highest priority goals?
      3. What should the priorities of the configuration management practice be?
    • The answers to these questions will shape your approach to configuration management. Direct input from your leadership and executives, or their delegates, will help ensure you're setting a solid foundation for your practice.
    • Identify which obstacles will need to be overcome to meet these goals.

    "[T]he CMDB System should be viewed as a 'system of relevance,' rather than a 'single source of truth.' The burdens of relevance are at once less onerous and far more meaningful in terms of action, analysis, and automation. While 'truth' implies something everlasting or at least stable, relevance suggests a far more dynamic universe."

    – CMDB Systems, Making Change Work in the Age of Cloud and Agile, Drogseth et al

    Identify stakeholders to discuss what they need from a CMDB; business and IT needs will likely differ

    Define your audience to determine who the CMDB will serve and invite them to these conversations. The CMDB can aid the business and IT and can be structured to provide dashboards and reports for both.

    Nondiscoverable configuration items will need to be created for both audiences to organize CIs in a way that makes sense for all uses.

    Integrations with other systems may be required to meet the needs of your audience. Note integrations for future planning.

    Business Services

    Within the data sets, service configuration models can be used for:

    • Impact analysis
    • Cause and effect analysis
    • Risk analysis
    • Cost allocation
    • Availability analysis and planning

    Technical Services

    Connect to IT Finance for:

    • Service-based consumption and costing
    • Financial awareness through showback
    • Financial recovery through chargeback
    • Support IT strategy through financial transparency
    • Cost optimization
    • Reporting for depreciation, location-related taxation, and capitalization (may also use asset management for these)

    Intersect with IT Processes to:

    • Reduce time to restore services through incident management
    • Improve stability through change management
    • Reduce outages through problem management
    • Optimize assets through IT asset management
    • Provide detailed reporting for audit/governance, risk, and compliance

    1.1.2 Define goals and how you plan to meet them

    Involve stakeholders.

    Allot 45 minutes for this discussion.

    As a group, identify current goals for building and using a CMDB.

    Why are we doing this?

    • How do you hope to use the data within the CMDB?
    • What processes will be improved through use of this data and what are the expected outcomes?

    How will we improve the process?

    • What processes will be put in place to ensure data integrity?
    • What tools will be put in place to improve the methods used to collect and maintain data?

    Record these goals in the Configuration Management Project Charter, section 1.3: Project Objectives.

    Input

    Output

    • None
    • List of high-level desired benefits for SCM
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Sticky notes
    • Markers/pens
    • Configuration Management Project Charter
    • IT and business service owners
    • Business/customer relationship managers
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    It's easy to think that if you build it, they will come, but CMDBs rarely succeed without solid use cases

    Set expectations for your organization that defined and fulfilled use cases will factor into prioritization exercises, functional plans, and project milestones to achieve ROI for your efforts.

    A good use case:

    • Justifies resource allocation
    • Gains funding for the right tools
    • Builds stakeholder support
    • Drives interest and excitement
    • Gains support from anyone in a position to help build out and validate the data
    • Helps to define success

    In the book CMDB Systems, Making Change Work in the Age of Cloud and Agile, authors Drogseth, Sturm, and Twing describe the secrets of success:

    A documented evaluation of CMDB System vendors showed that while most "best case" ROI fell between 6 and 9 months for CMDB deployments, one instance delivered ROI for a significant CMDB investment in as little as 2 weeks!

    If there's a simple formula for quick time to value for a CMDB System, it's the following:

    Mature levels of process awareness
    + Strong executive level support
    + A ready and willing team with strongly supportive stakeholders
    + Clearly defined and ready phase one use case
    + Carefully selected, appropriate technologies

    All this = Powerful early-phase CMDB System results

    Define and prioritize use cases for how the CMDB will be used to drive value

    The CMDB can support several use cases and may require integration with various modules within the ITSM solution and integration with other systems.

    Document the use cases that will drive your CMDB to relevance, including the expected benefits for each use case.

    Identify the dependencies that will need to be implemented to be successful.

    Define "done" so that once data is entered, verified, and mapped, these use cases can be realized.

    "Our consulting experience suggests that more than 75% of all strategic initiatives (CMDB or not) fail to meet at least initial expectations across IT organizations. This is often due more to inflated expectations than categorical failure."

    – CMDB Systems, Making Change Work in the Age of Cloud and Agile, Drogseth et al.

    This image demonstrates how CMBD will be used to drive value.

    After identifying use cases, determine the scope of configuration items required to feed the use cases

    On-premises software and equipment will be critical to many use cases as the IT team and partners work on network and data-center equipment, enterprise software, and integrations through various means, including APIs and middleware. Real-time and near real-time data collection and validation will ensure IT can act with confidence.

    Cloud use can include software as a service (SaaS) solutions as well as infrastructure and platform as a service (IaaS and PaaS), and this may be more challenging for data collection. Tools must be capable of connecting to cloud environments and feeding the information back into the CMDB. Where on-premises and cloud applications show dependencies, you might need to validate data if multiple discovery and dependency mapping solutions are used to get a complete picture. Tagging will be crucial to making sense of the data as it comes into the CMDB.

    In-house developed software would be beneficial to have in the CMDB but may require more manual work to identify and classify once discovered. A combination of discovery and tagging may be beneficial to input and classification.

    Highly dynamic environments may require data collection through integration with a variety of solutions to manage and record continuous deployment models and verifications, or they may rely on tags and activity logs to record historical activity. Work with a partner who specializes in CI/CD to help architect this use case.

    Containers will require an assessment of the level of detail required. Determine if the container is a CI and if the content will be described as attributes. If there is value to your use case to map the contents of each container as separate CIs within the container CI, then you can map to that level of detail, but don't map to that depth unless the use case calls for it.

    Internet of Things (IoT) devices and applications will need to match a use case as well. IoT device asset data will be useful to track within an asset database but may have limited value to add to a CMDB. If there are connections between IoT applications and data warehouses, the dependencies should likely be mapped to ensure continued dataflow.

    Out of scope

    A single source of data is highly beneficial, but don't make it a catchall for items that are not easily stored in a CMDB.

    Source code should be stored in a definitive media library (DML). Code can be linked to the CMDB but is generally too big to store in a CMDB and will reduce performance for data retrieval.

    Knowledge articles and maintenance checklists are better suited to a knowledge base. They can also be linked to the CDMB if needed but this can get messy where many-to-many relationships between articles and CIs exist.

    Fleet (transportation) assets and fixed assets should be in fleet management systems and accounting systems, respectively. Storing these types of data in the CMDB doesn't provide value to the support process.

    1.1.3 Brainstorm and prioritize use cases

    Which IT practices will you supercharge?

    Focus on improving both operations and strategy.

    1. Brainstorm the list of relevant use cases. What do you want to do with the data from the CMDB? Consider:
      1. ITSM management and governance practices
      2. IT operations, vendor orchestration, and service integration and management (SIAM) to improve vendor interactions
      3. IT finance and business service reporting needs
    2. Identify which use cases are part of your two- to three-year plan, including the purpose for adding configuration data into that process. Prioritize one or two of these use cases to accomplish in your first year.
    3. Identify dependencies to manage as part of the solution and define a realistic timeline for implementing integrations, modules, or data sources.
    4. Document this table in the Configuration Management Project Charter, section 2.2: Use Cases.
    Audience Use Case Goal/Purpose Project/Solution Dependencies Proposed Timeline Priority
    • IT
    • Change Management

    Stabilize the process by seeing:

    Change conflict reporting

    Reports of CI changes without change records

    System availability

    RFC mapping requires discovered CIs

    RFC review requires criticality, technical and business owners

    Conflict reporting requires dependency mapping

    • Discovery and manual information entered by October
    • Dependency mapping implemented by December

    High

    Determine what additional data will be needed to achieve your use cases

    Regardless of which use cases you are planning to fulfill with the CMDB, it is critical to not add data and complexity with the plan of resolving every possible inquiry. Ensure the cost and effort of bringing in the data and maintaining it is justified. The complexity of the environment will impact the complexity of data sources and integrations for discovery and dependency mapping.

    Before bringing in new data, consider:

    • Is this information available in other maintained databases now?
    • Will this data be critical for decision making? If it is nice to have or optional, can it be automatically moved into the database and maintained using existing integrations?
    • Is there a cost to bringing the data into the CMDB and maintaining it? Is that cost reasonable for its purpose?
    • How frequently will this information be accessed, and can it be updated in an adequate cadence to meet these needs?
    • When does this information need to be available?

    Info-Tech Insight

    If data will be used only occasionally upon request, determine if it will be more efficient to maintain it or to retrieve it from the CMDB or another data source as needed.

    Remember, within the data sets, service configuration models can be used for:

    • Impact analysis
    • Cause and effect analysis
    • Risk analysis
    • Cost allocation
    • Availability analysis and planning

    1.1.4 Expand your use cases by identifying the data needed to reach your goals

    Involve stakeholders.

    Allot 60 minutes for this discussion.

    Review use cases and their goals.

    Identify what data will be required to meet those goals and determine whether it will be mandatory or optional/nice-to-have information.

    Identify sources of data for each type of data. Color code or sort.

    Italicize data points that can be automatically discovered.

    Gain consensus on what information will be manually entered.

    Record the data in the Use Cases and Data Worksheet.

    Download the Use Cases and Data Worksheet

    Input

    Output

    • None
    • List of data requirements
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Sticky notes
    • Markers/pens
    • Use Cases and Data Worksheet
    • IT and business service owners
    • Business/customer relationship managers
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    Use discovery and dependency mapping tools to automatically update the CMDB

    Avoid manual data entry whenever possible.

    Consider these features when looking at tools:

    • Application dependency mapping: Establishing and tracking the relationships and dependencies between system components, applications, and IT services. The ideal tool will be able to generate maps automatically.
    • Agentless and agent discovery: Scanning systems with both agent and agentless approaches. Agent-based scanning provides comprehensive information on applications used in individual endpoints, which is helpful in minimizing its IT footprint. However, agents require endpoint access. Agentless-based scanning provides a broader and holistic view of deployed applications without the need to install an agent on end devices, which can be good enough for inventory awareness.
    • Data export capability: Easy exporting of application inventory information to be used in reports and other tools.
    • Dashboards and chart visualization: Detailed list of the application inventory, including version number, number of users, licenses, deployment location, and other application details. These details will inform decision makers of each application's health and its candidacy for further rationalization activities.
    • Customizable scanning scripts: Tailor your application discovery approach by modifying the scripts used to scan your systems.
    • Integration with third-party tools: Easy integration with other systems with out-of-the-box plugins or customizable APIs.

    Determine which data collection methods will be used to populate the CMDB

    The effort-to-value ratio is an important factor in populating a CMDB. Manual efforts require a higher process focus, more intensive data validation, and a constant need to remind team members to act on every change.

    Real-Time Data AIOps continual scans Used for event and incident management
    Near Real-Time Data Discovery and dependency mapping run on a regular cycle Used for change and asset management
    Historical Data Activity log imports, manual data entry Used for IT finance, audit trail
    • Determine what amount of effort is appropriate for each data grouping and use case. As decisions are made to expand data within the CMDB, the effort-to-value ratio should always factor in. To be usable, data must be accurate, and every piece of data that needs to be manually entered runs the risk of becoming obsolete.
    • Identify which data sources will bring in each type of data. Where there is a possibility of duplicate records being created, one of the data sources will need to be identified as the primary.
    • If the decision is to manually enter configuration items early in the process, be aware that automation may create duplicates of the CIs that will need to be deduplicated at some point in the process to make the information more usable.
    • Typically, items are discovered, validated, then mapped, but there will be variations depending on the source.
    • Active Directory or LDAP may be used to bring users and technicians into the CMDB. Data may be imported from spreadsheets. Identify efforts where data cleanup may have to happen before transferring into the CMDB.
    • Identify how often manual imports will need to be conducted to make sure data is usable.

    Identify other nondiscoverable data that will need to be added to or accessed by the CMDB

    Foundational data, such as technicians, end users and approvers, roles, location, company, agency, department, building, or cost center, may be added to tables that are within or accessed by the CMDB. Work with your vendor to understand structure and where this information resides.

    • These records can be imported from CSV files manually, but this will require manual removal or edits as information changes.
    • Integration with the HRIS, Active Directory, or LDAP will enable automatic updates through synchronization or scheduled imports.
    • If synchronization is fully enabled, new data can be added and removed from the CMDB automatically.
    • Identify which nondiscoverable attributes will be needed, such as system criticality, support groups, groups it is managed by, location.
    • If partially automating the process, identify where manual updates will need to occur.
    • If fully automating the process, notifications will need to be set up when business owner or product or technical owner fields become empty to prompt defining a replacement within the CMDB.
    • Determine who will manage these updates.
    • Work with your CMDB implementation vendor to determine the best option for bringing this information in.

    1.1.5 Record required data sources

    Allot 15 minutes for this discussion.

    1. Where do you track the work involved in providing services? Typically, your ticket database tracks service requests and incidents. Additional data sources can include:
      • Enterprise resource planning tools for tracking purchase orders
      • Project management information system for tracking tasks
    2. What trusted data sources exist for the technology that supports these services? Examples include:
      • Management tools (e.g. Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager)
      • Architectural diagrams and network topology diagrams
      • IT asset management database
      • Spreadsheets
      • Other systems of record
    3. What other data sources can help you gather the data you identified in activity 1.1.4?
    4. Record the relevant data sources for each use case in the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 6: Data Collection and Updates.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Improve the trustworthiness of your CMDB as a system of record by relying on data that is already trusted.

    Input

    Output

    • Use cases
    • List of data requirements
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Use Cases and Data Worksheet
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
    • IT and business service owners
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    Step 1.2

    Define roles and responsibilities

    Activities

    1.2.1 Record the project team and stakeholders

    1.2.2 Complete a RACI chart to define who will be accountable and responsible for configuration tasks

    This step will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • Roles and responsibilities

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT service owners
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • Project manager

    Identify the roles you need in your SCM project

    Determine which roles will need to be involved in the initial project and how to source these roles.

    Leadership Roles
    Oversee the SCM implementation

    1. Configuration Manager – The practice owner for SCM. This is a long-term role.
    2. Configuration Control Board (CCB) Chair – An optional role that oversees proposed alterations to configuration plans. If a CCB is implemented, this is a long-term role.
    3. Project Sponsor or Program Sponsor – Provides the necessary resources for building the CMDB and SCM practices.
    4. Architecture Roles
      Plan the program to build strong foundation
      1. Configuration Management Architect – Technical leader who defines the overall CM solution, plans the scope, selects a tool, and leads the technical team that will implement the solution.
      2. Requirements Analyst – Gathers and manages the requirements for CM.
      3. Process Engineer – Defines, documents, and implements the entire process.

    Architecture Roles
    Plan the program to build strong foundation

    1. Configuration Management Architect – Technical leader who defines the overall CM solution, plans the scope, selects a tool, and leads the technical team that will implement the solution.
    2. Requirements Analyst – Gathers and manages the requirements for CM.
    3. Process Engineer – Defines, documents, and implements the entire process.

    Engineer Roles
    Implement the system

    1. Logical Database Analyst (DBA) Designs the structure to hold the configuration management data and oversees implementation.
    2. Communications and Trainer – Communicates the goals and functions of CM and teaches impacted users the how and why of the process and tools.

    Administrative Roles
    Permanent roles involving long-term ownership

    1. Technical Owner – The system administrator responsible for their system's uptime. These roles usually own the data quality for their system.
    2. Configuration Management Integrator – Oversees regular transfer of data into the CMDB.
    3. Configuration Management Tool Support – Selects, installs, and maintains the CM tool.
    4. Impact Manager – Analyzes configuration data to ensure relationships between CIs are accurate; conducts impact analysis.

    1.2.1 Record the project team and stakeholders

    Allocate 25 minutes to this discussion.

    1. Record the project team.
      1. Identify the project manager who will lead this project.
      2. Identify key personnel that will need to be involved in design of the configuration management system and processes.
      3. Identify where vendors/outsourcers may be required to assist with technical aspects.
      4. Document the project team in the Configuration Management Project Charter, section 1.1: Project Team.
    1. Record a list of stakeholders.
      1. Identify stakeholders internal and external to IT.
      2. Build the stakeholder profile. For each stakeholder, identify their role, interest in the project, and influence on project success. You can score these criteria high/medium/low or score them out of ten.
      3. If managed service providers will need to be part of the equation, determine who will be the liaison and how they will provide or access data.
    Input

    Output

    • Project team members
    • Project plan resources
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Management Project Charter
    • List of project stakeholders and participants
    • IT service owners
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    Even with full automation, this cannot be a "set it and forget it" project if it is to be successful long-term

    Create a team to manage the process and data updates and to ensure data is always usable.

    • Services may be added and removed.
    • Technology will change as technical debt is reduced.
    • Vendors may change as contract needs develop.
    • Additional use cases may be introduced by IT and the business as approaches to management evolve.
    • AIOps can reduce the level of effort and improve visibility as configuration items change from the baseline and notifications are automated.
    • Changes can be checked against requests for changes through automated reconciliations, but changes will still need to be investigated where they do not meet expectations.
    • Manual data changes will need to be made regularly and verified.

    "We found that everyone wanted information from the CMDB, but no one wanted to pay to maintain it. People pointed to the configuration management team and said, 'It's their responsibility.'

    Configuration managers, however, cannot own the data because they have no way of knowing if the data is accurate. They can own the processes related to checking accuracy, but not the data itself."
    – Tim Mason, founding director at TRM Associates
    (Excerpt from Viewpoint: Focus on CMDB Leadership)

    Include these roles in your CMDB practice to ensure continued success and continual improvement

    These roles can make up the configuration control board (CCB) to make decisions on major changes to services, data models, processes, or policies. A CCB will be necessary in complex environments.

    Configuration Manager

    This role is focused on ensuring everyone works together to build the CMDB and keep it up to date. The configuration manager is responsible to:

    • Plan and manage the standards, processes, and procedures and communicate all updates to appropriate staff. Focused on continual improvement.
    • Plan and manage population of the CMDB and ensure data included meets criteria for cost effectiveness and reasonable effort for the value it brings.
    • Validate scope of services and CIs to be included and controlled within the CMDB and manage exceptions.
    • Audit data quality to ensure it is valid, is current, and meets defined standards.
    • Evaluate and recommend tools to support processes, data collection, and integrations.
    • Ensure configuration management processes interface with all other service and business management functions to meet use cases.
    • Report on configuration management performance and take appropriate action on process adherence and quality issues.

    Configuration Librarian

    This role is most important where manual data entry is prevalent and where many nonstandard configurations are in place. The librarian role is often held by the tool administrator. The librarian focuses specifically on data within the CMDB, including:

    • Manual updates to configuration data.
    • CMDB data verification on a regular schedule.
    • Processing ad hoc requests for data.

    Product/Service/Technical Owners

    The product or technical owner will validate information is correctly updating and reflects the existing data requirements as new systems are provisioned or as existing systems change.

    Interfacing Practice Owners

    All practice owners, such as change manager, incident manager, or problem manager, must work with the configuration team to ensure data is usable for each of the use cases they are responsible for.

    Download the Configuration Manager job description

    Assign configuration management responsibilities and accountabilities

    Align authority and accountability.

    • A RACI exercise will help you discuss and document accountability and responsibility for critical configuration management activities.
    • When responsibility and accountability are not well documented, it's often useful to invite a representative of the roles identified to participate in this alignment exercise. The discussion can uncover contrasting views on responsibility and governance, which can help you build a stronger management and governance model.
    • The RACI chart can help you identify who should be involved when making changes to a given activity. Clarify the variety of responsibilities assigned to each key role.
    • In the future, you may need to define roles in more detail as you change your configuration management procedures.

    Responsible: The person who actually gets the job done.
    Different roles may be responsible for different aspects of the activity relevant to their role.

    Accountable: The one role accountable for the activity (in terms of completion, quality, cost, etc.)
    Must have sufficient authority to be held accountable; responsible roles are often accountable to this role.

    Consulted: Those who need the opportunity to provide meaningful input at certain points in the activity; typically, subject matter experts or stakeholders. The more people you must consult, the more overhead and time you'll add to a process.

    Informed: Those who receive information regarding the task but do not need to provide feedback.
    Information might relate to process execution, changes, or quality.

    Complete a RACI chart to define who will be accountable and responsible for configuration tasks

    Determine what roles will be in place in your organization and who will fulfill them, and create your RACI chart to reflect what makes sense for your organization. Additional roles may be involved where there is complexity.

    R = responsible, A = accountable, C = consulted, I = informed CCB Configuration Manager Configuration Librarian Technical Owner(s) Interfacing Practice Owners Tool Administrator
    Plan and manage the standards, processes, and procedures and communicate all updates to appropriate staff. Focused on continual improvement. A R
    Plan and manage population of the CMDB and ensure data included meets criteria for cost effectiveness and reasonable effort for the value it brings. A R
    Validate scope of services and CIs to be included and controlled within the CMDB and manage exceptions. A R
    Audit data quality to ensure it is valid, is current, and meets defined standards. A,R
    Evaluate and recommend tools to support processes, data collection, and integrations. A,R
    Ensure configuration management processes interface with all other service and business management functions to meet use cases. A
    Report on configuration management performance and take appropriate action on process adherence and quality issues. A
    Make manual updates to configuration data. A
    Conduct CMDB data verification on a regular schedule. A
    Process ad hoc requests for data. A
    Enter new systems into the CMDB. A R
    Update CMDB as systems change. A R
    Identify new use cases for CMDB data. R A
    Validate data meets the needs for use cases and quality. R A
    Design reports to meet use cases. R
    Ensure integrations are configured as designed and are functional. R

    1.2.2 Complete a RACI chart to define who will be accountable and responsible for configuration tasks

    Allot 60 minutes for this discussion.

    1. Open the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 4.1: Responsibility Matrix. In the RACI chart, review the top row of roles. Smaller organizations may not need a configuration control board, in which case the configuration manager may have more authority.
    2. Modify or expand the process tasks in the left column as needed.
    3. For each role, identify what that person is responsible for, accountable for, consulted on, or informed of. Fill out each column.
    4. Document in the SOP. Schedule a time to share the results with organization leads.
    5. Distribute the chart among all teams in your organization.
    6. Describe additional roles as needed in the documentation.
    7. Add accountabilities and responsibilities for the CCB into the Configuration Control Board Charter.
    8. If appropriate, add auxiliary roles to the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 4.2: Configuration Management Auxiliary Role Definitions.

    Notes:

    1. Assign one Accountable for each task.
    2. Have one or more Responsible for each task.
    3. Avoid generic responsibilities such as "team meetings."
    4. Keep your RACI definitions in your documents for quick reference.

    Refer back to the RACI chart when building out the communications plan to ensure accountable and responsible team members are on board and consulted and informed people are aware of all changes.

    Input

    Output

    • Task assignments
    • RACI chart with roles and responsibilities
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, RACI chart
    • Configuration Control Board Charter, Responsibilities section
    • IT service owners
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    Phase 2

    Configuration Management Data Model

    StrategyData StructureProcessesRoadmap
    • Challenges and Goals
    • Use Cases and Data
    • Roles and Responsibilities
    • Services
    • Classifications
    • Data Modeling
    • Lifecycle Processes
    • Baselines
    • Audit and Data Validation
    • Metrics
    • Communications Plan
    • Roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • Data Model
    • Customer-Facing and Supporting Services
    • Business Capabilities
    • Relationships
    • IT Infrastructure Components
    • Enterprise Software
    • End-User Devices
    • Documents

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT service owners
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • CM practice manager
    • CM project manager

    Step 2.1

    Build a framework for CIs and relationships

    Activities

    Document services:

    2.1.1 Define and prioritize your services

    2.1.2 Test configuration items against existing categories

    2.1.3 Create a configuration control board charter to define the board's responsibilities and protocols

    This step will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • Data model
    • Configuration items
    • Relationships

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT service owners
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • CM practice manager
    • Project manager

    Making sense of data daily will be key to maintaining it, starting with services

    As CIs are discovered and mapped, they will automatically map to each other based on integrations, APIs, queries, and transactions. However, CIs also need to be mapped to a conceptional model or service to present the service and its many layers in an easily consumable way.

    These services will need to be manually created or imported into the CMDB and manually connected to the application services. Services can be mapped to technical or business services or both.

    If business services reporting has been requested, talk to the business to develop a list of services that will be required. Use terms the business will be expecting and identify which applications and instances will be mapped to those services.

    If IT is using the CMDB to support service usage and reporting, develop the list of IT services and identify which applications and instances will be mapped to those services.

    This image show the relationship between Discoverable and Nondiscoverable CIs. The discoverable CIs are coloured in purple, and the nondiscoverables are blue.

    Work with your stakeholders to ensure catalog items make sense to them

    There isn't a definitive right or wrong way to define catalog items. For example, the business and IT could both reference application servers, but only IT may need to see technical services broken down by specific locations or device types.

    Refer back to your goals and use cases to think through how best to meet those objectives and determine how to categorize your services.

    Define the services that will be the top-level, nondiscoverable services, which will group together the CIs that make up the complete service. Identify which application(s) will connect into the technical service.

    When you are ready to start discovery, this list of services will be connected to the discovered data to organize it in a way that makes sense for how your stakeholders need to see the data.

    While working toward meeting the goals of the first few use cases, you will want to keep the structure simple. Once processes are in place and data is regularly validated, complexities of different service types and names can be integrated into the data.

    This image show the relationship between Discoverable and Nondiscoverable CIs. Both Discoverable and nondiscoverable CIs are blue.

    Application Service(blue); Technical Service(Purple); IT Shared Services(Orange); Billable Services(green); Service Portfolio(red)

    Define the service types to manage within the CMDB to logically group CIs

    Determine which method of service groupings will best serve your audience for your prioritized use cases. This will help to name your service categories. Service types can be added as the CMDB evolves and as the audience changes.

    Application Service

    Technical Service

    IT Shared Services

    Billable Services

    Service Portfolio

    A set of interconnected applications and hosts configured to offer a service to the organization.

    Example: Financial application service, which may include email, web server, application server, databases, and middleware.

    A logical grouping of CIs based on common criteria.

    Example: Toronto web services, which may include several servers, web applications, and databases.

    A logical grouping of IT and business services shared and used across the organization.

    Example: VoIP/phone services or networking or security services.

    A group of services that will be billed out to departments or customers and would require logical groupings to enable invoicing.

    A group of business and technical service offerings with specific performance reporting levels. This may include multiple service levels for different customer audiences for the same service.

    2.1.1 Define and prioritize your services

    Prioritize your starting point. If multiple audiences need to be accommodated, work with one group at a time.

    Timing: will vary depending on number of services, and starting point

    1. Create your list of services, referencing an existing service catalog, business continuity or disaster recovery plan, list of applications, or brainstorming sessions. Use the terminology that makes the most sense for the audience and their reporting requirements.
    2. If this list is already in place, assess for relevance and reduce the list to only those services that will be managed through the CMDB.
    3. Determine what data will be relevant for each service based on the exercises done in 1.1.4 and 1.1.5. For example, if priority was a required attribute for use case data, ensure each service lists the priority of that service.
    4. For each of these, identify the supporting services. These items can come from your technical service catalog or list of systems and software.
    5. Document this table in the Use Cases and Data Worksheet, tab 3: Service Catalog.

    Service Record Example

    Service: Email
    Supporting Services: M365, Authentication Services

    Service Attributes

    Availability: 24/7 (99.999%)
    Priority: Critical
    Users: All
    Used for: Collaboration
    Billable: Departmental
    Support: Unified Support Model, Account # 123456789

    The CMDB will be organized by services and will enable data analysis through multiple categorization schemes

    To extract maximum service management benefit from a CMDB, the highest level of CI type should be a service, as demonstrated below. While it is easier to start at the system or single-asset level, taking the service mapping approach will provide you with a useful and dynamic view of your IT environment as it relates to the services you offer, instead of a static inventory of components.

    Level 1: Services

    • Business Service Offering: A business service is an IT service that supports a business process, or a service that is delivered to business customers. Business service offerings typically are bound by service-level agreements.
    • IT Service Offering: An IT service supports the customer's business processes and is made up of people, processes, and technology. IT service offerings typically are bound by service-level agreements.

    Level 2: Infrastructure CIs

    • IT Component Set: An IT service offering consists of one of more sets of IT components. An IT component set allows you to group or bundle IT components with other components or groupings.
    • IT Component: An IT system is composed of one or more supporting components. Many components are shared between multiple IT systems.

    Level 3: Supporting CIs

    • IT Subcomponent: Any IT asset that is uniquely identifiable and a component of an IT system.
    • IT components can have subcomponents, and those components can have subcomponents, etc.

    Two charts, showing Enterprise Architect Model and Configuration Service Model. Each box represents a different CI.

    Assess your CMDB's standard category offerings against your environment, with a plan to minimize customization

    Standard categorization schemes will allow for easier integration with multiple tools and reporting and improve results if using machine learning to automate categorization. If the CMDB chosen includes structured categories, use that as your starting point and focus only on gaps that are not addressed for CIs unique to your environment.

    There is an important distinction between a class and a type. This concept is foundational for your configuration data model, so it is important that you understand it.

    • Types are general groupings, and the things within a type will have similarities. For attributes that you want to collect on a type, all children classes and CIs will have those attribute fields.
    • Classes are a more specific grouping within a type. All objects within a class will have specific similarities. You can also use subclasses to further differentiate between CIs.
    • Individual CIs are individual instances of a class or subclass. All objects in a class will have the same attribute fields and behave the same, although the values of their attributes will likely differ.
    • Attributes may be discovered or nondiscoverable and manually added to CIs. The attributes are properties of the CI such as serial number, version, memory, processor speed, or asset tag.

    Use inheritance structures to simplify your configuration data model.

    An example CM Data Model is depicted.

    Assess the list of classes of configuration items against your requirements

    Types are general groupings, and the things within a type will have similarities. Each type will have its own table within the CMDB. Classes within a type are a more specific grouping of configuration items and may include subclasses.

    Review your vendor's CMDB documentation. Find the list of CI types or classes. Most CMDBs will have a default set of classes, like this standard list. If you need to build your own, use the table below as a starting point. Define anything required for unique classes. Create a list and consult with your installation partner.

    Sample list of classes organized by type

    Types Services Network Hardware Storage Compute App Environment Documents
    Classes
    • Application Service
    • Technical Service
    • IT Shared Service
    • Billable Service
    • Service Portfolio
    • Switch
    • Router
    • Firewall
    • Modem
    • SD-WAN
    • Load Balancer
    • UPS
    • Computer
    • Laptop
    • Server
    • Tablet
    • Database
    • Network-Attached Storage
    • Storage Array Network
    • Blob
    • Operating System
    • Hypervisor
    • Virtual Server
    • Virtual Desktop
    • Appliance
    • Virtual Application
    • Enterprise Application
    • Line of Business Application Software
    • Development
    • Test
    • Production
    • Contract
    • Business Impact Analysis
    • Requirements

    Review relationships to determine which ones will be most appropriate to map your dependencies

    Your CMDB should include multiple relationship types. Determine which ones will be most effective for your environment and ensure everyone is trained on how to use them. As CIs are mapped, verify they are correct and only manually map what is incorrect or not mapping through automation.

    Manually mapping CMDB relationships may be time consuming and prone to error, but where manual mapping needs to take place, ensure the team has a common view of the dependency types available and what is important to map.

    Use automated mapping whenever possible to improve accuracy, provide functional visualizations, and enable dynamic updates as the environment changes.

    Where a dependency maps to external providers, determine where it makes sense to discover and map externally provided CIs.

    • Only connect where there is value in mapping to vendor-owned systems.
    • Only connect where data and connections can be trusted and verified.

    Most common dependency mapping types

    A list of the most common dependency mapping types.

    2.1.2 Test configuration items against existing categories

    Time to complete: 1-2 hours

    1. Select a service to test.
    2. Identify the various components that make up the service, focusing on configuration items, not attributes
    3. Categorize configuration items against types and classes in the default settings of the CMDB.
    4. Using the default relationships within the CMDB, identify the relationships between the configuration items.
    5. Identify types, classes, and relationships that do not fit within the default settings. Determine if there are common terms for these items or determine most appropriate name.
    6. Validate these exceptions with the publisher.
    7. Document exceptions in the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, Appendix 2: Types and Classes of Configuration Items
    Input

    Output

    • List of default settings for classes, types, and relationships
    • Small list of services for testing
    • List of CIs to map to at least one service
    • List of categories to add to the CMDB solution.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Use Cases and Data Worksheet
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
    • IT service owners
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    2.1.3 Create a configuration control board charter to define the board's responsibilities and protocols

    A charter will set the tone for meetings, ensure purpose is defined and meeting cadence is set for regular reviews.

    1. Open the Configuration Control Board Charter. Review the document and modify as appropriate for your CCB. This will include:
      • Purpose and mandate of the committee – Reference objectives from the project charter.
      • Team composition – Determine the right mix of team members. A team of six to ten people can provide a good balance between having a variety of opinions and getting work done.
      • Voting option – Determine the right quorum to approve changes.
      • Responsibilities – List responsibilities, starting with RACI chart items.
      • Authority – Define the control board's span of control.
      • Governing laws and regulations – List any regulatory requirements that will need to be met to satisfy your auditors.
      • Meeting preparation – Set expectations to ensure meetings are productive.
    2. Distribute the charter to CCB members.
    Input

    Output

    • Project team members
    • Project plan resources
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Control Board Charter
    • IT service owners
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    Assess the default list of statuses for each state

    Align this list with your CMDB

    Minimize the number of customizations that will make it difficult to update the platform.

    1. Review the default status list within the tool.
    2. Identify which statuses will be most used. Write a definition for each status.
    3. Update this list as you update process documentation in Step 3.1. After initial implementation, this list should only be modified through change enablement.
    4. Record this list of statuses in the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, Appendix 4: Statuses
    State Status Description
    Preparation Ordered Waiting delivery from the vendor
    In Planning Being created
    Received Vendor has delivered the item, but it is not ready for deployment
    Production In Stock Available to be deployed
    In Use Deployed
    On Loan Deployed to a user on a temporary basis
    For Removal Planning to be phased out but still deployed to an end user
    Offline In Transit Moving to a new location
    Under Maintenance Temporarily offline while a patch or change is applied
    Removed Decommissioned Item has been retired and is no longer in production
    Disposed Item has been destroyed and we are no longer in possession of it
    Lost Item has been lost
    Stolen Item has been stolen

    Step 2.2

    Document statuses, attributes, and data sources

    Activities

    2.2.1 Follow the packet and map out the in-scope services and data centers

    2.2.2 Build data model diagrams

    2.2.3 Determine access rights for your data

    This step will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • Statuses
    • Attributes for each class of CI

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT service owners
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • Project manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • Framework for approaching CI statuses
    • Attributes for each class of CI
    • Data sources for those attributes

    Service mapping approaches

    As you start thinking about dependency mapping, it's important to understand the different methods and how they work, as well as your CMDB's capabilities. These approaches may be all in the same tool, or the tool may only have the top-down options.

    Top down, most common

    Pattern-based

    Most common option, which includes indicators of connections such as code, access rights, scripting, host discovery, and APIs.

    Start with pattern-based, then turn on traffic-based for more detail. This combination will provide the most accuracy.

    Traffic-based

    Map against traffic patterns involving connection rules to get more granular than pattern-based.

    Traffic-based can add a lot of overhead with extraneous data, so you may not want to run it continuously.

    Tag-based

    Primarily used for cloud, containers, and virtual machines and will attach the cloud licenses to their dependent services and any related CIs.

    Tags work well with cloud but will not have the same hierarchical view as on-premises dependency mapping.

    Machine learning

    Machine learning will look for patterns in the traffic-based connections, match CIs to categories and help organize the data.

    Machine learning (ML) may not be in every solution, but if you have it, use it. ML will provide many suggestions to make the life of the data manager easier.

    Model hierarchy

    Automated data mapping will be helpful, but it won't be foolproof. It's critical to understand the data model to validate and map nondiscoverable CIs correctly.

    The framework consists of the business, enterprise, application, and implementation layers.

    The business layer encodes real-world business concepts via the conceptual model.

    The enterprise layer defines all enterprise data assets' details and their relationships.

    The application layer defines the data structures as used by a specific application.

    The implementation layer defines the data models and artifacts for use by software tools.

    An example of Model Hierarchy is depicted.

    Learn how to create data models with Info-Tech's blueprint Create and Manage Enterprise Data Models

    2.2.1 Follow the packet and map out the in-scope services and data centers

    Reference your network topology and architecture diagrams.

    Allot 1 hour for this activity.

    1. Start with a single service that is well understood and documented.
    2. Identify the technical components (hardware and applications) that make up the service.
    3. Determine if there is a need to further break down services into logical service groupings. For example, the email service to the right is broken down into authentication and mail flow.
    4. If you don't have a network diagram to follow, create a simple one to identify workflows within the service and components the service uses.
    5. Record the apps and underlying components in the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, Appendix 1: Configuration Data Model Structure.

    This information will be used for CM project planning and validating the contents of the CMDB.

    an example of a Customer-facing service is shown, for Email sample topology.

    Download the Configuration Management Diagram Template Library to see an example.

    Build your configuration data model

    Rely on out-of-the-box functionality where possible and keep a narrow focus in the early implementation stages.

    1. If you have an enterprise architecture, then your configuration management data model should align with it.
    2. Keep a narrow focus in the early implementation stages. Don't fill up your CMDB until you are ready to validate and fix the data.
    3. Rely on out-of-the-box (OOTB) functionality where possible. If your configuration management database (CMDB) and platform do not have a data model OOTB, then rely on a publicly available data model.
    4. Map your business or IT service offering to the first few layers.

    Once this is built out in the system, you can let the automated dependency mapping take over, but you will still need to validate the accuracy of the automated mapping and investigate anything that is incorrect.

    Sample Configuration Data Model

    Every box represents a CI, and every line represents a relationship

    A sample configuration Data model is shown.

    Example: Data model and CMDB visualization

    Once the data model is entered into the CMDB, it will provide a more dynamic and complex view, including CIs shared with other services.

    An example of a Data Model Exercise

    CMDB View

    An example of a CMDB View of the Data Model Exercise

    2.2.2 Build data model diagrams

    Visualize the expected CI classes and relationships.

    Allot 45 minutes.

    1. Identify the different data model views you need. Use multiple diagrams to keep the information simple to read and understand. Common diagrams include:
      1. Network level: Outline expected CI classes and relationships at the network level.
      2. Application level: Outline the expected components and relationships that make up an application.
      3. Services level: Outline how business capability CIs and service CIs relate to each other and to other types of CIs.
    1. Use boxes to represent CI classes.
    2. Use lines to represent relationships. Include details such as:
      1. Relationship name: Write this name on the arrow.
      2. Direction: Have an arrow point to each child.

    Review samples in Configuration Management Diagram Template Library.
    Record these diagrams in the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, Appendix 1: Configuration Data Model Structure.

    Input

    Output

    • List of default settings for classes, types, and relationships
    • Small list of services for testing
    • List of CIs to map to at least one service
    • List of additions of categories to add to the CMDB solution.
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
    • Configuration Management Diagram Template Library
    • IT service owners
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    Download the Configuration Management Diagram Template Library to see examples.

    Determine governance for data security, access, and validation

    Align CMDB access to the organization's access control policy to maintain authorized and secure access for legitimate staff performing their role.

    Data User Type Access Role
    Data consumers
    • View-only access
    • Will need to view and use the data but will not need to make modifications to it
    • Service desk
    • Change manager
    • Major incident manager
    • Finance
    CMDB owner
    • Read/write access with the ability to update and validate data as needed
    • Configuration manager
    Domain owner
    • Read/write access for specific domains
    • Data owner within their domain, which includes validating that data is in the database and that it is correctly categorized.
    • Enterprise architect
    • Application owner
    Data provider
    • Read/write access for specific domains
    • Ensures automated data has been added and adds nondiscoverable assets and attributes as needed
    • Server operations
    • Database management
    • Network teams
    CMDB administrator
    • View-only access for data
    • Will need to have access for modifying the structure of the product, including adding fields, as determined by the CCB
    • ITSM tool administrator

    2.2.3 Determine access rights for your data

    Allot 30 minutes for this discussion.

    1. Open the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 5: Access Rights.
    2. Review the various roles from an access perspective.
      1. Who needs read-only access?
      2. Who needs read/write access?
      3. Should there be restrictions on who can delete data?
    1. Fill in the chart and communicate this to your CMDB installation vendor or your CMDB administrator.
    Input

    Output

    • Task assignments
    • Access rights and roles
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
    • IT service owners
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project sponsor

    Phase 3

    Configuration Record Updates

    StrategyData StructureProcessesRoadmap
    • Challenges and Goals
    • Use Cases and Data
    • Roles and Responsibilities
    • Services
    • Classifications
    • Data Modeling
    • Lifecycle Processes
    • Baselines
    • Audit and Data Validation
    • Metrics
    • Communications Plan
    • Roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • ITSM Practices and Workflows
    • Discovery and Dependency Mapping Tools
    • Auditing and Data Validation Practices

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT service owners
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project manager
    • IT audit

    Harness Service Configuration Management Superpowers

    Step 3.1

    Keep CIs and relationships up to date through lifecycle process integrations

    Activities

    3.1.1 Define processes to bring new services into the CMDB

    3.1.2 Determine when each type of CI will be created in the CMDB

    3.1.3 Identify when each type of CI will be retired in the CMDB

    3.1.4 Record when and how attributes will change

    3.1.5 Institute configuration control and configuration baselines

    This step will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    1. ITSM Practices and Workflows
    2. Discovery and Dependency Mapping Tools

    This phase involves the following participants:

    1. IT service owners
    2. Enterprise architects
    3. Practice owners and managers
    4. SCM practice manager
    5. Project manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • List of action items for updating interfacing practices and processes
    • Identification of where configuration records will be manually updated

    Incorporate CMDB updates into IT operations

    Determine which processes will prompt changes to the CMDB data

    Onboard new services - Offboard Redundant Services. Onboard new CIs - Offboard Redundant CIs; Maintain CIs - Update Attributes.

    Change enablement

    Identify which process are involved in each stage of data input, maintenance, and removal to build out a process for each scenario.

    Project management

    Change enablement

    Asset management

    Security controls

    Project management

    Incident management

    Deployment management

    Change enablement

    Asset management

    Security controls

    Project management

    Incident management

    Service management

    Formalize the process for adding new services to the CMDB

    As new services and products are introduced into the environment, you can improve your ability to correctly cost the service, design integrations, and ensure all operational capabilities are in place, such as data backup and business continuity plans.
    In addition, attributes such as service-level agreements (SLAs), availability requirements, and product, technical, and business owners should be documented as soon as those new systems are made live.

    • Introduce the technical team and CCB to the product early to ensure the service record is created before deployment and to quickly map the services once they are moved into the production environment.
    • Engage with project managers or business analysts to define the process to include security and technical reviews early.
    • Engage with the security and technical reviewers to start documenting the service as soon as it is approved.
    • Determine which practices will be involved in the creation and approval of new services and formalize the process to streamline entry of the new service, onboarding corresponding CIs and mapping dependencies.

    an example of the review and approval process for new service or products is shown.

    3.1.1 Define processes to bring new services into the CMDB

    Start with the most frequent intake methods, and if needed, use this opportunity to streamline the process.

    1. Discuss the methods for new services to be introduced to the IT environment.
    2. Critique existing methods to assess consistency and identify issues that could prevent the creation of services in the CMDB in a timely manner.
    3. Create a workflow for the existing processes, with an eye to improvement. Identify any changes that will need to be introduced and managed appropriately.
    4. Identify where additional groups may need to be engaged to ensure success. For example, if project managers are not interfacing early with IT, discuss process changes with them.
    5. Discuss the validation process and determine where control points are. Document these on the workflows.
    6. Complete the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 8.1: Introduce New Service and Data Model.

    Possible intake opportunities:

    • Business-driven project intake process
    • IT-driven project intake process
    • Change enablement reviews
    • Vendor-driven product changes
    Input

    Output

    • Discussion
    • Intake processes
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
    • Configuration Management Diagram Template Library
    • Configuration control board
    • Configuration manager
    • Project sponsor
    • IT stakeholders

    Identify scenarios where CIs are added and removed in the configuration management database

    New CIs may be introduced with new services or may be introduced and removed as part of asset refreshes or through service restoration in incident management. Updates may be done by your own services team or a managed services provider.
    Determine the various ways the CIs may be changed and test with various CI types.
    Review attributes such as SLAs, availability requirements, and product, technical, and business owners to determine if changes are required.

    • Identify what will be updated automatically or manually. Automation could include discovery and dependency mapping or synchronization with AMDB or AIOps tools.
    • Engage with relevant program managers to define and validate processes.
    • Identify control points and review audit requirements.

    An example of New or refresh CI from Procurement.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Data deemed no longer current may be archived or deleted. Retained data may be used for tracing lifecycle changes when troubleshooting or meeting audit obligations. Determine what types of CIs and use cases require archived data to meet data retention policies. If none do, deletion of old data may be appropriate.

    3.1.2 Identify when each type of CI will be created in the CMDB

    Allot 45 minutes for discussion.

    1. Discuss the various methods for new CIs to be introduced to the IT environment.
    2. Critique existing methods to assess consistency and identify issues that could prevent the creation of CIs in the CMDB in a timely manner.
    3. Create a workflow for the existing processes, with an eye to improvement. Identify any changes that will need to be introduced and managed appropriately.
    4. Identify where additional groups may need to be engaged to ensure success. For example, if project managers are not interfacing early with IT, discuss process changes with them.
    5. Discuss the validation process and determine where control points are. Document these on the workflows.
    6. Complete Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 8.2: Introduce New Configuration Items to the CMDB

    Possible intake opportunities:

    • Business-driven project intake process
    • IT-driven project intake process
    • Change enablement reviews
    • Vendor-driven product changes
    • Incident management
    • Asset management, lifecycle refresh
    Input

    Output

    • Discussion
    • Retirement processes
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
    • Configuration Management Diagram Template Library
    • Configuration control board
    • Configuration manager
    • Project sponsor
    • IT stakeholders

    3.1.3 Identify when each type of CI will be retired in the CMDB

    Allot 45 minutes for discussion.

    1. Discuss the various methods for CIs to be removed from the IT environment.
    2. Critique existing methods to assess consistency and identify issues that could prevent the retirement of CIs in the CMDB in a timely manner.
    3. Create a workflow for the existing processes, with an eye to improvement. Identify any changes that will need to be introduced and managed appropriately.
    4. Identify where additional groups may need to be engaged to ensure success. For example, if project managers are not interfacing early with IT, discuss process changes with them.
    5. Discuss the validation process and determine where control points are. Document these on the workflows.
    6. Discuss data retention. How long will retired information need to be archived? What are the potential scenarios where legacy information may be needed for analysis?
    7. Complete the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 8.4: Retire and Archive Configuration Records.

    Possible retirement scenarios:

    • Change enablement reviews
    • Vendor-driven product changes
    • Incident management
    • Asset management, lifecycle refresh
    Input

    Output

    • Discussion
    • Intake processes
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
    • Configuration Management Diagram Template Library
    • Configuration control board
    • Configuration manager
    • Project sponsor
    • IT stakeholders

    Determine appropriate actions for detecting new or changed CIs through discovery

    Automated detection will provide the most efficient way of recording planned changes to CIs as well as detected unplanned changes. Check with the tool to determine what reports or notifications are available for the configuration management process and define what actions will be appropriate.

    As new CIs are detected, identify the process by which they should have been introduced into configuration management and compare against those records. If your CMDB can automatically check for documentation, this may be easier. Weekly reporting will allow you to catch changes quickly, and alerts on critical CIs could enable faster remediation, if the tool allows for alerting. AIOps could identify, notify of, and process many changes in a highly dynamic environment.

    Type of Change

    Impacted Process

    Validation

    Findings

    Actions

    Configuration change to networking equipment or software

    Change management

    Check for request for change

    No RFC

    Add to CAB agenda, notify technical owner

    Configuration change to end-user device or software

    Asset management

    Check for service ticket

    No ticket

    Escalate to asset agenda, notify service manager

    New assets coming into service

    Security incident and event management

    Check for SIEM integration

    No SIEM integration

    Notify security operations team to investigate

    The configuration manager may not have authority to act but can inform the process owners of unauthorized changes for further action. Once the notifications are forwarded to the appropriate process owner, the configuration manager will note the escalation and follow up on data corrections as deemed appropriate by the associated process owner.

    3.1.4 Record when and how attributes will change

    These lists will help with configuration control plans and your implementation roadmap.

    1. List each attribute that will change in that CI type's life.
    2. Write all the times that each attribute will change. Identify:
      1. The name of the workflow, service request, process, or practice that modifies the attribute.
      2. Whether the update is made automatically or manually.
      3. The role or tool that updates the CMDB.
    1. Update the relevant process or procedure documentation. Explicitly identify when the configuration records are updated.

    Document these tables in Configuration Management Standard Operation Procedures, Section 8.7: Practices That Modify CIs.

    Network Equipment
    Attributes

    Practices That Modify This Attribute

    Status
    • Infra Deployment (updated manually by Network Engineering)
    • Change Enablement (updated manually by CAB or Network Engineering)
    Assigned User
    • IT Employee Offboarding or Role Change (updated manually by Network Engineering)
    Version
    • Patch Deployment (updated automatically by SolarWinds)
    End-User Computers
    Attributes
    Practices That Modify This Attribute
    Status
    • Device Deployment (updated manually by Desktop Support)
    • Device Recovery (updated manually by Desktop Support)
    • Employee Offboarding and Role Change (updated manually by Service Desk)
    Assigned User
    • Device Deployment (updated manually by Desktop Support)
    • Device Recovery (updated manually by Desktop Support)
    • Employee Offboarding and Role Change (updated manually by Service Desk)
    Version
    • Patch Deployment (updated automatically by ConfigMgr)

    Institute configuration control and configuration baselines where appropriate

    A baseline enables an assessment of one or more systems against the desired state and is useful for troubleshooting incidents or problems and validating changes and security settings.

    Baselines may be used by enterprise architects and system engineers for planning purposes, by developers to test their solution against production copies, by technicians to assess configuration drift that may be causing performance issues, and by change managers to assess and verify the configuration meets the target design.

    Configuration baselines are a snapshot of configuration records, displaying attributes and first-level relationships of the CIs. Standard configurations may be integral to the success of automated workflows, deployments, upgrades, and integrations, as well as prevention of security events. Comparing current CIs against their baselines will identify configuration drift, which could cause a variety of incidents. Configuration baselines are updated through change management processes.
    Configuration baselines can be used for a variety of use cases:

    • Version control – Management of software and hardware versions, https://dj5l3kginpy6f.cloudfront.net/blueprints/harness-configuration-management-superpowers-phases-1-4/builds, and releases.
    • Access control – Management of access to facilities, storage areas, and the CMS.
    • Deployment control – Take a baseline of CIs before performing a release so you can use this to check against actual deployment.
    • Identify accidental changes Everyone makes mistakes. If someone installs software on the wrong server or accidentally drops a table in a database, the CMS can alert IT of the unauthorized change (if the CI is included in configuration control).

    Info-Tech Insight

    Determine the appropriate method for evaluating and approving changes to baselines. Delegating this to the CCB every time may reduce agility, depending on volume. Discuss in CCB meetings.

    A decision tree for deploying requested changes.

    3.1.5 Institute configuration control and configuration baselines where appropriate

    Only baseline CIs and relationships that you want to control through change enablement.

    1. Determine criteria for capturing configuration baselines, including CI type, event, or processes.
    2. Identify who will use baselines and how they will use the data. Identify their needs.
    3. Identify CIs that will be out of scope and not have baselines created.
    4. Document requirements in the SOP.
    5. Ensure appropriate team members have training on how to create and capture baselines in the CMDB.
    6. Document in the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 8.5: Establish and Maintain Configuration Baselines.
    Process Criteria Systems
    Change Enablement & Deployment All high-risk changes must have the baseline captured with version number to revert to stable version in the event of an unsuccessful change
    • Servers (physical and virtual)
    • Enterprise software
    • IaaS
    • Data centers
    Security Identify when configuration drift may impact risk mitigation strategies
    • Servers (physical and virtual)
    • Enterprise software
    • IaaS
    • Data centers
    Input

    Output

    • Discussion
    • Baseline configuration guidelines
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
    • Configuration control board
    • Configuration manager
    • Project sponsor
    • IT stakeholders

    Step 3.2

    Validate data within the CMDB

    Activities

    3.2.1 Build an audit plan and checklist

    This step will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • Data validation and audit

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT service owners
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • Project manager
    • IT audit

    Outcomes of this step

    • Updates to processes for data validation
    • Plan for auditing and validating the data in the CMDB

    Audit and validate the CMDB

    Review the performance of the supporting technologies and processes to validate the accuracy of the CMDB.

    A screenshot of the CM Audit Plan.

    CM Audit Plan

    • CM policies
    • CM processes and procedures
    • Interfacing processes
    • Content within the CMDB

    "If the data in your CMDB isn't accurate, then it's worthless. If it's wrong or inaccurate, it's going to drive the wrong decisions. It's going to make IT worse, not better."
    – Valence Howden, Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

    Ensure the supporting technology is working properly

    Does the information in the database accurately reflect reality?

    Perform functional tests during audits and as part of release management practices.

    Audit results need to have a clear status of "compliant," "noncompliant," or "compliant with conditions," and conditions need to be noted. The conditions will generally offer a quick win to improve a process, but don't use these audit results to quickly check off something as "done." Ensure the fix is useful and meaningful to the process.
    The audit should cover three areas:

    • Process: Are process requirements for the program well documented? Are the processes being followed? If there were updates to the process, were those updates to the process documented and communicated? Has behavior changed to suit those modified processes?
    • Physical: Physical configuration audits (PCAs) are audits conducted to verify that a configuration item, as built, conforms to the technical documentation that defines and describes it.
    • Functional: Functional configuration audits (FCAs) are audits conducted to verify that the development of a configuration item has been completed satisfactorily, the item has achieved the functional attributes specified in the functional or allocated baseline, and its technical documentation is complete and satisfactory.

    Build auditing and validation of processes whenever possible

    When technicians and analysts are working on a system, they should check to make sure the data about that system is correct. When they're working in the CMDB, they should check that the data they're working with is correct.

    More frequent audits, especially in the early days, may help move toward process adoption and resolving data quality issues. If audits are happening more frequently, the audits can include a smaller scope, though it's important to vary each one to ensure many different areas have been audited through the year.

    • Watch for data duplication from multiple discovery tools.
    • Review mapping to ensure all relevant CIs are attached to a product or service.
    • Ensure report data is logical.

    Ensure the supporting technology is working properly

    Does the information in the database accurately reflect reality?

    Perform functional tests during audits and as part of release management practices.

    Audit results need to have a clear status of "compliant," "noncompliant," or "compliant with conditions," and conditions need to be noted. The conditions will generally offer a quick win to improve a process, but don't use these audit results to quickly check off something as "done." Ensure the fix is useful and meaningful to the process.
    The audit should cover three areas:

    • Process: Are process requirements for the program well documented? Are the processes being followed? If there were updates to the process, were those updates to the process documented and communicated? Has behavior changed to suit those modified processes?
    • Physical: Physical configuration audits (PCAs) are audits conducted to verify that a configuration item, as built, conforms to the technical documentation that defines and describes it.
    • Functional: Functional configuration audits (FCAs) are audits conducted to verify that the development of a configuration item has been completed satisfactorily, the item has achieved the functional attributes specified in the functional or allocated baseline, and its technical documentation is complete and satisfactory.

    More frequent audits, especially in the early days, may help move toward process adoption and resolving data quality issues. If audits are happening more frequently, the audits can include a smaller scope, though it's important to vary each one to ensure many different areas have been audited through the year.

    • Watch for data duplication from multiple discovery tools.
    • Review mapping to ensure all relevant CIs are attached to a product or service.
    • Ensure report data is logical.

    Identify where processes break down and data is incorrect

    Once process stops working, data becomes less accurate and people find workarounds to solve their own data needs.

    Data within the CMDB often becomes incorrect or incomplete where human work breaks down

    • Investigate processes that are performed manually, including data entry.
    • Investigate if the process executors are performing these processes uniformly.
    • Determine if there are opportunities to automate or provide additional training.
    • Select a sample of the corresponding data in the CMS. Verify if the data is correct.

    Non-CCB personnel may not be completing processes fully or consistently

    • Identify where data in the CMS needs to be updated.
    • Identify whether the process practitioners are uniformly updating the CMS.
    • Discuss options for improving the process and driving consistency for data that will benefit the whole organization.

    Ensure that the data entered in the CMDB is correct

    • Confirm that there is no data duplication. Data duplication is very common when there are multiple discovery tools in your environment. Confirm that you have set up your tools properly to avoid duplication.
    • Build a process to respond to baseline divergence when people make changes without following change processes and when updates alter settings.
    • Audit the system for accuracy and completeness.

    3.2.1 Build an audit plan and checklist

    Use the audit to identify areas where processes are breaking down.

    Audits present you with the ability to address these pain points before they have greater negative impact.

    1. Identify which regulatory requirements and/or auditing bodies will be relevant to audit processes or findings.
    2. Determine frequency of practice audits and how they relate to internal audits or external audits.
    3. Determine audit scope, including requirements for data spot checks.
    4. Determine who will be responsible for conducting audits and validate this is consistent with the RACI chart.
    5. Record audit procedures in the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures section 8.6: Verify and Review the Quality of Information Through Auditing.
    6. Review the Configuration Management Audit and Validation Checklist and modify to suit your needs.

    Download the Configuration Management Audit and Validation Checklist

    Input

    Output

    • Discussion
    • Baseline configuration guidelines
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures
    • Configuration control board
    • Configuration manager
    • Project sponsor
    • IT stakeholders

    Phase 4

    Service Configuration Roadmap

    StrategyData StructureProcessesRoadmap
    • Challenges and Goals
    • Use Cases and Data
    • Roles and Responsibilities
    • Services
    • Classifications
    • Data Modeling
    • Lifecycle Processes
    • Baselines
    • Audit and Data Validation
    • Metrics
    • Communications Plan
    • Roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following aspect of a configuration management system:
    Roadmap
    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT service owners
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project manager

    Harness Service Configuration Management Superpowers

    Step 4.1

    Define measures of success

    Activities

    4.1.1 Identify key metrics to define configuration management success
    4.1.2 Brainstorm and record desired reports, dashboards, and analytics
    4.1.3 Build a configuration management policy

    This phase will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • Metrics
    • Policy

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT service owners
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project manager

    The value of metrics can be found in IT efficiency increases

    When determining metrics for configuration management, be sure to separate metrics needed to gauge configuration management success and those that will use data from the CMDB to provide metrics on the success of other practices.

    • Metrics provide accurate indicators for IT and business decisions.
    • Metrics help you identify IT efficiencies and problems and solve issues before they become more serious.
    • Active metrics tracking makes root cause analysis of issues much easier.
    • Proper application of metrics helps IT services identification and prioritization.
    • Operational risks can be prevented by identifying and implementing metrics.
    • Metrics analysis increases the confidence of the executive team and ensures that IT is working well.

    A funnel is shown. The output is IT Performance. The inputs are: Service Desk Metrics; Incident Metrics; Asset Mgmt. Metrics; Release Mgmt. Metrics; Change Mgmt. Metrics; Infra. Metrics

    4.1.1 Identify key metrics to define configuration management success

    Determine what metrics are specifically related to the practice and how and when metrics will be accessed.

    Success factors

    Key metrics

    Source

    Product and service configuration data is relevant

    • Stakeholder satisfaction with data access, accuracy, and usability
    • Stakeholder satisfaction with service configuration management interface, procedures, and reports

    Stakeholder discussions

    • Number of bad decisions made due to incorrect or insufficient data
    • Impact of bad decisions made due to incorrect or insufficient data

    Process owner discussions

    • Number and impact of data identified as incorrect
    • % of CMDB data verified over the period

    CMDB

    Cost and effort are continually optimized

    • Effort devoted to service configuration management
    • Cost of tools directly related to the process

    Resource management or scheduling

    ERP

    Progress reporting

    • Communication execution
    • Process
    • Communications and feedback

    Communications team and stakeholder discussions

    Data – How many products are in the CMDB and are fully and accurately discovered and mapped?

    CMDB

    Ability to meet milestones on time and with appropriate quality

    Project team

    Document metrics in the Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 7: Success Metrics

    Use performance metrics to identify areas to improve service management processes using CMDB data

    Metrics can indicate a problem with service management processes but cannot provide a clear path to a solution on their own.

    • The biggest challenge is defining and measuring the process and people side of the equation.
    • Expected performance may also need to be compared to actual performance in planning, budgeting, and improvements.
    • The analysis will need to include critical success factors (CSFs), data collection procedures, office routines, engineering practices, and flow diagrams including workflows and key relationships.
    • External benchmarking may also prove useful in identifying how similar organizations are managing aspects of their infrastructure, processing transactions/requests, or staffing. If using external benchmarking for actual process comparisons, clearly defining your internal processes first will make the data collection process smoother and more informative.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Using a service framework such as ITIL, COBIT, or ISO 20000 may make this job easier, and subscribing to benchmarking partners will provide some of the external data needed for comparison.

    4.1.2 Brainstorm and record desired reports, dashboards, and analytics with related practices

    The project team will use this list as a starting point

    Allot 45 minutes for this discussion.

    1. Create a table for each service or business capability.
      1. Have one column for each way of consuming data: reports, dashboards, and ad hoc analytics.
      2. Have one row for each stakeholder group that will consume the information.
    2. Use the challenges and use cases to brainstorm reports, dashboards, and ad hoc analytic capabilities that each stakeholder group will find useful.
    3. Record these results in your Configuration Management Standard Operating Procedures, section 7: Aligned Processes' Desired Analytical Capabilities.
    Stakeholder Groups Reports Dashboards
    Change Management
    • CI changes executed without an RFC
    • RFCs grouped by service
    • Potential collisions in upcoming changes
    Security
    • Configuration changes that no longer match the baseline
    • New configuration items discovered
    Finance
    • Service-based costs
    • Service consumption by department

    Download the blueprint Take Control of Infrastructure and Operations Metrics to create a complete metrics program.

    Create a configuration management policy and communicate it

    Policies are important documents to provide definitive guidelines and clarity around data collection and use, process adherence, and controls.

    • A configuration management policy will apply to IT as the audience, and participants in the program will largely be technical.
    • Business users will benefit from a great configuration management program but will not participate directly.
    • The policy will include objectives and scope, use of data, security and integrity of data, data models and criteria, and baseline configurations.
    • Several governing regulations and practices may intersect with configuration management, such as ITIL, COBIT, and NIST frameworks, as well as change enablement, quality management, asset management, and more.
    • As the policy is written, review processes to ensure policies and processes are aligned. The policy should enable processes, and it may require modifications if it hinders the collection, security, or use of data required to meet proposed use cases.
    • Once the policy is written and approved, ensure all stakeholders understand the importance, context, and repercussions of the policy.

    The approvals process is about appropriate oversight of the drafted policies. For example:

    • Do the policies satisfy compliance and regulatory requirements?
    • Do the policies work with the corporate culture?
    • Do the policies address the underlying need?

    If the draft is approved:

    • Set the effective date and a review date.
    • Begin communication, training, and implementation.

    Employees must know that there are new policies and understand the steps they must take to comply with the policies in their work.

    Employees must be able to interpret, understand, and know how to act upon the information they find in the policies.

    Employees must be informed on where to get help or ask questions and who to request policy exceptions from.

    If the draft is rejected:

    • Acquire feedback and make revisions.
    • Resubmit for approval.

    4.1.3 Build a configuration management policy

    This policy provides the foundation for configuration control.

    Use this template as a starting point.

    The Configuration Management Policy provides the foundation for a configuration control board and the use of configuration baselines.
    Instructions:

    1. Review and modify the policy statements. Ensure that the policy statements reflect your organization and the expectations you wish to set.
    2. If you don't have a CCB: The specified responsibilities can usually be assigned to either the configuration manager or the governing body for change enablement.
    3. Determine if you should apply this policy beyond SCM. As written, this policy may provide a good starting point for practices such as:
      • Secure baseline configuration management
      • Software configuration management

    Two screenshots from the Configuration Management Policy template

    Download the Configuration Management Policy template

    Step 4.2

    Build communications and a roadmap

    Activities

    4.2.1 Build a communications plan
    4.2.2 Identify milestones

    This phase will walk you through the following aspects of a configuration management system:

    • Communications plan
    • Roadmap

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT service owners
    • Enterprise architects
    • Practice owners and managers
    • SCM practice manager
    • SCM project manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • Documented expectations around configuration control
    • Roadmap and action items for the SCM project

    Do not discount the benefits of a great communications plan as part of change management

    Many configuration management projects have failed due to lack of organizational commitment and inadequate communications.

    • Start at the top to ensure stakeholder buy-in by verifying alignment and use cases. Without a committed project sponsor who believes in the value of configuration management, it will be difficult to draw the IT team into the vision.
    • Clearly articulate the vision, strategy, and goals to all stakeholders. Ensure the team understands why these changes are happening, why they are happening now, and what outcomes you hope to achieve.
    • Gain support from technical teams by clearly expressing organizational and departmental benefits – they need to know "what's in it for me."
    • Clearly communicate new responsibilities and obligations and put a feedback process in place to hear concerns, mitigate risk, and act on opportunities for improvement. Be prepared to answer questions as this practice is rolled out.
    • Be consistent in your messaging. Mixed messages can easily derail progress.
    • Communicate to the business how these efforts will benefit the organization.
    • Share documents built in this blueprint or workshop with your technical teams to ensure they have a clear picture of the entire configuration management practice.
    • Share your measures and view of success and communicate wins throughout building the practice.

    30%

    When people are truly invested in change, it is 30% more likely to stick.
    McKinsey

    82%

    of CEOs identify organizational change management as a priority.
    D&B Consulting

    6X

    Initiatives with excellent change management are six times more likely to meet objectives than those with poor change management.
    Prosci

    For a more detailed program, see Drive Technology Adoption

    Formulate a communications plan to ensure all stakeholders and impacted staff will be aware of the plan

    Communication is key to success in process adoption and in identifying potential risks and issues with integration with other processes. Engage as often as needed to get the information you need for the project and for adoption.

    Identify Messages

    Distinct information that needs to be sent at various times. Think about:

    • Who will be impacted and how.
    • What the goals are for the project/new process.
    • What the audience needs to know about the new process and how they will interface with each business unit.
    • How people can request configuration data.

    Identify Audiences

    Any person or group who will be the target of the communication. This may include:

    • Project sponsors and stakeholders.
    • IT staff who will be involved in the project.
    • IT staff who will be impacted by the project (i.e. who will benefit from it or have obligations to fulfill because of it).
    • Business sponsors and product owners.

    Document and Track

    Document messaging, medium, and responsibility, working with the communications team to refine messages before executing.

    • Identify where people can send questions and feedback to ensure they have the information they need to make or accept the changes.
    • Document Q&A and share in a central location.

    Determine Timing

    Successful communications plans consider timing of various messages:

    • Advanced high-level notice of improvements for those who need to see action.
    • Advanced detailed notice for those who will be impacted by workload.
    • Advanced notice for who will be impacted (i.e. who will benefit from it or have obligations to fulfill because of it) once the project is ready to be transitioned to daily life.

    Determine Delivery

    Work with your communications team, if you have one, to determine the best medium, such as:

    • Meeting announcement for stakeholders and IT.
    • Newsletter for those less impacted.
    • Intranet announcements: "coming soon!"
    • Demonstrations with vendors or project team.

    4.2.1 Build a communications plan

    The communications team will use this list as a starting point.

    Allot 45 minutes for this discussion.

    Identify stakeholders.

    1. Identify everyone who will be affected by the project and by configuration management.

    Craft key messages tailored to each stakeholder group.

    1. Identify the key messages that must be communicated to each group.

    Finalize the communication plan.

    1. Determine the most appropriate timing for communications with each group to maximize receptivity.
    2. Identify any communication challenges you anticipate and incorporate steps to address them into your communication plan.
    3. Identify multiple methods for getting the messages out (e.g. newsletters, emails, meetings).
    1. Identify how feedback will be collected (i.e. through interviews or surveys) to measure whether the changes were communicated well.
    Audience Message Medium Timing Feedback Mechanism
    Configuration Management Team Communicate all key processes, procedures, policies, roles, and responsibilities In-person meetings and email communications Weekly meetings Informal feedback during weekly meetings
    Input

    Output

    • Discussion
    • Rough draft of messaging for communications team
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Project plan
    • Configuration manager
    • Project sponsor
    • IT director
    • Communications team

    Build a realistic, high-level roadmap including milestones

    Break the work into manageable pieces

    1. Plan to have multiple phases with short-, medium-, and long-term goals/timeframes. Building a CMDB is not easy and should be broken into manageable sections.
    2. Set reasonable milestones. For each phase, document goals to define "done" and ensure they're reasonable for the resources you have available. If working with a vendor, include them in your discussions of what's realistic.
    3. Treat the first phase as a pilot. Focus on items you understand well:
      1. Well-understood user-facing and IT services
      2. High-maturity management and governance practices
      3. Trusted data sources
    4. Capture high-value, high-criticality services early. Depending on the complexity of your systems, you may need to split this phase into multiple phases.

    Document this table in the Configuration Management Project Charter, section 3.0: Milestones

    Timeline/Owner Milestone/Deliverable Details
    First four weeks Milestone: Plan defined and validated with ITSM installation vendor Define processes for intake, maintenance, and retirement.
    Rebecca Roberts Process documentation written, approved, and ready to communicate Review CI categories

    4.2.2 Identify milestones

    Build out a high-level view to inform the project plan

    Open the Configuration Management Project Charter, section 3: Milestones.
    Instructions:

    1. Identify high-level milestones for the implementation of the configuration management program. This may include tool evaluation and implementation, assignment of roles, etc.
    2. Add details to fill out the milestone, keeping to a reasonable level of detail. This may inform vendor discussion or further development of the project plan.
    3. Add target dates to the milestones. Validate they are realistic with the team.
    4. Add notes to the assumptions and constraints section.
    5. Identify risks to the plan.

    Two Screenshots from the Configuration Management Project Charter

    Download the Configuration Management Project Charter

    Workshop Participants

    R = Recommended
    O = Optional

    Participants Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
    Configuration Management Strategy CMDB Data Structure Processes Communications & Roadmap
    Morning Afternoon Morning Afternoon Morning Afternoon Morning Afternoon
    Head of IT R O
    Project Sponsor R R O O O O O O
    Infrastructure, Enterprise Apps Leaders R R O O O O O O
    Service Manager R R O O O O O O
    Configuration Manager R R R R R R R R
    Project Manager R R R R R R R R
    Representatives From Network, Compute, Storage, Desktop R R R R R R R R
    Enterprise Architecture R R R R O O O O
    Owner of Change Management/Change Control/Change Enablement R R R R R R R R
    Owner of In-Scope Apps, Use Cases R R R R R R R R
    Asset Manager R R R R R R R R

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Thank you to everyone who contributed to this publication

    Brett Johnson, Senior Consultant, VMware

    Yev Khovrenkov, Senior Consultant, Solvera Solutions

    Larry Marks, Reviewer, ISACA New Jersey

    Darin Ohde, Director of Service Delivery, GreatAmerica Financial Services

    Jim Slick, President/CEO, Slick Cyber Systems

    Emily Walker, Sr. Digital Solution Consultant, ServiceNow

    Valence Howden, Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

    Allison Kinnaird, Practice Lead, IT Operations, Info-Tech Research Group

    Robert Dang, Principal Research Advisor, Security, Info-Tech Research Group

    Monica Braun, Research Director, IT Finance, Info-Tech Research Group

    Jennifer Perrier, Principal Research Director, IT Finance, Info-Tech Research Group

    Plus 13 anonymous contributors

    Bibliography

    An Introduction to Change Management, Prosci, Nov. 2019.
    BAI10 Manage Configuration Audit Program. ISACA, 2014.
    Bizo, Daniel, et al, "Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey 2021." Uptime Institute, 1 Sept. 2021.
    Brown, Deborah. "Change Management: Some Statistics." D&B Consulting Inc. May 15, 2014. Accessed June 14, 2016.
    Cabinet Office. ITIL Service Transition. The Stationery Office, 2011.
    "COBIT 2019: Management and Governance Objectives. ISACA, 2018.
    "Configuration Management Assessment." CMStat, n.d. Accessed 5 Oct. 2022.
    "Configuration Management Database Foundation." DMTF, 2018. Accessed 1 Feb. 2021.
    Configuration Management Using COBIT 5. ISACA, 2013.
    "Configuring Service Manager." Product Documentation, Ivanti, 2021. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.
    "Challenges of Implementing configuration management." CMStat, n.d. Accessed 5 Oct. 2022.
    "Determining if configuration management and change control are under management control, part 1." CMStat, n.d. Accessed 5 Oct. 2022.
    "Determining if configuration management and change control are under management control, part 2." CMStat, n.d. Accessed 5 Oct. 2022.
    "Determining if configuration management and change control are under management control, part 3." CMStat, n.d. Accessed 5 Oct. 2022.
    "CSDM: The Recipe for Success." Data Content Manager, Qualdatrix Ltd. 2022. Web.
    Drogseth, Dennis, et al., 2015, CMDB Systems: Making Change Work in the Age of Cloud and Agile. Morgan Kaufman.
    Ewenstein, B, et al. "Changing Change Management." McKinsey & Company, 1 July 2015. Web.
    Farrell, Karen. "VIEWPOINT: Focus on CMDB Leadership." BMC Software, 1 May 2006. Web.
    "How to Eliminate the No. 1 Cause of Network Downtime." SolarWinds, 4 April 2014. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.
    "ISO 10007:2017: Quality Management -- Guidelines for Configuration Management." International Organization for Standardization, 2019.
    "IT Operations Management." Product Documentation, ServiceNow, version Quebec, 2021. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.
    Johnson, Elsbeth. "How to Communicate Clearly During Organizational Change." Harvard Business Review, 13 June 2017. Web.
    Kloeckner, K. et al. Transforming the IT Services Lifecycle with AI Technologies. Springer, 2018.
    Klosterboer, L. Implementing ITIL Configuration Management. IBM Press, 2008.
    Norfolk, D., and S. Lacy. Configuration Management: Expert Guidance for IT Service Managers and Practitioners. BCS Learning & Development Limited, revised ed., Jan. 2014.
    Painarkar, Mandaar. "Overview of the Common Data Model." BMC Documentation, 2015. Accessed 1 Feb. 2021.
    Powers, Larry, and Ketil Been. "The Value of Organizational Change Management." Boxley Group, 2014. Accessed June 14, 2016.
    "Pulse of the Profession: Enabling Organizational Change Throughout Strategic Initiatives." PMI, March 2014. Accessed June 14, 2016.
    "Service Configuration Management, ITIL 4 Practice Guide." AXELOS Global Best Practice, 2020
    "The Guide to Managing Configuration Drift." UpGuard, 2017.

    Cyber Resilience Report 2018

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    "The cyber threat landscape today is highly complex and rapidly changing. Cyber security incidents can have several impacts on organizations and society, both on a physical and non-physical level. Through the use of a computer, criminals can indeed cause IT outages, supply chain disruptions and other physical security incidents"

    -- excerpt from the foreword of the BCI Cyber resilience report 2018 by David Thorp, Executive Director, BCI

    There are a number of things you can do to protect yourself. And they range, as usual, from the fairly simple to the more elaborate and esoteric. Most companies can, with some common sense, if not close the door on most of these issues, at least prepare themselves to limit the consequences.

    Continue reading

    Enterprise Network Design Considerations

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    • Parent Category Name: Network Management
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    Security, risk, and trust models play into how networks are designed and deployed. If these models are not considered during network design, band-aids and workarounds will be deployed to achieve the needed goals, potentially bypassing network controls.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    The cloud “gold rush” has made it attractive for many enterprises to migrate services off the traditional network and into the cloud. These services are now outside of the traditional network and associated controls. This shifts the split of east-west vs. north-south traffic patterns, as well as extending the network to encompass services outside of enterprise IT’s locus of control.

    Impact and Result

    Where users access enterprise data or services and from which devices dictate the connectivity needed. With the increasing shift of work that the business is completing remotely, not all devices and data paths will be under the control of IT. This shift does not allow IT to abdicate from the responsibility to provide a secure network.

    Enterprise Network Design Considerations Research & Tools

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

    1. Enterprise Network Design Considerations Deck – A brief deck that outlines key trusts and archetypes when considering enterprise network designs.

    This blueprint will help you:

    • Enterprise Network Design Considerations Storyboard

    2. Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool – Build an infrastructure assessment in an hour.

    Dispense with detailed analysis and customizations to present a quick snapshot of the road ahead.

    • Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Enterprise Network Design Considerations

    It is not just about connectivity.

    Executive Summary

    Info-Tech Insight

    Connectivity and security are tightly coupled

    Security, risk, and trust models play into how networks are designed and deployed. If these models are not considered during network design, band-aids and workarounds will be deployed to achieve the needed goals, potentially bypassing network controls.

    Many services are no longer within the network

    The cloud “gold rush” has made it attractive for many enterprises to migrate services off the traditional network and into the cloud. These services are now outside of the traditional network and associated controls. This shifts the split of east-west vs. north-south traffic patterns, as well as extending the network to encompass services outside of enterprise IT’s locus of control.

    Users are demanding an anywhere, any device access model

    Where users access enterprise data or services and from which devices dictate the connectivity needed. With the increasing shift of work that the business is completing remotely, not all devices and data paths will be under the control of IT. This shift does not allow IT to abdicate from the responsibility to provide a secure network.

    Enterprise networks are changing

    The new network reality

    The enterprise network of 2020 and beyond is changing:

    • Services are becoming more distributed.
    • The number of services provided “off network” is growing.
    • Users are more often remote.
    • Security threats are rapidly escalating.

    The above statements are all accurate for enterprise networks, though each potentially to differing levels depending on the business being supported by the network. Depending on how affected the network in question currently is and will be in the near future, there are different common network archetypes that are best able to address these concerns while delivering business value at an appropriate price point.

    High-Level Design Considerations

    1. Understand Business Needs
    2. Understand what the business needs are and where users and resources are located.

    3. Define Your Trust Model
    4. Trust is a spectrum and tied tightly to security.

    5. Align With an Archetype
    6. How will the network be deployed?

    7. Understand Available Tooling
    8. What tools are in the market to help achieve design principles?

    Understand business needs

    Mission

    Never ignore the basics. Start with revisiting the mission and vision of the business to address relevant needs.

    Users

    Identify where users will be accessing services from. Remote vs. “on net” is a design consideration now more than ever.

    Resources

    Identify required resources and their locations, on net vs. cloud.

    Controls

    Identify required controls in order to define control points and solutions.

    Define a trust model

    Trust is a spectrum

    • There is a spectrum of trust, from fully trusted to not trusted at all. Each organization must decide for their network (or each area thereof) the appropriate level of trust to assign.
    • The ease of network design and deployment is directly proportional to the trust spectrum.
    • When resources and users are outside of direct IT control, the level of appropriate trust should be examined closely.

    Implicit

    Trust everything within the network. Security is perimeter based and designed to stop external actors from entering the large trusted zone.

    Controlled

    Multiple zones of trust within the network. Segmentation is a standard practice to separate areas of higher and lower trust.

    Zero

    Verify trust. The network is set up to recognize and support the principle of least privilege where only required access is supported.

    Align with an archetype

    Archetypes are a good guide

    • Using a defined archetype as a guiding principle in network design can help clarify appropriate tools or network structures.
    • Different aspects of a network can have different archetypes where appropriate (e.g. IT vs. OT [operational technology] networks).

    Traditional

    Services are provided from within the traditional network boundaries and security is provided at the network edge.

    Hybrid

    Services are provided both externally and from within the traditional network boundaries, and security is primarily at the network edge.

    Inverted

    Services are provided primarily externally, and security is cloud centric.

    Traditional networks

    Resources within network boundaries

    Moat and castle security perimeter

    Abstract

    A traditional network is one in which there are clear boundaries defined by a security perimeter. Trust can be applied within the network boundaries as appropriate, and traffic is generally routed through internally deployed control points that may be centralized. Traditional networks commonly include large firewalls and other “big iron” security and control devices.

    Network Design Tenets

    • The full network path from resource to user is designed, deployed, and controlled by IT.
    • Users external to the network must first connect to the network to gain access to resources.
    • Security, risk, and trust controls will be implemented by internal enterprise hardware/software devices.

    Control

    In the traditional network, it is assumed that all required control points can be adequately deployed across hardware/software that is “on prem” and under the control of central IT.

    Info-Tech Insight

    With increased cloud services provided to end users, this network is now more commonly used in data centers or OT networks.

    Traditional networks

    The image contains an example of what traditional networks look like, as described in the text below.

    Defining Characteristics

    • Traffic flows in a defined path under the control of IT to and from central IT resources.
    • Due to visibility into, and the control of, the traffic between the end user and resources, IT can relatively simply implement the required security controls on owned hardware.

    Common Components

    • Traditional offices
    • Remote users/road warriors
    • Private data center/colocation space

    Hybrid networks

    Resources internal and external to network

    Network security perimeter combined with cloud protection

    Abstract

    A hybrid network is one that combines elements of a traditional network with cloud resources. As some of these resources are not fully under the control of IT and may be completely “offnet” or loosely coupled to the on-premises network, the security boundaries and control points are less likely to be centralized. Hybrid networks allow the flexibility and speed of cloud deployment without leaving behind traditional network constructs. This generally makes them expensive to secure and maintain.

    Network Design Tenets

    • The network path from resource to user may not be in IT’s locus of control.
    • Users external to the network must first connect to the network to gain access to internal resources but may directly access publicly hosted ones.
    • Security, risk, and trust controls may potentially be implemented by a mixture of internal enterprise hardware/software devices and external control points.

    Control

    The hallmark of a hybrid network is the blending of public and private resources. This blending tends to necessitate both public and private points of control that may not be homogenous.

    Info-Tech Insight

    With multiple control points to address, take care in simplifying designs while addressing all concerns to ease operational load.

    Hybrid networks

    The image contains an example of what hybrid networks look like, as described in the text below.

    Defining Characteristics

    • Traffic flows to central resources across a defined path under the control of IT.
    • Traffic to cloud assets may be partially under the control of IT.
    • For central resources, the traffic to and from the end user can have the required security controls relatively simply implemented on owned hardware.
    • For public cloud assets, IT may or may not have some control over part of the path.

    Common Components

    • Traditional offices
    • Remote users/road warriors
    • Private data center/colocation space
    • Public cloud assets (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS)

    Inverted perimeter

    Resources primarily external to the network

    Security control points are cloud centric

    Abstract

    An inverted perimeter network is one in which security and control points cover the entire workflow, on or off net, from the consumer of services through to the services themselves with zero trust. Since the control plane is designed to encompass the workflow in a secure manner, much of the underlying connectivity can be abstracted. In an extreme version of this deployment, IT would abstract end-user access, and any cloud-based or on-premises resources would be securely published through the control plane with context-aware precision access.

    Network Design Tenets

    • The network path from resource to user is abstracted and controlled by IT through services like secure access service edge (SASE).
    • Users only need internet access and appropriate credentials to gain access to resources.
    • Security, risk, and trust controls will be implemented through external cloud based services.

    Control

    An inverted network abstracts the lower-layer connectivity away and focuses on implementing a cloud-based zero trust control plane.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This model is extremely attractive for organizations that consume primarily cloud services and have a large remote work force.

    Inverted networks

    The image contains an example of what inverted networks look like, as described in the text below.

    Defining Characteristics

    • The end user does not have to be in a defined location.
    • All central resources that are to be accessed are hosted on cloud resources.
    • IT has little to no control of the path between the end user and central resources.

    Common Components

    • Traditional offices
    • Regent offices/shared workspaces
    • Remote users/road warriors
    • Public cloud assets (IaaS/PaaS/SaaS)

    Understand available tooling

    Don’t buy a hammer and go looking for nails

    • A network archetype must be defined in order to understand what tools (hardware or software) are appropriate for consideration in a network build or refresh.
    • Tools are purpose built and generally designed to solve specific problems if implemented and operated correctly. Choose the tools to align with the challenges that you are solving as opposed to choosing tools and then trying to use those purchases to overcome challenges.
    • The purchase of a tool does not allow for abdication of proper design. Tools must be chosen appropriately and integrated properly to orchestrate the best solutions. Purchasing a tool and expecting the tool to solve all your issues rarely succeeds.

    “It is essential to have good tools, but it is also essential that the tools should be used in the right way.” — Wallace D. Wattles

    Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN)

    Simplified branch office connectivity

    Archetype Value: Traditional Networks

    What It Is Not

    SD-WAN is generally not a way to slash spending by lowering WAN circuit costs. Though it is traditionally deployed across lower cost access, to minimize risk and realize the most benefits from the platform many organizations install multiple circuits with greater bandwidths at each endpoint when replacing the more costly traditional circuits. Though this maximizes the value of the technology investment, it will result in the end cost being similar to the traditional cost plus or minus a small percentage.

    What It Is

    SD-WAN is a subset of software-defined networking (SDN) designed specifically to deploy a secure, centrally managed, connectivity agnostic, overlay network connecting multiple office locations. This technology can be used to replace, work in concert with, or augment more traditional costly connectivity such as MPLS or private point to point (PtP) circuits. In addition to the secure overlay, SD-WAN usually also enables policy-based, intelligent controls, based on traffic and circuit intelligence.

    Why Use It

    You have multiple endpoint locations connected by expensive lower bandwidth traditional circuits. Your target is to increase visibility and control while controlling costs if and where possible. Ease of centralized management and the ability to more rapidly turn up new locations are attractive.

    Cloud access security broker (CASB)

    Inline policy enforcement placed between users and cloud services

    Archetype Value: Hybrid Networks

    What It Is Not

    CASBs do not provide network protection; they are designed to provide compliance and enforcement of rules. Though CASBs are designed to give visibility and control into cloud traffic, they have limits to the data that they generally ingest and utilize. A CASB does not gather or report on cloud usage details, licencing information, financial costing, or whether the cloud resource usage is aligned with the deployment purpose.

    What It Is

    A CASB is designed to establish security controls beyond a company’s environment. It is commonly deployed to augment traditional solutions to extend visibility and control into the cloud. To protect assets in the cloud, CASBs are designed to provide central policy control and apply services primarily in the areas of visibility, data security, threat protection, and compliance.

    Why Use It

    You a mixture of on-premises and cloud assets. In moving assets out to the cloud, you have lost the traditional controls that were implemented in the data center. You now need to have visibility and apply controls to the usage of these cloud assets.

    Secure access service edge (SASE)

    Convergence of security and service access in the cloud

    Archetype Value: Inverted Networks

    What It Is Not

    Though the service will consist of many service offerings, SASE is not multiple services strung together. To present the value proposed by this platform, all functionality proposed must be provided by a single platform under a “single pane of glass.” SASE is not a mature and well-established service. The market is still solidifying, and the full-service definition remains somewhat fluid.

    What It Is

    SASE exists at the intersection of network-as-a-service and network-security-as-a-service. It is a superset of many network and security cloud offerings such as CASB, secure web gateway, SD-WAN, and WAN optimization. Any services offered by a SASE provider will be cloud hosted, presented in a single stack, and controlled through a single pane of glass.

    Why Use It

    Your network is inverting, and services are provided primarily as cloud assets. In a full realization of this deployment’s value, you would abstract how and where users gain initial network access yet remain in control of the communications and data flow.

    Activity

    Understand your enterprise network options

    Activity: Network assessment in an hour

    • Learn about the Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool
    • Complete the Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool

    This activity involves the following participants:

    • IT strategic direction decision makers.
    • IT managers responsible for network.
    • Organizations evaluating platforms for mission critical applications.

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Completed Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool

    Info-Tech Insight

    Review your design options with security and compliance in mind. Infrastructure is no longer a standalone entity and now tightly integrates with software-defined networks and security solutions.

    Build an assessment in an hour

    Learn about the Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool.

    This workbook provides a high-level analysis of a technology’s readiness for adoption based on your organization’s needs.

    • The workbook then places the technology on a graph that measures both the readiness and fit for your organization. In addition, it provides warnings for specific issues and lets you know if you have considerable uncertainty in your answers.
    • At a glance you can now communicate what you are doing to help the company:
      • Grow
      • Save money
      • Reduce risk
    • Regardless of your specific audience, these are important stories to be able to tell.
    The image contains three screenshots from the Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool.

    Build an assessment in an hour

    Complete the Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool.

    Dispense with detailed analysis and customizations to present a quick snapshot of the road ahead.

    1. Weightings: Adjust the Weighting tab to meet organizational needs. The provided weightings for the overall solution areas are based on a generic firm; individual firms will have different needs.
    2. Data Entry: For each category, answer the questions for the technology you are considering. When you have completed the questionnaire, go to the next tab for the results.
    3. Results: The Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool provides a value versus readiness assessment of your chosen technology customized to your organization.

    The image contains three screenshots from the Enterprise Network Roadmap Technology Assessment Tool. It has a screenshot for each step as described in the text above.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services

    Acquiring a service is like buying an experience. Don’t confuse the simplicity of buying hardware with buying an experience.

    Outsource IT Infrastructure to Improve System Availability, Reliability, and Recovery

    There are very few IT infrastructure components you should be housing internally – outsource everything else.

    Build Your Infrastructure Roadmap

    Move beyond alignment: Put yourself in the driver’s seat for true business value.

    Drive Successful Sourcing Outcomes With a Robust RFP Process

    Leverage your vendor sourcing process to get better results.

    Research Authors

    The image contains a photo of Scott Young.

    Scott Young, Principal Research Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group

    Scott Young is a Director of Infrastructure Research at Info-Tech Research Group. Scott has worked in the technology field for over 17 years, with a strong focus on telecommunications and enterprise infrastructure architecture. He brings extensive practical experience in these areas of specialization, including IP networks, server hardware and OS, storage, and virtualization.

    The image contains a photo of Troy Cheeseman.

    Troy Cheeseman, Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group

    Troy has over 24 years of experience and has championed large enterprise-wide technology transformation programs, remote/home office collaboration and remote work strategies, BCP, IT DRP, IT operations and expense management programs, international right placement initiatives, and large technology transformation initiatives (M&A). Additionally, he has deep experience working with IT solution providers and technology (cloud) startups.

    Bibliography

    Ahlgren, Bengt. “Design considerations for a network of information.” ACM Digital Library, 21 Dec. 2008.

    Cox Business. “Digital transformation is here. Is your business ready to upgrade your mobile work equation?” BizJournals, 1 April 2022. Accessed April 2022.

    Elmore, Ed. “Benefits of integrating security and networking with SASE.” Tech Radar, 1 April 2022. Web.

    Greenfield, Dave. “From SD-WAN to SASE: How the WAN Evolution is Progressing.” Cato Networks, 19 May 2020. Web

    Korolov, Maria. “What is SASE? A cloud service that marries SD-WAN with security.” Network World, 7 Sept. 2020. Web.

    Korzeniowski, Paul, “CASB tools evolve to meet broader set of cloud security needs.” TechTarget, 26 July 2019. Accessed March 2022.

    Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

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    • Parent Category Name: Organizational Design
    • Parent Category Link: /organizational-design
    • 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 the change.
    • CIOs walk a tightrope as they manage the operational and emotional turbulence while aiming to improve business satisfaction within IT. Failure to achieve balance could result in irreparable failure.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Mismanagement will hurt you. The majority of IT organizations do not manage organizational design implementations effectively, resulting in decreased satisfaction, productivity loss, and increased IT costs.
    • Preventing mismanagement is within your control. 72% of change management issues can be directly improved by managers. IT leaders have a tendency to focus their efforts on operational changes rather than on people.

    Impact and Result

    Leverage Info-Tech’s organizational design implementation process and deliverables to build and implement a detailed transition strategy and to prepare managers to lead through change.

    Follow Info-Tech’s 5-step process to:

    1. Effect change and sustain productivity through real-time employee engagement monitoring.
    2. Kick off the organizational design implementation with effective communication.
    3. Build an integrated departmental transition strategy.
    4. Train managers to effectively lead through change.
    5. Develop personalized transition plans.

    Implement a New IT Organizational Structure Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how you should implement a new organizational design, 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 a change communication strategy

    Create strategies to communicate the changes to staff and maintain their level of engagement.

    • Implement a New Organizational Structure – Phase 1: Build a Change Communication Strategy
    • Organizational Design Implementation FAQ
    • Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation

    2. Build the organizational transition plan

    Build a holistic list of projects that will enable the implementation of the organizational structure.

    • Implement a New Organizational Structure – Phase 2: Build the Organizational Transition Plan
    • Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

    3. Lead staff through the reorganization

    Lead a workshop to train managers to lead their staff through the changes and build transition plans for all staff members.

    • Implement a New Organizational Structure – Phase 3: Lead Staff Through the Reorganization
    • Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide
    • Organizational Design Implementation Stakeholder Engagement Plan Template
    • Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

    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 Change Project Plan

    The Purpose

    Create a holistic change project plan to mitigate the risks of organizational change.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Building a change project plan that encompasses both the operational changes and minimizes stakeholder and employee resistance to change.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the new organizational structure.

    1.2 Determine the scope of your organizational changes.

    1.3 Review your MLI results.

    1.4 Brainstorm a list of projects to enable the change.

    Outputs

    Project management planning and monitoring tool

    McLean Leadership Index dashboard

    2 Finalize Change Project Plan

    The Purpose

    Finalize the change project plan started on day 1.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Finalize the tasks that need to be completed as part of the change project.

    Activities

    2.1 Brainstorm the tasks that are contained within the change projects.

    2.2 Determine the resource allocations for the projects.

    2.3 Understand the dependencies of the projects.

    2.4 Create a progress monitoring schedule.

    Outputs

    Completed project management planning and monitoring tool

    3 Enlist Your Implementation Team

    The Purpose

    Enlist key members of your team to drive the implementation of your new organizational design.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Mitigate the risks of staff resistance to the change and low engagement that can result from major organizational change projects.

    Activities

    3.1 Determine the members that are best suited for the team.

    3.2 Build a RACI to define their roles.

    3.3 Create a change vision.

    3.4 Create your change communication strategy.

    Outputs

    Communication strategy

    4 Train Your Managers to Lead Through Change

    The Purpose

    Train your managers who are more technically focused to handle the people side of the change.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Leverage your managers to translate how the organizational change will directly impact individuals on their teams.

    Activities

    4.1 Conduct the manager training workshop with managers.

    4.2 Review the stakeholder engagement plans.

    4.3 Review individual transition plan template with managers.

    Outputs

    Conflict style self-assessments

    Stakeholder engagement plans

    Individual transition plan template

    5 Build Your Transition Plans

    The Purpose

    Complete transition plans for individual members of your staff.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Create individual plans for your staff members to ease the transition into their new roles.

    Activities

    5.1 Bring managers back in to complete transition plans.

    5.2 Revisit the new organizational design as a source of information.

    5.3 Complete aspects of the templates that do not require staff feedback.

    5.4 Discuss strategies for transitioning.

    Outputs

    Individual transition plan template

    Further reading

    Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

    Prioritize quick wins and critical services during IT org changes.

    This blueprint is part 3/3 in Info-Tech’s organizational design program and focuses on implementing a new structure

    Part 1: Design Part 2: Structure Part 3: Implement
    IT Organizational Architecture Organizational Sketch Organizational Structure Organizational Chart Transition Strategy Implement Structure
    1. Define the organizational design objectives.
    2. Develop strategically-aligned capability map.
    3. Create the organizational design framework.
    4. Define the future state work units.
    5. Create future state work unit mandates.
    1. Assign work to work units (accountabilities and responsibilities).
    2. Develop organizational model options (organizational sketches).
    3. Assess options and select go-forward model.
    1. Define roles by work unit.
    2. Create role mandates.
    3. Turn roles into jobs.
    4. Define reporting relationships between jobs.
    5. Define competency requirements.
    1. Determine number of positions per job.
    2. Conduct competency assessment.
    3. Assign staff to jobs.
    1. Form OD implementation team.
    2. Develop change vision.
    3. Build communication presentation.
    4. Identify and plan change projects.
    5. Develop organizational transition plan.
    1. Train managers to lead through change.
    2. Define and implement stakeholder engagement plan.
    3. Develop individual transition plans.
    4. Implement transition plans.
    Risk Management: Create, implement, and monitor risk management plan.
    HR Management: Develop job descriptions, conduct job evaluation, and develop compensation packages.

    Monitor and Sustain Stakeholder Engagement →

    The sections highlighted in green are in scope for this blueprint. Click here for more information on designing or on structuring a new organization.

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research is Designed For:

    • CIOs

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Effectively implement a new organizational structure.
    • Develop effective communications to minimize turnover and lost productivity during transition.
    • Identify a detailed transition strategy to move to your new structure with minimal interruptions to service quality.
    • Train managers to lead through change and measure ongoing employee engagement.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • IT Leaders

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Effectively lead through the organizational change.
    • Manage difficult conversations with staff and mitigate staff concerns and turnover.
    • Build clear transition plans for their teams.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • Organizational Design (OD) projects are typically undertaken in order to enable organizational priorities, improve IT performance, or to reduce IT costs. However, due to the highly disruptive nature of the change, only 25% of changes achieve their objectives over the long term. (2013 Towers Watson Change and Communication ROI Survey)

    Complication

    • OD 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 the change.
    • CIOs walk a tightrope as they manage the operational and emotional turbulence while aiming to improve business satisfaction within IT. Failure to achieve balance could result in irreparable failure.

    Resolution

    • Leverage Info-Tech’s organizational design implementation process and deliverables to build and implement a detailed transition strategy and to prepare managers to lead through change. Follow Info-Tech’s 5-step process to:
      1. Effect change and sustain productivity through real-time employee engagement monitoring.
      2. Kick off the organizational design implementation with effective communication.
      3. Build an integrated departmental transition strategy.
      4. Train managers to effectively lead through change.
      5. Develop personalized transition plans.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Mismanagement will hurt you. The majority of IT organizations do not manage OD implementations effectively, resulting in decreased satisfaction, productivity loss, and increased IT costs.
    2. Preventing mismanagement is within your control. 72% of change management issues can be directly improved by managers. (Abilla, 2009) IT leaders have a tendency to focus their efforts on operational changes rather than on people. This is a recipe for failure.

    Organizational Design Implementation

    Managing organizational design (OD) changes effectively is critical to maintaining IT service levels and retaining top talent throughout a restructure. Nevertheless, many organizations fail to invest appropriate consideration and resources into effective OD change planning and execution.

    THREE REASONS WHY CIOS NEED TO EFFECTIVELY MANAGE CHANGE:

    1. Failure is the norm; not the exception. According to a study by Towers Watson, only 55% of organizations experience the initial value of a change. Even fewer organizations, a mere 25%, are actually able to sustain change over time to experience the full expected benefits. (2013 Towers Watson Change and Communication ROI Survey)
    2. People are the biggest cause of failure. Organizational design changes are one of the most difficult types of changes to manage as staff are often highly resistant. This leads to decreased productivity and poor results. The most significant people challenge is the loss of momentum through the change process which needs to be actively managed.
    3. Failure costs money. Poor IT OD implementations can result in increased turnover, lost productivity, and decreased satisfaction from the business. Managing the implementation has a clear ROI as the cost of voluntary turnover is estimated to be 150% of an employee’s annual salary. (Inc)

    86% of IT leaders believe organization and leadership processes are critical, yet the majority struggle to be effective

    PERCENTAGE OF IT LEADERS WHO BELIEVE THEIR ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP PROCESSES ARE HIGHLY IMPORTANT AND HIGHLY EFFECTIVE

    A bar graph, with the following organization and leadership processes listed on the Y-axis: Human Resources Management; Leadership, Culture, Values; Organizational Change Management; and Organizational Design. The bar graph shows that over 80% of IT leaders rate these processes as High Importance, but less than 40% rate them as having High Effectiveness.

    GAP BETWEEN IMPORTANCE AND EFFECTIVENESS

    Human Resources Management - 61%

    Leadership, Culture, Values - 48%

    Organizational Change Management - 55%

    Organizational Design - 45%

    Note: Importance and effectiveness were determined by identifying the percentage of individuals who responded with 8-10/10 to the questions…

    • “How important is this process to the organization’s ability to achieve business and IT goals?” and…
    • “How effective is this process at helping the organization to achieve business and IT goals?”

    Source: Info-Tech Research Group, Management and Governance Diagnostic. N=22,800 IT Professionals

    Follow a structured approach to your OD implementation to improve stakeholder satisfaction with IT and minimize risk

    • IT reorganizations are typically undertaken to enable strategic goals, improve efficiency and performance, or because of significant changes to the IT budget. Without a structured approach to manage the organizational change, IT might get the implementation done, but fail to achieve the intended benefits, i.e. the operation succeeds, but the patient has died on the table.
    • When implementing your new organizational design, it’s critical to follow a structured approach to ensure that you can maintain IT service levels and performance and achieve the intended benefits.
    • The impact of organizational structure changes can be emotional and stressful for staff. As such, in order to limit voluntary turnover, and to maintain productivity and performance, IT leaders need to be strategic about how they communicate and respond to resistance to change.

    TOP 3 BENEFITS OF FOLLOWING A STRUCTURED APPROACH TO IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN

    1. Improved stakeholder satisfaction with IT. A detailed change strategy will allow you to successfully transition staff into new roles with limited service interruptions and with improved stakeholder satisfaction.
    2. Experience minimal voluntary turnover throughout the change. Know how to actively engage and minimize resistance of stakeholders throughout the change.
    3. Execute implementation on time and on budget. Effectively managed implementations are 65–80% more likely to meet initial objectives than those with poor organizational change management. (Boxley Group, LLC)

    Optimize your organizational design implementation results by actively preparing managers to lead through change

    IT leaders have a tendency to make change even more difficult by focusing on operations rather than on people. This is a recipe for failure. People pose the greatest risk to effective implementation and as such, IT managers need to be prepared and trained on how to lead their staff through the change. This includes knowing how to identify and manage resistance, communicating the change, and maintaining positive momentum with staff.

    Staff resistance and momentum are the most challenging part of leading through change (McLean & Company, N=196)

    A bar graph with the following aspects of Change Management listed on the Y-Axis, in increasing order of difficulty: Dealing with Technical Issues; Monitoring metrics to measure progress; Amending policies and processes; Coordinating with stakeholders; Getting buy-in from staff; Maintaining a positive momentum with staff.

    Reasons why change fails: 72% of failures can be directly improved by the manager (shmula)

    A pie chart showing the reasons why change fails: Management behavior not supportive of change = 33%; Employee resistance to change = 39%; Inadequate resources or budget = 14%; and All other obstacles = 14%.

    Leverage organizational change management (OCM) best practices for increased OD implementation success

    Effective change management correlates with project success

    A line graph, with Percent of respondents that met or exceeded project objectives listed on the Y-axis, and Poor, Fair, Good, and Excellent listed on the X-axis. The line represents the overall effectiveness of the change management program, and as the value on the Y-axis increases, so does the value on the X-axis.

    Source: Prosci. From Prosci’s 2012 Best Practices in Change Management benchmarking report.

    95% of projects with excellent change management met or EXCEEDED OBJECTIVES, vs. 15% of those with poor OCM. (Prosci)

    143% ROI on projects with excellent OCM. In other words, for every dollar spent on the project, the company GAINS 43 CENTS. This is in contrast to 35% ROI on projects with poor OCM. (McKinsey)

    Info-Tech’s approach to OD implementation is a practical and tactical adaptation of several successful OCM models

    BUSINESS STRATEGY-ORIENTED OCM MODELS. John Kotter’s 8-Step model, for instance, provides a strong framework for transformational change but doesn’t specifically take into account the unique needs of an IT transformation.

    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 organizational design implementation-specific initiatives.

    COBIT MANAGEMENT PRACTICE BAI05: MANAGE ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE ENABLEMENT follows a structured process for implementing enterprise change quickly. This framework can be adapted to OD implementation; however, it is most effective when augmented with the people and management training elements present in other frameworks.

    References and Further Reading

    Tailoring a comprehensive, general-purpose OCM framework to an OD implementation requires familiarity and experience. Info-Tech’s OD implementation model adapts the best practices from a wide range of proven OCM models and distills it into a step-by-step process that can be applied to an organizational design transformation.

    The following OD implementation symptoms can be avoided through structured planning

    IN PREVIOUS ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES, I’VE EXPERIENCED…

    “Difficultly motivating my staff to change.”

    “Higher than average voluntary turnover during and following the implementation.”

    “An overall sense of staff frustration or decreased employee engagement.”

    “Decreased staff productivity and an inability to meet SLAs.”

    “Increased overtime caused by being asked to do two jobs at once.”

    “Confusion about the reporting structure during the change.”

    “Difficulty keeping up with the rate of change and change fatigue from staff.”

    “Business partner dissatisfaction about the change and complaints about the lack of effort or care put in by IT employees.”

    “Business partners not wanting to adjust to the change and continuing to follow outdated processes.”

    “Decrease in stakeholder satisfaction with IT.”

    “Increased prevalence of shadow IT during or following the change.”

    “Staff members vocally complaining about the IT organization and leadership team.”

    Follow this blueprint to develop and execute on your OD implementation

    IT leaders often lack the experience and time to effectively execute on organizational changes. Info-Tech’s organizational design implementation program will provide you with the needed tools, templates, and deliverables. Use these insights to drive action plans and initiatives for improvement.

    How we can help

    • Measure the ongoing engagement of your employees using Info-Tech’s MLI diagnostic. The diagnostic comes complete with easily customizable reports to track and act on employee engagement throughout the life of the change.
    • Use Info-Tech’s customizable project management tools to identify all of the critical changes, their impact on stakeholders, and mitigate potential implementation risks.
    • Develop an in-depth action plan and transition plans for individual stakeholders to ensure that productivity remains high and that service levels and project expectations are met.
    • Align communication with real-time staff engagement data to keep stakeholders motivated and focused throughout the change.
    • Use Info-Tech’s detailed facilitation guide to train managers on how to effectively communicate the change, manage difficult stakeholders, and help ensure a smooth transition.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s customizable deliverables to execute your organizational design implementation

    A graphic with 3 sections: 1.BUILD A CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY; 2.BUILD THE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSITION PLAN; 3.1 TRAIN MANAGERS TO LEAD THROUGH CHANGE; 3.2 TRANSITION STAFF TO NEW ROLES. An arrow emerges from point one and directs right, over the rest of the steps. Text above the arrow reads: ONGOING ENGAGEMENT MONITORING AND COMMUNICATION. Dotted arrows emerge from points two and three directing back toward point one. Text below the arrow reads: COMMUNICATION STRATEGY ITERATION.

    CUSTOMIZABLE PROJECT DELIVERABLES

    1. BUILD A CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

    • McLean Leadership Index: Real-Time Employee Engagement Dashboard
    • Organizational Design
    • Implementation Kick-Off Presentation
    • Organizational Design Implementation FAQ

    2. BUILD THE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSITION PLAN

    • Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

    3.1 TRAIN MANAGERS TO LEAD THROUGH CHANGE

    3.2 TRANSITION STAFF TO NEW ROLES

    • Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide
    • Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template

    Leverage Info-Tech’s tools and templates to overcome key engagement program implementation challenges

    KEY SECTION INSIGHTS:

    BUILD A CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

    Effective organizational design implementations mitigate the risk of turnover and lost productivity through ongoing monitoring and managing of employee engagement levels. Take a data-driven approach to managing engagement with Info-Tech’s real-time MLI engagement dashboard and adjust your communication and implementation strategy before engagement risks become issues.

    BUILD THE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSITION PLAN

    Your organizational design implementation is made up of a series of projects and needs to be integrated into your larger project schedule. Too often, organizations attempt to fit the organizational design implementation into their existing schedules which results in poor resource planning, long delays in implementation, and overall poor results.

    LEAD STAFF THROUGH THE REORGANIZATION

    The majority of IT managers were promoted because they excelled at the technical aspect of their job rather than in people management. Not providing training is setting your organization up for failure. Train managers to effectively lead through change to see a 72% decrease in change management issues. (Abilla, 2009)

    METRICS:

    1. Voluntary turnover: Conduct an exit interview with all staff members during and after transition. Identify any staff members who cite the change as a reason for departure. For those who do leave, multiply their salary by 1.5% (the cost of a new hire) and track this over time.
    2. Business satisfaction trends: Conduct CIO Business Vision one year prior to the change vs. one year after change kick-off. Prior to the reorganization, set metrics for each category for six months after the reorganization, and one year following.
    3. Saved development costs: Number of hours to develop internal methodology, tools, templates, and process multiplied by the salary of the individual.

    Use this blueprint to save 1–3 months in implementing your new organizational structure

    Time and Effort Using Blueprint Without Blueprint
    Assess Current and Ongoing Engagement 1 person ½ day – 4 weeks 1–2 hours for diagnostic set up (allow extra 4 weeks to launch and review initial results). High Value 4–8 weeks
    Set Up the Departmental Change Workbooks 1–5 people 1 day 4–5 hours (varies based on the scope of the change). Medium Value 1–2 weeks
    Design Transition Strategy 1–2 people 1 day 2–10 hours of implementation team’s time. Medium Value 0–2 weeks
    Train Managers to Lead Through Change 1–5 people 1–2 weeks 1–2 hours to prepare training (allow for 3–4 hours per management team to execute). High Value 3–5 weeks

    These estimates are based on reviews with Info-Tech clients and our experience creating the blueprint.

    Totals:

    Workshop: 1 week

    GI/DIY: 2-6 weeks

    Time and Effort Saved: 8-17 weeks

    CIO uses holistic organizational change management strategies to overcome previous reorganization failures

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Manufacturing

    Source: Client interview

    Problem

    When the CIO of a large manufacturing company decided to undertake a major reorganization project, he was confronted with the stigma of a previous CIO’s attempt. Senior management at the company were wary of the reorganization since the previous attempt had failed and cost a lot of money. There was major turnover since staff were not happy with their new roles costing $250,000 for new hires. The IT department saw a decline in their satisfaction scores and a 10% increase in help desk tickets. The reorganization also cost the department $400,000 in project rework.

    Solution

    The new CIO used organizational change management strategies in order to thoroughly plan the implementation of the new organizational structure. The changes were communicated to staff in order to improve adoption, every element of the change was mapped out, and the managers were trained to lead their staff through the change.

    Results

    The reorganization was successful and eagerly adopted by the staff. There was no turnover after the new organizational structure was implemented and the engagement levels of the staff remained the same.

    $250,000 - Cost of new hires and salary changes

    10% - Increase in help desk tickets

    $400,000 - Cost of project delays due to the poorly effective implementation of changes

    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

    Implement a New Organizational Structure

    3. Lead Staff Through the Reorganization
    1. Build a Change Communication Strategy 2. Build the Organizational Transition Plan 3.1 Train Managers to Lead Through Change 3.2 Transition Staff to New Roles
    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Launch the McLean Leadership Index to set a baseline.

    1.2 Establish your implementation team.

    1.3 Build your change communication strategy and change vision.

    2.1 Build a holistic list of change projects.

    2.2 Monitor and track the progress of your change projects.

    3.1.1 Conduct a workshop with managers to prepare them to lead through the change.

    3.1.2 Build stakeholder engagement plans and conduct conflict style self-assessments.

    3.2.1 Build transition plans for each of your staff members.

    3.2.2 Transition your staff to their new roles.

    Guided Implementations
    • Set up your MLI Survey.
    • Determine the members and roles of your implementation team.
    • Review the components of a change communication strategy.
    • Review the change dimensions and how they are used to plan change projects.
    • Review the list of change projects.
    • Review the materials and practice conducting the workshop.
    • Debrief after conducting the workshop.
    • Review the individual transition plan and the process for completing it.
    • Final consultation before transitioning staff to their new roles.
    Onsite Workshop Module 1: Effectively communicate the reorganization to your staff. Module 2: Build the organizational transition plan. Module 3.1: Train your managers to lead through change. Module 3.2: Complete your transition plans

    Phase 1 Results:

    • Plans for effectively communicating with your staff.

    Phase 2 Results:

    • A holistic view of the portfolio of projects required for a successful reorg

    Phase 3.1 Results:

    • A management team that is capable of leading their staff through the reorganization

    Phase 3.2 Results:

    • Completed transition plans for your entire staff.

    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

    Build Your Change Project Plan

    1.1 Review the new organizational structure.

    1.2 Determine the scope of your organizational changes.

    1.3 Review your MLI results.

    1.4 Brainstorm a list of projects to enable the change.

    Finalize Change Project Plan

    2.1 Brainstorm the tasks that are contained within the change projects.

    2.2 Determine the resource allocation for the projects.

    2.3 Understand the dependencies of the projects.

    2.4 Create a progress monitoring schedule

    Enlist Your Implementation Team

    3.1 Determine the members that are best suited for the team.

    3.2 Build a RACI to define their roles.

    3.3 Create a change vision.

    3.4 Create your change communication strategy.

    Train Your Managers to Lead Through Change

    4.1 Conduct the manager training workshop with managers.

    4.2 Review the stakeholder engagement plans.

    4.3 Review individual transition plan template with managers

    Build Your Transition Plans

    5.1 Bring managers back in to complete transition plans.

    5.2 Revisit new organizational design as a source for information.

    5.3 Complete aspects of the template that do not require feedback.

    5.4 Discuss strategies for transitioning.

    Deliverables
    1. McLean Leadership Index Dashboard
    2. Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool
    1. Completed Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool
    1. Communication Strategy
    1. Stakeholder Engagement Plans
    2. Conflict Style Self-Assessments
    3. Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template
    1. Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template

    Phase 1

    Build a Change Communication Strategy

    Build a change communication strategy

    Outcomes of this Section:

    • Launch the McLean Leadership Index
    • Define your change team
    • Build your reorganization kick-off presentation and FAQ for staff and business stakeholders

    This section involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT leadership team
    • IT staff

    Key Section Insight:

    Effective organizational design implementations mitigate the risk of turnover and lost productivity through ongoing monitoring of employee engagement levels. Take a data-driven approach to managing engagement with Info-Tech’s real-time MLI engagement dashboard and adjust your communication and implementation strategy in real-time before engagement risks become issues.

    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: Build a Change Communication Strategy

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1-6 weeks

    Step 1.1: Launch Your McLean Leadership Index Survey

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Discuss the benefits and uses of the MLI.
    • Go over the required information (demographics, permissions, etc.).
    • Set up a live demo of the survey.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Launch the survey with your staff.
    • Have a results call with a member of the Info-Tech staff.

    With these tools & templates:

    McLean Leadership Index

    Step 1.2: Establish Your Implementation Team

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Review what members of your department should participate.
    • Build a RACI to determine the roles of your team members.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Hold a kick-off meeting with your new implementation team.
    • Build the RACI for your new team members and their roles.

    Step 1.3: Build Your Change Communication Strategy

    Finalize phase deliverable:

    • Customize your reorganization kick-off presentation.
    • Create your change vision. Review the communication strategy.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Hold your kick-off presentation with staff members.
    • Launch the reorganization communications.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation
    • Organizational Design Implementation FAQ

    Set the stage for the organizational design implementation by effectively introducing and communicating the change to staff

    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 and communication aspects around the change are amongst the toughest work there is, and require a comfort and competency with uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflict.

    Design Engagement Transition
    Communication

    Communication and engagement are the chains linking your design to transition. If the organizational design initiative is going to be successful it is critical that you manage this effectively. The earlier you begin planning the better. The more open and honest you are about the change the easier it will be to maintain engagement levels, business satisfaction, and overall IT productivity.

    Kick-Off Presentation Inputs

    • LAUNCH THE MCLEAN LEADERSHIP INDEX
    • IDENTIFY YOUR CHANGE TEAM
    • DETERMINE CHANGE TEAM RESPONSIBILITIES
    • DEVELOP THE CHANGE VISION
    • DEFINE KEY MESSAGES AND GOALS
    • IDENTIFY MAJOR CHANGES
    • IDENTIFY KEY MILESTONES
    • BUILD AND MAINTAIN A CHANGE FAQ

    Use the MLI engagement dashboard to measure your current state and the impact of the change in real-time

    The McLean Leadership Index diagnostic is a low-effort, high-impact program that provides real-time metrics on staff engagement levels. Use these insights to understand your employees’ engagement levels throughout the organizational design implementation to measure the impact of the change and to manage turnover and productivity levels throughout the implementation.

    WHY CARE ABOUT ENGAGEMENT DURING THE CHANGE? ENGAGED EMPLOYEES REPORT:

    39% Higher intention to stay at the organization.

    29% Higher performance and increased likelihood to work harder and longer hours. (Source: McLean and Company N=1,308 IT Employees)

    Why the McLean Leadership Index?

    Based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS), the McLean Leadership Index is one question asked monthly to assess engagement at various points in time.

    Individuals responding to the MLI question with a 9 or 10 are your Promoters and are most positive and passionate. Those who answer 7 or 8 are Passives while those who answer 0 to 6 are Detractors.

    Track your engagement distribution using our online dashboard to view MLI data at any time and view results based on teams, locations, manager, tenure, age, and gender. Assess the reactions to events and changes in real-time, analyze trends over time, and course-correct.

    Dashboard reports: Know your staff’s overall engagement and top priorities

    McLean Leadership Index

    OVERALL ENGAGEMENT RESULTS

    You get:

    • A clear breakdown of your detractors, passives, and promotors.
    • To view results by team, location, and individual manager.
    • To dig deeper into results by reviewing results by age, gender, and tenure at the organization to effectively identify areas where engagement is weak.

    TIME SERIES TRENDS

    You get:

    • View of changes in engagement levels for each team, location, and manager.
    • Breakdown of trends weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly.
    • To encourage leaders to monitor results to analyze root causes for changes and generate improvement initiatives.

    QUALITATIVE COMMENTS

    You get:

    • To view qualitative comments provided by staff on what is impacting their engagement.
    • To reply directly to comments without impacting the anonymity of the individuals making the comments.
    • To leverage trends in the comments to make changes to communication approaches.

    Launch the McLean Leadership Index in under three weeks

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

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

    What You Need To Do:

    1. Contact Info-Tech to launch the program and test the functionality in a live demo.
    2. Identify demographics and set access permissions.
    3. Complete manager training with assistance from Info-Tech Advisors.
    4. Participate in a results call with an Info-Tech Advisor to review results and develop an action plan.

    Info-Tech’s Program Manager Will:

    1. Collect necessary inputs and generate your custom dashboard.
    2. Launch, maintain, and support the online system in the field.
    3. Send out a survey to 25% of the staff each week.
    4. Provide ongoing support over the phone, and the needed tools and templates to communicate and train staff as well as take action on results.

    Explore your initial results in a one-hour call with an Executive Advisor to fully understand the results and draw insights from the data so you can start your action plan.

    Start Your Diagnostic Now

    We'll help you get set up as soon as you're ready.

    Start Now

    Communication has a direct impact on employee engagement; measure communication quality using your MLI results

    A line graph titled: The impact of manager communication on employee engagement. The X-axis is labeled from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, and the Y-axis is labeled: Percent of Engaged Respondents. There are 3 colour-coded lines: dark blue indicates My manager provides me with high-quality feedback; light blue indicates I clearly understand what is expected of me on the job; and green indicates My manager keeps me well informed about decisions that affect me. The line turns upward as it moves to the right of the graph.

    (McLean & Company, 2015 N=17,921)

    A clear relationship exists between how effective a manager’s communication is perceived to be and an employee’s level of engagement. If engagement drops, circle back with employees to understand the root causes.

    Establish an effective implementation team to drive the organizational change

    The implementation team is responsible for developing and disseminating information around the change, developing the transition strategy, and for the ongoing management of the changes.

    The members of the implementation team should include:

    • CIO
    • Current IT leadership team
    • Project manager
    • Business relationship managers
    • Human resources advisor

    Don’t be naïve – building and executing the implementation plan will require a significant time commitment from team members. Too often, organizations attempt to “fit it in” to their existing schedules resulting in poor planning, long delays, and overall poor results. Schedule this work like you would a project.

    TOP 3 TIPS FOR DEFINING YOUR IMPLEMENTATION TEAM

    1. Select a Project Manager. Info-Tech strongly recommends having one individual accountable for key project management activities. They will be responsible for keeping the project on time and maintaining a holistic view of the implementation.
    2. Communication with Business Partners is Critical. If you have Business Relationship Managers (BRMs), involve them in the communication planning or assign someone to play this role. You need your business partners to be informed and bought in to the implementation to maintain satisfaction.
    3. Enlist Your “Volunteer Army.” (Kotter’s 8 Principles) If you have an open culture, Info-Tech encourages you to have an extended implementation team made up of volunteers interested in supporting the change. Their role will be to support the core group, assist in planning, and communicate progress with peers.

    Determine the roles of your implementation team members

    1.1 30 Minutes

    Input

    • Implementation team members

    Output

    • RACI for key transition elements

    Materials

    • RACI chart and pen

    Participants

    • Core implementation committee
    1. Each member should be actively engaged in all elements of the organizational design implementation. However, it’s important to have one individual who is accountable for key activities and ensures they are done effectively and measured.
    2. Review the chart below and as a group, brainstorm any additional key change components.
    3. For each component listed below, identify who is Accountable, Responsible, Consulted, and Informed for each (suggested responsibility below).
    CIO IT Leaders PM BRM HR
    Communication Plan A R R R C
    Employee Engagement A R R R C

    Departmental Transition Plan

    R A R I R
    Organizational Transition Plan R R A I C
    Manager Training A R R I C

    Individual Transition Plans

    R A R I I
    Technology and Logistical Changes R R A I I
    Hiring A R I I R
    Learning and Development R A R R R
    Union Negotiations R I I I A
    Process Development R R A R I

    Fast-track your communication planning with Info-Tech’s Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation

    Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation

    Communicate what’s important to your staff in a simple, digestible way. The communication message should reflect what is important to your stakeholders and what they want to know at the time.

    • Why is this change happening?
    • What are the goals of the reorganization?
    • What specifically is changing?
    • How will this impact me?
    • When is this changing?
    • How and where can I get more information?

    It’s important that the tone of the meeting suits the circumstances.

    • If the reorganization is going to involve lay-offs: The meeting should maintain a positive feel, but your key messages should stress the services that will be available to staff, when and how people will be communicated with about the change, and who staff can go to with concerns.
    • If the reorganization is to enable growth: Focus on celebrating where the organization is going, previous successes, and stress that the staff are critical in enabling team success.

    Modify the Organizational Design ImplementationKick-Off Presentation with your key messages and goals

    1.2 1 hour

    Input

    • New organizational structure

    Output

    • Organizational design goal statements

    Materials

    • Whiteboard & marker
    • ODI Kick-off Presentation

    Participants

    • OD implementation team
    1. Within your change implementation team, hold a meeting to identify and document the change goals and key messages.
    2. As a group, discuss what the key drivers were for the organizational redesign by asking yourselves what problem you were trying to solve.
    3. Select 3–5 key problem statements and document them on a whiteboard.
    4. For each problem statement, identify how the new organizational design will allow you to solve those problems.
    5. Document these in your Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation.

    Modify the presentation with your unique change vision to serve as the center piece of your communication strategy

    1.3 1 hour

    Input

    • Goal statements

    Output

    • Change vision statement

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Pens
    • Voting dots

    Participants

    • Change team
    1. Hold a meeting with the change implementation team to define your change vision. The change vision should provide a picture of what the organization will look like after the organizational design is implemented. It should represent the aspirational goal, and be something that staff can all rally behind.
    2. Hand out sticky notes and ask each member to write down on one note what they believe is the #1 desired outcome from the organizational change and one thing that they are hoping to avoid (you may wish to use your goal statements to drive this).
    3. As a group, review each of the sticky notes and group similar statements in categories. Provide each individual with 3 voting dots and ask them to select their three favorite statements.
    4. Select your winning statements in teams of 2–3. Review each statement and as a team work to strengthen the language to ensure that the statement provides a call to action, that it is short and to the point, and motivational.
    5. Present the statements back to the group and select the best option through a consensus vote.
    6. Document the change vision in your Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation.

    Customize the presentation identifying key changes that will be occurring

    1.4 2 hours

    Input

    • Old and new organizational sketch

    Output

    • Identified key changes that are occurring

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Sticky notes & Pens
    • Camera

    Participants

    • OD implementation team
    1. On a whiteboard, draw a high-level picture of your previous organizational sketch and your new organizational sketch.
    2. Using sticky notes, ask individuals to highlight key high-level challenges that exist in the current model (consider people, process, and technology).
    3. Consider each sticky note, and highlight and document how and where your new sketch will overcome those challenges and the key differences between the old structure and the new.
    4. Take a photo of the two sketches and comments, and document these in your Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation.

    Modify the presentation by identifying and documenting key milestones

    1.5 1 hour

    Input

    • OD implementation team calendars

    Output

    • OD implementation team timeline

    Materials

    • OD Implementation Kick-Off Presentation

    Participants

    • OD implementation team
    1. Review the timeline in the Organizational Design Implementation Kick-Off Presentation. As a group, discuss the key milestones identified in the presentation:
      • Kick-off presentation
      • Departmental transition strategy built
      • Organizational transition strategy built
      • Manager training
      • One-on-one meetings with staff to discuss changes to roles
      • Individual transition strategy development begins
    2. Review the timeline, and keeping your other commitments in mind, estimate when each of these tasks will be completed and update the timeline.

    Build an OD implementation FAQ to proactively address key questions and concerns about the change

    Organizational Design Implementation FAQ

    Leverage this template as a starting place for building an organizational design implementation FAQ.

    This template is prepopulated with example questions and answers which are likely to arise.

    Info-Tech encourages you to use the list of questions as a basis for your FAQ and to add additional questions based on the changes occurring at your organization.

    It may also be a good idea to store the FAQ on a company intranet portal so that staff has access at all times and to provide users with a unique email address to forward questions to when they have them.

    Build your unique organizational design implementation FAQ to keep staff informed throughout the change

    1.6 1 hour + ongoing

    Input

    • OD implementation team calendars

    Output

    • OD implementation team timeline

    Materials

    • OD Implementation Kick-Off Presentation

    Participants

    • OD implementation team
    1. Download a copy of the Organizational Design Implementation FAQ and as a group, review each of the key questions.
    2. Delete any questions that are not relevant and add any additional questions you either believe you will receive or which you have already been asked.
    3. Divide the questions among team members and have each member provide a response to these questions.
    4. The CIO and the project manager should review the responses for accuracy and ensure they are ready to be shared with staff.
    5. Publish the responses on an IT intranet site and make the location known to your IT staff.

    Dispelling rumors by using a large implementation team

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Manufacturing

    Source: CIO

    Challenge

    When rumors of the impending reorganization reached staff, there was a lot of confusion and some of the more vocal detractors in the department enforced these rumors.

    Staff were worried about changes to their jobs, demotions, and worst of all, losing their jobs. There was no communication from senior management to dispel the gossip and the line managers were also in the dark so they weren’t able to offer support.

    Staff did not feel comfortable reaching out to senior management about the rumors and they didn’t know who the change manager was.

    Solution

    The CIO and change manager put together a large implementation team that included many of the managers in the department. This allowed the managers to handle the gossip through informal conversations with their staff.

    The change manager also built a communication strategy to communicate the stages of the reorganization and used FAQs to address the more common questions.

    Results

    The reorganization was adopted very quickly since there was little confusion surrounding the changes with all staff members. Many of the personnel risks were mitigated by the communication strategy because it dispelled rumors and took some of the power away from the vocal detractors in the department.

    An engagement survey was conducted 3 months after the reorganization and the results showed that the engagement of staff had not changed after the reorganization.

    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:

    1a: Launch the MLI Dashboard (Pre-Work)

    Prior to the workshop, Info-Tech’s advisors will work with you to launch the MLI diagnostic to understand the overall engagement levels of your organization.

    1b: Review Your MLI Results

    The analysts will facilitate several exercises to help you and your team identify your current engagement levels, and the variance across demographics and over time.

    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: Define Your Change Team Responsibilities

    Review the key responsibilities of the organizational design implementation team and define the RACI for each individual member.

    1.3: Define Your Change Vision and Goals

    Identify the change vision statement which will serve as the center piece for your change communications as well as the key message you want to deliver to your staff about the change. These messages should be clear, emotionally impactful, and inspirational.

    1.4: Identify Key Changes Which Will Impact Staff

    Collectively brainstorm all of the key changes that are happening as a result of the change, and prioritize the list based on the impact they will have on staff. Document the top 10 biggest changes – and the opportunities the change creates or problems it solves.

    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:

    1.5: Define the High-Level Change Timeline

    Identify and document the key milestones within the change as a group, and determine key dates and change owners for each of the key items. Determine the best way to discuss these timelines with staff, and whether there are any which you feel will have higher levels of resistance.

    1.5: Build the FAQ and Prepare for Objection Handling

    As a group, brainstorm the key questions you believe you will receive about the change and develop a common FAQ to provide to staff members. The advisor will assist you in preparing to manage objections to limit resistance.

    Phase 2

    Build The Organizational Transition Plan

    Build the organizational transition plan

    Outcomes of this section:

    • A holistic list of projects that will enable the implementation of the organizational structure.
    • A schedule to monitor the progress of your change projects.

    This section involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • Reorganization Implementation Team

    Key Section Insight:

    Be careful to understand the impacts of the change on all groups and departments. For best results, you will need representation from all departments to limit conflict and ensure a smooth transition. For large IT organizations, you will need to have a plan for each department/work unit and create a larger integration project.

    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: Build the Organizational Transition Plan

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 2-4 weeks

    Step 2.1: Review the Change Dimensions and How They Are Used to Plan Change Projects

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Review the purpose of the kick-off meeting.
    • Review the change project dimensions.
    • Review the Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Conduct your kick-off meeting.
    • Brainstorm a list of reorganization projects and their related tasks.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Step 2.2: Review the List of Change Projects

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Revisit the list of projects and tasks developed in the brainstorming session.
    • Assess the list and determine resourcing and dependencies for the projects.
    • Review the monitoring process.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Complete the Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool.
    • Map out your project dependencies and resourcing.
    • Develop a schedule for monitoring projects.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool to plan and track your reorganization

    • Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool to document and track all of the changes that are occurring during your reorganization.
    • Automatically build Gantt charts for all of the projects that are being undertaken, track problems in the issue log, and monitor the progress of projects in the reporting tab.
    • Each department/work group will maintain its own version of this tool throughout the reorganization effort and the project manager will maintain a master copy with all of the projects listed.
    • The chart comes pre-populated with example data gathered through the research and interview process to help generate ideas for your own reorganization.
    • Review the instructions at the top of each work sheet for entering and modifying the data within each chart.

    Have a short kick-off meeting to introduce the project planning process to your implementation team

    2.1 30 minutes

    Output

    • Departmental ownership of planning tool

    Materials

    • OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Change Project Manager
    • Implementation Team
    • Senior Management (optional)
    1. The purpose of this kick-off meeting is to assign ownership of the project planning process to members of the implementation team and to begin thinking about the portfolio of projects required to successfully complete the reorganization.
    2. Use the email template included on this slide to invite your team members to the meeting.
    3. The topics that need to be covered in the meeting are:
      • Introducing the materials/templates that will be used throughout the process.
      • Assigning ownership of the Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool to members of your team.
        • Ownership will be at the departmental level where each department or working group will manage their own change projects.
      • Prepare your implementation team for the next meeting where they will be brainstorming the list of projects that will need to be completed throughout the reorganization.
    4. Distribute/email the tools and templates to the team so that they may familiarize themselves with the materials before the next meeting.

    Hello [participant],

    We will be holding our kickoff meeting for our reorganization on [date]. We will be discussing the reorganization process at a high level with special attention being payed to the tools and templates that we will be using throughout the process. By the end of the meeting, we will have assigned ownership of the Project Planning Tool to department representatives and we will have scheduled the next meeting where we’ll brainstorm our list of projects for the reorganization.

    Consider Info-Tech’s four organizational change dimensions when identifying change projects

    CHANGE DIMENSIONS

    • TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS
    • COMMUNICATION
    • STAFFING
    • PROCESS

    Technology and Logistics

    • These are all the projects that will impact the technology used and physical logistics of your workspace.
    • These include new devices, access/permissions, new desks, etc.

    Communication

    • All of the required changes after the reorganization to ongoing communications within IT and to the rest of the organization.
    • Also includes communication projects that are occurring during the reorganization.

    Staffing

    • These projects address the changes to your staff’s roles.
    • Includes role changes, job description building, consulting with HR, etc.

    Process

    • Projects that address changes to IT processes that will occur after the reorganization.

    Use these trigger questions to help identify all aspects of your coming changes

    STAFFING

    • Do you need to hire short or long-term staff to fill vacancies?
    • How long does it typically take to hire a new employee?
    • Will there be staff who are new to management positions?
    • Is HR on board with the reorganization?
    • Have they been consulted?
    • Have transition plans been built for all staff members who are transitioning roles/duties?
    • Will gaps in the structure need to be addressed with new hires?

    COMMUNICATION

    • When will the change be communicated to various members of the staff?
    • Will there be disruption to services during the reorganization?
    • Who, outside of IT, needs to know about the reorganization?
    • Do external communications need to be adjusted because of the reorganization? Moving/centralizing service desk, BRMs, etc.?
    • Are there plans/is there a desire to change the way IT communicates with the rest of the organization?
    • Will the reorganization affect the culture of the department? Is the new structure compatible with the current culture?

    Use these trigger questions to help identify all aspects of your coming changes (continued)

    TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS

    • Will employees require new devices in their new roles?
    • Will employees be required to move their workspace?
    • What changes to the workspace are required to facilitate the new organization?
    • Does new furniture have to be purchased to accommodate new spaces/staff?
    • Is the workspace adequate/up to date technologically (telephone network, Wi-Fi coverage, etc.)?
    • Will employees require new permissions/access for their changing roles?
    • Will permissions/access need to be removed?
    • What is your budget for the reorganization?
    • If a large geographical move is occurring, have problems regarding geography, language barriers, and cultural sensitivities been addressed?

    PROCESS

    • What processes need to be developed?
    • What training for processes is required?
    • Is the daily functioning of the IT department predicted to change?
    • Are new processes being implemented during the reorganization?
    • How will the project portfolio be affected by the reorganization?
    • Is new documentation required to accompany new/changing processes?

    Brainstorm the change projects to be carried out during the reorganization for your team/department

    2.2 3 hours

    Input

    • Constructive group discussion

    Output

    • Thorough list of all reorganization projects

    Materials

    • Whiteboard, sticky notes
    • OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Implementation Team
    • CIO
    • Senior Management
    1. Before the meeting, distribute the list of trigger questions presented on the two previous slides to prepare your implementation team for the brainstorming session.
    2. Begin the meeting by dividing up your implementation team into the departments/work groups that they represent (and have ownership of the tool over).
    3. Distribute a different color of sticky notes to each team and have them write out each project they can think of for each of the change planning dimensions (Staffing, Communication, Process and Technology/Logistics) using the trigger questions.
    4. After one hour, ask the groups to place the projects that they brainstormed onto the whiteboard divided into the four change dimensions.
    5. Discuss the complete list of projects on the board.
      • Remove projects that are listed more than once since some projects will be universal to some/all departments.
      • Adjust the wording of projects for the sake of clarity.
      • Identify projects that are specific to certain departments.
    6. Document the list of high-level projects on tab 2 “Project Lists” within the OD Implementation Project Planning Tool after the activity is complete.

    Prioritize projects to assist with project planning modeling

    Prioritization is the process of ranking each project based on its importance to implementation success. Hold a meeting for the implementation team and extended team to prioritize the project list. At the conclusion of the meeting, each requirement should be assigned a priority level. The implementation teams will use these priority levels to ensure efforts are targeted towards the proper projects. A simple way to do this for your implementation is to use the MoSCoW Model of Prioritization to effectively order requirements.

    The MoSCoW Model of Prioritization

    MUST HAVE - Projects must be implemented for the organizational design to be considered successful.

    SHOULD HAVE - Projects are high priority that should be included in the implementation if possible.

    COULD HAVE - Projects are desirable but not necessary and could be included if resources are available.

    WON'T HAVE - Projects won’t be in the next release, but will be considered for the future releases.

    The MoSCoW model was introduced by Dai Clegg of Oracle UK in 1994.

    Keep the following criteria in mind as you determine your priorities

    Effective Prioritization Criteria

    Criteria Description
    Regulatory & Legal Compliance These requirements will be considered mandatory.
    Policy or Contract Compliance Unless an internal policy or contract can be altered or an exception can be made, these projects will be considered mandatory.
    Business Value Significance Give a higher priority to high-value projects.
    Business Risk Any project with the potential to jeopardize the entire project should be given a high priority and implemented early.
    Implementation Complexity Give a higher priority to quick wins.
    Alignment with Strategy Give a higher priority to requirements that enable the corporate strategy and IT strategy.
    Urgency Prioritize projects based on time sensitivity.
    Dependencies A project on its own may be low priority, but if it supports a high-priority requirement, then its priority must match it.
    Funding Availability Do we have the funding required to make this change?

    Prioritize the change projects within your team/department to be executed during the reorganization

    2.3 3 hours

    Input

    • Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Output

    • Prioritized list of projects

    Materials

    • Whiteboard, sticky notes
    • OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Implementation Team
    • Extended Implementation Team
    1. Divide the group into their department teams. Draw 4 columns on a whiteboard, including the following:
      • Must have
      • Should have
      • Could have
      • Won’t have
    2. As a group, review each project and collaboratively identify which projects fall within each category. You should have a strong balance between each of the categories.
    3. Beginning with the “must have” projects, determine if each has any dependencies. If any of the projects are dependent on another, add the dependency project to the “must have” category. Group and circle the dependent projects.
    4. Continue the same exercise with the “should have” and “could have” options.
    5. Record the results on tab “2. Project List” of the Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool using the drop down option.

    Determine resource availability for completing your change projects

    2.4 2 hours

    Input

    • Constructive group discussion

    Output

    • Thorough list of all reorganization projects

    Materials

    • Whiteboard, sticky notes
    • OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Implementation Team
    • CIO
    • Senior Management
    1. Divide the group into their department teams to plan the execution of the high-level list of projects developed in activity 2.2.
    2. Review the list of high-level projects and starting with the “must do” projects, consider each in turn and brainstorm all of the tasks required to complete these projects. Write down each task on a sticky note and place it under the high-level project.
    3. On the same sticky note as the task, estimate how much time would be required to complete each task. Be realistic about time frames since these projects will be on top of all of the regular day-to-day work.
    4. Along with the time frame, document the resources that will be required and who will be responsible for the tasks. If you have a documented Project Portfolio, use this to determine resourcing.
    5. After mapping out the tasks, bring the group back together to present their list of projects, tasks, and required resources.
      • Go through the project task lists to make sure that nothing is missed.
      • Review the timelines to make sure they are feasible.
      • Review the resources to ensure that they are available and realistic based on constraints (time, current workload, etc.).
      • Repeat the process for the Should do and Could do projects.
    1. Document the tasks and resources in tab “3. Task Monitoring” in the OD Implementation Project Planning Tool after the activity is complete.

    Map out the change project dependencies at the departmental level

    2.5 2 hours

    Input

    • Constructive group discussion

    Output

    • Thorough list of all reorganization projects

    Materials

    • Whiteboard, sticky notes
    • OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Implementation Team
    • CIO
    • Senior Management
    1. Divide the group into their department teams to map the dependencies of their tasks created in activity 2.3.
    2. Take the project task sticky notes created in the previous activity and lay them out along a timeline from start to finish.
    3. Determine the dependencies of the tasks internal to the department. Map out the types of dependencies.
      • Finish to Start: Preceding task must be completed before the next can start.
      • Start to Start: Preceding task must start before the next task can start.
      • Finish to Finish: Predecessor must finish before successor can finish.
      • Start to Finish: Predecessor must start before successor can finish.
    4. Bring the group back together and review each group’s timeline and dependencies to make sure that nothing has been missed.
    5. As a group, determine whether there are dependencies that span the departmental lists of projects.
    6. Document all of the dependencies within the department and between departmental lists of projects and tasks in the OD Implementation Project Planning Tool.

    Amalgamate all of the departmental change planning tools into a master copy

    2.6 3 hours

    Input

    • Department-specific copies of the OD Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Output

    • Universal list of all of the change projects

    Materials

    • Whiteboard and sticky notes

    Participants

    • Implementation Project Manager
    • Members of the implementation team for support (optional)
    1. Before starting the activity, gather all of the OD Implementation Project Planning Tools completed at the departmental level.
    2. Review each completed tool and write all of the individual projects with their timelines on sticky notes and place them on the whiteboard.
    3. Build timelines using the documented dependencies for each department. Verify that the resources (time, people, physical) are adequate and feasible.
    4. Combine all of the departmental project planning tools into one master tool to be used to monitor the overall status of the reorganization. Separate the projects based on the departments they are specific to.
    5. Finalize the timeline based on resource approval and using the dependencies mapped out in the previous exercise.
    6. Approve the planning tools and store them in a shared drive so they can be accessed by the implementation team members.

    Create a progress monitoring schedule

    2.7 1 hour weekly

    Input

    • OD Implementation Project Planning Tools (departmental & organizational)

    Output

    • Actions to be taken before the next pulse meeting

    Participants

    • Implementation Project Manager
    • Members of the implementation team for support
    • Senior Management
    1. Hold weekly pulse meetings to keep track of project progress.
    2. The agenda of each meeting should include:
      • Resolutions to problems/complications raised at the previous week’s meeting.
      • Updates on each department’s progress.
      • Raising any issues/complications that have appeared that week.
      • A discussion of potential solutions to the issues/complications.
      • Validating the work that will be completed before the next meeting.
      • Raising any general questions or concerns that have been voiced by staff about the reorganization.
    3. Upload notes from the meeting about resolutions and changes to the schedules to the shared drive containing the tools.
    4. Increase the frequency of the meetings towards the end of the project if necessary.

    Building a holistic change plan enables adoption of the new organizational structure

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Manufacturing

    Source: CIO

    Challenge

    The CIO was worried about the impending reorganization due to problems that they had run into during the last reorganization they had conducted. The change management projects were not planned well and they led to a lot of uncertainty before and after the implementation.

    No one on the staff was ready for the reorganization. Change projects were completed four months after implementation since many of them had not been predicted and cataloged. This caused major disruptions to their user services leading to drops in user satisfaction.

    Solution

    Using their large and diverse implementation team, they spent a great deal of time during the early stages of planning devoted to brainstorming and documenting all of the potential change projects.

    Through regular meetings, the implementation team was able to iteratively adjust the portfolio of change projects to fit changing needs.

    Results

    Despite having to undergo a major reorganization that involved centralizing their service desk in a different state, there were no disruptions to their user services.

    Since all of the change projects were documented and completed, they were able to move their service desk staff over a weekend to a workspace that was already set up. There were no changes to the user satisfaction scores over the period of their reorganization.

    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:

    2.2 Brainstorm Your List of Change Projects

    Review your reorganization plans and facilitate a brainstorming session to identify a complete list of all of the projects needed to implement your new organizational design.

    2.5 Map Out the Dependencies and Resources for Your Change Projects

    Examine your complete list of change projects and determine the dependencies between all of your change projects. Align your project portfolio and resource levels to the projects in order to resource them adequately.

    Phase 3

    Lead Staff Through the Reorganization

    Train managers to lead through change

    Outcomes of this Section:

    • Completed the workshop: Lead Staff Through Organizational Change
    • Managers possess stakeholder engagement plans for each employee
    • Managers are prepared to fulfil their roles in implementing the organizational change

    This section involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT leadership team
    • IT staff

    Key Section Insight:

    The majority of IT managers were promoted because they excelled at the technical aspect of their job rather than in people management. Not providing training is setting your organization up for failure. Train managers to effectively lead through change to see a 72% decrease in change management issues. (Source: Abilla, 2009)

    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: Train Managers to Lead Through Change

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1-2 weeks

    Step 3.1: Train Your Managers to Lead Through the Change

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Go over the manager training workshop section of this deck.
    • Review the deliverables generated from the workshop (stakeholder engagement plan and conflict style self-assessment).

    Then complete these activities…

    • Conduct the workshop with your managers.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide
    • Organizational Design Implementation Stakeholder Engagement Plan Template

    Step 3.2: Debrief After the Workshop

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Discuss the outcomes of the manager training.
    • Mention any feedback.
    • High-level overview of the workshop deliverables.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Encourage participants to review and revise their stakeholder engagement plans.
    • Review the Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template and next steps.

    Get managers involved to address the majority of obstacles to successful change

    Managers all well-positioned to translate how the organizational change will directly impact individuals on their teams.

    Reasons Why Change Fails

    EMPLOYEE RESISTANCE TO CHANGE - 39%

    MANAGEMENT BEHAVIOR NOT SUPPORTIVE OF CHANGE - 33%

    INADEQUATE RESOURCE OR BUDGET - 14%

    OTHER OBSTACLES - 14%

    72% of change management issues can be directly improved by management.

    (Source: shmula)

    Why are managers crucial to organizational change?

    • Managers are extremely well-connected.
      • They have extensive horizontal and vertical networks spanning the organization.
      • Managers understand the informal networks of the organization.
    • Managers are valuable communicators.
      • Managers have established strong relationships with employees.
      • Managers influence the way staff perceive messaging.

    Conduct a workshop with managers to help them lead their teams through change

    Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide

    Give managers the tools and skills to support their employees and carry out difficult conversations.

    Understand the role of management in communicating the change

    Understand reactions to change

    Resolve conflict

    Respond to FAQs

    Monitor and measure employee engagement

    Prepare managers to effectively execute their role in the organizational change by running a 2-hour training workshop.

    Complete the activities on the following slides to:

    • Plan and prepare for the workshop.
    • Execute the group exercises.
    • Help managers develop stakeholder engagement plans for each of their employees.
    • Initiate the McLean Leadership Index™ survey to measure employee engagement.

    Plan and prepare for the workshop

    3.1 Plan and prepare for the workshop.

    Output

    • Workshop participants
    • Completed workshop prep

    Materials

    • Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide

    Instructions

    1. Create a list of all managers that will be responsible for leading their teams through the change.
    2. Select a date for the workshop.
      • The training session will run approximately 2 hours and should be scheduled within a week of when the implementation plan is communicated organization-wide.
    3. Review the material outlined in the presentation and prepare the Organizational Design Implementation Manager Training Guide for the workshop:
      • Copy and print the “Pre-workshop Facilitator Instructions” and “Facilitator Notes” located in the notes section below each slide.
      • Revise frequently asked questions (FAQs) and responses.
      • Delete instruction slides.

    Invite managers to the workshop

    Workshop Invitation Email Template

    Make necessary modifications to the Workshop Invitation Email Template and send invitations to managers.

    Hi ________,

    As you are aware, we are starting to roll out some of the initiatives associated with our organizational change mandate. A key component of our implementation plan is to ensure that managers are well-prepared to lead their teams through the transition.

    To help you proactively address the questions and concerns of your staff, and to ensure that the changes are implemented effectively, we will be conducting a workshop for managers on .

    While the change team is tasked with most of the duties around planning, implementing, and communicating the change organization-wide, you and other managers are responsible for ensuring that your employees understand how the change will impact them specifically. The workshop will prepare you for your role in implementing the organizational changes in the coming weeks, and help you refine the skills and techniques necessary to engage in challenging conversations, resolve conflicts, and reduce uncertainty.

    Please confirm your attendance for the workshop. We look forward to your participation.

    Kind regards,

    Change team

    Prepare managers for the change by helping them build useful deliverables

    ODI Stakeholder Engagement Plan Template & Conflict Style Self-Assessment

    Help managers create useful deliverables that continue to provide value after the workshop is completed.

    Workshop Deliverables

    Organizational Design Implementation Stakeholder Engagement Plan Template

    • Document the areas of change resistance, detachment, uncertainty, and support for each employee.
    • Document strategies to overcome resistance, increase engagement, reduce uncertainty, and leverage their support.
    • Create action items to execute after the workshop.

    Conflict Style Self-Assessment

    • Determine how you approach conflicts.
    • Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.
    • Identify ways to adopt different conflict styles depending on the situation.

    Book a follow-up meeting with managers and determine which strategies to Start, Stop, or Continue

    3.2 1 hour

    Output

    • Stakeholder engagement templates

    Materials

    • Sticky notes
    • Pen and paper

    Participants

    • Implementation Team
    • Managers
    1. Schedule a follow-up meeting 2–3 weeks after the workshop.
    2. Facilitate an open conversation on approaches and strategies that have been used or could be used to:
      • Overcome resistance
      • Increase engagement
      • Reduce uncertainty
      • Leverage support
    3. During the discussion, document ideas on the whiteboard.
    4. Have participants vote on whether the approaches and strategies should be started, stopped, or continued.
      • Start: actions that the team would like to begin.
      • Stop: actions that the team would like to stop.
      • Continue: actions that work for the team and should proceed.
    5. Encourage participants to review and revise their stakeholder engagement plans.

    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 The Change Maze

    Break the ice with an activity that illustrates the discomfort of unexpected change, and the value of timely and instructive communication.

    3.2 Perform a Change Management Retrospective

    Leverage the collective experience of the group. Share challenges and successes from previous organizational changes and apply those lessons to the current transition.

    3.3 Create a Stakeholder Engagement Plan

    Have managers identify areas of resistance, detachment, uncertainty, and support for each employee and share strategies for overcoming resistance and leveraging support to craft an action plan for each of their employees.

    3.4 Conduct a Conflict Style Self-Assessment

    Give participants an opportunity to better understand how they approach conflicts. Administer the Conflict Style Self-Assessment to identify conflict styles and jumpstart a conversation about how to effectively resolve conflicts.

    Transition your staff to their new roles

    Outcomes of this Section:

    • Identified key responsibilities to transition
    • Identified key relationships to be built
    • Built staff individual transition plans and timing

    This section involves the following participants:

    • All IT staff members

    Key Section Insight

    In order to ensure a smooth transition, you need to identify the transition scheduled for each employee. Knowing when they will retire and assume responsibilities and aligning this with the organizational transition will be crucial.

    Phase 3b 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 3b: Transition Staff to New Roles

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 2-4

    Step 4.1: Build Your Transition Plans

    Start with an analyst kick off call:

    • Review the Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template and its contents.
    • Return to the new org structure and project planning tool for information to fill in the template.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Present the template to your managers.
    • Have them fill in the template with their staff.
    • Approve the completed templates.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool
    • Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template

    Step 4.2: Finalize Your Transition Plans

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Discuss strategies for timing the transition of your employees.
    • Determine the readiness of your departments for transitioning.

    Then complete these activities…

    • Build a transition readiness timeline of your departments.
    • Move your employees to their new roles.

    With these tools & templates:

    • Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool
    • Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template

    Use Info-Tech’s transition plan template to map out all of the changes your employees will face during reorganization

    Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template

    • Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Design Implementation Transition Plan Template to document (in consultation with your employees) all of the changes individual staff members need to go through in order to transition into their new roles.
    • It provides a holistic view of all of the changes aligned to the change planning dimensions, including:
      • Current and new job responsibilities
      • Outstanding projects
      • Documenting where the employee may be moving
      • Technology changes
      • Required training
      • New relationships that need to be made
      • Risk mitigation
    • The template is designed to be completed by managers for their direct reports.

    Customize the transition plan template for all affected staff members

    4.1 30 minutes per employee

    Output

    • Completed transition plans

    Materials

    • Individual transition plan templates (for each employee)

    Participants

    • Implementation Team
    • Managers
    1. Implementation team members should hold one-on-one meetings with the managers from the departments they represent to go through the transition plan template.
    2. Some elements of the transition plan can be completed at the initial meeting with knowledge from the implementation team and documentation from the new organizational structure:
      • Employee information (except for the planned transition date)
      • New job responsibilities
      • Logistics and technology changes
      • Relationships (recommendations can be made about beneficial relationships to form if the employee is transitioning to a new role)
    3. After the meeting, managers can continue filling in information based on their own knowledge of their employees:
      • Current job responsibilities
      • Outstanding projects
      • Training (identify gaps in the employee’s knowledge if their role is changing)
      • Risks (potential concerns or problems for the employee during the reorganization)

    Verify and complete the individual transition plans by holding one-on-one meetings with the staff

    4.2 30 minutes per employee

    Output

    • Completed transition plans

    Materials

    • Individual transition plan templates (for each employee)

    Participants

    • Managers
    • Staff (Managers’ Direct Reports)
    1. After the managers complete everything they can in the transition plan templates, they should schedule one-on-one meetings with their staff to review the completed document to ensure the information is correct.
    2. Begin the meeting by verifying the elements that require the most information from the employee:
      • Current job responsibilities
      • Outstanding projects
      • Risks (ask about any problems or concerns they may have about the reorganization)
    3. Discuss the following elements of the transition plan to get feedback:
      • Training (ask if there is any training they feel they may need to be successful at the organization)
      • Relationships (determine if there are any relationships that the employee would like to develop that you may have missed)
    4. Since this may be the first opportunity that the staff member has had to discuss their new role (if they are moving to one), review their new job title and new job responsibilities with them. If employees are prepared for their new role, they may feel more accountable for quickly adopting the reorganization.
    5. Document any questions that they may have so that they can be answered in future communications from the implementation team.
    6. After completing the template, managers will sign off on the document in the approval section.

    Validate plans with organizational change project manager and build the transition timeline

    4.3 3 hours

    Input

    • Individual transition plans
    • Organizational Design Implementation Project Planning Tool

    Output

    • Timeline outlining departmental transition readiness

    Materials

    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Implementation Project Manager
    • Implementation Team
    • Managers
    1. After receiving all of the completed individual transition plan templates from managers, members of the implementation team need to approve the contents of the templates (for the departments that they represent).
    2. Review the logistics and technology requirements for transition in each of the templates and align them with the completion dates of the related projects in the Project Planning Tool. These dates will serve as the earliest possible time to transition the employee. Use the latest date from the list to serve as the date that the whole department will be ready to transition.
    3. Hand the approved transition plan templates and the dates at which the departments will be ready for transitioning to the Implementation Project Manager.
    4. The Project Manager needs to verify the contents of the transition plans and approve them.
    5. On a calendar or whiteboard, list the dates that each department will be ready for transitioning.
    6. Review the master copy of the Project Planning Tool. Determine if the outstanding projects limit your ability to transition the departments (when they are ready to transition). Change the ready dates of the departments to align with the completion dates of those projects.
    7. Use these dates to determine the timeline for when you would like to transition your employees to their new roles.

    Overcoming inexperience by training managers to lead through change

    CASE STUDY

    Industry: Manufacturing

    Source: CIO

    Challenge

    The IT department had not undergone a major reorganization in several years. When they last reorganized, they experienced high turnover and decreased business satisfaction with IT.

    Many of the managers were new to their roles and only one of them had been around for the earlier reorganization. They lacked experience in leading their staff through major organizational changes.

    One of the major problems they faced was addressing the concerns, fears, and resistance of their staff properly.

    Solution

    The implementation team ran a workshop for all of the managers in the department to train them on the change and how to communicate the impending changes to their staff. The workshop included information on resistance and conflict resolution.

    The workshop was conducted early on in the planning phases of the reorganization so that any rumors or gossip could be addressed properly and quickly.

    Results

    The reorganization was well accepted by the staff due to the positive reinforcement from their managers. Rumors and gossip about the reorganization were under control and the staff adopted the new organizational structure quickly.

    Engagement levels of the staff were maintained and actually improved by 5% immediately after the reorganization.

    Voluntary turnover was minimal throughout the change as opposed to the previous reorganization where they lost 10% of their staff. There was an estimated cost savings of $250,000–$300,000.

    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:

    3.2.1 Build Your Staff Transition Plan

    Review the contends of the staff transition plan, and using the organizational change map as a guide, build the transition schedule for one employee.

    3.2.1 Review the Transition Plan With the Transition Team

    Review and validate the results for your transition team schedule with other team members. As a group, discuss what makes this exercise difficult and any ideas for how to simplify the exercise.

    Works cited

    American Productivity and Quality Center. “Motivation Strategies.” Potentials Magazine. Dec. 2004. Web. November 2014.

    Bersin, Josh. “Time to Scrap Performance Appraisals?” Forbes Magazine. 5 June 2013. Web. 30 Oct 2013.

    Bridges, William. Managing Transitions, 3rd Ed. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2009.

    Buckley, Phil. Change with Confidence – Answers to the 50 Biggest Questions that Keep Change Leaders up at Night. Canada: Jossey-Bass, 2013.

    “Change and project management.” Change First. 2014. Web. December 2009. <http://www.changefirst.com/uploads/documents/Change_and_project_management.pdf>.

    Cheese, Peter, et al. “Creating an Agile Organization.” Accenture. Oct. 2009. Web. Nov. 2013.

    Croxon, Bruce et al. “Dinner Series: Performance Management with Bruce Croxon from CBC's 'Dragon's Den.'” HRPA Toronto Chapter. Sheraton Hotel, Toronto, ON. 12 Nov. 2013. Panel discussion.

    Culbert, Samuel. “10 Reasons to Get Rid of Performance Reviews.” Huffington Post Business. 18 Dec. 2012. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-culbert/performance-reviews_b_2325104.html>.

    Denning, Steve. “The Case Against Agile: Ten Perennial Management Objections.” Forbes Magazine. 17 Apr. 2012. Web. Nov. 2013.

    Works cited cont.

    “Establish A Change Management Structure.” Human Technology. Web. December 2014.

    Estis, Ryan. “Blowing up the Performance Review: Interview with Adobe’s Donna Morris.” Ryan Estis & Associates. 17 June 2013. Web. Oct. 2013. <http://ryanestis.com/adobe-interview/>.

    Ford, Edward L. “Leveraging Recognition: Noncash incentives to Improve Performance.” Workspan Magazine. Nov 2006. Web. Accessed May 12, 2014.

    Gallup, Inc. “Gallup Study: Engaged Employees Inspire Company Innovation.” Gallup Management Journal. 12 Oct. 2006. Web. 12 Jan 2012.

    Gartside, David, et al. “Trends Reshaping the Future of HR.” Accenture. 2013. Web. 5 Nov. 2013.

    Grenville-Cleave, Bridget. “Change and Negative Emotions.” Positive Psychology News Daily. 2009.

    Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Portland: Broadway Books. 2010.

    HR Commitment AB. Communicating organizational change. 2008.

    Keller, Scott, and Carolyn Aiken. “The Inconvenient Truth about Change Management.” McKinsey & Company, 2009. <http://www.mckinsey.com/en.aspx>.

    Works cited cont.

    Kotter, John. “LeadingChange: Why Transformation Efforts Fail.” Harvard Business Review. March-April 1995. <http://hbr.org>.

    Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth and David Kessler. On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss. New York: Scribner. 2007.

    Lowlings, Caroline. “The Dangers of Changing without Change Management.” The Project Manager Magazine. December 2012. Web. December 2014. <http://changestory.co.za/the-dangers-of-changing-without-change-management/>.

    “Managing Change.” Innovative Edge, Inc. 2011. Web. January 2015. <http://www.getcoherent.com/managing.html>.

    Muchinsky, Paul M. Psychology Applied to Work. Florence: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.

    Nelson, Kate and Stacy Aaron. The Change Management Pocket Guide, First Ed., USA: Change Guides LLC, 2005.

    Nguyen Huy, Quy. “In Praise of Middle Managers.” Harvard Business Review. 2001. Web. December 2014. <https://hbr.org/2001/09/in-praise-of-middle-managers/ar/1>

    “Only One-Quarter of Employers Are Sustaining Gains From Change Management Initiatives, Towers Watson Survey Finds.” Towers Watson. August 2013. Web. January 2015. <http://www.towerswatson.com/en/Press/2013/08/Only-One-Quarter-of-Employers-Are-Sustaining-Gains-From-Change-Management>.

    Shmula. “Why Transformation Efforts Fail.” Shmula.com. September 28, 2009. <http://www.shmula.com/why-transformation-efforts-fail/1510/>

    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

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: Asset Management
    • Parent Category Link: /asset-management

    You have a mandate to create an accurate and actionable database of the IT assets in your environment, but:

    • The data you have is often incomplete or wrong.
    • Processes are broken or non-existent.
    • Your tools aren’t up to the task of tracking ever more hardware, software, and relevant metadata.
    • The role of stakeholders outside the core ITAM team isn’t well defined or understood.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    ITAM is a foundational IT service that provides accurate, accessible, actionable data on IT assets. But there’s no value in data for data’s sake. Enable collaboration between IT asset managers, business leaders, and IT leaders to develop an ITAM strategy that maximizes the value they can deliver as service providers.

    Impact and Result

    • Develop an approach and strategy for ITAM that is sustainable and aligned with your business priorities.
    • Clarify the structure for the ITAM program, including scope, responsibility and accountability, centralization vs. decentralization, outsourcing vs. insourcing, and more.
    • Create a practical roadmap to guide improvement.
    • Summarize your strategy and approach using Info-Tech’s templates for review with stakeholders.

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy Research & Tools

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

    1. Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy – A methodology to create a business-aligned, coherent, and durable approach to ITAM.

    This two-phase, step-by-step methodology will guide you through the activities to build a business-aligned, coherent, and durable approach to ITAM. Review the executive brief at the start of the slide deck for an overview of the methodology and the value it can provide to your organization.

    • Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy – Phases 1-2

    2. ITAM Strategy Template – A presentation-ready repository for the work done as you define your ITAM approach.

    Use this template to document your IT asset management strategy and approach.

    • ITAM Strategy Template

    3. IT Asset Estimations Tracker – A rough-and-ready inventory exercise to help you evaluate the work ahead of you.

    Use this tool to estimate key data points related to your IT asset estate, as well as your confidence in your estimates.

    • IT Asset Estimations Tracker

    Infographic

    Workshop: Develop an IT Asset Management 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 Identify ITAM Priorities & Goals, Maturity, Metrics and KPIs

    The Purpose

    Align key stakeholders to the potential strategic value of the IT asset management practice.

    Ensure the ITAM practice is focused on business-aligned goals.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Define a business-aligned direction and expected outcomes for your ITAM program.

    Activities

    1.1 Brainstorm ITAM opportunities and challenges.

    1.2 Conduct an executive alignment working session.

    1.3 Set ITAM priorities, goals and tactics.

    1.4 Identify target and current state ITAM maturity.

    Outputs

    ITAM opportunities and challenges

    Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities.

    ITAM metrics and KPIs

    ITAM maturity

    2 Identify Your Approach to Support ITAM Priorities and Goals

    The Purpose

    Translate goals into specific and coherent actions to enable your ITAM practice to deliver business value.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A business-aligned approach to ITAM, encompassing scope, structure, tools, audits, budgets, documentation and more.

    A high-level roadmap to achieve your vision for the ITAM practice.

    Activities

    2.1 Define ITAM scope.

    2.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting).

    2.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.

    2.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.

    2.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.

    2.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.

    2.7 Create a plan for internal and external audits.

    2.8 Improve your budget processes.

    2.9 Establish a documentation framework.

    2.10 Create a roadmap and communication plan.

    Outputs

    Your ITAM approach

    ITAM roadmap and communication plan

    Further reading

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

    Define your business-aligned approach to ITAM.

    Table of Contents

    4 Analyst Perspective

    5 Executive Summary

    17 Phase 1: Establish Business-Aligned ITAM Goals and Priorities

    59 Phase 2: Support ITAM Goals and Priorities

    116 Bibliography

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

    Define your business-aligned approach to ITAM.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Track hardware and software. Seems easy, right?

    It’s often taken for granted that IT can easily and accurately provide definitive answers to questions like “how many laptops do we have at Site 1?” or “do we have the right number of SQL licenses?” or “how much do we need to budget for device replacements next year?” After all, don’t we know what we have?

    IT can’t easily provide these answers because to do so you must track hardware and software throughout its lifecycle – which is not easy. And unfortunately, you often need to respond to these questions on very short notice because of an audit or to support a budgeting exercise.

    IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the solution. It’s not a new solution – the discipline has been around for decades. But the key to success is to deploy the practice in a way that is sustainable, right-sized, and maximizes value.

    Use our practical methodology to develop and document your approach to ITAM that is aligned with the goals of your organization.

    Photo of Andrew Sharp, Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Andrew Sharp
    Research Director
    Infrastructure & Operations Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Realize the value of asset management

    Cost optimization, application rationalization and reduction of technical debt are all considered valuable to right-size spending and improve service outcomes. Without access to accurate data, these activities require significant investments of time and effort, starting with creation of point-in-time inventories, which lengthens the timeline to reaching project value and may still not be accurate.

    Cost optimization and reduction of technical debt should be part of your culture and technical roadmap rather than one-off projects. Why? Access to accurate information enables the organization to quickly make decisions and pivot plans as needed. Through asset management, ongoing harvest and redeployment of assets improves utilization-to-spend ratios. We would never see any organization saying, “We’ve closed our year end books, let’s fire the accountants,” but often see this valuable service relegated to the back burner. Similar to the philosophy that “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the next best time is now,” the sooner you can start to collect, validate, and analyze data, the sooner you will find value in it.

    Photo of Sandi Conrad, Principal Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Sandi Conrad
    Principal Research Director
    Infrastructure & Operations Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    You have a mandate to create an accurate and actionable database of the IT assets in your environment, but:

    • The data you have is often incomplete or wrong.
    • Processes are broken or non-existent.
    • Your tools aren’t up to the task of tracking ever more hardware, software, and relevant metadata.
    • The role of stakeholders outside the core ITAM team isn’t well defined or understood.
    Common Obstacles

    It is challenging to make needed changes because:

    • There’s cultural resistance to asset tracking, it’s seen as busywork that doesn’t clearly create value.
    • Decentralized IT teams aren’t generating the data required to track hardware and licenses.
    • ITAM can’t direct needed tool improvements because the admins don’t report to ITAM.
    • It’s hard to find time to improve processes given the day-to-day demands on your time.
    Info-Tech’s Approach
    • Develop an approach and strategy for ITAM that is sustainable and aligned with your business priorities.
    • Clarify the structure for the ITAM program, including scope, responsibility and accountability, centralization vs. decentralization, outsourcing vs. insourcing, and more.
    • Create a practical roadmap to guide improvement.
    • Summarize your strategy and approach using Info-Tech’s templates for review with stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Insight

    ITAM is a foundational IT service that provides accurate, accessible, actionable data on IT assets. But there’s no value in data for data’s sake. Enable collaboration between IT asset managers, business leaders, and IT leaders to develop an ITAM strategy that maximizes the value they can deliver as service providers.

    Unlock business value with IT asset management

    • IT asset management (ITAM) is the practice of maintaining accurate, accessible, and actionable data on the assets within the organization’s IT estate. Each IT asset will have a record that tracks it across its lifecycle from purchase to disposal.
    • ITAM’s value is realized through other processes and practice areas that can leverage ITAM data to manage risk, improve IT services, and control costs.
    • Develop an approach to ITAM that maximizes the value delivered to the business and IT. ITAM succeeds when its partners succeed at delivering business value, and it fails when it doesn’t show value to those partners.

    This blueprint will help you develop your approach for the management of IT hardware and software, including cloud services. Leverage other Info-Tech methodologies to dive directly into developing hardware asset management procedures, software asset management procedures, or to implement configuration management best practices.

    Info-Tech Members report significant savings from implementing our hardware and software asset management frameworks. In order to maximize value from the process-focused methodologies below, develop your ITAM strategy first.

    Implement Hardware Asset Management (Based on Info-Tech Measured Value Surveys results from clients working through these blueprints, as of February 2022.)

    9.6/10

    $23k

    32

    Overall Impact Average $ Saved Average Days Saved
    Implement Software Asset Management (Based on Info-Tech Measured Value Surveys results from clients working through these blueprints, as of February 2022.)

    9.0/10

    $12k

    5

    Overall Impact Average $ Saved Average Days Saved

    ITAM provides both early and ongoing value

    ITAM isn’t one-and-done. Properly supported, your ITAM practice will deliver up-front value that will help demonstrate the value ongoing ITAM can offer through the maintenance of an accurate, accessible, and actionable ITAM database.

    Example: Software Savings from ITAM



    This chart shows the money saved between the first quote and the final price for software and maintenance by a five-person ITAM team. Over a year and a half, they saved their organization a total of $7.5 million from a first quote total of $21 million over that period.

    This is a perfect example of the direct value that ITAM can provide on an ongoing basis to the organization, when properly supported and integrated with IT and the business.

    Examples of up-front value delivered in the first year of the ITAM practice:

    • Save money by reviewing and renegotiating critical, high-spend, and undermanaged software and service contracts.
    • Redeploy or dispose of clearly unused hardware and software.
    • Develop and enforce standards for basic hardware and software.
    • Improve ITAM data quality and build trust in the results.

    Examples of long-term value from ongoing governance, management, and operational ITAM activities:

    • Optimize spend: 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. Develop new solutions with an understanding of what you have already.

    Common obstacles

    The rulebook is available, but hard to follow
    • ITAM takes a village, but stakeholders aren’t aware of their role. ITAM processes rely on technicians to update asset records, vendors to supply asset data, administrators to manage tools, leadership to provide direction and support, and more.
    • Constant change in the IT and business environment undermines the accuracy of ITAM records (e.g. licensing and contract changes, technology changes that break discovery tools, personnel and organizational changes).
    • Improvement efforts are overwhelmed by day-to-day activities. One study found that 83% of SAM teams’ time is consumed by audit-related activities. (Flexera State of ITAM Report 2022) A lack of improvement becomes a vicious cycle when stakeholders who don’t see the value of ITAM decline to dedicate resources for improvement.
    • Stakeholders expect ITAM tools to be a cure-all, but even at their best, they can’t provide needed answers without some level of configuration, manual input, and supervision.
    • There’s often a struggle to connect ITAM to value. For example, respondents to Info-Tech’s Management & Governance Diagnostic consistently rank ITAM as less important than other processes that ITAM directly supports (e.g. budget management and budget optimization). (Info-Tech MGD Diagnostic (n=972 unique organizations))
    ITAM is a mature discipline with well-established standards, certifications, and tools, but we still struggle with it.
    • Only 28% of SAM teams track IaaS and PaaS spend, and only 35% of SAM teams track SaaS usage.
    • Increasing SAM maturity is a challenge for 76% of organizations.
    • 10% of organizations surveyed have spent more than $5 million in the last three years in audit penalties and true-ups.
    • Half of all of organizations lack a viable SAM tool.
    • Seventy percent of SAM teams have a shortfall of qualified resources.
    • (Flexera State of ITAM Report 2022)

    Info-Tech's IT Asset Management Framework (ITAM)

    Adopt, manage, and mature activities to enable business value thorugh actionable, accessible, and accurate ITAM data

    Logo for Info-Tech Research Group. Enable Business Value Logo for #iTRG.
    Business-Aligned Spend
    Optimization and Transparency
    Facilitate IT Services
    and Products
    Actionable, Accessible,
    and Accurate Data
    Context-Aware Risk Management
    and Security Controls

    Plan & Govern

    Business Goals, Risks, and Structure
    • ITAM Goals & Priorities
    • Roles, Accountability, Responsibilities
    • Scope
    Ongoing Management Commitment
    • Resourcing & Funding
    • Policies & Enforcement
    • Continuous Improvement
    Culture
    • ITAM Education, Awareness & Training
    • Organizational Change Management
    Section title 'Operate' with a cycle surrounding key components of Operate: 'Data Collection & Validation', 'Tool Administration', 'License Management', and 'Lease Management'. The cycle consists of 'Request', 'Procure', 'Receive', 'Deploy', 'Manage', 'Retire & Dispose', and back to 'Request'.

    Build & Manage

    Tools & Data
    • ITAM Tool Selection & Deployment
    • Configuration Management Synchronization
    • IT Service Management Integration
    Process
    • Process Management
    • Data & Process Audits
    • Document Management
    People, Policies, and Providers
    • Stakeholder Management
    • Technology Standardization
    • Vendor & Contract Management

    Info-Tech Insight

    ITAM is a foundational IT service that provides actionable, accessible, and accurate data on IT assets. But there's no value in data for data's sake. Use this methodology to enable collaboration between ITAM, the business, and IT to develop an approach to ITAM that maximizes the value the ITAM team can deliver as service providers.

    Key deliverable

    IT asset management requires ongoing practice – you can’t just implement it and walk away.

    Our methodology will help you build a business-aligned strategy and approach for your ITAM practice with the following outputs:

    • Business-aligned ITAM priorities, opportunities, and goals.
    • Current and target state ITAM maturity.
    • Metrics and KPIs.
    • Roles, responsibilities, and accountability.
    • Insourcing, outsourcing, and (de)centralization.
    • Tools and technology.
    • A documentation framework.
    • Initiatives, a roadmap, and a communication plan.
    Each step of this blueprint is designed to help you create your IT asset management strategy:
    Sample of Info-Tech's key deliverable 'IT Asset Management' blueprint.

    Info-Tech’s methodology to develop an IT asset management strategy

    1. Establish business-aligned ITAM goals and priorities 2. Identify your approach to support ITAM priorities and goals
    Phase Steps
    • 1.1 Define ITAM and brainstorm opportunities and challenges.
    • Executive Alignment Working Session:
    • 1.2 Review organizational priorities, strategy, and key initiatives.
    • 1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities and priorities.
    • 1.4 Identify business-aligned ITAM goals and target maturity.
    • 1.5 Write mission and vision statements.
    • 1.6 Define ITAM metrics and KPIs.
    • 2.1 Define ITAM scope.
    • 2.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting).
    • 2.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.
    • 2.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.
    • 2.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.
    • 2.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.
    • 2.7 Create a plan for internal and external audits.
    • 2.8 Improve your budget processes.
    • 2.9 Establish a documentation framework.
    • 2.10 Create a roadmap and communication plan.
    Phase Outcomes Defined, business-aligned goals and priorities for ITAM. Establish an approach to achieving ITAM goals and priorities including scope, structure, tools, service management integrations, documentation, and more.
    Project Outcomes Develop an approach and strategy for ITAM that is sustainable and aligned with your business priorities.

    Insight Summary

    There’s no value in data for data’s sake

    ITAM is a foundational IT service that provides accurate, accessible, actionable data on IT assets. Enable collaboration between IT asset managers, business leaders, and IT leaders to develop an approach to ITAM that maximizes the value they can deliver as service providers.

    Service provider to a service provider

    ITAM is often viewed (when it’s viewed at all) as a low-value administrative task that doesn’t directly drive business value. This can make it challenging to build a case for funding and resources.

    Your ITAM strategy is a critical component to help you define how ITAM can best deliver value to your organization, and to stop creating data for the sake of data or just to fight the next fire.

    Collaboration over order-taking

    To align ITAM practices to deliver organizational value, you need a very clear understanding of the organization’s goals – both in the moment and as they change over time.

    Ensure your ITAM team has clear line of sight to business strategy, objectives, and decision-makers, so you can continue to deliver value as priorities change

    Embrace dotted lines

    ITAM teams rely heavily on staff, systems, and data beyond their direct area of control. Identify how you will influence key stakeholders, including technicians, administrators, and business partners.

    Help them understand how ITAM success relies on their support, and highlight how their contributions have created organizational value to encourage ongoing support.

    Project benefits

    Benefits for IT
    • Set a foundation and direction for an ITAM practice that will allow IT to manage risk, optimize spend, and enhance services in line with business requirements.
    • Establish accountability and responsibility for essential ITAM activities. Decide where to centralize or decentralize accountability and authority. Identify where outsourcing could add value.
    • Create a roadmap with concrete, practical next steps to develop an effective, right-sized ITAM practice.
    Stock image of a trophy. Benefits for the business
    • Plan and control technology spend with confidence based on trustworthy ITAM data.
    • Enhance IT’s ability to rapidly and effectively support new priorities and launch new projects. Effective ITAM can support more streamlined procurement, deployment, and management of assets.
    • Implement security controls that reflect your total technology footprint. Reduce the risk that a forgotten device or unmanaged software turns your organization into the next Colonial Pipeline.

    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 around 12 calls over the course of 6 months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #2: Review business priorities.

    Call #3: Identify ITAM goals & target maturity.

    Call #4: Identify metrics and KPIs. Call #5: Define ITAM scope.

    Call #6: Acquire ITAM services.

    Call #7: ITAM structure and RACI.

    Call #8: ITAM and service management.

    Tools and integrations.

    Call #10: Internal and external audits.

    Call #11: Budgets & documentation

    Call #12: Roadmap, comms plan. Wrap-up.

    Phase 1 Phase 2

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com1-888-670-8889
    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Identify ITAM priorities & goals, maturity, metrics and KPIs
    Identify your approach to support ITAM priorities and goals
    Next Steps and wrap-Up (offsite)
    Activities

    1.1 Define ITAM.

    1.2 Brainstorm ITAM opportunities and challenges.

    Conduct an executive alignment working session:

    1.3 Review organizational priorities, strategy, and key initiatives.

    1.4 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities.

    1.5 Set ITAM priorities.

    2.1 Translate opportunities into ITAM goals and tactics.

    2.2 Identify target and current state ITAM maturity.

    2.3 Create mission and vision statements.

    2.4 Identify key ITAM metrics and KPIs.

    3.1 Define ITAM scope.

    3.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting)

    3.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.

    3.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.

    3.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.

    3.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.

    4.1 Create a plan for internal and external audits.

    4.2 Improve your budget processes.

    4.3 Establish a documentation framework and identify documentation gaps.

    4.4 Create a roadmap and 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. ITAM opportunities and challenges.
    2. Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities.
    3. Set ITAM priorities.
    1. ITAM goals and tactics.
    2. Current and target ITAM maturity.
    3. Mission and vision statements.
    4. ITAM metrics and KPIs.
    1. Decisions that will shape your ITAM approach, including:
      1. What’s in scope (hardware, software, and cloud services).
      2. Where to centralize, decentralize, or outsource ITAM activities.
      3. Accountability, responsibility, and structure for ITAM activities.
      4. Service management alignment, tooling gaps, audit plans, budget processes, and required documentation.
    2. A roadmap and communication plan.
    1. Your completed ITAM strategy template.
    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

    Phase 1:

    Establish business-aligned ITAM goals and priorities

    Phase 1

    1.1 Define ITAM and brainstorm opportunities and challenges.

    Executive Alignment Working Session:

    1.2 Review organizational priorities, strategy, and key initiatives.

    1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities & priorities.

    1.4 Identify business-aligned ITAM goals and target maturity.

    1.5 Write mission and vision statements.

    1.6 Define ITAM metrics and KPIs.

    Phase 2

    2.1 Define ITAM scope.

    2.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting).

    2.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.

    2.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.

    2.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.

    2.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.

    2.7 Create a plan for internal and external audits.

    2.8 Improve your budget processes.

    2.9 Establish a documentation framework.

    2.10 Create a roadmap and communication plan.

    Phase Outcomes:

    Defined, business-aligned goals, priorities, and KPIs for ITAM. A concise vision and mission statement. The direction you need to establish a practical, right-sized, effective approach to ITAM for your organization.

    Before you get started

    Set yourself up for success with these three steps:
    • This methodology and the related slides are intended to be executed via intensive, collaborative working sessions using the rest of this slide deck.
    • Ensure the working sessions are a success by working through these steps before you start work on your IT asset management strategy.

    1. Identify participants

    Review recommended roles and identify who should participate in the development of your ITAM strategy.

    2. Estimate assets managed today

    Work through an initial assessment to establish ease of access to ITAM data and your level of trust in the data available to you.

    3. Create a working folder

    Create a repository to house your notes and any work in progress, including your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template.

    0.1 Identify participants

    30 minutes

    Output: List of key roles for the strategy exercises outlined in this methodology

    Participants: Project sponsor, Lead facilitator, ITAM manager and SMEs

    This methodology relies on having the right stakeholders in the room to identify ITAM goals, challenges, roles, structure, and more. On each activity slide in this deck, you’ll see an outline of the recommended participants. Use the table below to translate the recommended roles into specific people in your organization. Note that some people may fill multiple roles.

    Role Expectations People
    Project Sponsor Accountable for the overall success of the methodology. Ideally, participates in all exercises in this methodology. May be the asset manager or whoever they report to. Jake Long
    Lead Facilitator Leads, schedules, and manages all working sessions. Guides discussions and ensures activity outputs are completed. Owns and understands the methodology. Has a working knowledge of ITAM. Robert Loblaw
    Asset Manager(s) SME for the ITAM practice. Provides strategic direction to mature ITAM practices in line with organizational goals. Supports the facilitator. Eve Maldonado
    ITAM Team Hands-on ITAM professionals and SMEs. Includes the asset manager. Provide input on tactical ITAM opportunities and challenges. Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent
    IT Leaders & Managers Leaders of key stakeholder groups from across the IT department – the CIO and direct reports. Provide input on what IT needs from ITAM, and the role their teams should play in ITAM activities. May include delegates, particularly those familiar with day-to-day processes relevant to a particular discussion or exercise. Marcelina Hardy, Edmund Broughton
    ITAM Business Partners Non-IT business stakeholders for ITAM. This could include procurement, vendor management, accounting, and others. Zhang Jin, Effie Lamont
    Business Executives Organizational leaders and executives (CFO, COO, CEO, and others) or their delegates. Will participate in a mini-workshop to identify organizational goals and initiatives that can present opportunities for the ITAM practice. Jermaine Mandar, Miranda Kosuth

    0.2 Estimate asset numbers

    1 hour

    Output: Estimates of quantity and spend related to IT assets, Confidence/margin of error on estimates

    Participants: IT asset manager, ITAM team

    What do you know about your current IT environment, and how confident are you in that knowledge?

    This exercise will help you evaluate the size of the challenge ahead in terms of the raw number of assets in your environment, the spend on those assets, and the level of trust your organization has in the ITAM data.

    It is also a baseline snapshot your ability to relay key ITAM metrics quickly and confidently, so you can measure progress (in terms of greater confidence) over time.

    1. Download the estimation tracker below. Add any additional line items that are particularly important to the organization.
    2. Time-box this exercise to an hour. Use your own knowledge and existing data repositories to identify count/spend for each line item, then add a margin of error to your guess. Larger margins of error on larger counts will typically indicate larger risks.
    3. Track any assumptions, data sources used, or SMEs consulted in the comments.

    Download the IT Asset Estimation Tracker

    “Any time there is doubt about the data and it doesn’t get explained or fixed, then a new spreadsheet is born. Data validation and maintenance is critical to avoid the hidden costs of having bad data”

    Allison Kinnaird,
    Operations Practice Lead,
    Info-Tech Research Group

    0.3 Create a working folder

    15 minutes

    Output: A repository for templates and work in progress

    Participants: Lead facilitator

    Create a central repository for collaboration – it seems like an obvious step, but it’s one that gets forgotten about
    1. Download a copy of the ITAM Strategy Template.
      1. This will be the repository for all the work you do in the activities listed in this blueprint; take a moment to read it through and familiarize yourself with the contents.
    2. House the template in a shared repository that can house other related work in progress. Share this folder with participants so they can check in on your progress.
    3. You’ll see this callout box: Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template as you work through activities in this blueprint. Copy the output to the appropriate slide in the ITAM Strategy Template.
    Stock image of a computer screen with a tiny person putting likes on things.

    Collect action items as you go

    Don’t wait until the end to write down your good ideas.
    • The last exercise in this methodology is to gather everything you’ve learned and build a roadmap to improve the ITAM practice.
    • The output of the exercises will inform the roadmap, as they will highlight areas with opportunities for improvement.
    • Write them down as you work through the exercises, or you risk forgetting valuable ideas.
    • Keep an “idea space” – a whiteboard with sticky notes or a shared document – to which any of your participants can post an idea for improvement and that you can review and consolidate later.
    • Encourage participants to add their ideas at any time during the exercises.
    Pad of sticky notes, the top of which reads 'Good ideas go here!'

    Step 1.1: Brainstorm ITAM opportunities and challenges

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Rally the working group around a collection of ideas that, when taken together, create a vision for the future ITAM practice.
    • Identify your organization’s current ITAM challenges.

    “ITAM is a cultural shift more than a technology shift.” (Rory Canavan, SAM Charter)

    What is an IT Asset?

    Any piece of technology can be considered an asset, but it doesn’t mean you need to track everything. Image of three people building a computer from the inside.
    Icon of a power button.

    According to the ISO 19770 standard on ITAM, an IT Asset is “[an] item, thing, or entity that can be used to acquire, process, store and distribute digital information and has potential or actual value to an organization.”
    These are all things that IT is expected to support and manage, or that have the potential to directly impact services that IT supports and manages.

    Icon of a half-full battery.

    IT assets are distinct from capital assets. Some IT assets will also be capital assets, but not all will be. And not all capital assets are IT assets, either.

    Icon of a microphone.

    IT assets are typically tracked by IT, not by finance or accounting.
    IT needs more from their IT asset tracking system than the typical finance department can deliver.
    This can include end-user devices, software, IT infrastructure, cloud-based resources, third-party managed IT services, Internet-of-Things devices, embedded electronics, SCADA equipment, “smart” devices, and more.

    Icon of a fingerprint.

    It’s important to track IT assets in a way that enables IT to deliver value to the business – and an important part of this is understanding what not to track. This list should be aligned to the needs of your organization.

    What is IT asset management?

    • IT asset management is the practice of maintaining accurate, accessible, and actionable data on IT hardware, software, and cloud assets from procurement to disposal.
    • Trustworthy data maintained by an IT asset management practice will help your business meet its goals by managing risk, controlling costs, and enabling IT services and products.
    • ITAM tends to focus on the asset itself – its technical, financial, contractual, lifecycle, and ownership attributes – rather than its interactions or connections to other IT assets, which tends to be part of configuration management.

    What IT Asset Management is NOT:

    Configuration Management: Configuration management databases (CMDBs) often draw from the same data pool as ITAM (many configuration items are assets, and vice versa), but they focus on the interaction, interconnection, and interoperation of configuration items within the IT estate.

    In practice, many configuration items will be IT assets (or parts of assets) and vice versa. Configuration and asset teams should work closely together as they develop different but complementary views of the IT environment. Use Info-Tech’s methodology to harness configuration management superpowers.

    Organizational Data Management: Leverage a different Info-Tech methodology to develop a digital and data asset management program within Info-Tech’s DAM framework.

    “Asset management’s job is not to save the organization money, it’s not to push back on software audits.

    It’s to keep the asset database as up-to-date and as trustworthy as possible. That’s it.” (Jeremy Boerger, Consultant & Author)

    “You can’t make any real decisions on CMDB data that’s only 60% accurate.

    You start extrapolating that out, you’re going to get into big problems.” (Mike Austin, Founder & CEO, MetrixData 360)

    What is an ITAM strategy?

    Our strategy document will outline a coherent, sustainable, business-aligned approach to ITAM.

    No single approach to ITAM fits all organizations. Nor will the same approach fit the same organization at different times. A world-leading research university, a state government, and a global manufacturer all have very different goals and priorities that will be best supported by different approaches to ITAM.

    This methodology will walk you through these critical decisions that will define your approach to ITAM:

    • Business-aligned priorities, opportunities, and goals: What pressing opportunities and challenges do we face as an organization? What opportunities does this create that ITAM can seize?
    • Current and future state maturity, challenges: What is the state of the practice today? Where do we need to improve to meet our goals? What challenges stand in the way of improvement?
    • Responsibility, accountability, sourcing and (de)centralization: Who does what? Who is accountable? Where is there value to outsourcing? What authority will be centralized or decentralized?
    • Tools, policies, and procedures: What technology do we need? What’s our documentation framework?
    • Initiatives, KPIs, communication plan, and roadmap: What do we need to do, in what order, to build the ITAM practice to where we need it to be? How long do we expect this to take? How will we measure success?

    “A good strategy has coherence, coordinating actions, policies, and resources so as to accomplish an important end. Most organizations, most of the time, don’t have this.

    Instead, they have multiple goals and initiatives that symbolize progress, but no coherent approach to accomplish that progress other than ‘spend more and try harder.’” (Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt)

    Enable business value with IT asset management

    If you’ve never experienced a mature ITAM program before, it is almost certainly more rewarding than you’d expect once it’s functioning as intended.

    Each of the below activities can benefit from accessible, actionable, and accurate ITAM data.

    • Which of the activities, practices, and initiatives below have value to your organization?
    • Which could benefit most from ITAM data?
    Manage Risk: Effective ITAM practices provide data and processes that help mitigate the likelihood and impact of potentially damaging IT risks.

    ITAM supports the following practices that help manage organizational risk:

    • Security Controls Development
    • Security Incident Response
    • Security Audit Reports
    • Regulatory Compliance Reports
    • IT Risk Management
    • Technical Debt Management
    • M&A Due Diligence
    Optimize Spend: Asset data is essential to maintaining oversight of IT spend, ensuring that scarce resources are allocated where they can have the most impact.

    ITAM supports these activities that help optimize spend:

    • Vendor Management & Negotiations
    • IT Budget Management & Variance Analysis
    • Asset Utilization Analysis
    • FinOps & Cloud Spend Optimization
    • Showback & Chargeback
    • Software Audit Defense
    • Application Rationalization
    • Contract Consolidation
    • License and Device Reallocation
    Improve IT Services: Asset data can help inform solutions development and can be used by service teams to enhance and improve IT service practices.

    Use ITAM to facilitate these IT services and initiatives:

    • Solution and Enterprise Architecture
    • Service Level Management
    • Technology Procurement
    • Technology Refresh Projects
    • Incident & Problem Management
    • Request Management
    • Change Management
    • Green IT

    1.1 Brainstorm ideas to create a vision for the ITAM practice

    30 minutes

    Input: Stakeholders with a vision of what ITAM could provide, if resourced and funded adequately

    Output: A collection of ideas that, when taken together, create a vision for the future ITAM practice

    Materials: ITAM strategy template, Whiteboard or virtual whiteboard

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    It can be easy to lose sight of long-term goals when you’re stuck in firefighting mode. Let’s get the working group into a forward-looking mindset with this exercise.

    Think about what ITAM could deliver with unlimited time, money, and technology.

    1. Provide three sticky notes to each participant.
    2. Add the headings to a whiteboard, or use a blank slide as a digital whiteboard
    3. On each sticky note, ask participants to outline a single idea as follows:
      1. We could: [idea]
      2. Which would help: [stakeholder]
      3. Because: [outcome]
    4. Ask participants to present their sticky notes and post them to the whiteboard. Ask later participants to group similar ideas together.

    As you hear your peers describe what they hope and expect to achieve with ITAM, a shared vision of what ITAM could be will start to emerge.

    1.1 Identify structural ITAM challenges

    30 minutes

    Input: The list of common challenges on the next slide, Your estimated visibility into IT assets from the previous exercise, The experience and knowledge of your participants

    Output: Identify current ITAM challenges

    Materials: Your working copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    What’s standing in the way today of delivering the ITAM practices you want to achieve?

    Review the list of common challenges on the next slide as a group.

    1. Delete any challenges that don’t apply to your organization.
    2. Modify any challenges as required to reflect your organization.
    3. Add further challenges that aren’t on the list, as required.
    4. Highlight challenges that are particularly painful.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    “The problem – the reason why asset management initiatives keep falling on their face – is that people attack asset management as a problem to solve, instead of a practice and epistemological construct.” (Jeremy Boerger, Consultant & Author)

    1.1 Identify structural ITAM challenges

    Review and update the list of common challenges below to reflect your own organization.

    • Leadership and executives don’t understand the value of asset management and don’t fund or resource it.
    • Tools aren’t fit for purpose, don’t scale, or are broken.
    • There’s a cultural tendency to focus on tools over processes.
    • ITAM data is fragmented across multiple repositories.
    • ITAM data is widely viewed as untrustworthy.
    • Stakeholders respond to vendor audits before consulting ITAM, which leads to confusion and risks penalties.
    • No time for improvement; we’re always fighting fires.
    • We don’t audit our own ITAM data for accuracy.
    • End-user equipment is shared, re-assigned, or disposed without notifying or involving IT.
    • No dedicated resources.
    • Lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities.
    • Technicians don’t track assets consistently; ITAM is seen as administrative busywork.
    • Many ITAM tasks are manual and prone to error.
    • Inconsistent organizational policies and procedures.
    • We try to manage too many hardware types/software titles.
    • IT is not involved in the procurement process.
    • Request and procurement is seen as slow and excessively bureaucratic.
    • Hardware/software standards don’t exist or aren’t enforced.
    • Extensive rogue purchases/shadow IT are challenging to manage via ITAM tools and processes.
    What Else?

    Copy results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 1.2: Review organizational priorities, strategy, initiatives

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • Business executives or their delegates

    Outcomes

    • Review organizational priorities and strategy.
    • Identify key initiatives.

    Enter the executives

    Deliver on leadership priorities

    • Your business’ major transformative projects and executive priorities might seem far removed from hardware and software tracking. Why would we start with business strategy and executive priorities as we’re setting goals for the ITAM program?
    • While business executives have (likely) no interest in how software and hardware is tracked, they are accountable for the outcomes ITAM can enable. They are the most likely to understand why and how ITAM can deliver value to the organization.
    • ITAM succeeds by enabling its stakeholders to achieve business outcomes. The next three activities are designed to help you identify how you can enable your stakeholders, and what outcomes are most important from their point of view. Specifically:
      • What are the business’ planned transformational initiatives?
      • What are your highest priority goals?
      • What should the priorities of the ITAM practice be?
    • The answers to these questions will shape your approach to ITAM. Direct input from your leadership and executives – or their delegates – will help ensure you’re setting a solid foundation for your ITAM practice.

    “What outcomes does the organization want from IT asset management? Often, senior managers have a clear vision for the organization and where IT needs to go, and the struggle is to communicate that down.” (Kylie Fowler, ITAM Intelligence)

    Stock image of many hands with different puzzle pieces.

    Executive Alignment Session Overview

    ITAM Strategy Working Sessions

    • Discover & Brainstorm
    • Executive Alignment Working Session
      • 1.2 Review organizational strategy, priorities, and key initiatives
      • 1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities, set ITAM priorities
    • ITAM Practice Maturity, Vision & Mission, Metrics & KPIs
    • Scope, Outsourcing, (De)Centralization, RACI
    • Service Management Integration
    • ITAM Tools
    • Audits, Budgets, Documents
    • Roadmap & Comms Plan

    A note to the lead facilitator and project sponsor:
    Consider working through these exercises by yourself ahead of time. As you do so, you’ll develop your own ideas about where these discussions may go, which will help you guide the discussion and provide examples to participants.

    1.2 Review organizational strategy and priorities

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The diagram in the next slide, and/or a whiteboard, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: Asset manager, IT leadership, Business executives or delegates

    Welcome your group to the working session and outline the next few exercises using the previous slide.

    Ask the most senior leader present to provide a summary of the following:

    1. What is the vision for the organization?
    2. What are our priorities and what must we absolutely get right?
    3. What do we expect the organization to look like in three years?

    The facilitator or a dedicated note-taker should record key points on a whiteboard or flipchart paper.

    1.2 Identify transformational initiatives

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The diagram in the next slide, and/or a whiteboard, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: Asset manager, IT leadership, Business executives or delegates

    Ask the most senior leader present to provide a summary of the following: What transformative business and IT initiatives are planned? When will they begin and end?

    Using one box per initiative, draw the initiatives in a timeline like the one below.

    Sample timeline for ITAM initiatives.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 1.3: Set business-aligned ITAM priorities

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • Business executives

    Outcomes

    • Connect executive priorities to ITAM opportunities.
    • Set business-aligned priorities for the ITAM practice.

    1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities

    45 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The diagram in the next slide, and/or a whiteboard, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: Asset manager, IT leaders and managers, Business executives or delegates

    In this exercise, we’ll use the table on the next slide to identify the top priorities of key business and IT stakeholders and connect them to opportunities for the ITAM practice.

    1. Ask your leadership or executive delegates – what are their goals? What are they trying to accomplish? List roles and related goals in the table.
    2. Brainstorm opportunities for IT asset management to support listed goals:
      1. Can ITAM provide an enhanced level of service, access, or insight?
      2. Can ITAM address an existing issue or mitigate an existing risk?

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities (example)

    ITAM is for the… Who wants to… Which presents these ITAM opportunities
    CEO Deliver transformative business initiatives Acquire the right tech at the right time to support transformational initiatives.
    Establish a data-driven culture of stewardship Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    COO Improve organizational efficiency Increase asset use.
    Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    CFO Accurately forecast spending Track and anticipate IT asset spending.
    Control spending Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    CIO Demonstrate IT value Use data to tell a story about value delivered by IT assets.
    Govern IT use Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    CISO Manage IT security and compliance risks Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets.
    Provide IT asset data to support controls development.
    Respond to security incidents Support security incident teams with IT asset data.
    Apps Leader Build, integrate, and support applications Identify opportunities to retire applications with redundant functionality.
    Connect applications to relevant licensing and support agreements.
    IT Infra Leader Build and support IT infrastructure. Provide input on opportunities to standardize hardware and software.
    Provide IT asset data to technicians supporting end users.

    1.3 Categorize ITAM opportunities

    10-15 minutes

    Input: The outputs from the previous exercise

    Output: Executive priorities, sorted into the three categories at the right

    Materials: The table in this slide, The outputs from the previous exercise

    Participants: Lead facilitator

    Give your participants a quick break. Quickly sort the identified ITAM opportunities into the three main categories below as best you can.

    We’ll use this table as context for the next exercise.

    Example: Optimize Spend Enhance IT Services Manage Risk
    ITAM Opportunities
    • Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    • Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    • Increase asset utilization.
    • Identify opportunities to retire applications with redundant functionality
    • Acquire the right tech at the right time to support transformational initiatives.
    • Provide IT asset data to technicians supporting end users.
    • Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets.
    • Provide IT asset data to support controls development.
    • Support security incident teams with IT asset data.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.3 Set ITAM priorities

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: Whiteboard, The template on the next slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: Asset manager, IT leaders and managers, Business executives or delegates

    The objective of this exercise is to prioritize the outcomes your organization wants to achieve from its ITAM practice, given the context from the previous exercises.

    Review the image below. The three points of the triangle are the three core goals of ITAM: Enhance IT Service, Manage Risk, and Optimize Spend. This exercise was first developed by Kylie Fowler of ITAM Intelligence. It is an essential exercise to understand ITAM priorities and the tradeoffs associated with those priorities. These priorities aren’t set in stone and should be revisited periodically as technology and business priorities change.

    Draw the diagram on the next slide on a whiteboard. Have the most senior leader in the room place the dot on the triangle – the closer it is to any one of the goals, the more important that goal is to the organization. Note: The center of the triangle is off limits! It’s very rarely possible to deliver on all three at once.
    Track notes on what’s being prioritized – and why – in the template on the next slide.
    Triangle with the points labelled 'Enhance IT Service', 'Manage Risk', and 'Optimize Spend'.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.3 Set ITAM Priorities

    The priorities of the ITAM practice are to:
    • Optimize Spend
    • Manage Risk
    Why?
    • We believe there is significant opportunity right now to rationalize spend by consolidating key software contracts.
    • Major acquisitions are anticipated in the near future. Effective ITAM processes are expected to mitigate acquisition risk by supporting due diligence and streamlined integration of acquired organizations.
    • Ransomware and supply chain security threats have increased demands for a comprehensive accounting of IT assets to support security controls development and security incident response.
    (Update this section with notes from your discussion.)
    Triangle with the points labelled 'Enhance IT Service', 'Manage Risk', and 'Optimize Spend'. There is a dot close to the 'Optimize Spend' corner, a legend labelling the dot as 'Our Target', and a note reading 'Move this dot to reflect your priorities'.

    Step 1.4: Identify ITAM goals, target maturity

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Connect executive priorities to ITAM opportunities.
    • Set business-aligned priorities for the ITAM practice.

    “ITAM is really no different from the other ITIL practices: to succeed, you’ll need some ratio of time, treasure, and talent… and you can make up for less of one with more of the other two.” (Jeremy Boerger, Consultant and Author)

    1.4 Identify near- and medium-term goals

    15-30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Narrow down the list of opportunities to identify specific goals for the ITAM practice.

    1. Use one color to highlight opportunities you will seize in the next year.
    2. Use a second color to highlight opportunities you plan to address in the next three years.
    3. Leave blank anything you don’t intend to address in this timeframe.

    The highlighted opportunities are your near- and medium-term objectives.

    Optimize Spend Enhance IT Services Manage Risk
    Priority Critical Normal High
    ITAM Opportunities
    • Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    • Increase asset utilization.
    • Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    • Identify opportunities to retire applications with redundant functionality
    • Acquire the right tech at the right time to support transformational initiatives.
    • Provide IT asset data to technicians supporting end users.
    • Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets.
    • Provide IT asset data to support controls development.
    • Support security incident teams with IT asset data.

    1.4 Connect ITAM goals to tactics

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Let’s dig down a little deeper. Connect the list of opportunities from earlier to specific ITAM tactics that allow the team to seize those opportunities.

    Add another row to the earlier table for ITAM tactics. Brainstorm tactics with your participants (e.g. sticky notes on a whiteboard) and align them with the priorities they’ll support.

    Optimize SpendEnhance IT ServicesManage Risk
    PriorityCriticalNormalHigh
    ITAM Opportunities
    • Improve data to increase IT spend transparency.
    • Increase asset utilization.
    • Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts.
    • Identify opportunities to retire applications with redundant functionality
    • Acquire the right tech at the right time to support transformational initiatives.
    • Provide IT asset data to technicians supporting end users.
    • Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets.
    • Provide IT asset data to support controls development.
    • Support security incident teams with IT asset data.
    ITAM Tactics to Seize Opportunities
    • Review and improve hardware budgeting exercises.
    • Reallocate unused licenses, hardware.
    • Ensure ELP reports are up to date.
    • Validate software usage.
    • Data to support software renewal negotiations.
    • Use info from ITAM for more efficient adds, moves, changes.
    • Integrate asset records with the ticket intake system, so that when someone calls the service desk, the list of their assigned equipment is immediately available.
    • Find and retire abandoned devices or services with access to the organization’s network.
    • Report on lost/stolen devices.
    • Develop reliable disposal processes.
    • Report on unpatched devices/software.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.4 Identify current and target state

    20 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    We’ll use this exercise to identify the current and one-year target state of ITAM using Info-Tech’s ITAM maturity framework.

    1. Review the maturity framework on the next slide as a group.
    2. In one color, highlight statements that reflect your organization today. Summarize your current state. Are you in firefighter mode? Between “firefighter” and “trusted operator”?
    3. In a second color, highlight statements that reflect where you want to be one year from today, taking into consideration the goals and tactics identified in the last exercise.
    4. During a break, copy the highlighted statements to the table on the slide after next, then add this final slide to your working copy of the ITAM Strategy Template.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Establish current and target ITAM maturity

    IT maturity ladder with five color-coded levels. Innovator – Optimized Asset Management
    • All items from Business & Technology Partner, plus:
    • Business and IT stakeholders collaborate regularly with the ITAM team to identify new opportunities to leverage or deploy ITAM practices and data to mitigate risks, optimize spend, and improve service. The ITAM program scales with the business.
    Business & Technology Partner – Proactive Asset Management
    • All items from Trusted Operator, plus:
    • The ITAM data is integral to decisions related to budget, project planning, IT architecture, contract renewal, and vendor management. Software and cloud assets are reviewed as frequently as required to manage costs. ITAM data consumers have self-serve access to ITAM data.
    • Continuous improvement practices strengthen ITAM efficiency and effectiveness.
    • ITAM processes, standards, and related policies are regularly reviewed and updated. ITAM teams work closely with SMEs for key tools/systems integrated with ITAM (e.g. AD, ITSM, monitoring tools) to maximize the value and reliability of integrations.
    Trusted Operator – Controls Assets
    • ITAM data for deployed hardware and software is regularly audited for accuracy.
    • Sufficient staff and skills to support asset tracking, including a dedicated IT asset management role. Teams responsible for ITAM data collection cooperate effectively. Policies and procedures are documented and enforced. Key licenses and contracts are available to the ITAM team. Discovery, tracking, and analysis tools support most important use cases.
    Firefighter – Reactive Asset Tracking
    • Data is often untrustworthy, may be fragmented across multiple repositories, and typically requires significant effort to translate or validate before use.
    • Insufficient staff, fragmented or incomplete policies or documentation. Data tracking processes are extremely highly manual. Effective cooperation for ITAM data collection is challenging.
    • ITAM tools are in place, but additional configuration or tooling is needed.
    Unreliable - Struggles to Support
    • No data, or data is typically unusable.
    • No allocated staff, no cooperation between parties responsible for ITAM data collection.
    • No related policies or documentation.
    • Tools are non-existent or not fit-for-purpose.

    Current and target ITAM maturity

    Today:
    Firefighter
    • Data is often untrustworthy, is fragmented across multiple repositories, and typically requires significant effort to translate or validate before use.
    • Insufficient staff, fragmented or incomplete policies or documentation.
    • Tools are non-existent.
    In One Year:
    Trusted Operator
    • ITAM data for deployed hardware and software is regularly audited for accuracy.
    • Sufficient staff and skills to support asset tracking, including a dedicated IT asset management role.
    • Teams responsible for ITAM data collection cooperate effectively.
    • Discovery, tracking, and analysis tools support most important use cases.
    IT maturity ladder with five color-coded levels.

    Innovator – Optimized Asset Management

    Business & Technology Partner – Proactive Asset Management

    Trusted Operator – Controls Assets

    Firefighter – Reactive Asset Tracking

    Unreliable - Struggles to Support

    Step 1.5: Write mission and vision statements

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Write a mission statement that encapsulates the purpose and intentions of the ITAM practice today.
    • Write a vision statement that describes what the ITAM practice aspires to become and achieve.

    Write vision and mission statements

    Create two statements to summarize the role of the ITAM practice today – and where you want it to be in the future.

    Create two short, compelling statements that encapsulate:
    • The vision for what we want the ITAM practice to be in the future; and
    • The mission – the purpose and intentions – of the ITAM practice today.

    Why bother creating mission and vision statements? After all, isn’t it just rehashing or re-writing all the work we’ve just done? Isn’t that (at best) a waste of time?

    There are a few very important reasons to create mission and vision statements:

    • Create a compass that can guide work today and your roadmap for the future.
    • Focus on the few things you must do, rather than the many things you could do.
    • Concisely communicate a compelling vision for the ITAM practice to a larger audience who (let’s face it) probably won’t read the entire ITAM Strategy deck.

    “Brevity is the soul of wit.” (Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2)

    “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” (Mark Twain)

    1.5 Write an ITAM vision statement

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: A whiteboard, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT Leaders and managers

    Your vision statement describes the ITAM practice as it will be in the far future. It is a target to aspire to, beyond your ability to achieve in the near or medium term.

    Examples of ITAM vision statements:

    Develop the single accurate view of IT assets, available to anyone who needs it.

    Indispensable data brokers that support strategic decisions on the IT environment.

    Provide sticky notes to participants. Write out the three questions below on a whiteboard side by side. Have participants write their answers to the questions and post them below the appropriate question. Give everyone 10 minutes to write and post their ideas.

    1. What’s the desired future state of the ITAM practice?
    2. What needs to be done to achieved this desired state?
    3. How do we want ITAM to be perceived in this desired state?

    Review the answers and combine them into one focused vision statement. Use the 20x20 rule: take no more than 20 minutes and use no more than 20 words. If you’re not finished after 20 minutes, the ITAM manager should make any final edits offline.

    Document your vision statement in your ITAM Strategy Template.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    1.5 Write an ITAM mission statement

    30 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Your ITAM mission statement is an expression of what your IT asset management function brings to your organization today. It should be presented in straightforward language that is compelling, easy to understand, and sharply focused.

    Examples of ITAM mission statements:

    Maintain accurate, actionable, accessible on data on all IT assets.

    Support IT and the business with centralized and integrated asset data.

    Provide sticky notes to participants. Write out the questions below on a whiteboard side by side. Have participants write their answers to the questions and post them below the appropriate question. Give everyone 10 minutes to write and post their ideas.

    1. What is our role as the asset management team?
    2. How do we support the IT and business strategies?
    3. What does our asset management function offer that no one else can?

    Review the answers and combine them into one focused vision statement. Use the 20x20 rule: take no more than 20 minutes and use no more than 20 words. If you’re not finished after 20 minutes, the ITAM manager should make any final edits offline.

    Document your vision statement in your ITAM Strategy Template.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 1.6: Define ITAM metrics and KPIs

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Identify metrics, data, or reports that may be of interest to different consumers of ITAM data.
    • Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) for the ITAM practice, based on the goals and priorities established earlier.

    Navigate a universe of ITAM metrics

    When you have the data, how will you use it?

    • There’s a dizzying array of potential metrics you can develop and track across your ITAM environment.
    • Different stakeholders will need different data feeds, metrics, reports, and dashboards.
    • Different measures will be useful at different times. You will often need to filter or slice the data in different ways (by department, timeframe, equipment type, etc.)
    • We’ll use the next few exercises to identify the types of metrics that may be useful to different stakeholders and the KPIs to measure progress towards ITAM goals and priorities.

    ITAM Metrics

    • Quantity
      e.g. # of devices or licenses
    • Cost
      e.g. average laptop cost
    • Compliance
      e.g. effective license position reports
    • Progress
      e.g. ITAM roadmap items completed
    • Quality
      e.g. ITAM data accuracy rate
    • Time
      e.g. time to procure/ deploy

    Drill down by:

    • Vendor
    • Date
    • Dept.
    • Product
    • Location
    • Cost Center

    Develop different metrics for different teams

    A few examples:

    • CIOs — CIOs need asset data to govern technology use, align to business needs, and demonstrate IT value. What do we need to budget for hardware and software in the next year? Where can we find money to support urgent new initiatives? How many devices and software titles do we manage compared to last year? How has IT helped the business achieve key goals?
    • Asset Managers — Asset managers require data to help them oversee ITAM processes, technology, and staff, and to manage the fleet of IT assets they’re expected to track. What’s the accuracy rate of ITAM data? What’s the state of integrations between ITAM and other systems and processes? How many renewals are coming up in the next 90 days? How many laptops are in stock?
    • IT Leaders — IT managers need data that can support their teams and help them manage the technology within their mandate. What technology needs to be reviewed or retired? What do we actually manage?
    • Technicians — Service desk technicians need real-time access to data on IT assets to support service requests and incident management – for example, easy access to the list of equipment assigned to a particular user or installed in a particular location.
    • Business Managers and Executives — Business managers and executives need concise, readable dashboards to support business decisions about business use of IT assets. What’s our overall asset spend? What’s our forecasted spend? Where could we reallocate spend?

    1.6 Identify useful ITAM metrics and reports

    60 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Use this exercise to identify as many potentially useful ITAM metrics and reports as possible, and narrow them down to a few high-priority metrics. Leverage the list of example metrics on the next slide for your own exercise. If you have more than six participants, consider splitting into two or more groups, and divide the table between groups to minimize overlap.

    1. List potential consumers of ITAM data in the column on the left.
    2. What type of information do we think this role needs? What questions about IT assets do we get on a regular basis from this role or team?
    3. Review and consolidate the list as a group. Discuss and highlight any metrics the group thinks are a particularly high priority for tracking.
    Role Compliance Quality Quantity Cost Time Progress
    IT Asset Manager Owned devices not discovered in last 60 days Discrepancies between discovery data and ITAM DB records # of corporate-owned devices Spend on hardware (recent and future/ planned) Average time, maximum time to deploy end-user devices Number of ITAM roadmap items in progress
    Service Desk

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Examples of ITAM metrics

    Compliance Quality Quantity Cost Time/Duration/Age Progress
    Owned devices not discovered in last 60 days Discrepancies between discovery data and ITAM DB records # of corporate-owned devices Spend on hardware (recent and future/planned) Average time, maximum time to deploy end-user devices Number of ITAM roadmap items in progress or completed
    Disposed devices without certificate of destruction Breakage rates (in and out of warranty) by vendor # of devices running software title X, # of licenses for software title X Spend on software (recent and future/planned) Average time, maximum time to deploy end user software Number of integrations between ITAM DB and other sources
    Discrepancies between licenses and install count, by software title RMAs by vendor, model, equipment type Number of requests by equipment model or software title Spend on cloud (recent and future/planned) Average & total time spent on software audit responses Number of records in ITAM database
    Compliance reports (e.g. tied to regulatory compliance or grant funding) Tickets by equipment type or software title Licenses issued from license pool in the last 30 days Value of licenses issued from license pool in the last 30 days (cost avoidance) Devices by age Software titles with an up-to-date ELP report
    Reports on lost and stolen devices, including last assigned, date reported stolen, actions taken User device satisfaction scores, CSAT scores Number of devices retired or donated in last year Number of IT-managed capital assets Number of hardware/software request tickets beyond time-to-fulfil targets Number of devices audited (by ITAM team via self-audit)
    Number of OS versions, unpatched systems Number of devices due for refresh in the next year Spend saved by harvesting unused software Number of software titles, software vendors managed by ITAM team
    Audit accuracy rate Equipment in stock Cost savings from negotiations
    # of users assigned more than one device Number of non-standard devices or requests Dollars charged during audit or true-up

    Differentiate between metrics and KPIs

    Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics with targets aligned to goals.

    Targets could include one or more of:

    • Target state (e.g. completed)
    • Target magnitude (e.g. number, percent, rate, dollar amount)
    • Target direction (e.g. trending up or down)

    You may track many metrics, but you should have only a few KPIs (typically 2-3 per objective).

    A breached KPI should be a trigger to investigate and remediate the root cause of the problem, to ensure progress towards goals and priorities can continue.

    Which KPIs you track will change over the life of the practice, as ITAM goals and priorities shift. For example, KPIs may initially track progress towards maturing ITAM practices. Once you’ve reached target maturity, KPIs may shift to track whether the key service targets are being met.

    1.6 Identify ITAM KPIs

    20 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Good KPIs are a more objective measure of whether you’re succeeding in meeting the identified priorities for the ITAM practice.

    Identify metrics that can measure progress or success against the priorities and goals set earlier. Aim for around three metrics per goal. Identify targets for the metric you think are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timebound). Track your work using the example table below.

    Goal Metric Target
    Consolidate major software contracts to drive discounts Amount spent on top 10 software contracts Decrease by 10% by next year
    Customer satisfaction scores with enterprise software Satisfaction is equal to or better than last year
    Value of licenses issued from license pool 30% greater than last year
    Identify abandoned or out-of-spec IT assets # of security incidents involving undiscovered assets Zero
    % devices with “Deployed” status in ITAM DB but not discovered for 30+ days ‹1% of all records in ITAM DB
    Provide IT asset data to technicians for service calls Customer satisfaction scores Satisfaction is equal to or better than last year
    % of end-user devices meeting minimum standards 97%

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Develop an IT Asset Management Strategy

    Phase 2:

    Identify your approach to support ITAM priorities and goals

    Phase 1

    1.1 Define ITAM and brainstorm opportunities and challenges.

    Executive Alignment Working Session:

    1.2 Review organizational priorities, strategy, and key initiatives.

    1.3 Align executive priorities with ITAM opportunities & priorities.

    1.4 Identify business-aligned ITAM goals and target maturity.

    1.5 Write mission and vision statements.

    1.6 Define ITAM metrics and KPIs.

    Phase 2

    2.1 Define ITAM scope.

    2.2 Acquire ITAM services (outsourcing and contracting).

    2.3 Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities.

    2.4 Create a RACI for the ITAM practice.

    2.5 Align ITAM with other service management practices.

    2.6 Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations.

    2.7 Create a plan for internal and external audits.

    2.8 Improve your budget processes.

    2.9 Establish a documentation framework.

    2.10 Create a roadmap and communication plan.

    Phase Outcomes:

    Establish an approach to achieving ITAM goals and priorities, including scope, structure, tools, service management integrations, documentation, and more.

    Create a roadmap that enables you to realize your approach.

    Step 2.1: Define ITAM Scope

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Establish what types of equipment and software you’ll track through the ITAM practice.
    • Establish which areas of the business will be in scope of the ITAM practice.

    Determine ITAM Scope

    Focus on what’s most important and then document it so everyone understands where they can provide the most value.

    Not all categories of assets require the same level of tracking, and some equipment and software should be excluded from the ITAM practice entirely.

    In some organizations, portions of the environment won’t be tracked by the asset management team at all. For example, some organizations will choose to delegate tracking multi-function printers (MFPs) or proprietary IoT devices to the department or vendor that manages them.

    Due to resourcing or technical limitations, you may decide that certain equipment or software is out of scope for the moment.

    What do other organizations typically track in detail?
    • Installs and entitlements for major software contracts that represent significant spend and/or are highly critical to business goals.
    • Equipment managed directly by IT that needs to be refreshed on a regular cycle:
      • End-user devices such as laptops, desktops, and tablets.
      • Server, network, and telecoms devices.
    • High value equipment that is not regularly refreshed may also be tracked, but in less detail – for example, you may not refresh large screen TVs, but you may need to track date of purchase, deployed location, vendor, and model for insurance or warranty purposes.

    2.1 Establish scope for ITAM

    45 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: ITAM scope, in terms of types of assets tracked and not tracked

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    Establish the hardware and software that are within the scope of the ITAM program by updating the tables below to reflect your own environment. The “out of scope” category will include asset types that may be of value to track in the future but for which the capability or need don’t exist today.

    Hardware Software Out of Scope
    • End-user devices housing data or with a dollar value of more than $300, which will be replaced through lifecycle refresh.
    • Infrastructure devices, including network, telecom, video conferencing, servers and more
    • End-user software purchased under contract
    • Best efforts on single license purchases
    • Infrastructure software, including solutions used by IT to manage the infrastructure
    • Enterprise applications
    • Cloud (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS)
    • Departmental applications
    • Open-source applications
    • In-house developed applications
    • Freeware & shareware
    • IoT devices

    The following locations will be included in the ITAM program: All North and South America offices and retail locations.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.2: Acquire ITAM Services

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Define the type of work that may be more effectively or efficiently delivered by an outsourcer or contractor.

    “We would like our clients to come to us with an idea of where they want to get to. Why are you doing this? Is it for savings? Because you want to manage your security attack surface? Are there digital initiatives you want to move forward? What is the end goal?” (Mike Austin, MetrixData 360)

    Effectively acquire ITAM services

    Allow your team to focus on strategic, value-add activities by acquiring services that free them from commodity tasks.
    • When determining which asset capabilities and activities are best kept in-house and which ones are better handled by a supplier, it is imperative to keep the value to the business in mind.
    • Activities/capabilities that are challenging to standardize and are critical to enabling business goals are better kept in-house.
    • Activities/capabilities that are (or should be) standardized and automated are ideal candidates for outsourcing.
    • Outsourcing can be effective and successful with a narrow scope of engagement and an alignment to business outcomes.
    • Organizations that heavily weigh cost reduction as a significant driver for outsourcing are far less likely to realize the value they expected to receive.
    Business Enablement
    • Supports business-aligned ITAM opportunities & priorities
    • Highly specialized
    • Offers competitive advantages
    Map with axes 'Business Enablement' and 'Vendor's Performance Advantage' for determining whether or not to outsource.
    Vendor’s Performance Advantage
    • Talent or access to skills
    • Economies of scale
    • Access to technology
    • Does not require deep knowledge of your business

    Decide what to outsource

    It’s rarely all or nothing.

    Ask yourself:
    • How important is this activity or capability to ITAM, IT, and business priorities and goals?
    • Is it a non-commodity IT service that can improve customer satisfaction?
    • Is it a critical service to the business and the specialized knowledge must remain in-house?
    • Does the function require access to talent or skills not currently available in-house, and is cost-prohibitive to obtain?
    • Are there economies of scale that can help us meet growing demand?
    • Does the vendor provide access to best-of-breed tools and solutions that can handle the integration, management, maintenance and support of the complete system?

    You may ultimately choose to engage a single vendor or a combination of multiple vendors who can best meet your ITAM needs.

    Establishing effective vendor management processes, where you can maximize the amount of service you receive while relying on the vendor’s expertise and ability to scale, can help you make your asset management practice a net cost-saver.

    ITAM activities and capabilities
    • Contract review
    • Software audit management
    • Asset tagging
    • Asset disposal and recycling
    • Initial ITAM record creation
    • End-user device imaging
    • End-user device deployment
    • End-user software provisioning
    • End-user image management
    • ITAM database administration
    • ELP report creation
    • ITAM process management
    • ITAM report generation
    ITAM-adjacent activities and capabilities
    • Tier 1 support/service desk
    • Deskside/field support
    • Tier 3 support
    • IT Procurement
    • Device management/managed IT services
    • Budget development
    • Applications development, maintenance
    • Infrastructure hosting (e.g. cloud or colocation)
    • Infrastructure management and support
    • Discovery/monitoring tools management and support

    2.2 Identify outsourcing opportunities

    1-2 hours

    Input: Understanding of current ITAM processes and challenges

    Output: Understanding of potential outsourcing opportunities

    Materials: The table in this slide, and insight in previous slides, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    At a high level, discuss which functions of ITAM are good candidates for outsourcing.

    Start with the previous slide for examples of outsourcing activities or capabilities directly related to or adjacent to the ITAM practice. Categorize these activities as follows:

    Outsource Potentially Outsource Insource
    • Asset disposal/recycling
    • ELP report creation
    • ITAM process management

    Go through the list of activities to potentially or definitely outsource and confirm:

    1. Will outsourcing solve a resourcing need for an existing process, or can you deliver this adequately in-house?
    2. Will outsourcing improve the effectiveness and efficiency of current processes? Will it deliver more effective service channels or improved levels of reliability and performance consistency?
    3. Will outsourcing provide or enable enhanced service capabilities that your IT customers could use, and which you cannot deliver in-house due to lack of scale or capacity?

    Answering “no” to more than one of these questions suggests a need to further review options to ensure the goals are aligned with the potential value of the service offerings available.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.3: Centralize or decentralize ITAM capabilities

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Outline where the team(s) responsible for ITAM sit across the organization, who they report to, and who they need to work with across IT and the business.

    Align ITAM with IT’s structure

    ITAM’s structure will typically align with the larger business and IT structure. The wrong structure will undermine your ability to meet ITAM goals and lead to frustration, missed work, inefficiency, and loss of value.

    Which of the four archetypes below reflects the structure you need?

    1. Centralized — ITAM is entirely centralized in a single function, which reports into a central IT department.
    2. Decentralized — Local IT groups are responsible and accountable for ITAM. They may coordinate informally but do not report to any central team.
    3. Hybrid-Shared Services — Local IT can opt in to shared services but must follow centrally set ITAM practices to do so, usually with support from a shared ITAM function.
    4. Hybrid-Federated — Local IT departments are free to develop their own approach to ITAM outside of core, centrally set requirements.

    Centralized ITAM

    Total coordination, control, and oversight

    • ITAM accountability, policies, tools, standards, and expertise – in this model, they’re all concentrated in a single, specialized IT asset management practice. Accountability, authority, and oversight are concentrated in the central function as well.
    • A central ITAM team will benefit from knowledge sharing and task specialization opportunities. They are a visible single point of contact for ITAM-related questions
    • The central ITAM team will coordinate ITAM activities across the organization to optimize spend, manage risk, and enhance service. Any local IT teams are supported by and directly answerable to the central ITAM team for ITAM activities.
    • There is a single, centrally managed ITAM database. Wherever possible, this database should be integrated with other tools to support cross-solution automation (e.g. integrate AD to automatically reflect user identity changes in the ITAM database).
    • This model drives cross-organization coordination and oversight, but it may not be responsive to specific and nuanced local requirements.
    Example: Centralized
    Example of a Centralized ITAM.

    Solid line. Direct reporting relationship

    Dotted line. Dotted line working or reporting relationship

    Decentralized ITAM

    Maximize choice

    • ITAM accountability and oversight are entirely devolved to local or regional IT and/or ITAM organizations, which are free to set their own priorities, goals, policies, and standards. This model maximizes the authority of local groups to build practices that meet local requirements.
    • It may be challenging to resource and mature local practices. ITAM maturity will vary from one local organization to the next.
    • It is more likely that ITAM managers are a part-time role, and sometimes even a non-IT role. Local ITAM teams or coordinators may coordinate and share knowledge informally, but specialization can be challenging to build or leverage effectively across the organization.
    • There is likely no central ITAM tool. Local tools may be acquired, implemented, and integrated by local IT departments to suit their own needs, which can make it very difficult to report on assets organization-wide – for example, to establish compliance on an enterprise software contract.
    Example: Decentralized


    Example of a Decentralized ITAM.

    Solid line. Direct reporting relationship

    Dotted line. Dotted line working or reporting relationship

    Blue dotted line. Informal working relationships, knowledge sharing

    Hybrid: Federation

    Centralization with a light touch

    • A middle ground between centralized and decentralized ITAM, this model balances centralized decision making, specialization, and governance with local autonomy.
    • A central team will define organization-wide ITAM goals, develop capabilities, policies, and standards, and monitor compliance by local and central teams. All local teams must comply with centrally defined requirements, but they can also develop further capabilities to meet local goals.
    • For example, there will typically be a central ITAM database that must be used for at least a subset of assets, but other teams may build their own databases for day-to-day operations and export data to the central database as required.
    • There are often overlapping responsibilities in this model. A strong collaborative relationship between central and local ITAM teams is especially important here, particularly after major changes to requirements, processes, tools, or staffing when issues and breakdowns are more likely.
    Example: Federation


    Example of a Federation ITAM.

    Solid line. Direct reporting relationship

    Purple solid line. Oversight/governance

    Dotted line. Dotted line working or reporting relationship

    Hybrid: Shared Services

    Optional centralization

    • A special case of federated ITAM that balances central control and local autonomy, but with more power given to local IT to opt out of centralized shared services that come with centralized ITAM requirements.
    • ITAM requirements set by the shared services team will support management, allocation, and may have showback or chargeback implications. Following the ITAM requirements is a condition of service. If a local organization chooses to stop using shared services, they are (naturally) no longer required to adhere to the shared services ITAM requirements.
    • As with the federated model, local teams may develop further capabilities to meet local goals.
    Example: Shared Services


    Example of a Shared Services ITAM.

    Solid line. Direct reporting relationship

    Dotted line. Dotted line working relationship

    Blue dotted line. Informal working relationships, knowledge sharing

    Structure data collection & analysis

    Consider the implications of structure on data.

    Why centralize?
    • There is a need to build reports that aggregate data on assets organization-wide, rather than just assets within a local environment.
    • Decentralized ITAM tracking isn’t producing accurate or usable data, even for local purposes.
    • Tracking tools have overlapping functionality. There’s an opportunity to rationalize spend, management and support for ITAM tools.
    • Contract centralization can optimize spend and manage risks, but only with the data required to manage those contracts.
    Why decentralize?
    • Tracking and reporting on local assets is sufficient to meet ITAM goals; there is limited or no need to track assets organization-wide.
    • Local teams have the skills to track and maintain asset data; subsidiaries have appropriate budgets and tools to support ITAM tracking.
    • Decentralized ITSM/ITAM tools are in place, populated, and accurate.
    • The effort to consolidate tools and processes may outweigh the benefits to data centralization.
    • Lots of variability in types of assets and the environment is stable.
    Requirements for success:
    • A centralized IT asset management solution is implemented and managed.
    • Local teams must understand the why and how of centralized data tracking and be held accountable for assigned responsibilities.
    • The asset tool should offer both centralized and localized views of the data.
    Requirements for success:
    • Guidelines and expectations for reporting to centralized asset management team will be well defined and supported.
    • Local asset managers will have opportunity to collaborate with others in the role for knowledge transfer and asset trading, where appropriate.

    Structure budget and contract management

    Contract consolidation creates economies of scale for vendor management and license pooling that strengthen your negotiating position with vendors and optimize spend.

    Why centralize?
    • Budgeting, governance, and accountability are already centralized. Centralized ITAM practices can support the existing governance practices.
    • Centralizing contract management and negotiation can optimize spend and/or deliver access to better service.
    • Centralize management for contracts that cover most of the organization, are highly complex, involve large spend and/or higher risk, and will benefit from specialization of asset staff.
    Why decentralize?
    • Budgeting, governance, and accountability rest with local organizations.
    • There may be increased need for high levels of customer responsiveness and support.
    • Decentralize contract management for contracts used only by local groups (e.g. a few divisions, a few specialized functions), and that are smaller, low risk, and come with standard terms and conditions.
    Requirements for success:
    • A centralized IT asset management solution is implemented and managed.
    • Contract terms must be harmonized across the organization.
    • Centralized fulfillment is as streamlined as possible. For example, software contracts should include the right to install at any time and pay through a true-up process.
    Requirements for success:
    • Any expectations for harmonization with the centralized asset management team will be well defined and supported.
    • Local asset managers can collaborate with other local ITAM leads to support knowledge transfer, asset swapping, etc.

    Structure technology management

    Are there opportunities to centralize or decentralize support functions?

    Why centralize?
    • Standard technologies are deployed organization-wide.
    • There are opportunities to improve service and optimize costs by consolidating knowledge, service contracts, and support functions.
    • Centralizing data on product supply allows for easier harvest and redeployment of assets by a central support team.
    • A stable, central support function can better support localized needs during seasonal staffing changes, mergers and acquisitions.
    Why decentralize?
    • Technology is unique to a local subset of users or customers.
    • Minimal opportunity for savings or better support by consolidating knowledge, service contracts, or support functions.
    • Refresh standards are set at a local level; new tech adoption may be impeded by a reliance on older technologies, local budget shortfalls, or other constraints.
    • Hardware may need to be managed locally if shipping costs and times can’t reasonably be met by a distant central support team.
    Requirements for success:
    • Ensure required processes, technologies, skills, and knowledge are in place to enable centralized support.
    • Keep a central calendar of contract renewals, including reminders to start work on the renewal no less than 90 days prior. Prioritize contracts with high dollar value or high risk.
    • The central asset management solution should be configured to provide data that can enable the central support team.
    Requirements for success:
    • Ensure required processes, technologies, skills, and knowledge are in place to enable decentralized support.
    • Decentralized support teams must understand and adhere to ITAM activities that are part of support work (e.g. data entry, data audits).
    • The central asset management solution should be configured to provide data that can enable the central support team, or decentralized asset solutions must be funded, and teams trained on their use.

    2.3 Review ITAM Structure

    1-2 hours

    Input: Understanding of current organizational structure, Understanding of challenges and opportunities related to the current structure

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    Outline the current model for your organization and identify opportunities to centralize or decentralize ITAM-related activities.

    1. What model best describes how ITAM should be structured in your organization? Modify the slide outlining structure as a group to outline your own organization, as required.
    2. In the table below, outline opportunities to centralize or decentralize data tracking, budget and contract management, and technology management activities.
    Centralize Decentralize
    Data collection & analysis
    • Make better use of central ITAM database.
    • Support local IT departments building runbooks for data tracking during lifecycle activities (create templates, examples)
    Budget and contract management
    • Centralize Microsoft contracts.
    • Create a runbook to onboard new companies to MSFT contracts.
    • Create tools and data views to support local department budget exercises.
    Technology management
    • Ensure all end-user devices are visible to centrally managed InTune, ConfigMgr.
    • Enable direct shipping from vendor to local sites.
    • Establish disposal/pickup at local sites.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.4: Create a RACI

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Review the role of the IT asset manager.
    • Identify who’s responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed for key ITAM activities.

    Empower your asset manager

    The asset manager is the critical ITAM role. Ensure they’re positioned to succeed.

    There’s too much change in the technology and business environment to expect ITAM to be “a problem to solve.” It is a practice that requires care and feeding through regular iteration to achieve success. At the helm of this practice is your asset manager, whose approach and past experience will have a significant impact on how you approach ITAM.

    The asset manager role requires a variety of skills, knowledge, and abilities including:

    • Operations, process, and practice management.
    • An ability to communicate, influence, negotiate, and facilitate.
    • Organizational knowledge and relationship management.
    • Contract and license agreement analysis, attention to detail.
    • Natural curiosity and a willingness to learn.
    • A strong understanding of technologies in use by the organization, and how they fit into the asset management program.
    Where the asset manager sits in the organization will also have an impact on their focus and priorities. When the asset manager reports into a service team, their focus will often reflect their team’s focus: end-user devices and software, customer satisfaction, request fulfillment. Asset teams that report into a leadership or governance function will be more likely to focus on organization-wide assets, governance, budget management, and compliance.

    “Where your asset manager sits, and what past experience they have, is going to influence how they do asset management.” (Jeremy Boerger, Consultant & Author)

    “It can be annoying at times, but a good IT asset manager will poke their nose into activities that do not obviously concern them, such as programme and project approval boards and technical design committees. Their aim is to identify and mitigate ITAM risks BEFORE the technology is deployed as well as to ensure that projects and solutions ‘bake in’ the necessary processes and tools that ensure IT assets can be managed effectively throughout their lifecycle.” (Kylie Fowler, ITAM by Design, 2017)

    IT asset managers must have a range of skills and knowledge

    • ITAM Operations, Process, and Practice Management
      The asset manager is typically responsible for managing and improving the ITAM practice and related processes and tools. The asset manager may administer the ITAM tool, develop reports and dashboards, evaluate and implement new technologies or services to improve ITAM maturity, and more.
    • Organizational Knowledge
      An effective IT asset manager has a good understanding of your organization and its strategy, products, stakeholders, and culture.
    • Technology & Product Awareness
      An IT asset manager must learn about new and changing technologies and products adopted by the organization (e.g. IoT, cloud) and develop recommendations on how to track and manage them via the ITAM practice.
    A book surrounded by icons corresponding to the bullet points.
    • People Management
      Asset managers often manage a team directly and have dotted-line reports across IT and the business.
    • Communication
      Important in any role, but particularly critical where learning, listening, negotiation, and persuasion are so critical.
    • Finance & Budgeting
      A foundational knowledge of financial planning and budgeting practices is often helpful, where the asset manager is asked to contribute to these activities.
    • Contract Review & Analysis
      Analyze new and existing contracts to evaluate changes, identify compliance requirements, and optimize spend.

    Assign ITAM responsibilities and accountabilities

    Align authority and accountability.
    • A RACI exercise will help you discuss and document accountability and responsibility for critical ITAM activities.
    • When responsibility and accountability are not currently well documented, it’s often useful to invite a representative of the roles identified to participate in this alignment exercise. The discussion can uncover contrasting views on responsibility and governance, which can help you build a stronger management and governance model.
    • The RACI chart can help you identify who should be involved when making changes to a given activity. Clarify the variety of responsibilities assigned to each key role.
    • In the future, you may need to define roles in more detail as you change your hardware and software asset management procedures.

    R

    Responsible: The person who actually gets the job done.

    Different roles may be responsible for different aspects of the activity relevant to their role.

    A

    Accountable: The one role accountable for the activity (in terms completion, quality, cost, etc.)

    Must have sufficient authority to be held accountable; responsible roles are often accountable to this role.

    C

    Consulted: Must have the opportunity to provide meaningful input at certain points in the activity.

    Typically, subject matter experts or stakeholders. The more people you must consult, the more overhead and time you’ll add to a process.

    I

    Informed: Receives information regarding the task, but has no requirement to provide feedback.

    Information might relate to process execution, changes, or quality.

    2.4 Conduct a RACI Exercise

    1-2 hours

    Input: An understanding of key roles and activities in ITAM practices, An understanding of your organization, High-level structure of your ITAM program

    Output: A RACI diagram for IT asset management

    Materials: The table in the next slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    Let’s face it – RACI exercises can be dry. We’ve found that the approach below is more collaborative, engaging, and effective compared to filling out the table as a large group.

    1. Create a shared working copy of the RACI charts on the following slides (e.g. write it out on a whiteboard or provide a link to this document and work directly in it).
    2. Review the list of template roles and activities as a group. Add, change, or remove roles and activities from the table as needed.
    3. Divide into small groups. Assign each group a set of roles, and have them define whether that role is accountable, responsible, consulted, or informed for each activity in the chart. Refer to the previous slide for context on RACI. Give everyone 15 minutes to update their section of the chart.
    4. Come back together as a large group to review the chart. First, check for accountability – there should generally be just one role accountable for each activity. Then, have each small group walk through their section, and encourage participants to ask questions. Is there at least one role responsible for each task, and what are they responsible for? Does everyone listed as consulted or informed really need to be? Make any necessary adjustments.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Define ITAM governance activities

    RACI Chart for ITAM governance activities. In the first column is a list of governance activities, and the row headers are positions within a company. Fields are marked with an R, A, C, or I.

    Document asset management responsibilities and accountabilities

    RACI Chart for ITAM asset management responsibilities and accountabilities. In the first column is a list of responsibilities and accountabilities, and the row headers are positions within a company. Fields are marked with an R, A, C, or I.

    Step 2.5: Align ITAM with other Service Management Practices

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Establish shared and separate responsibilities for asset and configuration management.
    • Identify how ITAM can support other practices, and how other practices can support ITAM.

    Asset vs. Configuration

    Asset and configuration management look at the same world through different lenses.
    • IT asset management tends to focus on each IT asset in its own right: assignment or ownership, its lifecycle, and related financial obligations and entitlements.
    • Configuration management is focused on configuration items (CIs) that must be managed to deliver a service and the relationships and integrations to other CIs.
    • ITAM and configuration management teams and practices should work closely together. Though asset and configuration management focus on different outcomes, they tend use overlapping tools and data sets. Each practice, when working effectively, can strengthen the other.
    • Many objects will exist in both the CMDB and AMDB, and the data on those shared objects will need to be kept in sync.
    Asset and Configuration Management: An Example

    Configuration Management Database (CMDB)

    A database of uniquely identified configuration items (CIs). Each CI record may include information on:
    Service Attributes

    Supported Service(s)
    Service Description, Criticality, SLAs
    Service Owners
    Data Criticality/Sensitivity

    CI Relationships

    Physical Connections
    Logical Connections
    Dependencies

    Arrow connector.

    Discovery, Normalization, Dependency Mapping, Business Rules*

    Manual Data Entry

    Arrow connector.
    This shared information could be attached to asset records, CI records, or both, and it should be synchronized between the two databases where it’s tracked in both.
    Hardware Information

    Serial, Model and Specs
    Network Address
    Physical Location

    Software Installations

    Hypervisor & OS
    Middleware & Software
    Software Configurations

    Arrow connector.

    Asset Management Database (AMDB)

    A database of uniquely identified IT assets. Each asset record may include information on:
    Procurement/Purchasing

    Purchase Request/Purchase Order
    Invoice and Cost
    Cost Center
    Vendor
    Contracts and MSAs
    Support/Maintenance/Warranties

    Asset Attributes

    Model, Title, Product Info, License Key
    Assigned User
    Lifecycle Status
    Last ITAM Audit Date
    Certificate of Disposal

    Arrows connecting multiple fields.

    IT Security Systems

    Vulnerability Management
    Threat Management
    SIEM
    Endpoint Protection

    IT Service Management (ITSM) System

    Change Tickets
    Request Tickets
    Incident Tickets
    Problem Tickets
    Project Tickets
    Knowledgebase

    Financial System/ERP

    General Ledger
    Accounts Payable
    Accounts Receivable
    Enterprise Assets
    Enterprise Contract Database

    (*Discovery, dependency mapping, and data normalization are often features or modules of configuration management, asset management, or IT service management tools.)

    2.5 Integrate ITAM and configuration practices

    45 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of the organization’s configuration management processes

    Output: Define how ITAM and configuration management will support one another

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, Configuration manager

    Work through the table below to identify how you will collaborate and synchronize data across ITAM and configuration management practices and tools.

    What are the goals (if any currently exist) for the configuration management practice? Connect configuration items to services to support service management.
    How will configuration and asset management teams collaborate? Weekly status updates. As-needed working sessions.
    Shared visibility on each others’ Kanban tracker.
    Create tickets to raise and track issues that require collaboration or attention from the other team.
    How can config leverage ITAM? Connect CIs to financial, contractual, and ownership data.
    How can ITAM leverage config? Connect assets to services, changes, incidents.
    What key fields will be primarily tracked/managed by ITAM? Serial number, unique ID, user, location, PO number, …
    What key fields will be primarily tracked/managed by configuration management? Supported service(s), dependencies, service description, service criticality, network address…

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    ITAM supports service management

    Decoupling asset management from other service management practices can result in lost value. Establish how asset management can support other service management practices – and how those practices can support ITAM.

    Incident Management

    What broke?
    Was it under warranty?
    Is there a service contract?
    Was it licensed?
    Who was it assigned to?
    Is it end-of-life?

    ITAM
    Practice

    Request Management

    What can this user request or purchase?
    What are standard hardware and software offerings?
    What does the requester already have?
    Are there items in inventory to fulfil the request?
    Did we save money by reissuing equipment?
    Is this a standard request?
    What assets are being requested regularly?

    What IT assets are related to the known issue?
    What models and vendors are related to the issue?
    Are the assets covered by a service contract?
    Are other tickets related to this asset?
    What end-of-life assets have been tied to incidents recently?

    Problem Management

    What assets are related to the change?
    Is the software properly licensed?
    Has old equipment been properly retired and disposed?
    Have software licenses been returned to the pool?
    Is the vendor support on the change part of a service contract?

    Change Enablement

    2.5. Connect with other IT service practices

    45 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of existing organizational IT service management processes

    Output: Define how ITAM will help other service management processes, and how other service management processes will help ITAM

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, Service leads

    Complete the table below to establish what ITAM can provide to other service management practices, and what other practices can provide to ITAM.

    Practice ITAM will help Will help ITAM
    Incident Management Provide context on assets involved in an incident (e.g. ownership, service contracts). Track when assets are involved in incidents (via incident tickets).
    Request Management Oversee request & procurement processes. Help develop asset standards. Enter new assets in ITAM database.
    Problem Management Collect information on assets related to known issues. Report back on models/titles that are generating known issues.
    Change Enablement Provide context on assets for change review. Ensure EOL assets are retired and licenses are returned during changes.
    Capacity Management Identify ownership, location for assets at capacity. Identify upcoming refreshes or purchases.
    Availability Management Connect uptime and reliability to assets. Identify assets that are causing availability issues.
    Monitoring and Event Management Provide context to events with asset data. Notify asset of unrecognized software and hardware.
    Financial Management Establish current and predict future spending. Identify upcoming purchases, renewals.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.6: Evaluate ITAM tools and integrations

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • Create a list of the ITAM tools currently in use, how they’re used, and their current limitations.
    • Identify new tools that could provide value to the ITAM practice, and what needs to be done to acquire and implement them.

    “Everything is connected. Nothing is also connected.” (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency)

    Establish current strengths and gaps in your ITAM toolset

    ITAM data quality relies on tools and integrations that are managed by individuals or teams who don’t report directly to the ITAM function.

    Without direct line of sight into tools management, the ITAM team must influence rather than direct improvement initiatives that are in some cases critical to the performance of the ITAM function. To more effectively influence improvement efforts, you must explicitly identify what you need, why you need it, from which tools, and from which stakeholders.

    Data Sources
    Procurement Tools
    Discovery Tools
    Active Directory
    Purchase Documents
    Spreadsheets
    Input To Asset System(s) of Record
    ITAM Database
    ITSM Tool
    CMDB
    Output To Asset Data Consumption
    ITFM Tools
    Security Tools
    TEM Tools
    Accounting Tools
    Spreadsheets
    “Active Directory plays a huge role in audit defense and self-assessment, but no-one really goes out there and looks at Active Directory.

    I was talking to one organization that has 1,600,000 AD records for 100,000 employees.” (Mike Austin, Founder, MetrixData 360)

    2.6 Evaluate ITAM existing technologies

    30 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of existing ITAM tools

    Output: A list of prioritized organizational goals, An initial assessment of how ITAM can support these goals

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Identify the use, limitations, and next steps for existing ITAM tools, including those not directly managed by the ITAM team.

    1. What tools do we have today?
    2. What are they used for? What are their limitations?
    3. Who manages them?
    4. What actions could we take to maximize the value of the tools?
    Existing Tool Use Constraints Owner Proposed Action?
    ITAM Module
    • Track HW/SW
    • Connect assets to incident, request
    • Currently used for end-user devices only
    • Not all divisions have access
    • SAM capabilities are limited
    ITAM Team/Service Management
    • Add license for additional read/write access
    • Start tracking infra in this tool
    Active Directory
    • Store user IDs, organizational data
    Major data quality issues IT Operations
    • Work with AD team to identify issues creating data issues

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    2.6 Identify potential new tools

    30 minutes

    Input: Knowledge of tooling gaps, An understanding of available tools that could remediate gaps

    Output: New tools that can improve ITAM capabilities, including expected value and proposed next steps

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers

    Identify tools that are required to support the identified goals of the ITAM practice.

    1. What types of tools do we need that we don’t have?
    2. What could these tools help us do?
    3. What needs to be done next to investigate or acquire the appropriate tool?
    New Tool Expected Value Proposed Next Steps
    SAM tool
    • Automatically calculate licensing entitlements from contract data.
    • Automatically calculate licensing requirements from discovery data.
    • Support gap analyses.
    • Further develop software requirements.
    • Identify vendors in the space and create a shortlist.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.7: Create a plan for internal and external audits

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Establish your approach to internal data audits.
    • Create a high-level response plan for external audits.

    Validate ITAM data via internal audits

    Data audits provide assurance that the records in the ITAM database are as accurate as possible. Consider these three approaches:

    Compare Tool Records

    Audit your data by comparing records in the ITAM system to other discovery sources.

    • Ideally, use three separate data sources (e.g. ITAM database, discovery tool, security tool). Use a common field, such as the host name, to compare across fields. (To learn more about discovery tool analysis, see Jeremy Boerger’s book, Rethinking IT Asset Management.)
    • Run reports to compare records and identify discrepancies. This could include assets missing from one system or metadata differences such as different users or installed software.
    • Over time, discrepancies between tools should be well understood and accepted; otherwise, they should be addressed and remediated.
    IT-led Audit

    Conduct a hands-on investigation led by ITAM staff and IT technicians.

    • In-person audits require significant effort and resources. Each audit should be scoped and planned ahead of time to focus on known problem areas.
    • Provide the audit team with exact instructions on what needs to be verified and recorded. Depending on the experience and attention to detail of the audit team, you may need to conduct spot checks to ensure you’re catching any issues in the audit process itself.
    • Automation should be used wherever possible (e.g. through barcodes, scanners, and tables for quick access to ITAM records).
    User-led audit

    Have users validate the IT assets assigned to them.

    • Even more than IT-led audits: don’t use this approach too frequently; keep the scope as narrow as possible and the process as simple as possible.
    • Ensure users have all the information and tools they’ll need readily available to complete this task, or the result will be ineffective and will only frustrate your users.
    • Consider a process integrated with your ITSM tool: once a year, when a user logs in to the portal, they will be asked to enter the asset code for their laptop (and provided with instructions on where to find that code). Investigate discrepancies between assignments and ITAM records.

    2.7 Set an approach to internal data audits

    30 minutes

    Input: An understanding of current data audit capabilities and needs

    Output: An outline of how you’ll approach data audits, including frequency, scope, required resources

    Materials: Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team

    Review the three internal data audit approaches outlined on the previous slide, and identify which of the three approaches you’ll use. For each approach, complete the fields in the table below.

    Audit Approach How often? What scope? Who’s involved? Comments
    Compare tool records Monthly Compare ITAM DB, Intune/ConfigMgr, and Vulnerability Scanner Data; focus on end-user devices to start Asset manager will lead at first.
    Work with tool admins to pull data and generate reports.
    IT-led audit Annual End-user devices at a subset of locations Asset manager will work with ITSM admins to generate reports. In-person audit to be conducted by local techs.
    User-led audit Annual Assigned personal devices (start with a pilot group) Asset coordinator to develop procedure with ITSM admin. Run pilot with power users first.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Prepare for and respond to external audits and true-ups

    Are you ready when software vendors come knocking?

    • Vendor audits are expensive.
    • If you’re out of compliance, you will at minimum be required to pay the missing license fees. At their discretion, vendors may choose to add punitive fees and require you to cover the hourly cost of their audit teams. If you choose not to pay, the vendor could secure an injunction to cut off your service, which in many cases will be far more costly than the fines. And this is aside from the intangible costs of the disruption to your business and damaged relationships between IT, ITAM, your business, and other partners.
    • Having a plan to respond to an audit is critical to reducing audit risk. Preparation will help you coordinate your audit response, ensure the audit happens on the most favorable possible terms, and even prevent some audits from happening in the first place.
    • The best defense, as they say, is a good offense. Good ITAM and SAM processes will allow you to track acquisition, allocation, and disposal of software licenses; understand your licensing position; and ensure you remain compliant whenever possible. The vendor has no reason to audit you when there’s nothing to find.
    • Know when and where your audit risk is greatest, so you can focus your resources where they can deliver the most value.
    “If software audits are a big part of your asset operations, you have problems. You can reduce the time spent on audits and eliminate some audits by having a proactive ITAM practice.” (Sandi Conrad, Principal Research Director)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Audit defense starts long before you get audited. For an in-depth review of your audit approach, see Info-Tech’s Prepare and Defend Against a Software Audit.

    Identify areas of higher audit risk

    Watch for these warning signs
    • Your organization is visibly fighting fires. Signs of disorder may signal to vendors that there are opportunities to exploit via an audit. Past audit failures make future audits more likely.
    • You are looking for ways to decrease spend. Vendors may counter attempts to true-down licensing by launching an audit to try to find unlicensed software that provides them leverage to negotiate maintained or even increased spending.
    • Your license/contract terms with the vendor are particularly complex or highly customized. Very complex terms may make it harder to validate your own compliance, which may present opportunities to the vendor in an audit.
    • The vendor has earned a reputation for being particularly aggressive with audits. Some vendors include audits as a standard component of their business model to drive revenue. This may include acquiring smaller vendors or software titles that may not have been audit-driven in the past, and running audits on their new customer base.

    “The reality is, software vendors prey on confusion and complication. Where there’s confusion, there’s opportunity.” (Mike Austin, Founder, MetrixData 360)

    Develop an audit response plan

    You will be on the clock once the vendor sends you an audit request. Have a plan ready to go.
    • Don’t panic: Resist knee-jerk reactions. Follow the plan.
    • Form an audit response team and centralize your response: This team should be led by a member of the ITAM group, and it should include IT leadership, software SMEs, representatives from affected business areas, vendor management, contract management, and legal. You may also need to bring on a contractor with deep expertise with the vendor in question to supplement your internal capabilities. Establish clearly who will be the point of contact with the vendor during the audit.
    • Clarify the scope of the audit: Clearly establish what the audit will cover – what products, subsidiaries, contracts, time periods, geographic regions, etc. Manage the auditors to prevent scope creep.
    • Establish who covers audit costs: Vendors may demand the auditee cover the hourly cost of their audit team if you’re significantly out of compliance. Consider asking the vendor to pay for your team’s time if you’re found to be compliant.
    • Know your contract: Vendors’ contracts change over time, and it’s no guarantee that even your vendor’s licensing experts will be aware of the rights you have in your contract. You must know your entitlements to negotiate effectively.
    1. Bring the audit request received to the attention of ITAM and IT leadership. Assemble the response team.
    2. Acknowledge receipt of audit notice.
    3. Negotiate timing and scope of the audit.
    4. Direct staff not to remove or acquire licenses for software under audit without directly involving the ITAM team first.
    5. Gather installation data and documentation to establish current entitlements, including original contract, current contract, addendums, receipts, invoices.
    6. Compare entitlements to installed software.
    7. Investigate any anomalies (e.g. unexpected or non-compliant software).
    8. Review results with the audit response team.

    2.7 Clarify your vendor audit response plan

    1 hour

    Input: Organizational knowledge on your current audit response procedures

    Output: Audit response team membership, High-level audit checklist, A list of things to start, stop, and continue doing as part of the audit response

    Materials: Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    1. Who’s on the audit response team, and what’s their role? Who will lead the team? Who will be the point of contact with the auditor?
    2. What are the high-level steps in our audit response workflow? Use the example checklist below as a starting point.
    3. What do we need to start, stop, and continue doing in response to audit requests?

    Example Audit Checklist

    • Bring the audit request received to the attention of ITAM and IT leadership. Assemble the response team.
    • Acknowledge receipt of audit notice.
    • Negotiate timing and scope of the audit.
    • Direct staff not to remove or acquire licenses for software under audit without directly involving the ITAM team first.
    • Gather installation data and documentation to establish current entitlements, including original contract, current contract, addendums, receipts, invoices.
    • Compare entitlements to installed software.
    • Investigate any anomalies (e.g. unexpected or non-compliant software).
    • Review results with the audit response team.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.8: Improve budget processes

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers
    • ITAM business partners

    Outcomes

    • Identify what you need to start, stop, and continue to do to support budgeting processes.

    Improve budgeting and forecasting

    Insert ITAM into budgeting processes to deliver significant value.

    Some examples of what ITAM can bring to the budgeting table:
    • Trustworthy data on deployed assets and spending obligations tied to those assets.
    • Projections of hardware due for replacement in terms of quantity and spend.
    • Knowledge of IT hardware and software contract terms and pricing.
    • Lists of unused or underused hardware and software that could be redeployed to avoid spend.
    • Comparisons of spend year-over-year.

    Being part of the budgeting process positions ITAM for success in other ways:

    • Helps demonstrate the strategic value of the ITAM practice.
    • Provides insight into business and IT strategic projects and priorities for the year.
    • Strengthens relationships with key stakeholders, and positions the ITAM team as trusted partners.

    “Knowing what you have [IT assets] is foundational to budgeting, managing, and optimizing IT spend.” (Dave Kish, Info-Tech, Practice Lead, IT Financial Management)

    Stock image of a calculator.

    2.8 Build better budgets

    20 minutes

    Input: Context on IT budgeting processes

    Output: A list of things to start, stop, and continue doing as part of budgeting exercises

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, ITAM business partners

    What should we start, stop, and continue doing to support organizational budgeting exercises?

    Start Stop Continue
    • Creating buckets of spend and allocating assets to those buckets.
    • Zero-based review on IaaS instances quarterly.
    • Develop dashboards plugged into asset data for department heads to view allocated assets and spend.
    • Create value reports to demonstrate hard savings as well as cost avoidance.
    • Waiting for business leaders to come to us for help (start reaching out with reports proactively, three months before budget cycle).
    • % increases on IT budgets without further review.
    • Monthly variance budget analysis.
    • What-if analysis for asset spend based on expected headcount increases.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.9: Establish a documentation framework

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team

    Outcomes

    • Identify key documentation and gaps in your documentation.
    • Establish where documentation should be stored, who should own it, who should have access, and what should trigger a review.

    Create ITAM documentation

    ITAM documentation will typically support governance or operations.

    Long-term planning and governance
    • ITAM policy and/or related policies (procurement policy, security awareness policy, acceptable use policy, etc.)
    • ITAM strategy document
    • ITAM roadmap or burndown list
    • Job descriptions
    • Functional requirements documents for ITAM tools

    Operational documentation

    • ITAM SOPs (hardware, software) and workflows
    • Detailed work instructions/knowledgebase articles
    • ITAM data/records
    • Contracts, purchase orders, invoices, MSAs, SOWs, etc.
    • Effective Licensing Position (ELP) reports
    • Training and communication materials
    • Tool and integration documentation
    • Asset management governance, operations, and tools typically generate a lot of documentation.
    • Don’t create documentation for the sake of documentation. Prioritize building and maintaining documentation that addresses major risks or presents opportunities to improve the consistency and reliability of key processes.
    • Maximize the value of ITAM documentation by ensuring it is as current, accessible, and usable as it needs to be.
    • Clearly identify where documentation is stored and who should have access to it.
    • Identify who is accountable for the creation and maintenance of key documentation, and establish triggers for reviews, updates, and changes.

    Consider ITAM policies

    Create policies that can and will be monitored and enforced.
    • Certain requirements of the ITAM practice may need to be backed up by corporate policies: formal statements of organizational expectations that must be recognized by staff, and which will lead to sanctions/penalties if breached.
    • Some organizations will choose to create one or more ITAM-specific policies. Others will include ITAM-related statements in other existing policies, such as acceptable use policies, security training and awareness policies, procurement policies, configuration policies, e-waste policies, and more.
    • Ensure that you are prepared to monitor compliance with policies and evenly enforce breaches of policy. Failing to consistently enforce your policies exposes you and your organization to claims of negligence or discriminatory conduct.
    • For a template for ITAM-specific policies, see Info-Tech’s policy templates for Hardware Asset Management and Software Asset Management.

    2.9 Establish documentation gaps

    15-30 minutes

    Input: An understanding of existing documentation gaps and risks

    Output: Documentation gaps, Identified owners, repositories, access rights, and review/update protocols

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, Optional: IT managers, ITAM business partners

    Discuss and record the following:

    • What planning/governance, operational, and tooling documentation do we still need to create? Who is accountable for the creation and maintenance of these documents?
    • Where will the documentation be stored? Who can access these documents?
    • What will trigger reviews or changes to the documents?
    Need to Create Owner Stored in Accessible by Trigger for review
    Hardware asset management SOP ITAM manager ITAM SharePoint site › Operating procedures folder
    • All IT staff
    • Annual review
    • As-needed for major tooling changes that require a documentation update

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Step 2.10: Create a roadmap and communication plan

    Participants

    • Project sponsor and lead facilitator
    • ITAM team
    • IT leaders and managers

    Outcomes

    • A timeline of key ITAM initiatives.
    • Improvement ideas aligned to key initiatives.
    • A communication plan tailored to key stakeholders.
    • Your ITAM Strategy document.

    “Understand that this is a journey. This is not a 90-day project. And in some organizations, these journeys could be three or five years long.” (Mike Austin, MetrixData 360)

    2.10 Identify key ITAM initiatives

    30-45 minutes

    Input: Organizational strategy documents

    Output: A roadmap that outlines next steps

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, Project sponsor

    1. Identify key initiatives that are critical to improving practice maturity and meeting business goals.
    2. There should only be a handful of really key initiatives. This is the work that will have the greatest impact on your ability to deliver value. Too many initiatives muddy the narrative and can distract from what really matters.
    3. Plot the target start and end dates for each initiative in the business and IT transformation timeline you created in Phase 1.
    4. Review the chart and consider – what new capabilities should the ITAM practice have once the identified initiatives are complete? What transformational initiatives will you be better positioned to support?

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Transformation Timeline

    Example transformation timeline with row headers 'Business Inititiaves', 'IT Initiatives', and 'ITAM Initiatives'. Each initiative is laid out along the timeline appropriately.

    2.10 Align improvement ideas to initiatives

    45 minutes

    Input: Key initiatives, Ideas for ITAM improvement collected over the course of previous exercises

    Output: Concrete action items to support each initiative

    Materials: The table in the next slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: ITAM team, IT leaders and managers, Project sponsor

    As you’ve been working through the previous exercises, you have been tracking ideas for improvement – now we’ll align them to your roadmap.

    1. Review the list of ideas for improvement you’ve produced over the working sessions. Consolidate the list – are there any ideas that overlap or complement each other? Record any new ideas. Frame each idea as an action item – something you can actually do.
    2. Connect the action items to initiatives. It may be that not every action item becomes part of a key initiative. (Don’t lose ideas that aren’t part of key initiatives – track them in a separate burndown list or backlog.)
    3. Identify a target completion date and owner for each action item that’s part of an initiative.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Example ITAM initiatives

    Initiative 1: Develop hardware/software standards
    Task Target Completion Owner
    Laptop standards Q1-2023 ITAM manager
    Identify/eliminate contracts for unused software using scan tool Q2-2023 ITAM manager
    Review O365 license levels and standard service Q3-2023 ITAM manager

    Initiative 2: Improve ITAM data quality
    Task Target Completion Owner
    Implement scan agent on all field laptops Q3-2023 Desktop engineer
    Conduct in person audit on identified data discrepancies Q1-2024 ITAM team
    Develop and run user-led audit Q1-2024 Asset manager

    Initiative 3: Acquire & implement a new ITAM tool
    Task Target Completion Owner
    Select an ITAM tool Q3-2023 ITAM manager
    Implement ITAM tool, incl. existing data migration Q1-2024 ITAM manager
    Training on new tool Q1-2024 ITAM manager
    Build KPIs, executive dashboards in new tool Q2-2024 Data analyst
    Develop user-led audit functionality in new tool Q3-2024 ITAM coordinator

    2.10 Create a communication plan

    45 minutes

    Input: Proposed ITAM initiatives, Stakeholder priorities and goals, and an understanding of how ITAM can help them meet those goals

    Output: A high-level communication plan to communicate the benefits and impact of proposed changes to the ITAM program

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: IT asset manager, Project sponsor

    Develop clear, consistent, and targeted messages to key ITAM stakeholders.

    1. Modify the list of stakeholders in the first column.
    2. What benefits should those stakeholders realize from ITAM? What impact may the proposed improvements have on them? Refer back to exercises from Phase 1, where you identified key stakeholders, their priorities, and how ITAM could help them.
    3. Identify communication channels (in-person, email, all-hands meeting, etc.) and timing – when you’ll distribute the message. You may choose to use more than one channel, and you may need to convey the message more than once.
    Group ITAM Benefits Impact Channel(s) Timing
    CFO
    • More accurate IT spend predictions
    • Better equipment utilization and value for money
    • Sponsor integration project between ITAM DB and financial system
    • Support procurement procedures review
    Face-to-face – based on their availability Within the next month
    CIO
    • Better oversight into IT spend
    • Data to help demonstrate IT value
    • Resources required to support tool and ITAM process improvements
    Standing bi-monthly 1:1 meetings Review strategy at next meeting
    IT Managers
    Field Techs

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    2.10 Put the final touches on your ITAM Strategy

    30 minutes

    Input: Proposed ITAM initiatives, Stakeholder priorities and goals, and an understanding of how ITAM can help them meet those goals

    Output: A high-level communication plan to communicate the benefits and impact of proposed changes to the ITAM program

    Materials: The table in this slide, Your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Participants: IT asset manager, Project sponsor

    You’re almost done! Do a final check of your work before you send a copy to your participants.

    1. Summarize in three points the key findings from the activities you’ve worked through. What have you learned? What are your priorities? What key message do you need to get across? Add these to the appropriate slide near the start of the ITAM Strategy Template.
    2. What are your immediate next steps? Summarize no more than five and add them to the appropriate slide near the start of the ITAM Strategy Template.
      1. Are you asking for something? Approval for ITAM initiatives? Funding? Resources? Clearly identify the ask as part of your next steps.
    3. Are the KPIs identified in Phase 1 still valid? Will they help you monitor for success in the initiatives you’ve identified in Phase 2? Make any adjustments you think are required to the KPIs to reflect the additional completed work.

    Add your results to your copy of the ITAM Strategy Template

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Kylie Fowler
    Principal Consultant
    ITAM Intelligence

    Kylie is an experienced ITAM/FinOps consultant with a track record of creating superior IT asset management frameworks that enable large companies to optimize IT costs while maintaining governance and control.

    She has operated as an independent consultant since 2009, enabling organizations including Sainsbury's and DirectLine Insurance to leverage the benefits of IT asset management and FinOps to achieve critical business objectives. Recent key projects include defining an end-to-end SAM strategy, target operating model, policies and processes which when implemented provided a 300% ROI.

    She is passionate about supporting businesses of all sizes to drive continuous improvement, reduce risk, and achieve return on investment through the development of creative asset management and FinOps solutions.

    Rory Canavan
    Owner and Principal Consultant
    SAM Charter

    Rory is the founder, owner, and principal consultant of SAM Charter, an internationally recognized consultancy in enterprise-wide Software & IT Asset Management. As an industry leader, SAM Charter is uniquely poised to ensure your IT & SAM systems are aligned to your business requirements.

    With a technical background in business and systems analysis, Rory has a wide range of first-hand experience advising numerous companies and organizations on the best practices and principles pertaining to software asset management. This experience has been gained in both military and civil organizations, including the Royal Navy, Compaq, HP, the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST), and several software vendors.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Jeremy Boerger
    Founder, Boerger Consulting
    Author of Rethinking IT Asset Management

    Jeremy started his career in ITAM fighting the Y2K bug at the turn of the 21st century. Since then, he has helped companies in manufacturing, healthcare, banking, and service industries build and rehabilitate hardware and software asset management practices.

    These experiences prompted him to create the Pragmatic ITAM method, which directly addresses and permanently resolves the fundamental flaws in current ITAM and SAM implementations.

    In 2016, he founded Boerger Consulting, LLC to help business leaders and decision makers fully realize the promises a properly functioning ITAM can deliver. In his off time, you will find him in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his wife and family.

    Mike Austin
    Founder and CEO
    MetrixData 360

    Mike Austin leads the delivery team at MetrixData 360. Mike brings more than 15 years of Microsoft licensing experience to his clients’ projects. He assists companies, from Fortune 500 to organizations with as few as 500 employees, with negotiations of Microsoft Enterprise Agreements (EA), Premier Support Contracts, and Select Agreements. In addition to helping negotiate contracts, he helps clients build and implement software asset management processes.

    Previously, Mike was employed by Microsoft for more than 8 years as a member of the global sales team. With Microsoft, Mike successfully negotiated more than a billion dollars in new and renewal EAs. Mike has also negotiated legal terms and conditions for all software agreements, developed Microsoft’s best practices for global account management, and was awarded Microsoft’s Gold Star Award in 2003 and Circle of Excellence in 2008 for his contributions.

    Bibliography

    “Asset Management.” SFIA v8. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Boerger, Jeremy. Rethinking IT Asset Management. Business Expert Press, 2021.

    Canavan, Rory. “C-Suite Cheat Sheet.” SAM Charter, 2021. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Fisher, Matt. “Metrics to Measure SAM Success.” Snow Software, 26 May 2015. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Flexera (2021). “State of ITAM Report.” Flexera, 2021. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Fowler, Kylie. “ITAM by design.” BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, 2017. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Fowler, Kylie. “Ch-ch-ch-changes… Is It Time for an ITAM Transformation?” ITAM Intelligence, 2021. Web. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Fowler, Kylie. “Do you really need an ITAM policy?” ITAM Accelerate, 15 Oct. 2021. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Hayes, Chris. “How to establish a successful, long-term ITAM program.” Anglepoint, Sept. 2021. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    ISO/IEC 19770-1-2017. IT Asset Management Systems – Requirements. Third edition. ISO, Dec 2017.

    Joret, Stephane. “IT Asset Management: ITIL® 4 Practice Guide”. Axelos, 2020.

    Jouravlev, Roman. “IT Service Financial Management: ITIL® 4 Practice Guide”. Axelos, 2020.

    Pagnozzi, Maurice, Edwin Davis, Sam Raco. “ITAM Vs. ITSM: Why They Should Be Separate.” KPMG, 2020. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    Rumelt, Richard. Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. Profile Books, 2013.

    Stone, Michael et al. “NIST SP 1800-5 IT Asset Management.” Sept, 2018. Accessed 17 March 2022.

    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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    Bibliography

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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.

    “Enterprise Risk Management.” Protiviti, n.d. Accessed 16 Feb. 2017.

    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.

    Tucker, Davis. “Marketing Reporting: Tips to Create Compelling Reports.” 60 Second Marketer, 28 March 2020. Accessed 29 March 2022.

    “Why Do We Perform Better When Someone Has High Expectations of Us?” The Decision Lab, 9 Sept. 2020. Accessed 31 January 2022.

    Drive Business Value With Off-the-Shelf AI

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}205|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): N/A
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    • Parent Category Name: Business Intelligence Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /business-intelligence-strategy
    • Understanding the impact of the machine learning/AI component that is built into most of the enterprise products and tools and its role in the implementation of the solution.
    • Understanding the most important aspects that the organization needs to consider while planning the implementation of the AI-powered product.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations are faced with multiple challenges trying to adopt AI solutions. Challenges include data issues, ethics and compliance considerations, business process challenges, and misaligned leadership goals.
    • When choosing the right product to meet business needs, organizations need to know what questions to ask vendors to ensure they fully understand the implications of buying an AI/ML product.
    • To guarantee the success of your off-the-shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers value, you must start with a clear definition of the business case and an understanding of your data.

    Impact and Result

    To guarantee success of the off-the-shelf AI implementation and deliver value, in addition to formulating a clear definition of the business case and understanding of data, organizations should also:

    • Know what questions to ask vendors while evaluating AI-powered products.
    • Measure the impact of the project on business and IT processes.

    Drive Business Value With Off-the-Shelf AI Research & Tools

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

    1. Drive Business Value With Off-the-Shelf AI Deck – A step-by-step approach that will help guarantee the success of your Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers business value

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    Infographic

    Further reading

    Drive Business Value With Off-the-Shelf AI

    A practical guide to ensure return on your Off-the-Shelf AI investment

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge
    • Understanding the impact of the machine learning/AI component that is built into most of the enterprise products and tools and its role in the implementation of the solution.
    • What are the most important aspects that organizations needs to consider while planning the implementation of the AI-powered product?
    Common Obstacles
    • Organizations are faced with multiple challenges trying to adopt an AI solution. Challenges include data issues, ethics and compliance considerations, business process challenges, and misaligned leadership goals.
    • When choosing the right product to meet business needs, organizations need to know what questions to ask vendors to ensure they fully understand the implications of buying an AI/ML product.
    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Info-Tech’s approach includes a framework that will guide organizations through the process of the Off-the-Shelf AI product selection.

    To guarantee success of the Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and deliver value, organization should start with clear definition of the business case and an understanding of data.

    Other steps include:

    • Knowing what questions to ask vendors to evaluate AI-powered products.
    • Measuring the impact of the project on your business and IT processes.
    • Assessing impact on the organization and ensure team readiness.

    Info-Tech Insight

    To guarantee the success of your Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers value, you must start with a clear definition of the business case and an understanding of your data.

    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

    Getting value out of AI and machine learning investments

    92.1%

    of companies say they are achieving returns on their data and AI investments

    91.7%

    said they were increasing investments in data and AI

    26.0%

    of companies have AI systems in widespread production
    However, CIO Magazine identified nine main hurdles to AI adoption based on the survey results:
    • Data issues
    • Business process challenges
    • Implementation challenges and skill shortages
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    • Cybersecurity
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    • (Source: CIO, 2019)
    “Data and AI initiatives are becoming well established, investments are paying off, and companies are getting more economic value from AI.” (Source: NewVantage, 2022.)

    67% of companies are currently using machine learning, and 97% are using or planning to use it in the next year.” (Source: Deloitte, 2020)

    AI vs. ML

    Machine learning systems learn from experience and without explicit instructions. They learn patterns from data then analyze and make predictions based on past behavior and the patterns learned.

    Artificial intelligence is a combination of technologies and can include machine learning. AI systems perform tasks mimicking human intelligence such as learning from experience and problem solving. Most importantly, AI is making its own decisions without human intervention.

    The AI system can make assumptions, test these assumptions, and learn from the results.

    (Level of decision making required increases from left to right)
    Statistical Reasoning
    Infer relationships between variables

    Statistical models are designed to find relationships between variables and the significance of those relationships.

    Machine Learning:
    Making accurate predictions

    Machine learning is a subset of AI that discovers patterns from data without being explicitly programmed to do so.

    Artificial Intelligence
    Dynamic adaptation to novelty

    AI systems choose the optimal combination of methods to solve a problem. They make assumptions, reassess the model, and reevaluate the data.

    “Machine learning is the study of computer algorithms that improve automatically through experience.” (Tom Mitchell, 1997)

    “At its simplest form, artificial intelligence is a field, which combines computer science and robust datasets, to enable problem-solving.” (IBM, “What is artificial intelligence?”)

    Types of Off-the-Shelf AI products and solutions

    ML/AI-Powered Products Off-the-Shelf Pre-built and Pre-trained AI/ML Models
    • AI/ML capabilities built into the product and might require training as part of the implementation.
    • Off-the-Shelf ML/AI Models, pre-built, pre-trained, and pre-optimized for a particular task. For example, language models or image recognition models that can be used to speed up and simplify ML/AI systems development.
    Examples of OTS tools/products: Examples of OTS models:

    The data inputs for these models are defined, the developer has to conform to the provided schema, and the data outputs are usually fixed due to the particular task the OTS model is built to solve.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight:

    To guarantee the success of your Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers value, you must start with a clear definition of the business case and an understanding of your data.

    Business Goals

    Question the value that AI adds to the tool you are evaluating. Don’t go after the tool simply because it has an AI label attached to it. AI/ML capabilities might add little value but increase implementation complexity. Define the problem you are solving and document business requirements for the tool or a model.

    Data

    Know your data. Determine data requirements to:

    • Train the model during the implementation and development.
    • Run the model in production.

    People/Skills

    Define the skills required for the implementation and assemble the team that will support the project from requirements to deployment and support, through its entire lifecycle. Don’t forget about production support and maintenance.

    Choosing an AI-Powered Tool

    No need to reinvent the wheel and build a product you can buy, but be prepared to work around tool limitations, and make sure you understand the data and the model the tool is built on.

    Choosing an AI/ML Model

    Using Off-the-Shelf-AI models enables an agile approach to system development. Faster POC and validation of ideas and approaches, but the model might not be customizable for your requirements.

    Guaranteeing Off-the-Shelf AI Implementation Success

    Info-Tech Insight

    To guarantee the success of your Off-the-Shelf AI implementation and ensure it delivers value, you must start with a clear definition of the business case and an understanding of your data.

    Why do you need AI in your toolset?
    Business Goals

    Clearly defined problem statement and business requirements for the tool or a model will help you select the right solution that will deliver business value even if it does not have all the latest bells and whistles.

    Small chevron pointing right.
    Do you know the data required for implementation?
    Data

    Expected business outcome defines data requirements for implementation. Do you have the right data required to train and run the model?

    Large chevron pointing right.
    Is your organization ready for AI?
    People/Team/ Skills

    New skills and expertise are required through all phases of the implementation: design, build, deployment, support, and maintenance, as well as post-production support, scaling, and adoption.

    Data Architecture/ Infrastructure

    New tool or model will impact your cloud and integration strategy. It will have to integrate with the existing infrastructure, in the cloud or on prem.

    Large chevron pointing right.
    What questions do you need to ask when choosing the solution?
    Product/ Tool or Model Selection

    Do you know what model powers the AI tool? What data was used to train the tool and what data is required to run it? Ask the right questions.

    Small chevron pointing right.
    Are you measuring impact on your processes?
    Business and IT Processes

    Business processes need to be defined or updated to incorporate the output of the tool back into the business processes to deliver value.

    IT governance and support processes need to accommodate the new AI-powered tool.

    Small chevron pointing right.
    Realize and measure business value of your AI investment
    Value

    Do you have a clear understanding of the value that AI will bring to your organization?Optimization?Increased revenue?Operational efficiency?

    Introduction of Off-the-Shelf AI Requires a Strategic Approach

    Business Goals and Value Data People/Team/ Skills Infrastructure Business and IT Processes
    AI/ML–powered tools
    • Define a business problem that can be solved with either an AI-powered tool or an AI/ML pre-built model that will become part of the solution.
    • Define expectations and assumptions around the value that AI can bring.
    • Document business requirements for the tool or model.
    • Define the scope for a prototype or POC.
    • Define data requirements.
    • Define data required for implementation.
    • Determine if the required data can be acquired or captured/generated.
    • Document internal and external sources of data.
    • Validate data quality (define requirements and criteria for data quality).
    • Define where and how the data is stored and will be stored. Does it have to be moved or consolidated?
    • Define all stakeholders involved in the implementation and support.
    • Define skills and expertise required through all phases of the implementation: design, build, deployment, support, and maintenance.
    • Define skills and expertise required to grow AI practice and achieve the next level of adoption, scaling, and development of the tool or model POC.
    • Define infrastructure requirements for either Cloud, Software-as-a-Service, or on-prem deployment of a tool or model.
    • Define how the tool is integrated with existing systems and into existing infrastructure.
    • Determine the cost to deploy and run the tool/model.
    • Define processes that need to be updated to accommodate new functionality.
    • Define how the outcome of the tool or a model (e.g. predictions) are incorporated back into the business processes.
    • Define new business and IT processes that need to be defined around the tool (e.g. chatbot maintenance; analysis of the data generated by the tool).
    Off-the-shelf AI/ML pre-built models
    • Define the business metrics and KPIs to measure success of the implementation against.
    • Determine if there are requirements for a specific data format required for the tool or a model.
    • Determine if there is a need to classify/label the data (supervised learning).
    • Define privacy and security requirements.
    • Define requirements for employee training. This can be vendor training for a tool or platform training in the case of a pre-built model or service.
    • Define if ML/AI expertise is required.
    • Is the organization ready for ML/AI? Conduct an AI literacy survey and understand team’s concerns, fears, and misconceptions and address them.
    • Define requirements for:
      • Data migration.
      • Security.
      • AI/ML pipeline deployment and maintenance.
    • Define requirements for operation and maintenance of the tool or model.
    • Confirm infrastructure readiness.
    • How AI and its output will be used across the organization.

    Define Business Goals and Objectives

    Why do you need AI in your toolset? What value will AI deliver? Have a clear understanding of business benefits and the value AI delivers through the tool.

    • Define a business problem that can be solved with either an AI-powered tool or AI/ML pre-built model.
    • Define expectations and assumptions around the value that AI can bring.
    • Document business requirements for a tool or model.
    • Start with the POC or a prototype to test assumptions, architecture, and components of the solution.
    • Define business metrics and KPIs to measure success of the implementation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Question the value that AI adds to the tool you are evaluating. Don’t go after the tool simply because it has an AI label attached to it. AI/ML capabilities might add little value but increase implementation complexity. Define the problem you are solving and document business requirements for the tool or a model.

    Venn diagram of 'Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI)' with a larger circle at the top, 'Machine Learning (ML)', and three smaller ovals intersecting, 'Computer Vision', 'Natural Language Processing (NLP)', and 'Robotic Process Automation (RPA)'.

    AAI solutions and technologies are helping organizations make faster decisions and predict future outcomes such as:

    • Business process automation
    • Intelligent integration
    • Intelligent insights
    • Operational efficiency improvement
    • Increase revenue
    • Improvement of existing products and services
    • Product and process innovation

    1. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool to define business drivers and document business requirements

    2-3 hours
    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Business Drivers tab, a table with columns 'AI/ML Tool or Model', 'Use Case', 'Business problem / goal for AI/ML use case', 'Description', 'Business Owner (Primary Stakeholder)', 'Priority', 'Stakeholder Groups Impacted', 'Requirements Defined? Yes/No', 'Related Data Domains', and 'KPIs'. Use the Business Drivers tab to document:
    • Business objectives of the initiative that might drive the AI/ML use case.
    • The business owner or primary stakeholder who will help to define business value and requirements.
    • All stakeholders who will be involved or impacted.
    • KPIs that will be used to assess the success of the POC.
    • Data required for the implementation.
    • Use the Business Requirements tab to document high-level requirements for a tool or model.
    • These requirements will be used while defining criteria for a tool selection and to validate if the tool or model meets your business goals.
    • You can use either traditional BRD format or a user story to document requirements.
    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Business Requirements tab, a table with columns 'Requirement ID', 'Requirement Description / user story', 'Requirement Category', 'Stakeholder / User Role', 'Requirement Priority', and 'Complexity (point estimates)'.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    1. Define business drivers and document business requirements

    Input

    • Strategic plan of the organization
    • Data strategy that defines target data capabilities required to support enterprise strategic goals
    • Roadmap of business and data initiatives to support target state of data capabilities

    Output

    • Prioritized list of business use cases where an AI-powered tool or AI/ML can deliver business value
    • List of high-level requirements for the selected use case

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Off-the-Shelf-AI Analysis Tool, “Business Drivers” and “Business Requirements” tabs

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Senior business and IT stakeholders
    • Data owner(s)
    • Data steward(s)
    • Enterprise Architect
    • Data Architect
    • Data scientist/Data analyst

    Understand data required for implementation

    Do you have the right data to implement and run the AI-powered tool or AI/ML model?

    Info-Tech Insight

    Know your data. Determine data requirements to:

    • Train the model during the implementation and development, and
    • Run the model in production
    AvailabilityArrow pointing rightQualityArrow pointing rightPreparationArrow pointing rightBias, Privacy, SecurityArrow pointing rightData Architecture
    • Define what data is required for implementation, e.g. customer data, financial data, product sentiment.
    • If the data is not available, can it be acquired, gathered, or generated?
    • Define the volume of data required for implementation and production.
    • If the model has to be trained, do you have the data required for training (e.g. dictionary of terms)? Can it be created, gathered, or acquired?
    • Document internal and external sources of data.
    • Evaluate data quality for all data sources based on the requirements and criteria defined in the previous step.
    • For datasets with data quality issues, determine if the data issues can be resolved (e.g. missing values are inferred). If not, can this issue be resolved by using other data sources?
    • Engage a Data Governance organization to address any data quality concerns.
    • Determine if there are requirements for a specific data format required for the tool or model.
    • Determine if there is a need to classify/label or tag the data. What are the metadata requirements?
    • Define whether or not the implementation team needs to aggregate or transform the data before it can be used.
    • Define privacy requirements, as these might affect the availability of the data for ML/AI.
    • Define data bias concerns and considerations. Do you have datasheets for datasets that will be used in this project? What datasets cannot be used to prevent bias?
    • What are the security requirements and how will they affect data storage, product selection, and infrastructure requirements for the tool and overall solution?
    • Define where and how the data is currently stored and will be stored.
    • Does it have to be migrated or consolidated? Does it have to be moved to the cloud or between systems?
    • Is a data lake or data warehouse a requirement for this implementation as defined by the solution architecture?

    2. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool to document data requirements

    2-3 hours

    Use the Data tab to document the following for each data source or dataset:
    • Data Domain – e.g. Customer data
    • Data Concept – e.g. Customer
    • Data Internally Accessible – Identify datasets that are required for the implementation even if the data might not be available internally. Work on determining if the data ca be acquired externally or collected internally.
    • Source System – define the primary source system for the data, e.g. Salesforce
    • Target System (if applicable) – Define if the data needs to be migrated/transferred. For example, you might use a datalake or data warehouse for the AI/ML solution or migrate data to the cloud.
    • Classification/Taxonomy/Ontology
    • Data Steward
    • Data Owner
    • Data Quality – Data quality indicator
    • Refresh Rate – Frequency of data refresh. Indicate if the data can be accessed in real time or near-real time

    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Data tab, a spreadsheet table with the columns listed to the left and below.
    • Retention – Retention policy requirements
    • Compliance Requirements – Define if data has to comply with any of the regulatory requirements, e.g. GDPR
    • Privacy, Bias, and Ethics Considerations – Privacy Act, PIPEDA, etc. Identify if the dataset contains sensitive information that should be excluded from the model, such as gender, age, race etc. Indicate fairness metrics, if applicable.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    2. Document data requirements

    Input

    • Documented business use cases from Step 1.
    • High-level business requirements from Step 1.
    • Data catalog, data dictionaries, business glossary
    • Data flows and data architecture

    Output

    • High-level data requirements
    • List of data sources and datasets that can be used for the implementation
    • Datasets that need to be collected or acquired externally

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “Data” tab

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Business and IT stakeholders
    • Data owner(s)
    • Data steward(s)
    • Enterprise Architect
    • Data Architect
    • Data scientist/Data analyst

    Is Your Organization Ready for AI?

    Assess organizational readiness and define stakeholders impacted by the implementation. Build the team with the right skillset to drive the solution.

    • Implementation of the AI/ML-powered Off-the-Shelf Tool or an AI/ML model will require a team with a combination of skills through all phases of the project, from design of the solution to build, production, deployment, and support.
    • Document the skillsets required and determine the skills gap. Before you start hiring, depending on the role, you might find talent within the organization to join the implementation team with little to no training.
    • AI/ML resources that may be needed on your team driving AI implementation (you might consider bringing part-time resources to fill the gaps or use vendor developers) are:
      • Data Scientist
      • Machine Learning Engineer
      • Data Engineer
      • Data Architect
      • AI/ML Ops engineer
    • Define training requirements. Consider vendor training for a tool or platform.
    • Plan for future scaling and the growing of the solution and AI practice. Assess the need to apply AI in other business areas. Work with the team to analyze use cases and prioritize AI initiatives. As the practice grows, grow your team expertise.
    • Identify the stakeholders who will be affected by the AI implementation.
    • Work with them to understand and address any concerns, fears, or misconceptions around the role of AI and the consequences of bringing AI into the organization.
    • Develop a communication and change management plan to educate everyone within the organization on the application and benefits of using AI and machine learning.

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Define the skills required for the implementation and assemble the team that will support the project through its entire lifecycle. Don’t forget about production, support, and maintenance.

    3. Build your implementation team

    1-2 hours

    Input: Solution conceptual design, Current resource availability

    Output: Roles required for the implementation of the solution, Resources gap analysis, Training and hiring plan

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “People and Team” tab

    Participants: Project lead, HR, Enterprise Architect

    1. Review your solution conceptual design and define implementation team roles.
    2. Document requirements for each role.
    3. Review current org chart and job descriptions and identify skillset gaps. Draft an action plan to fill in the roles.
    4. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's People and Team tab to document team roles for the entire implementation, including design, build/implement, deployment, support and maintenance, and future development.

    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's People and Team tab, a table with columns 'Design', 'Implement', 'Deployment', 'Support and Maintenance', and 'Future Development'.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    Cloud, SaaS or On Prem – what are my options and what is the impact?

    Depending on the architecture of the solution, define the impact on the current infrastructure, including system integration, AI/ML pipeline deployment, maintenance, and data storage

    • Data Architecture: use the current data architecture to design the architecture for an AI-powered solution. Assess changes to the data architecture with the introduction of a new tool to make sure it is scalable enough to support the change.
    • Define infrastructure requirements for either Cloud, Software-as-a-Service, or on-prem deployment of a tool or model.
    • Define how the tool will be integrated with existing systems and into existing infrastructure.
    • Define requirements for:
      • Data migration and data storage
      • Security
      • AI/ML pipeline deployment, production monitoring, and maintenance
    • Define requirements for operation and maintenance of the tool or model.
    • Work with your infrastructure architect and vendor to determine the cost of deploying and running the tool/model.
    • Make a decision on the preferred architecture of the system and confirm infrastructure readiness.

    Download the Create an Architecture for AI blueprint

    4. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool to document infrastructure decisions

    2-3 hours

    Input: Solution conceptual design

    Output: Infrastructure requirements, Infrastructure readiness assessment

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “Infrastructure” tab

    Participants: Infrastructure Architect, Solution Architect, Enterprise Architect, Data Architect, ML/AI Ops Engineer

    1. Work with Infrastructure, Data, Solution, and Enterprise Architects to define your conceptual solution architecture.
    2. Define integration and storage requirements.
    3. Document security requirements for the solution in general and the data specifically.
    4. Define MLOps requirements and tools required for ML/AI pipeline deployment and production monitoring.
    5. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Infrastructure tab to document requirements and decisions around Data and Infrastructure Architecture.

    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Infrastructure tab, a table with columns 'Cloud, SaaS or On-Prem', 'Data Migration Requirements', 'Data Storage Requirements', 'Security Requirements', 'Integrations Required', and 'AI/ML Pipeline Deployment and Maintenance Requirements'.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    What questions do you need to ask vendors when choosing the solution?

    Take advantage of Info-Tech’s Rapid Application Selection Framework (RASF) to guide tool selection, but ask vendors the right questions to understand implications of having AI/ML built into the tool or a model

    Data Model Implementation and Integration Deployment Security and Compliance
    • What data (attributes) were used to train the model?
    • Do you have datasheets for the data used?
    • How was data bias mitigated?
    • What are the data labeling/classification requirements for training the model?
    • What data is required for production? E.g. volume; type of data, etc.
    • Were there any open-source libraries used in the model? If yes, how were vulnerabilities and security concerns addressed?
    • What algorithms are implemented in the tool/model?
    • Can model parameters be configured?
    • What is model accuracy?
    • Level of customization required for the implementation to meet our requirements.
    • Does the model require training? If yes, can you provide details? Can you estimate the effort required?
    • Integration capabilities and requirements.
    • Data migration requirements for tool operation and development.
    • Administrator console – is this functionality available?
    • Implementation timeframe.
    • Is the model or tool deployable on premises or in the cloud? Do you support hybrid cloud and multi-cloud deployment?
    • What cloud platforms are your product/model integrated with (AWS, Azure, GCP)?
    • What are the infrastructure requirements?
    • Is the model containerized/ scalable?
    • What product support and product updates are available?
    • Regulatory compliance (GDPR, PIPEDA, HIPAA, PCI DSS, CCPA, SOX, etc.)?
    • How are data security risks addressed?

    Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “Vendor Questionnaire” tab to track vendor responses to these questions.

    Are you measuring impact on your processes?

    Make sure that you understand the impact of the new technology on the existing business and IT processes.

    And make sure your business processes are ready to take advantage of the benefits and new capabilities enabled by AI/ML.

    Process automation, optimization, and improvement enabled by the technology and AI/ML-powered tools allow organizations to reduce manual work, streamline existing business processes, improve customer satisfaction, and get critical insights to assist decision making.

    To take full advantage of the benefits and new capabilities enabled by the technology, make sure that business and IT processes reflect these changes:

    • Processes that need to be updated.
    • How the outcome of the tool or a model (e.g. predictions) is incorporated into the existing business processes and the processes that will monitor the accuracy of the outcome and monitor performance of the tool or model.
    • New business and IT processes that need to be defined for the tool (e.g. chatbot maintenance, analysis of the data generated by the tool, etc.).

    5. Document the Impact on Business and IT Processes

    2-3 hours

    Input: Solution design, Existing business and IT processes

    Output: Documented updates to the existing processes, Documented new business and IT processes

    Materials: Whiteboard/Flip charts, Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool, “Business and IT Processes” tab

    Participants: Project lead, Business stakeholders, Business analyst

    1. Review current business processes affected by the implementation of the AI/ML- powered tool or model. Define the changes that need to be made. The changes might include simplification of the process due to automation of some of the steps. Some processes will need to be redesigned and some processes might become obsolete.
    2. Document high-level steps for any new processes that need to be defined around the AI/ML-powered tool. An example of such a process would be defining new IT and business processes to support a new chatbot.
    3. Use Info-Tech’s Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Business and IT Processes tab, to document process changes.

    Screenshot of the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool's Business and IT Processes tab, a table with columns 'Existing business process affected', 'New business process', 'Stakeholders involved', 'Changes to be made', and 'New Process High-Level Steps'.

    Download the Off-the-Shelf AI Analysis Tool

    AI-powered Tools – Considerations

    PROS:
    • Enhanced functionality, allows the power of AI without specialized skills (e.g., Mathematica – recognizing patterns in data).
    • Might be a cheaper option compared to building a solution in-house (chatbot, for ex.).

    Info-Tech Insight:

    No need to reinvent the wheel and build the product you can buy, but be prepared to work around tool limitations, and make sure you understand the data and the model the tool is built on.

    CONS:
    • Dependency on the service provider.
    • The tool might not meet all the business requirements without customization.
    • Bias can be built into the tool:
      • Work with the vendor to understand what data was used to train the model.
      • From the perspective of ethics and bias, learn what model is implemented in the tool and what data attributes the model uses.

    Pre-built/pre-trained models – what to keep in mind when choosing

    PROS:
    • Lower cost and less time to development compared to creating and training models from scratch (e.g. using image recognition models or pre-trained language models like BERT).
    • If the pre-trained and optimized model perfectly fits your needs, the model accuracy might be high and sufficient for your scenario.
    • Off-the-Shelf AI models are useful for creating prototypes or POCs, for testing a hypothesis, and for validating ideas and requirements.
    • Usage of Off-the-Shelf models shortens the development cycle and reduces investment risks.
    • Language models are particularly useful if you don’t have data to train your own model (a “small data” scenario).
    • Infrastructure and model training cost reduction.
    CONS:
    • Might be a challenge to deploy and maintain the system in production.
    • Lack of flexibility: you might not be able to configure input or output parameters to your requirements. For example, a pre-built sentiment analysis model might return four values (“positive,” “negative,” “neutral,” and “mixed”), but your solution will require only two or three values.
    • Might be a challenge to comply with security and privacy requirements.
    • Compliance with privacy and fairness requirements and considerations: what data was used to pretrain the model?
    • If open-source libraries were used to create the model, how will vulnerabilities, risks, and security concerns be addressed?

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Using Off-the-Shelf AI models enables an agile approach to system development – faster POC and validation of ideas and approaches, but the model might not be customizable for your requirements.

    Metrics

    Metrics and KPIs for this project will depend on the business goals and objectives that you will identify in Step 1 of the tool selection process.

    Metrics might include:

    • Reduction of time spent on a specific business process. If the tool is used to automate certain steps of a business process, this metric will measure how much time was saved, in minutes/hours, compared to the process time before the introduction of the tool.
    • Accuracy of prediction. This metric would measure the accuracy of estimations or predictions compared to the same estimations done before the implementation of the tool. It can be measured by generating the same prediction or estimation using the AI-powered tool or using any methods used before the introduction of the tool and comparing the results.
    • Accuracy of the search results. If the AI-powered tool is a search engine, compare a) how much time it would take a user to find an article or a piece of content they were searching for using new tool vs. previous techniques, b) how many steps it took the user to locate the required article in the search results, and c) the location of the correct piece of content in the search result list (at the top of the search result list or on the tenth page).
    • Time spent on manual tasks and activities. This metric will measure how much time, in minutes/hours, is spent by the employees or users on manual tasks if the tool automates some of these tasks.
    • Reduction of business process steps (if the steps are being automated). To derive this metric, create a map of the business process before the introduction of the AI-powered tool and after, and determine if the tool helped to simplify the process by reducing the number of process steps.

    Bibliography

    Adryan, Boris. “Is it all machine learning?” Badryan, Oct. 20, 2015. Accessed Feb. 2022.

    “AI-Powered Data Management Platform.” Informatica, N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    Amazon Rekognition. “Automate your image and video analysis with machine learning.” AWS. N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Artificial Intelligence (AI).” IBM Cloud Education, 3 June 2020. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Artificial intelligence (AI) vs machine learning (ML).” Microsoft Azure Documentation. Accessed Feb. 2022.

    “Avante Garde in the Realm of AI” SearchUnify Cognitive Platform. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Azure Cognitive Services.” Microsoft. N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Becoming an AI-fueled organization. State of AI in the enterprise, 4th edition,” Deloitte, 2020. Accessed Feb. 2022.

    “Coveo Predictive Search.” Coveo, N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    ”Data and AI Leadership. Executive Survey 2022. Executive Summary of Findings.” NewVantage Partners. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Einstein Discovery in Tableau.” Tableau, N.d. Accessed Feb 2022.

    Korolov, Maria. “9 biggest hurdles to AI adoption.” CIO, Feb 26, 2019. Accessed Feb 2022.

    Meel, Vidushi. “What Is Deep Learning? An Easy to Understand Guide.” visio.ai. Accessed Feb. 2022.

    Mitchell, Tom. “Machine Learning,” McGraw Hill, 1997.

    Stewart, Matthew. “The Actual Difference Between Statistics and Machine Learning.” Towards Data Science, Mar 24, 2019. Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Sentiment analysis with Cognitive Services.” Microsoft Azure Documentation. Accessed February 2022.

    “Three Principles for Designing ML-Powered Products.” Spotify Blog. Oct 2019, Accessed Feb 2022.

    “Video Intelligence API.” Google Cloud Platform. N.d. Accessed Feb 2022

    Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}327|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.6/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $23,245 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 13 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
    • Parent Category Link: /innovation
    • End users often have a disjointed experience while interacting with your organization in using its products and services.
    • You have been asked by your senior leadership to start a new or revive an existing design or innovation function within your organization. However, your organization has dismissed design thinking as the latest “management fad” and does not buy into the depth and rigor that design thinking brings.
    • The design or innovation function lives on the fringes of your organization due to its apathy towards design thinking or tumultuous internal politics.
    • You, as a CIO, want to improve the user satisfaction with the IT services your team provides to both internal and external users.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • A user’s perspective while interacting with the products and services is very different from the organization’s internal perspective while implementing and provisioning those. A design-based organization balances the two perspectives to drive user-satisfaction over end-to-end journeys.
    • Top management must have a design thinker – the guardian angel of the balance between exploration (i.e. discovering new business models) and exploitation (i.e. leveraging existing business models).
    • Your approach to adopt design thinking must consider your organization’s specific goals and culture. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

    Impact and Result

    • User satisfaction, with the end-to-end journeys orchestrated by your organization, will significantly increase.
    • Design-centric organizations enjoy disproportionate financial rewards.

    Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should adopt design thinking in your organization, 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. What is design thinking?

    The focus of this phase is on revealing what designers do during the activity of designing, and on building an understanding of the nature of design ability. We will formally examine the many definitions of design thinking from experts in this field. At the core of this phase are several case studies that illuminate the various aspects of design thinking.

    • Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization – Phase 1: What Is Design Thinking?
    • Victor Scheinman's Experiment for Design

    2. How does an organization benefit from design thinking?

    This phase will illustrate the relevance of design in strategy formulation and in service-design. At the core of this phase are several case studies that illuminate these aspects of design thinking. We will also identify the trends impacting your organization and establish a baseline of user-experience with the journeys orchestrated by your organization.

    • Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization – Phase 2: How Does an Organization Benefit From Design Thinking?
    • Trends Matrix (Sample)

    3. How do you build a design organization?

    The focus of this phase is to:

  • Measure the design-centricity of your organization and subsequently, identify the areas for improvement.
  • Define an approach for a design program that suites your organization’s specific goals and culture.
    • Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization – Phase 3: How Do You Build a Design Organization?
    • Report on How Design-Centric Is Your Organization (Sample)
    • Approach for the Design Program (Sample)
    • Interview With David Dunne on Design Thinking
    • Interview With David Dunne on Design Thinking (mp3)
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization

    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 What Is Design Thinking?

    The Purpose

    The focus of this module is on revealing what designers do during the activity of designing, and on building an understanding of the nature of design ability. We will also review the report on the design-centricity of your organization and subsequently, earmark the areas for improvement.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An intimate understanding of the design thinking

    An assessment of design-centricity of your organization and identification of areas for improvement

    Activities

    1.1 Discuss case studies on how designers think and work

    1.2 Define design thinking

    1.3 Review report from Info-Tech’s diagnostic: How design-centric is your organization?

    1.4 Earmark areas for improvement to raise the design-centricity of your organization

    Outputs

    Report from Info-Tech’s diagnostic: ‘How design-centric is your organization?’ with identified areas for improvement.

    2 How Does an Organization Benefit From Design Thinking?

    The Purpose

    In this module, we will discuss the relevance of design in strategy formulation and service design. At the core of this module are several case studies that illuminate these aspects of design thinking. We will also identify the trends impacting your organization. We will establish a baseline of user experience with the journeys orchestrated by your organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An in-depth understanding of the relevance of design in strategy formulation and service design

    An understanding of the trends that impact your organization

    A taxonomy of critical customer journeys and a baseline of customers’ satisfaction with those

    Activities

    2.1 Discuss relevance of design in strategy through case studies

    2.2 Articulate trends that impact your organization

    2.3 Discuss service design through case studies

    2.4 Identify critical customer journeys and baseline customers’ satisfaction with those

    2.5 Run a simulation of design in practice

    Outputs

    Trends that impact your organization.

    Taxonomy of critical customer journeys and a baseline of customers’ satisfaction with those.

    3 How to Build a Design Organization

    The Purpose

    The focus of this module is to define an approach for a design program that suits your organization’s specific goals and culture.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An approach for the design program in your organization. This includes aspects of the design program such as its objectives and measures, its model (one of the five archetypes or a hybrid one), and its governance.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify objectives and key measures for your design thinking program

    3.2 Structure your program after reviewing five main archetypes of a design program

    3.3 Balance between incremental and disruptive innovation

    3.4 Review best practices of a design organization

    Outputs

    An approach for your design thinking program: objectives and key measures; structure of the program, etc.

    Infrastructure & Operations Priorities 2022

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}56|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: 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

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}558|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
    • Contacts fail to convert to leads because messaging fails to resonate with buyers.
    • Products fail to reach targets given shallow understanding of buyer needs.
    • Sellers' emails go unopened and attempts at discovery fail due to no understanding of buyer challenges, pain points, and needs.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Marketing leaders in possession of well-researched and up-to-date buyer personas and journeys dramatically improve product market fit, lead gen, and sales results.
    • Success starts with product, marketing, and sales alignment on targeted personas.
    • Speed to deploy is enabled via initial buyer persona attribute discovery internally.
    • However, ultimate success requires buyer interviews, especially for the buyer journey.
    • Leading marketers update journey maps every six months as disruptive events such as COVID-19 and new media and tech platform advancements require continual innovation.

    Impact and Result

    • Reduce time and treasure wasted chasing the wrong prospects.
    • Improve product-market fit.
    • Increase open and click-through rates in your lead gen engine.
    • Perform more effective sales discovery and increase eventual win rates.

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Our Executive Brief summarizes the challenges faced when buyer persona and journeys are ill-defined. It describes the attributes of, and the benefits that accrue from, a well-defined persona and journey and the key steps to take to achieve success.

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

    1. Drive an aligned initial draft of buyer persona

    Define and align your team on target persona, outline steps to capture and document a robust buyer persona and journey, and capture current team buyer knowledge.

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    2. Interview buyers and validate persona and journey

    Hold initial buyer interviews, test initial results, and continue with interviews.

    3. Prepare communications and educate stakeholders

    Consolidate interview findings, present to product, marketing, and sales teams. Work with them to apply to product design, marketing launch/campaigning, and sales and customer success enablement.

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

    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 Team, Identify Persona, and Document Current Knowledge

    The Purpose

    Organize, drive alignment on target persona, and capture initial views.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Steering committee and project team roles and responsibilities clarified.

    Product, marketing, and sales aligned on target persona.

    Build initial team understanding of persona.

    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.

    1.2 Identify buyer persona choices and settle on an initial target.

    1.3 Document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).

    Outputs

    Documented steering committee and working team

    Executive Brief on personas and journey

    Personas and initial targets

    Documented team knowledge

    2 Validate Initial Work and Identify Buyer Interviewees

    The Purpose

    Build list of buyer interviewees, finalize interview guide, and validate current findings with analyst input.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Interview efficiently using 75-question interview guide.

    Gain analyst help in persona validation, reducing workload.

    Activities

    2.1 Share initial insights with covering industry analyst.

    2.2 Hear from industry analyst their perspectives on the buyer persona attributes.

    2.3 Reconcile differences; update “current understanding.”

    2.4 Identify interviewee types by segment, region, etc.

    Outputs

    Analyst-validated initial findings

    Target interviewee types

    3 Schedule and Hold Buyer Interviews

    The Purpose

    Validate current persona hypothesis and flush out those attributes only derived from interviews.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Get to a critical mass of persona and journey understanding quickly.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify actual list of 15-20 interviewees.

    3.2 Hold interviews and use interview guides over the course of weeks.

    3.3 Hold review session after initial 3-4 interviews to make adjustments.

    3.4 Complete interviews.

    Outputs

    List of interviewees; calls scheduled

    Initial review – “are you going in the right direction?”

    Completed interviews

    4 Summarize Findings and Provide Actionable Guidance to Colleagues

    The Purpose

    Summarize persona and journey attributes and provide activation guidance to team.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of product market fit requirements, messaging, and marketing, and sales asset content.

    Activities

    4.1 Summarize findings.

    4.2 Create action items for supporting team, e.g. messaging, touch points, media spend, assets.

    4.3 Convene steering committee/executives and working team for final review.

    4.4 Schedule meetings with colleagues to action results.

    Outputs

    Complete findings

    Action items for team members

    Plan for activation

    5 Measure Impact and Results

    The Purpose

    Measure results, adjust, and improve.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Activation of outcomes; measured results.

    Activities

    5.1 Review final copy, assets, launch/campaign plans, etc.

    5.2 Develop/review implementation plan.

    5.3 Reconvene team to review results.

    Outputs

    Activation review

    List of suggested next steps

    Further reading

    Create a Buyer Persona and Journey

    Make it easier to market, sell, and achieve product-market fit with deeper buyer understanding.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    B2B marketers without documented personas and journeys often experience the following:

    • Contacts fail to convert to leads because messaging fails to resonate with buyers.
    • Products fail to reach targets given shallow understanding of buyer needs.
    • Sellers’ emails go unopened, and attempts at discovery fail due to no understanding of buyer challenges, pain points, and needs.

    Without a deeper understanding of buyer needs and how they buy, B2B marketers will waste time and precious resources targeting the incorrect personas.

    Common Obstacles

    Despite being critical elements, organizations struggle to build personas due to:

    • A lack of alignment and collaboration among marketing, product, and sales.
    • An internal focus; or a lack of true customer centricity.
    • A lack of tools and techniques for building personas and buyer journeys.

    In today’s Agile development environment, combined with the pressure to generate revenues quickly, high tech marketers often skip the steps necessary to go deeper to build buyer understanding.

    SoftwareReviews’ Approach

    With a common framework and target output, clients will:

    • Align marketing, sales, and product, and collaborate together to share current knowledge on buyer personas and journeys.
    • Target 12-15 customers and prospects to interview and validate insights. Share that with customer-facing staff.
    • Activate the insights for more customer-centric lead generation, product development, and selling.

    Clients who activate findings from buyer personas and journeys will see a 50% results improvement.

    SoftwareReviews Insight:
    Buyer personas and buyer journeys are essential ingredients in go-to-market success, as they inform for product, marketing, sales, and customer success who we are targeting and how to engage with them successfully.

    Buyer personas and journeys: A go-to-market critical success factor

    Marketers – large and small – will fail to optimize product-market fit, lead generation, and sales effectiveness without well-defined buyer personas and a buyer journey.

    Critical Success Factors of a Successful G2M Strategy:

    • Opportunity size and business case
    • Buyer personas and journey
    • Competitively differentiated product hypothesis
    • Buyer-validated commercial concept
    • Sales revenue plan and program cost budget
    • Consolidated communications to steering committee

    Jeff Golterman, Managing Director, SoftwareReviews Advisory

    “44% of B2B marketers have already discovered the power of Personas.”
    – Hasse Jansen, Boardview.io!, 2016

    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 toward becoming a customer-centric organization.
    • Team alignment on a common definition – will happen when you build buyer personas collaboratively and among those 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 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 their wants and needs.”
    – Emma Bilardi, Product Marketing Alliance, 2020

    Buyer understanding activates just about everything

    Without the deep buyer insights that persona and journey capture enables, marketers are suboptimized.

    Buyer Persona and Journey

    • Product design
    • Customer targeting
    • Personalization
    • Messaging
    • Content marketing
    • Lead gen & scoring
    • Sales Effectiveness
    • Customer retention

    “Marketing eutopia is striking the all-critical sweet spot that adds real value and makes customers feel recognized and appreciated, while not going so far as to appear ‘big brother’. To do this, you need a deep understanding of your audience coming from a range of different data sets and the capability to extract meaning.”
    – Plexure, 2020

    Does your organization need buyer persona and journey updating?

    “Yes,” if experiencing one or more key challenges:

    • Sales time is wasted on unqualified leads
    • Website abandon rates are high
    • Lead gen engine click-through rates are low
    • Ideal customer profile is ill defined
    • Marketing asset downloads are low
    • Seller discovery with prospects is ineffective
    • Sales win/loss rates drop due to poor product-market fit
    • Higher than desired customer churn

    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.

    Outcomes and benefits

    Building your buyer persona and journey using our methodology will enable:

    • Greater stakeholder alignment – when marketing, product, and sales agree on personas, less time is wasted on targeting alternate personas.
    • Improved product-market fit – when buyers see both pain-relieving features and value-based pricing, “because you asked vs. guessed,” win rates increase.
    • Greater open and click-through rates – because you understood buyer pain points and motivations for solution seeking, you’ll see higher visits and engagement with your lead gen engine, and because you asked “what asset types do you find most helpful” your CTAs become ”lead-gen magnets” because you’ve offered the right asset types in your content marketing strategy.
    • More qualified leads – because you defined a more accurate ideal customer profile (ICP) and your lead scoring algorithm has improved, sellers see more qualified leads.
    • Increased sales cycle velocity – since you learned from personas their content and engagement preferences and what collateral types they need during the down-funnel sales discussions, sales calls are more productive and sales cycles shrink.

    Our methodology for buyer persona and journey creation

    1. Document Team Knowledge of Buyer Persona and Drive Alignment 2. Interview Target Buyer Prospects and Customers 3. Create Outputs and Apply to Marketing, Sales, and Product
    Phase Steps
    1. Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.
    2. Pull stakeholders together, identify initial buyer persona, and begin to document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).
    3. Validate with industry and marketing analyst’s initial buyer persona, and identify list of buyer interviewees.
    1. Hold interviews and document and share findings.
    2. Validate initial drafts of buyer persona and create initial documented buyer journey. Review findings among key stakeholders, steering committee, and supporting analysts.
    3. Complete remaining interviews.
    1. Summarize findings.
    2. Convene steering committee/exec. and working team for final review.
    3. Communicate to key stakeholders in product, marketing, sales, and customer success for activation.
    Phase Outcomes
    1. Steering committee and team selection
    2. Team insights about buyer persona documented
    3. Buyer persona validation with industry and marketing analysts
    4. Sales, marketing, and product alignment
    1. Interview guide
    2. Target interviewee list
    3. Buyer-validated buyer persona
    4. Buyer journey documented with asset types, channels, and “how buyers buy” fully documented
    1. Education deck on buyer persona and journey ready for use with all stakeholders: product, field marketing, sales, executives, customer success, partners
    2. Activation will update product-market fit, optimize lead gen, and improve sales effectiveness

    Our approach provides interview guides and templates to help rebuild buyer persona

    Our methodology will enable you to align your team on why it’s important to capture the most important attributes of buyer persona including:

    • Functional – helps you find and locate your target personas
    • Emotive – deepens team understanding of buyer initiatives, motivations for seeking alternatives, challenges they face, pain points for your offerings to address, and terminology that describes the “space”
    • Solution – enables greater product market fit
    • Behavioral – clarifies how to communicate with personas and understand their content preferences
    Functional – “to find them”
    Job Role Title 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 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: Which lens – strategic, financial, or operational – does the persona evaluate the impact of purchase through?
    Solution Attributes – “what does the ideal solution look 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 – blog, infographic, demo, video – vs. long-form assets (e.g. white paper, presentation, analyst report). Interaction Preferences: Which are preferred among in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, videoconferencing, 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)?

    Buyer journeys are constantly shifting

    If you didn’t remap buyer journeys in 2021, you may be losing to competitors that did. Leaders remap buyer journey 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-19 has dramatically decreased face-to-face interaction. We estimate a B2B buyer spent 20-25% more time online in 2021 than pre-COVID-19 researching software buying decisions. This has diminished the importance of face-to-face selling and 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 – by buyer journey step – to offer content marketing assets, we will fail to convert prospects into buyers.

    “~2/3 of [B2B] buyers prefer remote human interactions or digital self-service.” And during Aug. ‘20 to Feb. ‘21, use of digital self-service to interact with sales reps leapt by more than 10% for both researching and evaluating new suppliers.”
    – Liz Harrison, Dennis Spillecke, Jennifer Stanley, and Jenny Tsai McKinsey & Company, 2021

    SoftwareReviews Advisory Insight:
    Marketers are advised to update their buyer journey annually and with greater frequency when the human vs. digital mix is affected due to events such as COVID-19 and as emerging media such as AR shifts asset-type usage and engagement options.

    Our approach helps you define the buyer journey

    Because marketing leaders need to reach buyers through the right channel with the right message at the right time during their decision cycle, you’ll benefit by using questionnaires that enable you to build the below easily and quickly.

    You’ll be more successful by following our overall guidance

    Overarching insight

    Buyer personas and buyer journeys are essential ingredients in go-to-market success, as they inform for product, marketing, sales, and customer success who we are targeting and how to engage with them successfully.

    Align Your Team

    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.

    Jump-Start Persona Development

    Marketing leaders leverage the buyer persona knowledge not only from in-house experts in areas such as sales and executives but from analysts that speak with their buyers each and every day.

    Buyer Interviews Are a Must

    While leaders will get a fast start by interviewing sellers, executives, and analysts, you will fail to craft the right messages, build the right marketing assets, and design the best buyer journey if you skip buyer interviews.

    Watch for Disruption

    Leaders will update their buyer journey annually and with greater frequency when the human vs. digital mix is effected due to events such as COVID-19 and as emerging media such as AR and VR shifts the way buyers engage.

    Advanced Buyer Journey Discovery

    Digital marketers that ramp up lead gen engine capabilities to capture “wins” and measure engagement back through the lead gen and nurturing engines will build a more data-driven view of the buyer journey. Target to build this advanced capability in your initial design.

    Tools and templates to speed your success

    This blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you gather team insights, interview customers and prospects, and summarize results for ease in communications.

    To support your buyer persona and journey creation, we’ve created the enclosed tools

    Buyer Persona Creation Template

    A PowerPoint template to aid the capture and summarizing of your team’s insights on the buyer persona.

    Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    For interviewing customers and prospects, this tool is designed to help you interview personas and summarize results for up to 15 interviewees.

    Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    A PowerPoint template into which you can drop your buyer persona and journey interviewees list and summary findings.

    SoftwareReviews offers two 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."

    The "do-it-yourself" step-by-step instructions begin with Phase 1.

    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."

    A Guided Implementation is a series of analysts inquiries with you and your team.

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout each option.

    Guided Implementation

    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.

    What does our GI on buyer persona and journey mapping look like?

    Drive an Aligned Initial Draft of Buyer Persona

    • Call #1: Collaborate on vision for buyer persona and the buyer journey. Review templates and sample outputs. Identify your team.
    • Call #2: Review work in progress on capturing working team knowledge of buyer persona elements.
    • Call #3: (Optional) Review Info-Tech’s research-sourced persona insights.
    • Call #4: Validate the persona WIP with Info-Tech analysts. Review buyer interview approach and target list.

    Interview Buyers and Validate Persona and Journey

    • Call #5: Revise/review interview guide and final interviewee list; schedule interviews.
    • Call #6: Review interim interview finds; adjust interview guide.
    • Call #7: Use interview findings to validate/update persona and build journey map.
    • Call #8: Add supporting analysts to final stakeholder review.

    Prepare Communications and Educate Stakeholders

    • Call #9: Review output templates completed with final persona and journey findings.
    • Call #10: Add supporting analysts to stakeholder education meetings for support and help with addressing questions/issues.

    Workshop overview

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

    Day1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Align Team, Identify Persona, and Document Current Knowledge Validate Initial Work and Identify Buyer Interviewees Schedule and Hold Buyer interviews Summarize Findings and Provide Actionable Guidance to Colleagues Measure Impact and Results
    Activities

    1.1 Outline a vision for buyer persona and journey creation and identify stakeholders.

    1.2 Identify buyer persona choices and settle on an initial target.

    1.3 Document team knowledge about buyer persona (and journey where possible).

    2.1 Share initial insights with covering industry analyst.

    2.2 Hear from industry analyst their perspectives on the buyer persona attributes.

    2.3 Reconcile differences; update “current understanding.”

    2.4 Identify interviewee types by segment, region, etc.

    3.1 Identify actual list of 15-20 interviewees.

    A gap of up to a week for scheduling of interviews.

    3.2 Hold interviews and use interview guides (over the course of weeks).

    3.3 Hold review session after initial 3-4 interviews to make adjustments.

    3.4 Complete interviews.

    4.1 Summarize findings.

    4.2 Create action items for supporting team, e.g. messaging, touch points, media spend, assets.

    4.3 Convene steering committee/exec. and working team for final review.

    4.4 Schedule meetings with colleagues to action results.

    5.1 Review final copy, assets, launch/campaign plans, etc.

    5.2 Develop/review implementation plan.

    A period of weeks will likely intervene to execute and gather results.

    5.3 Reconvene team to review results.

    Deliverables
    1. Documented steering committee and working team
    2. Executive Brief on personas and journey
    3. Personas and initial targets
    4. Documented team knowledge
    1. Analyst-validated initial findings
    2. Target interviewee types
    1. List of interviewees; calls scheduled
    2. Initial review – “are we going in the right direction?”
    3. Completed interviews
    1. Complete findings
    2. Action items for team members
    3. Plan for activation
    1. Activation review
    2. List of suggested next steps

    Phase 1
    Drive an Aligned Initial Draft of Buyer Persona

    This Phase walks you through the following activities:

    • Develop an understanding of what comprises a buyer persona and journey, including their importance to overall go-to-market strategy and execution.
    • Sample outputs.

    This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Program leadership
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Representative(s) from Sales
    • Executive Leadership

    1.1 Establish the team and align on shared vision

    Input

    • Typically a joint recognition that buyer personas have not been fully documented.
    • Identify working team members/participants (see below), and an executive sponsor.

    Output

    • Communication of team members involved and the make-up of steering committee and working team
    • Alignment of team members on a shared vision of “Why Build Buyer Personas and Journey” and what key attributes define both.

    Materials

    • N/A

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    60 minutes

    1. Schedule inquiry with working team members and walk the team through the Buyer Persona and Journey Executive Brief PowerPoint presentation.
    2. Optional: Have the (SoftwareReviews Advisory) SRA analyst walk the team through the Buyer Persona and Journey Executive Brief PowerPoint presentation as part of your session.

    Review the Create a Buyer Persona Executive Brief (Slides 3-14)

    1.2 Document team knowledge of buyer persona

    Input

    • Working team member knowledge

    Output

    • Initial draft of your buyer persona

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (optional)
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    2-3 sessions of 60 minutes each

    1. Schedule meeting with working team members and, using the Buyer Persona Template, lead the team in a discussion that documents current team knowledge of the target buyer persona.
    2. Lead the team to prioritize an initial, single, most important persona and to collaborate to complete the template (and later, the buyer journey). Once the team learns the process for working on the initial persona, the development of additional personas will become more efficient.
    3. Place the PowerPoint template in a shared drive for team collaboration. Expect to schedule several 60-minute meets. Quicken collaboration by encouraging team to “do their homework” by sharing persona knowledge within the shared drive version of the template. Your goal is to get to an initial agreed upon version that can be shared for additional validation with industry analyst(s) in the next step.

    Download the Buyer Persona Creation Template

    1.3 Validate with industry analysts

    Input

    • Identify gaps in persona from previous steps

    Output

    • Further validated buyer persona

    Materials

    • Bring your Buyer Persona Creation Template to the meeting to share with analysts

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (Optional)
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • Info-Tech analyst covering your product category and SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    30 minutes

    1. Schedule meeting with working team members and discuss which persona areas require further validation from an Info-Tech analyst who has worked closely with those buyers within your persona.

    60 minutes

    1. Schedule an inquiry with the appropriate Info-Tech analyst and SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst to share current findings and see:
      1. Info-Tech analyst provide content feedback given what they know about your target persona and product category.
      2. SoftwareReviews Advisory analyst provide feedback on persona approach and to coach any gaps or important omissions.
    2. Tabulate results and update your persona summary. At this point you will likely require additional validation through interviews with customers and prospects.

    1.4 Identify interviewees and prepare for interviews

    Input

    • Identify segments within which you require persona knowledge
    • Understand your persona insight gaps

    Output

    • List of interviewees

    Materials

    • Interviewee recording template on following slide
    • Interview guide questions found within the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 weeks

    1. Identify the types of customers and prospects that will best represent your target persona. Choose interviewees that when interviewed will inform key differences among key segments (geographies, company size, mix of customers and prospects, etc.).
    2. Recruit interviewees and schedule interviews for 45 minutes.
    3. Keep track of Interviewees using the slide following this one.
    4. In preparation for interviews, review the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool. Review the two sets of questions:
      1. Buyer Persona-Related – use to validate areas where you still have gaps in your persona, OR if you are starting with a blank persona and wish to build your personas entirely based on customer and prospect interviews.
      2. Buyer-Journey Related, which we will focus on in the next phase.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    The image shows a table titled ‘Interviewee List.’ A note next to the title indicates: Here you will document your interviewee list and outreach plan. A note in the Segment column indicates: Ensure you are interviewing personas across segments that will give you the insights you need, e.g. by size, by region, mix of customers and prospects. A note in the Title column reads: Vary your title types up or down in the “buying center” if you are seeking to strengthen buying center dynamics understanding. A note in the Roles column reads: Vary your role types according to decision-making roles (decision maker, influencer, ratifier, coach, user) if you are seeking to strengthen decision-making dynamics understanding.

    Phase 2
    Interview Buyers and Validate Persona and Journey

    This Phase walks you through the following activities:

    • Developing final interview guide.
    • Interviewing buyers and customers.
    • Adjusting approach.
    • Validating buyer persona.
    • Crafting buyer journey
    • Gaining analyst feedback.

    This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Program leadership
    • Product Marketing
    • Representative(s) from Sales

    2.1 Hold interviews

    Input

    • List of interviewees
    • Final list of questions

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 weeks

    1. Hold interviews and adjust your interviewing approach as you go along. Uncover where you are not getting the right answers, check with working team and analysts, and adjust.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    2.2 Use interview findings to validate what’s needed for activation

    Input

    • List of interviewees
    • Final list of questions

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys
    • Stakeholder feedback that actionable insights are resulting from interviews

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    2 hours

    1. Convene your team, with marketing analysts, and test early findings: It’s wise to test initial interview results to check that you are getting the right insights to understand and validate key challenges, pain points, needs, and other vital areas pertaining to the buyer persona. Are the answers you are getting enabling you to complete the Summary slides for later communications and training for Sales?
    2. Check when doing buyer journey interviews that you are getting actionable answers that drive messaging, what asset types are needed, what the marketing channel mix is, and other vital insights to activate the results. Are the answers you are getting adequate to give guidance to campaigners, content marketers, and sales enablement?
    3. See the following slides for detailed questions that need to be answered satisfactorily by your team members that need to “activate” the results.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    2.2.1 Are you getting what you need from interviews to inform the buyer persona?

    Test that you are on the right track:

    1. Are you getting the functional answers so you can guide sellers to the right roles? Can you guide marketers/campaigners to the right “Ideal Customer Profile” for lead scoring?
    2. Are you capturing the right emotive areas that will support message crafting? Solutioning? SEM/SEO?
    3. Are you capturing insights into “how they decide” so sellers are well informed on the decision-making dynamics?
    4. Are you getting a strong understanding of content, interaction preferences, and news and information sources so sellers can outreach more effectively, you can pinpoint media spend, and content marketing can create the right assets?
    Functional – “to find them”
    Job Role Title 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 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: Which lens – strategic, financial, or operational – does the persona evaluate the impact of purchase through?
    Solution Attributes – “what does the ideal solution look 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 – blog, infographic, demo, video – vs. long-form assets (e.g. white paper, presentation, analyst report). Interaction Preferences: Which are preferred among in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, videoconferencing, 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)?

    2.2.2 Are you getting what you need from interviews to support the buyer journey?

    Our approach helps you define the buyer journey

    Because marketing leaders need to reach buyers through the right channel with the right message at the right time during their decision cycle, you’ll benefit by using questionnaires that enable you to build the below easily and quickly.

    2.3 Continue interviews

    Input

    • Final adjustments to list of interview questions

    Output

    • Final buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona Creation Template
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and data Capture Tool

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 weeks

    1. Continue customer and prospect interviews.
    2. Ensure you are gaining the segment perspectives needed.
    3. Complete the “Summary” columns within the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    Phase 3
    Prepare Communications and Educate Stakeholders

    This Phase walks you through the following activities:

    • Creating outputs for key stakeholders
    • Communicating final findings and supporting marketing, sales, and product activation.

    This Phase involves the following stakeholders:

    • Program leadership
    • Product Marketing
    • Product Management
    • Sales
    • Field Marketing/Campaign Management
    • Executive Leadership

    3.1 Summarize interview results and convene full working team and steering committee for final review

    Input

    • Buyer persona and journey interviews detail

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool
    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • CMO/Sponsoring Executive (Optional)
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • SoftwareReviews marketing analyst

    1-2 hours

    1. Summarize interview results within the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Interview Guide and Data Capture Tool

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    3.2 Convene executive steering committee and working team to review results

    Input

    • Buyer persona and journey interviews summary

    Output

    • Buyer perspectives on their personas and buyer journeys

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales

    1-2 hours

    1. Present final persona and journey results to the steering committee/executives and to working group using the summary slides interview results within the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template to finalize results.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    3.3 Convene stakeholder meetings to activate results

    Input

    • Buyer persona and journey interviews summary

    Output

    Activation of key learnings to drive:

    • Better product –market fit
    • Lead gen
    • Sales effectiveness
    • Awareness

    Materials

    • Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Participants

    • Initiative Manager – individual leading the buyer persona and journey initiative
    • Working Team – typically representatives in Product Marketing, Product Management, and Sales
    • Stakeholder team members (see left)

    4-5 hours

    Present final persona and journey results to each stakeholder team. Key presentations include:

    1. Product team to validate product market fit.
    2. Content marketing to provide messaging direction for the creation of awareness and lead gen assets.
    3. Campaigners/Field Marketing for campaign-related messaging and to identify asset types required to be designed and delivered to support the buyer journey.
    4. Social media strategists for social post copy, and PR for other awareness-building copy.
    5. Sales enablement/training to enable updating of sales collateral, proposals, and sales training materials. Sellers to help with their targeting, prospecting, and crafting of outbound messaging and talk tracks.

    Download the Buyer Persona and Journey Summary Template

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    With the help of this blueprint, you have deepened your and your colleagues’ buyer understanding at both the persona “who they are” level and the buyer journey “how do they buy” level. You are among the minority of marketing leaders that have fully documented a buyer persona and journey – congratulations!

    The benefits of having led your team through the process are significant and include the following:

    • Better alignment of customer/buyer-facing teams such as in product, marketing, sales, and customer success.
    • Messaging that can be used by marketing, sales, and social teams that will resonate with buyer initiatives, pain points, sought-after “pain relief,” and value.
    • Places in the digital and physical universe where your prospects “hang out” so you can optimize your media spend.
    • More effective use of marketing assets and sales collateral that align with the way your prospect needs to consume information throughout their buyer journey to make a decision in your solution area.

    And by capturing and documenting your buyer persona and journey even for a single buyer type, you have started to build the “institutional strength” to apply the process to other roles in the decision-making process or for when you go after new and different buyer types for new products. And finally, by bringing your team along with you in this process, you have also led your team in becoming a more customer-focused organization – a strategic shift that all organizations should pursue.

    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

    1-888-670-8889

    Related Software Reviews Research

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    • Save time and money and improve your sales win rates when you apply our methodology to score contacts with your lead gen engine more accurately and pass better qualified leads over to your sellers.
    • Our methodology teaches marketers to develop your own lead scoring approach based upon lead/contact profile vs. your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and scores contact engagement. Applying the methodology to arrive at your own approach to scoring will mean reduced lead gen costs, higher conversion rates, and increased marketing-influenced wins.

    Bibliography

    Bilardi, Emma. “How to Create Buyer Personas.” Product Marketing Alliance, July 2020. Accessed Dec. 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.io!, 19 Feb. 2016. Accessed Jan. 2022.

    Raynor, Lilah. “Understanding The Changing B2B Buyer Journey.” Forbes Agency Council, 18 July 2021. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    Simpson, Jon. “Finding Your Audience: The Importance of Developing a Buyer Persona.” Forbes Agency Council, 16 May 2017. Accessed Dec. 2021.

    “Successfully Executing Personalized Marketing Campaigns at Scale.” Plexure, 6 Jan. 2020. Accessed Dec 2020.

    Ulwick, Anthony W. JOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice. E-book, Strategyn, 1 Jan. 2017. Accessed Jan. 2022.

    Pandemic Preparation – The People Playbook

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}513|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: Lead
    • Parent Category Link: /lead
    • Keeping employees safe – limiting exposure of employees to the virus and supporting them in the event they become ill.
    • Reducing potential disruption to business operations through employee absenteeism and travel restrictions.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Communication of facts and definitive action plans from credible leaders is the key to maintaining some stability during a time of uncertainty.
    • Remote work is no longer a remote possibility – implementing alternative temporary work arrangements that keep large groups of employees from congregating reduce risk of employee exposure and operational downtime.
    • Pandemic travel protocols are necessary to support staff and their continuation of work while traveling for business and/or if stuck in a high-risk, restricted area.

    Impact and Result

    • Assign accountability of key planning decisions to members of a pandemic response team.
    • Craft key messages in preparation for communicating to employees.
    • Cascade communications from credible sources in a way that will establish pandemic travel protocols.

    Pandemic Preparation – The People Playbook Research & Tools

    Start here. Read the Pandemic Preparation: The People Playbook

    Read our concise Playbook to find out how you can immediately prepare for the people side of pandemic planning.

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

    • Pandemic Preparation: The People Playbook
    [infographic]

    Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}92|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: Innovation
    • Parent Category Link: /innovation
    • Organizations today continue to use traditional and often archaic methods of manual processing with physical paper documents.
    • These error-prone methods introduce cumbersome administrative work, causing businesses to struggle with payments and contract disputes.
    • The increasing scale and complexity of business processes has led to many third parties, middlemen, and paper hand-offs.
    • Companies remain bogged down by expensive and inefficient processes while losing sight of their ultimate stakeholder: the customer. A failure to focus on the customer is a failure to do business.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Simplify, automate, secure. Smart contracts enable businesses to simplify, automate, and secure traditionally complex transactions.
    • Focus on the customer. Smart contracts provide a frictionless experience for customers by removing unnecessary middlemen and increasing the speed of transactions.
    • New business models. Smart contracts enable the redesign of your organization and business-to-business relationships and transactions.

    Impact and Result

    • Simplify and optimize your business processes by using Info-Tech’s methodology to select processes with inefficient transactions, unnecessary middlemen, and excessive manual paperwork.
    • Use Info-Tech’s template to generate a smart contract use case customized for your business.
    • Customize Info-Tech’s stakeholder presentation template to articulate the goals and benefits of the project and get buy-in from business executives.

    Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should leverage smart contracts in your business, 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 smart contracts

    Understand the fundamental concepts of smart contract technology and get buy-in from stakeholders.

    • Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts – Phase 1: Understand Smart Contracts
    • Smart Contracts Executive Buy-in Presentation Template

    2. Develop a smart contract use case

    Select a business process, create a smart contract logic diagram, and complete a smart contract use-case deliverable.

    • Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts – Phase 2: Develop the Smart Contract Use Case
    • Smart Contracts Use-Case Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Develop a Use Case for Smart Contracts

    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 Smart Contracts

    The Purpose

    Review blockchain basics.

    Understand the fundamental concepts of smart contracts.

    Develop smart contract use-case executive buy-in presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of blockchain basics.

    Understanding the fundamentals of smart contracts.

    Development of an executive buy-in presentation.

    Activities

    1.1 Review blockchain basics.

    1.2 Understand smart contract fundamentals.

    1.3 Identify business challenges and smart contract benefits.

    1.4 Create executive buy-in presentation.

    Outputs

    Executive buy-in presentation

    2 Smart Contract Logic Diagram

    The Purpose

    Brainstorm and select a business process to develop a smart contract use case around.

    Generate a smart contract logic diagram.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Selected a business process.

    Developed a smart contract logic diagram for the selected business process.

    Activities

    2.1 Brainstorm candidate business processes.

    2.2 Select a business process.

    2.3 Identify phases, actors, events, and transactions.

    2.4 Create the smart contract logic diagram.

    Outputs

    Smart contract logic diagram

    3 Smart Contract Use Case

    The Purpose

    Develop smart contract use-case diagrams for each business process phase.

    Complete a smart contract use-case deliverable.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Smart contract use-case diagrams.

    Smart contract use-case deliverable.

    Activities

    3.1 Build smart contract use-case diagrams for each phase of the business process.

    3.2 Create a smart contract use-case summary diagram.

    3.3 Complete smart contract use-case deliverable.

    Outputs

    Smart contract use case

    4 Next Steps and Action Plan

    The Purpose

    Review workshop week and lessons learned.

    Develop an action plan to follow through with next steps for the project.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Reviewed workshop week with common understanding of lessons learned.

    Completed an action plan for the project.

    Activities

    4.1 Review workshop deliverables.

    4.2 Create action plan.

    Outputs

    Smart contract action plan

    Embed Business Relationship Management in IT

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}270|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 8.8/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $21,960 Average $ Saved
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    • Parent Category Name: Manage Business Relationships
    • Parent Category Link: /manage-business-relationships
    • While organizations realize they need to improve business relationships, they often don’t know how.
    • IT doesn’t know what their business needs and so can’t add as much value as they’d like.
    • They find that their partners often reach out to third parties before they connect with internal IT.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Business relationship management (BRM) is not just about communication, it’s about delivering on business value.
    • Build your BRM program on establishing trust.

    Impact and Result

    • 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.

    Embed Business Relationship Management in IT Research & Tools

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

    1. Embed Business Relationship Management Deck – A step-by-step document that walks you through how to establish a practice with well-embedded business relationships, driving IT success.

    This blueprint helps you to establish a relationship with your stakeholders, both within and outside of IT. You’ll learn how to embed relationship management throughout your organization.

    • Embed Business Relationship Management in IT – Phases 1-5

    2. BRM Workbook Deck – A workbook for you to capture the results of your thinking on the BRM practice.

    Use this tool to capture your findings as you work through the blueprint.

    • Embed Business Relationship Management in IT Workbook

    3. BRM Buy-In and Communication Template – A template to help you communicate what BRM is to your organization, that leverages feedback from your business stakeholders and IT.

    Customize this tool to obtain buy in from leadership and other stakeholders. As you continue through the blueprint, continue to leverage this template to communicate what your BRM program is about.

    • BRM Buy-In and Communication Template

    4. BRM Role Expectations Worksheet – A tool to help you establish how the BRM role and/or other roles will be managing relationships.

    This worksheet template is used to outline what the BRM practice will do and associate the expectations and tasks with the roles throughout your organization. Use this to communicate that while your BRM role has a strategic focus and perspective of the relationship, other roles will continue to be important for relationship management.

    • Role Expectations Worksheet

    5. BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet – A tool to help you establish your stakeholders and your engagement with them.

    This worksheet allows you to list the stakeholders and their priority in order to establish how you want to engage with them.

    • BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet

    6. Business Relationship Manager Job Descriptions – These templates can be used as a guide for defining the BRM role.

    These job descriptions will provide you with list of competencies and qualifications necessary for a BRM operating at different levels of maturity. Use this template as a guide, whether hiring internally or externally, for the BRM role.

    • Business Relationship Manager – Level 1
    • Business Relationship Manager – Level 2
    • Business Relationship Manager – Level 3
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Embed Business Relationship Management in 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 Foundation: Assess and Situate

    The Purpose

    Set the foundation for your BRM practice – understand your current state and set the vision.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of current pain points and benefits to be addressed through your BRM practice. Establish alignment on what your BRM practice is – use this to start obtaining buy-in from stakeholders.

    Activities

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    1.4 Create Vision

    1.5 Create the BRM Mission

    1.6 Establish Goals

    Outputs

    BRM definition

    Identify areas to be addressed through the BRM practice

    Shared vision, mission, and understanding of the goals for the brm practice

    2 Plan

    The Purpose

    Determine where the BRM fits and how they will operate within the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Learn how the BRM practice can best act on your goals.

    Activities

    2.1 Establish Guiding Principles

    2.2 Determine Where BRM Fits

    2.3 Establish BRM Expectations

    2.4 Identify Roles With BRM Responsibilities

    2.5 Align Capabilities

    Outputs

    An understanding of where the BRM sits in the IT organization, how they align to their business partners, and other roles that support business relationships

    3 Implement

    The Purpose

    Determine how to identify and work with key stakeholders.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Determine ways to engage with stakeholders in ways that add value.

    Activities

    3.1 Brainstorm Sources of Business Value

    3.2 Identify Key Influencers

    3.3 Categorize the Stakeholders

    3.4 Create the Prioritization Map

    3.5 Create Your Engagement Plan

    Outputs

    Shared understanding of business value

    A plan to engage with stakeholders

    4 Reassess and Embed

    The Purpose

    Determine how to continuously improve the BRM practice.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An ongoing plan for the BRM practice.

    Activities

    4.1 Create Metrics

    4.2 Prioritize Your Projects

    4.3 Create a Portfolio Investment Map

    4.4 Establish Your Annual Plan

    4.5 Build Your Transformation Roadmap

    4.6 Create Your Communication Plan

    Outputs

    Measurements of success for the BRM practice

    Prioritization of projects

    BRM plan

    Further reading

    Embed Business Relationship Management in IT

    Show that IT is worthy of Trusted Partner status.

    Executive Brief

    Analyst Perspective

    Relationships are about trust.

    As long as humans are involved in enabling technology, it will always remain important to ensure that business relationships support business needs. At the cornerstone of those relationships is trust and the establishment of business value. Without trust, you won’t be believed, and without value, you won’t be invited to the business table.

    Business relationship management can be a role, a capability, or a practice – either way it’s essential to ensure it exists within your organization. Show that IT can be a trusted partner by showing the value that IT offers.

    Photo of Allison Straker, Research Director, CIO Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.

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

    Your challenge: Why focus on business relationship management?

    Is IT saying this about business partners?

    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.

    Three stamps with the words 'Value', 'Innovation', and 'Advocacy'. Are business partners saying this about IT?

    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.

    Common obstacles

    While organizations realize they need to do better, they often don’t know how to improve.

    Organizations want to:
    • Understand and strategically align to business goals
    • Ensure stakeholders are satisfied
    • Show project value/success

    … these are all things that a mature business relationship can do to improve your organization.

    Key improvement areas identified by business leaders and IT leaders

    Bar chart comparing 'CXO' and 'CIO' responses to multiple areas one whether they need significant improvement or only some improvement. Areas in question are 'Understand Business Goals', 'Define and align IT strategy', 'Measure stakeholder satisfaction with IT', and 'Measure IT project success'. Source: CEO/CIO Alignment Diagnostic, N=446 organizations.

    Info-Tech’s approach

    BRMs who focus on achieving business value can improve organizational results.

    Visualization of a piggy bank labelled 'Business Value' with a person on a ladder labelled 'Strategic Tactical Operational' putting coins into the bank which are labelled 'External & internal views', 'Applied knowledge of the business', 'Strategic perspective', 'Trusted relationship', and 'Empathetic engagements “What’s in it for me/them?”'.

    Business relationships can take a strategic, tactical, or operational perspective.

    While all levels are needed, focus on a strategic perspective for optimal outcomes.

    Create business value through:

    • Applying your knowledge of the business so that conversations aren’t about what IT provides. Focus on what the overall business requires.
    • Ensuring your knowledge includes what is going on internally at your organization and also what occurs externally within and outside the industry (e.g. vendors, technologies used in similar industries or with similar customer interactions).
    • Discussing with the perspective of “what’s in it for [insert business partner here]” – don’t just present IT’s views.
    • Building a trusted strategic relationship – don’t just do well at the basics but also focus on the strategy that can move the organization to where it needs to be.

    Neither you nor your partners can view IT as separate from your overall business…

    …your IT goals need to be aligned with those of the overall business

    IT Maturity Pyramid with 'business goals' and 'IT goals' moving upward along its sides. It has five levels, 'unstable - Ad hoc – IT is too busy and the business is unsatisfied (too expensive, too long, not delivering on needs)', 'firefighter - Order taker – IT engaged on as-needed basis. IT unable to forecast demand to manage own resources', 'trusted operator - IT and business are not always sure of each other’s direction/priorities’, ‘business partner - IT understands and delivers on business needs', and 'innovator - Business and IT work together to achieve shared goals'.

    IT and other lines of business need to partner together – they are all part of the same overall business.

    Four puzzle pieces fitting together representing 'IT' and three other Lines of Business '(LOB)'

    <

    Why it’s important to establish a BRM program

    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
    Ladder labelled 'Strategic Tactical Operational'.
    • 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.

    Piggy bank labelled 'Business Value'.

    When IT understands the business, they provide better value

    Understanding all parties – including the business needs and context – is critical to effective business relationships.

    Establishing a focus on business relationship management is key to improving IT satisfaction.

    When business partners are satisfied that IT understands their needs, they have a higher perception of the value of overall IT

    Bar chart with axes 'Business satisfaction with IT understanding of needs' and 'Perception of IT value'. There is an upward trend.

    The relationship between the perception of IT value and business satisfaction is strong (r=0.89). Can you afford not to increase your understanding of business needs?

    (Source: Info-Tech Research Group diagnostic data/Business-Aligned IT Strategy blueprint (N=652 first-year organizations that completed the CIO Business Vision diagnostic))

    A tale of two IT partners

    Teleconference with an IT partner asking them to 'Tell me everything'.

    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.

    Teleconference with an IT partner that approached with knowledge of your business and industry.

    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.

    BRM success is measurable Measuring tape.

    1) Survey your stakeholders to measure improvements in customer satisfaction 2) Measure BRM success against the goals for the practice

    Business satisfaction survey

    • Audience: Business leaders
    • Frequency: Annual
    • Metrics:
      • Overall Satisfaction score
      • Overall Value score
      • Relationship Satisfaction:
        • Understand needs
        • Meet needs
        • Communication
    Two small tables showing example 'Value' and 'Satisfaction' scores. Dart board with five darts, each representing a goal, 'Demand Shaping', 'Value Realization', 'Servicing', 'Exploring', and 'Other Goal(s)'.
    Table with a breakdown of the example 'Satisfaction' score, with individual scores for 'Needs', 'Execution', and 'Communication'.

    Maturing your BRM practice is a journey

    Info-Tech has developed an approach that can be used by any organization to improve or successfully implement BRM. The same ladder as before with words 'Strategic', 'Tactical', 'Operational', and a person climbing on it. Become a Trusted Partner and Advisor
    KNOWLEDGE OF INDUSTRY

    STRATEGIC

    Value Creator and Innovator

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

    KNOWLEDGE OF FUNCTIONS

    TACTICAL

    Influencer and Advocate

    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.

    TABLE STAKES:
    COMMUNICATION
    SERVICE DELIVERY
    PROJECT DELIVERY

    OPERATIONAL

    Deliver

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

    Foundation: Define and communicate the meaning and vision of BRM

    At each level, keep maturing your BRM practice

    ITPartnerWhat to do to move to the next level

    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.

    (Adapted from BRM Institute Maturity Model and Info-Tech’s own model)

    The Info-Tech path to implement BRM

    Use Info-Tech’s ASPIRe method to create a continuously improving BRM practice.

    Info-Tech's ASPIRe method visualized as a winding path. It begins with 'Role Definition', goes through many 'Role Refinements' and ends with 'Metrics'. The main steps to which the acronym refers are 'Assess', 'Situate', 'Plan', 'Implement', and 'Reassess & Embed'.

    Insight summary

    BRM is not just about communication, it’s about delivering on business value.

    Business relationship management isn’t just about having a pleasant relationship with stakeholders, nor is it about just delivering things they want. It’s about driving business value in everything that IT does and leveraging relationships with the business and IT, both within and outside your organization.

    Understand your current state to determine the best direction forward.

    Every organization will apply the BRM practice differently. Understand what’s needed within your organization to create the best fit.

    BRM is not just a communication conduit between IT and the business.

    When implemented properly, a BRM is a value creator, advocate, innovator, and influencer.

    The BRM role must be designed to match the maturity level of the IT organization and the business.

    Before you can create incremental business value, you must master the fundamentals of service and project delivery.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Knowledge of your current situation is only half the battle; knowledge of the business/industry is key.

    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

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Key deliverable:

    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.

    Sample of Info-Tech's key deliverable, the Executive Buy-In and Communication Presentation Template.

    BRM Workbook

    Capture the thinking behind your organization’s BRM program.

    Sample of Info-Tech's BRM Workbook deliverable.

    BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet

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

    Sample of Info-Tech's BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan Worksheet deliverable.

    BRM Role Expectations Worksheet

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

    Sample of Info-Tech's BRM Role Expectations Worksheet deliverable.

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

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Phase 3

    Phase 4

    Phase 5

    Call #1: Discuss goals, current state, and an overview of BRM.

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

    Call #3: Establish BRM mission, vision, and goals. Call #4: Develop guiding principles.

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

    Call #6: Establish business value. Discuss stakeholders and engagement planning. Call #7: Develop metrics. Discuss portfolio management.

    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
    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Post-Workshop
    Activities
    Set the Foundation
    Assess & Situate
    Define the Operating Model
    Plan
    Define Engagement
    Implement
    Implement BRM
    Reassess
    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

    Deliverables
    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

    ASSESS

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    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

    Implement

    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

    Reassess & Embed

    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

    To assess BRM, clarify what it means to you

    Who are BRM relationships with? Octopus holding icons with labels 'Tech Partners', 'Lines of Business', and 'External Partners'. The BRM has multiple arms/legs to ensure they’re aligned with multiple parties – the partners within the lines of business, external partners, and technology partners.
    What does a BRM do? Engage the right stakeholders – orchestrate key roles, resources, and capabilities to help stimulate, shape, and harvest business value.

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

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

    Three figures performing different actions, labelled 'orchestrate', 'connect', and 'navigate'.
    What does a BRM focus on? Circle bisected at many random points to create areas of different colors with four color-coded circles surrounding it. Demand Shaping – Surfacing and shaping business demand
    Value Harvesting – Identifying ways to increase business value and providing insights
    Exploring – Rationalizing demand and reviewing new business, technology, and industry insights
    Servicing – Managing expectations and facilitating business strategy; business capability road mapping

    Determine what business relationship management is

    Many organizations face business dissatisfaction because they do not understand what the role of a BRM should be.

    A BRM Is NOT:
    • Order taker
    • Service desk
    • Project manager
    • Business analyst
    • Service delivery manager
    • Service owner
    • Change manager
    A BRM Is:
    • Value creator
    • Innovator
    • Trusted advisor
    • Strategic partner
    • Influencer
    • Business subject matter expert
    • Advocate for the business
    • Champion for business process improvement
    Business relationship management does not mean a go-between for the business and IT. Its focus should be on delivering VALUE and INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS to the business.

    1.1 What is BRM?

    1 hour

    Input: Your preliminary thoughts and ideas on BRM

    Output: Themes summarizing what BRM will be at your organization

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Each team member will take a colored sticky note to capture what BRM is and what it isn’t.
    2. As a group, review and discuss the sticky notes.
    3. Group them into themes summarizing what BRM will be at your organization.
    4. Leverage the workbook to brainstorm the definition of BRM at your organization.
    5. Create a refined summary statement and capture it in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    It’s important to understand what the business thinks; ask them the right questions

    Leverage the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic to provide clarity on:
    • 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

    Sample of various scorecards from the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic.

    1.2 Use their responses to help guide your BRM program

    1 hour

    Input: CIO-Business Vision Diagnostic, Other business feedback

    Output: Summary of your partners’ view of the IT relationship

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: CIO, IT management team

    1. Complete the CIO Business Vision diagnostic.
    2. Analyze the findings from the Business Vision diagnostic or other business relationship and satisfaction surveys. Key areas to look at include:
      • Overall IT Satisfaction
      • IT Value
      • Relationship (Understands Needs, Communicates Effectively, Executes Requests, Trains Effectively)
      • Shadow IT
      • Capacity Needs
      • Business Objectives
    3. Capture the following on your analysis:
      • Success stories – what your business partners are satisfied with
      • Challenges – are the responses consistent across departments?
    4. Leverage the workbook to capture your findings the goals. Key highlights should be documented in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    Use the BRM Workbook to capture ideas

    Polish the goals in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Perform a SWOT analysis to explore internal and external business factors

    A SWOT analysis is a structured planning method organizations use to evaluate the effects of internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats on a project or business venture.

    Why It Is Important

    • Business SWOT reveals internal and external trends that affect the business. You may uncover relevant information about the business that the other analysis methods did not reveal.
    • The organizational strengths or weaknesses will shed some light on implications that you might not have considered otherwise, such as brand perception or internal staff capability to change.

    Key Tips/Information

    • Although this activity is simple in theory, there is much value to be gained when performed effectively.
    • Focus on weaknesses that can cause a competitive disadvantage and strengths that can cause a competitive advantage.
    • Rank your opportunities and threats based on impact and probability.
    • Info-Tech members who have derived the most insights from a business SWOT analysis usually involved business stakeholders in the analysis.

    SWOT diagram split into four quadrants representing 'Strengths' at top left, 'Opportunities' at bottom left, 'Weaknesses' at top right, and 'Threats' at bottom right.

    Review these questions to help you conduct your SWOT analysis on the business

    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?

    1.3 Analyze internal and external business factors using a SWOT analysis

    1 hour

    Input: IT and business stakeholder expertise

    Output: Analysis of internal and external factors impacting the IT organization

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: CIO, IT management team

    1. Break the group into two teams:
      • Assign team A internal strengths and weaknesses.
      • Assign team B external opportunities and threats.
    2. Think about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as they pertain to the IT-business relationship. Consider people, process, and technology elements.
    3. Have the teams brainstorm items that fit in their assigned grids. Use the prompt questions on the previous slide as guidance.
    4. Pick someone from each group to fill in the SWOT grid.
    5. Conduct a group discussion about the items on the list; identify implications for the BRM/IT.

    Capture in the BRM Workbook

    SITUATE

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    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

    Implement

    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

    Reassess & Embed

    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 strategy informs your BRM program

    Your strategy is a critical input into your program. Extract critical components of your strategy and convert them into a set of actionable principles that will guide the selection of your operating model.

    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy' blueprint.

    Vision, Mission & Principles Chevron pointing right.
    • Leverage your vision and mission statements that communicate aspirations and purpose for key information that can be turned into design principles.
    Business Goal Implications Chevron pointing right.
    • Implications are derived from your business goals and will provide important context about the way BRM needs to change to meet its overarching objectives.
    • Understand how those implications will change the way that work needs to be done – new capabilities, new roles, new modes of delivery, etc.
    Target-State Maturity Chevron pointing right.
    • Determine your target-state relationship maturity for your organization using the BRM goals that have been uncovered.

    Outline your mission and vision for your BRM practice

    If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, how do you know if you’ve arrived?

    Establish the vision of what your BRM practice will achieve.

    Your vision will paint a picture for your stakeholders, letting them know where you want to go with your BRM practice.

    Stock image of a hand painting on a large canvas.

    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.

    Good Visions
    • 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
    When Visions Fail
    • 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
    (Source: UX Magazine, 2011)

    Derive the BRM vision statement

    Stock image of an easel with a bundle of paint brushes beside it. Begin the process of deriving the business relationship management vision statement by examining your business and user concerns. These are the problems your organization is trying to solve.
    Icon of one person asking another a question.
    Problem Statements
    First, ask what problems your organization hopes to solve.
    Icon of a magnifying glass on a box.
    Analysis
    Second, ask what success would look like when those problems were solved.
    Icon of two photos in quotes.
    Vision Statement
    Third, polish the answer into a short but meaningful phrase.

    Paint the picture for your team and stakeholders so that they align on what BRM will achieve.

    Vision statements demonstrate what your practice “aspires to be”

    Your vision statement communicates a desired future state of the BRM organization. The statement is expressed in the present tense. It seeks to articulate the desired role of business relationship management and how it will be perceived.

    Sample vision statements:

    • To be a trusted advisor and partner in enabling business innovation and growth through an engaged design practice.
    • The group will strive to become a world-class value center that is a catalyst for innovation.
    • Apple: “We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing.” (Mission Statement Academy, May 2019.)
    • Coca-Cola: “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.)

    2.1 Vision generation

    1 hour

    Input: IT and business strategies

    Output: Vision statement

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review the goals and the sample vision statements provided on the previous slide.
    2. Brainstorm possible vision statements that can apply to your practice. Refer to the guidance provided on the previous page – ensure that it paints a picture for the reader to show the desired target state.
    3. Leverage the workbook to brainstorm the vision. Capture the refined statement in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.
    Strong vision statements have the following characteristics
    • Describe a desired future
    • Focus on ends, not means
    • Communicate promise
    • Concise, no unnecessary words
    • Compelling
    • Achievable
    • Inspirational
    • Memorable

    Use the BRM Workbook to capture ideas

    Polish the goals in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Create the mission statement from the problems and the vision statement

    Your mission demonstrates your current intent and the purpose driving you to achieve your vision.

    It reflects what the organization does for users/customers.

    The main word 'Analysis' is sandwiched between 'Goals and Problems' and 'Vision Statement', each with arrow pointing to the middle. Make sure the practice’s mission statement reflects answers to the questions below:

    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?

    “A mission statement illustrates the purpose of the organization, what it does, and what it intends on achieving. Its main function is to provide direction to the organization and highlight what it needs to do to achieve its vision.” (Joel Klein, BizTank (in Hull, “Answer 4 questions to get a great mission statement.”))

    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.”

    2.2 Develop your own mission statement

    1 hour

    Input: IT and business strategies, Vision

    Output: Mission statement

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review the goals and the vision statement generated in the previous activities.
    2. Brainstorm possible mission statements that can apply to your BRM practice. Capture this in your BRM workbook.
    3. Refine your mission statement. Refer to the guidance provided on the previous page – ensure that the mission provides “the why”. Document the refined mission statement in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    “People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it and what you do simply proves what you believe.” (Sinek, Transcript of “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.”)

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Areas that BRMs focus on include:

    Establish how much of these your practice will focus on.

    VALUE HARVESTING
    • Tracks and reviews performance
    • Identifies ways to increase business value
    • Provides insights on the results of business change/initiatives
    Circle bisected at many random points to create areas of different colors with four color-coded circles surrounding it. DEMAND SHAPING
    • Isn’t just demand/intake management
    • Surfaces and shapes business demand
    • Is influenced by knowledge of the overall business and external entities
    SERVICING
    • Coordinates resources
    • Manages expectations
    • Facilitates business strategy, business capability road-mapping, and portfolio and program management
    EXPLORING
    • Identifies and rationalizes demand
    • Reviews new business, technology, and industry insights
    • Identifies business value initiatives

    Establish what success means for your focus areas

    Brainstorm objectives and success areas for your BRM practice.

    Circle bisected at many random points to create areas of different colors with four color-coded circles surrounding it. VALUE HARVESTING
    Success may mean that you:
    • 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
    DEMAND SHAPING
    Success may mean that you:
    • 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
    SERVICING
    Success may mean that you:
    • Understand IT services and service levels that are required
    • Provide clarity around services and communicate costs and risks
    EXPLORING
    Success may mean that you:
    • 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

    2.3 Establish BRM goals

    1 hour

    Input: Mission and vision statements

    Output: List of goals

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: CIO, IT management team, BRM team

    1. Use the previous slides as a starting point – review the focus areas and sample associated objectives.
    2. Determine if all apply to your role.
    3. Brainstorm the objectives for your BRM practice.
    4. Discuss and refine the objectives and goals until the team agrees on your starting set.
    5. Leverage the workbook to establish the goals. Capture refined goals in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    PLAN

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    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

    Implement

    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

    Reassess & Embed

    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

    Guiding principles help you focus the development of your practice

    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.

    Sample Guiding Principles

    Principle Name

    Principle Statement

    Customer Focus We will prioritize internal and external customer perspectives
    External Trends We will monitor and liaise with external organizations to bring best practices and learnings into our own
    Organizational Span We embed relationship management across all levels of leadership in IT
    Role If the resource does not have a seat at the table, they are not performing the BRM role

    3.1 Establish guiding principles (optional activity)

    Input: Mission and vision statements

    Output: BRM guiding principles

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Think about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as well as the overarching goals, mission, and vision.
    2. Identify a set of principles that the BRM practice should have. Guiding principles are shared, long-lasting beliefs that guide the use of business relationship management in your organization.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Establish the BRM partner model and alignment

    Having the right model and support is just as important as having the right people.

    Gears with different BRM model terms: 'BRM Capabilities', 'BRM & Other Roles', 'Scope (pilot)', 'Operating Unit', 'BRM Expectations Across the organization', and 'Delivery & Support'.

    Don’t boil the ocean: Start small

    It may be useful to pilot the BRM practice with a small group within the organization – this gives you the opportunity to learn from the pilot and share best practices as you expand your BRM practice.

    You can leverage the pilot business unit’s feedback to help obtain buy-in from additional groups.

    Evaluate the approaches for your pilot:
    Work With an Engaged Business Unit
    Icon of a magnifying glass over a group of people.

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

    Target Underperforming Area(s)
    Icon of an ambulance.

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

    Target the Area(s) Driving the Most Business Value
    Icon of an arrow in a bullseye.

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

    Work Across a Single Business Process
    Icon of a process tree.

    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.

    Leverage BRM goals to determine where the role fits within the organization

    Organization tree with a strategic BRM.

    Strategic BRMs are considered IT leaders, often reporting to the CIO.


    Organization tree with an operational BRM.

    In product-aligned organizations, the product owners will own the strategic business relationship from a product perspective (often across LOB), while BRMs will own the strategic role for the line(s) of businesses (often across products) that they hold a relationship with. The BRM role may be played by a product family leader.


    Organization tree with a BRM in a product-aligned organization.

    BRMs may take on a more operational function when they are embedded within another group, such as the PMO. This manifests in:

    • Accountability for projects and programs
    • BRM conversations around projects and programs rather than overall needs
    • Often, there is less focus on stimulating need, more about managing demand
    • This structure may be useful for smaller organizations or where organizations are piloting the relationship capability

    Use the IT structure and the business structure to determine how to align BRM and business partners. Many organizations ensure that each LOB has a designated BRM, but each BRM may work with multiple LOBs. Ensure your alignment provides an even and manageable distribution of work.

    Don’t be intimidated by those who play a significant role in relationship management

    Layers representing the BRM, BA, and Product Owner. Business Relationship Manager: Portfolio View
    • Ongoing with broader organization-wide objectives
    • A BRM’s strategic perspective is focused across projects and products
    The BRM will look holistically across a portfolio, rather than on specific projects or products. Their focus is ensuring value is delivered that impacts the overall organization. Multiple BRMs may be responsible for lines of businesses and ensure that products and project enable LOBs effectively.
    Business Analyst: Product or Project View
    • Works within a project or product
    • Accomplishes specific objectives within the project/product
    The BA tends to be involved in project work – to that end, they are often brought in a bit before a project begins to better understand the context. They also often remain after the project is complete to ensure project value is delivered. However, their main focus is on delivering the objectives within the project.
    Product Owner: Product View
    • Ongoing and strategic view of entire product, with product-specific objectives
    The Product Owner bridges the gap between the business and delivery to ensure their product continuously delivers value. Their focus is on the product.

    3.2 Establish the BRM’s place in the organizational structure

    Input: BRM goals, IT organizational structure, Business organizational structure

    Output: BRM operating model

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review the current organizational structure – both IT and overall business.
    2. Think about the maturity of the IT organization and what you and your partners will be able to support at this stage in the relationship or journey. Establish whether it is necessary to start with a pilot.
    3. Consider the reporting relationship that is required to support the desired maturity of your practice – who will your BRM function report into?
    4. Consider the distribution of work from your business partners. Establish which BRM is responsible for which partners.
    5. Document where the BRM fits in the organization in the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Align your titles to your business partners and ensure it demonstrates your strategic goals

    Some titles that may reflect alignment with your partners:
    • 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.

    Caution when using these 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)

    Determine the expectations for your BRM role(s)

    Below are standard expectations from BRM job descriptions. Establish whether there are changes required for your organization.

    Act as a Relationship Manager
    • 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
    Communicate With Business Stakeholders
    • 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

    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
    Project/Product Delivery
    • 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

    Determine role expectations (slide 2 of 3)

    Knowledge of the Business

    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
    Advocate for Your Business Clients
    • 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
    • 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
    Knowledge of the Market
    • 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

    Determine role expectations (slide 3 of 3)

    Value Creator
    • 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
    Innovator
    • 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

    3.3 Establish BRM expectations

    Input: BRM goals

    Output: BRM expectations

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review the BRM expectations on the previous slides.
    2. Customize them – are they the appropriate set of expectations needed for your organization? What needs to be edited in or out?
    3. Add relevant expectations – what are the things that need to be done in the BRM practice at your organization?
    4. Leverage the workbook to brainstorm BRM expectations. Make sure you update them in the BRM Role Expectation Spreadsheet.

    Download the BRM Workbook

    Download the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    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.

    3.4 Identify roles with BRM responsibilities

    Input: BRM goals

    Output: BRM-aligned roles

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Various roles can play a part in the BRM practice, managing business relationships. Which ones make sense in your organization, given the BRM goals?
    2. Identify the roles and capture in the BRM Role Expectation Spreadsheet. Use the Role Expectation Alignment tab, row 1.


    Download the Role Expectations Worksheet

    Determine the focus for each role that may manage business relationships

    Icon of a telescope. STRATEGIC Sets Direction: Focus of the activities is at the holistic, enterprise business level “relating to the identification of long-term or overall aims and interests and the means of achieving them” e.g. builds overarching relationships to enable and support the organization’s strategy; has strategic conversations
    Icon of a house in a location marker. TACTICAL Figures Out the How: Focuses on the tactics required to achieve the strategic focus “skillful in devising means to ends” e.g. builds relationships specific to tactics (projects, products, etc.)
    Icon of a gear cog with a checkmark. OPERATIONAL Executes on the Direction: Day-to-day operations; how things get done “relating to the routine functioning and activities of a business or organization” e.g. builds and leverages relationships to accomplish specific goals (within a project or product)

    3.5 Align BRM capabilities to roles

    Input: Current-state model, Business value matrix, Objectives and goals

    Output: BRM-aligned roles

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review each group of role expectations – Act as a Relationship Manager, Communicate with Business Stakeholders, etc. For each group, determine the focus each role can apply to it – strategic, tactical, or operational. Refer to the previous slide for examples.
    2. Capture on the spreadsheet:
      • S – This role is required to have a strategic view of the capabilities. They are accountable and set direction for this aspect of relationship management.
      • T – Indicate if the role is required to have a tactical view of the capabilities. This would include whether the role is required to figure out how the capabilities will be done; for example, is the role responsible for carrying out service management or are they just involved to ensure that that set of expectations are being performed?
      • O – Indicate if the role will have an operational view – are they the ones responsible for doing the work?
      • Note: In some organizations, a role may have more than one of these.
    3. The spreadsheet will highlight the cells in green if the role plays more of the strategic role, yellow for tactical, and brown for operational. This provides an overall visual of each role’s part in relationship management.
    4. (Optional) Review each detailed expectation within the group. Evaluate whether specific roles will have a different focus on the unique role expectations.

    Leverage the Role Expectations Worksheet

    Sample role expectation alignment

    Sample of a role expectation alignment table with expectation names and descriptions on the left and a matrix of which roles should have a Strategic (S), Tactical (T), or Operational (O) view of the capabilities.

    IMPLEMENT

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    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

    Implement

    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

    Reassess & Embed

    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

    Speak the same language as your partners: Business Value

    Business value represents the desired outcome from achieving business priorities.

    Value is not only about revenue or reduced expenses. Use this internal-external and capability-financial business value matrix to more holistically consider what is valuable to stakeholders.

    Improved Capabilities
    Enhance Services
    Products and services that enable business capabilities and improve an organization’s ability to perform its internal operations.
    Increase Customer Satisfaction
    Products and services that enable and improve the interaction with customers or produce practical market information and insights.
    Inward Outward
    Save Money
    Products and services that reduce overhead. They typically are less related to broad strategic vision or goals and more simply limit expenses that would occur had the product or service not put in place.
    Make money
    (Return on Investment)
    Products and services that are specifically related to the impact on an organization’s ability to create a return on investment.
    Financial Benefits

    Business Value Matrix Axes:

    Financial Benefits vs. Improved Capabilities
    • 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 vs. Outward Orientation
    • 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.

    4.1 Activity: Brainstorm sources of business value

    Input: Product and service knowledge, Business process knowledge

    Output: Understanding of different sources of business value

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Identify your key stakeholders. These individuals are the critical business strategic partners in the organization’s governing bodies.
    2. Brainstorm the different types of business value that the BRM practice can produce.
    3. Is the item more focused on improving capabilities or generating financial benefits?
    4. Is the item focused on the customers you serve or the IT team?
    5. Enter your value item into a cell on the Business Value Matrix based on where it falls on these axes.
    6. Start to think about metrics you can use to measure how effective the product or service is at generating the value source.
    Simplified version of the Business Value Matrix on the previous slide.

    Use the BRM Workbook to capture sources of business value

    Brainstorm the different sources of business value (continued)

    See appendix for more information on value drivers:
    Example:
    Enhance Services
    • Dashboards/IT Situational Awareness
    • Improve measurement of services for data-driven analytics that can improve services
    • Collaborate to support Enterprise Architecture
    • Approval for and support of new applications per customer demand
    • Provide consultation for IT issues
    Axis arrow with 'Improved Capabilities'.
    Axis arrow with 'Financial Benefits'.
    Reach Customers
    • Provide technology roadmaps for IT services and devices
    • Improved "PR" presence: websites, service catalog, etc.
    • Enhance customer experience
    • Faster Time-to-market delivering innovative technologies and current services
    Axis arrow with 'Inward'.Axis arrow with 'Outward'.
    Reduce Costs
    • Achieve better pricing through enterprise agreements for IT services that are duplicated across several orgs
    • Prioritization/ development of roadmap
    • Portfolio management / reduce duplication of services
    • Evolve resourcing strategies to integrate teams (e.g. do more with less)
    Return on Investment
    • Customer -focused dashboards
    • Encourage use of centralized services through external collaboration capabilities that fit multiple use cases
    • Devise strategies for measured/supported migration from older IT systems/software

    Implications of ineffective stakeholder management

    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.

    Cheat Sheet: Identify stakeholders

    Ask stakeholders “who else should I be talking to?” to discover additional stakeholders and ensure you don’t miss anyone.

    List the people who are identified through the following questions: Take a 360-degree view of potential internal and external stakeholders who might be impacted by the initiative.
    • 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

    Stock image of a world.

    Subcontractors

    Suppliers

    Contractors

    Lobby groups

    Regulatory agencies

    Establish your stakeholder network “map”

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

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

    Notes on the network map

    • Pay special attention to influencers who have many arrows; they are called “connectors,” and due to their diverse reach of influence, should themselves be treated as significant stakeholders.
    • Don’t forget to consider the through-lines from one influencer through intermediate stakeholders or influencers to the final stakeholder – a single influencer may have additional influence via multiple, possibly indirect paths to a single stakeholder.

    Legend for the example stakeholder network map below. 'Black arrows indicate the direction of professional influence'. 'Dashed green arrows indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships'

    Example stakeholder network map visualizing relationships between different stakeholders.

    4.2 Visualize interrelationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers

    Input: List of stakeholders

    Output: Relationships among stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. List direct stakeholders for your area. Ensure it includes stakeholders across the organization (both IT and business units).
    2. Determine the stakeholders of your stakeholders. Consider adding each of them to the stakeholder list: assess who has either formal or informal influence over your stakeholders; add these influencers to your stakeholder list.
    3. Create a stakeholder network map to visualize relationships.
      • (Optional) Use black arrows to indicate the direction of professional influence.
      • (Optional) Use dashed green arrows to indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships.
    4. Capture the list or diagram of your stakeholders in your workbook.

    Use the BRM Workbook to capture stakeholders

    Categorize your stakeholders with a stakeholder prioritization map

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

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

    • Players – players have a high interest in the initiative and 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.

    Stakeholder prioritization map with axes 'Influence' and 'Ownership/Interest' splitting the map into four quadrants: 'Spectators Low/Low', 'Noisemakers Low/High', 'Mediators High/Low', and 'Players High/High'.

    4.3 Group your stakeholders into categories

    Input: Stakeholder Map

    Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    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.

    Stakeholder prioritization map with example 'Stakeholders' placed in or across the four quadrants.

    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?

    Use the BRM Workbook to map your stakeholders

    Define strategies for engaging stakeholders by type

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

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

    Type Quadrant Actions
    Players High influence; high interest Actively Engage
    Keep them engaged through continuous involvement. Maintain their 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 include 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.

    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.

    Apply a third dimension for stakeholder prioritization: support.

    Support, in addition to interest and influence, is used to prioritize which stakeholders are should receive the focus of your attention. This table indicates how stakeholders are ranked:

    Table with 'Stakeholder Categories' and their 'Level of Support' for prioritizing. Support levels are 'Supporter', 'Evangelist', 'Neutral', and 'Blocker'.

    Support can be determined by rating the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would recommend IT at your organization/your group? Our four categories of support:

    • Blocker – beware of the blocker. These stakeholders do not support your cause and have the necessary drive to impede the achievement of your objectives.
    • Semi-Supporter – while these stakeholders are committed to your objectives, they are somewhat apathetic to advocate on your behalf. They will support you so long as it does not require much effort from them to do so.
    • Neutral – neutrals do not have much commitment to your objectives and are not willing to expend much energy to either support or detract from them.
    • Supporter – these stakeholders are committed to your initiative and are willing to whole-heartedly provide you with support.

    4.4 Update your stakeholder quadrant to include the three dimensions

    Input: Stakeholder Map

    Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Identify the level of support of each stakeholder by answering the following question: how likely is it that your stakeholder would support your initiative/endeavor?
    2. Map your results to the model in your workbook to determine each stakeholder’s category.
    Stakeholder prioritization map with example 'Persons' placed in or across the four quadrants. with The third dimension, 'Level of Support', is color-coded.

    Use the BRM Workbook to map your stakeholders

    Leverage your map to think about how to engage with your stakeholders

    Not all stakeholders are equal, nor can they all be treated the same. Your stakeholder quadrant highlights areas where you may need to engage differently.

    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.”

    4.5 Create your engagement plan

    Input: Stakeholder Map/list of stakeholders

    Output: Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Leverage the BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan spreadsheet. List your key stakeholders.
    2. Consider: how do you show value at your current maturity level so that you can gain trust and your relationship can mature? Establish where your relationship lacks maturity, and consider whether you need to engage with them on a more strategic, tactical, or even operational manner.
      • At lower levels of maturity (Table Stakes), focus on service delivery, project delivery, and communication.
      • At mid-level maturity (Influencer/Advocate), focus on business pain points and a deeper knowledge of the business.
      • At higher maturity levels (Value Creator/Innovator), focus on creating value by leading innovative initiatives that drive the business forward.
    3. Review the stakeholder quadrant. Update the frequency of your communication accordingly.
    4. Capture the agenda for your engagements with them.

    Download and use the BRM Stakeholder Engagement Plan

    Your agenda should vary with the maturity of your relationship

    Agenda
    Stakeholder Information Type Meeting Frequency Lower Maturity Mid-Level Maturity Higher Maturity
    VP Strategic Quarterly
    • 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
    Director Strategic, Tactical Monthly
    • 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
    Manager Tactical Monthly
    • 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

    Lower Maturity – Focus on service delivery, project delivery, and communication

    Mid-Level Maturity – Focus on business pain points and a deeper knowledge of the business

    Higher Maturity – Focus on creating value by leading innovative initiatives that drive the business forward

    Stakeholder – Include both IT and business stakeholders at appropriate levels

    Agenda – Manage stakeholders expectations, and clarify how your agenda will progress as the partnership matures

    REASSESS & EMBED

    Assess

    1.1 Define BRM

    1.2 Analyze Satisfaction

    1.3 Assess SWOT

    Situate

    2.1 Create Vision

    2.2 Create the BRM Mission

    2.3 Establish Goals

    Plan

    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

    Implement

    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

    Reassess & Embed

    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

    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.”

    Stock image of multiple business people running off the end of a pointed finger like lemmings.

    Questions to ask Are your metrics achievable?
    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

    Embedding the BRM practice within your organization must be grounded in achievable outcomes.

    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.

    Determine whether your business is satisfied with IT

    Measuring tape.

    1

    Survey your stakeholders to measure improvements in customer satisfaction.

    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
    Two small tables showing example 'Value' and 'Satisfaction' scores.
    Table with a breakdown of the example 'Satisfaction' score, with individual scores for 'Needs', 'Execution', and 'Communication'.

    Check if you’ve met the BRM goals you set out to achieve

    Measuring tape.

    2

    Measure BRM success against the goals for the practice.

    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.

    Dart board with five darts, each representing a goal, 'Demand Shaping', 'Value Realization', 'Servicing', 'Exploring', and 'Other Goal(s)'.

    5.1 Create metrics

    Input: Goals, The attributes which can align to goal success

    Output: Measurements of success

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Start with a consideration of your goals and objectives.
    2. Identify key aspects that can support confirming if the goal was successful.
    3. For each aspect, develop a method to measure success with a specific measurement.
    4. When creating the KPI consider:
      • How you know if you are achieving your objective (performance)?
      • How frequently will you be measuring this?
      • Are you looking for an increase, decrease, or maintenance of the metric?
    Table with columns 'BRM Goals', 'Measurement', 'KPI', and 'Frequency'.

    Use the BRM Workbook

    Don’t wait all year to find out if you’re on track

    Leverage the below questions to quickly poll your business partners on a more frequent basis.

    Partner instructions:

    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.

    Embedding the BRM practice also includes acknowledging the BRM’s part in balancing the IT portfolio

    IT needs to juggle “keeping the lights on” initiatives with those required to add value to the organization.

    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.

    Stock image of a man juggling business symbols.

    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.

    Flowchart for an example intake process.

    For support creating your intake process, go to Optimize Project Intake, Approval and Prioritization Sample of Info-Tech's Optimize Project Intake, Approval and Prioritization.

    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.

    Sample of Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.

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

    Enter risk/compliance criteria under operational alignment: projects must be aligned with the operational goals of the business and IT.

    Business value matrix.

    Enter these criteria under strategic alignment: projects must be aligned with the strategic goals of the business, customer, and IT.
    Enter financial criteria under financial: projects must realize monetary benefits, in increased revenue or decreased costs, while posing as little risk of cost overrun as possible.
    And don’t forget about feasibility: practical considerations for projects must be taken into account in selecting projects.

    5.2 Prioritize your investments/ projects (optional activity)

    Input: Value criteria

    Output: Prioritized project listing

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Review and edit (if necessary) the criteria on tab 2 the Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.
      Screenshot from tab 2 of Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.
    2. Score initiatives and investments on tab 3 using your criteria.
      Screenshot from tab 3 of Info-Tech’s Project Value Scorecard Development Tool.
    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.

    Example initiative portfolio map


    Example initiative portfolio map with initiatives in categories like 'Marketing Strategy' and 'Brand Mgmt.'. Certain groups of initiatives have labels detailing when they achieve collectively.

    5.3 Create a portfolio investment map (optional activity)

    Input: Business capability map

    Output: Portfolio investment map

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Build a capability map, outlining the value streams that support your organization’s goals and the high-level capabilities (level 1) that support the value stream (and goals).
      For more support in establishing the capability map, see Document Your Business Architecture.
      Example table for outlining 'Value Streams' and 'Level 1 Capabilities' through 'Goals'.
    2. Identify high-value capabilities for the organization.
    3. What are the projects and initiatives that will address the critical capabilities? Add these under the high-value capabilities.
    4. This process will help you demonstrate how projects align to business goals. Enter your capabilities and projects in Info-Tech’s Initiative Portfolio Map Template.
    Download Info-Tech’s Initiative Portfolio Map Template.

    Establish your annual BRM plan

    To support the BRM capability at your organization, you’ll want to communicate your plan. This will include:
    • 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.
    Stock image of someone discovering a calendar in a jungle with a magnifying glass.

    5.4 Establish your year-in-the-life plan

    Input: Engagement plan, BRM goals

    Output: Annual BRM plan

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Start with your business planning activities – what will you as a BRM be doing as your business establishes their plans and strategies? These could include:
      • Listening and feedback sessions
      • Third-party explorations
    2. Then look at your activities required to integrate within IT – what activities are required to align business directives within your IT groups? Examples can include:
      • Business strategy review
      • Capability map creation
      • Input into the Business-aligned IT strategy
      • IT budget input
    3. What activities are required to continuously improve the BRM role? This may consist of:
      • Feedback discussions with business partners
      • Roadshow with colleagues to communicate and refine the practice
    4. Map these on your annual calendar that can be shared with your colleagues.
    Capture in the BRM Workbook

    Communicate using the Executive Buy-In and Communication Template

    Sample of a slide titled 'BRM Annual Cycle'.

    Sample BRM annual cycle

    Sample BRM annual cycle with row headers 'Business Feedback and Engagement', 'Business-IT Alignment', and 'BRM Improvement' mapped across a Q1 to Q4 timeline with individual tasks in each category.

    5.5 Build your transformation roadmap

    Input: SWOT analysis

    Output: Transformation roadmap

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. Brainstorm and discuss the key enablers that are needed to help promote and ease your BRM program.
    2. Brainstorm and discuss the key blockers (or risks) that may interrupt or derail your BRM program.
    3. Brainstorm mitigation activities for each blocker.
    4. Enablers and mitigation activities can be listed on your transformation roadmap.

    Example:

    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

    Capture in the BRM Workbook

    5.5 Build your transformation roadmap (cont’d)

    1. Roadmap Elements:
      • List the artifacts, changes, or actions needed to implement the new BRM program.
      • For each item, identify how long it will take to implement or change by moving it into the appropriate swim lane. Use timing that makes sense for your organization: Quick Wins, Short Term, and Long Term; Now, Next, and Later; or Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4.

    Example transformation roadmap with BRM programs arranged in columns 'Now', 'Next (3-6 months)', 'Later (6+ months)', and 'Deferred'.

    Communicate the BRM changes to set your practice up for success

    Leaders of successful change spend considerable time developing a powerful change message, i.e. a compelling narrative that articulates the desired end state, and that makes the change concrete and meaningful to staff.

    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.
    Five elements of communicating change
    Diagram titled 'COMMUNICATING THE CHANGE' surrounded by useful questions: 'What is the change?', 'What will the role be for each department and individual?', 'Why are we doing it?', 'How long will it take us to do it?', and 'How are we going to go about it?'.
    (Source: The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change)

    Apply the following communication principles to make your BRM changes relevant to stakeholders

    “We tend to use a lot of jargon in our discussions, and that is a sure fire way to turn people away. We realized the message wasn’t getting out because the audience wasn’t speaking the same language. You have to take it down to the next level and help them understand where the needs are.” (Jeremy Clement, Director of Finance, College of Charleston, Info-Tech Interview, 2018)

    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.

    5.6 Create a communications plan tailored to each of your stakeholders

    Input: Prioritized list of stakeholders

    Output: Communication Plan

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)

    Participants: Team

    1. List stakeholders in order of importance in the first column.
    2. Identify the frequency with which you will communicate to each group.
    3. Determine the scope of the communication:
      • What key information needs to be included in the message to ensure they are informed and on board?
      • Which medium(s) will you use to communicate to that specific group?
    4. Develop a concrete timeline that will be followed to ensure that support is maintained from the key stakeholders.

    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

    Related Blueprints

    Business Value
    Service Catalog
    Intake Management
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Document Your Business Architecture' blueprint.
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog' blueprint.
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Manage Stakeholder Relations' blueprint.
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Document Business Goals and Capabilities for Your IT Strategy' blueprint.
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Fix Your IT Culture' blueprint.

    Selected Bibliography

    “Apple Mission and Vision Analysis.” Mission Statement Academy, 23 May 2019. Accessed 5 November 2020.

    Barnes, Aaron. “Business Relationship Manager and Plan Build Run.” BRM Institute, 8 April 2014.

    Barnes, Aaron. “Starting a BRM Team - Business Relationship Management Institute.” BRM Institute, 5 June 2013. Web.

    BRM Institute. “Business Partner Maturity Model.” Member Templates and Examples, Online Campus, n.d. Accessed 3 December 2021.

    BRM Institute. “BRM Assessment Templates and Examples.” Member Templates and Examples, Online Campus, n.d. Accessed 24 November 2021.

    Brusnahan, Jim, et al. “A Perfect Union: BRM and Agile Development and Delivery.” BRM Institute, 8 December 2020. Web.

    Business Relationship Management: The BRMP Guide to the BRM Body of Knowledge. Second printing ed., BRM Institute, 2014.

    Chapman, Chuck. “Building a Culture of Trust - Remote Leadership Institute.” Remote Leadership Institute, 10 August 2021. Accessed 27 January 2022.

    “Coca Cola Mission and Vision Analysis.” Mission Statement Academy, 4 August 2019. Accessed 5 November 2020.

    Colville, Alan. “Shared Vision.” UX Magazine, 31 October 2011. Web.

    Cooper, Robert, G. “Effective Gating: Make product innovation more productive by using gates with teeth.” Stage-Gate International and Product Development Institute, March/April 2009. Web.

    Heller, Martha. “How CIOs Can Make Business Relationship Management (BRM) Work.” CIO, 1 November 2016. Accessed 27 January 2022.

    “How Many Business Relationship Managers Should You Have.” BRM Institute, 20 March 2013. Web.

    Hull, Patrick. “Answer 4 Questions to Get a Great Mission Statement.” Forbes, 10 January 2013. Web.

    Kasperkevic, Jana. “Bill Gates: Good Feedback Is the Key to Improvement.” Inc.com, 17 May 2013. Web.

    Merlyn, Vaughan. “Relationships That Matter to the BRM.” BRM Institute, 19 October 2016. Web.

    “Modernizing IT’s Business Relationship Manager Role.” The Hackett Group, 22 November 2019. Web.

    Monroe, Aaron. “BRMs in a SAFe World...That Is, a Scaled Agile Framework Model.” BRM Institute, 5 January 2021. Web.

    Selected Bibliography

    “Operational, adj." OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2021. Accessed 29 January 2022.

    Sinek, Simon. “Transcript of ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action.’” TEDxPuget Sound, September 2009. Accessed 7 November 2020.

    “Strategic, Adj. and n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2016. Accessed 27 January 2022.

    “Tactical, Adj.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 2018. Accessed 27 January 2022.

    “The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change.” Cornelius & Associates, 23 September 2013. Web.

    “Twice the Business Value in Half the Time: When Agile Methods Meet the Business Relationship Management Role.” BRM Institute, 10 April 2015. Web.

    “Value Streams.” Scaled Agile Framework, 30 June 2020. Web.

    Ward, John. “Delivering Value from Information Systems and Technology Investments: Learning from Success.” Information Systems Research Centre, August 2006. Web.

    Appendix

    • Business Value Drivers
    • Service Blueprint
    • Stakeholder Communications
    • Job Descriptions

    Understand business value drivers for ROI and cost

    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.

    Understand Business Value Drivers that Enhance Your 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.

    Understand Business Value Drivers that Connect the Business to Your Customers

    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?

    Service Blueprint

    Service design involves an examination of the people, process and technology involved in delivering a service to your customers.

    Service blueprinting provides a visual of how these are connected together. It enables you to identify and collaborate on improvements to an existing service.

    The main components of a service blueprint are:

    Customer actions – this anchors the service in the experiences of the customer

    Front-stage – this shows the parts of the service that are visible to the customer

    Back-stage – this is the behind-the-scenes actions necessary to deliver the experience to the customer

    Support processes – this is what’s necessary to deliver the back-stage (and front-stage/customer experience), but is not aligned from a timing perspective (e.g. it doesn’t matter if the fridge is stocked when the order is put in, as long as the supplies are available for the chef to use)

    Example service blueprint with the main components listed above as row headers.

    Physical Evidence and Time are blueprint components can be added in to provide additional context & support

    Example service blueprint with the main components plus added components 'Physical Evidence' and 'Time'.

    Stakeholder Communications

    Personalize
    • “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.
    Show Proof
    • 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

    Reference
    • 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
    Responses
    • 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
    Test & Learn
    • 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
    Multiple Mediums
    • 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

    BRM Job Descriptions

    Download the Job Descriptions:

    Build Your Data Practice and Platform

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}347|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: Data Management
    • Parent Category Link: /data-management

    The complex nature of data investment leads to de-scoping and delivery of data services that do not meet business needs or give value to the business. Subject matter experts are hired to resolve the problem, but their success is impacted by absent architecture, technology, and organizational alignment.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Walking through a book of architecture building plans with a personal guide is cheaper and faster than employing an architect to build and design your home.

    Impact and Result

    Info-Tech's approach provides a proven methodology that includes the following:

    • Business-aligned data initiatives and capabilities that address data challenges and realize business strategic objectives.
    • Comprehensive data practice designed based on the required business and data capabilities.
    • Data platform design based on Info-Tech data architecture reference patterns and prioritized data initiatives and capabilities.

    Build Your Data Practice and Platform Research & Tools

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

    1. Build Your Data Practice and Platform Storyboard – A step-by-step document that leverages road-tested patterns and frameworks to properly build your data practice and pattern in continuous alignment with the business landscape.

    Info-Tech's approach provides a proven methodology that includes following:   

  • Business-aligned data initiatives and capabilities that address data challenges and realize business strategic objectives.
  • Comprehensive data practices designed based on the required business and data capabilities.
    • Build Your Data Practice and Platform Storyboard

    2. Data Practice and Platform Models – Leveraging best-of-breed frameworks to help you build a clear, concise, and compelling data practice and platform.

    Data practice & platform pre-build pattern templates based on Info-Tech data reference patterns and data platform design best practices.

    • Data Practice and Platform Models

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build Your Data Practice and Platform

    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 Business Context and Value

    The Purpose

    Establish business context and value.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Business context and strategic driver.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand/confirm the organization's strategic goals

    1.2 Classify the strategic goals and map to business drivers

    1.3 Identify the business capabilities that the strategy focuses on

    1.4 Identify the business processes realizing the strategy

    Outputs

    Business context and strategic drivers

    Prioritized business capabilities and processes

    Data culture survey results analysis

    2 Identify Your Top Initiatives

    The Purpose

    Identify your top initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    High-value business-aligned data initiative.

    Activities

    2.1 Highlight data-related outcomes/goals to realize to fulfill the business goal

    2.2 Map business data initiatives to the business strategic goals

    2.3 Prioritize data initiatives

    Outputs

    High-value, business-aligned data initiatives

    3 Analyze Data Challenges

    The Purpose

    Analyze data challenges.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clear understanding of the data challenges.

    Activities

    3.1 Map data challenges to Info-Tech data challenges

    3.2 Review Info-Tech data capabilities based on prioritized initiatives

    3.3 Discuss data platform and practice next steps

    Outputs

    List of data challenges preventing data maturation with the organization

    4 Map Data Capability

    The Purpose

    Map data capability.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Prioritized data capability.

    Activities

    4.1 Map data challenges to Info-Tech data challenges

    4.2 Review Info-Tech data capabilities based on prioritized initiatives

    4.3 Discuss data platform and practice next steps

    Outputs

    Required data capabilities

    Data platform and practice – plan

    Initialized data management RACI 

    Further reading

    Build Your Data Practice and Platform

    Construct a scalable data foundation

    Analyst Perspective

    Build a data practice and platform that delivers value to your organization.

    The build or optimization of your data practice and data platform must be predicated on a thorough understanding of the organization’s goals, objectives, and priorities and the business capabilities and process they are meant to support and enable.

    Formalizing your practice or constructing your platform just for the sake of doing so often results in an initiative that is lengthy, costly, fizzles out, does not deliver business value, and ends up being considered a failure.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s approach and incorporate our pre-built models and patterns to effectively navigate that crucial and often difficult phase upfront of comprehensively defining business data needs so you can ultimately realize faster time-to-delivery of your overall data practice and platform.

    Photo of Rajesh Parab, Director, Research & Advisory, Data & Analytics Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Rajesh Parab
    Director, Research & Advisory, Data & Analytics Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Photo of Crystal Singh, Director, Research & Advisory, Data & Analytics Practice, Info-Tech Research Group.

    Crystal Singh
    Director, Research & Advisory, Data & Analytics Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Attempting to Solve Data Problems?

    Situation
    • Lack of data centric leadership results in downstream issues such as integration, quality, and accessibility.
    • The complex nature of the data and lack of understanding leads to de-scoping delivery of data services that does not meet business needs or add value.
    • Poorly designed practice and siloed platforms result in an initiative that is lengthy, costly, fizzles out, does not deliver business value, and ends up being considered a failure.
    Complication
    • Data problem: When the data problem is diagnosed, the organization adopts a tactical approach.
    • Confirmation bias: Subject matter experts (SME) are hired to resolve the poorly defined problem, but the success of the SME is impacted by lack of architecture, technology, and organizational alignment.
    • Still no value: The selected tactical approach does not provide a solid foundation or solve your data problem.
    • Strategy for sake of strategy: Implementing a strategic approach for the sake of being strategic but this becomes overwhelming.
    • Fall back to tactical and operational: The data services are now potentially exposed and vulnerable, which strains business continuity and increases data debt.
    • Increased complexity and risk: Data silos, poor understanding, and high complexity results in an unmanageable data environment.
    Resolution
    • Requirements: Define and align your data requirement to business.
    • Capabilities: Discover data, identify data capabilities, and map your requirements.
    • Practices: Design and select fit-for-purpose data practices.
    • Platform: Optimize your data platform investments though sound architecture.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The true value of data comes from defining intentional relationships between the business and the data through a well thought out data platform and practice.

    Situation – Perpetual Data Problem

    Diagram of a head with gears around it and speech bubbles with notes titled 'Data Problem'. The surrounding gears, clockwise from bottom left, say 'Accessibility', 'Trust', 'Data Breach', 'Ambiguity', 'Ownership', 'Duplication', 'System Failure', and 'Manual Manipulation'. The speech bubbles notes, clockwise from bottom left, say 'Value-Add: How do I translate business needs to data capabilities?', 'Practice Organization: How do I organize resources and roles assignment challenges?', 'Platform: How do I organize data flows with no conceptual view of the environment?', and 'Break Down Silos: How do I break down silos?'
    I can’t access the data.
    I don’t trust the data in the report.
    It takes too long to get to the data for decision making
    • Lack of data-centric leadership results in downstream issues: integration, quality, accessibility
    • The organization’s data is too complex to manage without a cohesive plan.
    • The complex nature of the data and a lack of understanding leads to de-scoping delivery of data services that does not meet business needs or add value.
    • Poorly designed practice and siloed platforms result in an initiative that is lengthy, costly, fizzles out, does not deliver business value, and ends up being considered a failure.

    Complication – Data Initiative Fizzles Out

    • Data problem: When the data problem is diagnosed the organization adopts a tactical approach.
    • Confirmation bias: Subject matter experts (SME) are hired to resolve the poorly defined problem, but the success of the SME is impacted by lack of architecture, technology, and organizational alignment.
    • Still no value: the selected tactical approach does not provide a solid foundation or solve your data problem.
    • Strategy for sake of strategy: Implementing a strategic approach for sake of being strategic but this becomes overwhelming.
    • Fall back to tactical and operational: The data services are now potentially exposed and vulnerable, which strains business continuity and increases data debt.
    • Increased complexity and risk: Data silos, poor understanding, and high complexity result in an unmanageable data environment.
    Flowchart beginning with 'Data Symptom Exhibited' and 'Data Problem Diagnosed', then splitting into two paths 'Solve Data Problem as a point solution' or 'Attempt Strategic approach without culture, capacity, and business leadership'. Each approach ends with 'Data too complex, and initiative fizzles out...' and cycles back to the beginning.
    Use the road-tested patterns and frameworks in our blueprint to break the perpetual data solution cycle. Focus on the value that a data and analytics platform will bring rather than focusing on the data problems alone.

    Build Your Data Practice and Platform

    Bring Your Data Strategy to Life

    Logo for Info-Tech.
    Logo for #iTRG.
    CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

    Attempting to Solve Your Data Problems

    DATA SYMPTOM EXHIBITED

    Mismatch report, data quality issue, or similar symptom of a data problem.

    DATA PROBLEM DIAGNOSED

    Data expert identifies it as a data problem.

    COMPLEX STRATEGIC APPROACH ATTEMPTED

    Recognized need to attempt it strategically, but don't have capacity or culture to execute.

    Cycle diagram titled 'Data Problems' with numbers connected to surrounding steps, and a break after Step 3 where one can 'BREAK THE CYCLE'. In the middle are a list of data problems: 'Accessibility’, ‘Data Breach', 'Manual Manipulation', 'System Failure', 'Ambiguity', 'Duplication', 'Ownership', and 'Trust'.
    SOLUTION FAILS

    The tactical solution fails to solve the root cause of the data problem, and the data symptoms persist.

    TACTICAL SOLUTION FALLBACK

    A quick and dirty solution is attempted in order to fix the data problem.

    THE COMPLEX APPROACH FIZZLES OUT

    Attempted strategic approach takes too long, fizzles out.

    BREAK THE CYCLE

    Solving Your Data Problems

    1. DEFINE YOUR DATA REQUIREMENTS Incorporate a Business to Data Approach by utilizing Info-Tech's business capability templates for identifying data needs. BUSINESS-ALIGNED DATA REQUIREMENTS
    2. CONDUCT YOUR DATA DISCOVERY Understand the data behind your business problem. Identify the required data capabilities and domains as required by your business processes. RECOMMENDED DATA CAPABILITIES
    3. DESIGN YOUR DATA PRACTICES Build your custom data practices based on the predefined reusable models. CUSTOMIZED DATA PRACTICE
    4. ARCHITECT YOUR DATA PLATFORM Build your custom data platform based on the redefined reusable architecture patterns. CUSTOMIZED DATA PLATFORM
    CONTINUOUS PHASE: ROADMAP, SPONSORSHIP FEEDBACK AND DELIVERY

    Develop a roadmap to establish the practice and implement the architecture as designed. Ensure continuous alignment of the practice and architecture with the business landscape.

    Phase-by-Phase Approach to Build Your Data Practice and Platform

    Flowchart detailing the path to take through the four phases of this blueprint beginning with the 'Inputs' and 'People' involved and incorporating 'Deliverables' along the way. Phase-by-Phase Approach
    • Phase 1: Step 1 – Define Your Data Requirement
    • Phase 1: Step 2 – Conduct Your Data Discovery
    • Phase 2 – Design Your Data Practice
    • Phase 3 – Architect Your Data Platform

    Measure value when building your data practice and platform

    Sample Data Management Metrics

    Lists of data management metrics in different categories.

    • Refine the metrics for the overall Data Management practice and every initiative therein.
    • Refine the metrics at each platform and practice component to show business value against implementation effort.

    Understand and Build Data Culture

    See your Info-Tech Account Representative for more details on our Data Culture Diagnostic

    Only 14.29% of Transportation and Logistics respondents agree BI and Analytics Process and Technology are sufficient What is a diagnostic?

    Our diagnostics are the simplest way to collect the data you need, turn it into actionable insights, and communicate with stakeholders across the organization.

    52.54% of respondents from the healthcare industry are unaware of their organization’s data security policy
    Ask the Right Questions

    Use our low-effort surveys to get the data you need from stakeholders across the organization.

    Use Our Diagnostic Engine

    Our diagnostic engine does all the heavy lifting and analysis, turning your data into usable information.

    Communicate & Take Action

    Wow your executives with the incredible insights you've uncovered. Then, get to action: make IT better.

    On average only 40% agree that they have the reporting when needed


    (Source: Info-Tech’s Data Culture Diagnostic, 53 Organizations, 3138 Responses)

    35% of respondents feel that a governance body is in place looking at strategic data

    Build a Data-Driven Strategy Using Info-Tech Diagnostic Programs

    Make informed IT decisions by starting your diagnostic program today. Your account manager is waiting to help you.
    Sample of Info-Tech's 'Data Culture Scorecard'.

    Use Our Predefined Data and Analytics Patterns to Build Your DnA Landscape

    Walking through a book of architecture building plans with a personal guide is cheaper and faster than employing an architect to build and design your home

    Two books titled 'The Everything Homebuilding Book' and 'Architecture 101'. An open book with a finger pointing to a diagram.

    The first step is to align business strategy with data strategy and then start building your data practice and data platform

    Flowchart starting with business strategy focuses, then to data strategy focuses, and eventually to 'Data Metrics'.

    Insights

    The true value of data comes from defining intentional relationships between the business and the data through a well-thought-out data platform and practice.

    • Phase 1
      • Some organizations are low maturity so using the traditional Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) would not make sense. A great alternative is to leverage existing models and methodologies to get going off the bat.
      • The Data Strategy is an input into the platform and practice. This is considered the Why; Data Practice and Platform is the How.
    • Phase 2
      • Info-Tech’s approach is business-goal driven and it leverages patterns, which enable the implementation of critical and foundational components and subsequently facilitates the evolution and development of the practice over time.
      • Systems should not be designed in isolation. Cross-functional collaboration throughout the design is critical to ensure all types of issues are revealed early. Otherwise, crucial tests are omitted, deployments fail, and end-users are dissatisfied.
    • Phase 3
      • Build your conceptual data architecture based on well-thought-out formulated patterns that align with your organization’s needs and environment.
      • Functional needs often take precedence over quality architecture. Quality must be baked into design, execution, and decision-making practices to ensure the right trade-offs are made.

    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

    Info-Tech’s Methodology for Building Your Data Practice and Platform

    Phase 1 –
    Define Your Data Requirements and Conduct Your Data Discovery
    Phase 2 –
    Design Your Data Practices
    Phase 3 –
    Architect Your Data Platform
    Phase Steps
    1. Identify your top initiatives
    2. Map your data initiatives to data capabilities
    1. Understand the practices value statement
    2. Review the Info-Tech practice pattern
    3. Initiate your practice design and setup
    1. Identify your data component
    2. Refine your data platform architecture
    3. Design your data platform
    4. Identify your new components and capabilities
    5. Initiative platform build and rollout
    Phase Outcomes Business-aligned data initiatives and capabilities that address data challenges and realize business strategic objectives Comprehensive data practice design based on the required business and data capabilities Data platform design based on Info-Tech data architecture reference pattern and prioritized data initiatives and capabilities

    Data Platform and Practice Implementation Plan

    Example timeline for data platform and practice implementation plan with 'Fiscal Years' across the top, and below they're broken down into quarters. Along the left side 'Phase 1: Step 1...', 'Phase 1: Step 2...', 'Phase 2...' and 'Phase 3'. Tasks are mapped onto the timeline in each phase with a short explanation.

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
    Info-Tech’s Workshop support for Build Your Data Practice and Platform. 'Build Your Data Practice and Platform' slide from earlier.
    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."

    Workshop 1

    Data Needs and Discovery

    Workshop 2

    Data Practice Design

    Workshop 3

    Data Platform Design

    Workshop 1:
    Data Needs and Discovery

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
    Establish Business Context and Value
    Identify Your Top Initiatives
    Analyze Data Challenges
    Map Data Capability
    Activities

    1.1 Understand/confirm your organization’s strategic goals

    1.2 Classify the strategic goals and map to business drivers

    1.3 Identify the business capabilities that the strategy focus is on

    1.4 Identify the business processes realizing the strategy

    2.1 Highlight data-related outcomes /goals to realize to fulfill the business goal

    2.2 Map business data initiatives to the business strategic goals

    2.3 Prioritize Data initiatives

    3.1 Understand data management capabilities and framework

    3.2 Classify business data requirements using Info-Tech’s classification approach

    3.3 Highlight data challenges in your current environment

    4.1 Map data challenges to Info-Tech data challenges

    4.2 Review Info-Tech data capabilities based on prioritized initiative

    4.3 Discuss Data Platform and Practice Next Steps

    Deliverables
    • Business context and strategic drivers
    • Prioritized business capabilities and processes
    • Data Culture Survey results analysis
    • High-value business-aligned data initiative
    • List of data challenges preventing data maturation with the organization
    • Required data capabilities
    • Data platform and practice – plan
    • Initialized data management RACI
    Participants Business stakeholder, Business leader Business Subject Matter Expert, Data IT sponsor (CIO), Head of Data, Data Architect Business stakeholder, Business leader Business Subject Matter Expert, Data IT sponsor (CIO), Head of Data, Data Architect Data experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data Architect Data experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data Architect

    Workshop 2:
    Data Practice Design

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
    Plan Your Data Practices
    Design Your Data Practices 1
    Design Your Data Practices 2
    Design Your Data Practices 3
    Activities

    Prerequisite: Business context, business data requirement, and data capabilities

    1.1 Understand data practice framework

    1.2 Define your practice implementation approach

    1.3 Review and update data management RACI

    2.1 Understand Info-Tech data practice patterns for each prioritized practice

    2.2 Define your practice setup for each prioritized practice

    2.3 Highlight critical processes for each practice

    3.1 Understand Info-Tech data practice patterns for each prioritized practice

    3.2 Define your practice setup for each prioritized practice

    3.3 Highlight critical processes for each practice

    4.1 Understand Info-Tech data practice patterns for each prioritized practice

    4.2 Define your practice setup for each prioritized practice

    4.3 Highlight critical processes for each practice

    4.4 Discuss data platform and practice next steps

    Deliverables
    • Data practice implementation approach
    • Data management RACI
    • Data practice setup pattern for your organization
    • Data practice process pattern for your organization
    • Data practice setup pattern for your organization
    • Data practice process pattern for your organization
    • Data practice setup pattern for your organization
    • Data practice process pattern for your organization
    • Data platform and practice – plan
    Participants Data experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data Architect Data experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data Architect Data experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data Architect Data experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data Architect

    Workshop 3:
    Data Platform Design

    Contact your account representative for more information.
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889
    Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4
    Data Platform Overview
    Update Data Platform Reference Architecture
    Design Your Data Platform
    Design Your Data Practices 4
    Activities

    Prerequisite: Business context, business data requirement, and data capabilities

    1.1 Understand data platform framework and data capabilities

    1.2 Understand key data architecture principles and best practices

    1.3 Shortlist data platform patterns

    2.1 Map and identify data capabilities to data platform components

    2.2 Build data platform architecture using Info-Tech data platform reference architecture

    2.3 Highlight critical processes for each practice

    3.1 Design your target data platform using Info-Tech’s data platform template

    3.2 Identify new capabilities and components in your platform design

    4.1 Identify new capabilities and component in your platform design

    4.2 Discuss data platform initiatives

    Deliverables
    • Shortlisted data platform patterns
    • Data platform reference architecture for your organization
    • Data platform design for your organization
    • Data platform plan
    ParticipantsData experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data ArchitectData experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data ArchitectData experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data ArchitectData experts, Business Subject Matter Expert, Head of Data, Data Architect

    Build Your Data Practice and Platform

    Phase 1

    Phase 1: Step 1 – Define Your Data Requirements
    Phase 1: Step 2 – Conduct Your Data Discovery

    Phase 1

    1.1 Define Your Data Requirements
    1.2 Conduct Your Data Discovery

    Phase 2 Phase 3

    Phase 1: Step 1 – Define Your Data Requirements will walk you through the following activities:

    • Confirm the organizational strategic goals, business drivers, business capabilities, and processes driving the Data Practice and Platform effort.
    • Identify the data related outcomes, goals, and ideal environment needed to fulfill the business goals.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    A blend of business leaders and business SMEs together with the Data Strategy team.

    Phase 1: Step 2 – Conduct Your Data Discovery will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify and highlight the data challenges faced in achieving the desired outcome.
    • Map the data challenges to the data capabilities required to realize the desired data outcome.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    Key personnel from IT/Data team: (Data Architect, Data Engineers, Head of Head of Reporting and Analytics)

    Get the Best Discount Possible With a Data-Driven Negotiation Approach

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    • Parent Category Name: Selection & Implementation
    • Parent Category Link: /selection-and-implementation
    • Vendors have well-honed negotiation strategies that don’t prioritize the customer’s best interest, and they will take advantage of your weaknesses to extract as much money as they can from the deal.
    • IT teams are often working with time pressure and limited resources or experience in negotiation. Even those with an experienced procurement team aren’t evenly matched with the vendor when it comes to the ins and outs of the product.
    • As a result, many have a poor negotiation experience and fail to get the discount they wanted, ultimately leading to dissatisfaction with the vendor.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Requirements should always come first, but IT leaders are under pressure to get discounts and cost ends up playing a big role in decision making.
    • Cost is one of the top factors influencing satisfaction with software and the decision to leave a vendor.
    • The majority of software customers are receiving a discount. If you’re in the minority who are not, there are strategies you can and should be using to improve your negotiating skills. Discounts of up to 40% off list price are available to those who enter negotiations prepared.

    Impact and Result

    • SoftwareReviews data shows that there are multiple benefits to taking a concerted approach to negotiating a discount on your software.
    • The most common ways of getting a discount (e.g. volume purchasing) aren’t necessarily the best methods. Choose a strategy that is appropriate for your organization and vendor relationship and that focuses on maximizing the value of your investment for the long term. Optimizing usage or licenses as a discount strategy leads to the highest software satisfaction.
    • Using a vendor negotiation service or advisory group was one of the most successful strategies for receiving a discount. If your team doesn’t have the right negotiation expertise, Info-Tech can help.

    Get the Best Discount Possible With a Data-Driven Negotiation Approach Research & Tools

    Prepare to negotiate

    Leverage insights from SoftwareReviews data to best position yourself to receive a discount through your software negotiations.

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

    • Get the Best Discount Possible with a Data-Driven Negotiation Approach Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Application Portfolio Management Foundations

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}172|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /architecture-and-strategy

    Organizations consider application oversight a low priority and app portfolio knowledge is poor:

    • No dedicated or centralized effort to manage the app portfolio means no single source of truth is available to support informed decision making.
    • Organizations acquire more applications over time, creating redundancy, waste, and the need for additional support.
    • Organizations are more vulnerable to changing markets. Flexibility and growth are compromised when applications are unadaptable or cannot scale.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • You cannot outsource application strategy.
    • Modern software options have lessened the need for organizations to have robust in-house application management capabilities. But your applications’ future and governance of the portfolio still require centralized oversight to ensure the best overall return on investment.
    • Application portfolio management is the mechanism to ensure that the applications in your enterprise are delivering value and support for your value streams and business capabilities. Understanding value, satisfaction, technical health, and total cost of ownership are critical to digital transformation, modernization, and roadmaps.

    Impact and Result

    Build an APM program that is actionable and fit for size:

    • Understand your current state, needs, and goals for your application portfolio management.
    • Create an application and platform inventory that is built for better decision making.
    • Rationalize your apps with business priorities and communicate risk in operational terms.
    • Create a roadmap that improves communication between those who own, manage, and support your applications.

    Application Portfolio Management Foundations Research & Tools

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

    1. Application Portfolio Management Foundations Deck – A guide that helps you establish your core application inventory, simplified rationalization, redundancy comparison, and modernization roadmap.

    Enterprises have more applications than they need and rarely apply oversight to monitor the health, cost, and relative value of applications to ensure efficiency and minimal risk. This blueprint will help you build a streamlined application portfolio management process.

    • Application Portfolio Management Foundations – Phases 1-4

    2. Application Portfolio Management Diagnostic Tool – A tool that assesses your current application portfolio.

    Visibility into your application portfolio and APM practices will help inform and guide your next steps.

    • Application Portfolio Management Diagnostic Tool

    3. Application Portfolio Management Foundations Playbook – A template that builds your application portfolio management playbook.

    Capture your APM roles and responsibilities and build a repeatable process.

    • Application Portfolio Management Foundations Playbook

    4. Application Portfolio Management Snapshot and Foundations Tool – A tool that stores application information and allows you to execute rationalization and build a portfolio roadmap.

    This tool is the central hub for the activities within Application Portfolio Management Foundations.

    • Application Portfolio Management Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Application Portfolio Management Foundations

    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 Your Foundations

    The Purpose

    Work with key corporate stakeholders to come to a shared understanding of the benefits and aspects of application portfolio management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Establish the goals of APM.

    Set the scope of APM responsibilities.

    Establish business priorities for the application portfolio.

    Activities

    1.1 Define goals and metrics.

    1.2 Define application categories.

    1.3 Determine steps and roles.

    1.4 Weight value drivers.

    Outputs

    Set short- and long-term goals and metrics.

    Set the scope for applications.

    Set the scope for the APM process.

    Defined business value drivers.

    2 Improve Your Inventory

    The Purpose

    Gather information on your applications to build a detailed inventory and identify areas of redundancy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Populated inventory based on your and your team’s current knowledge.

    Understanding of outstanding data and a plan to collect it.

    Activities

    2.1 Populate inventory.

    2.2 Assign business capabilities.

    2.3 Review outstanding data.

    Outputs

    Initial application inventory

    List of areas of redundancy

    Plan to collect outstanding data

    3 Gather Application Information

    The Purpose

    Work with the application subject matter experts to collect and compile data points and determine the appropriate disposition for your apps.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Dispositions for individual applications

    Application rationalization framework

    Activities

    3.1 Assess business value.

    3.2 Assess end-user perspective.

    3.3 Assess TCO.

    3.4 Assess technical health.

    3.5 Assess redundancies.

    3.6 Determine dispositions.

    Outputs

    Business value score for individual applications

    End-user satisfaction scores for individual applications

    TCO score for individual applications

    Technical health scores for individual applications

    Feature-level assessment of redundant applications

    Assigned dispositions for individual applications

    4 Gather, Assess, and Select Dispositions

    The Purpose

    Work with application delivery specialists to determine the strategic plans for your apps and place these in your portfolio roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Prioritized initiatives

    Initial application portfolio roadmap

    Ongoing structure of APM

    Activities

    4.1 Prioritize initiatives

    4.2 Populate roadmap.

    4.3 Determine ongoing APM cadence.

    4.4 Build APM action plan.

    Outputs

    Prioritized new potential initiatives.

    Built an initial portfolio roadmap.

    Established an ongoing cadence of APM activities.

    Built an action plan to complete APM activities.

    Further reading

    Application Portfolio Management Foundations

    Ensure your application portfolio delivers the best possible return on investment.

    Analyst Perspective

    You can’t outsource accountability.

    Many lack visibility into their overall application portfolio, focusing instead on individual projects or application development. Inevitably, application sprawl creates process and data disparities, redundant applications, and duplication of resources and stands as a significant barrier to business agility and responsiveness. The shift from strategic investment to application maintenance creates an unnecessary constraint on innovation and value delivery.

    With the rise and convenience of SAAS solutions, IT has an increasing need to discover and support all applications in the organization. Unmanaged and unsanctioned applications can lead to increased reputational risk. What you don’t know WILL hurt you.

    You can outsource development, you can even outsource maintenance, but you cannot outsource accountability for the portfolio. Organizations need a holistic dashboard of application performance and dispositions to help guide and inform planning and investment discussions. Application portfolio management (APM) can’t tell you why something is broken or how to fix it, but it is an important tool to determine if an application’s value and performance are up to your standards and can help meet your future goals.

    The image contains a picture of Hans Eckman.

    Hans Eckman
    Principal Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group


    Is this research right for you?

    Research Navigation

    Managing your application portfolio is essential regardless of its size or whether your software is purchased or developed in house. Each organization must have some degree of application portfolio management to ensure that applications deliver value efficiently and that their risk or gradual decline in technical health is appropriately limited.

    Your APM goals

    If this describes your primary goal(s)

    • We are building a business case to determine where and if APM is needed now.
    • We want to understand how well supported are our business capabilities, departments, or core functions by our current applications.
    • We want to start our APM program with our core or critical applications.
    • We want to build our APM inventory for less than 150 applications (division, department, operating unit, government, small enterprise, etc.).
    • We want to start simple with a quick win for our 150 most important applications.
    • We want to start with an APM pilot before committing to an enterprise APM program.
    • We need to rationalize potentially redundant and underperforming applications to determine which to keep, replace, or retire.
    • We want to start enterprise APM, with up to 150 critical applications.
    • We want to collect and analyze detailed information about our applications.
    • We need tools to help us calculate total cost of ownership (TCO) and value.
    • We want to customize our APM journey and rationalization.
    • We want to build a formal communication strategy for our APM program.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Organizations consider application oversight a low priority and app portfolio knowledge is poor.
    • No dedicated or centralized effort to manage the app portfolio means no single source of truth is available to support informed decision making.
    • Organizations acquire more applications over time, creating redundancy, waste, and the need for additional support.
    • Organizations are more vulnerable to changing markets. Flexibility and growth are compromised when applications are unadaptable or cannot scale.
    • APM implies taking a holistic approach and compiling multiple priorities and perspectives.
    • Organizations have limited time to act strategically or proactively and need to be succinct.
    • Uncertainties on business value prevent IT from successfully advising software decision making.
    • IT knows its technical debt but struggles to get the business to act on technical risks.
    • Attempts at exposing these problems rarely gain buy-in and discourage the push for improvement.
    • Think low priority over no priority.
    • Integrate these tasks into your mixed workload.
    • Create an inventory built for better decision making.
    • Rationalize your apps in accordance with business priorities and communicate risks on their terms.
    • Create a roadmap that improves communication between those who own, manage, and support an application.
    • Build your APM process fit for size.

    Info-Tech Insight: You can’t outsource strategy.

    Modern software options have decreased the need for organizations to have robust in-house application management capabilities. Your applications’ future and governance of the portfolio still require a centralized IT oversight to ensure the best return on investment.

    The top IT challenges for SE come from app management

    #1 challenge small enterprise owners face in their use of technology:

    Taking appropriate security precautions

    24%

    The costs of needed upgrades to technology

    17%

    The time it takes to fix problems

    17%

    The cost of maintaining technology

    14%

    Lack of expertise

    9%

    Breaks in service

    7%
    Source: National Small Business Association, 2019

    Having more applications than an organization needs means unnecessarily high costs and additional burden on the teams who support the applications. Especially in the case of small enterprises, this is added pressure the IT team cannot afford.

    A poorly maintained portfolio will eventually hurt the business more than it hurts IT.

    Legacy systems, complex environments, or anything that leads to a portfolio that can’t adapt to changing business needs will eventually become a barrier to business growth and accomplishing objectives. Often the blame is put on the IT department.

    56%

    of small businesses cited inflexible technology as a barrier to growth

    Source: Salesforce as quoted by Tech Republic, 2019

    A hidden and inefficient application portfolio is the root cause of so many pains experienced by both IT and the business.

    • Demand/Capacity Imbalance
    • Overspending
    • Security and Business Continuity Risk
    • Delays in Delivery
    • Barriers to Growth

    APM comes at a justified cost

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate APM and the costs.

    The benefits of APM

    APM identifies areas where you can reduce core spending and reinvest in innovation initiatives.

    Other benefits can include:

    • Fewer redundancies
    • Less risk
    • Less complexity
    • Improved processes
    • Flexibility
    • Scalability

    APM allows you to better understand and set the direction of your portfolio

    Application Inventory

    The artifact that documents and informs the business of your application portfolio.

    Application Rationalization

    The process of collecting information and assessing your applications to determine recommended dispositions.

    Application Alignment

    The process of revealing application information through interviewing stakeholders and aligning to business capabilities.

    Application Roadmap

    The artifact that showcases the strategic directions for your applications over a given timeline.

    Application Portfolio Management (APM):

    The ongoing practice of:

    • Providing visibility into applications across the organization.
    • Recommending corrections or enhancements to decision makers.
    • Aligning delivery teams on priority.
    • Showcasing the direction of applications to stakeholders.

    Create a balanced approach to value delivery

    Enterprise Agility and Value Realization

    Product Lifecycle Management

    Align your product and service improvement and execution to enterprise strategy and value realization in three key areas: defining your products and services, aligning product/service owners, and developing your product vision.

    Product Delivery Lifecycle (Agile DevOps)

    Enhance business agility by leveraging an Agile mindset and continuously improving your delivery throughput, quality, value realization, and adaptive governance.

    Application Portfolio Management

    Transform your application portfolio into a cohesive service catalog aligned to your business capabilities by discovering, rationalizing, and modernizing your applications while improving application maintenance, management, and reuse.

    The image contains a screenshot of a Thought Model on the Application Department Strategy.


    The image contains a screenshot of a Thought Model on Accelerate Your Transition to Product Delivery.

    Every organization experiences some degree of application sprawl

    The image contains a screenshot of images to demonstrate application sprawl.

    Causes of Sprawl

    • Poor Lifecycle Management
    • Turnover & Lack of Knowledge Transfer
    • Siloed Business Units & Decentralized IT
    • Business-Managed IT
    • (Shadow IT)
    • Mergers & Acquisitions

    Problems With Sprawl

    • Redundancy and Inefficient Spending
    • Disparate Apps & Data
    • Obsolescence
    • Difficulties in Prioritizing Support
    • Barriers to Change & Growth

    Application Sprawl:

    Inefficiencies within your application portfolio are created by the gradual and non-strategic accumulation of applications.

    You have more apps than you need.

    Only 34% of software is rated as both IMPORTANT and EFFECTIVE by users.

    Source: Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision

    Build your APM journey map

    The image contains screenshots of diagrams that reviews building your APM journey map.

    Application rationalization provides insight

    Directionless portfolio of applications

    Info-Tech’s Five Lens Model

    Assigned dispositions for individual apps

    The image contains a screenshot of an example of directionless portfolio of applications.

    Application Alignment

    Business Value

    Technical Health

    End-User Perspective

    Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

    Maintain: Keep the application but adjust its support structure.

    Modernize: Create a new initiative to address an inadequacy.

    Consolidate: Create a new initiative to reduce duplicate functionality.

    Retire: Phase out the application.

    Disposition: The intended strategic direction or implied course of action for an application.

    How well do your apps support your core functions and teams?

    How well are your apps aligned to value delivery?

    Do your apps meet all IT quality standards and policies?

    How well do your apps meet your end users’ needs?

    What is the relative cost of ownership and operation of your apps?

    Application rationalization requires the collection of several data points that represent these perspectives and act as the criteria for determining a disposition for each of your applications.

    APM is an iterative and evergreen process

    APM provides oversight and awareness of your application portfolio’s performance and support for your business operations and value delivery to all users and customers.

    Determine Scope and categories Build your list of applications and capabilities Score each application based on your values Determine outcomes based on app scoring and support for capabilities

    1. Lay Your Foundations

    1.1 Assess the state of your current application portfolio.

    1.2 Determine narrative.

    1.3 Define goals and metrics.

    1.4 Define application categories.

    1.5 Determine APM steps and roles (SIPOC).

    2. Improve Your Inventory

    2.1 Populate your inventory.

    2.2 Align to business capabilities.

    *Repeat

    3. Rationalize Your Apps

    3.1 Assess business value.

    3.2 Assess technical health.

    3.3 Assess end-user perspective.

    3.4 Assess total cost of ownership.

    *Repeat

    4. Populate Your Roadmap

    4.1 Review APM Snapshot results.

    4.2 Review APM Foundations results.

    4.3 Determine dispositions.

    4.4 Assess redundancies (optional).

    4.5 Determine dispositions for redundant applications (optional).

    4.6 Prioritize initiatives.

    4.7 Determine ongoing cadence.

    *Repeat

    Repeat according to APM cadence and application changes

    Executive Brief Case Study

    INDUSTRY: Retail

    SOURCE: Deloitte, 2017

    Supermarket Company

    The grocer was a smaller organization for the supermarket industry with a relatively low IT budget. While its portfolio consisted of a dozen applications, the organization still found it difficult to react to an evolving industry due to inflexible and overly complex legacy systems.

    The IT manager found himself in a scenario where he knew the applications well but had little awareness of the business processes they supported. Application maintenance was purely in keeping things operational, with little consideration for a future business strategy.

    As the business demanded more responsiveness to changes, the IT team needed to be able to react more efficiently and effectively while still securing the continuity of the business.

    The IT manager found success by introducing APM and gaining a better understanding of the business use and future needs for the applications. The organization started small but then increased the scope over time to produce and develop techniques to aid the business in meeting strategic goals with applications.

    Results

    The IT manager gained credibility and trust within the organization. The organization was able to build a plan to move away from the legacy systems and create a portfolio more responsive to the dynamic needs of an evolving marketplace.

    The application portfolio management initiative included the following components:

    Train teams and stakeholders on APM

    Model the core business processes

    Collect application inventory

    Assign APM responsibilities

    Start small, then grow

    Info-Tech’s application portfolio management methodology

    1. Lay Your Foundations

    2. Improve Your Inventory

    3. Rationalize Your Apps

    4. Populate Your Roadmap

    Phase Activities

    1.1 Assess your current application portfolio

    1.2 Determine narrative

    1.3 Define goals and metrics

    1.4 Define application categories

    1.5 Determine APM steps and roles

    2.1 Populate your inventory

    2.2 Align to business capabilities

    3.1 Assess business value

    3.2 Assess technical health

    3.3 Assess end-user perspective

    3.4 Assess total cost of ownership

    4.1 Review APM Snapshot results

    4.2 Review APM Foundations results

    4.3 Determine dispositions

    4.4 Assess redundancies (optional)

    4.5 Determine dispositions for redundant applications (optional)

    4.6 Prioritize initiatives

    4.7 Determine ongoing APM cadence

    Phase Outcomes

    Work with the appropriate management stakeholders to:

    • Extract key business priorities.
    • Set your goals.
    • Define scope of APM effort.

    Gather information on your own understanding of your applications to build a detailed inventory and identify areas of redundancy.

    Work with application subject matter experts to collect and compile data points and determine the appropriate disposition for your apps.

    Work with application delivery specialists to determine the strategic plans for your apps and place these in your portfolio roadmap.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Application Portfolio Management Foundations Playbook

    Application Portfolio Management Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    This template allows you to capture your APM roles and responsibilities and build a repeatable process.

    This tool stores all relevant application information and allows you to assess your capability support, execute rationalization, and build a portfolio roadmap.

    The image contains screenshots of the Application Portfolio Management Foundations Playbook. The image contains screenshots of the Application Portfolio Management Snapshot and Foundations Tool.

    Key deliverable:

    Blueprint Storyboard

    This is the PowerPoint document you are viewing now. Follow this guide to understand APM, learn how to use the tools, and build a repeatable APM process that will be captured in your playbook.

    The image contains a screenshot of the blueprint storyboard.

    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 for on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

    Call #1: Establish goals and foundations for your APM practice.

    Call #2:

    Initiate inventory and determine data requirements.

    Call #3:

    Initiate rationalization with group of applications.

    Call #4:

    Review result of first iteration and perform retrospective.

    Call #5:

    Initiate your roadmap and determine your ongoing APM practice.

    Note: The Guided Implementation will focus on a subset or group of applications depending on the state of your current APM inventory and available time. The goal is to use this first group to build your APM process and models to support your ongoing discovery, rationalization, and modernization efforts.

    A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our right-sized best practices in your organization. A typical GI, using our materials, is 3 to 6 calls over the course of 1 to 3 months.

    Workshop Overview

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

    1. Lay Your Foundations

    2. Improve Your Inventory

    3. Rationalize Your Apps

    4. Populate Your Roadmap

    Post Workshop Steps

    Activities

    1.1 Assess your current
    application portfolio

    1.2 Determine narrative

    1.3 Define goals and metrics

    1.4 Define application categories

    1.5 Determine APM steps and roles

    2.1 Populate your inventory

    2.2 Align to business capabilities

    3.1 Assess business value

    3.2 Assess technical health

    3.3 Assess end-user perspective

    3.4 Assess total cost of ownership

    4.1 Review APM Snapshot results

    4.2 Review APM Foundations results

    4.3 Determine dispositions

    4.4 Assess redundancies (optional)

    4.5 Determine dispositions for redundant applications (optional)

    4.6 Prioritize initiatives

    4.7 Determine ongoing APM cadence

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

    Outcomes

    Work with the appropriate management stakeholders to:

    1. Extract key business priorities
    2. Set your goals
    3. Agree on key terms and set the scope for your APM effort

    Work with your applications team to:

    1. Build a detailed inventory
    2. Identify areas of redundancy

    Work with the SMEs for a subset of applications to:

    1. Define your rationalization criteria, descriptions, and scoring
    2. Evaluate each application using rationalization criteria

    Work with application delivery specialists to:

    1. Determine the appropriate disposition for your apps
    2. Build an initial application portfolio roadmap
    3. Establish an ongoing cadence of APM activities

    Info-Tech analysts complete:

    1. Workshop report
    2. APM Snapshot and Foundations Toolset
    3. Action plan

    Note: The workshop will focus on a subset or group of applications depending on the state of your current APM inventory and available time. The goal is to use this first group to build your APM process and models to support your ongoing discovery, rationalization, and modernization efforts.

    Workshop Options

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

    Outcomes

    1-Day Snapshot

    3-Day Snapshot and Foundations (Key Apps)

    4-Day Snapshot and Foundations (Pilot Area)

    APM Snapshot

    • Align applications to business capabilities
    • Evaluate application support for business capabilities

    APM Foundations

    • Define your APM program and cadence
    • Rationalize applications using weighted criteria
    • Define application dispositions
    • Build an application roadmap aligned to initiatives

    Establish APM practice with a small sample set of apps and capabilities.

    Establish APM practice with a pilot group of apps and capabilities.

    Blueprint Pre-Step: Get the right stakeholders to the right exercises

    The image contains four steps and demonstrates who should be handling each exercise. 1. Lay Your Foundations, is to be handled by the APM Lead/Owner and the Key Corporate Stakeholders. 2. Improve Your Inventory, is to be handled by the APM Lead/Owner and the Applications Subject Matter Experts. 3. Rationalize Your Apps, is to be handled by the APM Lead/Owner, the Applications Subject Matter Experts, and the Delivery Leads. 4. Populate Your Roadmap, is to be handled by the APM Lead/Owner, the Key Corporate Stakeholders, and the Delivery Leads.

    APM Lead/Owner (Recommended)

    ☐ Applications Lead or the individual responsible for application portfolio management, along with any applications team members, if available

    Key Corporate Stakeholders

    Depending on size and structure, participants could include:

    ☐ Head of IT (CIO, CTO, IT Director, or IT Manager)

    ☐ Head of shared services (CFO, COO, VP HR, etc.)

    ☐ Compliance Officer, Steering Committee

    ☐ Company owner or CEO

    Application Subject Matter Experts

    Individuals who have familiarity with a specific subset of applications

    ☐ Business owners (product owners, Head of Business Function, power users)

    ☐ Support owners (Operations Manager, IT Technician)

    Delivery Leads

    ☐ Development Managers

    ☐ Solution Architects

    ☐ Project Managers

    Understand your APM tools and outcomes

    1.Diagnostic The image contains a screenshot of the diagnostic APM tool.

    5. Foundations: Chart

    The image contains a screenshot of the Foundations: Chart APM tool.

    2. Data Journey

    The image contains a screenshot of the data journey APM tool.

    6. App Comparison

    The image contains a screenshot of the App Comparison APM tool.

    3. Snapshot

    The image contains a screenshot of the snapshot APM tool.

    7. Roadmap

    The image contains a screenshot of the Roadmap APM tool.

    4. Foundations: Results

    The image contains a screenshot of the Foundations: Results APM Tool.

    Examples and explanations of these tools are located on the following slides and within the phases where they occur.

    Assess your current application portfolio with Info-Tech’s APM Diagnostic Tool

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM Diagnostic Tool.

    One of the primary purposes of application portfolio management is to get what we know and need to know on paper so we can share a common vision and understanding of our portfolio. This enables better discussions and decisions with your application owners and stakeholders.

    APM worksheet data journey map

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM worksheet data journey map.

    Interpreting your APM Snapshot results

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM snapshots results.

    Interpreting your APM Foundations results

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM Foundations results.

    Interpreting your APM Foundations chart

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM Foundations chart.

    Compare application groups

    Group comparison can be used for more than just redundant/overlapping applications.

    The image contains a screenshot of images that demonstrate comparing application groups.

    Apply Info-Tech’s 6 R’s Rationalization Disposition Model

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's 6 R's Rationalization Disposition Model.

    Disposition

    Description

    Reward

    Prioritize new features or enhancement requests and openly welcome the expansion of these applications as new requests are presented.

    Refresh

    Address the poor end-user satisfaction with a prioritized project. Consult with users to determine if UX issues require improvement to address satisfaction.

    Refocus

    Determine the root cause of the low value. Refocus, retrain, or refresh the UX to improve value. If there is no value found, aim to "keep the lights on" until the app can be decommissioned.

    Replace

    Replace or rebuild the application as technical and user issues are putting important business capabilities at risk. Decommission application alongside replacement.

    Remediate

    Address the poor technical health or risk with a prioritized project. Further consult with development and technical teams to determine if migration or refactoring is suited to address the technical issue.

    Retire

    Cancel any requested features and enhancements. Schedule the proper decommission and transfer end users to a new or alternative system if necessary.

    TCO, compared relatively to business value, helps determine the practicality of a disposition and the urgency of any call to action. Application alignment is factored in when assessing redundancies and has a separate set of dispositions.

    Populate roadmap example

    The image contains an example of the populate roadmap.

    ARE YOU READY TO GET STARTED?

    Phase 1

    Lay Your Foundations

    Phase 1

    1.1 Assess Your Current Application Portfolio

    1.2 Determine Narrative

    1.3 Define Goals and Metrics

    1.4 Define Application Categories

    1.5 Determine APM Steps and Roles

    Phase 2

    2.1 Populate Your Inventory

    2.2 Align to Business Capabilities

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assess Business Value

    3.2 Assess Technical Health

    3.3 Assess End-User Perspective

    3.4 Assess Total Cost of Ownership

    Phase 4

    4.1 Review APM Snapshot Results

    4.2 Review APM Foundations Results

    4.3 Determine Dispositions

    4.4 Assess Redundancies (Optional)

    4.5 Determine Dispositions for Redundant Applications (Optional)

    4.6 Prioritize Initiatives

    4.7 Determine Ongoing APM Cadence

    This phase involves the following participants:

    Applications Lead

    Key Corporate Stakeholders

    Additional Resources

    APM supports many goals

    Building an APM process requires a proper understanding of the underlying business goals and objectives of your organization’s strategy. Effectively identifying these drivers is paramount to gaining buy-in and the approval for any changes you plan to make to your application portfolio.

    After identifying these goals, you will need to ensure they are built into the foundations of your APM process.

    “What is most critical?” but also “What must come first?”

    Discover

    Improve

    Transform

    Collect Inventory

    Uncover Shadow IT

    Uncover Redundancies

    Anticipate Upgrades

    Predict Retirement

    Reduce Cost

    Increase Efficiency

    Reduce Applications

    Eliminate Redundancy

    Limit Risk

    Improve Architecture

    Modernize

    Enable Scalability

    Drive Business Growth

    Improve UX

    Assess your current application portfolio with Info-Tech’s APM Diagnostic Tool

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM Diagnostic Tool.

    One of the primary purposes of application portfolio management is to get what we know and need to know on paper so we can share a common vision and understanding of our portfolio. This enables better discussions and decisions with your application owners and stakeholders.

    1.1 Assess your current application portfolio with Info-Tech’s diagnostic tool

    Estimated time: 1 hour

    1. This tool provides visibility into your application portfolio and APM practices.
    2. Based on your assessment, you should gain a better understanding of whether the appropriate next steps are in application discovery, rationalization, or roadmapping.
    3. Complete the “Data Entry” worksheet in the Application Portfolio Management Diagnostic Tool (Excel).
    4. Review the “Results” worksheet to help inform and guide your next steps.

    Download the Application Portfolio Management Diagnostic Tool

    Input Output
    • Current APM program
    • Application landscape
    • APM current-state assessment
    Materials Participants
    • Application Portfolio Management Diagnostic Tool
    • Applications Lead

    1.1 Understanding the diagnostic results

    • Managed Apps are your known knowns and most of your portfolio.
    • Unmanaged and Unsanctioned Apps are known but have unknown risks and compliance. Bring these under IT support.
    • Unknown Apps are high risk and noncompliant. Prioritize these based on risk, cost, and use.
    The image contains a screenshot of the diagnostic APM tool.
    • APM is more than an inventory and assessment. A strong APM program provides ongoing visibility and insights to drive application improvement and value delivery.
    • Use your Sprawl Factors to identify process and organizational gaps that may need to be addressed.
    • Your APM inventory is only as good as the information in it. Use this chart to identify gaps and develop a path to define missing information.
    • APM is an iterative process. Use this state assessment to determine where to focus most of your current effort.

    Understand potential motivations for APM

    The value of APM is defined by how the information will be used to drive better decisions.

    Portfolio Governance

    Transformative Initiatives

    Event-Driven Rationalization

    Improves:

    • Spending efficiency
    • Risk
    • Retirement of aged and low-value applications
    • Business enablement

    Impact on your rationalization framework:

    • Less urgent
    • As rigorous as appropriate
    • Apply in-depth analysis as needed

    Enables:

    • Data migration or harmonization
    • Legacy modernization
    • Infrastructure/cloud migration
    • Standardizing platforms
    • Shift to cloud and SAAS

    Impact on your rationalization framework:

    • Time sensitive
    • Scope on impacted areas
    • Need to determine specific dispositions
    • Outcomes need to include detailed and actionable steps

    Responds to:

    • Mergers and acquisitions
    • Regulatory and compliance change
    • New applications
    • Application retirement by vendors
    • Changes in business operations
    • Security risks and BC/DR

    Impact on your rationalization framework:

    • Time constrained
    • Lots of discovery work
    • Primary focus on duplication
    • Increased process and system understanding

    Different motivations will influence the appropriate approach to and urgency of APM or, specifically, rationalizing the portfolio. When rationalizing is directly related to enabling or in response to a broader initiative, you will need to create a more structured approach with a formal budget and resources.

    1.2 Determine narrative

    Estimated time: 30 minutes-2 hours

    1. Open the “Narrative” tab in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool.
    2. Start by listing your prevailing IT pain points with the application portfolio. These will be the issues experienced predominantly by the IT team and not necessarily by the stakeholders. Be sure to distinguish pain points from their root causes.
    3. Determine an equivalent business pain point for each IT pain point. This should be how the problem manifests itself to business stakeholders and should include potential risks to the organization is exposed to.
    4. Determine the business goal for each business pain point. Ideally, these are established organizational goals that key decision-makers will recognize. These goals should address the business pain points you have documented.
    5. Determine the technical objective for each business goal. These speak to the general corrections or enhancements to the portfolio required to accomplish the business goals.
    6. Use the “Narrative - Matrix” worksheet to group items into themes if needed.

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    Input Output
    • Familiarity with application landscape
    • Organizational context and strategic artifacts
    • Narrative for application portfolio transformation
    Materials Participants
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Application Portfolio Manager

    Connect your pains to what the business cares about to find the most effective narrative

    Root Cause

    IT Pain Points

    Business Pain Points

    Business Goals

    Narrative

    Technical Objectives

    Sprawl

    Shadow IT/decentralized oversight

    Neglect over time

    Poor delivery processes

    Back-End Complexity

    Disparate Data/Apps

    Poor Architectural Fit

    Redundancy

    Maintenance Demand/
    Resource Drain

    Low Maintainability

    Technical Debt

    Legacy, Aging, or Expiring Apps

    Security Vulnerabilities

    Unsatisfied Customers

    Hurdles to Growth/Change

    Poor Business Analytics

    Process Inefficiency

    Software Costs

    Business Continuity Risk

    Data Privacy Risk

    Data/IP Theft Risk

    Poor User Experience

    Low-Value Apps

    Scalability

    Flexibility/Agility

    Data-Driven Insights

    M&A Transition

    Business Unit Consolidation/ Centralization

    Process Improvement

    Process Modernization

    Cost Reduction

    Stability

    Customer Protection

    Security

    Employee Enablement

    Business Enablement

    Innovation

    Create Strategic Alignment

    Identify specific business capabilities that are incompatible with strategic initiatives.

    Reduce Application Intensity

    Highlight the capabilities that are encumbered due to functional overlaps and complexity.

    Reduce Software Costs

    Specific business capabilities come at an unnecessarily or disproportionately high cost.

    Mitigate Business Continuity Risk

    Specific business capabilities are at risk of interruption or stoppages due to unresolved back-end issues.

    Mitigate Security Risk

    Specific business capabilities are at risk due to unmitigated security vulnerabilities or breaches.

    Increase Satisfaction Applications

    Specific business capabilities are not achieving their optimal business value.

    Platform Standardization

    Platform Standardization Consolidation

    Data Harmonization

    Removal/Consolidation of Redundant Applications

    Legacy Modernization

    Application Upgrades

    Removal of Low-Value Applications

    1.3 Define goals and metrics

    Estimated time: 1 hour

    1. Determine the motivations behind APM. You may want to collect and review any of the organization’s strategic documents that provide additional context on previously established goals.
    2. With the appropriate stakeholders, discuss the goals of APM. Try to label your goals as either:
      1. Short term: Refers to immediate goals used to represent the progress of APM activities. Likely these goals are more IT-oriented
      2. Long term: Refers to broader and more distant goals more related to the impact of APM. These goals tend to be more business-oriented.
    3. To help clearly define your goals, discuss appropriate metrics for each goal. Often these metrics can be expressed as:
      1. Leading indicators: Metrics used to gauge the success of your short-term goals and the progress of APM activities.
      2. Lagging indicators: Metrics used to gauge the success of your long-term goals.

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    Input Output
    • Overarching organizational strategy
    • IT strategy
    • Defined goals and metrics for APM
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard
    • Markers
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Applications Lead
    • Key Corporate Stakeholders

    1.3 Define goals and metrics: Example

    Goals

    Metric

    Target

    Short Term

    Improve ability to inform the business

    Leading Indicators

    • Application inventory with all data fields completed
    • Applications with recommended dispositions
    • 80% of portfolio

    Improve ownership of applications

    • Applications with an assigned business and technical owner
    • 80% of portfolio

    Reduce costs of portfolio

    • TCO of full application portfolio
    • The number of recovered/avoided software licenses from retired apps
    • Reduce by 5%
    • $50,000

    Long Term

    Migrate platform

    Lagging Indicators

    • Migrate all applications
    • Total value change in on-premises apps switched to SaaS
    • 100% of applications
    • Increase 50%

    Improve overall satisfaction with portfolio

    • End-user satisfaction rating
    • Increase 25%

    Become more customer-centric

    • Increased sales
    • Increased customer experience
    • Increase 35%

    “Application” doesn’t have the same meaning to everyone

    The image contains a picture of Martin Fowler.

    Code: A body of code that's seen by developers as a single unit.

    Functionality: A group of functionality that business customers see as a single unit.

    Funding: An initiative that those with the money see as a single budget.

    ?: What else?

    “Essentially applications are social constructions.

    Source: Martin Fowler

    APM focuses on business applications.

    “Software used by business users to perform a business function.”

    – ServiceNow, 2020

    Unfortunately, that definition is still quite vague.

    You must set boundaries and scope for “application”

    1. Many individual items can be considered applications on their own or components within or associated with an application.

    2. Different categories of applications may be out of scope or handled differently within the activities and artifacts of APM.

    Different categories of applications may be out of scope or handled differently within the activities and artifacts of APM.

    • Interface
    • Software Component
    • Supporting Software
    • Platform
    • Presentation Layer
    • Middleware
    • Micro Service
    • Database
    • UI
    • API
    • Data Access/ Transfer/Load
    • Operating System

    Apps can be categorized by generic categories

    • Enterprise Applications
    • Unique Function-Specific Applications
    • Productivity Tools
    • Customer-Facing Applications
    • Mobile Applications

    Apps can be categorized by bought vs. built or install types

    • Custom
    • On-Prem
    • Off the Shelf
    • SaaS
    • Hybrid
    • End-User-Built Tools

    Apps can be categorized by the application family

    • Parent Application
    • Child Application
    • Package
    • Module
    • Suite
    • Component (Functional)

    Apps can be categorized by the group managing them

    • IT-Managed Applications
    • Business-Managed Applications (Shadow IT)
    • Partner/External Applications

    Apps can be categorized by tiers

    • Mission Critical
    • Tier 2
    • Tier 3

    Set boundaries on what is an application or the individual unit that you’re making business decisions on. Also, determine which categories of applications are in scope and how they will be included in the activities and artifacts of APM. Use your product families defined in Deliver Digital Products at Scale to help define your application categories, groups, and boundaries.

    1.4 Define application categories

    Estimated time: 1 hour

    1. Review the items listed on the previous slide and consider what categories provide the best initial grouping to help organize your rationalization and dispositions. Update the category list to match your application groupings.
    2. Identify the additional categories you need to manage in your application portfolio.
    3. For each category, establish or modify a description or definition and provide examples that exist in your current portfolio.
    4. For each category, answer:
      1. Will these be documented in the application inventory?
      2. Will these be included in application rationalization? Think about if this item will be assigned a TCO, value score, and, ultimately, a disposition.
      3. Will these be listed in the application portfolio roadmap?
    5. If you completed Deliver Digital Products at Scale, use your product families to help define your application categories.

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    InputOutput
    • Working list of applications
    • Definitions and guidelines for which application categories are in scope for APM
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Applications Lead
    • Key Corporate Stakeholders

    1.4 APM worksheet data journey map

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM worksheet data journey map.

    1.4 Define application categories: Example

    Category

    Definition/Description

    Examples

    Documented in your application inventory?

    Included in application rationalization?

    Listed in your application portfolio roadmap?

    Business Application

    End-user facing applications that directly enable specific business functions. This includes enterprise-wide and business-function-specific applications. Separate modules will be considered a business application when appropriate.

    ERP system, CRM software, accounting software

    Yes

    Yes. Unless currently in dev. TCO of the parent application will be divided among child apps.

    Yes

    Software Components

    Back-end solutions are self-contained units that support business functions.

    ETL, middleware, operating systems

    No. Documentation in CMDB. These will be listed as a dependency in the application inventory.

    No. These will be linked to a business app and included in TCO estimates and tech health assessments.

    No

    Productivity Tools

    End-user-facing applications that enable standard communication of general document creation.

    MS Word, MS Excel, corporate email

    Yes

    No

    Yes

    End-User- Built Microsoft Tools

    Single instances of a Microsoft tool that the business has grown dependent on.

    Payroll Excel tool, Access databases

    No. Documentation in Business Tool Glossary.

    No No

    Partner Applications

    Partners or third-party applications that the business has grown dependent on but are internally owned or managed.

    Supplier’s ERP portal, government portal

    No No

    Yes

    Shadow IT

    Business-managed applications.

    Downloaded tools

    Yes

    Yes. However, just from a redundancy perspective.

    Yes

    The roles in APM rarely exist; you need to adapt

    Application Portfolio Manager

    • Responsible for the health and evolution of the application portfolio.
    • Facilitates the rationalization process.
    • Compiles and assesses application information and recommends and supports key decisions regarding the direction of the applications.
    • This is rarely a dedicated role even in large enterprises. For small enterprises, this should be an IT employee at a manager level – an IT manager or operations manager.

    Business Owner

    • Responsible for managing individual applications on a functional level and approves and prioritizes projects.
    • Provides business process or functional subject matter expertise for the assessment of applications.
    • For small enterprises, this role is rarely defined, but the responsibility should exist. Consider the head of a business unit or a process owner as the owner of the application.

    Support Owner

    • Responsible for the maintenance and management of individual applications.
    • Provides technical information and subject matter expertise for the assessment of an application.
    • For small enterprises, this would be those responsible for maintaining the application and those responsible for its initial implementation. Often support responsibilities are external, and this role will be more of a vendor manager.

    Project Portfolio Manager

    • Responsible for intake, planning, and coordinating the resources that deliver any changes.
    • The body that consumes the results of rationalization and begins planning any required action or project.
    • For small enterprises, the approval process can come from a steering committee but it is often less formal. Often a smaller group of project managers facilitates planning and coordination and works closely with the delivery leads.

    Corner-of-the-Desk Approach

    • No one is explicitly dedicated to building a strategy or APM practices.
    • Information is collected whenever the applications team has time available.
    • Benefits are pushed out and the value is lost.

    Dedicated Approach

    • The initiative is given a budget and formal agenda.
    • Roles and responsibilities are assigned to team members.

    The high-level steps of APM present some questions you need to answer

    Build Inventory

    Create the full list of applications and capture all necessary attributes.

    • Who will build the inventory?
    • Do you know all your applications (Shadow IT)?
    • Do you know your applications’ functionality?
    • Do you know where your applications overlap?
    • Who do you need to consult with to fill in the gaps?
    • Who will provide specific application information?

    Collect & Compile

    Engage with appropriate SMEs and collect necessary data points for rationalization.

    • Who will collect and compile the data points for rationalization?
    • What are the specific data points?
    • Are some of the data points currently documented?
    • Who will provide specific data points on technical health, cost, performance, and business value?
    • Who will determine what business value is?

    Assess & Recommend

    Apply rationalization framework and toolset to determine dispositions.

    • Who will apply a rationalization tool or decision-making framework to generate dispositions for the applications?
    • Who will modify the tool or framework to ensure results align to the goals of the organization?
    • Who will define any actions or projects that result from the rationalization? And who needs to be consulted to assess the feasibility of any potential project?

    Validate & Roadmap

    Present dispositions for validation and communicate any decisions or direction for applications.

    • Who will present the recommended disposition, corrective action, or new project to the appropriate decision maker?
    • Who is the appropriate decision maker for application changes or project approval?
    • What format is recommended (idea, proposal, business case) and what extra analysis is required?
    • Who needs to be consulted regarding the potential changes?

    1.5 Determine APM steps and roles (SIPOC)

    Estimated time: 1-2 hours

    1. Begin by comparing Info-Tech’s list of common APM roles to the roles that exist in your organization with respect to application management and ownership.
    2. There are four high-level steps for APM: build inventory, collect & compile, assess & recommend, and validate & roadmap. Apply the SIPOC (Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customer) model by completing the following for each step:
      1. In the Process column, modify the description, if necessary. Identify who is responsible for performing the step.
      2. In the Inputs column, modify the list of inputs.
      3. In the Suppliers column, identify who must be included to provide the inputs.
      4. In the Outputs column, modify the list of outputs.
      5. In the Customers column, identify who consumes the outputs.
    3. (Optional) Outline how the results of APM will be consumed. For example, project intake or execution, data or platform migration, application or product management, or whichever is appropriate.

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    Input Output
    • Existing function and roles regarding application delivery, management, and ownership
    • Scope of APM
    • Responsibilities assigned to your roles
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • “Supporting Activities – SIPOC” worksheet in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Applications Lead
    • Key Corporate Stakeholders

    1.5 Determine steps and roles

    Suppliers

    Inputs

    Process

    Outputs

    Customers

    • Applications Manager
    • Operations Manager
    • Business Owners
    • IT Team
    • List of applications
    • Application attributes
    • Business capabilities

    Build Inventory

    Create the full list of applications and capture all necessary attributes.

    Resp: Applications Manager & IT team member

    • Application inventory
    • Identified redundancies
    • Whole organization
    • Applications SMEs
    • Business Owners
    • Support Owners & Team
    • End Users
    • Application inventory
    • Existing documentation
    • Additional collection methods
    • Knowledge of business value, cost, and performance for each application

    Collect & Compile

    Engage with appropriate SMEs and collect necessary data points for rationalization.

    Resp: IT team member

    • Data points of business value, cost, and performance for each application
    • Applications Manager
    • Applications Manager
    • Defined application rationalization framework and toolset
    • Data points of business value, cost, and performance for each application

    Assess & Recommend

    Apply rationalization framework and toolset to determine dispositions.

    Resp: Applications Manager

    • Assigned disposition for each application
    • New project ideas for applications
    • Business Owners
    • Steering Committee
    • Business Owners
    • Steering Committee
    • Assigned disposition for each application
    • New project ideas for applications
    • Awareness of goals and priorities
    • Awareness of existing projects and resources capacity

    Validate & Roadmap

    Present dispositions for validation and communicate any decisions or direction for applications.

    Resp: Applications Manager

    • Application portfolio roadmap
    • Confirmed disposition for each application
    • Project request submission
    • Whole organization
    • Applications Manager
    • Solutions Engineer
    • Business Owner
    • Project request submission
    • Estimated cost
    • Estimated value or ROI

    Project Intake

    Build business case for project request.

    Resp: Project Manager

    • Approved project
    • Steering Committee

    Planning your APM modernization journey steps

    Discovery Rationalization Disposition Roadmap

    Enter your pilot inventory.

    • Optional Snapshot: Populate your desired snapshot grouping lists (departments, functions, groups, capabilities, etc.).

    Score your pilot apps to refine your rationalization criteria and scoring.

    • Score 3 to 9 apps to adjust and get comfortable with the scoring.
    • Validate scoring with the remaining apps in your pilot group. Refine and finalize the criteria and scoring descriptions.
    • Optional Snapshot: Use the Group Alignment Matrix to match your grouping list to select which apps support each grouping item.

    Determine recommended disposition for each application.

    • Review and adjust the disposition recommendations on the “Disposition Options” worksheet and set your pass/fail threshold.
    • Review your apps on the “App Rationalization Results” worksheet. Update (override) the recommended disposition and priority if needed.

    Populate your application roadmap.

    • Indicate programs, projects, initiatives, or releases that are planned for each app.
    • Update the priority based on the initiative.
    • Use the visual roadmap to show high-level delivery phases.

    Phase 2

    Improve Your Inventory

    Phase 1

    1.1 Assess Your Current Application Portfolio

    1.2 Determine Narrative

    1.3 Define Goals and Metrics

    1.4 Define Application Categories

    1.5 Determine APM Steps and Roles

    Phase 2

    2.1 Populate Your Inventory

    2.2 Align to Business Capabilities

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assess Business Value

    3.2 Assess Technical Health

    3.3 Assess End-User Perspective

    3.4 Assess Total Cost of Ownership

    Phase 4

    4.1 Review APM Snapshot Results

    4.2 Review APM Foundations Results

    4.3 Determine Dispositions

    4.4 Assess Redundancies (Optional)

    4.5 Determine Dispositions for Redundant Applications (Optional)

    4.6 Prioritize Initiatives

    4.7 Determine Ongoing APM Cadence

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Applications Lead
    • Applications Team

    Additional Resources

    Document Your Business Architecture

    Industry Reference Architectures

    Application Capability Template

    Pre-step: Collect your applications

    1. Consult with your IT team and leverage any existing documentation to gather an initial list of your applications.
    2. Build an initial working list of applications. This is just meant to be a starting point. Aim to include any new applications in procurement, implementation, or development.
    3. The rationalization and roadmapping phases are best completed when iteratively focusing on manageable groups of applications. Group your applications into subsets based on shared subject matter experts. Likely this will mean grouping applications by business units.
    4. Select a subset to be the first group of applications that will undergo the activities of rationalization and roadmapping to refine your APM processes, scoring, and disposition selection.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    The more information you plan to capture, the larger the time and effort, especially as you move along toward advanced and strategic items. Capture the information most aligned to your objectives to make the most of your investment.

    If you completed Deliver Digital Products at Scale, use your product families and products to help define your applications.

    Learn more about automated application discovery:
    High Application Satisfaction Starts With Discovering Your Application Inventory

    Discover your applications

    The image contains a screenshot of examples of applications that support APM.

    2.1 Populate your inventory

    Estimated time: 1-4 hours per group

    1. Review Info-Tech’s list of application inventory attributes.
    2. Open the “Application Inventory Details” tab of the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool. Modify, add, or omit attributes.
    3. For each application, populate your prioritized data fields or any fields you know at the time of discovery. You will complete all the fields in future iterations.
    4. Complete this the best you can based on your team’s familiarity and any readily available documentation related to these applications.
    5. Use the drop-down list to select Enabling, Redundant/Overlapping, and Dependent apps. This will be used to help determine dispositions and comparisons.
    6. Highlight missing information or placeholder values that need to be verified.

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    Input Output
    • Working list of applications
    • Determined attributes for inventory
    • Populated inventory
    Materials Participants
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    2.1 APM worksheet data journey map

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM worksheet data journey map.

    Why is the business capability so important?

    For the purposes of an inventory, business capabilities help all stakeholders gain a sense of the functionality the application provides.

    However, the true value of business capability comes with rationalization.

    Upon linking all the organization’s applications to a standardized and consistent set of business capabilities, you can then group your applications based on similar, complementary, or overlapping functionality. In other words, find your redundancies and consolidation opportunities.

    Important Consideration

    Defining business capabilities and determining the full extent of redundancy is a challenging undertaking and often is a larger effort than APM all together.

    Business capabilities should be defined according to the unique functions and language of your organization, at varying levels of granularity, and ideally including target-state capabilities that identify gaps in the future strategy.

    This blueprint provides a simplified and generic list for the purpose of categorizing similar functionality. We strongly encourage exploring Document Your Business Architecture to help in the business capability defining process, especially when visibility into your portfolio and knowledge of redundancies is poor.

    The image contains a screenshot of the business capability scenarios.

    For a more detailed capability mapping, use the Application Portfolio Snapshot and the worksheets in your current workbook.

    What is a business capability map?

    The image contains a screenshot of a business capability map.

    A business capability map (BCM) is an abstraction of business operations that helps describe what the enterprise does to achieve its vision, mission, and goals. Business capabilities are the building blocks of the enterprise. They are typically defined at varying levels of granularity and include target-state capabilities that identify gaps in the future strategy. These are the people, process, and tool units that deliver value to your teams and customers.

    Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage and Reference Architectures give you a head start on producing a BCM fit for your organization. The visual to the left is an example of a reference architecture for the retail industry.

    These are the foundational piece for our Application Portfolio Snapshot. By linking capabilities to your supporting applications, you can better visualize how the portfolio supports the organization at a single glance. More specifically, you can highlight how issues with the portfolio are impacting capability delivery.

    Reminder: Best practices imply that business capabilities are methodologically defined by business stakeholders and business architects to capture the unique functions and language of your organization.

    The approach laid out in this service is about applying minimal time and effort to make the case for proper investment into the best practices, which can include creating a tailored BCM. Start with a good enough example to produce a useful visual and generate a positive conversation toward resourcing and analyses.

    We strongly encourage exploring Document Your Business Architecture and the Application Portfolio Snapshot to understand the thorough methods and tactics for BCM.

    Why perform a high-level application alignment before rationalization?

    Having to address redundancy complicates the application rationalization process. There is no doubt that assessing applications in isolation is much easier and allows you to arrive at dispositions for your applications in a timelier manner.

    Rationalization has two basic steps: first, collect and compile information, and second, analyze that information and determine a disposition for each application. When you don’t have redundancy, you can analyze an application and determine a disposition in isolation. When you do have redundancies, you need to collect information for multiple applications, likely across departments or lines of business, then perform a comparative analysis.

    Most likely your approach will fall somewhere between the examples below and require a hybrid approach.

    Benefits of a high-level application alignment:

    • Review the degree of redundancy across your portfolio.
    • Understand the priority areas for rationalization and the sequence of information collection.

    The image contains a screenshot of a timeline of rationalization effort.

    2.2 Align apps to capabilities and functions

    Estimated time: 1-4 hours per grouping

    The APM tool provides up to three different grouping comparisons to assess how well your applications are supporting your enterprise. Although business capabilities are important, identify your organizational perspectives to determine how well your portfolio supports these functions, departments, or value streams. Each grouping should be a consistent category, type, or arrangement of applications.

    1. Enter the business capabilities, from either your own BCM or the Info-Tech reference architectures, into the Business Capability column under Grouping 1.
    2. Open the “Group 1 Alignment Matrix” worksheet in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool.
    3. For each application’s row, enter an “X” in the column of a capability that the application supports.
    4. Optionally, repeat these steps under Grouping 2 and 3 for each value stream, department, function, or business unit where you’d like to assess application support. Note: To use Grouping 3, unhide the columns on the “Application and Group Lists” worksheet and unhide the worksheet “Grouping 3 Alignment Matrix.”

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    InputOutput
    • Application inventory
    • List of business capabilities, Info-Tech Reference Architecture capabilities, departments, functions, divisions, or value streams for grouping comparison
    • Assigned business capabilities to applications
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    2.2 APM worksheet data journey map

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM worksheet data journey map.

    2.2 Aligning applications to groups example

    Alignment Matrix: Identify applications supporting each capability or function.

    Capability, Department, or Function 1

    Capability, Department, or Function 2

    Capability, Department, or Function 3

    Capability, Department, or Function 4

    Capability, Department, or Function 5

    Capability, Department, or Function 6

    Application A

    x

    Application B

    x

    Application C

    x

    Application D

    x

    Application E

    x x

    Application F

    x

    Application G

    x

    Application H

    x

    Application I

    x

    Application J

    x

    In this example:

    BC 1 is supported by App A

    BC 2 is supported by App B

    BC 3 is supported by Apps C & D

    BCs 4 & 5 are supported by App E

    BC 6 is supported by Apps F-G. BC 6 shows an example of potential redundancy and portfolio complexity.

    The APM tool supports three different Snapshot groupings. Repeat this exercise for each grouping.

    Align application to capabilities – tool view

    The image contains screenshots of the align application to capabilities - tool view

    Phase 3

    Rationalize Your Applications

    Phase 1

    1.1 Assess Your Current Application Portfolio

    1.2 Determine Narrative

    1.3 Define Goals and Metrics

    1.4 Define Application Categories

    1.5 Determine APM Steps and Roles

    Phase 2

    2.1 Populate Your Inventory

    2.2 Align to Business Capabilities

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assess Business Value

    3.2 Assess Technical Health

    3.3 Assess End-User Perspective

    3.4 Assess Total Cost of Ownership

    Phase 4

    4.1 Review APM Snapshot Results

    4.2 Review APM Foundations Results

    4.3 Determine Dispositions

    4.4 Assess Redundancies (Optional)

    4.5 Determine Dispositions for Redundant Applications (Optional)

    4.6 Prioritize Initiatives

    4.7 Determine Ongoing APM Cadence

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Applications Lead
    • Application SMEs

    Additional Resources

    Phase pre-step: Sequence rationalization assessments appropriately

    Use the APM Snapshot results to determine APM iterations

    • Application rationalization requires an iterative approach.
    • Review your application types and alignment from Phase 2 to begin to identify areas of overlapping or redundant applications.
    • Sequence the activities of Phase 3 based on whether you have a:
      • Redundant Portfolio
        • Use the APM Snapshot to prioritize analysis by grouping.
        • Complete the application functional analysis.
        • Use the “Application Comparison” worksheet to aid your comparison of application subsets.
        • Update application dispositions and roadmap initiatives.
      • Non-Redundant Portfolio
        • Use the APM Snapshot to prioritize analysis by grouping.
        • Update application dispositions and roadmap initiatives.

    The image contains a screenshot of a timeline of rationalization effort.

    Phase pre-step: Are the right stakeholders present?

    Make sure you have the right people at the table from the beginning.

    • Application rationalization requires specific stakeholders to provide specific data points.
    • Ensure your application subsets are grouped by shared subject matter experts. Ideally, these are grouped by business units.
    • For each subset, identify the appropriate SMEs for the five areas of rationalization criteria.
    • Communicate and schedule interviews with groups of stakeholders. Inform them of additional information sources to have readily available.
    • (Optional) This phase’s activities follow the clockwise sequence of the diagram to the right. Reorder the sequence of activities based on overlaps of availability in subject matter expertise.

    Application

    Rationalization

    Additional Information Sources

    Ideal Stakeholders

    • KPIs

    Business Value

    • Business Application/Product Owners
    • Business Unit/ Process Owners
    • Survey Results

    End User

    • Business Application/ Product Owners
    • Key/Power Users
    • End Users
    • General Ledger
    • Service Desk
    • Vendor Contracts

    TCO

    • Operations/Maintenance Manager
    • Vendor Managers
    • Finance & Acct.
    • Service Desk
    • ALM Tools

    Technical Health

    • Operations/ Maintenance Manager
    • Solution Architect
    • Security Manager
    • Dev. Manager
    • Capability Maps
    • Process Maps

    Application Alignment

    • Business Unit/ Process Owners

    Rationalize your applications

    The image contains screenshots of diagrams that reviews building your APM journey map.

    One of the principal goals of application rationalization is determining dispositions

    Disposition: The intended strategic direction or course of action for an application.

    Directionless portfolio of applications

    Assigned dispositions for individual apps

    High-level examples:

    The image contains a screenshot of an image that demonstrates a directionless portfolio of applications.

    Maintain: Keep the application but adjust its support structure.

    The image contains screenshots of a few images taken from the directionless application to demonstrate the text above.

    Modernize: Create a new project to address an inadequacy.

    The image contains screenshots of a few images taken from the directionless application to demonstrate the text above.

    Consolidate: Create a new project to reduce duplicate functionality.

    The image contains screenshots of a few images taken from the directionless application to demonstrate the text above.

    Retire: Phase out the application.

    The image contains screenshots of a few images taken from the directionless application to demonstrate the text above.

    Application rationalization provides insight

    Directionless portfolio of applications

    Info-Tech’s Five Lens Model

    Assigned dispositions for individual apps

    The image contains a screenshot of an example of directionless portfolio of applications.

    Application Alignment

    Business Value

    Technical Health

    End-User Perspective

    Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

    Maintain: Keep the application but adjust its support structure.

    Modernize: Create a new initiative to address an inadequacy.

    Consolidate: Create a new initiative to reduce duplicate functionality.

    Retire: Phase out the application.

    Disposition: The intended strategic direction or implied course of action for an application.

    How well do your apps support your core functions and teams?

    How well are your apps aligned to value delivery?

    Do your apps meet all IT quality standards and policies?

    How well do your apps meet your end users’ needs?

    What is the relative cost of ownership and operation of your apps?

    Application rationalization requires the collection of several data points that represent these perspectives and act as the criteria for determining a disposition for each of your applications.

    Disposition: The intended strategic direction or implied course of action for an application.

    3.1-3.4 APM worksheet data journey map

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM worksheet data journey map.

    Assessing application business value

    The Business Business Value of Applications IT
    Keepers of the organization’s mission, vision, and value statements that define IT success. The business maintains the overall ownership and evaluation of the applications. Technical subject matter experts of the applications they deliver and maintain. Each IT function works together to ensure quality applications are delivered to stakeholder expectations.

    First, the authorities on business value need to define and weigh their value drivers that describe the priorities of the organization.

    This will then allow the applications team to apply a consistent, objective, and strategically aligned evaluation of applications across the organization.

    In this context…business value is the value of the business outcome that the application produces and how effective the application is at producing that outcome.

    Business value IS NOT the user’s experience or satisfaction with the application.

    Review the value drivers of your applications

    The image contains a screenshot of a the business value matrix.

    Financial vs. Human Benefits

    Financial benefits refer to the degree to which the value source can be measured through monetary metrics and are often quite tangible.

    Human benefits refer to how an application can deliver value through a user’s experience.

    Inward vs. Outward Orientation

    Inward orientation refers to value sources that have an internal impact and improve your organization’s effectiveness and efficiency in performing its operations.

    Outward orientation refers to value sources that come from your interaction with external factors, such as the market or your customers.

    Increased Revenue

    Reduced Costs

    Enhanced Services

    Reach Customers

    Application functions that are specifically related to the impact on your organization’s ability to generate revenue and deliver value to your customers.

    Reduction of overhead. The ways in which an application limits the operational costs of business functions.

    Functions that enable business capabilities that improve the organization’s ability to perform its internal operations.

    Application functions that enable and improve the interaction with customers or produce market information and insights.

    3.1 Assess business value

    Estimated time: 1 -4 hours

    1. Review Info-Tech’s four quadrants of business value: increase revenue/value, reduce costs, enhance services, and reach customers. Edit your value drivers, description, and scoring on the “Rationalization Inputs” worksheet. For each value driver, update the key indicators specific to your organization’s priorities. When editing the scoring descriptions, keep only the one you are using.
    2. (Optional) Add an additional value driver if your organization has distinct value drivers (e.g. compliance, sustainability, innovation, and growth).
    3. For each application, score on a scale of 0 to 5 how impactful the application is for each value driver. Use the indicators set in Phase 1 to guide your scoring.
    4. For each value driver, adjust the criteria weighting to match its relative importance to the organization. Start with a balanced or low weighting. Adjust the weights to ensure that the category score matches your relative values and priorities.

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    InputOutput
    • Knowledge of organizational priorities
    • (Optional) Existing mission, vision, and value statements
    • Scoring scheme for assessing business value
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Applications Lead
    • Key Corporate Stakeholders

    3.1 Weigh value drivers: Example

    The image contains a screenshot example of the weigh value drivers.

    For additional support in implementing a balanced value framework, refer to Build a Value Measurement Framework.

    Understand the back end and technical health of your applications

    Technical health identifies the extent of technology risk to the organization.

    MAINTAINABILITY (RAS)

    RAS refers to an app’s reliability, availability, and serviceability. How often, how long, and how difficult is it for your resources to keep an app functioning, and what are the resulting continuity risks? This can include root causes of maintenance challenges.

    SECURITY

    Applications should be aligned and compliant with ALL security policies. Are there vulnerabilities or is there a history of security incidents? Remember that threats are often internal and non-malicious.

    ADAPTABILITY

    How easily can the app be enhanced or scaled to meet changes in business needs? Does the app fit within the business strategy?

    INTEROPERABILITY

    The degree to which an app is integrated with current systems. Apps require comprehensive technical planning and oversight to ensure they connect within the greater application architecture. Does the app fit within your enterprise architecture strategy?

    BUSINESS CONTINUITY/DISASTER RECOVERY

    The degree to which the application is compatible with business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) policies and plans that are routinely tested and verified.

    Unfortunately, the business only cares about what they can see or experience. Rationalization is your opportunity to get risk on the business’ radar and gain buy-in for the necessary action.

    3.2 Assess technical health

    Estimated time: 1-4 hours

    1. Review Info-Tech’s suggested technical health criteria. Edit your criteria, descriptions, and scoring on the “Rationalization Inputs” worksheet. For each criterion, update the key indicators specific to your organization’s priorities.
    2. For each application, score on a scale of 1 to 5 on how impactful the application is for each criterion.
    3. For each criterion, adjust the weighting to match its relative importance to the organization. Start with a balanced or low weighting. Adjust the weights to ensure that the category score matches your relative values and priorities.
    InputOutput
    • Familiarity of technical health perspective for applications within this subset
    • Maintenance history, architectural models
    • Technical health scores for each application
    MaterialsParticipants
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Technical SMEs
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    End users provide valuable perspective

    Your end users are your best means of determining front-end issues.

    Data Quality

    To what degree do the end users find the data quality sufficient to perform their role and achieve their desired outcome?

    Effectiveness

    To what degree do the end users find the application effective for performing their role and desired outcome?

    Usability

    To what degree do the end users find the application reliable and easy to use to achieve their desired outcome?

    Satisfaction

    To what degree are end users satisfied with the features of this application?

    What else matters to you?

    Tune your criteria to match your values and priorities.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    When facing large user groups, do not make assumptions or use lengthy methods of collecting information. Use Info-Tech’s Application Portfolio Assessment to collect data by surveying your end users’ perspectives.

    3.3 Assess end-user perspective

    Estimated time: 1-4 hours

    1. Review Info-Tech’s suggested end-user perspective criteria. Edit your criteria, descriptions and scoring on the “Rationalization Inputs” worksheet. For each criterion, update the key indicators specific to your organization’s priorities.
    2. For each application, score on a scale of 1 to 5 on how impactful the application is for each criterion.
    3. For each criterion, adjust the weighting to match its relative importance to the organization. Start with a balanced or low weighting. Adjust the weights to ensure that the category score matches your relative values and priorities.
    InputOutput
    • Familiarity of end user’s perspective for applications within this subset
    • User satisfaction scores for each application
    MaterialsParticipants
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Business Owners, Key Users
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    Consider the spectrum of application cost

    An application’s cost extends past a vendor’s fee and even the application itself.

    LICENSING AND SUBSCRIPTIONS: Your recurring payments to a vendor.

    Many commercial off-the-shelf applications require a license on a per-user basis. Review contracts and determine costs by looking at per-user or fixed rates charged by the vendor.

    MAINTENANCE COSTS: Your internal spending to maintain an app.

    These are the additional costs to maintain an application such as support agreements, annual maintenance fees, or additional software or hosting expenses.

    INDIRECT COSTS: Miscellaneous expenses necessary for an app’s continued use.

    Expenses like end-user training, developer education, and admin are often neglected, but they are very real costs organizations pay regularly.

    RETURN ON INVESTMENT: Perceived value of the application related to its TCO.

    Some of our most valuable applications are the most expensive. ROI is an optional criterion to account for the value and importance of the application.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    The TCO assessment is one area where what you are considering the ”application” matters quite a bit. An application’s peripherals or software components need to be considered in your estimates. For additional help calculating TCO, use the Application TCO Calculator from Build a Rationalization Framework.

    3.4 Assess total cost of ownership

    Estimated time: 1-4 hours

    1. Review Info-Tech’s suggested TCO criteria. Edit your criteria, descriptions, and scoring on the “Rationalization Inputs” worksheet. For each criterion, update the key indicators specific to your organization’s priorities.
    2. For each application, score on a scale of 1 to 5 on how impactful the application is for each criterion.
    3. For each criterion, adjust the weighting to match its relative importance to the organization. Start with a balanced or low weighting. Adjust the weights to ensure that the category score matches your relative values and priorities.
    InputOutput
    • Familiarity with the TCO for applications within this subset
    • Vendor contracts, maintenance history
    • TCO scores for each application
    MaterialsParticipants
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Business Owners, Vendor Managers, Operations Managers
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    Phase 4

    Populate Your Roadmap

    Phase 1

    1.1 Assess Your Current Application Portfolio

    1.2 Determine Narrative

    1.3 Define Goals and Metrics

    1.4 Define Application Categories

    1.5 Determine APM Steps and Roles

    Phase 2

    2.1 Populate Your Inventory

    2.2 Align to Business Capabilities

    Phase 3

    3.1 Assess Business Value

    3.2 Assess Technical Health

    3.3 Assess End-User Perspective

    3.4 Assess Total Cost of Ownership

    Phase 4

    4.1 Review APM Snapshot Results

    4.2 Review APM Foundations Results

    4.3 Determine Dispositions

    4.4 Assess Redundancies (Optional)

    4.5 Determine Dispositions for Redundant Applications (Optional)

    4.6 Prioritize Initiatives

    4.7 Determine Ongoing APM Cadence

    his phase involves the following participants:

    • Applications Lead
    • Delivery Leads

    Additional Resources

    Review your APM Snapshot

    The image contains a screenshot of examples of applications that support APM.

    4.1 Review your APM Snapshot results

    Estimated time: 1-2 hours

    1. The APM Snapshot provides a dashboard to support your APM program’s focus and as an input to demand planning. Unhide the “Group 3” worksheet if you completed the alignment matrix.
    2. For each grouping area, review the results to determine underperforming areas. Use this information to prioritize your application root cause analysis and demand planning. Use the key on the following slide to guide your analysis.
    3. Analysis guidance:
      1. Start with the quartile grouping to find areas scoring in Remediate or Critical Need and focus follow-up actions on these areas.
      2. Use the lens/category heat map to determine which lenses are underperforming. Use this to then look up the individual app scores supporting that group to identify application issues.
      3. Use the “Application Comparison” worksheet to select and compare applications for the group to make your review and comparison easier.
      4. Work with teams in the group to provide root cause analysis for low scores.
      5. Build a plan to address any apps not supported by IT.
    InputOutput
    • Application list
    • Application to Group mapping
    • Rationalization scores
    • Awareness of application support for each grouping

    Materials

    Participants
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Business Owners
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    Interpreting your APM Snapshot

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM Snapshot with guides on how to interpret it.

    4.1 APM worksheet data journey map

    The image contains a screenshot of the AMP worksheet data journey map.

    Review your APM rationalization results

    The image contains a screenshot of examples of applications that support APM.

    4.2 Review your APM Foundations results

    Estimated time: 1-2 hours

    The APM Foundations Results dashboard (“App Rationalization Results” worksheet) provides a detailed summary of your relative app scoring to serve as input to demand planning.

    1. For each grouping, review the results to determine underperforming app support. Use this information to prioritize your application root cause analysis using the individual criteria scores on the “Rationalization Inputs” worksheet.
    2. Use guidance on the following example slides to understand each area of the results.
    3. Any applications marked as N/A for evaluation will display N/A on the results worksheet and will not be displayed in the chart. You can still enter dispositions.
    4. Use the column filters to compare a subset of applications or use the “App Comparison” worksheet to maintain an ongoing view by grouping, redundancy, or category.
    5. Any applications marked as N/A for evaluation will display N/A on the results worksheet and will not be displayed in the chart. You can still enter dispositions.
    InputOutput
    • Application list
    • Rationalization scores
    • Application awareness
    MaterialsParticipants
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Business Owners
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    4.2 APM worksheet data journey map

    The image contains a screenshot of the AMP worksheet data journey map.

    Interpreting your APM Foundations results

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM Foundations results.

    Interpreting your APM Foundations chart

    The image contains a screenshot of the APM Foundations chart.

    Modernize your applications

    The image contains a screenshot of examples of applications that support APM.

    Apply Info-Tech’s 6 R’s Rationalization Disposition Model

    The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's 6 R's Rationalization Disposition Model.

    Disposition

    Description

    Reward

    Prioritize new features or enhancement requests and openly welcome the expansion of these applications as new requests are presented.

    Refresh

    Address the poor end-user satisfaction with a prioritized project. Consult with users to determine if UX issues require improvement to address satisfaction.

    Refocus

    Determine the root cause of the low value. Refocus, retrain, or refresh the UX to improve value. If there is no value found, aim to "keep the lights on" until the app can be decommissioned.

    Replace

    Replace or rebuild the application as technical and user issues are putting important business capabilities at risk. Decommission application alongside replacement.

    Remediate

    Address the poor technical health or risk with a prioritized project. Further consult with development and technical teams to determine if migration or refactoring is suited to address the technical issue.

    Retire

    Cancel any requested features and enhancements. Schedule the proper decommission and transfer end users to a new or alternative system if necessary.

    TCO, compared relatively to business value, helps determine the practicality of a disposition and the urgency of any call to action. Application alignment is factored in when assessing redundancies and has a separate set of dispositions.

    4.3 Determine dispositions

    Estimated time: 1-4 hours

    1. The Recommended Disposition and Priority fields are prepopulated from your scoring thresholds and options on the “Disposition Options” worksheet. You can update any individual application disposition or priority using the drop-down menu and it will populate your selection on the “Roadmap” worksheet.
    2. Question if that disposition is appropriate. Be sure to consider:
      1. TCO – cost should come into play for any decisions.
      2. Alignment to strategic goals set for the overarching organizational, IT, technology (infrastructure), or application portfolio.
      3. Existing organizational priorities or funded initiatives impacting the app.
    3. Some dispositions may imply a call to action, new project, or initiative. Ideate and/or discuss with the team any potential initiatives. You can use different dispositions and priorities on the “App Rationalization Results” and “Roadmap” worksheets.
    4. Note: Modify the list of dispositions on the “Disposition Options” worksheet as appropriate for your rationalization initiative. Any modifications to the Disposition column will be automatically updated in the “App Rationalization Results” and “Roadmap” worksheets.
    InputOutput
    • Rationalization results
    • Assigned dispositions for applications
    MaterialsParticipants
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Business Owners
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    4.3 APM worksheet data journey map

    The image contains a screenshot of the worksheet data journey map.

    Redundancies require a different analysis and set of dispositions

    Solving application redundancy is a lot more complicated than simply keeping one application and eliminating the others.

    First, you need to understand the extent of the redundancy. The applications may support the same capability, but do they offer the same functions? Determine which apps offer which functions within a capability. This means you cannot accurately arrive at a disposition until you have evaluated all applications.

    Next, you need to isolate the preferred system. This is completed by comparing the same data points collected for rationalization and the application alignment analysis. Cost and coverage of all necessary functions become the more important factors in this decision-making process.

    Lastly, for the non-preferred redundant applications you need to determine: What will you do with the users? What will you do with the data? And what can you do with the functionality (can the actual coding be merged onto a common platform)?

    Disposition

    Description & Additional Analysis

    Call to Action (Priority)

    Keep & Absorb

    Higher value, health satisfaction, and cost than alternatives

    These are the preferred apps to be kept. However, additional efforts are still required to migrate new users and data and potentially configure the app to new processes.

    Application or Process Initiative

    (Moderate)

    Shift & Retire

    Lower value, health satisfaction, and cost than alternatives

    These apps will be decommissioned alongside efforts to migrate users and data to the preferred system.

    *Confirm there are no unique and necessary features.

    Process Initiative & Decommission

    (Moderate)

    Merge

    Lower value, health satisfaction, and cost than alternatives but still has some necessary unique features

    These apps will be merged with the preferred system onto a common platform.

    *Determine the unique and necessary features.

    *Determine if the multiple applications are compatible for consolidation.

    Application Initiative

    (Moderate)

    Compare groups of applications

    The image contains a screenshot of examples of applications that support APM.

    4.4 Assess redundancies (optional)

    Estimated rime: 1 hour per group

    This exercise is best performed after aligning business capabilities to applications across the portfolio and identifying your areas of redundancy. At this stage, this is still an information collection exercise, and it will not yield a consolidation-based disposition until applied to all relevant applications. Lastly, this exercise may still be at too high a level to outline the full details of redundancy, but it is still vital information to collect and a starting point to determine which areas require more concentrated analysis.

    1. Determine which areas of redundancy or comparisons are desired. Duplicate the “App Comparison” worksheet for each grouping or comparison.
    2. Extend the comparison to better identify redundancy.
      1. For each area of redundancy, identify the high-level features. Aim to limit the features to ten, grouping smaller features if necessary. SoftwareReviews can be a resource for identifying common features.
      2. Label features using the MoSCoW model: must have, should have, could have, will not have.
      3. For each application, identify which features they support. You can use the grouping alignment matrix as a template for feature alignment comparison. Duplicate the worksheet, unlock it, and replace the grouping cell references with your list of features.
    Input Output
    • Areas of redundancy
    • Familiarity with features for applications within this subset
    • Feature-level review of application redundancy
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Business Owners
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    4.4 Assess redundancies (optional)

    Account Management

    Call Management

    Order/Transaction Processing

    Contract Management

    Lead/Opportunity Management

    Forecasting/Planning

    Customer Surveying

    Email Synchronization

    M M M M S S C W

    CRM 1

    CRM 2

    CRM 3

    4.5 Determine dispositions for redundant applications (optional)

    Estimated time: 1 hour per group

    1. Based on the feature-level assessment, determine if you can omit applications if they don’t truly overlap with other applications.
    2. Make a copy of the “App Comparison” worksheet and select the applications you want to compare based on your functional analysis.
    3. Determine the preferred application(s). Use the diagram to inform your decision. This may be the application closest to the top right (strong health and value). However, less expensive options or any options that provide a more complete set of features may be preferable.
    4. Open the “App Rationalization Results” worksheet. Update your disposition for each application.
    5. Use these updated dispositions to determine a call to action, new project, or initiative. Ideate and/or discuss with the team any potential initiatives. Update your roadmap with these initiatives in the next step.
    InputOutput
    • Feature-level review of application redundancy
    • Redundancy comparison
    • Assigned dispositions for redundant applications
    MaterialsParticipants
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Business Owners
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    Compare application groups

    Group comparison can be used for more than just redundant/overlapping applications.

    The image contains a screenshot of images that demonstrate comparing application groups.

    Roadmaps are used for different purposes

    Roadmaps are used for different communication purposes and at varying points in your application delivery practice. Some use a roadmap to showcase strategy and act as a feedback mechanism that allows stakeholders to validate any changes (process 1). Others may use it to illustrate and communicate approved and granular elements of a change to an application to inform appropriate stakeholders of what to anticipate (process 2).

    Select Dispositions & Identify New Initiatives

    Add to Roadmap

    Validate Direction

    Plan Project

    Execute Project

    Select Dispositions & Identify New Initiatives

    • Project Proposal
    • Feasibility/ Estimation
    • Impact Assessment
    • Business Case
    • Initial Design

    Approve Project

    Add to Roadmap

    Execute Project

    The steps between selecting a disposition and executing on any resulting project will vary based on the organization’s project intake standards (or lack thereof).

    This blueprint focuses on building a strategic portfolio roadmap prior to any in-depth assessments related to initiative/project intake, approval, and prioritization. For in-depth support related to intake, approval, prioritization, or planning, review the following resources.

    The image contains a screenshot of the Deliver on your Digital Product Vision blueprint. The image contains a screenshot of the Deliver Digital Products at Scale blueprint.

    Determine what makes it onto the roadmap

    A roadmap should not be limited to what is approved or committed to. A roadmap should be used to present the items that need to happen and begin the discussion of how or if this can be put into place. However, not every idea should make the cut and end up in front of key stakeholders.

    The image contains a screenshot of steps to be taken to determine what makes it onto the roadmap.

    4.6 Prioritize initiatives

    Estimated time: 1-4 hours

    1. This is a high-level assessment to provide a sense of feasibility, practicality, and priority as well as an estimated timeline of a given initiative. Do not get lost in granular estimations. Use this as an input to your demand planning process.
    2. Enter the specific name or type of initiative.
      1. Process Initiative: Any project or effort focused on process improvements without technical modification to an app (e.g. user migration, change in SLA, new training program). Write the application and initiative name on a blue sticky note.
      2. App Initiative: Any project or effort involving technical modification to an app (e.g. refactoring, platform migration, feature addition or upgrade). Write the application and initiative name on a yellow sticky note.
      3. Decommission Initiative: Any project and related efforts to remove an app (e.g. migrating data, removal from server). Write the application and initiative name on a red sticky note.
    3. Prioritize the initiative to aid in demand planning. This is prepopulated from your selected application disposition, but you can set a different priority for the initiative here.
    4. Select the Initiative Phase in the timeline to show the intended schedule and sequencing of the initiative.
    Input Output
    • Assigned dispositions
    • Rationalization results
    • Prioritized initiatives
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Delivery Leads
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    4.6 APM worksheet data journey map

    The image contains a screenshot of the worksheet data journey map.

    Populate roadmap example

    The image contains an example of the populate roadmap.

    Create a recurring update plan

    • Application inventories become stale before you know it. Build steps in your procurement process to capture the appropriate information on new applications. Also, build in checkpoints to revisit your inventory regularly to assess the accuracy of inventory data.
    • Rationalization is not one and done; it must occur with an appropriate cadence.
      • Business priorities change, which will impact the current and future value of your apps.
      • Now more than ever, user expectations evolve rapidly.
      • Application sprawl likely won’t stop, so neither will shadow IT and redundancies.
      • Obsolescence, growing technical debt, changing security threats, or shifting technology strategies are all inevitable, as is the gradual decline of an app’s health or technical fit.
    • An application’s disposition changes quicker than you think, and rationalization requires a structured cadence. You need to plan to minimize the need for repeated efforts. Conversely, many use preceding iterations to increase the analysis (e.g. more thorough TCO projections or more granular capability-application alignment).
    • Portfolio roadmaps require a cadence for both updates and presentations to stakeholders. Updates are often completed semiannually or quarterly to gauge the business adjustments that affect the timeline of the domain-specific applications. The presentation of a roadmap should be completed alongside meetings or gatherings of key decision makers.
    • M&A or other restructuring events will prompt the need to address all the above.

    The image contains a screenshot of chart to help determine frequency of updating your roadmap.

    Build your APM maturity by taking the right steps at the right time

    The image contains a diagram to demonstrate the steps taken to build APM maturity.

    Info-Tech’s Build an Application Rationalization Framework provides additional TCO and value tools to help build out your portfolio strategy.

    APM is an iterative and evergreen process

    APM provides oversight and awareness of your application portfolio’s performance and support for your business operations and value delivery to all users and customers.

    Determine scope and categories Build your list of applications and capabilities Score each application based on your values Determine outcomes based on app scoring and support for capabilities

    1. Lay Your Foundations

    • 1.1 Assess the state of your current application portfolio
    • 1.2 Determine narrative
    • 1.3 Define goals and metrics
    • 1.4 Define application categories
    • 1.5 Determine APM steps and roles (SIPOC)

    2. Improve Your Inventory

    • 2.1 Populate your inventory
    • 2.2 Align to business capabilities

    3. Rationalize Your Apps

    • 3.1 Assess business value
    • 3.2 Assess technical health
    • 3.3 Assess end-user perspective
    • 3.4 Assess total cost of ownership

    4. Populate Your Roadmap

    • 4.1 Review APM Snapshot results
    • 4.2 Review APM Foundations results
    • 4.3 Determine dispositions
    • 4.4 Assess redundancies (Optional)
    • 4.5 Determine dispositions for redundant applications (Optional)
    • 4.6 Prioritize initiatives
    • 4.7 Ongoing APM cadence

    Repeat according to APM cadence and application changes

    4.7 Ongoing APM cadence

    Estimated time: 1-2 hours

    1. Determine how frequently you will update or present the artifacts of your APM practice: Application Inventory, Rationalization, Disposition, and Roadmap.
    2. For each artifact, determine the:
      1. Owner: Who is accountable for the artifact and the data or information within the artifact and will be responsible for or delegate the responsibility of updating or presenting the artifact to the appropriate audience?
      2. Update Cadence: How frequently will you update the artifact? Include what regularly scheduled meetings this activity will be within.
      3. Update Scope: Describe what activities will be performed to keep the artifact up to date. The goal here is to minimize the need for a full set of activities laid out within the blueprint. Optional: How will you expand the thoroughness of your analysis?
      4. Audience: Who is the audience for the artifact or assessment results?
      5. Presentation Cadence: How frequently and when will you review the artifact with the audience?
    InputOutput
    • Initial experience with APM
    • Strategic meetings schedule
    • Ongoing cadence for APM activities
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool
    • Applications Lead
    • Any Applications Team Members

    Record the results in the APM Snapshot and Foundations Tool

    4.7 Ongoing APM cadence

    Artifact

    Owner

    Update Cadence

    Update Scope

    Audience

    Presentation Cadence

    Inventory

    Greg Dawson

    • As new applications are acquired
    • Annual review
    • Add new application data points (this is added to implementation standards)
    • Review inventory and perform a data health check
    • Validate with app’s SME
    • Whole organization
    • Always available on team site

    Rationalization Tool

    Judy Ng

    • Annual update
    • Revisit value driver weights
    • Survey end users
    • Interview support owners
    • Interview business owners
    • Update TCO based on change in operational costs; expand thoroughness of cost estimates
    • Rescore applications
    • Business owners of applications
    • IT leaders
    • Annually alongside yearly strategy meeting

    Portfolio Roadmap

    Judy Ng

    • Monthly update alongside project updates
    • Shift the timeline of the roadmap to current day 1
    • Carry over project updates and timeline changes
    • Validate with PMs and business owners
    • Steering Committee
    • Business owners of applications
    • IT leaders
    • Quarterly alongside Steering Committee meetings
    • Upon request

    Appendices

    • Additional support slides
    • Bibliography

    The APM tool provides a single source of truth and global data sharing

    The table shows where source data is used to support different aspects of APM discovery, rationalization, and modernization.

    Worksheet Data Mapping

    Application and Capability List

    Group Alignment Matrix (1-3)

    Rationalization Inputs

    Group 1-3 Results

    Application Inventory Details

    App Rationalization Results

    Roadmap

    App Redundancy Comparison

    Application and Capability List

    App list, Groupings

    App list

    App list, Groupings

    App list, Categories

    App list, Categories

    App list

    App list

    Groups 1-3 Alignment Matrix

    App to Group Tracing

    Application Categories

    Category
    drop-down

    Category

    Category

    Rationalization Inputs

    Lens Scores (weighted input to Group score)

    Lens Scores (weighted input)

    Disposition Options

    Disposition list, Priorities list, Recommended Disposition and Priority

    Lens Scores (weighted input)

    App Rationalization Results

    Disposition

    Common application inventory attributes

    Attribute Description Common Collection Method
    Name Organization’s terminology used for the application. Auto-discovery tools will provide names for the applications they reveal. However, this may not be the organizational nomenclature. You may adapt the names by leveraging pre-existing documentation and internal knowledge or by consulting business users.
    ID Unique identifiers assigned to the application (e.g. app number). Typically an identification system developed by the application portfolio manager.
    Description A brief description of the application, often referencing core capabilities. Typically completed by leveraging pre-existing documentation and internal knowledge or by consulting business users.
    Business Units A list of all business units, departments, or user groups. Consultation, surveys, or interviews with business unit representatives. However, this doesn’t always expose hidden applications. Application-capability mapping is the most effective way to determine all the business units/user groups of an app.
    Business Capabilities A list of business capabilities the application is intended to enable. Application capability mapping completed via interviews with business unit representatives.
    Criticality A high-level grading of the importance of the application to the business, typically used for support prioritization purposes (i.e. critical, high, medium, low). Typically the criticality rating is determined by a committee representing IT and business leaders.
    Ownership The individual accountable for various aspect of the application (e.g. product owner, product manager, application support, data owner); typically includes contact information and alternatives. If application ownership is an established accountability in your organization, typically consulting appropriate business stakeholders will reveal this information. Otherwise, application capability mapping can be an effective means of identifying who that owner should be.
    Application SMEs Any relevant subject matter experts who can speak to various aspects of the application (e.g. business process owners, development managers, data architects, data stewards, application architects, enterprise architects). Technical SMEs should be known within an IT department, but shadow IT apps may require interviews with the business unit. Application capability mapping will determine the identity of those key users/business process SMEs.
    Type An indication of whether the application was developed in-house, commercial off-the-shelf, or a hybrid option. Consultation, surveys, or interviews with product owners or development managers.
    Active Status An indication of whether the application is currently active, out of commission, in repair, etc. Consultation, surveys, or interviews with product owners or operation managers.

    Common application inventory attributes

    Attribute Description Common Collection Method
    Vendor Information Identification of the vendor from whom the software was procured. May include additional items such as the vendor’s contact information. Consultation with business SMEs, end users, or procurement teams, or review of vendor contracts or license agreements.
    Links to Other Documentation Pertinent information regarding the other relevant documentation of the application (e.g. SLA, vendor contracts, data use policies, disaster recovery plan). Typically includes links to documents. Consultation with product owners, service providers, or SMEs, or review of vendor contracts or license agreements.
    Number of Users The current number of users for the application. This can be based on license information but will often require some estimation. Can include additional items of quantities at different levels of access (e.g. admin, key users, power users). Consultation, surveys, or interviews with product owners or appropriate business SMEs or review of vendor contracts or license agreements. Auto-discovery tools can reveal this information.
    Software Dependencies List of other applications or operating components required to run the application. Consultation with application architects and any architectural tools or documentation. This information can begin to reveal itself through application capability mapping.
    Hardware Dependencies Identification of any hardware or infrastructure components required to run the application (i.e. databases, platform). Consultation with infrastructure or enterprise architects and any architectural tools or documentation. This information can begin to reveal itself through application capability mapping.
    Development Language Coding language used for the application. Consultation, surveys, or interviews with development managers or appropriate technical SMEs.
    Platform A framework of services that application programs rely on for standard operations. Consultation, surveys, or interviews with infrastructure or development managers.
    Lifecycle Stage Where an application is within the birth, growth, mature, end-of-life lifecycle. Consultation with business owners and technical SMEs.
    Scheduled Updates Any major or minor updates related to the application, including the release date. Consultation with business owners and vendor managers.
    Planned or In-Flight Projects Any projects related to the application, including estimated project timeline. Consultation with business owners and project managers.

    Bibliography

    ”2019 Technology & Small Business Survey.” National Small Business Association (NSBA), n.d. Accessed 1 April 2020.
    “Application Rationalization – Essential Part of the Process for Modernization and Operational Efficiency.” Flexera, 2015. Web.
    “Applications Rationalization during M&A: Standardize, Streamline, Simplify.” Deloitte Consulting, 2016. Web.
    Bowling, Alan. “Clearer Visibility of Product Roadmaps Improves IT Planning.” ComputerWeekly.com, 1 Nov. 2010. Web.
    Brown, Alex. “Calculating Business Value.” Agile 2014 Orlando, 13 July 2014. Scrum Inc. 2014. Web.
    Brown, Roger. “Defining Business Value.” Scrum Gathering San Diego 2017. Agile Coach Journal. Web.
    “Business Application Definition.” Microsoft Docs, 18 July 2012. Web.
    “Connecting Small Businesses in the US.” Deloitte Consulting, 2017. Accessed 1 April. 2020.
    Craveiro, João. “Marty meets Martin: connecting the two triads of Product Management.” Product Coalition, 18 Nov. 2017. Web.
    Curtis, Bill. “The Business Value of Application Internal Quality.” CAST, 6 April 2009. Web.
    Fleet, Neville, Joan Lasselle, and Paul Zimmerman. “Using a Balance Scorecard to Measure the Productivity and Value of Technical Documentation Organizations.” CIDM, April 2008. Web.
    Fowler, Martin. “Application Boundary.” MartinFowler.com, 11 Sept. 2003. Web.
    Harris, Michael. “Measuring the Business Value of IT.” David Consulting Group, 2007. Web.
    “How Application Rationalization Contributes to the Bottom Line.” LeanIX, 2017. Web.
    Jayanthi, Aruna. “Application Landscape Report 2014.” Capgemini, 4 March 2014. Web.
    Lankhorst, Marc., et al. “Architecture-Based IT Valuation.” Via Nova Architectura, 31 March 2010. Web.
    “Management of business application.” ServiceNow, Jan.2020. Accessed 1 April 2020.
    Mauboussin, Michael J. “The True Measures of Success.” HBR, Oct. 2012. Web.
    Neogi, Sombit., et al. “Next Generation Application Portfolio Rationalization.” TATA, 2011. Web.
    Riverbed. “Measuring the Business Impact of IT Through Application Performance.” CIO Summits, 2015. Web.
    Rouse, Margaret. “Application Rationalization.” TechTarget, March 2016. Web.
    Van Ramshorst, E.A. “Application Portfolio Management from an Enterprise Architecture Perspective.” Universiteit Utrecht, July 2013.
    “What is a Balanced Scorecard?” Intrafocus, n.d. Web.
    Whitney, Lance. “SMBs share their biggest constraints and great challenges.” Tech Republic, 6 May 2019. Web.

    Design a Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Threat Intelligence & Incident Response
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    • Businesses prioritize speed to market over secure coding and testing practices in the development lifecycle. As a result, vulnerabilities exist naturally in software.
    • To improve overall system security, organizations are leveraging external security researchers to identify and remedy vulnerabilities, so as to mitigate the overall security risk.
    • A primary challenge to developing a coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD) program is designing repeatable procedures and scoping the program to the organization’s technical capacity.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Having a coordinated vulnerability disclosure program is likely to be tomorrow’s law. With pressures from federal government agencies and recommendations from best-practice frameworks, it is likely that a CVD will be mandated in the future to encourage organizations to be equipped and prepared to respond to externally disclosed vulnerabilities.
    • CVD programs such as bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure programs (VDPs) may reward differently, but they have the same underlying goals. As a result, you don't need dramatically different process documentation.

    Impact and Result

    • Design a coordinated vulnerability disclosure program that reflects business, customer, and regulatory obligations.
    • Develop a program that aligns your resources with the scale of the coordinated vulnerability disclosure program.
    • Follow Info-Tech’s vulnerability disclosure methodology by leveraging our policy, procedure, and workflow templates to get you started.

    Design a Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Program Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should design a coordinated vulnerability disclosure 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 goals

    Define the business, customer, and compliance alignment for the coordinated vulnerability disclosure program.

    • Design a Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Program – Phase 1: Assess Goals
    • Information Security Requirements Gathering Tool

    2. Formalize the program

    Equip your organization for coordinated vulnerability disclosure with formal documentation of policies and processes.

    • Design a Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Program – Phase 2: Formalize the Program
    • Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Policy
    • Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Plan
    • Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Workflow (Visio)
    • Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Workflow (PDF)
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    Become a Transformational CIO

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    • 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.
    • CIOs find it difficult to juggle operational activities, strategic initiatives, and involvement in business transformation.
    • CIOs don’t always have the IT organization structured and mobilized in a manner that facilitates the identification of transformation opportunities, and the planning for and the implementation of organization-wide change.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Don’t take an ad hoc approach to transformation.
    • You’re not in it alone.
    • Your legacy matters

    Impact and Result

    • Elevate your stature as a business leader.
    • Empower the IT organization to act with a business mind first, and technology second.
    • Create a high-powered IT organization that is focused on driving lasting change, improving client experiences, and encouraging collaboration across the entire enterprise.
    • Generate opportunities for organizational growth, as manifested through revenue growth, profit growth, new market entry, new product development, etc.

    Become a Transformational CIO Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our Executive Brief to find out why you should undergo an evolution in your role as a business leader, 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. Are you ready to lead transformation?

    Determine whether you are ready to focus your attention on evolving your role.

    • Become a Transformational CIO – Phase 1: Are You Ready to Lead Transformation?

    2. Build business partnerships

    Create a plan to establish key business partnerships and position IT as a co-leader of transformation.

    • Become a Transformational CIO – Phase 2: Build Business Partnerships
    • Partnership Strategy Template

    3. Develop the capability to transform

    Mobilize the IT organization and prepare for the new mandate.

    • Become a Transformational CIO – Phase 3: Develop the Capability to Transform
    • Transformation Capability Assessment

    4. Shift IT’s focus to the customer

    Align IT with the business through a direct, concentrated focus on the customer.

    • Become a Transformational CIO – Phase 4: Shift IT’s Focus to the Customer
    • Transformational CIO Value Stream Map Template
    • Transformational CIO Business Capability Map Template

    5. Adopt a transformational approach to leadership

    Determine the key behaviors necessary for transformation success and delegate effectively to make room for new responsibilities.

    • Become a Transformational CIO – Phase 5: Adopt a Transformational Approach to Leadership
    • Office of the CIO Template

    6. Sustain the transformational capability

    Track the key success metrics that will help you manage transformation effectively.

    • Become a Transformational CIO – Phase 6: Sustain the Transformational Capability
    • Transformation Dashboard
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Become a Transformational CIO

    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 Determine Readiness to Become a Transformational CIO

    The Purpose

    Understand stakeholder and executive perception of the CIO’s performance and leadership.

    Determine whether the CIO is ready to lead transformation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Decision to evolve role or address areas of improvement as a pre-requisite to becoming a transformational CIO.

    Activities

    1.1 Select data collection techniques.

    1.2 Conduct diagnostic programs.

    1.3 Review results and define readiness.

    Outputs

    Select stakeholder and executive perception of the CIO

    Decision as to whether to proceed with the role evolution

    2 Build Business Partnerships

    The Purpose

    Identify potential business partners and create a plan to establish key partnerships.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An actionable set of initiatives that will help the CIO create valuable partnerships with internal or external business stakeholders.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify potential business partners.

    2.2 Evaluate and prioritize list of potential partners.

    2.3 Create a plan to establish the target partnerships.

    Outputs

    Partnership strategy

    3 Establish IT’s Ability to Transform

    The Purpose

    Make the case and plan for the development of key capabilities that will enable the IT organization to handle transformation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A maturity assessment of critical capabilities.

    A plan to address maturity gaps in preparation for a transformational mandate.

    Activities

    3.1 Define transformation as a capability.

    3.2 Assess the current and target transformation capability maturity.

    3.3 Develop a roadmap to address gaps.

    Outputs

    Transformation capability assessment

    Roadmap to develop the transformation capability

    4 Shift IT’s Focus to the Customer

    The Purpose

    Gain an understanding of the end customer of the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A change in IT mindset away from a focus on operational activities or internal customers to external customers.

    A clear understanding of how the organization creates and delivers value to customers.

    Opportunities for business transformation.

    Activities

    4.1 Analyze value streams that impact the customer.

    4.2 Map business capabilities to value streams.

    Outputs

    Value stream maps

    Business capability map

    5 Establish Transformation Leadership and Sustain the Capability

    The Purpose

    Establish a formal process for empowering employees and developing new leaders.

    Create a culture of continuous improvement and a long-term focus.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Increased ability to sustain momentum that is inherent to business transformations.

    Better strategic workforce planning and a clearer career path for individuals in IT.

    A system to measure IT’s contribution to business transformation.

    Activities

    5.1 Set the structure for the office of the CIO.

    5.2 Assess current leadership skills and needs.

    5.3 Spread a culture of self-discovery.

    5.4 Maintain the transformation capability.

    Outputs

    OCIO structure document

    Transformational leadership dashboard

    Effective IT Communications

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    IT communications are often considered ineffective. This is demonstrated by:

    • A lack of inclusion or time to present in board meetings.
    • Confusion around IT priorities and how they align to organizational objectives.
    • Segregating IT from the rest of the organization.
    • The inability to secure the necessary funding for IT-led initiatives.
    • IT employees not feeling supported or engaged.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • No one is born a good communicator. Every IT employee needs to spend the time and effort to grow their communication skills; with constant change and worsening IT crises, IT cannot afford to communicate poorly anymore.
    • The skills needed to communicate effectively as a front=line employee or CIO are the same. It is important to begin the development of these skills from the beginning of one's career.
    • Time is a non-renewable resource. Any communication needs to be considered valuable and engaging by the audience or they will be unforgiving.

    Impact and Result

    Communications is a responsibility of all members of IT. This is demonstrated through:

    • Engaging in two-way communications that are continuous and evolving.
    • Establishing a communications strategy – and following the plan.
    • Increasing the skills of all IT employees when it comes to communications.
    • Identifying audiences and their preferred means of communication.

    Effective IT Communications Research & Tools

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

    1. Effective IT Communications Capstone Deck – A resource center to ensure you never start communications from a blank page again.

    This capstone blueprint highlights the components, best practices, and importance of good communication for all IT employees.

    • Effective IT Communications Storyboard

    2. IT Townhall Template – A ready-to-use template to help you engage with IT employees and ensure consistent access to information.

    IT town halls must deliver value to employees, or they will withdraw and miss key messages. To engage employees, use well-crafted communications in an event that includes crowd-sourced contents, peer involvement, recognition, significant Q&A time allotment, organizational discussions, and goal alignment.

    • IT Townhall Template

    3. IT Year in Review Template – A ready-to-use template to help communicate IT successes and future objectives.

    This template provides a framework to build your own IT Year In Review presentation. An IT Year In Review presentation typically covers the major accomplishments, challenges, and initiatives of an organization's information technology (IT) department over the past year.

    • IT Year in Review Template

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Effective IT Communications

    Empower IT employees to communicate well with any stakeholder across the organization.

    Analyst perspective

    There has never been an expectation for IT to communicate well.

    Brittany Lutes

    Brittany Lutes
    Research Director
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Diana MacPherson

    Diana MacPherson
    Senior Research Analyst
    Info-Tech Research Group

    IT rarely engages in proper communications. We speak at, inform, or tell our audience what we believe to be important. But true communications seldom take place.

    Communications only occur when channels are created to ensure the continuous opportunity to obtain two-way feedback. It is a skill that is developed over time, with no individual having an innate ability to be better at communications. Each person in IT needs to work toward developing their personal communications style. The problem is we rarely invest in development or training related to communications. Information and technology fields spend time and money developing hard skills within IT, not soft ones.

    The benefits associated with communications are immense: higher business satisfaction, funding for IT initiatives, increased employee engagement, better IT to business alignment, and the general ability to form ongoing partnerships with stakeholders. So, for IT departments looking to obtain these benefits through true communications, develop the necessary skills.

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge Common Obstacles Info-Tech’s Approach
    IT communications are often considered ineffective. This is demonstrated by:
    • A lack of inclusion or time to present in board meetings.
    • Confusion around IT priorities and how they align to organizational objectives.
    • Segregating IT from the rest of the organization.
    • An inability to secure the necessary funding for IT-led initiatives.
    • IT employees not feeling supported or engaged.
    Frequently, these barriers have prevented IT communications from being effective:
    • Using technical jargon when a universal language is needed.
    • Speaking at organization stakeholders rather than engaging through dialogue.
    • Understanding the needs of the audience.
    Overall, IT has not been expected to engage in good communications or taken a proactive approach to communicate effectively.
    Communications is a responsibility of all members of IT. This is demonstrated through:
    • Engaging in two-way communications that are continuous and evolving.
    • Establishing a communications strategy – and following the plan.
    • Increasing the skills of all IT employees when it comes to communications.
    • Identifying audiences and their preferred means of communication.

    Info-Tech Insight
    No one is born a good communicator. Every IT employee needs to spend the time and effort to grow their communication skills as constant change and worsening IT crises mean that IT cannot afford to communicate poorly anymore.

    Your challenge

    Overall satisfaction with IT is correlated to satisfaction with IT communications

    Chart showing satisfaction with it and communications

    The bottom line? For every 10% increase in communications there 8.6% increase in overall IT satisfaction. Therefore, when IT communicates with the organization, stakeholders are more likely to be satisfied with IT overall.

    Info-Tech Diagnostic Programs, N=330 organizations

    IT struggles to communicate effectively with the organization:

    • CIOs are given minimal time to present to the board or executive leaders about IT’s value and alignment to business goals.
    • IT initiatives are considered complicated and confusing.
    • The frequency and impact of IT crises are under planned for, making communications more difficult during a major incident.
    • IT managers do not have the skills to communicate effectively with their team.
    • IT employees do not have the skills to communicate effectively with one another and end users.

    Common obstacles

    IT is prevented from communicating effectively due to these barriers:

    • Difficulty assessing the needs of the audience to inform the language and means of communication that should be used.
    • Using technical jargon rather than translating the communication into commonly understood terms.
    • Not receiving the training required to develop communication skills across IT employees.
    • Frequently speak at organization stakeholders rather than engaging through dialogue.
    • Beginning many communications from a blank page, especially crisis communications.
    • Difficulty presenting complex concepts in a short time to an audience in a digestible and concise manner without diluting the point.

    Effective IT communications are rare:

    53% of CXOs believe poor communication between business and IT is a barrier to innovation.
    Source: Info-Tech CEO-CIO Alignment Survey, 2022

    69% of those in management positions don’t feel comfortable even communicating with their staff.”
    Source: TeamStage, 2022

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Effective communications is not a broadcast but a dialogue between communicator and audience in a continuous feedback loop.

    Continuous loop of dialogue

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Always treat every communication as a dialogue, enabling the receiver of the message to raise questions, concerns, or ideas.
    2. Different audiences will require different communications. Be sure to cater the communication to the needs of the receiver(s).
    3. Never assume the communication was effective. Create measures and adjust the communications to get the desired outcome.

    Common IT communications

    And the less common but still important communications

    Communicating Up to Board or Executives

    • Board Presentations
    • Executive Leadership Committee Meetings
    • Technology Updates
    • Budget Updates
    • Risk Updates
    • Year in Review

    Communicating Across the Organization

    • Townhalls – external to IT
    • Year in Review
    • Crisis Email
    • Intranet Communication
    • Customer/Constituent Requests for Information
    • Product Launches
    • Email
    • Watercooler Chat

    Communicating Within IT

    • Townhalls – internal to IT
    • Employee 1:1s
    • Team Meetings
    • Project Updates
    • Project Collaboration Sessions
    • Year in Review
    • All-Hands Meeting
    • Employee Interview
    • Onboarding Documentation
    • Vendor Negotiation Meetings
    • Vendor Product Meetings
    • Email
    • Watercooler Chat

    Insight Summary

    Overarching insight
    IT cannot afford to communicate poorly given the overwhelming impact and frequency of change related to technology. Learn to communicate well or get out of the way of someone who can.

    Insight 1: The skills needed to communicate effectively as a frontline employee or a CIO are the same. It’s important to begin the development of these skills from the beginning of one’s career.
    Insight 2: Time is a non-renewable resource. Any communication needs to be considered valuable and engaging by the audience or they will be unforgiving.
    Insight 3: Don’t make data your star. It is a supporting character. People can argue about the collection methods or interpretation of the data, but they cannot argue the story you share.
    Insight 4: Measure if the communication is being received and resulting in the desired outcome. If not, modify what and how the message is being expressed.
    Insight 5: Messages are also non-verbal. Practice using your voice and body to set the right tone and impact your audience.

    Communication principles

    Follow these principles to support all IT communications.

    Two-Way

    Incorporate feedback loops into your communication efforts. Providing stakeholders with the opportunity to voice their opinions and ideas will help gain their commitment and buy-in.

    Timely

    Frequent communications mitigate rumors and the spread of misinformation. Provide warning before the implementation of any changes whenever possible. Communicate as soon as possible after decisions have been made.

    Consistent

    Make sure the messaging is consistent across departments, mediums, and presenters. Provide managers with key phrases to support the consistency of messages.

    Open & Honest

    Transparency is a critical component of communication. Always tell employees that you will share information as soon as you can. This may not be as soon as you receive the information but as soon as sharing it is acceptable.

    Authentic

    Write messages in a way that embodies the personality of the organization. Don’t spin information; position it within the wider organizational context.

    Targeted

    Use your target audience profiles to determine which audiences need to consume which messages and what mediums should be employed.

    Importance of IT being a good communicator

    Don’t pay the price for poor communication.

    IT needs to communicate well because:

    • IT risk mitigation and technology initiative funding are dependent on critical stakeholders comprehending the risk impact and initiative benefit in easy-to-understand terms.
    • IT employees need clear and direct information to feel empowered and accountable to do their jobs well.
    • End users who have a good experience engaging in communications with IT employees have an overall increase in satisfaction with IT.
    • Continuously demonstrating IT’s value to the organization comes when those initiatives are clearly aligned to overall objectives.
    • Communication prevents assumptions and further miscommunication from happening among IT employees who are usually impacted and fear change the most.

    “Poor communication results in employee misunderstanding and errors that cost approximately $37 billion.”
    – Intranet Connections, 2019

    Effective communication enables organizational strategy and facilitates a two-way exchange

    Effective communication facilitates a two-way exchange

    What makes internal communications effective?

    To be effective, internal communications must be strategic. They should directly support organizational objectives, reinforce key messages to make sure they drive action, and facilitate two-way dialogue, not just one-way messaging.

    Measure the value of the communication

    Communication effectiveness can be measured through a variety of metrics:

    • Increase in Productivity
    • “When employees are offered better communication technology and skills, productivity can increase by up to 30%” (Expert Market, 2022).
    • Increase in Understanding Decision Rationale
    • Employees who report understanding the rationale behind the business decisions made by the executive leadership team (ELT) are 3.6x more likely to be engaged, compared to those who were not (McLean & Company Engagement Survey Database, 2022; N=133,167 responses, 187 organizations).
    • Increase in Revenue
    • Collaboration amongst C-suite executives led to a 27% increase in revenue compared to low collaborating C-suites (IBM, 2021).
    • Increase in End-User Satisfaction
    • 80.9% of end users are satisfied with IT’s ability to communicate with them regarding the information they need to perform their job (Info-Tech’s End-User Satisfaction Survey Database, N=20,617 end users from 126 organizations).

    Methods to determine effectiveness:

    • CIO Business Vision Survey
    • Engagement surveys
    • Focus groups
    • Suggestion boxes
    • Team meetings
    • Random sampling
    • Informal feedback
    • Direct feedback
    • Audience body language
    • Repeating the message back

    How to navigate the research center

    This research center is intended to ensure that IT never starts their communications from a blank page again:

    Tools to help IT be better communicators

    “‘Effectiveness’ can mean different things, and effectiveness for your project is going to look different than it would for any other project.”
    – Gale McCreary in WikiHow, 2022

    Audience: Organizational leadership

    Speaking with Board and executive leaders about strategy, risk, and value

    Keep in mind:

    1 2 3
    Priorities Differ Words Matter The Power of Three
    What’s important to you as CIO is very different from what is important to a board or executive leadership team or even the individual members of these groups. Share only what is important or relevant to the stakeholder(s). Simplify the message into common language whenever possible. A good test is to ensure that someone without any technical background could understand the message. Keep every slide to three points with no more than three words. You are the one to translate this information into a worth-while story to share.

    “Today’s CIOs have a story to tell. They must change the old narrative and describe the art of the (newly) possible. A great leader rises to the occasion and shares a vision that inspires the entire organization.”
    – Dan Roberts, CIO, 2019

    Communications for board presentations

    Secure funding and demonstrate IT as a value add to business objectives.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    Stop presenting what is important to you as the CIO and present to the board what is important to them.

    Why does IT need to communicate with the board?

    • To get their buy-in and funding for critical IT initiatives.
    • To ensure that IT risks are understood and receive the funding necessary to mitigate.
    • To change the narrative of IT as a service provider to a business enabler.

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for board presentations

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating Board Presentations:

    Do: Ensure you know all the members of the board and their strengths/areas of focus.

    Do: Ensure the IT objectives and initiatives align to the business objectives.

    Do: Avoid using any technical jargon.

    Do: Limit the amount of data you are using to present information. If it can’t stand alone, it isn’t a strong enough data point.

    Do: Avoid providing IT service metrics or other operational statistics.

    Do: Demonstrate how the organization’s revenue is impacted by IT activities.

    Do: Tell a story that is compelling and excited.

    OUTCOME

    Organization Alignment

    • Approved organization objectives and IT objectives are aligned and supporting one another.

    Stakeholder Buy-In

    • Board members all understand what the future state of IT will look like – and are excited for it!

    Awareness on Technology Trends

    • It is the responsibility of the CIO to ensure the board is aware of critical technology trends that can impact the future of the organization/industry.

    Risks

    • Risks are understood, the impact they could have on the organization is clear, and the necessary controls required to mitigate the risk are funded.

    Communications for business updates

    Continuously build strong relationships with all members of business leadership.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    Business leaders care about themselves and their goals – present ideas and initiatives that lean into this self-interest.

    Why does IT need to communicate business updates?

    • The key element here is to highlight how IT is impacting the organization’s overall ability to meet goals and targets.
    • Ensure all executive leaders know about and understand IT’s upcoming initiatives – and how they will be involved.

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for business updates

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating Business Updates:

    Do: Ensure IT is given sufficient time to present with the rest of the business leaders.

    Do: Ensure the goals of IT are clear and can be depicted visually.

    Do: Tie every IT goal to the objectives of different business leaders.

    Do: Avoid using any technical jargon.

    Do: Reinforce the positive benefits business leaders can expect.

    Do: Avoid providing IT service metrics or other operational statistics.

    Do: Demonstrate how IT is driving the digital transformation of the organization.

    OUTCOME

    Better Reputation

    • Get other business leaders to see IT as a value add to any initiative, making IT an enabler not an order taker.

    Executive Buy-In

    • Executives are concerned about their own budgets; they want to embrace all the innovation but within reason and minimal impact to their own finances.

    Digital Transformation

    • Indicate and commit to how IT can help the different leaders deliver on their digital transformation activities.

    Relationship Building

    • Establish trust with the different leaders so they want to engage with you on a regular basis.

    Audience: Organization wide

    Speaking with all members of the organization about the future of technology – and unexpected crises.

    1 2 3
    Competing to Be Heard Measure Impact Enhance the IT Brand
    IT messages are often competing with a variety of other communications simultaneously taking place in the organization. Avoid the information-overload paradox by communicating necessary, timely, and relevant information. Don’t underestimate the benefit of qualitative feedback that comes from talking to people within the organization. Ensure they read/heard and absorbed the communication. IT might be a business enabler, but if it is never communicated as such to the organization, it will only be seen as a support function. Use purposeful communications to change the IT narrative.

    Less than 50% of internal communications lean on a proper framework to support their communication activities.
    – Philip Nunn, iabc, 2020

    Communications for strategic IT initiatives

    Communicate IT’s strategic objectives with all business stakeholders and users.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    IT leaders struggle to communicate how the IT strategy is aligned to the overall business objectives using a common language understood by all.

    Why does IT need to communicate its strategic objectives?

    • To ensure a clear and consistent view of IT strategic objectives can be understood by all stakeholders within the organization.
    • To demonstrate that IT strategic objectives are aligned with the overall mission and vision of the organization.

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for IT strategic initiatives

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating IT Strategic Objectives:

    Do: Ensure all IT leaders are aware of and understand the objectives in the IT strategy.

    Do: Ensure there is a visual representation of IT’s goals.

    Do: Ensure the IT objectives and initiatives align to the business objectives.

    Do: Avoid using any technical jargon.

    Do: Provide metrics if they are relevant, timely, and immediately understandable.

    Do: Avoid providing IT service metrics or other operational statistics.

    Do: Demonstrate how the future of the organization will benefit from IT initiatives.

    OUTCOME

    Organization Alignment

    • All employees recognize the IT strategy as being aligned, even embedded, into the overall organization strategy.

    Stakeholder Buy-In

    • Business and IT stakeholders alike understand what the future state of IT will look like – and are excited for it!

    Role Clarity

    • Employees within IT are clear on how their day-to-day activities impact the overall objectives of the organization.

    Demonstrate Growth

    • Focus on where IT is going to be maturing in the coming one to two years and how this will benefit all employees.

    Communications for crisis management

    Minimize the fear and chaos with transparent communications.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    A crisis communication should fit onto a sticky note. If it’s not clear, concise, and reassuring, it won’t be effectively understood by the audience.

    Why does IT need to communicate when a crisis occurs?

    • To ensure all members of the organization have an understanding of what the crisis is, how impactful that crisis is, and when they can expect more information.
    • “Half of US companies don’t have a crisis communication plan” (CIO, 2017).

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for crisis management

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating During a Crisis:

    Do: Provide timely and regular updates about the crisis to all stakeholders.

    Do: Involve the Board or ELT immediately for transparency.

    Do: Avoid providing too much information in a crisis communication.

    Do: Have crisis communication statements ready to be shared at any time for possible or common IT crises.

    Do: Highlight that employee safety and wellbeing is top priority.

    Do: Work with members of the public relations team to prepare any external communications that might be required.

    OUTCOME

    Ready to Act

    • Holding statements for possible crises will eliminate the time and effort required when the crisis does occur.

    Reduce Fears

    • Prevent employees from spreading concerns and not feeling included in the crisis.

    Maintain Trust

    • Ensure Board and ELT members trust IT to respond in an appropriate manner to any crisis or major incident.

    Eliminate Negative Reactions

    • Any crisis communication should be clear and concise enough when done via email.

    Audience: IT employees

    IT employees need to receive and obtain regular transparent communications to better deliver on their expectations.

    Keep in mind:

    1 2 3
    Training for All Listening Is Critical Reinforce Collaboration
    From the service desk technician to CIO, every person within IT needs to have a basic ability to communicate. Invest in the training necessary to develop this skill set. It seems simple, but as humans we do an innately poor job at listening to others. It’s important you hear employee concerns, feedback, and recommendations, enabling the two-way aspect of communication. IT employees will reflect the types of communications they see. If IT leaders and managers cannot collaborate together, then teams will also struggle, leading to productivity and quality losses.

    “IT professionals who […] enroll in communications training have a chance to both upgrade their professional capabilities and set themselves apart in a crowded field of technology specialists.”
    – Mark Schlesinger, Forbes, 2021

    Communications for IT activities and tactics

    Get IT employees aligned and clear on their daily objectives.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    Depending on IT goals, the structure might need to change to support better communication among IT employees.

    Why does IT need to communicate IT activities?

    • To ensure all members of the project team are aligned with their tasks and responsibilities related to the project.
    • To be able to identify, track, and mitigate any problems that are preventing the successful delivery of the project.

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for IT activities & tactics

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating IT Activities:

    Do: Provide metrics that define how success of the project will be measured.

    Do: Demonstrate how each project aligns to the overarching objectives of the organization.

    Do: Avoid having large meetings that include stakeholders from two or more projects.

    Do: Consistently create a safe space for employees to communicate risks related to the project(s).

    Do: Ensure the right tools are being leveraged for in-office, hybrid, and virtual environments to support project collaboration.

    Do: Leverage a project management software to reduce unnecessary communications.

    OUTCOME

    Stakeholder Adoption

    • Create a standard communication template so stakeholders can easily find and apply communications.

    Resource Allocation

    • Understand what the various asks of IT are so employees can be adequately assigned to tasks.

    Meet Responsibly

    • Project status meetings are rarely valuable or insightful. Use meetings for collaboration, troubleshooting, and knowledge sharing.

    Encourage Engagement

    • Recognize employees and their work against critical milestones, especially for projects that have a long timeline.

    Communications for everyday IT

    Engage employees and drive results with clear and consistent communications.

    DEFINING INSIGHT

    Employees are looking for empathy to be demonstrated by those they are interacting with, from their peers to managers. Yet, we rarely provide it.

    Why does IT need to communicate on regularly with itself?

    • Regular communication ensures employees are valued, empowered, and clear about their expectations.
    • 97% of employees believe that their ability to perform their tasks efficiently is impacted by communication (Expert Market, 2022).

    FRAMEWORK

    Framework for everyday IT

    CHECKLIST

    Do’s & Don’ts of Communicating within IT:

    Do: Have responses for likely questions prepared and ready to go.

    Do: Ensure that all leaders are sharing the same messages with their teams.

    Do: Avoid providing irrelevant or confusing information.

    Do: Speak with your team on a regular basis.

    Do: Reinforce the messages of the organization every chance possible.

    Do: Ensure employees feel empowered to do their jobs effectively.

    Do: Engage employees in dialogue. The worst employee experience is when they are only spoken at, not engaged with.

    OUTCOME

    Increased Collaboration

    • Operating in a vacuum or silo is no longer an option. Enable employees to successfully collaborate and deliver holistic results.

    Role Clarity

    • Clear expectations and responsibilities eliminate confusion and blame game. Engage employees and create a positive work culture with role clarity.

    Prevent Rumors

    • Inconsistent communication often leads to information sharing and employees spreading an (in)accurate narrative.

    Organizational Insight

    • Employees trust the organization’s direction because they are aware of the different activities taking place and provided with a rationale about decisions.

    Case Study

    Amazon

    INDUSTRY
    E-Commerce

    SOURCE
    Harvard Business Review

    Jeff Bezos has definitely taken on unorthodox approaches to business and leadership, but one that many might not know about is his approach to communication. Some of the key elements that he focused on in the early 2000s when Amazon was becoming a multi-billion-dollar empire included:

    • Banning PowerPoint for all members of the leadership team. They had to learn to communicate without the crutch of the most commonly used presentation tool.
    • Leveraging memos that included specific action steps and clear nouns
    • Reducing all communication to an eighth-grade reading level, including pitches for new products (e.g. Kindle).

    Results

    While he was creating the Amazon empire, 85% of Jeff Bezos’ communication was written in a way that an eighth grader could read. Communicating in a way that was easy to understand and encouraging his leadership team to do so as well is one of the many reasons this business has grown to an estimated value of over $800B.

    “If you cannot simplify a message and communicate it compellingly, believe me, you cannot get the masses to follow you.”
    – Indra Nooyi, in Harvard Business Review, 2022

    Communication competency expectations

    Communication is a business skill; not a technical skill.

    Demonstrated Communication Behavior
    Level 1: Follow Has sufficient communication skills for effective dialogue with others.
    Level 2: Assist Has sufficient communication skills for effective dialogue with customers, suppliers, and partners.
    Level 3: Apply Demonstrates effective communication skills.
    Level 4: Enable Communicates fluently, orally, and in writing and can present complex information to both technical and non-technical audiences.
    Level 5: Ensure, Advise Communicates effectively both formally and informally.
    Level 6: Initiate, Influence Communicates effectively at all levels to both technical and non-technical audiences.
    Level 7: Set Strategy, Inspire, Mobilize Understands, explains, and presents complex ideas to audiences at all levels in a persuasive and convincing manner.

    Source: Skills Framework for the Information Age, 2021

    Key KPIs for communication with any stakeholder

    Measuring communication is hard; use these to determine effectiveness.

    Goal Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Related Resource
    Obtain board buy-in for IT strategic initiatives X% of IT initiatives that were approved to be funded. Number of times technical initiatives were asked to be explained further. Using our Board Presentation Review service
    Establish stronger relationships with executive leaders X% of business leadership satisfied with the statement “IT communicates with your group effectively.” Using the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic
    Organizationally, people know what products and services IT provides X% of end users who are satisfied with communications around changing services or applications. Using the End-User Satisfaction Survey
    Organizational reach and understanding of the crisis. Number of follow-up tickets or requests related to the crisis after the initial crisis communication was sent. Using templates and tools for crisis communications
    Project stakeholders receive sufficient communication throughout the initiative. X% overall satisfaction with the quality of the project communications. Using the PPM Customer Satisfaction Diagnostic
    Employee feedback is provided, heard, and acted on X% of satisfaction employees have with managers or IT leadership to act on employee feedback. Using the Employee Engagement Diagnostic Program

    Standard workshop communication activities

    Introduction
    Communications overview.

    Plan
    Plan your communications using a strategic tool.

    Compose
    Create your own message.

    Deliver
    Practice delivering your own message.

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

    Research contributors and experts

    Anuja Agrawal, National Communications Director, PwC

    Anuja Agrawal
    National Communications Director
    PwC

    Anuja is an accomplished global communications professional, with extensive experience in the insurance, banking, financial, and professional services industries in Asia, the US, and Canada. She is currently the National Communications Director at PwC Canada. Her prior work experience includes communication leadership roles at Deutsche Bank, GE, Aviva, and Veritas. Anuja works closely with senior business leaders and key stakeholders to deliver measurable results and effective change and culture building programs. Anuja has experience in both internal and external communications, including strategic leadership communication, employee engagement, PR and media management, digital and social media, and M&A/change and crisis management. Anuja believes in leveraging digital tools and technology-enabled solutions, combined with in-person engagement, to help improve the quality of dialogue and increase interactive communication within the organization to help build an inclusive culture of belonging.

    Nastaran Bisheban, Chief Technology Officer, KFC Canada

    Nastaran Bisheban
    Chief Technology Officer
    KFC Canada

    A passionate technologist, and seasoned transformational leader. A software engineer and computer scientist by education, a certified Project Manager that holds an MBA in Leadership with Honors and Distinction from University of Liverpool. A public speaker on various disciplines of technology and data strategy with a Harvard Business School executive leadership program training to round it all. Challenges status quo and conventional practices; is an advocate for taking calculated risk and following the principle of continuous improvement. With multiple computer software and project management publications she is a strategic mentor and board member on various non-profit organizations. Nastaran sees the world as a better place only when everyone has a seat at the table and is an active advocate for diversity and inclusion.

    Heidi Davidson, Co-Founder & CEO, Galvanize Worldwide and Galvanize On Demand

    Heidi Davidson
    Co-Founder & CEO
    Galvanize Worldwide and Galvanize On Demand

    Dr. Heidi Davidson is the co-founder and CEO of Galvanize Worldwide, the largest distributed network of marketing and communications experts in the world. She also is the co-founder and CEO of Galvanize On Demand, a tech platform that matches marketing and communications freelancers with client projects. Now with 167 active experts, the Galvanize team delivers startup advisory work, outsourced marketing, training, and crisis communications to organizations of all sizes. Before Galvanize, Heidi spent four years as part of the turnaround team at BlackBerry as the Chief Communications Officer and SVP of Corporate Marketing, where she helped the company move from a device manufacturer to a security software provider.

    Eli Gladstone, Co-Founder, Speaker Labs

    Eli Gladstone
    Co-Founder
    Speaker Labs

    Eli is a co-founder of Speaker Labs. He has spent over six years helping countless individuals overcome their public speaking fears and communicate with clarity and confidence. When he’s not coaching others on how to build and deliver the perfect presentation, you’ll probably find him reading some weird books, teaching his kids how to ski or play tennis, or trying to develop a good-enough jumpshot to avoid being a liability on the basketball court.

    Francisco Mahfuz, Keynote Speaker & Storytelling Coach

    Francisco Mahfuz
    Keynote Speaker & Storytelling Coach

    Francisco Mahfuz has been telling stories in front of audiences for a decade and even became a National Champion of public speaking. Today, Francisco is a keynote speaker and storytelling coach and offers communication training to individuals and international organizations and has worked with organizations like Pepsi, HP, the United Nations, Santander, and Cornell University. He’s the author of Bare: A Guide to Brutally Honest Public Speaking and the host of The Storypowers Podcast, and he’s been part of the IESE MBA communications course since 2020. He’s received a BA in English Literature from Birkbeck University in London.

    Sarah Shortreed, EVP & CTO, ATCO Ltd.

    Sarah Shortreed
    EVP & CTO
    ATCO Ltd.

    Sarah Shortreed is ATCO’s Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Her responsibilities include leading ATCO’s Information Technology (IT) function as it continues to drive agility and collaboration throughout ATCO’s global businesses and expanding and enhancing its enterprise IT strategy, including establishing ATCO’s technology roadmap for the future. Ms. Shortreed’s skill and expertise are drawn from her more than 30-year career that spans many industries and includes executive roles in business consulting, complex multi-stakeholder programs, operations, sales, customer relationship management, and product management. She was recently the Chief Information Officer at Bruce Power and has previously worked at BlackBerry, IBM, and Union Gas. She sits on the Board of Governors for the University of Western Ontario and is the current Chair of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Committee at the Conference Board of Canada.

    Eric Silverberg, Co-Founder, Speaker Labs

    Eric Silverberg
    Co-Founder
    Speaker Labs

    Eric is a co-founder of Speaker Labs and has helped thousands of people build their public speaking confidence and become more dynamic and engaging communicators. When he’s not running workshops to help people grow in their careers, there’s a good chance you’ll find him with his wife and dog, drinking Diet Coke, and rewatching iconic episodes of the reality TV show Survivor! He’s such a die-hard fan, that you’ll probably see him playing the game one day.

    Stephanie Stewart, Communications Officer & DR Coordinator, Info Security Services Simon Fraser University

    Stephanie Stewart
    Communications Officer & DR Coordinator
    Info Security Services Simon Fraser University

    Steve Strout, President, Miovision Technologies

    Steve Strout
    President
    Miovision Technologies

    Mr. Strout is a recognized and experienced technology leader with extensive experience in delivering value. He has successfully led business and technology transformations by leveraging many dozens of complex global SFDC, Oracle, and SAP projects. He is especially adept at leading what some call “Project Rescues” – saving people’s careers where projects have gone awry; always driving “on-time and on-budget.” Mr. Strout is the current President of Miovision Technologies and the former CEO and board member of the Americas’ SAP Users” Group (ASUG). His wealth of practical knowledge comes from 30 years of extensive experience in many CxO and executive roles at some prestigious organizations such as Vonage, Sabre, BlackBerry, Shred-it, The Thomson Corporation (now Thomson Reuters), and Morris Communications. He has served on boards including Customer Advisory Boards of Apple, AgriSource Data, Dell, Edgewise, EMC, LogiSense, Socrates.ai, Spiro Carbon Group, and Unifi.

    Info-Tech Research Group Contributors:

    Sanchia Benedict, Research Lead
    Antony Chan Executive Counsellor
    Janice Clatterbuck, Executive Counsellor
    Ahmed Jowar, Research Specialist
    Dave Kish, Practice Lead
    Nick Kozlo, Senior Research Analyst
    Heather Leier Murray, Senior Research Analyst
    Amanda Mathieson, Research Director
    Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead
    Joe Meier, Executive Counsellor
    Andy Neill, AVP Research
    Thomas Randall, Research Director

    Plus an additional two contributors who wish to remain anonymous.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Boardroom Presentation Review

    • You will come away with a clear, concise, and compelling board presentation that IT leaders can feel confident presenting in front of their board of directors.
    • Add improvements to your current board presentation in terms of visual appeal and logical flow to ensure it resonates with your board of directors.
    • Leverage a best-of-breed presentation template.

    Build a Better Manager

    • 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.

    Crisis Communication Guides

    During a crisis it is important to communicate to employees through messages that convey calm and are transparent and tailored to your audience. Use the Crisis Communication Guides to:

    • Draft a communication strategy.
    • Tailor messages to your audience.
    • Draft employee crisis communications.
    Use this guide to equip leadership to communicate in times of crisis.

    Bibliography

    “Communication in the Workplace Statistics: Importance and Effectiveness in 2022.” TeamStage, 2022.

    Gallo, Carmine. “How Great Leaders Communicate.” Harvard Business Review, 23 November 2022

    Guthrie, Georgina. “Why Good Internal Communications Matter Now More than Ever.” Nulab, 15 December 2021.

    Lambden, Duncan. “The Importance of Effective Workplace Communication – Statistics for 2022.” Expert Market, 13 June 2022.

    “Mapping SFIA Levels of Responsibilities to Behavioural Factors.” Skills Framework for the Information Age, 2021.

    McCreary, Gale. “How to Measure the Effectiveness of Communication: 14 Steps.” WikiHow, 31 March 2023.

    Nowak, Marcin. “Top 7 Communication Problems in the Workplace.” MIT Enterprise Forum CEE, 2021.

    Nunn, Philip. “Messaging That Works: A Unique Framework to Maximize Communication Success.” iabc, 26 October 2020.

    Picincu, Andra. “How to Measure Effective Communications.” Small Business Chron. 12 January 2021.

    Price. David A. “Pixar Story Rules.” Stories From the Frontiers of Knowledge, 2011.

    Roberts, Dan. “How CIOs Become Visionary Communicators.” CIO, 2019.

    Schlesinger, Mark. “Why building effective communication skill in IT is incredibly important.” Forbes, 2021.

    Stanten, Andrew. “Planning for the Worst: Crisis Communications 101.” CIO, 25 May 2017.

    State of the American Workplace Report. Gallup, 6 February 2020.

    “The CIO Revolution.” IBM, 2021.

    “The State of High Performing Teams in Tech 2022.” Hypercontex, 2022.

    Walters, Katlin. “Top 5 Ways to Measure Internal Communication.” Intranet Connections, 30 May 2019.

    Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}557|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
    • 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.

    External Compliance

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    Take Control of Compliance Improvement to Conquer Every Audit

    IBM i Migration Considerations

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    IBM i remains a vital platform and now many CIOs, CTOs, and IT leaders are faced with the same IBM i challenges regardless of industry focus: how do you evaluate the future viability of this platform, assess the future fit and purpose, develop strategies, and determine the future of this platform for your organization?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    For organizations that are struggling with the iSeries/IBM i platform, resourcing challenges are typically the culprit. An aging population of RPG programmers and system administrators means organizations need to be more pro-active in maintaining in-house expertise. Migrating off the iSeries/IBM i platform is a difficult option for most organizations due to complexity, switching costs in the short term, and a higher long-term TCO.

    Impact and Result

    The most common tactic is for the organization to better understand their IBM i options and adopt some level of outsourcing for the non-commodity platform retaining the application support/development in-house. To make the evident, obvious; the options here for the non-commodity are not as broad as with commodity server platforms. Options include co-location, onsite outsourcing, managed and public cloud services.

    IBM i Migration Considerations Research & Tools

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

    1. IBM i Migration Considerations – A brief deck that outlines key migration options for the IBM i platforms.

    This project will help you evaluate the future viability of this platform; assess the fit, purpose, and price; develop strategies for overcoming potential challenges; and determine the future of this platform for your organization.

    • IBM i Migration Considerations Storyboard

    2. Infrastructure Outsourcing IBM i Scoring Tool – A tool to collect vendor responses and score each vendor.

    Use this scoring sheet to help you define and evaluate IBM i vendor responses.

    • Infrastructure Outsourcing IBM i Scoring Tool
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    IBM i Migration Considerations

    Don’t be overwhelmed by IBM i migration options.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    IBM i remains a vital platform and now many CIO, CTO, and IT leaders are faced with the same IBM i challenges regardless of industry focus; how do you evaluate the future viability of this platform, assess the future fit and purpose, develop strategies, and determine the future of this platform for your organization?

    Common Obstacles

    For organizations that are struggling with the iSeries/IBM i platform, resourcing challenges are typically the culprit. An aging population of RPG programmers and system administrators means organizations need to be more proactive in maintaining in-house expertise. Migrating off the iSeries/IBM i platform is a difficult option for most organizations due to complexity, switching costs in the short term, and a higher long-term TCO.

    Info-Tech Approach

    The most common tactic is for the organization to better understand its IBM i options and adopt some level of outsourcing for the non-commodity platform, retaining the application support/development in-house. To make the evident, obvious: the options here for the non-commodity are not as broad as with commodity server platforms. Options include co-location, onsite outsourcing, managed hosting, and public cloud services.

    Info-Tech Insight

    “For over twenty years, IBM was ‘king,’ dominating the large computer market. By the 1980s, the world had woken up to the fact that the IBM mainframe was expensive and difficult, taking a long time and a lot of work to get anything done. Eager for a new solution, tech professionals turned to the brave new concept of distributed systems for a more efficient alternative. On June 21, 1988, IBM announced the launch of the AS/400, their answer to distributed computing.” (Dale Perkins)

    Review

    We help IT leaders make the most of their IBM i environment.

    Problem Statement:

    The IBM i remains a vital platform for many businesses and continues to deliver exceptional reliability and performance and play a key role in the enterprise. With the limited resources at hand, CIOs and the like must continually review and understand their migration path with the same regard as any other distributed system roadmap.

    This research is designed for:

    • IT strategic direction decision makers
    • IT managers responsible for an existing iSeries or IBM i platform
    • Organizations evaluating platforms for mission-critical applications

    This research will help you:

    1. Evaluate the future viability of this platform.
    2. Assess the fit, purpose, and price.
    3. Develop strategies for overcoming potential challenges.
    4. Determine the future of this platform for your organization.

    The “fit for purpose” plot

    Thought Model

    We will investigate the aspect of different IBM i scenarios as they impact business, what that means, and how that can guide the questions that you are asking as you move to an aligned IBM i IT strategy. Our model considers:

    • Importance to Business Outcomes
      • Important to strategic objectives
      • Provides competitive advantage
      • Non-commodity IT service or process
      • Specialized in-house knowledge required
    • Vendor’s Performance Advantage
      • Talent or access to skills
      • Economies of scale or lower cost at scale
      • Access to technology

    Info-Tech Insights

    With multiple control points to be addressed, care must be taken in simplifying your options while addressing all concerns to ease operational load.

    Map different 'IBM i' scenarios with axes 'Importance to Business Outcomes - Low to High' and 'Vendor’s Performance Advantage - Low to High'. Quadrant labels are '[LI/LA] Potentially Outsource: Service management, Help desk, desk-side support, Asset management', '[LI/HA] Outsource: Application & Infra Support, Web Hosting, SAP Support, Email Services, Infrastructure', '[HI/LA] Insource (For Now): Application development tech support', and '[HI/HA] Potentially Outsource: Onshore or offshore application maintenance'.

    IBM i environments are challenging

    “The IBM i Reality” – Darin Stahl

    Most members relying on business applications/workloads running on non-commodity platforms (zSeries, IBM i, Solaris, AIX, etc.) are first motivated to get out from under the perceived higher costs for the hardware platform.

    An additional challenge for non-commodity platforms is that from an IT Operations Management perspective they become an island with a diminishing number of integrated operations skills and solutions such as backup/restore and monitoring tools.

    The most common tactic is for the organization to adopt some level of outsourcing for the non-commodity platform, retaining the application support and development in-house.

    Key challenges with current IBM i environments:
    1. DR Requirements
      Understand what the business needs are and where users and resources are located.
    2. Market Lack of Expertise
      Skilled team members are hard to find.
    3. Cost Management
      There is a perceived cost disadvantage to managing on-prem solutions.
    4. Aging Support Teams
      Current support teams are aging with little backfill in skill and experience.

    Understand your options

    Co-Location

    A customer transitions their hardware environment to a provider’s data center. The provider can then manage the hardware and “system.”

    Onsite Outsourcing

    A provider will support the hardware/system environment at the client’s site.

    Managed Hosting

    A customer transitions their legacy application environment to an off-prem hosted, multi-tenanted environment.

    Public Cloud

    A customer can “re-platform” the non-commodity workload into public cloud offerings or in a few offerings “re-host.”

    Co-Location

    Provider manages the data center hardware environment.

    Abstract

    Here a provider manages the system data center environment and hardware; however, the client’s in-house IBM i team manages the IBM i hardware environment and the system applications. The client manages all of the licenses associated with the platform as well as the hardware asset management considerations. This is typically part of a larger services or application transformation. This effectively outsources the data center management while maintaining all IBM i technical operations in-house.

    Advantages

    • On-demand bandwidth
    • Cost effective
    • Secure and compliant environment
    • On-demand remote “hands and feet” services
    • Improved IT DR services
    • Data center compliance

    Considerations

    • Application transformation
    • CapEx cost
    • Fluctuating network bandwidth costs
    • Secure connectivity
    • Disaster recovery and availability of vendor
    • Company IT DR and BC planning
    • Remote system maintenance (HW)

    Info-Tech Insights

    This model is extremely attractive for organizations looking to reduce their data center management footprint. Idea for the SMB.

    Onsite Sourcing

    A provider will support the hardware/system environment at the client’s site.

    Abstract

    Here a provider will support and manage the hardware/system environment at the client’s site. The provider may acquire the customer’s hardware and provide software licenses. This could also include hiring or “rebadging” staff supporting the platform. This type of arrangement is typically part of a larger services or application transformation. While low risk, it is not as cost-effective as other deployment models.

    Advantages

    • Managed environment within company premises
    • Cost effective (OpEx expense)
    • Economies of scale
    • On-demand “as-a-service” model
    • Improved IT DR staffing services
    • 24x7 monitoring and support

    Considerations

    • Outsourced IT talent
    • Terms and contract conditions
    • IT staff attrition
    • Increased liability
    • Modified technical support and engagement
    • Secure connectivity and communication
    • Internal problem and change management

    Info-Tech Insights

    Depending on the application lifecycle and viability, in-house skill and technical depth is a key consideration when developing your IBM i strategy.

    Managed Hosting

    Transition legacy application environment to an off-prem hosted multi-tenanted environment.

    Abstract

    This type of arrangement is typically part of an application migration or transformation. In this model, a client can “re-platform” the application into an off-premises-hosted provider platform. This would yield many of the cloud benefits however in a different scaling capacity as experienced with commodity workloads (e.g. Windows, Linux) and the associated application.

    Advantages

    • Turns CapEx into OpEx
    • Reduces in-house need for diminishing or scarce human resources
    • Allows the enterprise to focus on the value of the IBM i platform through the reduction of system administrative toil
    • Improved IT DR services
    • Data center compliance

    Considerations

    • Application transformation
    • Network bandwidth
    • Contract terms and conditions
    • Modified technical support and engagement
    • Secure connectivity and communication
    • Technical security and compliance
    • Limited providers; reduced options

    Info-Tech Insights

    There is a difference between a “re-host” and “re-platform” migration strategy. Determine which solution aligns to the application requirements.

    Public Cloud

    Leverage “public cloud” alternatives with AWS, Google, or Microsoft AZURE.

    Abstract

    This type of arrangement is typically part of a larger migration or application transformation. While low risk, it is not as cost-effective as other deployment models. In this model, client can “re-platform” the non-commodity workload into public cloud offerings or in a few offerings “re-host.” This would yield many of the cloud benefits however in a different scaling capacity as experienced with commodity workloads (e.g. Windows, Linux).

    Advantages

    • Remote workforce accessibility
    • OpEx expense model
    • Improved IT DR services
    • Reduced infrastructure and system administration
    • Vendor management
    • 24x7 monitoring and support

    Considerations

    • Contract terms and conditions
    • Modified technical support and engagement
    • Secure connectivity and communication
    • Technical security and compliance
    • Limited providers; reduced options
    • Vendor/cloud lock-in
    • Application migration/”re-platform”
    • Application and system performance

    Info-Tech Insights

    This model is extremely attractive for organizations that consume primarily cloud services and have a large remote workforce.

    Understand your vendors

    • To best understand your options, you need to understand what IBM i services are provided by the industry vendors.
    • Within the following slides, you will find a defined activity with a working template that will create “vendor profiles” for each vendor.
    • As a working example, you can review the following partners:
    • Connectria (United States)
    • Rowton IT Solutions Ltd (United Kingdom)
    • Mid-Range (Canada)

    Info-Tech Insights

    Creating vendor profiles will help quickly filter the solution providers that directly meet your IBM i needs.

    Vendor Profile #1

    Rowton IT

    Summary of Vendor

    “Rowton IT thrive on creating robust and simple solutions to today's complex IT problems. We have a highly skilled and motivated workforce that will guarantee the right solution.

    Working with select business partners, we can offer competitive and cost effective packages tailored to suit your budget and/or business requirements.

    Our knowledge and experience cover vast areas of IT including technical design, provision and installation of hardware (Wintel and IBM Midrange), technical engineering services, support services, IT project management, application testing, documentation and training.”

    IBM i Services

    • ✔ IBM Power Hardware Sales
    • ✔ Co-Managed Services
    • ✔ DR/High Available Config
    • ✔ Full Managed Services
    • ✖ Co-Location Services
    • ✔ Public Cloud Services (AWS)

    URL
    rowtonit.com

    Regional Coverage:
    United Kingdom

    Logo for RowtonIT.com.

    Vendor Profile #2

    Connectria

    Summary of Vendor

    “Every journey starts with a single step and for Connectria, that step happened to be with the world’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank. Followed quickly by our second client, IBM. Since then, we have added over 1,000 clients worldwide. For 25 years, each customer, large or small, has relied on Connectria to deliver on promises made to make it easy to do business with us through flexible terms, scalable solutions, and straightforward pricing. Join us on our journey.”

    IBM i Services

    • ✔ IBM Power Hardware Sales
    • ✔ Co-Managed Services
    • ✔ DR/High Available Config
    • ✔ Full Managed Services
    • ✔ Co-Location Services
    • ✔ Public Cloud Services (AWS)

    URL
    connectria.com

    Regional Coverage:
    United States

    Logo for Connectria.

    Vendor Profile #3

    Mid-Range

    Summary of Vendor

    “Founded in 1988 and profitable throughout all of those 31 years, we have a solid track record of success. At Mid-Range, we use our expertise to assess your unique needs, in order to proactively develop the most effective IT solution for your requirements. Our full-service approach to technology and our diverse and in-depth industry expertise keep our clients coming back year after year.

    Serving clients across North America in a variety of industries, from small and emerging organizations to large, established enterprises – we’ve seen it all. Whether you need hardware or software solutions, disaster recovery and high availability, managed services or hosting or full ERP services with our JD Edwards offerings – we have the methods and expertise to help.”

    IBM i Services

    • ✔ IBM Power Hardware Sales
    • ✔ Co-Managed Services
    • ✔ DR/High Available Config
    • ✔ Full Managed Services
    • ✔ Co-Location Services
    • ✔ Public Cloud Services (AWS)

    URL
    midrange.ca

    Regional Coverage:
    Canada

    Logo for Mid-Range.

    Activity

    Understand your vendor options

    Activities:
    1. Create your vendor profiles
    2. Score vendor responses
    3. Develop and manage your vendor agenda

    This activity involves the following participants:

    • IT strategic direction decision makers
    • IT managers responsible for an existing iSeries or IBM i platform

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Vendor Profile Template
    • Completed IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Scoring Tool

    Info-Tech Insights

    This check-point process creates transparency around agreement costs with the business and gives the business an opportunity to re-evaluate its requirements for a potentially leaner agreement.

    1. Create your vendor profiles

    Define what you are looking for:

    • Create a vendor profile for every vendor of interest.
    • Leverage our starting list and template to track and record the advantages of each vendor.

    Mindshift

    First National Technology Solutions

    Key Information Systems

    MainLine

    Direct Systems Support

    T-Systems

    Horizon Computer Solutions Inc.

    Vendor Profile Template

    [Vendor Name]

    Summary of Vendor

    [Vendor Summary]
    *Detail the Vendor Services as a Summary*

    IBM i Services

    • ✔ IBM Power Hardware Sales
    • ✔ Co-Managed Services
    • ✔ DR/High Available Config
    • ✔ Full Managed Services
    • ✔ Co-Location Services
    • ✔ Public Cloud Services (AWS)
    *Itemize the Vendor Services specific to your requirements*

    URL
    https://www.url.com/
    *Insert the Vendor URL*

    Regional Coverage:
    [Country\Region]
    *Insert the Vendor Coverage & Locations*

    *Insert the Vendor Logo*

    2. Score your vendor responses

    Use the IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Scoring Tool to manage vendor responses.
    Use Info-Tech’s IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Scoring Tool to systematically score your vendor responses.

    The overall quality of the IBM i questions can help you understand what it might be like to work with the vendor.

    Consider the following questions:

    • Is the vendor clear about what it’s able to offer? Is its response transparent?
    • How much effort did the vendor put into answering the questions?
    • Does the vendor seem like someone you would want to work with?

    Once you have the vendor responses, you will select two or three vendors to continue assessing in more depth leading to an eventual final selection.

    Screenshot of the IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Scoring Tool's Scoring Sheet. There are three tables: 'Scoring Scale', 'Results', and one with 'RFP Questions'. Note on Results table says 'Top Scoring Vendors', and note on questions table says 'List your IBM i questions (requirements)'.

    Info-Tech Insights

    Watch out for misleading scores that result from poorly designed criteria weightings.

    3. Develop your vendor agenda

    Vendor Conference Call

    Develop an agenda for the conference call. Here is a sample agenda:
    • Review the vendor questions.
    • Go over answers to written vendor questions previously submitted.
    • Address new vendor questions.

    Commonly Debated Question:
    Should vendors be asked to remain anonymous on the call or should each vendor mention their organization when they join the call?

    Many organizations worry that if vendors can identify each other, they will price fix. However, price fixing is extremely rare due to its consequences and most vendors likely have a good idea which other vendors are participating in the bid. Another thought is that revealing vendors could either result in a higher level of competition or cause some vendors to give up:

    • A vendor that hears its rival is also bidding may increase the competitiveness of its bid and response.
    • A vendor that feels it doesn’t have a chance may put less effort into the process.
    • A vendor that feels it doesn’t have real competition may submit a less competitive or detailed response than it otherwise would have.

    Vendor Workshop

    A vendor workshop day is an interactive way to provide context to your vendors and to better understand the vendors’ offerings. The virtual or in-person interaction also offers a great way to understand what it’s like to work with each vendor and decide whether you could build a partnership with them in the long run.

    The main focus of the workshop is the vendors’ service solution presentation. Here is a sample agenda for a two-day workshop:

    Day 1
    • Meet and greet
    • Welcome presentation with objectives, acquisition strategy, and company overview
    • Overview of the current IT environment, technologies, and company expectations
    • Question and answer session
    • Site walk
    Day 2
    • Review Day 1 activities
    • Vendor presentations and solution framing
    Use the IT Infrastructure Outsourcing Scoring Tool to manage vendor responses.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Effectively Acquire Infrastructure Services
    Acquiring a service is like buying an experience. Don’t confuse the simplicity of buying hardware with buying an experience.

    Outsource IT Infrastructure to Improve System Availability, Reliability, and Recovery
    There are very few IT infrastructure components you should be housing internally – outsource everything else.

    Build Your Infrastructure Roadmap
    Move beyond alignment: Put yourself in the driver’s seat for true business value.

    Define Your Cloud Vision
    Make the most of cloud for your organization.

    Document Your Cloud Strategy
    Drive consensus by outlining how your organization will use the cloud.

    Create a Right-Sized Disaster Recovery Plan
    Close the gap between your DR capabilities and service continuity requirements.

    Create a Better RFP Process
    Improve your RFPs to gain leverage and get better results.

    Research Authors

    Photo of Darin Stahl, Principal Research Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group.Darin Stahl, Principal Research Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group

    Principal Research Advisor within the Infrastructure Practice and leveraging 38+ years of experience, his areas of focus include: IT Operations Management, Service Desk, Infrastructure Outsourcing, Managed Services, Cloud Infrastructure, DRP/BCP, Printer Management, Managed Print Services, Application Performance Monitoring (APM), Managed FTP, and non-commodity servers (zSeries, mainframe, IBM i, AIX, Power PC).

    Photo of Troy Cheeseman, Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group.Troy Cheeseman, Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group

    Troy has over 24 years of experience and has championed large, enterprise-wide technology transformation programs, remote/home office collaboration and remote work strategies, BCP, IT DRP, IT Operations and expense management programs, international right placement initiatives, and large technology transformation initiatives (M&A). Additionally, he has deep experience working with IT solution providers and technology (cloud) start-ups.

    Research Contributors

    Photo of Dan Duffy, President & Owner, Mid-Range.Dan Duffy, President & Owner, Mid-Range

    Dan Duffy is the President and Founder of Mid-Range Computer Group Inc., an IBM Platinum Business Partner. Dan and his team have been providing the Canadian and American IBM Power market with IBM infrastructure solutions including private cloud, hosting and disaster recovery, high availability and data center services since 1988. He has served on numerous boards and associations including the Toronto Users Group for Mid-Range Systems (TUG), the IBM Business Partners of the Americas Advisory Council, the Cornell Club of Toronto, and the Notre Dame Club of Toronto. Dan holds a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University.

    Photo of George Goodall, Executive Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group.George Goodall, Executive Advisor, Info-Tech Research Group

    George Goodall is an Executive Advisor in the Research Executive Services practice at Info-Tech Research Group. George has over 20 years of experience in IT consulting, enterprise software sales, project management, and workshop delivery. His primary focus is the unique challenges and opportunities in organizations with small and constrained IT operations. In his long tenure at Info-Tech, George has covered diverse topics including voice communications, storage, and strategy and governance.

    Bibliography

    “Companies using IBM i (formerly known as i5/OS).” Enlyft, 21 July 2021. Web.

    Connor, Clare. “IBM i and Meeting the Challenges of Modernization.” Ensono, 22 Mar. 2022. Web.

    Huntington, Tom. “60+ IBM i User Groups and Communities to Join?” HelpSystems, 16 Dec. 2021. Web.

    Perkins, Dale. “The Road to Power Cloud: June 21st 1988 to now. The Journey Continues.” Mid-Range, 1 Nov. 2021. Web.

    Prickett Morgan, Timothy. “How IBM STACKS UP POWER8 AGAINST XEON SERVERS.” The Next Platform, 13 Oct. 2015. Web.

    “Why is AS/400 still used? Four reasons to stick with a classic.” NTT, 21 July 2016. Web.

    Appendix

    Public Cloud Provider Notes

    Appendix –
    Cloud
    Providers


    “IBM Power (IBM i and AIX) workloads are also available in the so-called ‘cloud.’” (Darin Stahl)

    AWS

    Appendix –
    Cloud
    Providers



    “IBM Power (IBM i and AIX) workloads are also available in the so-called ‘cloud.’” (Darin Stahl)

    Google

    • Google Cloud console supports IBM Power Systems.
    • This offering provides cloud instances running on IBM Power Systems servers with PowerVM.
    • The service uses a per-day prorated monthly subscription model for cloud instance plans with different capacities of compute, memory, storage, and network. Standard plans are listed below and custom plans are possible.
    • There is no IBM i offering yet that we are aware of.
    • For AIX on Power, this would appear to be a better option than AWS (Converge Enterprise Cloud with IBM Power for Google Cloud).

    Appendix –
    Cloud
    Providers



    “IBM Power (IBM i and AIX) workloads are also available in the so-called ‘cloud.’” (Darin Stahl)

    Azure

    • Azure has partners using the Azure Dedicated Host offerings to deliver “native support for IBM POWER Systems to Azure data centres” (PowerWire).
    • Microsoft has installed Power servers in an couple Azure data centers and Skytap manages the IBM i, AIX, and Linux environments for clients.
    • As far as I am aware there is no ability to install IBM i or AIX within an Azure Dedicated Host via the retail interfaces – these must be worked through a partner like Skytap.
    • The cloud route for IBM i or AIX might be the easiest working with Skytap and Azure. This would appear to be a better option than AWS in my opinion.

    Appendix –
    Cloud
    Providers



    “IBM Power (IBM i and AIX) workloads are also available in the so-called ‘cloud.’” (Darin Stahl)

    IBM

    Establish Data Governance – APAC Edition

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}348|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 10.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $172,999 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 63 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
    • Parent Category Link: /data-management
    • Organisations are faced with challenges associated with changing data landscapes, evolving business models, industry disruptions, regulatory and compliance obligations, and changing and maturing user landscapes and demands for data.
    • Although the need for a data governance program is often evident, organisations miss the mark when their data governance efforts are not directly aligned to delivering measurable business value by supporting key strategic initiatives, value streams, and their underlying business capabilities.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Your organisation’s value streams and the associated business capabilities require effectively governed data. Without this, you face the impact of elevated operational costs, missed opportunities, eroded stakeholder satisfaction, and exposure to increased business risk.
    • Ensure your data governance program delivers measurable business value by aligning the associated data governance initiatives with the business architecture.
    • Data governance must continuously align with the organisation’s enterprise governance function. It should not be perceived as an IT pet project, but rather as a business-driven initiative.

    Impact and Result

    Info-Tech’s approach to establishing and sustaining effective data governance is anchored in the strong alignment of organisational value streams and their business capabilities with key data governance dimensions and initiatives.

    • Align with enterprise governance, business strategy and organizational value streams to ensure the program delivers measurable business value.
    • Understand your current data governance capabilities and build out a future state that is right sized and relevant.
    • Define data governance leadership, accountability, and responsibility, supported by an operating model that effectively manages change and communication and fosters a culture of data excellence.

    Establish Data Governance – APAC Edition Research & Tools

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

    1. Data Governance Research – A step-by-step document to ensure that the people handling the data are involved in the decisions surrounding data usage, data quality, business processes, and change implementation.

    Data governance is a strategic program that will help your organisation control data by managing the people, processes, and information technology needed to ensure that accurate and consistent data policies exist across varying lines of the business, enabling data-driven insight. This research will provide an overview of data governance and its importance to your organization, assist in making the case and securing buy-in for data governance, identify data governance best practices and the challenges associated with them, and provide guidance on how to implement data governance best practices for a successful launch.

    • Establish Data Governance – Phases 1-3 – APAC

    2. Data Governance Planning and Roadmapping Workbook – A structured tool to assist with establishing effective data governance practices.

    This workbook will help your organisation understand the business and user context by leveraging your business capability map and value streams, developing data use cases using Info-Tech's framework for building data use cases, and gauging the current state of your organisation's data culture.

    • Data Governance Planning and Roadmapping Workbook – APAC

    3. Data Use Case Framework Template – An exemplar template to highlight and create relevant use cases around the organisation’s data-related problems and opportunities.

    This business needs gathering activity will highlight and create relevant use cases around data-related problems or opportunities that are clear and contained and, if addressed, will deliver value to the organisation. This template provides a framework for data requirements and a mapping methodology for creating use cases.

    • Data Use Case Framework Template – APAC

    4. Data Governance Initiative Planning and Roadmap Tool – A visual roadmapping tool to assist with establishing effective data governance practices.

    This tool will help your organisation plan the sequence of activities, capture start dates and expected completion dates, and create a roadmap that can be effectively communicated to the organisation.

    • Data Governance Initiative Planning and Roadmap Tool – APAC

    5. Business Data Catalogue – A comprehensive template to help you to document the key data assets that are to be governed based on in-depth business unit interviews, data risk/value assessments, and a data flow diagram for the organisation.

    Use this template to document information about key data assets such as data definition, source system, possible values, data sensitivity, data steward, and usage of the data.

    • Business Data Catalogue – APAC

    6. Data Governance Program Charter Template – A program charter template to sell the importance of data governance to senior executives.

    This template will help get the backing required to get a data governance project rolling. The program charter will help communicate the project purpose, define the scope, and identify the project team, roles, and responsibilities.

    • Data Governance Program Charter Template – APAC

    7. Data Policies – A set of policy templates to support the data governance framework for the organisation.

    This set of policies supports the organisation's use and management of data to ensure that it efficiently and effectively serves the needs of the organisation.

    • Data Governance Policy – APAC
    • Data Classification Policy, Standard, and Procedure – APAC
    • Data Quality Policy, Standard, and Procedure – APAC
    • Data Management Definitions – APAC
    • Metadata Management Policy, Standard, and Procedure – APAC
    • Data Retention Policy and Procedure – APAC
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Establish Data Governance – APAC Edition

    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 Business Context and Value

    The Purpose

    Identify key business data assets that need to be governed.

    Create a unifying vision for the data governance program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand the value of data governance and how it can help the organisation better leverage its data.

    Gain knowledge of how data governance can benefit both IT and the business.

    Activities

    1.1 Establish business context, value, and scope of data governance at the organisation.

    1.2 Introduction to Info-Tech’s data governance framework.

    1.3 Discuss vision and mission for data governance.

    1.4 Understand your business architecture, including your business capability map and value streams.

    1.5 Build use cases aligned to core business capabilities.

    Outputs

    Sample use cases (tied to the business capability map) and a repeatable use case framework

    Vision and mission for data governance

    2 Understand Current Data Governance Capabilities and Plot Target-State Levels

    The Purpose

    Assess which data contains value and/or risk and determine metrics that will determine how valuable the data is to the organisation.

    Assess where the organisation currently stands in data governance initiatives.

    Determine gaps between the current and future states of the data governance program.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gain a holistic understanding of organisational data and how it flows through business units and systems.

    Identify which data should fall under the governance umbrella.

    Determine a practical starting point for the program.

    Activities

    2.1 Understand your current data governance capabilities and maturity.

    2.2 Set target-state data governance capabilities.

    Outputs

    Current state of data governance maturity

    Definition of target state

    3 Build Data Domain to Data Governance Role Mapping

    The Purpose

    Determine strategic initiatives and create a roadmap outlining key steps required to get the organisation to start enabling data-driven insights.

    Determine timing of the initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Establish clear direction for the data governance program.

    Step-by-step outline of how to create effective data governance, with true business-IT collaboration.

    Activities

    3.1 Evaluate and prioritise performance gaps.

    3.2 Develop and consolidate data governance target-state initiatives.

    3.3 Define the role of data governance: data domain to data governance role mapping.

    Outputs

    Target-state data governance initiatives

    Data domain to data governance role mapping

    4 Formulate a Plan to Get to Your Target State

    The Purpose

    Consolidate the roadmap and other strategies to determine the plan of action from day one.

    Create the required policies, procedures, and positions for data governance to be sustainable and effective.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Prioritised initiatives with dependencies mapped out.

    A clearly communicated plan for data governance that will have full business backing.

    Activities

    4.1 Identify and prioritise next steps.

    4.2 Define roles and responsibilities and complete a high-level RACI.

    4.3 Wrap-up and discuss next steps and post-workshop support.

    Outputs

    Initialised roadmap

    Initialised RACI

    Further reading

    Establish Data Governance

    Deliver measurable business value.

    Analyst Perspective

    Establish a data governance program that brings value to your organisation.

    Picture of analyst

    Data governance does not sit as an island on its own in the organisation – it must align with and be driven by your enterprise governance. As you build out data governance in your organisation, it's important to keep in mind that this program is meant to be an enabling framework of oversight and accountabilities for managing, handling, and protecting your company's data assets. It should never be perceived as bureaucratic or inhibiting to your data users. It should deliver agreed-upon models that are conducive to your organisation's operating culture, offering clarity on who can do what with the data and via what means. Data governance is the key enabler for bringing high-quality, trusted, secure, and discoverable data to the right users across your organisation. Promote and drive the responsible and ethical use of data while helping to build and foster an organisational culture of data excellence.

    Crystal Singh

    Director, Research & Advisory, Data & Analytics Practice

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    The amount of data within organisations is growing at an exponential rate, creating a need to adopt a formal approach to governing data. However, many organisations remain uninformed on how to effectively govern their data. Comprehensive data governance should define leadership, accountability, and responsibility related to data use and handling and be supported by a well-oiled operating model and relevant policies and procedures. This will help ensure the right data gets to the right people at the right time, using the right mechanisms.

    Common Obstacles

    Organisations are faced with challenges associated with changing data landscapes, evolving business models, industry disruptions, regulatory and compliance obligations, and changing and maturing user landscape and demand for data. Although the need for a data governance program is often evident, organisations miss the mark when their data governance efforts are not directly aligned to delivering measurable business value. Initiatives should support key strategic initiatives, as well as value streams and their underlying business capabilities.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Info-Tech's approach to establishing and sustaining effective data governance is anchored in the strong alignment of organisational value streams and their business capabilities with key data governance dimensions and initiatives. Organisations should:

    • Align their data governance with enterprise governance, business strategy and value streams to ensure the program delivers measurable business value.
    • Understand their current data governance capabilities so as to build out a future state that is right-sized and relevant.
    • Define data leadership, accountability, and responsibility. Support these with an operating model that effectively manages change and communication and fosters a culture of data excellence.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your organisation's value streams and the associated business capabilities require effectively governed data. Without this, you face elevated operating costs, missed opportunities, eroded stakeholder satisfaction, and increased business risk.

    Your challenge

    This research is designed to help organisations build and sustain an effective data governance program.

    • Your organisation has recognised the need to treat data as a corporate asset for generating business value and/or managing and mitigating risk.
    • This has brought data governance to the forefront and highlighted the need to build a performance-driven enterprise program for delivering quality, trusted, and readily consumable data to users.
    • An effective data governance program is one that defines leadership, accountability. and responsibility related to data use and handling. It's supported by a well-oiled operating model and relevant policies and procedures, all of which help build and foster a culture of data excellence where the right users get access to the right data at the right time via the right mechanisms.

    As you embark on establishing data governance in your organisation, it's vital to ensure from the get-go that you define the drivers and business context for the program. Data governance should never be attempted without direction on how the program will yield measurable business value.

    'Data processing and cleanup can consume more than half of an analytics team's time, including that of highly paid data scientists, which limits scalability and frustrates employees.' – Petzold, et al., 2020

    Image is a circle graph and 30% of it is coloured with the number 30% in the middle of the graph

    'The productivity of employees across the organisation can suffer.' – Petzold, et al., 2020

    Respondents to McKinsey's 2019 Global Data Transformation Survey reported that an average of 30% of their total enterprise time was spent on non-value-added tasks because of poor data quality and availability. – Petzold, et al., 2020

    Common obstacles

    Some of the barriers that make data governance difficult to address for many organisations include:

    • Gaps in communicating the strategic value of data and data governance to the organisation. This is vital for securing senior leadership buy-in and support, which, in turn, is crucial for sustained success of the data governance program.
    • Misinterpretation or a lack of understanding about data governance, including what it means for the organisation and the individual data user.
    • A perception that data governance is inhibiting or an added layer of bureaucracy or complication rather than an enabling and empowering framework for stakeholders in their use and handling of data.
    • Embarking on data governance without firmly substantiating and understanding the organisational drivers for doing so. How is data governance going to support the organisation's value streams and their various business capabilities?
    • Neglecting to define and measure success and performance. Just as in any other enterprise initiative, you have to be able to demonstrate an ROI for time, resources and funding. These metrics must demonstrate the measurable business value that data governance brings to the organisation.
    • Failure to align data governance with enterprise governance.
    Image is a circle graph and 78% of it is coloured with the number 78% in the middle of the graph

    78% of companies (and 92% of top-tier companies) have a corporate initiative to become more data-driven. – Alation, 2020.

    Image is a circle graph and 58% of it is coloured with the number 58% in the middle of the graph

    But despite these ambitions, there appears to be a 'data culture disconnect' – 58% of leaders overestimate the current data culture of their enterprises, giving a grade higher than the one produced by the study. – Fregoni, 2020.

    The strategic value of data

    Power intelligent and transformative organisational performance through leveraging data.

    Respond to industry disruptors

    Optimise the way you serve your stakeholders and customers

    Develop products and services to meet ever-evolving needs

    Manage operations and mitigate risk

    Harness the value of your data

    The journey to being data-driven

    The journey to declaring that you are a data-driven organisation requires a pit stop at data enablement.

    The Data Economy

    Data Disengaged

    You have a low appetite for data and rarely use data for decision making.

    Data Enabled

    Technology, data architecture, and people and processes are optimised and supported by data governance.

    Data Driven

    You are differentiating and competing on data and analytics; described as a 'data first' organisation. You're collaborating through data. Data is an asset.

    Data governance is essential for any organisation that makes decisions about how it uses its data.

    Data governance is an enabling framework of decision rights, responsibilities, and accountabilities for data assets across the enterprise.

    Data governance is:

    • Executed according to agreed-upon models that describe who can take what actions with what information, when, and using what methods (Olavsrud, 2021).
    • True business-IT collaboration that will lead to increased consistency and confidence in data to support decision making. This, in turn, helps fuel innovation and growth.

    If done correctly, data governance is not:

    • An annoying, finger-waving roadblock in the way of getting things done.
    • Meant to solve all data-related business or IT problems in an organisation.
    • An inhibitor or impediment to using and sharing data.

    Info-Tech's Data Governance Framework

    An image of Info-Tech's Data Governance Framework

    Create impactful data governance by embedding it within enterprise governance

    A model is depicted to show the relationship between enterprise governance and data governance.

    Organisational drivers for data governance

    Data governance personas:

    Conformance: Establishing data governance to meet regulations and compliance requirements.

    Performance: Establishing data governance to fuel data-driven decision making for driving business value and managing and mitigating business risk.

    Two images are depicted that show the difference between conformance and performance.

    Data Governance is not a one-person show

    • Data governance needs a leader and a home. Define who is going to be leading, driving, and steering data governance in your organisation.
    • Senior executive leaders play a crucial role in championing and bringing visibility to the value of data and data governance. This is vital for building and fostering a culture of data excellence.
    • Effective data governance comes with business and IT alignment, collaboration, and formally defined roles around data leadership, ownership, and stewardship.
    Four circles are depicted. There is one person in the circle on the left and is labelled: Data Governance Leadership. The circle beside it has two people in it and labelled: Organisational Champions. The circle beside it has three people in it and labelled: Data Owners, Stewards & Custodians. The last circle has four people in it and labelled: The Organisation & Data Storytellers.

    Traditional data governance organisational structure

    A traditional structure includes committees and roles that span across strategic, tactical, and operational duties. There is no one-size-fits-all data governance structure. However, most organisations follow a similar pattern when establishing committees, councils, and cross-functional groups. Most organisations strive to identify roles and responsibilities at a strategic and operational level. Several factors will influence the structure of the program, such as the focus of the data governance project and the maturity and size of the organisation.

    A triangular model is depicted and is split into three tiers to show the traditional data governance organisational structure.

    A healthy data culture is key to amplifying the power of your data.

    'Albert Einstein is said to have remarked, "The world cannot be changed without changing our thinking." What is clear is that the greatest barrier to data success today is business culture, not lagging technology.' – Randy Bean, 2020

    What does it look like?

    • Everybody knows the data.
    • Everybody trusts the data.
    • Everybody talks about the data.

    'It is not enough for companies to embrace modern data architectures, agile methodologies, and integrated business-data teams, or to establish centres of excellence to accelerate data initiatives, when only about 1 in 4 executives reported that their organisation has successfully forged a data culture.'– Randy Bean, 2020

    Data literacy is an essential part of a data-driven culture

    • In a data-driven culture, decisions are made based on data evidence, not on gut instinct.
    • Data often has untapped potential. A data-driven culture builds tools and skills, builds users' trust in the condition and sources of data, and raises the data skills and understanding among their people on the front lines.
    • Building a data culture takes an ongoing investment of time, effort, and money. This investment will not achieve the transformation you want without data literacy at the grassroots level.

    Data-driven culture = 'data matters to our company'

    Despite investments in data initiative, organisations are carrying high levels of data debt

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

    Data debt is a problem for 78% of organisations.

    40% of organisations say individuals within the business do not trust data insights.

    66% of organisations say a backlog of data debt is impacting new data management initiatives.

    33% of organisations are not able to get value from a new system or technology investment.

    30% of organisations are unable to become data-driven.

    Source: Experian, 2020

    Absent or sub-optimal data governance leads to data debt

    Only 3% of companies' data meets basic quality standards. (Source: Nagle, et al., 2017)

    Organisations suspect 28% of their customer and prospect data is inaccurate in some way. (Source: Experian, 2020)

    Only 51% of organisations consider the current state of their CRM or ERP data to be clean, allowing them to fully leverage it. (Source: Experian, 2020)

    35% of organisations say they're not able to see a ROI for data management initiatives. (Source: Experian, 2020)

    Embrace the technology

    Make the available data governance tools and technology work for you:

    • Data catalogue
    • Business data glossary
    • Data lineage
    • Metadata management

    While data governance tools and technologies are no panacea, leverage their automated and AI-enabled capabilities to augment your data governance program.

    Logos of data governance tools and technology.

    Measure success to demonstrate tangible business value

    Put data governance into the context of the business:

    • Tie the value of data governance and its initiatives back to the business capabilities that are enabled.
    • Leverage the KPIs of those business capabilities to demonstrate tangible and measurable value. Use terms and language that will resonate with senior leadership.

    Don't let measurement be an afterthought:

    Start substantiating early on how you are going to measure success as your data governance program evolves.

    Build a right-sized roadmap

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

    Key considerations:

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

    Sample milestones:

    Data Governance Leadership & Org Structure Definition

    Define the home for data governance and other key roles around ownership and stewardship, as approved by senior leadership.

    Data Governance Charter and Policies

    Create a charter for your program and build/refresh associated policies.

    Data Culture Diagnostic

    Understand the organisation's current data culture, perception of data, value of data, and knowledge gaps.

    Use Case Build and Prioritisation

    Build a use case that is tied to business capabilities. Prioritise accordingly.

    Business Data Glossary

    Build and/or refresh the business' glossary for addressing data definitions and standardisation issues.

    Tools & Technology

    Explore the tools and technology offering in the data governance space that would serve as an enabler to the program. (e.g. RFI, RFP).

    Key takeaways for effective business-driven data governance

    Data governance leadership and sponsorship is key.

    Ensure strategic business alignment.

    Build and foster a culture of data excellence.

    Evolve along the data journey.

    Make data governance an enabler, not a hindrance.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight

    Your organisation's value streams and the associated business capabilities require effectively governed data. Without this, you face the impact of elevated operational costs, missed opportunities, eroded stakeholder satisfaction, and exposure to increased business risk.

    Insight 1

    Data governance should not sit as an island in your organisation. It must continuously align with the organisation's enterprise governance function. It shouldn't be perceived as a pet project of IT, but rather as an enterprise-wide, business-driven initiative.

    Insight 2

    Ensure your data governance program delivers measurable business value by aligning the associated data governance initiatives with the business architecture. Leverage the measures of success or KPIs of the underlying business capabilities to demonstrate the value data governance has yielded for the organisation.

    Insight 3

    Data governance remains the foundation of all forms of reporting and analytics. Advanced capabilities such as AI and machine learning require effectively governed data to fuel their success.

    Tactical insight

    Tailor your data literacy program to meet your organisation's needs, filling your range of knowledge gaps and catering to your different levels of stakeholders. When it comes to rolling out a data literacy program, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Your data literacy program is intended to fill the knowledge gaps about data, as they exist in your organisation. It should be targeted across the board – from your executive leadership and management through to the subject matter experts across different lines of the business in your organisation.

    Info-Tech's methodology for establishing data governance

    1. Build Business and User Context 2. Understand Your Current Data Governance Capabilities 3. Build a Target State Roadmap and Plan
    Phase Steps
    1. Substantiate Business Drivers
    2. Build High-Value Use Cases for Data Governance
    1. Understand the Key Components of Data Governance
    2. Gauge Your Organisation's Current Data Culture
    1. Formulate an Actionable Roadmap and Right-Sized Plan
    Phase Outcomes
    • Your organisation's business capabilities and value streams
    • A business capability map for your organisation
    • Categorisation of your organisation's key capabilities
    • A strategy map tied to data governance
    • High-value use cases for data governance
    • An understanding of the core components of an effective data governance program
    • An understanding your organisation's current data culture
    • A data governance roadmap and target-state plan comprising of prioritised initiatives

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Screenshot of Info-Tech's Data Governance Planning and Roadmapping Workbook data-verified=

    Data Governance Planning and Roadmapping Workbook

    Use the Data Governance Planning and Roadmapping Workbook as you plan, build, roll out, and scale data governance in your organisation.

    Screenshot of Info-Tech's Data Use Case Framework Template

    Data Use Case Framework Template

    This template takes you through a business needs gathering activity to highlight and create relevant use cases around the organisation's data-related problems and opportunities.

    Screenshot of Info-Tech's Business Data Glossary data-verified=

    Business Data Glossary

    Use this template to document the key data assets that are to be governed and create a data flow diagram for your organisation.

    Screenshot of Info-Tech's Data Culture Diagnostic and Scorecard data-verified=

    Data Culture Diagnostic and Scorecard

    Leverage Info-Tech's Data Culture Diagnostic to understand how your organisation scores across 10 areas relating to data culture.

    Key deliverable:

    Data Governance Planning and Roadmapping Workbook

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Data Governance Initiative Planning and Roadmap Tool

    Leverage this tool to assess your current data governance capabilities and plot your target state accordingly.

    This tool will help you plan the sequence of activities, capture start dates and expected completion dates, and create a roadmap that can be effectively communicated to the organisation.

    Data Governance Program Charter Template

    This template will help get the backing required to get a data governance project rolling. The program charter will help communicate the project purpose, define the scope, and identify the project team, roles, and responsibilities.

    Data Governance Policy

    This policy establishes uniformed data governance standards and identifies the shared responsibilities for assuring the integrity of the data and that it efficiently and effectively serves the needs of your organisation

    Other Deliverables:

    • Data Governance Initiative Planning and Roadmap Tool
    • Data Governance Program Charter Template
    • Data Governance Policy

    Blueprint benefits

    Defined data accountability & responsibility

    Shared knowledge & common understanding of data assets

    Elevated trust & confidence in traceable data

    Improved data ROI & reduced data debt

    Support for ethical use and handling of data in a culture of excellence

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Leverage this blueprint's approach to ensure your data governance initiatives align and support your key value streams and their business capabilities.

    • Aligning your data governance program and its initiatives to your organisation's business capabilities is vital for tracing and demonstrating measurable business value for the program.
    • This alignment of data governance with value streams and business capabilities enables you to use business-defined KPIs and demonstrate tangible value.
    Screenshot from this blueprint on the Measurable Business Value

    In phases 1 and 2 of this blueprint, we will help you establish the business context, define your business drivers and KPIs, and understand your current data governance capabilities and strengths.

    In phase 3, we will help you develop a plan and a roadmap for addressing any gaps and improving the relevant data governance capabilities so that data is well positioned to deliver on those defined business metrics.

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Establish Data Governance project overview

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

    1. Build Business and User context2. Understand Your Current Data Governance Capabilities3. Build a Target State Roadmap and Plan
    Best-Practice Toolkit
    1. Substantiate Business Drivers
    2. Build High-Value Use Cases for Data Governance
    1. Understand the Key Components of Data Governance
    2. Gauge Your Organisation's Current Data Culture
    1. Formulate an Actionable Roadmap and Right-Sized Plan
    Guided Implementation
    • Call 1
    • Call 2
    • Call 3
    • Call 4
    • Call 5
    • Call 6
    • Call 7
    • Call 8
    • Call 9
    Phase Outcomes
    • Your organisation's business capabilities and value streams
    • A business capability map for your organisation
    • Categorisation of your organisation's key capabilities
    • A strategy map tied to data governance
    • High-value use cases for data governance
    • An understanding of the core components of an effective data governance program
    • An understanding your organisation's current data culture
    • A data governance roadmap and target-state plan comprising of prioritised initiatives

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    An outline of what guided implementation looks like.

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

    Workshop overview

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

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
    Establish Business Context and Value Understand Current Data Governance Capabilities and Plot Target-State Levels Build Data Domain to Data Governance Role Mapping Formulate a Plan to Get to Your Target State
    Activities
    • Establish business context, value, and scope of data governance at the organisation
    • Introduction to Info-Tech's data governance framework
    • Discuss vision and mission for data governance
    • Understand your business architecture, including your business capability map and value streams
    • Build use cases aligned to core business capabilities
    • Understand your current data governance capabilities and maturity
    • Set target state data governance capabilities
    • Evaluate and prioritise performance gaps
    • Develop and consolidate data governance target-state initiatives
    • Define the role of data governance: data domain to data governance role mapping
    • Identify and prioritise next steps
    • Define roles and responsibilities and complete a high-level RACI
    • Wrap-up and discuss next steps and post-workshop support
    Deliverables
    1. Sample use cases (tied to the business capability map) and a repeatable use case framework
    2. Vision and mission for data governance
    1. Current state of data governance maturity
    2. Definition of target state
    1. Target-state data governance initiatives
    2. Data domain to data governance role mapping
    1. Initialised roadmap
    2. Initialised RACI
    3. Completed Business Data Glossary (BDG)

    Phase 1

    Build Business and User Context

    Three circles are in the image that list the three phases and the main steps. Phase 1 is highlighted.

    'When business users are invited to participate in the conversation around data with data users and IT, it adds a fundamental dimension — business context. Without a real understanding of how data ties back to the business, the value of analysis and insights can get lost.' – Jason Lim, Alation

    This phase will guide you through the following activities:

    • Identify Your Business Capabilities
    • Define your Organisation's Key Business Capabilities
    • Develop a Strategy Map that Aligns Business Capabilities to Your Strategic Focus

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Data Governance Leader/Data Leader (CDO)
    • Senior Business Leaders
    • Business SMEs
    • Data Leadership, Data Owners, Data Stewards and Custodians

    Step 1.1

    Substantiate Business Drivers

    Activities

    1.1.1 Identify Your Business Capabilities

    1.1.2 Categorise Your Organisation's Key Business Capabilities

    1.1.3 Develop a Strategy Map Tied to Data Governance

    This step will guide you through the following activities:

    • Leverage your organisation's existing business capability map or initiate the formulation of a business capability map, guided by Info-Tech's approach
    • Determine which business capabilities are considered high priority by your organisation
    • Map your organisation's strategic objectives to value streams and capabilities to communicate how objectives are realised with the support of data

    Outcomes of this step

    • A foundation for data governance initiative planning that's aligned with the organisation's business architecture: value streams, business capability map, and strategy map

    Info-Tech Insight

    Gaining a sound understanding of your business architecture (value streams and business capabilities) is a critical foundation for establishing and sustaining a data governance program that delivers measurable business value.

    1.1.1 Identify Your Business Capabilities

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

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

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

    Input

    • List of confirmed value streams and their related business capabilities

    Output

    • Business capability map with value streams for your organisation

    Materials

    • Your existing business capability map or the template provided in the Data Governance Planning and Roadmapping Workbook accompanying this blueprint

    Participants

    • Key business stakeholders
    • Data stewards
    • Data custodians
    • Data Governance Working Group

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

    Define or validate the organisation's value streams

    Value streams connect business goals to the organisation's value realisation activities. These value realisation activities, in turn, depend on data.

    If the organisation does not have a business architecture function to conduct and guide Activity 1.1.1, you can leverage the following approach:

    • Meet with key stakeholders regarding this topic, then discuss and document your findings.
    • When trying to identify the right stakeholders, consider: Who are the decision makers and key influencers? Who will impact this piece of business architecture related work? Who has the relevant skills, competencies, experience, and knowledge about the organisation?
    • Engage with these stakeholders to define and validate how the organisation creates value.
    • Consider:
      • Who are your main stakeholders? This will depend on the industry in which you operate. For example, customers, residents, citizens, constituents, students, patients.
      • What are your stakeholders looking to accomplish?
      • How does your organisation's products and/or services help them accomplish that?
      • What are the benefits your organisation delivers to them and how does your organisation deliver those benefits?
      • How do your stakeholders receive those benefits?

    Align data governance to the organisation's value realisation activities.

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

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your organisation's value streams and the associated business capabilities require effectively governed data. Without this, you face the possibilities of elevated operational costs, missed opportunities, eroded stakeholder satisfaction, negative impact to reputation and brand, and/or increased exposure to business risk.

    Example of value streams – Retail Banking

    Value streams connect business goals to the organisation's value realisation activities.

    Example value stream descriptions for: Retail Banking

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

    Model example of value streams for retail banking.

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

    Example of value streams – Higher Education

    Value streams connect business goals to the organisation's value realisation activities.

    Example value stream descriptions for: Higher Education

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

    Model example of value streams for higher education

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

    Example of value streams – Local Government

    Value streams connect business goals to the organisation's value realisation activities.

    Example value stream descriptions for: Local Government

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

    Model example of value streams for local government

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

    Example of value streams – Manufacturing

    Value streams connect business goals to the organisation's value realisation activities.

    Example value stream descriptions for: Manufacturing

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

    Model example of value streams for manufacturing

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

    Example of value streams – Retail

    Value streams connect business goals to the organisation's value realisation activities.

    Example value stream descriptions for: Retail

    Model example of value streams for retail

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

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

    Define the organisation's business capabilities in a business capability map

    A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation. Business capabilities represent stable business functions and typically will have a defined business outcome.

    Business capabilities can be thought of as business terms defined using descriptive nouns such as 'Marketing' or 'Research and Development.'

    If your organisation doesn't already have a business capability map, you can leverage the following approach to build one. This initiative requires a good understanding of the business. By working with the right stakeholders, you can develop a business capability map that speaks a common language and accurately depicts your business.

    Working with the stakeholders as described above:

    • Analyse the value streams to identify and describe the organisation's capabilities that support them.
    • Consider: What is the objective of your value stream? (This can highlight which capabilities support which value stream.)
    • As you initiate your engagement with your stakeholders, don't start a blank page. Leverage the examples on the next slides as a starting point for your business capability map.
    • When using these examples, consider: What are the activities that make up your particular business? Keep the ones that apply to your organisation, remove the ones that don't, and add any needed.

    Align data governance to the organisation's value realisation activities.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organisation's business capabilities and hence represents a view of what your data governance program must support.

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

    Example business capability map – Retail Banking

    A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organisation's business capabilities and hence represents a view of what your data governance program must support.

    Validate your business capability map with the right stakeholders, including your executive team, business unit leaders, and/or other key stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Tip:

    Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realisation capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data governance program.

    Example business capability map for: Retail Banking

    Model example business capability map for retail banking

    For this business capability map, download Info-Tech's Industry Reference Architecture for Retail Banking.

    Example business capability map – Higher Education

    A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organisation's business capabilities and hence represents a view of what your data governance program must support.

    Validate your business capability map with the right stakeholders, including your executive team, business unit leaders, and/or other key stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Tip:

    Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realisation capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data governance program.

    Example business capability map for: Higher Education

    Model example business capability map for higher education

    For this business capability map, download Info-Tech's Industry Reference Architecture for Higher Education.

    Example business capability map – Local Government

    A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organisation's business capabilities and hence represents a view of what your data governance program must support.

    Validate your business capability map with the right stakeholders, including your executive team, business unit leaders, and/or other key stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Tip:

    Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realisation capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data governance program.

    Example business capability map for: Local Government

    Model example business capability map for local government

    For this business capability map, download Info-Tech's Industry Reference Architecture for Local Government.

    Example business capability map – Manufacturing

    A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organisation's business capabilities and hence represents a view of what your data governance program must support.

    Validate your business capability map with the right stakeholders, including your executive team, business unit leaders, and/or other key stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Tip:

    Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realisation capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data governance program.

    Example business capability map for: Manufacturing

    Model example business capability map for manufacturing

    For this business capability map, download Info-Tech's Industry Reference Architecture for Manufacturing.

    Example business capability map - Retail

    A business capability map can be thought of as a visual representation of your organisation's business capabilities and hence represents a view of what your data governance program must support.

    Validate your business capability map with the right stakeholders, including your executive team, business unit leaders, and/or other key stakeholders.

    Info-Tech Tip:

    Leverage your business capability map verification session with these key stakeholders as a prime opportunity to share and explain the role of data and data governance in supporting the very value realisation capabilities under discussion. This will help to build awareness and visibility of the data governance program.

    Example business capability map for: Retail

    Model example business capability map for retail

    For this business capability map, download Info-Tech's Industry Reference Architecture for Retail.

    1.1.2 Categorise Your Organisation's Key Capabilities

    Determine which capabilities are considered high priority in your organisation.

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

    This categorisation/prioritisation exercise helps highlight prime areas of opportunity for building use cases, determining prioritisation, and the overall optimisation of data and data governance.

    Input

    • Strategic insight from senior business stakeholders on the business capabilities that drive value for the organisation

    Output

    • Business capabilities categorised and prioritised (e.g. cost advantage creators, competitive advantage differentiators, high value/high risk)

    Materials

    • Your existing business capability map or the business capability map derived in the previous activity

    Participants

    • Key business stakeholders
    • Data stewards
    • Data custodians
    • Data Governance Working Group

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

    Example of business capabilities categorisation or heatmapping – Retail

    This exercise is useful in ensuring the data governance program is focused and aligned to support the priorities and direction of the business.

    • Depending on the mandate from the business, priority may be on developing cost advantage. Hence the capabilities that deliver efficiency gains are the ones considered to be cost advantage creators.
    • The business' priority may be on maintaining or gaining a competitive advantage over its industry counterparts. Differentiation might be achieved in delivering unique or enhanced products, services, and/or experiences, and the focus will tend to be on the capabilities that are more end-stakeholder-facing (e.g. customer-, student-, patient,- and/or constituent-facing). These are the organisation's competitive advantage creators.

    Example: Retail

    Example of business capabilities categorisation or heatmapping – Retail

    For this business capability map, download Info-Tech's Industry Reference Architecture for Retail.

    1.1.3 Develop a Strategy Map Tied to Data Governance

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

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

    Guide to creating your map: Starting with strategic objectives, map the value streams that will ultimately drive them. Next, link the key capabilities that enable each value stream. Then map the data and data governance to initiatives that support those capabilities. This is one approach to help you prioritise the data initiatives that deliver the most value to the organisation.

    Input

    • Strategic objectives as outlined by the organisation's business strategy and confirmed by senior leaders

    Output

    • A strategy map that maps your organisational strategic objectives to value streams, business capabilities, and, ultimately, to data program

    Materials

    Participants

    • Key business stakeholders
    • Data stewards
    • Data custodians
    • Data Governance Working Group

    Download Info-Tech's Data Governance Planning and Roadmapping Workbook

    Example of a strategy map tied to data governance

    • Strategic objectives are the outcomes that the organisation is looking to achieve.
    • Value streams enable an organisation to create and capture value in the market through interconnected activities that support strategic objectives.
    • Business capabilities define what a business does to enable value creation in value streams.
    • Data capabilities and initiatives are descriptions of action items on the data and data governance roadmap and which will enable one or multiple business capabilities in its desired target state.

    Info-Tech Tip:

    Start with the strategic objectives, then map the value streams that will ultimately drive them. Next, link the key capabilities that enable each value stream. Then map the data and data governance initiatives that support those capabilities. This process will help you prioritise the data initiatives that deliver the most value to the organisation.

    Example: Retail

    Example of a strategy map tied to data governance for retail

    For this strategy map, download Info-Tech's Industry Reference Architecture for Retail.

    Step 1.2

    Build High-Value Use Cases for Data Governance

    Activities

    1.2.1 Build High-Value Use Cases

    This step will guide you through the following activities:

    • Leveraging your categorised business capability map to conduct deep-dive sessions with key business stakeholders for creating high-value uses cases
    • Discussing current challenges, risks, and opportunities associated with the use of data across the lines of business
    • Exploring which other business capabilities, stakeholder groups, and business units will be impacted

    Outcomes of this step

    • Relevant use cases that articulate the data-related challenges, needs, or opportunities that are clear and contained and, if addressed ,will deliver value to the organisation

    Info-Tech Tip

    One of the most important aspects when building use cases is to ensure you include KPIs or measures of success. You have to be able to demonstrate how the use case ties back to the organisational priorities or delivers measurable business value. Leverage the KPIs and success factors of the business capabilities tied to each particular use case.

    1.2.1 Build High-Value Use Cases

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Input

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

    Output

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

    Materials

    • Your business capability map from activity 1.1.1
    • Info-Tech's Data Use Case Framework Template
    • Whiteboard or flip charts (or shared screen if working remotely)
    • Markers/pens

    Participants

    • Key business stakeholders
    • Data stewards and business SMEs
    • Data custodians
    • Data Governance Working Group

    Download Info-Tech's Data Use Case Framework Template

    Info-Tech's Framework for Building Use Cases

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

    Leveraging your business capability map, build use cases that align with the organisation's key business capabilities.

    Consider:

    • Is the business capability a cost advantage creator or an industry differentiator?
    • Is the business capability currently underserved by data?
    • Does this need to be addressed? If so, is this risk- or value-driven?

    Info-Tech's Data Requirements and Mapping Methodology for Creating Use Cases

    1. What business capability (or capabilities) is this use case tied to for your business area(s)?
    2. What are your data-related challenges in performing this today?
    3. What are the steps in this process/activity today?
    4. What are the applications/systems used at each step today?
    5. What data domains are involved, created, used, and/or transformed at each step today?
    6. What does an ideal or improved state look like?
    7. What other business units, business capabilities, activities, and/or processes will be impacted or improved if this issue was solved?
    8. Who are the stakeholders impacted by these changes? Who needs to be consulted?
    9. What are the risks to the organisation (business capability, revenue, reputation, customer loyalty, etc.) if this is not addressed?
    10. What compliance, regulatory, and/or policy concerns do we need to consider in any solution?
    11. What measures of success or change should we use to prove the value of the effort (such as KPIs, ROI)? What is the measurable business value of doing this?

    The resulting use cases are to be prioritised and leveraged for informing the business case and the data governance capabilities optimisation plan.

    Taken from Info-Tech's Data Use Case Framework Template

    Phase 2

    Understand Your Current Data Governance Capabilities

    Three circles are in the image that list the three phases and the main steps. Phase 2 is highlighted.

    This phase will guide you through the following activities:

    • Understand the Key Components of Data Governance
    • Gauge Your Organisation's Current Data Culture

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Data Leadership
    • Data Ownership & Stewardship
    • Policies & Procedures
    • Data Literacy & Culture
    • Operating Model
    • Data Management
    • Data Privacy & Security
    • Enterprise Projects & Services

    Step 2.1

    Understand the Key Components of Data Governance

    This step will guide you through the following activities:

    • Understanding the core components of an effective data governance program and determining your organisation's current capabilities in these areas:
      • Data Leadership
      • Data Ownership & Stewardship
      • Policies & Procedures
      • Data Literacy & Culture
      • Operating Model
      • Data Management
      • Data Privacy & Security
      • Enterprise Projects & Services

    Outcomes of this step

    • An understanding of the core components of an effective data governance program
    • An understanding your organisation's current data governance capabilities

    Leverage Info-Tech's: Data Governance Initiative Planning and Roadmap Tool to assess your current data governance capabilities and plot your target state accordingly.

    This tool will help your organisation plan the sequence of activities, capture start dates and expected completion dates, and create a roadmap that can be effectively communicated to the organisation.

    Review: Info-Tech's Data Governance Framework

    An image of Info-Tech's Data Governance Framework

    Key components of data governance

    A well-defined data governance program will deliver:

    • Defined accountability and responsibility for data.
    • Improved knowledge and common understanding of the organisation's data assets.
    • Elevated trust and confidence in traceable data.
    • Improved data ROI and reduced data debt.
    • An enabling framework for supporting the ethical use and handling of data.
    • A foundation for building and fostering a data-driven and data-literate organisational culture.

    The key components of establishing sustainable enterprise data governance, taken from Info-Tech's Data Governance Framework:

    • Data Leadership
    • Data Ownership & Stewardship
    • Operating Model
    • Policies & Procedures
    • Data Literacy & Culture
    • Data Management
    • Data Privacy & Security
    • Enterprise Projects & Services

    Data Leadership

    • Data governance needs a dedicated head or leader to steer the organisation's data governance program.
    • For organisations that do have a chief data officer (CDO), their office is the ideal and effective home for data governance.
    • Heads of data governance also have titles such as director of data governance, director of data quality, and director of analytics.
    • The head of your data governance program works with all stakeholders and partners to ensure there is continuous enterprise governance alignment and oversight and to drive the program's direction.
    • While key stakeholders from the business and IT will play vital data governance roles, the head of data governance steers the various components, stakeholders, and initiatives, and provides oversight of the overall program.
    • Vital data governance roles include: data owners, data stewards, data custodians, data governance steering committee (or your organisation's equivalent), and any data governance working group(s).

    The role of the CDO: the voice of data

    The office of the chief data officer (CDO):

    • Has a cross-organisational vision and strategy for data.
    • Owns and drives the data strategy; ensures it supports the overall organisational strategic direction and business goals.
    • Leads the organisational data initiatives, including data governance
    • Is accountable for the policy, strategy, data standards, and data literacy necessary for the organisation to operate effectively.
    • Educates users and leaders about what it means to be 'data-driven.'
    • Builds and fosters a culture of data excellence.

    'Compared to most of their C-suite colleagues, the CDO is faced with a unique set of problems. The role is still being defined. The chief data officer is bringing a new dimension and focus to the organisation: "data." '
    – Carruthers and Jackson, 2020

    Who does the CDO report to?

    Example reporting structure.
    • The CDO should be a true C- level executive.
    • Where the organisation places the CDO role in the structure sends an important signal to the business about how much it values data.

    'The title matters. In my opinion, you can't have a CDO without executive authority. Otherwise no one will listen.'

    – Anonymous European CDO

    'The reporting structure depends on who's the 'glue' that ties together all these uniquely skilled individuals.'

    – John Kemp, Senior Director, Executive Services, Info-Tech Research Group

    Data Ownership & Stewardship

    Who are best suited to be data owners?

    • Wherever they may sit in your organisation, data owners will typically have the highest stake in that data.
    • Data owners needs to be suitably senior and have the necessary decision-making power.
    • They have the highest interest in the related business data domain, whether they are the head of a business unit or the head of a line of business that produces data or consumes data (or both).
    • If they are neither of these, it's unlikely they will have the interest in the data (in terms of its quality, protection, ethical use, and handling, for instance) necessary to undertake and adopt the role effectively.

    Data owners are typically senior business leaders with the following characteristics:

    • Positioned to accept accountability for their data domain.
    • Hold authority and influence to affect change, including across business processes and systems, needed to improve data quality, use, handling, integration, etc.
    • Have access to a budget and resources for data initiatives such as resolving data quality issues, data cleansing initiatives, business data catalogue build, related tools and technology, policy management, etc.
    • Hold the influence needed to drive change in behaviour and culture.
    • Act as ambassadors of data and its value as an organisational strategic asset.

    Right-size your data governance organisational structure

    • Most organisations strive to identify roles and responsibilities at a strategic, and operational level. Several factors will influence the structure of the program such as the focus of the data governance project as well as the maturity and size of the organisation.
    • Your data governance structure has to work for your organisation, and it has to evolve as the organisation evolves.
    • Formulate your blend of data governance roles, committees, councils, and cross-functional groups, that make sense for your organisation.
    • Your data governance organisational structure should not add complexity or bureaucracy to your organisation's data landscape; it should support and enable your principle of treating data as an asset.

    There is no one-size-fits-all data governance organisational structure.

    Example of a Data Governance Organisational Structure

    Critical roles and responsibilities for data governance

    Data Governance Working Groups

    Data governance working groups:

    • Are cross-functional teams
    • Deliver on data governance projects, initiatives, and ad hoc review committees.

    Data Stewards

    Traditionally, data stewards:

    • Serve on an operational level addressing issues related to adherence to standards/procedures, monitoring data quality, raising issues identified, etc.
    • Are responsible for managing access, quality, escalating issues, etc.

    Data Custodians

    • Traditionally, data custodians:
    • Serve on an operational level addressing issues related to data and database administration.
    • Support the management of access, data quality, escalating issues, etc.
    • Are SMEs from IT and database administration.

    Example: Business capabilities to data owner and data stewards mapping for a selected data domain

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your organisation's value streams and the associated business capabilities require effectively governed data. Without this, you face elevated operational costs, missed opportunities, eroded stakeholder satisfaction, and exposure to increased business risk.

    Enabling business capabilities with data governance role definitions

    Example: Business capabilities to data owner and data stewards mapping for a selected data domain

    Operating Model

    Your operating model is the key to designing and operationalizing a form of data governance that delivers measurable business value to your organisation.

    'Generate excitement for data: When people are excited and committed to the vision of data enablement, they're more likely to help ensure that data is high quality and safe.' – Petzold, et al., 2020

    Operating Model

    Defining your data governance operating model will help create a well-oiled program that sustainably delivers value to the organisation and manages risks while building and fostering a culture of data excellence along the way. Some organisations are able to establish a formal data governance office, whether independent or attached to the office of the chief data officer. Regardless of how you are organised, data governance requires a home, a leader, and an operating model to ensure its sustainability and evolution.

    Examples of focus areas for your operating model:

    • Delivery: While there are core tenets to every data governance program, there is a level of variability in the implementation of data governance programs across organisations, sectors, and industries. Every organisation has its own particular drivers and mandates, so the level and rigour applied will also vary.
    • The key is to determine what style will work best in your organisation, taking into consideration your organisational culture, executive leadership support (present and ongoing), catalysts such as other enterprise-wide transformative and modernisation initiatives, and/or regulatory and compliances drivers.

    • Communication: Communication is vital across all levels and stakeholder groups. For instance, there needs to be communication from the data governance office up to senior leadership, as well as communication within the data governance organisation, which is typically made up of the data governance steering committee, data governance council, executive sponsor/champion, data stewards, and data custodians and working groups.
    • Furthermore, communication with the wider organisation of data producers, users, and consumers is one of the core elements of the overall data governance communications plan.

    Communication is vital for ensuring acceptance of new processes, rules, guidelines, and technologies by all data producers and users as well as for sharing success stories of the program.

    Operating Model

    Tie the value of data governance and its initiatives back to the business capabilities that are enabled.

    'Leading organisations invest in change management to build data supporters and convert the sceptics. This can be the most difficult part of the program, as it requires motivating employees to use data and encouraging producers to share it (and ideally improve its quality at the source)[.]' – Petzold, et al., 2020

    Operating Model

    Examples of focus areas for your operating model (continued):

    • Change management and issue resolution: Data governance initiatives will very likely bring about a level of organisational disruption, with governance recommendations and future state requiring potentially significant business change. This may include a redesign of a substantial number of data processes affecting various business units, which will require tweaking the organisation's culture, thought processes, and procedures surrounding its data.
    • Preparing people for change well in advance will allow them to take the steps necessary to adapt and reduce potential confrontation. By planning for and efficiently communicating any changes that a data governance initiative may bring, many initial issues can be resolved from the outset.

      Attempting to implement change without an effective communications plan can result in disagreements over data control and stalemates between stakeholder units. The recommendations of the governance group must reflect the needs of all stakeholders or there will be pushback.

    • Performance measuring, monitoring and reporting: Measuring and reporting on performance, successes, and realisation of tangible business value are a must for sustaining, growing, and scaling your data governance program.
    • Aligning your data governance to the organisation's value realisation activities enables you to leverage the KPIs of those business capabilities to demonstrate tangible and measurable value. Use terms and language that will resonate with your senior business leadership.

    Info-Tech Tip:

    Launching a data governance program will bring with it a level of disruption to the culture of the organisation. That disruption doesn't have to be detrimental if you are prepared to manage the change proactively and effectively.

    Policies, Procedures & Standards

    'Data standards are the rules by which data are described and recorded. In order to share, exchange, and understand data, we must standardise the format as well as the meaning.' – U.S. Geological Survey

    Policies, Procedures & Standards

    • When defining, updating, or refreshing your data policies, procedures, and standards, ensure they are relevant, serve a purpose, and/or support the use of data in the organisation.
    • Avoid the common pitfall of building out a host of policies, procedures, and standards that are never used or followed by users and therefore don't bring value or serve to mitigate risk for the organisation.
    • Data policies can be thought of as formal statements and are typically created, approved, and updated by the organisation's data decision-making body (such as a data governance steering committee).
    • Data standards and procedures function as actions, or rules, that support the policies and their statements.
    • Standards and procedures are designed to standardise the processes during the overall data lifecycle. Procedures are instructions to achieve the objectives of the policies. The procedures are iterative and will be updated with approval from your data governance committee as needed.
    • Your organisation's data policies, standards, and procedures should not bog down or inhibit users; rather, they should enable confident data use and handling across the overall data lifecycle. They should support more effective and seamless data capture, integration, aggregation, sharing, and retention of data in the organisation.

    Examples of data policies:

    • Data Classification Policy
    • Data Retention Policy
    • Data Entry Policy
    • Data Backup Policy
    • Data Provenance Policy
    • Data Management Policy

    See Info-Tech's Data Governance Policy Template: This policy establishes uniformed data governance standards and identifies the shared responsibilities for assuring the integrity of the data and that it efficiently and effectively serves the needs of your organisation.

    Data Domain Documentation

    Select the correct granularity for your business need

    Diagram of data domain documentation
    Sources: Dataversity; Atlan; Analytics8

    Data Domain Documentation Examples

    Data Domain Documentation Examples

    Data Culture

    'Organisational culture can accelerate the application of analytics, amplify its power, and steer companies away from risky outcomes.' – Petzold, et al., 2020

    A healthy data culture is key to amplifying the power of your data and to building and sustaining an effective data governance program.

    What does a healthy data culture look like?

    • Everybody knows the data.
    • Everybody trusts the data.
    • Everybody talks about the data.

    Building a culture of data excellence.

    Leverage Info-Tech's Data Culture Diagnostic to understand your organisation's culture around data.

    Screenshot of Data Culture Scorecard

    Contact your Info-Tech Account Representative for more information on the Data Culture Diagnostic

    Cultivating a data-driven culture is not easy

    'People are at the heart of every culture, and one of the biggest challenges to creating a data culture is bringing everyone into the fold.' – Lim, Alation

    It cannot be purchased or manufactured,

    It must be nurtured and developed,

    And it must evolve as the business, user, and data landscapes evolve.

    'Companies that have succeeded in their data-driven efforts understand that forging a data culture is a relentless pursuit, and magic bullets and bromides do not deliver results.' – Randy Bean, 2020

    Hallmarks of a data-driven culture

    There is a trusted, single source of data the whole company can draw from.

    There's a business glossary and data catalogue and users know what the data fields mean.

    Users have access to data and analytics tools. Employees can leverage data immediately to resolve a situation, perform an activity, or make a decision – including frontline workers.

    Data literacy, the ability to collect, manage, evaluate, and apply data in a critical manner, is high.

    Data is used for decision making. The company encourages decisions based on objective data and the intelligent application of it.

    A data-driven culture requires a number of elements:

    • High-quality data
    • Broad access and data literacy
    • Data-driven decision-making processes
    • Effective communication

    Data Literacy

    Data literacy is an essential part of a data-driven culture.

    • Building a data-driven culture takes an ongoing investment of time, effort, and money.
    • This investment will not realise its full return without building up the organisation's data literacy.
    • Data literacy is about filling data knowledge gaps across all levels of the organisation.
    • It's about ensuring all users – senior leadership right through to core users – are equipped with appropriate levels of training, skills, understanding, and awareness around the organisation's data and the use of associated tools and technologies. Data literacy ensures users have the data they need and they know how to interpret and leverage it.
    • Data literacy drives the appetite, demand, and consumption for data.
    • A data-literate culture is one where the users feel confident and skilled in their use of data, leveraging it for making informed or evidence-based decisions and generating insights for the organisation.

    Data Management

    • Data governance serves as an enabler to all of the core components that make up data management:
      • Data quality management
      • Data architecture management
      • Data platform
      • Data integration
      • Data operations management
      • Data risk management
      • Reference and master data management (MDM)
      • Document and content management
      • Metadata management
      • Business intelligence (BI), reporting, analytics and advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML)
    • Key tools such as the business data glossary and data catalogue are vital for operationalizing data governance and in supporting data management disciplines such as data quality management, metadata management, and MDM as well as BI, reporting, and analytics.

    Enterprise Projects & Services

    • Data governance serves as an enabler to enterprise projects and services that require, use, share, sell, and/or rely on data for their viability and, ultimately, their success.
    • Folding or embedding data governance into the organisation's project management function or project management office (PMO) serves to ensure that, for any initiative, suitable consideration is given to how data is treated.
    • This may include defining parameters, following standards and procedures around bringing in new sources of data, integrating that data into the organisation's data ecosystem, using and sharing that data, and retaining that data post-project completion.
    • The data governance function helps to identify and manage any ethical issues, whether at the start of the project and/or throughout.
    • It provides a foundation for asking relevant questions as it relates to the use or incorporation of data in delivering the specific project or service. Do we know where the data obtained from? Do we have rights to use that data? Are there legislations, policies, or regulations that guide or dictate how that data can be used? What are the positive effects, negative impacts, and/or risks associated with our intended use of that data? Are we positioned to mitigate those risks?
    • Mature data governance creates organisations where the above considerations around data management and the ethical use and handling of data is routinely implemented across the business and in the rollout and delivery of projects and services.

    Data Privacy & Security

    • Data governance supports the organisation's data privacy and security functions.
    • Key tools include the data classification policy and standards and defined roles around data ownership and data stewardship. These are vital for operationalizing data governance and supporting data privacy, security, and the ethical use and handling of data.
    • While some organisations may have a dedicated data security and privacy group, data governance provides an added level of oversight in this regard.
    • Some of the typical checks and balances include ensuring:
      • There are policies and procedures in place to restrict and monitor staff's access to data (one common way this is done is according to job descriptions and responsibilities) and that these comply with relevant laws and regulations.
      • There's a data classification scheme in place where data has been classified on a hierarchy of sensitivity (e.g. top secret, confidential, internal, limited, public).
      • The organisation has a comprehensive data security framework, including administrative, physical, and technical procedures for addressing data security issues (e.g. password management and regular training).
      • Risk assessments are conducted, including an evaluation of risks and vulnerabilities related to intentional and unintentional misuse of data.
      • Policies and procedures are in place to mitigate the risks associated with incidents such as data breaches.
      • The organisation regularly audits and monitors its data security.

    Ethical Use & Handling of Data

    Data governance will support your organisation's ethical use and handling of data by facilitating definition around important factors, such as:

    • What are the various data assets in the organisation and what purpose(s) can they be used for? Are there any limitations?
    • Who is the related data owner? Who holds accountability for that data? Who will be answerable?
    • Where was the data obtained from? What is the intended use of that data? Do you have rights to use that data? Are there legislations, policies, or regulations that guide or dictate how that data can be used?
    • What are the positive effects, negative impacts, and/or risks associated with the use of that data?

    Ethical Use & Handling of Data

    • Data governance serves as an enabler to the ethical use and handling of an organisation's data.
    • The Open Data Institute (ODI) defines data ethics as: 'A branch of ethics that evaluates data practices with the potential to adversely impact on people and society – in data collection, sharing and use.'
    • Data ethics relates to good practice around how data is collected, used and shared. It's especially relevant when data activities have the potential to impact people and society, whether directly or indirectly (Open Data Institute, 2019).
    • A failure to handle and use data ethically can negatively impact an organisation's direct stakeholders and/or the public at large, lead to a loss of trust and confidence in the organisation's products and services, lead to financial loss, and impact the organisation's brand, reputation, and legal standing.
    • Data governance plays a vital role is building and managing your data assets, knowing what data you have, and knowing the limitations of that data. Data ownership, data stewardship, and your data governance decision-making body are key tenets and foundational components of your data governance. They enable an organisation to define, categorise, and confidently make decisions about its data.

    Step 2.2

    Gauge Your Organisation's Current Data Culture

    Activities

    2.2.1 Gauge Your Organisation's Current Data Culture

    This step will guide you through the following activities:

    • Conduct a data culture survey or leverage Info-Tech's Data Culture Diagnostic to increase your understanding of your organisation's data culture

    Outcomes of this step

    • An understanding of your organisational data culture

    2.2.1 Gauge Your Organisation's Current Data Culture

    Conduct a Data Culture Survey or Diagnostic

    The objectives of conducting a data culture survey are to increase the understanding of the organisation's data culture, your users' appetite for data, and their appreciation for data in terms of governance, quality, accessibility, ownership, and stewardship. To perform a data culture survey:

    1. Identify members of the data user base, data consumers, and other key stakeholders for surveying.
    2. Conduct an information session to introduce Info-Tech's Data Culture Diagnostic survey. Explain the objective and importance of the survey and its role in helping to understand the organisation's current data culture and inform the improvement of that culture.
    3. Roll out the Info-Tech Data Culture Diagnostic survey to the identified users and stakeholders.
    4. Debrief and document the results and scorecard in the Data Strategy Stakeholder Interview Guide and Findings document.

    Input

    • Email addresses of participants in your organisation who should receive the survey

    Output

    • Your organisation's Data Culture Scorecard for understanding current data culture as it relates to the use and consumption of data
    • An understanding of whether data is currently perceived to be an asset to the organisation

    Materials

    Screenshot of Data Culture Scorecard

    Participants

    • Participants include those at the senior leadership level through to middle management, as well as other business stakeholders at varying levels across the organisation
    • Data owners, stewards, and custodians
    • Core data users and consumers

    Contact your Info-Tech Account Representative for details on launching a Data Culture Diagnostic.

    Phase 3

    Build a Target State Roadmap and Plan

    Three circles are in the image that list the three phases and the main steps. Phase 3 is highlighted.

    'Achieving data success is a journey, not a sprint. Companies that set a clear course, with reasonable expectations and phased results over a period of time, get to the destination faster.' – Randy Bean, 2020

    This phase will guide you through the following activities:

    • Build your Data Governance Roadmap
    • Develop a target state plan comprising of prioritised initiatives

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Data Governance Leadership
    • Data Owners/Data Stewards
    • Data Custodians
    • Data Governance Working Group(s)

    Step 3.1

    Formulate an Actionable Roadmap and Right-Sized Plan

    This step will guide you through the following activities:

    • Build your data governance roadmap
    • Develop a target state plan comprising of prioritised initiatives

    Download Info-Tech's Data Governance Planning and Roadmapping Workbook

    See Info-Tech's Data Governance Program Charter Template: A program charter template to sell the importance of data governance to senior executives.

    This template will help get the backing required to get a data governance project rolling. The program charter will help communicate the project purpose, define the scope, and identify the project team, roles, and responsibilities.

    Outcomes of this step

    • A foundation for data governance initiative planning that's aligned with the organisation's business architecture: value streams, business capability map, and strategy map

    Build a right-sized roadmap

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

    Key considerations:

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

    Sample milestones:

    Data Governance Leadership & Org Structure Definition

    Define the home for data governance and other key roles around ownership and stewardship, as approved by senior leadership.

    Data Governance Charter and Policies

    Create a charter for your program and build/refresh associated policies.

    Data Culture Diagnostic

    Understand the organisation's current data culture, perception of data, value of data, and knowledge gaps.

    Use Case Build and Prioritisation

    Build a use case that is tied to business capabilities. Prioritise accordingly.

    Business Data Glossary/catalogue

    Build and/or refresh the business' glossary for addressing data definitions and standardisation issues.

    Tools & Technology

    Explore the tools and technology offering in the data governance space that would serve as an enabler to the program. (e.g. RFI, RFP).

    Recall: Info-Tech's Data Governance Framework

    An image of Info-Tech's Data Governance Framework

    Build an actionable roadmap

    Data Governance Leadership & Org Structure Division

    Define key roles for getting started.

    Use Case Build & Prioritisation

    Start small and then scale – deliver early wins.

    Literacy Program

    Start understanding data knowledge gaps, building the program, and delivering.

    Tools & Technology

    Make the available data governance tools and technology work for you.

    Key components of your data governance roadmap

    Data Governance Program Charter Template – A program charter template to sell the importance of data governance to senior executives.

    This template will help get the backing required to get a data governance project rolling. The program charter will help communicate the project purpose, define the scope, and identify the project team, roles, and responsibilities.

    By now, you have assessed current data governance environment and capabilities. Use this assessment, coupled with the driving needs of your business, to plot your data Governance roadmap accordingly.

    Sample data governance roadmap milestones:

    • Define data governance leadership.
    • Define and formalise data ownership and stewardship (as well as the role IT/data management will play as data custodians).
    • Build/confirm your business capability map and data domains.
    • Build business data use cases specific to business capabilities.
    • Define business measures/KPIs for the data governance program (i.e. metrics by use case that are relevant to business capabilities).
    • Data management:
      • Build your data glossary or catalogue starting with identified and prioritised terms.
      • Define data domains.
    • Design and define the data governance operating model (oversight model definition, communication plan, internal marketing such as townhalls, formulate change management plan, RFP of data governance tool and technology options for supporting data governance and its administration).
    • Data policies and procedures:
      • Formulate, update, refresh, consolidate, rationalise, and/or retire data policies and procedures.
      • Define policy management and administration framework (i.e. roll-out, maintenance, updates, adherence, system to be used).
    • Conduct Info-Tech's Data Culture Diagnostic or survey (across all levels of the organisation).
    • Define and formalise the data literacy program (build modules, incorporate into LMS, plan lunch and learn sessions).
    • Data privacy and security: build data classification policy, define classification standards.
    • Enterprise projects and services: embed data governance in the organisation's PMO, conduct 'Data Governance 101' for the PMO.

    Defining data governance roles and organisational structure at Organisation

    The approach employed for defining the data governance roles and supporting organisational structure for .

    Key Considerations:

    • The data owner and data steward roles are formally defined and documented within the organisation. Their involvement is clear, well-defined, and repeatable.
    • There are data owners and data stewards for each data domain within the organisation. The data steward role is given to someone with a high degree of subject matter expertise.
    • Data owners and data stewards are effective in their roles by ensuring that their data domain is clean and free of errors and that they protect the organisation against data loss.
    • Data owners and data stewards have the authority to make final decisions on data definitions, formats, and standard processes that apply to their respective data sets. Data owners and data stewards have authority regarding who has access to certain data.
    • Data owners and data stewards are not from the IT side of the organisation. They understand the lifecycle of the data (how it is created, curated, retrieved, used, archived, and destroyed) and they are well-versed in any compliance requirements as it relates to their data.
    • The data custodian role is formally defined and is given to the relevant IT expert. This is an individual with technical administrative and/or operational responsibility over data (e.g. a DBA).
    • A data governance steering committee exists and is comprised of well-defined roles, responsibilities, executive sponsors, business representatives, and IT experts.
    • The data governance steering committee works to provide oversight and enforce policies, procedures, and standards for governing data.
    • The data governance working group has cross-functional representation. This comprises business and IT representation, as well as project management and change management where applicable: data stewards, data custodians, business subject matter experts, PM, etc.).
    • Data governance meetings are coordinated and communicated about. The meeting agenda is always clear and concise, and meetings review pressing data-related issues. Meeting minutes are consistently documented and communicated.

    Sample: Business capabilities to data owner and data stewards mapping for a selected data domain

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your organisation's value streams and the associated business capabilities require effectively governed data. Without this, you face elevated operational costs, missed opportunities, eroded stakeholder satisfaction, and exposure to increased business risk.

    Enable business capabilities with data governance role definitions.

    Sample: Business capabilities to data owner and data stewards mapping for a selected data domain

    Consider your technology options:

    Make the available data governance tools and technology work for you:

    • Data catalogue
    • Business data glossary
    • Data lineage
    • Metadata management

    Logos of data governance tools and technology.

    These are some of the data governance tools and technology players. Check out SoftwareReviews for help making better software decisions.

    Make the data steward the catalyst for organisational change and driving data culture

    The data steward must be empowered and backed politically with decision-making authority, or the role becomes stale and powerless.

    Ensuring compliance can be difficult. Data stewards may experience pushback from stakeholders who must deliver on the policies, procedures, and processes that the data steward enforces.

    Because the data steward must enforce data processes and liaise with so many different people and departments within the organisation, the data steward role should be their primary full-time job function – where possible.

    However, in circumstances where budget doesn't allow a full-time data steward role, develop these skills within the organisation by adding data steward responsibilities to individuals who are already managing data sets for their department or line of business.

    Info-Tech Tip

    A stewardship role is generally more about managing the cultural change that data governance brings. This requires the steward to have exceptional interpersonal skills that will assist in building relationships across departmental boundaries and ensuring that all stakeholders within the organisation believe in the initiative, understand the anticipated outcomes, and take some level of responsibility for its success.

    Changes to organisational data processes are inevitable; have a communication plan in place to manage change

    Create awareness of your data governance program. Use knowledge transfer to get as many people on board as possible.

    Data governance initiatives must contain a strong organisational disruption component. A clear and concise communication strategy that conveys milestones and success stories will address the various concerns that business unit stakeholders may have.

    By planning for and efficiently communicating any changes that a data governance initiative may bring, many initial issues can be resolved from the outset.

    Governance recommendations will require significant business change. The redesign of a substantial number of data processes affecting various business units will require an overhaul of the organisation's culture, thought processes, and procedures surrounding its data. Preparing people for change well in advance will allow them to take the necessary steps to adapt and reduce potential confrontation.

    Because a data governance initiative will involve data-driven business units across the organisation, the governance team must present a compelling case for data governance to ensure acceptance of new processes, rules, guidelines, and technologies by all data producers and users.

    Attempting to implement change without an effective communication plan can result in disagreements over data control and stalemates between stakeholder units. The recommendations of the governance group must reflect the needs of all stakeholders or there will be pushback.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Launching a data governance initiative is guaranteed to disrupt the culture of the organisation. That disruption doesn't have to be detrimental if you are prepared to manage the change proactively and effectively.

    Create a common data governance vision that is consistently communicated to the organisation

    A data governance program should be an enterprise-wide initiative.

    To create a strong vision for data governance, there must be participation from the business and IT. A common vision will articulate the state the organisation wishes to achieve and how it will reach that state. Visioning helps to develop long-term goals and direction.

    Once the vision is established, it must be effectively communicated to everyone, especially those who are involved in creating, managing, disposing, or archiving data.

    The data governance program should be periodically refined. This will ensure the organisation continues to incorporate best methods and practices as the organisation grows and data needs evolve.

    Info-Tech Tips

    • Use information from the stakeholder interviews to derive business goals and objectives.
    • Work to integrate different opinions and perspectives into the overall vision for data governance.
    • Brainstorm guiding principles for data and understand the overall value to the organisation.

    Develop a compelling data governance communications plan to get all departmental lines of business on board

    A data governance program will impact all data-driven business units within the organisation.

    A successful data governance communications plan involves making the initiative visible and promoting staff awareness. Educate the team on how data is collected, distributed, and used, what internal processes use data, and how that data is used across departmental boundaries.

    By demonstrating how data governance will affect staff directly, you create a deeper level of understanding across lines of business, and ultimately, a higher level of acceptance for new processes, rules, and guidelines.

    A clear and concise communications strategy will raise the profile of data governance within the organisation, and staff will understand how the program will benefit them and how they can share in the success of the initiative. This will end up providing support for the initiative across the board.

    A proactive communications plan will:

    • Assist in overcoming issues with data control, stalemates between stakeholder units, and staff resistance.
    • Provide a formalised process for implementing new policies, rules, guidelines, and technologies, and managing organisational data.
    • Detail data ownership and accountability for decision making, and identify and resolve data issues throughout the organisation.
    • Encourage acceptance and support of the initiative.

    Info-Tech Tip

    Focus on literacy and communication: include training in the communication plan. Providing training for data users on the correct procedures for updating and verifying the accuracy of data, data quality, and standardised data policies will help validate how data governance will benefit them and the organisation.

    Leverage the data governance program to communicate and promote the value of data within the organisation

    The data governance program is responsible for continuously promoting the value of data to the organisation. The data governance program should seek a variety of ways to educate the organisation and data stakeholders on the benefit of data management.

    Even if data policies and procedures are created, they will be highly ineffective if they are not properly communicated to the data producers and users alike.

    There needs to be a communication plan that highlights how the data producer and user will be affected, what their new responsibilities are, and the value of that change.

    To learn how to manage organisational change, refer to Info-Tech's Master Organisational Change Management Practices.

    Understand what makes for an effective policy for data governance

    It can be difficult to understand what a policy is, and what it is not. Start by identifying the differences between a policy and standards, guidelines, and procedures.

    Diagram of an effective policy for data governance

    The following are key elements of a good policy:

    Heading Descriptions
    Purpose Describes the factors or circumstances that mandate the existence of the policy. Also states the policy's basic objectives and what the policy is meant to achieve.
    Scope Defines to whom and to what systems this policy applies. Lists the employees required to comply or simply indicates 'all' if all must comply. Also indicates any exclusions or exceptions, i.e. those people, elements, or situations that are not covered by this policy or where special consideration may be made.
    Definitions Define any key terms, acronyms, or concepts that will be used in the policy. A standard glossary approach is sufficient.
    Policy Statements Describe the rules that comprise the policy. This typically takes the form of a series of short prescriptive and proscriptive statements. Sub-dividing this section into sub-sections may be required depending on the length or complexity of the policy.
    Non-Compliance Clearly describe consequences (legal and/or disciplinary) for employee non-compliance with the policy. It may be pertinent to describe the escalation process for repeated non-compliance.
    Agreement Confirms understanding of the policy and provides a designated space to attest to the document.

    Leverage myPolicies, Info-Tech's web-based application for managing your policies and procedures

    Most organisations have problems with policy management. These include:

    1. Policies are absent or out of date
    2. Employees largely unaware of policies in effect
    3. Policies are unmonitored and unenforced
    4. Policies are in multiple locations
    5. Multiple versions of the same policy exist
    6. Policies managed inconsistently across different silos
    7. Policies are written poorly by untrained authors
    8. Inadequate policy training program
    9. Draft policies stall and lose momentum
    10. Weak policy support from senior management

    Technology should be used as a means to solve these problems and effectively monitor, enforce, and communicate policies.

    Product Overview

    myPolicies is a web-based solution to create, distribute, and manage corporate policies, procedures, and forms. Our solution provides policy managers with the tools they need to mitigate the risk of sanctions and reduce the administrative burden of policy management. It also enables employees to find the documents relevant to them and build a culture of compliance.

    Some key success factors for policy management include:

    • Store policies in a central location that is well known and easy to find and access. A key way that technology can help communicate policies is by having them published on a centralised website.
    • Link this repository to other policies' taxonomies of your organisation. E.g. HR policies to provide a single interface for employees to access guidance across the organisation.
    • Reassess policies annually at a minimum. myPolicies can remind you to update the organisation's policies at the appropriate time.
    • Make the repository searchable and easily navigable.
    • myPolicies helps you do all this and more.
    myPolicies logo myPolicies

    Enforce data policies to promote consistency of business processes

    Data policies are short statements that seek to manage the creation, acquisition, integrity, security, compliance, and quality of data. These policies vary amongst organisations, depending on your specific data needs.

    • Policies describe what to do, while standards and procedures describe how to do something.
    • There should be few data policies, and they should be brief and direct. Policies are living documents and should be continuously updated to respond to the organisation's data needs.
    • The data policies should highlight who is responsible for the data under various scenarios and rules around how to manage it effectively.

    Examples of Data Policies

    Trust

    • Data Cleansing and Quality Policy
    • Data Entry Policy

    Availability

    • Acceptable Use Policy
    • Data Backup Policy

    Security

    • Data Security Policy
    • Password Policy Template
    • User Authorisation, Identification, and Authentication Policy Template
    • Data Protection Policy

    Compliance

    • Archiving Policy
    • Data Classification Policy
    • Data Retention Policy

    Leverage data management-related policies to standardise your data management practices

    Info-Tech's Data Management Policy:

    This policy establishes uniform data management standards and identifies the shared responsibilities for assuring the integrity of the data and that it efficiently and effectively serves the needs of the organisation. This policy applies to all critical data and to all staff who may be creators and/or users of such data.

    Info-Tech's Data Entry Policy:

    The integrity and quality of data and evidence used to inform decision making is central to both the short-term and long-term health of an organisation. It is essential that required data be sourced appropriately and entered into databases and applications in an accurate and complete manner to ensure the reliability and validity of the data and decisions made based on the data.

    Info-Tech's Data Provenance Policy:

    Create policies to keep your data's value, such as:

    • Only allow entry of data from reliable sources.
    • Employees entering and accessing data must observe requirements for capturing/maintaining provenance metadata.
    • Provenance metadata will be used to track the lifecycle of data from creation through to disposal.

    Info-Tech's Data Integration and Virtualisation Policy:

    This policy aims to assure the organisation, staff, and other interested parties that data integration, replication, and virtualisation risks are taken seriously. Staff must use the policy (and supporting guidelines) when deciding whether to integrate, replicate, or virtualise data sets.

    Select the right mix of metrics to successfully supervise data policies and processes

    Policies are only as good as your level of compliance. Ensure supervision controls exist to oversee adherence to policies and procedures.

    Although they can be highly subjective, metrics are extremely important to data governance success.

    • Establishing metrics that measure the performance of a specific process or data set will:
      • Create a greater degree of ownership from data stewards and data owners.
      • Help identify underperforming individuals.
      • Allow the steering committee to easily communicate tailored objectives to individual data stewards and owners.
    • Be cautious when establishing metrics. The wrong metrics can have negative repercussions.
      • They will likely draw attention to an aspect of the process that doesn't align with the initial strategy.
      • Employees will work hard and grow frustrated as their successes aren't accurately captured.

    Policies are great to have from a legal perspective, but unless they are followed, they will not benefit the organisation.

    • One of the most useful metrics for policies is currency. This tracks how up to date the policy is and how often employees are informed about the policy. Often, a policy will be introduced and then ignored. Policies must be continuously reviewed by management and employees.
    • Some other metrics include adherence (including performance in tests for adherence) and impacts from non-adherence.

    Review metrics on an ongoing basis with those data owners/stewards who are accountable, the data governance steering committee, and the executive sponsors.

    Establish data standards and procedures for use across all organisational lines of business

    A data governance program will impact all data-driven business units within the organisation.

    • Data management procedures are the methods, techniques, and steps to accomplish a specific data objective. Creating standard data definitions should be one of the first tasks for a data governance steering committee.
    • Data moves across all departmental boundaries and lines of business within the organisation. These definitions must be developed as a common set of standards that can be accepted and used enterprise wide.
    • Consistent data standards and definitions will improve data flow across departmental boundaries and between lines of business.
    • Ensure these standards and definitions are used uniformly throughout the organisation to maintain reliable and useful data.

    Data standards and procedural guidelines will vary from company to company.

    Examples include:

    • Data modelling and architecture standards.
    • Metadata integration and usage procedures.
    • Data security standards and procedures.
    • Business intelligence standards and procedures.

    Info-Tech Tip

    Have a fundamental data definition model for the entire business to adhere to. Those in the positions that generate and produce data must follow the common set of standards developed by the steering committee and be accountable for the creation of valid, clean data.

    Changes to organisational data processes are inevitable; have a communications plan in place to manage change

    Create awareness of your data governance program, using knowledge transfer to get as many people on board as possible.

    By planning for and efficiently communicating any changes that a data governance initiative may bring, many initial issues can be resolved from the outset.

    Governance recommendations will require significant business change. The redesign of a substantial number of data processes affecting various business units will require an overhaul of the organisation's culture, thought processes, and procedures surrounding its data. Preparing people for change well in advance will allow them to take the necessary steps to adapt and reduce potential confrontation.

    Because a data governance initiative will involve data-driven business units across the organisation, the governance team must present a compelling case for data governance to ensure acceptance of new processes, rules, guidelines, and technologies by all data producers and users.

    Attempting to implement change without an effective communications plan can result in disagreements over data control and stalemates between stakeholder units. The recommendations of the governance group must reflect the needs of all stakeholders or there will be pushback.

    Data governance initiatives will very likely bring about a level of organisational disruption. A clear and concise communications strategy that conveys milestones and success stories will address the various concerns that business unit stakeholders may have.

    Info-Tech Tip

    Launching a data governance program will bring with it a level of disruption to the culture of the organisation. That disruption doesn't have to be detrimental if you are prepared to manage the change proactively and effectively.

    Other Deliverables:

    The list of supporting deliverables will help to kick start on some of the Data Governance initiatives

    • Data Classification Policy, Standard, and Procedure
    • Data Quality Policy, Standard, and Procedure
    • Metadata Management Policy, Standard, and Procedure
    • Data Retention Policy and Procurement

    Screenshot from Data Classification Policy, Standard, and Procedure

    Data Classification Policy, Standard, and Procedure

    Screenshot from Data Retention Policy and Procedure

    Data Retention Policy and Procedure

    Screenshot from Metadata Management Policy, Standard, and Procedure

    Metadata Management Policy, Standard, and Procedure

    Screenshot from Data Quality Policy, Standard, and Procedure

    Data Quality Policy, Standard, and Procedure

    Additional Support

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

    Picture of analyst

    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:

    Screenshot of example data governance strategy map.

    Build Your Business and User Context

    Work with your core team of stakeholders to build out your data governance strategy map, aligning data governance initiatives with business capabilities, value streams, and, ultimately, your strategic priorities.

    Screenshot of Data governance roadmap

    Formulate a Plan to Get to Your Target State

    Develop a data governance future state roadmap and plan based on an understanding of your current data governance capabilities, your operating environment, and the driving needs of your business.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy

    Key to building and fostering a data-driven culture.

    Create a Data Management Roadmap

    Streamline your data management program with our simplified framework.

    The First 100 Days as CDO

    Be the voice of data in a time of transformation.

    Research Contributors

    Name Position Company
    David N. Weber Executive Director - Planning, Research and Effectiveness Palm Beach State College
    Izabela Edmunds Information Architect Mott MacDonald
    Andy Neill Practice Lead, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group
    Dirk Coetsee Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group
    Graham Price Executive Advisor, Advisory Executive Services Info-Tech Research Group
    Igor Ikonnikov Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group
    Jean Bujold Senior Workshop Delivery Director Info-Tech Research Group
    Rajesh Parab Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group
    Reddy Doddipalli Senior Workshop Director Info-Tech Research Group
    Valence Howden Principal Research Director, CIO Info-Tech Research Group

    Bibliography

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    Allott, Joseph, et al. “Data: The Next Wave in Forestry Productivity.” McKinsey & Company, 27 Oct. 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Bean, Randy. “Why Culture Is the Greatest Barrier to Data Success.” MIT Sloan Management Review, 30 Sept. 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Brence, Thomas. “Overcoming the Operationalization Challenge With Data Governance at New York Life.” Informatica, 18 March 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Bullmore, Simon, and Stuart Coleman. “ODI Inside Business – A Checklist for Leaders.” Open Data Institute, 19 Oct. 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Canadian Institute for Health Information. “Developing and Implementing Accurate National Standards for Canadian Health Care Information.” Canadian Institute for Health Information. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Carruthers, Caroline, and Peter Jackson. “The Secret Ingredients of the Successful CDO.” IRM UK Connects, 23 Feb. 2017.

    Dashboards. “Useful KPIs for Healthy Hospital Quality Management.” Dashboards. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Dashboards. “Why (and How) You Should Improve Data Literacy in Your Organization Today.” Dashboards. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Datapine. “Healthcare Key Performance Indicators and Metrics.” Datapine. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Datapine. “KPI Examples & Templates: Measure what matters the most and really impacts your success.” Datapine. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Diaz, Alejandro, et al. “Why Data Culture Matters.” McKinsey Quarterly, Sept. 2018. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Everett, Dan. “Chief Data Officer (CDO): One Job, Four Roles.” Informatica, 9 Sept. 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Experian. “10 Signs You Are Sitting On A Pile Of Data Debt.” Experian. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Fregoni, Silvia. “New Research Reveals Why Some Business Leaders Still Ignore the Data.” Silicon Angle, 1 Oct. 2020

    Informatica. Holistic Data Governance: A Framework for Competitive Advantage. Informatica, 2017. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Knight, Michelle. “What Is a Data Catalog?” Dataversity, 28 Dec. 2017. Web.

    Lim, Jason. “Alation 2020.3: Getting Business Users in the Game.” Alation, 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    McDonagh, Mariann. “Automating Data Governance.” Erwin, 29 Oct. 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    NewVantage Partners. Data-Driven Business Transformation: Connecting Data/AI Investment to Business Outcomes. NewVantage Partners, 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Olavsrud, Thor. “What Is Data Governance? A Best Practices Framework For Managing Data Assets.” CIO.com, 18 March 2021. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Open Data Institute. “Introduction to Data Ethics and the Data Ethics Canvas.” Open Data Institute, 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Open Data Institute. “The UK National Data Strategy 2020: Doing Data Ethically.” Open Data Institute, 17 Nov. 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Open Data Institute. “What Is the Data Ethics Canvas?” Open Data Institute, 3 July 2019. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Pathak, Rahul. “Becoming a Data-Driven Enterprise: Meeting the Challenges, Changing the Culture.” MIT Sloan Management Review, 28 Sept. 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Petzold, Bryan, et al. “Designing Data Governance That Delivers Value.” McKinsey & Company, 26 June 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Redman, Thomas, et al. “Only 3% of Companies’ Data Meets Basic Quality Standards.” Harvard Business Review. 11 Sept 2017.

    Smaje, Kate. “How Six Companies Are Using Technology and Data To Transform Themselves.” McKinsey & Company, 12 Aug. 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Talend. “The Definitive Guide to Data Governance.” Talend. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    “The Powerfully Simple Modern Data Catalog.” Atlan, 2021. Web.

    U.S. Geological Survey. “Data Management: Data Standards.” U.S. Geological Survey. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Waller, David. “10 Steps to Creating a Data-Driven Culture.” Harvard Business Review, 6 Feb. 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    “What Is the Difference Between A Business Glossary, A Data Dictionary, and A Data Catalog, and How Do They Play A Role In Modern Data Management?” Analytics8, 23 June 2021. Web.

    Wikipedia. “RFM (Market Research).” Wikipedia. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Windheuser, Christoph, and Nina Wainwright. “Data in a Modern Digital Business.” Thoughtworks, 12 May 2020. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    Wright, Tom. “Digital Marketing KPIs - The 12 Key Metrics You Should Be Tracking.” Cascade, 3 March 2021. Accessed 25 June 2021.

    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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    Slide 56 –Tucker, Davis. Marketing Reporting: Tips to Create Compelling Reports, March 28, 2020, 60 Second Marketer. Accessed March 29, 2022.

    Position and Agree on ROI to Maximize the Impact of Data and Analytics

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    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
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    • Because ROI is a financial concept, it can be difficult to apply ROI to anything that produces intangible value.
    • It is a lot harder to apply ROI to functions like data and analytics than it is to apply it to functions like sales without misrepresenting its true purpose.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The standard ROI formula cannot be easily applied to data and analytics and other critical functions across the organization.
    • Data and analytics ROI strategy is based on the business problem being solved.
    • The ROI score itself doesn’t have to be perfect. Key decision makers need to agree on the parameters and measures of success.

    Impact and Result

    • Agreed-upon ROI parameters
    • Defined measures of success
    • Optimized ROI program effectiveness by establishing an appropriate cadence between key stakeholders

    Position and Agree on ROI to Maximize the Impact of Data and Analytics Research & Tools

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

    1. Data and Analytics ROI Strategy Deck – A guide for positioning ROI to maximize the value of data and analytics.

    This research is meant to ensure that data and analytics executives are aligned with the key business decision makers. Focus on the value you are trying to achieve rather than perfecting the ROI score.

    • Position and Agree on ROI to Maximize the Impact of Data and Analytics Storyboard

    2. Data and Analytics Service to Business ROI Map – An aligned ROI approach between key decision makers and data and analytics.

    A tool to be used by business and data and analytics decision makers to facilitate discussions about how to approach ROI for data and analytics.

    • Data and Analytics Service to Business ROI Map
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Position and Agree on ROI to Maximize the Impact of Data and Analytics

    Data and analytics ROI strategy is based on the business problem being solved and agreed-upon value being generated.

    Analyst Perspective

    Missing out on a significant opportunity for returns could be the biggest cost to the project and its sponsor.

    This research is directed to the key decision makers tasked with addressing business problems. It also informs stakeholders that have any interest in ROI, especially when applying it to a data and analytics platform and practice.

    While organizations typically use ROI to measure the performance of their investments, the key to determining what investment makes sense is opportunity cost. Missing out on a significant opportunity for return could be the biggest cost to the project and its sponsor. By making sure you appropriately estimate costs and value returned for all data and analytics activities, you can prioritize the ones that bring in the greatest returns.

    Ibrahim Abdel-Kader
    Research Analyst,
    Data & Analytics Practice
    Info-Tech Research Group
    Ben Abrishami-Shirazi
    Technical Counselor
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary – ROI on Data and Analytics

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Return on investment (ROI) is a financial term, making it difficult to articulate value when trying to incorporate anything that produces something intangible.

    The more financial aspects there are to a professional function (e.g. sales and commodity-related functions), the easier it is to properly assess the ROI.

    However, for functions that primarily enable or support business functions (such as IT and data and analytics), it is a lot harder to apply ROI without misrepresenting its true purpose.

    • Apples and oranges – There is no simple way to apply the standard ROI formula to data and analytics among other critical functions across the organization.
    • Boiling the ocean – Obsession with finding a way to calculate a perfect ROI on data and analytics.
    • Not getting the big picture – Data and analytics teams suffer a skill set deficit when it comes to commercial acumen.
    • Not seeing eye to eye – ROI does not account for time in its calculation, making it prone to misalignment between stakeholders.

    Approach ROI for data and analytics appropriately:

    • Answer the following questions:
      • What is the business problem?
      • Whose business problem is it?
      • What is the objective?
    • Define measures of success based on the answers to the questions above.
    • Determine an appropriate cadence to continuously optimize the ROI program for data and analytics in collaboration with business problem owners.

    Info-Tech Insight

    ROI doesn’t have to be perfect. Parameters and measures of success need to be agreed upon with the key decision makers.

    Glossary

    Return on Investment (ROI): A financial term used to determine how much value has been or will be gained or lost based on the total cost of investment. It is typically expressed as a percentage and is supported by the following formula:

    Payback: How quickly money is paid back (or returned) on the initial investment.
    Business Problem Owner (BPO): A leader in the organization who is accountable and is the key decision maker tasked with addressing a business problem through a series of investments. BPOs may use ROI as a reference for how their financial investments have performed and to influence future investment decisions.
    Problem Solver: A key stakeholder tasked with collaborating with the BPO in addressing the business problem at hand. One of the problem solver’s responsibilities is to ensure that there is an improved return on the BPO’s investments.
    Return Enhancers: A category for capabilities that directly or indirectly enhance the return of an investment.
    Cost Savers: A category for capabilities that directly or indirectly save costs in relation of an investment.
    Investment Opportunity Enablers: A category for capabilities that create or enable a new investment opportunity that may yield a potential return.
    Game Changing Components: The components of a capability that directly yield value in solving a business problem.

    ROI strategy on data and analytics

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram that demonstrates the ROI strategy on data and analytics.

    ROI roles

    Typical roles involved in the ROI strategy across the organization

    CDOs and CAOs typically have their budget allocated from both IT and business units.

    This is evidenced by the “State of the CIO Survey 2023” reporting that up to 63% of CDOs and CAOs have some budget allocated from within IT; therefore, up to 37% of budgets are entirely funded by business executives.

    This signifies the need to be aligned with peer executives and to use mechanisms like ROI to maximize the performance of investments.

    Source: Foundry, “State of the CIO Survey 2023.”

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

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    • Parent Category Name: Organizational Design
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    Most organizations go through an organizational redesign to:

    • Better align to the strategic objectives of the organization.
    • Increase the effectiveness of IT as a function.
    • Provide employees with clarity in their roles and responsibilities.
    • Support new capabilities.
    • Better align IT capabilities to suit the vision.
    • Ensure the IT organization can support transformation initiatives.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizational redesign is only as successful as the process leaders engage in. It shapes a story framed in a strong foundation of need and a method to successfully implement and adopt the new structure.
    • Benchmarking your organizational redesign to other organizations will not work. Other organizations have different strategies, drivers, and context. It’s important to focus on your organization, not someone else's.
    • 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.

    Impact and Result

    • We are often unsuccessful in organizational redesign because we lack an understanding of why this initiative is required or fail to recognize that it is a change initiative.
    • Successful organizational design requires a clear understanding of why it is needed and what will be achieved by operating in a new structure.
    • Additionally, understanding the impact of the change initiative can lead to greater adoption by core stakeholders.

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Research & Tools

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

    1. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Deck – A defined method of redesigning your IT structure that is founded by clear drivers and consistently considering change management practices.

    The purpose of this storyboard is to provide a four-phased approach to organizational redesign.

    • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure – Phases 1-4

    2. Communication Deck – A method to communicate the new organizational structure to critical stakeholders to gain buy-in and define the need.

    Use this templated Communication Deck to ensure impacted stakeholders have a clear understanding of why the new organizational structure is needed and what that structure will look like.

    • Organizational Design Communications Deck

    3. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Executive Summary Template – A template to secure executive leadership buy-in and financial support for the new organizational structure to be implemented.

    This template provides IT leaders with an opportunity to present their case for a change in organizational structure and roles to secure the funding and buy-in required to operate in the new structure.

    • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Executive Summary

    4. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Workbook – A method to document decisions made and rationale to support working through each phase of the process.

    This Workbook allows IT and business leadership to work through the steps required to complete the organizational redesign process and document key rationale for those decisions.

    • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Workbook

    5. Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Operating Models and Capability Definitions – A tool that can be used to provide clarity on the different types of operating models that exist as well as the process definitions of each capability.

    Refer to this tool when working through the redesign process to better understand the operating model sketches and the capability definitions. Each capability has been tied back to core frameworks that exist within the information and technology space.

    • Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure Operating Models and Capability Definitions

    Infographic

    Workshop: Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    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 Organizational Design Foundation

    The Purpose

    Lay the foundation for your organizational redesign by establishing a set of organizational design principles that will guide the redesign process.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clearly articulate why this organizational redesign is needed and the implications the strategies and context will have on your structure.

    Activities

    1.1 Define the org design drivers.

    1.2 Document and define the implications of the business context.

    1.3 Align the structure to support the strategy.

    1.4 Establish guidelines to direct the organizational design process.

    Outputs

    Clear definition of the need to redesign the organizational structure

    Understanding of the business context implications on the organizational structure creation.

    Strategic impact of strategies on organizational design.

    Customized Design Principles to rationalize and guide the organizational design process.

    2 Create the Operating Model Sketch

    The Purpose

    Select and customize an operating model sketch that will accurately reflect the future state your organization is striving towards. Consider how capabilities will be sourced, gaps in delivery, and alignment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A customized operating model sketch that informs what capabilities will make up your IT organization and how those capabilities will align to deliver value to your organization.

    Activities

    2.1 Augmented list of IT capabilities.

    2.2 Capability gap analysis

    2.3 Identified capabilities for outsourcing.

    2.4 Select a base operating model sketch.

    2.5 Customize the IT operating model sketch.

    Outputs

    Customized list of IT processes that make up your organization.

    Analysis of which capabilities require dedicated focus in order to meet goals.

    Definition of why capabilities will be outsourced and the method of outsourcing used to deliver the most value.

    Customized IT operating model reflecting sourcing, centralization, and intended delivery of value.

    3 Formalize the Organizational Structure

    The Purpose

    Translate the operating model sketch into a formal structure with defined functional teams, roles, reporting structure, and responsibilities.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A detailed organizational chart reflecting team structures, reporting structures, and role responsibilities.

    Activities

    3.1 Categorize your IT capabilities within your defined functional work units.

    3.2 Create a mandate statement for each work unit.

    3.3 Define roles inside the work units and assign accountability and responsibility.

    3.4 Finalize your organizational structure.

    Outputs

    Capabilities Organized Into Functional Groups

    Functional Work Unit Mandates

    Organizational Chart

    4 Plan for the Implementation & Change

    The Purpose

    Ensure the successful implementation of the new organizational structure by strategically communicating and involving stakeholders.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A clear plan of action on how to transition to the new structure, communicate the new organizational structure, and measure the effectiveness of the new structure.

    Activities

    4.1 Identify and mitigate key org design risks.

    4.2 Define the transition plan.

    4.3 Create the change communication message.

    4.4 Create a standard set of FAQs.

    4.5 Align sustainment metrics back to core drivers.

    Outputs

    Risk Mitigation Plan

    Change Communication Message

    Standard FAQs

    Implementation and sustainment metrics.

    Further reading

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    Designing an IT structure that will enable your strategic vision is not about an org chart – it’s about how you work.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Structure enables strategy.

    The image contains a picture of Allison Straker.

    Allison Straker

    Research Director,

    Organizational Transformation

    The image contains a picture of Brittany Lutes.

    Brittany Lutes

    Senior Research Analyst,

    Organizational Transformation

    An organizational structure is much more than a chart with titles and names. It defines the way that the organization operates on a day-to-day basis to enable the successful delivery of the organization’s information and technology objectives. Moreover, organizational design sees beyond the people that might be performing a specific role. People and role titles will and often do change frequently. Those are the dynamic elements of organizational design that allow your organization to scale and meet specific objectives at defined points of time. Capabilities, on the other hand, are focused and related to specific IT processes.

    Redesigning an IT organizational structure can be a small or large change transformation for your organization. Create a structure that is equally mindful of the opportunities and the constraints that might exist and ensure it will drive the organization towards its vision with a successful implementation. If everyone understands why the IT organization needs to be structured that way, they are more likely to support and adopt the behaviors required to operate in the new structure.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Your organization needs to reorganize itself because:

    • The current IT structure does not align to the strategic objectives of the organization.
    • There are inefficiencies in how the IT function is currently operating.
    • IT employees are unclear about their role and responsibilities, leading to inconsistencies.
    • New capabilities or a change in how the capabilities are organized is required to support the transformation.

    Common Obstacles

    Many organizations struggle when it comes redesigning their IT organizational structure because they:

    • Jump right into creating the new organizational chart.
    • Do not include the members of the IT leadership team in the changes.
    • Do not include the business in the changes.
    • Consider the context in which the change will take place and how to enable successful adoption.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Successful IT organization redesign includes:

    • Understanding the drivers, context, and strategies that will inform the structure.
    • Remaining objective by focusing on capabilities over people or roles.
    • Identifying gaps in delivery, sourcing strategies, customers, and degrees of centralization.
    • Remembering that organizational design is a change initiative and will require buy-in.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A successful redesign requires a strong foundation and a plan to ensure successful adoption. Without these, the organizational chart has little meaning or value.

    Your challenge

    This research is designed to help organizations who are looking to:

    • Redesign the IT structure to align to the strategic objectives of the enterprise.
    • Increase the effectiveness in how the IT function is operating in the organization.
    • Provide clarity to employees around their roles and responsibilities.
    • Ensure there is an ability to support new IT capabilities and/or align capabilities to better support the direction of the organization.
    • Align the IT organization to support a business transformation such as becoming digitally enabled or engaging in M&A activities.

    Organizational design is a challenge for many IT and digital executives

    69% of digital executives surveyed indicated challenges related to structure, team silos, business-IT alignment, and required roles when executing on a digital strategy.

    Source: MIT Sloan, 2020

    Common obstacles

    These barriers make IT organizational redesign difficult to address for many organizations:

    • Confuse organizational design and organizational charts as the same thing.
    • Start with the organizational chart, not taking into consideration the foundational elements that will make that chart successful.
    • Fail to treat organizational redesign as a change management initiative and follow through with the change.
    • Exclude impacted or influential IT leaders and/or business stakeholders from the redesign process.
    • Leverage an operating model because it is trending.

    To overcome these barriers:

    • Understand the context in which the changes will take place.
    • Communicate the changes to those impacted to enable successful adoption and implementation of a new organizational structure.
    • Understand that organizational design is for more than just HR leaders now; IT executives should be driving this change.

    Succeed in Organizational Redesign

    75% The percentage of change efforts that fail.

    Source: TLNT, 2019

    55% The percentage of practitioners who identify how information flows between work units as a challenge for their organization.

    Source: Journal of Organizational Design, 2019

    Organizational design defined

    If your IT strategy is your map, your IT organizational design represents the optimal path to get there.

    IT organizational design refers to the process of aligning the organization’s structure, processes, metrics, and talent to the organization’s strategic plan to drive efficiency and effectiveness.

    Why is the right IT organizational design so critical to success?

    Adaptability is at the core of staying competitive today

    Structure is not just an organizational chart

    Organizational design is a never-ending process

    Digital technology and information transparency are driving organizations to reorganize around customer responsiveness. To remain relevant and competitive, your organizational design must be forward looking and ready to adapt to rapid pivots in technology or customer demand.

    The design of your organization dictates how roles function. If not aligned to the strategic direction, the structure will act as a bungee cord and pull the organization back toward its old strategic direction (ResearchGate.net, 2014). Structure supports strategy, but strategy also follows structure.

    Organization design is not a one-time project but a continuous, dynamic process of organizational self-learning and continuous improvement. Landing on the right operating model will provide a solid foundation to build upon as the organization adapts to new challenges and opportunities.

    Understand the organizational differences

    Organizational Design

    Organizational design the process in which you intentionally align the organizational structure to the strategy. It considers the way in which the organization should operate and purposely aligns to the enterprise vision. This process often considers centralization, sourcing, span of control, specialization, authority, and how those all impact or are impacted by the strategic goals.

    Operating Model

    Operating models provide an architectural blueprint of how IT capabilities are organized to deliver value. The placement of the capabilities can alter the culture, delivery of the strategic vision, governance model, team focus, role responsibility, and more. Operating model sketches should be foundational to the organizational design process, providing consistency through org chart changes.

    Organizational Structure

    The organizational structure is the chosen way of aligning the core processes to deliver. This can be strategic, or it can be ad hoc. We recommend you take a strategic approach unless ad hoc aligns to your culture and delivery method. A good organizational structure will include: “someone with authority to make the decisions, a division of labor and a set of rules by which the organization operates” (Bizfluent, 2019).

    Organizational Chart

    The capstone of this change initiative is an easy-to-read chart that visualizes the roles and reporting structure. Most organizations use this to depict where individuals fit into the organization and if there are vacancies. While this should be informed by the structure it does not necessarily depict workflows that will take place. Moreover, this is the output of the organizational design process.

    Sources: Bizfluent, 2019; Strategy & Business, 2015; SHRM, 2021

    The Technology Value Trinity

    The image contains a diagram of the Technology Value Trinity as described in the text below.

    All three elements of the Technology Value Trinity work in harmony to delivery business value and achieve strategic needs. As one changes, the others need to change as well.

    How do these three elements relate?

    • Digital and IT strategy tells you what you need to achieve to be successful.
    • Operating model and organizational design align resources to deliver on your strategy and priorities. This is done by strategically structuring IT capabilities in a way that enables the organizations vision and considers the context in which the structure will operate.
    • I&T governance is the confirmation of IT’s goals and strategy, which ensures the alignment of IT and business strategy and is the mechanism by which you continuously prioritize work to ensure that what is delivered is in line with the strategy.

    Too often strategy, organizational design, and governance are considered separate practices – strategies are defined without teams and resources to support. Structure must follow strategy.

    Info-Tech’s approach to organizational design

    Like a story, a strategy without a structure to deliver on it is simply words on paper.

    Books begin by setting the foundation of the story.

    Introduce your story by:

    • Defining the need(s) that are driving this initiative forward.
    • Introducing the business context in which the organizational redesign must take place.
    • Outlining what’s needed in the redesign to support the organization in reaching its strategic IT goals.

    The plot cannot thicken without the foundation. Your organizational structure and chart should not exist without one either.

    The steps to establish your organizational chart - with functional teams, reporting structure, roles, and responsibilities defined – cannot occur without a clear definition of goals, need, and context. An organizational chart alone won’t provide the insight required to obtain buy-in or realize the necessary changes.

    Conclude your story through change management and communication.

    Good stories don’t end without referencing what happened before. Use the literary technique of foreshadowing – your change management must be embedded throughout the organizational redesign process. This will increase the likelihood that the organizational structure can be communicated, implemented, and reinforced by stakeholders.

    Info-Tech uses a capability-based approach to help you design your organizational structure

    Once your IT strategy is defined, it is critical to identify the capabilities that are required to deliver on those strategic initiatives. Each initiative will require a combination of these capabilities that are only supported through the appropriate organization of roles, skills, and team structures.

    The image contains a diagram of the various services and blueprints that Info-Tech has to offer.

    Embed change management into organizational design

    Change management practices are needed from the onset to ensure the implementation of an organizational structure.

    For each phase of this blueprint, its important to consider change management. These are the points when you need to communicate the structure changes:

    • Phase 1: Begin to socialize the idea of new organizational structure with executive leadership and explain how it might be impactful to the context of the organization. For example, a new control, governance model, or sourcing approach could be considered.
    • Phase 2: The chosen operating model will influence your relationships with the business and can create/eliminate silos. Ensure IT and business leaders have insight into these possible changes and a willingness to move forward.
    • Phase 3: The new organizational structure could create or eliminate teams, reduce or increase role responsibilities, and create different reporting structures than before. It’s time to communicate these changes with those most impacted and be able to highlight the positive outcomes of the various changes.
    • Phase 4: Should consider the change management practices holistically. This includes the type of change and length of time to reach the end state, communication, addressing active resistors, acquiring the right skills, and measuring the success of the new structure and its adoption.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Do not undertake an organizational redesign initiative if you will not engage in change management practices that are required to ensure its successful adoption.

    Measure the value of the IT organizational redesign

    Given that the organizational redesign is intended to align with the overall vision and objectives of the business, many of the metrics that support its success will be tied to the business. Adapt the key performance indicators (KPIs) that the business is using to track its success and demonstrate how IT can enable the business and improve its ability to reach those targets.

    Strategic Resources

    The percentage of resources dedicated to strategic priorities and initiatives supported by IT operating model. While operational resources are necessary, ensuring people are allocating time to strategic initiatives as well will drive the business towards its goal state. Leverage Info-Tech’s IT Staffing Assessment diagnostic to benchmark your IT resource allocation.

    Business Satisfaction

    Assess the improvement in business satisfaction overall with IT year over year to ensure the new structure continues to drive satisfaction across all business functions. Leverage Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision diagnostic to see how your IT organization is perceived.

    Role Clarity

    The degree of clarity that IT employees have around their role and its core responsibilities can lead to employee engagement and retention. Consider measuring this core job driver by leveraging Info-Tech’s Employee Engagement Program.

    Customer & User Satisfaction

    Measure customer satisfaction with technology-enabled business services or products and improvements in technology-enabled client acquisition or retention processes. Assess the percentage of users satisfied with the quality of IT service delivery and leverage Info-Tech’s End-User Satisfaction Survey to determine improvements.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for Redesigning Your IT Organization

    Phase

    1. Establish the Organizational Design Foundation

    2. Create the Operating Model Sketch

    3. Formalize the Organizational Structure

    4. Plan for Implementation and Change

    Phase Outcomes

    Lay the foundation for your organizational redesign by establishing a set of organizational design principles that will guide the redesign process.

    Select and customize an operating model sketch that will accurately reflect the future state your organization is striving towards. Consider how capabilities will be sourced, gaps in delivery, and alignment.

    Translate the operating model sketch into a formal structure with defined functional teams, roles, reporting structure, and responsibilities.

    Ensure the successful implementation of the new organizational structure by strategically communicating and involving stakeholders.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight

    Organizational redesign processes focus on defining the ways in which you want to operate and deliver on your strategy – something an organizational chart will never be able to convey.

    Phase 1 insight

    Focus on your organization, not someone else's’. Benchmarking your organizational redesign to other organizations will not work. Other organizations have different strategies, drivers, and context.

    Phase 2 insight

    An operating model sketch that is customized to your organization’s specific situation and objectives will significantly increase the chances of creating a purposeful organizational structure.

    Phase 3 insight

    If you follow the steps outlined in the first three phases, creating your new organizational chart should be one of the fastest activities.

    Phase 4 insight

    Throughout the creation of a new organizational design structure, it is critical to involve the individuals and teams that will be impacted.

    Tactical insight

    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.

    Blueprint deliverables

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


    Communication Deck

    Communicate the changes to other key stakeholders such as peers, managers, and staff.

    Workbook

    As you work through each of the activities, use this workbook as a place to document decisions and rationale.

    Reference Deck

    Definitions for every capability, base operating model sketches, and sample organizational charts aligned to those operating models.

    Job Descriptions

    Key deliverable:

    Executive Presentation

    Leverage this presentation deck to gain executive buy-in for your new organizational structure.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • Create an organizational structure that aligns to the strategic goals of IT and the business.
    • Provide IT employees with clarity on their roles and responsibilities to ensure the successful delivery of IT capabilities.
    • Highlight and sufficiently staff IT capabilities that are critical to the organization.
    • Define a sourcing strategy for IT capabilities.
    • Increase employee morale and empowerment.

    Business Benefits

    • IT can carry out the organization’s strategic mission and vision of all technical and digital initiatives.
    • Business has clarity on who and where to direct concerns or questions.
    • Reduce the likelihood of turnover costs as IT employees understand their roles and its importance.
    • Create a method to communicate how the organizational structure aligns with the strategic initiatives of IT.
    • Increase ability to innovate the organization.

    Executive Brief Case Study

    IT design needs to support organizational and business objectives, not just IT needs.

    INDUSTRY: Government

    SOURCE: Analyst Interviews and Working Sessions

    Situation

    IT was tasked with providing equality to the different business functions through the delivery of shared IT services. The government created a new IT organizational structure with a focus on two areas in particular: strategic and operational support capabilities.

    Challenge

    When creating the new IT structure, an understanding of the complex and differing needs of the business functions was not reflected in the shared services model.

    Outcome

    As a result, the new organizational structure for IT did not ensure adequate meeting of business needs. Only the operational support structure was successfully adopted by the organization as it aligned to the individual business objectives. The strategic capabilities aspect was not aligned to how the various business lines viewed themselves and their objectives, causing some partners to feel neglected.

    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?

    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

    Call #1: Define the process, understand the need, and create a plan of action.

    Phase 2

    Call #2: Define org. design drivers and business context.

    Call #3: Understand strategic influences and create customized design principles.

    Call #4: Customize, analyze gaps, and define sourcing strategy for IT capabilities.

    Call #5: Select and customize the IT operating model sketch.

    Phase 3

    Call #6: Establish functional work units and their mandates.

    Call #7: Translate the functional organizational chart to an operational organizational chart with defined roles.

    Phase 4

    Call #8: Consider risks and mitigation tactics associated with the new structure and select a transition plan.

    Call #9: Create your change message, FAQs, and metrics to support the implementation plan.

    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

    Establish the Organizational Redesign Foundation

    Create the Operating Model Sketch

    Formalize the Organizational Structure

    Plan for Implementation and Change

    Next Steps and
    Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    1.1 Define the org. design drivers.

    1.2 Document and define the implications of the business context.

    1.3 Align the structure to support the strategy.

    1.4 Establish guidelines to direct the organizational design process.

    2.1 Augment list of IT capabilities.

    2.2 Analyze capability gaps.

    2.3 Identify capabilities for outsourcing.

    2.4 Select a base operating model sketch.

    2.5 Customize the IT operating model sketch.

    3.1 Categorize your IT capabilities within your defined functional work units.

    3.2 Create a mandate statement for each work unit.

    3.3 Define roles inside the work units and assign accountability and responsibility.

    3.4 Finalize your organizational structure.

    4.1 Identify and mitigate key org. design risks.

    4.2 Define the transition plan.

    4.3 Create the change communication message.

    4.4 Create a standard set of FAQs.

    4.5 Align sustainment metrics back to core drivers.

    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. Foundational components to the organizational design
    2. Customized design principles
    1. Heat mapped IT capabilities
    2. Defined outsourcing strategy
    3. Customized operating model
    1. Capabilities organized into functional groups
    2. Functional work unit mandates
    3. Organizational chart
    1. Risk mitigation plan
    2. Change communication message
    3. Standard FAQs
    4. Implementation and sustainment metrics
    1. Completed organizational design communications deck

    This blueprint is part one of a three-phase approach to organizational transformation

    PART 1: DESIGN

    PART 2: STRUCTURE

    PART 3: IMPLEMENT

    IT Organizational Architecture

    Organizational Sketch

    Organizational Structure

    Organizational Chart

    Transition Strategy

    Implement Structure

    1. Define the organizational design drivers, business context, and strategic alignment.

    2. Create customized design principles.

    3. Develop and customize a strategically aligned operating model sketch.

    4. Define the future-state work units.

    5. Create future-state work unit mandates.

    6. Define roles by work unit.

    7. Turn roles into jobs with clear capability accountabilities and responsibilities.

    8. Define reporting relationships between jobs.

    9. Assess options and select go-forward organizational sketch.

    11. Validate organizational sketch.

    12. Analyze workforce utilization.

    13. Define competency framework.

    14. Identify competencies required for jobs.

    15. Determine number of positions per job

    16. Conduct competency assessment.

    17. Assign staff to jobs.

    18. Build a workforce and staffing plan.

    19. Form an OD implementation team.

    20. Develop change vision.

    21. Build communication presentation.

    22. Identify and plan change projects.

    23. Develop organizational transition plan.

    24. Train managers to lead through change.

    25. Define and implement stakeholder engagement plan.

    26. Develop individual transition plans.

    27. Implement transition plans.

    Risk Management: Create, implement, and monitor risk management plan.

    HR Management: Develop job descriptions, conduct job evaluation, and develop compensation packages.

    Monitor and Sustain Stakeholder Engagement

    Phase 1

    Establish the Organizational Redesign Foundation

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1.1 Define the organizational redesign driver(s)

    1.2 Create design principles based on the business context

    1.3a (Optional Exercise) Identify the capabilities from your value stream

    1.3b Identify the capabilities required to deliver on your strategies

    1.4 Finalize your list of design principles

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Embed change management into the organizational design process

    Articulate the Why

    Changes are most successful when leaders clearly articulate the reason for the change – the rationale for the organizational redesign of the IT function. Providing both staff and executive leaders with an understanding for this change is imperative to its success. Despite the potential benefits to a redesign, they can be disruptive. If you are unable to answer the reason why, a redesign might not be the right initiative for your organization.

    Employees who understand the rationale behind decisions made by executive leaders are 3.6 times more likely to be engaged.

    McLean & Company Engagement Survey Database, 2021; N=123,188

    Info-Tech Insight

    Successful adoption of the new organizational design requires change management from the beginning. Start considering how you will convey the need for organizational change within your IT organization.

    The foundation of your organizational design brings together drivers, context, and strategic implications

    All aspects of your IT organization’s structure should be designed with the business’ context and strategic direction in mind.

    Use the following set of slides to extract the key components of your drivers, business context, and strategic direction to land on a future structure that aligns with the larger strategic direction.

    REDESIGN DRIVERS

    Driver(s) can originate from within the IT organization or externally. Ensuring the driver(s) are easy to understand and articulate will increase the successful adoption of the new organizational structure.

    BUSINESS CONTEXT

    Defines the interactions that occur throughout the organization and between the organization and external stakeholders. The context provides insight into the environment by both defining the purpose of the organization and the values that frame how it operates.

    STRATEGY IMPLICATIONS

    The IT strategy should be aligned to the overall business strategy, providing insight into the types of capabilities required to deliver on key IT initiatives.

    Understand IT’s desired maturity level, alignment with business expectations, and capabilities of IT

    Where are we today?

    Determine the current overall maturity level of the IT organization.

    Where do we want to be as an organization?

    Use the inputs from Info-Tech’s diagnostic data to determine where the organization should be after its reorganization.

    How can you leverage these results?

    The result of these diagnostics will inform the design principles that you’ll create in this phase.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s diagnostics to provide an understanding of critical areas your redesign can support:

    CIO Business Vision Diagnostic

    Management & Governance Diagnostic

    IT Staffing Diagnostic

    The image contains a picture of Info-Tech's maturity ladder.

    Consider the organizational design drivers

    Consider organizational redesign if …

    Effectiveness is a concern:

    • Insufficient resources to meet demand
    • Misalignment to IT (and business) strategies
    • Lack of clarity around role responsibility or accountability
    • IT functions operating in silos

    New capabilities are needed:

    • Organization is taking on new capabilities (digital, transformation, M&A)
    • Limited innovation
    • Gaps in the capabilities/services of IT
    • Other external environmental influences or changes in strategic direction

    Lack of business understanding

    • Misalignment between business and IT or how the organization does business
    • Unhappy customers (internal or external)

    Workforce challenges

    • Frequent turnover or inability to attract new skills
    • Low morale or employee empowerment

    These are not good enough reasons …

    • New IT leader looking to make a change for the sake of change or looking to make their legacy known
    • To work with specific/hand-picked leaders over others
    • To “shake things up” to see what happens
    • To force the organization to see IT differently

    Info-Tech Insight

    Avoid change for change’s sake. Restructuring could completely miss the root cause of the problem and merely create a series of new ones.

    1.1 Define the organizational redesign driver(s)

    1-2 hours

    1. As a group, brainstorm a list of current pain points or inhibitors in the current organizational structure, along with a set of opportunities that can be realized during your restructuring. Group these pain points and opportunities into themes.
    2. Leverage the pain points and opportunities to help further define why this initiative is something you’re driving towards. Consider how you would justify this initiative to different stakeholders in the organization.
    3. Questions to consider:
      1. Who is asking for this initiative?
      2. What are the primary benefits this is intended to produce?
      3. What are you optimizing for?
      4. What are we capable of achieving as an IT organization?
      5. Are the drivers coming from inside or outside the IT organization?
    4. Once you’ve determined the drivers for redesigning the IT organization, prioritize those drivers to ensure there is clarity when communicating why this is something you are focusing time and effort on.

    Input

    Output

    • Knowledge of the current organization
    • Pain point and opportunity themes
    • Defined drivers of the initiative

    Materials

    Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    Frame the organizational design within the context of the business

    Workforce Considerations:

    • How does your organization view its people resources? Does it have the capacity to increase the number of resources?
    • Do you currently have sufficient staff to meet the demands of the organization? Are you able to outsource resources when demand requires it?
    • Are the members of your IT organization unionized?
    • Is your workforce distributed? Do time zones impact how your team can collaborate?

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Culture:

    Culture, "the way we do things here,” has huge implications for executing strategy, driving engagement, and providing a guiding force that ensures organizations can work together toward common goals.

    • What is the culture of your organization? Is it cooperative, traditional, competitive, or innovative? (See appendix for details.)
    • Is this the target culture or a stepping-stone to the ideal culture?
    • How do the attitudes and behaviors of senior leaders in the organization reinforce this culture?

    Consider whether your organization’s culture can accept the operating model and organizational structure changes that make sense on paper.

    Certain cultures may lean toward particular operating models. For example, the demand-develop-service operating model may be supported by a cooperative culture. A traditional organization may lean towards the plan-build-run operating model.

    Ensure you have considered your current culture and added exercises to support it.

    If more capacity is required to accomplish the goals of the organization, you’ll want to prepare the leaders and explain the need in your design principles (to reflect training, upskilling, or outsourcing). Unionized environments require additional consideration. They may necessitate less structural changes, and so your principles will need to reflect other alternatives (hiring additional resources, creative options) to support organizational needs. Hybrid or fully remote workforces may impact how your organization interacts.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Control & Governance:

    It is important to consider how your organization is governed, how decisions are made, and who has authority to make decisions.

    Strategy tells what you do, governance validates you’re doing the right things, and structure is how you execute on what’s been approved.

    • How do decisions get considered and approved in your organization? Are there specific influences that impact the priorities of the organization?
    • Are those in the organization willing to release decision-making authority around specific IT components?
    • Should the organization take on greater accountability for specific IT components?

    Organizations that require more controls may lean toward more centralized governance. Organizations that are looking to better enable and empower their divisions (products, groups, regions, etc.) may look to embed governance in these parts of the organization.

    For enterprise organizations, consider where IT has authority to make decisions (at the global, local, or system level). Appropriate governance needs to be built into the appropriate levels.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Financial Constraints:

    Follow the money: You may need to align your IT organization according to the funding model.

    • Do partners come to IT with their budgets, or does IT have a central pool that they use to fund initiatives from all partners?
    • Are you able to request finances to support key initiatives/roles prioritized by the organization?
    • How is funding aligned: technology, data, digital, etc.? Is your organization business-line funded? Pooled?
    • Are there special products or digital transformation initiatives with resources outside IT? Product ownership funding?
    • How are regulatory changes funded?
    • Do you have the flexibility to adjust your budget throughout the fiscal year?
    • Are chargebacks in place? Are certain services charged back to business units

    Determine if you can move forward with a new model or if you can adjust your existing one to suit the financial constraints.

    If you have no say over your funding, pre-work may be required to build a business case to change your funding model before you look at your organizational structure – without this, you might have to rule out centralized and focus on hybrid/centralized. If you don’t control the budget (funding comes from your partners), it will be difficult to move to a more centralized model.

    A federated business organization may require additional IT governance to help prioritize across the different areas.

    Budgets for digital transformation might come from specific areas of the business, so resources may need to be aligned to support that. You’ll have to consider how you will work with those areas. This may also impact the roles that are going to exist within your IT organization – product owners or division owners might have more say.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Business Perspective of IT:

    How the business perceives IT and how IT perceives itself are sometimes not aligned. Make sure the business’ goals for IT are well understood.

    • Are your business partners satisfied if IT is an order taker? Do they agree with the need for IT to become a business partner? Is IT expected to innovate and transform the organization?
    • Is what the business needs from IT the same as what IT is providing currently?

    Business Organization Structure and Growth:

    • How is the overall organization structured: Centralized/decentralized? Functionally aligned? Divided by regions?
    • In what areas does the organization prioritize investments?
    • Is the organization located across a diverse geography?
    • How big is the organization?
    • How is the organization growing and changing – by mergers and acquisitions?

    If IT needs to become more of a business partner, you’ll want to define what that means to your organization and focus on the capabilities to enable this. Educating your partners might also be required if you’re not aligned.

    For many organizations, this will include stakeholder management, innovation, and product/project management. If IT and its business partners are satisfied with an order-taker relationship, be prepared for the consequences of that.

    A global organization will require different IT needs than a single location. Specifically, site reliability engineering (SRE) or IT support services might be deployed in each region. Organizations growing through mergers and acquisitions can be structured differently depending on what the organization needs from the transaction. A more centralized organization may be appropriate if the driver is reuse for a more holistic approach, or the organization may need a more decentralized organization if the acquisitions need to be handled uniquely.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org. Design Implication

    Sourcing Strategy:

    • What are the drivers for sourcing? Staff augmentation, best practices, time zone support, or another reason?
    • What is your strategy for sourcing?
    • Does IT do all of your technology work, or are parts being done by business or other units?
    • Are we willing/able to outsource, and will that place us into non-compliance (regulations)?
    • Do you have vendor management capabilities in areas that you might outsource?
    • How cloud-driven is your organization?
    • Do you have global operations?

    Change Tolerance:

    • What’s your organization’s tolerance to make changes around organizational design?
    • What's the appetite and threshold for risk?

    Your sourcing strategy affects your organizational structure, including what capabilities you group together. Since managing outsourced capabilities also includes the need for vendor management, you’ll need to ensure there aren’t too many capabilities required per leader. Look closely at what can be achieved through your operating model if IT is done through other groups. Even though these groups may not be in scope of your organization changes, you need to ensure your IT team works with them effectively.

    If your organization is going to push back if there are big structural changes, consider whether the changes are truly necessary. It may be preferred to take baby steps – use an incremental versus big-bang approach.

    A need for incremental change might mean not making a major operating model change.

    Business context considerations

    Business Context Consideration

    IT Org Design. Implication

    Stakeholder Engagement & Focus:

    Identify who your customers and stakeholders are; clarify their needs and engagement model.

    • Who is the customer for IT products and services?
    • Is your customer internal? External? Both?
    • How much of a priority is customer focus for your organization?
    • How will IT interact with customers, end users, and partners? What is the engagement model desired?

    Business Vision, Services, and Products:

    Articulate what your organization was built to do.

    • What does the organization create or provide?
    • Are these products and services changing?
    • What are the most critical capabilities to your organization?
    • What makes your organization a success? What are critical success factors of the organization and how are they measuring this to determine success?

    For a customer or user focus, ensure capabilities related to understanding needs (stakeholder, UX, etc.) are prioritized. Hybrid, decentralized, or demand-develop-service models often have more of a focus on customer needs.

    Outsourcing the service desk might be a consideration if there’s a high demand for the service. A differentiation between these users might mean there’s a different demand for services.

    Think broadly in terms of your organizational vision, not just the tactical (widget creation). You might need to choose an operating model that supports vision.

    Do you need to align your organization with your value stream? Do you need to decentralize specific capabilities to enable prioritization of the key capabilities?

    1.2 Create design principles based on the business context

    1-3 hours

    1. Discuss the business context in which the IT organizational redesign will be taking place. Consider the following standard components of the business context; include other relevant components specific to your organization:
    • Culture
    • Workforce Considerations
    • Control and Governance
    • Financial Constraints
    • Business Perspective of IT
    • Business Organization Structure and Growth
    • Sourcing Strategy
    • Change Tolerance
    • Stakeholder Engagement and Focus
    • Business Vision, Services, and Products
  • Different stakeholders can have different perspectives on these questions. Be sure to consider a holistic approach and engage these individuals.
  • Capture your findings and use them to create initial design principles.
  • Input

    Output

    • Business context
    • Design principles reflecting how the business context influences the organizational redesign for IT

    Materials

    Participants

    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • List of Context Questions
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    How your IT organization is structured needs to reflect what it must be built to do

    Structure follows strategy – the way you design will impact what your organization can produce.

    Designing your IT organization requires an assessment of what it needs to be built to do:

    • What are the most critical capabilities that you need to deliver, and what does success look like in those different areas?
    • What are the most important things that you deliver overall in your organization?

    The IT organization must reflect your business needs:

    • Understand your value stream and/or your prioritized business goals.
    • Understand the impact of your strategies – these can include your overall digital strategy and/or your IT strategy

    1.3a (Optional Exercise) Identify the capabilities from your value stream

    1 hour

    1. Identify your organization’s value stream – what your overall organization needs to do from supplier to consumer to provide value. Leverage Info-Tech’s industry reference architectures if you haven’t identified your value stream, or use the Document Your Business Architecture blueprint to create yours.
    2. For each item in your value stream, list capabilities that are critical to your organizational strategy and IT needs to further invest in to enable growth.
    3. Also, list those that need further support, e.g. those that lead to long wait times, rework time, re-tooling, down-time, unnecessary processes, unvaluable processes.*
    4. Capture the IT capabilities required to enable your business in your draft principles.
    The image contains a screenshot of the above activity: Sampling Manufacturing Business Capabilities.
    Source: Six Sigma Study Guide, 2014
    Input Output
    • Organization’s value stream
    • List of IT capabilities required to support the IT strategy
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    Your strategy will help you decide on your structure

    Ensure that you have a clear view of the goals and initiatives that are needed in your organization. Your IT, digital, business, and/or other strategies will surface the IT capabilities your organization needs to develop. Identify the goals of your organization and the initiatives that are required to deliver on them. What capabilities are required to enable these? These capabilities will need to be reflected in your design principles.

    Sample initiatives and capabilities from an organization’s strategies

    The image contains a screenshot of sample initiatives and capabilities from an organization's strategies.

    1.3b Identify the capabilities required to deliver on your strategies

    1 hour

    1. For each IT goal, there may be one or more initiatives that your organization will need to complete in order to be successful.
    2. Document those goals and infinitives. For each initiative, consider which core IT capabilities will be required to deliver on that goal. There might be one IT capability or there might be several.
    3. Identify which capabilities are being repeated across the different initiatives. Consider whether you are currently investing in those capabilities in your current organizational structure.
    4. Highlight the capabilities that require IT investment in your design principles.
    InputOutput
    • IT goals
    • IT initiatives
    • IT, digital, and business strategies
    • List of IT capabilities required to support the IT strategy
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    Create your organizational design principles

    Your organizational design principles should define a set of loose rules that can be used to design your organizational structure to the specific needs of the work that needs to be done. These rules will guide you through the selection of the appropriate operating model that will meet your business needs. There are multiple ways you can hypothetically organize yourself to meet these needs, and the design principles will point you in the direction of which solution is the most appropriate as well as explain to your stakeholders the rationale behind organizing in a specific way. This foundational step is critical: one of the key reasons for organizational design failure is a lack of requisite time spent on the front-end understanding what is the best fit.

    The image contains an example of organizing design principles as described above.

    1.4 Finalize your list of design principles

    1-3 hours

    1. As a group, review the key outputs from your data collection exercises and their implications.
    2. Consider each of the previous exercises – where does your organization stand from a maturity perspective, what is driving the redesign, what is the business context, and what are the key IT capabilities requiring support. Identify how each will have an implication on your organizational redesign. Leverage this conversation to generate design principles.
    3. Vote on a finalized list of eight to ten design principles that will guide the selection of your operating model. Have everyone leave the meeting with these design principles so they can review them in more detail with their work units or functional areas and elicit any necessary feedback.
    4. Reconvene the group that was originally gathered to create the list of design principles and make any final amendments to the list as necessary. Use this opportunity to define exactly what each design principle means in the context of your organization so everyone has the same understanding of what this means moving forward.
    InputOutput
    • Organizational redesign drivers
    • Business context
    • IT strategy capabilities
    • Organizational design principles to help inform the selection of the right operating model sketch
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts (physical or electronic)
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Communications Deck

    Example design principles

    Your eight to ten design principles will be those that are most relevant to YOUR organization. Below are samples that other organizations have created, but yours will not be the same.

    Design Principle

    Description

    Decision making

    We will centralize decision making around the prioritization of projects to ensure that the initiatives driving the most value for the organization as a whole are executed.

    Fit for purpose

    We will build and maintain fit-for-purpose solutions based on business units’ unique needs.

    Reduction of duplication

    We will reduce role and application duplication through centralized management of assets and clearly differentiated roles that allow individuals to focus within key capability areas.

    Managed security

    We will manage security enterprise-wide and implement compliance and security governance policies.

    Reuse > buy > build

    We will maximize reuse of existing assets by developing a centralized application portfolio management function and approach.

    Managed data

    We will create a specialized data office to provide data initiatives with the focus they need to enable our strategy.

    Design Principle

    Description

    Controlled technical diversity

    We will control the variety of technology platforms we use to allow for increased operability and reduction of costs.

    Innovation

    R&D and innovation are critical – we will build an innovation team into our structure to help us meet our digital agenda.

    Resourcing

    We will separate our project and maintenance activities to ensure each are given the dedicated support they need for success and to reduce the firefighting mentality.

    Customer centricity

    The new structure will be directly aligned with customer needs – we will have dedicated roles around relationship management, requirements, and strategic roadmapping for business units.

    Interoperability

    We will strengthen our enterprise architecture practices to best prepare for future mergers and acquisitions.

    Cloud services

    We will move toward hosted versus on-premises infrastructure solutions, retrain our data center team in cloud best practices, and build roles around effective vendor management, cloud provisioning, and architecture.

    Phase 2

    Create the Operating Model Sketch

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    2.1 Augment the capability list

    2.2 Heatmap capabilities to determine gaps in service

    2.3 Identify the target state of sourcing for your IT capabilities

    2.4 Review and select a base operating model sketch

    2.5 Customize the selected overlay to reflect the desired future state

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Embed change management into the organizational design process

    Gain Buy-In

    Obtain desire from stakeholders to move forward with organizational redesign initiative by involving them in the process to gain interest. This will provide the stakeholders with assurance that their concerns are being heard and will help them to understand the benefits that can be anticipated from the new organizational structure.

    “You’re more likely to get buy-in if you have good reason for the proposed changes – and the key is to emphasize the benefits of an organizational redesign.”

    Source: Lucid Chart

    Info-Tech Insight

    Just because people are aware does not mean they agree. Help different stakeholders understand how the change in the organizational structure is a benefit by specifically stating the benefit to them.

    Info-Tech uses capabilities in your organizational design

    We differentiate between capabilities and competencies.

    Capabilities

    • Capabilities are focused on the entire system that would be in place to satisfy a particular need. This includes the people who are competent to complete a specific task and also the technology, processes, and resources to deliver.
    • Capabilities work in a systematic way to deliver on specific need(s).
    • A functional area is often made up of one or more capabilities that support its ability to deliver on that function.
    • Focusing on capabilities rather then the individuals in organizational redesign enables a more objective and holistic view of what your organization is striving toward.

    Competencies

    • Competencies on the other hand are specific to an individual. It determines if the individual poses the skills or ability to perform.
    • Competencies are rooted in the term competent, which looks to understand if you are proficient enough to complete the specific task at hand.
    • Source: The People Development Magazine, 2020

    Use our IT capabilities to establish your IT organization design

    The image contains a diagram of the various services and blueprints that Info-Tech has to offer.

    2.1 Augment the capability list

    1-3 hours

    1. Using the capability list on the previous slide, go through each of the IT capabilities and remove any capabilities for which your IT organization is not responsible and/or accountable. Refer to the Operating Model and Capability Definition List for descriptions of each of the IT capabilities.
    2. Augment the language of specific capabilities that you feel are not directly reflective of what is being done within your organizational context or that you feel need to be changed to reflect more specifically how work is being done in your organization.
    • For example, some organizations may refer to their service desk capability as help desk or regional support. Use a descriptive term that most accurately reflects the terminology used inside the organization today.
  • Add any core capabilities from your organization that are missing from the provided IT capability list.
    • For example, organizations that leverage DevOps capabilities for their product development may desire to designate this in their operating model.
  • Document the rationale for decisions made for future reference.
  • Input Output
    • Baseline list of IT capabilities
    • IT capabilities required to support IT strategy
    • Customized list of IT capabilities
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Gaps in delivery

    Identify areas that require greater focus and attention.

    Assess the gaps between where you currently are and where you need to be. Evaluate how critical and how effective your capabilities are:

    • Criticality = Importance
      • Try to focus on those which are highly critical to the organization.
      • These may be capabilities that have been identified in your strategies as areas to focus on.
    • Effectiveness = Performance
      • Identify those where the process or system is broken or ineffective, preventing the team from delivering on the capability.
      • Effectiveness could take into consideration how scalable, adaptable, or sustainable each capability is.
      • Focus on the capabilities that are low or medium in effectiveness but highly critical. Addressing the delivery of these capabilities will lead to the most positive outcomes in your organization.

    Remember to identify what allows the highly effective capabilities to perform at the capacity they are. Leverage this when increasing effectiveness elsewhere.

    High Gap

    There is little to no effectiveness (high gap) and the capability is highly important to your organization.

    Medium Gap

    Current ability is medium in effectiveness (medium gap) and there might be some priority for that capability in your organization.

    Low Gap

    Current ability is highly effective (low gap) and the capability is not necessarily a priority for your organization.

    2.2 Heatmap capabilities to determine gaps in delivery

    1-3 hours

    1. At this point, you should have identified what capabilities you need to have to deliver on your organization's goals and initiatives.
    2. Convene a group of the key stakeholders involved in the IT organizational design initiative.
    3. Review your IT capabilities and color each capability border according to the effectiveness and criticality of that capability, creating a heat map.
    • Green indicates current ability is highly effective (low gap) and the capability is not necessarily a priority for your organization.
    • Yellow indicates current ability is medium in effectiveness (medium gap) and there might be some priority for that capability in your organization.
    • Red indicates that there is little to no effectiveness (high gap) and the capability is highly important to your organization.
    Input Output
    • Selected capabilities from activity 2.1
    • Gap analysis in delivery of capabilities currently
    Materials Participants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Don’t forget the why: why are you considering outsourcing?

    There are a few different “types” of outsourcing:

    1. Competitive Advantage – Working with a third-party organization for the knowledge, insights, and best practices they can bring to your organization.
    2. Managed Service– The third party manages a capability or function for your organization.
    3. Staff Augmentation – Your organization brings in contractors and third-party organizations to fill specific skills gaps.

    Weigh which sourcing model(s) will best align with the needed capabilities to deliver effectively

    Insourcing

    Staff Augmentation

    Managed Service

    Competitive Advantage

    Description

    The organization maintains full responsibility for the management and delivery of the IT capability or service.

    Vendor provides specialized skills and enables the IT capability or service together with the organization to meet demand.

    Vendor completely manages the delivery of value for the IT capability, product or service.

    Vendor has unique skills, insights, and best practices that can be taught to staff to enable insourced capability and competency.

    Benefits

    • Retains in-house control over proprietary knowledge and assets that provide competitive or operational advantage.
    • Gains efficiency due to integration into the organization’s processes.
    • Provision of unique skills.
    • Addresses variation in demand for resources.
    • Labor cost savings.
    • Improves use of internal resources.
    • Improves effectiveness due to narrow specialization.
    • Labor cost savings.
    • Gain insights into aspects that could provide your organization with advantages over competitors.
    • Long-term labor cost savings.
    • Short-term outsourcing required.
    • Increase in-house competencies.

    Drawbacks

    • Quality of services/capabilities might not be as high due to lack of specialization.
    • No labor cost savings.
    • Potentially inefficient distribution of labor for the delivery of services/capabilities.
    • Potential conflicts in management or delivery of IT services and capabilities.
    • Negative impact on staff morale.
    • Limited control over services/capabilities.
    • Limited integration into organization’s processes.
    • Short-term labor expenses.
    • Requires a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

    Your strategy for outsourcing will vary with capability and capacity

    The image contains a diagram to show the Develop Vendor Management Capabilities, as described in the text below.

    Capability

    Capacity

    Outsourcing Model

    Low

    Low

    Your solutions may be with you for a long time, so it doesn’t matter whether it is a strategic decision to outsource development or if you are not able to attract the talent required to deliver in your market. Look for a studio, agency, or development shop that has a proven reputation for long-term partnership with its clients.

    Low

    High

    Your team has capacity but needs to develop new skills to be successful. Look for a studio, agency, or development shop that has a track record of developing its customers and delivering solutions.

    High

    Low

    Your organization knows what it is doing but is strapped for people. Look at “body shops” and recruiting agencies that will support short-term development contracts that can be converted to full-time staff or even a wholesale development shop acquisition.

    High

    High

    You have capability and capacity for delivering on your everyday demands but need to rise to the challenge of a significant, short-term rise in demand on a critical initiative. Look for a major system integrator or development shop with the specific expertise in the appropriate technology.

    Use these criteria to inform your right sourcing strategy

    Sourcing Criteria

    Description

    Determine whether you’ll outsource using these criteria

    1. Critical or commodity

    Determine whether the component to be sourced is critical to your organization or if it is a commodity. Commodity components, which are either not strategic in nature or related to planning functions, are likely candidates for outsourcing. Will you need to own the intellectual property created by the third party? Are you ok if they reuse that for their other clients?

    2. Readiness to outsource

    Identify how easy it would be to outsource a particular IT component. Consider factors such as knowledge transfer, workforce reassignment or reduction, and level of integration with other components.

    Vendor management readiness – ensuring that you have sufficient capabilities to manage vendors – should also be considered here.

    3. In-house capabilities

    Determine if you have the capability to deliver the IT solutions in-house. This will help you establish how easy it would be to insource an IT component.

    4. Ability to attract resources (internal vs. outsourced)

    Determine if the capability is one that is easily sourced with full-time, internal staff or if it is a specialty skill that is best left for a third-party to source.

    Determine your sourcing model using these criteria

    5. Cost

    Consider the total cost (investment and ongoing costs) of the delivery of the IT component for each of the potential sourcing models for a component.

    6. Quality

    Define the potential impact on the quality of the IT component being sourced by the possible sourcing models.

    7. Compliance

    Determine whether the sourcing model would fit with regulations in your industry. For example, a healthcare provider would only go for a cloud option if that provider is HIPAA compliant.

    8. Security

    Identify the extent to which each sourcing option would leave your organization open to security threats.

    9. Flexibility

    Determine the extent to which the sourcing model will allow your organization to scale up or down as demand changes.

    2.3 Identify capabilities that could be outsourced

    1-3 hours

    1. For each of the capabilities that will be in your future-state operating model, determine if it could be outsourced. Review the sourcing criteria available on the previous slide to help inform which sourcing strategy you will use for each capability.
    2. When looking to outsource or co-source capabilities, consider why that capability would be outsourced:
    • Competitive Advantage – Work with a third-party organization for the knowledge, insights, and best practices they can bring to your organization.
    • Managed Service – The third party manages a capability or function for your organization.
    • Staff Augmentation – Your organization brings in contractors and third-party organizations to fill specific skills gaps.
  • Place an asterisk (*) around the capabilities that will be leveraging one of the three previous sourcing options.
  • InputOutput
    • Customized IT capabilities
    • Sourcing strategy for each IT capability
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    What is an operating model?

    Leverage a cohesive operating model throughout the organizational design process.

    An IT operating model sketch is a visual representation of the way your IT organization needs to be designed and the capabilities it requires to deliver on the business mission, strategic objectives, and technological ambitions. It ensures consistency of all elements in the organizational structure through a clear and coherent blueprint.

    The visual should be the optimization and alignment of the IT organization’s structure to deliver the capabilities required to achieve business goals. Additionally, it should clearly show the flow of work so that key stakeholders can understand where inputs flow in and outputs flow out of the IT organization. Investing time in the front end 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 your model to change as the business changes.

    The image contains an example of an operating model as described in the text above.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Every structure decision you make should be based on an identified need, not on a trend.Build your IT organization to enable the priorities of the organization.

    Each IT operating model is characterized by a variety of advantages and disadvantages

    Centralized

    Hybrid

    Decentralized

    Advantages
    • Maximum flexibility to allocate IT resources across business units.
    • Low-cost delivery model and greatest economies of scale.
    • Control and consistency offers opportunity for technological rationalization and standardization and volume purchasing at the highest degree.
    • Centralizes processes and services that require consistency across the organization.
    • Decentralizes processes and services that need to be responsive to local market conditions.
    • Eliminates duplication and redundancy by allowing effective use of common resources (e.g. shared services, standardization).
    • Goals are aligned to the distinct business units or functions.
    • Greater flexibility and more timely delivery of services.
    • Development resources are highly knowledgeable about business-unit-specific applications.
    • Business unit has greatest control over IT resources and can set and change priorities as needed.

    Disadvantages

    • Less able to respond quickly to local requirements with flexibility.
    • IT can be resistant to change and unwilling to address the unique needs of end users.
    • Business units can be frustrated by perception of lack of control over resources.
    • Development of special business knowledge can be limited.
    • Requires the most disciplined governance structure and the unwavering commitment of the business; therefore, it can be the most difficult to maintain.
    • Requires new processes as pooled resources must be staffed to approved projects.
    • Redundancies, conflicts, and incompatible technologies can result from business units having differentiated services and applications – increasing cost.
    • Ability to share IT resources is low due to lack of common approaches.
    • Lack of integration limits the communication of data between businesses and reduces common reporting.

    Decentralization can take many forms – define what it means to your organization

    Decentralization can take a number of different forms depending on the products the organization supports and how the organization is geographically distributed. Use the following set of explanations to understand the different types of decentralization possible and when they may make sense for supporting your organizational objectives.

    Line of Business

    Decentralization by lines of business (LoB) aligns decision making with business operating units based on related functions or value streams. Localized priorities focus the decision making from the CIO or IT leadership team. This form of decentralization is beneficial in settings where each line of business has a unique set of products or services that require specific expertise or flexible resourcing staffing between the teams.

    Product Line

    Decentralization by product line organizes your team into operationally aligned product families to improve delivery throughput, quality, and resource flexibility within the family. By adopting this approach, you create stable product teams with the right balance between flexibility and resource sharing. This reinforces value delivery and alignment to enterprise goals within the product lines.

    Geographical

    Geographical decentralization reflects a shift from centralized to regional influences. When teams are in different locations, they can experience a number of roadblocks to effective communication (e.g. time zones, regulatory differences in different countries) that may necessitate separating those groups in the organizational structure, so they have the autonomy needed to make critical decisions.

    Functional

    Functional decentralization allows the IT organization to be separated by specialty areas. Organizations structured by functional specialization can often be organized into shared service teams or centers of excellence whereby people are grouped based on their technical, domain, or functional area within IT (Applications, Data, Infrastructure, Security, etc.). This allows people to develop specialized knowledge and skills but can also reinforce silos between teams.

    2.4 Review and select a base operating model sketch

    1 hour

    1. Review the set of base operating model sketches available on the following slides.
    2. For each operating model sketch, there are benefits and risks to be considered. Make an informed selection by understanding the risks that your organization might be taking on by adopting that particular operating model.
    3. If at any point in the selection process the group is unsure about which operating model will be the right fit, refer back to your design principles established in activity 1.4. These should guide you in the selection of the right operating model and eliminate those which will not serve the organization.
    InputOutput
    • Organizational design principles
    • Customized list of IT capabilities
    • Operating model sketch examples
    • Selected operating model sketch
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Centralized Operating Model #1: Plan-Build-Run

    I want to…

    • Establish a formalized governance process that takes direction from the organization on which initiatives should be prioritized by IT.
    • Ensure there is a clear separation between teams that are involved in strategic planning, building solutions, and delivering operational support.
    • Be able to plan long term by understanding the initiatives that are coming down the pipeline and aligning to an infrequent budgeting plan.

    BENEFITS

    • Effective at implementing long-term plans efficiently; separates maintenance and projects to allow each to have the appropriate focus.
    • More oversight over financials; better suited for fixed budgets.
    • Works across centralized technology domains to better align with the business’ strategic objectives – allows for a top-down approach to decision making.
    • Allows for economies of scale and expertise pooling to improve IT’s efficiency.
    • Well-suited for a project-driven environment that employs waterfall or a hybrid project management methodology that is less iterative.

    RISKS

    • Creates artificial silos between the build (developers) and run (operations staff) teams, as both teams focus on their own responsibilities and often fail to see the bigger picture.
    • Miss opportunities to deliver value to the organization or innovate due to an inability to support unpredictable/shifting project demands as decision making is centralized in the plan function.
    • The portfolio of initiatives being pursued is often determined before requirements analysis takes place, meaning the initiative might be solving the wrong need or problem.
    • Depends on strong hand-off processes to be defined and strong knowledge transfer from build to run functions in order to be successful.
    The image contains an example of a Centralized Operating Model: Plan-Build-Run.

    Centralized Operating Model #2: Demand-Develop-Service

    I want to…

    • Listen to the business to understand new initiatives or service enhancements being requested.
    • Enable development and operations to work together to seamlessly deliver in a DevOps culture.
    • Govern and confirm that initiatives being requested by the business are still aligned to IT’s overarching strategy and roadmap before prioritizing those initiatives.

    BENEFITS

    • Aligns well with an end-to-end services model; constant attention to customer demand and service supply.
    • Centralizes service operations under one functional area to serve shared needs across lines of business.
    • Allows for economies of scale and expertise pooling to improve IT’s efficiency.
    • Elevates sourcing and vendor management as its own strategic function; lends well to managed service and digital initiatives.
    • Development and operations housed together; lends well to DevOps-related initiatives and reduces the silos between these two core groups.

    RISKS

    • IT prioritizes the initiatives it thinks are a priority to the business based on how well it establishes good stakeholder relations and communications.
    • Depends on good governance to prevent enhancements and demands from being prioritized without approval from those with accountability and authority.
    • This model thrives in a DevOps culture but does not mean it ensures your organization is a “DevOps” organization. Be sure you're encouraging the right behaviors and attitudes.

    The image contains an example of a Centralized Operating Model: Demand, Develop, Service.

    Hybrid Operating Model #1: LOB/Functional Aligned

    I want to…

    • Better understand the various needs of the organization to align IT priorities and ensure the right services can be delivered.
    • Keep all IT decisions centralized to ensure they align with the overarching strategy and roadmap that IT has set.
    • Organize your shared services in a strategic manner that enables delivery of those services in a way that fits the culture of the organization and the desired method of operating.

    BENEFITS

    • Best of both worlds of centralization and decentralization; attempts to channel benefits from both centralized and decentralized models.
    • Embeds key IT functions that require business knowledge within functional areas, allowing for critical feedback and the ability to understand those business needs.
    • Places IT in a position to not just be “order takers” but to be more involved with the different business units and promote the value of IT.
    • Achieves economies of scale where necessary through the delivery of shared services that can be requested by the function.
    • Shared services can be organized to deliver in the best way that suits the organization.

    RISKS

    • Different business units may bypass governance to get their specific needs met by functions – to alleviate this, IT must have strong governance and prioritize amongst demand.
    • Decentralized role can be viewed as an order taker by the business if not properly embedded and matured.
    • No guaranteed synergy and integration across functions; requires strong communication, collaboration, and steering.
    • Cannot meet every business unit’s needs – can cause tension from varying effectiveness of the IT functions.

    The image contains an example of a Hybrid Operating Model: LOB/Functional Aligned.

    Hybrid Model #2: Product-Aligned Operating Model

    I want to…

    • Align my IT organization into core products (services) that IT provides to the organization and establish a relationship with those in the organization that have alignment to that product.
    • Have roles dedicated to the lifecycle of their product and ensure the product can continuously deliver value to the organization.
    • Maintain centralized set of standards as it applies to overall IT strategy, security, and architecture to ensure consistency across products and reduce silos.

    BENEFITS

    • Focus is on the full lifecycle of a product – takes a strategic view of how technology enables the organization.
    • Promotes centralized backlog around a specific value creator, rather than a traditional project focus that is more transactional.
    • Dedicated teams around the product family ensure you have all of the resources required to deliver on your product roadmap.
    • Reduces barriers between IT and business stakeholders; focuses on technology as a key strategic enabler.
    • Delivery is largely done through frequent releases that can deliver value.

    RISKS

    • If there is little or no business involvement, it could prevent IT from truly understanding business demand and prioritizing the wrong work.
    • A lack of formal governance can create silos between the IT products, causing duplication of efforts, missed opportunities for collaboration, and redundancies in application or vendor contracts.
    • Members of each product can interpret the definition of standards (e.g. architecture, security) differently.

    The image contains an example of the Hybrid Operating Model: Product-Aligned Operating Model.

    Hybrid Operating Model #3: Service-Aligned Operating Model

    I want to…

    • Decentralize the IT organization by the various IT services it offers to the organization while remaining centralized with IT strategy, governance, security and operational services.
    • Ensure IT services are defined and people resources are aligned to deliver on those services.
    • Enable each of IT’s services to have the autonomy to understand the business needs and be able to manage the operational and new project initiatives with a dedicated service owner or business relationship manager.

    BENEFITS

    • Strong enabler of agility as each service has the autonomy to make decisions around operational work versus project work based on their understanding of the business demand.
    • Individuals in similar roles that are decentralized across services are given coaching to provide common direction.
    • Allows teams to efficiently scale with service demand.
    • This is a structurally baseline DevOps model. Each group will have services built within that have their own dedicated teams that will handle the full gambit of responsibilities, from new features to enhancements and maintenance.

    RISKS

    • Service owners require a method to collaborate to avoid duplication of efforts or projects that conflict with the efforts of other IT services.
    • May result in excessive cost through role redundancies across different services, as each will focus on components like integration, stakeholder management, project management, and user experiences.
    • Silos cause a high degree of specialization, making it more difficult for team members to imagine moving to another defined service group, limiting potential career advancement opportunities.
    • The level of complex knowledge required by shared services (e.g. help desk) is often beyond what they can provide, causing them to rely on and escalate to defined service groups more than with other operating models.

    The image contains an example of the Hybrid Operating Model: Service-Aligned Operating Model.

    Decentralized Model: Division Decentralization (LoB, Geography, Function, Product)

    I want to…

    • Decentralize the IT organization to enable greater autonomy within specific groups that have differing customer demands and levels of support.
    • Maintain a standard level of service that can be provided by IT for all divisions.
    • Ensure each division has access to critical data and reports that supports informed decision making.

    BENEFITS

    • Organization around functions allows for diversity in approach in how areas are run to best serve a specific business unit’s needs.
    • Each functional line exists largely independently, with full capacity and control to deliver service at the committed SLAs.
    • Highly responsive to shifting needs and demands with direct connection to customers and all stages of the solution development lifecycle.
    • Accelerates decision making by delegating authority lower into the function.
    • Promotes a flatter organization with less hierarchy and more direct communication with the CIO.

    RISKS

    • Requires risk and security to be centralized and have oversight of each division to prevent the decisions of one division from negatively impacting other divisions or the enterprise.
    • Less synergy and integration across what different lines of business are doing can result in redundancies and unnecessary complexity.
    • Higher overall cost to the IT group due to role and technology duplication across different divisions.
    • It will be difficult to centralize aspects of IT in the future, as divisions adopt to a culture of IT autonomy.

    The image contains an example of the Decentralized Model: Division Decentralization.

    Enterprise Model: Multi-Modal

    I want to…

    • Have an organizational structure that leverages several different operating models based on the needs and requirements of the different divisions.
    • Provide autonomy and authority to the different divisions so they can make informed and necessary changes as they see fit without seeking approval from a centralized IT group.
    • Support the different initiatives the enterprise is focused on delivering and ensure the right model is adopted based on those initiatives.

    BENEFITS

    • Allows for the organization to work in ways that best support individual areas; for example, areas that support legacy systems can be supported through traditional operating models while areas that support digital transformations may be supported through more flexible operating models.
    • Enables a specialization of knowledge related to each division.

    RISKS

    • Inconsistency across the organization can lead to confusion on how the organization should operate.
    • Parts of the organization that work in more traditional operating models may feel limited in career growth and innovation.
    • Cross-division initiatives may require greater oversight and a method to enable operations between the different focus areas.

    The image contains an example of the Enterprise Model: Multi-Modal.

    Create enabling teams that bridge your divisions

    The following bridges might be necessary to augment your divisions:

    • Specialized augmentation: There might not be a sufficient number of resources to support each division. These teams will be leveraged across the divisions; this means that the capabilities needed for each division will exist in this bridge team, rather than in the division.
    • Centers of Excellence: Capabilities that exist within divisions can benefit from shared knowledge across the enterprise. Your organization might set up centers of excellence to support best practices in capabilities organization wide. These are Forums in the unfix model, or communities of practice and support capability development rather than deliveries of each division.
    • Facilitation teams might be required to support divisions through coaching. This might include Agile or other coaches who can help teams adopt practices and embed learnings.
    • Holistic teams provide an enterprise view as they work with various divisions. This can include capabilities like user experience, which can benefit from the holistic perspective rather than a siloed one. People with these capabilities augment the divisions on an as-needed basis.
    The image contains a diagram to demonstrate the use of bridges on divisions.

    2.5 Customize the selected sketch to reflect the desired future state

    1-3 hours

    1. Using the baseline operating model sketch, walk through each of the IT capabilities. Based on the outputs from activity 2.1:
      1. Remove any capabilities for which your IT organization is not responsible and/or accountable.
      2. Augment the language of specific capabilities that you feel are not directly reflective of what is being done within your organizational context or that you feel need to be changed to reflect more specifically how work is being done in your organization.
      3. Add any core capabilities from your organization that are missing from the provided IT capability list.
    2. Move capabilities to the right places in the operating model to reflect how each of the core IT processes should interact with one another.
    3. Add bridges as needed to support the divisions in your organization. Identify which capabilities will sit in these bridges and define how they will enable the operating model sketch to deliver.
    InputOutput
    • Selected base operating model sketch
    • Customized list of IT capabilities
    • Understanding of outsourcing and gaps
    • Customized operating model sketch
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/flip charts
    • Operating model sketch examples
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Document the final operating model sketch in the Communications Deck

    Phase 3

    Formalize the Organizational Structure

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    3.1 Create work units

    3.2 Create work unit mandates

    3.3 Define roles inside the work units

    3.4 Finalize the organizational chart

    3.5 Identify and mitigate key risks

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Embed change management into the organizational design process

    Enable adoption of the new structure.

    You don’t have to make the change in one big bang. You can adopt alternative transition plans such as increments or pilots. This allows people to see the benefits of why you are undergoing the change, allows the change message to be repeated and applied to the individuals impacted, and provides people with time to understand their role in making the new organizational structure successful.

    “Transformational change can be invigorating for some employees but also highly disruptive and stressful for others.”

    Source: OpenStax, 2019

    Info-Tech Insight

    Without considering the individual impact of the new organizational structure on each of your employees, the change will undoubtedly fail in meeting its intended goals and your organization will likely fall back into old structured habits.

    Use a top-down approach to build your target-state IT organizational sketch

    The organizational sketch is the outline of the organization that encompasses the work units and depicts the relationships among them. It’s important that you create the structure that’s right for your organization, not one that simply fits with your current staff’s skills and knowledge. This is why Info-Tech encourages you to use your operating model as a mode of guidance for structuring your future-state organizational sketch.

    The organizational sketch is made up of unique work units. Work units are the foundational building blocks on which you will define the work that IT needs to get done. The number of work units you require and their names will not match your operating model one to one. Certain functional areas will need to be broken down into smaller work units to ensure appropriate leadership and span of control.

    Use your customized operating model to build your work units

    WHAT ARE WORK UNITS?

    A work unit is a functional group or division that has a discrete set of processes or capabilities that it is responsible for, which don’t overlap with any others. Your customized list of IT capabilities will form the building blocks of your work units. Step one in the process of building your structure is grouping IT capabilities together that are similar or that need to be done in concert in the case of more complex work products. The second step is to iterate on these work units based on the organizational design principles from Phase 1 to ensure that the future-state structure is aligned with enablement of the organization’s objectives.

    Work Unit Examples

    Here is a list of example work units you can use to brainstorm what your organization’s could look like. Some of these overlap in functionality but should provide a strong starting point and hint at some potential alternatives to your current way of organizing.

    • Office of the CIO
    • Strategy and Architecture
    • Architecture and Design
    • Business Relationship Management
    • Projection and Portfolio Management
    • Solution Development
    • Solution Delivery
    • DevOps
    • Infrastructure and Operations
    • Enterprise Information Security
    • Security, Risk & Compliance
    • Data and Analytics

    Example of work units

    The image contains an example of work units.

    3.1 Create functional work units

    1-3 hours

    1. Using a whiteboard or large tabletop, list each capability from your operating model on a sticky note and recreate your operating model. Use one color for centralized activities and a second color for decentralized activities.
    2. With the group of key IT stakeholders, review the operating model and any important definitions and rationale for decisions made.
    3. Starting with your centralized capabilities, review each in turn and begin to form logical groups of compatible capabilities. Review the decentralized capabilities and repeat the process, writing additional sticky notes for capabilities that will be repeated in decentralized units.
    4. Note: Not all capabilities need to be grouped. If you believe that a capability has a high enough priority, has a lot of work, or is significantly divergent from others put this capability by itself.
    5. Define a working title for each new work unit, and discuss the pros and cons of the model. Ensure the work units still align with the operating model and make any changes to the operating model needed.
    6. Review your design principles and ensure that they are aligned with your new work units.
    InputOutput
    • Organizational business objectives
    • Customized operating model
    • Defined work units
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Group formation

    Understand the impact of the functional groups you create.

    A group consists of two or more individuals who are working toward a common goal. Group formation is how those individuals are organized to deliver on that common goal. It should take into consideration the levels of hierarchy in your structure, the level of focus you give to processes, and where power is dispersed within your organizational design.

    Importance: Balance highly important capabilities with lower priority capabilities

    Specialization: The scope of each role will be influenced by specialized knowledge and a dedicated leader

    Effectiveness: Group capabilities that increase their efficacy

    Span of Control: Identify the right number of employees reporting to a single leader

    Choose the degree of specialization required

    Be mindful of the number of hats you’re placing on any one role.

    • Specialization exists when individuals in an organization are dedicated to performing specific tasks associated with a common goal and requiring a particular skill set. Aligning the competencies required to carry out the specific tasks based on the degree of complexity associated with those tasks ensures the right people and number of people can be assigned.
    • When people are organized by their specialties, it reduces the likelihood of task switching, reduces the time spent training or cross-training, and increases the focus employees can provide to their dedicated area of specialty.
    • There are disadvantages associated with aligning teams by their specialization, such as becoming bored and seeing the tasks they are performing as monotonous. Specialization doesn’t come without its problems. Monitor employee motivation

    Info-Tech Insight

    Smaller organizations will require less specialization simply out of necessity. To function and deliver on critical processes, some people might be asked to wear several hats.

    Avoid overloading the cognitive capacity of employees

    Cognitive load refers to the number of responsibilities that one can successfully take on.

    • When employees are assigned an appropriate number of responsibilities this leads to:
      • Engaged employees
      • Less task switching
      • Increased effectiveness on assigned responsibilities
      • Reduced bottlenecks
    • While this cognitive load can differ from employee to employee, when assigning role responsibilities, ensure each role isn’t being overburdened and spreading their focus thin.
    • Moreover, capable does not equal successful. Just because someone has the capability to take on more responsibilities doesn’t mean they will be successful.
    • Leverage the cognitive load being placed on your team to help create boundaries between teams and demonstrate clear role expectations.
    Source: IT Revolution, 2021

    Info-Tech Insight

    When you say you are looking for a team that is a “jack of all trades,” you are likely exceeding appropriate cognitive loads for your staff and losing productivity to task switching.

    Factors to consider for span of control

    Too many and too few direct reports have negative impacts on the organization.

    Complexity: More complex work should have fewer direct reports. This often means the leader will need to provide lots of support, even engaging in the work directly at times.

    Demand: Dynamic shifts in demand require more managerial involvement and therefore should have a smaller span of control. Especially if this demand is to support a 24/7 operation.

    Competency Level: Skilled employees should require less hands-on assistance and will be in a better position to support the business as a member of a larger team than those who are new to the role.

    Purpose: Strategic leaders are less involved in the day-to-day operations of their teams, while operational leaders tend to provide hands-on support, specifically when short-staffed.

    Group formation will influence communication structure

    Pick your poison…

    It’s important to understand the impacts that team design has on your services and products. The solutions that a team is capable of producing is highly dependent on how teams are structured. For example, Conway’s Law tells us that small distributed software delivery teams are more likely to produce modular service architecture, where large collocated teams are better able to create monolithic architecture. This doesn’t just apply to software delivery but also other products and services that IT creates. Note that small distributed teams are not the only way to produce quality products as they can create their own silos.

    Sources: Forbes, 2017

    Create mandates for each of your identified work units

    WHAT ARE WORK UNIT MANDATES?

    The work unit mandate should provide a quick overview of the work unit and be clear enough that any reader can understand why the work unit exists, what it does, and what it is accountable for.

    Each work unit will have a unique mandate. Each mandate should be distinguishable enough from your other work units to make it clear why the work is grouped in this specific way, rather than an alternative option. The mandate will vary by organization based on the agreed upon work units, design archetype, and priorities.

    Don’t just adopt an example mandate from another organization or continue use of the organization’s pre-existing mandate – take the time to ensure it accurately depicts what that group is doing so that its value-added activities are clear to the larger organization.

    Examples of Work Unit Mandates

    The Office of the CIO will be a strategic enabler of the IT organization, driving IT organizational performance through improved IT management and governance. A central priority of the Office of the CIO is to ensure that IT is able to respond to evolving environments and challenges through strategic foresight and a centralized view of what is best for the organization.

    The Project Management Office will provide standardized and effective project management practices across the IT landscape, including an identified project management methodology, tools and resources, project prioritization, and all steps from project initiation through to evaluation, as well as education and development for project managers across IT.

    The Solutions Development Group will be responsible for the high-quality development and delivery of new solutions and improvements and the production of customized business reports. Through this function, IT will have improved agility to respond to new initiatives and will be able to deliver high-quality services and insights in a consistent manner.

    3.2 Create work unit mandates

    1-3 hours

    1. Break into teams of three to four people and assign an equal number of work units to each team.
    2. Have each team create a set of statements that describe the overall purpose of that working group. Each mandate statement should:
    • Be clear enough that any reader can understand.
    • Explain why the work unit exists, what it does, and what it is accountable for.
    • Be distinguishable enough from your other work units to make it clear why the work is grouped in this specific way, rather than an alternative option.
  • Have each group present their work unit mandates and make changes wherever necessary.
  • InputOutput
    • Work units
    • Work unit mandates
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Identify the key roles and responsibilities for the target IT organization

    Now that you have identified the main units of work in the target IT organization, it is time to identify the roles that will perform that work. At the end of this step, the key roles will be identified, the purpose statement will be built, and accountability and responsibility for roles will be clearly defined. Make sure that accountability for each task is assigned to one role only. If there are challenges with a role, change the role to address them (e.g. split roles or shift responsibilities).

    The image contains an example of two work units: Enterprise Architecture and PMO. It then lists the roles of the two work units.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Do not bias your role design by focusing on your existing staff’s competencies. If you begin to focus on your existing team members, you run the risk of artificially narrowing the scope of work or skewing the responsibilities of individuals based on the way it is, rather than the way it should be.

    3.3 Define roles inside the work units

    1-3 hours

    1. Select a work unit from the organizational sketch.
    2. Describe the most senior role in that work unit by asking, “what would the leader of this group be accountable or responsible for?” Define this role and move the capabilities they will be accountable for under that leader. Repeat this activity for the capabilities this leader would be responsible for.
    3. Continue to define each role that will be required in that work unit to deliver or provide oversight related to those capabilities.
    4. Continue until key roles are identified and the capabilities each role will be accountable or responsible for are clarified.
    5. Remember, only one role can have accountability for each capability but several can have responsibility.
    6. For each role, use the list of capabilities that the position will be accountable, responsible, or accountable and responsible for to create a job description. Leverage your own internal job descriptions or visit our Job Descriptions page.
    InputOutput
    • Work units
    • Work unit mandates
    • Responsibilities
    • Accountabilities
    • Roles with clarified responsibilities and accountabilities
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Delivery model for product or solution development

    Can add additional complexity or clarity

    • Certain organizational structures will require a specific type of resourcing model to meet expectations and deliver on the development or sustainment of core products and solutions.
    • There are four common methods that we see in IT organizations:
      • Functional Roles: Completed work is handed off from functional team to functional team sequentially as outlined in the organization’s SDLC.
      • Shared Service & Resource Pools (Matrix): Resources are pulled whenever the work requires specific skills or pushed to areas where product demand is high.
      • Product or System: Work is directly sent to the teams who are directly managing the product or directly supporting the requestor.
      • Skills & Competencies: Work is directly sent to the teams who have the IT and business skills and competencies to complete the work.
    • Each of these will lead to a difference in how the functional team is skilled. They could have a great understanding of their customer, the product, the solution, or their service.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Despite popular belief, there is no such thing as the Spotify model, and organizations that structured themselves based on the original Spotify drawing might be missing out on key opportunities to obtain productivity from employees.

    Sources: Indeed, 2020; Agility Scales

    There can be different patterns to structure and resource your product delivery teams

    The primary goal of any product delivery team is to improve the delivery of value for customers and the business based on your product definition and each product’s demand. Each organization will have different priorities and constraints, so your team structure may take on a combination of patterns or may take on one pattern and then transform into another.

    Delivery Team Structure Patterns

    How Are Resources and Work Allocated?

    Functional Roles

    Teams are divided by functional responsibilities (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk) and arranged according to their placement in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

    Completed work is handed off from team to team sequentially as outlined in the organization’s SDLC.

    Shared Service and Resource Pools

    Teams are created by pulling the necessary resources from pools (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk).

    Resources are pulled whenever the work requires specific skills or pushed to areas where product demand is high.

    Product or System

    Teams are dedicated to the development, support, and management of specific products or systems.

    Work is directly sent to the teams who are directly managing the product or directly supporting the requester.

    Skills and Competencies

    Teams are grouped based on skills and competencies related to technology (e.g. Java, mobile, web) or familiarity with business capabilities (e.g. HR, Finance).

    Work is directly sent to the teams who have the IT and business skills and competencies to complete the work.

    Delivery teams will be structured according to resource and development needs

    Functional Roles

    Shared Service and Resource Pools

    Product or System

    Skills and Competencies

    When your people are specialists versus having cross-functional skills

    Leveraged when specialists such as Security or Operations will not have full-time work on the product

    When you have people with cross-functional skills who can self-organize around a product’s needs

    When you have a significant investment in a specific technology stack

    The image contains a diagram of functional roles.The image contains a diagram of shared service and resource pools.The image contains a diagram of product or system.The image contains a diagram of skills and competencies.

    For more information about delivering in a product operating model, refer to our Deliver Digital Products at Scale blueprint.

    3.4 Finalize the organizational chart

    1-3 hours

    1. Import each of your work units and the target-state roles that were identified for each.
    2. In the place of the name of each work unit in your organizational sketch, replace the work unit name with the prospective role name for the leader of that group.
    3. Under each of the leadership roles, import the names of team members that were part of each respective work unit.
    4. Validate the final structure as a group to ensure each of the work units includes all the necessary roles and responsibilities and that there is clear delineation of accountabilities between the work units.

    Input

    Output

    • Work units
    • Work unit mandates
    • Roles with accountabilities and responsibilities
    • Finalized organizational chart

    Materials

    Participants

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook & Executive Communications Deck

    Proactively consider and mitigate redesign risks

    Every organizational structure will include certain risks that should have been considered and accepted when choosing the base operating model sketch. Now that the final organizational structure has been created, consider if those risks were mitigated by the final organizational structure that was created. For those risks that weren’t mitigated, have a tactic to control risks that remain present.

    3.5 Identify and mitigate key risks

    1-3 hours

    1. For each of the operating model sketch options, there are specific risks that should have been considered when selecting that model.
    2. Take those risks and transfer them into the correct slide of the Organizational Design Workbook.
    3. Consider if there are additional risks that need to be considered with the new organizational structure based on the customizations made.
    4. For each risk, rank the severity of that risk on a scale of low, medium, or high.
    5. Determine one or more mitigation tactic(s) for each of the risks identified. This tactic should reduce the likelihood or impact of the risk event happening.
    InputOutput
    • Final organizational structure
    • Operating model sketch benefits and risks
    • Redesign risk mitigation plan
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Phase 4

    Plan for Implementation & Change

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    4.1 Select a transition plan

    4.2 Establish the change communication messages

    4.3 Be consistent with a standard set of FAQs

    4.4 Define org. redesign resistors

    4.5 Create a sustainment plan

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership
    • HR Business Partners

    All changes require change management

    Change management is:

    Managing a change that requires replanning and reorganizing and that causes people to feel like they have lost control over aspects of their jobs.

    – Padar et al., 2017
    People Process Technology

    Embedding change management into organizational design

    PREPARE A

    Awareness: Establish the need for organizational redesign and ensure this is communicated well.

    This blueprint is mostly focused on the prepare and transition components.

    D

    Desire: Ensure the new structure is something people are seeking and will lead to individual benefits for all.

    TRANSITION K

    Knowledge: Provide stakeholders with the tools and resources to function in their new roles and reporting structure.

    A

    Ability: Support employees through the implementation and into new roles or teams.

    FUTURE R

    Reinforcement: Emphasize and reward positive behaviors and attitudes related to the new organizational structure.

    Implementing the new organizational structure

    Implementing the organizational structure can be the most difficult part of the process.

    • To succeed in the process, consider creating an implementation plan that adequately considers these five components.
    • Each of these are critical to supporting the final organizational structure that was established during the redesign process.

    Implementation Plan

    Transition Plan: Identify the appropriate approach to making the transition, and ensure the transition plan works within the context of the business.

    Communication Strategy: Create a method to ensure consistent, clear, and concise information can be provided to all relevant stakeholders.

    Plan to Address Resistance: Given that not everyone will be happy to move forward with the new organizational changes, ensure you have a method to hear feedback and demonstrate concerns have been heard.

    Employee Development Plan: Provide employees with tools, resources, and the ability to demonstrate these new competencies as they adjust to their new roles.

    Monitor and Sustain the Change: Establish metrics that inform if the implementation of the new organizational structure was successful and reinforce positive behaviors.

    Define the type of change the organizational structure will be

    As a result, your organization must adopt OCM practices to better support the acceptance and longevity of the changes being pursued.

    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.

    Info-Tech Insight

    How you transition to the new organizational structure can be heavily influenced by HR. This is the time to be including them and leveraging their expertise to support the transition “how.”

    Transition Plan Options

    Description

    Pros

    Cons

    Example

    Big Bang Change

    Change that needs to happen immediately – “ripping the bandage off.”

    • It puts an immediate stop to the current way of operating.
    • Occurs quickly.
    • More risky.
    • People may not buy into the change immediately.
    • May not receive the training needed to adjust to the change.

    A tsunami in Japan stopped all imports and exports. Auto manufacturers were unable to get parts shipped and had to immediately find an alternative supplier.

    Incremental Change

    The change can be rolled out slower, in phases.

    • Can ensure that people are bought in along the way through the change process, allowing time to adjust and align with the change.
    • There is time to ensure training takes place.
    • It can be a timely process.
    • If the change is dragged on for too long (over several years) the environment may change and the rationale and desired outcome for the change may no longer be relevant.

    A change in technology, such as HRIS, might be rolled out one application at a time to ensure that people have time to learn and adjust to the new system.

    Pilot Change

    The change is rolled out for only a select group, to test and determine if it is suitable to roll out to all impacted stakeholders.

    • Able to test the success of the change initiative and the implementation process.
    • Able to make corrections before rolling it out wider, to aid a smooth change.
    • Use the pilot group as an example of successful change.
    • Able to gain buy-in and create change champions from the pilot group who have experienced it and see the benefits.
    • Able to prevent an inappropriate change from impacting the entire organization.
    • Lengthy process.
    • Takes time to ensure the change has been fully worked through.

    A retail store is implementing a new incentive plan to increase product sales. They will pilot the new incentive plan at select stores, before rolling it out broadly.

    4.1 Select a transition plan approach

    1-3 hours

    1. List each of the changes required to move from your current structure to the new structure. Consider:
      1. Changes in reporting structure
      2. Hiring new members
      3. Eliminating positions
      4. Developing key competencies for staff
    2. Once you’ve defined all the changes required, consider the three different transition plan approaches: big bang, incremental, and pilot. Each of the transition plan approaches will have drawbacks and benefits. Use the list of changes to inform the best approach.
    3. If you are proceeding with the incremental or the pilot, determine the order in which you will proceed with the changes or the groups that will pilot the new structure first.
    InputOutput
    • Customized operating model sketch
    • New org. chart
    • Current org. chart
    • List of changes to move from current to future state
    • Transition plan to support changes
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • HR Business Partners

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Make a plan to effectively manage and communicate the change

    Success of your new organizational structure hinges on adequate preparation and effective communication.

    The top challenge facing organizations in completing the organizational redesign is their organizational culture and acceptance of change. Effective planning for the implementation and communication throughout the change is pivotal. Make sure you understand how the change will impact staff and create tailored plans for communication.

    65% of managers believe the organizational change is effective when provided with frequent and clear communication.

    Source: SHRM, 2021

    Communicate reasons for organizational structure changes and how they will be implemented

    Leaders of successful change spend considerable time developing a powerful change message, i.e. a compelling narrative that articulates the desired end state, and that makes the change concrete and meaningful to staff.

    The organizational 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.

    Five elements of communicating change

    • What is the change?
    • Why are we doing it?
    • How are we going to go about it?
    • How long will it take us to do it?
    • What will the role be for each department and individual?
    Source: Cornelius & Associates, 2010

    4.2 Establish the change communication messages

    2 hours

    1. The purpose of this activity is to establish a change communication message you can leverage when talking to stakeholders about the new organizational structure.
    2. Review the questions in the Organizational Design Workbook.
    3. Establish a clear message around the expected changes that will have to take place to help realize the new organizational structure.
    InputOutput
    • Customized operating model sketch
    • New org. chart
    • Current org. chart
    • List of changes
    • Transition plan
    • Change communication message for new organizational structure
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Apply the following communication principles to make your IT organization redesign changes relevant to stakeholders

    Be Clear

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

    Be Consistent

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

    Be 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 Relevant

    • Talk about what matters to the stakeholder.
    • Talk about what matters to the initiative.
    • Tailor the details of the message to each stakeholder’s specific concerns.
    • IT thinks in processes but stakeholders only care about results: talk in terms of results.
    • IT wants to be understood but this does not matter to stakeholders. Think: “what’s in it for them?”
    • Communicate truthfully; do not make false promises or hide bad news.

    Frequently asked questions (FAQs) provide a chance to anticipate concerns and address them

    As a starting point for building an IT organizational design implementation, look at implementing an FAQ that will address the following:

    • The what, who, when, why, and where
    • The transition process
    • What discussions should be held with clients in business units
    • HR-centric questions

    Questions to consider answering:

    • What is the objective of the IT organization?
    • What are the primary changes to the IT organization?
    • What does the new organizational structure look like?
    • What are the benefits to our IT staff and to our business partners?
    • How will the IT management team share new information with me?
    • What is my role during the transition?
    • What impact is there to my reporting relationship within my department?
    • What are the key dates I should know about?

    4.3 Be consistent with a standard set of FAQs

    1 hour

    1. Beyond the completed communications plans, brainstorm a list of answers to the key “whats” of your organizational design initiative:
    • What is the objective of the IT organization?
    • What are the primary changes to the IT organization?
    • What does the new organizational structure look like?
    • What are the benefits to our IT staff and to our business partners?
  • Think about any key questions that may rise around the transition:
    • How will the IT management team share new information with me?
    • What is my role during the transition?
    • What impact is there to my reporting relationship within my department?
    • What are the key dates I should know about?
  • Determine the best means of socializing this information. If you have an internal wiki or knowledge-sharing platform, this would be a useful place to host the information.
  • InputOutput
    • Driver(s) for the new organizational structure
    • List of changes to move from current to future state
    • Change communication message
    • FAQs to provide to staff about the organizational design changes
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    The change reaction model

    The image contains a picture of the change reaction model. The model includes a double arrow pointing in both directions of left and right. On top of the arrow are 4 circles spread out on the arrow. They are labelled: Active Resistance, Detachment, Questioning, Acceptance.

    (Adapted from Cynthia Wittig)

    Info-Tech Insight

    People resist changes for many reasons. When it comes to organizational redesign changes, some of the most common reasons people resist change include a lack of understanding, a lack of involvement in the process, and fear.

    Include employees in the employee development planning process

    Prioritize

    Assess employee to determine competency levels and interests.

    Draft

    Employee drafts development goals; manager reviews.

    Select

    Manager helps with selection of development activities.

    Check In

    Manager provides ongoing check-ins, coaching, and feedback.

    Consider core and supplementary components that will sustain the new organizational structure

    Supplementary sustainment components:

    • Tools & Resources
    • Structure
    • Skills
    • Work Environment
    • Tasks
    • Disincentives

    Core sustainment components:

    • Empowerment
    • Measurement
    • Leadership
    • Communication
    • Incentives

    Sustainment Plan

    Sustain the change by following through with stakeholders, gathering feedback, and ensuring that the change rationale and impacts are clearly understood. Failure to so increases the potential that the change initiative will fail or be a painful experience and cost the organization in terms of loss of productivity or increase in turnover rates.

    Support sustainment with clear measurements

    • Measurement is one of the most important components of monitoring and sustaining the new organizational structure as it provides insight into where the change is succeeding and where further support should be added.
    • There should be two different types of measurements:
    1. Standard Change Management Metrics
    2. Organizational Redesign Metrics
  • When gathering data around metrics, consider other forms of measurement (qualitative) that can provide insights on opportunities to enhance the success of the organizational redesign change.
    1. Every measurement should be rooted to a goal. Many of the goals related to organizational design will be founded in the driver of this change initiative
    2. Once the goals have been defined, create one or more measurements that determines if the goal was successful.
    3. Use specific key performance indicators (KPIs) that contain a metric that is being measured and the frequency of that measurement.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Obtaining qualitative feedback from employees, customers, and business partners can provide insight into where the new organizational structure is operating optimally versus where there are further adjustments that could be made to support the change.

    4.4 Consider sustainment metrics

    1 hour

    1. Establish metrics that bring the entire process together and that will ensure the new organizational design is a success.
    2. Go back to your driver(s) for the organizational redesign. Use these drivers to help inform a particular measurement that can be used to determine if the new organizational design will be successful. Each measurement should be related to the positive benefits of the organization, an individual, or the change itself.
    3. Once you have a list of measurements, use these to determine the specific KPI that can be qualified through a metric. Often you are looking for an increase or decrease of a particular measurement by a dollar or percentage within a set time frame.
    4. Use the example metrics in the workbook and update them to reflect your organization’s drivers.
    InputOutput
    • Driver(s) for the new organizational structure
    • List of changes to move from current to future state
    • Change communication message
    • Sustainment metrics
    MaterialsParticipants
    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • CIO
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Leadership

    Record the results in the Organizational Design Workbook

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

    • Continue into the second phase of the organizational redesign process by defining the required workforce to deliver.
    • Leveraging trends, data, and feedback from your employees, define the competencies needed to deliver on the defined roles.

    Implement a New IT Organizational Structure

    • 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 the change.

    Define the Role of Project Management in Agile and Product-Centric Delivery

    • There are many voices with different opinions on the role of project management. This causes confusion and unnecessary churn.
    • Project management and product management naturally align to different time horizons. Harmonizing their viewpoints can take significant work.

    Research Contributors and Experts

    The image contains a picture of Jardena London.

    Jardena London

    Transformation Catalyst, Rosetta Technology Group

    The image contains a picture of Jodie Goulden.

    Jodie Goulden

    Consultant | Founder, OrgDesign Works

    The image contains a picture of Shan Pretheshan.

    Shan Pretheshan

    Director, SUPA-IT Consulting

    The image contains a picture of Chris Briley.

    Chris Briley

    CIO, Manning & Napier

    The image contains a picture of Dean Meyer.

    Dean Meyer

    President N. Dean Meyer and Associates Inc.

    The image contains a picture of Jimmy Williams.

    Jimmy Williams

    CIO, Chocktaw Nation of Oklahoma

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Cole Cioran, Managing Partner

    Dana Daher, Research Director

    Hans Eckman, Principal Research Director

    Ugbad Farah, Research Director

    Ari Glaizel, Practice Lead

    Valence Howden, Principal Research Director

    Youssef Kamar, Senior Manager, Consulting

    Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead

    Baird Miller, Executive Counsellor

    Josh Mori, Research Director

    Rajesh Parab, Research Director

    Gary Rietz, Executive Counsellor

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    Pressgrove, Jed. “Centralized vs. Federated: Breaking down IT Structures.” Government Technology, March 2020. Web.

    Sherman, Fraser. “Differences between Organizational Structure and Design.” Bizfluent, 20 September 2019. Web.

    Skelton, Matthew, and Manual Pais. “Team Cognitive Load.” IT Revolution, 19 January 2021. Web.

    Skelton, Matthew, and Manual Pais. Team Topologies. IT Revolution Press, 19 September 2019. Book

    Spencer, Janet, and Michael Watkins. “Why organizational change fails.” TLNT, 26 November 2019. Web.

    Storbakken, Mandy. “The Cloud Operating Model.” VMware, 27 January 2020. Web.

    "The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change.” Cornelius & Associates, 2010. Web.

    “Understanding Organizational Structures.” SHRM, 31 August 2021. Web.

    "unfix Pattern: Base.” AgilityScales, n.d. Web.

    Walker, Alex. “Half-Life: Alyx helped change Valve’s Approach to Development.” Kotaku, 10 July 2020. Web.

    "Why Change Management.” Prosci, n.d. Web.

    Wittig, Cynthia. “Employees' Reactions to Organizational Change.” OD Practioner, vol. 44, no. 2, 2012. Web.

    Woods, Dan. “How Platforms are neutralizing Conway’s Law.” Forbes, 15 August 2017. Web.

    Worren, Nicolay, Jeroen van Bree, and William Zybach. “Organization Design Challenges. Results from a practitioner survey.” Journal of Organizational Design, vol. 8, 25 July 2019. Web.

    Appendix

    IT Culture Framework

    This framework leverages McLean & Company’s adaptation of Quinn and Rohrbaugh’s Competing Values Approach.

    The image contains a diagram of the IT Culture Framework. The framework is divided into four sections: Competitive, Innovative, Traditional, and Cooperative, each with their own list of descriptors.

    Considerations for a Hub and Spoke Model When Deploying Infrastructure in the Cloud

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    • Parent Category Name: Cloud Strategy
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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.

    Modernize Data Architecture for Measurable Business Results

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    • Data architecture projects have often failed in the past, causing businesses today to view the launch of a new project as a costly initiative with unclear business value.
    • New technologies in big data and analytics are requiring organizations to modernize their data architecture, but most organizations have failed to spend the time and effort refining the appropriate data models and blueprints that enable them to do so.
    • As the benefits for data architecture are often diffused across an organization’s information management practice, it can be difficult for the business to understand the value and necessity of data architecture.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • At the heart of tomorrow’s insights-driven enterprises is a modern data environment anchored in fit-for-purpose data architectures.
    • The role of traditional data architecture is transcending beyond organizational boundaries and its focus is shifting from “keeping the lights on” (i.e. operational data and BI) to providing game-changing insights gleaned from untapped big data.

    Impact and Result

    • Perform a diagnostic assessment of your present day architecture and identify the capabilities of your future “to be” environment to position your organization to capitalize on new opportunities in the data space.
    • Use Info-Tech’s program diagnostic assessment and guidance for developing a strategic roadmap to support your team in building a fit-for purpose data architecture practice.
    • Create a data delivery architecture that harmonizes traditional and modern architectural opportunities.

    Modernize Data Architecture for Measurable Business Results Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should modernize your data architecture, 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. Develop a data architecture vision

    Plan your data architecture project and align it with the business and its strategic vision.

    • Modernize Data Architecture for Measurable Business Results – Phase 1: Develop a Data Architecture Vision
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    • Data Architecture Strategic Planning Workbook

    2. Assess data architecture capabilities

    Evaluate the current and target capabilities of your data architecture, using the accompanying diagnostic assessment to identify performance gaps and build a fit-for-purpose practice.

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    • Initiative Definition Tool

    3. Develop a data architecture roadmap

    Translate your planned initiatives into a sequenced roadmap.

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    1 Develop a Data Architecture (DA) Vision

    The Purpose

    Discuss key business drivers and strategies.

    Identify data strategies.

    Develop a data architecture vision.

    Assess data architecture practice capabilities. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A data architecture vision aligned with the business.

    A completed assessment of the organization’s current data architecture practice capabilities.

    Identification of "to be" data architecture practice capabilities.

    Identification of key gaps. 

    Activities

    1.1 Explain approach and value proposition

    1.2 Discuss business vision and key drivers

    1.3 Discover business pain points and needs

    1.4 Determine data strategies

    1.5 Assess DA practice capabilities

    Outputs

    Data strategies

    Data architecture vision

    Current and target capabilities for the modernized DA practice

    2 Assess DA Core Capabilities (Part 1)

    The Purpose

    Assess the enterprise data model (EDM).

    Assess current and target data warehouse, BI/analytics, and big data architectures.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A completed assessment of the organization’s current EDM, data warehouse, BI and analytics, and big data architectures.

    Identification of "to be" capabilities for the organization’s EDM, data warehouse, BI and analytics, and big data architectures.

    Identification of key gaps.

    Activities

    2.1 Present an overarching DA capability model

    2.2 Assess current and target EDM capabilities

    2.3 Assess current/target data warehouse, BI/analytics, and big data architectures

    2.4 Identify gaps and high level strategies

    Outputs

    Target capabilities for EDM

    Target capabilities for data warehouse architecture, BI architecture, and big data architecture

    3 Assess DA Core Capabilities (Part 2)

    The Purpose

    Assess EDM.

    Assess current/target MDM, metadata, data integration, and content architectures.

    Assess dynamic data models.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A completed assessment of the organization’s current MDM, metadata, data integration, and content architectures.

    Identification of “to be” capabilities for the organization’s MDM, metadata, data integration, and content architectures.

    Identification of key gaps.

    Activities

    3.1 Present an overarching DA capability model

    3.2 Assess current and target MDM, metadata, data integration, and content architectures

    3.3 Assess data lineage and data delivery model

    3.4 Identify gaps and high level strategies

    Outputs

    Target capabilities for MDM architecture, metadata architecture, data integration architecture, and document & content architecture

    Target capabilities for data lineage/delivery

    4 Analyze Gaps and Formulate Strategies

    The Purpose

    Map performance gaps and document key initiatives from the diagnostic assessment.

    Identify additional gaps and action items.

    Formulate strategies and initiatives to address priority gaps. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Prioritized gap analysis.

    Improvement initiatives and related strategies.

    Activities

    4.1 Map performance gaps to business vision, pain points, and needs

    4.2 Identify additional gaps

    4.3 Consolidate/rationalize/prioritize gaps

    4.4 Formulate strategies and actions to address gaps

    Outputs

    Prioritized gaps

    Data architecture modernization strategies

    5 Develop a Data Architecture Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Plot initiatives and strategies on a strategic roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A roadmap with prioritized and sequenced initiatives.

    Milestone plan.

    Executive report. 

    Activities

    5.1 Transform strategies into a plan of action

    5.2 Plot actions on a prioritized roadmap

    5.3 Identify and discuss next milestone plan

    5.4 Compile an executive report

    Outputs

    Data architecture modernization roadmap

    Data architecture assessment and roadmap report (from analyst team)

    CIO Priorities 2023

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Strategy
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    CIOs are facing these challenges in 2023:

    • Trying to understand the implications of external trends.
    • Determining what capabilities are most important to support the organization.
    • Understanding how to help the organization pursue new opportunities.
    • Preparing to mitigate new sources of organizational risk.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • While functional leaders may only see their next move, as head of the organization with a complete view of all the pieces, the CIO has full context awareness. It's up to them to assess their gaps, consider the present scenario, and then make their next move.
    • Each priority carries new opportunities for organizations that pursue them.
    • There are also different risks to mitigate as each priority is explored.

    Impact and Result

    • Inform your IT strategy for the year ahead.
    • Identify which capabilities you need to improve.
    • Add initiatives that support your priorities to your roadmap.

    CIO Priorities 2023 Research & Tools

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

    1. CIO Priorities 2023 Report – Read about the priorities on IT leaders' agenda.

    Understand the five priorities that will help navigate the opportunities and risks of the year ahead.

    • CIO Priorities 2023 Report

    Infographic

    Further reading

    CIO Priorities 2023

    Engage cross-functional leadership to seize opportunity while protecting the organization from volatility.

    Analyst Perspective

    Take a full view of the board and use all your pieces to win.

    In our Tech Trends 2023 report, we called on CIOs to think of themselves as chess grandmasters. To view strategy as playing both sides of the board, simultaneously attacking the opponent's king while defending your own. In our CIO Priorities 2023 report, we'll continue with that metaphor as we reflect on IT's capability to respond to trends.

    If the trends report is a study of the board state that CIOs are playing with, the priorities report is about what move they should make next. We must consider all the pieces we have at our disposal and determine which ones we can afford to use to seize on opportunity. Other pieces are best used by staying put to defend their position.

    In examining the different capabilities that CIOs will require to succeed in the year ahead, it's apparent that a siloed view of IT isn't going to work. Just like a chess player in a competitive match would never limit themselves to only using their knights or their rooks, a CIO's responsibility is to deploy each of their pieces to win the day. While functional leaders may only see their next move, as head of the organization with a complete view of all the pieces, the CIO has full awareness of the board state.

    It's up to them to assess their gaps, consider the present scenario, and then make their next move.

    This is a picture of Brian Jackson

    Brian Jackson
    Principal Research Director, Research – CIO
    Info-Tech Research Group

    CIO Priorities 2023 is informed by Info-Tech's primary research data of surveys and benchmarks

    Info-Tech's Tech Trends 2023 report and State of Hybrid Work in IT: A Trend Report inform the externalities faced by organizations in the year ahead. They imply opportunities and risks that organizations face. Leadership must determine if they will respond and how to do so. CIOs then determine how to support those responses by creating or improving their IT capabilities. The priorities are the initiatives that will deliver the most value across the capabilities that are most in demand. The CIO Priorities 2023 report draws on data from several different Info-Tech surveys and diagnostic benchmarks.

    2023 Tech Trends and Priorities Survey; N=813 (partial), n=521 (completed)
    Info-Tech's Trends and Priorities 2023 Survey was conducted between August 9 and September 9, 2022. We received 813 total responses with 521 completed surveys. More than 90% of respondents work in IT departments. More than 84% of respondents are at a manager level of seniority or higher.

    2023 The State of Hybrid Work in IT Survey; N=518
    The State of Hybrid Work in IT Survey was conducted between July 11 and July 29 and received 518 responses. Nine in ten respondents were at a manager level of seniority or higher.

    Every organization will have its own custom list of priorities based on its internal context. Organizational goals, IT maturity level, and effectiveness of capabilities are some of the important factors to consider. To provide CIOs with a starting point for their list of priorities for 2023, we used aggregate data collected in our diagnostic benchmark tools between August 1, 2021, and October 31, 2022.

    Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program is intended to be completed by CIOs and their supervisors (CEO or other executive position [CxO]) and will provide the average maturity level and budget expectations (N=107). The IT Management and Governance Diagnostic will provide the average capability effectiveness and importance ranking to CIOs (N=271). The CIO Business Vision Diagnostic will provide stakeholder satisfaction feedback (N=259).

    The 2023 CIO priorities are based on that data, internal collaboration sessions at Info-Tech, and external interviews with CIOs and subject matter experts.

    Build IT alignment

    Assess your IT processes

    Determine stakeholder satisfaction

    Most IT departments should aim to drive outcomes that deliver better efficiency and cost savings

    Slightly more than half of CIOs using Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program rated themselves at a Support level of maturity in 2022. That aligns with IT professionals' view of their organizations from our Tech Trends and Priorities Survey, where organizations are rated at the Support level on average. At this level, IT departments can provide reliable infrastructure and support a responsive IT service desk that reasonably satisfies stakeholders.

    In the future, CIOs aspire to attain the Transform level of maturity. Nearly half of CIOs select this future state in our diagnostic, indicating a desire to deliver reliable innovation and lead the organization to become a technology-driven firm. However, we see that fewer CxOs aspire for that level of maturity from IT. CxOs are more likely than CIOs to say that IT should aim for the Optimize level of maturity. At this level, IT will help other departments become more efficient and lower costs across the organization.

    Whether a CIO is aiming for the top of the maturity scale in the future or not, IT maturity is achieved one step at a time. Aiming for outcomes at the Optimize level will be a realistic goal for most CIOs in 2023 and will satisfy many stakeholders.

    Current and future state of IT maturity

    This image depicts a table showing the Current and future states of IT maturity.

    Trends indicate a need to focus on leadership and change management

    Trends imply new opportunities and risks that an organization must decide on. Organizational leadership determines if action will be taken to respond to the new external context based on its importance compared to current internal context. To support their organizations, IT must use its capabilities to deliver on initiatives. But if a capability's effectiveness is poor, it could hamper the effort.

    To determine what capabilities IT departments may need to improve or create to support their organizations in 2023, we conducted an analysis of our trends data. Using the opportunities and risks implied by the Tech Trends 2023 report and the State of Hybrid Work in IT: A Trend Report, we've determined the top capabilities IT will need to respond. Capabilities are defined by Info-Tech's IT Management and Governance Framework.

    Tier 1: The Most Important Capabilities In 2023

    Enterprise Application Selection & Implementation

    Manage the selection and implementation of enterprise applications, off-the-shelf software, and software as a service to ensure that IT provides the business with the most appropriate applications at an acceptable cost.

    Effectiveness: 6.5; Importance: 8.8

    Leadership, Culture, and Values

    Ensure that the IT department reflects the values of your organization. Improve the leadership skills of your team to generate top performance.

    Effectiveness: 6.9; Importance: 9

    Data Architecture

    Manage the business' databases, including the technology, the governance processes, and the people that manage them. Establish the principles, policies, and guidelines relevant to the effective use of data within the organization.

    Effectiveness: 6.3; Importance: 8.8

    Organizational Change Management

    Implement or optimize the organization's capabilities for managing the impact of new business processes, new IT systems, and changes in organizational structure or culture.

    Effectiveness: 6.1; Importance: 8.8

    External Compliance

    Ensure that IT processes and IT-supported business processes are compliant with laws, regulations, and contractual requirements.

    Effectiveness: 7.4; Importance: 8.8

    Info-Tech's Management and Diagnostic Benchmark

    Tier 2: Other Important Capabilities In 2023

    Ten more capabilities surfaced as important compared to others but not as important as the capabilities in tier 1.

    Asset Management

    Track IT assets through their lifecycle to make sure that they deliver value at optimal cost, remain operational, and are accounted for and physically protected. Ensure that the assets are reliable and available as needed.

    Effectiveness: 6.4; Importance: 8.5

    Business Intelligence and Reporting

    Develop a set of capabilities, including people, processes, and technology, to enable the transformation of raw data into meaningful and useful information for the purpose of business analysis.

    Effectiveness: 6.3; Importance: 8.8

    Business Value

    Secure optimal value from IT-enabled initiatives, services, and assets by delivering cost-efficient solutions and services and by providing a reliable and accurate picture of costs and benefits.

    Effectiveness: 6.5; Importance: 8.7

    Cost and Budget Management

    Manage the IT-related financial activities and prioritize spending through the use of formal budgeting practices. Provide transparency and accountability for the cost and business value of IT solutions and services.

    Effectiveness: 6.5; Importance: 8.8

    Data Quality

    Put policies, processes, and capabilities in place to ensure that appropriate targets for data quality are set and achieved to match the needs of the business.

    Effectiveness: 6.4; Importance: 8.9

    Enterprise Architecture

    Establish a management practice to create and maintain a coherent set of principles, methods, and models that are used in the design and implementation of the enterprise's business processes, information systems, and infrastructure.

    Effectiveness: 6.8; Importance: 8.8

    IT Organizational Design

    Set up the structure of IT's people, processes, and technology as well as roles and responsibilities to ensure that it's best meeting the needs of the business.

    Effectiveness: 6.8; Importance: 8.8

    Performance Measurement

    Manage IT and process goals and metrics. Monitor and communicate that processes are performing against expectations and provide transparency for performance and conformance.

    Effectiveness: 6; Importance: 8.4

    Stakeholder Relations

    Manage the relationship between the business and IT to ensure that the stakeholders are satisfied with the services they need from IT and have visibility into IT processes.

    Effectiveness: 6.7; Importance: 9.2

    Vendor Management

    Manage IT-related services provided by all suppliers, including selecting suppliers, managing relationships and contracts, and reviewing and monitoring supplier performance.

    Effectiveness: 6.6; Importance: 8.4

    Defining the CIO Priorities for 2023

    Understand the CIO priorities by analyzing both how CIOs respond to trends in general and how a specific CIO responded in the context of their organization.

    This is an image of the four analyses: 1: Implications; 2: Opportunities and risks; 3: Case examples; 4: Priorities to action.

    The Five CIO Priorities for 2023

    Engage cross-functional leadership to seize opportunity while protecting the organization from volatility.

    1. Adjust IT operations to manage for inflation
      • Business Value
      • Vendor Management
      • Cost and Budget Management
    2. Prepare your data pipeline to train AI
      • Business Intelligence and Reporting
      • Data Quality
      • Data Architecture
    3. Go all in on zero-trust security
      • Asset Management
      • Stakeholder Relations
      • External Compliance
    4. Engage employees in the digital age
      • Leadership, Culture, and Values
      • Organizational Change Management
      • Enterprise Architecture
    5. Shape the IT organization to improve customer experience
      • Enterprise Application Selection & Implementation
      • Performance Measurement
      • IT Organizational Design

    Adjust IT operations to manage for inflation

    Priority 01

    • APO06 Cost and Budget Management
    • APo10 Vendor Management
    • EDM02 Business Value

    Recognize the relative impact of higher inflation on IT's spending power and adjust accordingly.

    Inflation takes a bite out of the budget

    Two-thirds of IT professionals are expecting their budgets to increase in 2023, according to our survey. But not every increase is keeping up with the pace of inflation. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that global inflation rose to 8.8% in 2022. It projects it will decline to 6.5% in 2023 and 4.1% by 2024 (IMF, 2022).

    CIOs must account for the impact of inflation on their IT budgets and realize that what looks like an increase on paper is effectively a flat budget or worse. Applied to our survey takers, an IT budget increase of more than 6.5% would be required to keep pace with inflation in 2023. Only 40% of survey takers are expecting that level of increase. For the 27% expecting an increase between 1-5%, they are facing an effective decrease in budget after the impact of inflation. Those expecting no change in budget or a decrease will be even worse off.

    Looking ahead to 2023, how do you anticipate your IT spending will change compared to spending in 2022?

    Global inflation estimates by year

    2022 8.8%
    2023 6.5%
    2024 4.1%

    International Monetary Fund, 2022

    CIOs are more optimistic about budgets than their supervisors

    Data from Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic benchmark also shows that CIOs and their supervisors are planning for increases to the budget. This diagnostic is designed for a CIO to use with their direct supervisor, whether it's the CEO or otherwise (CxO). Results show that on average, CIOs are more optimistic than their supervisors that they will receive budget increases and headcount increases in the years ahead.

    While 14% of CxOs estimated the IT budget would see no change or a decrease in the next three to five years, only 3% of CIOs said the same. A larger discrepancy is seen in headcount, where nearly one-quarter of CXOs estimated no change or decrease in the years ahead, versus only 10% of CIOs estimating the same.

    When we account for the impact of inflation in 2023, this misalignment between CIOs and their supervisors increases. When adjusting for inflation, we need to view the responses projecting an increase of between 1-5% as an effective decrease. With the inflation adjustment, 26% of CXOs are predicting IT budgets to stay flat or see a decrease compared to only 10% of CIOs.

    CIOs should consider how inflation has affected their projected spending power over the past year and take into account projected inflation rates over the next couple of years. Given that the past decade has seen inflation rates between 2-3%, the higher rates projected will have more of an impact on organizational budgets than usual.

    Expect headcount to stay flat or decline over 3-5 years

    CIO: 10%; CXO: 24%

    IT budget expectations to stay flat or decrease before inflation

    CIO: 13.6 %; CXO: 3.2%

    IT budget expectations to stay flat or decrease adjusted for inflation

    CIO: 25.8%; CXO: 9.7%

    Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program

    Opportunities

    Appoint a "cloud economist"

    Organizations that migrated from on-premises data centers to infrastructure as a service shifted their capital expenditures on server racks to operational expenditures on paying the monthly service bill. Managing that monthly bill so that it is in line with desired performance levels now becomes crucial. The expected benefit of the cloud is that an organization can turn the dial up to meet higher demand and turn it down when demand slows. In practice this is sometimes more difficult to execute than anticipated. Some IT departments realize their cloud-based data flows aren't always connected to the revenue-generating activity seen in the business. As a result, a "cloud economist" is needed to closely monitor cloud usage and adjust it to financial expectations. Especially during any recessionary period, IT departments will want to avoid a "bill shock" incident.

    Partner with technology providers

    Keep your friends close and your vendors closer. Look for opportunities to create leverage with your strategic vendors to unlock new opportunities. Identify if a vendor you work with is not entrenched in your industry and offer them the credibility of working with you in exchange for a favorable contract. Offering up your logo for a website listing clients or giving your own time to speak in a customer session at a conference can go a long way to building up some goodwill with your vendors. That's goodwill you'll need when you ask for a new multi-year contract on your software license without annual increases built into the structure.

    Demonstrate IT projects improve efficiency

    An IT department that operates at the Optimize level of Info-Tech's maturity scale can deliver outcomes that lower costs for other departments. IT can defend its own budget if it's able to demonstrate that its initiatives will automate or augment business activities in a way that improves margins. The argument becomes even more compelling if IT can demonstrate it is supporting a revenue-generating initiative or customer-facing experience. CIOs will need to find business champions to vouch for the important contributions IT is making to their area.

    Risks

    Imposition of non-financial reporting requirements

    In some jurisdictions, the largest companies will be required to start collecting information on carbon emissions emitted as a result of business activities by the end of next year. Smaller sized organizations will be next on the list to determine how to meet new requirements issued by various regulators. Risks of failure include facing fines or being shunned by investors. CIOs will need to support their financial reporting teams in collecting the new required data accurately. This will incur new costs as well.

    Rising asset costs

    Acquiring IT equipment is becoming more expensive due to overall inflation and specific pressures around semiconductor supply chains. As a result, more CIOs are extending their device refresh policies to last another year or two. Still, demands for new devices to support new hybrid work models could put pressure on budgets as IT teams are asked to modernize conferencing rooms. For organizations adopting mixed reality headsets, cutting-edge capabilities will come at a premium. Operating costs of devices may also increase as inflation increases costs of the electricity and bandwidth they depend on.

    CASE STUDY
    Leverage your influence in vendor negotiations

    Denise Cornish, Associate VP of IT and Deputy COO,
    Western University of Health Sciences

    Since taking on the lead IT role at Western University in 2020, Denise Cornish has approached vendor management like an auditable activity. She evaluates the value she gets from each vendor relationship and creates a list of critical vendors that she relies upon to deliver core business services. "The trick is to send a message to the vendor that they also need us as a customer that's willing to act as a reference," she says. Cornish has managed to renegotiate a contract with her ERP vendor, locking in a multi-year contract with a very small escalator in exchange for presenting as a customer at conferences. She's also working with them on developing a new integration to another piece of software popular in the education space.

    Western University even negotiated a partnership approach with Apple for a program run with its College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (COMP) called the Digital Doctor Bag. The partnership saw Apple agree to pre-package a customer application developed by Western that delivered the curriculum to students and facilitated communications across students and faculty. Apple recognized Western as an Apple Distinguished School, a program that recognizes innovative schools that use Apple products.

    "I like when negotiations are difficult.
    I don't necessarily expect a zero-sum game. We each need to get something out of this and having the conversation and really digging into what's in it for you and what's in it for me, I enjoy that. So usually when I negotiate a vendor contract, it's rare that it doesn't work out."

    CASE STUDY
    Control cloud costs with a simplified approach

    Jim Love, CIO, IT World Canada

    As an online publisher and a digital marketing platform for technology products and services companies, IT World Canada (ITWC) has observed that there are differences in how small and large companies adopt the cloud as their computing infrastructure. For smaller companies, even though adoption is accelerating, there may still be some reluctance to fully embrace cloud platforms and services. While larger companies often have a multi-cloud approach, this might not be practical for smaller IT shops that may struggle to master the skills necessary to effectively manage one cloud platform. While Love acknowledges that the cloud is the future of corporate computing, he also notes that not all applications or workloads may be well suited to run in the cloud. As well, moving data into the cloud is cheap but moving it back out can be more expensive. That is why it is critical to understand your applications and the data you're working with to control costs and have a successful cloud implementation.

    "Standardization is the friend of IT. So, if you can standardize on one platform, you're going to do better in terms of costs."

    From priorities to action

    Go deeper on pursuing your priorities by improving the associated capabilities.

    Improve Cost and Budget Management

    Take control of your cloud costs by providing central financial oversight on the infrastructure-as-a-service provider your organization uses. Create visibility into your operational costs and define policies to control them. Right-size the use of cloud services to stay within organizational budget expectations.

    Take Control of Cloud Costs on AWS

    Take Control of Cloud Costs on Microsoft Azure

    Improve Business Value

    Reduce the funds allocated to ongoing support and impose tougher discipline around change requests to lighten your maintenance burden and make room for investment in net-new initiatives to support the business.

    Free up funds for new initiatives

    Improve Vendor Management

    Lay the foundation for a vendor management process with long-term benefits. Position yourself as a valuable client with your strategic vendors and leverage your position to improve your contract terms.

    Elevate Your Vendor Management Initiative

    Prepare your data pipeline to train AI

    Priority 02

    • ITRG06 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND REPORTING
    • ITRG07 DATA ARCHITECTURE
    • ITRG08 DATA QUALITY

    Keep pace as the market adopts AI capabilities, and be ready to create competitive advantage.

    Today's innovation is tomorrow's expectation

    During 2022, some compelling examples of generative-AI-based products took the world by storm. Images from AI-generating bots Midjourney and Stable Diffusion went viral, flooding social media and artistic communities with images generated from text prompts. Exchanges with OpenAI's ChatGPT bot also caught attention, as the bot was able to do everything from write poetry, to provide directions on a cooking recipe and then create a shopping list for it, to generate working code in a variety of languages. The foundation models are trained with AI techniques that include generative adversarial networks, transformers, and variational autoencoders. The end result is an algorithm that can produce content that's meaningful to people based on some simple direction. The industry is only beginning to come to grips with how this sort of capability will disrupt the enterprise.

    Slightly more than one-third of IT professionals say their organization has already invested in AI or machine learning. It's the sixth-most popular technology to have already invested in after cloud computing (82%), application programming interfaces (64%), workforce management solutions (44%), data lakes (36%), and next-gen cybersecurity (36%). It's ahead of 12 other technologies that IT is already invested in.

    When we asked what technologies organizations planned to invest in for next year, AI rocketed up the list to second place, as it's selected by 44% of IT professionals. It falls behind only cloud computing. This jump up the list makes AI the fastest growing technology for new investment from organizations.

    Many AI capabilities seem cutting edge now, but organizations are prioritizing it as a technology investment. In a couple of years, access to foundational models that produce images, text, or code will become easy to access with a commercial license and an API integration. AI will become embedded in off-the-shelf software and drive many new features that will quickly become commonplace.

    To stay even with the competition and meet customer expectations, organizations will have to work to at least adopt these AI-enhanced products and services. For those that want to create a competitive advantage, they will have to build a data pipeline that is capable of training their own custom AI models based on their unique data sets.

    Which of the following technology categories has your organization already invested in?

    A bar graph is depicted the percentage of organizations which already had invested in the following Categories: Cloud Computing; Application Programming; Next-Gen Cybersecurity; Workforce Management Solutions; Data Lake/Lakehouse; Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning.

    Which of those same technologies does your organization plan to invest in by the end of 2023?

    A bar graph is depicted the percentage of organizations which plan to invest in the following categories by the end of 2023: No-Code / Low-Code Platforms; Next-Gen Cybersecurity; Application Programming Interfaces (APIs); Data Lake / Lakehouse; Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Learning; Cloud Computing

    Tech Trends 2023 Survey

    Data quality and governance will be critical to customize generative AI

    Data collection and analysis are on the minds of both CIOs and their supervisors. When asked what technologies the business should adopt in the next three to five years, big data (analytics) ranked as most critical to adopt among CIOs and their supervisors. Big data (collection) ranked fourth out of 11 options.

    Organizations that want to drive a competitive advantage from generative AI will need to train these large, versatile models on their own data sets. But at the same time, IT organizations are struggling to provide clean data. The second-most critical gap for IT organizations on average is data quality, behind only organizational change management. Organizations know that data quality is important to support analytics goals, as algorithms can suffer in their integrity if they don't have reliable data to work with. As they say, garbage in, garbage out.

    Another challenge to overcome is the gap seen in IT governance, the sixth largest gap on average. Using data toward training custom generative models will hold new compliance and ethical implications for IT departments to contend with. How user data can be leveraged is already the subject of privacy legislation in many different jurisdictions, and new AI legislation is being developed in various places around the world that could create further demands. In some cases, users are reacting negatively to AI-generated content.

    Biggest capability gaps between rated importance and effectiveness

    This is a Bar graph showing the capability gaps between rated importance and effectiveness.

    IT Management and Governance Diagnostic

    Most critical technologies to adopt rated by CIOs and their supervisors

    This is a Bar graph showing the most critical technologies to adopt as rated by CIO's and their supervisors

    CEO-CIO Alignment Program

    Opportunities

    Enterprise content discovery

    Many organizations still cobble together knowledgebases in SharePoint or some other shared corporate drive, full of resources that no one quite knows how to find. A generative AI chatbot holds potential to be trained on an organization's content and produce content based on an employee's queries. Trained properly, it could point employees to the right resource they need to answer their question or just provide the answer directly.

    Supply chain forecasts

    After Hurricane Ian shut down a Walmart distribution hub, the retailer used AI to simulate the effects on its supply chain. It rerouted deliveries from other hubs based on the predictions and planned for how to respond to demand for goods and services after the storm. Such forecasts would typically take a team of analysts days to compose, but thanks to AI, Walmart had it done in a matter of hours (The Economist, 2022).

    Reduce the costs of AI projects

    New generative AI models of sufficient scale offer advantages over previous AI models in their versatility. Just as ChatGPT can write poetry or dialogue for a play or perhaps a section of a research report (not this one, this human author promises), large models can be deployed for multiple use cases in the enterprise. One AI researcher says this could reduce the costs of an AI project by 20-30% (The Economist, 2022).

    Risks

    Impending AI regulation

    Multiple jurisdictions around the world are pursuing new legislation that imposes requirements on organizations that use AI, including the US, Europe, and Canada. Some uses of AI will be banned outright, such as the real-time use of facial recognition in public spaces, while in other situations people can opt out of using AI and work with a human instead. Regulations will take the risk of the possible outcomes created by AI into consideration, and organizations will often be required to disclose when and how AI is used to reach decisions (Science | Business, 2022). Questions around whether creators can prevent their content from being used for training AI are being raised, with some efforts already underway to collect a list of those who want to opt out. Organizations that adopt a generative AI model today may find it needs to be amended for copyright reasons in the future.

    Bias in the algorithms

    Organizations using a large AI model trained by a third party to complete their tasks or as a foundation to further customize it with their own data will have to contend with the inherent bias of the algorithm. This can lead to unintended negative experiences for users, as it did for MIT Technology Review journalist Melissa Heikkilä when she uploaded her images to AI avatar app Lensa, only to have it render a collection of sexualized portraits. Heikkilä contends that her Asian heritage overly influenced the algorithm to associate her with video-game characters, anime, and adult content (MIT Technology Review, 2022).

    Convincing nonsense

    Many of the generative AI bots released so far often create very good responses to user queries but sometimes create nonsense that at first glance might seem to be accurate. One example is Meta's Galactica bot – intended to streamline scientific research discovery and aid in text generation – which was taken down only three days after being made available. Scientists found that it generated fake research that sounded convincing or failed to do math correctly (Spiceworks, 2022).

    CASE STUDY
    How MLSE enhances the Toronto Raptors' competitiveness with data-driven practices

    Christian Magsisi, Vice President of Venue and Digital Technology, MLSE

    At the Toronto Raptors practice facility, the OVO Athletic Centre, a new 120-foot custom LG video screen towers over the court. The video board is used to playback game clips so coaches can use them to teach players, but it also displays analytics from algorithmic models that are custom-made for each player. Data on shot-making or defensive deflections are just a couple examples of what might inform the players.

    Vice President of Digital Technology Christian Magsisi leads a functional Digital Labs technical group at MLSE. The in-house team builds the specific data models that support the Raptors in their ongoing efforts to improve. The analytics are fed by Noah Analytics, which uses cognitive vision to provide real-time feedback on shot accuracy. SportsVU is a motion capture system that represents how players are positioned on the court, with detail down to which way they are facing and whether their arms are up or down. The third-party vendors provide the solutions to generate the analytics, but it's up to MLSE's internal team to shape them to be actionable for players during a practice.

    "All the way from making sure that a specific player is achieving the results that they're looking for and showing that through data, or finding opportunities for the coaching staff. This is the manifestation of it in real life. Our ultimate goal with the coaches was to be able to take what was on emails or in a report and sometimes even in text message and actually implement it into practice."

    Read the full story on Spiceworks Insights.

    How MLSE enhances the Toronto Raptors' competitiveness with data-driven practices (cont.)

    Humza Teherany, Chief Technology Officer, MLSE

    MLSE's Digital Labs team architects its data insights pipeline on top of cloud services. Amazon Web Services Rekognition provides cognitive vision analysis from video and Amazon Kinesis provides the video processing capabilities. Beyond the court, MLSE uses data to enhance the fan experience, explains CTO Humza Teherany. It begins with having meaningful business goals about where technology can provide the most value. He starts by engaging the leadership of the organization and considering the "art of the possible" when it comes to using technology to unlock their goals.

    Humza Teherany (left) and Christian Magsisi lead MLSE's digital efforts for the pro sports teams owned by the group, including the Toronto Raptors, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Toronto Argonauts. (Photo by Brian Jackson).

    Read the full story on Spiceworks Insights.

    "Our first goal in the entire buildup of the Digital Labs organization has been to support MLSE and all of our teams. We like to do things first. We leverage our own technology to make things better for our fans and for our teams to complete and find incremental advantages where possible."
    Humza Teherany,
    Chief Technology Officer, MLSE

    From priorities to action

    Go deeper on pursuing your priorities by improving the associated capabilities.

    Improve Data Quality

    The performance of AI-assisted tools depends on mature IT operations processes and reliable data sets. Standardize service management processes and build a knowledgebase of structured content to prepare for AI-assisted IT operations.

    Prepare for Cognitive Service Management

    Improve Business Intelligence and Reporting

    Explore the enterprise chatbots that are available to not only assist with customer interactions but also help your employees find the resources they need to do their jobs and retrieve data in real time.

    Explore the best chatbots software

    Improve Data Architecture

    Understand if you are ready to embark on the AI journey and what business use cases are appropriate for AI. Plan around the organization's maturity in people, tools, and operations for delivering the correct data, model development, and model deployment and managing the models in the operational areas.

    Create an Architecture for AI

    Go all in on zero-trust security

    Priority 03

    • BAI09 ASSET MANAGEMENT
    • APO08 STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS
    • MEA03 EXTERNAL COMPLIANCE

    Adopt zero-trust architecture as the new security paradigm across your IT stack and from an organizational risk management perspective.

    Putting faith in zero trust

    The push toward a zero-trust security framework is becoming necessary for organizations for several different reasons over the past couple of years. As the pandemic forced workers away from offices and into their homes, perimeter-based approaches to security were challenged by much wider network footprints and the need to identify users external to the firewall. Supply-chain security became more of a concern with notable attacks affecting many thousands of firms, some with severe consequences. Finally, the regulatory pressure to implement zero trust is rising following President Joe Biden's 2021 Executive Order on Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity. It directs federal agencies to implement zero trust. That will impact any company doing business with the federal government, and it's likely that zero trust will propagate through other government agencies in the years ahead. Zero-trust architecture can also help maintain compliance around privacy-focused regulations concerned about personal data (CSO Online, 2022).

    IT professionals are modestly confident that they can meet new government legislation regarding cybersecurity requirements. When asked to rank their confidence on a scale of one to five, the most common answer was 3 out of 5 (38.5%). The next most common answer was 4 out of 5 (33.3%).

    Zero-trust barriers:
    Talent shortage and lack of leadership involvement

    Out of a list of challenges, IT professionals are most concerned with talent shortages leading to capacity constraints in cybersecurity. Fifty-four per cent say they are concerned or very concerned with this issue. Implementing a new zero-trust framework for security will be difficult if capacity only allows for security teams to respond to incidents.

    The next most pressing concern is that cyber risks are not on the radar of executive leaders or the board of directors, with 46% of IT pros saying they are concerned or very concerned. Since zero-trust requires that organizations take an enterprise risk management approach to cybersecurity and involve top decision makers, this reveals another area where organizations may fall short of achieving a zero-trust environment.

    How confident are you that your organization is prepared to meet current and future government legislation regarding cybersecurity requirements? A circle graph is shown with 68.6% colored dark green, and the words: AVG 3.43 written inside the graph.
    a bar graph showing the confidence % for numbers 1-5
    54%

    of IT professionals are concerned with talent shortages leading to capacity constraints in cybersecurity.

    46%

    of IT professionals are concerned that cyber risks are not on the radar of executive leaders or the board of directors.

    Zero trust mitigates risk while removing friction

    A zero-trust approach to security requires organizations to view cybersecurity risk as part of its overall risk framework. Both CIOs and their supervisors agree that IT-related risks are a pain point. When asked to rate the severity of pain points, 58% of CIOs rated IT-related business risk incidents as a minor pain or major pain. Their supervisors were more concerned, with 61% rating it similarly. Enterprises can mitigate this pain point by involving top levels of leadership in cybersecurity planning.

    Organizations can be wary about implementing new security measures out of concern it will put barriers between employees and what they need to work. Through a zero-trust approach that focuses on identity verification, friction can be avoided. Overall, IT organizations did well to provide security without friction for stakeholders over the past 18 months. Results from Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision Diagnostic shows that stakeholders almost all agree friction due to security practices are acceptable. The one area that stands to be improved is remote/mobile device access, where 78.3% of stakeholders view the friction as acceptable.

    A zero-trust approach treats user identity the same regardless of device and whether it is inside or outside of the corporate network. This can remove friction when workers are looking to connect remotely from a mobile device.

    IT-related business risk incidents viewed as a pain point

    CXO 61%
    CIO 58%

    Business stakeholders rate security friction levels as acceptable

    A bar graph is depicted with the following dataset: Regulatory Compliance: 93.80%; Office/Desktop Computing:	86.50%;Data Access/Integrity: 86.10%; Remote/Mobile Device Access:	78.30%;

    CIO Business Vision Diagnostic, N=259

    Opportunities

    Move to identity-driven access control

    Today's approach to access control on the network is to allow every device to exchange data with every other device. User endpoints and servers talk to each other directly without any central governance. In a zero-trust environment, a centralized zero-trust network access broker provides one-to-one connectivity. This allows servers to rest offline until needed by a user with the right access permissions. Users verify their identity more often as they move throughout the network. The user can access the resources and data they need with minimal friction while protecting servers from unauthorized access. Log files are generated for analysis to raise alerts about when an authorized identity has been compromised.

    Protect data with just-in-time authentication

    Many organizations put process in place to make sure data at rest is encrypted, but often when users copy that data to their own devices, it becomes unencrypted, allowing attackers opportunities to exfiltrate sensitive data from user endpoints. Moving to a zero-trust environment where each data access is brokered by a central broker allows for encryption to be preserved. Parties accessing a document must exchange keys to gain access, locking out unauthorized users that don't have both sets of keys to decrypt the data (MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 2022).

    Harness free and open-source tools to deploy zero trust

    IT teams may not be seeing a budget infusion to invest in a new approach to security. By making use of the many free and open-source tools available, they can bootstrap their strategy into reality. Here's a list to get started:

    PingCastle Wrangle your Active Directory and find all the domains that you've long since forgotten about and manage the situation appropriately. Also builds a spoke-and-hub map of your Active Directory.

    OpenZiti Create an overlay network to enable programmable networking that supports zero trust.

    Snyk Developers can automatically find and fix vulnerabilities before they commit their code. This vendor offers a free tier but users that scale up will need to pay.

    sigstore Open-source users and maintainers can use this solution to verify the code they are running is the code the developer intended. Works by stitching together free services to facilitate software signing, verify against a transparent ledger, and provide auditable logs.

    Microsoft's SBOM generation tool A software bill of materials is a requirement in President Biden's Executive Order, intended to provide organizations with more transparency into their software components by providing a comprehensive list. Microsoft's tool will work with Windows, Linux, and Mac and auto-detect a longlist of software components, and it generates a list organized into four sections that will help organizations comprehend their software footprint.

    Risks

    Organizational culture change to accommodate zero trust

    Zero trust requires that top decision makers get involved in cybersecurity by treating it as an equal consideration of overall enterprise risk. Not all boards will have the cybersecurity expertise required, and some executives may not prioritize cybersecurity despite the warnings. Organizations that don't appoint a chief information security officer (CISO) role to drive the cybersecurity agenda from the top will be at risk of cybersecurity remaining an afterthought.

    Talent shortage

    No matter what industry you're in or what type of organization you run, you need cybersecurity. The demand for talent is very high and organizations are finding it difficult to hire in this area. Without the talent needed to mature cybersecurity approaches to a zero-trust model, the focus will remain on foundational principles of patch management to eliminate vulnerabilities and intrusion prevention. Smaller organizations may want to consider a "virtual CISO" that helps shape the organizational strategy on a part-time basis.

    Social engineering

    Many enterprise security postures remain vulnerable to an attack that commandeers an employee's identity to infiltrate the network. Hosted single sign-on models provide low friction and continuity of identity across applications but also offer a single point of failure that hackers can exploit. Phishing scams that are designed to trick an employee into providing their credentials to a fake website or to just click on a link that delivers a malware payload are the most common inroads that criminals take into the corporate network. Being aware of how user behavior influences security is crucial.

    CASE STUDY
    Engage the entire organization with cybersecurity awareness

    Serge Suponitskiy, CIO, Brosnan Risk Consultants

    Brosnan provides private security services to high-profile clients and is staffed by security experts with professional backgrounds in intelligence services and major law enforcement agencies. Safe to say that security is taken seriously in this culture and CIO Serge Suponitskiy makes sure that extends to all back-office staff that support the firm's activities. He's aware that people are often the weakest link in a cybersecurity posture and are prone to being fooled by a phishing email or even a fraudulent phone call. So cybersecurity training is an ongoing activity that takes many forms. He sends out a weekly cybersecurity bulletin that features a threat report and a story about the "scam of the week." He also uses KnowBe4, a tool that simulates phishing attacks and trains employees in security awareness. Suponitskiy advises reaching out to Marketing or HR for help with engaging employees and finding the right learning opportunities.

    "What is financially the best solution to protect yourself? It's to train your employees. … You can buy all of the tools and it's expensive. Some of the prices are going up for no reason. Some by 20%, some by 50%, it's ridiculous. So, the best way is to keep training, to keep educating, and to reimagine the training. It's not just sending this video that no one clicks on or posting a poster no one looks at. … Given the fact we're moving into this recession world, and everyone is questioning why we need to spend more, it's time to reimagine the training approach."

    CASE STUDY
    Focus on micro-segmentation as the foundation of zero trust

    David Senf, National Cybersecurity Strategist, Bell

    As a cybersecurity analyst and advisor that works with Bell's clients, David Senf sees zero-trust security as an opportunity for organizations to put a strong set of mitigating controls in place to defend against the thorny challenge of reducing vulnerabilities in their software supply chain. With major breaches being linked to widely used software in the past couple of years, security teams might find it effective to focus on a different layer of security to prevent certain breaches. With security policy being enforced at a narrow point/perimeter, attacks are in essence blocked from exploiting application vulnerabilities (e.g. you can't exploit what you can see). Organizations must still ensure there is a solid vulnerability management program in place, but surrounding applications with other controls is critical. One aspect of zero trust, micro-segmentation, which is an approach to network management, can limit the damage caused by a breach. The solutions help to map out and protect the different connections between applications that could otherwise be abused for discovery or lateral movement. Senf advises that knowing your inventory of software and the interdependencies between applications is the first step on a zero-trust journey, before putting protection and detection in place.

    "Next year will be a year of a lot more ZTNA, zero-trust network access, being deployed. So, I think that will give organizations more of an understanding of what zero trust is as well, from a really basic perspective. If I can just limit what applications you can see and no one can even see that application, it's undiscoverable because I've got that ZTNA solution in place. … I would see that as a leading area of deployment and coming to understand what zero trust is in 2023."

    From priorities to action

    Go deeper on pursuing your priorities by improving the associated capabilities.

    Improve Asset Management

    Enable reduced friction in the remote user experience by underpinning it with a hardware asset management program. Creating an inventory of devices and effectively tracking them will aid in maintaining compliance, result in stronger policy enforcement, and reduce the harm of a lost or stolen device.

    Implement Hardware Asset Management

    Improve Stakeholder Relations

    Communicate the transition from a perimeter-based security approach to an "Always Verify" approach with a clear roadmap toward implementation. Map key protect surfaces to business goals to demonstrate the importance of zero-trust security in helping the organization succeed. Help the organization's top leadership build awareness of cybersecurity risk.

    Build a Zero Trust Roadmap

    Improve External Compliance

    Manage the challenge of meeting new government requirements to implement zero-trust security and other data protection and cybersecurity regulations with a compliance program. Create a control environment that aligns multiple compliance regimes, and be prepared for IT audits.

    Build a Security Compliance Program

    Engage employees in the digital age

    Priority 04

    • ITRG02 LEADERSHIP, CULTURE, AND VALUES
    • BAI05 ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT
    • APO03 ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE

    Lead a strong culture through digital means to succeed in engaging the hybrid workforce.

    The new deal for employers in a hybrid work world

    Necessity is the mother of innovation.

    The pandemic's disruption for non-essential workers looks to have a long-lasting, if not permanent, effect on the relationship between employer and employee. The new bargain for almost all organizations is a hybrid work reality, with employees splitting time between the office and working remotely, if not working remotely full-time. IT is in a unique position in the organization as it must not only contend with the shift to this new deal with its own employees but facilitate it for the entire organization.

    With 90% of organizations embracing some form of hybrid work, IT leaders have an opportunity to shift from coping with the new work reality to finding opportunities to improve productivity. Organizations that embrace a hybrid model for their IT departments see a more effective IT department. Organizations that offered no remote work for IT rated their IT effectiveness on average 6.2 out of 10, while organizations with at least 10% of IT roles in a hybrid model saw significantly higher effectiveness. At minimum, organizations with between 50%-70% of IT roles in a hybrid model rated their effectiveness at 6.9 out of 10.

    IT achieved this increase in effectiveness during a disruptive time that often saw IT take on a heavier burden. Remote work required IT to support more users and be involved in facilitating more work processes. Thriving through this challenging time is a win that's worth sharing with the rest of the organization.

    90% of organizations are embracing some form of hybrid work.

    IT's effectiveness compared to % working hybrid or remotely

    A bar graph is shown which compares the effectiveness of IT work with hybrid and full remote work, compared to No Remote Work for IT.

    High effectiveness doesn't mean high engagement

    Despite IT's success with hybrid work, CIOs are more concerned about their staff sufficiency, skill, and engagement than their supervisors. Among clients using our CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic, 49% of CIOs considered this issue a major pain point compared to only 32% of CXOs. While IT staff are more effective than ever, even while carrying more of a burden in the digital age, CIOs are still looking to improve staff engagement.

    Info-Tech's State of Hybrid Work Survey illuminates further details about where IT leaders are concerned for their employee engagement. About four in ten IT leaders say they are concerned for employee wellbeing, and almost the same amount say they are concerned they are not able to see signs that employees are demotivated (N=518).

    Boosting IT employees' engagement levels to match their effectiveness will require IT leaders to harness all the tools at their disposal. Communicating culture and effectively managing organizational change in the digital age is a real test of leadership.

    Staff sufficiency, skill, and engagement issues as a major pain point

    CXO 32%
    CIO 49%

    CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic

    Opportunities

    Drive effectiveness with a hybrid environment

    IT leaders concerned about the erosion of culture and connectedness due to hybrid work can mitigate those effects with increased and improved communication. Among highly effective IT departments, 55% of IT leaders made themselves highly available through instant messaging chat. Another 54% of highly effective leaders increased team meetings (State of Hybrid Work Survey, n=213). The ability to adapt to the team's needs and use a number of tactics to respond is the most important factor. The greater the number of tactics used to overcome communication barriers, the more effective the IT department (State of Hybrid Work Survey, N=518).

    Modernize the office conference room

    A hybrid work approach emphasizes the importance of not only the technology in the office conference room but the process around how meetings are conducted. Creating an equal footing for all participants regardless of how they join is the goal. In pursuit of that, 63% of organizations say they have made changes or upgrades to their conference room technology (n=496). The conferencing experience can influence employee engagement and work culture and enhance collaboration. IT should determine if the business case exists for upgrades and work to decrease the pain of using legacy solutions where possible (State of Hybrid Work in IT: A Trend Report).

    Understand the organizational value chain

    Map out the value chain from the customer perspective and then determine the organizational capabilities involved in delivering on that experience. It is a useful tool for helping IT staff understand how they're connected to the customer experience and organizational mission. It's crucial to identify opportunities to resolve pain points and create more efficiency throughout the organization.

    Risks

    Talent rejects the working model

    Many employees that experienced hybrid work over the past couple of years are finding it's a positive development for work/life balance and aren't interested in a full-time return to the office. Organizations that insist on returning all employees to the office all the time may find that employees choose to leave the organization. Similarly, it could be hard to hire IT talent in a competitive market if the position is required to be onsite every day. Most organizations are providing flexible options to employees and finding ways to manage work in the new digital age.

    Wasted expense on facilities

    Organizations may choose to keep their physical office only to later realize that no one is going to work there. While providing an office space can help foster positive culture through valuable face time, it has to be used intentionally. Managers should plan for specific days that their teams will meet in the office and make sure that work activities take advantage of everyone being in the same place at the same time. Asking everyone to come in so that they can be on a videoconference meeting in their cubicle isn't the point.

    Isolated employees and teams

    Studies on a remote work environment show it has an impact on how many connections each employee maintains within the company. Employees still interact well within their own teams but have fewer interactions across departments. Overall, workers are likely to collaborate just as often as they did when working in the office but with fewer other individuals at the company. Keep the isolating effect of remote work in mind and foster collaboration and networking opportunities across different departments (BBC News, 2022).

    CASE STUDY
    Equal support of in-office and remote work

    Roberto Eberhardt, CIO, Ontario Legislative Assembly

    Working in the legislature of the Ontario provincial government, CIO Roberto Eberhardt's staff went from a fully onsite model to a fully remote model at the outset of the pandemic. Today he's navigating his path to a hybrid model that's somewhere in the middle. His approach is to allow his business colleagues to determine the work model that's needed but to support a technology environment that allows employees to work from home or in the office equally. Every new process that's introduced must meet that paradigm, ensuring it will work in a hybrid environment. For his IT staff, he sees a culture of accountability and commitment to metrics to drive performance measurement as key to the success of this new reality.

    "While it's good in a way, the challenge for us is it became a little more complex because you have to account for all those things in the office environment and in the remote work approach. Everything you do now, you have to say OK well how is this going to work in this world and how will it work in the other world?"

    Creating purpose for IT through strategy

    Mike Russell, Virginia Community College System

    At the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), CIO Mike Russell's IT team supports an organization that governs and delivers services to all community colleges in the state. Russell sees his IT team's purpose as being driven by the organization's mission to ensure success throughout the entire student journey, from enrolment to becoming employed after graduation. That customer-focused mindset starts from the top-level leadership, the chancellor, and the state governor. The VCCS maintains a six-year business plan that informs IT's strategic plan and aligns IT with the mission, and both plans are living documents that get refreshed every two years. Updating the plans provides opportunities for the chancellor to engage the organization and remind everyone of the purpose of their work.

    "The outcome isn't the degree. The outcome we're trying to measure is the job. Did you get the job that you wanted? Whether it's being re-employed or first-time employment, did you get what you were after?"

    From priorities to action

    Go deeper on pursuing your priorities by improving the associated capabilities.

    Improve Leadership, Culture, and Values

    Help leaders manage their teams effectively in a hybrid environment by providing them with the right tools and tactics to manage the challenges of hybrid work. Focus on promoting teamwork and fostering connection.

    Prepare People Leaders for the Hybrid Work Environment

    Improve Organizational Change Management

    Assign accountability for managing the changes that the organization is experiencing in the digital age. Make a people-centric approach that takes human behavior into account and plans to address different needs in different ways. Be proactive about change.

    Master Organizational Change Management Practices

    Improve Enterprise Architecture

    Develop a foundation for aligning IT's activities with business value by creating a right-sized enterprise architecture approach that isn't heavy on bureaucracy. Drive IT's purpose by illustrating how their work contributes to the overall mission and the customer experience.

    Create a Right-Sized Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework

    Shape the IT organization to improve customer experience

    PRIORITY 05

    • BAI03 ENTERPRISE APPLICATION SELECTION & IMPLEMENTATION
    • MEA01 PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
    • ITRG01 IT ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN

    Tightly align the IT organization with the organization's value chain from a customer perspective.

    IT's value is defined by faster, better, bigger

    The pandemic motivated organizations to accelerate their digital transformation efforts, digitalizing more of their tasks and organizing the company's value chain around satisfying the customer experience. Now we see organizations taking their foot off the gas pedal of digitalization and shifting their focus to extracting the value from their investments. They want to execute on the digital transformation in their operations and realize the vision they set out to achieve.

    In our Trends Report we compared the emphasis organizations are putting on digitalization to last year. Overall, we see that most organizations shifted fewer of their processes to digital in the past year.

    We also asked organizations what motivated their push toward automation. The most common drivers are to improve efficiency, with almost seven out of ten organizations looking to increase staff on high-level tasks by automating repetitive tasks, 67% also wanting to increase productivity without increasing headcount, and 59% wanting to reduce errors being made by people. In addition, more than half of organizations pursued automation to improve customer satisfaction.

    What best describes your main motivation to pursue automation, above other considerations?

    A bar graph is depicted showing the following dataset: Increase staff focus on high-level tasks by automating repetitive tasks:	69%; Increase productivity of existing staff to avoid increasing headcount:	67%; Reduce errors made by people:	59%; Improve customer satisfaction:	52%; Achieve cost savings through reduction in headcount:	35%; Increase revenue by enabling higher volume of work:	30%

    Tech Trends 2023 Survey

    To what extent did your organization shift its processes from being manually completed to digitally completed during past year?

    A bar graph is depicted showing the extent to which organizations shifted processes from manual to digital during the past year for 2022 and 2023, from Tech Trends 2023 Survey

    With the shift in focus from implementing new applications to support digital transformation to operating in the new environment, IT must shift its own focus to help realize the value from these systems. At the same time, IT must reorganize itself around the new value chain that's defined by a customer perspective.

    IT struggles to deliver business value or support innovation

    Many current IT departments are structured around legacy processes that hinder their ability to deliver business value. CIOs are trying to grapple with the misalignment between the modern business structure and keep up with the demands for innovation and agility.

    Almost nine in ten CIOs say that business frustration with IT's failure to deliver value is a pain point. Their supervisors have a slightly more favorable opinion, with 76% agreeing that it is a pain point.

    Similarly, nine in ten CIOs say that IT limits affecting business innovation and agility is a pain point, while 81% of their supervisors say the same.

    Supervisors say that IT should "ensure benefits delivery" as the most important process (CEO-CIO Alignment Program). This underlines the need to achieve alignment, optimize service delivery, and facilitate innovation. The pain points identified here will need to be resolved to make this possible.

    IT departments will need to contend with a tight labor market and economic volatility in the year ahead. If this drives down resource capacity, it will be even more critical to tightly align with the organization.

    Views business frustration with IT failure to deliver value as a pain point

    CXO 76%
    CIO 88%

    Views IT limits affecting business innovation and agility as a pain point

    CXO 81%
    CIO

    90%

    CEO-CIO Alignment Program

    Opportunities

    Define IT's value by its contributions to enterprise value

    Communicate the performance of IT to stakeholders by attributing positive changes in enterprise value to IT initiatives. For example, if a digital channel helped increase sales in one area, then IT can claim some portion of that revenue. If optimization of another process resulted in cost savings, then IT can claim that as a contribution toward the bottom line. CIOs should develop their handle on how KPIs influence revenues and costs. Keeping tabs on normalized year-over-year revenue comparisons can help demonstrate that IT contributions are making an impact on driving profitability.

    Go with buy versus build if it's a commodity service

    Most back-office functions common to operating a company can be provided by cloud-based applications accessed through a web browser. There's no value in having IT spend time maintaining on-premises applications that require hosting and ongoing maintenance. Organizations that are still accruing technical debt and are unable to modernize will increasingly find it is negatively impacting employee experience, as users expect their working experience to be similar to their experience with consumer applications. In addition, IT will continue to have capacity challenges as resources will be consumed by maintenance. As they seek to outsource some applications, IT will need to consider the geopolitical risk of certain jurisdictions in selecting a provider.

    Redefine how employee performance is tracked

    The concept of "clocking in" for a shift and spending eight hours a day on the job doesn't help guide IT toward its objectives or create any higher sense of purpose. Leaders must work to create a true sense of accountability by reaching consensus on what key performance indicators are important and tasking staff to improve them. Metrics should clearly link back to business outcomes and IT should understand the role they play in delivering a good customer experience.

    Risks

    Lack of talent available to drive transformation

    CIOs are finding it difficult to hire the talent needed to create the capacity they need as digital demands of their organizations increase. This could slow the pace of change as new positions created in IT go unfilled. CIOs may need to consider reskilling and rebalancing workloads of existing staff in the short term and tap outsourcing providers to help make up shortfalls.

    Resistance to change

    New processes may have been given the official rubber stamp, but that doesn't mean staff are adhering to them. Organizations that reorganize themselves must take steps to audit their processes to ensure they're executed the way they intend. Some employees may feel they are being made obsolete or pushed out of their jobs and become disengaged.

    Short-term increased costs

    Restructuring the organization can come with the need for new tools and more training. It may be necessary to operate with redundant staff for the transitional period. Some additional expenses might be incurred for a brief period as the new structure is being put in place.

    Emphasize the value of IT in driving revenue

    Salman Ali, CIO, McDonald's Germany

    As the new CIO to McDonald's Germany, Salman Ali came on board with an early mandate to reorganize the IT department. The challenge is to merge two organizations together: one that delivers core technology services of infrastructure, security, service desk, and compliance and one that delivers customer-facing technology such as in-store touchscreen kiosks and the mobile app for food delivery. He is looking to organize this new-look department around the technology in the hands of both McDonald's staff and its customers. In conversations with his stakeholders, Ali emphasizes the value that IT is driving rather than discussing the costs that go into it. For example, there was a huge cost in integrating third-party meal delivery apps into the point-of-sales system, but the seamless experience it delivers to customers looking to place an order helps to drive a large volume of sales. He plans to reorganize his department around this value-driven approach. The organization model will be executed with clear accountability in place and key performance indicators to measure success.

    "Technology is no longer just an enabler. It's now a strategic business function. When they talk about digital, they are really talking about what's in the customers' hands and what do they use to interact with the business directly? Digital transformation has given technology a new front seat that's really driving the business."

    CASE STUDY
    Overhauling the "heartbeat" of the organization

    Ernest Solomon, Former CIO, LAWPRO

    LAWPRO is a provider of professional liability insurance and title insurance in Canada. The firm is moving its back-office applications from a build approach to a buy approach and focusing its build efforts on customer-facing systems tied to revenue generation. CIO Ernest Solomon says his team has been developing on a legacy platform for two decades, but it's time to modernize. The firm is replacing its legacy platform and moving to a cloud-based system to address technical debt and improve the experience for staff and customers. The claims and policy management platform, the "heartbeat" of the organization, is moving to a software-as-a-service model. At the same time, the firm's customer-facing Title Plus application is being moved to a cloud-native, serverless architecture. Solomon doesn't see the need for IT to spend time building services for the back office, as that doesn't align with the mission of the organization. Instead, he focuses his build efforts on creating a competitive advantage.

    "We're redefining the customer experience, which is how do we move the needle in a positive direction for all the lawyers that interact with us? How do we generate that value-based proposition and improve their interactions with our organization?"

    From priorities to action

    Go deeper on pursuing your priorities by improving the associated capabilities.

    Improve Enterprise Application Selection & Implementation

    Help leaders manage their teams effectively in a hybrid environment by providing them with the right tools and tactics to manage the challenges of hybrid work. Focus on promoting teamwork and fostering connection.

    Embrace Business-Managed Applications

    Improve Performance Measurement

    Drive the most important IT process in the eyes of supervisors by defining business value and linking IT spend to it. Make benefits realization part of your IT governance.

    Maximize Business Value From IT Through Benefits Realization

    Improve IT Organizational Design

    Showcase IT's value to the business by aligning IT spending and staffing to business functions. Provide transparency into business consumption of IT and compare your spending to your peers'.

    IT Spend & Staffing Benchmarking

    The Five Priorities

    Engage cross-functional leadership to seize opportunity while protecting the organization from volatility.

    1. Adjust IT operations to manage for inflation
    2. Prepare your data pipeline to train AI
    3. Go all in on zero-trust security
    4. Engage employees in the digital age
    5. Shape the IT organization to improve customer experience

    Expert Contributors

    In order of appearance

    Denise Cornish, Associate VP of IT and Deputy COO, Western University of Health Sciences

    Jim Love, CIO, IT World Canada

    Christian Magsisi, Vice President of Venue and Digital Technology, MLSE

    Humza Teherany, Chief Technology Officer, MLSE

    Serge Suponitskiy, CIO, Brosnan Risk Consultants

    David Senf, National Cybersecurity Strategist, Bell

    Roberto Eberhardt, CIO, Ontario Legislative Assembly

    Mike Russell, Virginia Community College System

    Salman Ali, CIO, McDonald's Germany

    Ernest Solomon, Former CIO, LAWPRO

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    Build Your Data Quality Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
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    • Experiencing the pitfalls of poor data quality and failing to benefit from good data quality, including:
      • Unreliable data and unfavorable output.
      • Inefficiencies and costly remedies.
      • Dissatisfied stakeholders.
    • The chances of successful decision-making capabilities are hindered with poor data quality.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Address the root causes of your data quality issues and form a viable data quality program.
      • Be familiar with your organization’s data environment and business landscape.
      • Prioritize business use cases for data quality fixes.
      • Fix data quality issues at the root cause to ensure proper foundation for your data to flow.
    • It is important to sustain best practices and grow your data quality program.

    Impact and Result

    • Implement a set of data quality initiatives that are aligned with overall business objectives and aimed at addressing data practices and the data itself.
    • Develop a prioritized data quality improvement project roadmap and long-term improvement strategy.
    • Build related practices such as artificial intelligence and analytics with more confidence and less risk after achieving an appropriate level of data quality.

    Build Your Data Quality Program Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should establish a data quality 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. Define your organization’s data environment and business landscape

    Learn about what causes data quality issues, how to measure data quality, what makes a good data quality practice in relation to your data and business environments.

    • Business Capability Map Template

    2. Analyze your priorities for data quality fixes

    Determine your business unit priorities to create data quality improvement projects.

    • Data Quality Problem Statement Template
    • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

    3. Establish your organization’s data quality program

    Revisit the root causes of data quality issues and identify the relevant root causes to the highest priority business unit, then determine a strategy for fixing those issues.

    • Data Lineage Diagram Template
    • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

    4. Grow and sustain your data quality practices

    Identify strategies for continuously monitoring and improving data quality at the organization.

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build Your Data Quality 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 Define Your Organization’s Data Environment and Business Landscape

    The Purpose

    Evaluate the maturity of the existing data quality practice and activities.

    Assess how data quality is embedded into related data management practices.

    Envision a target state for the data quality practice.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of the current data quality landscape

    Gaps, inefficiencies, and opportunities in the data quality practice are identified

    Target state for the data quality practice is defined

    Activities

    1.1 Explain approach and value proposition

    1.2 Detail business vision, objectives, and drivers

    1.3 Discuss data quality barriers, needs, and principles

    1.4 Assess current enterprise-wide data quality capabilities

    1.5 Identify data quality practice future state

    1.6 Analyze gaps in data quality practice

    Outputs

    Data Quality Management Primer

    Business Capability Map Template

    Data Culture Diagnostic

    Data Quality Diagnostic

    Data Quality Problem Statement Template

    2 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 1

    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

    2.1 Create business unit prioritization roadmap

    2.2 Develop subject areas project scope

    2.3 By subject area 1 data lineage analysis, root cause analysis, impact assessment, and 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 Understand how data quality management fits in with the organization’s data governance and data management programs

    3.2 By subject area 2 data lineage analysis, root cause analysis, impact assessment, and business analysis

    Outputs

    Data Lineage Diagram

    Root Cause Analysis

    Impact Analysis

    4 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 3

    The Purpose

    Determine a strategy for fixing data quality issues for the highest priority business unit

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Strategy defined for fixing data quality issues for highest priority business unit

    Activities

    4.1 Formulate strategies and actions to achieve data quality practice future state

    4.2 Formulate a data quality resolution plan for the defined subject area

    4.3 By subject area 3 data lineage analysis, root cause analysis, impact assessment, and business analysis

    Outputs

    Data Quality Improvement Plan

    Data Lineage Diagram

    5 Create a Plan for Sustaining Data Quality

    The Purpose

    Plan for continuous improvement in data quality

    Incorporate data quality management into the organization’s existing data management and governance programs

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Sustained and communicated data quality program

    Activities

    5.1 Formulate metrics for continuous tracking of data quality and monitoring the success of the data quality improvement initiative

    5.2 Workshop Debrief with Project Sponsor

    5.3 Meet with project sponsor/manager to discuss results and action items

    5.4 Wrap up outstanding items from the workshop, deliverables expectations, GIs

    Outputs

    Data Quality Practice Improvement Roadmap

    Data Quality Improvement Plan (for defined subject areas)

    Further reading

    Build Your Data Quality Program

    Quality Data Drives Quality Business Decisions

    Executive Brief

    Analyst Perspective

    Get ahead of the data curve by conquering data quality challenges.

    Regardless of the driving business strategy or focus, organizations are turning to data to leverage key insights and help improve the organization’s ability to realize its vision, key goals, and objectives.

    Poor quality data, however, can negatively affect time-to-insight and can undermine an organization’s customer experience efforts, product or service innovation, operational efficiency, or risk and compliance management. If you are looking to draw insights from your data for decision making, the quality of those insights is only as good as the quality of the data feeding or fueling them.

    Improving data quality means having a data quality management practice that is sustainably successful and appropriate to the use of the data, while evolving to keep pace with or get ahead of changing business and data landscapes. It is not a matter of fixing one data set at a time, which is resource and time intensive, but instead identifying where data quality consistently goes off the rails, and creating a program to improve the data processes at the source.

    Crystal Singh

    Research Director, Data and Analytics

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Your organization is experiencing the pitfalls of poor data quality, including:

    • Unreliable data and unfavorable output.
    • Inefficiencies and costly remedies.
    • Dissatisfied stakeholders.

    Poor data quality hinders successful decision making.

    Common Obstacles

    Not understanding the purpose and execution of data quality causes some disorientation with your data.

    • Failure to realize the importance/value of data quality.
    • Unsure of where to start with data quality.
    • Lack of investment in data quality.

    Organizations tend to adopt a project mentality when it comes to data quality instead of taking the strategic approach that would be all-around more beneficial in the long term.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Address the root causes of your data quality issues by forming a viable data quality program.

    • Be familiar with your organization’s data environment and business landscape.
    • Prioritize business use cases for data quality fixes.
    • Fixing data quality issues at the root cause to ensure a proper foundation for your data to flow.

    It is important to sustain best practices and grow your data quality program.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Fix data quality issues as close as possible to the source of data while understanding that business use cases will each have different requirements and expectations from data quality.

    Data is the foundation of your organization’s knowledge

    Data enables your organization to make decisions.

    Reliable data is needed to facilitate data consumers at all levels of the enterprise.

    Insights, knowledge, and information are needed to inform operational, tactical, and strategic decision-making processes. Data and information are needed to manage the business and empower business processes such as billing, customer touchpoints, and fulfillment.

    Raw Data

    Business Information

    Actionable Insights

    Data should be at the foundation of your organization’s evolution. The transformational insights that executives are constantly seeking can be uncovered with a data quality practice that makes high-quality, trustworthy information readily available to the business users who need it.

    98% of companies use data to improve customer experience. (Experian Data Quality, 2019)

    High-Level Data Architecture

    The image is a graphic, which at the top shows different stages of data, and in the lower part of the graphic shows the data processes.

    Build Your Data Quality Program

    1. Data Quality & Data Culture Diagnostics Business Landscape Exercise
    2. Business Strategy & Use Cases
    3. Prioritize Use Cases With Poor Quality

    Info-Tech Insight

    As data is ingested, integrated, and maintained in the various streams of the organization's system and application architecture, there are multiple points where the quality of the data can degrade.

    1. Understand the organization's data culture and data quality environment across the business landscape.
    2. Prioritize business use cases with poor data quality.
    3. For each use case, identify data quality issues and requirements throughout the data pipeline.
    4. Fix data quality issues at the root cause.
    5. As data flow through quality assurance monitoring checkpoints, monitor data to ensure good quality output.

    Insight:

    Proper application of data quality dimensions throughout the data pipeline will result in superior business decisions.

    Data quality issues can occur at any stage of the data flow.

    The image shows the flow of data through various stages: Data Creation; Data Ingestion; Data Accumulation and Engineering; Data Delivery; and Reporting & Analytics. At the bottom, there are two bars: the left one labelled Fix data quality root causes here...; and the right reads: ...to prevent expensive cures here.

    The image is a legend that accompanies the data flow graphic. It indicates that a white and green square icon indicates Data quality dimensions; a red cube indicates a potential point of data quality degradation; the pink square indicates Root cause of poor data quality; and a green flag indicates Quality Assurance Monitoring.

    Prevent the domino effect of poor data quality

    Data is the foundation of decisions made at data-driven organizations.

    Therefore, if there are problems with the organization’s underlying data, this can have a domino effect on many downstream business functions.

    Let’s use an example to illustrate the domino effect of poor data quality.

    Organization X is looking to migrate their data to a single platform, System Y. After the migration, it has become apparent that reports generated from this platform are inconsistent and often seem wrong. What is the effect of this?

    1. Time must be spent on identifying the data quality issues, and often manual data quality fixes are employed. This will extend the time to deliver the project that depends on system Y by X months.
    2. To repair these issues, the business needs to contract two additional resources to complete the unforeseen work. The new resources cost $X each, as well as additional infrastructure and hardware costs.
    3. Now, the strategic objectives of the business are at risk and there is a feeling of mistrust in the new system Y.

    Three key challenges impacting the ability to deliver excellent customer experience

    30% Poor data quality

    30% Method of interaction changing

    30% Legacy systems or lack of new technology

    95% Of organizations indicated that poor data quality undermines business performance.

    (Source: Experian Data Quality, 2019)

    Maintaining quality data will support more informed decisions and strategic insight

    Improving your organization’s data quality will help the business realize the following benefits:

    Data-Driven Decision Making

    Business decisions should be made with a strong rationale. Data can provide insight into key business questions, such as, “How can I provide better customer satisfaction?”

    89% Of CIOs surveyed say lack of quality data is an obstacle to good decision making. (Larry Dignan, CIOs juggling digital transformation pace, bad data, cloud lock0in and business alignment, 2020)

    Customer Intimacy

    Improve marketing and the customer experience by using the right data from the system of record to analyze complete customer views of transactions, sentiments, and interactions.

    94% Percentage of senior IT leaders who say that poor data quality impinges business outcomes. (Clint Boulton, Disconnect between CIOs and LOB managers weakens data quality, 2016)

    Innovation Leadership

    Gain insights on your products, services, usage trends, industry directions, and competitor results to support decisions on innovations, new products, services, and pricing.

    20% Businesses lose as much as 20% of revenue due to poor data quality. (RingLead Data Management Solutions, 10 Stats About Data Quality I Bet You Didn’t Know)

    Operational Excellence

    Make sure the right solution is delivered rapidly and consistently to the right parties for the right price and cost structure. Automate processes by using the right data to drive process improvements.

    10-20% The implementation of data quality initiatives can lead to reductions in corporate budget of up to 20%. (HaloBI, 2015)

    However, maintaining data quality is difficult

    Avoid these pitfalls to get the true value out of your data.

    1. Data debt drags down ROI – a high degree of data debt will hinder you from attaining the ROI you’re expecting.
    2. Lack of trust means lack of usage – a lack of confidence in data results in a lack of data usage in your organization, which negatively effects strategic planning, KPIs, and business outcomes.
    3. Strategic assets become a liability – bad data puts your business at risk of failing compliance standards, which could result in you paying millions in fines.
    4. Increased costs and inefficiency – time spent fixing bad data means less workload capacity for your important initiatives and the inability to make data-based decisions.
    5. Barrier to adopting data-driven tech – emerging technologies, such as predictive analytics and artificial intelligence, rely on quality data. Inaccurate, incomplete, or irrelevant data will result in delays or a lack of ROI.
    6. Bad customer experience – Running your business on bad data can hinder your ability to deliver to your customers, growing their frustration, which negatively impacts your ability to maintain your customer base.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Data quality suffers most at the point of entry. This is one of the causes of the domino effect of data quality – and can be one of the most costly forms of data quality errors due to the error propagation. In other words, fix data ingestion, whether through improving your application and database design or improving your data ingestion policy, and you will fix a large majority of data quality issues.

    Follow Our Data & Analytics Journey

    Data Quality is laced into Data Strategy, Data Management, and Data Governance.

    • Data Strategy
      • Data Management
        • Data Quality
        • Data Governance
          • Data Architecture
            • MDM
            • Data Integration
            • Enterprise Content Management
            • Information Lifecycle Management
              • Data Warehouse/Lake/Lakehouse
                • Reporting and Analytics
                • AI

    Data quality is rooted in data management

    Extract Maximum Benefit Out of Your Data Quality Management.

    • Data management is the planning, execution, and oversight of policies, practices, and projects that acquire, control, protect, deliver, and enhance the value of data and information assets (DAMA, 2009).
    • In other words, getting the right information, to the right people, at the right time.
    • Data quality management exists within each of the data practices, information dimensions, business resources, and subject areas that comprise the data management framework.
    • Within this framework, an effective data quality practice will replace ad hoc processes with standardized practices.
    • An effective data quality practice cannot succeed without proper alignment and collaboration across this framework.
    • Alignment ensures that the data quality practice is fit for purpose to the business.

    The DAMA DMBOK2 Data Management Framework

    • Data Governance
      • Data Quality
      • Data Architecture
      • Data Modeling & Design
      • Data Storage & Operations
      • Data Security
      • Data Integration & Interoperability
      • Documents & Content
      • Reference & Master Data
      • Data Warehousing & Business Intelligence
      • Meta-data

    (Source: DAMA International)

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Build a Robust and Comprehensive Data Strategy

    • People often think that the main problems they need to fix first are related to data quality when the issues transpire at a much larger level. This blueprint is the key to building and fostering a data-driven culture.

    Create a Data Management Roadmap

    • Refer to this blueprint to understand data quality in the context of data disciplines and methods for improving your data management capabilities.

    Establish Data Governance

    • Define an effective data governance strategy and ensure the strategy integrates well with data quality with this blueprint.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for Data Quality

    Phase Steps 1. Define Your Organization’s Data Environment and Business Landscape 2. Analyze Your Priorities for Data Quality Fixes 3. Establish Your Organization’s Data Quality Program 4. Grow and Sustain Your Data Quality Practice
    Phase Outcomes This step identifies the foundational understanding of your data and business landscape, the essential concepts around data quality, as well as the core capabilities and competencies that IT needs to effectively improve data quality. To begin addressing specific, business-driven data quality projects, you must identify and prioritize the data-driven business units. This will ensure that data improvement initiatives are aligned to business goals and priorities. After determining whose data is going to be fixed based on priority, determine the specific problems that they are facing with data quality, and implement an improvement plan to fix it. Now that you have put an improvement plan into action, make sure that the data quality issues don’t keep cropping up. Integrate data quality management with data governance practices into your organization and look to grow your organization’s overall data maturity.

    Info-Tech Insight

    “Data Quality is in the eyes of the beholder.”– Igor Ikonnikov, Research Director

    Data quality means tolerance, not perfection

    Data from Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Diagnostic, which represents over 400 business stakeholders, shows that data quality is very important when satisfaction with data quality is low.

    However, when data quality satisfaction hit a threshold, it became less important.

    The image is a line graph, with the X-axis labelled Satisfaction with Data Quality, and the Y axis labelled Rated Importance for Data Quality. The line begins high, and then descends. There is text inside the graph, which is transcribed below.

    Respondents were asked “How satisfied are you with the quality, reliability, and effectiveness of the data you use to manage your group?” as well as to rank how important data quality was to their organization.

    When the business satisfaction of data quality reached a threshold value of 71-80%, the rated importance reached its lowest value.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Data needs to be good, but truly spectacular data may go unnoticed.

    Provide the right level of data quality, with the appropriate effort, for the correct usage. This blueprint will help you to determine what “the right level of data quality” means, as well as create a plan to achieve that goal for the business.

    Data Roles and Responsibilities

    Data quality occurs through three main layers across the data lifecycle

    Data Strategy

    Data Strategy should contain Data Quality as a standard component.

    ← Data Quality issues can occur throughout at any stage of the data flow →

    DQ Dimensions

    Timeliness – Representation – Usability – Consistency – Completeness – Uniqueness – Entry Quality – Validity – Confidence – Importance

    Source System Layer

    • Data Resource Manager/Collector: Enters data into a database and ensures that data collection sources are accurate

    Data Transformation Layer

    • ETL Developer: Designs data storage systems
    • Data Engineer: Oversees data integrations, data warehouses and data lakes, data pipelines
    • Database Administrator: Manages database systems, ensures they meet SLAs, performances, backups
    • Data Quality Engineer: Finds and cleanses bad data in data sources, creates processes to prevent data quality problems

    Consumption Layer

    • Data Scientist: Gathers and analyses data from databases and other sources, runs models, and creates data visualizations for users
    • BI Analyst: Evaluates and mines complex data and transforms it into insights that drive business value. Uses BI software and tools to analyze industry trends and create visualizations for business users
    • Data Analyst: Extracts data from business systems, analyzes it, and creates reports and dashboards for users
    • BI Engineer: Documents business needs on data analysis and reporting and develops BI systems, reports, and dashboards to support them
    Data Creation → [SLA] Data Ingestion [ QA] →Data Accumulation & Engineering → [SLA] Data Delivery [QA] →Reporting & Analytics
    Fix Data Quality root causes here… to prevent expensive cures here.

    Executive Brief Case Study

    Industry: Healthcare

    Source: Primary Info-Tech Research

    Align source systems to maximize business output.

    A healthcare insurance agency faced data quality issues in which a key business use case was impacted negatively. Business rules were not well defined, and default values instead of real value caused a concern. When dealing with multiple addresses, data was coming from different source systems.

    The challenge was to identify the most accurate address, as some were incomplete, and some lacked currency and were not up to date. This especially challenged a key business unit, marketing, to derive business value in performing key activities by being unable to reach out to existing customers to advertise any additional products.

    For this initiative, this insurance agency took an economic approach by addressing those data quality issues using internal resources.

    Results

    Without having any MDM tools or having a master record or any specific technology relating to data quality, this insurance agency used in-house development to tackle those particular issues at the source system. Data quality capabilities such as data profiling were used to uncover those issues and address them.

    “Data quality is subjective; you have to be selective in terms of targeting the data that matters the most. When getting business tools right, most issues will be fixed and lead to achieving the most value.” – Asif Mumtaz, Data & Solution Architect

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostic and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4
    • Call #1: Learn about the concepts of data quality and the common root causes of poor data quality.
    • Call #2: Identify the core capabilities of IT for improving data quality on an enterprise scale.
    • Call #3: Determine which business units use data and require data quality remediation.
    • Call #4: Create a plan for addressing business unit data quality issues according to priority of the business units based on value and impact of data.
    • Call #5: Revisit the root causes of data quality issues and identify the relevant root causes to the highest priority business unit.
    • Call #6: Determine a strategy for fixing data quality issues for the highest priority business unit.
    • Call #7: Identify strategies for continuously monitoring and improving data quality at the organization.
    • Call #8: Learn how to incorporate data quality practices in the organization’s larger data management and data governance frameworks.
    • Call #9: Summarize results and plan next steps on how to evolve your data landscape.

    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 eight to twelve calls over the course of four to six months.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Define Your Organization’s Data Environment and Business Landscape Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 1 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 2 Create a Strategy for Data Quality Project 3 Create a Plan for Sustaining Data Quality
    Activities
    1. Explain approach and value proposition.
    2. Detail business vision, objectives, and drivers.
    3. Discuss data quality barriers, needs, and principles.
    4. Assess current enterprise-wide data quality capabilities.
    5. Identify data quality practice future state.
    6. Analyze gaps in data quality practice.
    1. Create business unit prioritization roadmap.
    2. Develop subject areas project scope.
    3. By subject area 1:
    • Data lineage analysis
    • Root cause analysis
    • Impact assessment
    • Business analysis
    1. Understand how data quality management fits in with the organization’s data governance and data management programs.
    2. By subject area 2:
    • Data lineage analysis
    • Root cause analysis
    • Impact assessment
    • Business analysis
    1. Formulate strategies and actions to achieve data quality practice future state.
    2. Formulate data quality resolution plan for defined subject area.
    3. By subject area 3:
    • Data lineage analysis
    • Root cause analysis
    • Impact assessment
    • Business analysis
    1. Formulate metrics for continuous tracking of data quality and monitoring the success of the data quality improvement initiative.
    2. Workshop Debrief with Project Sponsor.
    • Meet with project sponsor/manager to discuss results and action items.
    • Wrap up outstanding items from the workshop, deliverables expectations, GIs.
    Deliverables
    1. Data Quality Management Primer
    2. Business Capability Map Template
    3. Data Culture Diagnostic
    4. Data Quality Diagnostic
    5. Data Quality Problem Statement Template
    1. Business Unit Prioritization Roadmap
    2. Subject area scope
    3. Data Lineage Diagram
    1. Data Lineage Diagram
    2. Root Cause Analysis
    3. Impact Analysis
    1. Data Lineage Diagram
    2. Data Quality Improvement Plan
    1. Data Quality Practice Improvement Roadmap
    2. Data Quality Improvement Plan (for defined subject areas)

    Phase 1

    Define Your Organization’s Data Environment and Business Landscape

    Build Your Data Quality Program

    Data quality is a methodology and must be treated as such

    A comprehensive data quality practice includes appropriate business requirements gathering, planning, governance, and oversight capabilities, as well as empowering technologies for properly trained staff, and ongoing development processes.

    Some common examples of appropriate data management methodologies for data quality are:

    • The data quality team has the necessary competencies and resources to perform the outlined workload.
    • There are processes that exist for continuously evaluating data quality performance capabilities.
    • Improvement strategies are designed to increase data quality performance capabilities.
    • Policies and procedures that govern data quality are well-documented, communicated, followed, and updated.
    • Change controls exist for revising policies and procedures, including communication of updates and changes.
    • Self-auditing techniques are used to ensure business-IT alignment when designing or recalibrating strategies.

    Effective data quality practices coordinate with other overarching data disciplines, related data practices, and strategic business objectives.

    “You don’t solve data quality with a Band-Aid; you solve it with a methodology.” – Diraj Goel, Growth Advisor, BC Tech

    Data quality can be defined by four key quality indicators

    Similar to measuring the acidity of a substance with a litmus test, the quality of your data can be measured using a simple indicator test. As you learn about common root causes of data quality problems in the following slides, think about these four quality indicators to assess the quality of your data:

    • Completeness – Closeness to the correct value. Encompasses accuracy, consistency, and comparability to other databases.
    • Usability – The degree to which data meets current user needs. To measure this, you must determine if the user is satisfied with the data they are using to complete their business functions.
    • Timeliness – Length of time between creation and availability of data.
    • Accessibility – How easily a user can access and understand the data (including data definitions and context). Interpretability can also be used to describe this indicator.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Quality is a relative term. Data quality is measured in terms of tolerance. Perfect data quality is both impossible and a waste of time and effort.

    How to get investment for your data quality program

    Follow these steps to convince leadership of the value of data quality:

    “You have to level with people, you cannot just start talking with the language of data and expect them to understand when the other language is money and numbers.” – Izabela Edmunds, Information Architect at Mott MacDonald

    1. Perform Phases 0 & 1 of this blueprint as this will offer value in carrying out the following steps.
    2. Build credibility. Show them your understanding of data and how it aligns to the business.
    3. Provide tangible evidence of how significant business use cases are impacted by poor quality data.
    4. Present the ROI of fixing the data quality issues you have prioritized.
    5. Explain how the data quality program will be established, implemented, and sustained.
    6. Prove the importance of fixing data quality issues at the source and how it is the most efficient, effective, and cost-friendly solution.

    Phase 1 deliverables

    Each of these deliverables serve as inputs to detect key outcomes about your organization and to help complete this blueprint:

    1. Data Culture Diagnostic

    Use this report to understand where your organization lies across areas relating to data culture.

    While the Quality & Trust area of the report might be most prevalent to this blueprint, this diagnostic may point out other areas demanding more attention.

    Please speak to your account manager for access

    2. Business Capability Map Template

    Perform this process to understand the capabilities that enable specific value streams. The output of this deliverable is a high-level view of your organization’s defined business capabilities.

    Download this tool

    Info-Tech Insight

    Understanding your data culture and business capabilities are foundational to starting the journey of data quality improvement.

    Key deliverable:

    3. Data Quality Diagnostic

    The Data Quality Report is designed to help you understand, assess, and improve key organizational data quality issues. This is where respondents across various areas in the organization can assess Data Quality across various dimensions.

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    Data Quality Diagnostic Value

    Prioritize business use cases with our data quality dimensions.

    • Complete this diagnostic for each major business use case. The output from the Data Culture Diagnostic and the Business Capability Map should help you understand which use cases to address.
    • Involve all key stakeholders involved in the business use case. There may be multiple business units involved in a single use case.
    • Prioritize the business use cases that need the most attention pertaining to data quality by comparing the scores of the Importance and Confidence data quality dimensions.

    If there are data elements that are considered of high importance and low confidence, then they must be prioritized.

    Sample Scorecard

    The image shows a screen capture of a scorecard, with sample information filled in.

    The image shows a screen capture of a scorecard, with sample information filled in.

    Poor data quality develops due to multiple root causes

    After you get to know the properties of good quality data, understand the underlying causes of why those indicators can point to poor data quality.

    If you notice that the usability, completeness, timeliness, or accessibility of the organization’s data is suffering, one or more of the following root causes are likely plaguing your data:

    Common root causes of poor data quality, through the lens of Info-Tech’s Five-Tier Data Architecture:

    The image shows a graphic of Info-Tech's Five-Tier Data Architecture, with root causes of poor data quality identified. In the data creation and ingestion stages, the root causes are identified as Poor system/application design, Poor database design, Inadequate enterprise integration. The root causes identified in the latter stages are: Absence of data quality policies, procedures, and standards, and Incomplete/suboptimal business processes

    These root causes of poor data quality are difficult to avoid, not only because they are often generated at an organization’s beginning stages, but also because change can be difficult. This means that the root causes are often propagated through stale or outdated business processes.

    Data quality problems root cause #1:

    Poor system or application design

    Application design plays one of the largest roles in the quality of the organization’s data. The proper design of applications can prevent data quality issues that can snowball into larger issues downstream.

    Proper ingestion is 90% of the battle. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This is true in many different topics, and data quality is one of them. Designing an application so that data gets entered properly, whether by internal staff or external customers, is the single most effective way to prevent data quality issues.

    Some common causes of data quality problems at the application/system level include:

    • Too many open fields (free-form text fields that accept a variety of inputs).
    • There are no lookup capabilities present. Reference data should be looked up instead of entered.
    • Mandatory fields are not defined, resulting in blank fields.
    • No validation of data entries before writing to the underlying database.
    • Manual data entry encourages human error. This can be compounded by poor application design that facilitates the incorrect data entry.

    Data quality problems root cause #2:

    Poor database design

    Database design also affects data quality. How a database is designed to handle incoming data, including the schema and key identification, can impact the integrity of the data used for reporting and analytics.

    The most common type of database is the relational database. Therefore, we will focus on this type of database.

    When working with and designing relational databases, there are some important concepts that must be considered.

    Referential integrity is a term that is important for the design of relational database schema, and indicates that table relationships must always be consistent.

    For table relationships to be consistent, primary keys (unique value for each row) must uniquely identify entities in columns of the table. Foreign keys (field that is defined in a second table but refers to the primary key in the first table) must agree with the primary key that is referenced by the foreign key. To maintain referential integrity, any updates must be propagated to the primary parent key.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Other types of databases, including databases with unstructured data, need data quality consideration. However, unstructured data may have different levels of quality tolerance.

    At the database level, some common root causes include:

    1. Lack of referential integrity.
    2. Lack of unique keys.
    3. Don’t have restricted data range.
    4. Incorrect datatype, string fields that can hold too many characters.
    5. Orphaned records.

    Databases and People:

    Even though database design is a technology issue, don’t forget about the people.

    A lack of training employees on database permissions for updating/entering data into the physical databases is a common problem for data quality.

    Data quality problems root cause #3:

    Improper integration and synchronization of enterprise data

    Data ingestion is another category of data-quality-issue root causes. When moving data in Tier 2, whether it is through ETL, ESB, point-to-point integration, etc., the integrity of the data during movement and/or transformation needs to be maintained.

    Tier 2 (the data ingestion layer) serves to move data for one of two main purposes:

    • To move data from originating systems to downstream systems to support integrated business processes.
    • To move data to Tier 3 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, it 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 cleansing and matching and other data-related blending tasks occur at this layer.

    This ensures the data is pristine throughout the process and improves trustworthiness of outcomes and speed to task completion.

    At the integration layer, some common root causes of data quality problems include:

    1. No data mask. For example, zip code should have a mask of five numeric characters.
    2. Questionable aggregation, transformation process, or incorrect logic.
    3. Unsynchronized data refresh process in an integrated environment.
    4. Lack of a data matching tool.
    5. Lack of a data quality tool.
    6. Don’t have data profiling capability.
    7. Errors with data conversion or migration processes – when migrating, decommissioning, or converting systems – movement of data sets.
    8. Incorrect data mapping between data sources and targets.

    Data quality problems root cause #4:

    Insufficient and ineffective data quality policies and procedures

    Data policies and procedures are necessary for establishing standards around data and represent another category of data-quality-issue root causes. This issue spans across all five of the 5 Tier Architecture.

    Data policies are short statements that seek to manage the creation, acquisition, integrity, security, compliance, and quality of data. These policies vary amongst organizations, depending on your specific data needs.

    • Policies describe what to do, while standards and procedures describe how to do something.
    • There should be few data policies, and they should be brief and direct. Policies are living documents and should be continuously updated to respond to the organization’s data needs.
    • The data policies should highlight who is responsible for the data under various scenarios and rules around how to manage it effectively.

    Some common root causes of data quality issues related to policies and procedures include:

    1. Policies are absent or out of date.
    2. Employees are largely unaware of policies in effect.
    3. Policies are unmonitored and unenforced.
    4. Policies are in multiple locations.
    5. Multiple versions of the same policy exist.
    6. Policies are managed inconsistently across different silos.
    7. Policies are written poorly by untrained authors.
    8. Inadequate policy training program.
    9. Draft policies stall and lose momentum.
    10. Weak policy support from senior management.

    Data quality problems root cause #5:

    Inefficient or ineffective business processes

    Some common root causes of data quality issues related to business processes include:

    1. Multiple entries of the same record leads to duplicate records proliferating in the database.
    2. Many business definitions of data.
    3. Failure to document data manipulations when presenting data.
    4. Failure to train people on how to understand data.
    5. Manually intensive processes can result in duplication of effort (creates room for errors).
    6. No clear delineation of dependencies of business processes within or between departments, which leads to a siloed approach to business processes, rather than a coordinated and aligned approach.

    Business processes can impact data quality. How data is entered into systems, as well as employee training and knowledge about the correct data definitions, can impact the quality of your organization’s data.

    These problematic business process root causes can lead to:

    Duplicate records

    Incomplete data

    Improper use of data

    Wrong data entered into fields

    These data quality issues will result in costly and inefficient manual fixes, wasting valuable time and resources.

    Phase 1 Summary

    1. Data Quality Understanding

    • Understanding that data quality is a methodology and should be treated as such.
    • Data quality can be defined by four key indicators which are completeness, usability, timeliness, and accessibility.
    • Explained how to get investment for your data quality program and showcasing its value to leadership.

    2. Phase 0 Deliverables

    Introduced foundational tools to help you throughout this blueprint:

    • Complete the Data Culture Diagnostic and Business Capability Map Template as they are foundational in understanding your data culture and business capabilities to start the journey of data quality improvement.
    • Involve key relevant stakeholders when completing the Data Quality Diagnostic for each major business use case. Use the Importance and Confidence dimensions to help you prioritize which use case to address.

    3. Common Root Causes

    Addressed where multiple root causes can occur throughout the flow of your data.

    Analyzed the following common root causes of data quality:

    1. Poor system or application design
    2. Poor database design
    3. Improper integration and synchronization of enterprise data
    4. Insufficient and ineffective data quality policies and procedures
    5. Inefficient or ineffective business processes

    Phase 2

    Analyze Your Priorities for Data Quality Fixes

    Build Your Data Quality Program

    Business Context & Data Quality

    Establish the business context of data quality improvement projects at the business unit level to find common goals.

    • To ensure the data improvement strategy is business driven, start your data quality project evaluation by understanding the business context. You will then determine which business units use data and create a roadmap for prioritizing business units for data quality repairs.
    • Your business context is represented by your corporate business vision, mission, goals and objectives, differentiators, and drivers. Collectively, they provide essential information on what is important to your organization, and some hints on how to achieve that. In this step, you will gather important information about your business view and interpret the business view to establish a data view.

    Business Vision

    Business Goals

    Business Drivers

    Business Differentiators

    Not every business unit uses data to the same extent

    A data flow diagram can provide value by allowing an organization to adopt a proactive approach to data quality. Save time by knowing where the entry points are and where to look for data flaws.

    Understanding where data lives can be challenging as it is often in motion and rarely resides in one place. There are multiple benefits that come from taking the time to create a data flow diagram.

    • Mapping out the flow of data can help provide clarity on where the data lives and how it moves through the enterprise systems.
    • Having a visual of where and when data moves helps to understand who is using data and how it is being manipulated at different points.
    • A data flow diagram will allow you to elicit how data is used in a different use case.

    Info-Tech’s Four-Column Model of Data will help you to identify the essential aspects of your data:

    Business Use Case →Used by→Business Unit →Housed in→Systems→Used for→Usage of the Data

    Not every business unit requires the same standard of data quality

    To prioritize your business units for data quality improvement projects, you must analyze the relative importance of the data they use to the business. The more important the data is to the business, the higher the priority is of fixing that data. There are two measures for determining the importance of data: business value and business impact.

    Business Value of Data

    Business value of data can be evaluated by thinking about its ties to revenue generation for the organization, as well as how it is used for productivity and operations at the organization.

    The business value of data is assessed by asking what would happen to the following parameters if the data is not usable (due to poor quality, for example):

    • Loss of Revenue
    • Loss of Productivity
    • Increased Operating Costs

    Business Impact of Data

    Business impact of data should take into account the effects of poor data on both internal and external parties.

    The business impact of data is assessed by asking what the impact would be of bad data on the following parameters:

    • Impact on Customers
    • Impact on Internal Staff
    • Impact on Business Partners

    Value + Impact = Data Priority Score

    Ensure that the project starts on the right foot by completing Info-Tech’s Data Quality Problem Statement Template

    Before you can identify a solution, you must identify the problem with the business unit’s data.

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    Use Info-Tech’s Data Quality Problem Statement Template to identify the symptoms of poor data quality and articulate the problem.

    Info-Tech’s Data Quality Problem Statement Template will walk you through a step-by-step approach to identifying and describing the problems that the business unit feels regarding its data quality.

    Before articulating the problem, it helps to identify the symptoms of the problem. The following W’s will help you to describe the symptoms of the data quality issues:

    What

    Define the symptoms and feelings produced by poor data quality in the business unit.

    Where

    Define the location of the data that are causing data quality issues.

    When

    Define how severe the data quality issues are in frequency and duration.

    Who

    Define who is affected by the data quality problems and who works with the data.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Symptoms vs. Problems. Often, people will identify a list of symptoms of a problem and mistake those for the problem. Identifying the symptoms helps to define the problem, but symptoms do not help to identify the solution. The problem statement helps you to create solutions.

    Define the project problem to articulate the purpose

    1 hour

    Input

    • Symptoms of data quality issues in the business unit

    Output

    • Refined problem description

    Materials

    • Data Quality Problem Statement Template

    Participants

    • Data Quality Improvement Project team
    • Business line representatives

    A defined problem helps you to create clear goals, as well as lead your thinking to determine solutions to the problem.

    A problem statement consists of one or two sentences that summarize a condition or issue that a quality improvement team is meant to address. For the improvement team to fix the problem, the problem statement therefore has to be specific and concise.

    Instructions

    1. Gather the Data Quality Improvement Project Team in a room and start with an issue that is believed to be related to data quality.
    2. Ask what are the attributes and symptoms of that reality today; do this with the people impacted by the issue. This should be an IT and business collaboration.
    3. Draw your conclusions of what it all means: what have you collectively learned?
    4. Consider the implications of your conclusions and other considerations that must be taken into account such as regulatory needs, compliance, policy, and targets.
    5. Develop solutions – Contain the problem to something that can be solved in a realistic timeframe, such as three months.

    Download the Data Quality Problem Statement Template

    Case Study

    A strategic roadmap rooted in business requirements primes a data quality improvement plan for success.

    MathWorks

    Industry

    Software Development

    Source

    Primary Info-Tech Research

    As part of moving to a formalized data quality practice, MathWorks leveraged an incremental approach that took its time investigating business cases to support improvement actions. Establishing realistic goals for improvement in the form of a roadmap was a central component for gaining executive approval to push the project forward.

    Roadmap Creation

    In constructing a comprehensive roadmap that incorporated findings from business process and data analyses, MathWorks opted to document five-year and three-year overall goals, with one-year objectives that supported each goal. This approach ensured that the tactical actions taken were directed by long-term strategic objectives.

    Results – Business Alignment

    In presenting their roadmap for executive approval, MathWorks placed emphasis on communicating the progression and impact of their initiatives in terms that would engage business users. They focused on maintaining continual lines of communication with business stakeholders to demonstrate the value of the initiatives and also to gradually shift the corporate culture to one that is invested in an effective data quality practice.

    “Don’t jump at the first opportunity, because you may be putting out a fire with a cup of water where a fire truck is needed.” – Executive Advisor, IT Research and Advisory Firm

    Use Info-Tech’s Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool to create your strategy for improving data quality

    Assess IT’s capabilities and competencies around data quality and plan to build these as the organization’s data quality practice develops. Before you can fix data quality, make sure you have the necessary skills and abilities to fix data quality correctly.

    The following IT capabilities are developed on an ongoing basis and are necessary for standardizing and structuring a data quality practice:

    • Meeting Business Needs
    • Services and Projects
    • Policies, Procedures, and Standards
    • Roles and Organizational Structure
    • Oversight and Communication
    • Data Quality of Different Data Types

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    Data Handling and Remediation Competencies:

    • Data Standardization: Formatting values into consistent standards based on industry standards and business rules.
    • Data Cleansing: Modification of values to meet domain restrictions, integrity constraints, or other business rules for sufficient data quality for the organization.
    • Data Matching: Identification, linking, and merging related entries in or across sets of data.
    • Data Validation: Checking for correctness of the data.

    After these capabilities and competencies are assessed for a current and desired target state, the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool will suggest improvement actions that should be followed in order to build your data quality practice. In addition, a roadmap will be generated after target dates are set to create your data quality practice development strategy.

    Benchmark current and identify target capabilities for your data quality practice

    1 hour

    Input

    • Current and desired data quality practices in the organization

    Output

    • Assessment of where the gaps lie in your data quality practice

    Materials

    • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Data Quality Project Lead
    • Business Line Representatives
    • Business Architects

    Use the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool to evaluate the baseline and target capabilities of your practice in terms of how data quality is approached and executed.

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    Instructions

    1. Invite the appropriate stakeholders to participate in this exercise. Examples:
      1. Business executives will have input in Tab 2
      2. Unique stakeholders: communications expert or executive advisors may have input
    2. On Tab 2: Practice Components, assess the current and target states of each capability on a scale of 1–5. 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.

    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. Remind everyone that data quality should ultimately serve business needs wherever possible.

    Visualization improves the holistic understanding of where gaps exist in your data quality practice

    To enable deeper analysis on the results of your practice assessment, Tab 3: Data Quality Practice Scorecard in the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning 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 “Meeting Business Needs” capabilities

    The image shows a screen capture of the Gap assessment of 
“Meeting Business Needs” capabilities, with sample information filled in.

    Visualization of gap assessment of data quality practice capabilities

    The image shows a bar graph titled Data Quality Capabilities.

    1. Enhance your gap analyses by forming a relative comparison of total gaps in key practice capability areas, which will help in determining priorities.
    • Example: In Tab 2 compare your capabilities within “Policies, Procedures, and Standards.” Then in Tab 3, compare your overall capabilities in “Policies, Procedures, and Standards” versus “Empowering Technologies.”
  • Put these up on display to improve discussion in the gap analyses and prioritization sessions.
  • Improve the clarity and flow of your strategy template, final presentations, and summary documents by copying and pasting the gap assessment diagrams.
  • Before engaging in the data quality improvement project plan, receive signoff from IT regarding feasibility

    The final piece of the puzzle is to gain sign-off from IT.

    Hofstadter's law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

    This means that before engaging IT in data quality projects to fix the business units’ data in Phase 2, IT must assess feasibility of the data quality improvement plan. A feasibility analysis is typically used to review the strengths and weaknesses of the projects, as well as the availability of required skills and technologies needed to complete them. Use the following workflow to guide you in performing a feasibility analysis:

    Project evaluation process:

    Present capabilities

    • Operational Capabilities
    • System Capabilities
    • Schedule Capabilities
      • Summary of Evaluation Results
        • Recommendations/ modifications to the project plan

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    While the PMO identifies and coordinates projects, IT must determine how long and for how much.

    Conduct gap analysis sessions to review and prioritize the capability gaps

    1 hour

    Input

    • Current and Target State Assessment

    Output

    • Documented initiatives to help you get to the target state

    Materials

    • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Data Quality team
    • IT representatives

    Instructions

    • Analyze Gap Analysis Results – As a group, discuss the high-level results on Tab 3: Data Quality Practice Score. Discuss the implications of the gaps identified.
    • Do a line-item review of the gaps between current and target levels for each assessed capability by using Tab 2: Practice Components.
    • Brainstorm Alignment Strategies – Brainstorm the effort and activities that will be necessary to support the practice in building its capabilities to the desired target level. Ask the following questions:
      • What activities must occur to enable this capability?
      • What changes/additions to resources, process, technology, business involvement, and communication must occur?
    • Document Data Quality Initiatives – Turn activities into initiatives by documenting them in Tab 4. Data Quality Practice Roadmap. Review the initiatives and estimate the start and end dates of each one.
    • Continue to evaluate the assessment results in order to create a comprehensive set of data quality initiatives that support your practice in building capabilities.

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    Create the organization’s data quality improvement strategy roadmap

    1 hour

    Input

    • Data quality practice gaps and improvement actions

    Output

    • Data quality practice improvement roadmap

    Materials

    • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Data Quality Project Lead
    • Business Executives
    • IT Executives
    • Business Architects

    Generating Your Roadmap

    1. Plan the sequence, starting time, and length of each initiative in the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool.
    2. The tool will generate a Gantt chart based on the start and length of your initiatives.
    3. The Gantt chart is generated in Tab 4: Data Quality Practice Roadmap, and can be used to organize and ensure that all of the essential aspects of data quality are addressed.

    Use the Practice Roadmap to plan and improve data quality capabilities

    Download this Tool

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    To help get you started, Info-Tech has provided an extensive list of data quality improvement initiatives that are commonly undertaken by organizations looking to improve their data quality.

    Establish Baseline Metrics

    Baseline metrics will be improved through:

    2 hours

    Create practice-level metrics to monitor your data quality practice.

    Instructions:

    1. Establish metrics for both the business and IT that will be used to determine if the data quality practice development is effective.
    2. Set targets for each metric.
    3. Collect current data to calculate the metrics and establish a baseline.
    4. Assign an owner for tracking each metric to be accountable for performance.
    Metric Current Goal
    Usage (% of trained users using the data warehouse)
    Performance (response time)
    Performance (response time)
    Resource utilization (memory usage, number of machine cycles)
    User satisfaction (quarterly user surveys)
    Data quality (% values outside valid values, % fields missing, wrong data type, data outside acceptable range, data that violates business rules. Some aspects of data quality can be automatically tracked and reported)
    Costs (initial installation and ongoing, Total Cost of Ownership including servers, software licenses, support staff)
    Security (security violations detected, where violations are coming from, breaches)
    Patterns that are used
    Reduction in time to market for the data
    Completeness of data that is available
    How many "standard" data models are being used
    What is the extra business value from the data governance program?
    How much time is spent for data prep by BI & analytics team?

    Phase 2 summary

    As you improve your data quality practice and move from reactive to stable, don’t rest and assume that you can let data quality keep going by itself. Rapidly changing consumer requirements or other pains will catch up to your organization and you will fall behind again. By moving to the proactive and predictive end of the maturity scale, you can stay ahead of the curve. By following the methodology laid out in Phase 1, the data quality practices at your organization will improve over time, leading to the following results:

    Chaotic

    Before Data Quality Practice Improvements

    • No standards to data quality

    Reactive

    Year 1

    • Processes defined
    • Data cleansing approach to data quality

    Stable

    Year 2

    • Business rules/ stewardship in place
    • Education and training

    Proactive

    Year 3

    • Data quality practices fully in place and embedded in the culture
    • Trusted and intelligent enterprise

    (Global Data Excellence, Data Excellence Maturity Model)

    Phase 3

    Establish Your Organization’s Data Quality Program

    Build Your Data Quality Program

    Create a data lineage diagram to map the data journey and identify the data subject areas to be targeted for fixes

    It is important to understand the various data that exist in the business unit, as well as which data are essential to business function and require the highest degree of quality efforts.

    Visualize your databases and the flow of data. A data lineage diagram can help you and the Data Quality Improvement Team visualize where data issues lie. Keeping the five-tier architecture in mind, build your data lineage diagram.

    Reminder: Five-Tier Architecture

    The image shows the Five-Tier Architecture graphic.

    Use the following icons to represent your various data systems and databases.

    The image shows four icons. They are: the image of a square and a computer monitor, labelled Application; the image of two sheets of paper, labelled Desktop documents; the image of a green circle next to a computer monitor, labelled Web Application; and a blue cylinder labelled Database.

    Use Info-Tech’s Data Lineage Diagram to document the data sources and applications used by the business unit

    2 hours

    Input

    • Data sources and applications used by the business unit

    Output

    • Data lineage diagram

    Materials

    • Data Lineage Diagram Template

    Participants

    • Business Unit Head/Data Owner
    • Business Unit SMEs
    • Data Analysts/Architects

    Map the flow and location of data within a business unit by creating a system context diagram.

    Gain an accurate view of data locations and uses: Engage business users and representatives with a wide breadth of knowledge-related business processes and the use of data by related business operations.

    1. Sit down with key business representatives of the business unit.
    2. Document the sources of data and processes in which they’re involved, and get IT confirmation that the sources of the data are correct.
    3. Map out the sources and processes in a system context diagram.

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    Sample Data Lineage Diagram

    The image shows a sample data lineage diagram, split into External Applications and Internal Applications, and showing the processes involved in each.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool to document business context

    1 hour

    Input

    • Business vision, goals, and drivers

    Output

    • Business context for the data quality improvement project

    Materials

    • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Data Quality project lead
    • Business line representatives
    • IT executives

    Develop goals and align them with specific objectives to set the framework for your data quality initiatives.

    In the context of achieving business vision, mission, goals, and objectives and sustaining differentiators and key drivers, think about where and how data quality is a barrier. Then brainstorm data quality improvement objectives that map to these barriers. Document your list of objectives in Tab 5. Prioritize business units of the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool.

    Establishing Business Context Example

    Healthcare Industry

    Vision To improve member services and make service provider experience more effective through improving data quality and data collection, aggregation, and accessibility for all the members.
    Goals

    Establish meaningful metrics that guide to the improvement of healthcare for member effectiveness of health care providers:

    • Data collection
    • Data harmonization
    • Data accessibility and trust by all constituents.
    Differentiator Connect service consumers with service providers, that comply with established regulations by delivering data that is accurate, trusted, timely, and easy to understand to connect service providers and eliminate bureaucracy and save money and time.
    Key Driver Seamlessly provide a healthcare for members.

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    Document the identified business units and their associated data

    30 minutes

    Input

    • Business units

    Output

    • Documented business units to begin prioritization

    Materials

    • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Project Manager

    Instructions

    1. Using Tab 5: Prioritize Business Units of the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool, document the business units that use data in the organization. This will likely be all business units in the organization.
    2. Next, document the primary data used by those business units.
    3. These inputs will then be used to assess business unit priority to generate a data quality improvement project roadmap.

    The image shows a screen capture of Tab 5: Prioritize Business Units, with sample information inputted.

    Reminder – Not every business unit requires the same standard of data quality

    To prioritize your business units for data quality improvement projects, you must analyze the relative importance of the data they use to the business. The more important the data is to the business, the higher the priority is of fixing that data. There are two measures for determining the importance of data: business value and business impact.

    Business Value of Data

    Business value of data can be evaluated by thinking about its ties to revenue generation for the organization, as well as how it is used for productivity and operations at the organization.

    The business value of data is assessed by asking what would happen to the following parameters if the data is not usable (due to poor quality, for example):

    • Loss of Revenue
    • Loss of Productivity
    • Increased Operating Costs

    Business Impact of Data

    Business impact of data should take into account the effects of poor data on both internal and external parties.

    The business impact of data is assessed by asking what the impact would be of bad data on the following parameters:

    • Impact on Customers
    • Impact on Internal Staff
    • Impact on Business Partners

    Value + Impact = Data Priority Score

    Assess the business unit priority order for data quality improvements

    2 hours

    Input

    • Assessment of value and impact of business unit data

    Output

    • Prioritization list for data quality improvement projects

    Materials

    • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Project Manager
    • Data owners

    Instructions

    Instructions In Tab 5: Prioritize Business Units of the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool, assess business value and business impact of the data within each documented business unit.

    Use the ratings High, Medium, and Low to measure the financial, productivity, and efficiency value and impact of each business unit’s data.

    In addition to these ratings, assess the number of help desk tickets that are submitted to IT regarding data quality issues. This parameter is an indicator that the business unit’s data is high priority for data quality fixes.

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    Create a business unit order roadmap for your data quality improvement projects

    1 hour

    Input

    • Rating of importance of data for each business unit

    Output

    • Roadmap for data quality improvement projects

    Materials

    • Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool

    Participants

    • Project Manager
    • Product Manager
    • Business line representatives

    Instructions

    After assessing the business units for the business value and business impact of their data, the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool automatically assesses the prioritization of the business units based on your ratings. These prioritizations are then summarized in a roadmap on Tab 6: Data Quality Project Roadmap. The following is an example of a project roadmap:

    The image shows an example of a project roadmap, with three business units listed vertically along the left hand side, and a Gantt chart showing the time periods in which each Business Unit would work. At the bottom, a table shows the Length of the Project in days (100), and the start date for the first project.

    On Tab 6, insert the timeline for your data quality improvement projects, as well as the starting date of your first data quality project. The roadmap will automatically update with the chosen timing and dates.

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    Identify metrics at the business unit level to track data quality improvements

    As you improve the data quality for specific business units, measuring the benefits of data quality improvements will help you demonstrate the value of the projects to the business.

    Use the following table to guide you in creating business-aligned metrics:

    Business Unit Driver Metrics Goal
    Sales Customer Intimacy Accuracy of customer data. Percent of missing or incomplete records. 10% decrease in customer record errors.

    Marketing

    Customer Intimacy Accuracy of customer data. Percent of missing or incomplete records. 10% decrease in customer record errors.
    Finance Operational Excellence Relevance of financial reports. Decrease in report inaccuracy complaints.
    HR Risk Management Accuracy of employee data. 10% decrease in employee record errors.
    Shipping Operational Excellence Timeliness of invoice data. 10% decrease in time to report.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Relating data governance success metrics to overall business benefits keeps executive management and executive sponsors engaged because they are seeing actionable results. Review metrics on an ongoing basis with those data owners/stewards who are accountable, the data governance steering committee, and the executive sponsors.

    Case Study

    Address data quality with the right approach to maximize the ROI

    EDC

    Industry: Government

    Source: Environment Development of Canada (EDC)

    Challenge

    Environment Development Canada (EDC) would initially identify data elements that are important to the business purely based on their business instinct.

    Leadership attempted to tackle the enterprise’s data issues by bringing a set of different tools into the organization.

    It didn’t work out because the fundamental foundational layer, which is the data and infrastructure, was not right – they didn't have the foundational capabilities to enable those tools.

    Solution

    Leadership listened to the need for one single team to be responsible for the data persistence.

    Therefore, the data platform team was granted that mandate to extensively execute the data quality program across the enterprise.

    A data quality team was formed under the Data & Analytics COE. They had the mandate to profile the data and to understand what quality of data needed to be achieved. They worked constantly with the business to build the data quality rules.

    Results

    EDC tackled the source of their data quality issues through initially performing a data quality management assessment with business stakeholders.

    From then on, EDC was able to establish their data quality program and carry out other key initiatives that prove the ROI on data quality.

    Begin your data quality improvement project starting with the highest priority business unit

    Now that you have a prioritized list for your data quality improvement projects, identify the highest priority business unit. This is the business unit you will work through Phase 3 with to fix their data quality issues.

    Once you have initiated and identified solutions for the first business unit, tackle data quality for the next business unit in the prioritized list.

    The image is a graphic labelled as Phase 2. On the left, there is a vertical arrow pointing upward labelled Priority of Business Units. Next to it, there are three boxes, with downward pointing arrows between them, each box labelled as each Business Unit's Data Quality Improvement Project. From there an arrow points right to a circle. Inside the circle are the steps necessary to complete the data quality improvement project.

    Create and document your data quality improvement team

    1 hour

    Input

    • Individuals who fit the data quality improvement plan team roles

    Output

    • Project team

    Materials

    • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

    Participants

    • Data owner
    • Project Manager
    • Product Manager

    The Data Quality Improvement Plan is a concise document that should be created for each data quality project (i.e. for each business unit) to keep track of the project.

    Instructions

    1. Meet with the data owner of the business unit identified for the data quality improvement project.
    2. Identify individuals who fit the data quality improvement plan team roles.
    3. Using the Data Quality Improvement Plan Template to document the roles and individuals who will fit those roles.
    4. Have an introductory meeting with the Improvement team to clarify roles and responsibilities for the project.

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    Team role Assigned to
    Data Owner [Name]
    Project Manager [Name]
    Business Analyst/BRM [Name]
    Data Steward [Name]
    Data Analyst [Name]

    Document the business context of the Data Quality Improvement Plan

    1 hour

    Input

    • Project team
    • Identified data attributes

    Output

    • Business context for the data quality improvement plan

    Materials

    • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

    Participants

    • Data owner
    • Project Sponsor
    • Product owner

    Data quality initiatives have to be relevant to the business, and the business context will be used to provide inputs to the data improvement strategy. The context can then be used to determine exactly where the root causes of data quality issues are, which will inform your solutions.

    Instructions

    The business context of the data quality improvement plan includes documenting from previous activities:

    1. The Data Quality Improvement Team.
    2. Your Data Lineage Diagram.
    3. Your Data Quality Problem Statement.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    While many organizations adopt data quality principles, not all organizations express them along the same terms. Have multiple perspectives within your organization outline principles that fit your unique data quality agenda. Anyone interested in resolving the day-to-day data quality issues that they face can be helpful for creating the context around the project.

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    Now that you have a defined problem, revisit the root causes of poor data quality

    You previously fleshed out the problem with data quality present in the business unit chosen as highest priority. Now it is time to figure out what is causing those problems.

    In the table below, you will find some of the common categories of causes of data quality issues, as well as some specific root causes.

    Category Description
    1. System/Application Design Ineffective, insufficient, or even incorrect system/application design accepts incorrect and missing data elements to the source applications and databases. The data records in those source systems may propagate into systems in tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the 5-tier architecture, creating domino and ripple effects.
    2. Database design Database is created and modeled in an incorrect manner so that the management of the data records is incorrect, resulting in duplicated and orphaned records, and records that are missing data elements or records that contain incorrect data elements. Poor operational data in databases often leads to issues in tiers 2, 3, 4, and 5.
    3. Enterprise Integration Data or information is improperly integrated, transformed, masked, and aggregated in tier 2. In addition, some data integration tasks might not be timely, resulting in out-of-date data or even data that contradicts with other data. Enterprise integration is a precursor of loading a data warehouse and data marts. Issues in this layer affect tier 3, 4 and 5 on the 5-tier architecture.
    4. Policies and Procedures Policies and procedures are not effectively used to reinforce data quality. In some situations, policy gaps are found. In others, policies are overlapped and duplicated. Policies may also be out-of-date or too complex, affecting the users’ ability to interpret the policy objectives. Policies affect all tiers in the 5-tier architecture.
    5. Business Processes Improper business process design introduces poor data into the data systems. Failure to create processes around approving data changes, failure to document key data elements, and failure to train employees on the proper uses of data make data quality a burning problem.

    Leverage a root cause analysis approach to pinpoint the origins of your data issues

    A root cause analysis is a systematic approach to decompose a problem into its components. Use fishbone diagrams to help reveal the root causes of data issues.

    The image shows a fishbone diagram on the left, which starts with Process on the left, and then leads to Application and Integration, and then Database and Policies. This section is titled Root causes. The right hand section is titled Lead to problems with data... and includes 4 circles with the word or in between each. The circles are labelled: Completeness; Usability; Timeliness; Accessibility.

    Info-Tech recommends five root cause categories for assessing data quality issues:

    Application Design. Is the issue caused by human error at the application level? Consider internal employees, external partners/suppliers, and customers.

    Database Design. Is the issue caused by a particular database and stems from inadequacies in its design?

    Integration. Data integration tools may not be fully leveraged, or data matching rules may be poorly designed.

    Policies and Procedures. Do the issues take place because of lack of governance?

    Business Processes. Do the issues take place due to insufficient processes?

    For Example:

    When performing a deeper analysis of your data issues related to the accuracy of the business unit’s data, you would perform a root cause analysis by assessing the contribution of each of the five categories of data quality problem root causes:

    The image shows another fishbone diagram, with example information filled in. The first section on the left is titled Application Design, and includes the text: Data entry problems lead to incorrect accounting entries. The second is Integration, and includes the text: Data integration tools are not fully leveraged. The third section is Policies, and includes the text: No policy on standardizing name and address. The last section is Database design, with text that reads: Databases do not contain unique keys. The diagram ends with an arrow pointing right to a blue circle with Accuracy in it.

    Leverage a combination of data analysis techniques to identify and quantify root causes

    Info-Tech Insight

    Including all attributes of the key subject area in your data profiling activities may produce too much information to make sense of. Conduct data profiling primarily at the table level and undergo attribute profiling only if you are able to narrow down your scope sufficiently.

    Data Profiling Tool

    Data profiling extracts a sample of the target data set and runs it through multiple levels of analysis. The end result is a detailed report of statistics about a variety of data quality criteria (duplicate data, incomplete data, stale data, etc.).

    Many data profiling tools have built-in templates and reports to help you uncover data issues. In addition, they quantify the occurrences of the data issues.

    E-Discovery Tool

    This supplements a profiling tool. For Example, use a BI tool to create a custom grouping of all the invalid states (e.g. “CAL,” “AZN,” etc.) and visualize the percentage of invalid states compared to all states.

    SQL Queries

    This supplements a profiling tool. For example, use a SQL statement to group the customer data by customer segment and then by state to identify which segment–state combinations contain poor data.

    Identify the data issues for the particular business unit under consideration

    2 hours

    Input

    • Issues with data quality felt by the business unit
    • Data lineage diagram

    Output

    • Categorized data quality issues

    Materials

    • Whiteboard, markers, sticky notes
    • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

    Participants

    • Data quality improvement project team
    • Business line representatives

    Instructions

    1. Gather the data quality improvement project team in a room, along with sticky notes and a whiteboard.
    2. Display your previously created data lineage diagram on the whiteboard.
    3. Using color-coded sticky notes, attach issues to each component of the data lineage diagram that team members can identify. Use different colors for the four quality attributes: Completeness, Usability, Timeliness, and Accessibility.

    Example:

    The image shows the data lineage diagram that has been shown in previous sections. In addition, the image shows 4 post-its arranges around the diagram, labelled: Usability; Completeness; Timeliness; and Accessibility.

    Map the data issues on fishbone diagrams to identify root causes

    1 hour

    Input

    • Categorized data quality issues

    Output

    • Completed fishbone diagrams

    Materials

    • Whiteboard, markers, sticky notes
    • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

    Participants

    • Data quality improvement project team

    Now that you have data quality issues classified according to the data quality attributes, map these issues onto four fishbone diagrams.

    The image shows a fishbone diagram, which is titled Example: Root cause analysis diagram for data accuracy.

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    Get to know the root causes behind system/application design mistakes

    Suboptimal system/application design provides entry points for bad data.

    Business Process
    Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
    Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
    Insufficient data mask No data mask is defined for a free-form text field in a user interface. E.g. North American phone number should have 4 masks – country code (1-digit), area code (3-digit), and local number (7-digit). X X
    Too many free-form text fields Incorrect use of free-form text fields (fields that accept a variety of inputs). E.g. Use a free-form text field for zip code instead of a backend look up. X X
    Lack of value lookup Reference data is not looked up from a reference list. E.g. State abbreviation is entered instead of being looked up from a standard list of states. X X
    Lack of mandatory field definitions Mandatory fields are not identified and reinforced. Resulting data records with many missing data elements. E.g. Some users may fill up 2 or 3 fields in a UI that has 20 non-mandatory fields. X

    The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Application Design section is highlighted.

    Get to know the root causes behind common database design mistakes

    Improper database design allows incorrect data to be stored and propagated.

    Business Process
    Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
    Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
    Incorrect referential integrity Referential integrity constraints are absent or incorrectly implemented, resulting in child records without parent records, or related records are updated or deleted in a cascading manner. E.g. An invoice line item is created before an invoice is created. X X
    Lack of unique keys Lack of unique keys creating scenarios where record uniqueness cannot be guaranteed. E.g. Customer records with the same customer_ID. X X
    Data range Fail to define a data range for incoming data, resulting in data values that are out of range. E.g. The age field is able to store an age of 999. X X
    Incorrect data type Incorrect data types are used to store data fields. E.g. A string field is used to store zip codes. Some users use that to store phone numbers, birthdays, etc. X X

    The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Database Design section is highlighted

    Get to know the root causes behind enterprise integration mistakes

    Improper data integration or synchronization may create poor analytical data.

    Business Process
    Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
    Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
    Incorrect transformation Transformation is done incorrectly. A wrong formula may have been used, transformation is done at the wrong data granularity, or aggregation logic is incorrect. E.g. Aggregation is done for all customers instead of just active customers. X X
    Data refresh is out of sync Data is synchronized at different intervals, resulting in a data warehouse where data domains are out of sync. E.g. Customer transactions are refreshed to reflect the latest activities but the account balance is not yet refreshed. X X
    Data is matched incorrectly Fail to match records from disparate systems, resulting in duplications and unmatched records. E.g. Unable to match customers from different systems because they have different cust_ID. X X
    Incorrect data mapping Fields from source systems are not properly matched with data warehouse fields. E.g. Status fields from different systems are mixed into one field. X X

    The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Integration section is highlighted

    Get to know the root causes behind policy and procedure mistakes

    Suboptimal policies and procedures undermine the effect of best practices.

    Business Process
    Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
    Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
    Policy Gaps There are gaps in the policy landscape in terms of some missing key policies or policies that are not refreshed to reflect the latest changes. E.g. A data entry policy is absent, leading to inconsistent data entry practices. X X
    Policy Communications Policies are in place but the policies are not communicated effectively to the organization, resulting in misinterpretation of policies and under-enforcement of policies. E.g. The data standard is created but very few developers are aware of its existence. X X
    Policy Enforcement Policies are in place but not proactively re-enforced and that leads to inconsistent application of policies and policy adoption. E.g. Policy adoption is dropping over time due to lack of reinforcement. X X
    Policy Quality Policies are written by untrained authors and they do not communicate the messages. E.g. A non-technical data user may find a policy that is loaded with technical terms confusing. X X

    The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Policies section is highlighted

    Get to know the root causes behind common business process mistakes

    Ineffective and inefficient business processes create entry points for poor data.

    Business Process
    Usually found in → Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Tier 4 Tier 5
    Issue Root Causes Usability Completeness Timeliness Accessibility
    Lack of training Key data personnel and business analysts are not trained in data quality and data governance, leading to lack of accountability. E.g. A data steward is not aware of downstream impact of a duplicated financial statement. X X
    Ineffective business process The same piece of information is entered into data systems two or more times. Or a piece of data is stalled in a data system for too long. E.g. A paper form is scanned multiple times to extract data into different data systems. X X
    Lack of documentation Fail to document the work flows of the key business processes. A lack of work flow results in sub-optimal use of data. E.g. Data is modeled incorrectly due to undocumented business logic. X X
    Lack of integration between business silos Business silos hold on to their own datasets resulting in data silos in which data is not shared and/or data is transferred with errors. E.g. Data from a unit is extracted as a data file and stored in a shared drive with little access. X X

    The image shows a fishbone diagram, with the following sections, from left to right: Application Design; Integration; Processes; Policies; Database Design; Data Quality Measure. The Processes section is highlighted

    Phase 3 Summary

    1. Data Lineage Diagram
    • Creating the data lineage diagram is recommended to help visualize the flow of your data and to map the data journey and identify the data subject areas to be targeted for fixes.
    • The data lineage diagram was leveraged multiple times throughout this Phase. For example, the data lineage diagram was used to document the data sources and applications used by the business unit
  • Business Context
    • Business context was documented through the Data Quality Practice Assessment and Project Planning Tool.
    • The same tool was used to document identified business units and their associated data.
    • Metrics were also identified at the business unit level to track data quality improvements.
  • Common Root Causes
    • Leverage a root cause analysis approach to pinpoint the origins of your data quality issues.
    • Analyzed and got to know the root causes behind the following:
      1. System/application design mistakes
      2. Common database design mistakes
      3. Enterprise integration mistakes
      4. Policies and procedures mistakes
      5. Common business processes mistakes
  • Phase 4

    Grow and Sustain Your Data Quality Program

    Build Your Data Quality Program

    For the identified root causes, determine the solutions for the problem

    As you worked through the previous step, you identified the root causes of your data quality problems within the business unit. Now, it is time to identify solutions.

    The following slides provide an overview of the solutions to common data quality issues. As you identify solutions that apply to the business unit being addressed, insert the solution tables in Section 4: Proposed Solutions of the Data Quality Improvement Plan Template.

    All data quality solutions have two components to them:

    • Technology
    • People

    For the next five data quality solution slides, look for the slider for the contributions of each category to the solution. Use this scale to guide you in creating solutions.

    When designing solutions, keep in mind that solutions to data quality problems are not mutually exclusive. In other words, an identified root cause may have multiple solutions that apply to it.

    For example, if an application is plagued with inaccurate data, the application design may be suboptimal, but also the process that leads to data being entered may need fixing.

    Data quality improvement strategy #1:

    Fix data quality issues by improving system/application design.

    Technology

    Application Interface Design

    Restrict field length – Capture only the characters you need for your application.

    Leverage data masks – Use data masks in standardized fields like zip code and phone number.

    Restrict the use of open text fields and use reference tables – Only present open text fields when there is a need. Use reference tables to limit data values.

    Provide options – Use radio buttons, drop-down lists, and multi-select instead of using open text fields.

    Data Validation at the Application Level

    Validate data before committing – Use simple validation to ensure the data entered is not random numbers and letters.

    Track history – Keep track of who entered what fields.

    Cannot submit twice – Only design for one-time submission.

    People

    Training

    Data-entry training – Training that is related to data entry, creating, or updating data records.

    Data resolution training – Training data stewards or other dedicated data personnel on how to resolve data records that are not entered properly.

    Continuous Improvement

    Standards – Develop application design principles and standards.

    Field testing – Field data entry with a few people to look for abnormalities and discrepancies.

    Detection and resolution – Abnormal data records should be isolated and resolved ASAP.

    Application Testing

    Thorough testing – Application design is your first line of defence against poor data. Test to ensure bad data is kept out of the systems.

    Case Study

    HMS

    Industry: Healthcare

    Source: Informatica

    Improve your data quality ingestion procedures to provide better customer intimacy for your users

    Healthcare Management Systems (HMS) provides cost containment services for healthcare sponsors and payers, and coordinates benefits services. This is to ensure that healthcare claims are paid correctly to both government agencies and individuals. To do so, HMS relies on data, and this data needs to be of high quality to ensure the correct decisions are made, the right people get the correct claims, and the appropriate parties pay out.

    To improve the integrity of HMS’s customer data, HMS put in place a framework that helped to standardize the collection of high volume and highly variable data.

    Results

    Working with a data quality platform vendor to establish a framework for data standardization, HMS was able to streamline data analysis and reduce new customer implementations from months to weeks.

    HMS data was plagued with a lack of standardization of data ingestion procedures.

    Before improving data quality processes After improving data quality processes
    Data Ingestion Data Ingestion
    Many standards of ingestion. Standardized data ingestion
    Data Storage Data Storage
    Lack of ability to match data, creating data quality errors.
    Data Analysis Data Analysis
    = =
    Slow Customer Implementation Time 50% Reduction in Customer Implementation Time

    Data quality improvement strategy #2:

    Fix data quality issues using proper database design.

    Technology

    Database Design Best Practices

    Referential integrity – Ensure parent/child relationships are maintained in terms of cascade creation, update, and deletion.

    Primary key definition – Ensure there is at least one key to guarantee the uniqueness of the data records, and primary key should not allow null.

    Validate data domain – Create triggers to check the data values entered in the database fields.

    Field type and length – Define the most suitable data type and length to hold field values.

    One-Time Data Fix (more on the next slide)

    Explore solutions – Where to fix the data issues? Is there a case to fix the issues?

    Running profiling tools to catch errors – Run scans on the database with defined criteria to identify occurrences of questionable data.

    Fix a sample before fixing all records – Use a proof-of-concept approach to explore fix options and evaluate impacts before fixing the full set.

    People

    The DBA Team

    Perform key tasks in pairs – Take a pair approach to perform key tasks so that validation and cross-check can happen.

    Skilled DBAs – DBAs should be certified and accredited.

    Competence – Assess DBA competency on an ongoing basis.

    Preparedness – Develop drills to stimulate data issues and train DBAs.

    Cross train – Cross train team members so that one DBA can cover another DBA.

    Data quality improvement strategy #3:

    Improve integration and synchronization of enterprise data.

    Technology

    Integration Architecture

    Info-Tech’s 5-Tier Architecture – When doing transformations, it is good practice to persist the integration results in tier 3 before the data is further refined and presented in tier 4.

    Timing, timing, and timing – Think of the sequence of events. You may need to perform some ETL tasks before other tasks to achieve synchronization and consistence.

    Historical changes – Ensure your tier 3 is robust enough to include historical data. You need to enable type 2 slowly, changing dimension to recreate the data at a point in time.

    Data Cleansing

    Standardize – Leverage data standardization to standardize name and address fields to improve matching and integration.

    Fuzzy matching – When there are no common keys between datasets. The datasets can only be matched by fuzzy matching. Fuzzy matching is not hard science; define a confidence level and think about a mechanism to deal with the unmatched.

    People

    Reporting and Documentations

    Business data glossary and data lineage – Define a business data glossary to enhance findability of key data elements. Document data mappings and ETL logics.

    Create data quality reports – Many ETL platforms provide canned data quality reports. Leverage those quality reports to monitor the data health.

    Code Review

    Create data quality reports – Many ETL platforms provide canned data quality reports. Leverage those quality reports to monitor the data health.

    ARB (architectural review board) – All ETL codes should be approved by the architectural review board to ensure alignment with the overall integration strategy.

    Data quality improvement strategy #4:

    Improve data quality policies and procedures.

    Technology

    Policy Reporting

    Data quality reports – Leverage canned data quality reports from the ETL platforms to monitor data quality on an on-going basis. When abnormalities are found, provoke the right policies to deal with the issues.

    Store policies in a central location that is well known and easy to find and access. A key way that technology can help communicate policies is by having them published on a centralized website.

    Make the repository searchable and easily navigable. myPolicies helps you do all this and more.

    myPolicies helps you do all this and more.

    Go to this link

    People

    Policy Review and Training

    Policy review – Create a schedule for reviewing policies on a regular basis – invite professional writers to ensure polices are understandable.

    Policy training – Policies are often unread and misread. Training users and stakeholders on policies is an effective way to make sure those users and stakeholders understand the rationale of the policies. It is also a good practice to include a few scenarios that are handled by the policies.

    Policy hotline/mailbox – To avoid misinterpretation of the policies, a policy hotline/mailbox should be set up to answer any data policy questions from the end users/stakeholders.

    Policy Communications

    Simplified communications – Create handy one-pagers and infographic posters to communicate the key messages of the polices.

    Policy briefing – Whenever a new data project is initiated, a briefing of data policies should be given to ensure the project team follows the policies from the very beginning.

    Data quality improvement strategy #5:

    Streamline and optimize business processes.

    Technology

    Requirements Gathering

    Data Lineage – Leverage a metadata management tool to construct and document data lineage for future reference.

    Documentations Repository – It is a best practice to document key project information and share that knowledge across the project team and with the stakeholder. An improvement understanding of the project helps to identify data quality issues early on in the project.

    “Automating creation of data would help data quality most. You have to look at existing processes and create data signatures. You can then derive data off those data codes.” – Patrick Bossey, Manager of Business Intelligence, Crawford and Company

    People

    Requirements Gathering

    Info-Tech’s 4-Column Model – The datasets may exist but the business units do not have an effective way of communicating the quality needs. Use our four-column model and the eleven supporting questions to better understand the quality needs. See subsequent slides.

    I don’t know what the data means so I think the quality is poor – It is not uncommon to see that the right data presented to the business but the business does not trust the data. They also do not understand the business logic done on the data. See our Business Data Glossary in subsequent slides.

    Understand the business workflow – Know the business workflow to understand the manual steps associated with the workflow. You may find steps in which data is entered, manipulated, or consumed inappropriately.

    “Do a shadow data exercise where you identify the human workflows of how data gets entered, and then you can identify where data entry can be automated.” – Diraj Goel, Growth Advisor, BC Tech

    Brainstorm solutions to your data quality issues

    4 hours

    Input

    • Data profiling results
    • Preliminary root cause analyses

    Output

    • Proposals for data fix
    • Fixed issues

    Materials

    • Data Quality Improvement Plan Template

    Participants

    • Business and Data Analysts
    • Data experts and stewards

    After walking through the best-practice solutions to data quality issues, propose solutions to fix your identified issues.

    Instructions

    1. Review Root Cause Analyses: Revisit the root cause analysis and data lineage diagram you have generated in Step 3.2. to understand the issues in greater details.
    2. Characterize Each Issue: You may need to generate a data profiling report to characterize the issue. The report can be generated by using data quality suites, BI platforms, or even SQL statements.
    3. Brainstorm the Solutions: As a group, discuss potential ways to fix the issue. You can tackle the issues by approaching from these areas:
    Solution Approaches
    Technology Approach
    People Approach

    X crossover with

    Problematic Areas
    Application/System Design
    Database Design
    Data Integration and Synchronization
    Policies and Procedures
    Business Processes
    1. Document and Communicate: Document the solutions to your data issues. You may need to reuse or refer to the solutions. Also brainstorm some ideas on how to communicate the results back to the business.

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    Sustaining your data quality requires continuous oversight through a data governance practice

    Quality data is the ultimate outcome of data governance and data quality management. Data governance enables data quality by providing the necessary oversight and controls for business processes in order to maintain data quality. There are three primary groups (at right) that are involved in a mature governance practice. Data quality should be tightly integrated with all of them.

    Define an effective data governance strategy and ensure the strategy integrates well with data quality with Info-Tech’s Establish Data Governance blueprint.

    Visit this link

    Data Governance Council

    This council establishes data management practices that span across the organization. This should be comprised of senior management or C-suite executives that can represent the various departments and lines of business within the organization. The data governance council can help to promote the value of data governance, facilitate a culture that nurtures data quality, and ensure that the goals of the data governance program are well aligned with business objectives.

    Data Owners

    Identifying the data owner role within an organization helps to create a greater degree of accountability for data issues. They often oversee how the data is being generated as well as how it is being consumed. Data owners come from the business side and have legal rights and defined control over a data set. They ensure data is available to the right people within the organization.

    Data Stewards

    Conflict can occur within an organization’s data governance program when a data steward’s role is confused with that of the steering committee’s role. Data stewards exist to enforce decisions made about data governance and data management. Data stewards are often business analysts or power users of a particular system/dataset. Where a data owner is primarily responsible for access, a data steward is responsible for the quality of a dataset.

    Integrate the data quality management strategy with existing data governance committees

    Ongoing and regular data quality management is the responsibility of the data governance bodies of the organization.

    The oversight of ongoing data quality activities rests on the shoulders of the data governance committees that exist in the organization.

    There is no one-size-fits-all data governance structure. However, most organizations follow a similar pattern when establishing committees, councils, and cross-functional groups. They strive to identify roles and responsibilities at a strategic, tactical, and operational level:

    The image shows a pyramid, with Executive Sponsors at the top, with the following roles in descending order: DG Council; Steering Committee; Working Groups; Data Owners and Data Stewards; and Data Users. Along the left side of the pyramid, there are three labels, in ascending order: Operational, Tactical, and Strategic.

    The image is a flow chart showing project roles, in two sections: the top section is labelled Governing Bodies, and the lower section is labelled Data Quality Improvement Team. There is a note indicating that the Data Owner reports to and provides updates regarding the state of data quality and data quality initiatives.

    Create and update the organization’s Business Data Glossary to keep up with current data definitions

    2 hours

    Input

    • Metrics and goals for data quality

    Output

    • Regularly scheduled data quality checkups

    Materials

    • Business Data Glossary Template
    • Data Quality Dashboard

    Participants

    • Data steward

    A crucial aspect of data quality and governance is the Business Data Glossary. The Business Data Glossary helps to align the terminology of the business with the organization’s data assets. It allows the people who interact with the data to quickly identify the applications, processes, and stewardship associated with it, which will enhance the accuracy and efficiency of searches for organization data definitions and attributes, enabling better access to the data. This will, in turn, enhance the quality of the organization’s data because it will be more accurate, relevant, and accessible.

    Use the Business Data Glossary Template to document key aspects of the data, such as:

    • Definition
    • Source System
    • Possible Values
    • Data Steward
    • Data Sensitivity
    • Data Availability
    • Batch or Live
    • Retention

    Data Element

    • Mkt-Product
    • Fin-Product

    Info-Tech Insight

    The Business Data Glossary ensures that the crucial data that has key business use by key business systems and users is appropriately owned and defined. It also establishes rules that lead to proper data management and quality to be enforced by the data owners.

    Download this Tool

    Data Steward(s): Use the Data Quality Improvement Plan of the business unit for ongoing quality monitoring

    Integrating your data quality strategy into the organization’s data governance program requires passing the strategy over to members of the data governance program. The data steward role is responsible for data quality at the business unit level, and should have been involved with the creation and implementation of the data quality improvement project. After the data quality repairs have been made, it is the responsibility of the data steward to regularly monitor the quality of the business unit’s data.

    Create Improvement Plan ↓
    • Data Quality Improvement Team identifies root cause issues.
    • Brainstorm solutions.
    Implement Improvement Plan ↓
    • Data Quality Improvement Team works with IT.
    Sustain Improvement Plan
    • Data Steward should regularly monitor data quality.

    Download this tool

    See Info-Tech’s Data Steward Job Description Template for a detailed understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the data steward.

    Responsible for sustaining

    The image shows a screen capture of a document entitled Business Context & Subject Area Selection.

    Develop a business-facing data quality dashboard to show improvements or a sudden dip in data quality

    One tool that the data steward can take advantage of is the data quality dashboard. Initiatives that are implemented to address data quality must have metrics defined by business objectives in order to demonstrate the value of the data quality improvement projects. In addition, the data steward should have tools for tracking data quality in the business unit to report issues to the data owner and data governance steering committee.

    • Example 1: Marketing uses data for direct mail and e-marketing campaigns. They care about customer data in particular. Specifically, they require high data quality in attributes such as customer name, address, and product profile.
    • Example 2: Alternatively, Finance places emphasis on financial data, focusing on attributes like account balance, latency in payment, credit score, and billing date.

    The image is Business dashboard on Data Quality for Marketing. It features Data Quality metrics, listed in the left column, and numbers for each quarter over the course of one year, on the right.

    Notes on chart:

    General improvement in billing address quality

    Sudden drop in touchpoint accuracy may prompt business to ask for explanations

    Approach to creating a business-facing data quality dashboard:

    1. Schedule a meeting with the functional unit to discuss what key data quality metrics are essential to their business operations. You should consider the business context, functional area, and subject area analyses you completed in Phase 1 as a starting point.
    2. Discuss how to gather data for the key metrics and their associated calculations.
    3. Discuss and decide the reporting intervals.
    4. Discuss and decide the unit of measurement.
    5. Generate a dashboard similar to the example. Consider using a BI or analytics tool to develop the dashboard.

    Data quality management must be sustained for ongoing improvements to the organization’s data

    • Data quality is never truly complete; it is a set of ongoing processes and disciplines that requires a permanent plan for monitoring practices, reviewing processes, and maintaining consistent data standards.
    • Setting the expectation to stakeholders that a long-term commitment is required to maintain quality data within the organization is critical to the success of the program.
    • A data quality maintenance program will continually revise and fine-tune ongoing practices, processes, and procedures employed for organizational data management.

    Data quality is a program that requires continual care:

    →Maintain→Good Data →

    Data quality management is a long-term commitment that shifts how an organization views, manages, and utilizes its corporate data assets. Long-term buy-in from all involved is critical.

    “Data quality is a process. We are trying to constantly improve the quality over time. It is not a one-time fix.” – Akin Akinwumi, Manager of Data Governance, Startech.com

    Define a data quality review agenda for data quality sustainment

    2 hours

    Input

    • Metrics and goals for data quality

    Output

    • Regularly scheduled data quality checkups

    Materials

    • Data Quality Diagnostic
    • Data Quality Dashboard

    Participants

    • Data Steward

    As a data steward, you are responsible for ongoing data quality checks of the business unit’s data. Define an improvement agenda to organize the improvement activities. Organize the activities yearly and quarterly to ensure improvement is done year-round.

    Quarterly

    • Measure data quality metrics against milestones. Perform a regular data quality health check with Info-Tech’s Data Quality Diagnostic.
    • Review the business unit’s Business Data Glossary to ensure that it is up to date and comprehensive.
    • Assess progress of practice area initiatives (time, milestones, budget, benefits delivered).
    • Analyze overall data quality and report progress on key improvement projects and corrective actions in the executive dashboard.
    • Communicate overall status of data quality to oversight body.

    Annually

    • Calculate your current baseline and measure progress by comparing it to previous years.
    • Set/revise quality objectives for each practice area and inter-practice hand-off processes.
    • Re-evaluate/re-establish data quality objectives.
    • Set/review data quality metrics and tracking mechanisms.
    • Set data quality review milestones and timelines.
    • Revisit data quality training from an end-user perspective and from a practitioner perspective.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Do data quality diagnostic at the beginning of any improvement plan, then recheck health with the diagnostic at regular intervals to see if symptoms are coming back. This should be a monitoring activity, not a data quality fixing activity. If symptoms are bad enough, repeat the improvement plan process.

    Take the next step in your Data & Analytics Journey

    After establishing your data quality program, look to increase your data & analytics maturity.

    • Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a concept that many organizations strive to implement. AI can really help in areas such as data preparation. However, implementing AI solutions requires a level of maturity that many organizations are not at.
    • While a solid data quality foundation is essential for AI initiatives being successful, AI can also ensure high data quality.
    • An AI analytics solution can address data integrity issues at the earliest point of data processing, rapidly transforming these vast volumes of data into trusted business information. This can be done through Anomaly detection, which flags “bad” data, identifying suspicious anomalies that can impact data quality. By tracking and evaluating data, anomaly detection gives critical insights into data quality as data is processed. (Ira Cohen, The End to a Never-Ending Story? Improve Data Quality with AI Analytics, anodot, 2020)

    Consider… “Garbage in, garbage out.”

    Lay a solid foundation by addressing your data quality issues prior to investing heavily in an AI solution.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Are You Ready for AI?

    • Use AI as a compelling event to expedite funding, resources, and project plans for your data-related initiatives. Check out this note to understand what it takes to be ready to implement AI solutions.

    Get Started With Artificial Intelligence

    • Current AI technology is data-enabled, automated, adaptive decision support. Once you believe you are ready for AI, check out this blueprint on how to get started.

    Build a Data Architecture Roadmap

    • The data lineage diagram was a key tool used in establishing your data quality program. Check out this blueprint and learn how to optimize your data architecture to provide greatest value from data.

    Create an Architecture for AI

    • Build your target state architecture from predefined best practice building blocks. This blueprint assists members first to assess if they have the maturity to embrace AI in their organization, and if so, which AI acquisition model fits them best.

    Phase 4 Summary

    1. Data Quality Improvement Strategy
    • Brainstorm solutions to your data quality issues using the following data quality improvement strategies as a guide:
      1. Fix data quality issues by improving system/application design
      2. Fix data quality issues using proper database design
      3. Improve integration and synchronization of enterprise data
      4. Improve data quality policies and procedures
      5. Streamline and optimize business processes
  • Sustain Your Data Quality Program
    • Quality data is the ultimate outcome of data governance and data quality management.
    • Sustaining your data quality requires continuous oversight through a data governance practice.
    • There are three primary groups (Data Governance Council, Data Owners, and Data Stewards) that are involved in a mature governance practice.
  • Grow Your Data & Analytics Maturity
    • After establishing your data quality program, take the next step in increasing your data & analytics maturity.
    • Good data quality is the foundation of pursuing different ways of maximizing the value of your data such as implementing AI solutions.
    • Continue your data & analytics journey by referring to Info-Tech’s quality research.
  • Research Contributors and Experts

    Izabela Edmunds

    Information Architect Mott MacDonald

    Akin Akinwumi

    Manager of Data Governance Startech.com

    Diraj Goel

    Growth Advisor BC Tech

    Sujay Deb

    Director of Data Analytics Technology and Platforms Export Development Canada

    Asif Mumtaz

    Data & Solution Architect Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

    Patrick Bossey

    Manager of Business Intelligence Crawford and Company

    Anonymous Contributors

    Ibrahim Abdel-Kader

    Research Specialist Info-Tech Research Group

    Ibrahim is a Research Specialist at Info-Tech Research Group. In his career to date he has assisted many clients using his knowledge in process design, knowledge management, SharePoint for ECM, and more. He is expanding his familiarity in many areas such as data and analytics, enterprise architecture, and CIO-related topics.

    Reddy Doddipalli

    Senior Workshop Director Info-Tech Research Group

    Reddy is a Senior Workshop Director at Info-Tech Research Group, focused on data management and specialized analytics applications. He has over 25 years of strong industry experience in IT leading and managing analytics suite of solutions, enterprise data management, enterprise architecture, and artificial intelligence–based complex expert systems.

    Andy Neill

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

    Andy leads the data and analytics and enterprise architecture practices at ITRG. He has over 15 years of experience in managing technical teams, information architecture, data modeling, and enterprise data strategy. He is an expert in enterprise data architecture, data integration, data standards, data strategy, big data, and development of industry standard data models.

    Crystal Singh

    Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

    Crystal is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group. She brings a diverse and global perspective to her role, drawing from her professional experiences in various industries and locations. Prior to joining Info-Tech, Crystal led the Enterprise Data Services function at Rogers Communications, one of Canada’s leading telecommunications companies.

    Igor Ikonnikov

    Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

    Igor is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group. He has extensive experience in strategy formation and execution in the information management domain, including master data management, data governance, knowledge management, enterprise content management, big data, and analytics.

    Andrea Malick

    Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

    Andrea Malick is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group, focused on building best practices knowledge in the enterprise information management domain, with corporate and consulting leadership in enterprise architecture and content management (ECM).

    Natalia Modjeska

    Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

    Natalia Modjeska is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group. She advises members on topics related to AI, machine learning, advanced analytics, and data science, including ethics and governance. Natalia has over 15 years of experience in developing, selling, and implementing analytical solutions.

    Rajesh Parab

    Research Director, Data & Analytics Info-Tech Research Group

    Rajesh Parab is a Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group. He has over 20 years of global experience and brings a unique mix of technology and business acumen. He has worked on many data-driven business applications. In his previous architecture roles, Rajesh created a number of product roadmaps, technology strategies, and models.

    Bibliography

    Amidon, Kirk. "Case Study: How Data Quality Has Evolved at MathWorks." The Fifth MIT Information Quality Industry Symposium. 13 July 2011. Web. 19 Aug. 2015.

    Boulton, Clint. “Disconnect between CIOs and LOB managers weakens data quality.” CIO. 05 February 2016. Accessed June 2020.

    COBIT 5: Enabling Information. Rolling Meadows, IL: ISACA, 2013. Web.

    Cohen, Ira. “The End to a Never-Ending Story? Improve Data Quality with AI Analytics.” anodot. 2020.

    “DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DAMA-DMBOK Guide).” First Edition. DAMA International. 2009. Digital. April 2014.

    "Data Profiling: Underpinning Data Quality Management." Pitney Bowes. Pitney Bowes - Group 1 Software, 2007. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

    Data.com. “Data.com Clean.” Salesforce. 2016. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

    “Dawn of the CDO." Experian Data Quality. 2015. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

    Demirkan, Haluk, and Bulent Dal. "Why Do So Many Analytics Projects Fail?" The Data Economy: Why Do so Many Analytics Projects Fail? Analytics Magazine. July-Aug. 2014. Web.

    Dignan, Larry. “CIOs juggling digital transformation pace, bad data, cloud lock-in and business alignment.” ZDNet. 11 March 2020. Accessed July.

    Dumbleton, Janani, and Derek Munro. "Global Data Quality Research - Discussion Paper 2015." Experian Data Quality. 2015. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

    Eckerson, Wayne W. "Data Quality and the Bottom Line - Achieving Business Success through a Commitment to High Quality Data." The Data Warehouse Institute. 2002. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

    “Infographic: Data Quality in BI the Costs and Benefits.” HaloBI. 2015 Web.

    Lee, Y.W. and Strong, D.M. “Knowing-Why About Data Processes and Data Quality.” Journal of Management Information Systems. 2004.

    “Making Data Quality a Way of Life.” Cognizant. 2014. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

    "Merck Serono Achieves Single Source of Truth with Comprehensive RIM Solutions." www.productlifegroup.com. ProductLife Group. 15 Apr. 2015. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.

    Myers, Dan. “List of Conformed Dimensions of Data Quality.” Conformed Dimensions of Data Quality (CDDQ). 2019. Web.

    Redman, Thomas C. “Make the Case for Better Data Quality.” Harvard Business Review. 24 Aug. 2012. Web. 19 Aug. 2015.

    RingLead Data Management Solutions. “10 Stats About Data Quality I Bet You Didn’t Know.” RingLead. Accessed 7 July 2020.

    Schwartzrock, Todd. "Chrysler's Data Quality Management Case Study." Online video clip. YouTube. 21 April. 2011. Web. 18 Aug. 2015

    “Taking control in the digital age.” Experian Data Quality. Jan 2019. Web.

    “The data-driven organization, a transformation in progress.” Experian Data Quality. 2020. Web.

    "The Data Quality Benchmark Report." Experian Data Quality. Jan. 2015. Web. 18 Aug. 2015.

    “The state of data quality.” Experian Data Quality. Sept. 2013. Web. 17 Aug. 2015.

    Vincent, Lanny. “Differentiating Competence, Capability and Capacity.” Innovation Management Services. Web. June 2008.

    “7 ways poor data quality is costing your business.” Experian Data Quality. July 2020. Web.

    Recruit IT Talent

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}574|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.6/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $17,565 Average $ Saved
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    • Parent Category Name: Attract & Select
    • Parent Category Link: /attract-and-select
    • Changing workforce dynamics and increased transparency have shifted the power from employers to job seekers, stiffening the competition for talent.
    • Candidate expectations match high consumer expectations and affect the employer brand, the consumer brand, and overall organizational reputation. Delivering a positive candidate experience (CX2) is no longer optional.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Think about your candidates as consumers. Truly understanding their needs will attract great talent and build positive brand perceptions.
    • The CX2 starts sooner than you think. It encompasses all candidate interactions with an organization and begins before the formal application process.
    • Don’t try to emulate competitors. By differentiating your CX2, you build a competitive advantage.

    Impact and Result

    • Design a candidate-centric talent acquisition process that addresses candidate feedback from both unsuccessful and successful candidates.
    • Use design-thinking principles to focus your redesign on moments that matter to candidates to reduce unnecessary work or ad-hoc initiatives that don’t matter to candidates.

    Recruit IT Talent Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should redesign your CX2, 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 your current process and set redesign goals

    Map the organization’s current state for CX2 and set high-level objectives and metrics.

    • Win the War for Talent With a Killer Candidate Experience – Phase 1: Establish Your Current Process and Set Redesign Goals
    • Candidate Experience Project Charter
    • Talent Metrics Library
    • Candidate Experience Process Mapping Template
    • Candidate Experience Assessment Tool

    2. Use design thinking to assess the candidate experience

    Strengthen the candidate lifecycle by improving upon pain points through design thinking methods and assessing the competitive landscape.

    • Win the War for Talent With a Killer Candidate Experience – Phase 2: Use Design Thinking to Assess the Candidate Experience
    • Design Thinking Primer
    • Empathy Map Template
    • Journey Map Guide

    3. Redesign the candidate experience

    Create action, communications, and training plans to establish the redesigned CX2 with hiring process stakeholders.

    • Win the War for Talent With a Killer Candidate Experience – Phase 3: Redesign the Candidate Experience
    • Candidate Experience Best Practices Action Guide
    • Candidate Experience Action and Communication Plan
    • Candidate Experience Service Level Agreement Template

    4. Appendix

    Leverage data collection and workshop activities.

    • Win the War for Talent With a Killer Candidate Experience – Appendix: Data Collection and Workshop Activities
    • Candidate Experience Phase One Data Collection Guide
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Recruit IT Talent

    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 Your Current Process and Set Redesign Goals

    The Purpose

    Assess the organization’s current state for CX2.

    Set baseline metrics for comparison with new initiatives.

    Establish goals to strengthen the CX2.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Gained understanding of where the organization is currently.

    Established where the organization would like to be and goals to achieve the new state.

    Activities

    1.1 Review process map of current candidate lifecycle.

    1.2 Analyze qualitative and quantitative data gathered.

    1.3 Set organizational objectives and project goals.

    1.4 Set metrics to measure progress on high-level goals.

    Outputs

    Process map

    CX2 data analyzed

    Candidate Experience Project Charter

    2 Use Design Thinking to Assess the Candidate Experience

    The Purpose

    Apply design thinking methods to identify pain points in your candidate lifecycle.

    Assess the competition and analyze results.

    Empathize with candidates and their journey.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Segments with pain points have been identified.

    Competitor offering and differentiation has been analyzed.

    Candidate thoughts and feelings have been synthesized.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify extreme users.

    2.2 Conduct an immersive empathy session or go through the process as if you were a target candidate.

    2.3 Identify talent competitors.

    2.4 Analyze competitive landscape.

    2.5 Synthesize research findings and create empathy map.

    2.6 Journey map the CX2.

    Outputs

    Extreme users identified

    Known and unknown talent competitor’s CX2 analyzed

    Empathy map created

    Journey map created

    3 Redesign the Candidate Experience

    The Purpose

    Create a communications and action plan and set metrics to measure success.

    Set expectations with hiring managers and talent acquisition specialists through a service level agreement.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Action plan created.

    Metrics set to track progress and assess improvement.

    Service level agreement completed and expectations collaboratively set.

    Activities

    3.1 Assess each stage of the lifecycle.

    3.2 Set success metrics for priority lifecycle stages.

    3.3 Select actions from the Candidate Experience Best Practices Action Guide.

    3.4 Brainstorm other potential (organization-specific) solutions.

    3.5 Set action timeline and assign accountabilities.

    3.6 Customize service level agreement guidelines.

    Outputs

    CX2 lifecycle stages prioritized

    Metrics to measure progress set

    CX2 best practices selected

    Candidate Experience Assessment Tool

    Candidate Experience Action and Communication Plan

    Service level agreement guidelines.

    Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.1/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $102,414 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 10 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Licensing
    • Parent Category Link: /licensing
    • Microsoft licensing is complicated. Often, the same software can be licensed a number of ways. It’s difficult to know which edition and licensing model is best.
    • Licensing and features often change with the release of new software versions, compounding the problem by making it difficult to stay current.
    • In tough economic times, IT is asked to reduce capital and operating expenses wherever possible. As one of the top five expense items in most enterprise software budgets, Microsoft licensing is a primary target for cost reduction.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Focus on needs first. Conduct a thorough needs assessment and document the results. Well-documented needs will be your best asset in navigating Microsoft licensing and negotiating your agreement.
    • Beware the bundle. Be aware when purchasing the M365 suite that there is no way out. Negotiating a low price is critical, as all leverage swings to Microsoft once it is on your agreement.
    • If the cloud doesn’t fit, be ready to pay up or start making room. Microsoft has drastically reduced discounting for on-premises products, support has been reduced, and product rights have been limited. If you are planning to remain on premises, be prepared to pay up.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand what your organization needs and what your business requirements are. It’s always easier to purchase more later than try to reduce your spend.
    • Complete cost calculations carefully, as the cloud might end up costing significantly more for the desired feature set. However, in some scenarios, it may be more cost efficient for organizations to license in the cloud.
    • If there are significant barriers to cloud adoption, discuss and document them. You’ll need this documentation in three years when it’s time to renew your agreement.

    Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era Research & Tools

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

    1. Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing Deck – A deck to help you build a strategy for your Microsoft licensing renewal.

    This storyboard will help you build a strategy for your Microsoft licensing renewal from conducting a thorough needs assessment to examining your licensing position, evaluating Microsoft's licensing options, and negotiations.

    • Modernize Your Microsoft Licensing for the Cloud Era – Phases 1-4

    2. Microsoft Cloud Products Cost Modeler – A tool to model estimated costs for Microsoft's cloud products.

    The Microsoft Cloud Products Cost Modeler will provide a rough estimate of what you can expect to pay for Office 365 or Dynamics CRM licensing, before you enter into negotiations. This is not your final cost, but it will give you an idea.

    • Microsoft Cloud Products Cost Modeler

    3. Microsoft Licensing Purchase Reference Guide - A template to capture licensing stakeholder information, proposed changes to licensing, and negotiation items.

    The Microsoft Licensing Purchase Reference Guide can be used throughout the process of licensing review: from initial meetings to discuss compliance state and planned purchases, to negotiation meetings with resellers. Use it in conjunction with Info-Tech's Microsoft Licensing Effective License Position Template.

    • Microsoft Licensing Purchase Reference Guide

    4. Negotiation Timeline for Microsoft – A template to navigate your negotiations with Microsoft.

    This tool will help you plot out your negotiation timeline, depending on where you are in your contract negotiation process.

  • 6-12 months
  • Less than 3 months
    • Negotiation Timeline for Microsoft – Visio
    • Negotiation Timeline for Microsoft – PDF

    5. Effective Licensing Position Tool – A template to help you create an effective licensing position and determine your compliance position.

    This template helps organizations to determine the difference between the number of software licenses they own and the number of software copies deployed. This is known as the organization’s effective license position (ELP).

    • Effective Licensing Position Tool
    [infographic]

    Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology

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    • Parent Category Name: Disruptive & Emerging Technologies
    • Parent Category Link: /disruptive-emerging-technologies
    • New technology can hit like a meteor. Not only disruptive to IT, technology provides opportunities for organization-wide advantage.
    • Your role is endangered. If you don’t prepare for the most disruptive technologies, you could be overshadowed. Don’t let the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) set the technological innovation agenda
    • Predicting the future isn’t easy. Most IT leaders fail to realize how quickly technology increases in capability. Even for the tech savvy, predicting which specific technologies will become disruptive is difficult.
    • Communication is difficult when the sky is falling. Even forward-looking IT leaders struggle with convincing others to devote time and resources to monitoring technologies with a formal process.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Establish the core working group, select a leader, and select a group of visionaries to help brainstorm emerging technologies.
    • Brainstorm about creating a better future, begin brainstorming an initial longlist.
    • Train the group to think like futurists.
    • Evaluate the shortlist.
    • Define your PoC list and schedule.
    • Finalize, present the plan to stakeholders and repeat.

    Impact and Result

    • Create a disruptive technology working group.
    • Produce a longlist of disruptive technologies.
    • Evaluate the longlist to produce a shortlist of disruptive technologies.
    • Develop a plan for a proof-of-concept project for each shortlisted technology.

    Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology Research & Tools

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

    1. Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology – A guide to help IT leaders make the most of disruptive impacts.

    As a CIO, there is a need to move beyond day-to-day technology management with an ever-increasing need to forecast technology impacts. Not just from a technical perspective but to map out the technical understandings aligned to potential business impacts and improvements. Technology transformation and innovation is moving more quickly than ever before and as an innovation champion, the CIO or CTO should have foresight in specific technologies with the understanding of how the company could be disrupted in the near future.

    • Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology – Phases 1-3

    2. Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template – A guide to develop the plan for exploiting disruptive technology.

    The Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template acts as an implementation plan for developing a long-term strategy for monitoring and implementing disruptive technologies.

    • Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    3. Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool – A tool to keep track of the missed technology disruption from previous opportunities.

    The Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool will assist you to collect reasonability test notes when evaluating potential disruptive technologies.

    • Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool

    4. Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool – A tool to keep track of the research conducted by members of the working group.

    The Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool will help you to keep track of the independent research that is conducted by members of the disruptive technology exploitation working group.

    • Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool

    5. Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool

    The Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool will help you to codify the results of the disruptive technology working group's longlist winnowing process.

    • Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool

    6. Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool – A tool to systematize notional evaluations of the value and readiness of potential disruptive technologies.

    The Disruptive Technology Value Readiness & SWOT Analysis Tool will assist you to systematize notional evaluations of the value and readiness of potential disruptive technologies.

    • Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    7. Proof of Concept Template – A handbook to serve as a reference when deciding how to proceed with your proposed solution.

    The Proof of Concept Template will guide you through the creation of a minimum-viable proof-of-concept project.

    • Proof of Concept Template

    8. Disruptive Technology Executive Presentation Template – A template to help you create a brief progress report presentation summarizing your project and program progress.

    The Disruptive Technology Executive Presentation Template will assist you to present an overview of the disruptive technology process, outlining the value to your company.

    • Disruptive Technology Executive Presentation Template

    Infographic

    Workshop: Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology

    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-work: Establish the Disruptive Tech Process

    The Purpose

    Discuss the general overview of the disruptive technology exploitation process.

    Develop an initial disruptive technology exploitation plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Stakeholders are on board, the project’s goals are outlined, and the working group is selected.

    Activities

    1.1 Get execs and stakeholders on board.

    1.2 Review the process of analyzing disruptive tech.

    1.3 Select members for the working group.

    1.4 Choose a schedule and time commitment.

    1.5 Select a group of visionaries.

    Outputs

    Initialized disruptive tech exploitation plan

    Meeting agenda, schedule, and participants

    2 Hold the Initial Meeting

    The Purpose

    Understand how disruption will affect the organization, and develop an initial list of technologies to explore.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Knowledge of how to think like a futurist.

    Understanding of organizational processes vulnerable to disruption.

    Outline of potentially disruptive technologies.

    Activities

    2.1 Start the meeting with introductions.

    2.2 Train the group to think like futurists.

    2.3 Brainstorm about disruptive processes.

    2.4 Brainstorm a longlist.

    2.5 Research and brainstorm separate longlists.

    Outputs

    List of disruptive organizational processes

    Initial longlist of disruptive tech

    3 Create a Longlist and Assess Shortlist

    The Purpose

    Evaluate the specific value of longlisted technologies to the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined list of the disruptive technologies worth escalating to the proof of concept stage.

    Activities

    3.1 Converge the longlists developed by the team.

    3.2 Narrow the longlist to a shortlist.

    3.3 Assess readiness and value.

    3.4 Perform a SWOT analysis.

    Outputs

    Finalized longlist of disruptive tech

    Shortlist of disruptive tech

    Value-readiness analysis

    SWOT analysis

    Candidate(s) for proof of concept charter

    4 Create an Action Plan

    The Purpose

    Understand how the technologies in question will impact the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of the specific effects of the new technology on the business processes it is intended to disrupt.

    Business case for the proof-of-concept project.

    Activities

    4.1 Build a problem canvas.

    4.2 Identify affected business units.

    4.3 Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted.

    4.4 Map disrupted business processes.

    4.5 Recognize how the new technology will impact business processes.

    4.6 Make the case.

    Outputs

    Problem canvas

    Map of business processes: current state

    Map of disrupted business processes

    Business case for each technology

    Further reading

    Analyst Perspective

    The key is in anticipation.

    “We all encounter unexpected changes and our responses are often determined by how we perceive and understand those changes. We react according to the unexpected occurrence. Business organizations are no different.

    When a company faces a major technology disruption in its markets – one that could fundamentally change the business or impact its processes and technology – the way its management perceive and understand the disruption influences how they describe and plan for it. In other words, the way management sets the context of a disruption – the way they frame it – shapes the strategy they adopt. Technology leaders can vastly influence business strategy by adopting a proactive approach to understanding disruptive and innovative technologies by simply adopting a process to review and evaluate technology impacts to the company’s lines of business.”

    This is a picture of Troy Cheeseman

    Troy Cheeseman
    Practice Lead, Infrastructure & Operations Research
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • New technology can hit like a meteor. Not only disruptive to IT, technology provides opportunities for organization-wide advantage.
    • Your role is endangered. If you don’t prepare for the most disruptive technologies, you could be overshadowed. Don’t let the chief marketing officer (CMO) set the technological innovation agenda.

    Common Obstacles

    • Predicting the future isn’t easy. Most IT leaders fail to realize how quickly technology increases in capability. Even for the tech savvy, predicting which specific technologies will become disruptive is difficult.
    • Communication is difficult when the sky is falling. Even forward-looking IT leaders struggle with convincing others to devote time and resources to monitoring technologies with a formal process.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Identify, resolve, and evaluate. Use an annual process as described in this blueprint: a formal evaluation of new technology that turns analysis into action.
    • Lead the analysis from IT. Establish a team to carry out the annual process as a cure for the causes of “airline magazine syndrome” and to prevent it from happening in the future.
    • Train your team on the patterns of progress, track technology over time in a central database, and read Info-Tech’s analysis of upcoming technology.
    • Create your KPIs. Establish your success indicators to create measurable value when presenting to your executive.
    • Produce a comprehensive proof-of-concept plan that will allow your company to minimize risk and maximize reward when engaging with new technology.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Proactively monitoring, evaluating, and exploiting disruptive tech isn’t optional.
    This will protect your role, IT’s role, and the future of the organization.

    A diverse working group maximizes the insight brought to bear.
    An IT background is not a prerequisite.

    The best technology is only the best when it brings immediate value.
    Good technology might not be ready; ready technology might not be good.

    Review

    We help IT leaders make the most of disruptive impacts.

    This research is designed for:

    Target Audience: CIO, CTO, Head of Infrastructure

    This research will help you:

    • Develop a process for anticipating, analyzing, and exploiting disruptive technology.
    • Communicate the business case for investing in disruptive technology.
    • Categorize emerging technologies to decide what to do with them.
    • Develop a plan for taking action to exploit the technology that will most affect your organization.

    Problem statement:

    As a CIO, there is a need to move beyond day-to-day technology management with an ever-increasing need to forecast technology impacts. Not just from a technical perspective but to map out the technical understandings aligned to potential business impacts and improvements. Technology transformation and innovation is moving more quickly than ever before and as an innovation champion, the CIO or CTO should have foresight in specific technologies with the understanding of how the company could be disrupted in the near future. Foresight + Current Technology + Business Understanding = Understanding the Business Disruption. This should be a repeatable process, not an exception or reactionary response.

    Insight Summary

    Establish the core working group, select a leader, and select a group of visionaries to help brainstorm emerging technologies.

    The right team matters. A core working group will keep focus through the process and a leader will keep everyone accountable. Visionaries are out-of-the-box thinkers and once they understand how to think like a "futurists," they will drive the longlist and shortlist actions.

    Train the group to think like futurists

    To keep up with exponential technology growth you need to take a multi-threaded approach.

    Brainstorm about creating a better future; begin brainstorming an initial longlist

    Establish the longlist. The longlist helps create a holistic view of most technologies that could impact the business. Assigning values and quadrant scoring will shortlist the options and focus your PoC option.

    Converge everyone’s longlists

    Long to short...that's the short of it. Using SWOT, value readiness, and quadrant mapping review sessions will focus the longlist, creating a shortlist of potential POC candidates to review and consider.

    Evaluate the shortlist

    There is no such thing as a risk-free endeavor. Use a systematic process to ensure that the risks your organization takes have the potential to produce significant rewards.

    Define your PoC list and schedule

    Don’t be afraid to fail! Inevitably, some proof-of-concept projects will not benefit the organization. The projects that are successful will more than cover the costs of the failed projects. Roll out small scale and minimize losses.

    Finalize, present the plan to stakeholders, and repeat!

    Don't forget the C-suite. Effectively communicate and present the working group’s finding with a well-defined and succinct presentation. Start the process again!

    This is a screenshot of the Thought map for Exploit disruptive infrastructure Technology.
    1. Identify
      • Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
      • Train the group to think like futurists
      • Hold your initial meeting
    2. Resolve
    • Create and winnow a longlist
    • Assess and create the shortlist
  • Evaluate
    • Create process maps
    • Develop proof of concept charter
  • The Key Is in Anticipation!

    Use Info-Tech’s approach for analyzing disruptive technology in your own disruptive tech working group

    Phase 1: Identify Phase 2: Resolve Phase 3: Evaluate

    Phase Steps

    1. Establish the disruptive technology working group
    2. Think like a futurist (Training)
    3. Hold initial meeting or create an agenda for the meeting
    1. Create and winnow a longlist
    2. Assess shortlist
    1. Create process maps
    2. Develop proof of concept charter

    Phase Outcomes

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group who will provide insight and direction.
    • Introduce the core working group members.
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances.
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes.
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist.
    • Finalized longlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist
    • Business process maps before and after disruption
    • Proof of concept charter
    • Key performance indicators
    • Estimation of required resources
    • Executive presentation

    Four key challenges make it essential for you to become a champion for exploiting disruptive technology

    1. New technology can hit like a meteor. It doesn’t only disrupt IT; technology provides opportunities for organization-wide advantage.
    2. Your role is endangered. If you don’t prepare for the most disruptive technologies, you could be overshadowed. Don’t let the CMO rule technological innovation.
    3. Predicting the future isn’t easy. Most IT leaders fail to realize how quickly technology increases in capability. Even for the tech savvy, predicting which specific technologies will become disruptive is difficult.
    4. Communication is difficult when the sky is falling. Even forward-looking IT leaders struggle with convincing others to devote time and resources to monitoring emerging technologies with a formal process.

    “Look, you have never had this amount of opportunity for innovation. Don’t forget to capitalize on it. If you do not capitalize on it, you will go the way of the dinosaur.”
    – Dave Evans, Co-Founder and CTO, Stringify

    Technology can hit like a meteor

    “ By 2025:

    • 38.6 billion smart devices will be collecting, analyzing, and sharing data.
    • The web hosting services market is to reach $77.8 billion in 2025.
    • 70% of all tech spending is expected to go for cloud solutions.
    • There are 1.35 million tech startups.
    • Global AI market is expected to reach $89.8 billion.”

    – Nick Gabov

    IT Disruption

    Technology disrupts IT by:

    • Affecting the infrastructure and applications that IT needs to use internally.
    • Affecting the technology of end users that IT needs to support and deploy, especially for technologies with a consumer focus.
    • Allowing IT to run more efficiently and to increase the efficiency of other business units.
    • Example: The rise of the smartphone required many organizations to rethink endpoint devices.

    Business Disruption

    Technology disrupts the business by:

    • Affecting the viability of the business.
    • Affecting the business’ standing in relation to competitors that better deal with disruptive technology.
    • Affecting efficiency and business strategy. IT should have a role in technology-related business decisions.
    • Example: BlackBerry failed to anticipate the rise of the apps ecosystem. The company struggled as it was unable to react with competitive products.

    Senior IT leaders are expected to predict disruptions to IT and the business, while tending to today’s needs

    You are expected to be both a firefighter and a forecaster

    • Anticipating upcoming disruptions is part of your job, and you will be blamed if you fail to anticipate future business disruptions because you are focusing on the present.
    • However, keeping IT running smoothly is also part of your job, and you will be blamed if today’s IT environment breaks down because you are focusing on the future.

    You’re caught between the present and the future

    • You don’t have a process that anticipates future disruptions but runs alongside and integrates with operations in the present.
    • You can’t do it alone. Tending to both the present and the future will require a team that can help you keep the process running.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Be prepared when disruptions start coming down, even though it isn’t easy. Use this research to reduce the effort to a simple process that can be performed alongside everyday firefighting.

    Make disruptive tech analysis and exploitation part of your innovation agenda

    A scatter plot graph is depicted, plotting IT Innovative Leadership (X axis), and Satisfaction with IT(Y axis). IT innovative leadership explains 75% of variation in satisfaction with IT

    Organizations without high satisfaction with IT innovation leadership are only 20% likely to be highly satisfied with IT

    “You rarely see a real-world correlation of .86!”
    – Mike Battista, Staff Scientist, Cambridge Brain Sciences, PhD in Measurement

    There is a clear relationship between satisfaction with IT and the IT department’s innovation leadership.

    Prevent “airline magazine syndrome” by proactively analyzing disruptive technologies

    “The last thing the CIO needs is an executive saying ‘I don’t what it is or what it does…but I want two of them!”
    – Tim Lalonde

    Airline magazine syndrome happens to IT leaders caught between the business and IT. It usually occurs in this manner:

    1. While on a flight, a senior executive reads about an emerging technology that has exciting implications for the business in an airline magazine.
    2. The executive returns and approaches IT, demanding that action be taken to address the disruptive technology – and that it should have been (ideally) completed already.

    Without a Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan:

    “I don’t know”

    With a Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan:

    “Here in IT, we have already considered that technology and decided it was overhyped. Let me show you our analysis and invite you to join our working group.”

    OR

    “We have already considered that technology and have started testing it. Let me show you our testing lab and invite you to join our working group.”

    Info-Tech Insight

    Airline magazine syndrome is a symptom of a wider problem: poor CEO-CIO alignment. Solve this problem with improved communication and documentation. Info-Tech’s disruptive tech iterative process will make airline magazine syndrome a thing of the past!

    IT leaders who do not keep up with disruptive technology will find their roles diminished

    “Today’s CIO dominion is in a decaying orbit with CIOs in existential threat mode.”
    – Ken Magee

    Protect your role within IT

    • IT is threatened by disruptive technology:
      • Trends like cloud services, increased automation, and consumerization reduce the need for IT to be involved in every aspect of deploying and using technology.
      • In the long term, machines will replace even intellectually demanding IT jobs, such as infrastructure admin and high-level planning.
    • Protect your role in IT by:
      • Anticipating new technology that will disrupt the IT department and your place within it.
      • Defining new IT roles and responsibilities that accurately reflect the reality of technology today.
      • Having a process for the above that does not diminish your ability to keep up with everyday operations that remain a priority today.

    Protect your role against other departments

    • Your role in the business is threatened by disruptive technology:
      • The trends that make IT less involved with technology allow other executives – such as the CMO – to make IT investments.
      • As the CMO gains the power and data necessary to embrace new trends, the CIO and IT managers have less pull.
    • Protect your role in the business by:
      • Being the individual to consult about new technology. It isn’t just a power play; IT leaders should be the ones who know technology thoroughly.
      • Becoming an indispensable part of the entire business’ innovation strategy through proposing and executing a process for exploiting disruptive technology.

    IT leaders who do keep up have an opportunity to solidify their roles as experts and aggregators

    “The IT department plays a critical role in [innovation]. What they can do is identify a technology that potentially might introduce improvements to the organization, whether it be through efficiency, or through additional services to constituents.”
    – Michael Maguire, Management Consultant

    The contemporary CIO is a conductor, ensuring that IT works in harmony with the rest of the business.

    The new CIO is a conductor, not a musician. The CIO is taking on the role of a business engineer, working with other executives to enable business innovation.

    The new CIO is an expert and an aggregator. Conductor CIOs increasingly need to keep up on the latest technologies. They will rely on experts in each area and provide strategic synthesis to decide if, and how, developments are relevant in order to tune their IT infrastructure.

    The pace of technological advances makes progress difficult to predict

    “An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense ‘intuitive linear’ view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century – it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate).”
    – Ray Kurzweil

    Technology advances exponentially. Rather than improving by the same amount of capability each year, it multiplies in capability each year.

    Think like a futurist to anticipate technology before it goes mainstream.

    Exponential growth happens much faster than linear growth, especially when it hits the knee of the curve. Even those who acknowledge exponential growth underestimate how capabilities can improve.

    To predict new advances, turn innovation into a process

    “We spend 70 percent of our time on core search and ads. We spend 20 percent on adjacent businesses, ones related to the core businesses in some interesting way. Examples of that would be Google News, Google Earth, and Google Local. And then 10 percent of our time should be on things that are truly new.”
    – Eric Schmidt, Google

    • Don’t get caught in the trap of refining your core processes to the exclusion of innovation. You should always be looking for new processes to improve, new technology to pilot, and where possible, new businesses to get into.
    • Devote about 10% of your time and resources to exploring new technology: the potential rewards are huge.

    You and your team need to analyze technology every year to predict where it’s going.

    A bar graph is shown which depicts the proportion of technology use from 2018-2022. the included devices are: Tablets; PCs; TVs; Non-smartphones; Smartphones; M2M
    • Foundational technologies, such as computing power, storage, and networks, are improving exponentially.
    • Disruptive technologies are specific manifestations of foundational advancements. Advancements of greater magnitude give rise to more manifestations; therefore, there will be more disruptive technologies every year.
    • There is a lot of noise to cut through. Remember Google Glasses? As technology becomes ubiquitous and consumerization reigns, everybody is a technology expert. How do you decide which technologies to focus on?

    Protect IT and the business from disruption by implementing a simple, repeatable disruptive technology exploitation process

    “One of the most consistent patterns in business is the failure of leading companies to stay at the top of their industries when technologies or markets change […] Managers must beware of ignoring new technologies that can’t initially meet the needs of their mainstream customers.”
    – Joseph L. Bower and Clayton M. Christensen

    Challenge

    Solution

    New technology can hit like a meteor, but it doesn’t have to leave a crater:

    Use the annual process described in this blueprint to create a formal evaluation of new technology that turns analysis into action.

    Predicting the future isn’t easy, but it can be done:

    Lead the analysis from the office of the CIO. Establish a team to carry out the annual process as a cure for airline magazine syndrome.

    Your role is endangered, but you can survive:

    Train your team on the patterns of progress, track technology over time in a central database, and read Info-Tech’s analysis of upcoming technology.

    Communication is difficult when the sky is falling, so have a simple way to get the message across:

    Track metrics that communicate your progress, and summarize the results in a single, easy-to-read exploitation plan.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Use Info-Tech’s tools and templates, along with this storyboard, to walk you through creating and executing an exploitation process in six steps.

    Create measurable value by using Info-Tech’s process for evaluating the disruptive potential of technology

    This image contains a bar graph with the following Title: Which are the primary benefits you've either realized or expect to realize by deploying hyperconverged infrastructure in the near term.

    No business process is perfect.

    • Use Info-Tech’s Proof of Concept Template to create a disruptive technology proof of concept implementation plan.
    • Harness your company’s internal wisdom to systematically vet new technology. Engage only in calculated risk and maximize potential benefit.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Inevitably, some proof of concept projects will not benefit the organization. The projects that are successful will more than cover the costs of the failed projects. Roll out small scale and minimize losses.

    Establish your key performance indicators (KPIs)

    Key performance indicators allow for rigorous analysis, which generates insight into utilization by platform and consumption by business activity.

    • Brainstorm metrics that indicate when process improvement is actually taking place.
    • Have members of the group pitch KPIs; the facilitator should record each suggestion on a whiteboard.
    • Make sure to have everyone justify the inclusion of each metric: how does it relate to the improvement that the proof of concept project is intended to drive? How does it relate to the overall goals of the business?
    • Include a list of KPIs, along with a description and a target (ensuring that it aligns with SMART metrics).
    Key Performance Indicator Description Target Result

    Number of Longlist technologies

    Establish a range of Longlist technologies to evaluate 10-15
    Number of Shortlist technologies Establish a range of Shortlist technologies to evaluate 5-10
    number of "look to the past" likes/dislikes Minimum number of testing characteristics 6
    Number of POCs Total number of POCs Approved 3-5

    Communicate your plan with the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    Use the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template to summarize everything that the group does. Update the report continuously and use it to show others what is happening in the world of disruptive technology.

    Section Title Description
    1 Rationale and Summary of Exploitation Plan A summary of the current efforts that exist for exploring disruptive technology. A summary of the process for exploiting disruptive technology, the resources required, the team members, meeting schedules, and executive approval.
    2 Longlist of Potentially Disruptive Technologies A summary of the longlist of identified disruptive technologies that could affect the organization, shortened to six or less that have the largest potential impact based on Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.
    3 Analysis of Shortlist Individually analyze each technology placed on the shortlist using Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.
    4 Proof of Concept Plan Use the results from Section 3 to establish a plan for moving forward with the technologies on the shortlist. Determine the tasks required to implement the technologies and decide who will complete them and when.
    5 Hand-off Pass the project along to identified stakeholders with significant interest in its success. Continue to track metrics and prepare to repeat the disruptive technology exploitation process annually.

    Whether you need a process for exploiting disruptive technology, or an analysis of current trends, Info-Tech can help

    Two sets of research make up Info-Tech’s disruptive technology coverage:

    This image contains four screenshots from each of the following Info-Tech Blueprints: Exploit disruptive Infrastructure Technology; Infrastructure & operations priorities 2022

    This storyboard, and the associated tools and templates, will walk you through creating a disruptive technology working group of your own.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Key deliverable:

    Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    The Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template acts as an implementation plan for developing a long-term strategy for monitoring and implementing disruptive technologies.

    Proof of Concept Template

    The Proof of Concept Template will guide you through the creation of a minimum-viable proof-of-concept project.

    Executive Presentation

    The Disruptive Technology Executive Presentation Template will assist you to present an overview of the disruptive technology process, outlining the value to your company.

    Disruptive Technology Value Readiness & SWOT Analysis Tool

    The Disruptive Technology Value Readiness & SWOT Analysis Tool will assist you to systematize notional evaluations of the value and readiness of potential disruptive technologies.

    Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool

    The Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool will help you to keep track of the independent research that is conducted by members of the disruptive technology exploitation working group.

    Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool

    The Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool will help you to codify the results of the disruptive technology working group's longlist winnowing process.

    Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool

    The Disruptive Technology Look to the Past Tool will assist you to collect reasonability test notes when evaluating potential disruptive technologies.

    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: Explore the need for a disruptive technology working group.

    Call #3: Review the agenda for the initial meeting.

    Call #5: Review how you’re brainstorming and your sources of information.

    Call #7: Review the final shortlist and assessment.

    Call #9: Review the progress of your team.

    Call #2: Review the team name, participants, and timeline.

    Call #4: Assess the results of the initial meeting.

    Call #6: Review the final longlist and begin narrowing it down.

    Call #8: Review the next steps.

    Call #10: Review the communication 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 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Pre-Work Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
    Establish the Disruptive Tech Process Hold Your Initial Meeting Create a Longlist and Assess Shortlist Create Process Maps Develop a Proof of Concept Charter

    Activities

    1.1.a Get executives and stakeholders on board.

    1.1.b Review the process of analyzing disruptive tech.

    1.1.c Select members for the working group.

    1.1.d Choose a schedule and time commitment.

    1.1.e Select a group of visionaries.

    1.2.a Start the meeting with introductions.

    1.2.b Train the group to think like futurists.

    1.2.c Brainstorm about disruptable processes.

    1.2.d Brainstorm a longlist.

    1.2.e Research and brainstorm separate longlists.

    2.1.a Converge the longlists developed by the team.

    2.2.b Narrow the longlist to a shortlist.

    2.2.c Assess readiness and value.

    2.2.d Perform a SWOT analysis.

    3.1.a Build a problem canvas.

    3.1.b Identify affected business units.

    3.1.c Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted.

    3.1.d Map disrupted business processes.

    3.1.e Recognize how the new technology will impact business processes.

    3.1.f Make the case.

    3.2.a Develop key performance indicators (KPIs).

    3.2.b Identify key success factors.

    3.2.c Outline project scope.

    3.2.d Identify responsible team.

    3.2.e Complete resource estimation.

    Deliverables

    1. Initialized Disruptive Tech Exploitation Plan
    1. List of Disruptable Organizational Processes
    2. Initial Longlist of Disruptive Tech
    1. Finalized Longlist of Disruptive Tech
    2. Shortlist of Disruptive Tech
    3. Value-Readiness Analysis
    4. SWOT Analysis
    5. Candidate(s) for Proof of Concept Charter
    1. Problem Canvas
    2. Map of Business Processes: Current State
    3. Map of Disrupted Business Processes
    4. Business Case for Each Technology
    1. Completed Proof of Concept Charter

    Exploit Disruptive Infrastructure Technology

    Disrupt or be disrupted.

    Identify

    Create your working group.

    PHASE 1

    Use Info-Tech’s approach for analyzing disruptive technology in your own disruptive tech working group

    1. Identify
      1. Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
      2. Train the group to think like futurists
      3. Hold your initial meeting
    2. Resolve
      1. Create and winnow a longlist
      2. Assess and create the shortlist
    3. Evaluate
      1. Create process maps
      2. Develop proof of concept charter

    The Key Is in Anticipation!

    Phase 1: Identify

    Create your working group.

    Activities:

    Step 1.1: Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
    Step 1.2: Train the group to think like futurists
    Step 1.3: Hold the initial meeting

    This step involves the following participants:

    IT Infrastructure Manager

    CIO or CTO

    Potential members and visionaries of the working group

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group who will provide insight and direction.
    • Introduce the core working group members.
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances.
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes.
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist.

    Step 1.1

    Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries.

    Activities:

    • Articulate the long- and short-term benefits and costs to the entire organization
    • Gain support by articulating the long- and short-term benefits and costs to the IT department
    • Gain commitment from key stakeholders and executives
    • Help stakeholders understand what goes into formally exploiting disruptive tech by reviewing this process
    • Establish the core working group and select a leader
    • Create a schedule with a time commitment appropriate to your organization’s size; it doesn’t need to take long
    • Select a group of visionaries external to IT to help the working group brainstorm disruptive technologies

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Potential members and visionaries of the working group

    Outcomes of this step

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group that will provide insight and direction.

    1.1.A Articulate the long- and short-term benefits and costs to the entire organization

    A cost/benefit analysis will give stakeholders a picture of how disruptive technology could affect the business. Use the chart as a starting point and customize it based on your organization.

    Disruptive Technology Affects the Organization

    Benefits Costs

    Short Term

    • First-mover advantage from implementing new technology in the business before competitors – and before start-ups.
    • Better brand image as an organization focused on innovation.
    • Increased overall employee satisfaction by implementing new technology that increases employee capabilities or lowers effort.
    • Possibility of increased IT budget for integrating new technology.
    • Potential for employees to reject wide-scale use of unfamiliar technology.
    • Potential for technology to fail in the organization if it is not sufficiently tested.
    • Executive time required for making decisions about technology recommended by the team.

    Long Term

    • Increased internal business efficiencies from the integration of new technology (e.g. energy efficiency, fewer employees needed due to automation).
    • Better services or products for customers, resulting in increased long-term revenue.
    • Lowered costs of services or products and potential to grow market share.
    • Continued relevance of established organizations in a world changed by disruptive technologies.
    • Technology may not reach the capabilities initially expected, requiring waiting for increased value or readiness.
    • Potential for customers to reject new products resulting from technology.
    • Lack of focus on current core capabilities if technology is massively disruptive.

    1.1.B Gain support by articulating the long- and short-term benefits and costs to the IT department

    A cost/benefit analysis will give stakeholders a picture of how disruptive technology could affect the business. Use the chart as a starting point and customize it based on your organization.

    Disruptive Technology Affects IT

    BenefitsCosts

    Short Term

    • Perception of IT as a core component of business practices.
    • Increase IT’s capabilities to better serve employees (e.g. faster network speeds, better uptime, and storage and compute capacity that meet demands).
    • Cost for acquiring or implementing new technology and updating infrastructure to integrate with it.
    • Cost for training IT staff and end users on new IT technology and processes.
    • Minor costs for initial setup of disruptive technology exploitation process and time taken by members.

    Long Term

    • More efficient and powerful IT infrastructure that capitalizes on emerging trends at the right time.
    • Lower help desk load due to self-service and automation technology.
    • Increased satisfaction with IT due to implementation of improved enterprise technology and visible IT influence on improvements.
    • Increased end-user satisfaction with IT due to understanding and support of consumer technology that affects their lives.
    • New technology may result in lower need for specific IT roles. Cultural disruptions due to changing role of IT.
    • Perception of failure if technology is tested and never implemented.
    • Expectation that IT will continue to implement the newest technology available, even when it has been dismissed as not having value.

    1.1.C Gain commitment from key stakeholders and executives

    Gaining approval from executives and key stakeholders is the final obstacle. Ensure that you cover the following items to have the best chance for project approval.

    • Use a sample deck similar to this section for gaining buy-in, ensuring that you add/remove information to make it specific to your organization. Cover this section, including:
      • Who: Who will lead the team and who will be on it (working group)?
      • What: What resources will be required by the team (costs)?
      • Where/When: How often and where will the team meet (meeting schedule)?
      • Why: Why is there a need to exploit disruptive technology (benefits and examples)?
      • How: How is the team going to exploit disruptive technology (the process)?
    • Go through this blueprint prior to presenting the plan to stakeholders so that you have a strong understanding of the details behind each process and tool.
    • Frame the first iteration of the cycle as a pilot program. Use the completed results of the pilot to establish exploiting disruptive technology as a necessary company initiative.

    Insert the resources required by the disruptive tech exploitation team into Section 1.5 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template. Have executives sign-off on the project in Section 1.6.

    Disruption has undermined some of the most successful tech companies

    “The IT department plays a critical role in [innovation]. What they can do is identify a technology that potentially might introduce improvements to the organization, whether it be through efficiency or through additional services to constituents.”
    - Michael Maguire, Management Consultant

    VoIP’s transformative effects

    Disruptive technology:
    Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a modern means of making phone calls through the internet by sending voice packets using data, as opposed to the traditional circuit transmissions of the PSTN.

    Who won:
    Organizations that realized the cost savings that VoIP provided for businesses with a steady internet connection saved as much as 60% on telephony expenses. Even in the early stages, with a few more limitations, organizations were able to save a significant amount of money and the technology has continued to improve.

    Who lost?
    Telecom-related companies that failed to realize VoIP was a potential threat to their market, and organizations that lacked the ability to explore and implement the disruptive technology early.

    Digital photography — the new norm

    Disruptive technology:
    Digital photography refers to the storing of photographs in a digital format, as opposed to traditional photography, which exposes light to sensitive photographic film.

    Who won:
    Photography companies and new players that exploited the evolution of data storage and applied it to photography succeeded. Those that were able to balance providing traditional photography and exploiting and introducing digital photography, such as Nikon, left competitors behind. Smartphone manufacturers also benefited by integrating digital cameras.

    Who lost?
    Photography companies, such as Kodak, that failed to respond to the digital revolution found themselves outcompeted and insolvent.

    1.1.D Help stakeholders understand what goes into formally exploiting disruptive tech by reviewing this process

    There are five steps to formally exploiting disruptive technology, each with its own individual outputs and tools to take analysis to the next level.

    Step 1.2:
    Hold Initial Meeting

    Output:

    • Initial list of disruptable processes;
    • Initial longlist

    Step 2.1:

    Brainstorm Longlist

    Output:

    • Finalized longlist;
    • Shortlist

    Step 2.2:

    Assess Shortlist

    Output:

    • Final shortlist;
    • SWOT analysis;
    • Tech categorization

    Step 3.1:
    Create Process Maps

    Output:

    • Completed process maps

    Step 3.2:
    Develop a proof of concept charter

    Output:

    • Proof-of-concept template with KPIs

    Info-Tech Insight

    Before going to stakeholders, complete the entire blueprint to better understand the tools and outputs of the process.

    1.1.E Establish the core working group and select a leader

    • Selecting your core membership for the working group is a critical step to the group’s success. Ensure that you satisfy the following criteria:
      • This is a team of subject matter experts. They will be overseeing the learning and piloting of disruptive technologies. Their input will also be valuable for senior executives and for implementing these technologies.
      • Choose members that can take time away from firefighting tasks to dedicate time to meetings.
      • It may be necessary to reach outside of the organization now or in the future for expertise on certain technologies. Use Info-Tech as a source of information.
    Organization Size Working Group Size
    Small 02-Jan
    Medium 05-Mar
    Large 10-May
    • Once the team is established, you must decide who will lead the group. Ensure that you satisfy the following criteria:
      • A leader should be credible, creative, and savvy in both technology and business.
      • The leader should facilitate, acting as both an expert and an aggregator of the information gathered by the team.

    Choose a compelling name

    The working group needs a name. Be sure to select one with a positive connotation within your organization.

    Section 1.3 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    1.1.F Create a schedule with a time commitment appropriate to your organization’s size; it doesn’t need to take long

    Time the disruptive technology working group’s meetings to coincide and integrate with your organization’s strategic planning — at least annually.

    Size Meeting Frequency Time per Meeting Example Meeting Activities
    Small Annually One day A one-day meeting to run through phase 2 of the project (SWOT analysis and shortlist analysis).
    Medium Two days A two-day meeting to run through the project. The additional meeting involves phase 3 of this deck, developing a proof-of-concept plan.
    Large Two+ days Two meetings, each two days. Two days to create and winnow the longlist (phase 2), and two further days to develop a proof of concept plan.

    “Regardless of size, it’s incumbent upon every organization to have some familiarity of what’s happening over the next few years, [and to try] to anticipate what some of those trends may be. […] These trends are going to accelerate IT’s importance in terms of driving business strategy.”
    – Vern Brownell, CEO, D-Wave

    Section 1.4 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    1.1.G Select a group of visionaries external to IT to help the working group brainstorm disruptive technologies

    Selecting advisors for your group is an ongoing step, and the roster can change.

    Ensure that you satisfy the following criteria:

    • Look beyond IT to select a team representing several business units.
    • Check for self-professed “geeks” and fans of science fiction that may be happy to join.
    • Membership can be a reward for good performance.

    This group does not have to meet as regularly as the core working group. Input from external advisors can occur between meetings. You can also include them on every second or third iteration of the entire process.

    However, the more input you can get into the group, the more innovative it can become.

    “It is … important to develop design fictions based on engagement with directly or indirectly implicated publics and not to be designed by experts alone.”
    – Emmanuel Tsekleves, Senior Lecturer in Design Interactions, University of Lancaster

    Section 1.3 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    The following case study illustrates the innovative potential that is created when you include a diverse group of people

    INDUSTRY - Chip Manufacturing
    SOURCE - Clayton Christensen, Intel

    To achieve insight, you need to collaborate with people from outside of your department.

    Challenge

    • Headquartered in California, through the 1990s, Intel was the largest microprocessor chip manufacturer in the world, with revenue of $25 billion in 1997.
    • All was not perfect, however. Intel faced a challenge from Cyrix, a manufacturer of low-end chips. In 18 months, Cyrix’s share of the low-margin entry-level chip manufacturing business mushroomed from 10% to 70%.

    Solution

    • Troubled by the potential for significant disruption of the microprocessor market, Intel brought in external consultants to hold workshops to educate managers about disruptive innovation.
    • Managers would break into groups and discuss ways Intel could facilitate the disruption of its competitors. In one year, Intel hosted 18 workshops, and 2,000 managers went through the process.

    Results

    • Intel launched the Celeron chip to serve the lower end of the PC market and win market share back from Cyrix (which no longer exists as an independent company) and other competitors like AMD.
    • Within one year, Intel had captured 35% of the market.

    “[The models presented in the workshops] gave us a common language and a common way to frame the problem so that we could reach a consensus around a counterintuitive course of action.” – Andy Grove, then-CEO, Intel Corporation

    Phase 1: Identify

    Create your working group.

    Activities:

    Step 1.1: Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
    Step 1.2: Train the group to think like futurists
    Step 1.3: Hold the initial meeting

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Potential members and visionaries of the working group

    Outcomes of this phase:

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group who will provide insight and direction.
    • Introduce the core working group members.
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances.
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes.
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist.

    Step 1.2

    Train the group to think like futurists

    Activities:

    1. Look to the past to predict the future:
      • Step 1: Review the technology opportunities you missed
      • Step 2: Review and record what you liked about the tech
      • Step 3: Review and record your dislikes
      • Step 4: Record and test the reasonability
    2. Crash course on futurology principles
    3. Peek into the future

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Core working group members
    • Visionaries

    Outcomes of this step

    • Team members thinking like futurists
    • Better understanding of how technology advances
    • List of past examples and characteristics

    Info-Tech Insight

    Business buy-in is essential. Manage your business partners by providing a summary of the EDIT methodology and process. Validate the process value, which will allow you create a team of IT and business representatives.

    1.2 Train the group to think like futurists

    1 hour

    Ensure the team understands how technology advances and how they can identify patterns in upcoming technologies.

    1. Lead the group through a brainstorming session.
    2. Follow the next phases and steps.
    3. This session should be led by someone who can facilitate a thought-provoking discussion.
    4. This training deck finishes with a video.

    Input

    • Facilitated creativity
    • Training deck [following slides]

    Output

    • Inspiration
    • Anonymous ideas

    Materials

    • Futurist training “steps”
    • Pen and paper

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries
    • Facilitator

    1.2.A Look to the past to predict the future

    30 minutes

    Step 1

    Step 2 Step 3 Step 4

    Review what you missed.

    What did you like?

    What did you dislike?

    Test the reasonability.

    Think about a time you missed a technical disruptive opportunity.

    Start with a list of technologies that changed your business and processes.

    Consider those specifically you could have identified with a repeatable process.

    What were the most impactful points about the technology?

    Define a list of “characteristics” you liked.

    Create a shortlist of items.

    Itemize the impact to process, people, and technology.

    Why did you pass on the tech?

    Define a list of “characteristics” you did not like.

    Create a shortlist of items.

    Itemize the impact to process, people, and technology.

    Avoid the “arm chair quarterback” view.

    Refer to the six positive and negative points.

    Check against your data points at the end of each phase.

    Record the list of missed opportunities

    Record 6 characteristics

    Record 6 characteristics

    Completed “Think like a Futurists” tool

    Use the Disruptive Technology Research Look to the Past Tool to record your output.

    Input

    • Facilitated creativity
    • Speaker’s notes

    Output

    • Inspiration
    • Anonymous ideas
    • Recorded missed opportunities
    • Recorded positive points
    • Recorded dislikes
    • Reasonability test list

    Materials

    • Futurist training “steps”
    • Pen and paper
    • “Look to the Past” tool

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries
    • Facilitator

    Understand how the difference between linear and exponential growth will completely transform many organizations in the next decade

    “The last ten years have seen exponential growth in research on disruptive technologies and their impact on industries, supply chains, resources, training, education and employment markets … The debate is still open on who will be the winners and losers of future industries, but what is certain is that change has picked up pace and we are now in a new technology revolution whose impact is potentially greater than the industrial revolution.”
    – Gary L. Evans

    Exponential advancement will ensure that life in the next decade will be very different from life today.

    • Linear growth happens one step at a time.
    • The difference between linear and exponential is hard to notice, at first.
    • We are now at the knee of the curve.

    What about email?

    • Consider the amount of email you get daily
    • Double it
    • Triple it

    Exponential growth happens much faster than linear growth, especially when it hits the knee of the curve. Technology grows exponentially, and we are approaching the knee of the curve.

    This graph is adapted from research by Ray Kurzweil.

    Growth: Linear vs. Exponential

    This image contains a graph demonstrating examples of exponential and linear trends.

    1.2.B Crash course on futurology principles

    1 hour

    “An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense ‘intuitive linear’ view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate).”
    - Ray Kurzweil

    Review the differences between exponential and linear growth

    The pace of technological advances makes progress difficult to predict.

    Technology advances exponentially. Rather than improving by the same amount of capability each year, it multiplies in capability each year.

    Think like a futurist to anticipate technology before it goes mainstream.

    Exponential growth happens much faster than linear growth, especially when it hits the knee of the curve. Even those who acknowledge exponential growth underestimate how capabilities can improve.

    The following case study illustrates the rise of social media providers

    “There are 7.7 billion people in the world, with at least 3.5 billion of us online. This means social media platforms are used by one in three people in the world and more than two-thirds of all internet users.”
    – Esteban Ortiz-Ospina

    This graph depicts the trend of the number of people using social media platforms between 2005 and 2019

    The following case study illustrates the rapid growth of Machine to Machine (M2M) connections

    A bar graph is shown which depicts the proportion of technology use from 2018-2022. the included devices are: Tablets; PCs; TVs; Non-smartphones; Smartphones; M2M

    Ray Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns

    “Ray Kurzweil has been described as ‘the restless genius’ by The Wall Street Journal, and ‘the ultimate thinking machine’ by Forbes. He was ranked #8 among entrepreneurs in the United States by Inc Magazine, calling him the ‘rightful heir to Thomas Edison,’ and PBS included Ray as one of 16 ‘revolutionaries who made America,’ along with other inventors of the past two centuries.”
    Source: KurzweilAI.net

    Growth is linear?

    “Information technology is growing exponentially. That’s really my main thesis, and our intuition about the future is not exponential, it’s really linear. People think things will go at the current pace …1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 30 steps later, you’re at 30.”

    Better IT strategy enables future business innovation

    “The reality of information technology like computers, like biological technologies now, is it goes exponentially … 2, 4, 8, 16. At step 30, you’re at a billion, and this is not an idle speculation about the future.” [emphasis added]

    “When I was a student at MIT, we all shared a computer that cost tens of millions of dollars. This computer [pulling his smartphone out of his pocket] is a million times cheaper, a thousand times more powerful — that’s a billion-fold increase in MIPS per dollar, bits per dollar… and we’ll do it again in 25 years.”
    Source: “IT growth and global change: A conversation with Ray Kurzweil,” McKinsey & Company

    1.2.C Peak into the future

    1 hour

    Leverage industry roundtables and trend reports to understand the art of the possible

    • Uncover important business and industry trends that can inform possibilities for technology disruption.
    • Market research is critical in identifying factors external to your organization and identifying technology innovation that will provide a competitive edge. It’s important to evaluate the impact each trend or opportunity will have in your organization and market.

    Visit Info-Tech’s Trends & Priorities Research Center

    Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to get started.

    Phase 1: Identify

    Create your working group

    Activities:

    Step 1.1: Establish the core working group and select a leader; select a group of visionaries
    Step 1.2: Train the group to think like futurists
    Step 1.3: Hold the initial meeting

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Potential members and visionaries of the working group

    Outcomes of this phase:

    • Establish a team of subject matter experts that will evaluate new, emerging, and potentially disruptive technologies.
    • Establish a process for including visionaries from outside of the working group who will provide insight and direction.
    • Introduce the core working group members.
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances.
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes.
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Establish the longlist. The longlist help create a holistic view of most technologies that could impact the business. Assigning values and quadrant scoring will shortlist the options and focus your PoC option.

    Step 1.3

    Hold the initial meeting

    Activities:

    1. Create an agenda for the meeting
    2. Start the kick-off meeting with introductions and a recap
    3. Brainstorm about creating a better future
    4. Begin brainstorming an initial longlist
    5. Have team members develop separate longlists for their next meeting

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Infrastructure Manager
    • CIO or CTO
    • Core working group members
    • Visionaries

    Outcomes of this step

    • Introduce the core working group members
    • Gain a better understanding of how technology advances
    • Brainstorm a list of organizational processes
    • Brainstorm an initial longlist

    1.3.A Create an agenda for the meeting

    1 hour

    Kick-off this cycle of the disruptive technology process by welcoming your visionaries and introducing your core working group.

    The purpose of the initial meeting is to brainstorm where new technology will be the most disruptive within the organization. You’ll develop two longlists: one of business processes and one of disruptive technology. These longlists are in addition to the independent research your core working group will perform before Phase 2.

    • Find an outgoing facilitator. Sitting back will let you focus more on ideating, and an engaging presenter will help bring out ideas from your visionaries.
    • The training deck (see step 1.2c) includes presenting a video. We’ve included some of our top choices for you to choose from.
      • Feel free to find your own video or bring in a keynote speaker.
      • The object of the video is to get the group thinking about the future.
      • Customize the training deck as needed.
    • If a cycle has been completed, present your findings and all of the group’s completed deliverables in the first section.
    • This session is the only time you have with your visionaries. Get their ideas on what technologies will be disruptive to start forming a longlist.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The disruptive tech team is prestigious. If your organization is large enough or has the resources, consider having this meeting in an offsite location. This will drive excitement to join the working group if the opportunity arises and incentivize good work.

    Meeting Agenda (Sample)

    Time

    Activity

    8:00am-8:30am Introductions and previous meeting recap
    8:30am-9:30am Training deck
    9:30 AM-10:00am Brainstorming
    10:00am-10:15am Break
    10:15am-10:45am Develop good research techniques
    10:45am-12:00pm Begin compiling your longlist

    Info-Tech Insight

    The disruptive tech team is prestigious. If your organization is large enough or has the resources, consider having this meeting in an offsite location. This will drive excitement to join the working group if the opportunity arises and incentivize good work.

    1.3.B Start the kick-off meeting with introductions and a summary of what work has been done so far

    30 minutes

    1. Start the meeting off with an icebreaker activity. This isn’t an ordinary business meeting – or even group – so we recommend starting off with an activity that will emphasize this unique nature. To get the group in the right mindset, try this activity:
      1. Go around the group and have people present:
      2. Their names and roles
      3. Pose some or all of the following questions/prompts to the group:
        • “Tell me about something you have created.”
        • “Tell me about a time you created a process or program considered risky.”
        • “Tell me about a situation in which you had to come up with several new ideas in a hurry. Were they accepted? Were they successful?”
        • “Tell me about a time you took a risk.”
        • “Tell me about one of your greatest failures and what you learned from it.”
    2. Once everyone has been introduced, present any work that has already been completed.
      1. If you have already completed a cycle, give a summary of each technology that you investigated and the results from any piloting.
      2. If this is the first cycle for the working group, present the information decided in Step 1.1.

    Input

    • Disruptive technology exploitation plan

    Output

    • Networking
    • Brainstorming

    Materials

    • Meeting agenda

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries
    • Facilitator

    1.3.C Brainstorm about creating a better future for the company, the stakeholders, and the employees

    30 minutes

    Three sticky notes are depicted, at the top of each note are the following titles: What can we do better; How can we make a better future; How can we continue being successful

    1. Have everyone put up at least two ideas for each chart paper.
    2. Go around the room and discuss their ideas. You may generate some new ideas here.

    These generated ideas are organizational processes that can be improved or disrupted with emerging technologies. This list will be referenced throughout Phases 2 and 3.

    Input

    • Inspiration
    • Anonymous ideas

    Output

    • List of processes

    Materials

    • Chart paper and markers
    • Pen and paper

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries

    1.3.D Begin brainstorming a longlist of future technology, and discuss how these technologies will impact the business

    30 minutes

    • Use the Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool to organize technologies and ideas. Longstanding working groups can track technologies here over the course of several years, updating the tool between meetings.
    • Guide the discussion with the following questions, and make sure to focus on the processes generated from Step 1.2.d.

    Focus on

    The Technology

    • What is the technology and what does it do?
    • What processes can it support?

    Experts and Other Organizations

    • What are the vendors saying about the technology?
    • Are similar organizations implementing the technology?

    Your Organization

    • Is the technology ready for wide-scale distribution?
    • Can the technology be tested and implemented now?

    The Technology’s Value

    • Is there any indication of the cost of the technology?
    • How much value will the technology bring?

    Download the Disruptive Technology Database Tool

    Input

    • Inspiration
    • List of processes

    Output

    • Initial longlist

    Materials

    • Chart paper and markers
    • Pen and paper
    • Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries

    1.3.E Explore these sources to generate your disruptive technology longlist for the next meeting

    30 Minutes

    There are many sources of information on new and emerging technology. Explore as many sources as you can.

    Science fiction is a valid source of learning. It drives and is influenced by disruptive technology.

    “…the inventor of the first liquid-fuelled rocket … was inspired by H.G. Wells’ science fiction novel War of the Worlds (1898). More recent examples include the 3D gesture-based user interface used by Tom Cruise’s character in Minority Report (2002), which is found today in most touch screens and the motion sensing capability of Microsoft’s Kinect. Similarly, the tablet computer actually first appeared in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and the communicator – which we’ve come to refer today as the mobile phone – was first used by Captain Kirk in Star Trek (1966).”
    – Emmanuel Tsekleves, senior lecturer, University of Lancaster

    Right sources: blogs, tech news sites, tech magazines, the tech section of business sites, popular science books about technology, conferences, trade publications, and vendor announcements

    Quantity over quality: early research is not the time to dismiss ideas.

    Discuss with your peers: spark new and innovative ideas

    Insert a brief summary of how independent research is conducted in Section 2.1 of the Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template.

    1.3.E (Cont.) Explore these sources to generate your disruptive technology longlist for the next meeting

    30 Minutes

    There are many sources of information on new and emerging technology. Use this list to kick-start your search.

    Connect with practitioners that are worth their weight in Reddit gold. Check out topic-based LinkedIn groups and subreddits such as r/sysadmin and r/tech. People experienced with technology frequent these groups.

    YouTube is for more than cat videos. Many vendors use YouTube for distributing their previous webinars. There are also videos showcasing various technologies that are uploaded by lecturers, geeks, researchers, and other technology enthusiasts.

    Test your reasonability. Check your “Think Like a Futurist” Tool

    Resolve

    Evaluate Disruptive Technologies

    PHASE 2

    Phase 2: Resolve

    Evaluate disrupted technologies

    Activities:

    Step 2.1: Create and Winnow a Longlist
    Step 2.2: Assess Shortlist

    Info-Tech Insight

    Long to short … that’s the short of it. Using SWOT, value readiness, and quadrant mapping review sessions will focus the longlist, creating a shortlist of potential PoC candidates to review and consider.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Infrastructure Management

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Finalized longlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist

    Step 2.1

    Create and winnow a longlist

    Activities:

    1. Converge everyone’s longlists
    2. Narrow technologies from the longlist down to a shortlist using Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool
    3. Use the shortlisting tool to help participants visualize the potential
    4. Input the technologies on your longlist into the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool to produce a shortlist

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group members

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Finalized longlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist

    2.1 Organize a meeting with the core working group to combine your longlists and create a shortlist

    1 hour

    Plan enough time to talk about each technology on the list. Each technology was included for a reason.

    • Start with the longlist. Review the longlist compiled at the initial meeting, and then have everyone present the lists that they independently researched.
    • Focus on the company’s context. Make sure that the working group analyzes these disruptive technologies in the context of the organization.
    • Start to compile the shortlist. Begin narrowing down the longlist by excluding technologies that are not relevant.

    Meeting Agenda (Sample)

    TimeActivity
    8:00am-9:30amConverge longlists
    9:30am-10:00amBreak
    10:00am-10:45amDiscuss tech in organizational context
    10:45am-11:15amBegin compiling the shortlist

    Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template

    2.1.A Converge the longlists developed by your team

    90 minutes

    • Start with the longlist developed at the initial meeting. Write this list on the whiteboard.
    • If applicable, have a member present the longlist that was created in the last cycle. Remove technologies that:
      • Are no longer disruptive (e.g. have been implemented or rejected).
      • Have become foundational.
    • Eliminate redundancy: remove items that are very similar.
    • Have members “pitch” items on their lists:
      • Explain why their technologies will be disruptive (2-5 minutes maximum)
      • Add new technologies to the whiteboard
    • Record the following for metrics:
      • Each presented technology
      • Reasons the technology could be disruptive
      • Source of the information
    • Use Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool as a starting point.

    Insert the final longlist into Section 2.2 of your Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template.

    Input

    • Longlist developed at first meeting
    • Independent research
    • Previous longlist

    Output

    • Finalized longlist

    Materials

    • Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • Virtual whiteboard

    Participants

    • Core working group

    Review the list of processes that were brainstormed by the visionary group, and ask for input from others

    • IT innovation is most highly valued by the C-suite when it improves business processes, reduces costs, and improves core products and services.
    • By incorporating this insight into your working group’s analysis, you help to attract the attention of senior management and reinforce the group’s necessity.
    • Any input you can get from outside of IT will help your group understand how technology can be disruptive.
      • Visionaries consulted in Phase 1 are a great source for this insight.
    • The list of processes that they helped to brainstorm in Step 1.2 reflects processes that can be impacted by technology.
    • Info-Tech’s research has shown time and again that both CEOs and CIOs want IT to innovate around:
      • Improving business processes
      • Improving core products and services
      • Reducing costs

    Improved business processes

    80%

    Core product and service improvement

    48%

    Reduced costs

    48%

    Increased revenues

    23%

    Penetration into new markets

    21%

    N=364 CXOs & CIOs from the CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic Questions were asked on a 7-point scale of 1 = Not at all to 7 = Very strongly. Results are displayed as percentage of respondents selecting 6 or 7.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The disruptive tech team is prestigious. If your organization is large enough or has the resources, consider having this meeting in an offsite location. This will drive excitement to join the working group if the opportunity arises and incentivize good work.

    2.1.B Narrow technologies from the longlist down to a shortlist using Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool

    90 minutes

    To decide which technology has potential for your organization, have the working group or workshop participants evaluate each technology:

    1. Record each potentially disruptive technology in the longlist on a whiteboard.
    2. Making sure to carefully consider the meaning of the terms, have each member of the group evaluate each technology as “high” or “low” along each of the axes, innovation and transformation, on a piece of paper.
    3. The facilitator collects each piece of paper and inputs the results by technology into the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.
    Technology Innovation Transformation
    Conversational Commerce High High

    Insert the final shortlist into Section 2.2 of your Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template.

    Input

    • Longlist
    • Futurist brainstorming

    Output

    • Shortlist

    Materials

    • Disruptive Technology Research Database Tool
    • Whiteboard and markers
    • Virtual whiteboard

    Participants

    • Core working group

    Disruptive technologies are innovative and transformational

    Innovation

    Transformation

    • Elements:
      • Creative solution to a problem that is relatively new on the scene.
      • It is different, counterintuitive, or insightful or has any combination of these qualities.
    • Questions to Ask:
      • How new is the technology?
      • How different is the technology?
      • Have you seen anything like it before? Is it counterintuitive?
      • Does it offer an insightful solution to a persistent problem?
    • Example:
      • The sharing economy: Today, simple platforms allow people to share rides and lodgings cheaply and have disrupted traditional services.
    • Elements:
      • Positive change to the business process.
      • Highly impactful: impacts a wide variety of roles in a company in a nontrivial way or impacts a smaller number of roles more significantly.
    • Questions to Ask:
      • Will this technology have a big impact on business operations?
      • Will it add substantial value? Will it change the structure of the company?
      • Will it impact a significant number of employees in the organization?
    • Example:
      • Flash memory improved storage technology incrementally by building on an existing foundation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Technology can be transformational but not innovative. Not every new technology is disruptive. Even where technology has improved the efficiency of the business, if it does this in an incremental way, it might not be worth exploring using this storyboard.

    2.1.C Use the shortlisting tool to help participants visualize the potential

    1 hour

    Use the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool, tabs 2 and 3.

    Assign quadrants

    • Input group members’ names and the entire longlist (up to 30 technologies) into tab 2 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.
    • On tab 3 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool, input the quadrant number that corresponds to the innovation and transformation scores each participant has assigned to each technology.

    Note

    This is an assessment meant to serve as a guide. Use discretion when moving forward with a proof-of-concept project for any potentially disruptive technology.

    Participant Evaluation Quadrant
    High Innovation, High Transformation 1
    High Innovation, Low Transformation 2
    Low Innovation, Low Transformation 3
    Low Innovation, High Transformation 4

    four quadrants are depicted, labeled 1-4. The quadrants are coloured as follows: 1- green; 2- yellow; 3; red; 4; yellow

    2.1.D Use the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool to produce a shortlist

    1 hour

    Use the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool, tabs 3 and 4.

    Use the populated matrix and the discussion list to arrive at a shortlist of four to six potentially disruptive technologies.

    • The tool populates each quadrant based on how many votes it received in the voting exercise.
    • Technologies selected for a particular quadrant by a majority of participants are placed in the quadrant on the graph. Where there was no consensus, the technology is placed in the discussion list.
    • Technologies in the upper right quadrant – high transformation and high innovation – are more likely to be good candidates for a proof-of-concept project. Those in the bottom left are likely to be poor candidates, while those in the remaining quadrants are strong on one of the axes and are unlikely candidates for further systematic evaluation.

    This image contains a screenshot from tab 3 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.

    Input the results of the vote into tab 3 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.

    This image contains a screenshot from tab 4 of the Disruptive Technology Shortlisting Tool.

    View the results on tab 4.

    Phase 2: Resolve

    Evaluate disrupted technologies

    Activities:

    Step 2.1: Create and Winnow a Longlist
    Step 2.2:- Assess Shortlist

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Infrastructure Management

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Finalized longlist
    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist

    Assess Shortlist

    Activities:

    1. Assess the value of each technology to your organization by breaking it down into quality and cost
    2. Investigate the overall readiness of the technologies on the shortlist
    3. Interpret each technology’s value score
    4. Conduct a SWOT analysis for each technology on the shortlist
    5. Use Info-Tech’s disruptive technology shortlist analysis to visualize the tool’s outputs
    6. Select the shortlisted technologies you would like to move forward with

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group members
    • IT Management

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Finalized shortlist
    • Initial analysis of each technology on the shortlist

    2.2 Evaluate technologies based on their value and readiness, and conduct a SWOT analysis for each one

    Use the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    • A technology monitor diagram prioritizes investment in technology by analyzing its readiness and value.
      • Readiness: how close the technology is to being practical and implementable in your industry and organization.
      • Value: how worthwhile the technology is, in terms of its quality and its cost.
    • Value and readiness questionnaires are included in the tool to help determine current and future values for each, and the next four slides explain the ratings further.
    • Categorize technology by its value-readiness score, and evaluate how much potential value each technology has and how soon your company can realize that value.
    • Use a SWOT analysis to qualitatively evaluate the potential that each technology has for your organization in each of the four categories (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats).

    The technology monitor diagram appears in tab 9 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    This image depicts tab 9 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    2.2.A Assess the value of each technology to your organization by breaking it down into quality and cost

    1 hour

    Update the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool, tab 4.

    Populate the chart to produce a score for each technology’s overall value to the company conceptualized as the interaction of quality and cost.

    Overall Value

    Quality Cost

    Each technology, if it has a product associated with it, can be evaluated along eight dimensions of quality. Consider how well the product performs, its features, its reliability, its conformance, its durability, its serviceability, its aesthetics, and its perceived quality.

    IT budgets are broken down into capital and operating expenditures. A technology that requires a significant investment along either of these lines is unlikely to produce a positive return. Also consider how much time it will take to implement and operate each technology.

    The value assessment is part of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    This image contains a screenshot from tab 4 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Watch your costs: Technology that seems cheap at first can actually be expensive over time. Be sure to account for operational and opportunity costs as well.

    2.2.B Investigate the overall readiness of the technologies on the shortlist

    1 hour

    Update the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool, tab 4.

    Overall Readiness

    Age

    How much time has the technology had to mature? Older technology is more likely to be ready for adoption.

    Venture Capital

    The amount of venture capital gathered by important firms in the space is an indicator of market faith.

    Market Size

    How big is the market for the technology? It is more difficult to break into a giant market than a niche market.

    Market Players

    Have any established vendors (Microsoft, Facebook, Google, etc.) thrown their weight behind the technology?

    Fragmentation

    A large number of small companies in the space indicates that the market has yet to reach equilibrium.

    The readiness assessment is part of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    This image contains a screenshot of the Readiness Scoring tab of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    Use a variety of sources to populate the chart

    Google is your friend: search each shortlisted technology to find details about its development and important vendors.

    Websites like Crunchbase, VentureBeat, and Mashable are useful sources for information on the companies involved in a space and the amount of money they have each raised.

    2.2.C Interpret each technology’s value score

    1 hour

    Insert the result of the SWOT analysis into tab 7 of Info-Tech’s Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    Visualize the results of the quality-cost analysis

    • Quality and cost are independently significant; it is essential to understand how each technology stacks up on the axes.
    • Use tab 6 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool for an illustration of how quality and cost interact to produce each technology’s final position on the tech monitor graph.
    • Remember: the score is notional and reflects the values that you have assigned. Be sure to treat it accordingly.

    This image contains a screenshot of the Value Analysis tab of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    Green represents a technology that scores extremely high on one axis or the other, or quite high on both. These technologies are the best candidates for proof-of-concept projects from a value perspective.

    Red represents a technology that has scored very low on both axes. These technologies will be expensive, time consuming, and of poor quality.

    Yellow represents the fuzzy middle ground. These technologies score moderately on both axes. Be especially careful when considering the SWOT analysis of these technologies.

    2.2.D Conduct a SWOT analysis for each technology on the shortlist

    1 hour

    Use tab 6 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    A formal process for analyzing disruptive technology is the only way to ensure that it is taken seriously.

    Write each technology as a heading on a whiteboard. Spend 10-15 minutes on each technology conducting a SWOT analysis together.

    Consider four categories for each technology:

    • Strengths: Current uses of the technology or supporting technology and ways in which it helps your organization.
    • Weaknesses: Current limitations of the technology and challenges or barriers to adopting it in your organization.
    • Opportunities: Potential uses of the technology, especially as it advances or improves.
    • Threats: Potential negative disruptions resulting from the technology, especially as it advances or improves.

    The list of processes generated at the cycle’s initial meeting is a great source for opportunities and threats.

    Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    This image contains screenshots of the technology tab of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool.

    2.2.E Use Info-Tech’s disruptive technology shortlist analysis to visualize the tool’s outputs

    1 hour

    Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool, tab 9

    The tool’s final tab displays the results of the value-readiness analysis and the SWOT analysis in a single location.

    This image contains a screenshot from tab 9 of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    Insert the shortlist analysis report into Section 3 of your Disruptive Technology Exploitation Plan Template.

    2.2.F Select the shortlisted technologies you would like to move forward with

    1 hour

    Present your findings to the working group.

    • The Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool aggregates your inputs in an easy-to-read, consistent way.
    • Present the tool’s outputs to members of the core working group.
    • Explain the scoring and present the graphic to the group. Go over each technology’s strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats it presents/poses to the organization.
    • Go through the proof-of-concept planning phase before striking any technologies from the list.

    This image contains a screenshot of the disruptive technology shortlist analysis from the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool

    Info-Tech Insight

    A technology’s exceptional value and immediate usability make it the best. A technology can be promising and compelling, but it is unsuitable unless it can bring immediate and exceptional value to your organization. Don’t get caught up in the hype.

    Evaluate

    Create an Action Plan to Exploit Disruptive Technologies

    PHASE 3

    Phase 3: Evaluate

    Create an Action Plan to Exploit Disruptive Technologies

    Activities:

    Step 3.1: Create Process Maps
    Step 3.2: Develop Proof of Concept Charter

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Infrastructure Management
    • Working group leader
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Business process maps before and after disruption
    • Proof of concept charter
    • Key performance indicators
    • Estimation of required resources

    Step 3.1

    Create Process Maps

    Activities:

    1. Creating a problem canvas by identifying stakeholders, jobs, pains, and gains
    2. Clarify the problem the proof-of-concept project will solve
    3. Identify jobs and stakeholders
    4. Outline how disruptive technology will solve the problem
    5. Map business processes
    6. Identify affected business units
    7. Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted
    8. Recognize how the new technology will impact business processes
    9. Make the case: Outline why the new business process is superior to the old

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Working group leader
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Business process maps before and after disruption

    3.1 Create an action plan to exploit disruptive technologies

    Clarify the problem in order to make the case. Fill in section 1.1 of Info-Tech’s Proof of Concept Template to clearly outline the problem each proof of concept is designed to solve.

    Establish roles and responsibilities. Use section 1.2 of the template to outline the roles and responsibilities that fall to each member of the team. Ensure that clear lines of authority are delineated and that the list of stakeholders is exhaustive: include the executives whose input will be required for project approval, all the way to the technicians on the frontline responsible for implementing it.

    Outline the solution to the problem. Demonstrate how each proof-of-concept project provides a solution to the problem outlined in section 1.1. Be sure to clarify what makes the particular technology under investigation a potential solution and record the results in section 1.3.

    This image contains a screenshot of the Proof of concept project template

    Use the Proof of Concept Project Template to track the information you gather throughout Phase 3.

    3.1.A Creating a problem canvas by identifying stakeholders, jobs, pains, and gains

    2 hours

    Instructions:

    1. On a whiteboard, draw the visual canvas supplied below.
    2. Select your issue area, and list jobs, pains, and gains in the associated sections.
    3. Record the pains, jobs, and gains in sections 1.1-1.3 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    Gains

    1. More revenue

    2. Job security

    3. ……

    Jobs

    1. Moving product

    2. Per sale value

    3. ……

    Pains

    1. Clunky website

    2. Bad site navigation

    3. ……

    Input

    • Inspiration
    • Anonymous ideas

    Output

    • List of processes

    Materials

    • Chart paper and markers
    • Pen and paper

    Participants

    • Core working group
    • Visionaries

    3.1.B Clarify the problem the proof-of-concept project will solve

    2 hours

    What is the problem?

    • 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: during the course of their work, everyone encounters pain points. Identify those pain points to arrive at the problem that needs to be solved.

    Example:

    List of pains addressed by conversational commerce:

    • Search functions can be clunky and unresponsive.
    • Corporate websites can be difficult to navigate.
    • Customers are uncomfortable in unfamiliar internet environments.
    • Customers do not like waiting in a long queue to engage with customer service representatives when they have concerns.

    “If I were given one hour to solve a problem, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.”
    – Albert Einstein

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 1.1 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.1.C Identify jobs and stakeholders

    1 hour

    Jobs

    Job: Anything that the “customer” (the target of the solution) needs to get done but that is complicated by a pain.

    Examples:
    The job of the conversational commerce interface is to make selling products easier for the company.
    From the customer perspective, the job of the conversational interface is to make the act of purchasing a product simpler and easier.

    Stakeholders

    Stakeholder: Anyone who is impacted by the new technology and who will end up using, approving, or implementing it.

    Examples:
    The executive is responsible for changing the company’s direction and approving investment in a new sales platform.
    The IT team is responsible for implementing the new technology.
    Marketing will be responsible for selling the change to customers.
    Customers, the end users, will be the ones using the conversational commerce user interface.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 1.2 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Process deconstruction reveals strengths and weaknesses. Promising technology should improve stakeholders’ abilities to do jobs.

    3.1.D Outline how disruptive technology will solve the problem

    1 hour

    How will the technology in question make jobs easier?

    • How will the disruptive technology you have elected to move forward with create gains for the organization?
    • First, identify the gains that are supposed to come with the project. Consider the benefits that the various stakeholders expect to derive from the jobs identified.
    • Second, make note of how the technology in question facilitates the gains you have noted. Be sure to articulate the exclusive features of the new technology that make it an improvement over the current state.

    Note: The goal of this exercise is to make the case for a particular technology. Sell it!

    Expected Gain: Increase in sales.

    Conversational Commerce’s Contribution: Customers are more likely to purchase products using interfaces they are comfortable with.

    Expected Gain: Decrease in costs.

    Conversational Commerce’s Contribution: Customers who are satisfied with the conversational interface are less likely to interact with live agents, saving labor costs.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 1.3 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.1.E Map business processes

    1 hour

    Map the specific business processes the new technology will impact.

    • Disruptive technologies will impact a wide variety of business processes.
    • Map business processes to visualize what parts of your organization (departments, silos, divisions) will be impacted by the new technology, should it be adopted after the proof of concept.
    • Identify how the disruption will take place.
    • Demonstrate the value of each technology by including the results of the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool with your process map.

    This image contains a screenshot of the Proof of concept project template

    Use the Proof of Concept Project Template to track the information you gather throughout Phase 3.

    3.1.F Identify affected business units

    30 minutes per technology

    Disruptive technology will impact business units.

    • Using the stakeholders identified earlier in the project, map each technology to the business units that will be affected.
    • Make your list exhaustive. While some technologies will have a limited impact on the business as a whole, others will have ripple effects throughout the organization.
    • Examine affected units at all scales: How will the technology impact operations at the team level? The department level? The division level?

    “The disruption is not just in the technology. Sometimes a good business model can be the disruptor.”
    – Jason Hong, Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon

    Example:

    • Customer service teams: Conversational commerce will replace some of the duties of the customer service representative. They will have to reorganize to account for this development.
    • IT department: The IT department will be responsible for building/maintaining the conversational interface (or, more likely, they will be responsible for managing the contract with the vendor).
    • Sales analytics: New data from customers in natural language might provide a unique opportunity for the analytics team to develop new initiatives to drive sales growth.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 2.1 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.1.G Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted

    15 minutes per technology

    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.

    “To truly understand a business process, we need information from both the top-down and bottom-up points of view. Informants higher in the organizational hierarchy with a strategic focus are less likely to know process details or problems. But they might advocate and clearly articulate an end-to-end, customer-oriented philosophy that describes the process in an idealized form. Conversely, the salespeople, customer service representatives, order processors, shipping clerks, and others who actually carry out the processes will be experts about the processes, their associated documents, and problems or exception cases they encounter.”
    – Robert J. Glushko, Professor at UC Berkeley and Tim McGrath, Business Consultant

    Info-Tech Insight

    Opinions gathered from a group that reflect the process in question are far more likely to align with your organization’s reality. If you have any questions about a particular process, do not be afraid to go outside of the working group to ask someone who might know.

    3.1.G Outline and map the business processes likely to be disrupted (continued)

    15 minutes per technology

    Create a simple diagram of identified processes.

    • Use different shapes to identify different points in the process.
    • Rectangles represent actions, diamonds represent decisions.
    • On a whiteboard, map out the actions and decisions that take place to transform an input into an output.
    • Input the result into section 2.2 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    This image contains a screenshot of the Software Service Cross-Function Process tab from Edraw Visualization Solutions.

    Source: Edraw Visualization Solutions

    Example: simplified process map

    1. User: visits company website
    2. User: engages search function or browses links
    3. User: selects and purchases product from a menu
    4. Company: ships product to customer

    3.1.H Recognize how the new technology will impact business processes

    15 minutes per technology

    Using the information gleaned from the previous activities, develop a new process map that takes the new technology into account.

    Identify the new actions or decisions that the new technology will affect.

    User: visits company website; User: engages conversational; commerce platform; User: engages search function or browses links; User: makes a natural language query; User: selects and purchases product from a menu</p data-verified=

    User: selects and purchases product from a menu; Company: ships product to customer; Company: ships product to customer">

    Info-Tech Insight

    It’s ok to fail! The only way to know you’re getting close to the “knee of curve" is from multiple failed PoC tests. The more PoC options you have, the more likely it will be that you will have two to three successful results.

    3.1.I Make the case: Outline why the new business process is superior to the old

    15 minutes per technology

    Articulate the main benefits of the new process.

    • Using the revised process map, make the case for each new action.
    • Questions to consider: How does the new technology relieve end-user/customer pains? How does the new technology contribute to the streamlining of the business process? Who will benefit from the new action? What are the implications of those benefits?
    • Record the results of this exercise in section 2.4 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    This image contains an example of an outline comparing the benefits of new and the old business processes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If you cannot articulate how a new technology will benefit a business process, reconsider moving forward with the proof-of-concept project.

    Phase 3: Evaluate

    Create an Action Plan to Exploit Disruptive Technologies

    Activities:

    Step 3.1: Create Process Maps
    Step 3.2: Develop Proof of Concept Charter

    Develop Proof of Concept Charter

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Core working group
    • Infrastructure Management
    • Working group leader
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Business process maps before and after disruption
    • Proof of concept charter
    • Key performance indicators
    • Estimation of required resources

    Step 3.2

    Develop Proof of Concept Charter

    Activities:

    1. Use SMART success metrics to define your objectives
    2. Develop key performance indicators (KPIs)
    3. Identify key success factors for the project
    4. Outline the project’s scope
    5. Identify the structure of the team responsible for the proof-of-concept project
    6. Estimate the resources required by the project
    7. Be aware of common IT project concerns
    8. Communicate your working group’s findings and successes to a wide audience
    9. Hand off the completed proof-of-concept project plan
    10. Disruption is constant: Repeat the evaluation process regularly to protect the business

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Working group leader
    • CIO

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Proof of concept charter
    • Key performance indicators
    • Estimation of required resources

    3.2 Develop a proof of concept charter

    Keep your proof of concept on track by defining five key dimensions.

    1. Objective: Giving an overview of the planned proof of concept will help to focus and clarify the rest of this section. What must the proof of concept achieve? Objectives should be: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. Outline and track key performance indicators.
    2. Key Success Factors: These are conditions that will positively impact the proof of concept’s success.
    3. Scope: High-level statement of scope. More specifically, state what is in scope and what is out of scope.
    4. Project Team: Identify the team’s structure, e.g. sponsors, subject-matter experts.
    5. Resource Estimation: Identify what resources (time, materials, space, tools, expertise, etc.) will be needed to build and socialize your prototype. How will they be secured?

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.A Use SMART success metrics to define your objectives

    Specific

    Measurable

    Actionable

    Realistic

    Time Bound

    Make sure the objective is clear and detailed.

    Objectives are measurable if there are specific metrics assigned to measure success. Metrics should be objective.

    Objectives become actionable when specific initiatives designed to achieve the objective are identified.

    Objectives must be achievable given your current resources or known available resources.

    An objective without a timeline can be put off indefinitely. Furthermore, measuring success is challenging without a timeline.

    Who, what, where, why?

    How will you measure the extent to which the goal is met?

    What is the action-oriented verb?

    Is this within my capabilities?

    By when: deadline, frequency?

    Examples:

    1. Increase in sales by $40,000 per month by the end of next quarter.
    2. Immediate increase in web traffic by 600 unique page views per day.
    3. Number of pilots approved per year.
    4. Number of successfully deployed solutions per year.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.B Develop key performance indicators (KPIs)

    30 minutes per technology

    Key performance indicators allow for rigorous analysis, which generates insight into utilization by platform and consumption by business activity.

    • Use the process improvements identified in step 3.1 to brainstorm metrics that indicate when process improvement is actually taking place.
    • Have members of the group pitch KPIs; the facilitator should record each suggestion on a whiteboard.
    • Make sure to have everyone justify the inclusion of each metric: How does it relate to the improvement that the proof of concept project is intended to drive? How does it relate to the overall goals of the business?
    • Include a list of KPIs, along with a description and a target (ensuring that it aligns with SMART metrics) in section 3.1 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    “An estimated 70% of performance measurement systems fail after implementation. Carefully select your KPIs and avoid this trap!”
    Source: Collins et al. 2016

    Key Performance Indicator Description Target

    Result

    Conversion rate What percentage of customers who visit the site/open the conversational interface continue on to make a purchase? 40%
    Average order value

    How much does each customer spend per visit to the website?

    $212
    Repeat customer rate What percentage of customers have made more than one purchase over time? 65%
    Lifetime customer value Over the course of their interaction with the company, what is the typical value each customer brings? $1566

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.1 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.C Identify key success factors for the project

    30 minutes per technology

    Effective project management involves optimizing four key success factors (Clarke, 1999)

    • Communication: Communicate the expected changes to stakeholders, making sure that everyone who needs to know does know. Example: Make sure customer service representatives know their duties will be impacted by the conversational UI well before the proof-of-concept project begins.
    • Clarity: All involved in the project should be apprised of what the project is intended to accomplish and what the project is not intended to accomplish. Example: The conversational commerce project is not intended to be rolled out to the entire customer base all at once; it is not intended to disrupt normal online sales.
    • Compartmentalization: The working group should suggest some ways that the project can be broken down to facilitate its effective implementation. Example: Sales provides details of customers who might be amenable to a trial, IT secures a vendor, customer service writes a script.
    • Flexibility: The working group’s final output should not be treated as gospel. Ensure that the document can be altered to account for unexpected events. Example: The conversational commerce platform might drive sales of a particular product more than others, necessitating adjustments at the warehouse and shipping level.

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.D Outline the project’s scope

    10 minutes per technology

    Create a high-level outline of the project’s scope.

    • Questions to consider: Broadly speaking, what are the project’s goals? What is the desired future state? Where in the company will the project be rolled out? What are some of the company’s goals that the project is not designed to cover?
    • Be sure to avoid scope creep! Remember: The goal of the proof-of-concept project is to produce a minimum case for viability in a carefully defined area. Reserve a detailed accounting of costs and benefits for the post-proof-of-concept stage.
    • Example: The conversational user interface will only be rolled out in an e-commerce setting. Other business units (HR, for example) are beyond the scope of this particular project.

    “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

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.E Identify the structure of the team responsible for the proof-of-concept project

    10 minutes per technology

    Brainstorm who will be involved in project implementation.

    • Refer back to the list of stakeholders identified in 3.1.a. Which stakeholders should be involved in implementing the proof-of-concept plan?
    • What business units do they represent?
    • Who should be accountable for the project? At a high level, sketch the roles of each of the participants. Who will be responsible for doing the work? Who will approve it? Who needs to be informed at every stage? Who are the company’s internal subject matter experts?

    Example

    Name/Title Role
    IT Manager Negotiate the contract for the software with vendor
    CMO Promote the conversational interface to customers

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.F Estimate the resources required by the project

    10 minutes per technology

    Time and Money

    • Recall: Costs can be operational, capital, or opportunity.
    • Revisit the Disruptive Technology Value-Readiness and SWOT Analysis Tool. Record the capital and operational expenses expected to be associated with each technology, and add detail where possible (use exact figures from particular vendors instead of percentages).
    • Write the names and titles of each expected participant in the project on a whiteboard. Next to each name, write the number of hours they are expected to devote to the project and include a rough estimate of the cost of their participation to the company. Use full-time employee equivalent (FTE measures) as a base.
    • Outline how other necessary resources (space, tools, expertise, etc.) will be secured.

    Example: Conversational Commerce

    • OpEx: $149/month + 2.9¢/transaction* (2,000 estimated transactions)
    • CapEx: $0!
    • IT Manager: 5 hours at $100/hour
    • IT Technician: 40 hours at $45/hour
    • CMO: 1 hour at $300/hour
    • Customer Service Representative: 10 hours at $35/hour
    • *Estimated total cost for a one-month proof-of-concept project: $3,157

    *This number is a sample taken from the vendor Rhombus

    Input the results of this exercise into Section 3.0 of the Proof of Concept Template.

    3.2.G Be aware of common IT project concerns

    Of projects that did not meet business expectations or were cancelled, how significant were the following issues?

    A bar graph is depicted, comparing small, medium, and large businesses for the following datasets: Over budget; Project failed to be delivered on time; Breach of scope; Low quality; Failed to deliver expected benefit or value

    This survey data did not specifically address innovation projects.

    • Disruptive technology projects will be under increased scrutiny in comparison to other projects.
    • Be sure to meet deadlines and stay within budget.
    • Be cognizant that your projects can go out of scope, and there will be projects that may have to be cancelled due to low quality. Remember: Even a failed test is a learning opportunity!

    Info-Tech’s CIO-CEO Alignment Survey, N=225

    Organization size was determined by the number of IT employees within the organization

    Small = 10 or fewer IT staff, medium = 11 to 25 IT staff, and large/enterprise = 26 or greater IT staff

    3.2.H Communicate your working group’s findings and successes to a wide audience

    Advertise the group’s successes and help prevent airline magazine syndrome from occurring.

    • Share your group’s results internally:
      • Run your own analysis by senior management and then share it across the organization.
      • Maintain a list of technologies that the working group has analyzed and solicit feedback from the wider organization.
      • Post summaries of the technologies in a publicly available repository. The C-suite may not read it right away, but it will be easy to provide when they ask.
      • If senior management has declined to proceed with a certain technology, avoid wasting time and resources on it. However, include notes about why the technology was rejected.
    • These postings will also act as an advertisement for the group. Use the garnered interest to attract visionaries for the next cycle.
    • These postings will help to reiterate the innovative value of the IT department and help bring you to the decision-making table.

    “Some CIOs will have to battle the bias that they belong in the back office and shouldn’t be included in product architecture planning. CIOs must ‘sell’ IT’s strength in information architecture.”
    – Chris Curran, Chief Technologist, PwC (Curran, 2014)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Cast a wide net. By sharing your results with as many people as possible within your organization, you’ll not only attract more attention to your working group, but you will also get more feedback and ideas.

    3.2.I Hand off the completed proof-of-concept project plan

    The proof of concept template is filled out – now what?

    • 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 concept (purchasing the hardware, negotiating the SLA with the vendor) is beyond the working group’s responsibilities.
    • If the proof of concept goes ahead, the facilitator should block some time to evaluate the completed project against the key performance indicators identified in the initial plan.
    • A cure for airline magazine syndrome: Be prepared when executives ask about new technology. Present them with the results of the shortlist analysis and the proof-of-concept plan. A clear accounting of the value, readiness, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats posed by each technology, along with its impact on business processes, is an invaluable weapon against poor technology choices.

    Use section 3.2.b to identify the decision-making stakeholder who has the most to gain from a successful proof-of-concept project. Self-interest is a powerful motivator – the project is more likely to succeed in the hands of a passionate champion.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Set a date for the first meeting of the new iteration of the disruptive technology working group before the last meeting is done. Don’t risk pushing it back indefinitely.

    3.2.J Hand off the completed proof-of-concept project plan

    Record the results of the proof of concept. Keep track of what worked and what didn’t.

    Repeat the process regularly.

    • Finalize the proof of concept template, but don’t stop there: Keep your ear to the ground; follow tech developments using the sources identified in step 1.2.
    • Continue expanding the potential longlist with independent research: Be prepared to expand your longlist. Remember, the more technologies you have on the longlist, the more potential airline magazine syndrome cures you have access to.
    • Have the results of the previous session’s proof of concept plan on hand: At the start of each new iteration, conduct a review. What technologies were successful beyond the proof of concept phase? Which parts of the process worked? Which parts did not? How could they be improved?

    Info-Tech Insight

    The key is in anticipation. This is not a one-and-done exercise. Technology innovation operates at a faster pace than ever before, well below the Moores Law "18 month" timeline as an example. Success is in making EDIT a repeatable process.

    Related Info-Tech Research

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    Research contributors and experts

    Nitin Babel

    Nitin Babel, Co-Founder, niki.ai

    Nitin Babel, MSc, co-created conversational commerce platform niki.ai in early 2015. Since then, the technology has been featured on the front page of the Economic Times, and has secured the backing of Ratan Tata, former chairman of the Tata Group, one of the largest companies in the world.

    Mark Hubbard

    Mark Hubbard, Senior Vice President, FirstOnSite

    Mark is the SVP for Information Technology in Canada with FirstOnSite, a full service disaster recovery and property restoration company. Mark has over 25 years of technology leadership guiding global organizations through the development of strategic and tactical plans to strengthen their technology platforms and implement business aligned technology strategies.

    Chris Green

    Chris Green, Enterprise Architect, Boston Private
    Chris is an IT architect with over 15 years’ experience designing, building, and implementing solutions. He is a results-driven leader and contributor, skilled in a broad set of methods, tools, and platforms. He is experienced with mobile, web, enterprise application integration, business process, and data design.

    Andrew Kope

    Andrew Kope, Head of Data Analytics
    Big Blue Bubble
    Andrew Kope, MSc, oversees a team that develops and maintains a user acquisition tracking solution and a real-time metrics dashboard. He also provides actionable recommendations to the executive leadership of Big Blue Bubble – one of Canada’s largest independent mobile game development studios.

    Jason Hong

    Jason Hong, Associate Professor, School of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

    Jason Hong is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science. His research focus lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction, privacy and security, and systems. He is a New America National Cyber Security Fellow (2015-2017) and is widely published in academic and industry journals.

    Tim Lalonde

    Tim Lalonde, Vice President, Mid-Range

    Tim Lalonde is the VP of Technical Operations at Mid-Range. He works with leading-edge companies to be more competitive and effective in their industries. He specializes in developing business roadmaps leveraging technology that create and support change from within — with a focus on business process re-engineering, architecture and design, business case development and problem-solving. With over 30 years of experience in IT, Tim’s guiding principle remains simple: See a problem, fix a problem.

    Jon Mavor

    Jon Mavor, Co-Founder and CTO, Envelop VR
    Jon Mavor is a programmer and entrepreneur, whose past work includes writing the graphics engine for the PC game Total Annihilation. As Chief Technology Officer of Envelop VR, a virtual reality start-up focused on software for the enterprise, Jon has overseen the launch of Envelop for Windows’s first public beta.

    Dan Pitt

    Dan Pitt, President, Palo Alto Innovation Advisors
    Dan Pitt is a network architect who has extensive experience in both the academy and industry. Over the course of his career, Dan has served as Executive Director of the Open Networking Foundation, Dean of Engineering at Santa Clara University, Vice President of Technology and Academic Partnerships at Nortel, Vice President of the Architecture Lab at Bay Networks, and, currently, as President of Palo Alto Innovation Advisors, where he advises and serves as an executive for technology start-ups in the Palo Alto area and around the world.

    Courtney Smith

    Courtney Smith, Co-Founder, Executive Creative Director
    PureMatter

    Courtney Smith is an accomplished creative strategist, storyteller, writer, and designer. Under her leadership, PureMatter has earned hundreds of creative awards and been featured in the PRINT International Design Annual. Courtney has juried over 30 creative competitions, including Creativity International. She is an invited member of the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts.

    Emmanuel Tsekleves

    Emmanuel Tsekleves, Senior Lecturer in Design Interactions, University of Lancaster
    Dr. Emmanuel Tsekleves is a senior lecturer and writer based out of the United Kingdom. Emmanuel designs interactions between people, places, and products by forging creative design methods along with digital technology. His design-led research in the areas of health, ageing, well-being, and defence has generated public interest and attracted media attention by the national press, such as the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Times, the Daily Mail, Discovery News, and several other international online media outlets.

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    Adding the Right Value: Building Cloud Brokerages That Enable

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    In many cases, the answer is to develop a cloud brokerage to manage the complexity. But what should your cloud broker be delivering, and how?

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • To avoid failure, you need to provide security and compliance, but basic user satisfaction means becoming a frictionless intermediary.
    • Enabling brokers provide knowledge and guidance for the best usage of cloud.
    • While GCBs fill a critical role as a control point for IT consumption, they can easily turn into a friction point for IT projects. It’s important to find the right balance between enabling compliance and providing frictionless usability.

    Impact and Result

    • Avoid disintermediation.
    • Maintain compliance.
    • Leverage economies of scale.
    • Ensure architecture discipline.

    Adding the Right Value: Building Cloud Brokerages That Enable Research & Tools

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

    1. Build a Cloud Brokerage Deck – A guide to help you start designing a cloud brokerage that delivers value beyond gatekeeping.

    Define the value, ecosystem, and metrics required to add value as a brokerage. Develop a brokerage value proposition that aligns with your audience and capabilities. Define and rationalize the ecosystem of partners and value-add activities for your brokerage. Define KPIs that allow you to maximize and balance both usability and compliance.

    • Adding the Right Value: Building Cloud Brokerages That Enable Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Adding the Right Value: Building Cloud Brokerages That Enable

    Considerations for implementing an institutional-focused cloud brokerage.

    Your Challenge

    Increasingly, large institutions and governments are adopting cloud-first postures for delivering IT resources. Combined with the growth of cloud offerings that are able to meet the certifications and requirements of this segment that has been driven by federal initiatives like Cloud-First in Canada and Cloud Smart in the United States, these two factors have left institutions (and the businesses that serve them) with the challenge of delivering cloud services to their users while maintaining compliance, control, and IT sanity.

    In many cases, the answer is to develop a cloud brokerage to manage the complexity. But what should your cloud broker be delivering and how?

    Navigating the Problem

    Not all cloud brokerages are the same. And while they can be an answer to cloud complexity, an ineffective brokerage can drain value and complicate operations even further. Cloud brokerages need to be designed:

    1. To deliver the right type of value to its users.
    2. To strike the balance between effective governance & security and flexibility & ease of use.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    By defining your end goals, framing solutions based on the type of value and rigor your brokerage needs to deliver, and focusing on the right balance of security and flexibility, you can deliver a brokerage that delivers the best of all worlds.

    1. Define the brokerage value you want to deliver.
    2. Build the catalog and partner ecosystem.
    3. Understand how to maximize adoption and minimize disintermediation while maintaining architectural discipline and compliance.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Sometimes a brokerage delivery model makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t! Understanding the value addition you want your brokerage to provide before creating it allows you to not only avoid pitfalls and maximize benefits but also understand when a brokerage model does and doesn’t make sense in the first place.

    Project Overview

    Understand what value you want your brokerage to deliver

    Different institutions want brokerage delivery for different reasons. It’s important to define up front why your users need to work through a brokerage and what value that brokerage needs to deliver.

    What’s in the catalog? Is it there to consolidate and simplify billing and consumption? Or does it add value further up the technology stack or value chain? If so, how does that change the capabilities you need internally and from partners?

    Security and compliance are usually the highest priority

    Among institutions adopting cloud, a broker that can help deliver their defined security and compliance standards is an almost universal requirement. Especially in government institutions, this can mean the need to meet a high standard in both implementation and validation.

    The good news is that even if you lack the complete set of skills in-house, the high certification levels available from hyperscale providers combined with a growing ecosystem of service providers working on these platforms means you can usually find the right partner(s) to make it possible.

    The real goal: frictionless intermediation and enablement

    Ultimately, if end users can’t get what they need from you, they will go around you to get it. This challenge, which has always existed in IT, is further amplified in a cloud service world that offers users a cornucopia of options outside the brokerage. Furthermore, cloud users expect to be able to consume IT seamlessly. Without frictionless satisfaction of user demand your brokerage will become disintermediated, which risks your highest priorities of security and compliance.

    Understand the evolution: Info-Tech thought model

    While initial adoption of cloud brokerages in institutions was focused on ensuring the ability of IT to extend its traditional role as gatekeeper to the realm of cloud services, the focus has now shifted upstream to enabling ease of use and smart adoption of cloud services. This is evidenced clearly in examples like the US government’s renaming of its digital strategy from “Cloud First” to “Cloud Smart” and has been mirrored in other regions and institutions.

    Info-Tech Insights

    To avoid failure, you need to provide security and compliance.

    Basic user satisfaction means becoming a frictionless intermediary.

    Exceed expectations! Enabling brokers provide knowledge and guidance for the best usage of cloud.

    • Security & Compliance
    • Frictionless Intermediation
    • Cloud-Enabling Brokerage

    Define the role of a cloud broker

    Where do brokers fit in the cloud model?

    • NIST Definition: An entity that manages the use, performance, and delivery of cloud services and negotiates relationships between cloud providers and cloud consumers.
    • Similar to a telecom master agent, a cloud broker acts as the middle-person and end-user point of contact, consolidating the management of underlying providers.
    • A government or institutional cloud broker (GCB) is responsible for the delivery of all cloud services consumed by the departments or agencies it supports or that are mandated to use it.

    Balancing governance and agility

    Info-Tech Insight

    While GCBs fill a critical role as a control point for IT consumption, they can easily turn into a friction point for IT projects. It’s important to find the right balance between enabling compliance and providing frictionless usability.

    Model brokerage drivers and benefits

    Reduced costs: Security through standardization: Frictionless consumption: Avoid disinter-mediation; Maintain compliance; Leverage economies of scale; Ensure architecture discipline

    Maintain compliance and ensure architecture discipline: Brokerages can be an effective gating point for ensuring properly governed and managed IT consumption that meets the specific regulations and compliances required for an institution. It can also be a strong catalyst and enabler for moving to even more effective cloud consumption through automation.

    Avoid disintermediation: Especially in institutions, cloud brokers are a key tool in the fight against disintermediation – that is, end users circumventing your IT department’s procurement and governance by consuming an ad hoc cloud service.

    Leverage economies of scale: Simply put, consolidation of your cloud consumption drives effectiveness by making the most of your buying power.

    Info-Tech Insights

    Understanding the importance of each benefit type to your brokerage audience will help you define the type of brokerage you need to build and what skills and partners will be required to deliver the right value.

    The brokerage landscape

    The past ten years have seen governments and institutions evolve from basic acceptance of cloud services to the usage of cloud as the core of most IT initiatives.

    • As part of this evolution, many organizations now have well-defined standards and guidance for the implementation, procurement, and regulation of cloud services for their use.
    • Both Canada (Strategic Plan for Information Management and Information Technology) and the United States (Cloud Smart – formerly known as Cloud First) have recently updated their guidance on adoption of cloud services. The Australian Government has also recently updated its Cloud Computing Policy.
    • AWS and Azure both now claim Full FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) certification.
    • This has not only enabled easy adoption of these core hyperscale cloud service by government but also driven the proliferation of a large ecosystem of FedRAMP-authorized cloud service providers.
    • This trend started with government at the federal level but has cascaded downstream to provincial and municipal governments globally, and the same model seems likely to be adopted by other governments and other institution types over time.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The ecosystem of platforms and tools has grown significantly and examples of best practices, especially in government, are readily available. Once you’ve defined your brokerage’s value stance, the building blocks you need to deliver often don’t need to be built from scratch.

    Address the unique challenges of business-led IT in institutions

    With the business taking more accountability and management of their own technology, brokers must learn how to evolve from being gatekeepers to enablers.

    This image This lists the Cons of IT acting as a gatekeeper providing oversight, and the Pros of IT acting as an Enabler in an IT Partnership.  the Cons are: Restrict System Access; Deliver & Monitor Applications; Own Organizational Risk; Train the Business.  The Pros are: Manage Role-Based Access; Deliver & Monitor Platforms; Share Organizational Risk; Coach & Mentor the Business

    Turn brokerage pitfalls into opportunities

    The greatest risks in using a cloud broker come from its nature as a single point of distribution for service and support. Without resources (or automation) to enable scale, as well as responsive processes for supporting users in finding the right services and making those services available through the brokerage, you will lose alignment with your users’ needs, which inevitably leads to disintermediation, loss of IT control, and broken compliance

    Info-Tech Insights

    Standardization and automation are your friend when building a cloud brokerage! Sometimes this means having a flexible catalog of options and configurations, but great brokerages can deliver value by helping their users redefine and evolve their workloads to work more effectively in the cloud. This means providing guidance and facilitating the landing/transformation of users’ workloads in the cloud, the right way.

    Challenges Impact
    • Single point of failure
    • Managing capacity
    • Alignment of brokerage with underlying agencies
    • Additional layer of complexity
    • Inability to deliver service
    • Disintermediation
    • Broken security/compliance
    • Loss of cost control/purchasing power

    Validate your cloud brokerage strategy using Info-Tech’s approach

    Value Definition

    • Define your brokerage type and value addition

    Capabilities Mapping

    • Understand the partners and capabilities you need to be able to deliver

    Measuring Value

    • Define KPIs for both compliant delivery and frictionless intermediation

    Provide Cloud Excellence

    • Move from intermediation to enablement and help users land on the cloud the right way

    Define the categories for your brokerage’s benefit and value

    Depending on the type of brokerage, the value delivered may be as simple as billing consolidation, but many brokerages go much deeper in their value proposition.

    This image depicts a funnel, where the following inputs make up the Broker Value: Integration, Interface and Management Enhancement; User Identity and Risk Management/ Security & Compliance; Cost & Workload Efficiency, Service Aggregation

    Define the categories of brokerage value to add

    • Purchasing Agents save the purchaser time by researching services from different vendors and providing the customer with information about how to use cloud computing to support business goals.
    • Contract Managers may also be assigned power to negotiate contracts with cloud providers on behalf of the customer. In this scenario, the broker may distribute services across multiple vendors to achieve cost-effectiveness, while managing the technical and procurement complexity of dealing with multiple vendors.
      • The broker may provide users with an application program interface (API) and user interface (UI) that hides any complexity and allows the customer to work with their cloud services as if they were being purchased from a single vendor. This type of broker is sometimes referred to as a cloud aggregator.
    • Cloud Enablers can also provide the customer with additional services, such as managing the deduplication, encryption, and cloud data transfer and assisting with data lifecycle management and other activities.
    • Cloud Customizers integrate various underlying cloud services for customers to provide a custom offering under a white label or its own brand.
    • Cloud Agents are essentially the software version of a Contract Manager and act by automating and facilitating the distribution of work between different cloud service providers.

    Info-Tech Insights

    Remember that these categories are general guidelines! Depending on the requirements and value a brokerage needs to deliver, it may fit more than one category of broker type.

    Brokerage types and value addition

    Info-Tech Insights

    Each value addition your brokerage invests in delivering should tie to reinforcing efficiency, compliance, frictionlessness, or enablement.

    Value Addition Purchasing Agent Contract Manager Cloud Enabler Cloud Customizer Cloud Agent
    Underlying service selection

    Standard Activity

    Standard Activity Standard Activity Standard Activity Common Activity
    Support and info Standard Activity

    Common Activity

    Standard Activity Standard Activity Common Activity
    Contract lifecycle (pricing/negotiation) Standard Activity Common Activity Standard Activity
    Workload distribution (to underlying services) (aggregation) Common Activity Standard Activity Standard Activity Standard Activity
    Value-add or layered on services Standard Activity Common Activity
    Customization/integration of underlying services Standard Activity
    Automated workload distribution (i.e. software) Standard Activity

    Start by delivering value in these common brokerage service categories

    Security & Compliance

    • Reporting & Auditing
    • SIEM & SOC Services
    • Patching & Monitoring

    Cost Management

    • Right-Sizing
    • Billing Analysis
    • Anomaly Detection & Change Recommendations

    Data Management

    • Data Tiering
    • Localization Management
    • Data Warehouse/Lake Services

    Resilience & Reliability

    • Backup & Archive
    • Replication & Sync
    • DR & HA Management
    • Ransomware Prevention/Mitigation

    Cloud-Native & DevOps Enablement

    • Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
    • DevOps Tools & Processes
    • SDLC Automation Tools

    Design, Transformation, and Integration

    • CDN Integration
    • AI Tools Integration
    • SaaS Customizations

    Activity: Brokerage value design

    Who are you and who are you building this for?

    • Internal brokerage (i.e. you are a department in an organization that is tasked with providing IT resources to other internal groups)
      • No profit motivation
      • Primary goal is to maintain compliance and avoid disintermediation
    • Third-party brokerage (i.e. you are an MSP that needs to build a brokerage to provide a variety of downstream services and act as the single point of consumption for an organization)
      • Focus on value-addition to the downstream services you facilitate for your client
      • Increased requirement to quickly add new partners/services from downstream as required by your client

    What requirements and pains do you need to address?

    • Remember that in the world of cloud, users ultimately can go around IT to find the resources and tools they want to use. In short, if you don’t provide ease and value, they will get it somewhere else.
    • Assess the different types of cloud brokerages out there as a guide to what sort of value you want to deliver.

    Why are you creating a brokerage? There are several categories of driver and more than one may apply.

    • Compliance and security gating/validation
    • Cost consolidation and governance
    • Value-add or feature enhancement of raw/downstream services being consumed

    It’s important to clearly understand how best you can deliver unique value to ensure that they want to consume from you.

    This is an image of a Venn diagram between the following: Who are you trying to serve?; Why and how are you uniquely positioned to deliver?; What requirements do they have and what pain points can you help solve?.  Where all three circles overlap is the Brokerage Value Proposition.

    Understand the ecosystem you’ll require to deliver value

    GCB

    • Enabling Effectiveness
    • Cost Governance
    • Adoption and User Satisfaction
    • Security & Compliance

    Whatever value proposition and associated services your brokerage has defined, either internal resources or additional partners will be required to run the platform and processes you want to offer on top of the defined base cloud platforms.

    Info-Tech Insights

    Remember to always align your value adds and activities to the four key themes:

    • Efficiency
    • Compliance
    • Frictionlessness
    • Cloud Enablement

    Delivering value may require an ecosystem

    The additional value your broker delivers will depend on the tools and services you can layer on top of the base cloud platform(s) you support.

    In many cases, you may require different partners to fulfil similar functions across different base platforms. Although this increases complexity for the brokerage, it’s also a place where additional value can be delivered to end users by your role as a frictionless intermediary.

    Base Partner/Platform

    • Third-party software & platforms
    • Third-party automations & integrations
    • Third-party service partners
    • Internal value-add functions

    Build the ecosystem you need for your value proposition

    Leverage partners and automation to bake compliance in.

    Different value-add types (based on the category/categories of broker you’re targeting) require different additional platforms and partners to augment the base cloud service you’re brokering.

    Security & Config

    • IaC Tools
    • Cloud Resource Configuration Validation
    • Templating Tools
    • Security Platforms
    • SDN and Networking Platforms
    • Resilience (Backup/Replication/DR/HA) Platforms
    • Data & Storage Management
    • Compliance and Validation Platforms & Partners

    Cost Management

    • Subscription Hierarchy Management
    • Showback and Chargeback Logic
    • Cost Dashboarding and Thresholding
    • Governance and Intervention

    Adoption & User Satisfaction

    • Service Delivery SLAs
    • Support Process & Tools
    • Capacity/Availability Management
    • Portal Usability/UX

    Speed of Evolution

    • Partner and Catalog/Service Additions
    • Broker Catalog Roadmapping
    • User Request Capture (new services)
    • User Request Capture (exceptions)

    Build your features and services lists

    Incorporate your end user, business, and IT perspectives in defining the list of mandatory and desired features of your target solution.

    See our Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process blueprint for information on procurement practices, including RFP templates.

    End User

    • Visual, drag-and-drop models to define data models, business logic, and user interfaces
    • One-click deployment
    • Self-healing application
    • Vendor-managed infrastructure
    • Active community and marketplace
    • Prebuilt templates and libraries
    • Optical character recognition and natural language processing

    Business

    • Audit and change logs
    • Theme and template builder
    • Template management
    • Knowledgebase and document management
    • Role-based access
    • Business value, operational costs, and other KPI monitoring
    • Regulatory compliance
    • Consistent design and user experience across applications
    • Business workflow automation

    IT

    • Application and system performance monitoring
    • Versioning and code management
    • Automatic application and system refactoring and recovery
    • Exception and error handling
    • Scalability (e.g. load balancing) and infrastructure management
    • Real-time debugging
    • Testing capabilities
    • Security management
    • Application integration management

    Understand the stakeholders

    Hyperscale Platform/Base Platform: Security; Compliance and Validation;Portal/Front-End; Cost Governance; Broker Value Add(s)

    Depending on the value-add(s) you are trying to deliver, as well as the requirements from your institution(s), you will have a different delineation of responsibilities for each of the value-add dimensions. Typically, there will be at least three stakeholders whose role needs to be considered for each dimension:

    • Base Cloud Provider
    • Third-Party Platforms/Service Providers
    • Internal Resources

    Info-Tech Insights

    It’s important to remember that the ecosystem of third-party options available to you in each case will likely be dependent on if a given partner operates or supports your chosen base provider.

    Define the value added by each stakeholder in your value chain

    Value Addition Cost Governance Security & Compliance Adoption and User Satisfaction New Service Addition Speed End-User Cloud Effectiveness
    Base platform(s)
    Third party
    Internal

    A basic table of the stakeholders and platforms involved in your value stream is a critical tool for aligning activities and partners with brokerage value.

    Remember to tie each value-add category you’re embarking on to at least one of the key themes!

    Cost Governance → Efficiency

    Security & Compliance → Compliance

    Adoption & User Satisfaction → Frictionlessness

    New Service Addition Responsiveness → Frictionlessness, Enablement

    End-User Cloud Effectiveness → Enablement

    Info-Tech Insights

    The expectations for how applications are consumed and what a user experience should look like is increasingly being guided by the business and by the disintermediating power of the cloud-app ecosystem.

    “Enabling brokers” help embrace business-led IT

    In environments where compliance and security are a must, the challenges of handing off application management to the business are even more complex. Great brokers learn to act not just as a gatekeeper but an enabler of business-led IT.

    Business Empowerment

    Organizations are looking to enhance their Agile and BizDevOps practices by shifting traditional IT practices left and toward the business.

    Changing Business Needs

    Organizational priorities are constantly changing. Cost reduction opportunities and competitive advantages are lost because of delayed delivery of features.

    Low Barrier to Entry

    Low- and no-code development tools, full-stack solutions, and plug-and-play architectures allow non-technical users to easily build and implement applications without significant internal technical support or expertise.

    Democratization of IT

    A wide range of digital applications, services, and information are readily available and continuously updated through vendor and public marketplaces and open-source communities.

    Technology-Savvy Business

    The business is motivated to learn more about the technology they use so that they can better integrate it into their processes.

    Balance usability and compliance: accelerate cloud effectiveness

    Move to being an accelerator and an enabler! Rather than creating an additional layer of complexity, we can use the abstraction of a cloud brokerage to bring a wide variety of value-adds and partners into the ecosystem without increasing complexity for end users.

    Manage the user experience

    • Your portal is a great source of data for optimizing user adoption and satisfaction.
    • Understand the KPIs that matter to your clients or client groups from both a technical and a service perspective.

    Be proactive and responsive in meeting changing needs

    • Determine dashboard consumption by partner view.
    • Regularly review and address the gaps in your catalog.
    • Provide an easy mechanism for adding user-demanded services.

    Think like a service provider

    • You do need to be able to communicate and even market internally new services and capabilities as you add them or people won't know to come to you to use them.
    • It's also critical in helping people move along the path to enablement and knowing what might be possible that they hadn't considered.

    Provide cloud excellence functions

    Enablement Broker

    • Mentorship & Training
      • Build the skills, knowledge, and experiences of application owners and managers with internal and external expertise.
    • Organizational Change Leadership
      • Facilitate cultural, governance, and other organizational changes through strong relationships with business and IT leadership.
    • Good Delivery Practices & Thinking
      • Develop, share, and maintain a toolkit of good software development lifecycle (SDLC) practices and techniques.
    • Knowledge Sharing
      • Centralize a knowledgebase of up-to-date and accurate documentation and develop community forums to facilitate knowledge transfer.
    • Technology Governance & Leadership
      • Implement the organizational standards, policies, and rules for all applications and platforms and coordinate growth and sprawl.
    • Shared Services & Integrations
      • Provide critical services and integrations to support end users with internal resources or approved third-party providers and partners.

    Gauge value with the right metrics

    Focus your effort on measuring key metrics.

    Category

    Purpose

    Examples

    Business Value – The amount of value and benefits delivered. Justify the investment and impact of the brokerage and its optimization to business operations. ROI, user productivity, end-user satisfaction, business operational costs, error rate
    Application Quality – Satisfaction of application quality standards. Evaluate organizational effort to address and maximize user satisfaction and adoption rates. Adoption rate, usage friction metrics, user satisfaction metrics
    Delivery Effectiveness – The delivery efficiency of changes. Enable members to increase their speed to effective deployment, operation, and innovation on cloud platforms. Speed of deployment, landing/migration success metrics

    Determine measures that demonstrate the value of your brokerage by aligning it with your quality definition, value drivers, and users’ goals and objectives. Recognize that your journey will require constant monitoring and refinement to adjust to situations that may arise as you adopt new products, standards, strategies, tactics, processes, and tools.

    Activity Output

    Ultimately, the goal is designing a brokerage that can evolve from gatekeeping to frictionless intermediation to cloud enablement.

    Maintain focus on the value proposition, your brokerage ecosystem, and the metrics that represent enablement for your users and avoid pitfalls and challenges from the beginning.

    Activity: Define your brokerage type and value addition; Understand the partners and capabilities you need to be able to deliver; Define KPIs for both delivery (compliance) and adoption (frictionlessness); Output: GCB Strategy Plan; Addresses: Why and when you should build a GCB; How to avoid pitfalls; How to maximize benefits; How to maximize responsiveness and user satisfaction; How to roadmap and add services with agility.

    Appendix

    Related blueprints and tools

    Document Your Cloud Strategy

    This blueprint covers aligning your value proposition with general cloud requirements.

    Define Your Digital Business Strategy

    Phase 1 of this research covers identifying value chains to be transformed.

    Embrace Business-Managed Applications

    Phase 1 of this research covers understanding the business-managed applications as a factor in developing a frictionless intermediary model.

    Implement a Proactive and Consistent Vendor Selection Process

    This blueprint provides information on partner selection and procurement practices, including RFP templates.

    Bibliography

    “3 Types of Cloud Brokers That Can Save the Cloud.” Cloud Computing Topics, n.d. Web.

    Australian Government Cloud Computing Policy. Government of Australia, October 2014. Web.

    “Cloud Smart Policy Overview.” CIO.gov, n.d. Web.

    “From Cloud First to Cloud Smart.” CIO.gov, n.d. Web.

    Gardner, Dana. “Cloud brokering: Building a cloud of clouds.” ZDNet, 22 April 2011. Web.

    Narcisi, Gina. “Cloud, Next-Gen Services Help Master Agents Grow Quickly And Beat 'The Squeeze' “As Connectivity Commissions Decline.” CRN, 14 June 2017. Web.

    Smith, Spencer. “Asigra calls out the perils of cloud brokerage model.” TechTarget, 28 June 2019. Web.

    Tan, Aaron. “Australia issues new cloud computing guidelines.” TechTarget, 27 July 2020. Web.

    The European Commission Cloud Strategy. ec.europa.eu, 16 May 2019. Web.

    “TrustRadius Review: Cloud Brokers 2022.” TrustRadius, 2022. Web.

    Yedlin, Debbie. “Pros and Cons of Using a Cloud Broker.” Technology & Business Integrators, 17 April 2015. Web.

    Build a Zero Trust Roadmap

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting
    • Many IT and security leaders struggle to understand zero trust and how best to deploy it with their existing IT resources.
    • The need to move from a perimeter-based approach to security toward an “Always Verify” approach is clear. The path to getting there is complex and expensive.
    • Zero trust as a principle is a moving target due to competing definitions and standards. A strategy that adapts evolving best practices must be supported by business stakeholders.
    • Full zero trust includes many components. Performing an accurate assessment of readiness and benefits to adopt zero trust can be extremely difficult when you don’t know where to start.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Apply zero trust to key protect surfaces. A successful zero trust strategy should evolve through an iterative and repeatable process by assessing the full spectrum of available technologies to apply zero trust principles to the most relevant protect surfaces.

    Impact and Result

    Every organization should have a zero trust strategy and the roadmap to deploy it must always be tested and refined. Our unique approach:

    • Assess resources and determine zero trust readiness.
    • Prioritize initiatives and build out roadmap.
    • Deploy zero trust and monitor with zero trust progress metrics.

    Build a Zero Trust Roadmap Research & Tools

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

    1. Build a Zero Trust Roadmap Deck – The purpose of the storyboard is to provide a detailed description of the steps involving in building a roadmap for implementing zero trust.

    The storyboard contains five easy-to-follow steps on building a roadmap for implementing zero trust, from aligning initiatives to business goals to establishing metrics for measuring the progress and effectiveness of a zero trust implementation.

    • Build a Zero Trust Roadmap – Phases 1-5

    2. Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool – A tool to identify key protect surfaces and map them to business goals.

    Use this tool to develop your zero trust strategy by having it focus on key protect surfaces that are aligned to the goals of the business.

    • Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    3. Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool – A tool to perform a gap analysis between the organization's current implementation of zero trust controls and its desired target state and to build a roadmap to achieve the target state.

    Use this tool to develop your zero trust strategy by creating a roadmap that is aligned with the current state of the organization when it comes to zero trust and its desired target state.

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    4. Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool – A tool to identify and evaluate solutions for identified zero trust initiatives.

    Use this tool to develop your zero trust strategy by identifying the best solutions for zero trust initiatives.

    • Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool

    5. Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool – A tool to identify metrics to measure the progress and efficiency of the zero trust implementation.

    Use this tool to develop your zero trust strategy by identifying metrics that will allow the organization to monitor how the zero trust implementation is progressing, and whether it is proving to be effective.

    • Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool

    6. Zero Trust Communication Deck – A template to present the zero trust template to key stakeholders.

    Use this template to present the zero trust strategy and roadmap to ensure all key elements are captured.

    • Zero Trust Communication Deck

    Infographic

    Workshop: Build a Zero Trust 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 Define Business Goals and Protect Surfaces

    The Purpose

    Align business goals to protect surfaces.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A better understanding of how business goals can map to key protect surfaces and their associated DAAS elements.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand business and IT strategy and plans.

    1.2 Define business goals.

    1.3 Identify five critical protect surfaces and their associated DAAS elements.

    1.4 Map business goals and protect surfaces.

    Outputs

    Mapping of business goals to key protect surfaces and their associated DAAS elements.

    2 Begin Gap Analysis

    The Purpose

    Identify and define zero trust initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A list of zero trust initiatives to be prioritized and set into a roadmap.

    Activities

    2.1 Assess current security capabilities and define the zero trust target state for a set of controls.

    2.2 Identify tasks to close maturity gaps.

    2.3 Assign tasks to zero trust initiatives.

    Outputs

    Security capabilities current state assessment

    Zero trust target state

    Tasks to address maturity gaps

    3 Complete Gap Analysis

    The Purpose

    Complete the zero trust gap analysis and prioritize zero trust initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A prioritized list of zero trust initiatives aligned to business goals and key protect surfaces.

    Activities

    3.1 Align initiatives to business goals and key protect surfaces.

    3.2 Conduct cost/benefit analysis on zero trust initiatives.

    3.3 Prioritize initiatives.

    Outputs

    Zero trust initiative list mapped to business goals and key protect surfaces

    Prioritization of zero trust initiatives

    4 Finalize Roadmap and Formulate Policies

    The Purpose

    Finalize the zero trust roadmap and begin to formulate zero trust policies for roadmap initiatives.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A zero trust roadmap of prioritized initiatives.

    Activities

    4.1 Define solution criteria.

    4.2 Identify candidate solutions.

    4.3 Evaluate candidate solutions.

    4.4 Finalize roadmap.

    4.5 Formulate policies for critical DAAS elements.

    4.6 Establish metrics for high-priority initiatives.

    Outputs

    Zero trust roadmap

    Zero trust policies for critical protect surfaces

    Method for defining zero trust policies for candidate solutions

    Metrics for high-priority initiatives

    Further reading

    Build a Zero Trust Roadmap

    Leverage an iterative and repeatable process to apply zero trust to your organization.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Internet is the new corporate network.

    For the longest time we have focused on reducing the attack surface to deter malicious actors from attacking organizations, but I dare say that has made these actors scream “challenge accepted.” With sophisticated tools, time, and money in their hands, they have embarrassed even the finest of organizations. A popular hybrid workforce and rapid cloud adoption have introduced more challenges for organizations, as the security and network perimeter have shifted and the internet is now the corporate network. Suffice it to say that a new mindset needs to be adopted to stay on top of the game.

    The success of most attacks is tied to denial of service, data exfiltration, and ransom. A shift from focusing on the attack surface to the protect surface will help organizations implement an inside-out architecture that protects critical infrastructure, prevents the success of any attack, makes it difficult to gain access, and links directly to business goals.

    Zero trust principles aid that shift across several pillars (Identity, Device, Application, Network, and Data) that make up a typical infrastructure; hence, the need for a zero trust roadmap to accomplish that which we desire for our organization.

    Victor Okorie
    Senior Research Analyst, Security and Privacy
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • Many IT and security leaders struggle to understand zero trust and how best to deploy it with their existing IT resources.
    • The need to move from a perimeter-based approach to security toward an “Always Verify” approach is clear. The path to getting there is complex and expensive.

    Common Obstacles

    • Zero trust as a principle is a moving target due to competing definitions and standards. A strategy that adapts evolving best practices must be supported by business stakeholders.
    • Full zero trust includes many components. Performing an accurate assessment of readiness and benefits to adopt zero trust can be extremely difficult when you don’t know where to start.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Every organization should have a zero trust strategy and the roadmap to deploy it must always be tested and refined.
    • Our unique approach:
      • Assess resources and determine zero trust readiness.
      • Address barriers and identify enablers.
      • Prioritize initiatives and build out roadmap.
      • Identify most appropriate vendors via vendor selection framework.
      • Deploy zero trust and monitor with zero trust progress metrics.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A successful zero trust strategy should evolve through an iterative and repeatable process by assessing the full spectrum of available technologies to apply zero trust principles to the most relevant protect surfaces.

    Your challenge

    This research is designed to help organizations:

    • Understand what zero trust is and decide how best to deploy it with their existing IT resources. Zero trust is a set of principles that defaults to the highest level of security; a failed implementation can easily disrupt the business. A pragmatic zero trust implementation must be flexible and adaptable yet maintain a consistent level of protection.
    • Move from a perimeter-based approach to security toward an “Always Verify” approach. The path to getting there is complex without a clear understanding of desired outcomes. Focusing efforts on key protection gaps and leveraging capable controls in existing architecture allows for a repeatable process that carries IT, security, and the business along on the journey.

    On this zero trust journey, identify your valuable assets and zero trust controls to protect them.

    Top three reasons for building a zero trust strategy

    44%

    Reduce attacker’s ability to move laterally

    44%

    Enforce least privilege access to critical resources

    41%

    Reduce enterprise attack surface

    Common obstacles

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

    • Due to zero trust’s many components, performing an accurate assessment of readiness and benefits to adopt zero trust can be extremely difficult when you don’t know where to start.
      • To feel ready to implement and to understand the benefits of zero trust, IT must first understand what zero trust means to the organization.
    • Zero trust as a set of principles is a moving target, with many developing standards and competing technology definitions. A strategy built around evolving best practices must be supported by related business stakeholders.
      • To ensure support, IT must be able to “sell” zero trust to business stakeholders by illustrating the value zero trust can bring to business objectives.

    43%

    Organizations with a full implementation of zero trust saved 43% on the costs of data breaches.
    (Source: Teramind, 2021)

    96%

    Zero trust is considered key to the success of 96% of organizations in a survey conducted by Microsoft.
    (Source: Microsoft, 2021)

    What is zero trust?

    It depends on who you ask…

    • Vendors use zero trust as a marketing buzzword.
    • Organizations try to comprehend zero trust in their own limited views.
    • Zero trust regulations/standards are still developing.

    “A cybersecurity paradigm focused on resource protection and the premise that trust is never granted implicitly but must be continually evaluated.”

    Source: NIST, SP 800-207: Zero Trust Architecture, 2020

    “An evolving set of cybersecurity paradigms that move defenses from static, network-based perimeters to focus on users, assets, and resources.”

    Source: DOD, Zero Trust Reference Architecture, 2021

    “A security model, a set of system design principles, and a coordinated cybersecurity and system management strategy based on an acknowledgement that threats exist both inside and outside traditional network boundaries.”

    Source: NSA, Embracing a Zero Trust Security Model, 2021

    “Zero trust provides a collection of concepts and ideas designed to minimize uncertainty in enforcing accurate, least privilege per-request access decisions in information systems and services in the face of a network viewed as compromised.”

    Source: CISA, Zero Trust Maturity Model, 2021

    “The foundational tenet of the zero trust model is that no actor, system, network, or service operating outside or within the security perimeter is trusted.”

    Source: OMB, Moving the U.S. Government Toward Zero Trust Cybersecurity Principles, 2022

    What is zero trust?

    From Theoretical to Practical

    Zero trust is an ideal in the literal sense of the word, because it is a standard defined by its perfection. Just as nothing in life is perfect, there is no measure that determines an organization is absolutely zero trust. The best organizations can do is improve their security iteratively and get as close to ideal as possible.

    In the most current application of zero trust in the enterprise, a zero trust strategy applies a set of principles, including least-privilege access and per-request access enforcement, to minimize compromise to critical assets. A zero trust roadmap is a plan that leverages zero trust concepts, considers relationships between technical elements as well as security solutions, and applies consistent access policies to minimize areas of exposure.

    Zero Trust; Identity; Workloads & Applications; Network; Devices; Data

    Info-Tech Insight

    Solutions offering zero trust often align with one of five pillars. A successful zero trust implementation may involve a combination of solutions, each protecting the various data, application, assets, and/or services elements in the protect surface.

    Zero trust business benefits

    Reduce business and organizational risk

    Reduced business risks as continuous verification of identity, devices, network, applications, and data is embedded in the organizations practice.

    36% of data breaches involved internal actors.
    Source: Verizon, 2021

    Reduce CapEx and OpEx

    Reduced CapEx and OpEx due to the scalability, low staffing requirement, and improved time-to-respond to threats.
    Source: SecurityBrief - Australia, 2020.

    Reduce scope and cost of compliance

    Helps achieve compliance with several privacy standards and regulations, improves maturity for cyber insurance premium, and fewer gaps during audits.

    Scope of compliance reduced due to segmentation.

    Reduce risk of data breach

    Reduced risk of data breach in any instance of a malicious attack as there’s no lateral movement, secure segment, and improved visibility.

    10% Increase in data breach costs; costs went from $3.86 million to $4.24 million.
    Source: IBM, 2021

    This is an image of a thought map detailing Info-Tech's Build A Zero Trust Roadmap.  The main headings are: Define; Design; Develop; Monitor

    Info-Tech’s methodology for Building a Zero Trust Roadmap

    1. Define Business Goals and Protect Surfaces

    2. Assess Key Capabilities and Identify Zero Trust Initiatives

    3. Evaluate Candidate Solutions and Finalize Roadmap

    4. Formulate Policies for Roadmap Initiatives

    5. Monitor the Zero Trust Roadmap Deployment

    Phase Steps

    Define business goals

    Identify critical DAAS elements

    Map business goals to critical DAAS elements

    1. Review the Info-Tech framework
    2. Assess current capabilities and define the zero trust target state
    3. Identify tasks to close gaps
    4. Define tasks and initiatives
    5. Align initiatives to business goals and protect surfaces
    1. Define solution criteria
    2. Identify candidate solutions
    3. Evaluate candidate solutions
    4. Perform cost/benefit analysis
    5. Prioritize initiatives
    6. Finalize roadmap
    1. Formulate policies for critical DAAS elements
    2. Formulate policies to secure a path to access critical DAAS elements
    1. Establish metrics for roadmap tasks
    2. Track and report metrics
    3. Build a communication deck

    Phase Outcomes

    Mapping of business goals to protect surfaces

    Gap analysis of security capabilities

    Evaluation of candidate solutions and a roadmap to close gaps

    Method for defining zero trust policies for candidate solutions

    Metrics for measuring the progress and efficiency of the zero trust implementation

    Protect what is relevant

    Apply zero trust to key protect surfaces

    A successful zero trust strategy should evolve through an iterative and repeatable process by assessing the full spectrum of available technologies to apply zero trust principles to the most relevant protect surfaces.

    Align protect surfaces to business objectives

    Developing a zero trust roadmap collaboratively with business stakeholders enables alignment with upcoming business priorities and industry trends.

    Identify zero trust capabilities

    Deriving protect surface elements from business goals reframes how security controls are applied. Assess control effectiveness in this context and identify zero trust capabilities to close any gaps.

    Roadmap first, not solution first

    Don’t let your solution dictate your roadmap. Define your zero trust solution criteria before engaging in vendor selection.

    Create enforceable policies

    The success of a zero trust implementation relies on consistent enforcement. Applying the Kipling methodology to each protect surface is the best way to design zero trust policies.

    Success should benefit the organization

    To measure the efficacy of a zero trust implementation, ensure you know what a successful zero trust implementation means for your organization, and define metrics that demonstrate whether that success is being realized.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Key deliverable:

    Zero Trust Communication Deck

    Present your zero trust strategy in a prepopulated document that summarizes the work you have completed as a part of this blueprint.

    Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    Identify critical and vulnerable DAAS elements to protect and align them to business goals.

    Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Perform a gap analysis between current and target states to build a zero trust roadmap.

    Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool

    Determine and evaluate candidate solutions based on defined criteria.

    Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool

    Develop metrics to track the progress and efficiency of the organization’s zero trust implementation.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • A mapped transaction flow of critical and vulnerable assets and visibility of where to implement security controls that aligns with the principle of zero trust.
    • Improved security posture across the digital attack surface while focusing on the protect surface.
    • An inside-out architecture that leverages current existing architecture to tighten security controls, is automated, and gives granular visibility.

    Business Benefits

    • Reduced business risks as continuous verification of identity, devices, network, applications, and data is embedded in the organization’s practice.
    • Reduced CapEx and OpEx due to the scalability, low staffing requirement, and improved time-to-respond to threats.
    • Helps achieve compliance with several privacy standards and regulations, improves maturity for cyber insurance premium, and fewer gaps during audits.
    • Reduced risk of data breach in any instance of a malicious attack.

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Save an average of $1.76 million dollars in the event of a data breach

    • This research set seeks to help organizations develop a mature zero trust implementation which, according to IBM’s “Cost of a Data Breach 2021 Report,” saves organizations an average of $1.76 million in the event of a data breach.
    • Leverage phase 5 of this research to develop metrics to track the implementation progress and efficacy of zero trust tasks.

    43%

    Organizations with a mature implementation of zero trust saved 43%, or $1.76 million, on the costs of data breaches.
    Source: IBM, 2021

    In phase 2 of this blueprint, we will help you establish zero trust implementation tasks for your organization.

    In phase 3, we will help you develop a game plan and a roadmap for implementing those tasks.

    This image contains a screenshot info-tech's methodology for building a zero-trust roadmap, discussed earlier in this blueprint

    Executive Brief Case Study

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

    INDUSTRY: Government

    SOURCE: Zero Trust Architecture Technical Exchange Meeting

    NASA recognized the potential benefits of both adopting a zero trust architecture (including aligning with OMB FISMA and DHS CDM DEFEND) and improving NASA systems, especially those related to user experience with dynamic access, application security with sole access from proxy, and risk-based asset management with trust score. The trust score is continually evaluated from a combination of static factors, such as credential and biometrics, and dynamic factors, such as location and behavior analytics, to determine the level of access. The enhanced access mechanism is projected on use-case flows of users and external partners to analyze the required initiatives.

    The lessons learned in adapting zero trust were:

    • Focus on access to data, assets, applications, and services; and don’t select solutions or vendors too early.
    • Provide support for mobile and external partners.
    • Complete zero trust infrastructure and services design with holistic risk-based management, including network access control with software-defined networking and an identity management program.
    • Develop a zero trust strategy that aligns with mission objectives.

    Results

    NASA implemented zero trust architecture by leveraging the agency existing components on a roadmap with phases related to maturity. The initial development includes privileged access management, security user behavior analytics, and a proof-of-concept lab for evaluating the technologies.
    Case Study Source: NASA, “Planning for a Zero Trust Architecture Target State,” 2019

    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 Phase 4 Phase 5
    Call #1:
    Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #3:
    Define current security capabilities and zero trust target state.

    Call #5:

    Identify and evaluate solution criteria.

    Call #7:
    Create a process for formulating zero trust policies.

    Call #8:
    Establish metrics for assessing the implementation and effectiveness of zero trust.

    Call #2:
    Identify business goals and protect surfaces.

    Call #4:
    Identify gap-closing tasks and assign to zero trust initiatives.

    Call #6:
    Prioritize zero trust initiatives.

    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 2 to 4 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

    Define Business Goals and Protect Surfaces

    Begin Gap Analysis

    Complete Gap Analysis

    Finalize Roadmap and Formulate Policies

    Next Steps and
    Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    1.1 Understand business and IT strategy and plans.

    1.2 Define business goals.

    1.3 Identify five critical protect surfaces and their associated DAAS elements.

    1.4 Map business goals and protect surfaces.

    2.1 Assess current security capabilities and define the zero Trust target state for a set of controls.

    2.2 Identify tasks to close maturity gaps.

    2.3 Assign tasks to zero trust initiatives.

    3.1 Align initiatives to business goals and key protect surfaces.

    3.2 Conduct cost/benefit analysis on zero trust initiatives.

    3.3 Prioritize initiatives.

    4.1 Define solution criteria.

    4.2 Identify candidate solutions.

    4.3 Evaluate candidate solutions.

    4.4 Finalize roadmap.

    4.5 Formulate policies for critical DAAS elements.

    4.6 Establish metrics for high-priority initiatives.

    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. 1.Mapping of business goals to key protect surfaces and their associated DAAS elements
    1. Security capabilities current state assessment
    2. Zero trust target state
    3. Tasks to address maturity gaps
    1. Zero trust initiative list mapped to business goals and key protect surfaces
    2. Prioritization of zero trust initiatives
    1. Zero trust roadmap
    2. Zero trust policies for critical protect surfaces
    3. Method for defining zero trust policies for candidate solutions
    4. Metrics for high-priority initiatives
    1. Zero trust roadmap documentation
    2. Mapping of Info-Tech resources against individual initiatives

    Phase 1

    Define Business Objectives and Protect Surfaces

    Build a Zero Trust Roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Identify and define the business goals.
    • Identify the critical DAAS elements and protect surface.
    • Align the business goals to the protect surface and critical DAAS elements.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Security Team
    • Business Executives
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, Finance, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management

    Analyze your business goals

    Identifying business goals is the first step in aligning your zero trust roadmap with your business’ vision.

    • Security leaders need to understand the direction the business is headed in.
    • Wise security investments depend on aligning your security initiatives to business objectives.
    • Zero trust, and information security at large, should contribute to your organization’s business objectives by supporting operational performance, ensuring brand protection and shareholder value.
      • For example, if the organization is working on a new business initiative that requires the handling of credit card payments, the security organization needs to know as soon as possible to ensure the zero trust architecture will be extended to protect the PCI data and enable the organization to be PCI compliant.

      Info-Tech Insight

      Security and the business need to be in alignment when implementing zero trust. Defining the business goal helps rationalize the need for a zero trust implementation.

    1.1 Define your organization’s business goals

    Estimated time 1-3 hours

    1. As a group, brainstorm the business goals of the organization.
    2. Review relevant business and IT strategies.
    3. Review the business goal definitions in tab “2. Business Objectives” of the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool, including the key goal indicator metrics.
    4. Record the most important business goals in the Business Goal column on tab “3. Protect Surfaces” of the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool. Try to limit the number of business goals to no more than five primary goals. This limitation will be critical to help map the protect surface and the zero trust roadmap later.

    Input

    • Business and IT strategies

    Output

    • Prioritized list of business objectives

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Stakeholders
    • Risk Management
    • Compliance
    • Legal

    Download the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    Info-Tech Insight

    Developing a zero trust roadmap collaboratively with business stakeholders enables alignment with upcoming business priorities and industry trends.

    What does zero trust mean for you?

    For a successful implementation, focus on your zero trust outcome.

    This image describes the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How for Zero Trust.

    Regardless of whether the user is accessing resources internally or externally, zero trust is posed to authenticate, authorize, and continuously verify the security policies and posture before access is granted or denied. Many network architecture can be local, cloud based, or hybrid and with users working from any location, there is no network perimeter as we knew it and the internet is now the corporate network.

    Zero trust framework seeks to extend the perimeter-less security to the present digital transformation.

    Understand protect surface

    Data, Application, Asset, and Services

    A protect surface can be described as what’s critical, most vulnerable, or most valuable to your organization. This protect surface could include at least one of the following – data, assets, applications, and services (DAAS) – that requires protection. This is also the area that zero trust policy is aimed to protect. Understanding what your protect surface is can help channel the required energy into protecting that which is crucial to the business, and this aligns with the shift from focusing on the attack surface to narrowing it down to a smaller and achievable area of protection.

    Anything and everything that connects to the internet is a potential attack surface and pursuing every loophole will leave us one step behind due to lack of resources. Since a protect surface contains one or more DAAS element, the micro-perimeter is created around it and the appropriate protection is applied around it. As a team, we can ask ourselves this question when thinking of our protect surface: to what degree does my organization want me to secure things? The knowledge of the answer to this question can be tied to the risk tolerance level of the organization and it is only fair for us to engage the business in identifying what the protect surface should be.

    Components of a protect surface

    • Data
    • Application
    • Asset
    • Services

    Info-Tech Insight

    The protect surface is a shift from focusing on the attack surface. DAAS elements show where the initiatives and controls associated with the zero trust pillars (Identity, Devices, Network, Application, and Data) need to be applied.

    Sample Scenario

    INDUSTRY: Healthcare

    SOURCE: Info-Tech Research Group

    Illustration

    A healthcare provider would consider personal health information a critical resource worthy of being protected against data exfiltration due to a host of reasons including but not limited to privacy regulations, loss of revenue, legal, and reputational loss; hence, this would be considered a protect surface.

    • What is the data that can’t be risked exfiltrated?
    • What application(s) is used to access this data?
    • What assets are used to generate and store the data?
    • What are the services we rely on to be able to access the data?

    DAAS Element

    • The data here is the patient information.
    • The application used to access the personal health information would be EPIC, OR list, and any other application used in that organization.
    • The assets used to store the data and generate the PHI would include physical workstations, medical scanners, etc.
    • The services that can be exploited to disrupt the operation or used to access the data would include active directory, single sign-on, etc.

    DAAS and Zero Trust Pillar

    This granular identification provides an opportunity to not only see what the protect surface and DAAS elements are but also understand where to apply security controls that align with the principle of zero trust as well as how the transaction flows. The application pillar initiatives will provide protection to the EPIC application and the device pillar initiatives will provide protection to the workstations and physical scanners. The identity pillar initiatives will apply protection to the active directory, and single sign-on services. The zero trust pillar initiatives align with the protection of the DAAS elements.

    Shift from attack surface to protect surface

    This image contains a screenshot of the thought map: Shift from attack surface to protect surface.  Go from complex to a micro perimeter approach.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The protect surface is a shift from focusing on the attack surface as it creates a micro-perimeter for the application of zero trust policies on the system. This drastically reduces the success of an attack whether internally or externally, reduces the attack surface, and is also repeatable.

    1.2 Identify critical DAAS elements

    Estimated time 1-3 hours

    1. As a group, brainstorm and identify critical, valuable, sensitive assets or resources requiring high availability in the organization. Each DAAS element is part of a protect surface, or sometimes, the DAAS element itself is a protect surface.
    • Data – The sensitive data that poses the greatest risk if exfiltrated or misused. What data needs to be protected?
    • Applications – The applications that use sensitive data or control critical assets. Which applications are critical for your business functions?
    • Assets – Physical or virtual assets, including an organization’s information technology (IT), operational technology (OT), or Internet of Things devices.
    • Services – The services an organization most depends on. Services that can be exploited to disrupt normal IT or business operations.
  • Record the critical DAAS elements and protect surface in their respective columns of the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool. Try to limit the number of business goals to no more than five primary protect surfaces to match with the business goals.
  • Download the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    Input

    • Critical resources to protect
    • Understanding of how they interoperate or connect

    Output

    • Protect surfaces

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Business Stakeholders

    1.3 Map business goals to critical DAAS elements

    Estimated time 1-2 hours

    1. The protect surface will be generated from the critical DAAS elements as a standalone protect surface or a group of interconnected DAAS elements merged into one.
    • Each protect surface can be tied back to a business objective.
  • Select from the drop-down list of business objectives the option that fits the identified protect surface as it relates to the organization.
    • Type in your business objectives if the drop-down list does not apply.

    Download the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    This image contains a screenshot from the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool, with the following columns highlighted: Business Goal Name; Protect Surface Name

    Phase 2

    Assess Key Capabilities and Identify Zero Trust Initiatives

    Build a Zero Trust Roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Assess the organization’s current capabilities.
    • Define the zero trust target state.
    • Identify tasks to close gaps
    • Define zero trust initiatives and align zero trust initiatives to business goals and protect surfaces.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, Finance, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    The Info-Tech Zero Trust Framework

    Info-Tech’s Zero Trust Framework aligns with zero trust references, including:

    • ACT Zero Trust Cybersecurity Current Trends. 2019
    • NIST SP 800-207: Zero Trust Architecture. 2020
    • DOD Zero Trust Reference Architecture. 2021
    • NSA Embracing a Zero Trust Security Model. 2021
    • CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model. 2021
    • Executive Order (EO) 14028: Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity, The White House. 2021
    • OMB Moving the U.S. Government Toward Zero Trust Cybersecurity Principles. 2022
    • NSTAC Zero Trust and Trusted Identity Management. 2022
    • NIST SP 800-53 r5: Security and Privacy Controls for Information Systems and Organizations

    Identity

    • Authentication
    • Authorization
    • Privileged Access Management

    Applications

    • Software Defined Compute
    • DevSecOps
    • Software Supply Chain

    Devices

    • Authentication
    • Authorization
    • Compliance

    Networks

    • Software Defined Networking
    • Macro Segmentations
    • Micro Segmentation

    Data

    • Software Defined Storage
    • Data Loss Prevention
    • Data Rights Management

    Info-Tech Insight

    A best-of-breed approach ensures holistic coverage of your zero trust program while refraining from locking you into a specific reference.

    2.1 Review the Info-Tech framework

    Estimated time 30-60 minutes

    1. As a group, have the team review the framework within the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.
    2. Customize the tool as required using the instructions in tab “2. Setup”:
    • Define costing criteria
    • Define benefits criteria
    • Configure full-time equivalent hours and start year
    • Input business goals as mapped to protect surfaces (see next slide)

    Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Input

    • Protect surfaces mapped to business objectives

    Output

    • Customized framework

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT

    2.1.1 Input business goals as mapped to protect surfaces

    Refer to the Protect Surface Mapping Tool, copy the following elements from the Protect Surface tab.

    1. Enter Business Goals.
    2. Enter Protect Surfaces.
    3. Enter Data.
    4. Enter Application.
    5. Enter Assets.
    6. Enter Services.

    This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.  The Column headings are labeled as follows: 1: Business Goal Name; 2: Protect Surface; 3: DATA; 4: APPLICATION; 5: ASSETS; 6: SERVICES

    Info-Tech Insight

    Deriving protect surface elements from business goals reframes how security controls are applied. Assess control effectiveness in this context and identify zero trust capabilities to close any gaps.

    2.2 Assess current capabilities and define zero trust target state

    Estimated time 6-12 hours

    1. Using the Zero Trust Program 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.

    Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Input

    • Protect surfaces mapped to business objectives
    • Information on current state of controls, including sources such as audit findings, vulnerability and penetration test results, and risk registers

    Output

    • Current-state and target-state assessment for gap analysis

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, Facilities, Audit, Risk Management

    Understanding security target states

    Maturity models are very effective for determining target states. This table provides general descriptions for each maturity level. As a group, consider which description most accurately reflects the ideal target state in your organization.

    AD HOC 01

    Initial/ad hoc security programs are reactive. Lacking strategic vision, these programs are less effective and less responsive to the needs of the business.

    DEVELOPING 02

    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.

    DEFINED 03

    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.

    MANAGED 04

    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.

    OPTIMIZED 05

    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.

    2.2.1 Conduct current-state assessment

    1. Carefully review each of the controls in the Gap Analysis tab that are needed for the protect surfaces. For each control, indicate the current maturity level of the organization. The tool uses the maturity levels of the CMMI model to score maturity.
    • Only use “N/A” if you are confident that the control is not required in your protect surfaces. For example, if the protect surfaces do not require or use software-defined computing, select “N/A” for any controls related to software-defined computing.
  • 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.
  • Select the target maturity for the control.
  • This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool, with the following column headings highlighted and numbered: 1: Current Maturity; 2: Current State Comments (optional); Target Maturity

    Make sure that the gap between target state and current state is achievable for the current zero trust roadmap. For instance, if you set your current maturity to 1 – Ad Hoc, then having a target maturity of 4 – Managed or 5 – Optimized is not recommended due to the big jump.

    2.2.2 Review the Gap Analysis Dashboard

    1. Use the Dashboard to map your progress on assessing current- and future-state maturities. As you fill out the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool, check with the Dashboard to see the difference between your current and target state.
    2. Use the color-coded legend to see the size of the gap between your current and target state.
    3. Zero trust processes that appear white have not yet been assessed or are rated as “N/A.”
    this image contains a screenshot of Info-tech's Zero-Trust framework discussed earlier in this blueprint, with the addition of a legend demonstrating how to use the gap analysis tool to identify the size of the gap between current and target states

    2.3 Identify tasks to close gaps

    Estimated time 5 hours

    1. Using the Zero Trust Program 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 tasks for each control that requires improvement.
    3. For most organizations, multiple internal subject matter experts will need to be consulted to complete the assessment.

    Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Input

    • Zero trust controls gap information

    Output

    • Gap closure task list

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, Facilities, Audit, Risk Management

    2.3 Identify tasks to close gaps (cont.)

    1. For each of the controls where there is a gap between the current and target state, a gap closure task should be identified:
    • Review the example tasks and copy one or more of them if appropriate. Otherwise, enter your own gap closure task.
  • Considerations for identifying gap closure tasks:
    • In small groups, have participants ask, “what would we have to do to achieve the target state?” Document these in the Gap Closure Tasks column.
    • The example gap closure tasks may be appropriate for your organization, but do not simply copy them without considering whether they are right for you.
    • Not all gaps require their own task. You can enter one task that may address multiple gaps.
    • Be aware that tasks that are along the lines of “investigate and make recommendations” may not fully close maturity gaps.
    this image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool, with the following column heading highlighted and numbered: 1: Gap Closure Tasks

    Make sure that the Gap Closure Tasks are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound).

    2.4 Define tasks and initiatives

    Estimated time 2-4 hours

    1. As a group, review the gap tasks identified in the Gap Analysis tab.
    2. Using the instructions on the following slides, finalize your tab “5. Task List.”
    3. Using the instructions on the following slides, review and consolidate your tab “6. Initiative List.”

    Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Input

    • Gap analysis

    Output

    • Refined list of tasks
    • List of zero trust initiatives

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, Facilities, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    2.4.1 Finalize your task list

    1. Define the gap closure task list in tab “5. Task List”:
      1. Obtain a list of all your tasks from Gap Closure Tasks column in tab “3. Gap Analysis.”
      2. Paste the list into the table in tab “5. Task List,” Task column.
    • Use Paste Values to retain the table formatting.
  • Consolidate tasks into initiatives when:
      • They have costs associated with them.
      • They require initial effort to implement and ongoing effort to maintain.
      • They must be accomplished dependently of other tasks.
    1. For each new initiative, create the initiative name on Initiative Name column in the tab “6. Initiative List.”
  • For tasks which are not incorporated into initiatives, enter a task owner and due date for each task.
  • this image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Zero Trust Gap analysis Tool with the following column headings highlighted and numbered: 1: Task; 2: Initiative Name; 3: (Task Owner; Due Date)

    Example: Initiative consolidation

    In the example below, we see three gap closure tasks within the Authentication process for the Identity pillar being consolidated into a single initiative “IAM modernization.”

    We can also see three gap closure tasks within the Micro Segmentation process for the Network pillar being grouped into another initiative “Network segmentation.”

    This image contains an example of Initiative Consolidation

    Info-Tech Insight

    As you go through this exercise, you may find that some tasks that you previously defined could be consolidated into an initiative.

    2.4.2 Finalize your initiative list

    1. As you go through this exercise, you may find that some tasks that you previously defined could be consolidated into an initiative.
    2. Review your final list of initiatives in tab “6. Initiative List” and make any required updates.
      1. 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. Obtain a list of all gap closure tasks associated with an initiative by filtering the Initiative Name column in the Task List tab.
    4. Indicate the most appropriate pillar alignment for each initiative using the drop-down list.
      1. Refer to tab “5. Task List” for the pillar associated with an initiative under the Initiative Name column.

    This image contains a screenshot from Info-Tech's Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool, the following column headings are numbered and highlighted: 1: Initiative Name; 2: Description; 3: Pillar

    If the list of tasks is too long for the Description column, then you can also shorten the name of the tasks or group several tasks to a more general task.

    2.5 Align initiatives to business goals and protect surfaces

    Estimated time 30-60 minutes

    1. Using the instructions on the following slides, align initiatives to business goals in tab “6. Initiative List.”
    2. Using the instructions on the following slides, align initiatives to protect surfaces in tab “6. Initiative List.”

    Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Input

    • List of zero trust initiatives
    • Protect surfaces mapped to business objectives

    Output

    • List of zero trust initiatives aligned to business goals and protect surfaces

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, Facilities, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    2.5.1 Align initiatives to business goals

    1. Indicate the most appropriate business goal(s) alignment for each initiative using the drop-down list in “Selection for Business Goal(s)” column.
      1. Use the legend to determine the most appropriate business goal(s).
    2. After that copy the selected business goal(s) to Business Goal(s) Alignment column.
    3. Then reset the selection using the blank cell in Selection for Business Goal(s) column.
    This image contains a screenshot from the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool, with the following column headings numbered: 1: Selection for Business Goal(s); Business Goals Alignment; 3: Selection for Business Goals

    2.5.2 Align initiatives to protect surfaces

    1. Indicate the most appropriate protect surface(s) for each initiative using the drop-down list in Selection for Protect Surface(s) column.
      1. Use the legend to determine the most appropriate protect surface(s).
    2. After that copy the selected protect surface(s) to Protect Surface(s) Coverage column.
    3. Reset the selection using the blank cell in Selection for Protect Surface(s) column.
    This image contains a screenshot from the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool, with the following column headings numbered: 1: Description; 2: Protect Surfaces Covered; 3: Selection for Protect Surfaces

    Phase 3

    Evaluate Candidate Solutions and Finalize Roadmap

    Build a Zero Trust Roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Define solution criteria.
    • Identify candidate solutions.
    • Evaluate candidate solutions.
    • Perform cost/benefit analysis.
    • Prioritize initiatives and build roadmap.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, Finance, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    3.1 Define solution criteria

    Estimated time 30-60 minutes

    1. As a group, review the scoring system within the Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool.
    2. Customize the tool as required using the instructions on the following slides.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t let your solution dictate your roadmap. Define your zero trust solution criteria before engaging in vendor selection.

    Download the Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool

    Input

    • Zero trust initiative list

    Output

    • Zero trust candidate solutions

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
    • Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT

    3.1.1 Define compliance and solution evaluation criteria

    On the Setup tab, provide a weight for each evaluation criterion to evaluate the candidate solutions. You can use “0%” weight if that criterion is not required in your solution selection.

    1. Verify that the Description for each criterion is accurate.
    2. Provide weights for the compliance score and the solution score, which are the overall evaluation:
    • Compliance score consists of tenets score, pillar score, threat protection score, and trust algorithm score.
    • Solution score consists of features score, usability score, affordability score, and architecture score.
    This image contains a screenshot from the Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool, which demonstrates how to define compliance and solution evaluation criteria.

    3.1.2 Define remaining evaluation criteria

    On the Setup tab, provide a weight for each evaluation criterion to evaluate the candidate solutions. You can use “0%” weight if that criterion is not required in your solution selection.

    1. Verify that the Description for each criterion is accurate.
    2. Provide weights for the remaining evaluation criteria:
    • Tenets: Considers how well each initiative aligns with zero trust principles.
    • Pillars: Considers how well each initiative aligns with zero trust pillars.
    • Threats: Considers what zero trust threats are relevant with the candidate solution.
    • Trust Algorithm: Considers trust evaluation factors, trust evaluation process score, and input coverage.
    • Cost Estimation: Considers initial costs, which are one-time, upfront capital investments (e.g. hardware and software costs), and ongoing cost, which is any annually recurring operating expenses that are new budgetary costs (e.g. licensing, maintenance, subscription fees).
    • Deployment Architecture: Considers the solutions deployment architecture capabilities.

    This image contains a screenshot from the Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool, and demonstrates where to define additional evaluation data

    Review available candidate solutions

    this image contains a list of available candidate Solutions.  This list includes: Zero Trust Identity; Zero-Trust Application & Workloads; Zero-Trust Networks; Zero-Trust Devices; and Zero-Trust Data

    The Rapid Application Selection Framework is a comprehensive yet fast-moving approach to help you select the right software for your organization

    Five key phases sequentially add rigor to your selection efforts while giving you a clear, swift-flowing methodology to follow.

    Awareness Education & Discovery Evaluation Selection Negotiation & Configuration
    1.1 Proactively Lead Technology Optimization & Prioritization 2.1 Understand Marketplace Capabilities & Trends 3.1 Gather & Prioritize Requirements & Establish Key Success Metrics 4.1 Create a Weighted Vendor Selection Decision Model 5.1 Initiate Price Negotiation With Top
    1.2 Scope & Define the Selection Process for Each Selection Request Action 2.2 Discover Alternative Solutions & Conduct Market Education 3.2 Conduct a Data-Driven Comparison of Vendor Features & Capabilities 4.2 Conduct Investigative Interviews Focused on Mission Critical Priorities With Top 2-4 Vendors 5.2 Negotiate Contract Terms & Product Configuration Two Vendors Selected
    1.3 Conduct an Accelerated Business Needs Assessment 2.3 Evaluate Enterprise Architecture & Application Portfolio 3.3 Narrow the Field to Four Top Contenders 4.3 Validate Key Issues With Deep Technical Assessments, Trial Configuration & Reference Checks 5.3 Finalize Budget Approval & Project Implementation Timeline
    1.4 Align Stakeholder Calendars to Reduce Elapsed Time & Asynchronous Evaluation 2.4 Validate the Business Case 5.4 Invest in Training & Onboarding Assistance

    Download the Rapid Application Selection Framework research

    Evaluate software category leaders through vendor rankings and awards

    SoftwareReviews

    The Data Quadrant is a thorough evaluation and ranking of all software in an individual category to compare platforms across multiple dimensions.

    The Data Quadrant Report

    Vendors are ranked by their Composite Score, based on individual feature evaluations, user satisfaction rankings, vendor capability comparisons, and likeliness to recommend the platform.

    Vendors ranked by their Composite Score

    The Emotional Footprint is a powerful indicator of overall user sentiment toward the relationship with the vendor, capturing data across five dimensions.

    Emotional Footprint

    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.

    Vendors ranked by their Customer Experience (CX) Score

    Sample whiteboard activity

    • Place sticky notes on the zero trust tenet that matches with the identified candidate solution to produce “solution requirements” that can be used to develop an RFP.
    • A sample sticky note is provided below for privileged access management.

    This image contains a screenshot of a sample whiteboard activity which can be done using sticky notes.

    • The PAM solution should support MFA
    • Live session monitoring, audit, and reporting
    • Should have password vaulting to prevent privileged users from knowing the passwords to critical systems and resources

    3.2 Identify candidate solutions

    Estimated time 2 hours

    1. As a group, have the team review the candidate solutions within the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.
    2. On tab 3 in the Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool:
    • Review the candidate solutions within the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool. For example, the candidate solutions with multifactor authentication (MFA) options are authenticators with SMS, mobile application, smartcard, or token.

    Input

    • Candidate solutions for zero trust tasks and initiatives

    Output

    • Suitability evaluation of candidate solutions

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
    • Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT

    Info-Tech Insight

    Add a description associated with the candidate solution, e.g. reference link to vendors or manufacturers. This will make it easier to perform the evaluation.

    Download the Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool

    3.2.1 Review candidate solutions

    1. Review the candidate solutions within the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool. For example, the candidate solutions with multifactor authentication (MFA) options are authenticators with SMS, mobile application, smartcard, or token.
    2. Enter candidate solutions to the Compliance Data Entry tab on the Solution column within the Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool.
    3. Optionally, add a description associated with the candidate solution, e.g. reference link to vendors or manufacturers. This will make it easier to perform the evaluation.
    this image contains a screenshot of a sample candidate solution, which can be done using Info-Tech's Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    3.3 Evaluate candidate solutions

    Estimated time 3 hours

    On the Scoring tab, evaluate solution features, usability, affordability, and architecture using the instructions on the following slides. This activity will produce a solution score that can be used to identify the suitability of a solution.

    Input

    • Candidate solutions

    Output

    • Candidate solutions scored

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
    • Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT

    Download the Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool

    3.3.3 Evaluate solution scores

    After all candidate solutions are evaluated, the Solution Score column can be sorted to rank the candidate solutions. After sorting, the top solutions can be used on prioritization of initiatives on Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.

    1. On Features
      1. Enter Coverage.
      2. Enter Quality.
    2. Enter Usability.
    3. On Affordability
      1. Enter Initial Cost.
      2. Enter Ongoing Cost (annual).
    4. Enter Architecture.
    this image contains a screenshot of how you can sort the solution score column in Info-Tech's Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    3.4 Perform cost/benefit analysis

    Estimated time 1-2 hours

    1. Assign costing and benefits information for each initiative, following the instructions on the next slide.
    2. Define dependencies or business impacts if they will help with prioritization.

    Input

    • Ranked candidate solutions
    • Gap analysis
    • Initiative list

    Output

    • Completed cost/benefit analysis for initiative list

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool
    • Zero Trust Candidate Solutions Selection Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, Facilities, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    3.4.1 Complete the cost/benefit analysis

    Use Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.

    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.
    • Use the result from candidate selection to define the estimated costs.
    • If you have actual costs available, you can optionally enter them under the Detailed Cost Estimates columns.
  • Enter the estimated benefits, also using the criteria defined earlier.
  • This image contains a screenshot of a cost/benefit analysis table which can be found in the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    The Cost / Effort Rating is calculated based on the weight defined on step 2.1.1. The Benefit Rating is calculated based on the weight defined on step 2.1.2.

    3.4.2 Optionally enter detailed cost estimates

    Use Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.

    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 step 2.1.1. 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 3.4.1. 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.

    This image contains a screenshot of a sample cost/benefit table found in the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.

    The Benefits-Cost column will give results after comparing the cost and the benefit. Negative value means that the cost outweighs the benefit. Positive value means that the benefit outweighs the cost. Zero value means that the cost equals the benefit.

    3.5 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.
  • Follow step 3.5.1 to create a visual effort map for your organization.
  • Follow step 3.5.2 and 3.5.3 to refine the effort map’s visual output.
  • Input

    • Gap analysis
    • Initiative list
    • Cost/benefit analysis

    Output

    • Prioritized list of initiatives

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    3.5.1 Create a visual effort map for your organization

    1 hour

    An effort map is a tool used for the visualization of a cost and benefit analysis. It is a quadrant output that visually shows how your gap initiatives were prioritized based on tab 7 in the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.

    1. Establish the axes and colors for your effort map:
      1. X-axis represents the Benefit value from column J
      2. Y-axis represents the Cost/Effort value from column H
      3. Sticky note color is determined using the Alignment to Business value from column I
    2. Create sticky notes for each initiative and place them on the effort map or whiteboard based on the axes you have created with the help of your team.
    3. As you place initiatives on the visual effort map, discuss and modify rankings based on team member input.

    this image contains a sample visual effort map which can be found in the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool.

    Input

    • Outputs from activities 3.4.1 and 3.4.2

    Output

    • High-level prioritization for each of the gap-closing initiatives
    • Visual representation of quantitative values

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool (tab 7)
    • Sticky notes
    • Markers
    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Project Management Office

    3.5.2 Refine the effort map’s visual output

    1 hour

    Once the effort map is complete, work to further simplify the visual output by categorizing initiatives based on the quadrant in which they have been placed.

    1. Before moving forward with the initiative wave prioritization (activity 3.7), identify any initiatives listed across all quadrants that are required as a part of compliance and mark with a sticky dot.
    2. Document these initiatives as Execution Wave 1.

    this image contains a screenshot of a refined visual effort map, which can be done by following the instructions in this section.

    Input

    • Outputs from activity 3.5.1

    Output

    • Prioritization for each of the gap-closing initiatives
    • First execution wave of gap-closing initiatives

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool (tab 7)
    • Sticky notes
    • Sticky dots
    • Markers
    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Project Management Office

    3.5.3 Refine the effort map’s visual output

    30 minutes

    1. Use a separate area of the whiteboard to draw out four to five Execution Wave columns.
    2. Group initiatives into each Execution Wave column based on their placement within the quadrant from activities 3.5.1 and 3.5.2.
      1. Ensure that all identified mandatory activities as per governing privacy law fall within the first wave.
      2. Leverage the following 0-4 Execution Wave scale:
        1. Underway –Initiatives that are already underway
        2. Must Do – Initiatives that must happen right away
        3. Should Do – Initiatives that should happen but need more time/support
        4. Could Do – Initiatives that are not a priority
        5. Won’t Do – Initiatives that likely won’t be carried out
    3. Indicate the granular level for each execution wave using the a-z scale.
    • Use the lettering to track dependencies between initiatives.
      • If one must take place before another, ensure that its letter comes first alphabetically.
      • If multiple initiatives must take place at the same time, use the same letter to show they will take place in tandem.

    This image depicts the sample output for a refined visual effort map

    Input

    • Outputs from activity 3.5.2

    Output

    • Prioritization for each of the gap-closing initiatives
    • First execution wave of gap-closing initiatives

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool (tab 7)
    • Sticky notes
    • Sticky dots
    • Markers
    • Whiteboard

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Project Management Office

    Wave assignment example

    In the example below, we see “IAM modernization” was assessed as 9 on cost/effort rating and 5 on benefit rating and its Benefits-Cost has a positive value of 1. We can label this as SHOULD DO (wave 2).

    We can also see “Network segmentation” was assessed as 6 on cost/effort rating and 4 on benefit rating and its Benefits-Cost has a positive value of 2. We can label this as MUST DO (wave 1).

    We can also see “Unified Endpoints Management” was assessed as 8 on cost/effort rating and 2 on benefit rating and its Benefits-Cost has a negative value of -4. We can label this as WON’T DO (no wave).

    We can also see “Data Protection” was assessed as 4 on cost/effort rating and 2 on benefit rating and its Benefits-Cost has a zero value. We can label this as COULD DO (wave 3).

    This image depicts a sample wave assignment output, discussed in this section.

    It is recommended to define the threshold of each wave based on the value of Benefits-Cost before assigning waves.

    3.6 Build roadmap

    Estimated time 2-3 hours

    1. As a group, follow step 3.6.1 to create your roadmap by scheduling initiatives into the Gantt chart within the Zero Trust Program 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

    Output

    • Zero trust roadmap

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • IT Leadership
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    3.6.1 Schedule initiatives using the Gantt chart

    1. On the Gantt Chart tab for each initiative, enter an owner (the role 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.
    • This Image contains a screenshot of the Gantt Chart, with the following column headings highlighted and numbered: 1: Owner; 2: Expected Duration

    3.6.2 Review your roadmap

    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.

    This image depicts an example roadmap which can be created following the use of the Gantt Chart

    3.6.3 Review your cost/effort estimates table

    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.

    This image contains an example of the Zero Trust Roadmap Cost/Effort Estimates.  The column headings are as follows: Wave; Number of Initiatives; Initial Implementation - Cost; Initial Implementation - Effort; Ongoing Maintenance - Cost; Ongoing Maintenance - Effort.  A separate table is shown with the column heading: Estimated Total Three Year Investment

    Phase 4

    Formulate Policies for Roadmap Initiatives

    Build a Zero Trust Roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Formulate zero trust policies for critical DAAS elements.
    • Formulate zero trust policies to secure a path to access critical DAAS elements.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • CISO
    • Business Executives
    • IT Manager
    • Security Team

    Understand the zero trust policy

    Use the Kipling methodology as a vendor agnostic approach to identify appropriate allow list elements when deploying multiple zero trust solutions.
    The policies help to prevent lateral movement.

    Who Who should access a resource? Here, the user ID that identifies the users through the principle of least privilege is allowed access to a particular resource. The authentication policy will be used to verify identity of a user when access request to a resource is made. Who requires MFA?
    What What application is used to access the resource? Application ID to identify applications that are only allowed on the network. Port control policies can be used for the application service.
    When When do users access the resource? Policy that identifies and enforces time schedule when an application accessed by users is used.
    Where Where is the resource located? The location of the destination resource should be added to the policy and, where possible, restrict the source of the traffic either by zone and/or IP address.
    Why Why is the data accessed? Data classification should be done to know why the data needs protection and the type of protection (data filtering).
    How How should you allow access to the resource? This covers the protection of the application traffic. Principle of least privilege access, log all traffic, configure security profiles, NGFW, decryption and encryption, consistent application of policy and threat prevention across all locations for all local and remote users on managed and unmanaged endpoints are ways to apply content-ID.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The success of a zero trust implementation relies on enforcing policies consistently. Applying the Kipling methodology to the protect surface is the best way to design zero trust policies.

    4.1.1 Formulate policy

    Estimated time 1-2 hours

    1. As a group, review the protect surface(s) identified in phase one, and using the Kipling methodology from the previous slide, formulate a policy. Each policy can be reviewed repeatedly until we are sure it satisfies the goal.
    2. The policy created should be consistent for both cloud and on-prem environments.
    3. As an example, let's use the healthcare scenario found in tab 3 of the Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool. The protect surface used is "Automated Medication Dispensing." Another example will be "Salesforce" accessed via the cloud.
    Who What When Where Why How
    Method User-ID App-ID Time limit System Object Classification Content-ID
    On-Prem Pyxis_Users Pyxis Any Pyxis_server Severe (high value data) Decrypt, Inspect, log traffic
    Cloud Sales Salesforce Working hours Canada Severe (high value data) Decrypt, Inspect, log traffic

    Input

    • Kipling methodology
    • Protect surface

    Output

    • Zero trust policy

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    Participants

    • CIO
    • CISO
    • Business Executives
    • IT Manager
    • Security Team

    4.1.2 Apply policy

    1-2 hours

    1. Place each protect surface in its own microperimeter. Each microperimeter should be segmented by a next-generation firewall or authentication broker that will serve as a segmentation gateway.
    2. Name the microperimeter and place it on a firewall.

    Input

    • Kipling methodology
    • Protect surface

    Output

    • Zero trust policy

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/Flip Charts
    • Sticky Notes
    • Zero Trust Protect Surface Mapping Tool

    Participants

    • CIO
    • CISO
    • Business Executives
    • IT Manager
    • Security Team

    Microperimeter A
    Protect Surface:
    DAAS Elements:

    Who What When Where Why How
    Method User-ID App-ID Time limit System Object Classification Content-ID

    Microperimeter B
    Protect Surface:
    DAAS Elements:

    Who What When Where Why How
    Method User-ID App-ID Time limit System Object Classification Content-ID

    Microperimeter C
    Protect Surface:
    DAAS Elements:

    Who What When Where Why How
    Method User-ID App-ID Time limit System Object Classification Content-ID

    4.2 Secure a path to access critical DAAS elements

    How should you allow access to the resource?

    This component makes up the final piece of formulating the policies as it applies the protection of the application traffic.

    The principle of least privilege is applied to the security policy to only allow access requests and restrict the access to the purpose it serves. This access request is then logged as well as the traffic (both internal and external). Most firewalls (NGFW) have policy rules that, by default, enable logging.

    Segmentation gateways (NGFW, VM-series firewalls, agent-based and clientless VPN solutions), are used to apply zero trust policy (Kipling methodology) in the network, cloud, and endpoint (managed and unmanaged) for all local and remote users.

    These policies need to be applied to security profiles on all allowed traffic. Some of these profiles include but are not limited to the following: URL filtering profile for web access and protect against phishing attacks, vulnerability protection profile intrusion prevention systems, anti spyware profiles to protect against command-and-control threats, malware and antivirus profile to protect against malware, and a file blocking profile to block and/or alert suspicious file types.

    Good visibility on your network can also be tied to decryption as you can inspect traffic and data to the lowest level possible that is generally accepted by your organization and in compliance with regulation.

    Conceptualized flow

    With users working from anywhere on managed and unmanaged devices, access to the internet, SAAS, public cloud, and the data center will have consistent policies applied regardless of their location.

    The policy is validating that the user is who they say they are based on the role profile, what they are trying to access to make sure their role or attribute profile has the appropriate permission to the application, and within the stipulated time limit. Where the data or application is located is also verified and the why needs to be satisfied before the requested access is granted. Based on the mentioned policies, the how element is then applied throughout the lifecycle of the access.

    Who

    (Internet)

    What

    (SAAS)

    When

    Where

    (Public Cloud)

    Why

    How

    (Data Center)

    Method User-ID App-ID Time limit System Object Classification Content-ID
    On-Prem Pyxis_Users Pyxis Any Pyxis_server Severe (high value data) Decrypt, Inspect, log traffic
    Cloud Sales Salesforce Working hours Canada Severe (high value data) Decrypt, Inspect, log traffic

    Phase 5

    Monitor Zero Trust Roadmap Deployment

    Build a Zero Trust Roadmap

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Establish metrics for roadmap tasks.
    • Track metrics for roadmap tasks.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    5.1 Establish metrics for roadmap tasks

    Estimated time 2 hours

    1. On tab “2. Task & Metric Register” of the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool, identify metrics to measure implementation and efficacy of tasks
    2. On tab “2. Task & Metric Register” of the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool, document metric metadata.
    3. 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.
  • Enter the estimated benefits, also using the criteria defined earlier.
  • Input

    • Zero trust roadmap task list

    Output

    • Metrics for measuring zero trust task implementation and efficacy

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool

    5.1.1 Identify metrics to measure implementation and efficacy of tasks

    Estimated time 3-4 hours

    1. On tab “2. Task & Metric Register” of the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool, for each section defined in columns C and D, enter zero trust implementation tasks into column E. If you completed the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool, use the tasks identified there to populate column E.
    2. For each task, identify in column F any metrics that will communicate implementation progress and/or implementation efficacy.
    • If multiple metrics are needed for a single task, we recommend expanding the size of the row and adding additional metrics onto a new line in the same row. A sample is provided in the tool.

    this image contains a screenshot of tab 2 in the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool

    Info-Tech Insight

    To measure the efficacy of a zero trust implementation, ensure you know what a successful zero trust implementation means for your organization, and define metrics that demonstrate whether that success is being realized.

    5.1.2 Document metric metadata

    Estimated time 1-2 hours

    For each metric defined in step 4.1.1:

    1. Identify in column G whether the metric can be measured now (Phase 1), measured in a few months’ time (Phase 2), or measured in a few years’ time (Phase 3).
    2. Identify in columns H through M who is responsible for collecting the metric (Person Source), who/what is consulted to collect the metric (Technology Source), who compiles the collected metric into dashboards and presentations (Compiler), and who is informed of the measurement of the metric (Audience).
    • Add more columns under the Audience category if needed.
    • Use “X” to identify if an audience group will be informed of the measurement of the metric.
  • Identify in columns N through P the target for the metric (Metric Target), the effort it takes to collect the metric (Effort to Collect), the frequency with which the organizations plans to collect the metric (Frequency of Collection), and any comments that people should know when collecting, compiling, or presenting metrics.
  • This image contains a screenshot from the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool, with the following column headings numbered: 1: Priority; 2: Roles and Responsibilities; 3: effort to collect; frequency of collection; Metric Target; Comments

    5.2 Track and report metrics

    Estimated time 2 hours

    1. In the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool, copy and paste metrics you plan to track in the tool from column F on tab 2 to column B on tab 3.
    2. Use tab 3 to identify collection frequency, metric target, and measurements collected for each metric. Add notes or comments to each metric or measurement to track contextual elements that could affect metric measurements.
    3. Leverage the graphs on tab 4 to communicate metrics to the appropriated audience groups, as defined in tab 2.

    Input

    • Metrics for measuring zero trust task implementation and efficacy

    Output

    • Metric data and graphs for presenting zero trust implementation metrics to audience groups

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool

    5.2.1 Record baseline measurements for metrics

    Estimated time 1-2 hours

    On tab “3. Track Metrics” of the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool:

    1. Copy and paste the metrics from Column F on tab “2. Task & Metric Register” that you want to track into Column B of this tab.
    2. For each metric, record the frequency of collection (Collection Frequency) and the metric target (Target) by referencing columns O and P on tab “2. Task & Metric Register.”
    3. Begin to record baseline/initial values for each metric in column E. Rename columns to match your highest frequency of collection.
      (e.g. if any metric is being measured monthly, there should be one column per month)
    4. Over time, conduct measurements of your metrics and store them in the table below.
    5. Add notes, as necessary.

    this image contains a screenshot of tab 3 of the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool, with the following column headings numbered: 1: Your Metrics; 2: Collection Frequency; Target; 3: Jan; 4: Metric Measurements; 5: Notes

    5.2.2 Report metric health to audience groups

    Estimated time 1-2 hours

    On tab “4. Graphs” of the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool:

    1. The Overall Metric Health gauge at the top of this tab presents the average percentage away from meeting metric targets for all metrics being tracked. To calculate this value, the differences between the most recent measurements and target values for each metric are averaged.
    2. Below the Overall Metric Health gauge, use the drop-down list in cell D9 to select one of the metrics from tab “3. Track Metrics.”
    3. Six different graphic representations of the tracked data for the selected metric will populate.

    Copy and paste desired graphs into presentations for audience members identified in step 5.1.2.

    This image contains a screenshot from tab “4. Graphs” of the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool:

    5.3 Build a communication deck

    Estimated time 2 hours

    Leverage the Zero Trust Communication Deck to showcase the work that you have done in the tools and activities associated with this research.

    In this communication deck template, you will find the following sections:

    • Introduction
    • Protect Surfaces
    • Zero Trust Gap Analysis
    • Zero Trust Initiatives & Tasks

    Input

    • Protect surfaces mapped to business goals
    • Zero trust program gap analysis
    • Zero trust roadmap initiatives and tasks
    • Zero trust metrics

    Output

    • Communication deck for zero trust strategy

    Materials

    • Zero Trust Communication Deck

    Participants

    • Security Team
    • Subject Matter Experts From IT, HR, Legal, Facilities, Compliance, Audit, Risk Management
    • Project Management Office

    Download the Zero Trust Communication Deck

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    • Knowledge of protect surfaces and the business goals protecting them supports
    • Comprehensive knowledge of zero trust current state and summary initiatives required to achieve zero trust objectives
    • Assessment of which solutions for zero trust tasks and initiatives are the most appropriate for the organization
    • A defined set of security metrics assessing zero trust implementation progress and efficacy

    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.

    Contact your account representative for more information.

    This is a picture of an Info-Tech Account Representative
    workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

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

    Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    This is a screenshot from the Zero Trust Program Gap Analysis Tool

    Assess current security capabilities and build a roadmap of tasks and initiatives that close maturity gaps.

    Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool

    This is a screenshot from the Zero Trust Progress Monitoring Tool

    Identify and track metrics for zero trust tasks and initiatives.

    Research Contributors

    • Aaron Benson, CME Group, Director of IAM Governance
    • Brad Mateski, Zones, Solutions Architect for CyberSecurity
    • Bob Smock, Info-Tech Research Group, Vice President of Consulting
    • Dr. Chase Cunningham, Ericom Software, Chief Strategy Officer
    • John Kindervag, ON2IT Cybersecurity, Senior Vice President, Cybersecurity Strategy and ON2IT Group Fellow
    • John Zhao, Fonterra, Enterprise Security Architect
    • Rongxing Lu, University of New Brunswick, Associate Professor
    • Sumanta Sarkar, University of Warwick, Assistant Professor
    • Tim Malone, J.B. Hunt Transport, Senior Director Information Security
    • Vana Matte, J.B. Hunt Transport, Senior Vice President of Technology Services

    Related Info-Tech Research

    This is a screenshot from Info-Tech's Build an Information Security Strategy

    Build an Information Security Strategy

    Info-Tech has developed a highly effective approach to building an information security strategy – an approach that has been successfully tested and refined for over seven 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.

    This is a screenshot from Info-Tech's Determine Your Zero Trust Readiness.

    Determine Your Zero Trust Readiness

    IT security was typified by perimeter security. However, the way the world does business has mandated a change to IT security. In response, zero trust is a set of principles that can add flexibility to planning your IT security strategy.

    Use this blueprint to determine your zero trust readiness and understand how zero trust can benefit both security and the business.

    This is a screenshot from Info-Tech's Mature Your Identity and Access Management Program

    Mature Your Identity and Access Management Program

    Many organizations are looking to improve their identity and access management (IAM) practices but struggle with where to start and whether all areas of IAM have been considered. This blueprint will help you improve the organization's identity and access management practices by following our three-phase methodology:

    • Assess identity and access requirements
    • Identify initiatives using the identity lifecycle
    • Prioritize initiatives and build a roadmap

    Bibliography

    • “2021 Data Breach Investigations Report.” Verizon, 2021. Web.
    • “A Zero-Trust Strategy Has 3 Needs - Identify, Authenticate, and Monitor Users and Devices On and Off The Network.” Fortinet, 15 July 2021. Web.
    • “Applying Zero Trust Principles to Enterprise Mobility.” CISA, March 2022. Web.
    • Biden Jr., Joseph R. “Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity.” The White House, 12 May 2021. Web.
    • “CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model.” CISA - Cybersecurity Division, June 2021. Web.
    • “Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation Program Overview.” CISA, Jan. 2022. Web.
    • Contributor. “The Five Business Benefits of a Zero Trust Approach to Security.” Security Brief - Australia, 19 Aug. 2020. Web.
    • “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021.” IBM, July 2021. Web.
    • English, Melanie. “5 Stats That Show The Cost Saving Effect of Zero Trust.” Teramind, 29 Sept. 2021. Web.
    • “Improve Application Access and Security With Fortinet Zero Trust Network Access.” Fortinet, 2 March 2021. Web.
    • “Incorporating Zero-trust Strategies for Secure Network and Application Access.” Fortinet, 21 July 2021. Web.
    • Jakkal, Vasu. “Zero Trust Adoption Report: How Does Your Organization Compare?” Microsoft, 28 July 2021. Web.
    • “Jericho Forum™ Commandments.” The Open Group, Jericho Forum, May 2007. Web.
    • Johnson, Derrick. “Zero Trust vs. SASE - Here's What You Need to Know.” Security Magazine, 23 July 2021. Web.
    • Joint Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and National Security Agency (NSA) Zero Trust Engineering Team. “Department of Defense (DOD) Zero Trust Reference Architecture.” DoD CIO, Feb. 2021. Web.
    • Kay, Dennis. “Planning for a Zero Trust Architecture Target State.” NASA, NIST, 13 Nov. 2019. Web.
    • National Security Agency. “Embracing a Zero Trust Security Model.” U.S. Department of Defense, Feb. 2021. Web.
    • NSTAC. “Draft Report to the President - Zero Trust and Trusted Identity Management.” CISA, NSTAC, n.d. Web.
    • Rose, Scott W., et al. “Zero Trust Architecture.” NIST, 10 Aug. 2020. Web.
    • “Securing Digital Innovation Demands Zero-Trust Access.” Fortinet, 15 July 2021. Web.
    • Shackleford, Dave. “How to Create a Comprehensive Zero Trust Strategy.” SANS, Cisco, 2 Sept. 2020. Web.
    • “The CISO’s Guide to Effective Zero-Trust Access.” Fortinet, 28 April 2021. Web.
    • “The State of Zero Trust Security 2021.” Okta, June 2021. Web.
    • Kerman, Alper, et al. “Implementing a Zero Trust Architecture.” NIST - National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, March 2020. Web.
    • Kindervag, John. “Keynote - John KINDERVAG - 021622.” Vimeo, VIRTUAL Eastern | CyberSecurity Conference, 16 Feb. 2022. Web.
    • Lodewijkx, Koos. “IBM CISO Perspective: Zero Trust Changes Security From Something You Do to Something You Have.” SecurityIntelligence, IBM, 19 Nov. 2020. Web.
    • VB Staff. “Report: Only 21% of Enterprises Use Zero Trust Architecture.” VentureBeat, 15 Feb. 2022. Web.
    • Young, Shalanda D. “Moving the U.S. Government Toward Zero Trust Cybersecurity Principles.” The White House, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT - OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, 26 Jan. 2022. Web.
    • “Zero Trust Access.” Fortinet, n.d. Web.
    • “Zero Trust Architecture Technical Exchange Meeting.” NIST - National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, 12 Nov. 2019. Web.
    • “Zero Trust Cybersecurity Current Trends.” ACT-IAC, 18 April 2019. Web.
    • “Zero-Trust Access for Comprehensive Visibility and Control.” Fortinet, 24 Sep. 2020. Web.

    Run Better Meetings

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    • Parent Category Name: Voice & Video Management
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    Your newly hybrid workplace will include virtual, hybrid, and physical meetings, presenting several challenges:

    • The experience for onsite and remote attendees is not equal.
    • Employees are experiencing meeting and video fatigue.
    • Meeting rooms are not optimized for hybrid meetings.
    • The fact is that many people have not successfully run hybrid meetings before.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Successful hybrid workplace plans must include planning around hybrid meetings. Seamless hybrid meetings are the result of thoughtful planning and documented best practices.

    Impact and Result

    • Identify your current state and the root cause of unsatisfactory meetings.
    • Review and identify meetings best practices around meeting roles, delivery models, and training.
    • Improve the technology that supports meetings.
    • Use Info-Tech’s quick checklists and decision flowchart to accelerate meeting planning and cover your bases.

    Run Better Meetings Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should run better meetings, 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. Identify the current state of meetings

    Understand the problem before you try to fix it. Before you can improve meetings, you need to understand what your norms and challenges currently are.

    • Checklist: Run a Virtual or Hybrid Meeting

    2. Publish best practices for how meetings should run

    Document meeting roles, expectations, and how meetings should run. Decide what kind of meeting delivery model to use and develop a training program.

    • Meeting Challenges and Best Practices
    • Meeting Type Decision Flowchart (Visio)
    • Meeting Type Decision Flowchart (PDF)

    3. Improve meeting technology

    Always be consulting with users: early in the process to set a benchmark, during and after every meeting to address immediate concerns, and quarterly to identify trends and deeper issues.

    • Team Charter
    • Communications Guide Poster Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Run Better Meetings

    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 Current State of Meetings

    The Purpose

    Understand the current state of meetings in your organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    What you need to keep doing and what you need to change

    Activities

    1.1 Brainstorm meeting types.

    1.2 Document meeting norms.

    1.3 Document and categorize meeting challenges.

    Outputs

    Documented challenges with meetings

    Meeting norms

    Desired changes to meeting norms

    2 Review and Identify Best Practices

    The Purpose

    Review and implement meeting best practices.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined meeting best practices for your organization

    Activities

    2.1 Document meeting roles and expectations.

    2.2 Review common meeting challenges and identify best practices.

    2.3 Document when to use a hybrid meeting, virtual meeting, or an in-person meeting.

    2.4 Develop a training program.

    Outputs

    Meeting roles and expectations

    List of meeting best practices

    Guidelines to help workers choose between a hybrid, virtual, or in-person meeting

    Training plan for meetings

    3 Improve Meeting Technology

    The Purpose

    Identify opportunities to improve meeting technology.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A strategy for improving the underlying technologies and meeting spaces

    Activities

    3.1 Empower virtual meeting attendees.

    3.2 Optimize spaces for hybrid meetings.

    3.3 Build a team of meeting champions.

    3.4 Iterate to build and improve meeting technology.

    3.5 Guide users toward each technology.

    Outputs

    Desired improvements to meeting rooms and meeting technology

    Charter for the team of meeting champions

    Communications Guide Poster

    Mitigate Key IT Employee Knowledge Loss

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    • Parent Category Name: Lead
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    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
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    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.

    Create an Agile-Friendly Project Gating and Governance Approach

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    • Parent Category Name: Development
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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.

    Secrets of SAP S-4HANA Licensing

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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
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    • With the relatively slow uptake of the S/4HANA platform, the pressure is immense for SAP to maintain revenue growth.
    • SAP’s definitions and licensing rules are complex and vague, making it extremely difficult to purchase with confidence while remaining compliant.
    • Aggressive audit tactics may be used to speed up the move to HANA.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Mapping SAP products to HANA can be highly complex, leading to overspending and an inability to reduce future spend.
    • The deployment model chosen will directly impact commercial pathways forward.
    • Beware of digital (indirect) access licensing and compliance concerns.
    • Without having a holistic negotiation strategy, it is easy to hit a common obstacle and land into SAP’s playbook, requiring further spend.

    Impact and Result

    • Build a business case to evaluate S/4HANA.
    • Understand the S/4HANA roadmap and map current functionality to ensure compatibility.
    • Understand negotiating pricing and commercial terms.
    • Learn the “SAP way” of conducting business, which includes a best-in-class sales structure, unique contracts, and license use policies combined with a hyper-aggressive compliance function.

    Secrets of SAP S/4HANA Licensing Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should explore the secrets of SAP S/4HANA licensing, 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 requirements

    Determining SAP’s fit within your organization is critical. Start off by building a business case to assess overarching drivers and justification for change, any net new business benefits and long-term sustainability. Oftentimes the ROI is negative, but the investment sets the stage for long-term growth.

    2. Evaluate licensing options

    Your deployment model is more important than you think. Selecting a deployment model will dictate your licensing options followed by your contractual pathways forward.

    • SAP License Summary and Analysis Tool
    • SAP Digital Access Licensing Pricing Tool

    3. Negotiation and license management

    Know what’s in the contract. Each customer agreement is different and there may be existing terms that are beneficial. Depending on how much is spent, anything can be up for negation.

    • SAP S/4HANA Terms and Conditions Evaluator
    [infographic]

    CIO Priorities 2022

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    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
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    • 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
    Photo of Elizabeth Clark, CIO, Harvard Business School.

    Jeff Previte

    Executive Vice-President of IT, CrossCountry Mortgage
    Photo of Jeff Previte, Executive Vice-President of IT, CrossCountry Mortgage.

    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
    Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor. Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor.Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor.
    Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor.Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor.Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor.Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor.
    Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor.Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor.Photo of an internal CIO panel contributor.

    Thank you for your support

    Logo for the Blockchain Research Institute.
    Blockchain Research Institute

    Bibliography – CIO Priorities 2022

    “2020 Corporate Social Responsibility Report.” CVS Health, 2020, p. 127. Web.

    “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.

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}358|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.5/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $103,124 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 55 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Project Management Office
    • Parent Category Link: /project-management-office
    • Problems with project management offices (PMOs) often start with a lack of a clear definition of what the PMO is actually about and what the organization does.
    • Few organizations provide the minimum required services, and many are not using their PMOs effectively. Many people see the PMO as nothing more than the “project document police,” i.e. a source of red tape rather than a helpful support system. This impacts staffing and hiring.
    • The PMO is often misunderstood as a center for project management governance when it also needs to facilitate the communication of project data from project teams to decision makers to ensure that appropriate decisions get made around resourcing, approval of new projects, etc.
    • Accountability is something that is not clearly defined for many activities that flow through the PMO. Business leaders, project workers, and project managers are rarely as aligned as they need to be.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • There is a gap in the perception of the actual role of the PMO in many organizations by different stakeholder groups. Many people see the PMO as police that produce red tape rather than a helpful support system. Those that need to present a coherent plan to leadership to champion the need for a PMO often have an uphill battle.
    • Determine the PMO’s role and needs and then determine your staff needs based on that PMO.
    • Staff the PMO according to its actual role and needs. Don’t rush to the assumption that PMO staff starts with accomplished project managers.
    • The difference in a winning PMO is determined by a roadmap or plan created at the beginning.

    Impact and Result

    • Define a PMO with functions that work for you based on the needs of your organization and the gaps in services. A “fit-for-purpose” PMO is the right kind of PMO for your organization.
    • Determine your PMO staffing needs. Our approach to building a PMO starts by analyzing the staffing requirements of your PMO mandate.
    • Create purpose-built role descriptions. Once you understand the staff and skills you’ll need to succeed, we have job description aids you’ll need to fill the roles.

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO Research & Tools

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

    1. Prepare and Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO – An actionable deck to help you establish a valuable PMO.

    Before setting up or re-structuring a PMO, organizational need should not only be taken into consideration but used as a foundation. Phase 1 of this blueprint will help you define the services that your PMO should provide to your organization, instead of the one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t work.

    • Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO – Phases 1-3

    2. PMO Role Definition Tool – An Excel tool to help you define the services of your PMO.

    Use the PMO Role Definition Tool to establish your PMO current state and the service gaps you may have. Use the results to determine the role your PMO should play within your organization.

    • PMO Role Definition Tool

    3. PMO Project Charter – A template to formalize your PMO and make sure everyone is on the same page.

    The PMO Project Charter shares the vision to achieve consensus between stakeholders and projects and initiatives of the PMO. Use this template to jump-start your PMO project.

    • PMO Project Charter

    4. Blank Job Description Template – A template to create different job descriptions from.

    Use this template to create your job descriptions from scratch.

    • Blank Job Description Template

    5. Portfolio Manager Job Description – A clear and realistic job description template for a Portfolio Manager.

    The Portfolio Manager will oversee the business of discovering unsatisfied needs, articulating them as project demand, and organizing appropriate responses. Your customers are the people who approve projects, and you will service them.

    • Portfolio Manager

    6. PMO Job Description Builder Workbook – An Excel tool to help you access PMO staffing requirements.

    This tool will help you assess staffing requirements to facilitate project management, business analysis, and organizational change management outcomes.

    • PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    7. PMO Strategic Plan – A template to help you compose a PMO strategy.

    This template will help you compose a PMO strategy. Follow the steps in the blueprint to complete the strategy.

    • PMO Strategic Plan

    8. Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool – An Excel tool to analyze the impact of change to the organization.

    Use the Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool to analyze the effects of a change across the organization, and to assess the likelihood of adoption to right-size your OCM efforts.

    • Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool

    9. PMO MS Project Plan – A template to map out timeline for completing the tasks to create your PMO.

    Use this tool to determine the next steps and assign tasks to the appropriate people.

    • PMO MS Project Plan Sample

    Infographic

    Workshop: Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    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

    The Purpose

    Get a common understanding of your PMO options.

    Determine where you are and engage leadership.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A clear vision for your PMO and an articulated reason for establishing it.

    An understanding of you PMO goals and which challenges it sets to address.

    Activities

    1.1 PPM Current State Scorecard

    1.2 SWOT Analysis

    1.3 Current State and Leadership Engagement

    1.4 PMO Mandate and Vision

    Outputs

    PPM Current State Scorecard Results

    SWOT Results

    PMO Role Development Tool

    PMO Charter

    2 Staff

    The Purpose

    Identify organizational design.

    Build job descriptions.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An analysis of staffing requirements of your PMO that aligns with your mandate from phase 1.

    Job description aids to fill the necessary roles.

    Activities

    2.1 Right, Wrong, Missing, Confusing

    2.2 PMO Function, Roles, and Responsibilities

    2.3 Job Descriptions

    Outputs

    Right, Wrong, Missing, Confusing Results

    Job Description Survey Tool

    Job Description Templates

    3 Plan

    The Purpose

    Create a roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An actionable roadmap that can be presented to leadership and implemented.

    Activities

    3.1 Roadmap Hierarchy and Staffing and Sizing

    3.2 Governance and Authority

    Outputs

    PMO Roadmap Draft

    Governance Authority

    4 Change

    The Purpose

    Set up governance and OCM.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An introduction to the concept of governance and tools for a change impact analysis.

    Activities

    4.1 Analyze the impact of the change across multiple dimensions and stakeholder groups.

    4.2 Gain sponsorship.

    Outputs

    Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool

    Sponsor Template

    Further reading

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    Turn planning into action with a realistic PMO timeline.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Prepare an actionable roadmap for your PMO.

    Photo of Ugbad Farah, PMP, Senior Research Analyst, PPM, Info-Tech Research Group

    We all have junk drawers somewhere in our homes, and we probably try not to think about what’s going on in there. We’re just happy that they close and that the contents are concealed from anyone living in or passing through the house.

    What goes in these junk drawers? Things that don’t have a home, things you don’t know what to do with, and things you don’t have the time or desire to deal with. Eventually, the drawer gets full, and it doesn’t serve you anymore because you can’t add anything else to it. Instead of cleaning the drawer and keeping the things you need, you throw everything away in one sweep. One day you will start the process again.

    The junk drawer is like your project management office (PMO). The PMO is given projects that are barely scoped, projects that don’t have clear sponsors, and ad hoc administrative tasks you don’t have the time or desire to deal with. Inevitably, your PMO is out of capacity. This happens rather quickly, since it’s understaffed. You question its purpose because you made it a junk drawer. You even think about closing it. One day you will start the process again.

    Use this blueprint to stop the madness. Learn how to properly define, staff, and plan a roadmap of a PMO that will actually serve your organization.

    Ugbad Farah, PMP
    Senior Research Analyst, PPM
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Your challenge

    This research is designed to help organizations that are facing these challenges:

    • No visibility into projects
    • The organization views the PMO as unnecessary overhead
    • The PMO is not properly staffed to support the organization’s needs
    • Project managers/staff aren’t providing information or following processes
    • Leadership and sponsors are disengaged

    Pie chart of 'IT Time Allocation by Area'. The grey section on the bottom left represents 'Projects and Project Portfolio Management, 11.5%'.
    IT is responsible for many different business services. The data from Info-Tech’s IT Staffing diagnostic shows that 11.5% of staff time is spent on projects and project portfolio management. (Source: Info-Tech IT Staffing Benchmark Report)

    PMOs can’t do everything and be all things to all people. Define limits with a strong mandate and effective staffing. Make sure you have the skills and capacity to support required PMO functions.

    Project management chaos

    PMOs get pulled into the day-to-day project and resourcing issues, making it difficult to focus on running a portfolio:

    1. Teammates seem unphased by overdue tasks and missed milestones.
    2. Fire drills may happen more often than planned projects.
    3. Resources are allocated and then redirected to something more urgent.
    4. Communication that’s stuck in silos, leading to confusion about priorities.
    5. Due dates mysteriously shift without explanation.
    6. Project teams are more focused on the due date than adoption and outcomes.

    Common obstacles

    IT and PMO leaders face several challenges.

    • Many people see the PMO as nothing more than the “project document police,” i.e. a source of red tape rather than a helpful support system. This impacts staffing and hiring.
    • The PMO is often misunderstood as a center for project management governance, when it also needs to facilitate the communication of project data from project teams to decision makers to ensure that appropriate decisions get made around resourcing, approval of new projects, etc.
    • Accountability is something that is not clearly defined for many activities that flow through the PMO. Business leaders, project workers, and project managers are rarely as aligned as they need to be.

    The Reality

    68% — Sixty-eight percent of stakeholders see their PMOs as sources of unnecessary bureaucratic red tape. (Source: KeyedIn, 2014)

    50% — Fifty percent of PMOs close within the first three years due to such things as poorly defined mandates and poor leadership. (Source: KeyedIn, 2014)

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Get a departmental job description first. Defining your PMO may not be as simple as it seems. Explore the boundaries of portfolio, project, resource, and organizational change management before jumping ahead with processes and tools.
    2. The staffing plan should come before your long-term plan. Get buy-in around your definition of the roles needed to run your PMO before articulating a long-term plan. Too often, plans have been accepted without the commensurate level of staffing. Our approach gives you a chance to put hiring on the roadmap as a predecessor to accountability.
    3. Keep your eye on the ball. Build your PMO around the operational imperative to recognize completed projects as an early milestone in broader changes. In other words, projects exist to create change.

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for your PMO

    Turn planning into action with a realistic PMO timeline.

    50% of PMOs close within the first 3 years.

    Logo for Info-Tech.


    Logo for ITRG.

    01 Define

    DEFINE THE RIGHT KIND OF PMO

    Establish the purpose of your PMO. Identify organizational needs to fill in gaps instead of duplicating efforts.

    LOGICAL FALLACY
    “If we approve more work, we'll get more done.”

    A properly run portfolio reconciles demand (project requests) to supply (available people) and drives throughput by approving the amount of projects that can get done.

    02 Staff

    STAFF THE PMO FOR RESILIENCE

    Analyze the staffing requirements for your PMOs mandate. Create purpose-built role descriptions.

    FALSE ASSUMPTION
    “Our best project manager should run the PMO.”

    Your best project manager should be running projects and, no, they shouldn't do both.

    03 Plan

    PREPARE AN ACTIONABLE ROADMAP

    The difference in a winning PMO is determined by a roadmap or plan created at the beginning. Leaders should understand the full scope of the plan before committing their teams to the project.

    COMMON MISTAKE
    “We'll get great at project management now and worry about portfolio management later.”

    Too often, PMOs focus on project management rigor and plan to do portfolio management after that's done. But few successfully maintain the process long enough to get there. If you start with portfolio management, leadership might soften their demands for project management rigor.

    04 Execute

    ALIGN TO STRATEGIC PLAN

    Use the power of organizational change management to ensure success and adoption. Iterate through the finer points of planning and execution to deploy the kind of PMO defined in step 1, with the people described in step 2, and the strategic roadmap articulated in step 3.

    PROJECT MYOPIA
    “Let's focus on delivering the project on time so we can move on to our next project.”

    Don't forget why the idea got approved in the first place. The goal is to sustain beneficial business outcomes well beyond the completion of your project.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for Preparing an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    1. Define the PMO 2. Staff the PMO 3. Prepare a Roadmap
    Phase Steps
    1. Get a Common Understanding of Your PMO Options
    2. Determine Where You Are and Engage Leadership
    1. Identify Organizational Design
    2. Build Job Descriptions
    1. Create Roadmap
    2. Governance and OCM
    Phase Outcomes A clear vision for your PMO and an articulated reason for establishing it.
    An understanding of your PMO goals and which challenges it sets to address.
    An analysis of staffing requirements of your PMO that aligns with your mandate from phase 1. Job descriptions help to fill the necessary roles. An actionable roadmap that can be presented to leadership and implemented. An introduction to the concept of governance and tools for a change impact analysis.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight

    There is a gap in the perception of the actual role of the PMO in many organizations by different stakeholder groups. Many people see the PMO police that produce red tape rather than a helpful support system. Those that need to present a coherent plan to leadership championing the need for a PMO often have an uphill battle.

    Phase 1 insight

    Determine the PMO’s role and needs and then determine your staff needs based on that PMO.

    PMO leaders are all too often set up to fail, left to make successes out of PMOs that:

    1. have poorly defined mandates;
    2. lack the proper resourcing to support the services the organization requires; or
    3. lack executive leadership, vision, and backing.

    Phase 2 insight

    Staff the PMO according to its actual role and needs. Don’t rush to the assumption that PMO staff starts with accomplished project managers.

    Many organizations have PMOs of one person, and it is simply not a long-term recipe for success. People in this situation have a lot of weight on their shoulders and feel like they are being set up to fail. It is very challenging for anyone to run a PMO alone without support or administrative help.

    Phase 3 insight

    The difference in a winning PMO is determined by a roadmap or plan created at the beginning.

    When you are determining what your PMO will provide in the future, it is important to align the ambition of the PMO with the maturity of the business. Too often, a lot of effort is spent trying to convince businesses of the value of a PMO.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    PMO Role Definition Tool Sample of the PMO Role Definition Tool deliverable. PMO Project Charter Template Sample of the PMO Project Charter Template deliverable.
    Blank Job Description Template
    Sample of the Blank Job Description Template deliverable.
    Sample Job Descriptions
    Sample of the Sample Job Descriptions deliverable.
    PMO Job Description Builder Workbook
    Sample of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook deliverable.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    PMO Strategic Plan
    Sample of the PMO Strategic Plan deliverable.
    PMO MS Project Plan Sample
    Sample of the PMO MS Project Plan Sample deliverable.
    Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool
    Sample of the Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool deliverable.

    Benefits

    IT Benefits

    • Determine how you can fill gaps and not duplicate efforts to bring value to your organization.
    • Ensure that key PMO capabilities like portfolio management, project management, and organizational change management are in balance.
    • Staffing is purpose-driven. Avoid putting good people in the wrong role.

    Business Benefits

    • Intake and governance have a primary focus and are not merely afterthoughts of someone primarily focused on project management methodology.
    • Avoid unrealistic commitments by ensuring better upfront analysis of ability to execute.
    • Ensure appropriately mandated sponsor management.

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

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

      Phase 1

    • Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
    • Call #2: Assess current state and determine PMO role/type.
    • Call #3: Complete job description survey.
    • Phase 2

    • Call #4: Analyze survey results and complete FTE analysis.
    • Call #5: Discuss necessary roles and create job descriptions.
    • Phase 3

    • Call #6: Discuss business goals and priorities.
    • Call #7: Identify and prioritize initiatives on roadmap.
    • Call #8: Discuss governance and organizational change.
    • Call #9: Summarize results in strategic plan and discuss next steps.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5
    Activities
    Define

    1.1 Review PPM Current State Scorecard Results

    1.2 Get a Common Understanding of Your PMO Options

    1.3 Conduct SWOT Analysis

    1.4 Current State and Leadership Engagement

    1.5 PMO Mandate and Vision

    Staff

    2.1 Identify Organizational Design

    2.2 Right, Wrong, Missing, Confusing

    2.3 PMO Function, Roles, and Responsibilities

    2.4 Job Descriptions

    Plan

    3.1 Roadmap Top-Level Hierarchy

    3.2 Roadmap Second-Level Hierarchy

    3.2 Staffing and Sizing

    3.3 Reconcile and Finalize Roadmap

    3.4 Governance and Authority

    Change

    4.1 Importance of OCM

    4.2 Sponsorship

    4.3 Analyze the Impact of the Change Across Multiple Dimensions and Stakeholder Groups

    Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    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. PPM Current State Scorecard
    2. SWOT Results
    3. PMO Role Development Tool
    4. PMO Charter
    1. Right, Wrong, Missing, Confusing Results
    2. Job Description Survey Tool
    3. Job Description Templates
    1. PMO Roadmap Draft
    2. Governance and Authority Activity
    1. Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool
    2. Sponsor Template
    1. Completed PMO Roadmap draft
    2. PMO Strategic Plan draft

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    Phase 1

    Define the Right Kind of PMO

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Get a Common Understanding of Your PMO Options
    • 1.2 Determine Where You Are and Engage Your Leadership

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Identify Organizational Design
    • 2.2. Build Job Descriptions

    Phase 3

    • 3.1 Create Roadmap
    • 3.2 Governance and OCM

    A PMO may not simply be an office of project managers

    Project management offices are evolving and taking on activities that differ from company to company.

    1915 1930s 1950s 1980s 1990s
    Frederick Taylor introduces the PMO with the implementation of the scientific management method and the increase in the number and complexity of projects. The US Air Corps creates a Project Office function to monitor aircraft development (probably the first record of the term being used). The US military starts developing complex missile systems. Each weapon system was composed of several sub-projects grouped together in system program offices (SPOs). This built the structures underlying the traditional PMO. The Project Office concept exported to construction and IT. The PMO gains a lot of momentum with professional associations and project management certifications becoming recognized industry standards.

    Organizations are confused about what a PMO is, whether they should have one, and what it should do

    PMBOK

    The responsibilities of a PMO can range from providing project management support functions to the direct management of one or more projects. The PMO is an organizational body assigned with various responsibilities related to the centralized and coordinated management of those projects under its domain.

    The PMO may play a role in supporting strategic alignment and delivering organizational value, integrating data and information for organizational strategic projects, and evaluating how higher-level strategic objectives are being fulfilled.

    COBIT

    The PMO can be responsible for portfolio maintenance, setting a standard approach for project and program and portfolio management.

    OPM

    The PMO is an organizational body assigned with various responsibilities related to the centralized and coordinated management of those projects under its domain.

    In an effort to set a standard, the governance frameworks have over complicated it for most of us.

    Use Info-Tech’s framework to create the PMO that works for your organization

    Determine the Services Your PMO Will Provide
    Manage your PMO services in alignment with your mandate and your organization’s needs.

    Establish Your PMO’s Mandate
    Figure out the purpose of your PMO and write it down so it’s clear to your leadership. Align your mandate to the organization’s needs.

    Ensure Organizational Needs Are Being Met
    Before you can decide on what your PMO will do, find out who’s doing what in your organization so you can fill gaps instead of duplicating efforts.

    Hierarchy of PMO Needs
    Hierarchy of PMO needs with 'Organizational Needs' as the base, 'PMO Mandate' in the middle, and 'PMO Services' at the top.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Consider the principles of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which view the lower tiers of the hierarchy as fundamentally required to validate the pursuit of the higher tiers.

    Step 1.1

    Get a Common Understanding of Your PMO Options

    Activities
    • 1.1.1 Review PMO Types
    • 1.1.2 SWOT Analysis

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Review Info-Tech’s PMO Types
    • Complete a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO director and/or portfolio manager
    • PMO staff/stakeholders
    • Project managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • Current state analysis
    Define the Right Kind of PMO
    Step 1.1 Step 1.2

    People mistake the PMO as only an office with project managers

    It sounded simple enough, but no one could really explain what it meant.

    PMOs are often born out of necessity or desperation. A traumatic event happens, and leadership decides that it wouldn’t have happened had there been a “Project Management Office.” The phrase itself is often quite reassuring and offers the hope of some sort of sanity and order.

    People may not really be able to explain what a PMO is, but they do have a common understanding that it should solve all project management issues. But simply prescribing the “PMO” as a remedy for every organizational alignment is not going to be sufficient. There are different types of PMOs and more importantly there are different types of organizations.

    Screenshot of a Google search for 'what is a project management office'.
    Google and the Google logo are trademarks of Google LLC.

    The PMI has described what a PMO could be

    The PMI does not have a standard for PMOs like it does for things like project, program, and portfolio management. Its PMO definitions should be used as more of a reference point than a best practice.

    But what should it do?

    • Supportive: Provides a consultative role to projects by supplying templates, best practices, training, access to information, and lessons learned from previous projects.
    • Controlling: Provides support and requires compliance through various means.
    • Directive: Takes control of the projects by directly executing them.

    The PMI described three types of PMOs. These three types are well known in the industry, but they are essentially characteristics and do little to help people understand the functions and services of a PMO. There continue to be questions about the role a PMO should play in an organization and how it’s supposed to add value.

    Stock photo of two sticky notes reading 'project' and 'management'.

    Thousands of practitioners came together at the 2012 PMI Symposium and expanded upon PMBOK’s PMO types

    1. Managing
      Manages the work in projects and programs.
    2. Consulting
      Serves as an experience-based consultative body to project managers.
    3. Project Repository
      Repository of previous project documentation, lessons learned, etc.
    4. Enterprise PMO
      Provides PMO services to the organization.
    5. Center of Excellence
      Creates the standard and methodologies and provides tools.
    6. Managerial
      Manages the project and program managers, and eventually, other project resources.
    7. Delivery
      Manages the project and programs.

    1.1.1 Leverage Info-Tech’s PMO types to anchor yourself

    We have narrowed it down to five types of PMOs.

    ePMO
    Icon for ePMO.
    IT PMO
    Icon for IT PMO.
    PMO
    Icon for PMO.
    CMO
    Icon for CMO.
    CoE
    Icon for CoE.
    Enterprise
    Highest level PMO, typically responsible to align project and program work to strategy-significant projects or programs for the entire organization. Could include both IT and business units.
    IT
    IT PMOs provide project-related support for IT project portfolios. For many organizations PMOs originate in IT departments because of the structure required for technology-related projects.
    Project/Program
    Provides project-related tactical service as an entity to support a specific project or program. Can be dismantled when program is done.
    Change
    Change management offices (CMO) help build change management capabilities and enable change readiness in organizations.
    Excellence
    These centers differ in size and mode of organization, depending on their subject and scope. They support project work by providing the organizations with standard methodologies and tools.

    What is your definition of a PMO?

    Use this model to clearly show what is in and out of scope.

    ePMO IT PMO PMO CMO CoE
    PPM Reporting for enterprise portfolio and the financial/human resources needed to deliver them X
    PPM Finance for project/portfolio capital and expense X X
    PPM Customer Management – the customers, sponsors of the project X X
    PPM Strategy Management – projects and programs relate to corporate X X X
    PPM Program Management – related projects in the portfolio X X X
    PPM Time Accounting X X x
    PPM Business Relationship Management (BRM) X X
    PPM Project Information System (PMIS) – organization of project information X X
    PPM Administrative Support – general assistance with Portfolio X
    PPM Record Keeping – Enterprise Information X X
    RM Forecasting X
    PM Quality Assurance X X
    PM Procurement and Vendor Management X X X
    PM Project Status Reporting X X
    PM PM Services X X X
    PM Training X
    PM PM SOP X
    OCM Adoption X X
    OCM Change Management X X
    OCM Benefits Attainment X X
    OCM Forecast Benefits X X
    OCM Track Benefits X X
    GOV Intake X
    GOV Governance X X
    GOV Reporting X X X X

    Use Info-Tech’s PMO function matrix to help provide role definitions for your PMO

    Info-Tech’s potential PMO capabilities are in the header of the table below. These are the services a PMO may (or may not) provide depending on the needs of the organization.

    Portfolio Management Resource Management Project Management Organizational Change Management PMO Governance
    Recordkeeping and bookkeeping Strategy management Assessment of available supply of people and their time Project status reporting PM SOP
    (e.g. feed the portfolio, project planning, task managing)
    Benefits management Technology and infrastructure
    Reporting Financial management HR Security
    PMIS Intake Matching supply to demand based on time, cost, scope, and skill set requirements Procurement and vendor management Legal Financial
    CRM/RM/BRM Program management
    Tracking of utilization based on the allocations Quality Intake
    Time Accounting PM services
    (e.g. staffing project managers or coordinators)
    Quality assurance Organizational change management Project progress, visibility, and process
    Forecasting of utilization via supply-demand reconciliation Closure and lessons learned
    Administrative support PM Training

    The rest of this blueprint will help you choose the right capabilities and accompanying job functions for your PMO.

    Various options for specific PMO job functions are listed below each capability. PMO leaders need to decide which of these functions are required for their organization.

    1.1.2 SWOT analysis

    45-60 minutes

    Input: Current PMO governance documents and SOPs

    Output: An assessment of current strengths, opportunities, threats, and weaknesses of capabilities in previous slide

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Sticky notes

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff/stakeholders, Project managers

    Perform a SWOT analysis to assess the current state of PMO capabilities covered on the previous slide.

    The purpose of the SWOT is to begin to define the goals of this implementation by assessing your project management, portfolio management, resource management, organizational change management, and governance capabilities and cultivating alignment around the most critical opportunities and challenges.

    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 in the next slide or by taking a picture of the whiteboard or flip chart.

    1.1.2 Sample SWOT analysis

    Strengths

    • Knowledge, skills, and talent of project staff.
    • We have fairly effective project management processes.
    • Motivation to get things done when priorities, goals, and action plans are clear.

    Weaknesses

    • IT-business communication and alignment.
    • No standards are currently in place across departments. Staff are unsure which templates to use and how/when/why to use them.
    • There are no formal intake structures in place. Projects are approved and it’s up to us to “figure it out.”
    • We have no prioritization practices to keep up with constantly changing priorities and shifts in the marketplace.

    Opportunities

    • Establish portfolio discipline to improve IT-business communication through more effective and efficient project coordination.
    • Stronger initiation processes should translate to smoother project execution.
    • Establish more disciplined and efficient weekly/monthly project reporting practices that should facilitate more effective communication with senior leaders.

    Threats

    • Risk of introducing burdensome processes and documentation that takes more time away from getting things done.
    • We tried to formalize a PMO in the past and it failed after eight months.
    • We have no insight into project resourcing.

    Step 1.2

    Determine Where You Are and Engage Your Leadership

    Activities
    • 1.2.1 Assess Current State
    • 1.2.2 Gap Analysis
    • 1.2.3 Vision Exercise
    • 1.2.4 PMO Charter
    • 1.2.5 Strategic Planning

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Assess the current state of your PPM/PM services using the PMO Role Definition Tool
    • Determine current gaps in your services and processes using the PMO Role Definition Tool
    • Discuss the vison for your PMO
    • Start creating your PMO charter

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO director and/or portfolio manager
    • PMO staff/stakeholders
    • Project managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • Results of PMO Role Definition Tool
    • PMO vision
    • PMO charter

    Define the Right Kind of PMO

    Step 1.1 Step 1.2

    Why do organizations need a PMO?

    Stock image of a man thinking.

    “If a company is not a project-oriented organization, there’s less of a need for a PMO. If they are project-focused though, they should have one. Otherwise, who’s driving the delivery of their projects? Who’s establishing their methodology? How are they managing resources efficiently?” (Mary Hubbard, PMP, director of the PMO at Siemens Government Technologies Inc., A PMI Global Executive Council Member)

    Signs you might need a PMO:

    • A lack of project transparency.
    • Significant discrepancies in project results.
    • Poor customer satisfaction rates.
    • An inability to cost projects accurately.
    • A high percentage of delayed or cancelled projects.
    • High project failure rates.
    • Poor alignment of project activity and business strategy investments.
    • Inconsistent project management processes and methodologies.
    • A lack of collaboration and knowledge sharing.
    • Little to no resource training to meet IT and business needs.
    • A lack of resource management for utilization and capacity.
    • Little to no visibility into project, program, and portfolio-level status.

    Why does your organization need a PMO?

    Observe the needs of your organization before deciding on services to support it.
    • Observe what is and what is not in place. Look for existing processes, tools, and systems and evidence that they are being followed. You might already have some pieces in place; the question becomes what to keep and what not to keep.
    • What does your organization look like?
      • Name
      • Population
      • Current Project Lifecycle
      • IT Services Team
      • # of Unique Applications
      • Annual Budget
    • Gather a list of potential areas for improvement where a PMO can add value. Once a list is established, convert it to a prioritized queue of initiatives. A key item on your list should be how projects go from beginning to end so you can understand the potential issues and opportunities with your current project delivery.
    Stock image of a hierarchy mapped out over a birds eye view of people.

    Ideally, we wouldn’t invest in project, portfolio, or OCM because they’re overhead processes without any direct value…

    …but you need to spend just enough to demonstrate you are a diligent steward of the assets under your administration.

    Organizational Change Management

    • Well-run projects can fail without OCM.
    • More than anyone else, it’s up to the sponsor to pursue outcomes.

    Project Management

    • Determine the current project management standards and methodologies.
    • Uncover any forms and templates that are currently in use.
    • If there is a lack of project management knowledge among current or future staff, you will need to do some training.

    Portfolio Management

    • Who currently approves projects and who will be approving them in the future?
    • Who is accountable for approving too many projects?
    • What roles does resource capacity play? Is it constrained or do you approve everything?
    • Are the resources in your PMO full-time?
    • How big is your portfolio?
    • How much do you spend on resources (hours or months)?

    Governance

    • Governance can mean many different things: intake, finance, over-sight of existing projects, resource management, technology and architecture, and process.
    • Don’t try to introduce governance without considering the people who may already be governing different areas.
    • Consider what things can be done without getting executive approval.

    Define your PMO’s role in the organization

    Use Info-Tech’s PMO Role Definition Tool to help establish your PMO’s future state.

    • Use Info-Tech’s PMO Role Definition Tool to figure out the functions your PMO should provide.
    • The current-state analysis uses specific questions to assess how you are doing things now and provide you with some situational awareness.
    • The gap analysis uses another set of specific questions to uncover the holes in your organization and the services that are not being provided.
    • Based on the answers you gave to the questions, the tool will populate the functions that your PMO should provide to your organization: the services your organization needs.
    • Use the outputs to start looking into missing functions and ultimately start building or re-establishing the responsibilities of your PMO.
    • Consider having multiple team members answer all the questions to establish alignment and get realistic data.

    Sample of the PMO Role Definition Tool.

    Download the PMO Role Definition Tool

    Hey, you don’t to have to spend anything on portfolio, project, and organizational change management! Assuming of course…

    • You have enough people to do all your projects
    • All projects are getting done on time
    • Your customers and employees are happy
    • You have complete visibility into the portfolio
    • Your projects align with your corporate strategy
    • Your projects align with your operational needs
    • Your strategic and operational needs are in harmony
    • You have the right skills
    • You are using all resources provided to you
    • People self-identify the right work and independently do that work
    • Time is not wasted
    • The work is production-ready (i.e. high quality)
    • Vendors honor their commitments
    • The sponsor is confident they’re getting what was committed
    • You have sufficient reports for the portfolio
    • Stakeholders make it through transitions with minimal resistance
    • The organization is prepared to adopt the outcomes of projects
    • The sponsors’ forecasted benefits are realized
    • Stakeholders are aware of the need for change
    • Stakeholders transition well from current to future state

    Use the tool on the next slide to see where you may need to spend.

    1.2.1 Assess the current state of your project environment

    20-30 minutes

    Input: Understanding of current project portfolio environment

    Output: Completed current state survey

    Materials: Tab 1 of Info-Tech’s PMO Role Definition Tool

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff/stakeholders, Project managers

    Screenshot from tab 1 of Info-Tech’s PMO Role Definition Tool.

    Screenshot from tab 1 of Info-Tech’s PMO Role Definition Tool. There are three columns: '#', 'Question', and 'Answer'.

    There are 20 current-state questions in column C. Together, the questions address the five capabilities in Info-Tech’s PMO function matrix (slide 28).

    Use the drop-down menu in column D to answer Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neutral, Somewhat Disagree, or Disagree to each question in column C.

    The questions are broad by design. Answer them honestly and select “neutral” if anything is not applicable.

    1.2.2 Set your target state needs to identify gaps

    15-30 minutes

    Input: Reflection on the question, “If I/We do nothing, someone in the organization is…”

    Output: Completed target state survey

    Materials: Tab 2 of Info-Tech’s PMO Role Definition Tool

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff/stakeholders, Project managers

    Screenshot from tab 2 of Info-Tech’s PMO Role Definition Tool.

    Screenshot from tab 2 of Info-Tech’s PMO Role Definition Tool. There are four columns: '#', 'Question', 'Answer', and 'Department'.

    Each question in column C of tab 2 should be answered in the context of, “If I do nothing, someone in the organization is…”

    Answer each question by using the drop-down menu in column D to select “Yes,” “No,” “I don’t know,” or “N/A.”

    If “Yes” include the department or area that is responsible.

    Hierarchy of PMO needs with 'Organizational Needs' highlighted. 'Organizational Needs' at the base, 'PMO Mandate' in the middle, and 'PMO Services' at the top.

    Review the preliminary list of your potential PMO functions

    Tab 3 of the PMO Role Definition Tool contains a customized version of Info-Tech’s PMO definition matrix, based upon your inputs in the previous two tabs.

    Screenshot from tab 3 of Info-Tech’s PMO Role Definition Tool. It is titled 'PMO Functions and Groups' and contains a table with five columns: 'Portfolio Management', 'Resource Management', 'Project Management', 'Organizational Change Management', and 'Governance'. Each column contains high level recommendations, and at the bottom of the columns are outputs.

    The name of the box is the group the function belongs to.

    These outputs are based on the answers to the questions on the previous 2 tabs.

    In each group’s box are high-level recommendations.

    Consider your stakeholders

    Who benefits from the new or updated PMO structure?

    In a matrix environment, understanding the challenges other teams are facing is a core requirement of an effective PMO. The best way to understand this is through direct engagement like conducting interviews and taking surveys with management and members of other teams.

    Ask yourself these questions about your PMO:

    • Are we doing the right things?
    • Do we know the current status of projects?
    • Are we managing, escalating, and resolving project issues?
    • Do PMs have the right training?
    • What is our overall utilization?

    A PMO should be structured to provide service to the organization. View it as a business, serving the stakeholders.

    1.2.3 Complete this vision exercise to produce an initial mandate for a new/improved PMO

    45-60 minutes

    Input: Outputs from SWOT analysis

    Output: An initial PMO mandate

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Sticky notes

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff/stakeholders, Project managers

    Now that you have an idea of the services your organization needs from steps 1.1 and 1.2 of this blueprint, you can discuss the target state of your PMO.

    Follow these steps to complete the SWOT analysis:

    1. Each person writes one aspect of a future state that would solve the issues described in the SWOT analysis (activity 1.1.1). Use sticky notes and post them on the whiteboard.
    2. As a group, identify which of these aspects would be good candidates for embodying the “core element” of your PMO’s new mandate.
    3. From the aspects gathered, have everyone individually come up with a statement of one to two sentences they think captures the overall theme and vision of this PMO.
    4. Collectively choose the best statement to use as the working mandate for your new project management office. This mandate can be modified as needed in the time leading up the creation and launch of your PMO.

    Hierarchy of PMO needs with 'PMO Mandate' highlighted. 'Organizational Needs' at the base, 'PMO Mandate' in the middle, and 'PMO Services' at the top.

    1.2.4 Use Info-Tech’s PMO Project Charter template to help capture your mandate and obtain approval

    3-4 hours

    Input: Activity 1.2.3, Logical considerations for PMO deployment (see bulleted list on this slide)

    Output: An assessment of current strengths, opportunities, threats, and weaknesses of capabilities in previous slide

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Sticky notes

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff/stakeholders, Project managers

    A successful PMO will offer a range of services which business units can rely on. The aim of the PMO charter is to outline what is in scope for the PMO and what services it will initially offer.

    A project charter serves several important functions. It organizes the project so you can make efficient and effective resource allocation decisions. It also communicates important details about the project purpose, scope definition, and project parameters.

    To use this template, simply modify or delete all information in grey text and convert the remaining text to black before printing or sending. Sections within the Template include:

    1. PMO Mandate
    2. Goals & Benefits
    3. Scope Definition
    4. Key PMO Stakeholders
    5. Projected Timeline for Implementation
    6. Project Roles and Responsibilities
    7. High-Level Budget
    8. High-Level Risk Assessment

    Sample of the PMO Project Charter Template.

    Download the PMO Project Charter Template

    Engage leadership to refine target-state expectations

    Stock image of a person with a megaphone. ?
    Will project managers be included in the PMO? Which projects and programs will be in the PMO’s mandate?
    ?
    Will the PMO have decision-making authority? If so, how much and on what issues?
    ?
    Where in the organizational structure will the PMO report?

    “Changing the perception of project management from ‘busy work’ to ‘valued efforts’ is easier when the PMO is properly aligned.” (Project Management Institute, October 2009)

    Don’t assume your PMO is merely tactical

    It can help drive strategy instead of just being a technical arm.

    Strategic

    Stock image of a business person.

    Tactical

    Strategic Alignment
    Leadership assumes that your presence will optimize the alignment of projects to corporate strategy.
    Process Adherence
    Leadership assumes you’re all about process.
    Portfolio Thinking
    Leadership assumes that you’re thinking about the overall throughput of projects through the portfolio.
    Project Thinking
    Leadership assumes you’re not thinking beyond the boundaries of a single project at any given time.
    Outcomes Focused
    Leadership assumes that you’re focused on the outcomes forecast by sponsors.
    Timeline Focused
    Leadership assumes you’re focused on delivering projects on time.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A key success factor for a PMO is to take part of strategic conversations; when they are left out, it creates a barrier. The PMO is the connective tissue between strategy and tactics. Don’t risk your benefits by not having the PMO Director at the table before you make decisions.

    Avoid the disconnect

    Create a strategic plan with project professionals at the table.

    • Strategic plans should guide organizations to future states, yet many don’t ever get used. This is because there is a disconnect between the people creating the strategic plan and the people being asked to implement it. Strategic planners don’t often develop their plans with the help of project managers who can ensure the plan is transferred into a working operational plan.
    • Strategic planners are broad thinkers with high-level plans whereas project professionals often work in the trenches. The disconnect between the two can often result in cost overruns, delays in implementation, low worker morale, and an overall chaotic work environment.
    • By putting strategic planners and project managers together to work on the strategic planning process, they can see what the other sees and plan accordingly.
    • Twenty-seven percent more projects are executed successfully when a company’s structure and resources align with their strategy (KPMG, 2017).

    “The failure to build a bridge between the strategic planning process and project management’s planning process is a major reason strategic plans don’t work.” (Bruce McGraw, Project/Programme Manager)

    1.2.5 Strategic planning

    1 hour

    To create a strategic plan that provides value, recognize that the strategic plan for the PMO is not the PMO charter.

    • The PMO charter is the organizational mandate for the PMO. It defines the role, purpose and functions of the PMO. It articulates who the PMO's sponsors and customers are, the services that it offers, and the staffing and support structures required to deliver those services. And, it assumes that a decision to have a PMO has already been made.
    • A strategic plan enables the PMO to play an essential role in achieving a company’s business goals, setting out clear objectives and then providing a roadmap on how to achieve them. A strategic plan maps the tools and resources necessary to achieve successful project outcomes.

    To create a results-driven strategic plan for your PMO, it is helpful to follow a top-down format:

    • Start by going through the list on the right and update the strategic plan.
    • What are the top project-related issues and opportunities you want your PMO to address and what’s the value to the business of trusting them?

    Vision: this needs to be a vivid and common image
    Mission: this is the special assignment that is given to a group
    Goals: these are broad statements of future conditions
    Objectives: these are operational statements that indicate how much and by when (e.g. deliverables or intangible objectives like productivity)
    Strategies: these are the set of actions that need to take place
    Needs: these are the things required to carry out the strategy
    Critical Success Factors: these are the key areas of activity in which favorable results are necessary to reach the goal

    Download the PMO Strategic Plan

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    Phase 2

    Staff Your PMO for Resilience

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Get a Common Understanding of Your PMO Options
    • 1.2 Determine Where You Are and Engage Your Leadership

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Identify Organizational Design
    • 2.2. Build Job Descriptions

    Phase 3

    • 3.1 Create Roadmap
    • 3.2 Governance and OCM

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Follow our two-step approach to successfully staff your PMO.

    1. Determine your PMO staffing needs.
      Our approach to building a PMO starts by analyzing the staffing requirements of your PMO mandate.
    2. Create purpose-built role descriptions.
      Once you have an understanding of the staff and skills you’ll need to succeed, we have job description aids you’ll need to fill the roles.

    The Info-Tech difference:

    1. Save time developing a purpose-built approach. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to PMO staffing. The advice and tools in this research will help you quickly determine your unique staffing needs and guide your next steps to get the staffing you need.
    2. Leverage insider research. We’ve worked with thousands of PMOs and have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of PMO staffing. The approach in this research is informed by client successes and will help you avoid the common mistakes that drive PMO failure.

    IT staff allocation for project work

    Projects and Project Portfolio Management

    58.3% — 58% of respondents feel they have the appropriate staffing level to execute project management effectively. (Source: Info-Tech IT Staffing Benchmark Report)

    59.8% — 59% feel they have the appropriate staffing level to execute requirements gathering effectively. (Source: Info-Tech IT Staffing Benchmark Report)

    The GDP contributions from project-oriented industries are forecasted to reach $20.2 trillion over the next 20 years. (Source: “Project Management: Job Growth and Talent Gap” Project Management Institute, 2017)

    Info-Tech Insight

    Project work is only going to increase, and in general, people are dissatisfied with their current staffing levels.

    Step 2.1

    Identify Organizational Design

    Activities
    • 2.1.1 Right, Wrong, Missing, Confusing
    • 2.1.2 Map Your Current Structure
    • 2.1.3 Inventory Assessment
    • 2.1.4 Job Description Survey

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Complete a Right, Wrong, Missing, Confusing analysis
    • Determine your current organizational/PMO structure
    • Assess your current inventory
    • Complete the job description survey

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO director and/or portfolio manager
    • PMO staff/stakeholders
    • Project managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • Current-state analysis
    • Job description survey results

    Staff Your PMO for Resilience

    Step 2.1 Step 2.2

    2.1.1 Right, wrong, missing, confusing

    30-45 minutes

    Input: Current PMO process, Current PMO org. chart

    Output: An assessment of current things that are being done right and wrong and what is currently missing and confusing

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Sticky notes

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff, Project managers

    Perform a right, wrong, missing, confusing analysis to assess the current state of your PMO and its staff.

    The purpose of this exercise is to begin to define the goals of this implementation by assessing your staffing capabilities and cultivating alignment around the most critical opportunities and challenges.

    Follow these steps to complete the analysis:

    1. Have participants discuss what is wrong, right, missing, and confusing.
    2. Spend roughly 45 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 by taking a picture of the whiteboard or flip chart.

    Organizational types

    1. Functional
      Functional organizations are structured around the functions the organization needs to be performed.
    2. Projectized
      Projectized organizations are organized around projects for maximal project management effectiveness.
    3. Matrix
      Matrix organizations have structures that blend the characteristics of functional and projectized organizations.

    Functional organization

    The traditional hierarchical organizational structure.

    A functional hierarchical structure with 'Functional Managers' highlighted and the note 'Project coordination'. 'Chief Executive' at the top, 'Functional Managers' in the middle, and 'Staff' at the bottom.
    Adapted from ProjectEngineer, 2019
    1. Employees are organized by specialties like human resources, information technology, sales, marketing, administration, etc.
    2. The project management role will be performed by a team member of a functional area under the management of a functional manager.
    3. Resources for the project will need to be negotiated for with the functional managers, and the accessibility of those resources will be based on business conditions. Any escalations of issues would need to be taken to the functional manager.
    4. The project management role would act more like a project coordinator who does not usually carry the title of project manager.
    5. Project management is considered a part-time responsibility. Of all the organizational types, this one tends to be the most difficult for the project manager. The project manager lacks the authority to assign resources and must acquire people and other resources from multiple functional managers.
    6. Because the project manager has little to no authority, the project can take longer to complete than in other organizational structures, and there is generally no recognized project management methodology or best practices.

    Projectized organization

    The majority of project resources are involved in project work.

    A projectized hierarchical structure with a single project hierarchy highlighted and the note 'Project coordination'. 'Chief Executive' at the top, 'Project Managers' in the middle, and 'Staff' at the bottom.
    Adapted from ProjectEngineer, 2019
    1. The project manager has increased independence and authority and is a full-time member of a project organization. They have project resources available to them, such as project coordinators, project schedulers, business analysts, and plan administrators.
    2. The project manager is responsible to the sponsor and/or senior management. The project manager has authority and control of the budget, and any escalation of issues would be taken to the sponsor.
    3. Given that the project resources report to the project manager versus the functional area, there may be a decrease in the subject matter expertise of the team members.
    4. Team members are usually co-located within the same office or virtually co-located to maximize communication effectiveness.
    5. There can be some functional units within the organization; however, those units play a supportive role, without authority over the project manager.
    6. There is no defined hierarchy. Resources are brought together specifically for the purpose of a project. At the end of each project, resources are either reassigned to another project or returned to a resource pool.

    Matrix organization

    A combination of functional and projectized.

    A matrix hierarchical structure with the lowest row highlighted and the note 'Project coordination'. 'Chief Executive' at the top, 'Functional Managers' in the middle, mainly 'Staff' at the bottom, except one 'Project Manager' who coordinates across functions.
    Adapted from ProjectEngineer, 2019
    1. A matrix organization is a blended organizational structure. Although a functional hierarchy is still in place, the project manager is recognized as a valuable position and is given more authority to manage the project and assign resources.
    2. Matrix organizations can be classified as weak, balanced, or strong based on the relative authority of the functional manager and project manager. If the project manager is given more of a project coordinator role, then the organization is considered a weak matrix. If the project manager is given much more authority on resources and budget spending, the organization is considered a strong matrix.
    3. Matrix structures evolve in response to the rise of large-scale projects in contemporary organizations. These projects require efficient processing of large amounts of information.
    4. Working in a matrix organization is challenging and structurally complex. Employees have dual reporting relationships – generally to both a functional manager and a project and/or product manager. However, if done well, it offers the best of both worlds.
    5. The matrix organization structure usually exists in large and multi-project organizations. Here they can move employees whenever and wherever their services are needed. The matrix structure has the flexibility to transfer the organization’s talent by considering employees to be shared resources.

    The project management office

    The vast majority of PMOs are understaffed and underequipped.

    • They are often born out of necessity or desperation.
    • They have no long-terms goals; they tend to go from year to year trying to meet the organization’s needs.
    • They don’t have clear mandates, so it is difficult to determine how they are providing value.
    • Over time (and sometimes even from day one), project management offices find that other tasks fall into their area of responsibility. This often happens when the work has nowhere else to go.
    • Resource management is the challenge, both in terms of being able to allocate skilled resources to projects and within the PMO itself. Staffing gaps within the PMO are often met by individuals wearing more than one hat.

    A stock photo of a circle of chairs in a field being occupied by only two people.

    2.1.2 Map your current structure

    30 minutes to 1 hour

    Input: Current org. charts and PMO structures, Info-Tech’s PMO Function Matrix

    Output: Structure chart

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff, Project managers

    1. As a group, review your current organizational and PMO structure.
    2. Map out both, or if your PMO is small, map out how it fits into the overall structure.
      • Make sure to think about your process, reporting structures, and escalation hierarchies.
      • Consider the capabilities on slide 59 as you work.
      • Use the sample structure on the next page as a guide.

    Stock image of a business hierarchy.

    Sample PMO structure

    Sample PMO structure with 'PMO Director' at the top. 'Portfolio Administrator' below, but not directly in charge of others. Then 'Program Manager', 'Change Manager', 'Resource Management Analyst', 'Business Relationship Manager', and 'Business Analyst' all report to the PMO Director. Below 'Program Manager' are two 'Project Managers' then 'Project Coordinator'. Stock photo of a hand placing a puzzle piece of a business person on it into a puzzle.

    Info-Tech’s PMO Function Matrix

    Info-Tech’s potential PMO capabilities are in the header of the table below.

    Portfolio Management Resource Management Project Management Organizational Change Management PMO Governance
    Recordkeeping and bookkeeping Strategy management Assessment of available supply of people and their time Project status reporting PM SOP
    (e.g. feed the portfolio, project planning, task managing)
    Benefits management Technology and infrastructure
    Reporting Financial management HR Security
    PMIS Intake Matching supply to demand based on time, cost, scope, and skill set requirements Procurement and vendor management Legal Financial
    CRM/RM/BRM Program management
    Tracking of utilization based on the allocations Quality Intake
    Time Accounting PM services
    (e.g. staffing project managers or coordinators)
    Quality assurance Organizational change management Project progress, visibility, and process
    Forecasting of utilization via supply-demand reconciliation Closure and lessons learned
    Administrative support PM Training

    2.1.3 Inventory assessment

    30-45 minutes

    Input: Understanding of your current situation regarding project intake and process

    Output: Survey results

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff, Project managers

    When staffing your PMO, it is important to understand your current situation regarding project intake and process.

    Answer the following questions, and be as detailed as possible:

    • What is your project intake process?
    • How many projects do you currently have?
    • How many people lead projects?
    • Are those who lead projects distributed (federated) or centralized?
    • What tools do you use to manage your portfolio, projects, and resources?

    Stock image of a magnifying glass over an idea lightbulb surrounded by the six classic question words.

    2.1.4 Job description survey

    45 minutes to 1 hour

    Input: Tab 1 of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    Output: List of current projects, processes, and tools

    Materials: PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff, Project managers

    On tab 1 of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook, use the survey to help determine potential role requirements across various project portfolio management, project management, business analysis, and organizational change management activities.

    Follow these steps to complete the survey:

    1. Consider the role that you are trying to fill.
    2. Read each question carefully and use the drop-down menu to answer whether the activity in column C is a core, ancillary, or out-of-scope job duty.

    Download the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    2.1.4 Job description survey continued

    Sample of the Job Description Survey with questions and responses.

    Step 2.2

    Build Job Descriptions

    Activities
    • 2.2.1 Analyze Survey Results
    • 2.2.2 FTE Analysis
    • 2.2.3 Create Your Job Descriptions

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Complete the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook
    • Create job descriptions

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO director and/or portfolio manager
    • PMO staff/stakeholders
    • Project managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • PMO org. chart
    • Completed job descriptions

    Staff Your PMO for Resilience

    Step 2.1 Step 2.2

    2.2.1 Analyze survey results

    30 minutes

    Tab 2 of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook shows the survey results from tab 1.

    The job activities are ranked in a prioritized list. The analysis will help you determine if you require a portfolio manager, program manager, project manager, business analyst, organizational change manager, or a combination.

    Follow these steps to analyze your results:

    • Digest the prioritized ranking. The job activities are ranked in a prioritized list (from most essential to the role to least essential) in column D. The core process or capability that corresponds to each activity is listed in column C.
    • Use the drop-down menu in column F to decide if the core job duties and ancillary job duties will or will not be included in the role description. Out-of-scope activities will automatically be removed.

    Screenshot of the 'Job Description Survey Results' from the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook.

    Download the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    2.2.2 FTE analysis

    30 minutes

    Input: Tab 3 of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    Output: Total estimated monthly time commitments, Preliminary FTE analysis

    Materials: PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff, Project managers

    Tab 3 of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook is used to complete the FTE analysis.

    Download the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    2.2.2 FTE analysis continued

    Screenshot of the 'FTE analysis' on tab 3 of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook. It has a table with columns for 'Rank', 'Process', 'Activity', and 'Est. Monthly Time Commitments (aka Column E)' with note 'Base these initial estimates on the number of projects and project teams, as well as the number of internal and external customers and stakeholders'. There is also a table of totals with a pie chart of the 'Distribution of Role Responsibilities'. The value for 'Total Estimated Monthly Timing Commitment' is in cell J5, and the note for the value of 'Preliminary FTE Analysis' is 'If your preliminary FTE analysis comes out to be more than 1 FTE, you may want to revisit your analysis on tabs 1 and 2 to further limit this role, or to further delineate it across multiple roles and FTEs'.

    On tab 3, use column E to estimate the monthly time commitments required for each activity in the role.

    Tip: Base estimates on the number of projects and project teams as well as the number of internal and external stakeholders across the portfolio(s) of projects and programs.

    Cell J5 will provide a preliminary recommended FTE count for the role.

    Job description content

    Screenshot of the 'Job Description Content' section of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook.

    This is an output tab based on your analysis in tabs 1 and 2. Copy and paste the content and add it under the relevant heading in Info-Tech's Blank Job Description Template later in this blueprint.

    Screenshot of the 'Blank Job Description Template' section of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook.

    For each capability you are including in your job description, there is a list of common certifications. These can also be copied and pasted into the Blank Job Description Template.

    Download the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    How to determine the roles in your PMO

    It’s not black and white.

    While your PMO should have someone to lead the team, aside from that it’s hard to be specific about the exact roles your PMO needs without understanding the needs of your organization.

    This is why it’s important to define your PMO first. Your team members should best support the function and capabilities of your PMO.

    For example:

    • If you want to provide a training program to project managers, you’ll need your PMO to have people with experience delivering training and with experience having done the job before.
    • If your PMO provides management information and deep portfolio analysis, you’ll need someone on the team who knows their way around data analysis tools.

    You should have a mix of skills in the PMO team, each complementing the others. You may have administrators and coordinators, data analysts and software experts, trainers, coaches, and senior managers.

    “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” (African proverb)

    Managing projects and building PMOs are not the same thing

    Your best project manager should be running projects, and, no, they can’t do both.

    • Your new PMO needs a leader to get it off the ground, but don’t assume that the best project manager is best suited to build the PMO. The goal-oriented passion of a successful project manager may prove to be antithetical to the forward-looking finesse and political acumen needed to develop and staff the PMO as an organizational unit. Avoid the common mistake of promoting effective people into positions where they become ineffective, a concept often referred to as “The Peter Principle.”
    • You can’t determine if your best project manager fits the PMO leadership role if the PMO’s role isn’t clearly defined. Carefully define and clearly articulate the PMO’s role to understand the skill set needed to develop and lead your PMO.
    • Project managers often propose to create a PMO without considering the fit with project portfolio management and organizational change management. If the leadership doesn’t understand the magnitude of what is being requested, they may well think a project manager is best suited to run the PMO. The prestige and/or compensation is attractive, but project managers will often spin their wheels and naturally focus on what they know how to do: manage projects. Start with a PMO design to align with business expectations.

    The Peter Principle

    The Peter Principle was first introduced by Canadian sociologist Laurence Johnston Peter describing the pitfalls of bureaucratic organizations. The original principle states that "in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their level of incompetence.” The principle is based on the observation that whenever someone succeeds at their job, the organizational response is to promote them, thus people will continue to be promoted until they reach a point where they’re no longer excelling at their job. At that point, they would no longer be promoted. Followed to its logical conclusion, organizations will continue to take successful people and rotate them to new positions until they are no longer effective.

    PMO Director/Lead

    Job overviews for different kinds of PMO directors.

    The job descriptions on the next few pages are associated with the descriptive headings, but it is important to recognize that these diverse roles can all fall under the job title of PMO director.

    Portfolio Management

    As PMO director, you will oversee the throughput of IT projects using portfolio management, project management, and organizational change management disciplines.

    You and your team will directly manage the intake of new project requests, the preparation of evaluation-ready project proposals, and the handoff of approved project initiation documents to project managers in other departments. You will forecast and track the availability of people to do the project work throughout the project life cycle. You will publish monthly and annual portfolio reporting based on information collected from the project teams, and you will oversee the closure of projects with follow-up reporting to those who approved them.

    From time to time, the PMO may be required to identify projects that should be frozen or canceled based on criteria set forth by the leadership and/or industry best practices.

    While currently out of scope, successful candidates should be comfortable with the possibility that the PMO may required to develop full life cycle organizational change management in the future. As well, experienced project managers in the PMO may be required to manage high-risk, high-visibility projects from time to time.

    PMO Director/Lead

    Job overviews for different kinds of PMO directors.

    Project Management

    As PMO director, you will oversee a team of professional project managers who are responsible for the company’s high-risk, high-visibility, and strategic projects.

    You and your team will receive initiation documents and assigned resourcing for approved projects from the company’s authorized decision makers. You will manage the fulfillment of the project requirements, providing regular status updates to project and portfolio stakeholders and escalating concerns when projects are struggling to meet their commitments for scope, cost, and timelines.

    Over time, the PMO will take on an increasing role in organizational change management. The PMO will transition its focus from project delivery to business outcomes. Over time, the PMO will transition project sponsors from articulating requirements to delivering results.

    Project Policy

    As PMO director, you will oversee the establishment, support, and promotion of company-wide standards for project management.

    You and your team will modernize and maintain the company policy manuals and processes for everything related to project management. You will adapt our legacy PMBOK-based standards to cover iterative project management approaches as well as the more formal approaches required for construction projects, outsourced projects, and a wide variety of non-IT projects.

    PMO Director/Lead

    Job overviews for different kinds of PMO directors.

    Project Governance

    As PMO director, you will oversee the governance of project spending, delivery, and impact.

    You and your team will ensure that project proposals address the broad needs of the organization via strategic alignment, operational alignment, appropriateness of timing, identification and management of risk, and ability to execute. You will represent the needs and interests of the shareholder, ratepayer, or constituent by validating adherence to the organization’s published policies for project, portfolio, and organizational change management.

    The PMO is independent from the broader information technology division and will retain a mandate to ensure transparency and disclosure relative to the consumption of the organization’s scarce resources in the pursuit of high-risk IT projects.

    Stock photo of a compass pointing in the direction of leadership.

    Info-Tech sample job descriptions

    Use the sample job descriptions available with this blueprint as a guide when creating your descriptions.

    1. PMO Director
    2. Portfolio Manager
    3. Portfolio Administrator
    4. Project Manager
    5. Project Coordinator
    6. Resource Management Analyst
    1. Program Manager
    2. Change Manager
    3. Business Analyst
    4. Business Relationship Manager
    5. Product Owner
    6. Scrum Master

    Stock photo of a pen resting on a 'job duties' section of a job description.

    2.2.3 Create your job descriptions

    30 minutes

    Input: PMO Job Description Builder Workbook

    Output: Job descriptions

    Materials: Blank Job Description Template

    Participants: PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff, Project managers

    When you’ve determined the roles you need, you can start creating your job descriptions. If none of our out-of-the-box, pre-populated job description templates suit your needs, use the results of Info-Tech’s PMO Job Description Builder Workbook and the Blank Job Description Template to create your purpose-built job description.

    Follow these steps to create your job description:

    1. Copy the content from tab 4 of the PMO Job Description Builder Workbook and paste it under the relevant headings in the “Responsibilities” section of the Blank Job Description Template. Delete any unused headings if they are not relevant to your role. Additionally, use the list of common certifications on tab 4 of the Workbook to inform that section of the Blank Job Description Template.
    2. Use the sample job descriptions on the blueprint landing page as a guide for filling out the remaining sections of the document.

    Download the Blank Job Description Template

    2.2.3 Create your job descriptions continued

    Screenshot of the Blank Job Description Template.

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    Phase 3

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Get a Common Understanding of Your PMO Options
    • 1.2 Determine Where You Are and Engage Your Leadership

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Identify Organizational Design
    • 2.2. Build Job Descriptions

    Phase 3

    • 3.1 Create Roadmap
    • 3.2 Governance and OCM

    Having a strategy is essential but real value and benefits are delivered through projects

    9.9% of every dollar is wasted due to poor project performance

    52% of projects are delivered to stakeholder satisfaction

    51% of projects are likely to meet original the goal and business intent
    (Source: Project Management Institute, 2018)

    You’re always going to have troubled projects

    Have the organizational discipline to step away from the mess and develop a plan.

    • The world of modern project management has been in place for over 50 years and yet business leaders still seem to put the pressure on troubled projects instead of broken processes.
    • With higher portfolio maturity comes higher performance, warranting investment in the PMO.
    • Instead of alternative cost-reduction measures, such as stopping an individual project, we find that PMO resources (or the entire PMO) are being cut. In most cases, this demonstrates a lack of understanding of the value of portfolio management processes and related impacts.
    • Plan for a series of improvements over time so you’re not continually using your PMO resources on troubled projects. Instead, maintain an ongoing focus on improvement.

    Stock photo of an axe stuck in a piece of wood.
    “If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.” (Anonymous woodsman)

    All improvements cannot be done at once

    • The difference in a winning PMO is determined by a roadmap or plan created at the beginning.
    • Leaders should understand the full scope of the plan before committing their teams to the project.
    • All improvements cannot be done at once. The best PMOs create an approach of overall governance and strictly adhere to it. After the approach is defined, a roadmap can be plotted, executed, and delivered effectively.
    • The exercise of creating a roadmap is less about the plan and more about raising the level of understanding for stakeholders.
    • We often find that the PMO is ahead of the business's views of how the PMO can support and add value to the business. A lot of effort is spent trying to convince businesses of the value of a PMO, usually without complete success.
    • The PMO needs to align to the strategic goals of the business, providing the business understands or accepts that alignment. By aligning your roadmap activities to business drivers, you are more likely to get ownership from the business for the initiatives.
    Stock image of a winding path between two map markers.

    A PMO can benefit your business and organization as a whole

    Your PMO can:

    1. Help to align the project or portfolio with a focus on the future strategy of the organization.
    2. Be a mechanism to deliver projects successfully, keep them on track, and report when scheduling, budget, and other scope issues could derail the project.
    3. Create a portfolio of projects and understand the links and dependencies between the projects. This provides you with a bird's-eye view to make better decisions based on changes as they arise.
    4. Facilitate better communications with customers and stakeholders.
    5. Enforce project management governance and ensure consistent standards throughout the organization.
    6. Strategize on how to best use shared resources and best use them productively.

    “If you run projects and the projects have a significant level of cost or have significant level of impact, then you can really benefit from a PMO. Certainly, the larger the projects, the bigger the budget, the more there are projects, then the more you can benefit from a PMO.” (Michael Fritsch, Vice President PMO, Confoe)

    “PMOs are there to ensure project and program success and that’s critical because organizations deliver value through projects and programs.” (Brian Weiss, Vice President, Practitioner Career Development, Project Management Institute)

    Step 3.1

    Create Roadmap

    Activities
    • 3.1.1 Business Goals
    • 3.1.2 Roadmap
    • 3.1.3 Resources

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Determine business goals
    • Create roadmap
    • Establish resources

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO director and/or portfolio manager
    • PMO staff/stakeholders
    • Project managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • PMO roadmap aligned to business goals

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    Step 3.1 Step 3.2

    3.1.1 Business goals and priorities

    30 minutes

    Input: Business strategies and goals, Current PMO org. chart

    Output: An initial short, medium, long-term roadmap of initiatives

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Sticky notes, Slide 83

    Participants: IT leaders/CIO, PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff, Project managers

    When you are determining what your PMO will provide in the future, it is important to align the ambition of the PMO with the maturity of the business. Too often, a lot of effort is spent trying to convince businesses of the value of a PMO.

    Before you develop your roadmap, try to seek out the key strategies that the business is currently driving to get the proper ownership for the proposed initiatives.

    • What does leadership want to accomplish?
    • What are the key strategies the business is currently driving?
    • What are the current pain points?

    Once you’ve established the business strategies, start mapping out your initiatives:

    • For each initiative, consider the activities you think will work best to take you from your current to future state. It’s okay to keep this high level, we will break them down later in the blueprint.
    • Don’t place activities on a roadmap with dates yet. Use the table on the next slide to record the activities against each initiative at a high level.
    Current State Business Strategies PMO Initiatives Future State Business Strategies
    Short Term Medium Term Long Term
    Portfolio Management Project Intake Process
    Triage Process
    Project Levelling
    Book of Record
    Approval
    Prioritization
    Reporting
    Resource Allocation
    Resource Management
    Project Management Standardize Project Management
    Methodologies
    PM Training
    Organizational Change Management Benefits
    Governance Project progress, visibility, and process
    Documentation

    3.1.2 Create your roadmap

    1-2 hours

    Services should be introduced gradually and your PMO roadmap should clearly highlight this and explain when key deliverables will be achieved.

    Consider the below top-level tasks and add any others that pertain to your organization:

    • Enable Transition
    • Establish Governance
    • Organizational Chart
    • Technology and Infrastructure
    • Develop Portfolio Management Capabilities and Guidelines
    • Standardize Project Management Methodology
    • Organizational Change Management
    • Strategy Management

    Download Info-Tech’s PMO MS Project Plan Sample to see a full list of top-level tasks and second-level tasks. Once done, you can visually plot the tasks on a roadmap. See the next few slides for roadmap visuals.

    Stock photo of median lines on a road with the years 2021-2023 painted between them.

    Download the PMO MS Project Plan Sample

    Screenshot of PMO MS Project Plan Sample

    Screenshot of PMO MS Project Plan Sample with notes point out the headings as 'Top-level hierarchy' and the list contents as 'Second-level-hierarchy'.

    Sample roadmap

    A sample roadmap with column headers 'Task' and 'Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4', and 'Q1' with 3 months beneath each quarter. Under 'Task' are 'Establish Tradition', 'Establish Governance', 'Organizational Chart', and 'Technology and Infrastructure'; these are the 'Top-level-hierarchy'. There are arrows laid out in the table cross section with different steps; these are the 'Second-level hierarchy'.

    Sample roadmap

    A sample roadmap with monthly column headers 'Jan' through 'Jun'. Rows are 'Develop Portfolio Management Capabilities and Guidelines', 'Standardize Project Management Methodology', and 'Design Resource Management Process'. There are processes laid out in the table cross section that are color-coded as 'Completed', 'In progress', and 'Planned'.

    Consider the resources you will need

    Use these Info-Tech resources to make sure your roadmap will be successful.

    Finances – Understand and be transparent about the real costs of your project.

    People – Strategize according to skill sets and availability. Use the org. chart in phase 2 of this blueprint as a starting place (slide 58).

    Assets – Determine the tangible resources you may buy like software and licenses.

    Stock photo of a thinking man.

    3.1.3 Define resources

    30 minutes

    Input: Project documentation, Current resources

    Output: List of resources for your PMO

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT leaders/CIO, PMO director and/or portfolio manager, PMO staff, Project managers

    Resources for your projects include staff, equipment, and materials. Resource management at the PMO level will help you manage those resources, get visibility into projects, and keep them moving forward. Be sure to consider the resources that will get your PMO off the ground.

    Determine the resources you currently have and the resources your PMO will need and add them to your strategic plan:

    1. Finances — It’s essential that you know, and are transparent about, the real cost of creating your PMO and new process. Don’t forget to consider post deployment costs as well.
    2. People — Every project depends on the skill sets that individual team members bring to the table. Strategize according to these skill sets and their availability for the duration of a project. Some team members may have other work responsibilities and limited time for the project, so you need to accommodate this.
    3. Assets — These include the tangible resources you may have to buy, lease, or arrange for, such as workspace, software and licenses, computer hardware, testing equipment, and so on.

    Step 3.2

    Governance and OCM

    Activities
    • 3.2.1 Governance
    • 3.2.2 OCM
    • 3.2.3 Perform a Change Impact Analysis
    • 3.2.4 Determine Dimensions of Change
    • 3.2.5 Determine Depth of Impact

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Assess/understand governance
    • Conduct impact analysis

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO director and/or portfolio manager
    • PMO staff/stakeholders
    • Project managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • Governance Structures
    • Organizational Change Management Impact Analysis Tool

    Prepare an Actionable Roadmap for Your PMO

    Step 3.1 Step 3.2

    Clearly define the authority your PMO will have

    The following section includes slides from Info-Tech’s Make Governance Adaptable blueprint. Download the blueprint to dive deeper into IT governance.

    Governance is an important part of building a strong PMO. A PMO governance framework defines the authority and the support it requires to maximize portfolio and project management capabilities throughout the business. It should sit within your overall governance framework and as the PMO matures, its roles and responsibilities will also change to adapt with business demands and additional capabilities.

    Your framework can:

    • Specify PMO authority
    • Introduce and apply process standards, polices, and directives as it pertains to project and portfolio management
    • Facilitate executive and leadership involvement
    • Foster a collaborative environment between the PMO and the business

    A PMO governance framework enables PMO leaders to establish the common guidelines and manage the distribution of authority given to the PMO.

    Visit Make Your IT Governance Adaptable

    Stock photo of a group working together.

    Common causes of poor governance

    Key causes of poor or misaligned governance
    1. Governance and its value to your organization is not well understood, often being confused or integrated with more granular management activities.
    2. Business executives fail to understand that IT governance is a function of the business and not the IT department.
    3. Poor past experiences have made “governance” a bad word in the organization – a constraint and barrier that must be circumvented to get work done.
    4. There is misalignment between accountability and authority throughout the organization, and the wrong people are involved in governance practices.
    5. There is an unwillingness to change a governance approach that has served the organization well in the past, leading to challenges when the organization starts to change practices and speed of delivery.
    6. There is a lack of data and data-related capabilities required to support good decision making and the automation of governing decisions.
    7. The goals and strategy of the organization are not known or understood, leaving nothing for IT governance to orient around.
    Five key symptoms of ineffective governance committees
    1. No actions or decisions are generated – The committee produces no value and makes no decisions after it meets. The lack of value output makes the usefulness of the committee questionable.
    2. Overallocation of resources – There is a lack of clear understanding of capacity and value in work to be done, leading to consistent underestimation of required resources and resource overallocation.
    3. Decisions are changed outside of committee – Decisions that are made or initiatives that are approved are changed when the proper decision makers are involved or the right information becomes available.
    4. Decisions conflict with organizational direction – Governance decisions conflict with organizational needs, showing a visible lack of alignment and behavioral disconnects that work against organizational success. Often due to power that’s not accounted for within the structure.
    5. Consistently poor outcomes are produced from governance direction – Lack of business acumen in members and relevant data or understanding of organizational goals drives poor measured outcomes from the decisions made in the committee.

    IT PMO

    Chair:
    Updated:

    Mandate

    Ensure business value is achieved through information and technology (IT) investments by aligning strategic objectives and client needs with IT initiatives and their outcomes.

    Committee Goals

    • Maximize throughput of the most valuable projects
    • Ensure visibility of current and pending projects
    • Minimize resource waste and optimize of alignment of skills to assignments
    • Clarify accountability for post-project benefits attainment and facilitate the tracking/reporting of those benefits
    • Drive approval and prioritization of IT initiatives based on their alignment with business goals and strategy
    • Establish a consistent process for handling intake/demand

    Committee Metrics

    • % of approved IT initiatives that measure benefit achievement upon completion
    • % of IT initiatives with direct alignment to organizational strategic direction
    • % of initiatives approved by exception

    Decisions and responsibilities by purpose

    Responsibilities
    STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT

    Ensure initiatives align with organizational objectives
    Embed strategic goals and prioritization approach within process
    Define intake approach

    VALUE DELIVERY
    • Ensure all IT initiatives have a defined value expectation (excepting innovation activities)
    • Approve and prioritize IT initiatives based on value
    RISK MANAGEMENT

    Assess risk as a factor of prioritizing and approving initiatives

    RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

    Decide on the allocation of IT resources

    PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

    Ensure process is in place to measure and validate performance of IT initiatives

    Committee Membership
    Role

    CIO, Product Owner, Service Owner, IT VPs, BRM, PMO Director, CISO/CRO

    Individual

    IT Steering Committee

    Chair:
    Updated:

    Mandate

    Ensure business value is achieved through information and technology (IT) investments by aligning strategic objectives and client needs with IT initiatives and their outcomes.

    Committee Goals

    • Align IT initiatives with organizational goals
    • Evaluate, approve, and prioritize IT initiatives
    • Approve IT strategy
    • Reinforce (if provided) or establish risk appetite and threshold
    • Confirm value achievement of approved initiatives
    • Set target investment mix and optimize IT resource utilization

    Committee Metrics

    • % of approved IT initiatives that meet or exceed value expectation
    • % of IT initiatives with direct alignment to organizational strategic direction
    • Level of satisfaction with IT decision making
    • % of initiatives approved by exception

    Committee Overview

    Committee Name Committee Membership Mandate
    Executive Leadership Committee CEO, CFO, CTO, CDO, CISO/CRO, CIO, Enterprise Architect/Chief Architect, CPO Provide strategic and operational leadership to the company by establishing goals, developing strategy, and directing/validating strategic execution.
    Enterprise Risk Committee CISO/CRO, CPO, Enterprise Risk Manager, BU Leaders, CFO, CTO, CDO Govern enterprise risks to ensure that risk information is available and integrated to support governance decision making. Ensure the definition of the organizational risk posture and that an enterprise risk approach is in place.
    IT Steering Committee CIO, Product Owner, Service Owner, IT VPs, BRM, PMO Director, CISO/CRO Ensure business value is achieved through information and technology (IT) investments by aligning strategic objectives and client needs with IT initiatives and their outcomes.
    IT Risk Council IT Risk Manager, CISO, IT Directors Govern IT risks within the context of business strategy and objectives to align the decision-making processes towards the achievement of performance goals. It will also ensure that a risk management framework is in place and risk posture (risk appetite/threshold) is defined.
    PPM Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, BRMs Ensure the best alignment of IT initiatives and program activity to meet the goals of the business.
    Architectural Review Board Service/Product Owners, Enterprise Architects, Chief Architect, Domain Architects Ensure enterprise and related architectures are managed and applied enterprise-wise. Ensure the alignment of IT initiatives to business strategy and architecture and compliance to regulatory standards. Establish architectural standards and guidelines. Review and recommend initiatives.
    Change Advisory Board Service/Product Owner, Change Manager, IT Directors or Managers Ensure changes are assessed, prioritized, and approved to support the change management purpose of optimizing the throughput of successful changes with a minimum of disruption to business function.

    Decisions and responsibilities by purpose

    Responsibilities
    STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
    • Ensure initiatives align with organizational objectives
    • Approve strategies and policies that ensure the organization benefits from IT
    • Propose innovative uses of IT to enable the business to compete and perform better
    • Make decisions that account for human preferences and behavior
    VALUE DELIVERY
    • Validate the achievement of benefits from IT initiatives
    • Ensure all IT initiatives have a defined value expectation (excepting innovation activities)
    • Ensure stakeholder value and value drivers are understood
    • Prioritize IT work based on value
    • Define a prioritization approach with stakeholders
    RISK MANAGEMENT
    • Ensure creation, maintenance, and observation of policies and procedures, ensuring conformance where needed
    • Ensure ethical behavior in IT
    • Ensure IT meets the requirements of laws, regulations, and contracts
    • Develop or reinforce the risk appetite and threshold
    • Ensure risk management framework is in place
    RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
    • Identify the target investment mix
    • Decide on the allocation of IT resources
    • Define required IT capabilities
    PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
    • Confirm that IT supports business processes with the right capabilities and capacity
    • Ensure data is up to date and secure
    • Monitor the extent to which prioritization of IT resources matches organizational objectives
    • Measure extent to which IT supports the business
    • Measure adherence to regulations
    Committee Membership
    Role

    CIO, Product Owner, Service Owner, IT VPs, BRM, PMO Director, CISO/CRO

    Individual

    Sample Governance Model

    A sample governance model with four levels and roles dispersed throughout the levels with arrows indicating hierarchy. The levels are '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', 'Strategic: Ensures IT initiatives, products, and services are aligned to organizational goals and strategy and provide expected value. Ensure adherence to key principles', 'Tactical: Ensures key activities and planning are in place to execute strategic initiatives', and 'Operational: Ensures effective execution of day-to-day functions and practices to meet their key objectives'. Roles in Enterprise are 'Board', 'Executive Leadership Committee', and 'Enterprise Risk Committee'. Roles in Strategic are 'IT Steering Committee', plus three half in Strategic, 'IT PMO', 'Architectural Review Board', and 'IT Risk Council'. One role is half in Strategic and half in Tactical, 'Change Advisory Board'.

    3.2.1 Governance and authority

    1-3 hours

    Input: List of key tasks

    Output: Initial Authority Map

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Sticky notes, Strategic Plan

    Participants: IT leadership, Portfolio Manager (PMO Director), PMO Admin Team, Project Managers

    Now that you’ve determined the activities on your roadmap, it’s important to determine who is going to be responsible for the following:

    • Intake Scoring
    • Project Approvals
    • Staffing and Resource Management
    • Portfolio Reporting
    • Communications and Organizational Change Management
    • Benefits Attainment
    • Formalized Project Closure
    1. For each task have participants discuss who is ultimately accountable for the decision and who has the ultimate authority to make that decision.
    2. Place the sticky notes on the swim lanes in the strategic plan to represent the area or person has authority over it.
    3. Add all initiatives to your PMO governance framework.

    Download the PMO Strategic Plan

    Governance and Authority

    Committee Name Committee Membership
    Executive Leadership Committee CEO, CFO, CTO, CDO, CISO/CRO, CIO, Enterprise Architect/Chief Architect, CPO
    Enterprise Risk Committee CISO/CRO, CPO, Enterprise Risk Manager, BU Leaders, CFO, CTO, CDO
    IT Steering Committee CIO, Product Owner, Service Owner, IT VPs, BRM, PMO Director, CISO/CRO
    IT Risk Council IT Risk Manager, CISO, IT Directors,
    PPM Portfolio Manager, Project Managers, BRMs
    Architectural Review Board Service/Product Owners, Enterprise Architects, Chief Architect, Domain Architects
    Change Advisory Board Service/Product Owner, Change Manager, IT Directors or Managers

    PMO Governance Framework

    PMO Authority
    • Resource Management
    • Customer Relationship
    • Vendor & Contractor Relationships
    • Intake and Scoring
    • Project Approvals
    • Organizational Change Management
    Standards and Policies
    • Portfolio Management Process
    • Project Governance
    Guidelines
    • Project Classification Guidelines
    Executive Oversight
    • Establish Steering Committees
    • Sponsorship
    • Spending Authorization
    • Execution Oversight
    • Spending Cessation
    • Benefits Attainment
    • Organizational Change Management

    Customize groupings as appropriate.

    Document key achievements governance initiatives.

    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.

    Organizational change management (OCM) is a supplement to project management that is needed to ensure the intended value is realized. It is the practice through which the PMO or other body can improve user adoption rates and maximize project benefits. Without it, IT might finish the project but the business might fail to recognize the intended benefits.

    Start with next step and refer to Info-Tech research on OCM for a deeper dive. 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.

    Change Impact Analysis

    1. It is important to establish a process for analyzing how the change of your PMO roadmap processes will impact different areas of the business and how to manage these impacts. Analyze change impacts across multiple dimensions to ensure nothing is overlooked.
    2. A thorough analysis of change impacts will help the PMO processes:
      • Bypass avoidable problems.
      • Remove non-fixed barriers to success.
      • Acknowledge and minimize the impacts of unavoidable barriers.
      • Identify and leverage potential benefits.
      • Measure the success of the change.

    3.2.2 Perform a change impact analysis to make your planning more complete

    Use Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool to weigh all the factors involved in the change.

    Info-Tech’s Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool helps to document the change impact across multiple dimensions, enabling you 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.

    Sample of the Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool.

    Download the Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool

    3.2.3 Assess the current state of your project environment

    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-down menus 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.

    Sample of the Impact Analysis Tool Set-Up Tab. There is a space for 'Project Name' and a list of 'Project Stakeholders'.
    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.

    3.2.4 Determine the relevant considerations for analyzing the change impacts

    15-30 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 13-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.

    Sample of the Change Impact Survey on tab 3 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-down menus in column K to record your responses.

    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.

    3.2.5 Determine the depth of each impact for each stakeholder group

    1-3 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 13 change impact tables (see next slide for a screenshot of one of these tables).
      • You may not need to use all 13 tables. The number of tables you use coincides with the number of “yes” responses you gave in the previous tab.
      • If you do not need all 13 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Use the drop-down menus 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-down menus is tied to a ranking table that informs the ratings on the two subsequent tabs.
    5. 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

    Screenshot of the Impact analysis tab of the Analysis Tool.

    The stakeholder groups entered on the Set Up tab 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-down menus 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-down menus to hypothesize what the stakeholder response might be. For the purpose of this impact analysis, a guess is fine. A more detailed communication plan can be created later.

    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.
    Projects in the red zone 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 zone also require a high level of change governance.
    Screenshot of 'Overall Impact Rating' scale on tab 5 of the Analysis Tool.
    To free up resources for those OCM initiatives that require more discipline, projects in the green zone 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.

    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.

    Screenshot of the Impact Analysis Outputs on tab 5 of the Analysis Tool. There are tables ranking risk impacts and stakeholders, as well as an impact zone map.

    This table displays the highest risk impacts based on frequency and action inputs on tab 4.

    Here you’ll find the stakeholders, ranked again based on frequency and action, who will be most impacted by the proposed changes.

    These are the five 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 Baseline Metrics

    Baseline metrics will be improved through:

    • A strong PMO is one than can link performance to the overall goals of the organization.
    • Use these examples of KPIs to measure success.
    Metric KPI
    Portfolio Performance Return on Investment (ROI) for projects and programs
    Alignment of spend with objectives
    Resource Utilization Rate (hours allocated to projects actual vs. allocation)
    Customer/Stakeholder Satisfaction
    # of strategic projects approved vs. completed
    Project/Program Performance % of completed projects (planned vs. actual)
    % of projects completed on time (based on original due date)
    % of projects completed on budget
    % of projects delivering their expected business outcomes
    Actual delivery of benefits vs. planned benefits
    % of customer satisfaction
    Project manager satisfaction rating
    PMO % of approved IT initiatives that measure benefit achievement upon completion
    % of IT initiatives with direct alignment to organizational strategic direction

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    Knowledge Gained
    • PMO Options and “Best Practices”
    • PMO Types
    • Key PMO Functions/Services

    The PMO staffing model that you use will depend on many different factors. It is in your hands to create and define what your staffing needs are for your organization.

    The success of your PMO is linked to the plan you create before executing on it.

    Processes Optimized
    • Establishing organizational need.
    • Getting situational awareness to build a solid foundation for the PMO.
    • Identifying organizational design and establishing PMO structure and staffing needs.
    • Creating an actionable roadmap.

    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

    Problem Solved

    Deliverables Completed
    • PMO Role Development Tool
    • Initial PMO Mandate
    • PMO Job Description Builder Workbook
    • PMO job descriptions
    • PMO Strategic Plan
    • Organizational Change Impact Analysis Tool

    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.

    Photo of Ugbad Farah.

    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:

    Sample of the Job Description Survey activity.
    Job Description Survey
    Use the survey to help determine potential role requirements across various project portfolio management, project management, business analysis, and organizational change management activities.
    Sample of the Job Descriptions builder activity.
    Create Your Job Descriptions
    Use the job descriptions as a guide when creating your own job descriptions based on the outputs from the tool.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Stock photo of two people looking over their finances. Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy
    Time is money; spend it wisely.
    Stock photo of a hand with a pen resting on paper. Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices
    Holistically balance IT supply and demand to avoid overallocation.
    Stock photo of light bending through a tunnel. Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects
    Spend less time managing processes and more time delivering results.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Stock photo of a group working on a project. Optimize IT Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization
    Decide which IT projects to approve and when to start them.
    Stock photo of a round table silhouetted in front of a window. Master Organizational Change Management Practices
    PMOs, if you don’t know who is responsible for org change, it’s you.
    Stock photo of the nose of a fighter jet. Set a Strategic Course of Action for the PMO in 100 Days
    Use your first 100 days as PMO leader to define a mandate for long-term success.

    Bibliography

    Alexander, Moira. “How to Develop a PMO Strategic Plan.” CIO, 11 July 2018. Web.

    Barlow, Gina, Andrew Tubb, and Grant Riley. “Driving Business Performance. Project Management Survey 2017.” KPMG, 2017. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

    Brennan, M. V., and G. Heerkens. “How we went from zero project management to PMO implementation—a real life story.” Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2009—North America, Orlando, FL. Project Management Institute, 13 October 2009. Web.

    Casey, W., and W. Peck. “Choosing the right PMO setup.” PM Network, vol. 15, no. 2, 2001, pp. 40-47. Web.

    “COBIT 2019 Framework Governance and Management Objectives.” ISACA, 2019. PDF.

    Crawford, J. K. “Staffing your strategic project office: seven keys to success.” Paper presented at Project Management Institute Annual Seminars & Symposium, San Antonio, TX. Project Management Institute, 2002. Web.

    Davis, Stanley M., and Paul R. Lawrence. “Problems of Matrix Organizations.” Harvard Business Review, May 1978. Web.

    Dow, William D. “Chapter 6: The Tactical Guide for Building a PMO.” Dow Publishing, 2012. PDF.

    Giraudo, L., and E. Monaldi. “PMO evolution: from the origin to the future.” Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2015—EMEA, London, England. Project Management Institute, 11 May 2015. Web.

    Greengard, S. “No PMO? Know when you need one.” PM Network, vol. 27, no. 12, 2013, pp. 44-49. Web.

    Hobbs, J. B., and M. Aubry. “What research is telling us about PMOs.” Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2009—EMEA, Amsterdam, North Holland, The Netherlands. Project Management Institute, May 2009. Web.

    Jordan, Andy. “Staffing the Strategic PMO.” ProjectManagement.com, 24 October 2016. Web.

    Lang, Greg. “5 Questions to Answer When Building a Roadmap.” LinkedIn, 2 October 2016. Accessed 15 Apr. 2021.

    Manello, Carl. “Establish a PMO Roadmap.” LinkedIn, 10 February 2021. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.

    Martin, Ken. “5 Steps to Set Up a Successful Project Management Office.” BrightWork, 9 July 2018. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.

    Miller, Jen A. “What Is a Project Management Office (PMO) and Do You Need One?” CIO, 19 October 2017. Accessed 16 Apr. 2021.

    Needs, Ian. “Why PMOs Fail: 5 Shocking PMO Statistics.” KeyedIn, 6 January 2014. Web.

    Ovans, Andrea. “Overcoming the Peter Principle.” Harvard Business Review, 22 December 2014. Web.

    PMI®. “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge.” 6th Ed. Project Management Institute, 2017.

    PMI®. “Ahead of the Curve: Forging a Future-Focused Culture.” Pulse of the Profession. Project Management Institute, 11 February 2020. Accessed 21 April 2021.

    PMI®. “Project Management: Job Growth and Talent Gap.” Project Management Institute, 2017. Web.

    PMI®. “Pulse of the Profession: Success in Disruptive Times.” Project Management Institute, 2018. Web.

    PMI®.“The Project Management Office: In Sync with Strategy.” Project Management Institute, March 2012. Web.

    “Project Management Organizational Structures.” PM4Dev, 2016. Web.

    Rincon, I. “Building a PMO from the ground up: Three stories, one result.” Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2014—North America, Phoenix, AZ. Project Management Institute, 26 October 2014. Web.

    Roseke, Bernie. “The 4 Types of Project Organizational Structure.” ProjectEngineer, 16 August 2019. Web.

    Sexton, Peter. “Project Delivery Performance: AIPM and KPMG Project Management Survey 2020 - KPMG Australia.” KPMG, 9 November 2020. Web.

    The Change Management Office (CMO). Prosci, n.d. Accessed 7 July 2021.

    “The New Face of Strategic Planning.” Project Smart, 27 March 2009. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.

    “The State of Project Management Annual Survey.” Wellington PPM Intelligence, 2018. Web.

    “The State of the Project Management Office : Enabling Strategy Execution Excellence.” PM Solutions Research, 2016. Web.

    Wagner, Rodd. “New Evidence The Peter Principle Is Real - And What To Do About It.” Forbes, 10 April 2018. Accessed 14 Apr. 2021.

    Wright, David. “Developing Your PMO Roadmap.” Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2012—North America, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Project Management Institute, 2012. Accessed 29 March 2021.

    The challenge of corporate security management

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    • Parent Category Name: Security and Risk
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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.

    cybersecurity

    Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization

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    • Parent Category Name: Strategy and Organizational Design
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    • Infrastructure & Operations is changing rapidly. It’s a constant challenge to find the right skills to support the next new technology while at the same time maintaining the skills in house that allow you to support your existing platforms.
    • A lack of clarity around required skills makes finding the right skills difficult, and it’s not clear whether you should train, hire, contract, or outsource to address gaps.
    • You need to keep up with changes and new strategy while continuing to support your existing environment.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Take a strategic approach to acquiring skills – looking only as far as the needs of the next project will lead to a constant skills shortage with no plan for it to be addressed.
    • Begin by identifying your future state. Identify needed skills in the organization to support planned projects and initiatives, and to mitigate skills-related risks.

    Impact and Result

    • Leverage your infrastructure roadmap and cloud strategy to identify needed skills in your future state environment.
    • Decide how you’ll acquire needed skills based on the characteristics of need for each skill.
    • Communicate the change and create a plan of action for the skills transformation.

    Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should map technical skills for a changing Infrastructure & Operations organization, 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. Identify skills needs for the future state environment

    Identify what skills are needed based on where the organization is going.

    • Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phase 1: Identify Skills Needs for Your Future State Environment
    • Future State Playbook
    • IT/Cloud Solutions Architect
    • IT/Cloud Engineer
    • IT/Cloud Administrator
    • IT/Cloud Demand Billing & Accounting Analyst

    2. Acquire needed skills

    Ground skills acquisition decisions in the characteristics of need.

    • Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phase 2: Acquire Needed Skills
    • Technical Skills Map

    3. Maximize the value of the skills map

    Get stakeholder buy-in; leverage the skills map in other processes.

    • Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization – Phase 3: Maximize the Value of Your Skills Map
    • Technical Skills Map Communication Deck Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Map Technical Skills for a Changing Infrastructure & Operations Organization

    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 Initiatives and Skills-Related Risks

    The Purpose

    Identify process and skills changes required by the future state of your environment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Set foundation for alignment between strategy-defined technology initiatives and needed skills.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the list of initiatives and projects with the group.

    1.2 Identify how key support, operational, and deployment processes will change through planned initiatives.

    1.3 Identify skills-related risks and pain points.

    Outputs

    Future State Playbook

    2 Identify Needed Skills and Roles

    The Purpose

    Identify process and skills changes required by the future state of your environment.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Set foundation for alignment between strategy-defined technology initiatives and needed skills.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify skills required to support the new environment.

    2.2 Map required skills to roles.

    Outputs

    IT/Cloud Architect Role Description

    IT/Cloud Engineer Role Description

    IT/Cloud Administrator Role Description

    3 Create a Plan to Acquire Needed Skills

    The Purpose

    Create a skills acquisition strategy based on the characteristics of need.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Optimal skills acquisition strategy defined.

    Activities

    3.1 Modify impact scoring scale for key skills decision factors.

    3.2 Apply impact scoring scales to needed skills

    3.3 Decide whether to train, hire, contract, or outsource to acquire needed skills.

    Outputs

    Technical Skills Map

    4 Develop a Communication Plan

    The Purpose

    Create an effective communication plan for different stakeholders across the organization.

    Identify opportunities to leverage the skills map elsewhere.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Create a concise, clear, consistent, and relevant change message for stakeholders across the organization.

    Activities

    4.1 Review skills decisions and decide how you will acquire skills in each role.

    4.2 Update roles descriptions.

    4.3 Create a change message.

    4.4 Identify opportunities to leverage the skills map in other processes.

    Outputs

    Technical Skills Map Communication Deck

    Take the First Steps to Embrace Open-Source Software

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    • Parent Category Name: Development
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    Your organization is looking to invest in new software or a tool to solve key business and IT problems. They see open source as a viable option given the advertised opportunities and the popularity of many open-source projects, but they have concerns:

    • Despite the longevity and broad adoption of open-source software, stakeholders are hesitant about its long-term viability and the costs of ongoing support.
    • A clear direction and strategy are needed to align the expected value of open source to your stakeholders’ priorities and gain the funding required to select, implement, and support open-source software.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Position open source in the same light as commercial software. The continuous improvement and evolution of popular open-source software and communities have established a reputation for reliability in the industry.
    • Consider open source as another form of outsource development. Open source is externally developed software where the code is accessible and customizable. Code quality may not align to your organization’s standards, which can require extensive testing and optimization.
    • Treat open source as any internally developed solution. Configurations, integrations, customizations, and orchestrations of open-source software are often done at the code level. While some community support is provided, most of the heavy lifting is done by the applications team.

    Impact and Result

    • Outline the value you expect to gain. Discuss current business and IT priorities, use cases, and value opportunities to determine what to expect from open-source versus commercial software.
    • Define your open-source selection criteria. Clarify the driving factors in your evaluation of open-source and commercial software using your existing IT procurement practices as a starting point.
    • Assess the readiness of your team. Clarify the roles, processes, and tools needed for the implementation, use, and maintenance of open-source software.

    Take the First Steps to Embrace Open-Source Software Research & Tools

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

    1. Take the First Steps to Embrace Open-Source Software Storyboard – A guide to learn the fit, value, and considerations of open-source software.

    This research walks you through the misconceptions about open source, factors to consider in its selection, and initiatives to prepare your teams for its adoption.

    • Take the First Steps to Embrace Open-Source Software Storyboard

    2. Open-Source Readiness Assessment – A tool to help you evaluate your readiness to embrace open-source software in your environment.

    Use this tool to identify key gaps in the people, processes, and technologies needed to support open source in your organization. It also contains a canvas to facilitate discussions about expectations with your stakeholders and applications teams.

    • Open-Source Readiness Assessment
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Take the First Steps to Embrace Open-Source Software

    Begin to understand what is required to embrace open-source software in your organization.

    Analyst Perspective

    With great empowerment comes great responsibilities.

    Open-source software promotes enticing technology and functional opportunities to any organization looking to modernize without the headaches of traditional licensing. Many organizations see the value of open source in its ability to foster innovation, be flexible to various use cases and system configurations, and give complete control to the teams who are using and managing it.

    However, open source is not free. While the software is freely and easily accessible, its use and sharing are bound by its licenses, and its implementation requires technical expertise and infrastructure investments. Your organization must be motivated and capable of taking on the various services traditionally provided and managed by the vendor.

    Photo of Andrew Kum-Seun

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

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Your organization is looking to invest in new software or a tool to solve key business and IT problems. They see open source as a viable option because of the advertised opportunities and the popularity of many open-source projects.

    Despite the longevity and the broad adoption of open-source software, stakeholders are hesitant about its adoption, its long-term viability, and the costs of ongoing support.

    A clear direction and strategy is needed to align the expected value of open source to your stakeholders’ priorities and gain the funding required to select, implement, and support open-source software.

    Common Obstacles

    Your stakeholders’ fears, uncertainties, and doubts about open source may be driven by misinterpretation or outdated information. This hesitancy can persist despite some projects being active longer than their proprietary counterparts.

    Certain software features, support capabilities, and costs are commonly overlooked when selecting open-source software because they are often assumed in the licensing and service costs of commercial software.

    Open-source software is often technically complicated and requires specific skill sets and knowledge. Unfortunately, current software delivery capability gaps impede successful adoption and scaling of open-source software.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Outline the value you expect to gain. Discuss current business and IT priorities, use cases, and value opportunities to determine what to expect from open-source versus commercial software.

    Define your open-source selection criteria. Clarify the driving factors in your evaluation of open-source and commercial software using your existing IT procurement practices as a starting point.

    Assess the readiness of your team. Clarify the roles, processes, and tools needed for the implementation, use, and maintenance of open-source software.

    Insight Summary

    Overarching Info-Tech Insight

    Open source is as much about an investment in people as it is about technology. It empowers applications teams to take greater control over their technology and customize it as they see fit. However, teams need the time and funding to conduct the necessary training, management, and ongoing community engagement that open-source software and its licenses require.

    • Position open source in the same light as commercial software.
      The continuous improvement and evolution of popular open-source software and communities have established a trusting and reliable reputation in the industry. Open-source software quality and community support can rival similar vendor capabilities given the community’s maturity and contributions in the technology.
    • Consider open source another form of outsource development.
      Open source is externally developed software where the code is accessible and customizable. Code quality may not align to your organization’s standards, which can require extensive testing and optimization. A thorough analysis of change logs, code repositories, contributors, and the community is recommended – much to the same degree as one would do with prospective outsourcing partners.
    • Treat open source as any internally developed solution.
      Configurations, integrations, customizations, and orchestrations of open-source software are often done at the code level. While some community support is provided, most of the heavy lifting is done by the applications team. Teams must be properly resourced, upskilled, and equipped to meet this requirement. Otherwise, third-party partners are needed.

    What is open source?

    According to Synopsys, “Open source software (OSS) is software that is distributed with its source code, making it available for use, modification, and distribution with its original rights. … Programmers who have access to source code can change a program by adding to it, changing it, or fixing parts of it that aren’t working properly. OSS typically includes a license that allows programmers to modify the software to best fit their needs and control how the software can be distributed.”

    What are the popular use cases?

    1. Programming languages and frameworks
    2. Databases and data technologies
    3. Operating systems
    4. Git public repos
    5. Frameworks and tools for AI/ML/DL
    6. CI/CD tooling
    7. Cloud-related tools
    8. Security tools
    9. Container technology
    10. Networking

    Source: OpenLogic, 2022

    Common Attributes of All Open-Source Software

    • Publicly shared repository that anyone can access to use the solution and contribute changes to the design and functionality of the project.
    • A community that is an open forum to share ideas and solution enhancements, discuss project direction and vision, and seek support from peers.
    • Project governance that sets out guidelines, rules, and requirements to participate and contribute to the project.
    • Distribution license that defines the terms of how a solution can be used, assessed, modified, and distributed.

    Take the first steps to embrace open-source software

    Begin to understand what is required to embrace open-source software in your organization.

    A diagram of open-source community.

    State the Value of Open Source: Discuss current business and IT priorities, use cases, and value opportunities to determine what to expect from open-source versus commercial software.

    Select Your Open-Source Software: Clarify the driving factors in your evaluation of open-source and commercial software using your existing IT procurement practices as a starting point.

    Prepare for Open Source: Clarify the roles, processes, and tools needed for the implementation, use, and maintenance of open-source software.

    Step 1.1: State the Value of Open Source

    Diagram of step 1.1

    Activities

    1.1.1 Outline the value you expect to gain from open-source software

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Applications team
    • Product owner

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Value proposition for open source
    • Potential open-source use cases

    Use a canvas to frame your open-source evaluation

    A photo of open-source canvas

    This canvas is intended to provide a single pane of glass to start collecting your thoughts and framing your future conversations on open-source software selection and adoption.

    Record the results in the “Open-Source Canvas” tab in the Open-Source Readiness Assessment.

    Open source presents unique software and tooling opportunities

    Innovation

    Many leading-edge and bleeding-edge technologies are collaborated and innovated in open-source projects, especially in areas that are beyond the vision and scope of vendor products and priorities.

    Niche Solutions

    Open-source projects are focused. They are designed and built to solve specific business and technology problems.

    Flexible & Customizable

    All aspects of the open-source software are customizable, including source code and integrations. They can be used to extend, complement, or replace internally developed code. Licenses define how open-source code should be and must be used, productized, and modified.

    Brand & Recognition

    Open-source communities encourage contribution and collaboration among their members to add functionality and improve quality and adoption.

    Cost

    Open-source software is accessible to everyone, free of charge. Communities do not need be consulted prior to acquisition, but the software’s use, configurations, and modifications may be restricted by its license.

    However, myths continue to challenge adoption

    • Open source is less secure or poorer quality than proprietary solutions.
    • Open source is free from risk of intellectual property (IP) infringement.
    • Open source is cheaper than proprietary solutions.

    What are the top perceived barriers to using enterprise open source?

    • Concerns about the level of support
    • Compatibility concerns
    • Concerns about inherent security of the code
    • Lack of internal skills to manage and support it

    Source: Red Hat, 2022

    Create an Architecture for AI

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    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
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    This research is designed to help organizations who are facing these challenges:

    • Deliver on the AI promise within the organization.
    • Prioritize the demand for AI projects and govern the projects to prevent overloading resources.
    • Have sufficient data management capability.
    • Have clear metrics in place to measure progress and for decision making.

    AI requires a high level of maturity in all data management capabilities, and the greatest challenge the CIO or CDO faces is to mature these capabilities sufficiently to ensure AI success.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Build your target state architecture from predefined best-practice building blocks.
    • Not all business use cases require AI to increase business capabilities.
    • Not all organizations are ready to embark on the AI journey.
    • Knowing the AI pattern that you will use will simplify architecture considerations.

    Impact and Result

    • This blueprint will assist organizations with the assessment, planning, building, and rollout of their AI initiatives.
      • Do not embark on an AI project with an immature data management practice. Embark on initiatives to fix problems before they cripple your AI projects.
      • Using architecture building blocks will speed up the architecture decision phase.
    • The success rate of AI initiatives is tightly coupled with data management capabilities and a sound architecture.

    Create an Architecture for AI Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to understand why you need an underlying architecture for AI, 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 business use cases for AI readiness

    Define business use cases where AI may bring value. Evaluate each use case to determine the company’s AI maturity in people, tools, and operations for delivering the correct data, model development, model deployment, and the management of models in the operational areas.

    • Create an Architecture for AI – Phase 1: Assess Business Use Cases for AI Readiness
    • AI Architecture Assessment and Project Planning Tool
    • AI Architecture Assessment and Project Planning Tool – Sample

    2. Design your target state

    Develop a target state architecture to allow the organization to effectively deliver in the promise of AI using architecture building blocks.

    • Create an Architecture for AI – Phase 2: Design Your Target State
    • AI Architecture Templates

    3. Define the AI architecture roadmap

    Compare current state with the target state to define architecture plateaus and build a delivery roadmap.

    • Create an Architecture for AI – Phase 3: Define the AI Architecture Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Create an Architecture for AI

    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 “Where To?”

    The Purpose

    Define business use cases where AI may add value and assess use case readiness.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Know upfront if all required data resources are available in the required velocity, veracity, and variety to service the use case.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the business vision.

    1.2 Identify and classify business use cases.

    1.3 Assess company readiness for each use case.

    1.4 Review architectural principles and download and install Archi.

    Outputs

    List of identified AI use cases

    Assessment of each use case

    Data sources needed for each use case

    Archi installed

    2 Define the Required Architecture Building Blocks

    The Purpose

    Define architecture building blocks that can be used across use cases and data pipeline.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    The architectural building blocks ensure reuse of resources and form the foundation of a stepwise rollout.

    Activities

    2.1 ArchiMate modelling language overview.

    2.2 Architecture building block overview

    2.3 Identify architecture building blocks by use case.

    2.4 Define the target state architecture.

    Outputs

    A set of building blocks created in Archi

    Defined target state architecture using architecture building blocks

    3 Assess the Current State Architecture

    The Purpose

    Assess your current state architecture in the areas identified by the target state.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Only evaluating the current state architecture that will influence your AI implementation.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify the current state capabilities as required by the target state.

    3.2 Assess your current state architecture.

    3.3 Define a roadmap and design implementation plateaus.

    Outputs

    Current state architecture documented in Archi

    Assessed current state using assessment tool

    A roadmap defined using plateaus as milestones

    4 Bridge the Gap and Create the Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Assess your current state against the target state and create a plan to bridge the gaps.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Develop a roadmap that will deliver immediate results and ensure long-term durability.

    Activities

    4.1 Assess the gaps between current- and target-state capabilities.

    4.2 Brainstorm initiatives to address the gaps in capabilities

    4.3 Define architecture delivery plateaus.

    4.4 Define a roadmap with milestones.

    4.5 Sponsor check-in.

    Outputs

    Current to target state gap assessment

    Architecture roadmap divided into plateaus

    2021 Q3 Research Highlights

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    • Parent Category Name: The Briefs
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    Our research team is a prolific bunch! Every quarter we produce lots of research to help you get the most value out of your organization. This PDF contains a selection of our most compelling research from the third quarter of 2021.

    Adopt an Exponential IT Mindset

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    • Parent Category Name: Innovation
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    New technologies such as generative AI, quantum computing, 5G cellular networks, and next-generation robotics are ushering in an exciting new era of business transformation. By adopting an exponential IT mindset, IT leaders will be able to lead the autonomization of business capabilities.

    To capitalize on this upcoming opportunity, exponential IT leaders will have to become business advisors who unlock exponential value for the business and help mitigate exponential risk.

    Adopt a renewed focus on business outcomes to achieve autonomization

    An exponential IT mindset means that IT leaders will need to take a lead role in transforming business capabilities.

    • Embrace an expanded role as business advisors: CIOs will be tasked with greater responsibility for determining business strategy alongside the C-suite.
    • Know the rewards and mitigate the risks: New value chain opportunities and efficiency gains will create significant ROI. Protect these returns by mitigating higher risks to business continuity, information security, and delivery performance.
    • Plan to fully leverage technologies such as AI: It will be integral for IT to enable autonomous technologies in this new era of exponential technology progress.

    Adopt an Exponential IT Mindset Research & Tools

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

    1. Adopt an Exponential IT Mindset Deck – An introduction to IT’s role in the autonomization era

    The role of IT has evolved throughout the past couple generations to enable fundamental business transformations. In the autonomization era, it will have to evolve again to lead the business through a world of exponential opportunity.

    • Adopt an Exponential IT Mindset Storyboard

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Adopt an Exponential IT Mindset

    Thrive through the next paradigm shift

    Executive Summary

    For more than 40 years, information technology has significantly transformed businesses, from the computerization of operations to the digital transformation of business models. As technological disruption accelerates exponentially, a world of exponential business opportunity is within reach.

    Newly emerging technologies such as generative AI, quantum computing, 5G cellular networks, and next-generation robotics are enabling autonomous business capabilities.

    The role of IT has evolved throughout the past couple generations to enable business transformations. In the autonomization era, it will have to evolve again. IT will have a new mission, an adapted governance structure, innovative capabilities, and an advanced partnership model.

    CIOs embracing exponential IT require a new mindset. Their IT practices will need to progress to the top of the maturity ladder as they make business outcomes their own.

    Over the past two generations, we have witnessed major technology-driven business transformations

    1980s

    Computerization

    The use of computer devices, networks, and applications became widespread in the enterprise. The focus was on improving the efficiency of back-office tasks.

    2000s

    Digitalization

    As the world became connected through the internet, new digitally enabled business models emerged in the enterprise. Orders were now being received online, and many products and services were partially or fully digitized for online fulfillment.

    Recent pandemic measures contributed to a marked acceleration in the digitalization of organizations

    The massive disruption resulting from pandemic measures led businesses to shift to more digital interactions with customers.

    The global average share of customer interactions that are digital went from 36% in December 2019 to 58% in July 2020.

    The global average share of customer interactions that are digital went from 36% to 58% in less than a year.*

    Moreover, companies across business areas have accelerated the digitization of their offerings.

    The global average share of partially or fully digitized products went from 35% in 2019 to 55% in July 2020.

    The global average share of partially or fully digitized products went from 35% to 55% in the same period.*

    The adoption of digitalized business models has accelerated during the pandemic. Post-pandemic, it is unlikely for adoption to recede.

    With more business applications ported to the cloud and more data available online, “digital-first” organizations started to envisage a next wave of automation.

    *Source: “How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point—and transformed business forever,” McKinsey & Company, 2020

    A majority of IT leaders plan to use artificial intelligence within their organizations in 2023

    In August 2022, Info-Tech surveyed 506 IT leaders and asked which tasks would involve AI in their organizations in 2023.

    Graph showing tasks that would involve AI in organizations in 2023.

    We found that 63% of IT leaders plan to use AI within their organizations to automate repetitive, low-level tasks by the end of 2023.

    With the release of the ChatGPT prototype in November 2022, setting a record for the fastest user growth (reaching 100 million active users just two months after launch), we foresee that AI adoption will accelerate significantly and its use will extend to more complex tasks.

    Newly emerging technologies and business realities are ushering in the next business transformation

    1980s

    Computerization

    2000s

    Digitalization

    2020s

    Autonomization

    As digitalization accelerates, a post-pandemic world with a largely online workforce and digitally transformed enterprise business models now enters an era where more business capabilities become autonomous, with humans at the center of a loop* that is gradually becoming larger.

    Deep Learning, Quantum Computing, 5G Networks, Robotics

    * Download Info-Tech’s CIO Trend Report 2019 – Become a Leader in the Loop

    The role of IT needs to evolve as it did through the previous two generations

    1980s

    Computerization

    IT professionals gathered functional requirements from the business to help automate back-office tasks and improve operational efficiency.

    2000s

    Digitalization

    IT professionals acquired business analysis skills and leveraged the SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, and cloud) stack to accelerate the automation of the front office and enable the digital transformation of business models.

    2020s

    Autonomization

    IT professionals will become business advisors and enable the establishment of autonomous yet differentiated business processes and capabilities.

    The autonomization era brings enormous opportunity for organizations, coupled with enormous risk

    Graph of Risk Severity versus Value Opportunity. Autonomization has a high value of opportunity and high risk severity.

    While some analysts have been quick to announce the demise of the IT department and the transition of the role of IT to the business, the budgets that CIOs control have continued to rise steadily over time.

    In a high-risk, high-reward endeavor to make business processes autonomous, the role of IT will continue to be pivotal, because while everyone in the organization will rush to seize the value opportunity, the technology risk will be left for IT to manage.

    Exponential IT represents a necessary change in a CIO’s focus to lead through the next paradigm shift

    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, 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 reengineering of the organization with evolved practices for:

    • IT governance
    • Asset management
    • Vendor management
    • Data management
    • Business continuity management
    • Information security management

    To succeed, IT will have to adopt different priorities in its mission, governance, capabilities, and partnerships

    Digitalization

    A Connected World

    Progressive IT

    • Mission

      Enable the digital transformation of the business
    • Governance

      Service metrics, security perimeters, business intelligence, compliance management
    • Capabilities

      Service management, business analysis, application portfolio management, data management
    • Partnerships

      Management of technology service agreements

    Autonomization

    An Exponential World

    Exponential IT

    • Mission

      Lead the business through autonomization.
    • Governance

      Outcome-based metrics, zero trust, ESG reporting, digital trust
    • Capabilities

      Experience management, business advisory, enterprise innovation, data differentiation
    • Partnerships

      Management of business capability agreements

    Fortune favors the bold: The CIO now has an opportunity to cement their role as business leader

    Levels of digital maturity.  From bottom: Unstable - inability to consistently deliver basic services, Firefighter - Reliable infrastructure and IT service desk, Trusted Operator - Enablement of business through applications and work orders, Business Partner - Effective delivery of strategic business projects, Innovator - Information and technology as a competitive advantage.

    Research has shown that companies that are more digitally mature have higher growth than the industry average. In these companies, the CIO is part of the executive management team.

    And while the role of the CIO is generally tied to their mandate within the organization, we have seen their role progress from doer to leader as IT climbs the maturity ladder.

    As companies strive to succeed in the next phase of technology-driven transformation, CIOs have an opportunity to demonstrate their business leadership. To do so, they will have to provide exceptionally mature services while owning business targets.

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy

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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

    Bibliography

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    Anthony Kruizinga, “Reshaping the risk taxonomy”. PwC, April 2021, Accessed January 2023
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    BSI Standards Publication, "Risk Management Guidelines", ISO 31000, 2018
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    European Union Agency for Cyber Security Glossary
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    European Banking Authority, "Regulatory Framework for Mitigating Key Resilient Risks", Sept 2018, Accessed February 2023
    EY, "Seeking stability within volatility: How interdependent risks put CROs at the heart of the banking business", 12th annual EY/IFF global bank risk management survey, 2022, Accessed February 2023
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    Financial Stability Board, "Principles for Effective Risk Appetite Framework", November 2013, Accessed January 2023
    Forbes Technology Council, "14 Top Data Security Risks Every Business Should Address", January 2020, Accessed January 2023
    Frank Martens, Dr. Larry Rittenberg, "COSO, Risk Appetite Critical for Success, Using Risk Appetite to Thrive in a Changing World", May 2020, Accessed January 2023
    Gary Stoneurmer, Alice Goguen and Alexis Feringa, "NIST, Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems", Special Publication, 800-30, September 2012, Accessed February 2023
    Guy Pearce, "Real-World Data Resilience Demands and Integrated Approach to AI, Data Governance and the Cloud", ISACA Journal, May 2022
    InfoTech Tech Trends Report, 2023
    ISACA, "Getting Started with Risk Scenarios", 2022, Accessed February 2023
    James Kaplan, "Creating a technology risk and cyber risk appetite framework," McKinsey & Company, August 2022, Accessed February 2023
    Jean-Gregorie Manoukian, Wolters Kluwer, "Risk appetite and risk tolerance: what’s the difference?", Sept 2016, Accessed February 2023
    Jennifer Bayuk, “Technology’s Role in Enterprise Risk Management”, ISACA Journal, March 2018, Accessed in February 2023
    John Thackeray, "Global Association of Risk Professionals, 7 Key Elements of Effective ERM", January 2020, Accessed January 2023
    KPMG, "Regulatory rigor: Managing technology and cyber risk, How FRFI’s can achieve outcomes laid out in OSFI B-13", October 2022, Accessed January 2023
    Marc Chiapolino et al, “Risk and resilience priorities, as told by chief risk officers”, McKinsey and Company, December 2022, Accessed January 2023
    Mike Rost, Workiva, "5 Steps to Effective Strategic Management", Updated February 2023. Accessed February 2023
    NIST, "Risk Management Framework for Information Systems and Organization, The System Life Cycle Approach for Security and Privacy," December 2018, Accessed February 2023
    NIST, NISTIR, "Integrating CyberSecurity and Enterprise Risk", October 2020, Accessed February 2023
    Oliver Wyman, "The ORX Reference Taxonomy for operational and non-financial risk summary report", 2019, Accessed February 2023.
    Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, "Operational Resilience Consultation Results Summary", December 2021, Accessed January 2023
    Open Risk Manual, Risk Taxonomy Definitions
    Ponemon. "Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021." IBM, July 2021. Web.
    Protiviti, "Executive Perspectives on Top Risks, 2023 & 2032, Key Issues being discussed in the boardroom and c-suite", February 2023, Accessed February 2023
    RIMS, ISACA, "Bridging the Digital Gap, How Collaboration Between IT and Risk Management can Enhance Value Creation", September 2019, Accessed February 2023
    Robert, R. Moeller, "COSO, Enterprise Risk Management, Second Edition, 2011", Accessed February 2023
    Robert Putrus, "Effective Reporting to the BoD on Critical Assets, Cyberthreats and Key Controls: The Qualitative and Quantitative Model", ISACA Journal, January 2021, Accessed January 2023
    Ron Brash, "Prioritizing Asset Risk Management in ICS Security", August 2020, Accessed February 2023
    Ronald Van Loon, "What is Data Culture and How to Implement it?", November 2023, Accessed February 2023
    SAS, "From Crisis to Opportunity, Redefining Risk Management", 2021Accessed January 2023
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    Spector Information Security, "Building your Asset and Risk Register to Manage Technology Risk", November 2021, Accessed January 2023
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    The Wall Street Journal, "Making Data Risk a Top Priority", April 2018, Accessed February 2023

    Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 8.0/10 Overall Impact
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    • Parent Category Name: Vendor Management
    • Parent Category Link: /vendor-management
    • 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.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Agile contracts require different wording and protections than traditional or waterfall contracts.
    • Agile buzzwords by themselves do not create an Agile contract.
    • There is a delicate balance between being overly prescriptive in an Agile contract and too lax.

    Impact and Result

    • Identify options for Agile contract provisions.
    • Manage Agile contract risk by selecting the appropriate level of protections for an Agile project.
    • Harness the power of Agile development and collaboration with the vendor while preserving contractual flexibility.
    • Focus on the correct contract clauses to manage Agile risk.

    Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should treat Agile contracts differently from traditional or waterfall contracts, and review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the twelve contract clauses that are different for Agile contracts.

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

    1. Identify and evaluate options

    Use the information in this blueprint and Info-Tech’s Agile Contract Playbook-Checklist to review and assess your Agile contracts, ensuring that the provisions and protections are suitable for Agile contracts specifically.

    • Agile Contracts Playbook-Checklist
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Identify and Reduce Agile Contract Risk

    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 and Evaluate Options

    The Purpose

    To understand Agile-specific contract clauses, to improve risk identification, and to be more effective at negotiating Agile contract terms.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Increased awareness of how Agile contract provisions are different from traditional or waterfall contracts in 12 key areas.

    Understanding available options.

    Understanding the impact of being too prescriptive.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the Agile Contract Playbook-Checklist.

    1.2 Review 12 contract provisions and reinforce key learnings with exercises.

    Outputs

    Configured Playbook-Checklist as applicable

    Exercise results and debrief

    Simplify Remote Deployment With Zero-Touch Provisioning

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    • Parent Category Name: End-User Computing Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /end-user-computing-strategy

    Provide better end-user device support to a remote workforce:

    • Remain compliant while purchasing, deploying, supporting, and decommissioning devices.
    • Save time and resources during device deployment while providing a high-quality experience to remote end users.
    • Build a set of capabilities that will let you support different use cases.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Zero-touch is more than just deployment. This is more difficult than turning on a tool and provisioning new devices to end users.
    • Consider the entire user experience and device lifecycle to show value to the organization. Don’t forget that you will eventually need to touch the device.

    Impact and Result

    Approach zero-touch provisioning and patching from the end user’s experience:

    • Align your zero-touch approach with stakeholder priorities and larger IT strategies.
    • Build your zero-touch provisioning and patching plan from both the asset lifecycle and the end-user perspective to take a holistic approach that emphasizes customer service.
    • Tailor deployment plans to more easily scope and resource deployment projects.

    Simplify Remote Deployment With Zero-Touch Provisioning Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should adopt zero-touch provisioning, 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. Design the zero-touch experience

    Design the user’s experience and build a vision to direct your zero-touch provisioning project. Update your ITAM practices to reflect the new experience.

    • Zero-Touch Provisioning and Support Plan
    • HAM Process Workflows (Visio)
    • HAM Process Workflows (PDF)
    • End-User Device Management Standard Operating Procedure

    2. Update device management, provisioning, and patching

    Leverage new tools to manage remote endpoints, keep those devices patched, and allow users to get the apps they need to work.

    • End-User Device Build Book Template

    3. Build a roadmap and communication plan

    Create a roadmap for migrating to zero-touch provisioning.

    • Roadmap Tool
    • Communication Plan Template
    [infographic]

    Enable Product Delivery – Executive Leadership Workshop

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    • Parent Category Name: Development
    • Parent Category Link: /development
    • You need to clearly convey the direction and strategy of your product portfolio to gain alignment, support, and funding from your organization.
    • IT organizations are traditionally organized to deliver initiatives in specific periods of time. This conflicts with product delivery, which continuously delivers value over the lifetime of a product.
    • Delivering multiple products together creates additional challenges because each product has its own pedigree, history, and goals.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Empowered product managers and product owners are the key to ensuring your delivery teams are delivering the right value at the right time to the right stakeholders.
    • Establishing operationally aligned product families helps bridge the gap between enterprise priorities and product enhancements.
    • Leadership must be aligned to empower and support Agile values and product teams to unlock the full value realization within your organization.

    Impact and Result

    • Common understanding of product management and Agile delivery.
    • Commitment to support and empower product teams.

    Enable Product Delivery – Executive Leadership Workshop Research & Tools

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

    1. Enabling Product Delivery – Executive workshop to align senior leadership with their transition to product management and delivery.

    • Enabling Product Delivery – Executive Workshop Storyboard

    2. Enabling Product Delivery –Executive Workshop Outcomes.

    • Enabling Product Delivery – Executive Workshop Outcomes
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Enable Product Delivery – Executive Leadership Workshop

    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 Understanding Your Top Challenges

    The Purpose

    Understand the drivers for your product transformation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Define the drivers for your transition to product-centric delivery.

    Activities

    1.1 What is driving your organization to become product focused?

    Outputs

    List of challenges and drivers

    2 Transitioning From Projects to Product-Centric Delivery

    The Purpose

    Understand the product transformation journey and differences.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identify the cultural, behavioral, and leadership changes needed for a successful transformation.

    Activities

    2.1 Define the differences between projects and product delivery

    Outputs

    List of differences

    3 Enterprise Agility and the Value of Change

    The Purpose

    Understand why smaller iterations increase value realization and decrease accumulated risk.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Leverage smaller iterations to reduce time to value and accumulated risk to core operations.

    Activities

    3.1 What is business agility?

    Outputs

    Common understanding about the value of smaller iterations

    4 Defining Products and Product Management in Your Context

    The Purpose

    Establish an organizational starting definition of products.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Tailor product management to meet the needs and vision of your organization.

    Activities

    4.1 What is a product? Who are your consumers?

    4.2 Identify enablers and blockers of product ownership

    4.3 Define a set of guiding principles for product management

    Outputs

    Product definition

    List of enablers and blockers of product ownership

    Set of guiding principles for product management

    5 Connecting Product Management to Agile Practices

    The Purpose

    Understand the relationship between product management and product delivery.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Optimize product management to prioritize the right changes for the right people at the right time.

    Activities

    5.1 Discussions

    Outputs

    Common understanding

    6 Commit to Empowering Agile Product Teams

    The Purpose

    Personalize and commit to supporting product teams.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Embrace leadership and cultural changes needed to empower and support teams.

    Activities

    6.1 Your management culture

    6.2 Personal Cultural Stop, Start, and Continue

    6.3 Now, Next, Later to support product owners

    Outputs

    Your management culture map

    Personal Cultural Stop, Start, and Continue list

    Now, Next, Later roadmap

    Further reading

    Enable Product Delivery – Executive Leadership Workshop

    Strengthen product management in your organization through effective executive leadership by focusing on product teams, core capabilities, and proper alignment.

    Objective of this workshop

    To develop a common understanding and foundation for product management so we, as leaders, better understand how to lead product owners, product managers, and their teams.

    Enable Product Delivery - Executive Leadership Workshop

    Learn how enterprise agility can provide lasting value to the organization

    Clarify your role in supporting your teams to deliver lasting value to stakeholders and customers

    1. Understanding Your Top Challenges
      • Define your challenges, goals, and opportunities Agile and product management will impact.
    2. Transitioning from Projects to Product-centric Delivery
      • Understand the shift from fixed delivery to continuous improvement and delivery of value.
    3. Enterprise Agility and the Value of Change
      • Organizations need to embrace change and leverage smaller delivery cycles.
    4. Defining Your "Products" and Product Management
      • Define products in your culture and how to empower product delivery teams.
    5. Connecting Product Management to Agile Practices
      • Use product ownership to drive increased ROI into your product delivery teams and lifecycles.
    6. Commit to Empowering Agile Product Teams
      • Define the actions and changes you must make for this transformation to be successful.

    Your Product Transformation Journey

    1. Make the Case for Product Delivery
      • Align your organization with the practices to deliver what matters most
    2. Enable Product Delivery – Executive Workshop
      • One-day executive workshop – align and prepare your leadership
      • Audience: Senior executives and IT leadership.
        Size: 8-16 people
        Time: 6 hours
    3. Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision
      • Enhance product backlogs, roadmapping, and strategic alignment
      • Audience: Product Owners/Mangers
        Size: 10-20 people
        Time: 3-4 days
    4. Deliver Your Digital Products at Scale
      • Scale Product Families to Align Enterprise Goals
      • Audience: Product Owners/Mangers
        Size: 10-20 people
        Time: 3-4 days
    5. Mature and Scale Product Ownership
      • Align and mature your product owners
      • Audience: Product Owners/Mangers
        Size: 8-16 people
        Time: 2-4 days

    Repeat workshops with different companies, operating units, departments, or teams as needed.

    What is a workshop?

    We WILL ENGAGE in discussions and activities:

    • Flexible, to accommodate the needs of the group.
    • Open forum for discussion and questions.
    • Share your knowledge, expertise, and experiences (roadblocks and success stories).
    • Everyone is part of the process.
    • Builds upon itself.

    This workshop will NOT be:

    • A lecture or class.
    • A monologue that never ends.
    • Technical training.
    • A presentation.
    • Us making all the decisions.

    Roles within the workshop

    We each have a role to play to make our workshop successful!

    Facilitators

    • Introduce the best practice framework used by Info-Tech.
    • Ask questions about processes, procedures, and assumptions.
    • Guide for the methodology.
    • Liaison for any other relevant Info-Tech research or services.

    Participants

    • Contribute and speak out as much as needed.
    • Provide expertise on the current processes and technology.
    • Ask questions.
    • Provide feedback.
    • Collaborate and work together to produce solutions.

    Understanding Your Top Challenges

    • Understanding Your Top Challenges
    • Transitioning From Projects to Product-Centric Delivery
    • Enterprise Agility and the Value of Change
    • Defining Your Products and Product Management
    • Connecting Product Management to Agile Practices
    • Commit to Empowering Agile Product Teams
    • Wrap-Up and Retrospective

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

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

    Common Obstacles

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

    Info-Tech's Approach

    Info-Tech's approach will guide you through:

    • Understanding the top challenges driving your product initiative.
    • Improving your transitioning from projects to product-centric delivery.
    • Enhancing enterprise agility and the value of change.
    • Defining products and product management in your context.
    • Connecting product management to Agile practices.
    • Committing to empowering Agile Product teams.
    This is an image of an Info-Tech Thought Map for Accelerate Your Transition to Product Delivery
    This is an image of an Info-Tech Thought Map for Delier on your Digital Product Vision
    This is an image of an Info-Tech Thought Map for Deliver Digital Products at Scale via Enterprise Product Families.
    This is an image of an Info-Tech Thought Map for What We Mean by an Applcation Department Strategy.

    What is driving your organization to become product focused?

    30 minutes

    • Team introductions:
      • Share your name and role
      • What are the key challenges you are looking to solve around product management?
      • What blockers or challenges will we need to overcome?

    Capture in the Enable Product Delivery – Executive Leadership Workshop Outcomes and Next Steps.

    Input

    • Organizational knowledge
    • Goals and challenges

    Output

    • List of key challenges
    • List of workshop expectations
    • Parking lot items

    Transitioning From Projects to Product-Centric Delivery

    • Understanding Your Top Challenges
    • Transitioning From Projects to Product-Centric Delivery
    • Enterprise Agility and the Value of Change
    • Defining Your Products and Product Management
    • Connecting Product Management to Agile Practices
    • Commit to Empowering Agile Product Teams
    • Wrap-Up and Retrospective

    Define the differences between projects and product delivery

    30 minutes

    • Consider project delivery and product delivery.
    • Discussion:
      • What are some differences between the two?

    Capture in the Enable Product Delivery – Executive Leadership Workshop Outcomes and Next Steps.

    Input

    • Organizational knowledge
    • Internal terms and definitions

    Output

    • List of differences between projects and product delivery

    Define the differences between projects and product delivery

    15 minutes

    Project Delivery

    vs

    Product Delivery

    Point in time

    What is changed

    Method of funding changes

    Needs an owner

    Input

    • Organizational knowledge
    • Internal terms and definitions

    Output

    • List of differences between projects and product delivery

    Capture in the Enable Product Delivery – Executive Leadership Workshop Outcomes and Next Steps.

    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

    Improve Product Maturity
    and Support

    Assign People to Work

    Work Allocation

    Assign Work
    to Product Teams

    Project Manager Manages

    Capacity Management

    Team Manages Capacity

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Projects can be a mechanism for funding product changes and improvements

    This is an image showing the relationship between the project lifecycle, a hybrid lifecycle, and a product lifecycle.

    Projects within products

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

    You go through a period or periods of project-like development to build a version of an application or product.

    You also have parallel services along with your project development, which encompass the more product-based view. These may range from basic support and maintenance to full-fledged strategy teams or services like sales and marketing.

    While Agile and product are intertwined, they are not the same!

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

    This image shows the product delivery maturity process from waterfall to continuous integration and delivery.

    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.

    This is an image adapted from Pichler, What is Product Management.

    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.

    Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

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    • Parent Category Name: Organizational Design
    • Parent Category Link: /organizational-design
    • Talent has become a competitive differentiator. To 46% of business leaders, workforce planning is a top priority – yet only 13% do it effectively.
    • CIOs aren’t sure what they need to give the organization a competitive edge or how current staffing line-ups fall short.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • 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.

    Impact and Result

    The workforce planning process does not need to be onerous, especially with help from Info-Tech’s solid planning tools. With the right people involved and enough time invested, developing an SWP will be easier than first thought and time well spent. Leverage Info-Tech’s client-tested 5-step process to build a strategic workforce plan:

    1. Build a project charter
    2. Assess workforce competency needs
    3. Identify impact of internal and external trends
    4. Identify the impact of strategic initiatives on roles
    5. Build and monitor the workforce plan

    Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build a strategic workforce plan for IT, 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. Initiate the project

    Assess the value of a strategic workforce plan and the IT department’s fit for developing one, and then structure the workforce planning project.

    • Build a Strategic Workforce Plan – Phase 1: Initiate the Project
    • IT Strategic Workforce Planning Project Charter Template
    • IT Strategic Workforce Planning Project Plan Template

    2. Analyze workforce needs

    Gather and analyze workforce needs based on an understanding of the relevant internal and external trends, and then produce a prioritized plan of action.

    • Build a Strategic Workforce Plan – Phase 2: Analyze Workforce Needs
    • Workforce Planning Workbook

    3. Build the workforce plan

    Evaluate workforce priorities, plan specific projects to address them, and formalize and integrate strategic workforce planning into regular planning processes.

    • Build a Strategic Workforce Plan – Phase 3: Build and Monitor the SWP
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Strategic IT Workforce Plan

    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 Project Goals, Metrics, and Current State

    The Purpose

    Develop a shared understanding of the challenges your organization is facing with regards to talent and workforce planning.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An informed understanding of whether or not you need to develop a strategic workforce plan for IT.

    Activities

    1.1 Identify goals, metrics, and opportunities

    1.2 Segment current roles

    1.3 Identify organizational culture

    1.4 Assign job competencies

    1.5 Assess current talent

    Outputs

    Identified goals, metrics, and opportunities

    Documented organizational culture

    Aligned competencies to roles

    Identified current talent competency levels

    2 Assess Workforce and Analyze Trends

    The Purpose

    Perform an in-depth analysis of how internal and external trends are impacting the workforce.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An enhanced understanding of the current talent occupying the workforce.

    Activities

    2.1 Assess environmental trends

    2.2 Identify impact on workforce requirements

    2.3 Identify how trends are impacting critical roles

    2.4 Explore viable options

    Outputs

    Complete internal trends analysis

    Complete external trends analysis

    Identified internal and external trends on specific IT roles

    3 Perform Gap Analysis

    The Purpose

    Identify the changing competencies and workforce needs of the future IT organization, including shortages and surpluses.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Determined impact of strategic initiatives on workforce needs.

    Identification of roles required in the future organization, including surpluses and shortages.

    Identified projects to fill workforce gaps.

    Activities

    3.1 Identify strategic initiatives

    3.2 Identify impact of strategic initiatives on roles

    3.3 Determine workforce estimates

    3.4 Determine projects to address gaps

    Outputs

    Identified workforce estimates for the future

    List of potential projects to address workforce gaps

    4 Prioritize and Plan

    The Purpose

    Prepare an action plan to address the critical gaps identified.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A prioritized plan of action that will fill gaps and secure better workforce outcomes for the organization.

    Activities

    4.1 Determine and prioritize action items

    4.2 Determine a schedule for review of initiatives

    4.3 Integrate workforce planning into regular planning processes

    Outputs

    Prioritized list of projects

    Completed workforce plan

    Identified opportunities for integration

    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

    Mergers & Acquisitions: The Sell Blueprint

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}324|cart{/j2store}
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    • Parent Category Name: IT Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /it-strategy

    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
    • IT Culture Diagnostic
    • M&A Separation Project Management Tool (SharePoint)
    • SharePoint Template: Step-by-Step Deployment Guide
    • 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
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    Sallie Wright
    Executive Counselor
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    Prepare Your Organization to Successfully Embrace the “New Normal”

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    • The COVID-19 pandemic is creating significant challenges across every sector, but even the deepest crisis will eventually pass. However, many of the changes it has brought to how organizations function are here to stay.
    • As an IT leader, it can be challenging to envision what this future state will look like and how to position IT as a trusted partner to the business to help steer the ship as the crisis abates.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations need to cast their gaze into the “New Normal” and determine an appropriate strategy to stabilize their operations, mitigate ongoing challenges, and seize new opportunities that will be presented in a post-COVID-19 world.
    • IT needs to understand the key trends and permanent changes that will exist following the crisis and develop a proactive roadmap for rapidly adapting their technology stack, processes, and resourcing to adjust to the new normal.

    Impact and Result

    • Info-Tech recommends a three-step approach for adapting to the new normal: begin by surveying crucial changes that will occur as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, assess their relevance to your organization’s unique situation, and create an initiatives roadmap to support the new normal.
    • This mini-blueprint will examine five key themes: changing paradigms for remote work, new product delivery models, more self-service options for customers, greater decentralization and agility for organizational decision making, and a renewed emphasis on security architecture.

    Prepare Your Organization to Successfully Embrace the “New Normal” Research & Tools

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    Understand the five key trends that will persist after the pandemic has passed and create a roadmap of initiatives to help your organization adapt to the "New Normal."

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

    • Prepare Your Organization to Successfully Embrace the “New Normal” Storyboard
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    Create and Manage Enterprise Data Models

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    • Business executives don’t understand the value of Conceptual and Logical Data Models and how they define their data assets.
    • Data, like mercury, is difficult to manage and contain.
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    • Data as an asset is only perceived from a physical point of view, and the metadata that provides context and definition is often ignored.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Data Models tell the story of the organization and its data in pictures to be used by a business as a tool to evolve the business capabilities and processes.
    • Data Architecture and Data Modeling have different purposes and should be represented as two distinct processes within the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
    • The Conceptual Model provides a quick win for both business and IT because it can convey abstract business concepts and thereby compartmentalize the problem space.

    Impact and Result

    • A Conceptual Model can be used to define the semantics and relationships for your analytical layer.
      • It provides a visual representation of your data in the semantics of business.
      • It acts as the anchor point for all data lineages.
      • It can be used by business users and IT for data warehouse and analytical planning.
      • It provides the taxonomies for data access profiles.
      • It acts as the basis for your Enterprise Logical and Message Models.

    Create and Manage Enterprise Data Models Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create enterprise data models, 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. Setting the stage

    Prepare your environment for data architecture.

    • Enterprise Data Models

    2. Revisit your SDLC

    Revisit your SDLC to embed data architecture.

    • Enterprise Architecture Tool Selection

    3. Develop a Conceptual Model

    Create and maintain your Conceptual Data Model via an iterative process.

    4. Data Modeling Playbook

    View the main deliverable with sample models.

    • Data Modeling Playbook
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Create and Manage Enterprise Data Models

    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 Data Architecture Practice

    The Purpose

    Understand the context and goals of data architecture in your organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A foundation for your data architecture practice.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the business context.

    1.2 Obtain business commitment and expectations for data architecture.

    1.3 Define data architecture as a discipline, its role, and the deliverables.

    1.4 Revisit your SDLC to embed data architecture.

    1.5 Modeling tool acquisition if required.

    Outputs

    Data Architecture vision and mission and governance.

    Revised SDLC to include data architecture.

    Staffing strategy.

    Data Architecture engagement protocol.

    Installed modeling tool.

    2 Business Architecture and Domain Modeling

    The Purpose

    Identify the concepts and domains that will inform your data models.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined concepts for your data models.

    Activities

    2.1 Revisit business architecture output.

    2.2 Business domain selection.

    2.3 Identify business concepts.

    2.4 Organize and group of business concepts.

    2.5 Build the Business Data Glossary.

    Outputs

    List of defined and documented entities for the selected.

    Practice in the use of capability and business process models to identify key data concepts.

    Practice the domain modeling process of grouping and defining your bounded contexts.

    3 Harvesting Reference Models

    The Purpose

    Harvest reference models for your data architecture.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Reference models selected.

    Activities

    3.1 Reference model selection.

    3.2 Exploring and searching the reference model.

    3.3 Harvesting strategies and maintaining linkage.

    3.4 Extending the conceptual and logical models.

    Outputs

    Established and practiced steps to extend the conceptual or logical model from the reference model while maintaining lineage.

    4 Harvesting Existing Data Artifacts

    The Purpose

    Gather more information to create your data models.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Remaining steps and materials to build your data models.

    Activities

    4.1 Use your data inventory to select source models.

    4.2 Match semantics.

    4.3 Maintain lineage between BDG and existing sources.

    4.4 Select and harvest attributes.

    4.5 Define modeling standards.

    Outputs

    List of different methods to reverse engineer existing models.

    Practiced steps to extend the logical model from existing models.

    Report examples.

    5 Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    The Purpose

    Wrap up the workshop and set your data models up for future success.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of functions and processes that will use the data models.

    Activities

    5.1 Institutionalize data architecture practices, standards, and procedures.

    5.2 Exploit and extend the use of the Conceptual model in the organization.

    Outputs

    Data governance policies, standards, and procedures for data architecture.

    List of business function and processes that will utilize the Conceptual model.

    Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • A company’s web presence is its front face to the world. Ensuring you have the right suite of tools for web content management, experience design, and web analytics is critical to putting your best foot forward: failing to do so will result in customer attrition and lost revenue.
    • Web Experience Management (WEM) suites are a rapidly maturing and dynamic market, with a landscape full of vendors with cutting edge solutions and diverse offerings. As a result, finding a solution that is the best fit for your organization can be a complex process.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • WEM products are not a one-size-fits-all investment: unique evaluations and customization are required in order to deploy a solution that fits your organization.
    • WEM technology often complements core CRM and marketing management products – it does not supplant it, and must augment the rest of your customer experience management portfolio.
    • Phase your WEM implementation: Start with core capabilities such as content management, then add additional capabilities for site analytics and dynamic experience.

    Impact and Result

    • Align marketing needs with identified functional requirements.
    • Implement a best-fit WEM that increases customer acquisition and retention, and provides in-depth capabilities for site analysis.
    • Optimize procurement and operations costs for the WEM platform.

    Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should select and implement a WEM 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 WEM project and collect requirements

    Conduct a market overview, structure the project, and gather requirements.

    • Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution – Phase 1: Launch the WEM Project and Collect Requirements
    • WEM Project Charter Template
    • WEM Use-Case Fit Assessment Tool

    2. Select a WEM solution

    Analyze and shortlist vendors in the space and select a WEM solution.

    • Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution – Phase 2: Select a WEM Solution
    • WEM Vendor Shortlist & Detailed Feature Analysis Tool
    • WEM Vendor Demo Script Template
    • WEM RFP Template

    3. Plan the WEM implementation

    Plan the implementation and evaluate project metrics.

    • Select and Implement a Web Experience Management Solution – Phase 3: Plan the WEM Implementation
    • WEM Work Breakdown Structure Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select and Implement a Web Experience Management 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 of the WEM Selection Project

    The Purpose

    Discuss the general project overview for the WEM selection.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Launch of your WEM selection project.

    Development of your organization’s WEM requirements.

    Activities

    1.1 Facilitation of activities from the Launch the WEM Project and Collect Requirements phase, including project scoping and resource planning.

    1.2 Conduct overview of the WEM market landscape, trends, and vendors.

    1.3 Conduct process mapping for selected marketing processes.

    1.4 Interview business stakeholders.

    1.5 Prioritize WEM functional requirements.

    Outputs

    WEM Procurement Project Charter

    WEM Use-Case Fit Assessment

    2 Plan the Procurement and Implementation Process

    The Purpose

    Plan the procurement and the implementation of the WEM solution.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Selection of a WEM solution.

    A plan for implementing the selected WEM solution.

    Activities

    2.1 Complete marketing process mapping with business stakeholders.

    2.2 Interview IT staff and project team, identify technical requirements for the WEM suite, and document high-level solution requirements.

    2.3 Perform a use-case scenario assessment, review use-case scenario results, identify use-case alignment, and review the WEM Vendor Landscape vendor profiles and performance.

    2.4 Create a custom vendor shortlist and investigate additional vendors for exploration in the marketplace.

    2.5 Meet with project manager to discuss results and action items.

    Outputs

    Vendor Shortlist

    WEM RFP

    Vendor Evaluations

    Selection of a WEM Solution

    WEM projected work break-down

    Implementation plan

    Framework for WEM deployment and CRM/Marketing Management Suite Integration

    Deliver Digital Products at Scale

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    • Parent Category Name: Development
    • Parent Category Link: /development
    • Products are the lifeblood of an organization. They provide the capabilities the business needs to deliver value to both internal and external customers and stakeholders.
    • Product organizations are expected to continually deliver evolving value to the overall organization as they grow.
    • You need to clearly convey the direction and strategy of a broad product portfolio to gain alignment, support, and funding from your organization.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Product delivery requires significant shifts in the way you complete development work and deliver value to your users. Make the changes that improve end-user value and enterprise alignment.
    • Your organizational goals and strategy are achieved through capabilities that deliver value. Your product hierarchy is the mechanism to translate enterprise goals, priorities, and constraints down to the product level where changes can be made.
    • Recognize that each product owner represents one of three primary perspectives: business, technical, and operational. Although all share the same capabilities, how they approach their responsibilities is influenced by their perspective.
    • 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.
    • Your product family roadmap and product roadmap tell different stories. The product family roadmap represents the overall connection of products to the enterprise strategy, while the product roadmap focuses on the fulfillment of the product’s vision.
    • Although products can be delivered with any software development lifecycle, methodology, delivery team structure, or organizational design, high-performing product teams optimize their structure to fit the needs of product and product family delivery.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand the importance of product families for scaling product delivery.
    • Define products in your context and organize products into operational families.
    • Use product family roadmaps to align product roadmaps to enterprise goals and priorities.
    • Evaluate the different approaches to improve your product family delivery pipelines and milestones.

    Deliver Digital Products at Scale Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should define enterprise product families to scale your product delivery capability, 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. Become a product-centric organization

    Define products in your organization’s context and explore product families as a way to organize products at scale.

    • Deliver Digital Products at Scale – Phase 1: Become a Product-Centric Organization
    • Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook
    • Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook

    2. Organize products into product families

    Identify an approach to group the inventory of products into one or more product families.

    • Deliver Digital Products at Scale – Phase 2: Organize Products Into Product Families

    3. Ensure alignment between products and families

    Confirm alignment between your products and product families via the product family roadmap and a shared definition of delivered value.

    • Deliver Digital Products at Scale – Phase 3: Ensure Alignment Between Products and Families

    4. Bridge the gap between product families and delivery

    Agree on a delivery approach that best aligns with your product families.

    • Deliver Digital Products at Scale – Phase 4: Bridge the Gap Between Product Families and Delivery
    • Deliver Digital Products at Scale Readiness Assessment

    5. Build your transformation roadmap and communication plan

    Define your communication plan and transformation roadmap for transitioning to delivering products at the scale of your organization.

    • Deliver Digital Products at Scale – Phase 5: Transformation Roadmap and Communication

    Infographic

    Workshop: Deliver Digital Products at Scale

    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 Become a Product-Centric Organization

    The Purpose

    Define products in your organization’s context and explore product families as a way to organize products at scale.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of the case for product practices

    A concise definition of products and product families

    Activities

    1.1 Understand your organizational factors driving product-centric delivery.

    1.2 Establish your organization’s product inventory.

    1.3 Determine your approach to scale product families.

    Outputs

    Organizational drivers and goals for a product-centric delivery

    Definition of product

    Product scaling principles

    Scaling approach and direction

    Pilot list of products to scale

    2 Organize Products Into Product Families

    The Purpose

    Identify a suitable approach to group the inventory of products into one or more product families.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A scaling approach for products that fits your organization

    Activities

    2.1 Define your product families.

    Outputs

    Product family mapping

    Enabling applications

    Dependent applications

    Product family canvas

    3 Ensure Alignment Between Products and Families

    The Purpose

    Confirm alignment between your products and product families via the product family roadmap and a shared definition of delivered value.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Recognition of the product family roadmap and a shared definition of value as key concepts to maintain alignment between your products and product families

    Activities

    3.1 Leverage product family roadmaps.

    3.2 Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication.

    3.3 Configure your product family roadmaps.

    3.4 Confirm product family to product alignment.

    Outputs

    Current approach for communication of product family strategy

    List of product family stakeholders and a prioritization plan for communication

    Defined key pieces of a product family roadmap

    An approach to confirming alignment between products and product families through a shared definition of business value

    4 Bridge the Gap Between Product Families and Delivery

    The Purpose

    Agree on the delivery approach that best aligns with your product families.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    An understanding of the team configuration and operating model required to deliver value through your product families

    Activities

    4.1 Assess your organization’s delivery readiness.

    4.2 Understand your delivery options.

    4.3 Determine your operating model.

    4.4 Identify how to fund product delivery.

    4.5 Learn how to introduce your digital product family strategy.

    4.6 Communicate changes on updates to your strategy.

    4.7 Determine your next steps.

    Outputs

    Assessment results on your organization’s delivery maturity

    A preferred approach to structuring product delivery

    Your preferred operating model for delivering product families

    Understanding of your preferred approach for product family funding

    Product family transformation roadmap

    Your plan for communicating your roadmap

    List of actionable next steps to start on your journey

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

    The Purpose

    Implement your communication plan and transformation roadmap for transitioning to delivering products at the scale of your organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    New product family organization and supporting product delivery approach

    Activities

    5.1 Execute communication plan and product family changes.

    5.2 Review the pilot family implementation and update the transformation roadmap.

    5.3 Begin advisory calls for related blueprints.

    Outputs

    Organizational communication of product families and product family roadmaps

    Product family implementation and updated transformation roadmap

    Support for product owners, backlog and roadmap management, and other topics

    Further reading

    Deliver Digital Products at Scale

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

    Analyst Perspective

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

    A picture of Info-Tech analyst Banu Raghuraman. A picture of Info-Tech analyst Ari Glaizel. A picture of Info-Tech analyst Hans Eckman

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

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

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

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

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

    Banu Raghuraman, Ari Glaizel, and Hans Eckman

    Applications Practice

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Deliver Digital Products at Scale

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

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

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

    Common Obstacles

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

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Info-Tech’s approach will guide you through:

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Operationally align product delivery to enterprise goals

    A flowchart is shown on how to operationally align product delivery to enterprise goals.

    The Info-Tech difference:

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

    Deliver Digital Products at Scale via Enterprise Product Families

    An infographic on the Enterprise Product Families is shown.

    Product does not mean the same thing to everyone

    Do not expect a universal definition of products.

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

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

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

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

    - TechTarget

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

    - Mark Curphey

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

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

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

    What is a product?

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

    Info-Tech Insight

    A proper definition of product recognizes three key facts:

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

    Products and services share the same foundation and best practices

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

    Product = Service

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

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

    Recognize the different product owner perspectives

    Business:

    • Customer facing, revenue generating

    Technical:

    • IT systems and tools

    Operations:

    • Keep the lights on processes

    Info-Tech Best Practice

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

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

    – Robbin Schuurman, “Tips for Starting Product Owners”

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

    Project

    Product

    Fund projects

    Funding

    Fund products or teams

    Line of business sponsor

    Prioritization

    Product owner

    Makes specific changes to a product

    Product management

    Improve product maturity and support

    Assign people to work

    Work allocation

    Assign work to product teams

    Project manager manages

    Capacity management

    Team manages capacity

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Projects can be a mechanism for delivering product changes and improvements

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the difference between project lifecycle, hybrid lifecycle and product lifecycle.

    Projects within products

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

    Define product value by aligning backlog delivery with roadmap goals

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

    An image is shown to demonstrate the relationship between the product backlog and the product roadmap.

    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.

    An example of a product roadmap is shown to demonstrate how it is the core to value realization.

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

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

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

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the product deliery maturity and the Agile DevOps used.
    Based on: Ambysoft, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Scale products into related families to improve value delivery and alignment

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

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the relations between product family and the delivery streams.

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

    – Rich Mironov, Mironov Consulting

    Product families translate enterprise goals into value-enabling capabilities

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the relationship between enterprise strategy and enabling capabilities.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

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

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate how to arrange product families by operational groups.

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

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

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

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

    Approach alignment from both directions, validating by the opposite way

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

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

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

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

    A top-down alignment example is shown.

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

    A bottom-up alignment example is shown.

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

    Leverage patterns for scaling products

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

    Value Stream Alignment

    Enterprise Applications

    Shared Services

    Technical

    Organizational Alignment

    • Business architecture
      • Value stream
      • Capability
      • Function
    • Market/customer segment
    • Line of business (LoB)
    • Example: Customer group > value stream > products
    • Enabling capabilities
    • Enterprise platforms
    • Supporting apps
    • Example: HR > Workday/Peoplesoft > ModulesSupporting: Job board, healthcare administrator
    • Organization of related services into service family
    • Direct hierarchy does not necessarily exist within the family
    • Examples: End-user support and ticketing, workflow and collaboration tools
    • Domain grouping of IT infrastructure, platforms, apps, skills, or languages
    • Often used in combination with Shared Services grouping or LoB-specific apps
    • Examples: Java, .NET, low-code, database, network
    • Used at higher levels of the organization where products are aligned under divisions
    • Separation of product managers from organizational structure no longer needed because the management team owns product management role

    Leverage the product family roadmap for alignment

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

    Your product family roadmap

      ✓ Lays out a strategy for your product family.

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

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

      ✓ Directly connects to the organization’s goals.

    However, it is not:

      x Representative of a hard commitment.

      x A simple combination of your current product roadmaps.

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

    An example of a product family roadmap is shown and how it can be connected to the products.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Product family roadmaps are more strategic by nature

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

    Product

    TACTICAL

    A roadmap that is technical, committed, and detailed.

    Product Family

    STRATEGIC

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Consider volatility when structuring product family roadmaps

    A roadmap is shown without any changes.

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

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

    A roadmap is shown with changes.

    All good product family roadmaps embrace change!

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Product delivery realizes value for your product family

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

    PRODUCT STRATEGY

    What are the artifacts?

    What are you saying?

    Defined at the family level?

    Defined at the product level?

    Vision

    I want to...

    Strategic focus

    Delivery focus

    Goals

    To get there we need to...

    Roadmap

    To achieve our goals, we’ll deliver...

    Backlog

    The work will be done in this order...

    Release Plan

    We will deliver in the following ways...

    Typical elements of a product family roadmap

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

    An example is shown to highlight the typical elements of a product family roadmap.

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

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

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

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

    Connecting your product family roadmaps to product roadmaps

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

    An example is shown on how the product family roadmpas can be connected to the product roadmaps.

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

    Audience

    Business/ IT Leaders

    Users/Customers

    Delivery Teams

    Roadmap View

    Portfolio

    Product Family

    Technology

    Objectives

    To provide a snapshot of the portfolio and priority products

    To visualize and validate product strategy

    To coordinate broad technology and architecture decisions

    Artifacts

    Line items or sections of the roadmap are made up of individual products, and an artifact represents a disposition at its highest level.

    Artifacts are generally grouped by 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 technical capabilities that support the broader delivery of value for the product family.

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

    I want to...

    I need to talk to...

    Because they are focused on...

    ALIGN PRODUCT TEAMS

    Get my delivery teams on the same page.

    Architects

    Products Owners

    PRODUCTS

    A product that delivers value against a common set of goals and objectives.

    SHOWCASE CHANGES

    Inform users and customers of product strategy.

    Bus. Process Owners

    End Users

    FUNCTIONALITY

    A group of functionality that business customers see as a single unit.

    ARTICULATE RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS

    Inform the business of product development requirements.

    IT Management

    Business Stakeholders

    FUNDING

    An initiative that those with the money see as a single budget.

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

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

    A flowchart is shown to see how the impacts of product-centric delivery can impact team and org designs.

    Determine which delivery team structure best fits your product pipeline

    Four delivery team structures are shown. The four are: functional roles, shared service and resource pools, product or system, and skills and competencies.

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

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

    1. LoB/Product Aligned – Decentralized Model: Line of Business, Geographically, Product, or Functionally Aligned
    2. A decentralized IT operating model that embeds specific functions within LoBs/product teams and provides cross-organizational support for their initiatives.

    3. Hybrid Functional: Functional/Product Aligned
    4. A best-of-both-worlds model that balances the benefits of centralized and decentralized approaches to achieve both customer responsiveness and economies of scale.

    5. Hybrid Service Model: Product-Aligned Operating Model
    6. A model that supports what is commonly referred to as a matrix organization, organizing by highly related service categories and introducing the role of the service owner.

    7. Centralized: Plan-Build-Run
    8. A highly typical IT operating model that focuses on centralized strategic control and oversight in delivering cost-optimized and effective solutions.

    9. Centralized: Demand-Develop-Service
    10. A centralized IT operating model that lends well to more mature operating environments. Aimed at leveraging economies of scale in an end-to-end services delivery model.

    Consider how investment spending will differ in a product environment

    Reward for delivering outcomes, not features

    Autonomy

    Flexibility

    Accountability

    Fund what delivers value

    Allocate iteratively

    Measure and adjust

    Fund long-lived delivery of value through products (not projects).

    Give autonomy to the team to decide exactly what to build.

    Allocate to a pool based on higher-level business case.

    Provide funds in smaller amounts to different product teams and initiatives based on need.

    Product teams define metrics that contribute to given outcomes.

    Track progress and allocate more (or less) funds as appropriate.

    Adapted from Bain, 2019

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Why is having a common value measure important?

    CIO-CEO Alignment Diagnostic

    A stacked bar graph is shown to demonstrate CIO-CEO Alignment Diagnostic. A bar titled: Business Value Metrics is highlighted. 51% had some improvement necessary and 32% had significant improvement necessary.

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

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

    – Oscar Wilde

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

    – Warren Buffett

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

    Measure delivery and success

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

    Build good practices in your selection and use of metrics:

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

    Executive Brief Case Study

    INDUSTRY: Public Sector & Financial Services

    SOURCE: Info-Tech Interviews

    A tale of two product transformations

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

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

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

    Results

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

    A picture of Cole Cioran is shown.

    Cole Cioran

    Practice Lead,

    Applications Practice

    Info-Tech Research Group

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

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

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

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

    1. Become a Product-Centric Organization

    2. Organize Products Into Product Families

    3. Ensure Alignment Between Products and Families

    4. Bridge the Gap Between Product Families and Delivery

    5. Build Your Transformation Roadmap and Communication Plan

    Phase Steps

    1.1 Understand the organizational factors driving product-centric delivery

    1.2 Establish your organization’s product inventory

    2.1 Determine your approach to scale product families

    2.2 Define your product families

    3.1 Leverage product family roadmaps

    3.2 Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication

    3.3 Configure your product family roadmaps

    3.4 Confirm goal and value alignment of products and their product families

    4.1 Assess your organization’s delivery readiness

    4.2 Understand your delivery options

    4.3 Determine your operating model

    4.4 Identify how to fund product family delivery

    5.1 Introduce your digital product family strategy

    5.2 Communicate changes on updates to your strategy

    5.3 Determine your next steps

    Phase Outcomes
    • Organizational drivers and goals for a product-centric delivery
    • Definition of product
    • Pilot list of products to scale
    • Product scaling principles
    • Scaling approach and direction
    • Product family mapping
    • Enabling applications
    • Dependent applications
    • Product family canvas
    • Approach for communication of product family strategy
    • Stakeholder management plan
    • Defined key pieces of a product family roadmap
    • An approach to confirming alignment between products and product families
    • Assessment of delivery maturity
    • Approach to structuring product delivery
    • Operating model for product delivery
    • Approach for product family funding
    • Product family transformation roadmap
    • Your plan for communicating your roadmap
    • List of actionable next steps to start on your journey

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook

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

    A screenshot of the Scale Workbook is shown.

    Deliver Digital Products at Scale Readiness Assessment

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

    A screenshot of the Scale Readiness Assessment is shown.

    Key deliverable:

    Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook

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

    A screenshot of the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook is shown.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • Improved product delivery ROI.
    • Improved IT satisfaction and business support.
    • Greater alignment between product delivery and product family goals.
    • Improved alignment between product delivery and organizational models.
    • Better support for Agile/DevOps adoption.

    Business Benefits

    • Increased value realization across product families.
    • Faster delivery of enterprise capabilities.
    • Improved IT satisfaction and business support.
    • Greater alignment between product delivery and product family goals.
    • Uniform understanding of product and product family roadmaps and key milestones.

    Measure the value of this blueprint

    Align product family metrics to product delivery and value realization.

    Member Outcome Suggested Metric Estimated Impact

    Increase business application satisfaction

    Satisfaction with business applications (CIO Business Vision diagnostic)

    20% increase within one year after implementation

    Increase effectiveness of application portfolio management

    Effectiveness of application portfolio management (Management & Governance diagnostic)

    20% increase within one year after implementation

    Increase importance and effectiveness of application portfolio

    Importance and effectiveness to business ( Application Portfolio Assessment diagnostic)

    20% increase within one year after implementation

    Increase satisfaction of support of business operations

    Support to business (CIO Business Vision diagnostic.

    20% increase within one year after implementation

    Successfully deliver committed work (productivity)

    Number of successful deliveries; burndown

    20% increase within one year after implementation

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

    DIY Toolkit

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

    Guided Implementation

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

    Workshop

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

    Consulting

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    Phase 1: Become a Product-Centric Organization

    Phase 2: Organize Products Into Product Families

    Phase 3: Ensure Alignment Between Products and Families

    Phase 4: Bridge the Gap Between Product Families and Delivery

    Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #2: Define products and product families in your context.

    Call #3: Understand the list of products in your context.

    Call #4: Define your scaling principles and goals.

    Call #5: Select a pilot and define your product families.

    Call #6: Understand the product family roadmap as a method to align products to families.

    Call #7: Define components of your product family roadmap and confirm alignment.

    Call #8: Assess your delivery readiness.

    Call #9: Discuss delivery, operating, and funding models relevant to delivering product families.

    Call #10: Wrap up.

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

    Workshop Overview

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    Day 1

    Become a Product-Centric Organization

    Day 2

    Organize Products Into Product Families

    Day 3

    Ensure Alignment Between Products and Families

    Day 4

    Bridge the Gap Between Product Families and Delivery

    Advisory

    Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)

    Activities

    1.1 Understand your organizational factors driving product-centric delivery.

    1.2 Establish your organization’s product inventory.

    2.1 Determine your approach to scale product families.

    2.2 Define your product families.

    3.1 Leverage product family roadmaps.

    3.2 Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication.

    3.3 Configure your product family roadmaps.

    3.4 Confirm product family to product alignment.

    4.1 Assess your organization’s delivery readiness.

    4.2 Understand your delivery options.

    4.3 Determine your operating model.

    4.4 Identify how to fund product family delivery.

    5.1 Learn how to introduce your digital product family strategy.

    5.2 Communicate changes on updates to your strategy.

    5.3 Determine your next steps.

    1. Execute communication plan and product family changes.
    2. Review the pilot family implementation and update the transformation roadmap.
    3. Begin advisory calls for related blueprints.

    Key Deliverables

    1. Organizational drivers and goals for a product-centric delivery
    2. Definition of product
    3. Product scaling principles
    4. Scaling approach and direction
    5. Pilot list of products to scale
    1. Product family mapping
    2. Enabling applications
    3. Dependent applications
    4. Product family canvas
    1. Current approach for communication of product family strategy
    2. List of product family stakeholders and a prioritization plan for communication
    3. Defined key pieces of a product family roadmap
    4. An approach to confirming alignment between products and product families through a shared definition of business value
    1. Assessment results on your organization’s delivery maturity
    2. A preferred approach to structuring product delivery
    3. Your preferred operating model for delivering product families
    4. Understanding your preferred approach for product family funding
    5. Product family transformation roadmap
    6. Your plan for communicating your roadmap
    7. List of actionable next steps to start on your journey
    1. Organizational communication of product families and product family roadmaps
    2. Product family implementation and updated transformation roadmap
    3. Support for product owners, backlog and roadmap management, and other topics

    Phase 1

    Become a Product-Centric Organization

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4Phase 5

    1.1 Understand the organizational factors driving product-centric delivery

    1.2 Establish your organization’s product inventory

    2.1 Determine your approach to scale product families

    2.2 Define your product families

    3.1 Leverage product family roadmaps

    3.2 Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication

    3.3 Configure your product family roadmaps

    3.4 Confirm product family to product alignment

    4.1 Assess your organization’s delivery readiness

    4.2 Understand your delivery options

    4.3 Determine your operating model

    4.4 Identify how to fund product family delivery

    5.1 Learn how to introduce your digital product family strategy

    5.2 Communicate changes on updates to your strategy

    5.3 Determine your next steps

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    1.1.1 Understand your drivers for product-centric delivery

    1.1.2 Identify the differences between project and product delivery

    1.1.3 Define the goals for your product-centric organization

    1.2.1 Define “product” in your context

    1.2.2 Identify and establish a pilot list of products

    This phase involves the following participants:

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

    Step 1.1

    Understand the organizational factors driving product-centric delivery

    Activities

    1.1.1 Understand your drivers for product-centric delivery

    1.1.2 Identify the differences between project and product delivery

    1.1.3 Define the goals for your product-centric organization

    This phase involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

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

    1.1.1 Understand your drivers for product-centric delivery

    30-60 minutes

    1. Identify your pain points in the current delivery model.
    2. What is the root cause of these pain points?
    3. How will a product-centric delivery model fix the root cause?
    4. Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.
    Pain Points Root Causes Drivers
    • Lack of ownership
    • Siloed departments
    • Accountability

    Output

    • Organizational drivers to move to product-centric delivery.

    Participants

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

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

    1.1.2 Identify the differences between project and product delivery

    30-60 minutes

    1. Consider project delivery and product delivery.
    2. Discuss what some differences are between the two.
    3. 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.

    4. Record the results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.
    Project Delivery Product Delivery
    Point in time What is changed
    Method of funding changes Needs an owner

    Output

    • List of differences between project and product delivery

    Participants

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

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

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

    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 Insight

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

    Projects can be a mechanism for funding product changes and improvements

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the difference between project lifecycle, hybrid lifecycle, and product lifecycle.

    Projects within products

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

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

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

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

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

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the product delivery maturity and the Agile DevOps used.

    Based on: Ambysoft, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

    1.1.3 Define the goals for your product-centric organization

    30 minutes

    1. Review your list of drivers from exercise 1.1.1 and the differences between project and product delivery from exercise 1.1.2.
    2. Define your goals for achieving a product-centric organization.
    3. 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 PointsRoot CausesDriversGoals
    • Lack of ownership
    • Siloed departments
    • Accountability
    • End-to-end ownership

    Output

    • Goals for product-centric delivery

    Participants

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

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

    Step 1.2

    Establish your organization’s product inventory

    Activities

    1.2.1 Define “product” in your context

    1.2.2 Identify and establish a pilot list of products

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

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

    Product does not mean the same thing to everyone

    Do not expect a universal definition of products.

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

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

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

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

    - TechTarget

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

    - Mark Curphey

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

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

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

    Products and services share the same foundation and best practices

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

    Product = Service

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

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

    Recognize the different product owner perspectives

    Business:

    • Customer facing, revenue generating

    Technical:

    • IT systems and tools

    Operations

    • Keep the lights on processes

    Info-Tech Best Practice

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

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

    – Robbin Schuurman, “Tips for Starting Product Owners”

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

    A picture of an iceburg is shown, showing the ice both above and below the water to demonstrate that the product definition should include everything, not just what users see. On top of the picture are various words to go with the product definition. They inlude: funding, external relationships, adoption, product strategy, stakeholder managment. The product defitions that may not be seen include: Product governance, business functionality, user support, managing and governing data, maintenance and enhancement, R-and-D, requirements analysis and design, code, and knowledge management.

    Establish where product management would be beneficial in the organization

    What does not need product ownership?

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

    Characteristics of a discrete product

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

    Product capabilities deliver value!

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

    A flowchart is shown that demonstrates the various facets of a product.

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

    Define product value by aligning backlog delivery with roadmap goals

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

    An image is shown to demonstrate the relationship between the product backlog and the product roadmap.

    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.

    An example of a product roadmap is shown to demonstrate how it is the core to value realization.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    What is a product?

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

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

    Info-Tech Insight

    A proper definition of product recognizes three key facts:

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

    1.2.1 Define “product” in your context

    30-60 minutes

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

    For example:

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

    Output

    • Your enterprise/organizational definition of products and services

    Participants

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

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

    1.2.2 Identify and establish a pilot list of products

    1-2 hours

    1. Review any current documented application inventory. If you have these details in an existing document, share it with the team. Select the group of applications for your family scaling pilot.
    2. List your initial application inventory on the Product List tab of the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.
  • For each of the products listed, add the vision and goals of the product. Refer to Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision to learn more about identifying vision and goals or to complete the product vision canvas.
  • You’ll add business capabilities and vision in Phase 2, but you can add these now if they are available in your existing inventory.
  • Output

    • A pilot list of active products

    Participants

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

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

    Phase 2

    Organize Products Into Product Families

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4Phase 5

    1.1 Understand the organizational factors driving product-centric delivery

    1.2 Establish your organization’s product inventory

    2.1 Determine your approach to scale product families

    2.2 Define your product families

    3.1 Leverage product family roadmaps

    3.2 Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication

    3.3 Configure your product family roadmaps

    3.4 Confirm product family to product alignment

    4.1 Assess your organization’s delivery readiness

    4.2 Understand your delivery options

    4.3 Determine your operating model

    4.4 Identify how to fund product family delivery

    5.1 Learn how to introduce your digital product family strategy

    5.2 Communicate changes on updates to your strategy

    5.3 Determine your next steps

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    2.1.1 Define your scaling principles and goals

    2.1.2 Define your pilot product family areas and direction

    2.2.1 Arrange your applications and services into product families

    2.2.2 Define enabling and supporting applications

    2.2.3 Build your product family canvas

    This phase involves the following participants:

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

    Step 2.1

    Determine your approach to scale product families

    Activities

    2.1.1 Define your scaling principles and goals

    2.1.2 Define your pilot product family areas and direction

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

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

    Use consistent terminology for product and service families

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

    An example flowchart is displayed to demonstrate the terminology for product and service families.

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

    Group product families by related purpose to improve business value

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

    A product family contains...

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

    A product family can be grouped by...

    • Function
    • Value stream and capability
    • Customer segments or end-user group
    • Strategic purpose
    • Underlying architecture
    • Common technology or support structures
    • And many more
    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the product family and product relations.

    Scale products into related families to improve value delivery and alignment

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

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the relations between product family and the delivery streams.

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

    – Rich Mironov, Mironov Consulting

    Product families translate enterprise goals into value-enabling capabilities

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the relationship between enterprise strategy and enabling capabilities.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

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

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate how to arrange product families by operational groups.

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

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

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

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

    Product families need owners with a more strategic focus

    Product Owner

    (More tactical product delivery focus)

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

    Product Manager

    (More strategic product family focus)

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Download Build a Better Product Owner for role support.

    2.1.1 Define your scaling principles and goals

    30-60 minutes

    1. Discuss the guiding principles for your product scaling model. Your guiding principles should consider key business priorities, organizational culture, and division/team objectives, such as improving:
    • Business agility and ability to respond to changes and needs.
    • Alignment of product roadmaps to enterprise goals and priorities.
    • Collaboration between stakeholders and product delivery teams.
    • Resource utilization and productivity.
    • The quality and value of products.
    • Coordination between related products and services.

    Output

    • List of product scaling principles

    Participants

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

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

    Start scaling with a pilot

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

    Learn more about each pattern.

    Discuss the pros and cons of each.

    Select a pilot product area.

    Select a pattern.

    Approach alignment from both directions, validating by the opposite way

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

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

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

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

    A top-down alignment example is shown.

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

    A bottom-up alignment example is shown.

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

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

    A top-down example flowchart is shown.

    Examples:

    Market Alignment
    • Consumer Banking
      • DDA: Checking, Savings, Money Market
      • Revolving Credit: Credit Cards, Line of Credit
      • Term Credit: Mortgage, Auto, Boat, Installment
    Enterprise Applications
    • Human Resources
      • Benefits: Health, Dental, Life, Retirement
      • Human Capital: Hiring, Performance, Training
      • Hiring: Posting, Interviews, Onboarding
    Shared Service
    • End-User Support
      • Desktop: New Systems, Software, Errors
      • Security: Access Requests, Password Reset, Attestations
    Business Architecture
    • Value Stream
      • Capability
        • Applications
        • Services

    Bottom-up examples: Start with your inventory

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

    A bottom-up example flowchart is shown.

    Examples:

    Technical Grouping
    • Custom Apps: Java, .NET, Python
    • Cloud: Azure, AWS, Virtual Environments
    • Low Code: ServiceNow, Appian
    Functional/Capability Grouping
    • CRM: Salesforce, Microsoft CRM
    • Security Platforms: IAM, SSO, Scanning
    • Workflow: Remedy, ServiceNow
    Shared Services Grouping
    • Workflow: Appian, Pega, ServiceNow
    • Collaboration: SharePoint, Teams
    • Data: Dictionary, Lake, BI/Reporting

    2.1.2 Define your pilot product family areas and direction

    30-60 minutes

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

    Output

    • Scope of product scaling pilot and target areas

    Participants

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

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

    Step 2.2

    Define your product families

    Activities

    2.2.1 Arrange your applications and services into product families

    2.2.2 Define enabling and supporting applications

    2.2.3 Build your product family canvas

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

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

    Use three perspectives to guide scaling pattern selection

    • One size does not fit all. There is no single or static product model that fits all product teams.
    • Structure relationships based on your organizational needs and capabilities.
    • Be flexible. Product ownership is designed to enable value delivery.
    • Avoid structures that promote proxy product ownership.
    • Make decisions based on products and services, not people. Then assign people to the roles.
    Alignment perspectives:

    Value Stream

    Align products based on the defined sources of value for a collection of products or services.

    For example: Wholesale channel for products that may also be sold directly to consumers, such as wireless network service.

    Users/Consumers

    Align products based on a common group of users or product consumers.

    For example: Consumer vs. small business vs. enterprise customers in banking, insurance, and healthcare.

    Common Domain

    Align products based on a common domain knowledge or skill set needed to deliver and support the products.

    For example: Applications in a shared service framework supporting other products.

    Leverage patterns for scaling products

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

    Value Stream AlignmentEnterprise ApplicationsShared ServicesTechnicalOrganizational Alignment
    • Business architecture
      • Value stream
      • Capability
      • Function
    • Market/customer segment
    • Line of business (LoB)
    • Example: Customer group > value stream > products
    • Enabling capabilities
    • Enterprise platforms
    • Supporting apps
    • Example: HR > Workday/Peoplesoft > ModulesSupporting: Job board, healthcare administrator
    • Organization of related services into service family
    • Direct hierarchy does not necessarily exist within the family
    • Examples: End-user support and ticketing, workflow and collaboration tools
    • Domain grouping of IT infrastructure, platforms, apps, skills, or languages
    • Often used in combination with Shared Services grouping or LoB-specific apps
    • Examples: Java, .NET, low-code, database, network
    • Used at higher levels of the organization where products are aligned under divisions
    • Separation of product managers from organizational structure no longer needed because the management team owns product management role

    Select the best family pattern to improve alignment

    A flowchart is shown on how to select the best family pattern to improve alignment.

    Use scenarios to help select patterns

    Top-Down

    Bottom-Up

    We have a business architecture defined.

    (See Document Your Business Architecture and industry reference architectures for help.)

    Start with your business architecture

    Start with market segments

    We want to be more customer first or customer centric.

    Start with market segments

    Our organization has rigid lines of business and organizational boundaries.

    Start with LoB structure

    Most products are specific to a business unit or division. Start with LoB structure

    Products are aligned to people, not how we are operationally organized.

    Start with market or LoB structure

    We are focusing on enterprise or enabling applications.

    1. Start with enterprise app and service team

    2. Align supporting apps

    We already have applications and services grouped into teams but want to evaluate if they are grouped in the best families.

    Validate using multiple patterns

    Validate using multiple patterns

    Our applications and services are shared across the enterprise or support multiple products, value streams, or shared capabilities.

    Our applications or services are domain, knowledge, or technology specific.

    Start by grouping inventory

    We are starting from an application inventory. (See the APM Research Center for help.)

    Start by grouping inventory

    Pattern: Value Stream – Capability

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

    Example:

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

    Sample business architecture/ capability map for healthcare

    A sample business architecture/capability map for healthcare is shown.

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

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

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

    Download Document Your Business Architecture

    Pattern: Value Stream – Market

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

    An example is shown to demonstrate how products can be placed into channels, verticals, or market segments.

    Example:

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

    Pattern: Value Stream – Line of Business (LoB)

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

    An example of the operational structure as the basis is shown.

    Example:

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

    Pattern: Enterprise Applications

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

    An example flowchart is shown with enterprise applications.

    Example:

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

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

    Pattern: Shared Services

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

    An example is shown with the shared services.

    Example:

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

    Pattern: Technical

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

    An example of technical grouping is shown.

    Example:

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

    Pattern: Organizational Alignment

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

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

    Download Build a Better Product Owner for role support.

    2.2.1 Arrange your applications and services into product families

    1-4 hours

    1. (Optional but recommended) Define your value streams and capabilities on the App Capability List tab in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.
    2. On the Product Families tab, build your product family hierarchy using the following structure:
    • Value Stream > Capability > Family 3 > Family 2 > Family 1 > Product/Service.
    • If you are not using a Value Stream > Capability grouping, you can leave these blank for now.
    A screenshot of the App Capability List in the Deliver Disital Products at Scale Workbook is shown.
  • If you previously completed an application inventory using one of our application portfolio management (APM) resources, you can paste values here. Do not paste cells, as Excel may create a cell reference or replace the current conditional formatting.
  • Output

    • Product family mapping

    Participants

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

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

    2.2.2 Define enabling and supporting applications

    1-4 hours

    1. Review your grouping from the reverse direction or with different patterns to validate the grouping. Consider each grouping.
    • Does it operationally align the products and families to best cascade enterprise goals and priorities while validating enabling capabilities?
    • In the next phase, when defining your roadmap strategy, you may wish to revisit this phase and adjust as needed.
  • Select and enter enabling or dependent applications to the right of each product.
  • A screenshot from the Deliver Digitial Products at Scale Workbook is shown.

    Output

    • Product families
    • Enabling applications
    • Dependent applications

    Participants

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

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

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

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

    Product owners/managers

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

    Stakeholders

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

    Strategy teams

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

    Operations teams

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

    Impacted users

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

    Download Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision.

    Product Family Canvas: Define your core information

    A screenshot of the product family canvas is shown.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Download Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision.

    2.2.3 Build your product family canvas

    30-60 minutes

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

    Output

    • Product family canvas

    Participants

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

    Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

    A screenshot of the Product Family Canvas is shown.

    Phase 3

    Ensure Alignment Between Products and Families

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4Phase 5

    1.1 Understand the organizational factors driving product-centric delivery

    1.2 Establish your organization’s product inventory

    2.1 Determine your approach to scale product families

    2.2 Define your product families

    3.1 Leverage product family roadmaps

    3.2 Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication

    3.3 Configure your product family roadmaps

    3.4 Confirm product family to product alignment

    4.1 Assess your organization’s delivery readiness

    4.2 Understand your delivery options

    4.3 Determine your operating model

    4.4 Identify how to fund product family delivery

    5.1 Learn how to introduce your digital product family strategy

    5.2 Communicate changes on updates to your strategy

    5.3 Determine your next steps

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

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

    This phase involves the following participants:

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

    Step 3.1

    Leverage product family roadmaps

    Activities

    3.1.1 Evaluate your current approach to product family communication

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

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

    Aligning products’ goals with families

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

    An example of a product roadmap is shown to demonstrate how it is the core to value realization.

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

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

    Leveraging product family roadmaps

    It’s more than a set of colorful boxes.

      ✓ Lays out a strategy for your product family.

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

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

      ✓ Directly connects to the organization’s goals.

    However, it is not:

      x Representative of a hard commitment.

      x A simple combination of your current product roadmaps.

      x A technical implementation plan.

    Product family roadmaps

    A roadmap is shown without any changes.

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

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

    A roadmap is shown with changes.

    All good product family roadmaps embrace change!

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Product family roadmaps are more strategic by nature

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

    An image is displayed to show the relationships between product and product family, and how the roadmaps could be tactical or strategic.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

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

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

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

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

    Download Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision for support.

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

    Audience

    Business/ IT Leaders

    Users/Customers

    Delivery Teams

    Roadmap View

    Portfolio

    Product Family

    Technology

    Objectives

    To provide a snapshot of the portfolio and priority products

    To visualize and validate product strategy

    To coordinate broad technology and architecture decisions

    Artifacts

    Line items or sections of the roadmap are made up of individual products, and an artifact represents a disposition at its highest level.

    Artifacts are generally grouped by 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 technical capabilities that support the broader delivery of value for the product family.

    Typical elements of a product family roadmap

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

    An example is shown to highlight the typical elements of a product family roadmap.

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

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

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

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

    3.1.1 Evaluate your current approach to product family communication

    1-2 hours

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

    Output

    • Your documented approach to product family communication

    Participants

    • Product owners
    • Stakeholders

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

    Step 3.2

    Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication

    Activities

    3.2.1 Visualize interrelationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers

    3.2.2 Group stakeholders into categories

    3.2.3 Prioritize your stakeholders

    Info-Tech Note

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

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

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

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

    Reminder: Not everyone is a user!

    USERS

    Individuals who directly obtain value from usage of the product.

    STAKEHOLDERS

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

    FUNDERS

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

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

    A stakeholder strategy is a key part of product family attainment

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

    A picture is shown that has 4 characters with puzzle pieces, each repersenting a key to product family attainment. The four keys are: Stakeholder management, product lifecycle, project delivery, and operational support.

    Create a stakeholder network map for product roadmaps and prioritization

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

    An example stakeholder network map is displayed.

    Legend

    Black arrows: indicate the direction of professional influence

    Dashed green arrows: indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships

    Info-Tech Insight

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

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

    3.2.1 Visualize interrelationships among stakeholders to identify key influencers

    60 minutes

    1. List direct stakeholders for your product.
    2. Determine the stakeholders of your stakeholders and consider adding each of them to the stakeholder list.
    3. Assess who has either formal or informal influence over your stakeholders; add these influencers to your stakeholder list.
    4. Construct a diagram linking stakeholders and their influencers together.
    • Use black arrows to indicate the direction of professional influence.
    • Use dashed green arrows to indicate bidirectional, informal influence relationships.

    Output

    • Relationships among stakeholders and influencers

    Participants

    • Product owners
    • Stakeholders

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

    Categorize your stakeholders with a prioritization map

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

    An example stakeholder prioritization map is shown.

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

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

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

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

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

    3.2.2 Group stakeholders into categories

    30-60 minutes

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

    The example stakeholder prioritization map is shown with the stakeholders grouped into the categories.

    Output

    • Categorization of stakeholders and influencers

    Participants

    • Product owners
    • Stakeholders

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

    Prioritize your stakeholders

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

    Level of Support

    Stakeholder Category

    Supporter

    Evangelist

    Neutral Blocker

    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 likely is it that this stakeholder would recommend your product?

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

    3.2.3 Prioritize your stakeholders

    30 minutes

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

    Stakeholder

    Category

    Level of Support

    Prioritization

    CMO

    Spectator

    Neutral

    Irrelevant

    CIO

    Player

    Supporter

    Critical

    Output

    • Stakeholder and influencer prioritization

    Participants

    • Product owners
    • Stakeholders

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

    Define strategies for engaging stakeholders by type

    An example is shown to demonstrate how to define strategies to engage staeholders by type.

    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 your stakeholder groups, the product owner can develop corresponding actions to manage stakeholders in each group. This can dramatically reduce wasted effort trying to satisfy Spectators and Noisemakers, while ensuring the needs of Mediators and Players are met.

    Step 3.3

    Configure your product family roadmaps

    Activities

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

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

    Info-Tech Note

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

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

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

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

    I want to... I need to talk to... Because they are focused on...
    ALIGN PRODUCT TEAMS Get my delivery teams on the same page. Architects Products Owners PRODUCTS A product that delivers value against a common set of goals and objectives.
    SHOWCASE CHANGES Inform users and customers of product strategy. Bus. Process Owners End Users FUNCTIONALITY A group of functionality that business customers see as a single unit.
    ARTICULATE RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS Inform the business of product development requirements. IT Management Business Stakeholders FUNDING An initiative that those with the money see as a single budget.

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

    30-60 minutes

    1. Explicitly state the communication objectives and audience of your roadmap.
    • Think of finishing this sentence: This roadmap is designed for … in order to …
  • You may want to consider including more than a single audience or objective.
  • Example:
  • Roadmap

    Audience

    Statement

    Internal Strategic Roadmap

    Internal Stakeholders

    This roadmap is designed to detail the strategy for delivery. It tends to use language that represents internal initiatives and names.

    Customer Strategic Roadmap

    External Customers

    This roadmap is designed to showcase and validate future strategic plans and internal teams to coordinate the development of features and enablers.

    Output

    • Roadmap list with communication objectives and audience

    Participants

    • Product owners and product managers
    • Application leaders
    • Stakeholders

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

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

    Info-Tech InsightAn example timeline is shown.

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

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

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

    Swimline/Stream-Based roadmap example.

    Swimlane/Stream-Based – Understanding when groups of items intend to be delivered.

    An example is shown that has an overall plan with rough intentions around delivery.

    Now, Next, Later – Communicate an overall plan with rough intentions around delivery without specific date ranges.

    An example of a sunrise roadmap is shown.

    Sunrise Roadmap – Articulate the journey toward a given target state across multiple streams.

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

    An example of a product family roadmap is shown and how it can be connected to the products.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Example: Connecting your product family roadmaps to product roadmaps

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

    Example is shown connecting product family roadmaps to product roadmaps.

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

    30-60 minutes

    1. Consider the different available artifacts for a product family (goals, value stream, capabilities).
    2. List the roadmaps that you wish to represent.
    3. Based on how you currently articulate details on your product families, consider:
    • What do you want to use as the level of granularity for the artifact? Consider selecting something that has a direct connection to the product roadmap itself (for example, capabilities).
    • For some roadmaps you will want to categorize your artifacts – what would work best in those cases?

    Examples

    Level of Hierarchy

    Artifact Type

    Roadmap 1

    Goals

    Capability

    Roadmap 2

    Roadmap 3

    Output

    • Details on your roadmap granularity

    Participants

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Portfolio managers

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

    Step 3.4

    Confirm goal and value alignment of products and their product families

    Activities

    3.4.1 Validate business value alignment between products and their product families

    This step involves the following participants:

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

    Outcomes of this step

    • Validation of the alignment between your product families and products

    Confirming product to family value alignment

    It isn’t always obvious whether you have the right value delivery alignment between products and product families.

    An example is shown to demonstrate product-to-family-alignment.

    Product-to-family alignment can be validated in two different ways:

    1. Initial value alignment
    2. Confirm the perceived business value at a family level is aligned with what is being delivered at a product level.

    3. Value measurement during the lifetime of the product
    4. Validate family roadmap attainment through progression toward the specified product goals.

    For more detail on calculating business value, see Build a Value Measurement Framework.

    To evaluate a product family’s contribution, you need a common definition of value

    Why is having a common value measure important?

    CIO-CEO Alignment Diagnostic

    A stacked bar graph is shown to demonstrate CIO-CEO Alignment Diagnostic. A bar titled Business Value Metrics is highlighted. 51% had some improvement necessary and 32% had significant improvement necessary.

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

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

    – Oscar Wilde

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

    – Warren Buffett

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

    All value in your product family is not created equal

    Business value is the value of the business outcome the application produces and how effective the product is at producing that outcome. Dissecting value by the benefit type and the value source allows you to see the many ways in which a product or service brings value to your organization. Capture the value of your products in short, concise statements, like an elevator pitch.

    A business value matrix is shown.

    Increase Revenue

    Product or service functions that are specifically related to the impact on your organization’s ability to generate revenue.

    Reduce Costs

    Reduction of overhead. The ways in which your product limits the operational costs of business functions.

    Enhance Services

    Functions that enable business capabilities that improve the organization’s ability to perform its internal operations.

    Reach Customers

    Application functions that enable and improve the interaction with customers or produce market information and insights.

    Financial Benefits vs. Improved Capabilities

    • Financial Benefit refers to the degree to which the value source can be measured through monetary metrics and is often quite tangible.
    • Human Benefit refers to how a product or service can deliver value through a user’s experience.

    Inward vs. Outward Orientation

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

    3.4.1 Validate business value alignment between products and their product families

    30-60 minutes

    1. Draw the 2x2 Business Value Matrix on a flip chart or open the Business Value Matrix tab in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook to use in this exercise.
    2. Brainstorm and record the different types of business value that your product and product family produce on the sticky notes (one item per sticky note).
    3. As a team, evaluate how the product value delivered contributes to the product family value delivered. Note any gaps or differences between the two.

    Download and complete Build a Value Measurement Framework for full support in focusing product delivery on business value–driven outcomes.

    A business value matrix is shown.

    Output

    • Confirmation of value alignment between product families and their respective products

    Participants

    • Product owners
    • Product managers

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

    Example: Validate business value alignment between products and their product families

    An example of a business value matrix is shown.

    Measure product value with metrics tied to your business value sources and objectives

    Assign metrics to your business value sources

    Business Value Category

    Source Examples

    Metric Examples

    Profit Generation

    Revenue

    Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

    Data Monetization

    Average Revenue per User (ARPU)

    Cost Reduction

    Reduce Labor Costs

    Contract Labor Cost

    Reduce Overhead

    Effective Cost per Install (eCPI)

    Service Enablement

    Limit Failure Risk

    Mean Time to Mitigate Fixes

    Collaboration

    Completion Time Relative to Deadline

    Customer and Market Reach

    Customer Satisfaction

    Net Promoter Score

    Customer Trends

    Number of Customer Profiles

    The importance of measuring business value through metrics

    The better an organization is at using business value metrics to evaluate IT’s performance, the more satisfied the organization is with IT’s performance as a business partner. In fact, those that say they’re effective at business value metrics have satisfaction scores that are 30% higher than those that believe significant improvements are necessary (Info-Tech’s IT diagnostics).

    Assigning metrics to your prioritized values source will allow you to more accurately measure a product’s value to the organization and identify optimization opportunities. See Info-Tech’s Related Research: Value, Delivery Metrics, Estimation blueprint for more information.

    Your product delivery pipeline connects your roadmap with business value realization

    The effectiveness of your product roadmap needs to be evaluated based on delivery capacity and throughput.

    A product roadmap is shown with additional details to demonstrate delivery capacity and throughput.

    When thinking about product delivery metrics, be careful what you ask for…

    As the saying goes “Be careful what you ask for, because you will probably get it.”

    Metrics are powerful because they drive behavior.

    • Metrics are also dangerous because they often lead to unintended negative outcomes.
    • Choose your metrics carefully to avoid getting what you asked for instead of what you intended.

    It’s a cautionary tale that also offers a low-risk path through the complexities of metrics use.

    For more information on the use (and abuse) of metrics, see Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectively.

    Measure delivery and success

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

    Build good practices in your selection and use of metrics:

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

    Phase 4

    Bridge the Gap Between Product Families and Delivery

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4Phase 5

    1.1 Understand the organizational factors driving product-centric delivery

    1.2 Establish your organization’s product inventory

    2.1 Determine your approach to scale product families

    2.2 Define your product families

    3.1 Leverage product family roadmaps

    3.2 Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication

    3.3 Configure your product family roadmaps

    3.4 Confirm product family to product alignment

    4.1 Assess your organization’s delivery readiness

    4.2 Understand your delivery options

    4.3 Determine your operating model

    4.4 Identify how to fund product family delivery

    5.1 Learn how to introduce your digital product family strategy

    5.2 Communicate changes on updates to your strategy

    5.3 Determine your next steps

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    4.1.1 Assess your organization’s readiness to deliver digital product families

    4.2.1 Consider pros and cons for each delivery model relative to how you wish to deliver

    4.3.1 Understand the relationships between product management, delivery teams, and stakeholders

    4.4.1 Discuss traditional vs. product-centric funding methods

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Portfolio managers
    • Delivery managers

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

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

    A flowchart is shown to see how the impacts of product-centric delivery can impact team and org designs.

    Info-Tech Note

    Realigning your delivery pipeline and org design takes significant effort and time. Although we won’t solve these questions here, it’s important to identify factors in your current or future models that improve value delivery.

    Step 4.1

    Assess your organization’s delivery readiness

    Activities

    4.1.1 Assess your organization’s readiness to deliver digital product families

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Portfolio managers
    • Delivery managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • An understanding of the group’s maturity level when it comes to product delivery

    Maturing product practices enables delivery of product families, not just products or projects

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the differences between project lifecycle, hybrid lifecycle, and product lifecycle.

    Just like product owners, product family owners are needed to develop long-term product value, strategy, and delivery. Projects can still be used as the source of funding and change management; however, the product family owner must manage product releases and operational support. The focus of this section will be on aligning product families to one or more releases.

    4.1.1 Assess your organization’s readiness to deliver digital product families

    30-60 minutes

    1. For each question in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Readiness Assessment, ask yourself which of the five associated maturity statements most closely describes your organization.
    2. As a group, agree on your organization’s current readiness score for each of the six categories.

    A screenshot of the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Readiness Assessment is shown.

    Output

    • Product delivery readiness score

    Participants

    • Product managers
    • Product owners

    Download the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Readiness Assessment.

    Value realization is constrained by your product delivery pipeline

    Value is realized through changes made at the product level. Your pipeline dictates the rate, quality, and prioritization of your backlog delivery. This pipeline connects your roadmap goals to the value the goals are intended to provide.

    An example of a product roadmap is shown with the additional details of the product delivery pipeline being highlighted.

    Product delivery realizes value for your product family

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

    PRODUCT STRATEGY

    What are the artifacts?

    What are you saying?

    Defined at the family level?

    Defined at the product level?

    Vision

    I want to...

    Strategic focus

    Delivery focus

    Goals

    To get there we need to...

    Roadmap

    To achieve our goals, we’ll deliver...

    Backlog

    The work will be done in this order...

    Release Plan

    We will deliver in the following ways...

    Step 4.2

    Understand your delivery options

    Activities

    4.2.1 Consider pros and cons for each delivery model relative to how you wish to deliver

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Portfolio managers
    • Delivery managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • An understanding of the different team configuration options when it comes to delivery and their relevance to how you currently work

    Define the scope of your product delivery strategy

    The goal of your product delivery strategy is to establish streamlined, enforceable, and standardized product management and delivery capabilities that follow industry best practices. You will need to be strategic in how and where you implement your changes because this will set the stage for future adoption. Strategically select the most appropriate products, roles, and areas of your organization to implement your new or enhanced capabilities and establish a foundation for scaling.

    Successful product delivery requires people who are knowledgeable about the products they manage and have a broad perspective of the entire delivery process, from intake to delivery, and of the product portfolio. The right people also have influence with other teams and stakeholders who are directly or indirectly impacted by product decisions. Involve team members who have expertise in the development, maintenance, and management of your selected products and stakeholders who can facilitate and promote change.

    Learn about different patterns to structure and resource your product delivery teams

    The primary goal of any product delivery team is to improve the delivery of value for customers and the business based on your product definition and each product’s demand. Each organization will have different priorities and constraints, so your team structure may take on a combination of patterns or may take on one pattern and then transform into another.

    Delivery Team Structure Patterns

    How Are Resources and Work Allocated?

    Functional Roles

    Teams are divided by functional responsibilities (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk) and arranged according to their placement in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

    Completed work is handed off from team to team sequentially as outlined in the organization’s SDLC.

    Shared Service and Resource Pools

    Teams are created by pulling the necessary resources from pools (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk).

    Resources are pulled whenever the work requires specific skills or pushed to areas where product demand is high.

    Product or System

    Teams are dedicated to the development, support, and management of specific products or systems.

    Work is directly sent to the teams who are directly managing the product or directly supporting the requester.

    Skills and Competencies

    Teams are grouped based on skills and competencies related to technology (e.g. Java, mobile, web) or familiarity with business capabilities (e.g. HR, finance).

    Work is directly sent to the teams who have the IT and business skills and competencies to complete the work.

    See the flow of work through each delivery team structure pattern

    Four delivery team structures are shown. The four are: functional roles, shared service and resource pools, product or system, and skills and competencies.

    Staffing models for product teams

    Functional Roles Shared Service and Resource Pools Product or System Skills and Competencies
    A screenshot of the functional roles from the flow of work example is shown. A screenshot of the shared service and resource pools from the flow of work example is shown. A screenshot of the product or system from the flow of work example is shown. A screenshot of skills and competencies from the flow of work example is shown.
    Pros
      ✓ Specialized resources are easier to staff

      ✓ Product knowledge is maintained

      ✓ Flexible demand/capacity management

      ✓ Supports full utilization of resources

      ✓ Teams are invested in the full life of the product

      ✓ Standing teams enable continuous improvement

      ✓ Teams are invested in the technology

      ✓ Standing teams enable continuous improvement

    Cons
      x Demand on specialists can create bottlenecks

      x Creates barriers to collaboration

      x Unavailability of resources can lead to delays

      x Product knowledge can be lost as resources move

      x Changes in demand can lead to downtime

      x Cross-functional skills make staffing a challenge

      x Technology bias can lead to the wrong solution

      x Resource contention when team supports multiple solutions

    Considerations
      ! Product owners must break requests down into very small components to support Agile delivery as mini-Waterfalls
      ! Product owners must identify specialist requirements in the roadmap to ensure resources are available
      ! Product owners must ensure that there is a sufficient backlog of valuable work ready to keep the team utilized
      ! Product owners must remain independent of technology to ensure the right solution is built
    Use Case
    • When you lack people with cross-functional skills
    • When you have specialists such as those skilled in security and operations who will not have full-time work on the product
    • When you have people with cross-functional skills who can self-organize around the request
    • When you have a significant investment in a specific technology stack

    4.2.1 Consider pros and cons for each delivery model relative to how you wish to deliver

    1. Document your current staffing model for your product delivery teams.
    2. Evaluate the pros and cons of each model, as specified on the previous slide, relative to how you currently work.
    3. What would be the ideal target state for your team? If one model does not completely fit, is there a hybrid option worth considering? For example: Product-Based combined with Shared Service/Resource Pools for specific roles.

    Functional Roles

    Teams are divided by functional responsibilities (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk) and arranged according to their placement in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

    Shared Service and Resource Pools

    Teams are created by pulling the necessary resources from pools (e.g. developers, testers, business analysts, operations, help desk).

    Product or System

    Teams are dedicated to the development, support, and management of specific products or systems.

    Skills and Competencies

    Teams are grouped based on skills and competencies related to technology (e.g. Java, mobile, web) or familiarity with business capabilities (e.g. HR, finance).

    Output

    • An understanding of pros and cons for each delivery model and the ideal target state for your team

    Participants

    • Product managers
    • Product owners

    Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

    Step 4.3

    Determine your operating model

    Activities

    4.3.1 Understand the relationships between product management, delivery teams, and stakeholders

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Portfolio managers
    • Delivery managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • An understanding of the potential operating models and what will work best for your organization

    Reminder: Patterns for scaling products

    The alignment of your product families should be considered in your operating model.

    Value Stream Alignment

    Enterprise Applications

    Shared Services

    Technical

    Organizational Alignment

    • Business architecture
      • Value stream
      • Capability
      • Function
    • Market/customer segment
    • Line of business (LoB)
    • Example: Customer group > value stream > products
    • Enabling capabilities
    • Enterprise platforms
    • Supporting apps
    • Example: HR > Workday/Peoplesoft > ModulesSupporting: Job board, healthcare administrator
    • Organization of related services into service family
    • Direct hierarchy does not necessarily exist within the family
    • Examples: End-user support and ticketing, workflow and collaboration tools
    • Domain grouping of IT infrastructure, platforms, apps, skills, or languages
    • Often used in combination with Shared Services grouping or LoB-specific apps
    • Examples: Java, .NET, low-code, database, network
    • Used at higher levels of the organization where products are aligned under divisions
    • Separation of product managers from organizational structure no longer needed because the management team owns product management role

    Ensure consistency in the application of your design principles with a coherent operating model

    What is an 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.

    An example of an operating model is shown.

    For more information, see Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure.

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

    1. LoB/Product Aligned – Decentralized Model: Line of Business, Geographically, Product, or Functionally Aligned
    2. A decentralized IT operating model that embeds specific functions within LoBs/product teams and provides cross-organizational support for their initiatives.

    3. Hybrid Functional: Functional/Product Aligned
    4. A best-of-both-worlds model that balances the benefits of centralized and decentralized approaches to achieve both customer responsiveness and economies of scale.

    5. Hybrid Service Model: Product-Aligned Operating Model
    6. A model that supports what is commonly referred to as a matrix organization, organizing by highly related service categories and introducing the role of the service owner.

    7. Centralized: Plan-Build-Run
    8. A highly typical IT operating model that focuses on centralized strategic control and oversight in delivering cost-optimized and effective solutions.

    9. Centralized: Demand-Develop-Service
    10. A centralized IT operating model that lends well to more mature operating environments. Aimed at leveraging economies of scale in an end-to-end services delivery model.

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

    Decentralized Model: Line of Business, Geographically, Product, or Functionally Aligned

    An example of a decentralized model is shown.

    BENEFITS

    DRAWBACKS

    • Organization around functions (FXN) allows for diversity in approach in how areas are run to best serve specific business units needs.
    • Each functional line exists largely independently, with full capacity and control to deliver service at the committed service level agreements.
    • Highly responsive to shifting needs and demands with direct connection to customers and all stages of the solution development lifecycle.
    • Accelerates decision making by delegating authority lower into the FXN.
    • Promotes a flatter organization with less hierarchy and more direct communication with the CIO.
    • Less synergy and integration across what different lines of business are doing can result in redundancies and unnecessary complexity.
    • Higher overall cost to the IT group due to role and technology duplication across different FXN.
    • Inexperience becomes an issue; requires more competent people to be distributed across the FXN.
    • Loss of sight of the big picture – difficult to enforce standards around people/process/technology with solution ownership within the FXN.

    For more information, see Redesign your IT Organizational Structure.

    Hybrid Model: Functional/Product Aligned

    An example of a hybrid model: functional/product aligned is shown.

    BENEFITS

    DRAWBACKS

    • Best of both worlds of centralization and decentralization; attempts to channel benefits from both centralized and decentralized models.
    • Embeds key IT functions that require business knowledge within functional areas, allowing for critical feedback.
    • Balances a holistic IT strategy and architecture with responsiveness to needs of the organization.
    • Achieves economies of scale where necessary through the delivery of shared services that can be requested by the function.
    • May result in excessive cost through role and system redundancies across different functions
    • Business units can have variable levels of IT competence; may result in different levels of effectiveness.
    • No guaranteed synergy and integration across functions; requires strong communication, collaboration, and steering.
    • Cannot meet every business unit’s needs – can cause tension from varying effectiveness of the IT functions placed within the functional areas.

    For more information, see Redesign your IT Organizational Structure.

    Hybrid Model: Product-Aligned Operating Model

    An example of a hybrid model: product-aligned operating model.

    BENEFITS

    DRAWBACKS

    • Focus is on the full lifecycle of a product – takes a strategic view of how technology enables the organization.
    • Promotes centralized backlog around a specific value creator, rather than traditional project focus, which is more transactional.
    • Dedicated teams around the product family ensure that you have all of the resources required to deliver on your product roadmap.
    • Reduces barriers between IT and business stakeholders, focuses on technology as a key strategic enabler.
    • Delivery is largely done through a DevOps methodology.
    • Significant business involvement is required for success within this model, with business stakeholders taking an active role in product governance and potentially product management as well.
    • Strong architecture standards and practices are required to make this successful because you need to ensure that product families are building in a consistent manner and limiting application sprawl.
    • Introduced the need for practice standards to drive consistency in quality of delivered services.
    • May result in increased cost through role redundancies across different squads.

    For more information, see Redesign your IT Organizational Structure.

    Centralized: Plan-Build-Run

    An example of a centralized: Plan-Build-Run is shown.

    BENEFITS

    DRAWBACKS

    • Effective at implementing long-term plans efficiently, separates maintenance and projects to allow each to have the appropriate focus.
    • More oversight over financials; better suited for fixed budgets.
    • Works across centralized technology domains to better align with the business's strategic objectives – allows for a top-down approach to decision making.
    • Allows for economies of scale and expertise pooling to improve IT’s efficiency.
    • Well suited for a project-driven environment that employs Waterfall or a hybrid project management methodology that is less iterative.
    • Not optimized for unpredictable/shifting project demands, as decision making is centralized in the plan function.
    • Less agility to deliver new features or solutions to the customer in comparison to decentralized models.
    • Build (developers) and run (operations staff) are far removed from the business, resulting in lower understanding of business needs (as well as “passing the buck” – from development to operations).
    • Requires strong hand-off processes to be defined and strong knowledge transfer from build to run functions in order to be successful.

    For more information, see Redesign your IT Organizational Structure.

    Centralized: Demand-Develop-Service

    An example of a centralized: Demand-Develop-Service model is shown.

    BENEFITS

    DRAWBACKS

    • Aligns well with an end-to-end services model; constant attention to customer demand and service supply.
    • Centralizes service operations under one functional area to serve shared needs across lines of business.
    • Allows for economies of scale and expertise pooling to improve IT’s efficiency.
    • Elevates sourcing and vendor management as its own strategic function; lends well to managed service and digital initiatives.
    • Development and operations housed together; lends well to DevOps-related initiatives.
    • Can be less responsive to business needs than decentralized models due to the need for portfolio steering to prioritize initiatives and solutions.
    • Requires a higher level of operational maturity to succeed; stable supply functions (service mgmt., operations mgmt., service desk, security, data) are critical to maintaining business satisfaction.
    • Requires highly effective governance around project portfolio, services, and integration capabilities.
    • Effective feedback loop highly dependent on accurate performance measures.

    For more information, see Redesign your IT Organizational Structure.

    Assess how your product scaling pattern impacts your resource delivery model

    Value Stream Alignment

    Enterprise Applications

    Shared Services

    Technical

    Plan-Build-Run:
    Centralized

    Pro: Supports established and stable families.

    Con: Command-and-control nature inhibits Agile DevOps and business agility.

    Pro: Supports established and stable families.

    Con: Command-and-control nature inhibits Agile DevOps and business agility.

    Pro: Can be used to align high-level families.

    Con: Lacks flexibility at the product level to address shifting priorities in product demand.

    Pro: Supports a factory model.

    Con: Lacks flexibility at the product level to address shifting priorities in product demand.

    Centralized Model 2:
    Demand-Develop-
    Service

    Pro: Supports established and stable families.

    Con: Command-and-control nature inhibits Agile DevOps and business agility.

    Pro: Supports established and stable families.

    Con: Command-and-control nature inhibits Agile DevOps and business agility.

    Pro: Recommended for aligning high-level service families based on user needs.

    Con: Reduces product empowerment, prioritizing demand. Slow.

    Pro: Supports factory models.

    Con: Reduces product empowerment, prioritizing demand. Slow.

    Decentralized Model:
    Line of Business, Product, Geographically, or

    Functionally Aligned

    Pro: Aligns product families to value streams, capabilities, and organizational structure.

    Con: Reduces shared solutions and may create duplicate apps and services.

    Pro: Enterprise apps treated as distinct LoB groups.

    Con: Reduces shared solutions and may create duplicate apps and services.

    Pro: Complements value stream alignment by consolidating shared apps and services.

    Con: Requires additional effort to differentiate local vs. shared solutions.

    Pro: Fits within other groupings where technical expertise is needed.

    Con: Creates redundancy between localized and shared technical teams.

    Hybrid Model:
    Functional/Product

    Aligned

    Pro: Supports multiple patterns of product grouping.

    Con: Requires additional effort to differentiate local vs. shared solutions.

    Pro: Supports multiple patterns of product grouping.

    Con: Requires additional effort to differentiate local vs. shared solutions.

    Pro: Supports multiple patterns of product grouping.

    Con: Requires additional effort to differentiate local vs. shared solutions.

    Pro: Supports multiple patterns of product grouping.

    Con: Creates redundancy between localized and shared technical teams.

    Hybrid Model:

    Product-Aligned Operating Model

    Pro: Supports multiple patterns of product grouping.

    Con: Requires additional effort to differentiate local vs. shared solutions.

    Pro: Supports multiple patterns of product grouping.

    Con: Requires additional effort to differentiate local vs. shared solutions.

    Pro: Supports multiple patterns of product grouping.

    Con: Requires additional effort to differentiate local vs. shared solutions.

    Pro: Supports multiple patterns of product grouping.

    Con: Creates redundancy between localized and shared technical teams.

    4.3.1 Understand the relationships between product management, delivery teams, and stakeholders

    30-60 minutes

    1. Discuss the intake sources of product work.
    2. Trace the flow of requests down to the functional roles of your delivery team (e.g., developer, QA, operations).
    3. Indicate where key deliverables are produced, particularly those that are built in collaboration.
    4. Discuss the five operating models relative to your current operating model choice. How aligned are you?
    5. Review Info-Tech’s recommendation on the best-aligned operating models for product family delivery. Do you agree or disagree?
    6. Evaluate recommendations against how you operate/work.

    Output

    • Understanding of the relationships between key groups
    • A preferred operating model

    Participants

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Delivery managers

    Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

    4.3.1 Understand the relationships between product management, delivery teams, and stakeholders

    An example of activity 4.3.1 to understand the relationships between product management, delivery teams, and stakeholders is shown.

    Output

    • Understanding of the relationships between key groups
    • A preferred operating model

    Participants

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Delivery managers

    Step 4.4

    Identify how to fund product family delivery

    Activities

    4.4.1 Discuss traditional vs. product-centric funding methods

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Portfolio managers
    • Delivery managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • An understanding of the differences between product-based and traditional funding methods

    Why is funding so problematic?

    We often still think about funding products like construction projects.

    Three models are shown on the various options to fund projects.

    These models require increasing accuracy throughout the project lifecycle to manage actuals vs. estimates.

    "Most IT funding depends on one-time expenditures or capital-funding mechanisms that are based on building-construction funding models predicated on a life expectancy of 20 years or more. Such models don’t provide the stability or flexibility needed for modern IT investments." – EDUCAUSE

    Reminder: Projects don’t go away. The center of the conversation changes.

    A flowchart is shown to demonstrate the difference between project lifecycle, hybrid lifecycle, and product lifecycle.

    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.

    Planning and budgeting for products and families

    Reward for delivering outcomes, not features

    AutonomyFlexibilityAccountability
    Fund what delivers valueAllocate iterativelyMeasure and adjust

    Fund long-lived delivery of value through products (not projects).

    Give autonomy to the team to decide exactly what to build.

    Allocate to a pool based on higher-level business case.

    Provide funds in smaller amounts to different product teams and initiatives based on need.

    Product teams define metrics that contribute to given outcomes.

    Track progress and allocate more (or less) funds as appropriate.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    The Lean Enterprise Funding Model is an example of a different approach

    An example of the lean enterprise funding model is shown.
    From: Implement Agile Practices That Work

    A flexible funding pool akin to venture capital models is maintained to support innovative ideas and fund proofs of concept for product and process improvements.

    Proofs of concept (POCs) are run by standing innovation teams or a reserve of resources not committed to existing products, projects, or services.

    Every product line has funding for all changes and ongoing operations and support.

    Teams are funded continuously so that they can learn and improve their practices as much as possible.

    Budgeting approaches must evolve as you mature your product operating environment

    TRADITIONAL PROJECTS WITH WATERFALL DELIVERY

    TRADITIONAL PROJECTS WITH AGILE DELIVERY

    PRODUCTS WITH AGILE PROJECT DELIVERY

    PRODUCTS WITH AGILE DELIVERY

    WHEN IS THE BUDGET TRACKED?

    Budget tracked by major phases

    Budget tracked by sprint and project

    Budget tracked by sprint and project

    Budget tracked by sprint and release

    HOW ARE CHANGES HANDLED?

    All change is by exception

    Scope change is routine, budget change is by exception

    Scope change is routine, budget change is by exception

    Budget change is expected on roadmap cadence

    WHEN ARE BENEFITS REALIZED?

    Benefits realization after project completion

    Benefits realization is ongoing throughout the life of the project

    Benefits realization is ongoing throughout the life of the product

    Benefits realization is ongoing throughout life of the product

    WHO “DRIVES”?

    Project Manager

    • Project team delivery role
    • Refines project scope, advocates for changes in the budget
    • Advocates for additional funding in the forecast

    Product Owner

    • Project team delivery role
    • Refines project scope, advocates for changes in the budget
    • Advocates for additional funding in the forecast

    Product Manager

    • Product portfolio team role
    • Forecasting new initiatives during delivery to continue to drive value throughout the life of the product

    Product Manager

  • Product family team role
  • Forecasting new initiatives during delivery to continue to drive value throughout the life of the product
  • Info-Tech Insight

    As you evolve your approach to product delivery, you will be decoupling the expected benefits, forecast, and budget. Managing them independently will improve your ability to adapt to change and drive the right outcomes!

    Your strategy must include the cost to build and operate

    Most investment happens after go-live, not in the initial build!

    An example strategy is displayed that incorporates the concepts of cost to build and operate.

    Adapted from: LookFar

    Info-Tech Insight

    While the exact balance point between development or implementation costs varies from application to application, over 80% of the cost is accrued after go-live.

    Traditional accounting leaves software development CapEx on the table

    Software development costs have traditionally been capitalized, while research and operations are operational expenditures.

    The challenge has always been the myth that operations are only bug fixes, upgrades, and other operational expenditures. Research shows that most post-release work on developed solutions is the development of new features and changes to support material changes in the business. While projects could bundle some of these changes into capital expenditure, much of the business-as-usual work that goes on leaves capital expenses on the table because the work is lumped together as maintenance-related OpEx.

    From “How to Stop Leaving Software CapEx on the Table With Agile and DevOps”

    4.4.1 Discuss traditional vs. product-centric funding methods

    30-60 minutes

    1. Discuss how products and product families are currently funded.
    2. Review how the Agile/product funding models differ from how you currently operate.
    3. What changes do you need to consider in order to support a product delivery model?
    4. For each change, identify the key stakeholders and list at least one action to take.
    5. Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

    Output

    • Understanding of funding principles and challenges

    Participants

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Delivery managers

    Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

    Phase 5

    Build Your Transformation Roadmap and Communication Plan

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3Phase 4Phase 5

    1.1 Understand the organizational factors driving product-centric delivery

    1.2 Establish your organization’s product inventory

    2.1 Determine your approach to scale product families

    2.2 Define your product families

    3.1 Leverage product family roadmaps

    3.2 Use stakeholder management to improve roadmap communication

    3.3 Configure your product family roadmaps

    3.4 Confirm product family to product alignment

    4.1 Assess your organization’s delivery readiness

    4.2 Understand your delivery options

    4.3 Determine your operating model

    4.4 Identify how to fund product family delivery

    5.1 Learn how to introduce your digital product family strategy

    5.2 Communicate changes on updates to your strategy

    5.3 Determine your next steps

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    5.1.1 Introduce your digital product family strategy

    5.2.1 Define your communication cadence for your strategy updates

    5.2.2 Define your messaging for each stakeholder

    5.3.1 How do we get started?

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Product owners
    • Product managers
    • Application leaders
    • Stakeholders

    Step 5.1

    Introduce your digital product family strategy

    Activities

    5.1.1 Introduce your digital product family strategy

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Product owners and product managers
    • Application leaders
    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • A completed executive summary presenting your digital product strategy

    Product decisions are traditionally made in silos with little to no cross-functional communication and strategic oversight

    Software delivery teams and stakeholders traditionally make plans, strategies, and releases within their silos and tailor their decisions based on their own priorities. Interactions are typically limited to hand-offs (such as feature requests) and routing of issues and defects back up the delivery pipeline. These silos likely came about through well-intentioned training, mandates, and processes, but they do not sufficiently support today’s need to rapidly release and change platforms.

    Siloed departments often have poor visibility into the activities of other silos, and they may not be aware of the ramifications their decisions have on teams and stakeholders outside of their silo.

    • Silos may make choices that are optimal largely for themselves without thinking of the holistic impact on a platform’s structure, strategy, use cases, and delivery.
    • The business may approve platform improvements without the consideration of the delivery team’s current capacity or the system’s complexity, resulting in unrealistic commitments.
    • Quality standards may be misinterpreted and inconsistently enforced across the entire delivery pipeline.

    In some cases, the only way to achieve greater visibility and communication for all roles across a platform’s lifecycle is implementing an overarching role or team.

    “The majority of our candid conversations with practitioners and project management offices indicate that the platform ownership role is poorly defined and poorly executed.”

    – Barry Cousins

    Practice Lead, Applications – Project & Portfolio Management

    Info-Tech Research Group

    Use stakeholder management and roadmap views to improve communication

    Proactive, clear communication with stakeholders, SMEs, and your product delivery team can significantly improve alignment and agreement with your roadmap, strategy, and vision.

    When building your communication strategy, revisit the work you completed in phase 3 developing your:

    • Roadmap types
    • Stakeholder strategy

    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.

    5.1.1 Introduce your digital product family strategy

    30-60 minutes

    This exercise is intended to help you lay out the framing of your strategy and the justification for the effort. A lot of these items can be pulled directly from the product canvas you created in phase 2. This is intended to be a single slide to frame your upcoming discussions.

    1. Update your vision, goals, and values on your product canvas. Determine which stakeholders may be impacted and what their concerns are. If you have many stakeholders, limit to Players and Influencers.
    2. Identify what you need from the stakeholders as a result of this communication.
    3. Keeping in mind the information gathered in steps 1 and 2, describe your product family strategy by answering three questions:
    1. Why do we need product families?
    2. What is in our way?
    3. Our first step will be... ?

    Output

    • An executive summary that introduces your product strategy

    Participants

    • Product owners and product managers
    • Application leaders
    • Stakeholders

    Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

    Example: Scaling delivery through product families

    Why do we need product families?

    • The growth of our product offerings and our company’s movement into new areas of growth mean we need to do a better job scaling our offerings to meet the needs of the organization.

    What is in our way?

    • Our existing applications and services are so dramatically different we are unsure how to bring them together.

    Our first step will be...

    • Taking a full inventory of our applications and services.

    Step 5.2

    Communicate changes on updates to your strategy

    Activities

    5.2.1 Define your communication cadence for your strategy updates

    5.2.2 Define your messaging for each stakeholder

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Product owners and product managers
    • Application leaders
    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • A communication plan for when strategy updates need to be given

    5.2.1 Define your communication cadence for your strategy updates

    30 minutes

    Remember the role of different artifacts when it comes to your strategy. The canvas contributes to the What, and the roadmap addresses the How. Any updates to the strategy are articulated and communicated through your roadmap.

    1. Review your currently defined roadmaps, their communication objectives, update frequency, and updates.
    2. Consider the impacted stakeholders and the strategies required to communicate with them.
    3. Fill in your communication cadence and communication method.

    EXAMPLE:

    Roadmap Name

    Audience/Stakeholders

    Communication Cadence

    External Customer Roadmap

    Customers and External Users

    Quarterly (Website)

    Product Delivery Roadmap

    Development Teams, Infrastructure, Architects

    Monthly (By Email)

    Technology Roadmap

    Development Teams, Infrastructure, Architects

    Biweekly (Website)

    Output

    • Clear communication cadence for your roadmaps

    Participants

    • Product owners and product managers
    • Application leaders
    • Stakeholders

    Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

    The “what” behind the communication

    Leaders of successful change spend considerable time developing a powerful change message, i.e. a compelling narrative that articulates the desired end state and makes the change concrete and meaningful to staff.

    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.

    Five elements of communicating change

    1. What is the change?
    2. Why are we doing it?
    3. How are we going to go about it?
    4. How long will it take us to do it?
    5. What is the role for each department and individual?

    Source: Cornelius & Associates

    How we engage with the message is just as important as the message itself

    Why are we here?

    Speak to what matters to them

    Sell the improvement

    Show real value

    Discuss potential fears

    Ask for their support

    Be gracious

    5.2.2 (Optional) Define your messaging for each stakeholder

    30 minutes

    It’s one thing to communicate the strategy, it’s another thing to send the right message to your stakeholders. Some of this will depend on the kind of news given, but the majority of this is dependent on the stakeholder and the cadence of communication.

    1. From exercise 5.2.1, take the information on the specific roadmaps, target audience, and communication cadence.
    2. Based on your understanding of the audience’s needs, what would the specific update try to get across?
    3. Pick a specific typical example of a change in strategy that you have gone through. (e.g. Product will be delayed by a quarter; key feature is being substituted for another.)

    EXAMPLE:

    Roadmap Name

    Audience/ Stakeholder

    Communication Cadence

    Messaging

    External Customer Roadmap

    Customers and External Users

    Quarterly (Website)

    Output

    • Messaging plan for each roadmap type

    Participants

    • Product owners and product managers
    • Application leaders
    • Stakeholders

    Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

    Step 5.3

    Determine your next steps

    Activities

    5.3.1 How do we get started?

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Product owners and product managers
    • Application leaders
    • Stakeholders

    Outcomes of this step

    • Understanding the steps to get started in your transformation

    Make a plan in order to make a plan!

    Consider some of the techniques you can use to validate your strategy.

    Learning Milestones

    Sprint Zero (AKA Project-before-the-project)

    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

    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

    An image showing the flowchart of continuous delivery of value is shown.

    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.

    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?

    An example of a now, next, later roadmap is shown.

    Source: “Tips for Agile product roadmaps & product roadmap examples,” Scrum.org, 2017

    5.3.1 How do we get started?

    30-60 minutes

    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.
  • Record the group results in the Deliver Digital Products at Scale Workbook.
  • Record changes for your product and product family in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.
  • An example of a now, next, later roadmap is shown.

    Source: “Tips for Agile product roadmaps & product roadmap examples,” Scrum.org, 2017

    Output

    • Product family transformation critical steps and basic roadmap

    Participants

    • Product owners and product managers
    • Application leaders
    • Stakeholders

    Record the results in the Digital Product Family Strategy Playbook.

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

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    The journey to become a product-centric organization is not short or easy. Like with any improvement or innovation, teams need to continue to evolve and mature with changes in their operations, teams, tools, and user needs.You’ve taken a big step completing your product family alignment. This provides a backbone for aligning all aspects of your organization to your enterprise goals and strategy while empowering product teams to find solutions closer to the problem. Continue to refine your model and operations to improve value realization and your product delivery pipelines to embrace business agility. Organizations that are most responsive to change will continue to outperform command-and-control leadership.

    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

    Photo of Emily Archer.

    Emily Archer

    Lead Business Analyst,

    Enterprise Consulting, authentic digital agency

    Emily Archer is a consultant currently working with Fortune 500 clients to ensure the delivery of successful projects, products, and processes. She helps increase the business value returned for organizations’ investments in designing and implementing enterprise content hubs and content operations, custom web applications, digital marketing, and e-commerce platforms.

    Photo of David Berg

    Founder & CTO

    Strainprint Technologies Inc.

    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.

    Kathy Borneman

    Digital Product Owner, SunTrust Bank

    Kathy Borneman is a senior product owner who helps people enjoy their jobs again by engaging others in end-to-end decision making to deliver software and operational solutions that enhance the client experience and allow people to think and act strategically.

    Photro of Charlie Campbell

    Charlie Campbell

    Product Owner, Merchant e-Solutions

    Charlie Campbell is an experienced problem solver with the ability to quickly dissect situations and recommend immediate actions to achieve resolution, liaise between technical and functional personnel to bridge the technology and communication gap, and work with diverse teams and resources to reach a common goal.

    Photo of Yarrow Diamond

    Yarrow Diamond

    Sr. Director, Business Architecture

    Financial Services

    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.

    Photo of Cari J. Faanes-Blakey

    Cari J. Faanes-Blakey, CBAP, PMI-PBA

    Enterprise Business Systems Analyst,

    Vertex, Inc.

    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.

    Photo of Kieran Gobey

    Kieran Gobey

    Senior Consultant Professional Services

    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.

    Photo of Rupert Kainzbauer

    Rupert Kainzbauer

    VP Product, Digital Wallets

    Paysafe Group

    Rupert Kainzbauer is an experienced senior leader with a passion for defining and delivering products that deliver real customer and commercial benefit. Together with a team of highly experienced and motivated product managers, he has successfully led highly complex, multi-stakeholder payments initiatives, from proposition development and solution design through to market delivery. Their domain experience is in building online payment products in high-risk and emerging markets, remittance, prepaid cards, and mobile applications.

    Photo of Saeed Khan

    Saeed Khan

    Founder,

    Transformation Labs

    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.

    Photo of Hoi Kun Lo

    Hoi Kun Lo

    Product Owner

    Nielsen

    Hoi Kun Lo is an experienced change agent who can be found actively participating within the IIBA and WITI groups in Tampa, FL and a champion for Agile, architecture, diversity, and inclusion programs at Nielsen. She is currently a Product Owner in the Digital Strategy team within Nielsen Global Watch Technology.

    Photo of Abhishek Mathur

    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

    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’s of Applied Science (Electrical Engineering) and a Bachelor’s of Arts from the University of Waterloo, an MBA from INSEAD (Strategy), and certifications in product management, project management, and design thinking.

    Photo of Vincent Mirabelli

    Vincent Mirabelli

    Principal,

    Global Project Synergy Group

    With over 10 years of experience in both the private and public sectors, Vincent Mirabelli possesses an impressive track record of improving, informing, and transforming business strategy and operations through process improvement, design and re-engineering, and the application of quality to business analysis, project management, and process improvement standards.

    Photo of Oz Nazili

    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.

    Photo of Mark Pearson

    Mark Pearson

    Principal IT Architect, First Data Corporation

    Mark Pearson is an executive business leader grounded in the process, data, technology, and operations of software-driven business. He knows the enterprise software landscape and is skilled in product, technology, and operations design and delivery within information technology organizations, outsourcing firms, and software product companies.

    Photo of Brenda Peshak

    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.

    Photo of Mike Starkey

    Mike Starkey

    Director of Engineering

    W.W. Grainger

    Mike Starkey is a Director of Engineering at W.W. Grainger, currently focusing on operating model development, digital architecture, and building enterprise software. Prior to joining W.W. Grainger, Mike held a variety of technology consulting roles throughout the system delivery lifecycle spanning multiple industries such as healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and utilities with Fortune 500 companies.

    Photo of Anant Tailor

    Anant Tailor

    Cofounder & Head of Product

    Dream Payments Corp.

    Anant Tailor is a cofounder at Dream Payments where he currently serves as the COO and Head of Product, having responsibility for Product Strategy & Development, Client Delivery, Compliance, and Operations. He has 20+ years of experience building and operating organizations that deliver software products and solutions for consumers and businesses of varying sizes. Prior to founding Dream Payments, Anant was the COO and Director of Client Services at DonRiver Inc, a technology strategy and software consultancy that he helped to build and scale into a global company with 100+ employees operating in seven countries. Anant is a Professional Engineer with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from McMaster University and a certificate in Product Strategy & Management from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

    Photo of Angela Weller

    Angela Weller

    Scrum Master, Businessolver

    Angela Weller is an experienced Agile business analyst who collaborates with key stakeholders to attain their goals and contributes to the achievement of the company’s strategic objectives to ensure a competitive advantage. She excels when mediating or facilitating teams.

    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.

    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.

    Enable Organization-Wide Collaboration by Scaling Agile

    • Execute a disciplined approach to rolling out Agile methods in the organization.

    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.

    Discover Your Applications

    • Most application strategies fail. Arm yourself with the necessary information and team structure for a successful application portfolio strategy.

    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.

    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 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.

    Org Design and Performance

    Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure

    • Focus product delivery on business value–driven outcomes.

    Build a Strategic Workforce Plan

    • Have the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

    Implement a New Organizational Structure

    • Reorganizations are inherently disruptive. Implement your new structure with minimal pain for staff while maintaining IT performance throughout the change.

    Improve Employee Engagement to Drive IT Performance

    • Don’t just measure engagement, act on it.

    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.

    Bibliography (Product Management)

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    McCloskey, Heather. “When and How to Scale Your Product Team.” UserVoice, 21 Feb. 2017. Web.

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    Overeem, Barry. “Retrospective: Using the Team Radar.” Barry Overeem, 27 Feb. 2017. Web.

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    Pichler, Roman. “Product Management Framework.” Pichler Consulting Limited, 2014. Web.

    Pichler, Roman. “Sprint Planning Tips for Product Owners.” LinkedIn, 4 Sept. 2018. Web.

    Pichler, Roman. “What Is Product Management?” Pichler Consulting Limited, 26 Nov. 2014. Web.

    Radigan, Dan. “Putting the ‘Flow' Back in Workflow With WIP Limits.” Atlassian, n.d. Web.

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    Schuurman, Robbin. “10 Tips for Product Owners on (Business) Value.” Scrum.org, 30 Nov. 2017. Web.

    Schuurman, Robbin. “10 Tips for Product Owners on Agile Product Management.” Scrum.org, 28 Nov. 2017. Web.

    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.

    Shirazi, Reza. “Betsy Stockdale of Seilevel: Product Managers Are Not Afraid To Be Wrong.” Austin Voice of Product, 2 Oct. 2018. Web.

    Steiner, Anne. “Start to Scale Your Product Management: Multiple Teams Working on Single Product.” Cprime, 6 Aug. 2019. Web.

    “The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change.” Cornelius & Associates, 2016. Web.

    “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.

    Tolonen, Arto. “Scaling Product Management in a Single Product Company.” Smartly.io, 26 Apr. 2018. Web.

    Ulrich, Catherine. “The 6 Types of Product Managers. Which One Do You Need?” Medium, 19 Dec. 2017. Web.

    Verwijs, Christiaan. “Retrospective: Do The Team Radar.” The Liberators, Medium, 10 Feb. 2017. Web.

    Vlaanderen, Kevin. “Towards Agile Product and Portfolio Management”. Academia.edu. 2010. Web.

    Bibliography (Roadmap)

    Bastow, Janna. “Creating Agile Product roadmaps Everyone Understands.” ProdPad, 22 Mar. 2017. Accessed Sept. 2018.

    Bastow, Janna. “The Product Tree Game: Our Favorite Way To Prioritize Features.” ProdPad, 21 Feb. 2016. Accessed Sept. 2018.

    Chernak, Yuri. “Requirements Reuse: The State of the Practice.” 2012 IEEE International Conference, 12 June 2012, Herzliya, Israel. Web.

    Fowler, Martin. “Application Boundary.” MartinFowler.com, 11 Sept. 2003. Accessed 20 Nov. 2017.

    Harrin, Elizabeth. “Learn What a Project Milestone Is.” The Balance Careers, 10 May 2018. Accessed Sept. 2018.

    “How to create a product roadmap.” Roadmunk, n.d. Accessed Sept. 2018.

    Johnson, Steve. “How to Master the 3 Horizons of Product Strategy.” Aha!, 24 Sept. 2015. Accessed Sept. 2018.

    Johnson, Steve. “The Product Roadmap vs. the Technology Roadmap.” Aha!, 23 June 2016. Accessed Sept. 2018

    Juncal, Shaun. “How Should You Set Your Product Roadmap Timeframes?” ProductPlan, Web. Sept. 2018.

    Leffingwell, Dean. “SAFe 4.0.” Scaled Agile, 2017. Web.

    Maurya, Ash. “What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).” Leanstack, 12 June 2017. Accessed Sept. 2018.

    Pichler, Roman. “10 Tips for Creating an Agile Product Roadmap.” Roman Pichler, 20 July 2016. Accessed Sept. 2018.

    Pichler, Roman. Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age. Pichler Consulting, 2016.

    “Product Roadmap Contents: What Should You Include?” ProductPlan, n.d. Accessed 20 Nov. 2017.

    Saez, Andrea. “Why Your Roadmap Is Not a Release Plan.” ProdPad, 23 October 2015. Accessed Sept. 2018.

    Schuurman, Robbin. “Tips for Agile product roadmaps & product roadmap examples.” Scrum.org, 7 Dec. 2017. Accessed Sept. 2018.

    Bibliography (Vision and Canvas)

    Adams, Paul. “The Future Product Canvas.” Inside Intercom, 10 Jan. 2014. Web.

    “Aligning IT Funding Models to the Pace of Technology Change.” EDUCAUSE, 14 Dec. 2015. Web.

    Altman, Igor. “Metrics: Gone Bad.” OpenView, 10 Nov. 2009. Web.

    Barry, Richard. “The Product Vision Canvas – a Strategic Tool in Developing a Successful Business.” Polymorph, 2019. Web.

    “Business Canvas – Business Models & Value Propositions.” Strategyzer, 2019. Web.

    “Business Model Canvas.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 4 Aug. 2019. Web.

    Charak, Dinker. “Idea to Product: The Working Model.” ThoughtWorks, 13 July 2017. Web.

    Charak, Dinker. “Product Management Canvas - Product in a Snapshot.” Dinker Charak, 29 May 2017. Web.

    Chudley, James. “Practical Steps in Determining Your Product Vision (Product Tank Bristol, Oct. 2018).” LinkedIn SlideShare. Uploaded by cxpartners, 2 Nov. 2018. Web.

    Cowan, Alex. “The 20 Minute Business Plan: Business Model Canvas Made Easy.” COWAN+, 2019. Web.

    Craig, Desiree. “So You've Decided To Become A Product Manager.” Start it up, Medium, 2 June 2019. Web.

    Create an Aha! Business Model Canvas Strategic Model.” Aha! Support, 2019. Web.

    Eick, Stephen. “Does Code Decay? Assessing the Evidence from Change Management Data.” IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 27, no. 1, Jan. 2001, pp. 1-12. Web.

    Eriksson, Martin. “The next Product Canvas.” Mind the Product, 22 Nov. 2013. Web.

    “Experience Canvas: a Lean Approach: Atlassian Team Playbook.” Atlassian, 2019. Web.

    Freeman, James. “How to Make a Product Canvas – Visualize Your Product Plan.” Edraw, 23 Dec. 2019. Web.

    Fuchs, Danny. “Measure What Matters: 5 Best Practices from Performance Management Leaders.” OpenGov, 8 Aug. 2018. Web.

    Gorisse, Willem. “A Practical Guide to the Product Canvas.” Mendix, 28 Mar. 2017. Web.

    Gothelf, Jeff. “The Lean UX Canvas.” Jeff Gothelf, 15 Dec. 2016. Web.

    Gottesdiener, Ellen. “Using the Product Canvas to Define Your Product: Getting Started.” EBG Consulting, 15 Jan. 2019. Web.

    Gottesdiener, Ellen. “Using the Product Canvas to Define Your Product's Core Requirements.” EBG Consulting, 4 Feb. 2019. Web.

    Gray, Mark Krishan. “Should I Use the Business Model Canvas or the Lean Canvas?” Emergn, 2019. Web.

    Hanby, Jeff. "Software Maintenance: Understanding and Estimating Costs." LookFar, 21 Oct. 2016. Web.

    “How do you define a product?” Scrum.org, 4 Apr 2017, Web

    Juncal, Shaun. “How to Build a Product Roadmap Based on a Business Model Canvas.” ProductPlan, 19 June 2019. Web.

    “Lean Canvas Intro - Uber Example.” YouTube, uploaded by Railsware Product Academy, 12 Oct. 2018. Web.

    “Lesson 6: Product Canvas.” ProdPad Help Center, 2019. Web.

    Lucero, Mario. “The Product Canvas.” Agilelucero.com, 22 June 2015. Web.

    Maurya, Ash. “Create a New Lean Canvas.” Canvanizer, 2019. Web.

    Maurya, Ash. “Don't Write a Business Plan. Create a Lean Canvas Instead.” LEANSTACK, 2019. Web.

    Maurya, Ash. “Why Lean Canvas vs Business Model Canvas?” Medium, 27 Feb. 2012. Web.

    Mirabelli, Vincent. “The Project Value Canvas.” Vincent Mirabelli, 2019. Web.

    Mishra, LN. “Business Analysis Canvas – The Ultimate Enterprise Architecture.” BA Times, 19 June 2019. Web.

    Muller. Jerry Z. “Why performance metrics isn’t always the best way to judge performance.” Fast Company, 3 April 2019. Web.

    Perri, Melissa. “What Is Good Product Strategy?” Melissa Perri, 14 July 2016. Web.

    Pichler, Roman. “A Product Canvas for Agile Product Management, Lean UX, Lean Startup.” Roman Pichler, 16 July 2012. Web.

    Pichler, Roman. “Introducing the Product Canvas.” JAXenter, 15 Jan. 2013. Web.

    Pichler, Roman. “Roman's Product Canvas: Introduction.” YouTube, uploaded by Roman Pichler, 3 Mar. 2017. Web.

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    Tranter, Leon. “Agile Metrics: the Ultimate Guide.” Extreme Uncertainty, n.d. Web.

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    “What Are Software Metrics and How Can You Track Them?” Stackify, 16 Sept. 2017. Web

    “What Is a Product Vision?” Aha!, 2019. Web.

    Explore the Secrets of Oracle Cloud Licensing

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.5/10 Overall Impact
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    • Parent Category Name: Licensing
    • Parent Category Link: /licensing
    • Organizations are considering moving workloads to the cloud; however, they often struggle to understand Oracle's licensing and services models.
    • Complexity of licensing and high price tags can make the renewal process an overwhelming experience.
    • Oracle’s SaaS applications are the most mature, but Oracle’s on-premises E-Business Suite still has functionality gaps in comparison to Oracle’s cloud apps.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Understand the Oracle agenda. Oracle has established a unique approach to their cloud offerings – they want all of your workloads on the Red Stack.
    • Communicate effectively. Be aware that Oracle will reach out to members at your organization at various levels. Having your executives on the same page is critical to successfully managing Oracle.
    • Negotiate hard. Oracle needs the deal more than the customer. Oracle's top leaders are heavily incentivized to drive massive cloud adoption and increase Oracle's share price. Use this to your advantage.

    Impact and Result

    • Conducting business with Oracle is not typical compared to other vendors. To emerge successfully from a commercial transaction with Oracle, customers must learn the “Oracle way” of conducting business, which includes a best-in-class sales structure, highly unique contracts, and license use policies coupled with a hyper-aggressive compliance function.
    • Leverage cloud spend to retire support on shelf-ware licenses, or gain virtualization rights for an on-premises environment.
    • Map out the process of how to negotiate from a position of strength, examining terms and conditions, discount percentages, and agreement pitfalls.
    • Carefully review key clauses in the Oracle Cloud Services Agreement to avoid additional spend and compliance risks.

    Explore the Secrets of Oracle Cloud Licensing Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should explore the secrets of Oracle Cloud licensing, 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:

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    Review current licensing options and models to determine which cloud products will most appropriately fit the organization's environment.

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    Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model

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    • Parent Category Name: DR and Business Continuity
    • Parent Category Link: /business-continuity
    • DR deployment has many possibilities. It becomes overwhelming and difficult to sift through all of the options and understand what makes sense for your organization.
    • The combination of high switching costs and the pressure to move applications to cloud leaves managers overwhelmed and complacent with their current DR model.

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    1. Cut to the chase and evaluate the feasibility of cloud first. Gauge your organization’s current capabilities for DR in the cloud before becoming infatuated with the idea.
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    Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should build the optimal DR deployment model, 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. Target the relevant DR options for your organization

    Complete Phase 1 to outline your DR site requirements, review any industry or organizational constraints on your DR strategy, and zero in on relevant DR models.

    • Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model – Phase 1: Target Relevant DR Options for Your Organization
    • DR Decision Tree (Visio)
    • DR Decision Tree (PDF)
    • Application Assessment Tool for Cloud DR

    2. Conduct a comprehensive analysis and vet the DR vendors

    Complete Phase 2 to explore possibilities of deployment models, conduct a TCO comparison analysis, and select the best-fit model.

    • Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model – Phase 2: Conduct a Comprehensive Analysis and Vet the DR Vendors
    • DR Solution TCO Comparison Tool

    3. Make the case and plan your transition

    Complete Phase 3 to assess outsourcing best practices, address implementation considerations, and build an executive presentation for business stakeholders.

    • Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model – Phase 3: Make the Case and Plan Your Transition
    • DR Solution Executive Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Select the Optimal Disaster Recovery Deployment Model

    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 Target Relevant DR Options for Your Organization

    The Purpose

    Identify potential DR models

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Take a funneled approach and avoid getting lost among all of the DR models available

    Activities

    1.1 Define DR site requirements

    1.2 Document industry and organizational constraints

    1.3 Identify potential DR models

    Outputs

    Determine the type of site, replication, and risk mitigation initiatives required

    Rule out unfit models

    DR Decision Tree

    Application Assessment Tool for Cloud DR

    2 Conduct a Comprehensive Analysis of Appropriate Models

    The Purpose

    Explore relevant DR models

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Develop supporting evidence for the various options

    Activities

    2.1 Explore pros and cons of potential solutions

    2.2 Understand the use case for DRaaS

    2.3 Review DR model diagrams

    Outputs

    Qualitative analysis on candidate models

    Evaluate the need for DRaaS

    DR diagrams for candidate models

    3 Build the DR Solution TCO Comparison Tool

    The Purpose

    Determine best cost models

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Save money by selecting the most cost effective option to meet your DR requirements

    Activities

    3.1 Gather hardware requirements for production site

    3.2 Define capacity requirements for DR

    3.3 Compare cost across various models

    Outputs

    Populate the production summary tab in TCO tool

    Understand how much hardware will need to be on standby and how much will be procured at the time of disaster

    Find the most cost effective method

    4 Make the Case and Plan Your Transition

    The Purpose

    Build support from business stakeholders by having a clear and defendable proposal for DR

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Effective and ready DR deployment model

    Activities

    4.1 Address implementation considerations for network, capacity, and day-to-day operations

    4.2 Build presentation for business stakeholders

    Outputs

    Define implementation projects necessary for deployment and appoint staff to execute them

    PowerPoint presentation to summarize findings from the course of the project

    Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}600|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.7/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $20,240 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 4 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Manage & Coach
    • Parent Category Link: /manage-coach
    • Virtual team members must rely upon collaboration technology to communicate and collaborate.
    • Management practices and approaches that work face to face do not always translate effectively in virtual contexts.
    • Managers cannot rely upon spontaneous social interactions that happen organically when people are colocated to build meaningful and trusting relationships. Space and time need to be created in a virtual environment for this to happen.
    • Observing an employee’s performance or development can be more difficult, and relying on others’ feedback becomes more critical for managing performance and development.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Managing virtual teams does not require developing new manager competencies. Instead, managers need to “dial up” competencies they already have and adjust their approaches.
    • Setting clear expectations with virtual teams creates the foundation needed to manage them effectively.
    • Virtual employees crave more meaningful interactions about performance and development with their managers.

    Impact and Result

    • Create a solid foundation for managing virtual teams by setting clear expectations and taking a more planful approach to managing performance and employee development.
    • Dial up key management competencies that you already have. Managers do not need to develop new competencies; they just need to adjust and refocus their approaches.

    Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams Research & Tools

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

    1. Equip managers to effectively manage virtual teams

    Equip managers to become more effective with managing remote teams.

    The workbook serves as a reference guide participants will use to support formal training.

    • Training Deck: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams
    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams
    • Standard Participant Training Session Evaluation Template

    2. Additional Resources

    Many organizations are developing plans to allow employees more flexible work options, including remote work. Use these resources to help managers and employees make the most of remote work arrangements.

    • Work-From-Home Tips for Managers
    • Work-From-Home Tips for Employees
    • Health & Safety at Home Infographic
    • Wellness and Working From Home
    • Ergonomic Workspaces Infographic
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Learning objectives

    Describe the benefits of virtual teams.

    Create a plan for adopting effective management practices and setting clear expectations with virtual teams.

    Identify potential solutions to the challenges of managing performance and developing members of virtual teams.

    Create an action plan to increase effectiveness in managing virtual teams.

    Target audience

    People managers who manage or plan to manage virtual teams.

    Training length

    Two three-hour sessions

    Training material

    • Use the speaker’s notes in the notes pane section of each slide to plan and practice the training session.
    • Activity slides are scattered throughout this training deck and are clearly numbered in the slide title.
    • Notes in italics are written to the facilitator and are not meant to be read aloud.
    • Download the Workbook for participants to use.

    Suggested materials for activities:

    • Index cards or sticky notes
    • Markers
    • Whiteboard/large table space/flip chart

    Agenda & activities

    Section 1

    Section 2

    10 min

    Welcome: Overview & Introductions

    • Introductions
    10 min

    Welcome: Overview & Introductions

    • Session 1 Review
    • Session 2 Overview
    50 min

    1.1 Introduction to virtual teams

    • What kind of virtual team do you lead?
    • Virtual team benefits and challenges
    55 min

    2.1 Managing wellbeing in a virtual team context

    • Share current practices and challenges regarding wellbeing in virtual teams
    • Identify and discuss proposed solutions
    • Develop draft action plan for managing wellbeing in a virtual team context
    5 min

    Break

    5 min Break
    45 min

    1.2 Laying the foundation for a virtual team

    • Identify behaviors to better inform, interact with, and involve team members
    60 min

    2.2 Managing performance in a virtual team context

    • Share current performance management practices for virtual teams
    • Identify challenges of current practices and propose solutions
    • Develop draft action plan for managing performance in a virtual team context
    10 min

    Break

    10 min Break
    55 min

    1.2 Laying the foundation for a virtual team

    • Identify and share ways you prefer to communicate for different activities
    • Develop draft action plan for laying the foundation for a virtual team
    40 min

    Action planning & conclusion

    • Refine consolidated action plan (three parts) and commit to implementing it
    • Key takeaways
    5 min

    Session 1 Wrap-Up

    Recommended Customization

    Review all slides and adjust the language or content as needed to suit your organizational context and culture.

    The pencil icon to the left denotes slides requiring customization of the slide and/or the speaker’s notes, e.g. adding in an organization-specific process.

    Customization instructions are found in the notes pane.

    Tips

    • Adjust the speaker’s notes on the slides before (or after) any slides you modify or delete to ensure logical transitions between slides.
    • Update the agenda to reflect new timings if major modifications are made.
    • Even seasoned leaders need to be reminded of the basics now and again. Rather than delete more basic slides, cut back on the amount of time spent covering them and frame the content as a refresher.
    • Participant Workbooks
    • Relevant organization-specific documents (see side panel)
    • Training Session Feedback Form

    Required Information

    • Communication guidelines for managers (e.g. cadence of manager interactions)
    • Performance management process and guidelines
    • Employee development guidelines
    • List of available resources (e.g. social collaboration tools)

    Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Section 1.1

    Practical foundations for managing teams in a remote environment

    Feasibility of virtual IT teams

    Most organizations are planning some combination of remote and onsite work in 2022.

    This is an image of a bar graph demonstrating the percentage of companies who have the following plans for return to work: Full work-from-home (All employees WFH permanently) - 4% ; No work-from-home permitted	9% ; Partial work-from-home team (Eligible employees can WFH for a certain portion of their work week)	23% ; Balanced work-from-home team (All employees can WFH for a certain portion of their work week)	28% ; Hybrid work-from-home team (Eligible employees WFH on a full-time basis)	37%

    Source: IT Talent Trends, 2022; n=199

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Most organizations are planning some combination of remote and onsite work in 2022 – the highest reported plans for WFH were hybrid, balanced, and partial work-from-home. This builds on our findings in the IT Talent Trends 2022 report.

    Feasibility of virtual IT teams

    What percentage of roles in IT are capable of being performed remotely permanently?

    Approximately what percentage of roles in IT are capable of being performed remotely permanently?

    0% to less than 10%: 3%; 10% to less than 25%: 5%; 25% to less than 50%: 12%; 50% to less than 75%: 30%; 75% to 100%L 50%.

    IT Talent Trends, 2022; n=207

    Speaker’s Notes:

    80% of respondents estimated that 50 to 100% of IT roles can be performed remotely.

    Virtual teams take all kinds of forms

    A virtual team is any team that has members that are not colocated and relies on technology for communications.

    This image depicts the three levels of virtual teams, Municipal; National; Global.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Before we start, it will be useful to review what we mean by the term “virtual team.” For our purposes we will be defining a virtual team as any team that has members that are not colocated and relies on technology for communications.

    There are a wide variety of virtual work arrangements and a variety of terms used to describe them. For example, some common terms include:

    • “Flexible work arrangements”: Employees have the option to work where they see fit (within certain constraints). They may choose to work from the office, home, a shared office space, the road, etc.
    • “Remote work,” “work from home,” and “telecommuting”: These are just various ways of describing how or where people are working virtually. They all share the idea that these kinds of employees are not colocated.
    • “Multi-office team”: the team members all work in office environments, but they may not always be in the same office as their team members or manager.

    Our definition of virtual work covers all of these terms. It is also distance neutral, meaning that it applies equally to teams that are dispersed globally or regionally or even those working in the same cities but dispersed throughout different buildings. Our definition also applies whether virtual employees work full time or part time.

    The challenges facing managers arise as soon as some team members are not colocated and have to rely on technology to communicate and coordinate work. Greater distances between employees can complicate challenges (e.g. time zone coordination), but the core challenges of managing virtual teams are the same whether those workers are merely located in different buildings in the same city or in different buildings on different continents.

    1.1 What kind of virtual team do you lead?

    15 Minutes

    Working on your own, take five minutes to figure out what kind of virtual team you lead.

    1. How many people on your team work virtually (all, most, or a small percentage)?
    2. How often and how regularly do they tend to work virtually (full time, part time regularly, or part time as needed)?
    3. What kinds of virtual work arrangements are there on your team (multi-site, work from home, mobile employees)?
    4. Where do your workers tend to be physically located (different offices but in the same city/region or globally dispersed)?
    5. Record this information in your workbook.
    6. Discuss as a group.

    Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Input

    • Size of virtual team
    • Current remote work practices

    Output

    • Documented list of current state of remote work

    Materials

    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Participants

    • All managers with direct reports working virtually

    Advantages

    Benefits to the organization

    Benefits to employees

    Operational continuity in disaster situations that prevent employees from coming into the office.

    Cost savings: Employees who WFH half the time can save $2,500 to $4,000 per year (Global Workplace Analytics, 2021).

    Cost savings: Organizations save ~$11,000 annually per employee working from home half the time (Global Workplace Analytics, 2021).

    Time savings: Employees who WFH half the time save on average 11 workdays per year (Global Workplace Analytics, 2021).

    Increased attraction: 71% of employees would likely choose one employer over another based on WFH offerings (Owl Labs, 2021).

    Improved wellbeing:

    83% employees agree that WFH would make them happier.

    80% agree that WFH would decrease their stress.

    81% agree that WFH would improve their ability to manage their work-life balance.

    (Owl Labs, 2021)

    Increased retention: 74% of employees would be less likely to leave their employer if they could WFH (Owl Labs, 2021).

    Increased flexibility: 32% of employees rated the “ability to have a flexible schedule” as the biggest benefit of WFH (OWL Labs, 2021).

    Increased productivity: 50% of employees report they would maintain or increase their productivity while working from home (Glassdoor Team, 2020).

    Increased engagement: Offsite employees tend to have higher overall engagement than onsite employees (McLean & Company Engagement Survey, 2020).

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Remote work arrangements are becoming more and more common, and for good reason: there are a lot of benefits to the organization – and to employees.

    #1: Save Money

    Perhaps one of the most common reasons for opting for remote-work arrangements is the potential cost savings. One study found that organizations could save about $11,000 per employee working from home half the time (Global Workplace Analytics, 2021).

    #2 Increased Attraction

    In addition, supporting remote-work arrangements can attract employees. One study found that 71% of employees would likely choose one employer over another based on WFH offerings (Owl Labs, 2019).

    #3 Improve productivity.

    There are also improvements to productivity. Fifty percent of employees report they would maintain or increase their productivity while working from home (Glassdoor Team, 2020).

    Remote work also has benefits to employees.

    #1: Save Money

    As with organizations, employees also benefit financially from remote work arrangements, saving between $2,500 and $4,000 and on average 11 working days while working from home half of the time.

    #2: Improved Wellbeing

    Most employees agree that working from home makes them happier, reduces stress, and provides an improved work-life balance through increased flexibility.

    Challenges

    Organizations

    • Concerns that WFH may stifle innovation (Scientific American, 2021), likely due to the potential lack of collaboration and knowledge sharing.
    • Fewer organic opportunities for informal interaction between employees working from home means active efforts are required to foster organizational culture.

    Leaders

    • 42% of managers believe that monitoring the productivity of their direct reports is a top challenge of WFH (Ultimate Software, 2019).
    • The lack of in-person supervision compounded with a lack of trust in employees leads many leaders to believe that WFH will result in a drop in productivity.

    Employees

    • 20% of employees report collaboration/communication as their top struggle with WFH (Owl Labs, 2021).
    • Employees often experience burnout from working longer hours due to the lack of commute, blurring of work and home life, and the perceived need to prove their productivity.

    Many of these barriers can be addressed by changing traditional mindsets and finding alternative ways of working, but the traditional approach to work is so entrenched that it has been hard to make the shift.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Many organizations are still grappling with the challenges of remote work. Some are just perceived challenges, while others are quite real.

    Limited innovation and a lack of informal interaction are a potential consequence of failing to properly adapt to the remote-work environment.

    Leaders also face challenges with remote work. Losing in-person supervision has led to the lack of trust and a perceived drop in productivity.

    A study conducted 2021 asked remote workers to identify their biggest struggle with working remotely. The top three struggles remote workers report facing are unplugging after work, loneliness, and collaborating and/or communicating.

    Seeing the struggles remote workers identify is a good reminder that these employees have a unique set of challenges. They need their managers to help them set boundaries around their work; create feelings of connectedness to the organization, culture, and team; and be expert communicators.

    1.2 Virtual teams: benefits and challenges

    20 Minutes

    1. Discuss and list:
      1. Any positives you’ve experienced since managing virtual employees.
      2. Any challenges you’ve had to manage connected to managing virtual employees.
    2. Record information in the workbook.

    Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Input

    • Personal experiences managing remote teams

    Output

    • List of benefits and challenges of remote work

    Materials

    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Participants

    • All managers with direct reports working virtually

    Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Section 1.2

    Laying the foundations for a virtual team

    The 3i’s: Inform, interact, and involve your way to effective management:

    Inform

    Interact Involve

    ↓ Down

    Connect

    ↑ Up

    Tell employees the whys

    Get to know employees

    Solicit input from employees

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Effectively managing a virtual team really comes down to adopting management approaches that will engage virtual employees.

    Managing a virtual team does not actually require a new management style. The basics of effective management are the same in both colocated and virtual teams; however, the emphasis on certain behaviors and actions we take often differs. Managing a virtual team requires much more thoughtfulness and planning in our everyday interactions with our teams as we cannot rely on the relative ease of face-to-face interactions available to colocated teams.

    The 3i’s Engaging Management Model is useful when interacting with all employees and provides a handy framework for more planful interactions with virtual employees.

    Think of your management responsibilities in these three buckets – they are the most important components of being an effective manager. We’re first going to look at inform and involve before moving on to interact.

    Inform: Relay information down from senior management and leaders to employees. Communicate the rationale behind decisions and priorities, and always explain how they will directly affect employees.

    Why is this important? According to McLean & Company’s Engagement Survey data, employees who say their managers keep them well informed about decisions that affect them are 3.4 times more likely to be engaged (Source: McLean & Company, 2020; N=77,363). Your first reaction to this might be “I already do this,” which may very well be the case. Keep in mind, though, we sometimes tend to communicate on a “need-to-know basis,” especially when we are stressed or short on time. Engaging employees takes more. Always focus on explaining the “why?” or the rationale behind business decisions.

    It might seem like this domain should be the least affected, since important company announcements probably continue in a remote environment. But remember that information like that also flows informally. And even in formal settings, there are question-and-answer opportunities. Or maybe your employee might come to your office to ask for more details. Virtual team members can’t gather around the watercooler. They don’t have the same opportunities to hear information in passing as people who are colocated do, so managers need to make a concerted effort to share information with virtual team members in a clear and timely way.

    Swinging over to the other end, we have involve: Involve your employees. Solicit information and feedback from employees and collaborate with them.

    However, it’s not enough to just solicit their feedback and input; you also need to act on it.

    Make sure you involve your employees in a meaningful way. Such collaboration makes employees feel like a valued part of the team. Not to mention that they often have information and perspectives that can help make your decisions stronger!

    Employees who say their department leaders act on feedback from them are 3.9 times more likely to be engaged than those whose leaders don’t. (Source: McLean & Company, 2020; N=59,779). That is a huge difference!

    Keeping virtual employees engaged and feeling connected and committed to the organization requires planful and regular application of the 3i’s model.

    Finally, Interact: Connect with employees on a personal level; get to know them and understand who they are on a personal and professional level.

    Why? Well, over and above the fact that it can be rewarding for you to build stronger relationships with your team, our data shows that human connection makes a significant difference with employees. Employees who believe their managers care about them as a person are 3.8 times more likely to be engaged than those who do not (Source: McLean & Company, 2017; N=70,927).

    And you might find that in a remote environment, this is the area that suffers the most, since a lot of these interactions tend to be unscripted, unscheduled, and face to face.

    Typically, if we weren’t in the midst of a pandemic, we’d emphasize the importance of allocating some budget to travel and get some face-to-face time with your staff. Meeting and interacting with team members face to face is crucial to building trusting relationships, and ultimately, an effective team, so given the context of our current circumstances, we recommend the use of video when interacting with your employees who are remote.

    Relay information down from senior management to employees.

    Ensure they’ve seen and understand any organization-wide communication.

    Share any updates in a timely manner.

    Connect with employees on a personal level.
    Ask how they’re doing with the new work arrangement.
    Express empathy for challenges (sick family member, COVID-19 diagnosis, etc.).
    Ask how you can support them.
    Schedule informal virtual coffee breaks a couple of times a week and talk about non-work topics.

    Get information from employees and collaborate with them.
    Invite their input (e.g. have a “winning remotely” brainstorming session).
    Escalate any challenges you can’t address to your VP.
    Give them as much autonomy over their work as possible – don’t micromanage.

    1.3 Identify behaviors to inform, interact with, and involve team members

    20 Minutes

    Individually:

    1. Identify one behavior for each of Inform, Interact, and Involve to improve.
    2. Record information in the workbook.

    As a group:

    1. Discuss behaviors to improve for each of Inform, Interact, and Involve and record new ideas to incorporate into your leadership practice.

    Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Input

    • 3i's Model
    • Current leadership behaviors to improve

    Output

    • List of behaviors to better inform, interact, and involve team members

    Materials

    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Participants

    • All managers with direct reports working virtually

    Laying the foundation: Set clear expectations

    Tasks

    • What are the daily and weekly team activities? How do they affect one another?

    Goals

    • Clarify any adjustments to strategy based on the situation; clarify metrics.

    Communication

    • How often and when will you check in? What should they come to you for? What modalities will you use and when?

    Roadblocks

    • Involve your team in deciding how to handle roadblocks and challenges.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Clear expectations are important in any environment, remote or not. But it is much harder to do in a remote environment. The barrier to seeking clarification is so much higher (For example, email vs. catching someone in hallway, or you can’t notice that a colleague is struggling without them asking).

    Communication – This is one area where the importance actually changes in a remote context. We’ve been talking about a lot of practices that are the same in importance whether you’re in an office or remote, and maybe you just enact them differently. But clarity around communication processes is actually tremendously more important in a remote environment.

    Adopt a five-step process to set specific and documented expectations

    1. Check in with how your team member is doing on a daily basis. Don’t forget to ask how they are doing personally.
    2. Follow up on previously set expectations. Ask how things are going. Discuss if priorities or expectations have changed and update expectations accordingly.
    3. Ask if they are experiencing any roadblocks and collaborate to find solutions.
    4. Provide feedback and recognition as appropriate.
    5. Document newly set expectations – either through a collaboration tool or through email.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Suggested best practices: Hold daily team check-ins and hold separate individual check-ins. Increase frequency of these.

    During Check-in
    1. Set up a running Teams chat for your team.
    • This is your community. You must be the biggest cheerleader and keep the team feeling like they are contributing. Make sure everyone is involved.
  • Start each workday with a video scrum to discuss what’s coming today for your team.
    • Ask: What are you planning to work on today? Are there any roadblocks I can help with? Technology working OK?
  • Right after your team meeting, set up an “every morning video call” one-on-one meeting with each team member (5-10 minutes max).
    • Ask: What are you working on today? What will your momentum metrics be? What do you need from me?
  • Set up a separate video call at the end of the afternoon to review what everyone did (5 minutes max).
    • Ask: What went well? What went poorly? How can we improve?
  • After a Check-in
    1. Be accessible:
      • Ensure your team knows the best way to get in touch with you.
      • Email is not ideal for informal, frequent contact – use messaging instead.
    2. Be available:
      • Keep a running conversation going in Teams.
      • Respond in a timely manner; address issues quickly so that your team has what they need to succeed.
      • Let your team know if you’ll be away/offline for longer than an hour during the workday and ask them to do the same (e.g. for an appointment).
      • Help address roadblocks, answer questions, clarify priorities, etc.

    Define communication requirements

    • Set up an ongoing communication with your team.
      • E.g. a running conversation on Slack or Teams
    • Schedule daily virtual meetings and check-ins.
      • This can help to maintain a sense of normalcy and conduct a pulse check on your team.
    • Use video for important conversations.
      • Video chat creates better rapport, shows body language, and lessens feelings of isolation, but it can be taxing.
    • Set expectations about communication.
      • Differentiate between day-to-day communication and updates on the state of events.
    • Clearly communicate the collaboration toolkit.
      • What do we have available? What is the purpose of each?

    Speaker’s Notes:

    With organizational expectations set, we need to establish team expectations around how we collaborate and communicate.

    Today there is no lack of technology available to support our virtual communication. We can use the phone, conference calls, videoconferencing, Skype, instant messaging, [insert organization-specific technological tools.], etc.

    However, it is important to have a common understanding of which tools are most appropriate when and for what.

    What are some of the communication channel techniques you’ve found useful in your informal interactions with employees or that you’ve seen work well between employees?

    [Have participants share any technological tools they find useful and why.]

    Check in with your team on communication requirements

    • Should we share our calendars, hours of availability, and/or IM status?
    • How often should we meet as a team and one on one? Should we institute a time when we should not communicate virtually?
    • Which communication channel should we use in what context? How should we decide which communication method to use?
    • Should I share guidelines for email and meeting etiquette (or any other communication methods)?
    • Should we establish a new team charter?
    • What feedback does the team have regarding how we’ve been communicating?

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Whenever we interact, we make the following kinds of social exchanges. We exchange:

    • Information: Data or opinions
    • Emotions: Feelings and evaluations about the data or opinions
    • Motivations: What we feel like doing in response to data or opinions

    We need to make sure that these exchanges are happening as each team member intends. To do this, we have to be sensitive to what information is being conveyed, what emotions are involved in the interaction, and how we are motivating each other to act through the interaction. Every interaction will have intended and unintended effects on others. No one can pay attention to all of these aspects of communication all the time, but if we develop habits that are conducive to successful exchanges in all three areas, we can become more effective.

    In addition to being mindful of the exchange in our communication, as managers it is critical to build trusting relationships and rapport with employees as we saw in the 3i's model. However, in virtual teams we cannot rely on running into someone in the kitchen or hallway to have an informal conversation. We need to be thoughtful and deliberate in our interactions with employees. We need to find alternative ways to build these relationships with and between employees that are both easy and accepted by ourselves and employees. Because of that, it is important to set communication norms and really understand each other’s preferences. For example:

    • Timing of responses. Set the expectation that emails should be responded to within X hours/days unless otherwise noted in the actual email.
    • When it’s appropriate to send an email vs. using instant messaging.
    • A team charter – the team’s objectives, individual roles and responsibilities, and communication and collaboration guidelines.

    1.4 Identify and share ways you prefer to communicate for different activities

    20 Minutes

    1. Brainstorm and list the different types of exchanges you have with your virtual employees and they have with each other.
    2. List the various communication tools in use on your team.
    3. Assign a preferred communication method for each type of exchange

    Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Input

    • Current types of exchanges on team
    • Communication methods used

    Output

    • Defined ways to communicate for each communication method

    Materials

    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Participants

    • All managers with direct reports working virtually

    Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Section 2.1
    Balancing wellbeing and performance in a virtual team context

    The pandemic has taken a significant toll on employees’ mental wellbeing

    44% of employees reported declined mental wellbeing since the start of the pandemic.

    • 44% of those who work from home.
    • 34% of those who have other work arrangements (i.e. onsite).
      (Qualtrics, 2020)

    "If one of our colleagues were to fall, break their leg, and get a cast, colleagues would probably rally around that person signing their cast. But, really, we don’t view the health of our brain the same as we do the health of our body."
    – Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Employee

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Despite being over two years into the pandemic, we are still seeing its effect on the physical and mental health of employees.

    The mental health aspect has been often overlooked by organizations, but in order to have a safe, happy, and productive team, you need to give mental health the same level of focus as physical heath. This requires a change in mindset in order for you as a leader to support your team's mental wellbeing during the pandemic and beyond.

    Employees are reporting several key mental wellbeing challenges

    Stress: 67%

    Employees report increasingly high levels of stress from the onset of COVID-19, stating that it has been the most stressful time in their careers.
    (Qualtrics, 2020)

    Anxiety: 57%

    Similarly, employees’ anxiety levels have peaked because of the pandemic and the uncertainty it brings.
    (Qualtrics, 2020)

    Four main themes surrounding stress & anxiety

    • Fear of contracting COVID-19
    • Financial pressures
    • Job security and uncertainty
    • Loneliness caused by social isolation

    Speaker’s Notes:

    The stress and uncertainty about the future caused by the pandemic and its fallout are posing the biggest challenges to employees.

    Organizations shutting down operations, moving to fully remote, or requiring some of their employees to be on site based on the current situation causes a lot of anxiety as employees are not able to plan for what is coming next.

    Adding in the loss of social networks and in-person interactions exacerbates the problem employees are facing. As leaders, it is your job to understand and mitigate these challenges wherever possible.

    Re-examine your workplace barriers to mental wellbeing

    New Barriers

    Old Barriers

    • Childcare/eldercare responsibilities
    • Fear of workplace health risks
    • Work location
    • Lost support networks
    • Changed work schedules
    • Social distancing
    • Workload
    • Fear of stigma
    • Benefits limits
    • Limits to paid time off
    • Lack of manager knowledge

    Key considerations:

    • Work Environment
      • Accessibility of mental wellbeing programs and initiatives
    • Organizational Culture
      • Modeling of wellbeing
      • Paid time off
      • Discussions around mental wellbeing
    • Total Rewards
      • Benefits coverage
      • Employee assistance programs (EAPs)
      • Manager knowledge

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Organizational barriers to mental wellbeing are sadly not new. Workloads, stigma around mental health, lack of sick days, and limits to benefits for mental health supports were challenges before the pandemic. Adding in the new barriers can very easily result in a tipping point for many employees who are simply not equipped to deal with or supported in dealing with the added burden of remote work in a post-pandemic world.

    To provide the needed support to your employees, it’s important to be mindful of the key considerations.

    Holistic employee wellbeing has never been more critical than it is right now

    Employee Wellbeing

    Physical

    The physical body; ensuring a person has the freedom, opportunities, and resources needed to sustainably maintain bodily health.

    Mental

    The psychological ability to cope with information, emotions, desires, and stressors (e.g. change, threats, etc.) in a healthy and balanced way. Essential for day-to-day living and functioning.

    Social

    The state of personal and professional relationships, including personal and community engagement. The capability for genuine, authentic, and mutually affirming interactions with others.

    Financial

    The state of a person’s finances; ensuring that a person feels capable to handle their financial situation and behaviors. The ability to live productively without the weight of financial stress.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    As a manager, you need to be mindful of all of these. Create an atmosphere where people are able to come to you for help if they are struggling in one of these areas. For example, some people might be more comfortable raising physical safety or comfort concerns (personal protective equipment, ergonomics) than concerns about mental health. Or they might feel like their feelings of loneliness are not appropriate to bring into their professional life.

    Wellbeing is a delicate subject, and most of the time, people are reluctant to talk about it. It requires vulnerability. And here’s the thing about it: Your staff will not drive a change in your team around making these topics more acceptable. It has to be the manager. You have to be the one to not just tell but show them that it’s OK to talk about this

    Encourage human-centered workplace behaviors

    Promote empathy as a focus value

    • Listen and show compassion.
    • Allow room for emotions.

    Encourage social connection

    • Leverage networks.
    • Infuse fun where possible.
    • Encourage community and sense of joint purpose.

    Cultivate a growth mindset

    • Encourage mindfulness and resilience.
    • Express gratitude.

    Empower others

    • Ask employees what they need and co-create solutions.
    • Integrate needs of personal and family life with work life.
    • Be clear on accountability.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    As a leader, your focus should be on encouraging the right behaviors on your team and in yourself.
    Show empathy; allowing room for emotion and showing you are willing and able to listen goes a long way to establishing trust.

    A growth mindset applies to resilience too. A person with a growth mindset is more likely to believe that even though they’re struggling now, they will get through it.

    Infuse fun – schedule social check-ins. This is not wasted time, or time off work – it is an integral part of the workday. We have less of it now organically, so you must bring it back deliberately. Remember that theme? We are deliberately reinfusing important organic elements into the workday.

    The last item, empowerment, is interesting – being clear on accountability. Have clear performance expectations. It might sound like telling people what to do would be disempowering, but it’s the opposite. By clarifying the goals of what they need to achieve, you empower them to invent their own “how,” because you and they are both sure they will arrive at the place that you agreed on. We will talk more about this in performance management.

    Emphasize the importance of wellbeing by setting the tone for the team

    Managers must…

    • LEAD BY EXAMPLE
      • Employees look to their managers for cues about how to react in a crisis. If the manager reacts with stress and fear, the team will follow.
    • ENCOURAGE OPEN COMMUNICATION
      • Frequent check-ins and transparent communication are essential during a time of crisis, especially when working remotely.
    • ACKNOWLEDGE THE SITUATION
      • Recognizing the stress that teams may be facing and expressing confidence in them goes a long way.
    • PROMOTE WELLBEING
      • Managers who take care of themselves can better support their teams and encourage them to practice good self-care too.
    • REDUCE STIGMA
      • Reducing stigma around mental health encourages people to come forward with their struggles and get the support they need.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Emphasize the importance of wellbeing with what you do. If you do not model self-care behavior, people will follow what you do, not what you say.

    Lead by example – Live the behaviors you want to see in your employees. If you show confidence, positivity, and resiliency, it will filter down to your team.

    Encourage open communication – Have regular meetings where your team is able to set the agenda, or allow one-on-ones to be guided by the employee. Make sure these are scheduled and keep them a priority.

    Acknowledge the situation – Pretending things are normal doesn’t help the situation. Talk about the stress that the team is facing and express confidence that you will get through it together.

    Promote wellbeing – Take time off, don’t work when you’re sick, and you will be better able to support your team!

    Reduce stigma – Call it out when you see it and be sure to remind people of and provide access to any supports that the organization has.

    Conduct dedicated conversations around wellbeing

    1. Check in with how each team member is doing frequently and ask how they are doing personally.
    2. Discuss how things are going. Ask: “How is your work situation working out for you so far? Do you feel supported? How are you taking care of yourself in these circumstances?”
    3. Ask if there are any stressors or roadblocks that they have experienced and collaborate to find solutions.
    4. Provide reassurance of your support and confidence in them.
    5. Document the plan for managing stressors and roadblocks – either through a collaboration tool or through email.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Going back to the idea of a growth mindset – this may be uncomfortable for you as a manager. So here’s a step-by-step guide that over time you can morph into your own style.

    With your team – be prepared to share first and to show it is OK to be vulnerable and address wellbeing seriously.

    1. Make sure you make time for the personal. Ask about their lives and show compassion.
    2. Give opportunities for them to bring up things that might stay hidden otherwise. Ask questions that show you care.
    3. Help identify areas they are struggling with and work with them to move past those areas.
    4. Make sure they feel supported in what they are going through and reassured of their place on the team.
    5. Roll wellbeing into your planning process. This signals to team that you see wellbeing as important, not just a checklist to cover during a team meeting, and are ready to follow through on it.

    Recognize when professional help is needed

    SIGNS OF BURNOUT: Overwhelmed; Frequent personal disclosure; Trouble sleeping and focusing; Frequent time off; Strained relationships; Substance abuse; Poor work performance

    Speaker’s Notes:

    As a leader, it is important to be on the lookout for warning signs of burnout and know when to step in and direct individuals to professional help.

    Poor work performance – They struggle to maintain work performance, even after you’ve worked with them to create coping strategies.

    Overwhelmed – They repeatedly tell you that they feel overwhelmed, very stressed, or physically unwell.

    Frequent personal disclosure – They want to discuss their personal struggles at length on a regular basis.

    Trouble sleeping and focusing – They tell you that they are not sleeping properly and are unable to focus on work.

    Frequent time off – They feel the need to take time off more frequently.

    Strained relationships – They have difficulty communicating effectively with coworkers; relationships are strained.

    Substance abuse – They show signs of substance abuse (e.g. drunk/high while working, social media posts about drinking during the day).

    Keeping an eye out for these signs and being able to step in before they become unmanageable can mean the difference between keeping and losing an employee experiencing burnout.

    Remember: Managers also need support

    • Added burden
    • Lead by example
    • Self-care

    Speaker’s Notes:

    If you’ve got managers under you, be mindful of their unique stressors. Don’t forget to check in with them, too.

    If you are a manager, remember to take care of yourself and check in with your own manager about your own wellbeing.

    2.1 Balance wellbeing and performance in a virtual team context

    30 Minutes

    1. Brainstorm and list current practices and challenges connected to wellbeing on your teams.
    2. Choose one or two wellbeing challenges that are most relevant for your team.
    3. Discuss as a group and identify one solution for each challenge that you can put into action with your own virtual team. Document this under “Action plan to move forward” on the workbook slide “2.1 Balancing wellbeing and performance in a virtual team context.”

    Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Input

    • Current practices and challenges connected to wellbeing

    Output

    • Action plan for each challenge listed

    Materials

    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Participants

    • All managers with direct reports working virtually

    Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Section 2.2

    Managing performance in a virtual team context

    Virtual employees are craving more meaningful interactions with their managers

    A survey indicated that, overall, remote employees showed less satisfaction with manager interactions compared to other non-remote employees.

    1. 16% less likely to strongly agree their manager involves them in setting goals at work.
    2. 28% less likely to strongly agree they continually work with their manager to clarify work priorities.
    3. 29% less likely to strongly agree they have reviewed their greatest successes with their manager in the last six months.
    4. 30% less likely to strongly agree they have talked with their manager about progress toward goals in the last six months.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    In many cases, we have put people into virtual roles because they are self-directed and self-motivated workers who can thrive with the kind of autonomy and flexibility that comes with virtual work. As managers, we should expect many of these workers to be proactively interested in how they are performing and in developing their careers.

    It would be a mistake to take a hands-off approach when managing virtual workers. A recent survey indicated that, overall, remote employees showed less satisfaction with manager interactions compared to other non-remote employees. It was also one of the aspects of their work experience they were least satisfied with overall (Gallup, State of the American Workplace, 2017). Simply put, virtual employees are craving more meaningful conversations with their managers.

    While conversations about performance and development are important for all employees (virtual or non-virtual), managers of remote teams can have a significant positive impact on their virtual employees’ experience and engagement at work by making efforts to improve their involvement and support in these areas.

    During this module we will work together to identify ways that each of us can improve how we manage the performance of our virtual employees. At the end of the module everyone will create an action plan that they can put in place with their own teams. In the next module, we go through a similar set of activities to create an action plan for our interactions with employees about their development.

    Building blocks of performance management

    • Goal Setting

    • Setting Expectations

    • Measuring Progress

    • Feedback & Coaching

    Speaker’s Notes:

    [Include a visualization of your existing performance management process in the slide. Walk the participants through the process to remind them of what is expected. While the managers participating in the training should know this, there may be different understandings of it, or it might just be the case that it’s been a while since people looked at the official process. The intention here is merely to ensure everyone is on the same page for the purposes of the activities that follow.]

    Now that we’ve reviewed performance management at a high level, let’s dive into what is currently happening with the performance management of virtual teams.

    I know that you have some fairly extensive material at your organization around how to manage performance. This is fantastic. And we’re going to focus mainly on how things change in a virtual context.

    When measuring progress, how do you as a manager make sure that you are comfortable not seeing your team physically at their desks? This is the biggest challenge for remote managers.

    2.2 Share current performance management practices for virtual teams

    30 Minutes

    1. Brainstorm and list current high-level performance management practices connected to each building block. Record in your workbook.
    2. Discuss current challenges connected to implementing the building blocks with virtual employees.

    Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Input

    • Current performance management practices
    • Challenges surrounding performance management

    Output

    • Current state of virtual performance management defined

    Materials

    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Participants

    • All managers with direct reports working virtually

    Communicate the “why”: Cascade organizational goals

    This image depicts the Cascade of Why- organizational goals. Organizational Mission; Organizational Values; Organizational Goals; Department Goals; Team Goals; Individual Goals

    Speaker’s Notes:

    When assisting your employees with their goals, think about the organization’s overall mission and goals to help you determine team and individual goals.

    • Organizational goals: Employee goals should align with organizational goals. Goals may cascade down through the organization.
    • Department or team goals: Create a clear strategy based on high-level goals for the year so employees can link short-term goals to the larger picture.
    • Individual goals: Employees should draw on their individual development plan to help set performance goals.

    Sometimes it’s difficult to get employees thinking about goals and they need assistance from managers. It’s also important to be clear on team goals to help guide employees in setting individual ones.

    The basic idea is to show people how their individual day-to-day work contributes to the overall success of the organization. It gives them a sense of purpose and a rationale, which translates to motivation. And also helps them problem solve with more autonomy.

    You’re giving people a sense of the importance of their own contribution.

    How to set clear expectations for job performance

    Ensure employees have a clear understanding of what’s expected for their role:

    1. Review their metrics so they understand how they’re being evaluated.
    2. Outline daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals.
    3. If needed, help them plan when and how each part of their job should be done and what to prioritize.
    4. Ask them to come to you early if they experience a roadblock so that you can help rather than having them flounder on their own.
    5. Document instances where employees aren’t meeting role or performance expectations.

    Speaker’s Notes:

    Tailor performance goals to address any root causes of poor performance.

    For example:

    • If personal factors are getting in the way, work with the employee (and HR if necessary) to create a strategy to address any impediments to performing in the role.

    Tips for managing performance remotely

    • Reflect on one key question: What needs to happen for my direct reports to continue their work while working remotely?
    • Manage for results – not employee visibility at the office.
    • Use metrics to measure performance. If you don’t have any, define tasks and deliverables as clearly as possible and conduct regular check-ins.
    • Work with the employee to set goals and metrics to measure progress.

    Focus on results: Be flexible about how and when work gets done, as long as team members are hitting their targets.

    • For example, if they have childcare duties from 3 to 5pm during school closures and want to work later in the evening to make up the time, that’s fine – as long as the work gets done.
    • Set clear expectations about which work must be done during normal work hours (e.g. attend team meetings, client calls) and which can be done at other hours.
    • Team members must arrange with you any nonstandard working hours before they start using an altered schedule. It is your responsibility to keep track of hours and any alternate arrangements.
    • Don’t make team members feel constantly monitored (i.e. “Where were you from 10 to 11am?”); trust them until you have reason not to.

    Encourage your team members to unplug: If they’re sending you emails late at night and they haven’t made an alternate work hours agreement with you, encourage them to take time away from work.

    • It’s harder to unplug when working at home, and everyone needs a break to stay productive.

    Avoid micromanagement with holistic performance measures

    Quality

    How well tasks are accomplished

    Behavior

    Related to specific employee actions, skills, or attitudes

    Quantity

    How much work gets done

    Holistic measures demonstrate all the components required for optimal performance. This is the biggest driver in having comfort as a manager of a remote team and avoiding micromanagement. Typically these are set at the organizational level. You may need to adjust for individual roles, etc.

    Speaker's Notes:

    Metrics come in different types. One way to ensure your metrics capture the full picture is to use a mix of different kinds of metrics.

    Some metrics are quantitative: they describe quantifiable or numerical aspects of the goal. This includes timeliness. On the other hand, qualitative metrics have to do with the final outcome or product. And behavioral metrics have to do with employees' actions, skills, or attitudes. Using different kinds of metrics together helps you set holistic measures, which capture all the components of optimal performance toward your goal and prevent gaming the system.

    Let's take an example:

    A courier might have an objective to do a good job delivering packages. An example of a quantitative measure might be that the courier is required to deliver X number of packages per day on time. The accompanying metrics would be the number of packages delivered per day and the ratio of packages delivered on time vs. late.

    Can you see a problem if we use only these quantitative measures to evaluate the courier's performance?

    Wait to see if anyone volunteers an answer. Discuss suggestions.

    That's right, if the courier's only goal is to deliver more packages, they might start to rush, may ruin the packages, and may offer poor customer service. We can help to guard against this by implementing qualitative and behavioral measures as well. For example, a qualitative measure might be that the courier is required to deliver the packages in mint condition. And the metric would be the number of customer complaints about damaged packages or ratings on a satisfaction survey related to package condition.

    For the behavioral aspect, the courier might be required to provide customer-centric service with a positive attitude. The metrics could be ratings on customer satisfaction surveys related to the courier's demeanor or observations by the manager.

    Managing poor performance virtually: Look for key signs

    It’s crucial to acknowledge that an employee might have an “off week” or need time to balance work and life – things that can be addressed with performance management (PM) techniques. Managers should move into the process for performance improvement when:

    1. Performance fluctuates frequently or significantly.
    2. Performance has dropped for an extended period of time.
    3. Expectations are consistently not being met.

    Key signs to look for:

    • PM data/performance-related assessments
    • Continual absences
    • Decreased quality or quantity of output
    • Frequent excuses (e.g. repeated internet outages)
    • Lack of effort or follow-through
    • Missed deadlines
    • Poor communication or lack of responsiveness
    • Failure to improve

    Speaker’s notes:

    • Let’s talk more about identifying low performance.
    • Everybody has off days or weeks. And what if they are new to the role or new to working remotely? Their performance may be low because they need time to adjust. These sort of situations should be managed, but they don’t require moving into the process for performance improvement.
    • When managing employees who are remote or working in a hybrid situation, it is important to be alert to these signs and check in with your employees on a regular basis. Aim to identify and work with employees on addressing performance issues as they arise rather than waiting until it’s too late. Depending on your availability, the needs of the employee, and the complexity of their role, check-ins could occur daily, weekly, and/or monthly. As I mentioned, for remote employees, it’s often better to check-in more frequently but for a shorter period of time.
    • You want to be present in their work life and available to help them manage through roadblocks and stay on track, but try to avoid over-monitoring employees. Micromanaging can impact the manager-employee relationship and lead to the employee feeling that there is a lack of trust. Remember, the employee needs to be responsible for their own performance and improvement.
    • Check-ins should not just be about the work either. Take some time to check in personally. This is particularly important when managing remotely. It enables you to build a personal relationship with the employee and also keeps you aware if there are other personal issues at play that are impacting their work.
    • So, how do you know what does require performance improvement? There are three key things that you should look for that are clear signals that performance improvement is necessary:
      1. Their performance is fluctuating frequently or significantly.
      2. Their performance has dropped for an extended period of time.
      3. Expectations are consistently not being met.
    • What do you think are some key signs to look for that indicate a performance issue is occurring?

    Managing poor performance virtually: Conducting remote performance conversations

    Video calling

    Always use video calls instead of phone calls when possible so that you don’t lose physical cues and body language.

    Meeting invitations

    Adding HR/your leader to a meeting invite about performance may cause undue stress. Think through who needs to participate and whether they need to be included in the invite itself.

    Communication

    Ensure there are no misunderstandings by setting context for each discussion and having the employee reiterate the takeaways back to you.

    Focus on behavior

    Don’t assume the intent behind the behavior(s) being discussed. Instead, just focus on the behavior itself.

    Policies

    Be sure to adhere to any relevant HR policies and support systems. Working with HR throughout the process will ensure none are overlooked.

    Speaker’s notes:

    There are a few best practices you should follow when having performance conversations:

    • First, if you are in a different work environment than your employee, always use video calls instead of phone calls whenever possible so that you don’t miss out on physical cues and body language. If videoconferencing isn’t the norm, encourage them to turn on their video. Be empathic that it can feel awkward but explain the benefits, and you will both have an easier time communicating and understanding each other.
    • As I’ve mentioned, be considerate of the environment they are in. If they are in the office and you are working remotely, be sure to book a private meeting room for them to go to for the conversation. If they are working from home, be sure to check that they are prepared and able to focus on the conversation.
    • Next, carefully consider who you are adding to the meeting invite and whether it’s necessary for them to be there. Adding HR or your leader to a meeting invite may cause undue stress for the employee.
    • Consider the timing of the invite. Don’t send it out weeks in advance. When a performance problem exists, you’ll want to address it as soon as possible. A day or two of notice would be an ideal approach because it gives them a heads up but will not cause them extended stress or worrying.
    • Be considerate about the timing of the meeting and what else they may have scheduled. For example, a Friday afternoon before they are heading off on vacation or right before they are leading an important client call would not be appropriate timing.
    • As we just mentioned clear communication is critical. Ensure there are no misunderstandings by setting context for each discussion and having the employee reiterate takeaways back to you.
    • Focus on the behavior and don’t assume their intent. It can be tempting to say, “I know you didn’t mean to miss the deadline,” but you don’t know what they intended. Often people are not aware of the impact their behavior can have on others.
    • Lastly, be sure to adhere to any relevant HR policies and support systems. Working with HR throughout the process will ensure nothing is overlooked.

    2.3 Identify challenges of current practices and propose solutions

    30 Minutes

    1. Select one or two challenges from the previous activity.
    2. Identify one solution for each challenge that you can put into action with your own virtual team. Document in the workbook.

    Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Input

    • Current performance management practices
    • Challenges surrounding performance management

    Output

    • Action plan to move forward

    Materials

    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Participants

    • All managers with direct reports working virtually

    Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Optional Section

    Employee development in a virtual team setting

    There are three main development approaches for both colocated and virtual employees

    Formal Training; Relational Learning; Experimental Learning

    Speaker’s Notes:

    As we have seen, our virtual employees crave more meaningful interactions with their managers. In addition to performance conversations, managers should also be having regular discussions with their employees about their employee development plans. One key component of these discussions is career planning. Whether you are thinking shorter term – how to become better at their current role – or longer term – how to advance beyond their current role – discussions about employee development are a great way to engage employees. Employees are ultimately responsible for creating and executing their own development plans, but managers are responsible for making sure that employees have thought through these plans and helping employees identify opportunities for executing those plans.

    To help us think about our own employee development practices, identify challenges they pose when working with virtual employees, and create solutions to these challenges, it is useful to think about employee development opportunities according to three types:

    1. The first kind of development opportunity is formal training. Formal training is organized and has a clearly defined curriculum and desired outcome. It usually takes the form of a group training session (like this one) or training videos or materials that employees can watch individually and on their own time. These opportunities usually end with a test or assignment that can be used to evaluate the degree to which the participant achieved the desired learning outcomes.
    2. The second kind of development opportunity is relational learning. Perhaps the most common form of this type of learning is coaching or mentoring. By establishing a long-term work relationship, checking in with employees about their daily work and development goals, and sharing their own experiences and knowledge, mentors help employees reflect and draw out learning from everyday, on-the-job development activities. Other examples include a peer support group or communities of practice. In these group settings peers share best practices and work together to overcome challenges.
    3. The third kind of development opportunity is experiential learning. This kind of opportunity provides employees the chance to work on real work problems, and the output of the development work can directly benefit the organization. Most people learn best by doing. On-the-job experiences that are challenging or new can force people to use and develop new skills and knowledge based on what worked effectively and what failed. Examples of experiential learning are on-the-job learning for new hires, stretch assignments, or special projects that take the employee beyond their daily routine and allow them to try new activities and develop competencies that they would not have the chance to develop as part of their regular job.

    According to McLean & Company, organizations should use the “70-20-10” rule as a rough guideline when working with employees to create their development plans: 10% of the plan should be dedicated to formal training opportunities, 20% to relational learning, and 70% to experiential learning. Managers should work with employees to identify their performance and career goals, ensure that their development plans are aligned with these goals, and include an appropriate mixture of all three kinds of development opportunities.

    To help identify challenges and solutions, think about how virtual work arrangements will impact the employee’s ability to leverage each type of opportunity at our organization.

    Here are some examples that can help us start thinking about the kinds of challenges virtual employees on our team face:

    Career Planning

    • One challenge can be identifying a career path that is consistent with working virtually. If switching from a virtual arrangement to an onsite arrangement is not a viable option for an employee, some career paths may not feasibly be open to them (at least as the company is currently organized). For example, if an employee would eventually like to be promoted to a senior leadership role in their business function but all senior leaders are required to work onsite at corporate headquarters, the employee will need to consider whether such a move is possible for them. In some cases employees may be willing to do this, but in others they may not. The important thing is to have these conversations with virtual employees and avoid the assumption that all career paths can be done virtually, since that might not be the case

    Formal Training

    • This is probably the least problematic form of employee development for virtual employees. In many cases this kind of training is scheduled well in advance, so virtual employees may be able to join non-virtual employees in person for some group training. When this is not possible (due to distance, budget, or time zone), many forms of group training can be recorded and watched by virtual employees later. Training videos and training materials can also easily be shared with virtual employees using existing collaboration software.

    Relational Learning

    • One major challenge here is developing a mentoring relationship virtually. As we discussed in the module on performance management, developing relationships virtually can be challenging because people cannot rely upon the kind of informal and spontaneous interactions that occur when people are located in the same office. Mentors and mentees will have to put in more effort and planning to get to know each other and they will have to schedule frequent check-ins so that employees can reflect upon their progress and experience (with the help of their mentors) more often.
    • Time zones and technology may pose potential barriers for certain candidates to be mentors. In some cases, employees that are best qualified to be mentors may not be as comfortable with collaborative software as other mentors or their mentees. If there are large time zone differences, some people who would otherwise be interested in acting as a mentor may be dissuaded. Managers need to take this into consideration if they are connecting employees with mentors or if they are thinking of taking on the mentor role themselves.

    Experiential Learning

    • Virtual employees risk being overlooked for special projects due to the “out of sight, out of mind” bias: When special projects come up, the temptation is to look around the room and see who is the best fit. The problem is, however, that in some cases the highest performers or best fit may not physically be in the room. In these cases it is important for managers to take on an advocate role for their employees and remind other managers that they have good virtual employees on their team that should be included or contacted. It is also important for managers to keep their team informed about these opportunities as often as possible.
    • Sometimes certain projects or certain kinds of work just cannot be done virtually in a company for a variety of reasons. The experiential learning opportunities will not be open to virtual employees. If such opportunities are open to the majority of other workers in this role (potentially putting virtual employees’ career development at a disadvantage relative to their peers), managers should work with their virtual employees to identify alternative experiences. Managers may also want to consider advocating for more or for higher quality experiential learning opportunities at the organization.

    Now that we have considered some general examples of challenges and solutions, let’s look at our own employee development practices and think about the practical steps we can take as managers to improve employee development for our virtual employees.

    Employee development basics

    • Career planning & performance improvement
    • Formal training
    • Relational learning
    • Experiential learning

    Speaker’s Notes:

    [Customize this slide according to your organization’s own policies and processes for employee development. Provide useful images that outline this on the slide, and in these notes describe the processes/policies that are in place. Note: In some cases policies or processes may not be designed with virtual employees or virtual teams in mind. That is okay for the purposes of this training module. In the following activities participants will discuss how they apply these policies and processes with their virtual teams. If your organization is interested in adapting its policies/processes to better support virtual workers, it may be useful to record those conversations to supplement existing policies later.]

    Now that we have considered some general examples of challenges and solutions, let’s look at our own employee development practices and think about the practical steps we can take as managers to improve employee development for our virtual employees.

    2.4 Share current practices for developing employees on a virtual team

    30 Minutes

    1. Brainstorm and list current high-level employee development practices. Record in your workbook.
    2. Discuss current challenges connected to developing virtual employees. Record in your workbook.
    3. Identify one solution for each challenge that you can put into action with your own virtual team.
    4. Discuss as a group.

    Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Input

    • Current employee development practices
    • Challenges surrounding employee development

    Output

    • Action plan to move forward

    Materials

    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Participants

    • All managers with direct reports working virtually

    Refine Action Plans

    2.5 Refine your action plan and commit to implementing it

    30 Minutes

    1. Review your action plans for consistency and overlap. Highlight any parts you may struggle to complete.
    2. Meeting with your group, summarize your plans to each other. Provide feedback and discuss each other’s action plans.
    3. Discuss how you can hold each other accountable.

    Download the Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Input

    • Action items from previous activities.

    Output

    • Action plan to move forward

    Materials

    • Workbook: Equip Managers to Effectively Manage Virtual Teams

    Participants

    • All managers with direct reports working virtually

    Summary of Accomplishment

    • We do not need to go out and learn a new set of manager responsibilities to better manage our virtual teams; rather, we have to “dial up” certain responsibilities we already have or adjust certain approaches that we already take.
    • It is important to set clear expectations. While managers are ultimately responsible for making sure expectations are set and are clearly communicated, they are not the only ones with responsibilities. Employees and managers need to work together to overcome the challenges that virtual work involves.
    • Virtual employees crave meaningful interactions with their managers and team. Managers must take charge in fostering an atmosphere of openness around wellbeing and establish effective performance management strategies. By being proactive with our virtual teams’ wellness and mindful of our performance management habits, we can take significant steps toward keeping these employees engaged and productive.
    • Effective management in virtual contexts requires being more deliberate than is typical in non-virtual contexts. By working as a group to identify challenges and propose solutions, we have helped each other create action plans that we can use going forward to continually improve our management practices.

    If you would like additional support, have our analysts guide you through an info-tech workshop or guided implementation.

    Contact your account representative for more information

    workshops@infotech.com

    1-888-670-8889

    Speaker’s Notes:

    First, let’s take a moment to summarize the key things we have learned today:

    1. We do not need to go out and learn a new set of manager competencies to better manage our virtual teams; rather, we have to “dial up” certain competencies we already have or adjust certain approaches that we already take. In many cases we just need to be more aware of the challenges that virtual communication poses and be more planful in our approaches.
    2. It is important to set clear expectations. While managers are ultimately responsible for making sure expectations are set and clearly communicated, they are not the only ones with responsibilities. Employees and managers need to work together to overcome the challenges that virtual work involves. Making sure that teams have meaningful conversations about expectations, come to a shared understanding of them, and record them will create a firm foundation for all other interactions on the virtual team.
    3. Virtual employees crave meaningful interactions with their managers related to performance and employee development. By creating action plans for improving these kinds of interactions with our teams, we can take significant steps toward keeping these employees engaged and productive.
    4. Effective performance management and employee development in virtual contexts require more planfulness than is required in non-virtual contexts. By working as a group to identify challenges and propose solutions, we have helped each other create action plans that we can use going forward to continually improve our management practices.

    Is there anything that anyone has learned that is not on this list and that they would like to share with the group?

    Finally, were there any challenges identified today that were not addressed?

    [Note to facilitator: Take note of any challenges not addressed and commit to getting back to the participants with some suggested solutions.]

    Additional resources

    Manager Training: Lead Through Change

    Train managers to navigate the interpersonal challenges associated with change management and develop their communication and leadership skills. Upload this LMS module into your learning management system to enable online training.

    Manager Training: Build a Better Manager: Manage Your People

    Management skills training is needed, but organizations are struggling to provide training that makes a long-term difference in the skills managers 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.

    Blueprint: Manage Poor Performance While Working From Home

    Assess and improve remote work performance with our ready-to-use tools.

    Works Cited

    April, Richard. “10 KPIs Every Sales Manager Should Measure in 2019.” HubSpot, 24 June 2019. Web.

    Banerjea, Peter. “5 Powerful Strategies for Managing a Remote Sales Team.” Badger - Maps for field sales, n.d. Web.

    Bibby, Adrianne. “5 Employers’ Awesome Quotes about Work Flexibility.” FlexJobs, 9 January 2017. Web.

    Brogie, Frank. “The 14 KPIs every field sales rep should strive to improve.” Repsly, 2018. Web.

    Dunn, Julie. “5 smart tips for leading field sales teams.” LevelEleven, March 2015. Web.

    Edinger, Scott. “How great sales leaders coach.” Forbes, 2013. Web.

    “Employee Outlook: Employee Views on Working Life.” CIPD, April 2016. Web.

    Hall, Becki. “The 5 biggest challenges facing remote workers (and how to solve them).” interact, 7 July 2017. Web.

    Hofstede, Geert. “National Cultural Dimensions.” Hofstede Insights, 2012. Web.

    “Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2014 (EPA 430-R-16-002).” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 15 April 2016.

    “Latest Telecommuting Statistics.” Global Workplace Analytics, June 2021. Web.

    Knight, Rebecca. “How to manage remote direct reports.” Harvard Business Review, 2015. Web.

    “Rewards and Recognition: 5 ways to show remote worker appreciation.” FurstPerson, 2019. Web.

    Palay, Jonathan. "How to build your sales management cadence." CommercialTribe, 22 March 2018. Web.

    “Sales Activity Management Matrix.” Asian Sales Guru, 2019. Web.

    Smith, Simone. “9 Things to Consider When Recognizing Remote Employees.” hppy, 2018. Web.

    “State of Remote Work 2017.” OWL Labs, 2021. Web.

    “State of the American Workplace.” Gallup, 2017. Web.

    “Telework Savings Potential.” Global Workplace Analytics, June 2021. Web.

    “The Future of Jobs Employment Trends.” World Economic Forum, 2016. Web.

    “The other COVID-19 crisis: Mental health.” Qualtrics, 14 April 2020. Web.

    Thompson, Dan. “The straightforward truth about effective sales leadership.” Sales Hacker, 2017. Web.

    Tsipursky, Gleb. “Remote Work Can Be Better for Innovation Than In-Person Meetings.” Scientific American, 14 Oct. 2021. Web.

    Walsh, Kim. “New sales manager? Follow this guide to crush your first quarter.” HubSpot, May 2019. Web.

    “What Leaders Need to Know about Remote Workers: Surprising Differences in Workplace Happiness and Relationships.” TINYpulse, 2016.

    Zenger, Jack, and Joe Folkman. “Feedback: The Leadership Conundrum.” Talent Quarterly: The Feedback Issue, 2015.

    Contributors

    Anonymous CAMH Employee

    Implement an IT Employee Development Plan

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}592|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: 5 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: Train & Develop
    • Parent Category Link: /train-and-develop
    • There is a growing gap between the competencies organizations have been focused on developing and what is needed in the future.
    • Employees have been left to drive their own development with little direction or support and without the alignment of development to organizational needs.
    • The pace of change in today’s environment demands new competencies while making others obsolete, and IT is challenged with keeping up with upskilling employees.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations position development as employee-owned, yet employees still feel like their needs aren’t being met, and many leave as a result.
    • Development needs to be employee-owned and manager-supported but also organization-informed to ensure that it meets the organization’s needs.
    • Today, operating environments change quickly, and organizations need to develop the competencies employees need both today and in the future.

    Impact and Result

    • Design employee development plans that build the competencies the organization and IT department need both today and in the future.
    • Equip managers and build program support to foster continuous learning and development.
    • Connect the right development opportunity to the right employee through an effective development planning process.

    Implement an IT Employee Development Plan Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement effective development planning, 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 employees' development needs

    Assist your employees in setting appropriate development goals.

    • Implement Effective Employee Development Planning – Phase 1: Assess Employees' Development Needs
    • IT Manager Job Aid: Employee Development
    • IT Employee Job Aid: Employee Development
    • IT Employee Career Development Workbook
    • Individual Competency Development Plan
    • IT Competency Library
    • Leadership Competencies Workbook

    2. Select appropriate activities for development

    Review existing and identify new development activities that employees can undertake to achieve their goals.

    • Implement Effective Employee Development Planning – Phase 2: Select Activities for Developing Prioritized Competencies
    • Learning Methods Catalog for IT Employees

    3. Build manager coaching skills

    Establish manager and employee follow-up accountabilities.

    • Implement Effective Employee Development Planning – Phase 3: Build Manager Coaching Skills to Support Employee Development
    • Role Play Coaching Scenarios
    [infographic]

    The First 100 Days As CIO

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}540|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.2/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $54,525 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 26 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: High Impact Leadership
    • Parent Category Link: /lead
    • You’ve been promoted from within to the role of CIO.
    • You’ve been hired externally to take on the role of CIO.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Foundational understanding must be achieved before you start. Hit the ground running before day one by using company documents and initial discussions to pin down the company’s type and mode.
    • Listen before you act (usually). In most situations, executives benefit from listening to peers and staff before taking action.
    • Identify quick wins early and often. Fix problems as soon as you recognize them to set the tone for your tenure.

    Impact and Result

    • Collaborate to collect the details needed to identify the right mode for your organization and determine how it will influence your plan.
    • Use Info-Tech’s diagnostic tools to align your vision with that of business executives and form a baseline for future reference.

    The First 100 Days As CIO Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why the first 100 days of being a new executive is a crucial time that requires the right balance of listening with taking action. See how seven calls with an executive advisor will guide you through this period.

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

    1. Check in with your executive advisor over seven calls

    Organize your first 100 days as CIO into activities completed within two-week periods, aided by the guidance of an executive advisor.

    • The First 100 Days As CIO – Storyboard
    • Organizational Catalog
    • Cultural Archetype Calculator
    • IT Capability Assessment

    2. Communicate your plan to your manager

    Communicate your strategy with a presentation deck that you will complete in collaboration with Info-Tech advisors.

    • The First 100 Days As CIO – Presentation Deck

    3. View an example of the final presentation

    See an example of a completed presentation deck, from the new CIO of Gotham City.

    • The First 100 Days As CIO – Presentation Deck Example

    4. Listen to our podcast

    Check out The Business Leadership podcast in Info-Tech's special series, The First 100 Days.

    • "The First 100 Days" Podcast – Alan Fong, CTO, DealerFX
    • "The First 100 Days" Podcast – Denis Gaudreault, country manager for Intel’s Canada and Latin America region
    • "The First 100 Days" Podcast – Dave Penny & Andrew Wertkin, BlueCat
    • "The First 100 Days" Podcast – Susan Bowen, CEO, Aptum
    • "The First 100 Days" Podcast – Wayne Berger, CEO IWG Plc Canada and Latin America
    • "The First 100 Days" Podcast – Eric Wright, CEO, LexisNexis Canada
    • "The First 100 Days" Podcast – Erin Bury, CEO, Willful
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    The First 100 Days As CIO

    Partner with Info-Tech for success in this crucial period of transition.

    Analyst Perspective

    The first 100 days refers to the 10 days before you start and the first three months on the job.

    “The original concept of ‘the first 100 days’ was popularized by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who passed a battery of new legislation after taking office as US president during the Great Depression. Now commonly extended to the business world, the first 100 days of any executive role is a critically important period for both the executive and the organization.

    But not every new leader should follow FDR’s example of an action-first approach. Instead, finding the right balance of listening and taking action is the key to success during this transitional period. The type of the organization and the mode that it’s in serves as the fulcrum that determines where the point of perfect balance lies. An executive facing a turnaround situation will want to focus on more action more quickly. One facing a sustaining success situation or a realignment situation will want to spend more time listening before taking action.” (Brian Jackson, Research Director, CIO, Info-Tech Research Group)

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • You’ve been promoted from within to the role of CIO.
    • You’ve been hired externally to take on the role of CIO.

    Complication

    Studies show that two years after a new executive transition, as many as half are regarded as failures or disappointments (McKinsey). First impressions are hard to overcome, and a CIO’s first 100 days are heavily weighted in terms of how others will assess their overall success. The best way to approach this period is determined by both the size and the mode of an organization.

    Resolution

    • Work with Info-Tech to prepare a 100-day plan that will position you for success.
    • Collaborate to collect the details needed to identify the right mode for your organization and determine how it will influence your plan.
    • Use Info-Tech’s diagnostic tools to align your vision with that of business executives and form a baseline for future reference.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Foundational understanding must be achieved before you start.
      Hit the ground running before day one by using company documents and initial discussions to pin down the company’s type and mode.
    2. Listen before you act (usually).
      In most situations, executives benefit from listening to peers and staff before taking action.
    3. Identify quick wins early and often.
      Fix problems as soon as you recognize them to set the tone for your tenure.

    The First 100 Days: Roadmap

    A roadmap timeline of 'The 100-Day Plan' for your first 100 days as CIO and related Info-Tech Diagnostics. Step A: 'Foundational Preparation' begins 10 days prior to your first day. Step B: 'Management's Expectations' is Days 0 to 30, with the diagnostic 'CIO-CEO Alignment'. Step C: 'Assessing the IT Team' is Days 10 to 75, with the diagnostics 'IT M&G Diagnostic' at Day 30 and 'IT Staffing Assessment' at Day 60. Step D: 'Assess the Key Stakeholders' is Days 40 to 85 with the diagnostic 'CIO Business Vision Survey'. Step E: 'Deliver First-Year Plan' is Days 80 to 100.

    Concierge service overview

    Organize a call with your executive advisor every two weeks during your first 100 days. Info-Tech recommends completing our diagnostics during this period. If you’re not able to do so, instead complete the alternative activities marked with (a).

    Call 1 Call 2 Call 3 Call 4 Call 5 Call 6 Call 7
    Activities
    Before you start: Day -10 to Day 1
    • 1.1 Interview your predecessor.
    • 1.2 Learn the corporate structure.
    • 1.3 Determine STARS mode.
    • 1.4 Create a one-page intro sheet.
    • 1.5 Update your boss.
    Day 0 to 15
    • 2.1 Introduce yourself to your team.
    • 2.2 Document your sphere of influence.
    • 2.3 Complete a competitor array.
    • 2.4 Complete the CEO-CIO Alignment Program.
    • 2.4(a) Agree on what success looks like with the boss.
    • 2.5 Inform team of IT M&G Framework.
    Day 16 to 30
    • 3.1 Determine the team’s cultural archetype.
    • 3.2 Create a cultural adjustment plan.
    • 3.3 Initiate IT M&G Diagnostic.
    • 3.4 Conduct a high-level analysis of current IT capabilities.
    • 3.4 Update your boss.
    Day 31 to 45
    • 4.1 Inform stakeholders about CIO Business Vision survey.
    • 4.2 Get feedback on initial assessments from your team.
    • 4.3 Initiate CIO Business Vision survey.
    • 4.3(a) Meet stakeholders and catalog details.
    Day 46 to 60
    • 5.1 Inform the team that you plan to conduct an IT staffing assessment.
    • 5.2 Initiate the IT Staffing Assessment.
    • 5.3 Quick wins: Make recommend-ations based on CIO Business Vision Diagnostic/IT M&G Framework.
    • 5.4 Update your boss.
    Day 61 to 75
    • 6.1 Run a start, stop, continue exercise with IT staff.
    • 6.2 Make a categorized vendor list.
    • 6.3 Determine the alignment of IT commitments with business objectives.
    Day 76 to 90
    • 7.1 Finalize your vision – mission – values statement.
    • 7.2 Quick Wins: Make recommend-ations based on IT Staffing Assessment.
    • 7.3 Create and communicate a post-100-day plan.
    • 7.4 Update your boss.
    Deliverables Presentation Deck Section A: Foundational Preparation Presentation Deck slides 9, 11-13, 19-20, 29 Presentation Deck slides 16, 17, 21 Presentation Deck slides 30, 34 Presentation Deck slides 24, 25, 2 Presentation Deck slides 27, 42

    Call 1

    Before you start: Day -10 to Day 1

    Interview your predecessor

    Interviewing your predecessor can help identify the organization’s mode and type.

    Before reaching out to your predecessor, get a sense of whether they were viewed as successful or not. Ask your manager. If the predecessor remains within the organization in a different role, understand your relationship with them and how you'll be working together.

    During the interview, make notes about follow-up questions you'll ask others at the organization.

    Ask these open-ended questions in the interview:

    • Tell me about the team.
    • Tell me about your challenges.
    • Tell me about a major project your team worked on. How did it go?
    • Who/what has been helpful during your tenure?
    • Who/what created barriers for you?
    • What do your engagement surveys reveal?
    • Tell me about your performance management programs and issues.
    • What mistakes would you avoid if you could lead again?
    • Why are you leaving?
    • Could I reach out to you again in the future?

    Learn the corporate structure

    Identify the organization’s corporate structure type based on your initial conversations with company leadership. The type of structure will dictate how much control you'll have as a functional head and help you understand which stakeholders you'll need to collaborate with.

    To Do:

    • Review the organization’s structure list and identify whether the structure is functional, prioritized, or a matrix. If it's a matrix organization, determine if it's a strong matrix (project manager holds more authority), weak matrix (functional manager holds more authority), or balanced matrix (managers hold equal authority).

    Functional

    • Most common structure.
    • Traditional departments such as sales, marketing, finance, etc.
    • Functional managers hold most authority.

    Projectized

    • Most programs are implemented through projects with focused outcomes.
    • Teams are cross-functional.
    • Project managers hold the most authority.

    Matrix

    • Combination of projectized and functional.
    • Organization is a dynamic environment.
    • Authority of functional manager flows down through division, while authority of project manager flows sideways through teams.

    This organization is a ___________________ type.

    (Source: Simplilearn)

    Presentation Deck, slide 6

    Determine the mode of the organization: STARS

    Based on your interview process and discussions with company leadership, and using Michael Watkins’ STARS assessment, determine which mode your organization is in: startup, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, or sustaining success.

    Knowing the mode of your organization will determine how you approach your 100-day plan. Depending on the mode, you'll rebalance your activities around the three categories of assess, listen, and deliver.

    To Do:

    • Review the STARS table on the right.

    Based on your situation, prioritize activities in this way:

    • Startup: assess, listen, deliver
    • Turnaround: deliver, listen, assess
    • Accelerated Growth: assess, listen, deliver
    • Realignment: listen, assess, deliver
    • Sustaining success: listen, assess, deliver

    This organization is a ___________________ type.

    (Source: Watkins, 2013.)

    Presentation Deck, slide 6

    Determine the mode of the organization: STARS

    STARS Startup Turnaround Accelerated Growth Realignment Sustaining Success
    Definition Assembling capabilities to start a project. Project is widely seen as being in serious trouble. Managing a rapidly expanding business. A previously successful organization is now facing problems. A vital organization is going to the next level.
    Challenges Must build strategy, structures, and systems from scratch. Must recruit and make do with limited resources. Stakeholders are demoralized; slash and burn required. Requires structure and systems to scale; hiring and onboarding. Employees need to be convinced change is needed; restructure at the top required. Risk of living in shadow of a successful former leader.
    Advantages No rigid preconceptions. High-energy environment and easy to pivot. A little change goes a long way when people recognize the need. Motivated employee base willing to stretch. Organization has clear strengths; people desire success. Likely a strong team; foundation for success likely in place.

    Satya Nadella's listen, lead, and launch approach

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Software
    Source Gregg Keizer, Computerworld, 2014

    When Satya Nadella was promoted to the CEO role at Microsoft in 2014, he received a Glassdoor approval rating of 85% and was given an "A" grade by industry analysts after his first 100 days. What did he do right?

    • Created a sense of urgency by shaking up the senior leadership team.
    • Already understood the culture as an insider.
    • Listened a lot and did many one-on-one meetings.
    • Established a vision communicated with a mantra that Microsoft would be "mobile-first, cloud-first."
    • Met his words with actions. He launched Office for iPad and made many announcements for cloud platform Azure.
    Photo of Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft Corp.
    Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft Corp. (Image source: Microsoft)

    Listen to 'The First 100 Days' podcast – Alan Fong

    Create a one-page introduction sheet to use in communications

    As a new CIO, you'll have to introduce yourself to many people in the organization. To save time on communicating who you are as a person outside of the office, create a brief one-pager that includes a photo of you, where you were born and raised, and what your hobbies are. This helps make a connection more quickly so your conversations can focus on the business at hand rather than personal topics.

    For your presentation deck, remove the personal details and just keep it professional. The personal aspects can be used as a one-pager for other communications. (Source: Personal interview with Denis Gaudreault, Country Lead, Intel.)

    Presentation Deck, slide 5

    Call 2

    Day 1 to Day 15

    Introduce yourself to your team

    Prepare a 20-second pitch about yourself that goes beyond your name and title. Touch on your experience that's relevant to your new role or the industry you're in. Be straightforward about your own perceived strengths and weaknesses so that people know what to expect from you. Focus on the value you believe you'll offer the group and use humor and humility where you're comfortable. For example:

    “Hi everyone, my name is John Miller. I have 15 years of experience marketing conferences like this one to vendors, colleges, and HR departments. What I’m good at, and the reason I'm here, is getting the right people, businesses, and great ideas in a room together. I'm not good on details; that's why I work with Tim. I promise that I'll get people excited about the conference, and the gifts and talents of everyone else in this room will take over from there. I'm looking forward to working with all of you.”

    Have a structured set of questions ready that you can ask everyone.

    For example:
    • How well is the company performing based on expectations?
    • What must the company do to sustain its financial performance and market competitiveness?
    • How do you foresee the CIO contributing to the team?
    • How have past CIOs performed from the perspective of the team?
    • What would successful performance of this role look like to you? To your peers?
    • What challenges and obstacles to success am I likely to encounter? What were the common challenges of my predecessor?
    • How do you view the culture here and how do successful projects tend to get approved?
    • What are your greatest challenges? How could I help you?

    Get to know your sphere of influence: prepare to connect with a variety of people before you get down to work

    Your ability to learn from others is critical at every stage in your first 100 days. Keep your sphere of influence in the loop as you progress through this period.

    A diagram of circles within circles representing your spheres of influence. The smallest circle is 'IT Leaders' and is noted as your 'Immediate circle'. The next largest circle is 'IT Team', then 'Peers - Business Leads', then 'Internal Clients' which is noted as you 'Extended circle'. The largest circle is 'External clients'.

    Write down the names, or at least the key people, in each segment of this diagram. This will serve as a quick reference when you're planning communications with others and will help you remember everyone as you're meeting lots of new people in your early days on the job.

    • Everyone knows their networks are important.
    • However, busy schedules can cause leaders to overlook their many audiences.
    • Plan to meet and learn from all people in your sphere to gain a full spectrum of insights.

    Presentation Deck, slide 29

    Identify how your competitors are leveraging technology for competitive advantage

    Competitor identification and analysis are critical steps for any new leader to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of their organization and develop a sense of strategic opportunity and environmental awareness.

    Today’s CIO is accountable for driving innovation through technology. A competitive analysis will provide the foundation for understanding the current industry structure, rivalry within it, and possible competitive advantages for the organization.

    Surveying your competitive landscape prior to the first day will allow you to come to the table prepared with insights on how to support the organization and ensure that you are not vulnerable to any competitive blind spots that may exist in the evaluations conducted by the organization already.

    You will not be able to gain a nuanced understanding of the internal strengths and weaknesses until you are in the role, so focus on the external opportunities and how competitors are using technology to their advantage.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    For a more in-depth approach to identifying and understanding relevant industry trends and turning them into insights, leverage the following Info-Tech blueprints:

    Presentation Deck, slide 9

    Assess the external competitive environment

    Associated Activity icon

    INPUT: External research

    OUTPUT: Competitor array

    1. Conduct a broad analysis of the industry as a whole. Seek to answer the following questions:
      1. Are there market developments or new markets?
      2. Are there industry or lifestyle trends, e.g. move to mobile?
      3. Are there geographic changes in the market?
      4. Are there demographic changes that are shaping decision making?
      5. Are there changes in market demand?
    2. Create a competitor array by identifying and listing key competitors. Try to be as broad as possible here and consider not only entrenched close competitors but also distant/future competitors that may disrupt the industry.
    3. Identify the strengths, weaknesses, and key brand differentiators that each competitor brings to the table. For each strength and differentiator, brainstorm ways that IT-based innovation enables each. These will provide a toolkit for deeper conversations with your peers and your business stakeholders as you move further into your first 100 days.
    Competitor Strengths Weaknesses Key Differentiators IT Enablers
    Competitor 1
    Competitor 2
    Competitor 3

    Complete the CEO-CIO Alignment Program

    Associated Activity icon Run the diagnostic program or use the alternative activities to complete your presentation

    INPUT: CEO-CEO Alignment Program (recommended)

    OUTPUT: Desired and target state of IT maturity, Innovation goals, Top priorities

    Materials: Presentation Deck, slides 11-13

    Participants: CEO, CIO

    Introduce the concept of the CEO-CIO Alignment Program using slide 10 of your presentation deck and the brief email text below.

    Talk to your advisory contact at Info-Tech about launching the program. More information is available on Info-Tech’s website.

    Once the report is complete, import the results into your presentation:

    • Slide 11, the CEO’s current and desired states
    • Slide 12, IT innovation goals
    • Slide 13, top projects and top departments from the CEO and the CIO

    Include any immediate recommendations you have.

    Hello CEO NAME,

    I’m excited to get started in my role as CIO, and to hit the ground running, I’d like to make sure that the IT department is aligned with the business leadership. We will accomplish this using Info-Tech Research Group’s CEO-CIO Alignment Program. It’s a simple survey of 20 questions to be completed by the CEO and the CIO.

    This survey will help me understand your perception and vision as I get my footing as CIO. I’ll be able to identify and build core IT processes that will automate IT-business alignment going forward and create an effective IT strategy that helps eliminate impediments to business growth.

    Research shows that IT departments that are effectively aligned to business goals achieve more success, and I’m determined to make our IT department as successful as possible. I look forward to further detailing the benefits of this program to you and answering any questions you may have the next time we speak.

    Regards,
    CIO NAME

    New KPIs for CEO-CIO Alignment — Recommended

    Info-Tech CEO-CIO Alignment Program

    Info-Tech's CEO-CIO Alignment Program is set up to build IT-business alignment in any organization. It helps the CIO understand CEO perspectives and priorities. The exercise leads to useful IT performance indicators, clarifies IT’s mandate and which new technologies it should invest in, and maps business goals to IT priorities.

    Benefits

    Master the Basics
    Cut through the jargon.
    Take a comprehensive look at the CEO perspective.
    Target Alignment
    Identify how IT can support top business priorities. Address CEO-CIO differences.
    Start on the Right Path
    Get on track with the CIO vision. Use correct indicators and metrics to evaluate IT from day one.

    Supporting Tool or Template icon Additional materials are available on Info-Tech’s website.

    The desired maturity level of IT — Alternative

    Associated Activity icon Use only if you can’t complete the CEO-CIO Alignment Program

    Step 1: Where are we today?

    Determine where the CEO sees the current overall maturity level of the IT organization.

    Step 2: Where do we want to be as an organization?

    Determine where the CEO wants the IT organization to be in order to effectively support the strategic direction of the business.

    A colorful visual representation of the different IT maturity levels. At the bottom is 'STRUGGLE, Unable to Provide Reliable Business Services', then moving upwards are 'SUPPORT, Reliable Infrastructure and IT Service Desk', 'OPTIMIZE, Effective Fulfillment of Work Orders, Functional Business Applications, and Reliable Service Management', 'EXPAND, Effective Execution on Business Projects, Strategic Use of Analytics and Customer Technology', and at the top is 'TRANSFORM, Reliable Technology Innovation'.

    Presentation Deck, slide 11

    Tim Cook's powerful use of language

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Consumer technology
    Source Carmine Gallo, Inc., 2019

    Apple CEO Tim Cook, an internal hire, had big shoes to fill after taking over from the late Steve Jobs. Cook's ability to control how the company is perceived is a big credit to his success. How does he do it? His favorite five words are “The way I see it..." These words allow him to take a line of questioning and reframe it into another perspective that he wants to get across. Similarly, he'll often say, "Let me tell you the way I look at it” or "To put it in perspective" or "To put it in context."

    In your first two weeks on the job, try using these phrases in your conversations with peers and direct reports. It demonstrates that you value their point of view but are independently coming to conclusions about the situation at hand.

    Photo of Tim Cook, CEO, Apple Inc.
    Tim Cook, CEO, Apple Inc. (Image source: Apple)

    Listen to 'The First 100 Days' podcast – Denis Gaudreault

    Inform your team that you plan to do an IT Management & Governance Diagnostic survey

    Associated Activity icon Run the diagnostic program or use the alternative activities to complete your presentation

    INPUT: IT Management & Governance Diagnostic (recommended)

    OUTPUT: Process to improve first, Processes important to the business

    Materials: Presentation Deck, slides 19-20

    Participants: CIO, IT staff

    Introduce the IT Management & Governance Diagnostic survey that will help you form your IT strategy.

    Explain that you want to understand current IT capabilities and you feel a formal approach is best. You’ll also be using this approach as an important metric to track your department’s success. Tell them that Info-Tech Research Group will be conducting the survey and it’s important to you that they take action on the email when it’s sent to them.

    Example email:

    Hello TEAM,

    I appreciate meeting each of you, and so far I’m excited about the talents and energy on the team. Now I need to understand the processes and capabilities of our department in a deeper way. I’d like to map our process landscape against an industry-wide standard, then dive deeper into those processes to understand if our team is aligned. This will help us be accountable to the business and plan the year ahead. Advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group will be reaching out to you with a simple survey that shouldn’t take too long to complete. It’s important to me that you pay attention to that message and complete the survey as soon as possible.

    Regards,
    CIO NAME

    Call 3

    Day 16 to Day 30

    Leverage team interviews as a source of determining organizational culture

    Info-Tech recommends that you hold group conversations with your team to uncover their opinions of the current organizational culture. This not only helps build transparency between you and your team but also gives you another means of observing behavior and reactions as you listen to team members’ characterizations of the current culture.

    A visualization of the organizational culture of a company asks the question 'What is culture?' Five boxes are stacked, the bottom two are noted as 'The invisible causes' and the top two are noted as 'The visible signs'. From the bottom, 'Fundamental assumptions and beliefs', 'Values and attitudes', 'The way we do things around here', 'Behaviors', and at the top, 'Environment'. (Source: Hope College Blog Network)

    Note: It is inherently difficult for people to verbalize what constitutes a culture – your strategy for extracting this information will require you to ask indirect questions to solicit the highest value information.

    Questions for Discussion:

    • What about the current organizational environment do you think most contributes to your success?
    • What barriers do you experience as you try to accomplish your work?
    • What is your favorite quality that is present in our organization?
    • What is the one thing you would most like to change about this organization?
    • Do the organization's policies and procedures support your efforts to accomplish work or do they impede your progress?
    • How effective do you think IT’s interactions are with the larger organization?
    • What would you consider to be IT’s top three guiding principles?
    • What kinds of people fail in this organization?

    Supporting Tool or Template icon See Info-Tech’s Cultural Archetype Calculator.

    Use the Competing Values Framework to define your organization’s cultural archetype

    THE COMPETING VALUES FRAMEWORK (CVF):

    CVF represents the synthesis of academic study of 39 indicators of effectiveness for organizations. Using a statistical analysis, two polarities that are highly predictive of differences in organizational effectiveness were isolated:

    1. Internal focus and integration vs. external focus and differentiation.
    2. Stability and control vs. flexibility and discretion.

    By plotting these dimensions on a matrix of competing values, four main cultural archetypes are identified with their own value drivers and theories of effectiveness.

    A map of cultural archetypes with 'Internal control and integration' on the left, 'External focus and differentiation' on the right, 'Flexibility and discretion' on top, and 'Stability and control' on the bottom. Top left is 'Clan Archetype', internal and flexible. Top right is 'Adhocracy Archetype', external and flexible. Bottom left is 'Hierarchy Archetype', internal and controlled. Bottom right is 'Market Archetype', external and controlled.

    Presentation Deck, slide 16

    Create a cultural adjustment plan

    Now that you've assessed the cultural archetype, you can plan an appropriate approach to shape the culture in a positive way. When new executives want to change culture, there are a few main options at hand:

    Autonomous evolution: Encourage teams to learn from each other. Empower hybrid teams to collaborate and reward teams that perform well.

    Planned and managed change: Create steering committee and project-oriented taskforces to work in parallel. Appoint employees that have cultural traits you'd like to replicate to hold responsibility for these bodies.

    Cultural destruction: When a toxic culture needs to be eliminated, get rid of its carriers. Putting new managers or directors in place with the right cultural traits can be a swift and effective way to realign.

    Each option boils down to creating the right set of incentives and deterrents. What behaviors will you reward and which ones will you penalize? What do those consequences look like? Sometimes, but not always, some structural changes to the team will be necessary. If you feel these changes should be made, it's important to do it sooner rather than later. (Source: “Enlarging Your Sphere of Influence in Your Organization,” MindTools Corporate, 2014.)

    As you're thinking about shaping a desired culture, it's helpful to have an easy way to remember the top qualities you want to espouse. Try creating an acronym that makes it easy for staff to remember. For example: RISE could remind your staff to be Responsive, Innovative, Sustainable, and Engaging (RISE). Draw upon your business direction from your manager to help produce desired qualities (Source: Jennifer Schaeffer).

    Presentation Deck, slide 17

    Gary Davenport’s welcome “surprise”

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Telecom
    Source Interview with Gary Davenport

    After Gary Davenport was hired on as VP of IT at MTS Allstream, his first weekend on the job was spent at an all-executive offsite meeting. There, he learned from the CEO that the IT department had a budget reduction target of 25%, like other departments in the company. “That takes your breath away,” Davenport says.

    He decided to meet the CEO monthly to communicate his plans to reduce spending while trying to satisfy business stakeholders. His top priorities were:

    1. Stabilize IT after seven different leaders in a five-year period.
    2. Get the IT department to be respected. To act like business owners instead of like servants.
    3. Better manage finances and deliver on projects.

    During Davenport’s 7.5-year tenure, the IT department became one of the top performers at MTS Allstream.

    Photo of Gary Davenport.
    Gary Davenport’s first weekend on the job at MTS Allstream included learning about a 25% reduction target. (Image source: Ryerson University)

    Listen to 'The First 100 Days' podcast – David Penny & Andrew Wertkin

    Initiate IT Management & Governance Diagnostic — Recommended

    Info-Tech Management & Governance Diagnostic

    Talk to your Info-Tech executive advisor about launching the survey shortly after informing your team to expect it. You'll just have to provide the names and email addresses of the staff you want to be involved. Once the survey is complete, you'll harvest materials from it for your presentation deck. See slides 19 and 20 of your deck and follow the instructions on what to include.

    Benefits

    A sample of the 'High Level Process Landscape' materials available from Info-Tech. A sample of the 'Strategy and Governance In Depth Results' materials available from Info-Tech. A sample of the 'Process Accountability' materials available from Info-Tech.
    Explore IT Processes
    Dive deeper into performance. Highlight problem areas.
    Align IT Team
    Build consensus by identifying opposing views.
    Ownership & Accountability
    Identify process owners and hold team members accountable.

    Supporting Tool or Template icon Additional materials available on Info-Tech’s website.

    Conduct a high-level analysis of current IT capabilities — Alternative

    Associated Activity icon

    INPUT: Interviews with IT leadership team, Capabilities graphic on next slide

    OUTPUT: High-level understanding of current IT capabilities

    Run this activity if you're not able to conduct the IT Management & Governance Diagnostic.

    Schedule meetings with your IT leadership team. (In smaller organizations, interviewing everyone may be acceptable.) Provide them a list of the core capabilities that IT delivers upon and ask them to rate them on an effectiveness scale of 1-5, with a short rationale for their score.

    • 1. Not effective (NE)
    • 2. Somewhat Effective (SE)
    • 3. Effective (E)
    • 4. Very Effective (VE)
    • 5. Extremely Effective (EE)

    Presentation Deck, slide 21

    Use the following set of IT capabilities for your assessment

    Strategy & Governance

    IT Governance Strategy Performance Measurement Policies Quality Management Innovation

    People & Resources

    Stakeholder Management Resource Management Financial Management Vendor Selection & Contract Management Vendor Portfolio Management Workforce Strategy Strategic Comm. Organizational Change Enablement

    Service Management & Operations

    Operations Management Service Portfolio Management Release Management Service Desk Incident & Problem Management Change Management Demand Management

    Infrastructure

    Asset Management Infrastructure Portfolio Management Availability & Capacity Management Infrastructure Management Configuration Management

    Information Security & Risk

    Security Strategy Risk Management Compliance, Audit & Review Security Detection Response & Recovery Security Prevention

    Applications

    Application Lifecycle Management Systems Integration Application Development User Testing Quality Assurance Application Maintenance

    PPM & Projects

    Portfolio Management Requirements Gathering Project Management

    Data & BI

    Data Architecture BI & Reporting Data Quality & Governance Database Operations Enterprise Content Management

    Enterprise Architecture

    Enterprise Architecture Solution Architecture

    Quick wins: CEO-CIO Alignment Program

    Complete this while waiting on the IT M&G survey results. Based on your completed CEO-CIO Alignment Report, identify the initiatives you can tackle immediately.

    If you are here... And want to be here... Drive toward... Innovate around...
    Business Partner Innovator Leading business transformation
    • Emerging technologies
    • Analytical capabilities
    • Risk management
    • Customer-facing tech
    • Enterprise architecture
    Trusted Operator Business Partner Optimizing business process and supporting business transformation
    • IT strategy and governance
    • Business architecture
    • Projects
    • Resource management
    • Data quality
    Firefighter Trusted Operator Optimize IT processes and services
    • Business applications
    • Service management
    • Stakeholder management
    • Work orders
    Unstable Firefighter Reduce use disruption and adequately support the business
    • Network and infrastructure
    • Service desk
    • Security
    • User devices

    Call 4

    Day 31 to Day 45

    Inform your peers that you plan to do a CIO Business Vision survey to gauge your stakeholders’ satisfaction

    Associated Activity icon Run the diagnostic program or use the alternative activities to complete your presentation

    INPUT: CIO Business Vision survey (recommended)

    OUTPUT: True measure of business satisfaction with IT

    Materials: Presentation Deck, slide 30

    Participants: CIO, IT staff

    Meet the business leaders at your organization face-to-face if possible. If you can't meet in person, try a video conference to establish some rapport. At the end of your introduction and after listening to what your colleague has to say, introduce the CIO Business Vision Diagnostic.

    Explain that you want to understand how to meet their business needs and you feel a formal approach is best. You'll also be using this approach as an important metric to track your department's success. Tell them that Info-Tech Research Group will be conducting the survey and it’s important to you that they take the survey when the email is sent to them.

    Example email:

    Hello PEER NAMES,

    I'm arranging for Info-Tech Research Group to invite you to take a survey that will be important to me. The CIO Business Vision survey will help me understand how to meet your business needs. It will only take about 15 minutes of your time, and the top-line results will be shared with the organization. We will use the results to plan initiatives for the future that will improve your satisfaction with IT.

    Regards,
    CIO NAME

    Gain feedback on your initial assessments from your IT team

    There are two strategies for gaining feedback on your initial assessments of the organization from the IT team:

    1. Review your personal assessments with the relevant members of your IT organization as a group. This strategy can help to build trust and an open channel for communication between yourself and your team; however, it also runs the risk of being impacted by groupthink.
    2. Ask for your team to complete their own assessments for you to compare and contrast. This strategy can help extract more candor from your team, as they are not expected to communicate what may be nuanced perceptions of organizational weaknesses or criticisms of the way certain capabilities function.

    Who you involve in this process will be impacted by the size of your organization. For larger organizations, involve everyone down to the manager level. In smaller organizations, you may want to involve everyone on the IT team to get an accurate lay of the land.

    Areas for Review:

    • Strategic Document Review: Are there any major themes or areas of interest that were not covered in my initial assessment?
    • Competitor Array: Are there any initiatives in flight to leverage new technologies?
    • Current State of IT Maturity: Does IT’s perception align with the CEO’s? Where do you believe IT has been most effective? Least effective?
    • IT’s Key Priorities: Does IT’s perception align with the CEO’s?
    • Key Performance Indicators: How has IT been measured in the past?

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    You need your team’s hearts and minds or you risk a short tenure. Overemphasizing business commitment by neglecting to address your IT team until after you meet your business stakeholders will result in a disenfranchised group. Show your team their importance.

    Susan Bowen's talent maximization

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Infrastructure Services
    Source Interview with Susan Bowen

    Susan Bowen was promoted to be the president of Cogeco Peer 1, an infrastructure services firm, when it was still a part of Cogeco Communications. Part of her mandate was to help spin out the business to a new owner, which occurred when it was acquired by Digital Colony. The firm was renamed Aptum and Bowen was put in place as CEO, which was not a certainty despite her position as president at Cogeco Peer 1. She credits her ability to put the right talent in the right place as part of the reason she succeeded. After becoming president, she sought a strong commitment from her directors. She gave them a choice about whether they'd deliver on a new set of expectations – or not. She also asks her leadership on a regular basis if they are using their talent in the right way. While it's tempting for directors to want to hold on to their best employees, those people might be able to enable many more people if they can be put in another place.

    Bowen fully rounded out her leadership team after Aptum was formed. She created a chief operating officer and a chief infrastructure officer. This helped put in place more clarity around roles at the firm and put an emphasis on client-facing services.

    Photo of Susan Bowen, CEO, Aptum.
    Susan Bowen, CEO, Aptum (Image source: Aptum)

    Listen to 'The First 100 Days' podcast – Susan Bowen

    Initiate CIO Business Vision survey – new KPIs for stakeholder management — Recommended

    Info-Tech CIO Business Vision

    Be sure to effectively communicate the context of this survey to your business stakeholders before you launch it. Plan to talk about your plans to introduce it in your first meetings with stakeholders. When ready, let your executive advisor know you want to launch the tool and provide the names and email addresses of the stakeholders you want involved. After you have the results, harvest the materials required for your presentation deck. See slide 30 and follow the instructions on what to include.

    Benefits

    Icon for Key Stakeholders. Icon for Credibility. Icon for Improve. Icon for Focus.
    Key Stakeholders
    Clarify the needs of the business.
    Credibility
    Create transparency.
    Improve
    Measure IT’s progress.
    Focus
    Find what’s important.

    Supporting Tool or Template icon Additional materials are available on Info-Tech’s website.

    Create a catalog of key stakeholder details to reference prior to future conversations — Alternative

    Only conduct this activity if you’re not able to run the CIO Business Vision diagnostic.

    Use the Organizational Catalog as a personal cheat sheet to document the key details around each of your stakeholders, including your CEO when possible.

    The catalog will be an invaluable tool to keep the competing needs of your different stakeholders in line, while ensuring you are retaining the information to build the political capital needed to excel in the C-suite.

    Note: It is important to keep this document private. While you may want to communicate components of this information, ensure your catalog remains under lock and (encryption) key.

    Screenshot of the Organizational Catalog for Stakeholders. At the top are spaces for 'Name', 'Job Title', etc. Boxes include 'Key Personal Details', 'Satisfaction Levels With IT', 'Preferred Communications', 'Key Activities', 'In-Flight and Scheduled Projects', 'Key Performance Indicators', and 'Additional Details'.

    Info-Tech Insight

    While profiling your stakeholders is important, do not be afraid to profile yourself as well. Visualizing how your interests overlap with those of your stakeholders can provide critical information on how to manage your communications so that those on the receiving end are hearing exactly what they need.

    Activity: Conduct interviews with your key business stakeholders — Alternative

    Associated Activity icon

    1. Once you have identified your key stakeholders through your interviews with your boss and your IT team, schedule a set of meetings with those individuals.
    2. Use the meetings to get to know your stakeholders, their key priorities and initiatives, and their perceptions of the effectiveness of IT.
      1. Use the probative questions to the right to elicit key pieces of information.
      2. Refer to the Organizational Catalog tool for more questions to dig deeper in each category. Ensure that you are taking notes separate from the tool and are keeping the tool itself secure, as it will contain private information specific to your interests.
    3. Following each meeting, record the results of your conversation and any key insights in the Organizational Catalog. Refer to the following slide for more details.

    Questions for Discussion:

    • Be indirect about your personal questions – share stories that will elicit details about their interests, kids, etc.
    • What are your most critical/important initiatives for the year?
    • What are your key revenue streams, products, and services?
    • What are the most important ways that IT supports your success? What is your satisfaction level with those services?
    • Are there any current in-flight projects or initiatives that are a current pain point? How can IT assist to alleviate challenges?
    • How is your success measured? What are your targets for the year on those metrics?

    Presentation Deck, slide 34

    Call 5

    Day 46 to Day 60

    Inform your team that you plan to do an IT staffing assessment

    Associated Activity icon Introduce the IT Staffing Assessment that will help you get the most out of your team

    INPUT: Email template

    OUTPUT: Ready to launch diagnostic

    Materials: Email template, List of staff, Sample of diagnostic

    Participants: CIO, IT staff

    Explain that you want to understand how the IT staff is currently spending its time by function and by activity. You want to take a formal approach to this task and also assess the team’s feelings about its effectiveness across different processes. The results of the assessment will serve as the foundation that helps you improve your team’s effectiveness within the organization.

    Example email:

    Hello PEER NAMES,

    The feedback I've heard from the team since joining the company has been incredibly useful in beginning to formulate my IT strategy. Now I want to get a clear picture of how everyone is spending their time, especially across different IT functions and activities. This will be an opportunity for you to share feedback on what we're doing well, what we need to do more of, and what we're missing. Expect to receive an email invitation to take this survey from Info-Tech Research Group. It's important to me that you complete the survey as soon as you're can. Attached you’ll find an example of the report this will generate. Thank you again for providing your time and feedback.

    Regards,
    CIO NAME

    Wayne Berger's shortcut to solve staffing woes

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Office leasing
    Source Interview with Wayne Berger

    Wayne Berger was hired to be the International Workplace Group (IWG) CEO for Canada and Latin America in 2014.

    Wayne approached his early days with the office space leasing firm as a tour of sorts, visiting nearly every one of the 48 office locations across Canada to host town hall meetings. He heard from staff at every location that they felt understaffed. But instead of simply hiring more staff, Berger actually reduced the workforce by 33%.

    He created a more flexible approach to staffing:

    • Employees no longer just reported to work at one office; instead, they were ready to go to wherever they were most needed in a specific geographic area.
    • He centralized all back-office functions for the company so that not every office had to do its own bookkeeping.
    • Finally, he changed the labor profile to consist of full-time staff, part-time staff, and time-on-demand workers.
    Photo of Wayne Berger, CEO, IWG Plc.
    Wayne Berger, CEO, IWG Plc (Image source: IWG)

    Listen to 'The First 100 Days' podcast – Wayne Berger

    Initiate IT Staffing Assessment – new KPIs to track IT performance — Recommended

    Info-Tech IT Staffing Assessment

    Info-Tech’s IT Staffing Assessment provides benchmarking of key metrics against 4,000 other organizations. Dashboard-style reports provide key metrics at a glance, including a time breakdown by IT function and by activity compared against business priorities. Run this survey at about the 45-day mark of your first 90 days. Its insights will be used to inform your long-term IT strategy.

    Benefits

    Icon for Right-Size IT Headcount. Icon for Allocate Staff Correctly. Icon for Maximize Teams.
    Right-Size IT Headcount
    Find the right level for stakeholder satisfaction.
    Allocate Staff Correctly
    Identify staff misalignments with priorities.
    Maximize Teams
    Identify how to drive staff.

    Supporting Tool or Template icon Additional materials are available on Info-Tech’s website.

    Quick wins: Make recommendations based on IT Management & Governance Framework

    Complete this exercise while waiting on the IT Staffing Assessment results. Based on your completed IT Management & Governance report, identify the initiatives you can tackle immediately. You can conduct this as a team exercise by following these steps:

    1. Create a shortlist of initiatives based on the processes that were identified as high need but scored low in effectiveness. Think as broadly as possible during this initial brainstorming.
    2. Write each initiative on a sticky note and conduct a high-level analysis of the amount of effort that would be required to complete it, as well as its alignment with the achievement of business objectives.
    3. Draw the matrix below on a whiteboard and place each sticky note onto the matrix based on its potential impact and difficulty to address.
    A matrix of initiative categories based on effort to achieve and alignment with business objectives. It is split into quadrants: the vertical axis is 'Potential Impact' with 'High, Fully supports achievement of business objectives' at the top and 'Low, Limited support of business objectives' at the bottom; the horizontal axis is 'Effort' with 'Low' on the left and 'High' on the right. Low impact, low effort is 'Low Current Value, No immediate attention required, but may become a priority in the future if business objectives change'. Low impact, high effort is 'Future Reassessment, No immediate attention required, but may become a priority in the future if business objectives change'. High impact, high effort is 'Long-Term Initiatives, High impact on business outcomes but will take more effort to implement. Schedule these in your long-term roadmap'. High impact, low effort is 'Quick Wins, High impact on business objectives with relatively small effort. Some combination of these will form your early wins'.

    Call 6

    Day 61 to Day 75

    Run a start, stop, continue exercise with your IT staff — Alternative

    This is an alternative activity to running an IT Staffing Assessment, which contains a start/stop/continue assessment. This activity can be facilitated with a flip chart or a whiteboard. Create three pages or three columns and label them Start, Stop, and Continue.

    Hand out sticky notes to each team member and then allow time for individual brainstorming. Instruct them to write down their contributions for each category on the sticky notes. After a few minutes, have everyone stick their notes in the appropriate category on the board. Discuss as a group and see what themes emerge. Record the results that you want to share in your presentation deck (GroupMap).

    Gather your team and explain the meaning of these categories:

    Start: Activities you're not currently doing but should start doing very soon.

    Stop: Activities you're currently doing but aren’t working and should cease.

    Continue: Things you're currently doing and are working well.

    Presentation Deck, slide 24

    Determine the alignment of IT commitments with business objectives

    Associated Activity icon

    INPUT: Interviews with IT leadership team

    OUTPUT: High-level understanding of in-flight commitments and investments

    Run this only as an alternative to the IT Management & Governance Diagnostic.

    1. Schedule meetings with IT leadership to understand what commitments have been made to the business in terms of new products, projects, or enhancements.
    2. Determine the following about IT’s current investment mix:
      1. What are the current IT investments and assets? How do they align to business goals?
      2. What investments in flight are related to which information assets?
      3. Are there any immediate risks identified for these key investments?
      4. What are the primary business issues that demand attention from IT consistently?
      5. What choices remain undecided in terms of strategic direction of the IT organization?
    3. Document your key investments and commitments as well as any points of misalignment between objectives and current commitments as action items to address in your long-term plans. If they are small fixes, consider them during your quick-win identification.

    Presentation Deck, slide 25

    Determine the alignment of IT commitments with business objectives

    Run this only as an alternative to the IT Staffing Assessment diagnostic.

    Schedule meetings with IT leadership to understand what commitments have been made to the business in terms of new products, projects, or enhancements.

    Determine the following about IT’s current investment mix:

    • What are the current IT investments and assets?
    • How do they align to business goals?
    • What in-flight investments are related to which information assets?
    • Are there any immediate risks identified for these key investments?
    • What are the primary business issues that demand attention from IT consistently?
    • What remains undecided in terms of strategic direction of the IT organization?

    Document your key investments and commitments, as well as any points of misalignment between objectives and current commitments, as action items to address in your long-term plans. If they are small-effort fixes, consider them during your quick-win identification.

    Presentation Deck, slide 25

    Make a categorized vendor list by IT process

    As part of learning the IT team, you should also create a comprehensive list of vendors under contract. Collaborate with the finance department to get a clear view of how much of the IT budget is spent on specific vendors. Try to match vendors to the IT processes they serve from the IT M&G framework.

    You should also organize your vendors based on their budget allocation. Go beyond just listing how much money you’re spending with each vendor and categorize them into either “transactional” relationships or “strategic relationships.” Use the grid below to organize them. Ideally, you’ll want most relationships to be high spend and strategic (Source: Gary Davenport).

    A matrix of vendor categories with the vertical axis 'Spend' increasing upward, and the horizontal axis 'Type of relationship' with values 'Transactional' or 'Strategic'. The bottom left corner is 'Low Spend Transactional', the top right corner is 'High Spend Strategic'.

    Where to source your vendor list:

    • Finance department
    • Infrastructure managers
    • Vendor manager in IT

    Further reading: Manage Your Vendors Before They Manage You

    Presentation Deck, slide 26

    Jennifer Schaeffer’s short-timeline turnaround

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Education
    Source Interview with Jennifer Schaeffer

    Jennifer Schaeffer joined Athabasca University as CIO in November 2017. She was entering a turnaround situation as the all-online university lacked an IT strategy and had built up significant technical debt. Armed with the mandate of a third-party consultant that was supported by the president, Schaeffer used a people-first approach to construct her strategy. She met with all her staff, listening to them carefully regardless of role, and consulted with the administrative council and faculty members. She reflected that feedback in her plan or explained to staff why it wasn’t relevant for the strategy. She implemented a “strategic calendaring” approach for the organization, making sure that her team members were participating in meetings where their work was assessed and valued. Drawing on Spotify as an inspiration, she designed her teams in a way that everyone was connected to the customer experience. Given her short timeline to execute, she put off a deep skills analysis of her team for a later time, as well as creating a full architectural map of her technology stack. The outcome is that 2.5 years later, the IT department is unified in using the same tooling and optimization standards. It’s more flexible and ready to incorporate government changes, such as offering more accessibility options.

    Photo of Jennifer Schaeffer.
    Jennifer Schaeffer took on the CIO role at Athabasca University in 2017 and was asked to create a five-year strategic plan in just six weeks.
    (Image source: Athabasca University)

    Listen to 'The First 100 Days' podcast – Eric Wright

    Call 7

    Day 76 to Day 90

    Finalize your vision – mission – values statement

    A clear statement for your values, vision, and mission will help crystallize your IT strategy and communicate what you're trying to accomplish to the entire organization.

    Mission: This statement describes the needs that IT was created to meet and answers the basic question of why IT exists.

    Vision: Write a statement that captures your values. Remember that the vision statement sets out what the IT organization wants to be known for now and into the future.

    Values: IT core values represent the standard axioms by which the IT department operates. Similar to the core values of the organization as a whole, IT’s core values are the set of beliefs or philosophies that guide its strategic actions.

    Further reading: IT Vision and Mission Statements Template

    Presentation Deck, slide 42

    John Chen's new strategic vision

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Mobile Services
    Source Sean Silcoff, The Globe and Mail

    John Chen, known in the industry as a successful turnaround executive, was appointed BlackBerry CEO in 2014 following the unsuccessful launch of the BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system and a new tablet.

    He spent his first three months travelling, talking to customers and suppliers, and understanding the company's situation. He assessed that it had a problem generating cash and had made some strategic errors, but there were many assets that could benefit from more investment.

    He was blunt about the state of BlackBerry, making cutting observations of the past mistakes of leadership. He also settled a key question about whether BlackBerry would focus on consumer or enterprise customers. He pointed to a base of 80,000 enterprise customers that accounted for 80% of revenue and chose to focus on that.

    His new mission for BlackBerry: to transform it from being a "mobile technology company" that pushes handset sales to "a mobile solutions company" that serves the mobile computing needs of its customers.

    Photo of John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry.
    John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry, presents at BlackBerry Security Summit 2018 in New York City (Image source: Brian Jackson)

    Listen to 'The First 100 Days' podcast – Erin Bury

    Quick wins: Make recommendations based on the CIO Business Vision survey

    Based on your completed CIO Business Vision survey, use the IT Satisfaction Scorecard to determine some initiatives. Focus on areas that are ranked as high importance to the business but low satisfaction. While all of the initiatives may be achievable given enough time, use the matrix below to identify the quick wins that you can focus on immediately. It’s important to not fail in your quick-win initiative.

    • High Visibility, Low Risk: Best bet for demonstrating your ability to deliver value.
    • Low Visibility, Low Risk: Worth consideration, depending on the level of effort required and the relative importance to the stakeholder.
    • High Visibility, High Risk: Limit higher-risk initiatives until you feel you have gained trust from your stakeholders, demonstrating your ability to deliver.
    • Low Visibility, High Risk: These will be your lowest value, quick-win initiatives. Keep them in a backlog for future consideration in case business objectives change.
    A matrix of initiative categories based on organizational visibility and risk of failure. It is split into quadrants: the vertical axis is 'Organizational Visibility' with 'High' at the top and 'Low' at the bottom; the horizontal axis is 'Risk of Failure' with 'Low' on the left and 'High' on the right. 'Low Visibility, Low Risk, Few stakeholders will benefit from the initiative’s implementation.' 'Low Visibility, High Risk, No immediate attention is required, but it may become a priority in the future if business objectives change.' 'High Visibility, Low Risk, Multiple stakeholders will benefit from the initiative’s implementation, and it has a low risk of failure.' 'High Visibility, High Risk, Multiple stakeholders will benefit from the initiative’s implementation, but it has a higher risk of failure.'

    Presentation Deck, slide 27

    Create and communicate a post-100 plan

    The last few slides of your presentation deck represent a roundup of all the assessments you’ve done and communicate your plan for the months ahead.

    Slide 38. Based on the information on the previous slide and now knowing which IT capabilities need improvement and which business priorities are important to support, estimate where you'd like to see IT staff spend their time in the near future. Will you be looking to shift staff from one area to another? Will you be looking to hire staff?

    Slide 39. Take your IT M&G initiatives from slide 19 and list them here. If you've already achieved a quick win, list it and mark it as completed to show what you've accomplished. Briefly outline the objectives, how you plan to achieve the result, and what measurement will indicate success.

    Slide 40. Reflect your CIO Business Vision initiatives from slide 31 here.

    Slide 41. Use this roadmap template to list your initiatives by roughly when they’ll be worked on and completed. Plan for when you’ll update your diagnostics.

    Expert Contributors

    Photo of Alan Fong, Chief Technology Officer, Dealer-FX Alan Fong, Chief Technology Officer, Dealer-FX
    Photo of Andrew Wertkin, Chief Strategy Officer, BlueCat NetworksPhoto of David Penny, Chief Technology Officer, BlueCat Networks Andrew Wertkin, Chief Strategy Officer, BlueCat Networks
    David Penny, Chief Technology Officer, BlueCat Networks
    Photo of Susan Bowen, CEO, Aptum Susan Bowen, CEO, Aptum
    Photo of Erin Bury, CEO, Willful Erin Bury, CEO, Willful
    Photo of Denis Gaudreault, Country Manager, Intel Canada and Latin America Denis Gaudreault, Country Manager, Intel Canada and Latin America
    Photo of Wayne Berger, CEO, IWG Plc Wayne Berger, CEO, IWG Plc
    Photo of Eric Wright, CEO, LexisNexis Canada Eric Wright, CEO, LexisNexis Canada
    Photo of Gary Davenport Gary Davenport, past president of CIO Association” of Canada, former VP of IT, Enterprise Solutions Division, MTS AllStream
    Photo of Jennifer Schaeffer, VP of IT and CIO, Athabasca University Jennifer Schaeffer, VP of IT and CIO, Athabasca University

    Bibliography

    Beaudan, Eric. “Do you have what it takes to be an executive?” The Globe and Mail, 9 July 2018. Web.

    Bersohn, Diana. “Go Live on Day One: The Path to Success for a New CIO.” PDF document. Accenture, 2015. Web.

    Bradt, George. “Executive Onboarding When Promoted From Within To Follow A Successful Leader.” Forbes, 15 Nov. 2018. Web.

    “CIO Stats: Length of CIO Tenure Varies By Industry.” CIO Journal, The Wall Street Journal. 15 Feb. 2017. Web.

    “Enlarging Your Sphere of Influence in Your Organization: Your Learning and Development Guide to Getting People on Side.” MindTools Corporate, 2014.

    “Executive Summary.” The CIO's First 100 Days: A Toolkit. PDF document. Gartner, 2012. Web.

    Forbes, Jeff. “Are You Ready for the C-Suite?” KBRS, n.d. Web.

    Gallo, Carmine. “Tim Cook Uses These 5 Words to Take Control of Any Conversation.” Inc., 9 Aug. 2019. Web.

    Giles, Sunnie. “The Most Important Leadership Competencies, According to Leaders Around the World.” Harvard Business Review, 15 March 2016. Web.

    Godin, Seth. “Ode: How to tell a great story.” Seth's Blog. 27 April 2006. Web.

    Green, Charles W. “The horizontal dimension of race: Social culture.” Hope College Blog Network, 19 Oct. 2014. Web.

    Hakobyan, Hayk. “On Louis Gerstner And IBM.” Hayk Hakobyan, n.d. Web.

    Bibliography

    Hargrove, Robert. Your First 100 Days in a New Executive Job, edited by Susan Youngquist. Kindle Edition. Masterful Coaching Press, 2011.

    Heathfield, Susan M. “Why ‘Blink’ Matters: The Power of Your First Impressions." The Balance Careers, 25 June 2019. Web.

    Hillis, Rowan, and Mark O'Donnell. “How to get off to a flying start in your new job.” Odgers Berndtson, 29 Nov. 2018. Web.

    Karaevli, Ayse, and Edward J. Zajac. “When Is an Outsider CEO a Good Choice?” MIT Sloan Management Review, 19 June 2012. Web.

    Keizer, Gregg. “Microsoft CEO Nadella Aces First-100-Day Test.” Computerworld, 15 May 2014. Web.

    Keller, Scott, and Mary Meaney. “Successfully transitioning to new leadership roles.” McKinsey & Company, May 2018. Web.

    Kress, R. “Director vs. Manager: What You Need to Know to Advance to the Next Step.” Ivy Exec, 2016. Web.

    Levine, Seth. “What does it mean to be an ‘executive’.” VC Adventure, 1 Feb. 2018. Web.

    Lichtenwalner, Benjamin. “CIO First 90 Days.” PDF document. Modern Servant Leader, 2008. Web.

    Nawaz, Sabina. “The Biggest Mistakes New Executives Make.” Harvard Business Review, 15 May 2017. Web.

    Pruitt, Sarah. “Fast Facts on the 'First 100 Days.‘” History.com, 22 Aug. 2018. Web.

    Rao, M.S. “An Action Plan for New CEOs During the First 100 Days.” Training, 4 Oct. 2014. Web.

    Reddy, Kendra. “It turns out being a VP isn't for everyone.” Financial Post, 17 July 2012. Web.

    Silcoff, Sean. “Exclusive: John Chen’s simple plan to save BlackBerry.” The Globe & Mail, 24 Feb. 2014. Web.

    Bibliography

    “Start Stop Continue Retrospective.” GroupMap, n.d. Web.

    Surrette, Mark. “Lack of Rapport: Why Smart Leaders Fail.” KBRS, n.d. Web.

    “Understanding Types of Organization – PMP Study.” Simplilearn, 4 Sept. 2019. Web.

    Wahler, Cindy. “Six Behavioral Traits That Define Executive Presence.” Forbes, 2 July 2015. Web.

    Watkins, Michael D. The First 90 Days, Updated and Expanded. Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.

    Watkins, Michael D. “7 Ways to Set Up a New Hire for Success.” Harvard Business Review, 10 May 2019. Web.

    “What does it mean to be a business executive?” Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, 12 Aug. 2014. Web.

    Yeung, Ken. “Turnaround: Marissa Mayer’s first 300 days as Yahoo’s CEO.” The Next Web, 19 May 2013. Web.

    2021 IT Talent Trend Report

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}516|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 10.0/10 Overall Impact
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    • Parent Category Name: Lead
    • Parent Category Link: /lead
    • In March 2020, many organizations were forced to switch to a virtual working world. IT enabled organizations to be successful while working from home. Ultimately, this shift changed the way that we all work, and in turn, the way IT leaders manage talent.
    • Many organizations are considering long-term remote work (Kelly, 2020).
    • Change is starting but is lagging.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Increase focus on employee experience to navigate new challenges.
    • A good employee experience is what is best for the IT department.

    Impact and Result

    • The data shows IT is changing in the area of talent management.
    • IT has a large role in enabling organizations to work from home, especially from a technological and logistics perspective. There is evidence to show that they are now expanding their role to better support employees when working from home.
    • Survey respondents identified efforts already underway for IT to improve employee experience and subsequently, IT effectiveness.

    2021 IT Talent Trend Report Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should focus on the employee experience and get an overview of what successful IT leaders are doing differently heading into 2021 – the five new talent management trends.

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

    1. DEI: A top talent objective

    The focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives spans the entire organization beyond just HR. Learn which DEI efforts are underway with IT.

    • 2021 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 1: DEI: A Top Talent Objective

    2. Remote work is here to stay

    Forced work-from-home demonstrated to organizations that employees can be productive while working away from the physical office. Learn more about how remote work is changing work.

    • 2021 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 2: Remote Work Is Here to Stay

    3. A greater emphasis on wellbeing

    When the pandemic hit, organizations were significantly concerned about how employees were doing. Learn more about wellbeing.

    • 2021 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 3: A Greater Emphasis on Wellbeing

    4. A shift in skills priorities

    Upskilling and finding sought after skills were challenging before the pandemic. How has it changed since? Learn more about skills priorities.

    • 2021 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 4: A Shift in Skills Priorities

    5. Uncertainty unlocks performance

    The pandemic and remote work has affected performance. Learn about how uncertainty has impacted performance management.

    • 2021 IT Talent Trend Report – Trend 5: Uncertainty Unlocks Performance
    [infographic]

    Make Your IT Governance Adaptable

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Governance, Risk & Compliance
    • Parent Category Link: /it-governance-risk-and-compliance
    • People don’t understand the value of governance, seeing it as a hindrance to productivity and efficiency.
    • Governance is delegated to people and practices that don’t have the ability or authority to make these decisions.
    • Decisions are made within committees that don’t meet frequently enough to support business velocity.
    • It is difficult to allocate time and resources to build or execute governance effectively.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • IT governance applies not just to the IT department but to all uses of information and technology.
    • IT governance works against you if it no longer aligns with or supports your organizational direction, goals, and work practices.
    • Governance doesn’t have to be bureaucratic or control based.
    • Your governance model should be able to adapt to changes in the organization’s strategy and goals, your industry, and your ways of working.
    • Governance can be embedded and automated into your practices.

    Impact and Result

    • You will produce more value from IT by developing a governance framework optimized for your current needs and context, with the ability to adapt as your needs shift.
    • You will create the foundation and ability to delegate and empower governance to enable agile delivery.
    • You will identify areas where governance does not require manual oversight and can be embedded into the way you work.

    Make Your IT Governance Adaptable Research & Tools

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

    1. Make Your IT Governance Adaptable Deck – A document that walks you through how to design and implement governance that fits the context of your organization and can adapt to change.

    Our dynamic, flexible, and embedded approach to governance will help drive organizational success. The three-phase methodology will help you identify your governance needs, select and refine your governance model, and embed and automate governance decisions.

    • Make Your IT Governance Adaptable – Phases 1-3

    2. Adaptive and Controlled Governance Model Templates and Workbook – Documents that gather context information about your organization to identify the best approach for governance.

    Use these templates and workbook to identify the criteria and design factors for your organization and the design triggers to maintain fit. Upon completion this will be your new governance framework model.

    • Controlled Governance Models Template
    • IT Governance Program Overview
    • Governance Workbook

    3. Implementation Plan and Workbook – Tools that help you build and finalize your approach to implement your new or revised governance model.

    Upon completion you will have a finalized implementation plan and a visual roadmap.

    • Governance Implementation Plan
    • Governance Roadmap Workbook

    4. Governance Committee Charter Templates – Base charters that can be adapted for communication.

    Customize these templates to create the committee charters or terms of reference for the committees developed in your governance model.

    • IT PMO Committee Charter
    • IT Risk Committee Charter for Controlled Governance
    • IT Steering Committee Charter for Controlled Governance
    • Program Governance Committee Charter
    • Architecture Review Board Charter
    • Data Governance Committee Charter
    • Digital Governance Committee Charter

    5. Governance Automation Criteria Checklist and Worksheet – Tools that help you determine which governance decisions can be automated and work through the required logic and rules.

    The checklist is a starting point for confirming which activities and decisions should be considered for automation or embedding. Use the worksheet to develop decision logic by defining the steps and information inputs involved in making decisions.

    • Governance Automation Criteria Checklist
    • Governance Automation Worksheet

    Infographic

    Workshop: Make Your IT Governance Adaptable

    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 Your Guiding Star

    The Purpose

    Establish the context for your governance model.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Core understanding of the context that will enable us to build an optimal model

    Activities

    1.1 Confirm mission, vision, and goals.

    1.2 Define scope and principles.

    1.3 Adjust for culture and finalize context.

    Outputs

    Governance principles

    Governance context and goals

    2 Define the Governance Model

    The Purpose

    To select and adapt a governance model based on your context.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A selected and optimized governance model

    Activities

    2.1 Select and refine governance model.

    2.2 Confirm and adjust the structure.

    2.3 Review and adapt governance responsibilities and activities.

    2.4 Validate governance mandates and membership.

    Outputs

    IT governance model and adjustment triggers

    IT governance structure, responsibilities, membership, and cadence

    Governance committee charters

    3 Build Governance Process and Policy

    The Purpose

    Refine your governance practices and associate policies properly.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A completed governance model that can be implemented with clear update triggers and review timing

    Policy alignment with the right levels of authority

    Activities

    3.1 Update your governance process.

    3.2 Align policies to mandate.

    3.3 Adjust and confirm your model.

    3.4 Identify and document update triggers and embed into review cycle.

    Outputs

    IT governance process and information flow

    IT governance policies

    Finalized governance model

    4 Embed and Automate Governance

    The Purpose

    Identify options to automate and embed governance activities and decisions.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Simply more consistent governance activities and automate them to enhance speed and support governance delegation and empowerment

    Activities

    4.1 Identify decisions and standards that can be automated. Develop decision logic.

    4.2 Plan verification and validation approach.

    4.3 Build implementation plan.

    4.4 Develop communication strategy and messaging.

    Outputs

    Selected automation options, decision logic, and business rules

    Implementation and communication plan

    Further reading

    Make Your IT Governance Adaptable

    Governance isn't optional, so keep it simple and make it flexible.

    Table of Contents

    4 Analyst Perspective

    5 Executive Summary

    13 Governance Stages

    14 Info-Tech’s IT Governance Thought Model

    19 Info-Tech’s Approach

    23 Insight Summary

    30 Phase 1: Identify Your Governance Needs

    54 Phase 2: Select and Refine Your Governance Model

    76 Phase 3: Embed and Automate

    94 Summary of Accomplishment

    95 Additional Support

    97 Contributors

    98 Bibliography

    Make Your IT Governance Adaptable

    Governance isn't optional, so keep it simple and make it flexible.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Governance will always be part of the fabric of your organization. Make it adaptable so it doesn’t constrain your success.

    Photo of Valence Howden, Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

    Far too often, the purpose of information and technology (I&T) governance is misunderstood. Instead of being seen as a way to align the organization’s vision to its investment in information and technology, it has become so synonymous with compliance and control that even mentioning the word “governance” elicits a negative reaction.

    Success in modern digital organizations depends on their ability to adjust for velocity and uncertainty, requiring a dynamic and responsive approach to governance – one that is embedded and automated in your organization to enable new ways of working, innovation, and change.

    Evolutionary theory describes adaptability as the way an organism adjusts to fit a new environment, or changes to its existing environment, to survive. Applied to organizations, adaptable governance is critical to the ability to survive and succeed.

    If your governance doesn’t adjust to enable your changing business environment and customer needs, it will quickly become misaligned with your goals and drive you to failure.

    It is critical that people build an approach to governance that is effective and relevant today while building in adaptability to keep it relevant tomorrow.

    Valence Howden
    Principal Research Director, Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    • People don’t understand the value of governance, seeing it as a hindrance to productivity and efficiency.
    • Governance is delegated to people and practices that don’t have the ability or authority to make decisions.
    • Decisions are made within committees that don’t meet frequently enough to support business velocity.
    • It is difficult to allocate time and resources to build or execute governance effectively

    Common Obstacles

    • You are unable to clearly communicate how governance adds value to your organization.
    • Your IT governance approach no longer aligns with or supports your organizational direction, goals, and work practices.
    • Governance is seen and performed as a bureaucratic control-based exercise.
    • Governance activities are not transparent.
    • The governance committee gets too deeply involved with project deep dives and daily management, derailing its effectiveness and ability to produce value.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Use Info-Tech’s IT governance models to identify a base model similar to the way you are organized. Confirm your current and future placement in governance execution.
    • Adjust the model based on industry needs, your principles, regulatory requirements, and your future direction.
    • Identify where to embed or automate decision making and compliance and what is required to do so effectively.
    • Implement your governance model for success.

    Info-Tech Insight

    IT governance must be embedded and automated, where possible, to effectively meet the needs and velocity of digital organizations and modern practices and to drive success and value.

    What is governance?

    IT governance is a critical and embedded practice that ensures that information and technology investments, risks, and resources are aligned in the best interests of the organization and produce business value.

    Effective governance ensures that the right technology investments are made at the right time to support and enable your organization’s mission, vision, and goals.

    5 KEY OUTCOMES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE

    STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT

    Technology investments and portfolios are aligned with the organization's strategic objectives.

    RISK OPTIMIZATION

    Organizational risks are understood and addressed to minimize impact and optimize opportunities.

    VALUE DELIVERY

    IT investments and initiatives deliver their expected benefits.

    RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION

    Resources (people, finances, time) are appropriately allocated across the organization to optimal organizational benefit.

    PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

    The performance of technology investments is monitored and used to determine future courses of action and to confirm achievement of success.

    ‹–EVALUATE–DIRECT–MONITOR–›

    Why is this necessary?

    • Governance is not simply a committee or an activity that you perform at a specific point in time; it is a critical and continuously active practice that drives the success of your organization. It is part of your organization’s DNA and is just as unique, with some attributes common to all (IT governance elements), some specific to your family (industry refinements), and some specific to you (individual organization).
    • Your approach to governance needs to change over time in order to remain relevant and continue to enable value and success, but organizations rarely want to change governance once it’s in place.
    • To meet the speed and flow of practices like Lean, DevOps, and Agile, your IT governance needs to be done differently and become embedded into the way your organization works. You must adjust your governance model based on key moments of change – organizational triggers – to maintain the effectiveness of your model.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Build an optimal model quickly and implement the core elements using an iterative approach to ensure the changes provide the most value.

    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 meet 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 that IT’s goals and strategy align with the business’ strategy. It is the mechanism by which you continuously prioritize work to ensure that what you deliver is in line with the strategy. This oversight involves evaluating, directing, and monitoring the delivery of outcomes to ensure that the use of resources results in 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 rather than on what is in the best interest of the organization.

    Where information & technology governance fits within an organization

    An infographic illustrating where Governance fits within an organization. The main section is titled 'Enterprise Governance and Strategy' and contains 'Value Outcomes', 'Mission and Vision', 'Goals and Objectives', and 'Guiding Principles'. These all feed into the highlighted 'Information & Technology Governance', which then contributes to 'IT Strategy', which lies outside the main section.

    I&T governance hasn’t achieved its purpose

    Governance is the means by which IT ensures that information and technology delivery and spend is aligned to business goals and delivers business outcomes. However, most CEOs continue to perceive IT as being poorly aligned to the business’ strategic goals, which indicates that governance is not implemented or executed properly.

    For I&T governance to be effective you need a clear understanding of the things that drive your organization and its success. This understanding becomes your guiding star, which is critical for effective governance. It also requires participation by all parts of the organization, not just IT.

    Info-Tech CIO/CEO Alignment Diagnostics (N=124)

    43% of CEOs believe that business goals are going unsupported by IT.

    60% of CEOs believe that improvement is required around IT’s understanding of business goals.

    80% of CIOs/CEOs are misaligned on the target role for IT.

    30% of business stakeholders are supporters (N=32,536) of their IT departments

    Common causes of poor governance

    Key causes of poor or misaligned governance

    1. Governance and its value to your organization is not well understood, often being confused or integrated with more granular management activities.
    2. Business executives fail to understand that IT governance is a function of the business and not the IT department.
    3. Poor past experiences have made “governance” a bad word in the organization. People see it as a constraint and barrier that must be circumvented to get work done.
    4. There is misalignment between accountability and authority throughout the organization, and the wrong people are involved in governance practices.
    5. There is an unwillingness to change a governance approach that has served the organization well in the past, leading to challenges when the organization starts to change practices and speed of delivery.
    6. There is a lack of data and data-related capabilities required to support good decision making and the automation of governance decisions.
    7. The goals and strategy of the organization are not known or understood, leaving nothing for IT governance to orient around.

    Key symptoms of ineffective governance committees

    1. No actions or decisions are generated. The committee produces no value and makes no decisions after it meets. The lack of value output makes the usefulness of the committee questionable.
    2. Resources are overallocated. There is a lack of clear understanding of capacity and value in work to be done, leading to consistent underestimation of required resources and poor resource allocation.
    3. Decisions are changed outside of committee. Decisions made or initiatives approved by the committee are later changed when the proper decision makers are involved or the right information becomes available.
    4. Governance decisions conflict with organizational direction. This shows an obvious lack of alignment and behavioral disconnect that work against organizational success. It is often due to not accounting for where power really exists within the structure.
    5. Consistently poor outcomes are produced from governance direction. Committee members’ lack of business acumen, relevant data, or understanding of organizational goals results in decisions that fail to drive successful measured outcomes.

    Mature your governance by transitioning from ad hoc to automated

    Organizations should look to progress in their governance stages. Ad hoc and controlled governance practices tend to be more rigid, making these a poor fit for organizations requiring higher velocity delivery or using more agile and adaptive practices.

    The goal as you progress through these stages is to delegate governance and empower teams based on your fit and culture, enabling teams where needed to make optimal decisions in real time, ensuring that they are aligned with the best interests of the organization.

    Automate governance for optimal velocity while mitigating risks and driving value.

    This puts your organization in the best position to be adaptive, able to react effectively to volatility and uncertainty.

    A graph illustrating the transition from Ad Hoc to Automated. The y-axis is 'Process Integration' and x-axis is 'Trust & Empowerment'. 'Ad Hoc: Inconsistent Decision Making' lies close to the origin, ranking low on both axes' values. 'Controlled: Authoritarian, Highly Structured' ranks slightly higher on both axes. 'Agile: Distributed & Empowered' ranks 2nd highest on both axes. 'Automated: High Velocity, Embedded & Flexible' ranks highest on both axes.

    Stages of governance

    Adaptive
    Data-Centric


    ˆ


    ˆ


    ˆ


    ˆ


    ˆ
    Traditional
    (People- and Document-Centric)

    4

    Automated Governance
    • Entrenched into organizational processes and product/service design
    • Empowered and fully delegated to maintain fit and drive organizational success and survival

    3

    Agile Governance
    • Flexible enough to support different needs in the organization and respond quickly to change
    • Driven by principles and delegated throughout the company

    2

    Controlled Governance
    • Focused on compliance and hierarchy-based authority
    • Levels of authority defined and often driven by regulatory requirements

    1

    Ad Hoc Governance
    • Not well defined or understood within the organization
    • Occurs out of necessity but often not done by the right people or bodies

    Make Governance Adaptable and Automated to Drive Success and Value

    Governance adaptiveness ensures the success of digital organizations and modern practice implementation.

    THE PROBLEM

    • The wrong people are making decisions.
    • Organizations don't understand what governance is or why it's done.
    • Governance scope and design is a bad fit, damaging the organization.
    • People think governance is optional.

    THE SOLUTION

    ESTABLISH YOUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES

    Define and establish the guiding principle that drive your organization toward success.

    • Mission & Vision
    • Business Goals & Success Criteria
    • Operating Model & Work Practices
    • Governance Scope
    • Principles
    SELECT AND REFINE YOUR MODEL

    Use Info-Tech's IT Governance Models to identify a base model similar to the way you are organized. Confirm your current and future placement in governance execution.

    IDENTIFY MODEL UPDATE TRIGGERS

    Adjust the model based on industry needs, your principles, regulatory requirements, and future direction.

    • Principles
      Select principles that allow the organization to be adaptive while still ensuring the governance continues to stay on course with pursuing its guiding star.
    • Responsibilities
      Decide on the governance responsibilities related to Oversight Level, Strategic Alignment, Value Delivery, Risk Optimization, Resource Optimization, and Performance Management.
    • Structure
      Determine at which structured level governance is appropriate: Enterprise, Strategic, Tactical, or Operational.
    • Processes
      Establish processes that will enable governance to occur such as: Embed the processes required for successful governance.
    • Membership
      Identify the Responsibility & Accountability of those who should be involved in governance processes, policies, guidelines, and responsibilities.
    • Policies
      Confirm any governing policies that need to be adhered to and considered to manage risk.
    DETERMINE AUTOMATION OPTIONS AND DECISION RULES

    Identify where to embed or automate decision making and compliance and what is required to do so effectively.

    STAGES OF GOVERNANCE

      Traditional (People- and document-centric)
    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 or bodies.
    2. CONTROLLED GOVERNANCE
      Governance focused on compliance and hierarchy-based, authority-driven control of decisions. Levels of Authority are defined and often driven by regulatory requirements.
    3. Adaptive (Data Centric)
    4. AGILE GOVERNANCE
      Governance that is flexible to support different needs and quick responses in the organization. Driven by principles and delegated throughout the company.
    5. AUTOMATED GOVERNANCE
      Governance that is entrenched and automated into the organizational processes and product/service design. Empowered and fully delegated governance to maintain fit and drive organizational success and survival.

    KEY INSIGHT

    Governance must actively adapt to changes in your organization, environment, and practices or it will drive you to failure.

    Developing governance principles

    Governance principles support the move from controlled to automated governance by providing guardrails that guide your decisions. They provide the ethical boundaries and cultural perspectives that contextualize your decisions and keep you in line with organizational values. Determining principles are global in nature.

    CONTROLLED CHANGE ACTIONS AND RATIONALE AUTOMATED
    Disentangle governance and management Move from governance focused on evaluating, directing, and monitoring strategic decisions around information and technology toward defining and automating rules and principles for decision making into processes and practices, empowering the organization and driving adaptiveness. Delegate and empower
    Govern toward value Move from identifying the organization’s mission, goals, and key drivers toward orienting IT to align with those value outcomes and embedding value outcomes into design and delivery practices. Deliver to defined outcomes
    Make risk-informed decisions Move from governance bodies using risk information to manually make informed decisions based on their defined risk tolerance toward having risk information and attestation baked into decision making across all aspects and layers of the IT organization – from design to sustainment. Embed risk decision making into processes and practices
    Measure to drive improvement Move from static lagging metrics that validate that the work being done is meeting the organization’s needs and guide future decision making toward automated governance with more transparency driven by data-based decision making and real-time data insights. Trust through real-time reporting
    Enforce standards and behavior Move from enforcing standards and behavior and managing exceptions to ensure that there are consistent outcomes and quality toward automating standards and behavioral policies and embedding adherence and changes in behavior into the organization’s natural way of working. Automate standards through automated decision rules, verification, and validation

    Find your guiding star

    MISSION AND VISION –› GOALS AND OBJECTIVES –› GUIDING PRINCIPLES –›

    VALUE

    Why your organization exists and what value it aims to provide. The purpose you build a strategy to achieve. What your organization needs be successful at to fulfill its mission. Key propositions and guardrails that define and guide expected organizational behavior and beliefs.

    Your mission and vision define your goals and objectives. These are reinforced by your guiding principles, including ethical considerations, your culture, and expected behaviors. They provide the boundaries and guardrails for enabling adaptive governance, ensuring you continue to move in the right direction for organizational success.

    To paraphrase Lewis Carroll, “If you don't know where you want to get to, it doesn't much matter which way you go.” Once you know what matters, where value resides, and which considerations are necessary to make decisions, you have consistent directional alignment that allows you to delegate empowered governance throughout the organization, taking you to the places you want to go.

    Understand governance versus management

    Don’t blur the lines between governance and management; each has a unique role to play. Confusing them results in wasted time and confusion around ownership.

    Governance

    I&T governance defines WHAT should be done and sets direction through prioritization and decision making, monitoring overall IT performance.

    Governance aligns with the mission and vision of the organization to guide IT.

    A cycle of processes split into two halves, 'Governance Processes' and 'Management Processes'. Beginning on the Management side, the processes are 'Plan', 'Build', 'Run', 'Monitor', then to the Governance side, 'Evaluate', 'Direct', 'Monitor', and back to the beginning.

    Management

    Management focuses on HOW to do things to achieve the WHAT. It is responsible for executing on, operating, and monitoring activities as determined by I&T governance.

    Management makes decisions for implementation based on governance direction.

    Data is critical to automating governance

    Documents and subjective/non-transparent decisions do not create sufficient structure to allow for the true automation of governance. Data related to decisions and aggregated risk allow you to define decision logic and rules and algorithmically embed them into your organization.

    People- and Document-Centric

    Governance drives activities through specific actors (individuals/committees) and unstructured data in processes and documents that are manually executed, assessed, and revised. There are often constraints caused by gaps or lack of adequate and integrated information in support of good decisions.

    Data-Centric

    Governance actors provide principles, parameters, and decision logic that enable the creation of code, rulesets, and algorithms that leverage organizational data. Attestation is automatic – validated and managed within the process, product, or service.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Define your context and build your model

    ESTABLISH YOUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES

    Define and establish the guiding principle that drive your organization toward success.

    • Mission & Vision
    • Business Goals & Success Criteria
    • Operating Model & Work Practices
    • Governance Scope
    • Principles
    SELECT AND REFINE YOUR MODEL

    Use Info-Tech's IT Governance Models to identify a base model similar to the way you are organized. Confirm your current and future placement in governance execution.

    MODEL UPDATE TRIGGERS

    Adjust the model based on industry needs, your principles, regulatory requirements, and future direction.

    • Principles
      Select principles that allow the organization to be adaptive while still ensuring the governance continues to stay on course with pursuing its guiding star.
    • Responsibilities
      Decide on the governance responsibilities related to Oversight Level, Strategic Alignment, Value Delivery, Risk Optimization, Resource Optimization, and Performance Management.
    • Structure
      Determine at which structured level governance is appropriate: Enterprise, Strategic, Tactical, or Operational.
    • Processes
      Establish processes that will enable governance to occur such as: Embed the processes required for successful governance.
    • Membership
      Identify the Responsibility & Accountability of those who should be involved in governance processes, policies, guidelines, and responsibilities.
    • Policies
      Confirm any governing policies that need to be adhered to and considered to manage risk.
    AUTOMATION OPTIONS AND DECISION RULES

    Identify where to embed or automate decision making and compliance and what is required to do so effectively.

    The Info-Tech Difference

    Define your context and build your model

    1. Quickly identify the organizational needs driving governance and your guiding star.
    2. Select and refine a base governance model based on our templates.
    3. Define and document the key changes in your organization that will trigger a need to update or revise your governance.
    4. Determine where you might be able to automate aspects of your governance.
    5. Design your decision rules where appropriate to support automated and adaptive governance.

    How to use this research

    Where are you in your governance optimization journey?

    MY GOVERNANCE IS AD HOC AND WE’RE STARTING FROM SCRATCH I NEED TO BUILD A NEW GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE OUR GOVERNANCE APPROACH IS INEFFECTIVE AND NEEDS IMPROVEMENT I NEED TO LOOK AT OPTIONS FOR AUTOMATING GOVERNANCE PRACTICES
    Step 1.1: Define Your Governance Context Step 1.2: Structure Your IT Governance Phase 2: Select and Refine Your Model Phase 3: Embed and Automate

    IT governance is about ensuring that the investment decisions made around information and technology drive the optimal organizational value, not about governing the IT department.

    In this section we will clarify your organizational context for governance and define your guiding star to orient your governance design and inform your structure.

    There is no need to start from scratch! Start with Info-Tech’s best-practice IT governance models and customize them based on your organizational context.

    The research in this section will help you to select the right base model to work from and provide guidance on how to refine it.

    Governance practices eventually stop being a good fit for a changing organization, and things that worked before become bottlenecks.

    Governing roles and committees don’t adjust well, don’t have consistent practices, and lack the right information to make good decisions.

    The research in this section will help you improve and realign your governance practices.

    Once your governance is controlled and optimized you are ready to investigate opportunities to automate.

    This phase of the blueprint will help you determine where it’s feasible to automate and embed governance, understand key governance automation practices, and develop governing business rules to move your journey forward.

    Related Research:

    If you are looking for details on specific associated practices, please see our related research:

    1. I need to establish data governance.
    2. I need to manage my project portfolio, from intake to confirmation of value.
    3. I need better risk information to support decision making.
    4. I need to ensure I am getting the expected outcomes and benefits from IT spend.
    5. I need to prioritize my product backlog or service portfolio.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for building and embedding adaptive governance

    1. Identify Your Governance Needs 2. Select and Refine Your Governance Model 3. Embed and Automate
    Phase Steps
    1. Confirm Mission, Vision, and Goals
    2. Define Scope and Principles
    3. Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context
    1. Select and Refine Your Governance Model
    2. Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers
    3. Build Your Implementation Plan
    1. Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate
    2. Plan Validation and Verification
    3. Update Implementation Plan
    Phase Outcomes
    • Governance context, guiding star, and principles
    • Completed governance model with associated decisions and policies
    • Implementation plan
    • List of automation options
    • Decision logic, rules, and rulesets
    • Validation and verification approach
    • Finalized implementation plan

    Insight summary

    Value

    To remain valuable, I&T governance must actively adapt to changes in your organization, environment, and practices, or it will drive you to failure instead of success.

    Focus

    I&T governance does not focus on the IT department. Rather, its intent is to ensure your organization makes sound decisions around investment in and use of information and technology.

    Maturity

    Your governance approach progresses in stages from ad hoc to automated as your organization matures. Your stage depends on your organizational needs and ways of working.

    Good governance

    Good governance does not equate to control and does not stifle innovation.

    Automation

    Automating governance must be done in stages, based on your capabilities, level of maturity, and amount of usable data.

    Strategy

    Establish the least amount of governance required to allow you to achieve your goals.

    Guiding star

    If you don’t establish a guiding star to align the different stakeholders in your organization, governance practices will create conflict and confusion.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Key Deliverable:
    Governance Framework Model

    The governance framework model provides the design of your new governance model and the organizational context to retain stakeholder alignment and organizational satisfaction with governance.

    The model includes the structures, practices, and responsibilities to drive effective governance in your organization.

    Sample of the key blueprint deliverable 'Governance Framework Model'.

    Governance Implementation Plan

    This roadmap lays out the changes required to implement the governance model, the cultural items that need to be addressed, and anticipated timing.

    Sample of the blueprint deliverable 'Governance Implementation Plan'.

    Governance Committee Charters

    Develop a detail governance charter or term of reference for each governing body. Outline the mandate, responsibilities, membership, process, and associated policies for each.

    Sample of the blueprint deliverable 'Governance Committee Charters'.

    Blueprint benefits

    IT Benefits

    • Stronger, traceable alignment of IT decisions and initiatives to business needs.
    • Improved ability for IT to meet the changing demands and velocity of the business.
    • Better support and enablement of innovation – removing constraints and barriers.
    • Optimized governance that supports and enables modern work practices.
    • Increased value generation from IT initiatives and optimal use of IT resources.
    • Designed adaptability to ensure you remain in alignment as your business and IT environments change.

    Business Benefits

    • Clear transparent focus of IT initiatives on generating strategic business value.
    • Improved ability to measure the value and contribution of IT to business goals.
    • Alignment and integration of business/IT strategy.
    • Optimized development and use of IT capabilities to meet business needs.
    • Improved integration with corporate/enterprise governance.

    Executive Brief Case Study

    INDUSTRY Manufacturing
    SOURCE Info-Tech analyst experience

    Improving the governance approach and delegating decision making to support a change in business operation

    Challenge

    The large, multi-national organization has locations across the world but has two primary headquarters, in Europe and the United States.

    Market shifts drove an organizational shift in strategy, leading to a change in operating models, a product focus, and new work approaches across the organization.

    Much of the implementation and execution was done in isolation, and effectiveness was slowed by poor integration and conflicting activities that worked against each other.

    The product owner role was not well defined.

    Solution

    After reviewing the organization’s challenges and governance approach, we redefined and realigned its organizational and regional goals and identified outcomes that needed to be driven into their strategies.

    We also reviewed their span of control and integration requirements and properly defined decisions that could be made regionally versus globally, so that decisions could be made to support new work practices.

    We defined the product and service owner roles and the decisions each needed to make.

    Results

    We saw an improvement in the alignment of organizational activities and the right people and bodies making decisions.

    Work and practices were aimed at the same key outcomes and alignment between teams toward organizational goal improved.

    Within one year, the success rate of the organization’s initiatives increased by 22%, and the percentage of product-related decisions made by product owners increased by 50%.

    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 5 and 8 calls over the course of 2 to 3 months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

      Phase 1: Identify Your Governance Needs

    • Call #1: Confirm your organization’s mission and vision and review your strategy and goals.
    • Call #2: Identify considerations and governance needs. Develop your guiding star and governing principles.
    • Phase 2: Select and Refine Your Model

    • Call #3: Select your base model and optimize it to meet your governance needs.
    • Call #4: Define your adjustment triggers and develop your implementation plan.
    • Phase 3: Embed and Automate

    • Call #5: Identify decisions and standards you can automate and where to embed them.
    • Call #6: Confirm levels of authority and data requirements. Establish your approach and update the implementation plan.

    Workshop Overview

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

    Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Session 5
    Activities
    Develop Your Guiding Star

    1.1 Confirm mission, vision, and goals

    1.2 Define scope and principles

    1.3 Adjust for culture and finalize context

    Define the Governance Model

    2.1 Select and refine governance model

    2.2 Confirm and adjust the structure

    2.3 Review and adapt governance responsibilities and activities

    2.4 Validate governance mandates and membership

    Build Governance Process and Policy

    3.1 Update your governance process

    3.2 Align policies to mandate

    3.3 Adjust and confirm your governance model

    3.4 Identify and document your update triggers

    3.5 Embed triggers into review cycle

    Embed and Automate Governance

    4.1 Identify decisions and standards to automate

    4.2 Plan verification and validation approach

    4.3 Build implementation plan

    4.4 Develop communication strategy and messaging

    Next Steps and Wrap-Up

    5.1 Complete in-progress outputs from previous four sessions

    5.2 Set up review time for workshop outputs and to discuss next steps

    Outcomes
    1. Governance context and goals
    2. Governance principles
    1. IT governance model and adjustment triggers
    2. IT governance structure, responsibilities, membership, and cadence
    3. Governance committee charters
    1. IT governance process and information flow
    2. IT governance policies
    3. Finalized governance model
    1. Selected automation options, decision logic, and business rules
    2. Implementation and communication plan
    1. Governance context and principles
    2. Finalized governance model and charters
    3. Finalized implementation plan

    Make Your IT Governance Adaptable

    Phase 1

    Identify your Governance Needs

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Define Your Guiding Star
    • 1.2 Define Scope and Principles
    • 1.3 Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Choose and Adapt Your Model
    • 2.2. Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers
    • 2.3 Build Your Implementation Approach

    Phase 3

    • 3.1 Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate
    • 3.2 Plan Validation and Verification
    • 3.3 Update Implementation Plan

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify the organization’s goals, mission, and vision that will guide governance.

    Define the scope of your governance model and the principles that will guide how it works.

    Account for organizational attitudes, behaviors, and culture related to governance and finalize your context.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Governance leads

    Step 1.1

    Define Your Guiding Star

    Activities
    • 1.1.1 Document and interpret your strategy, mission, and vision
    • 1.1.2 Document and interpret the business and IT goals and outcomes
    • 1.1.3 Identify your operating model and work processes

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Review your business and IT strategy, mission, and vision to ensure understanding of organizational direction.

    Identify the business and IT goals that governance needs to align.

    Confirm your operating model and any work practices that need to be accounted for in your model.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Governance leads

    Outcomes of this step

    Identified guiding star outcomes to align governance outcomes with

    Defined operating model type and work style that impact governance design

    Identify Your Governance Needs

    Step 1.1 – Define your Guiding Star Step 1.2 – Define Scope and Principles Step 1.3 – Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context

    Govern by intent

    Find the balance for your designed governance approach

    Organic governance occurs during the formation of an organization and shifts with challenges, but it is rarely transparent and understood. It changes your culture in uncontrolled ways. Intentional governance is triggered by changes in organizational needs, working approaches, goals, and structures. It is deliberate and changes your culture to enable success.
    Stock photo of a weight scale.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your approach to governance needs to be designed, even if your execution of governance is adaptable and delegated.

    What is your guiding star?

    Your guiding star is a combination of your organization’s mission, vision, and strategy and the goals that have been defined to meet them.

    It provides you with a consistent focal point around which I&T-related activities and projects orbit, like planets around a star.

    It generates the gravity that governance uses to keep things from straying too far away from the goal of achieving relevant value.

    1. Mission & Vision
    2. Business Goals & Success Criteria
    3. Operating Model & Work Practices
    4. Governance Scope
    5. Principles

    1.1.1 Document and interpret your strategy, mission, and vision

    30 minutes

    Input: Business strategy, IT strategy, Mission and vision statements

    Output: Updated Governance Workbook, Documented strategic outcomes and organizational aims that governance needs to achieve

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Workbook

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Gather your available business, digital, and IT strategy, mission, and vision information and document everything in your Governance Workbook. It’s ok if you don’t have all of it.
    2. Review and your mission and vision as a group. Discuss and document key points, including:
      • Which activities do you perform as an organization that embody your vision?
      • What key decisions and behaviors are required to ensure that your mission and vision are achievable?
      • What do you require from leadership to enable you to govern effectively?
      • What are the implications of the mission and vision on how the organization needs to work? What are the implications on decisions around opportunities and risks?

    Download the Governance Workbook

    1.1.2 Document and interpret the business and IT goals and outcomes

    60 minutes

    Input: Business strategy, Business and IT goals and related initiatives

    Output: Required success outcomes for goals, Links between IT and business goals that governance needs to align

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Document the business and IT goals that have been created to achieve the mission and vision.
    2. Discuss if there are any gaps between the goals and the mission and vision. Ask yourself – if we accomplish these goals will we have successfully achieved the mission?
    3. For each goal, define what successful achievement of the goal looks like. Starting with one goal or objective, ask:
      • How would I know I am on the right path and how will I know I have gotten there?
      • How would I know if I am not on the right path and what does a bad result look like?
    4. Document your success criteria.
    5. Brainstorm some examples of decisions that support or constrain the achievement of your goals.
    6. Repeat this exercise for your remaining goals.
    7. As a group, map IT goals to business goals.

    What is your operating model and why is it important?

    An IT operating model is a visual representation of the way your IT organization needs to be designed and the capabilities it requires to deliver on the business mission, strategic objectives, and technological ambitions.

    The model is critical in the optimization and alignment of the IT organization’s structure in order to deliver the capabilities required to achieve business goals. It is a key determinant of how governance needs to be designed and where it is implemented.

    Little visualizations of different operating models: 'Centralized', 'Decentralized', and 'Hybrid'.

    1.1.3 Identify your operating model and work practices

    60 minutes

    Input: Organizational structure, Operating model (if available)

    Output: Confirmed operating approach, Defined work practices

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Identify the way your organization functions:
      • How do we currently operate? Are we centralized, decentralized or a hybrid? Are we focused on delivering products and services? Do we provide service ourselves or do we use vendors for delivery?
      • Can we achieve our mission, goals, and strategies, if we continue to operate this way? What would we have to change in how we operate to be successful in the future?
    2. Identify your governance needs. Do we need to be more structured or more flexible to support our future ways of working?
      • If you operate in a more traditional way, consider whether you are implementing or moving toward more modern practices (e.g. Agile, DevOps, enterprise service management). Do you need to make more frequent but lower-risk decisions?
      • Is your organization ready to delegate governance culturally and in terms of business understanding? Is there enough available information to support adaptive decisions and actions?
    3. Document your operating style, expected changes in work style, and cultural readiness. You will need to consider the implications on design.

    Step 1.2

    Define Scope and Principles

    Activities
    • 1.2.1 Determine the proper scope for your governance
    • 1.2.2 Confirm your determining governing principles
    • 1.2.3 Develop your specific governing principles

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify what is included and excluded within the scope of your governance.

    Develop the determining and specific principles that provide guardrails for governance activities and decisions.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Governance leads

    Outcomes of this step

    Documented governance scope and principles to apply

    Identify Your Governance Needs

    Step 1.1 – Define your Guiding Star Step 1.2 – Define Scope and Principles Step 1.3 – Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context

    Define the context for governance

    Based on the goals and principles you defined and the operating model you selected, confirm where oversight will be necessary and at what level. Focus on the necessity to expedite and clear barriers to the achievement of goals and on the ownership of risks and compliance. Some key considerations:

    • Where in the organization will you need to decide on work that needs to be done?
    • What type of work will you need to do?
    • In what areas could there be conflicts in prioritization/resource allocation to address?
    • Who is accountable for risks to the organization and its objectives?
    • Where are your regional or business-unit-specific concerns that require focused local attention?
    • Are we using more agile, rapid delivery methods to produce work?

    Understand your governance scope

    Your governance scope helps you define the boundaries of what your governance model and practices will cover. This includes key characteristics of your organization that impact what governance needs to address.

    Sample Considerations

    • Organizational Span
      • The geographical area the organization operates within. Regional laws and requirements will affect governance delegation and standards/policy development.
    • Level of Regulation
      • Higher levels of regulation create more standards and controls for risk and compliance, impacting how authority can be delegated or automated.
    • Sourcing Model
      • Changing technology sourcing introduces additional vendor governance requirements and may impact compliance and audit.
    • Risk Posture
      • The appetite for risk organizationally, and in pockets, impacts the level of uncertainty you are willing to work within and impact decision-making authority positioning.
    • Size
      • The size of your organization impacts the approach to governance, practice implementation, and delegation of authority.
    • What Is Working Today?
      • Which elements of your current governance approach should be retained, and what are the biggest pain points that need to be addressed?
    (Source: COBIT 2019)

    1.2.1 Determine the proper scope for your governance

    60 minutes

    Input: Context information from Activity 1.1, Scoping areas

    Output: Defined scope and span of control

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Determine the scope/span of control required for your governance by:
      • Reviewing your key IT capabilities. Identify the ones where the responsibilities and decisions require oversight to ensure they meet the needs of the organization.
      • Identify what works well or poorly in your current governance approach.
      • Discuss and document the level and type of knowledge and business understanding required.
      • Identify and document any regulations, standards, or laws that apply to your organization/industry and how broadly they have to be applied.
      • Identify the organization’s risk appetite, where known, and areas where acceptable thresholds of risk have been defined. Where are key risk and opportunity decisions made? Who owns risk in your organization?
      • Identify and document the perceived role of the IT group in your organization (e.g. support, innovator, partner) and sourcing model (e.g. insource, outsource).
      • Is there sufficient information and data available in your organization to support effective decision making?

    How should your governance be structured?

    Organizations often have too many governance bodies, creating friction without value. Where that isn’t the case, the bodies are often inefficient, with gaps or overlaps in accountability and authority. Structure your governance to optimize its effectiveness, designing with the intent to have the fewest number of governing bodies to be effective, but no less than is necessary.

    Start with your operating model.

    • Understand what’s different about your governance based on whether your organization in centralized, distributed, or a different model (e.g. hybrid, product).
    • Identify and include governance structures that are mandatory due to regulation or industry.
    • Based on your context, identify how many of your governance activities should be performed together.

    Determine whether your governance should be controlled or adaptive.

    • Do you have the capability to distribute governance and is your organization empowered enough culturally?
    • Do you have sufficient standards and data to leverage? Do you have the tools and capabilities?
    • Identify governance structures that are required due to regulation or industry.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your approach to governance needs to be designed and structured, even if your execution of governance is adaptable and delegated.

    Identify and Refine your Principles

    Confirm your defining principles based on your selection of controlled or adaptive governance. Create specific principles to clarify boundaries or provide specific guidance for teams within the organization.

    Controlled Adaptive
    Disentangle governance and management Delegate and empower
    Govern toward value Deliver to defined outcomes
    Make risk-informed decisions Embed risk into decision making
    Measure to drive improvement Trust though real-time reporting
    Enforce standards and behavior Automate decision making though established standards

    Determining Principle: Delegate and empower.

    Specific Principle: Decisions should be made at the lowest reasonable level of the organization with clarity.

    Rationale: To govern effectively with the velocity required to address business needs, governance needs to be executed deeper into the organization and organizational goals need to be clearly understood everywhere.

    Implication: Decision making needs to be delegated throughout the organization, so information and data requirements need to be identified, decision-making approach and principles need to be shared, and authority needs to be delegated clearly.

    1.2.2 Confirm your determining governance principles

    30-45 minutes

    Input: Governance Framework Model– Governance Principles

    Output: Governance workbook - Finalized list of determining principles

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Workbook

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Review the IT governance principles in your Governance Workbook.
    2. Within your IT senior leadership team (or IT governance working group) assign one or two principles to teams of two to three participants. Have each team identify what this would mean for your organization. Answering the questions:
      • In what ways do our current governance practices support this?
      • What are some examples of changes that would need to be made to make this a reality?
      • How would applying this principle improve your governance?
    3. Have each team present their results and compile the findings and implications in the Governance Workbook to use for future communication of the change.

    Specific governing principles

    Specific governing principles are refined principles derived from a determining principle, when additional specificity and detail is necessary. It allows you to define an approach for specific behaviors and activities. Multiple specific principles may underpin the determining one.

    A visualization of a staircase with stairs labelled, bottom to top, 'Determining Principle', 'Rationale', 'Implications', 'Specific Principles'.

    Specific Principles – Related principles that may be required to ensure the implications of the determining principal are addressed within the organization. They may be specific to individual areas and may be addressed in policies.

    Implications – The implications of this principle on the organization, specific to how and where governance is executed and the level of information and authority that would be necessary.

    Rationale – The reason(s) driving the determining principle.

    Determining Principle – A core overarching principle – a defining aspect of your governance model.

    1.2.3 Develop your specific governing principles

    30 minutes

    Input: Updated determining principles

    Output: List of specific principles linked to determining principles

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Workbook

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Confirm the determining principles for your governance model based on your previous discussions.
    2. Identify where to apply the principles. This is based on:
      1. Your governance scope (how much is within your span of control)
      2. The amount of data you have available
      3. Your cultural readiness for delegation
    3. Create specific principles to support the determining principles:
      1. Document the rationale driving the determining principles.
      2. Identify the implications.
      3. Create specific principles that will support the success in achieving the goals of each determining principle.
    4. Document all information on the “Governance guiding star” slide in the Governance Workbook.

    Download the Governance Workbook

    Step 1.3

    Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context

    Activities
    • 1.3.1 Identify and address the impact of attitude, behavior, and culture
    • 1.3.2 Finalize your context

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify your organizational attitude, behavior, and culture related to governance.

    Identify positives that can be leveraged and develop means to address negatives.

    Finalize the context that your model will leverage and align to.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Governance leads

    Outcomes of this step

    Downloaded tool ready to select the base governance model for your organization

    Identify Your Governance Needs

    Step 1.1 – Define your Guiding Star Step 1.2 – Define Scope and Principles Step 1.3 – Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context

    Understanding attitude, behavior, and culture

    A

    ttitude

    What people think and feel. It can be seen in their demeanor and how they react to change initiatives, colleagues, and users. This manifests in the belief that governance is a constraint that needs to be avoided or ignored – often with unintended consequences.

    A stock photo of a lightbulb over a person's head and a blackboard behind them reading 'New Mindset - data-verified= New Results'.">

    Any form of organizational change involves adjusting people’s attitudes to create buy-in and commitment.

    You need to identify and address attitudes that can lead to negative behaviors and actions or that are counter-productive.

    Understanding attitude, behavior, and culture

    B

    ehavior

    What people do. This is influenced by attitude and the culture of the organization. In governance, this manifests as people’s willingness to be governed, who pushes back, and who tries to bypass it.

    A stock photo of someone walking up a set of stairs into the distant sunlight.

    To implement change within IT, especially at a tactical and strategic level, organizational behavior needs to change.

    This is relevant because people gravitate toward stability and will resist change in an active or passive way unless you can sell the need, value, and benefit of changing their behavior and way of working.

    Understanding attitude, behavior, and culture

    C

    ulture

    The accepted and understood ways of working in an organization. The values and standards that people find normal and what would be tacitly identified to new resources. In governance terms, this is how decisions are really made and where responsibility really exists rather than what is identified formally.

    A stock photo of a compass pointing to 'VALUES'.

    The impact of the organizational or corporate “attitude” on employee behavior and attitude is often not fully understood.

    Culture is an invisible element, which makes it difficult to identify, but it has a strong impact and must be addressed to successfully embed governance models. In the case of automating governance, cultural readiness for automation is a critical success factor.

    1.3.1 Identify and address the impact of attitude, behavior, and culture

    45 minutes

    Input: Senior leadership knowledge

    Output: Updated Governance Workbook

    Materials: Governance Workbook

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Break into three groups. Each group will discuss and document the positive and negative aspects of one of attitude, behavior, or culture related to governance in your organization.
    2. Each group will present and explain their list to the group.
    3. Add any additional suggestions in each area that are identified by the other groups.
    4. Identify the positive elements of attitude, behavior, and culture that would help with changing or implementing your updated governance model.
    5. Identify any challenges that will need to be addressed for the change to be successful.
    6. As a group, brainstorm some mitigations or solutions to these challenges. Document them in the Governance Workbook to be incorporated into the implementation plan.

    Download the Governance Workbook

    Attitude, behavior, and culture

    Evaluate the organization across the three contexts. The positive items represent opportunities for leveraging these characteristics with the implementation of the governance model, while the negative items must be considered and/or mitigated.

    Attitude Behavior Culture
    Positive
    Negative
    Mitigation

    1.3.2 Finalize your governance context

    30 minutes

    Input: Documented governance principles and scope from previous exercises

    Output: Finalized governance context in the Governance Workbook

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Workbook

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Use the information that has been gathered throughout this section to update and finalize your IT governance context.
    2. Document it in your Governance Workbook.

    Download the Governance Workbook

    Make Your IT Governance Adaptable

    Phase 2

    Select and Refine Your Governance Model

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Define Your Guiding Star
    • 1.2 Define Scope and Principles
    • 1.3 Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Choose and Adapt Your Model
    • 2.2. Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers
    • 2.3 Build Your Implementation Approach

    Phase 3

    • 3.1 Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate
    • 3.2 Plan Validation and Verification
    • 3.3 Update Implementation Plan

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Select a base governance model and refine it to suit your organization.

    Identify scenarios and changes that will trigger updates to your governance model.

    Build your implementation plan.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Governance resources

    Step 2.1

    Choose and Adapt Your Model

    Activities
    • 2.1.1 Choose your base governance model
    • 2.1.2 Confirm and adjust the structure of your model
    • 2.1.3 Define the governance responsibilities
    • 2.1.4 Validate the governance mandates and membership
    • 2.1.5 Update your committee processes
    • 2.1.6 Adjust your associated policies
    • 2.1.7 Adjust and confirm your governance model

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Review and selecting your base governance model.

    Adjust the structure, responsibilities, policies, mandate, and membership to best support your organization.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Governance leads

    Outcomes of this step

    Downloaded tool ready to select the base governance model for your organization

    Select and Refine Your Governance Model

    Step 2.1 – Choose and Adapt Your Model Step 2.2 – Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers Step 2.3 – Build Implementation Approach

    Your governance framework has six key components

    GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK

    • GUIDELINES
      The key behavioral factors that ground your governance framework
    • MEMBERSHIP
      Formalization of who has authority and accountability to make specific governance decisions
    • RESPONSIBILITIES
      The definition of which decisions and outcomes your governance structure and each governance body is accountable for
    • STRUCTURE
      Which governance bodies and roles are in place to articulate where decisions are made in the organization
    • PROCESS
      Identification of the how your governance will be executed, how decisions are made, and the inputs, outputs, and connections to related processes
    • POLICY
      Set of principles established to address risk and drive expected and required behavior

    4 layers of governance bodies

    There are traditionally 4 layers of governance in an enterprise, and organizations have governing bodies or individuals at each level

    RESPONSIBILITIES AND TYPICAL MEMBERSHIP
    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.

    Membership: Business executives, Board

    STRATEGIC Ensures IT initiatives, products, and services are aligned to organizational goals and strategy and provide expected value. Ensure adherence to key principles.

    Membership: Business executives, CIO, CDO

    TACTICAL Ensures key activities and planning are in place to execute strategic initiatives.

    Membership: Authorized division leadership, related IT leadership

    OPERATIONAL Ensures effective execution of day-to-day functions and practices to meet their key objectives.

    Membership: Service/product owners, process owners, architecture leadership, directors, managers

    2.1.1 Choose your base governance model

    30 minutes

    Input: Governance models templates

    Output: Selected governance model

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Download Info-Tech’s base governance models (Controlled Governance Models Template and IT Governance Program Overview) and review them to find a template that most closely matches your context from Phase 1. You can start with a centralized, decentralized, or product/service hybrid IT organization. Remove unneeded models.
    2. If you do not have documented governance today, start with a controlled model as your foundation. Continue working through this phase if you have a documented governance framework you wish to optimize using our best practices or move to Phase 3 if you are looking to automate or embed your governance activities.

    Controlled Governance Models Template

    Adaptive Governance Models Template

    2.1.2 Confirm and adjust the structure of your model

    30-45 minutes

    Input: Selected base governance model, Governance context/scope

    Output: Updated governance bodies and relationships

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Validate your selected governance body structural model.
      • Are there any governing bodies you must maintain that should replace the ones listed? In part or in full?
      • Are there any missing bodies? Look at alternative committees for examples.
      • Document the adjustments.
    2. Are there any governing bodies that are not required?
      • Based on your size and needs, can they be done within one committee?
      • Is the capability or data not in place to perform the work?
      • Document the required changes.

    There are five key areas of governance responsibility

    A cyclical visualization of the five keys areas of governance responsibility, 'Strategic Alignment', 'Value Delivery', 'Risk Management', 'Resource Management', and 'Performance Measurement'.

    STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT
    Ensures that technology investments and portfolios are aligned with the organization’s needs.

    VALUE DELIVERY
    Reviews the outcomes of technology investments and portfolios to ensure benefits realization.

    RISK MANAGEMENT
    Defines and owns the risk thresholds and register to ensure that decisions made are in line with the posture of the organization.

    RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
    Ensures that people, financial knowledge, and technology resources are appropriately allocated across the organization.

    PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
    Monitors and directs the performance or technology investments to determine corrective actions and understand successes.

    2.1.3 Define the governance responsibilities

    Ensure you have the right responsibilities in the right place

    45-60 minutes

    Input: Selected governance base model, Governance context

    Output: Updated responsibilities and activities, Updated activities for selected governance bodies, New or removed governing bodies

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Based on your context and model, review the responsibilities identified for each committee and confirm that they align with the mandate and the stated outcome.
    2. Identify and highlight any responsibilities and activities that would not be involved in informing and enabling the mandate of the committee.
    3. Adjust the wording of confirmed responsibilities and activities to reflect your organizational language.
    4. Review each highlighted “bad fit” activity and move it to a committee whose mandate it would support or remove it if it’s not performed in your organization.
    5. If an additional committee is required, define the mandate and scope, then include any additional responsibilities that might have been a bad fit elsewhere

    2.1.4 Validate the governance mandates and membership

    30 minutes

    Input: Selected governance base model, Updated structure and responsibilities

    Output: Adjusted mandates and refined committee membership

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Review the mandate and membership slides in your selected governance model.
    2. Adjust the mandate to ensure that it aligns to and conveys:
      1. The outcome that the committee is meant to generate for the organization.
      2. Its scope/span of control.
    3. Discuss the type of information members would require for the committee to be successful in achieving its mandate.
    4. Document the member knowledge requirement in the mandate slide of the model template.

    Determine the right membership for your governance

    One of the biggest benefits of governance committees is the perspective provided by people from various parts of the organization, which helps to ensure technology investments are aligned with strategic goals. However, having too many people – or the wrong people – involved prevents the committee from being effective. Avoid this by following these principles.

    Three principles for selecting committee membership

    1. Determine membership based on responsibilities and required knowledge.
      Organizations often make the mistake of creating committees and selecting members before defining what they will do. This results in poor governance because members don’t have the knowledge required to make decisions. Define the mandate of the committee to determine which members are the right fit.
    2. Ensure members are accountable and authorized to make the decisions.
      Effective governance requires the members to have the authority and accountability to make decisions. This ensures meetings achieve their outcome and produce value, which improves the committee’s chances of survival.
    3. Select leaders who see the big picture.
      Often committee decisions and responsibilities become tangled in the web of organizational politics. Include people, often C-level, whose attendance is critical and who have the requisite knowledge, mindset, and understanding to put business needs ahead of their own.

    2.1.5 Update your committee processes

    20 minutes

    Input: Selected governance base model, Updated structure and responsibilities

    Output: Updated committee processes

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Review the committee details based on the changes you have made in goals, mandate, and responsibilities.
    2. Identify and document changes required to the committee outputs (outcomes) and adjust the consumer of the outputs to match.
    3. Review the high-level process steps required to get to the modified output. Add required activities or remove unnecessary ones. Review the process flow. Does it make sense? Are there unnecessary steps?
    4. Review and update inputs required for the process steps and update the information/data sources.
    5. Adjust the detailed process steps to reflect the work that needs to be done to support each high-level process step that changed.

    2.1.6 Adjust your associated policies

    20 minutes

    Input: Selected governance base model, Updated structure and responsibilities

    Output: Adjusted mandates and refined committee membership

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Review the policies associated with the governing bodies in your base model. Identify the policies that apply to your organization, those that are missing, and those that are not necessary.
    2. Confirm the policies that you require.
    3. Make sure the policies and policy purposes (or risks and related behaviors the policy addresses) are matched to the governance committee that has responsibilities in that area. Move policies to the right committee.

    2.1.7 Adjust and confirm your governance model

    1. Confirm the adjustment of governance bodies, structure, and input/output linkages.
    2. Confirm revisions to decisions and responsibilities.
    3. Confirm policy and regulation/standards associations.
    4. Select related governance committee charters from the provided set and revise the charters to reflect the elements defined in your updated model.
    5. Finalize your governance model.

    Samples of slides related to adjusting and confirming governance models in the Governance Workbook.

    Step 2.2

    Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers

    Activities
    • 2.2.1 Identify and document update triggers
    • 2.2.2 Embed triggers into the review cycle

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify scenarios that will create a need to review or change your governance model.

    Update your review/update approach to receiving trigger notifications.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Governance leads

    Outcomes of this step

    Downloaded tool ready to select the base governance model for your organization

    Select and Refine Your Governance Model

    Step 2.1 – Choose and Adapt Your Model Step 2.2 – Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers Step 2.3 – Build Implementation Approach

    What are governance triggers

    Governance triggers are organizational or environmental changes within or around an organization that are inflection points that start the review and revision of governance models to maintain their fit with the organization. This is the key to adaptive governance design.

    A target with five arrows sticking out of the bullseye, 'Operating Model', 'Business Strategy', 'Mandate Change', 'Management Practices', and 'Digital Transformation'.

    2.2.1 Identify and document update triggers

    30 minutes

    Input: Governance Workbook

    Output: Updated workbook with defined and documented governance triggers, points of origin, and integration

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Open the Governance Workbook to the “Triggers” slides.
    2. Review the list of governance triggers. Retain the ones that apply to your organization, remove those you feel are unnecessary, and add any change scenarios you feel should be included.
    3. Identify where you would receive notifications of these changes and the related processes or activities that would generate these notifications, if applicable.
    4. Document any points of integration required between governance processes and the source process. Highlight any where the integration is not currently in place.

    Sample of the 'Triggers' slide in the Governance Workbook.

    2.2.2 Embed triggers into the review cycle

    30 minutes

    Input: Governance model

    Output: Review cycle update

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Identify which triggers impact the entire governance model and which impact specific committees.
    2. Add an activity for triggered review of the impacted governance model into your governance committee process.

    Step 2.3

    Build Your Implementation Approach

    Activities
    • 2.3.1 Identify and document your implementation plan
    • 2.3.2 Build your roadmap
    • 2.3.3 Build your sunshine diagram

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Transfer changes to the Governance Implementation Plan Template.

    Determine the timing for the implementation phases.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Governance process owner

    Outcomes of this step

    Implementation plan for adaptive governance framework model

    Select and Refine Your Governance Model
    Step 2.1 – Choose and Adapt Your Model Step 2.2 – Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers Step 2.3 – Build Implementation Approach

    2.3.1 Identify and document your implementation plan

    60 minutes

    Input: Governance model, Guiding principles, Update triggers, Cultural factors and mitigations

    Output: Implementation roadmap

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. As a group, discuss the changes required to implement the governance model, the cultural items that need to be addressed, and the anticipated timing.
    2. Document the implementation activities and consolidate them into groupings/themes based on similarities or shared outcomes.
    3. Name the grouped themes for clarity and identify key dependencies between activities in each area and across themes.
    4. Identify and document your approach (e.g. continuous, phased) and high-level timeline for implementation.
    5. Document the themes and initiatives in the Governance Implementation Plan.

    Download the Governance Implementation Plan

    Illustrate the implementation plan using roadmaps

    Info-Tech recommends two different methods to roadmap the initiatives in your Governance Implementation Plan.

    Gantt Chart
    Sample of a Gantt Chart.

    This type of roadmap depicts themes, related initiatives, the associated goals, and exact start and end dates for each initiative. This diagram is useful for outlining a larger number of activities and initiatives and has an easily digestible and repeatable format.

    Sunshine Diagram
    Sample of a Sunshine Diagram.

    This type of roadmap depicts themes and their associated initiatives. The start and end dates for the initiatives are approximated based on years or phases. This diagram is useful for highlighting key initiatives on one page.

    2.3.2 Build your roadmap

    30 minutes

    Input: Governance themes and initiatives

    Output: roadmap visual

    Materials: Governance Roadmap Workbook, Governance Workbook

    Participants: CIO, IT senior leadership

    1. Open the Governance Implementation Plan and review themes and initiatives.
    2. Open the Governance Roadmap Workbook.
    3. Discuss whether the implementation roadmap should be developed as a Gantt chart, a sunshine diagram, or both.
      For the Gantt chart:
      • Input the roadmap start year and date.
      • Change the months and year in the Gantt chart to reflect the same roadmap start year.
      • Input and populate the planned start and end dates for the list of high-priority initiatives.

    Develop your Gantt chart in the Governance Roadmap Workbook

    2.3.3 Build your sunshine diagram

    30 minutes

    Input: Governance themes and initiatives

    Output: Sunshine diagram visual

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Markers, Governance Implementation Plan

    Participants: CIO, IT senior leadership

    1. Review your list of themes and initiatives.
    2. Build a model with “rays” radiating out from a central theme or objective.
    3. Using curved arcs, break the grid into timeline periods or phases.
    4. Complete your sunshine diagram in the Governance Implementation Plan.

    Customize your sunshine diagram in the Governance Implementation Plan

    Make Your IT Governance Adaptable

    Phase 3

    Embed and Automate

    Phase 1

    • 1.1 Define Your Guiding Star
    • 1.2 Define Scope and Principles
    • 1.3 Adjust for Culture and Finalize Context

    Phase 2

    • 2.1 Choose and Adapt Your Model
    • 2.2. Identify and Document Your Governance Triggers
    • 2.3 Build Your Implementation Approach

    Phase 3

    • 3.1 Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate
    • 3.2 Plan Validation and Verification
    • 3.3 Update Implementation Plan

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify which decisions you are ready to automate.

    Identify standards and policies that can be embedded and automated.

    Identify integration points.

    Confirm data requirements to enable success.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • IT senior leadership
    • Governance process owner
    • Product and service owners
    • Policy owners

    Step 3.1

    Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate

    Activities
    • 3.1.1 Review governance decisions and standards and the required level of authority
    • 3.1.2 Build your decision logic
    • 3.1.3 identify constraints and mitigation approaches
    • 3.1.4 Develop decision rules and principles

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Identify your key decisions.

    Develop your decision logic.

    Confirm decisions that could be automated.

    Identify and address constraints.

    Develop decision rules and principles.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT senior leadership

    Outcomes of this step

    Developed decision rules, rulesets, and principles that can be leveraged to automate governance

    Defined integration points

    Embed and Automate

    Step 3.1 – Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate Step 3.2 – Plan Validation and Verification Step 3.3 – Update Implementation Plan

    What is decision automation?

    Decision automation is the codifying of rules that connect the logic of how decisions are made with the data required to make those decisions. This is then embedded and automated into processes and the design of products and services.

    • It is well suited to governance where the same types of decisions are made on a recurring basis, using the same set of data. It requires clean, high-quality data to be effective.
    • Improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have allowed the creation of scenarios where a hybrid of rules and learning can improve decision outcomes.

    Key Considerations

    • Data Availability
    • Legality
    • Contingencies
    • Decision Transparency
    • Data Quality
    • Auditability

    How complexity impacts decisions

    Decision complexity impacts the type of rule(s) you create and the amount of data required. It also helps define where or if decisions can be automated.

    1. SIMPLE
      Known and repeatable with consistent and familiar outcomes – structured, causal, and easy to standardize and automate.
    2. COMPLICATED
      Less known and outcomes are not consistently repeatable. Expertise can drive standards and guidelines that can be used to automate decisions.
    3. COMPLEX
      Unknown and new, highly uncertain in terms of outcomes, impact, and data. Requires more exploration and data. Difficult to automate but can be built into the design of products and services.
    4. CHAOTIC
      Unstructured and unknown situation. Requires adaptive and immediate action without active data – requires retained human governance
    5. (Based on Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework)

    Governance Automation Criteria Checklist

    The Governance Automation Criteria Checklist provides a view of key considerations for determining whether a governing activity or decision is a good candidate for automation.

    The criteria identify key qualifiers/disqualifiers to make it easier to identify eligibility.

    Sample of the Governance Automation Criteria Checklist.

    Download the Governance Automation Criteria Checklist

    Governance Automation Worksheet

    Sample of the Governance Automation Worksheet.

    The Governance Automation Worksheet provides a way to document your governance and systematically identify information about the decisions to help determine if automation is possible.

    From there, decision rules, logic, and rulesets can be designed in support of building a structure flow to allow for automation.

    Download the Governance Automation Worksheet

    3.1.1 Review governance decisions and standards and the required level of authority

    30 minutes

    Input: Automation Criteria Checklist, Governance Automation Worksheet, Updated governance model

    Output: Documented decisions and related authority, Selected options for automation, Updated Governance Automation Worksheet

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Automation Worksheet

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Identify the decisions that are made within each committee in your updated governance model and document them in the Governance Automation Worksheet.
    2. Confirm the level of authority required to make each decision.
    3. Review the automation checklist to confirm whether each decision is positioned well for automation.
    4. Select and document the decisions that are the strongest options for automation/embedding and document them in the Governance Automation Worksheet.

    What are decision rules?

    Decision rules provide specific instructions and constraints that must be considered in making decisions and are critical for automating governance.

    They provide the logical path to assess governance inputs to make effective decisions with positive business outputs.

    Inputs would include key information such as known risks, your defined prioritization matrix, portfolio value scoring, and compliance controls.

    Individual rules can be leveraged in different places.

    Some decision rule types are listed here.

    1. Statement Rules
      Natural expression of logical progression, written through logical elements
    2. Decision Tree Rules
      Decision tree with two axes that overlap to generate a decision
    3. Sequential Rules
      A sequence of decisions that move from one step to the next
    4. Expression Rule
      A particular set of rules triggered by a particular rule condition being met
    5. Truth table rules
      Combines many decision factors into one place; produces different outputs

    What are decision rulesets

    Rulesets are created to make complex decisions. Individual rule types are combined to create rulesets that are applied together to generate effective decisions. One rule will provide contextual information required for additional rules to execute in a Rule-Result-Rule-Result-Rule-Decision flow.

    A visualization of two separate rulesets made up of the decision rules on the previous slide. 'Ruleset 1' contains '1) Statement Rules', '2) Decision Tree Rules', and 5) Truth Table Rules'. 'Ruleset 2' contains '3) Sequential Rules' and '4) Expression Rule'.

    3.1.2 Build your decision logic

    30 minutes

    Input: Governance Automation Worksheet

    Output: Documented decision logic to support selected decision types and data requirements

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. For each selected decision, identify the principles that drive the considerations around the decision.
    2. For each decision, develop the decision logic by defining the steps and information inputs involved in making the decision and documenting the flow from beginning to end.
    3. Determine whether this is one specific decision or a combination of different decisions (in sequence or based on decisions).
    4. Name your decision rule.

    Sample of the Governance Automation Worksheet.

    3.1.3 Identify constraints and mitigation approaches

    60 minutes
    1. Document constraints to automation of decisions related to:
      • Availability of decision automation tools
      • Decision authority change requirements
      • Data constraints
      • Knowledge requirements
      • Process adjustment requirements
      • Product/service design levels
    2. Brainstorm and identify approaches to mitigate constraints and score based on likelihood of success.
    3. Identify mitigation owners and initial timeline expectations.
    4. Document the constraints and mitigations in the Governance Workbook on the constraints and mitigations slide.

    Sample of the 'Constraints and mitigations' slide of the 'Governance Workbook'.

    3.1.4 Develop decision rules and principles

    1.5-2 hours

    Input: Governance Automation Worksheet

    Output: Defined decision integration points, Confirmed data availability sets, Decision rules, rulesets, and principles with control indicators

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Automation Worksheet

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Review the decision logic for those decisions that you have confirmed for automation. Identify the processes where the decision should be executed.
    2. Associate each decision with specific process steps or stages or how it would be included in software/product design.
    3. For each selected decision, identify the availability of data required to support the decision logic and the level of complexity and apply governing principles.
    4. Create the decision rules and identify data gaps.
    5. Define the decision flow and create rulesets as needed.
    6. Confirm automation requirements and define control indicators.

    Step 3.2

    Plan Validation and Verification

    Activities
    • 3.2.1 Define verification approach for embedded and automated governance
    • 3.2.2 Define validation approach for embedded and automated governance

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Define how decision outcomes will be measured.

    Determine how the effectiveness of automated governance will be reported.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT senior leadership

    Outcomes of this step

    Tested and verified automation of decisions

    Embed and Automate

    Step 3.1 – Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate Step 3.2 – Plan Validation and Verification Step 3.3 – Update Implementation Plan

    Decision rule relationship through to verification

    1. Rules

    Focus on clear decision logic

    Often represented in simple statement types and supported by data:

    IF – THEN

    IF – AND – THEN

    IF – AND NOT – THEN

    2. Rulesets

    Aggregate rules for more complex decisions

    Integrated flows between different required rules:
    Rule 1:
    (Output 1) – Rule 2
    (Output 2) – Rule 6
    Rule 6: (Output 1) – Rule 7
    3. Rule Attestation

    Verify success of automated decisions

    Attestation of embedded and automated rules with key control indicators embedded within process and products.

    Principles embedded into automated software controls.

    3.2.1 Define verification approach for embedded and automated governance

    60 minutes

    Input: Governance rules and rulesets as defined in the Governance Automation Worksheet, Defined decision outcomes

    Output: A defined measurement of effective decision outcomes, Approach to automate and/or report the effectiveness of automated governance

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    Verify

    1. Confirm expected outcome of rules.
    2. Select a sampling of new required decisions or recently performed decisions related to areas of automation.
    3. Run the decisions through the decision rules or rule groupings that were developed and compare to parallel decisions made using the traditional approach. (These must be segregated activities.)
    4. Review the outcome of the rules and adjust based on the output. Identify areas of adjustment. Confirm that the automation meets your requirements.

    3.2.2 Define validation approach for embedded and automated governance

    60 minutes

    Input: Governance rules and rulesets as defined in the Governance Automation Worksheet, Defined decision outcomes

    Output: Defined assurance and attestation requirements, Key control indicators that can be automated

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    Validate

    1. Develop an approach to measure automated decisions. Align success criteria to current governance KPIs and metrics.
    2. If no such metrics exist, define expected outcome. Define key risk indicators based on the expected points of automation.
    3. Establish quality assurance checkpoints within the delivery lifecycles to adjust for variance.
    4. Create triggers back to rule owners to drive changes and improvements to rules and rule groupings.

    Step 3.3

    Update Implementation Plan

    Activities
    • 3.3.1 Finalize the implementation plan

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    Review implications and mitigations to make sure all have been considered.

    Finalize the implementation plan and roadmap.

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership

    Outcomes of this step

    Completed Governance implementation plan and roadmap

    Embed and Automate

    Step 3.1 – Identify Decisions to Embed and Automate Step 3.2 – Plan Validation and Verification Step 3.3 – Update Implementation Plan

    3.3.1 Finalize the implementation plan

    30 minutes

    Input: Governance workbook, Updated governance model, Draft implementation plan and roadmap

    Output: Finalized implementation plan and roadmap

    Materials: Whiteboard/flip charts, Governance Implementation Plan

    Participants: IT senior leadership

    1. Document automation activities within phases in a governance automation theme in the Governance Implementation Plan.
    2. Review timelines in the implementation plan and where automation fits within the roadmap.
    3. Updated the implementation plan and roadmap.

    Governance Implementation Plan

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

    Through this project we have:

    • Improved your governance model to ensure a better fit for your organization, while creating adaptivity for the future.
    • Ensured your governance operates as an enabler of success with the proper bodies and levels of authority established.
    • Established triggers to ensure your governance model is actively adjusted to maintain its fit.
    • Developed a plan to embed and automate governance.
    • Created decision rules and principles and identified where to embed them within your practices.

    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.

    Photo of Valence Howden.

    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.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Improve IT Governance to Drive Business Results

    Avoid bureaucracy and achieve alignment with a minimalist approach. Align with your organizational context.

    Establish Data Governance

    Establish data trust and accountability with strong governance.

    Maximize Business Value From IT Through Benefits Realization

    Embed value and alignment confirmation into your governance to ensure you optimize IT value achievement for resource spend.

    Build a Better Product Owner

    Strengthen the product/service owner role in your organization by focusing on core capabilities and proper alignment.

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Sidney Hodgson, Senior Director, Industry, Info-Tech Research Group. Sidney Hodgson
    Senior Director, Industry
    Info-Tech Research Group
    • Sidney has over 30 years of experience in IT leadership roles as CIO of three organizations in Canada and the US as well as international consulting experience in the US and Asia.
    • Sid has a breadth of knowledge in IT governance, project management, strategic and operational planning, enterprise architecture, business process re-engineering, IT cost reduction, and IT turnaround management.
    Photo of David Tomljenovic, Principal Research Advisor, Industry, Info-Tech Research Group. David Tomljenovic
    Principal Research Advisor, Industry
    Info-Tech Research Group
    • David brings extensive experience from the Financial Services sector, having worked 25 years on Bay Street. Most recently he was a Corporate Finance and Strategy Advisor for Infiniti Labs (Toronto/Hong Kong), Automotive, and Smart City Accelerator, where he provided financial and mergers & acquisitions advisory services to accelerator participants with a focus on early-stage fundraising activities.

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Cole Cioran, Practice Lead, Applications and Agile Development, Info-Tech Research Group. Cole Cioran
    Practice Lead, Applications and Agile Development
    Info-Tech Research Group
    • Over the past 25 years, Cole has developed software; designed data, infrastructure, and software solutions; defined systems and enterprise architectures; delivered enterprise-wide programs; and managed software development, infrastructure, and business systems analysis practices.
    Photo of Crystal Singh, Research Director, Applications – Data and Information Management, Info-Tech Research Group. Crystal Singh
    Research Director, Applications – Data and Information Management
    Info-Tech Research Group
    • Crystal brings a diverse and global perspective to her role, drawing from her professional experiences in various industries and locations. Prior to joining Info-Tech, Crystal led the Enterprise Data Services function at Rogers Communications, one of Canada’s leading telecommunications companies.

    Research contributors and experts

    Photo of Carlene McCubbin, Practice Lead, CIO, Info-Tech Research Group. Carlene McCubbin
    Practice Lead, CIO
    Info-Tech Research Group
    • Carlene covers key topics in organization and leadership and specializes in governance, organizational design, relationship management, and human capital development. She led the development of Info-Tech’s Organization and Leadership practice.
    Photo of Denis Goulet, Senior Workshop Director, Info-Tech Research Group. Denis Goulet
    Senior Workshop Director
    Info-Tech Research Group
    • Denis is a transformational leader and experienced strategist who focuses on helping clients communicate, relate, and adapt for success. Having developed Governance Model and IT strategies in organizations ranging from small to billion-dollar multi-nationals, he firmly believes in a collaborative value-driven approach to work.

    Bibliography

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    “Automation – Decisions.” IBM, 2020. Accessed 15 Oct. 2020.

    Chang, Charlotte. “Accelerating Agile through effective governance.” Medium, 22 Sept. 2020. Web.

    “COBIT 5: Enabling Processes.” ISACA, 2012. Web. Oct. 2016.

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    Curtis, Blake. “The Value of IT Governance.” ISACA, 29 June 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

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    Gandzeichuk, Ilya. “Augmented Analytics: From Decision Support To Intelligent Decision-Making.” Forbes, 8 Jan. 2020. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

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    Haven, Dolf van der. “Governance of IT with ISO 38500 - A More Detailed View” LinkedIn article, 24 Oct. 2016. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

    Hong, Sounman, and Sanghyun Lee. “Adaptive Governance and Decentralization: Evidence from Regulation of the Sharing Economy in Multi-Level Governance.” Government Information Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 2, April 2018, pp. 299–305. Web.

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    Jaffe, Dennis T. “Introducing the Seven Pillars of Governance.” Triple Pundit, 15 Nov. 2011. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

    Janssen, Marijn, and Haiko van der Voort. “Agile and Adaptive Governance in Crisis Response: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.” International Journal of Information Management, vol. 55, December 2020. Web.

    Jodya, Tiffany. “Automating Enterprise Governance within Delivery Pipelines.” Harness.io, 14 May 2020. Web.

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    Westland, Jason. “IT Governance: Definitions, Frameworks and Planning.” ProjectManager.com, 17 Dec. 2019. Web.

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    Select a Marketing Management Suite

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}533|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 10.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $6,560 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 50 Average Days Saved
    • 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.

    Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.0/10 Overall Impact
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    • member rating average days saved: Read what our members are saying
    • Parent Category Name: Service Management
    • Parent Category Link: /service-management
    • There are no standardized processes for the intake of new ideas and no consistent view of the drivers needed to assess the value of these ideas.
    • IT is spending money on low-value services and doesn’t have the ability to understand and track value in order to prioritize IT investment.
    • CIOs are not trusted to drive innovation.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The service portfolio empowers IT to be a catalyst in business strategy, change, and growth.
    • IT must drive value-based investment by understanding value of all services in the portfolio.
    • Organizations must assess the value of their services throughout their lifecycle to optimize business outcomes and IT spend.

    Impact and Result

    • Optimize IT investments by prioritizing services that provide more value to the business, ensuring that you do not waste money on low-value or out-of-date IT services.
    • Ensure that services are directly linked to business objectives, goals, and needs, keeping IT embedded in the strategic vision of the organization.
    • Enable the business to understand the impact of IT capabilities on business strategy.
    • Ensure that IT maintains a strategic and tactical view of the services and their value.
    • Drive agility and innovation by having a streamlined view of your business value context and a consistent intake of ideas.
    • Provide strategic leadership and create new revenue by understanding the relative value of new ideas vs. existing services.

    Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Service portfolio management enables organizations to become strategic value creators by establishing a dynamic view of service value. Understand the driving forces behind the need to manage services through their lifecycles.

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

    1. Establish the service portfolio

    Establish and understand the service portfolio process by setting up the Service Portfolio Worksheet.

    • Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management – Phase 1: Establish the Service Portfolio
    • Service Portfolio Worksheet

    2. Develop a value assessment framework

    Use the value assessment tool to assess services based on the organization’s context of value.

    • Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management – Phase 2: Develop a Value Assessment Framework
    • Value Assessment Tool
    • Value Assessment Example Tool

    3. Manage intake and assessment of initiatives

    Create a centralized intake process to manage all new service ideas.

    • Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management – Phase 3: Manage Intake and Assessment of Initiatives
    • Service Intake Form

    4. Assess active services

    Continuously validate the value of the existing service and determine the future of service based on the value and usage of the service.

    • Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management – Phase 4: Assess Active Services

    5. Manage and communicate the service portfolio

    Communicate and implement the service portfolio within the organization, and create a mechanism to seek out continuous improvement opportunities.

    • Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio Management – Phase 5: Manage and Communicate the Service Portfolio
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Lead Strategic Decision Making With Service Portfolio 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 Establish the Service Portfolio

    The Purpose

    Establish and understand the service portfolio process by setting up the Service Portfolio Worksheet.

    Understand at a high level the steps involved in managing the service portfolio.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Adapt the Service Portfolio Worksheet to organizational needs and create a plan to begin documenting services in the worksheet.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the Service Portfolio Worksheet.

    1.2 Adapt the Service Portfolio Worksheet.

    Outputs

    Knowledge about the use of the Service Portfolio Worksheet.

    Adapt the worksheet to reflect organizational needs and structure.

    2 Develop a Value Assessment Framework

    The Purpose

    Understand the need for a value assessment framework.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identify the organizational context of value through a holistic look at business objectives.

    Leverage Info-Tech’s Value Assessment Tool to validate and determine service value.

    Activities

    2.1 Understand value from business context.

    2.2 Determine the governing body.

    2.3 Assess culture and organizational structure.

    2.4 Complete the value assessment.

    2.5 Discuss value assessment score.

    Outputs

    Alignment on value context.

    Clear roles and responsibilities established.

    Ensure there is a supportive organizational structure and culture in place.

    Understand how to complete the value assessment and obtain a value score for selected services.

    Understand how to interpret the service value score.

    3 Manage Intake and Assessment of Initiatives

    The Purpose

    Create a centralized intake process to manage all new service ideas.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Encourage collaboration and innovation through a transparent, formal, and centralized service intake process.

    Activities

    3.1 Review or design the service intake process.

    3.2 Review the Service Intake Form.

    3.3 Design a process to assess and transfer service ideas.

    3.4 Design a process to transfer completed services to the service catalog.

    Outputs

    Create a centralized process for service intake.

    Complete the Service Intake Form for a specific initiative.

    Have a process designed to transfer approved projects to the PMO.

    Have a process designed for transferring of completed services to the service catalog.

    4 Assess Active Services

    The Purpose

    Continuously validate the value of existing services.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Ensure services are still providing the expected outcome.

    Clear next steps for services based on value.

    Activities

    4.1 Discuss/review management of active services.

    4.2 Complete value assessment for an active service.

    4.3 Determine service value and usage.

    4.4 Determine the next step for the service.

    4.5 Document the decision regarding the service outcome.

    Outputs

    Understand how active services must be assessed throughout their lifecycles.

    Understand how to assess an existing service.

    Place the service on the 2x2 matrix based on value and usage.

    Understand the appropriate next steps for services based on value.

    Formally document the steps for each of the IRMR options.

    5 Manage and Communicate Your Service Portfolio

    The Purpose

    Communicate and implement the service portfolio within the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Obtain buy-ins for the process.

    Create a mechanism to identify changes within the organization and to seek out continuous improvement opportunities for the service portfolio management process and procedures.

    Activities

    5.1 Create a communication plan for service portfolio and value assessment.

    5.2 Create a communication plan for service intake.

    5.3 Create a procedure to continuously validate the process.

    Outputs

    Document the target audience, the message, and how the message should be communicated.

    Document techniques to encourage participation and promote participation from the organization.

    Document the formal review process, including cycle, roles, and responsibilities.

    Next-Generation InfraOps

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    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
    • Parent Category Link: /i-and-o-process-management
    • Traditional IT capabilities, activities, organizational structures, and culture need to adjust to leverage the value of cloud, optimize spend, and manage risk.
    • Different stakeholders across previously separate teams rely on one another more than ever, but rules of engagement do not yet exist.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • By defining your end goals and framing solutions based on the type of visibility and features you need, you can enable speed and reliability without losing control of the work.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand the xOps spectrum and what approaches benefit your organization.
    • Make sense of the architectural approaches and enablement tools available to you.
    • Evolve from just improving your current operations to a continuous virtuous cycle of development and deployment.

    Next-Generation InfraOps Research & Tools

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

    1. Next-Generation InfraOps Storyboard – A deck that will help you use Ops methodologies to build a virtuous cycle.

    This storyboard will help you understand the spectrum of different Agile xOps working modes and how best to leverage them and build an architecture and toolset that support rapid continuous IT operations

    • Next-Generation InfraOps Storyboard
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Next-Generation InfraOps

    Embrace the spectrum of Ops methodologies to build a virtuous cycle.

    Executive summary

    Your Challenge

    IT Operations continue to be challenged by increasing needs for scale and speed, often in the face of constrained resources and time. For most, Agile methodologies have become a foundational part of tackling this problem. Since then, we've seen Agile evolve into DevOps, which started a trend into different categories of "xOps" that are too many to count. How does one make sense of the xOps spectrum? What is InfraOps and where does it fit in?

    Common Obstacles

    Ultimately, all these methodologies and approaches are there to serve the same purpose: increase effectiveness through automation and improve governance through visibility. The key is to understand what tools and methodologies will deliver actual benefits to your IT operation and to the organization as a whole.

    Info-Tech's Approach

    By defining your end goals and framing solutions based on the type of visibility and features you need, you can enable speed and reliability without losing control of the work.

    1. Understand the xOps spectrum and what approaches will benefit your organization.
    2. Make sense of the architectural approaches and enablement tools available to you.
    3. Evolve from just improving your current operations to a continuous virtuous cycle of development and deployment.

    Info-Tech Insight

    InfraOps, when applied well, should be the embodiment of the governance policies as expressed by standards in architecture and automation.

    Project overview

    Understand the xOps spectrum

    There are as many different types of "xOps" as there are business models and IT teams. To pick the approaches that deliver the best value to your organization and that align to your way of operating, it's important to understand the different major categories in the spectrum and how they do or don't apply to your IT approach.

    How to optimize the Ops in DevOps

    InfraOps is one of the major methodologies to address a key problem in IT at cloud scale: eliminating friction and error from your deliveries and outputs. The good news is there are architectures, tools, and frameworks you can easily leverage to make adopting this approach easier.

    Evolve to integration and build a virtuous cycle

    Ultimately your DevOps and InfraOps approaches should embody your governance needs via architecture and process. As time goes on, however, both your IT footprint and your business environment will shift. Build your tools, telemetry, and governance to anticipate and adapt to change and build a virtuous cycle between development needs and IT Operations tools and governance.

    The xOps spectrum

    This is an image of the xOps spectrum. The three main parts are: Code Acceleration (left), Governance(middle), and Infrastructure Acceleration (right)

    xOps categories

    There is no definitive list of x's in the xOps spectrum. Different organizations and teams will divide and define these in different ways. In many cases, the definitions and domains of various xOps will overlap.

    Some of the commonly adopted and defined xOps models are listed here.

    Shift left? Shift right?

    Cutting through the jargon

    • Shifting left is about focusing on the code and development aspects of a delivery cycle.
    • Shifting right is about remembering that infrastructure and tools still do matter.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Shifting left or right isn't an either/or choice. They're more like opposite sides of the same coin. Like the different xOps approaches, usually more than one shift approach will apply to your IT Operations.

    IT Operations in the left-right spectrum

    Shifting from executing and deploying to defining the guardrails and standards

    This is an image of the left-right spectrum for your XOps position

    Take a middle-out approach

    InfraOps and DevOps aren't enemies; they're opposite sides of the same coin.

    • InfraOps is about the automation and standardization of execution. It's an essential element in any fully automated CI/CD pipeline.
    • Like DevOps, InfraOps is built on similar values (the pillars of DevOps).
    • It builds on the principle of Lean to focus on removing friction, or turn-and-type activities, from the pipeline/process.
    • In InfraOps, one of the key methods for removing friction is through automation of the interstitia between different phases of a DevOps or CI/CD cycle.

    Optimize the Ops in DevOps

    Focus on eliminating friction

    This is an image of an approach to optimizing the ops in DevOps.

    With the shift from execution to governing and validating, the role of deployment falls downstream of IT Operations.

    IT Operations needs to move to a mindset that focuses on creating the guardrails, enforced standards, and compliance rules that need to be used downstream, then apply those standards using automation and tooling to remove friction and error from the interstitia (the white spaces between chevrons) of the various phases.

    InfraOps tools

    Four quadrants in the shape of a human head, in the boxes are the following: Hyperconverged Infrastructure; Composable Infrastructure; Infrastructure as code and; Automation and Orchestration

    Info-Tech Insight

    Your tools can be broken into two categories:

    • Infrastructure Architecture
      • HCI vs. CI
    • Automation Tooling
      • IaC and A&O

    Keep in mind that while your infrastructure architecture is usually an either/or choice, your automation approach should use any and all tooling that helps.

    Infrastructure approach

    • Hyperconverged

    • Composable

    Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI)

    Hyperconvergence is the next phase of convergence, virtualizing servers, networks, and storage on a single server/storage appliance. Capacity scales as more appliances are added to a cluster or stack.
    The disruptive departure:

    • Even though servers, networks, and storage were each on their own convergence paths, the three remained separate management domains (or silos). Even single-SKU converged infrastructures like VCE Vblocks are still composed of distinct server, network, and storage devices.
    • In hyperconvergence, the silos collapse into single-software managed devices. This has been disruptive for both the vendors of technology solutions (especially storage) and for infrastructure management.
    • Large storage array vendors are challenged by hyperconvergence alternatives. IT departments need to adapt IT skills and roles away from individual management silos and to more holistic service management.

    A comparison between converged and hyperconverged systems.

    Info-Tech Insight

    HCI follows convergence trends of the past ten years but is also a departure from how IT infrastructure has traditionally been provisioned and managed.

    HCI is at the same time a logical progression of infrastructure convergence and a disruptive departure.

    Hyperconverged (HCI) – SWOT

    HCI can be the foundation block for a fully software defined data center, a prerequisite for private cloud.

    Strengths

    • Potentially lower TCO through further infrastructure consolidation, reducing CapEx and OpEx expenditures through facilities optimization and cost consolidation.
    • Operations in particular can be streamlined, since storage, network connections, and processors/memory are all managed as abstractions via a single control pane.
    • HCI comes with built-in automation and analytics that lead to quicker issue resolution.

    Opportunities

    • Increased business agility by paving the way for a fully software defined infrastructure stack and cloud automation.
    • Shift IT human assets from hardware asset maintainers and controllers to service delivery managers.
    • Better able to compete with external IT service alternatives.
    • Move toward a hybrid cloud service offering where the service catalog contains both internal and external offerings.

    Key attributes of a cloud are automation, resource elasticity, and self-service. This kind of agility is impossible if physical infrastructure needs intervention.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Virtualization alone does not a private cloud make, but complete stack virtualization (software defined) running on a hands-off preconfigured HCI appliance (or group of appliances) provides a solid foundation for building cloud services.

    Hyperconverged (HCI) – SWOT

    Silo-busting and private cloud sound great, but are your people and processes able to manage the change?

    Weaknesses

    • HCI typically scales out linearly (CPU & storage). This does not suit traditional scale-up applications such as high-performance databases and large-capacity data warehouses.
    • Infrastructure stacks are perceived as more flexible for variable growth across segments. For example, if storage is growing but processing is not, storage can scale separately from processing.

    Threats

    • HCI will be disruptive to roles within IT. Internal pushback is a real threat if necessary changes in skills and roles are not addressed.
    • HCI is not a simple component replacement but an adoption of a different kind of infrastructure. Different places in the lifecycles for each of storage, network, and processing devices could make HCI a solution where there is no immediate problem.

    In traditional infrastructure, performance and capacity are managed as distinct though complementary jobs. An all-in-one approach may not work.

    Composable Infrastructure (CI)

    • Composable infrastructure in many ways represents the opposite of an HCI approach. Its focus is on further disaggregating resources and components used to build systems.
      • Unlike traditional cloud virtual systems, composable infrastructure provides virtual bare metal resources, allowing tightly coupled resources like CPU, RAM, and GPU – or any device/card/module – to be released back and forth into the resource pool as required by a given workload.
      • This is enabled by the use of high-speed, low-latency PCI Express (PCI-e) and Compute Express Link (CXL) fabrics that allow these resources to be decoupled.
      • It also supports the ability to present other fabric types critical for building out enterprise systems (e.g. Ethernet, InfiniBand).
    • Accordingly, CI systems are also based on next-generation network architecture that supports moving critical functions to the network layer, which enables more efficient use of the application-layer resources.

    Composable Infrastructure (CI)

    • CI may also leverage network-resident data/infrastructure processing units (DPUs/IPUs), which offload many network, security, and storage functions.
      • As new devices and functions become available, they can be added into the catalog of resources/functions available in a CI pool.

    Use Case Example: Composable AI flow

    Data Ingestion > Data Cleaning/Tagging > Training > Conclusion

    • At each phase of the process, resources, including specialized hardware like memory and GPU cores, can be dynamically allocated and reallocated to the workload on demand

    Composable Infrastructure (CI)

    Use cases and considerations

    Where it's useful

    • Enable even more efficient allocation/utilization of resources for workloads.
    • Very large memory or shared memory requirements can benefit greatly.
    • Decouple purchasing decisions for underlying resources.
    • Leverage the fabric to make it easier to incrementally upgrade underlying resources as required.
    • Build "the Impossible Server."

    Considerations

    • Requires significant footprint/scale to justify in many cases
    • Not necessarily good value for environments that aren't very volatile and heterogeneous in terms of deployment requirements
    • May not be best value for environments where resource-stranding is not a significant issue

    Info-Tech Insight

    Many organizations using a traditional approach report resource stranding as having an impact of 20% or more on efficiency. When focusing specifically on the stranding of memory in workloads, the number can often approach 40%.

    The CI ecosystem

    This is an image of the CI ecosystem.

    • The CI ecosystem has many players, large and small!
    • Note that the CI ecosystem is dependent on a large ecosystem of underlying enablers and component builders to support the required technologies.

    Understanding the differences

    This image shows the similarities and differences between traditional, cloud, hyperconverged, and composable.

    Automation approach

    • Infrastructure as Code
    • Automation & Orchestration
    • Metaorchestration

    Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

    Infrastructure as code (IaC) is the process of managing and provisioning computer data centers through machine-readable definition files rather than physical hardware configuration or interactive configuration tools.

    Before IaC, IT personnel would have to manually change configurations to manage their infrastructure. Maybe they would use throwaway scripts to automate some tasks, but that was the extent of it.

    With IaC, your infrastructure's configuration takes the form of a code file, making it easy to edit, copy, and distribute.

    Info-Tech Insight
    IaC is a critical tool in enabling key benefits!

    • Reduced costs
    • Increased scalability, flexibility, and speed
    • Better consistency and version control
    • Reduced deployment errors

    Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

    1. IaC uses a high-level descriptive coding language to automate the provisioning of IT infrastructure. This eliminates the need to manually provision and manage servers, OS, database connections, storage, and other elements every time we want to develop, test, or deploy an application.
    2. IaC allows us to define the computer systems on which code needs to run. Most commonly, we use a framework like Chef, Ansible, Puppet, etc., to define their infrastructure. These automation and orchestration tools focus on the provisioning and configuring of base compute infrastructure.
    3. IaC is also an essential DevOps practice. It enables teams to rapidly create and version infrastructure in the same way they version source code and to track these versions so as to avoid inconsistency among IT environments that can lead to serious issues during deployment.
    • Idempotence is a principle of IaC. This means a deployment command always sets the target environment into the same configuration, regardless of the environment's starting state.
      • Idempotency is achieved by either automatically configuring an existing target or discarding the existing target and recreating a fresh environment.

    Automation/Orchestration

    Orchestration describes the automated arrangement, coordination, and management of complex computer systems, middleware, and services.

    This usage of orchestration is often discussed in the context of service-oriented architecture, virtualization, provisioning, converged infrastructure, and dynamic data center topics. Orchestration in this sense is about aligning the business request with the applications, data, and infrastructure.

    It defines the policies and service levels through automated workflows,
    provisioning, and change management. This creates an application-aligned infrastructure that can be scaled up or down based on the needs of each application.

    As the requirement for more resources or a new application is triggered, automated tools now can perform tasks that previously could only be done by multiple administrators operating on their individual pieces of the physical stack.

    Orchestration also provides centralized management of the resource pool, including billing, metering, and chargeback for consumption. For example, orchestration reduces the time and effort for deploying multiple instances of a single application.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Automation and orchestration tools can be key components of an effective governance toolkit too! Remember to understand what data can be pulled from your various tools and leveraged for other purposes such as cost management and portfolio roadmapping.

    Automation/Orchestration

    There are a wide variety of orchestration and automation tools and technologies.

    Configuration Management

    Configuration Management

    The logos for companies which fall in each of the categories in the column to the left of the image.

    CI/CD
    Orchestration

    Container
    Orchestration

    Cloud-Specific
    Orchestration

    PaaS
    Orchestration

    Info-Tech Insight

    Automation and orchestration tools and software offerings are plentiful, and many of them have a different focus on where in the application delivery ecosystem they provide automation functionality.

    Often there are different tools for different deployment and service models as well as for different functional phases for each service model.

    Automation/Orchestration

    Every tool focuses on different aspects or functions of the deployment of resources and applications.

    • Resources
      • Compute
      • Storage
      • Network
    • Extended Services
      • Platforms
      • Infrastructure Services
      • Web Services
    • Application Assets
      • Images
      • Templates
      • Containers
      • Code

    Info-Tech Insight

    Let the large ecosystem of tools be your ally. Leverage the right tools where needed and then address the complexity of tools using a master orchestration scheme.

    Metaorchestration

    A Flow chart for the approach to metaorchestration.

    Additionally, most tools do not cover all aspects required for most automation implementations, especially in hybrid cloud scenarios.

    As such, often multiple tools must be deployed, which can lead to fragmentation and loss of unified controls.

    Many enterprises address this fragmentation using a cloud management platform approach.

    One method of achieving this is to establish a higher layer of orchestration – an "orchestrator of orchestrators," or metaorchestration.

    In complex scenarios, this can be a challenge that requires customization and development.

    InfraOps tools ecosystem

    Toolkit Pros Cons Tips
    HCI Easy scale out Shift in skills required Good for enabling automation and hybridization with current-gen public cloud services
    CI Maximal workload resource efficiency Investment in new fabrics and technologies Useful for very dynamic or highly scalable workloads like AI
    IaC Error reduction and standardization Managing drift in standards and requirements Leverage a standards and exception process to keep track of drift
    A&O Key enabler of DevOps automation within phases Usually requires multiple toolsets/frameworks Use the right tools and stitch together at the metaorchestration layer
    Metaorchestration Reduces the complexity of a diverse A&O and IaC toolkit Requires understanding of the entire ecosystems of tools used Key layer of visibility and control for governance

    Build a virtuous cycle

    Remember, the goal is to increase speed AND reliability. That's why we focus on removing friction from our delivery pipelines.

    • The first step is to identify the points of friction in your cycle and understand the intensity and frequency of these friction points.
    • Depending on your delivery and project management methodology, you'll have a different posture of the different tools that make sense for your pipeline.
    • For example, if you are focused on delivering raw resources for sysadmins and/or you're in a Waterfall methodology where the friction points are large but infrequent, hyperconverged is likely to delivery good value, whereas tools like IaC and orchestration may not be as necessary.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Remember that, especially in modern and rapid methodologies, your IT footprint can drift unexpectedly. This means you need a real feedback mechanism on where the friction moves to next.

    This is particularly important in more Agile methodologies.

    Activity: Map your IT operations delivery

    Identify your high-friction interstitial points

    • Using the table below, or a table modified to your delivery phases, map out the activities and tasks that are not standardized and automated.
    • For the incoming and outgoing sections, think about what resources and activities need to be (or could be) created, destroyed, or repurposed to efficiently manage each cycle and the spaces between cycles.
    Plan Code Test Deploy Monitor
    Incoming Friction
    In-Cycle Friction
    Outgoing Friction

    Info-Tech Insight

    Map your ops groups to the delivery cycles in your pipeline. How many delivery cycles do you have or need?

    Good InfraOps is a reflection of governance policies, expressed by standards in architecture and automation.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Evaluate Hyperconverged Infrastructure for Your Infrastructure Roadmap

    • This Info-Tech note covers evaluation of HCI platforms.

    Design Your Cloud Operations

    • This Info-Tech blueprint covers organization of operations teams for various deployment and Agile modes.

    Bibliography

    Banks, Ethan, host. "Choosing Your Next Infrastructure." Datanauts, episode 094, Packet Pushers, 26 July 2017. Podcast.
    "Composable Infrastructure Solutions." Hewlett Packard Canada, n.d. Web.
    "Composable Infrastructure Technology." Liqid Inc., n.d. Web.
    "DataOps architecture design." Azure Architecture Center, Microsoft Learn, n.d. Web.
    Tan, Pei Send. "Differences: DevOps, ITOps, MLOps, DataOps, ModelOps, AIOps, SecOps, DevSecOps." Medium, 5 July 2021. Web.

    COVID-19 Work Status Tracking Guide

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    • Parent Category Name: Manage & Coach
    • Parent Category Link: /manage-coach
    • Keeping track of the multiple and frequently changing work arrangements on your team.
    • Ensuring you have a fast and easy way to keep an up-to-date record of where and how employees are working.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • During these critical times, keeping track of employees’ work status doesn’t have to be complicated – the right tool is one that does the job.
    • Keeping track of your employees is a health and safety issue – deployed well, it is an aid in keeping the business running and an additional communication channel, not a sign of lack of trust.

    Impact and Result

    • An Excel spreadsheet is all you need to ensure you have a way to record work arrangements that can change by the day.
    • An easy-to-use tool means minimal administrative overhead to ensuring you have this critical information at hand.

    COVID-19 Work Status Tracking Guide Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Work Status Tracking Guide

    Read our recommendations and use the accompanying tool to quickly get a handle on your team’s work arrangements.

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

    • COVID-19 Work Status Tracking Guide Storyboard
    • COVID-19 Work Status Tracking Tool
    [infographic]

    Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization

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    • Parent Category Name: Requirements & Design
    • Parent Category Link: /requirements-and-design
    • CIOs have trouble integrating new technologies (e.g. mobile, cloud solutions) with legacy applications, and lack standards for using APIs across the organization.
    • Organizations produce APIs that are error-prone, not consistently configured, and not maintained effectively.
    • Organizations are looking for ways to increase application quality and code reusability to improve development throughput using web APIs.
    • Organizations are looking for opportunities to create an application ecosystem which can expose internal services across the organization and/or to external third parties and business partners.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations are looking to go beyond current development practices to provide scalable and reusable web services.
    • Web API development is a tactical competency that is important to enabling speed of development, quality of applications, reusability, innovation, and business alignment.
    • Design your web API as a product that promotes speed of development and service reuse.
    • Optimize the design, development, testing, and monitoring of your APIs incrementally and iteratively to cover all use cases in the long term.

    Impact and Result

    • Create a repeatable process to improve the quality, reusability, and governance of your web APIs.
    • Define the purpose of your API and the common uses cases that it will service.
    • Understand what development techniques are required to develop an effective web API based on Info-Tech’s web API framework.
    • Continuously reiterate your web API to demonstrate to business stakeholders the value your web API provides.

    Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop APIs, 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. Examine the opportunities web APIs can enable

    Assess the opportunities of web APIs.

    • Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization – Phase 1: Examine the Opportunities Web APIs Can Enable

    2. Design and develop a web API

    Design and develop web APIs that support business processes and enable reusability.

    • Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization – Phase 2: Design and Develop a Web API
    • Web APIs High-Level Design Requirements Template
    • Web API Design Document Template

    3. Test the web API

    Accommodate web API testing best practices in application test plans.

    • Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization – Phase 3: Test the Web API
    • Web API Test Plan Template

    4. Monitor and continuously optimize the web API

    Monitor the usage and value of web APIs and plan for future optimizations and maintenance.

    • Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization – Phase 4: Monitor and Continuously Optimize the Web API
    • Web API Process Governance Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization

    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 Examine the Opportunities Web APIs Can Enable

    The Purpose

    Gauge the importance of web APIs for achieving your organizational needs.

    Understand how web APIs can be used to achieve below-the-line and above-the-line benefits.

    Be aware of web API development pitfalls. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding the revenue generation and process optimization opportunities web APIs can bring to your organization.

    Knowledge of the current web API landscape. 

    Activities

    1.1 Examine the opportunities web APIs can enable.

    Outputs

    2 Design & Develop Your Web API

    The Purpose

    Establish a web API design and development process.

    Design scalable web APIs around defined business process flows and rules.

    Define the web service objects that the web APIs will expose. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Reusable web API designs.

    Identification of data sets that will be available through web services.

    Implement web API development best practices. 

    Activities

    2.1 Define high-level design details based on web API requirements.

    2.2 Define your process workflows and business rules.

    2.3 Map the relationships among data tables through ERDs.

    2.4 Define your data model by mapping the relationships among data tables through data flow diagrams.

    2.5 Define your web service objects by effectively referencing your data model.

    Outputs

    High-level web API design.

    Business process flow.

    Entity relationship diagrams.

    Data flow diagrams.

    Identification of web service objects.

    3 Test Your Web API

    The Purpose

    Incorporate APIs into your existing testing practices.

    Emphasize security testing with web APIs.

    Learn of the web API testing and monitoring tool landscape.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Creation of a web API test plan.

    Activities

    3.1 Create a test plan for your web API.

    Outputs

    Web API Test Plan.

    4 Monitor and Continuously Optimize Your Web API

    The Purpose

    Plan for iterative development and maintenance of web APIs.

    Manage web APIs for versioning and reuse.

    Establish a governance structure to manage changes to web APIs. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Implement web API monitoring and maintenance best practices.

    Establishment of a process to manage future development and maintenance of web APIs. 

    Activities

    4.1 Identify roles for your API development projects.

    4.2 Develop governance for web API development.

    Outputs

    RACI table that accommodates API development.

    Web API operations governance structure.

    Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices

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    • Parent Category Name: Portfolio Management
    • Parent Category Link: /portfolio-management
    • As CIO, you oversee a department that lacks the resource capacity to adequately meet organizational demand for new projects and services.
    • More projects are approved by the steering committee (or equivalent) than your department realistically has the capacity for, and you and your staff have little recourse to push back. If you have a PMO – and that PMO is one of the few that provides usable resource capacity projections – that information is rarely used to make strategic approval and prioritization decisions.
    • As a result, project quality and timelines suffer, and service delivery lags. Your staff are overallocated, but you lack statistical evidence because of incomplete estimates, allocations, and very little accurate data.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • IT’s capacity for new project work is largely overestimated. Much of IT’s time is lost to tasks that go unregulated and untracked (e.g. operations and support work, break-fixes and other reactive work) before project work is ever approved. When projects are approved, it is done so with little insight or concern for IT’s capacity to realistically complete that work.
    • The shift to matrix work structures has strained traditional methods of time tracking. Day-to-day demand is chaotic, and staff are pulled in multiple directions by numerous people. As fast-paced, rapidly changing, interruption-driven environments become the new normal, distractions and inefficiencies interfere with productive project work and usable capacity data.
    • The executive team approves too many projects, but it is not held to account for this malinvestment of time. Instead, it’s up to individual workers to sink or swim, as they attempt to reconcile, day after day, seemingly infinite organizational demand for new services and projects with their finite supply of working hours.

    Impact and Result

    • Instill a culture of capacity awareness. For years, the project portfolio management (PPM) industry has helped IT departments report on demand and usage, but has largely failed to make capacity part of the conversation. This research helps inject capacity awareness into project and service portfolio planning, enabling IT to get proactive about constraints before overallocation spirals, and project and service delivery suffers.
    • Build a sustainable process. Efforts to improve resource management often falter when you try to get too granular too quickly. Info-Tech’s approach starts at a high level, ensuring that capacity data is accurate and usable, and that IT’s process discipline is mature enough to maintain the data, before drilling down into greater levels of precision.
    • Establish a capacity book of record. You will ultimately need a tool to help provide ongoing resource visibility. Follow the advice in this blueprint to help with your tool selection, and ensure you meet the reporting needs of both your team and executives.

    Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a resource management strategy, 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. Take stock of organizational supply and demand

    Set the right resource management approach for your team and create a realistic estimate of your resource supply and organizational demand.

    • Balance Supply and Demand with Realistic Resource Management Practices – Phase 1: Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand
    • Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator
    • Time Audit Workbook
    • Time-Tracking Survey Email Template

    2. Design a realistic resource management process

    Build a resource management process to ensure data accuracy and sustainability, and make the best tool selection to support your processes.

    • Balance Supply and Demand with Realistic Resource Management Practices – Phase 2: Design a Realistic Resource Management Process
    • Resource Management Playbook
    • PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script
    • Portfolio Manager Lite 2017

    3. Implement sustainable resource management practices

    Develop a plan to pilot your resource management processes to achieve maximum adoption, and anticipate challenges that could inhibit you from keeping supply and demand continually balanced.

    • Balance Supply and Demand with Realistic Resource Management Practices – Phase 3: Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices
    • Process Pilot Plan Template
    • Project Portfolio Analyst / PMO Analyst
    • Resource Management Communications Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Establish Realistic IT Resource 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 Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand

    The Purpose

    Obtain a high-level view of current resource management practices.

    Identify current and target states of resource management maturity.

    Perform an in-depth time-tracking audit and gain insight into how time is spent on project versus non-project work to calculate realized capacity.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Assess current distribution of accountabilities in resource management.

    Delve into your current problems to uncover root causes.

    Validate capacity and demand estimations with a time-tracking survey.

    Activities

    1.1 Perform a root-cause analysis of resourcing challenges facing the organization.

    1.2 Create a realistic estimate of project capacity.

    1.3 Map all sources of demand on resources at a high level.

    1.4 Validate your supply and demand assumptions by directly surveying your resources.

    Outputs

    Root-cause analysis

    Tab 2 of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, the Time Audit Workbook, and survey templates

    Tabs 3 and 4 of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Complete the Time Audit Workbook

    2 Design a Realistic Resource Management Process

    The Purpose

    Construct a resource management strategy that aligns with your team’s process maturity levels.

    Determine the resource management tool that will best support your processes.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Activities

    2.1 Action the decision points in Info-Tech’s seven dimensions of resource management.

    2.2 Review resource management tool options, and depending on your selection, prepare a vendor demo script or review and set up Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite.

    2.3 Customize a workflow and process steps within the bounds of your seven dimensions and informed by your tool selection.

    Outputs

    A wireframe for a right-sized resource management strategy

    A vendor demo script or Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite.

    A customized resource management process and Resource Management Playbook.

    3 Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    The Purpose

    Develop a plan to pilot your new processes to test whether you have chosen the right dimensions for maintaining resource data.

    Develop a communication plan to guide you through the implementation of the strategy and manage any resistance you may encounter.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identify and address improvements before officially instituting the new resource management strategy.

    Identify the other factors that affect resource productivity.

    Implement a completed resource management solution.

    Activities

    3.1 Develop a pilot plan.

    3.2 Perform a resource management start/stop/continue exercise.

    3.3 Develop plans to mitigate executive stakeholder, team, and structural factors that could inhibit your implementation.

    3.4 Finalize the playbook and customize a presentation to help explain your new processes to the organization.

    Outputs

    Process Pilot Plan Template

    A refined resource management process informed by feedback and lessons learned

    Stakeholder management plan

    Resource Management Communications Template

    Further reading

    Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices

    Holistically balance IT supply and demand to avoid overallocation.

    Analyst perspective

    Restore the right accountabilities for reconciling supply and demand.

    "Who gets in trouble at the organization when too many projects are approved?

    We’ve just exited a period of about 20-25 years where the answer to the above question was usually “nobody.” The officers of the corporation held nobody to account for the malinvestment of resources that comes from approving too many projects or having systemically unrealistic project due dates. Boards of directors failed to hold the officers accountable for that. And shareholders failed to hold boards of directors accountable for that.

    But this is shifting right under our feet. Increasingly, PMOs are being managed with the mentality previously reserved for those in the finance department. In many cases, the PMOs are now reporting to the CFO! This represents a very simple and basic reversion to the concept of fiduciary duty: somebody will be held to account for the consumption of all those hours, and somebody should be the approver of projects who created the excess demand." – Barry Cousins Senior Director of Research, PMO Practice Info-Tech Research Group

    Our understanding of the problem

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • IT leaders who lack actionable evidence of a resource-supply, work-demand imbalance.
    • CIOs whose departments struggle to meet service and project delivery expectations with given resources.
    • Portfolio managers, PMO directors, and project managers whose portfolio and project plans suffer due to unstable resource availability.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Build trustworthy resource capacity data to support service and project portfolio management.
    • Develop sustainable resource management practices to help you estimate, and continually validate, your true resource capacity for services and projects.
    • Identify the demands that deplete your resource capacity without creating value for IT.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Steering committee and C-suite management who want to improve IT’s delivery of projects.
    • Project sponsors that want to ensure their projects get the promised resource time by their project managers.

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Ensure sufficient supply of time for projects to be successfully completed with high quality.
    • Communicate the new resource management practice and get stakeholder buy-in.

    Executive summary

    Situation

    • As CIO, you oversee a department that lacks the resource capacity to adequately meet organizational demand for new projects and services. As a result, project quality and timelines suffer, and service delivery lags.
    • You need a resource management strategy to help bring balance to supply and demand in order to improve IT’s ability to deliver.

    Complication

    • The shift to matrix work structures has strained traditional methods of time tracking. Day-to-day demand is chaotic; staff are pulled in multiple directions by numerous people, making usable capacity data elusive.
    • The executive team approves too many projects, but is not held to account for the overspend on time. Instead, the IT worker is made liable, expected to simply get things done under excessive demands.

    Resolution

    • Instill a culture of capacity awareness. For years, the project portfolio management (PPM) industry has helped IT departments report on demand and usage, but it has largely failed to make capacity part of the conversation. This research helps inject capacity awareness into project and service portfolio planning, enabling IT to get proactive about constraints before overallocation spirals, and project and service delivery suffers.
    • Build a sustainable process. Efforts to get better at resource management often falter when you try to get too granular too quickly. Info-Tech’s approach starts at a high level, ensuring that capacity data is accurate and usable, and that IT’s process discipline is mature enough to maintain the data, before drilling down into greater levels of precision.
    • Establish a capacity hub. You will ultimately need a tool to help provide ongoing resource visibility. Follow the advice in this blueprint to help with your tool selection and ensure the reporting needs of both your team and executives are met.

    Info-Tech Insight

    1. Take a realistic approach to resource management. New organizational realities have made traditional, rigorous resource projections impossible to maintain. Accept reality and get realistic about where IT’s time goes.
    2. Make IT’s capacity perpetually transparent. The best way to ensure projects are approved and scheduled based upon the availability of the right teams and skills is to shine a light into IT’s capacity and hold decision makers to account with usable capacity reports.

    The availability of staff time is rarely factored into IT project and service delivery commitments

    As a result, a lot gets promised and worked on, and staff are always busy, but very little actually gets done – at least not within given timelines or to expected levels of quality.

    Organizations tend to bite off more than they can chew when it comes to project and service delivery commitments involving IT resources.

    While the need for businesses to make an excess of IT commitments is understandable, the impacts of systemically overallocating IT are clearly negative:

    • Stakeholder relations suffer. Promises are made to the business that can’t be met by IT.
    • IT delivery suffers. Project timelines and quality frequently suffer, and service support regularly lags.
    • Employee engagement suffers. Anxiety and stress levels are consistently high among IT staff, while morale and engagement levels are low.

    76% of organizations say they have too many projects on the go and an unmanageable and ever-growing backlog of things to get to. (Cooper, 2014)

    Almost 70% of workers feel as though they have too much work on their plates and not enough time to do it. (Reynolds, 2016)

    Resource management can help to improve workloads and project results, but traditional approaches commonly fall short

    Traditional approaches to resource management suffer from a fundamental misconception about the availability of time in 2017.

    The concept of resource management comes from a pre-World Wide Web era, when resource and project plans could be based on a relatively stable set of assumptions.

    In the old paradigm, the availability of time was fairly predictable, as was the demand for IT services, so there was value to investing time into rigorous demand forecasts and planning.

    Resource projections could be based in a secure set of assumptions – i.e. 8 hour days, 40 hour weeks – and staff had the time to support detailed resource management processes that provided accurate usage data.

    Old Realities

    • Predictability. Change tended to be slow and deliberate, providing more stability for advanced, rigorous demand forecasts and planning.
    • Fixed hierarchy. Tasks, priorities, and decisions were communicated through a fixed chain of command.
    • Single-task focus. The old reality was more accommodating to sustained focus on one task at a time.

    96% of organizations report problems with the accuracy of information on employee timesheets. (Dimensional, 2013)

    Old reality resource forecasting inevitably falters under the weight of unpredictable demands and constant distractions

    New realities are causing demands on workers’ time to be unpredictable and unrelenting, making a sustained focus on a specific task for any length of time elusive.

    Part of the old resource management mythology is the idea that a person can do (for example) eight different one-hour tasks in eight hours of continuous work. This idea has gone from harmlessly mistaken to grossly unrealistic.

    The predictability and focus have given way to more chaotic workplace realities. Technology is ubiquitous, and the demand for IT services is constant.

    A day in IT is characterized by frequent task-switching, regular interruptions, and an influx of technology-enabled distractions.

    Every 3 minutes and 5 seconds: How often the typical office worker switches tasks, either through self-directed or other-directed interruptions. (Schulte, 2015)

    12 minutes, 40 seconds: The average amount of time in-between face-to-face interruptions in matrix organizations. (Anderson, 2015)

    23 minutes, 15 seconds: The average amount of time it takes to become on task, productive, and focused again after an interruption. (Schulte, 2015)

    759 hours: The average number of hours lost per employee annually due to distractions and interruptions. (Huth, 2015)

    The validity of traditional, rigorous resource planning has long been an illusion. New realities are making the sustained focus and stable assumptions that old reality projections relied on all but impossible to maintain.

    For resource management practices to be effective, they need to evolve to meet new realities

    New organizational realities have exacerbated traditional approaches to time tracking, making accurate and usable resource data elusive.

    The technology revolution that began in the 1990s ushered in a new paradigm in organizational structures. Matrix reporting structures, diminished supervision of knowledge workers, massive multi-tasking, and a continuous stream of information and communications from the outside world have smashed the predictability and stability of the old paradigm.

    The resource management industry has largely failed to evolve. It remains stubbornly rooted in old realities, relying on calculations and rollups that become increasingly unsustainable and irrelevant in our high-autonomy staff cultures and interruption-driven work days.

    New Realities

    • Unpredictable. Technologies and organizational strategies change before traditional IT demand forecasts and project plans can be realized.
    • Matrix management. Staff can be accountable to multiple project managers and functional managers at any given time.
    • Multi-task focus. In the new reality, workers’ attentions are scattered across multiple tasks and projects at any given time.

    87% of organizations report challenges with traditional methods of time tracking and reporting. (Dimensional, 2013)

    40% of working time is not tracked or tracked inaccurately by staff. (actiTIME, 2016)

    Poor resource management practices cost organizations dearly

    While time is money, the statistics around resource visibility and utilization suggest that the vast majority of organizations don’t spend their available time all that wisely.

    Research shows that ineffective resource management directly impacts an organization’s bottom line, contributing to such cost drains as the systemic late delivery of projects and increased project costs.

    Despite this, the majority of organizations fail to treat staff time like the precious commodity it is.

    As the results of a 2016 survey show, the top three pain points for IT and PMO leaders all revolve around a wider cultural negligence concerning staff time (Alexander, TechRepublic, 2016):

    • Overcommitted resources
    • Constant change that affects staff assignments
    • An inability to prioritize shared resources

    Top risks associated with poor resource management

    Inability to complete projects on time – 52%

    Inability to innovate fast enough – 39%

    Increased project costs – 38%

    Missed business opportunities – 34%

    Dissatisfied customers or clients – 32%

    12 times more waste – Organizations with poor resource management practices waste nearly 12 times more resource hours than high-performing organizations. (PMI, 2014)

    The concept of fiduciary duty represents the best way to bring balance to supply and demand, and improve project outcomes

    Unless someone is accountable for controlling the consumption of staff hours, too much work will get approved and committed to without evidence of sufficient resourcing.

    Who is accountable for controlling the consumption of staff hours?

    In many ways, no question is more important to the organization’s bottom line – and certainly, to the effectiveness of a resource management strategy.

    Historically, the answer would have been the executive layer of the organization. However, in the 1990s management largely abdicated its obligation to control resources and expenditures via “employee empowerment.”

    Controls on approvals became less rigid, and accountability for choosing what to do (and not do) shifted onto the shoulders of the individual worker. This creates a current paradigm where no one is accountable for the malinvestment…

    …of resources that comes from approving too many projects. Instead, it’s up to individual workers to sink-or-swim, as they attempt to reconcile, day after day, seemingly infinite organizational demand with their finite supply of working hours.

    If your organization has higher demand (i.e. approved project work) than supply (i.e. people’s time), your staff will be the final decision makers on what does and does NOT get worked on.

    Effective time leadership distinguishes top performing senior executives

    "Everything requires time… It is the one truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time." – Peter Drucker (quoted in Frank)

    67% of employees surveyed believe their CEOs focus too much on decisions based in short-term financial results and not enough time on decisions that create a stable, positive workplace for staff. (2016 Edelman Trust Barometer)

    Bring balance to supply and demand with realistic resource management practices

    Use Info-Tech’s approach to resource management to capture an accurate view of where your time goes and achieve sustained visibility into your capacity for new projects.

    Realistic project resource management starts by aligning demand with capacity, and then developing tactics to sustain alignment, even in the chaos of our fast-paced, rapidly changing, interruption-driven project environments.

    This blueprint will help you develop practices to promote and maintain accurate resourcing data, while developing tactics to continually inform decision makers’ assumptions about how much capacity is realistically available for project work.

    This research follows a three-phase approach to sustainable practices:

    1. Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand
    2. Design a Realistic Resource Management Process
    3. Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    Info-Tech’s three-phase framework is structured around a practical, tactical approach to resource management. It’s not about what you put together as a one-time snapshot. It’s about what you can and will maintain every week, even during a crisis. When you stop maintaining resource management data, it’s nearly impossible to catch up and you’re usually forced to start fresh.

    Info-Tech’s approach is rooted in our seven dimensions of resource management

    Action the decision points across Info-Tech’s seven dimensions to ensure your resource management process is guided by realistic data and process goals.

    Default project vs. non-project ratio

    How much time is available for projects once non-project demands are factored in?

    Reporting frequency

    How often is the allocation data verified, reconciled, and reported for use?

    Forecast horizon

    How far into the future can you realistically predict resource supply?

    Scope of allocation

    To whom is time allocated?

    Allocation cadence

    How long is each allocation period?

    Granularity of time allocation

    What’s the smallest unit of time to allocate?

    Granularity of work assignment

    What is time allocated to?

    This blueprint will help you make the right decisions for your organization across each of these dimensions to ensure your resource management practices match your current process maturity levels.

    Once your framework is defined, we’ll equip you with a tactical plan to help keep supply and demand continually balanced

    This blueprint will help you customize a playbook to ensure your allocations are perpetually balanced week after week, month after month.

    Developing a process is one thing, sustaining it is another.

    The goal of this research isn’t just to achieve a one-time balancing of workloads and expect that this will stand the test of time.

    The true test of a resource management process is how well it facilitates the flow of accurate and usable data as workloads become chaotic, and fires and crises erupt.

    • Info-Tech’s approach will help you develop a playbook and a “rebalancing routine” that will help ensure your allocations remain perpetually current and balanced.
    • The sample routine to the right shows you an example of what this rebalancing process will look like (customizing this process is covered in Phase 3 of the blueprint).

    Sample “rebalancing” routine

    • Maintain a comprehensive list of the sources of demand (i.e. document the matrix).
    • Catalog the demand.
    • Allocate the supply.
    • Forecast the capacity to your forecast horizon.
    • Identify and prepare work packages or tasks for unsatisfied demand to ensure that supply can be utilized if it becomes free.
    • Reconcile any imbalance by repeating steps 1-5 on update frequency, say, weekly or monthly.

    Info-Tech’s method is complemented by a suite of resource management tools and templates

    Each phase of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help plan your resource management strategy and sustain your process implementation.

    Resource management depends on the flow of information and data from the project level up to functional managers, project managers, and beyond – CIOs, steering committees, and senior executives.

    Tools are required to help plan, organize, and facilitate this flow, and each phase of this blueprint is centered around tools and templates to help you successfully support your process implementation.

    Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand

    Tools and Templates:

    Design a Realistic Resource Management Process

    Tools and Templates:

    Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    Tools and Templates:

    Use Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite to support your new process without a heavy upfront investment in tools

    Spreadsheets can provide a viable alternative for organizations not ready to invest in an expensive tool, or for those not getting what they need from their commercial selections.

    While homegrown solutions like spreadsheets and intranet sites lack the robust functionality of commercial offerings, they have dramatically lower complexity and cost-in-use.

    Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite is a sophisticated, scalable, and highly customizable spreadsheet-based solution that will get your new resource management process up and running, without a heavy upfront cost.

    Kinds of PPM solutions used by Info-Tech clients

    Homemade – 46%

    Commercial – 33%

    No Solution – 21%

    (Info-Tech Research Group (2016), N=433)

    The image shows 3 sheets with charts and graphs.

    Samples of Portfolio Manager Lite's output and reporting tabs

    Info-Tech’s approach to resource management is part of our larger project portfolio management framework

    This blueprint will help you master the art of resource management and set you up for greater success in other project portfolio management capabilities.

    Resource management is one capability within Info-Tech’s larger project portfolio management (PPM) framework.

    Resource visibility and capacity awareness permeates the whole of PPM, helping to ensure the right intake decisions get made, and projects are scheduled according to resource and skill availability.

    Whether you have an existing PPM strategy that you are looking to optimize or you are just starting on your PPM journey, this blueprint will help you situate your resource management processes within a larger project and portfolio framework.

    Info-Tech’ s PPM framework is based on extensive research and practical application, and complements industry standards such as those offered by PMI and ISACA.

    Project Portfolio Management
    Status & Progress Reporting
    Intake, Approval, & Prioritization Resource Management Project Management Project Closure Benefits Tracking
    Organizational Change Management
    Intake → Execution→ Closure

    Realize the value that improved resource management practices could bring to your organization

    Spend your company’s HR dollars more efficiently.

    Improved resource management and capacity awareness will allow your organization to improve resource utilization and increase project throughput.

    CIOs, PMOs, and portfolio managers can use this blueprint to improve the alignment between supply and demand. You should be able to gauge the value through the following metrics:

    Near-Term Success Metrics (6 to 12 months)

    • Increased frequency of currency (i.e. more accurate and usable resource data and reports).
    • Improved job satisfaction from project resources due to more even workloads.
    • Better ability to schedule project start dates and estimate end dates due to recourse visibility.

    Long-Term Success Metrics (12 to 24 months)

    • More projects completed on time.
    • Reclaimed capacity for project work.
    • A reduction in resource waste and increased resource utilization on productive project work.
    • Ability to track estimated vs. actual budget and work effort on projects.

    In the past 12 months, Info-Tech clients have reported an average measured value rating of $550,000 from the purchase of workshops based on this research.

    Info-Tech client masters resource management by shifting the focus to capacity forecasting

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Education

    Source Info-Tech Client

    Situation

    • There are more than 200 people in the IT organization.
    • IT is essentially a shared services environment with clients spanning multiple institutions across a wide geography.
    • The PMO identified dedicated resources for resource management.

    Complication

    • The definition of “resource management” was constantly shifting between accounting the past (i.e. time records), the present (i.e. work assignments), and the future (i.e. long term project allocations).
    • The task data set (i.e. for current work assignments) was not aligned to the historic time records or future capacity.
    • It was difficult to predict or account for the spend, which exceeded 30,000 hours per month.

    “We’re told we can’t say NO to projects. But this new tool set and approach allows us to give an informed WHEN.” – Senior PMO Director, Education

    Resolution

    • The leadership decided to forecast and communicate their resource capacity on a 3-4 month forecast horizon using Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager 2017.
    • Unallocated resource capacity was identified within certain skill sets that had previously been assessed as fully allocated. While some of the more high-visibility staff were indeed overallocated, other more junior personnel had been systemically underutilized on projects.
    • The high demand for IT project resourcing was immediately placed in the context of a believable, credible expression of supply.

    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

    Establish Realistic IT Resource Management Practices – project overview

    1. Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand 2. Design a Realistic Resource Management Process 3. Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices
    Best-Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Set a resource management course of action

    1.2 Create realistic estimates of supply and demand

    2.1 Customize the seven dimensions of resource management

    2.2 Determine the resource management tool that will best support your process

    2.3 Build process steps to ensure data accuracy and sustainability

    3.1 Pilot your resource management process to assess viability

    3.2 Plan to engage your stakeholders with your playbook

    Guided Implementations
    • Scoping call
    • Assess how accountability for resource management is currently distributed
    • Create a realistic estimate of project capacity
    • Map all sources of demand on resources at a high level
    • Set your seven dimensions of resource management
    • Jump-start spreadsheet-based resource management with Portfolio Manager Lite
    • Build on the workflow to determine how data will be collected and who will support the process
    • Define the scope of a pilot and determine logistics
    • Finalize resource management roles and responsibilities
    • Brainstorm and plan for potential resistance to change, objections, and fatigue from stakeholders
    Onsite Workshop

    Module 1:

    • Take Stock of Organizational Supply and Demand

    Module 2:

    • Design a Realistic Resource Management Process

    Module 3:

    • Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    Phase 1 Outcome:

    • Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Phase 2 Outcome:

    • Resource Management Playbook

    Phase 3 Outcome:

    • Resource Management Communications Template

    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

    Introduction to PPM and resource management

    1.1 Complete and review PPM Current State Scorecard Assessment

    1.2 Perform root cause analysis of resource management challenges

    1.3 Initiate time audit survey of management and staff

    Take stock of supply and demand

    2.1 Review the outputs of the time audit survey and analyze the data

    2.2 Analyze project and non-project demands, including the sources of those demands

    2.3 Set the seven dimensions of resource management

    Design a resource management process

    3.1 Review resource management tool options

    3.2 Prepare a vendor demo script or review Portfolio Manager Lite

    3.3 Build process steps to ensure data accuracy and sustainability

    Pilot and refine the process

    4.1 Define methods for piloting the strategy (after the workshop)

    4.2 Complete the Process Pilot Plan Template

    4.3 Conduct a mock resource management meeting

    4.4 Perform a RACI exercise

    Communicate and implement the process

    5.1 Brainstorm potential implications of the new strategy and develop a plan to manage stakeholder and staff resistance to the strategy

    5.2 Customize the Resource Management Communications Template

    5.3 Finalize the playbook

    Deliverables
    1. PPM Current State Scorecard Assessment
    2. Root cause analysis
    3. Time Audit Workbook and survey templates
    1. Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator
    1. Portfolio Manager Lite
    2. PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script
    3. Tentative Resource Management Playbook
    1. Process Pilot Plan Template
    2. RACI chart
    1. Resource Management Communications Template
    2. Finalized Resource Management Playbook

    Phase 1

    Take Stock of Organizational Resource Supply and Demand

    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: Take Stock of Organizational Resource Supply and Demand

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 1-2 weeks

    Step 1.1: Analyze the current state

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Discuss the goals, aims, benefits, and challenges of resource management
    • Identify who is currently accountable for balancing resource supply and demand

    Then complete these activities…

    • Assess the current distribution of accountabilities in resource management
    • Delve into your current problems to uncover root causes
    • Make a go/no-go decision on developing a new resource management practice
    Step 1.2: Estimate your supply and demand

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Root causes of resource management
    • Your current impression about the resource supply-demand imbalance

    Then complete these activities…

    • Estimate your resource capacity for each role
    • Estimate your project/non-project demand on resources
    • Validate the findings with a time-tracking survey

    With these tools & templates:

    • Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator
    • Time-Tracking Survey Email Template

    Phase 1 Results & Insights:

    A matrix organization creates many small, untraceable demands that are often overlooked in resource management efforts, which leads to underestimating total demand and overcommitting resources. To capture them and enhance the success of your resource management effort, focus on completeness rather than precision. Precision of data will improve over time as your process maturity grows.

    Step 1.1: Set a resource management course of action

    PHASE 1

    1.1 Set a course of action

    1.2 Estimate supply and demand

    PHASE 2

    2.1 Select resource management dimensions

    2.2 Select resource management tools

    2.3 Build process steps

    PHASE 3

    3.1 Pilot your process for viability

    3.2 Plan stakeholder engagement

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Determine your resource management process capability level
    • Assess how accountability for resource management is currently distributed
    This step involves the following participants:
    • CIO / IT Director
    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Functional / Resource Managers
    • Project Managers
    Outcomes of this step
    • Current distribution of accountability for resource management practice
    • Root-cause analysis of resourcing challenges facing the organization
    • Commitment to implementing a right-sized resource management practice

    “Too many projects, not enough resources” is the reality of most IT environments

    A profound imbalance between demand (i.e. approved project work and service delivery commitments) and supply (i.e. people’s time) is the top challenge IT departments face today..

    In today’s organizations, the desires of business units for new products and enhancements, and the appetites of senior leadership to approve more and more projects for those products and services, far outstrip IT’s ability to realistically deliver on everything.

    The vast majority of IT departments lack the resourcing to meet project demand – especially given the fact that day-to-day operational demands frequently trump project work.

    As a result, project throughput suffers – and with it, IT’s reputation within the organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Where does the time go? The portfolio manager (or equivalent) should function as the accounting department for time, showing what’s available in IT’s human resources budget for projects and providing ongoing visibility into how that budget of time is being spent.

    Resource management can help to even out staff workloads and improve project and service delivery results

    As the results of a recent survey* show, the top three pain points for IT and PMO leaders all revolve around a wider cultural negligence concerning staff time:

    • Overcommitted resources
    • Constant change that affects staff assignments
    • An inability to prioritize shared resources

    A resource management strategy can help to alleviate these pain points and reconcile the imbalance between supply and demand by achieving the following outcomes:

    • Improving resource visibility
    • Reducing overallocation, and accordingly, resource stress
    • Reducing project delay
    • Improving resource efficiency and productivity

    Top risks associated with poor resource management

    Inability to complete projects on time – 52%

    Inability to innovate fast enough – 39%

    Increased project costs – 38%

    Missed business opportunities – 34%

    Dissatisfied customers or clients – 32%

    12 times more waste – Organizations with poor resource management practices waste nearly 12 times more resource hours than high-performing organizations. (PMI, 2014)

    Resource management is a core process in Info-Tech’s project portfolio management framework

    Project portfolio management (PPM) creates a stable and secure infrastructure around projects.

    PPM’s goal is to maximize the throughput of projects that provide strategic and operational value to the organization. To do this, a PPM strategy must help to:

    Info-Tech's Project Portfolio Management Process Model
    3. Status & Progress Reporting [make sure the projects are okay]
    1. Intake, Approval, & Prioritization [select the right projects] 2. Resource Management [Pick the right time and people to execute the projects Project Management

    4. Project Closure

    [make sure the projects get done]

    5. Benefits Tracking

    [make sure they were worth doing]

    Organizational Change Management
    Intake → Execution→ Closure

    If you don’t yet have a PPM strategy in place, or would like to revisit your existing PPM strategy before implementing resource management practices, see Info-Tech’s blueprint, Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy.

    Effective resource management is rooted in a relatively simple set of questions

    However, while the questions are rather simple, the answers become complicated by challenges unique to matrix organizations and other workplace realities in 2017.

    To support the goals of PPM more generally, resource management must (1) supply quality work-hours to approved and ongoing projects, and (2) supply reliable data with which to steer the project portfolio.

    To do this, a resource management strategy must address a relatively straightforward set of questions.

    Key Questions

    • Who assigns the resources?
    • Who feeds the data on resources?
    • How do we make sure it’s valid?
    • How do we handle contingencies when projects are late or when availability changes?

    Challenges

    • Matrix organizations require project workers to answer to many masters and balance project work with “keep the lights on” activities and other administrative work.
    • Interruptions, distractions, and divided attention create consistent challenges for workplace productivity.

    "In matrix organizations, complicated processes and tools get implemented to answer the deceptively simple question “what’s Bob going to work on over the next few months?” Inevitably, the data captured becomes the focus of scrutiny as functional and project managers complain about data inaccuracy while simultaneously remaining reluctant to invest the effort necessary to improve quality." – Kiron Bondale

    Determine your organization’s resource management capability level with a maturity assessment

    1.1.1
    10 minutes

    Input

    • Organizational strategy and culture

    Output

    • Resource management capability level

    Materials

    • N/A

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    Kick-off the discussion on the resource management process by deciding which capability level most accurately describes your organization’s current state.

    Capability Level Descriptions
    Capability Level 5: Optimized Our organization has an accurate picture of project versus non-project workloads and allocates resources accordingly. We periodically reclaim lost capacity through organizational and behavioral change.
    Capability Level 4: Aligned We have an accurate picture of how much time is spent on project versus non-project work. We allocate resources to these projects accordingly. We are checking in on project progress bi-weekly.
    Capability Level 3: Pixelated We are allocating resources to projects and tracking progress monthly. We have a rough estimate of how much time is spent on project versus non-project work.
    Capability Level 2: Opaque We match resource teams to projects and check in annually, but we do not forecast future resource needs or track project versus non-project work.
    Capability Level 1: Unmanaged Our organization expects projects to be finished, but there is no process in place for allocating resources or tracking project progress.

    If resources are poorly managed, they prioritize work based on consequences rather than on meeting demand

    As a result, matrix organizations are collectively steered by each resource and its individual motives, not by managers, executives, or organizational strategy.

    In a matrix organization, demands on a resource’s time come from many directions, each demand unaware of the others. Resources are expected to prioritize their work, but they typically lack the authority to formally reject demand, so demand frequently outstrips the supply of work-hours the resource can deliver.

    When this happens, the resource has three options:

    1. Work more hours, typically without compensation.
    2. Choose tasks not to do in a way that minimizes personal consequences.
    3. Diminish work quality to meet quantity demands.

    The result is an unsustainable system for those involved:

    1. Resources cannot meet expectations, leading to frustration and disengagement.
    2. Managers cannot deliver on the projects or services they manage and struggle to retain skilled resources who are looking elsewhere for “greener pastures.”
    3. Executives cannot execute strategic plans as they lose decision-making power over their resources.

    Scope your resource management practices within a matrix organization by asking “who?”

    Resource management boils down to a seemingly simple question: how do we balance supply and demand? Balancing requires a decision maker to make choices; however, in a matrix organization, identifying this decision maker is not straightforward:

    Balance

    • Who decides how much capacity should be dedicated to project work versus administrative or operational work?
    • Who decides how to respond to unexpected changes in supply or demand?

    Supply

    • Who decides how much total capacity we have for each necessary skill set?
    • Who manages the contingency, or redundancy, of capacity?
    • Who validates the capacity supply as a whole?
    • Who decides what to report as unexpected changes in supply (and to whom)?

    Demand

    • Who generates demand on the resource that can be controlled by their manager?
    • Who generates demand on the capacity that cannot be controlled by their manager?
    • Who validates the demand on capacity as a whole?
    • Who decides what to report as unexpected changes in demand (and to whom)?

    The individual who has the authority to make choices, and who is ultimately liable for those decisions, is an accountable person. In a matrix organization, accountability is dispersed, sometimes spilling over to those without the necessary authority.

    To effectively balance supply and demand, senior management must be held accountable

    Differentiate between responsibility and accountability to manage the organization’s project portfolio effectively.

    Responsibility

    The responsible party is the individual (or group) who actually completes the task.

    Responsibility can be shared.

    VS.

    Accountability

    The accountable person is the individual who has the authority to make choices, and is ultimately answerable for the decision.

    Accountability cannot be shared.

    Resources often do not have the necessary scope of authority to make resource management choices, so they can never be truly accountable for the project portfolio. Instead, resources are accountable for making available trustworthy data, so the right people can make choices driven by organizational strategy.

    The next activity will assess how accountability for resource management is currently distributed in your organization.

    Assess the current distribution of accountability for resource management practice

    1.1.2
    15 minutes

    Input

    • Organizational strategy and culture

    Output

    • Current distribution of accountabilities for resource management

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/flip chart
    • Markers

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager

    Below is a list of tasks in resource management that require choices. Discuss who is currently accountable and whether they have the right authority and ability to deliver on that accountability.

    Resource management tasks that require choices Accountability
    Current Effective?
    Identify all demands on resources
    Prioritize identified project demands
    Prioritize identified operational demands
    Prioritize identified administrative demands
    Prioritize all of the above demands
    Enumerate resource supply
    Validate resource supply
    Collect and validate supply and demand data
    Defer or reject work beyond available supply
    Adjust resource supply to meet demand

    Develop coordination between project and functional managers to optimize resource management

    Because resources are invariably responsible for both project and non-project work, efforts to procure capacity for projects cannot exist in isolation.

    IT departments need many different technical skill sets at their disposal for their day-to-day operations and services, as well as for projects. A limited hiring budget for IT restricts the number of hires with any given skill, forcing IT to share resources between service and project portfolios.

    This resource sharing produces a matrix organization divided along the lines of service and projects. Functional and project managers provide respective oversight for services and projects. Resources split their available work-hours toward service and project tasks according to priority – in theory.

    However, in practice, two major challenges exist:

    1. Poor coordination between functional and project managers causes commitments beyond resource capacity, disputes about resource oversight, and animosity among management, all while resources struggle to balance unclear priorities.
    2. Resources have a “third boss,” namely uncontrolled demands from the rest of the business, which lack both visibility and accountability.

    The image shows a board balanced on a ball (labelled Resource Management), with two balls on either end of it (Capacity Supply on the left, and Demand on the right), and another board balanced on top of the right ball, with two more balls balanced on either side of it (Projects on the left and Operational, Administrative, Etc. on the right).

    Resource management processes must account for the numerous small demands generated in a matrix organization

    Avoid going bankrupt $20 at a time: small demands add up to a significant chunk of work-hours.

    Because resource managers must cover both projects and services within IT, the typical solution to allocation problems in matrix organizations is to escalate the urgency and severity of demands by involving the executive steering committee. Unfortunately, the steering committee cannot expend time and resources on all demands. Instead, they often set a minimum threshold for cases – 100-1,000 work-hours depending on the organization.

    Under this resource management practice, small demands – especially the quick-fixes and little projects from “the third boss” – continue to erode project capacity. Eventually, projects fail to get resources because pesky small demands have no restrictions on the resources they consumed.

    Realistic resource management needs to account for demand from all three bosses; however…

    Info-Tech Insight

    Excess project or service request intake channels lead to the proliferation of “off-the-grid” projects and tasks that lack visibility from the IT leadership. This can indicate that there may be too much red tape: that is, the request process is made too complex or cumbersome. Consider simplifying the request process and bring IT’s visibility into those requests.

    Interrogate your resource management problems to uncover root causes

    1.1.3
    30 minutes to 1 hour

    Input

    • Organizational strategy and culture

    Output

    • Root causes of resource management failures

    Materials

    • Whiteboard/flip chart
    • Sticky notes
    • Markers

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Functional Managers
    • Project Managers
    1. Pick a starting problem statement in resource management. e.g. projects can’t get resource work-hours.
    2. Ask the participants “why”? Use three generic headings – people, processes, and technology – to keep participants focused. Keep the responses solution-agnostic: do not jump to solutions. If you have a large group, divide into smaller groups and use sticky notes to encourage more participation in this brainstorming step.
    People Processes Technology
    • We don’t have enough people/skills.
    • People are tied up on projects that run late.
    • Functional and project managers appear to hoard resources.
    • Resources cannot prioritize work.
    • Resources are too busy responding to 911s from the business.
    • Resources cannot prioritize projects vs. operational tasks.
    • “Soft-closed” projects do not release resources for other work.
    • We don’t have tools that show resource availability.
    • Tools we have for showing resource availability are not being used.
    • Data is inaccurate and unreliable.
    1. Determine the root cause by iteratively asking “why?” up to five times, or until the chain of whys comes full circle. (i.e. Why A? B. Why B? C. Why C? A.) See below for an example.

    1.1.2 Example of a root-cause analysis: people

    The following is a non-exhaustive example:

    The image shows an example of a root-cause analysis. It begins on the left with the header People, and then lists a series of challenges below. Moving toward the right, there are a series of headers that read Why? at the top of the chart, and listing reasons for the challenges below each one. As you read through the chart from left to right, the reasons for challenges become increasingly specific.

    Right-size your resource management strategy with Info-Tech’s realistic resource management practice

    If precise, accurate, and complete data on resource supply and demand was consistently available, reporting on project capacity would be easy. Such data would provide managers complete control over a resource’s time, like a foreman at a construction site. However, this theoretical scenario is incompatible with today’s matrixed workplace:

    • Sources of demand can lie outside IT’s control.
    • Demand is generated chaotically, with little predictability.
    • Resources work with minimal supervision.

    Collecting and maintaining resource data is therefore nearly impossible:

    • Achieving perfect data accuracy creates unnecessary overhead.
    • Non-compliance by one project or resource makes your entire data set unusable for resource management.

    This blueprint will guide you through right-sizing your resource management efforts to achieve maximum value-to-effort ratio and sustainability.


    The image shows a graph with Quality, Value on the Y axis, and Required Effort on the X-Axis. The graph is divided into 3 categories, based on the criteria: Value-to-effort Ratio and Sustainability. The three sections are labelled at the top of the graph as: Reactive, “gut feel”-driven; Right-sized resource management; Full control, complete data. The 2nd section is bolded. The line in the graph starts low, rising through the 2nd section, and is stable at the top of the chart in the final section.

    Choose your resource management course of action

    Portfolio managers looking for a resource management solution have three mutually exclusive options:

    Option A: Do Nothing

    • Rely on expert judgment and intuition to make portfolio choices.
    • Allow the third boss to dictate the demands of your resources.

    Option B: Get Precise

    • Aim for granularity and precision of data with a solution that may demand more capacity than is realistically available by hiring, outsourcing, or over-allocating people’s time.
    • Require detailed, accurate time sheets for all project tasks.
    • For those choosing this option, proceed to Info-Tech’s Select and Implement a PPM Solution.

    Option C: Get Realistic

    • Balance capacity supply and demand using abstraction.
    • Implement right-sized resource management practices that rely on realistic, high-level capacity estimates.
    • Reduce instability in data by focusing on resource capacity, rather than granular project demands and task level details.

    This blueprint takes you through the steps necessary to accomplish Option C, using Info-Tech’s tools and templates for managing your resources.

    Step 1.2: Create realistic estimates of supply and demand

    PHASE 1

    1.1 Set a course of action

    1.2 Estimate supply and demand

    PHASE 2

    2.1 Select resource management dimensions

    2.2 Select resource management tools

    2.3 Build process steps

    PHASE 3

    3.1 Pilot your process for viability

    3.2 Plan stakeholder engagement

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Create a realistic estimate of project capacity
    • Map all sources of demand on resources at a high level
    • Validate your supply and demand assumptions by directly surveying your resources
    This step involves the following participants:
    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers (optional)
    • Functional / Resource Managers (optional)
    • Project Resources (optional)
    Outcomes of this step
    • A realistic estimate of your total and project capacity, as well as project and non-project demand on their time
    • Quantitative insight into the resourcing challenges facing the organization
    • Results from a time-tracking survey, which are used to validate the assumptions made for estimating resource supply and demand

    Create a realistic estimate of your project capacity with Info-Tech’s Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Take an iterative approach to capacity estimates: use your assumptions to create a meaningful estimate, and then validate with your staff to improve its accuracy.

    Use Info-Tech’s Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator to create a realistic estimate of your project capacity.

    The calculator tool requires minimal upfront staff participation: you can obtain meaningful results with participation from even a single person, with insight on the distribution of your resources and their average work week or month. As the number of participants increases, the quality of analysis will improve.

    The first half of this step guides you through how to use the calculator. The second half provides tactical advice on how to gather additional data and validate your resourcing data with your staff.

    Download Info-Tech’s Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Info-Tech Insight

    What’s first, process or tools? Remember that process determines the quality of your data while data quality limits the tool’s utility. Without quality data, you cannot evaluate the success of the tool, so nail down your collection process first.

    Break down your resource capacity into high-level buckets of time for each role

    1.2.1
    30 minutes - 1 hour

    Input

    • Staff resource types
    • Average work week
    • Estimated allocations

    Output

    A realistic estimate of project capacity

    Materials

    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Participants

    • PMO Director
    • Resource/Functional Managers (optional)

    We define four high-level buckets of resource time:

    • Absence: on average, a resource spends 14% of the year on vacation, statutory holidays, business holidays and other forms of absenteeism.
    • Administrative: time spent on meetings, recordkeeping, etc.
    • Operational: keeping the lights on; reactive work.
    • Projects: time to work on projects; typically, this bucket of time is whatever’s left from the above.

    The image shows a pie chart with four sections: Absence - 6,698 14%; Admin - 10,286 22%; Keep the Lights On - 15, 026 31%; Project Capacity 15, 831 33%.

    Instructions for working through Tab 2 of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator are provided in the next two sections. Follow along to obtain your breakdown of annual resource capacity in a pie chart.

    Break down your resource capacity into high-level buckets of time for each role

    1.2.1
    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, Tab 2: Capacity Supply

    Discover how many work-hours are at your disposal by first accounting for absences.

    The image shows a section of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, for calculating absences, with sample information filled in.

    1. Compile a list of each of the roles within your department.
    2. Enter the number of staff currently performing each role.
    3. Enter the number of hours in a typical work week for each role.
    4. Enter the foreseeable out-of-office time (vacation, sick time, etc.) Typically, this value is 12-16% depending on the region.

    Hours per Year represents your total resource capacity for each role, as well as the entire department. This column is automatically calculated.

    Working Time per Year represents your total resource capacity minus time employees are expected to spend out of office. This column is automatically calculated.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Example for a five-day work week:

    • 2 weeks (10 days) of statutory holidays
    • 3 weeks of vacation
    • 1.4 weeks (7 days) of sick days on average
    • 1 week (5 days) for company holidays

    Result: 7.4/52 weeks’ absence = 14.2%

    Break down your resource capacity into high-level buckets of time for each role (continued)

    1.2.1
    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, Tab 2: Capacity Supply

    Determine the current distribution of your resources’ time and your confidence in whether the resources indeed supply those times.

    The image is a screen capture of the Working Time section of the calculator, with sample information filled in.

    5. Enter the percentage of working time across each role that, on an annual basis, goes toward administrative duties (non-project meetings, training, time spent checking email, etc.) and keep-the-lights-on work (e.g. support and maintenance work).

    While these percentages will vary by individual, a high-level estimate across each role will suffice for the purposes of this activity.

    6. Express how confident you are in each resource being able to deliver the calculated project work hours in percentages.

    Another interpretation for supply confidence is “supply control”: estimate your current ability to control this distribution of working time to meet the changing needs in percentages.

    Percentage of your working time that goes toward project work is calculated based upon what’s left after your non-project working time allocations have been subtracted.

    Create a realistic estimate of the demand from your project portfolio with the T-shirt sizing technique

    1.2.2
    15 minutes - 30 minutes

    Input

    • Average work-hours for a project
    • List of projects
    • PPM Current State Scorecard

    Output

    A realistic estimate of resource demand from your project portfolio

    Materials

    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Participants

    • PMO Director
    • Project Managers (optional)

    Quickly re-express the size of your project portfolio in resource hours required.

    Estimating the resources required for a project in a project backlog can take a lot of effort. Rather than trying to create an accurate estimate for each project, a set of standard project sizes (often referred to as the “T-shirt sizing” technique) will be sufficiently accurate for estimating your project backlog’s overall demand.

    Instructions for working through Tab 3 of the tool are provided here and in the next section.

    1. For each type of project, enter the average number for work-hours.

    Project Types Average Number of Work Hours for a Project
    Small 80
    Medium 200
    Large 500
    Extra-Large 1000

    Improve your estimate of demand from your project portfolio by accounting for unproductive capacity spending

    1.2.2
    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, Tab 3: Project Demand

    2. Using your list of projects, enter the number of projects for each appropriate field.

    The image shows a screen capture of the number of projects section of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, with sample information filled in.

    3. Enter your resource waste data from the PPM Current State Scorecard (see next section). Alternatively, enter your best guess on how much project capacity is spent wastefully per category.

    The image shows a screen capture of the Waste Assessment section of the Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, with sample information filled in, and a pie chart on the right based on the sample data.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The calculator estimates the project demand by T-shirt-sizing the work-hours required by projects to be delivered within the next 12 months and then adding the corresponding wasted capacity. This may be a pessimistic estimate, but it is more realistic because projects tend to be delivered late more than early.

    Estimate how much project capacity is wasted with Info-Tech’s PPM Current State Scorecard

    Call 1-888-670-8889 or contact your Account Manager for more information.

    This step is highly recommended but not required.

    Info-Tech’s PPM Current State Scorecard diagnostic provides a comprehensive view of your portfolio management strengths and weaknesses, including project portfolio management, project management, customer management, and resource utilization.

    Use the wisdom-of-the-crowd to estimate resource waste in:

    • Cancelled projects
    • Inefficiency
    • Suboptimal assignment of resources
    • Unassigned resources
    • Analyzing, fixing, and redeploying

    50% of PPM resource is wasted on average, effectively halving your available project capacity.

    Estimate non-project demand on your resources by role

    1.2.3
    45 minutes - 1 hour

    Input

    • Organizational chart
    • Knowledge of staff non-project demand

    Output

    Documented non-project demands and their estimated degree of fluctuation

    Materials

    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Participants

    • PMO Director
    • Functional Managers (optional)
    Document non-project demand that could eat into your project capacity.

    When discussing project demands, non-project demands (administrative and operational) are often underestimated and downplayed – even though, in reality, they take a de facto higher priority to project work. Use Tab 4 of the tool to document these non-project demands, as well as their sources.

    The image shows a screen capture from Tab 4 of the tool, with sample information filled in.

    1. Choose a role using a drop-down list.

    2. Enter the type and the source of the demand.

    3. Enter the size and the frequency of the demand in hours.

    4. Estimate how stable the non-project demands are for each role.

    Examine and discuss your supply-demand analysis report

    1.2.4
    30 minutes - 1 hour

    Input

    Completed Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Output

    Supply-Demand Analysis Report

    Materials

    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Participants

    • PMO Director
    • Functional Managers
    • Project Managers

    Start a data-driven discussion on resource management using the capacity supply-demand analysis report.

    Tab 5 of the calculator is a report that contains the following analysis:

    1. Overall resource capacity supply and demand gap
    2. Project capacity supply vs. demand gap
    3. Non-project capacity supply vs. demand balance
    4. Resource capacity confidence

    Each analysis is described and explained in the following four sections. Examine the report and discuss the following among the activity participants:

    1. How is your perception of the current resource capacity supply-demand balance affected by this analysis? How is it confirmed? Is it changed?
    2. Perform a root-cause analysis of problems revealed by the report. For each observation, ask “why?” repeatedly – generally, you can arrive at the root cause in four iterations.
    3. Refer back to Activity 1.1.2: current distribution of accountability for resource management. In your situation, how would you prioritize which resource management tasks to improve? Who are the involved stakeholders?

    Examine your supply-demand analysis report: overall resource capacity gap

    1.2.4
    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, Tab 5: Supply-Demand Analysis

    1. Examine your resource capacity supply and demand gap.

    The top of the report on Tab 5 shows a breakdown of your annual resource supply and demand, with resource capacity shown in both total hours and percentage of the total. For the purposes of the analysis, absence is averaged. If total demand is less than available resource supply, the surplus capacity will be displayed as “Free Capacity” on the demand side.

    The Supply & Demand Analysis table displays the realistic project capacity, which is calculated by subtracting non-project supply deficit from the project capacity. This is based on the assumption that all non-project work must get done. The difference between the project demand and the realistic project capacity is your supply-demand gap, in work-hours.

    If your supply-demand gap is zero, recognize that the project demand does not take into account the project backlog: it only takes into account the projects that are expected to be delivered within the next 12 months.

    Examine your supply-demand analysis report: project capacity gap

    1.2.4
    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, Tab 5: Supply-Demand Analysis

    2. Examine your project capacity supply vs. demand gap.

    The project capacity supply and demand analysis compares your available annual project capacity with the size of your project portfolio, expressed in work-hours.

    The supply side is further broken down to productive vs. wasted project capacity. The demand side is broken down to three buckets of projects: those that are active, those that sit in the backlog, and those that are expected to be added within 12 months. Percentage values are expressed in terms of total project capacity.

    A key observation here is the limitation to which reducing wasteful spending of resources can get to the project portfolio backlog. In this example, even a theoretical scenario of 100% productive project capacity will not likely result in net shrinkage of the project portfolio backlog. To achieve that, either the total project capacity must be increased, or less projects must be approved.

    Note: the work-hours necessary for delivering projects that are expected to be completed within 12 months is not shown in this visualization, as they should be represented within the other three categories of projects.

    Examine your supply-demand analysis report: non-project capacity gap

    1.2.4
    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, Tab 5: Supply-Demand Analysis

    3. Drill down on the non-project capacity supply-demand balance by each role.

    The non-project capacity supply and demand analysis compares your available non-project capacity and their demands in a year, for each role, in work-hours.

    With this chart, you can:

    1. Observe which roles are “running hot,” (i.e. they have more demand than available supply).
    2. Verify your non-project/project supply ratio assumptions in Tab 2 of the tool / Activity 1.2.1.

    Tab 5 also provides similar breakdowns for administrative and keep-the-lights-on capacity supply and demand by each role.

    Examine your supply-demand analysis report: resource capacity confidence (RCC)

    1.2.4
    Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, Tab 5: Supply-Demand Analysis

    4. Examine your resource capacity confidence.

    In our approach, we introduce a metric called Resource Capacity Confidence (RCC). Conceptually, RCC is defined as follows:

    Resource Capacity Confidence = SC × DS × SDR

    Term Name Description
    SC Supply Control How confident are you that the supply of your resources’ project capacity will be delivered?
    DS Demand Stability How wildly does demand fluctuate? If it cannot be controlled, can it be predicted?
    SDR Supply-Demand Ratio How severely does demand outstrip supply?

    In this context, RCC can be defined as follows:

    "Given the uncertainty that our resources can supply hours according to the assumed project/non-project ratio, the fluctuations in non-project demand, and the overall deficit in project capacity, there is about 50% chance that we will be able to deliver the projects we are expected to deliver within the next 12 months."

    Case study: Non-project work is probably taking far more time than you might like

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Government

    Source Info-Tech Client

    "When our customers get a budget for a project, it’s all in capital. It never occurs to them that IT has a limited number of hours. "

    Challenge

    • A small municipal government was servicing a wide geographic area for information technology and infrastructure services.
    • There was no meaningful division of IT resources between support and project work.
    • Previous IT leadership tried a commercial PPM tool and stopped paying maintenance fees for it because of lack of adoption.
    • Projects were tracked inconsistently in multiple places.

    Solution

    • New project requests were approved with IT involvement.
    • Project approvals were entirely associated with the capital budget required and resourcing was never considered to be a constraint.
    • The broad assumption was that IT time was generally available for project work.
    • In reality, the IT personnel had almost no time for project work.

    Results

    • The organization introduced Info-Tech’s Grow Your Own PPM Solution template with minor modifications.
    • They established delivery dates for projects based on available time.
    • Time was allocated for projects based on person, project, percentage of time, and month.
    • They prioritized project allocations above reactive support work.

    Validate your resourcing assumptions with your staff by surveying their use of time

    Embrace the reality of imperfect IT labor efficiency to improve your understanding of resource time spend.

    Use Info-Tech’s time-tracking survey to validate your resourcing assumptions and get additional information to improve your understanding of resource time spent: imperfect labor efficiency and continuous partial attention.

    Causes of imperfect IT labor inefficiency
    • Most IT tasks are unique to their respective projects and contexts. A component that took 30 minutes to install last year might take two hours to install this year due to system changes that occurred since then.
    • Many IT tasks come up unexpectedly due to the need to maintain and support systems implemented on past projects. This work is unpredictable in terms of specifics (what will break where, when, or how).
    • Task switching slows people down and consumes time.
    • Problem solving and solution design often requires unstructured time to think more openly. Some of the most valuable solutions are conceived or discovered when people aren’t regimented and focused on getting things done.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Part of the old resource management mythology is the idea that a person can do (for example) eight different one-hour tasks in eight hours of continuous work. This idea has gone from harmlessly mistaken to grossly unrealistic.

    Constant interruptions lead to continuous partial attention that threatens real productivity

    There’s a difference between being busy and getting things done.

    “Working” on multiple tasks at once can often feel extremely gratifying in the short term because it distracts people from thinking about work that isn’t being done.

    The bottom line is that continuous partial attention impedes the progress of project work.

    Research on continuous partial attention
    • A study that analyzed interruptions and their effects on individuals in the workplace found that that “41% of the time an interrupted task was not resumed right away” (Mark, 2015).
    • Research has also shown that it can take people an average of 23 minutes to return to a task after being interrupted (Schulte, 2015).
    • Delays following interruptions are typically due to switching between multiple other activities before returning to the original task. In many cases, those tasks are much lower priorities – and in some cases not even work-related.

    Info-Tech Insight

    It may not be possible to minimize interruptions in the workplace, as many of these are considered to be urgent at the time. However, setting guidelines for how and when individuals can be interrupted may help to limit the amount of lost project time.

    "Like so many things, in small doses, continuous partial attention can be a very functional behavior. However, in large doses, it contributes to a stressful lifestyle, to operating in crisis management mode, and to a compromised ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively."

    – Linda Stone, Continuous Partial Attention

    Define the goals and the scope of the time-tracking survey

    1.2.5
    30 minutes

    Input

    Completed Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Output

    Survey design for the time-tracking survey

    Materials

    N/A

    Participants

    • PMO Director
    • Functional Managers
    • Project Managers

    Discuss the following with the activity participants:

    1. Define the scope of the survey
      • Respondents: Comprehensive survey of individuals vs. a representative sample using roles.
      • Granularity: decide how in-depth the questions will be and how often the survey will be delivered.
      • Data Collection: what information do you want to collect?
        • Proportion of project vs. non-project work.
        • Time spent on administrative tasks.
        • Prevalence and impact of distractions.
        • Worker satisfaction.
    2. Determine the sample time period covered by the survey
      • Info-Tech recommends 2-4 weeks. Less than 2 weeks might not be a representative sample, especially during vacation seasons.
      • More than 4 weeks will impose unreasonable time and effort for diminishing returns; data quality will begin to deteriorate as participation declines.
    3. Determine the survey method
      • Use your organization’s preferred survey distributor/online survey tool, or conduct one-on-one interviews to capture data.

    1.2.5 continued - Refine the questionnaire to improve the relevance and quality of insights produced by the survey

    Start with Info-Tech’s recommended weekly survey questions:

    1. Estimate your daily average for number of hours spent on:
      1. Total work
      2. Project work
      3. Non-project work
    2. How many times are you interrupted with “urgent” requests requiring immediate response in a given day?
    3. How many people or projects did you complete tasks for this week?
    4. Rate your overall satisfaction with work this week.
    5. Describe any special tasks, interruptions, or requests that took your time and attention away from project work this week.

    Customize these questions to suit your needs.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Maximize the number of survey responses you get by limiting the number of questions you ask. Info-Tech finds that participation drops off rapidly after five questions.

    1.2.5 continued - Communicate the survey goals and steps, and conduct the survey

    1. Communicate the purpose and goals of the survey to maximize participation and satisfaction.
      • Provide background for why the survey is taking place. Clarify that the intention is to improve working conditions and management capabilities, not to play “gotcha” or hold workers accountable.
    2. Provide a timeline so expectations are clear about when possible next steps will occur, such as
      • Sharing and analyzing results
      • Making decisions
      • Taking action
    3. Reiterate what people are required or expected to do and how much effort is required. Provide reasonable and realistic estimates of how much time and effort people should spend on audit participation.
    4. Distribute the survey; collect and analyze the data.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Make sure that employees understand the purpose of the survey. It is important that they give honest responses that reflect the struggles they are encountering with balancing project and non-project work, not simply telling management what they want to hear.

    Ensuring that employees know this survey is being used to help them, rather than scolding them for not completing work, will give you useful, insightful data on employee time.

    Use Info-Tech’s Time-Tracking Survey Email Template for facilitating your communications.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Provide guidance to your resources with examples on how to differentiate project work vs. non-project work, administrative vs. keep-the-lights-on work, what counts as interruptions, etc.

    Optimize your project portfolio to maintain continuous visibility into capacity

    Now that you have a realistic picture of your realized project capacity and demand amounts, it’s time to use these values to tailor and optimize your resource management practices.

    Based on desired outcomes for this phase, we have

    1. Determined the correct course of action to resolve your supply/demand imbalances.
    2. Assessed the overall project capacity of your portfolio.
    3. Cataloged sources of project and non-project demands.
    4. Performed a time audit to create an accurate and realistic picture of the time spent on different types of work.

    In the next phase, we will:

    1. Wireframe a resource management process.
    2. Choose a resource management tool.
    3. Define data collection, analysis, and reporting steps within a sustainable resource management process.

    The image is a screenshot from tab 6 of the Time Audit Workbook. The image shows two pie charts.

    The image is a screenshot from tab 6 of the Time Audit Workbook. The image shows a pie chart.

    Screenshots from tab 6 of the Time Audit Workbook.

    Info-Tech Insight

    The validity of traditional, rigorous resource planning has long been an illusion because the resource projections were typically not maintained. New realities such as faster project cycles, matrix organizations, and high-autonomy staff cultures have made the illusion impossible to maintain.

    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:

    1.1.2 Assess the current distribution of accountability for resource management practice

    Discuss who is currently accountable for various facets of resource management, and whether they have the right authority and ability to deliver on that accountability.

    1.2.1 Create realistic estimates of supply and demand using Info-Tech’s Supply-Demand Calculator

    Derive actionable, quantitative insight into the resourcing challenges facing the organization by using Info-Tech’s methodology that prioritizes completeness over precision.

    Phase 2

    Design a Realistic Resource Management Process

    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: Draft a Resource Management Process

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 3-6 weeks

    Step 2.1: Determine the dimensions of resource management

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Introduce the seven dimensions of resource management
    • Trade-off between granularity and utility of data

    Then complete these activities…

    • Decide on the seven dimensions
    • Examine the strategy’s cost-of-use

    With these tools & templates:

    Resource Management Playbook

    Step 2.2: Support your process with a resource management tool

    Discuss with the analyst:

    • Inventory of available PPM tools
    • Overview of Portfolio Manager Lite 2017

    Then complete these activities…

    • Populate the tool with data
    • Explore portfolio data with the workbook’s output tabs

    With these tools & templates:

    • Portfolio Manager Lite
    • PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script
    Step 2.3: Build process steps

    Discuss with the analyst:

    • Common challenges of resource management practice
    • Recommendations for a pilot initiative

    Then complete these activities…

    • Review and customize contents of the Resource Management Playbook

    With these tools & templates:

    • Resource Management Playbook

    Phase 2 Results & Insights:

    Draft the resource management practice with sustainability in mind. It is about what you can and will maintain every week, even during a crisis: it is not about what you put together as a one-time snapshot. Once you stop maintaining resource data, it's nearly impossible to catch up.

    Step 2.1: Customize the seven dimensions of resource management

    PHASE 1

    1.1 Set a course of action

    1.2 Estimate supply and demand

    PHASE 2

    2.1 Select resource management dimensions

    2.2 Select resource management tools

    2.3 Build process steps

    PHASE 3

    3.1 Pilot your process for viability

    3.2 Plan stakeholder engagement

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Establish a default project vs. non-project work ratio
    • Decide the scope of allocation for your strategy
    • Set your allocation cadence
    • Limit the granularity of time allocation
    • Define the granularity of work assignment
    • Apply a forecast horizon
    • Determine the update frequency
    This step involves the following participants:
    • CIO / IT Director
    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Functional / Resource Managers
    • Project Managers
    Outcomes of this step
    • Seven dimensions of resource management, chosen to fit the current needs and culture of the organization
    • Parameters for creating a resource management process (downstream)

    There is no one-size-fits-all resource management strategy

    Don’t get boxed into a canned solution that doesn’t make sense for your department’s maturity level and culture.

    Resource management strategies are commonly implemented “out-of-the-box,” via a commercial PPM or time-tracking tool, or an external third-party consultant in partnership with those types of tools.

    While these solutions and best practices have insights to offer – and provide admirable maturity targets – they often outstrip the near-term abilities of IT teams to successfully implement, adopt, and support them.

    Tailor an approach that makes sense for your department and organization. You don’t need complex and granular processes to get usable resourcing data; you just need to make sure that you’ve carved out a process that works in terms of providing data you can use.

    • In this step, we will walk you through Info-Tech’s seven dimensions of resource management to help wireframe your resource management process.
    • In the subsequent steps in this phase, we will develop these dimensions from a wireframe into a functioning process.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Put processes before tools. Most commercial PPM tools include a resource management function that was designed for hourly granularity. This is part of the fallacy of an old reality that was never real. Determine which goals are realistic and fit your solution to your problem.

    Wireframe a strategy that will work for your department using Info-Tech’s seven dimensions of resource management

    Action the decision points across Info-Tech’s seven dimensions to ensure your resource management process is guided by realistic data and process goals.

    In this step, we will walk you through the decision points in each dimension to determine the departmental specificities of your resource management strategy

    Default project vs. non-project ratio

    How much time is available for projects once non-project demands are factored in?

    Reporting frequency

    How often is the allocation data verified, reconciled, and reported for use?

    Forecast horizon

    How far into the future can you realistically predict resource supply?

    Scope of allocation

    To whom is time allocated?

    Allocation cadence

    How long is each allocation period?

    Granularity of time allocation

    What’s the smallest unit of time to allocate?

    Granularity of work assignment

    What is time allocated to?

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Ensure that both the functional managers and the project managers participate in the following discussions. Without buy-in from both dimensions of the matrix organization, you will have difficulty making meaningful resource management data and process decisions.

    Establish your default project versus non-project work ratio

    2.1.1
    30 minutes

    Input

    • Completed Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator

    Output

    • Default organizational P-NP ratio and role-specific P-NP ratios

    Materials

    • Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator
    • Time Audit Workbook
    • Resource Management Playbook

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    How much time is available for projects once non-project demands are factored in?

    The default project vs. non-project work ratio (P-NP Ratio) is a starting point for functional and project managers to budget the work-hours at their disposal as well as for resources to split their time – if not directed otherwise by their managers.

    How to set this dimension. The Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator from step 1.2 shows the current P-NP ratio for the department, and how the percentages translate into work-hours. The Time Audit Workbook from step 1.2 shows the ratio for specific roles.

    For the work of setting this dimension, you can choose to keep the current ratio from step 1.2 as your default, or choose a new ratio based on the advice below.

    • Discuss and decide how the supply-demand gap should be reconciled from the project side vs. the functional side.
      • Use the current organizational priority as a guide, and keep in mind that the default P-NP ratio is to be adjusted over time to respond to changing needs and priorities of the organization.
      • Once the organizational default P-NP ratio is chosen, defining role-specific ratios may be helpful. A help desk employee may spend only 10% of their time on project work, while an analyst may spend 80% of their time on project work.

    Decide the scope of allocation for your strategy

    2.1.2
    15-30 minutes

    Input

    • Current practices for assigning work and allocating time
    • Distribution of RM accountability (Activity 1.1.2)

    Output

    • Resource management scope of allocation

    Materials

    • RM Playbook

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    To whom is time allocated?

    Scope of allocation is the “who” of the equation. At the lowest and most detailed level, allocations are made to individual resources. At the highest and most abstract level, though, allocations can be made to a department. Other “whos” in scope of allocation can include teams, roles, or skills.

    How to set this dimension. Consider how much granularity is required for your overall project capacity visibility, and the process overhead you’re willing to commit to support this visibility. The more low-level and detailed the scope of allocation (e.g. skills or individuals) the more data maintenance required to keep it current.

    • Discuss and decide to whom time will be allocated for the purposes of resource management.
      • Recall your prior discussion from activity 1.1.2 on how accountabilities for resource management are distributed within your organization.
      • The benefit of allocating teams to projects is that it is much easier to avoid overallocation. When a team is overallocated, it is visible. Individual overallocations can go unnoticed.
      • Once you have mastered the art of keeping resource data current and accurate at a higher level (e.g. team), it can be easier move lower level and assign and track allocations in a per-role or per-person basis.

    Set your allocation cadence

    2.1.3
    15-30 minutes

    Input

    • Current practices for assigning work and allocating time
    • Scope of allocation (Activity 2.1.2)

    Output

    • Determination of temporal frames over which time will be allotted

    Materials

    • RM Playbook

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    How long is each allocation period?

    How long is each individual allocation period? In what “buckets of time” do you plan to spend time – week by week, month by month, or quarter by quarter? The typical allocation cadence is monthly; however, depending on the scope of allocation and the nature of work assigned, this cadence can differ.

    How to set this dimension. Allocation cadence can depend on a number of factors. For instance, if you’re allocating time to agile teams, the cadence would most naturally be bi-weekly; if work is assigned via programs, you might allocate time by quarters.

    • Discuss and decide the appropriate allocation cadence for the purposes of resource management. You could even be an environment that currently has different cadences for different teams. If so, it will be helpful to standardize a cadence for the purposes of centralized project portfolio resource management.
      • If the cadence is too short (e.g. days or weeks), it will require a dedicated effort to maintain the data.
      • If the cadence is too long (e.g. quarters or bi-annual), your resource management strategy could fail to produce actionable insight and lack the appropriate agility in being responsive to changes in direction.
      • Ultimately, your allocation cadence may be contingent upon the limitations of your resource management solution (see step 2.2).

    Limit the granularity of time allocation

    2.1.3
    15-30 minutes

    Input

    • Requirements for granularity of data
    • Resource management scope of allocation (Activity 2.1.2)

    Output

    • Determination of lowest level of granularity for time allocation

    Materials

    • RM Playbook

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    What’s the smallest unit of time that will be allocated?

    Granularity of time allocation refers to the smallest unit of time that can be allocated. You may not need to set firm limits on this, given that it could differ from PM to PM, and resource manager to resource manager. Nevertheless, it can be helpful to articulate an “as-low-as-you’ll-go” limit to help avoid getting too granular too soon in your data aspirations.

    How to set this dimension. At a high level, the granularity of allocation could be as high as a week. At its lowest level, it could be an hour. Other options include a full day (e.g. 8 hours), a half day (4 hours), or 2-hour increments.

    • Discuss and decide the appropriate granularity for all allocations in the new resource management practice.
      • As a guideline, granularity of allocation should be one order of magnitude smaller than the allocation cadence to provide enough precision for meaningfully dividing up each allocation cadence, without imposing an unreasonably rigorous expectation for resources to manage their time.
      • The purpose of codifying this dimension is to help provide a guideline for how granular allocations should be. Hourly granularity can be difficult to maintain, so (for instance) by setting a half-day granularity you can help avoid project managers and resource managers getting too granular.

    Define the granularity of work assignments

    2.1.4
    15-30 minutes

    Input

    • Requirements for granularity of work assignment
    • Resource management scope of allocation (Activity 2.1.2)

    Output

    • Determination of work assignment

    Materials

    • RM Playbook

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    To what is time allocated?

    Determine a realistic granularity for your allocation. This is the “what” of the equation: what your resources are working on or the size of work for which allocations are managed.

    How to set this dimension. A high level granularity of work assignment would assign an entire program, a mid-level scope would involve allocating a project or a phase of a project, and a low level, rigorous scope would involve allocating an individual task.

    • Discuss and decide the appropriate granularity for all work assignments in the new resource management strategy.
      • The higher granularity that is assigned, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the data. However, assigning at program level might not lead to useful, practical data.
      • Begin by allocating to projects to help you mature your organization, and once you have mastered data maintenance at this level, you can move on to a more granular work assignment.
        • If you are at a maturity level of 1 or 2, Info-Tech recommends beginning by assigning by project. If you are at a maturity level 3-4, it may be time to start allocating by phase or task.

    Apply a forecast horizon

    2.1.5
    15-30 minutes

    Input

    • Current practices for work planning, capacity forecasting
    • Allocation scope, cadence, and granularity (Activities 2.1.2-4)

    Output

    • Resource management forecast horizon

    Materials

    • RM Playbook

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    How far into the future can you realistically predict resource supply?

    Determine a realistic forecasting horizon for your allocation. At this point you have decided “what” “who” is working on and how frequently this will be updated. Now it is time to decide how far resource needs will be forecasted, e.g. “what will this person be working on in 3 months?”

    How to set this dimension. A high-level forecast horizon would only look forward week-to-week, with little consideration of the long-term future. A mid-level forecast would involve predicting one quarter in advance and a low-level, rigorous scope would involve forecasting one or more years in advance.

    • Discuss and decide the appropriate forecast horizon that will apply to all allocations in the new resource management practice. It’s important that your forecast horizon helps to foster accurate data. If you can’t ensure data accuracy for a set period, make your forecast horizon shorter.
      • If you are at a maturity level of 1 or 2, Info-Tech recommends forecasting one month in advance.
      • If you are already at level 3-4 on the resource management maturity model, Info-Tech recommends forecasting one quarter to one year in advance.

    See the diagram below for further explanation

    2.1.5 Forecast horizon diagram

    Between today and the forecast horizon (“forecast window”), all stakeholders in resource management commit to reasonable accuracy of data. The aim is to create a reliable data set that can be used to determine true resource capacity, as well as the available resource capacity to meet unplanned, urgent demands.

    The image shows a Forecast horizon diagram, with Time on the x-axis and Data completeness on the Y-axis. The time between today and the forecast horizon is labelled as the forecast window. there is a line which descends in small degrees until the Forecast Horizon point, where the line is labelled Reasonable level of completeness.

    The image shows a chart that lines up with the sections before and after the Forecast Horizon. In the accuracy row, Data is accurate before the forecast horizon and a rough estimate after. In the planning row, before the horizon is reliable for planning, and can inform high-level planning after the horizon. In the free capacity row, before the horizon, it can be committed to urgent demands, and after the horizon, negotiate for capacity.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Ensure data accuracy. It is important to note that forecasting a year in advance does not necessarily make your organization more mature, unless you can actually rely on these estimates and use them. It is important to only forecast as far in advance as you can accurately predict.

    Determine the update frequency

    2.1.6
    30 minutes

    Input

    • Current practices for work planning, capacity reporting
    • Current practices for project intake, prioritization, and approval
    • RM core dimensions (Activities 2.1.1)

    Output

    • Resource management update frequency

    Materials

    • RM Playbook

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    How often is the allocation data verified, reconciled, and reported for use?

    How often will you reconcile and rebalance your allocations? Your update frequency will determine this. It is very much the heartbeat of resource management, dictating how often reports on allocations will be updated and published for stakeholders’ consumption.

    How to set this dimension. Determine a realistic frequency with which to update project reports. This will be how you determine who is working on what during each measurement period.

    • Discuss and decide how often the supply-demand gap should be reconciled from the project side vs. the functional side.
      • Keep in mind that the more frequent the reporting period, the more time must go into data maintenance. A monthly frequency requires maintenance at the end of the month, while weekly requires it at the end of each week.
      • Also think about how accurately you can maintain the data. Having a quarterly update frequency may require less maintenance time than monthly, but this information may not stay up to date in between these long stretches.
      • Reports generated at each update frequency should both inform resources on what to work on, what not to work on, and how to prioritize tasks if something unexpected comes up, as well as the steering committee, to help inform project approval decisions.

    Finalize the dimensions for your provisional resource management process

    2.1.7
    10 minutes

    Input

    • 7 core dimensions of resource management (Activities 2.1.1-6)

    Output

    • Provisional resource management strategy

    Materials

    • Resource Management Playbook

    Participants

    • CIO
    • PMO Director
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    Document the outputs from the preceding seven activities. These determinations will form the foundation of your resource management strategy, which we will go on to define in more detail in the subsequent steps of this phase.

    • Keep in mind, at this stage your dimensions are provisional and subject to change, pending the outcomes of steps 2.2 and 2.3.
    RM Core Dimensions Decision
    Default P-NP ratio 40%-60$ + exception by roles
    Scope of allocation Individual resource
    Allocation cadence Monthly
    Granularity of time allocation 4 hours
    Granularity of work assignment Projects
    Forecast horizon 3 months
    Reporting frequency Twice a month

    Document these dimensions in Section 1.1 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook. We will be further customizing this template in steps 2.3 and 3.1.

    Step 2.2: Determine the resource management tool that will best support your process

    PHASE 1

    1.1 Set a course of action

    1.2 Estimate supply and demand

    PHASE 2

    2.1 Select resource management dimensions

    2.2 Select resource management tools

    2.3 Build process steps

    PHASE 3

    3.1 Pilot your process for viability

    3.2 Plan stakeholder engagement

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Consider the pros and cons of commercial tools vs. spreadsheets as a resource management tool
    • Review the PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script to ensure your investment in a commercial tool meets your resource management needs
    • Jump-start spreadsheet-based resource management with Portfolio Manager Lite

    This step involves the following participants:

    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Functional / Resource Managers
    • Project Managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • Choice of tool to support the resource management process
    • Examination of the commercial tool’s ability to support the resource management process chosen
    • Set-up and initial use of Portfolio Manager Lite for a spreadsheet-based resource management solution

    Effective resource management practices require an effective resource management tool

    The discipline of resource management has largely become inextricable from the tools that help support it. Ensure that you choose the right tool for your environment.

    Resource management depends on the flow of information and data from the project level up to functional managers, project managers, and beyond.

    Tools are required to help facilitate this flow, and the project portfolio management landscape is littered with endless time-tracking and capacity management options.

    These options can each have their merits and their drawbacks. The success of implementing a resource management strategy very much hinges upon weighing these, and then choosing the right solution for your project eco-system.

    • This first part of this step will help you assess the tool landscape and make the right choice to help support your resource management practices.
    • In the second part of this step, we’ll take a deep-dive into Info-Tech’s Excel-based resource management solution. If you are implementing our solution, these sections will help you understand and set up the tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Establish a book of record. While it is possible to succeed using ad hoc tools and data sources, a centralized repository for capacity data works best. Your tool choice should help establish a capacity book of record to help ensure ongoing reconciliation of supply and demand at the portfolio level.

    Get to know your resource management tool options

    At a high level, those looking for a resource management solution have two broad options: a commercial project portfolio management (PPM) or time-tracking software on the one hand, and a spreadsheet-based tool, like Google Sheets or Excel, on the other.

    Obviously, if your team or department already has access to a PPM or time-tracking software, it makes sense to continue using this, as long as it will accommodate the process that was wireframed in the previous step.

    Otherwise, pursue the tool option that makes the most sense given both the strategy that you’ve wireframed and other organizational factors. See the table below and the next section for guidance.

    If you’re planning on doing resource allocation by hand, you’re not going to get very far.”

    Rachel Burger

    Commercial Solutions Spreadsheet-Based Solutions
    Description
    • These highly powerful solutions are purchased from a software/service provider.
    • These can be as simple as a list of current projects on a spreadsheet or a more advanced solution with resource capacity analysis.
    Pros
    • Extraordinary function
    • Potential for automated roll-ups
    • Collaboration functionality
    • Easy to deploy: high process maturity or organization-wide adoption not required.
    • Lower cost-in-use – in many cases, they are free.
    • Highly customizable.
    Cons
    • High process maturity required
    • High cost-in-use
    • Generally expensive to customize
    • Comprehensive, continual, and organization-wide adoption required
    • Easy to break.
    • Typically, they require a centralized deployment with a single administrator responsible for data entry.

    Option A: When pursuing commercial options, don’t bite off more functionality than your people can sustain

    While commercial options offer the most robust functionality for automation, collaboration, and reporting, they are also costly, difficult to implement, and onerous to sustain over the long run.

    It’s not uncommon for organizations to sink vast amounts of money into commercial PPM tools, year after year, and never actually get any usable resource or forecasting data from these tools.

    The reasons for this can vary, but in many cases it is because organizations mistake a tool for a PPM or a resource management strategy.

    A tool is no substitute for having a clearly defined process that staff can support. Be aware of these two factors before investing in a commercial tool:

    • Visibility cannot be automated. It is not uncommon for CIOs to believe that because they’ve invested in a tool, they have an automated portfolio that enables them to sit back and wait for the data to roll in. With many tools, the challenge is that the calculations driving the rollups have become increasingly unsustainable and irrelevant in our high-autonomy staff cultures and interruption-driven work days.
    • Information does not equal knowledge. While commercial tools have robust reporting features, the data outputs can lead to information overload – and, subsequently, disinterest – unless they are curated and filtered to suit your executive’s needs and expectations.

    47%
    Of those companies using automated software to assist in resource management, almost half report that those systems failed to accurately calculate resource forecasts.

    PM Solutions

    Info-Tech Insight

    Put process sustainability before enhanced tool functionality.

    Ensure that you have sustainable processes in place before investing in an expensive commercial tool. Your tool selection should help facilitate capability-matched processes and serve user adoption.

    Trying to establish processes around a tool with a functionality that exceeds your process maturity is a recipe for failure.

    Before jumping into a commercial tool, consider some basic parameters for your selection

    Use the table below as a starting point to help ensure you are pursuing a resource management tool that is right for your organization’s size and process maturity level.

    Tool Category Characteristics # of Users PPM Maturity Sample Vendors
    Enterprise tools
    • Higher professional services requirements for enterprise deployment
    • Larger reference customers
    1,000> High
    • MS Project Server
    • Oracle Primavera
    • Planisware
    Mid-market tools
    • Lower expectation of professional services engaged in initial deployment contract
    • Fewer globally recognizable reference clients
    • Faster deployments
    100> Intermediate-to-High
    • Workfront
    • Project Insight
    • Innotas
    Entry-level tools
    • Lower cost than mid-market and enterprise PPM tools
    • Limited configurability, reporting, and resource management functionalities
    • Compelling solutions to the organizations that want to get a fast start to a trial deployment
    <100 Low-to-Intermediate
    • 5PM
    • AceProject
    • Liquid Planner

    For a more in-depth treatment of choosing and implementing a commercial PPM tool to assist with your resource management practice, see Info-Tech’s blueprint, Select and Implement a PPM Solution.

    Use Info-Tech’s PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script to help ensure you get the functionality you need

    PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script (optional)

    To ensure your investment in a commercial tool meets your resource management needs, use Info-Tech’s PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script to structure your tool demos and interactions with vendors.

    For instance, some important scenarios to consider when looking at potential tools include:

    • How are overallocation and underallocation situations identified and reconciled in the solution?
    • How are users motivated to maintain their own timesheets (beyond simply being mandated as part of their job); how does the solution and timesheet functionality help team members do their job?
    • How will portfolio-level reports remain useful and accurate despite “zero-adoption” scenarios, in which some or all teams do not actively maintain task and timesheet data?

    Any deficiencies in answering these types of questions should alert you to the fact that a potential solution may not adequately meet the needs of your resource management strategy.

    Download Info-Tech’s PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script

    "[H]ow (are PPM solutions) performing in a matrix organization? Well, there are gaps. There will be employees who do not submit timesheets, who share their time between project and operational activities, and whose reporting relationships do not fit neatly into the PPM database structure. This creates exceptions in the PPM application, and you may just have the perfect solution to a small subset of your problems." – Vilmos Rajda

    Option B: When managing resourcing via spreadsheets, you don’t have to feel like you’re settling for the lesser option

    Spreadsheets can provide a viable alternative for organizations not ready to invest in an expensive tool or for those not getting what they need from their commercial selections.

    When it comes to resource management at a portfolio level, spreadsheets can be just as effective as commercial tools for facilitating the flow of accurate and maintainable resourcing data and for communicating resource usage and availability.

    Some of the benefits of spreadsheets over commercials tools include:

    • They are easy to set up and deploy. High process maturity or organization-wide user adoption are not required.
    • They have a low cost-in-use. In the case of Excel, the tool itself comes at no additional cost.
    • They are highly customizable. No development time/costs are required to tweak the solution to suit your needs.

    To be clear: spreadsheets have their drawbacks (for instance, they are easy to break, require a centralized data administrator, and are yours and yours alone to maintain). If your department has the budget and the process maturity to support a commercial tool, you should pursue the options covered in the previous sections.

    However, if you are looking for a viable alternative to an expensive tool, spreadsheets have the ability to support a rigorous resource management practice.

    "Because we already have enterprise licensing for an expensive commercial tool, everyone else thinks it’s logical to start there. I think we’re going to start with something quick and dirty like Excel." – EPMO Director, Law Enforcement Services

    Info-Tech Insight

    Make the choice to ensure adoption.

    When making your selection, the most important consideration across all the solution categories is data maintenance. You must be assured that you and your team can maintain the data.

    As soon as your portfolio data becomes inconsistent and unreliable, decision makers will lose trust in your resource data, and the authority of your resource management strategy will become very tenuous.

    While spreadsheets offer a viable resource management option, not all spreadsheets are created equal

    Lean on Info-Tech’s experience and expertise to get up and running quickly with a superior resource management Excel-based tool: Portfolio Manager Lite 2017.

    Spreadsheets are the most common PPM tool – and it’s not hard to understand why: they can be created with minimal cost and effort.

    But when something is easy to do, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s also easy to do badly. As James Kwak says in his article, “The Importance of Excel,” “The biggest problem is that anyone can create Excel Spreadsheets—badly.”

    • Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite 2017 offers an antidote to the deficiencies that can haunt home-grown resource management tools.
    • As an easy-to-deploy, highly evolved spreadsheet-based option, Portfolio Manager Lite enables you to mature your resource management processes, and provide effective resource visibility without the costly upfront investment.

    Download Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite 2017

    Info-Tech Insight

    Balance functionality and adoption. Clients often find it difficult to gain adoption with commercial tools. Though homegrown solutions may have less functionality, the higher adoption level can make up for this and also potentially save your organization thousands a year in licensing fees.

    Determine your resource management solution and revisit your seven dimensions of resource management

    2.2.1
    Times will vary

    Participants

    • PMO Director

    Based on input from the previous slides, determine the resource management solution option you will pursue and implement to help support your resource management strategy. Record this selection in section 1.2 of the Resource Management Playbook.

    • You may need to revisit the decisions made in step 2.1 to consider if the default values for your seven core dimensions of resource management are still sound. Keep these current and relevant as you become more familiar with your resource management solution.
    RM Core Dimensions Default Value
    Default P-NP ratio Role-specific
    Scope of allocation Individual resource
    Allocation cadence Monthly
    Granularity of allocation (not defined)
    Granularity of work assignment Project
    Forecast horizon 6 months
    Reporting frequency (not defined)

    Portfolio Manager Lite has comprehensive sample data to help you understand its functions.

    As you can see in this table, the tool itself assumes five of the seven resource management core dimensions. You will need to determine departmental values for granularity of allocation and reporting frequency. The other dimensions are determined by the tool.

    If you’re piloting Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite, review the subsequent slides in this step before proceeding to step 2.3. If you are not piloting Portfolio Manager Lite, proceed directly to step 2.3.

    Overview of Portfolio Manager Lite

    Portfolio Manager Lite has two set-up tabs, three data entry tabs, and six output-only tabs. The next 15 slides show how to use them. To use this tool, you need Excel 2013 or 2016. If you’re using Excel 2013, you must download and install Microsoft Power Query version 2.64 or later, available for download from Microsoft.

    The image shows an overview of the Portfolio Manager Lite tool. It shows the Input and Data Tabs on the left, and output tabs on the right. The middle of the graphic includes guidance to ensure that you refresh the outputs after each data entry, by using the Refresh All button

    Observe “table manners” to maintain table integrity and prevent Portfolio Manager Lite malfunctions

    Excel tables enable you to manage and analyze a group of related data. Since Portfolio Manager Lite uses tables extensively, maintaining the table’s integrity is critical. Here are some things to know for working with Excel tables.

    Do not leave empty rows at the end.

    Adjust the sizing handle to eliminate empty rows.

    Always paste values.

    Default pasting behavior can interrupt formula references and introduce unwanted external links. Always right-click and select Paste Values.

    Correctly add/remove rows within a table.

    Do not use row headings; instead, always right-click inside a table to manipulate table rows.

    Set up Portfolio Manager Lite

    2.2.1
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 2a: Org Setup

    The Org Setup tab is divided into two sections, Resources and Projects. Each section contains several categories to group your resources and projects. Items listed under each category will be available via drop-down lists in the data tabs.

    These categorizations will be used later to “slice” your resource allocation data. For example, you’ll be able to visualize the resource allocations for each team, for each division, or for each role.

    The image shows a screenshot of Tab 2a, with sample information filled in.

    1. Role and Default Non-Project Ratio columns: From the Supply-Demand Calculator, copy the list of roles, and how much of each role’s time is spent on non-projects by default (see below; add the values marked with yellow arrows).

    2. Resource Type column: List the type of resource you have available.

    3. Team and Skill columns: List the teams, and skills for your resources.

    In the Resources tab, items in drop-down lists will appear in the same order as shown here. Sort them to make things easy to find.

    Do not delete tables you won’t use. Instead, leave or hide tables.

    Set up Portfolio Manager Lite (continued)

    2.2.1
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 2a: Org Setup

    The projects section of the Org Setup tab contains several categories for entering project data. Items listed under each category will be available via drop-down lists in the Projects tab. These categorizations will be used later to analyze how your resources are allocated.

    The image shows the projects sections of Tab 2a.

    1. Project Type: Enter the names of project types, in which projects will be grouped. All projects must belong to a type. Examples of types may include sub-portfolios or programs.

    2. Project Category: Enter the names of project categories, in which projects will be grouped. Unlike types, category is an optional grouping.

    3. Phase: Enter the project phases. Ensure that your phases list has “In Progress” and “Complete” options. They are needed for the portfolio-wide Gantt chart (the Gantt tab).

    4. Priority and Status: Define the choices for project priorities and statuses if necessary (optional).

    5. Unused: An extra column with predefined choices is left for customization (optional).

    Set up Portfolio Manager Lite (continued)

    2.2.1
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 2b: Calendar Setup

    Portfolio Manager Lite is set up for a monthly allocation cadence out of the box. Use this tab to set up the start date, the default resource potential capacity, and the months to include in your reports.

    The image shows fields in the calendar set-up section of Tab 2a, with a Start Date and Hours Assumed per day.

    1. Enter a start date for the calendar, e.g. start of your fiscal or calendar year.

    2. Enter how many hours are assumed in a working day. It is used to calculate the default maximum available hours in a month.

    The image shows the Calendar section of tab 2a, with sample information filled in.

    Maximum Available Hours, Weekdays, and Business Days are automatically generated.

    The current month is highlighted in green.

    3. Enter the number of holidays to correct the number of business days for each month.

    Year to Date Reporting and Forecast Reporting ranges are controlled by this table. Use the period above Maximum Available Hours.

    The image shows the Year-to-Date and Forecast Reporting sections.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Both Portfolio Manager Lite and Portfolio Manager 2017 can be customized for non-monthly resource allocation. Speak to an Info-Tech analyst to ask for more information.

    Enter resource information and their total capacity

    2.2.2
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 3: Resources

    Portfolio Manager Lite is set up for allocating time to individual resources out of the box. Information on these resources is entered in the Resources tab. It has four sections, arranged horizontally.

    1. Enter basic information on your resources. Resource type, team, role, and skill will be used to help you analyze your resource data.

    The image shows a screenshot of the Resources tab with sample information filled in.

    Ensure that the resource names are unique.

    Sort or filter the table using the filter button in the header row.

    2. Their total capacity in work-hours is automatically calculated for each month, using the default numbers from the Calendar Setup tab. If necessary, overwrite the formula and enter in custom values.

    The image shows a screenshot of the total capacity in work-hours, with sample info filled in.

    Cells with less than 120 hours are highlighted in blue.

    Do not add or delete any columns, or modify this header row.

    Enter out-of-office time and non-project time for your resources

    2.2.2
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 3: Resources

    3. Enter the resources’ out-of-office time for each month, as they are reported.

    The image shows the Absence (hours) section, with sample information filled in.

    Do not add or delete any columns, or modify the header row, below the dates.

    4. Resources’ percentages of time spent on non-projects are automatically calculated, based on their roles’ default P-NP ratios. If necessary, overwrite the formula and enter in custom values.

    The image shows the Non-Project Ratio section, with sample information filled in.

    Do not add or delete any columns, or modify the header row, below the dates.

    Populate your project records

    2.2.3
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 4: Projects

    Portfolio Manager Lite is set up for allocating time to projects out of the box. Information on these projects is entered in the Projects tab.

    1. Enter project names and some basic information. These fields are mandatory.

    The image shows the section for filling in project names and basic information in the Projects tab. The image shows the table with sample information.

    Ensure that the project names are unique.

    Do not modify or change the headers of the first seven columns. Do not add to or delete these columns.

    2. Continue entering more information about projects. These fields are optional and can be customized.

    The image shows a section of the Projects tab, where you fill in more information.

    Headers of these columns can be changed. Extra columns can be added to the right of the Status column if desired. However, Info-Tech strongly recommends that you speak to an Info-Tech analyst before customizing.

    The Project Category, Phase, and Priority fields are entered using drop-down lists from the Org Setup tab.

    Allocate your resource project capacity to projects

    2.2.4
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 5: Allocations

    Project capacity for each resource is calculated as follows, using the data from the Resources tab:

    Project capacity = (total project capacity – absence) x (100% – non-project%)

    In the Allocations tab, project capacity is allocated in percentages with 100% representing the allocation of all available project time of a resource to a project.

    This allocation-by-percentage model has some advantages and drawbacks:

    Advantages

    • Allocating all available project capacity to project is straightforward
    • Easy for project managers to coordinate with each other (e.g. “Jon’s project time will be split 50%-50% between two projects” = enter 50% allocation to each project)

    Drawbacks

    • How many hours is represented by a percentage of someone’s capacity is unclear
    • Must check whether enough work-hours are allocated for what’s needed (e.g. “Deliverable A needs 20 hours of work from Jon in November. Is 50% of his project capacity enough?”)

    The Allocations tab has a few features to help you mitigate these disadvantages.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    For organizations with lower resource management practice maturity, start with percentages. In Portfolio Manager 2017, allocations are entered in work-hours to avoid the above drawbacks altogether, but this may require a higher practice maturity.

    Enter your resource project capacity allocations

    2.2.4
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 5: Allocations

    A line item in the Allocations tab requires three pieces of information: a project, a resource, and the percentage of project capacity for each month.

    The image shows a screenshot from the Allocations tab, with sample information filled in.

    1. Choose a project. Type, Start date, and End date are automatically displayed.

    2. Choose a resource. Team is automatically displayed.

    This image is another screenshot of the Allocations tab, showing the section with dates, with sample information filled in.

    3. Enter the resource’s allocated hours for the project in percentages.

    Built-in functions in the Allocations tab display helpful information for balancing project supply and demand

    2.2.4
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 5: Allocations

    The Allocations tab helps you preview the available project capacity of a resource, as well as the work-hours represented by each allocation line item, to mitigate the drawbacks of percentage allocations.

    In addition, overallocations (allocations for a given month add up to over 100%) are highlighted in red. These functions help resource managers balance the project supply and demand.

    The image shows a screenshot of the Allocations tab, with sample information filled in.

    To preview a resource’s project capacity in work-hours, choose a resource using a drop down. The resource’s available project capacity for each month is displayed to the right.

    Sort or filter the table using the filter button in the header row. Here, the Time table is sorted by Resource.

    The total work-hours for each line item is shown in the Hours column. Here, 25% of Bethel’s project capacity for 4 months adds up to only 16 work-hours for this project.

    A resource is overallocated when project capacity allocations add up to more than 100% for a given month. Overallocations are highlighted in red.

    Get the timeline of your project portfolio with the Gantt chart tab

    2.2.5
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 6: Gantt

    The Gantt tab is a pivot-table-driven chart that graphically represents the start and end dates of projects and their project statuses.

    The image shows a screenshot of the Gantt tab, with sample information filled in.

    Filter entries by project type above the chart.

    The current month (9-17) is highlighted.

    You can filter and sort entries by project name, sponsor, or project manager.

    In progress (under Phase column) projects show the color of their overall status.

    Projects that are neither completed nor in progress are shown in grey.

    Completed (under Phase column) projects are displayed as black.

    Get a bird’s-eye view of your available project capacity with the Resource Load tab

    2.2.6
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 7: Resource Load

    The Resource Load tab is a PivotTable showing the available project capacity for each resource.

    The image is a screenshot of the Resource Load tab, with sample information filled in.

    Change the thresholds for indicating project overallocation at the top right.

    You can filter and sort entries by resource or role.

    Values in yellow and red highlight overallocation.

    Values in green indicate resource availability.

    This table provides a bird’s-eye view of all available project capacity. Highlights for overallocated resources yield a simple heat map that indicates resourcing conflicts that need attention.

    The next two tabs contain graphical dashboards of available capacity.

    Tip: Add more resource information by dragging a column name into the Rows box in the PivotTable field view pane.

    Example: add the Team column by dragging it into the Rows box

    The image shows a screenshot demonstrating that you can add a Team column.

    Analyze your resource allocation landscape with the Capacity Slicer tab

    2.2.7
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 8: Capacity Slicer

    The Capacity Slicer tab is a set of pivot charts showing the distribution of resource allocation and how they compare against the potential capacity.

    The image shows a collection of 5 graphs and charts, showing the distribution of resource allocation, and compared against potential capacity.

    At the top left of each chart, you can turn Forecast Reporting on (true) or off (false). For Year to Date reporting, replace Forecast with YTD in the Field View pane’s Filter field.

    In the Allocated Capacity, in % chart, capacity is shown as a % of total available capacity. Exceeding 100% indicates overallocation.

    In the Realized Project Capacity, in hours chart, the vertical axis is in work-hours. This gap between allocation and capacity represents available project capacity.

    The bottom plots show how allocated project capacity is distributed. If the boxes are empty, no allocation data is available.

    Use the Team slicer to drill down on resource capacity and allocation by groups of resources

    2.2.7
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 8: Capacity Slicer

    A slicer filters the data shown in a PivotTable, a PivotChart, or other slicers. In this tab, the team slicer enables you to view resource capacity and allocation by each team or for multiple teams.

    The image shows a sample graph.

    The button next to the Team header enables multiple selection.

    The next button to the right clears the filter set by this slicer.

    All teams with capacity or allocation data are listed in the slicers.

    For example, if you select "App Dev":

    The image shows the same graph as previously shown, but this time with only App Dev selected in the left-hand column.

    The vertical axis scales automatically for filtered data.

    The capacity and allocation data for all application division teams is shown.

    Resources not in the App Dev team are filtered out.

    Drill down on individual-level resource allocation and demand with the Capacity Locator tab

    2.2.8
    Portfolio Manager Lite, Tab 9: Capacity Locator

    The Capacity Locator tab is a group of PivotCharts with multiple slicers to view available project capacity.

    For example: click on “Developer” under Role:

    The image shows the list of slicers available using the Capacity Locator tab.

    The image shows a series of graphs produced in the Capacity Locator tab.

    Primary skills of all developers are displayed on the left in the Primary Skill column. You can choose a skill to narrow down the list of resources from all developers to all developers with that skill.

    The selected resources are shown in the Resources column. Data on the right pertains to these resources.

    • The top left graph shows the average available project capacity for all selected resources.
    • The top right graph shows the sum of all available capacity from all selected resources.
    • In the lower left graph, pay attention to available total capacity, as selected resources may have significant non-project demands.
    • The lower right graph shows the number of assigned projects. Control the number of concurrent projects to reduce the need for multitasking and optimize your resource use.

    Where you see the filter button with an x, you can clear the filter imposed by this slicer.

    Check how your projects are resourced with the Project Viewer tab

    2.2.9
    Portfolio Manager Lite
    , Tab 10: Project Viewer

    The Project Viewer tab is a set of PivotCharts with multiple slicers to view how resources are allocated to different projects.

    The image shows a screenshot of the Project Viewer tab, with a bar graph at the top, filter selections at the bottom left, and four pie charts at the bottom right.

    Filtering by sponsor or project manager is useful for examining a group of projects by accountability (sponsor) or responsibility (project manager).

    The graphs show how project budgets are distributed across different categories and priorities of projects, and how resource allocations are distributed across different categories and priorities of projects.

    Report on your project portfolio status with the Project Updates tab

    2.2.10
    Portfolio Manager Lite
    , Tab 11: Project Updates

    The Project Updates tab is a PivotTable showing various fields from the Projects table to rapidly generate a portfolio-wide status report. You can add or remove fields from the Projects table using the PivotTable’s Field View pane.

    The image shows a screenshot of a large table, which is the Project Updates tab. A selection is open, showing how you can filter entries.

    Filter entries by phase. The screenshot shows an expansion of this drop down at the top left.

    Rearrange the columns by first clicking just below the header to select all cells in the column, and then dragging it to the desired position. Alternatively, arrange them in the Field View pane.

    Tools and other requirements needed to complete the resource management strategy

    2.2.11
    10 minutes

    • Recommended: If you are below a level 4 on Info-Tech’s resource management maturity scale, use Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager Lite to start.
    • Use a commercial PPM tool if you already have one in use and feel that you can accurately maintain the data in this tool.
    • Use this chart to estimate the amount of time it will take to accurately maintain the data for each reporting period.
      • Determine who will be responsible for this maintenance.
      • If there is no one currently available to maintain the data, allocate time for someone or you may even need a portfolio analyst.
      • We will confirm roles and responsibilities in phase 3.
    Maturity Level Dimensions Time needed per month
    Small (1-25 employees) Medium (25-75) Large (75-100) Enterprise (100+)
    1-2 %, team, project, monthly update, 1 month forecast 2 hours 6 hours 20 hours 50 hours
    3-4 %, person, phase, weekly update, 1 quarter forecast 4 hours 12 hours 50 hours 150 hours
    5 %, person, task, continuous update, 1 year forecast 8+ hours 20+ hours 100+ hours 400+ hours

    See also: Grow Your Own PPM Solution with Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager 2017

    Join hundreds of Info-Tech clients who are successfully growing their own PPM solution.

    If you are looking for a more robust resource management solution, or prefer to allocate staff time in hours rather than percentages, see Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager 2017.

    Similar to Portfolio Manager Lite, Portfolio Manager 2017 is a Microsoft Excel-based PPM solution that provides project visibility, forecasting, historical insight, and portfolio analytics capabilities for your PMO without a large upfront investment for a commercial solution.

    Watch Info-Tech’s Portfolio Manager 2017 Video – Introduction and Demonstration.

    System Requirements

    To use all functions of Portfolio Manager 2017, you need Excel 2013 or Excel 2016 running on Windows, with the following add-ins:

    • Power Query (Excel 2013 only)
    • Power Pivot
    • Power View

    Power View is only available on select editions of Excel 2013 and 2016, but you can still use Portfolio Manager 2017 without Power View.

    If you are unsure, speak to your IT help desk or an Info-Tech analyst for help.

    For a new PMO, start with the new reality

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Law Enforcement

    Source Info-Tech Client

    Because we already have enterprise licensing for an expensive commercial tool, everyone else thinks it’s logical to start there. I think we’re going to start with something quick and dirty like Excel.” – EPMO Director, Law Enforcement Services

    Situation

    • This was an enterprise PMO, but with relatively low organizational maturity.
    • The IT department had relatively high project management maturity, but the enterprise was under-evolved at the portfolio level.
    • Other areas of the organization already had licensing and deployment of a top-tier commercial PPM tool.
    • There were no examples of a resource management practice.

    Complication

    • There was executive visibility on larger and more strategic projects.
    • There were no constraints on the use of resources for smaller projects.
    • The PMO was generally expected to provide project governance with their limited resources.
    • The organization lacked an understanding of the difference between project and portfolio management. Consequently, it was difficult to create resource management practices at the portfolio level due to a lack of resourcing.

    Resolution

    • The organization deferred the implementation of the commercial PPM tool.
    • They added high-level resource management using spreadsheets.
    • Executive focus was reoriented around overall resource capacity as the principle constraint for project approvals.
    • They introduced deeper levels of planning granularity over time.
    • When the planning granularity gets down to the task level, they move toward the commercial solution.

    Step 2.3: Build process steps to ensure data accuracy and sustainability

    PHASE 1

    1.1 Set a course of action

    1.2 Estimate supply and demand

    PHASE 2

    2.1 Select resource management dimensions

    2.2 Select resource management tools

    2.3 Build process steps

    PHASE 3

    3.1 Pilot your process for viability

    3.2 Plan stakeholder engagement

    This step will walk you through the following activities:
    • Draft a high-level resource management workflow
    • Build on the workflow to determine how data will be collected at each step, and who will support the process
    • Document your provisional resource management process
    This step involves the following participants:
    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Functional / Resource Managers
    • Project Managers
    Outcomes of this step
    • A high-level resource management workflow, customized from Info-Tech’s sample workflow
    • Process for collecting resource supply data for each reporting period
    • Process for capturing the project demand within each reporting period
    • Process for identifying and documenting resource constraints and issues for each reporting period
    • Standard protocol for resolving resource issues within each reporting period
    • Process for finalizing and communicating resource allocations for the forecast window
    • A customized Resource Management Playbook, documenting the standard operating procedure for the processes

    Make sustainability the goal of your resource management practices

    A resource management process is doing more harm than good if it doesn’t facilitate the flow of accurate and usable data week after week, month after month, year after year.

    When resource management strategies fail, it can typically be tied back to the same culprit: unrealistic expectations from the outset.

    If a resource management process strives for a level of data precision that staff cannot juggle day to day, over the long run, then things will eventually fall apart as staff and decision makers alike lose faith in the data and the relevancy of the process.

    Two things can be done to help avoid this fate:

    1. Strive for accuracy over precision. If your department’s process maturity is low, and staff are ping-ponged from task to task, fire to fire, throughout any given day, then striving for precise data is ill advised. Keep your granularity of allocation more high level, and strive for data that is “maintainably” accurate rather than “unmaintainably” precise.
    2. Keep the process simple. Use the advice in this step to develop a sustainable process, one that is easy to follow with clearly defined responsibilities and accountabilities at each step.

    Info-Tech Insight

    It's not about what you put together as a one-time snapshot. It's about what you can and will maintain every week, even during a crisis. When you stop maintaining resource management data, it’s nearly impossible to catch up and you’re usually forced to start fresh.

    Maintain reliable resourcing data with an easy-to-follow, repeatable process

    Info-Tech recommends following a simple five-step process for resource management.

    1. Collect resource supply data

    • Resources
    • Resource Managers

    2. Collect project demand data

    • Resource Managers
    • Project Managers
    • PMO

    3. Identify sources of supply/demand imbalance

    • PMO

    4. Resolve conflicts and balance project and non-project allocations

    • Resource Managers
    • Project Managers
    • PMO
    • Steering Committee, CIO, other executives

    5. Approve allocations for forecast window

    • PMO
    • Steering Committee, CIO, other executives

    This is a sample workflow with sample roles and responsibilities. This step will help you customize the appropriate steps for your department.

    Info-Tech Insight

    This process aims to control the resource supply to meet the demand – project and non-project alike. Coordinate this process with other portfolio management processes, ensuring that up-to-date resource data is available for project approval, portfolio reporting, closure, etc.

    Draft your own high-level resource management workflow

    2.3.1
    60 to 90 minutes

    Participants

    • Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers
    • Business Analysts

    Input

    • Process data requirements

    Output

    • High-level description of your target-state process

    Materials

    • Whiteboard or recipe cards

    Conduct a table-top planning exercise to map out, at a high-level, your required and desired process steps.

    While Info-Tech recommends a simple five-step process (see previous slide), you may need to flesh out your process into additional steps, depending upon the granularity of your seven dimensions and the complexity of your resource management tool. A table-top planning exercise can be helpful to ensure the right process steps are covered.

    1. On a whiteboard or using white 4x6 recipe cards, write the unique steps of a resource management process. Use the process example at the bottom of this slide as a guide.
    2. Use a green marker or green cards to write artifacts or deliverables that result from each step.
    3. Use a red marker or red cards to address potential issues, problems, or risks that you can foresee at each step.

    For the purposes of this activity, avoid getting into too much detail by keeping to your focus on the high-level data points that will be required to keep supply and demand balanced on an ongoing basis.

    "[I]t’s important not to get too granular with your time tracking. While it might be great to get lots of insight into how your team is performing, being too detailed can eat into your team’s productive work time. A good rule of thumb to work by is if your employees’ timesheets include time spent time tracking, then you’ve gone too granular."

    Nicolas Jacobeus

    Use Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook to help evolve your high-level steps into a repeatable practice

    Once you’ve determined a high-level workflow, you’ll need to flesh out the organizational details for how data will be collected at each step and who will support the process.

    Use Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook to help determine and communicate the “who, what, when, where, why, and how” of each of your high-level process steps.

    The playbook template is intended to function as your resource management standard operating procedure. Customize Section 3 of the template to record the specific organizational details of how data will be collected at each process step, and the actions and decisions the data collection process will necessitate.

    • Activities 2.3.2-2.3.6 in this step will help you customize the process steps in Info-Tech’s five-step resource management model and record these in the template. If you developed a customized process in activity 2.3.1, you will need to add to/take away from the activity slides and customize the template accordingly.
    • Lean on the seven dimensions of resource management that you developed in step 2.1 to determine the cadence and frequency of data collection. For instance, if your update frequency is monthly, you will need to ensure you collect your supply-demand data prior to that, giving yourself enough time to analyze it and reconcile imbalances with stakeholders before refreshing your monthly reporting data.

    Download Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook

    How the next five activities will help you develop your playbook

    2.3 Resource Management Playbook

    Each of the slides for activities 2.3.2-2.3.6 are comprised of a task-at-a glance box as well as “important decisions to document” for each step.

    Work as a group to complete the task-at-a-glance boxes for each step. Use the “important decisions to document” notes to help brainstorm the “how” for each step. These details should be recorded below the task-at-a-glance boxes in the playbook – see point 6 in the legend below.

    Screenshot of Section 3 of the RM Playbook.

    The image shows a screenshot of Section 3 of the RM Playbook. A legend is included below.

    Screenshot Legend:

    1. Review your existing steps, tools, and templates used for this task. Alternatively, review the example provided in the RM Playbook.
    2. Designate the responsible party/parties for this process. Who carries out the task?
    3. Document the inputs and outputs for the task: artifacts, consulted and informed parties.
    4. If applicable, document the tools and templates used for the task.
    5. Designate the accountable party for this task. Only a single party can be accountable.
    6. Describe the “how” of the task below the Task-at-a-Glance table.

    Step one: determine the logistics for collecting resource supply data for each reporting period

    2.3.2
    20 minutes

    Step one in your resource management process should be ensuring a perpetually current view into your resource supply.

    Resource supply in this context should be understood as the time, per your scope of allocation (i.e. individual, team, skill, etc.) that is leftover or available once non-project demands have been taken out of the equation. In short, the goal of this process step is to determine the non-project demands for the forecast period.

    The important decisions to document for this step include:

    1. What data will be collected and from whom? For example, functional managers to update resource potential capacity and non-project resource allocations.
    2. How often will data be collected and when? For example, data will be collected third Monday of the month, three days before our monthly update frequency.
    3. How will the data be collected? For example, tool admin to send out data to update on third Monday; resource managers update the data and email back to tool admin.

    Document your process for determining resource supply in Section 3.1 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook.

    Task-at-a-glance:

    Inputs Artifacts i.e. historical usage data
    Consulted i.e. project resources
    Tools & Templates i.e. time tracking template
    Outputs Artifacts i.e. updated template
    Informed i.e. portfolio analyst
    Timing i.e. every second Monday
    Responsible i.e. functional managers
    Accountable i.e. IT directors

    Step two: map out how project demand will be captured within each reporting period

    2.3.3
    20 minutes

    Step two in your resource management process will be to determine the full extent of project demand for your forecast period.

    Project demand in this context can entail both in-flight projects as well as new project plans or new project requests that are proposing to consume capacity during the forecast period. In short, the goal of this process step is to determine all of the project demands for the forecast period.

    The important decisions to document for this step include:

    1. What data will be collected and from whom? For example, project managers to update project allocations for in-flight projects, and PMO will provide proposed allocations for new project requests.
    2. How often will data be collected and when? For example, data will be collected third Tuesday of the month, two days before our monthly update frequency.
    3. How will the data be collected? For example, tool admin to send out data to update on third Tuesday; project managers update the data and email back to tool admin.

    Document your process for determining project demand in Section 3.2 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook.

    Task-at-a-glance

    Inputs Artifacts i.e. historical usage data
    Consulted i.e. project resources
    Tools & Templates i.e. project demand template
    Outputs Artifacts i.e. updated demand table
    Informed i.e. portfolio analyst
    Timing i.e. every second Monday
    Responsible i.e. project managers
    Accountable i.e. PMO director

    Step three: record how resource constraints and issues for each reporting period will be identified and documented

    2.3.4
    20 minutes

    Step three in your resource management process will be to analyze your resource supply and project demand data to identify points of conflict.

    Once the supply-demand data has been compiled, it will need to be analyzed for points of imbalance and conflict. The goal of this process step is to analyze the raw data and to make it consumable by other stakeholders in preparation for a reconciliation or rebalancing process.

    The important decisions to document for this step include:

    1. How will the data be checked for inaccuracies? For example, tool admin to enter and QA data; reach out by the following Wednesday at noon with inconsistencies; managers to respond no later than next day by noon.
    2. What reports will employed? For example, a refreshed demand spreadsheet will be made available.
    3. What is an acceptable range for over- and under-allocations? For example, the acceptable tolerance for allocation is 15%; that is, report only those resources that are less than 85% allocated, or more than 115% allocated.

    Document your process for identifying resource constraints and issues in Section 3.3 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook.

    Task-at-a-glance

    Inputs Artifacts i.e. supply/demand data
    Consulted i.e. no one
    Tools & Templates i.e. Portfolio Manager Lite
    Outputs Artifacts i.e. list of issues
    Informed i.e. no one
    Timing i.e. every second Tuesday
    Responsible i.e. portfolio analyst
    Accountable i.e. PMO director

    Step four: establish a standard protocol for resolving resource issues within each reporting period

    2.3.5
    20 minutes

    Step four in your resource management process should be to finalize your capacity management book of record for the reporting period and prepare recommendations for resolving conflicts and issues.

    The reconciliation process will likely take place at a meeting amongst the management of the PMO and representatives from the various functional groups within the department. The goal of this step is to get the right roles and individuals to agree upon proposed reconciliations and to sign-off on resource allocations.

    The important decisions to document for this step include:

    1. What reports will be distributed and in what form? For example, refreshed spreadsheet will be available on the PMO SharePoint site.
    2. When will the reports be generated and for whom? For example, fourth Tuesday of the month, end of day – accessible for all managers.
    3. Who has input into how conflicts should be resolved? For example, conflicts will be resolved at monthly resource management meeting. All meeting participants have input, but the PMO director will have ultimate decision-making authority.

    Document your process for resolving resource constraints and issues in Section 3.4 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook.

    Inputs Artifacts i.e. meeting agenda
    Consulted i.e. meeting participants
    Tools & Templates i.e. capacity reports
    Outputs Artifacts i.e. minutes and resolutions
    Informed i.e. steering committee
    Timing i.e. every second Thursday
    Responsible i.e. PMO director
    Accountable i.e. CIO

    Step five: record how resource allocations will be finalized and communicated for the forecast window

    2.3.6
    20 minutes

    The final step in your resource management process is to clarify how resource allocations will be documented in your resource management solution and reported to the department.

    Once a plan to rebalance supply and demand for the reporting period has been agreed on, you will need to ensure that the appropriate data is updated in your resource management book of record, and that allocation decisions are communicated to the appropriate stakeholders.

    The important decisions to document for this step include:

    1. Who has ultimate authority for allocation decisions? For example, the CIO has final authority when conflicts need to be escalated and must approve all allocations for the forecast period.
    2. Who will update the book of record and when? For example, the tool admin will update the data before the end of the day following the resource management meeting.
    3. Who needs to be informed and of what? For example, resource plans will be updated in SharePoint for resources and managers to review.

    Document your process for approving and finalizing allocation in Section 3.5 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook.

    Task-at-a-glance

    Inputs Artifacts i.e. minutes and resolutions
    Consulted i.e. CIO, IT directors
    Tools & Templates i.e. Portfolio Manager Lite
    Outputs Artifacts i.e. updated availability table
    Informed i.e. steering committee
    Timing i.e. every second Friday
    Responsible i.e. portfolio analyst
    Accountable i.e. PMO director

    Finalize your provisional resource management process in the Playbook Template

    2.3 Resource Management Playbook

    Use Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook to solidify your processes in a formalized operating plan.

    Throughout this phase, we have been customizing sections 1, 2, and 3 of the Resource Management Playbook.

    Before we move to pilot and implement your resource management strategy in the next phase of this blueprint, ensure that sections 1-3 of your playbook have been drafted and are ready to be communicated and shared with stakeholders.

    • Avoid getting too granular in your process requirements. Keep it to high-level data requirements. Imposing too much detail in your playbook is a recipe for failure.
    • The playbook should remain provisional throughout your pilot phase. Aspects of your process will likely need to be changed or tweaked as they are met with some day-to-day realities. As with any “living document,” it can be helpful to explicitly assign responsibilities for updating the playbook over the long term to ensure it stays relevant.

    "People are spending far more time creating these elaborate [time-tracking] systems than it would have taken just to do the task. You’re constantly on your app refiguring, recalculating, re-categorizing... A better strategy would be [returning] to the core principles of good time management…Block out your calendar for the non-negotiable things. [Or] have an organized prioritized task list." – Laura Stack (quoted in Zawacki)

    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 Wireframe a resource management strategy using Info-Tech’s seven dimensions of resource management

    Action the decision points across Info-Tech’s seven dimensions to ensure your resource management process is guided by realistic data and process goals.

    2.3 Draft a high-level resource management workflow and elaborate it into a repeatable practice

    Customize Info-Tech’s five-step resource management process model. Then, document how the process will operate by customizing the Resource Management Playbook.

    Phase 3

    Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    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: Implement Sustainable Resource Management Practices

    Proposed Time to Completion (in weeks): 4-12 weeks

    Step 3.1: Pilot your resource management process

    Start with an analyst kick-off call:

    • Review your resource management dimensions and tools
    • Review your provisional resource management processes
    • Discuss your ideas for a pilot

    Then complete these activities…

    • Select receptive project/functional managers to work with
    • Define the scope of your pilot and determine logistics
    • Finalize resource management roles and responsibilities

    With these tools & templates:

    • Process Pilot Plan Template
    • Resource Management Playbook
    • Project Portfolio Analyst Job Description
    Step 3.2: Plan to engage your stakeholders

    Review findings with analyst:

    • Results of your pilot, team feedback, and lessons learned
    • Your stakeholder landscape

    Then complete these activities…

    • Brainstorm and plan for potential resistance to change, objections, and fatigue from stakeholders
    • Plan for next steps

    With these tools & templates:

    • Resource Management Playbook

    Phase 3 Results & Insights:

    Engagement paves the way for smoother adoption. An engagement approach (rather than simply communication) turns stakeholders into advocates who can help boost your message, sustain the change, and realize benefits without constant intervention or process command-and-control.

    Step 3.1: Pilot your resource management process to assess viability

    PHASE 1

    1.1 Set a course of action

    1.2 Estimate supply and demand

    PHASE 2

    2.1 Select resource management dimensions

    2.2 Select resource management tools

    2.3 Build process steps

    PHASE 3

    3.1 Pilot your process for viability

    3.2 Plan stakeholder engagement

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Select receptive project and functional managers to work with during your pilot
    • Define the scope of your pilot and determine logistics
    • Plan to obtain feedback, document lessons learned, and create an action plan for any changes
    • Finalize resource management roles and responsibilities

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Project Managers
    • Resource Managers

    Outcomes of this step

    • A pilot team
    • A process pilot plan that defines the scope, logistics, and process for retrospection
    • Roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities for resource management
    • Project Portfolio Analyst job description template

    Pilot your new processes to test feasibility and address issues before a full deployment

    Adopting the right set of practices requires a significant degree of change that necessitates buy-in from varied stakeholders throughout IT and the business.

    Rome wasn’t built in a day. Similarly, your visibility into resource usage and availability won’t happen overnight.

    Resist the urge to deploy a big-bang rollout of your research management practices. This approach is ill advised for two main reasons:

    • It will put more of a strain on the implementation team in the near term, with a larger pool of end users to train and collect data from.
    • Putting untested practices in a department-wide spotlight could lead to mass confusion in the near-term and color the new processes in a negative light, leading to a loss of stakeholder trust and engagement right out of the gate.

    Start with a pilot phase. Identify receptive project managers and functional managers to work with, and leverage their insights to help iron out the kinks in your process before unveiling your practices to IT and business users at large.

    This step will help you:

    • Plan and execute a pilot of the processes we developed in Phase 2.
    • Incorporate the lessons learned from that pilot to strengthen your playbook and ease the communication process.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Engagement paves the way for smoother adoption. An engagement approach (rather than simply communication) turns stakeholders into advocates who can help boost your message, sustain the change, and realize benefits without constant intervention or process command-and-control.

    Plan your pilot like you would any project to ensure it’s well defined and its goals are clearly articulated

    Use Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template to help define the scope of your pilot and set appropriate goals for the test run of your new processes.

    A process pilot is a limited scope of an implementation (constrained by time and resources involved) to test the viability and effectiveness of the process as it has been designed.

    • Investing time and energy into a pilot phase can help to lower implementation risk, enhance the details and steps within a process, and improve stakeholder relations prior to a full scale rollout.
    • More than a dry run, however, a pilot should be approached strategically and planned out to limit the scope of it and achieve specific outcomes.
    • Leverage a planning document to ensure your process pilot is grounded in a common set of definitions, that the pilot is delivering value and insight, and that ultimately the pilot can serve as a starting point for a full-scale process implementation.

    "The advantages to a pilot are several. First, risk is constrained. Pilots are closely monitored so if a problem does occur, it can be fixed immediately. Second, the people working in the pilot can become trainers as you roll the process out to the rest of the organization. Third, the pilot is another opportunity for skeptics to visit the pilot process and learn from those working in it. There’s nothing like seeing a new process working for people to change their minds." – Daniel Madison

    Download Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template

    Select receptive project and functional managers to work with during your pilot

    3.1.1
    20 to 60 minutes

    Input

    • Project management staff and functional managers

    Output

    • Pilot project teams

    Materials

    • Stakeholder Engagement Workbook
    • Process Pilot Plan Template

    Participants

    • Process owner (PMO director or portfolio owner)
    • CIO

    Info-Tech recommends selecting project managers and functional managers who are aware of your role and some of the supply-demand challenges to assist in the implementation process.

    1. If receptive project and functional managers are known, schedule a 15-minute meeting with them to inquire if they would be willing to be part of the pilot process.
    2. If receptive project managers are not known, use Info-Tech’s Stakeholder Engagement Workbook to conduct a formal selection process.
      1. Enter a list of potential pilot project managers in tab 3.
      2. Rate project managers in terms of influence, pilot interest, and potential deployment contribution within tab 4.
      3. Review tab 5 in the workbook. Receptive project managers will appear in the top quadrants. Ideal project managers for the pilot are located in the top right quadrant of the graph.

    Document the project and functional managers involved in your pilot in Section 3 of Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template.

    Define the scope of your pilot and determine logistics

    Input

    • Sections 1 through 4 of the Process Pilot Plan Template

    Output

    • A process pilot plan

    Materials

    • Process Pilot Plan Template

    Participants

    • Process Owner (PMO Director or Portfolio Owner)
    • CIO
    • Project and Resource Managers

    Use Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template to design the details of your pilot.

    Investing time into planning your pilot phase strategically will ensure a clear scope, better communications for those piloting the processes, and overall, better, more actionable results during the pilot phase. The Process Pilot Plan Template is broken into five sections to assist in these goals:

      • Pilot Overview and Scope
      • Success and Risk Factors
      • Stakeholders Involved and Communications Plan
      • Pilot Retrospective and Feedback Protocol
      • Lessons Learned
    • The duration of your pilot should go at least one allocation period, depending on your frequency of updates, e.g. one week or month.
    • Estimates of time commitments should be captured for each stakeholder. During the retrospective at the end of the pilot, you should capture actuals to help determine the time-cost of the process itself and measure its sustainability.
    • Once the template is completed, schedule time to share and communicate it with the pilot team and executive sponsors of the process.

    While you should invest time in this planning document, continue to lean on the Resource Management Playbook as well as a process guide throughout the pilot phase.

    Execute your pilot and prepare to make process revisions before the full rollout

    Hit play! Begin the process pilot and get familiar with the work routine and resource management solution.

    Some things to keep in mind during the pilot include:

    • Depending on the solution you’re using, you will likely need to spend one day or less to populate the tool. During the pilot, measure the time and effort required to manage the data within the tool. Compare with the original estimate from activity 2.2.2. Determine whether time and effort required are viable on an ongoing basis (i.e. can you do it every week or month) and have value.
    • Meet with the pilot team and other stakeholders regularly during the pilot – at least weekly. Allow the team (and yourself) to speak honestly and openly about what isn’t working. The pilot is your chance to make things better.
    • Keep notes about what will need to change in the RM Playbook. For major changes, you may have to tweak the process during the pilot itself. Update the process documents as needed and communicate the changes and why they’re being made. If required, update the scope of the pilot in the Process Pilot Plan Template.

    Obtain feedback from the pilot group to improve your processes before a wider rollout

    3.1.3
    30 minutes

    Input

    • What’s working and what isn’t in the process

    Output

    • Ideas to improve process

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Sticky notes
    • Process Pilot Plan Template

    Participants

    • Process Owner (PMO Director or Portfolio Owner)
    • Pilot Team

    Pilot projects allow you to validate your assumptions and leverage lessons learned. During the planning of the pilot, you should have scheduled a retrospective meeting with the pilot team to formally assess strengths and weaknesses in the process you have drafted.

    • Schedule the retrospective shortly after the pilot is completed. Info-Tech recommends a stop/start/continue activity with pilot participants to obtain and capture feedback.
    • Have members of the meeting record any processes/activities on sticky notes that should:
      • Stop: because they are ineffective or not useful
      • Start: because they would be useful for the tool and have not been incorporated into current processes
      • Continue: because they are useful and positively contribute to intended process outcomes

    An example of how to structure a stop/start/continue activity on a whiteboard using sticky notes.

    The image shows three black squares, each with three brightly coloured sticky notes in it. The three squares are labelled: Stop; Start; Continue.

    See below for additional instructions

    Document lessons learned and create an action plan for any changes to the resource management processes

    3.1.4
    30 minutes

    As a group, discuss everyone’s responses and organize according to top priority (mark with a 1) and lower priority/next steps (mark with a 2). At this point, you can also remove any sticky notes that are repetitive or no longer relevant.

    Once you have organized based on priority, be sure to come to a consensus with the group regarding which actions to take. For example, if the group agrees that they should “stop holding meetings weekly,” come to a consensus regarding how often meetings will be held, i.e. monthly.

    Create an action plan for the top priority items that require changes (the stops and starts). Record in this slide or your preferred medium. Be sure to include who is responsible for the action and the date that it will be implemented.

    Priority Action Required Who is Responsible Implementation Date
    Stop: Holding meetings weekly Hold meetings monthly Jane Doe, PMO Next Meeting: November 1, 2017
    Start: Discussing backlog during meetings Ensure that backlog data is up to date for discussion on date of next meeting John Doe, Portfolio Manager November 1, 2017

    Document the outcomes of the start/stop/continue exercise and your action plan in Section 6 of Info-Tech’s Process Pilot Plan Template.

    Review actions that can be taken based on the results of your pilot

    Situation Action Next Steps
    The dimensions that we chose for our strategy have proven to be too difficult to accurately maintain. The dimensions that we chose for our strategy have proven to be too difficult to accurately maintain. Reassess the dimensions that you chose for your strategy. Make sure that you are not overcommitting yourself based on your maturity level. You can always go back and adjust for a higher level of resource management maturity once you have mastered your current level. For example, if you chose “weekly” as your update frequency and this has proven to be too much to maintain, try updating monthly for a few months. Once you have mastered this update frequency, it will be easier to adjust to a weekly update process.
    We were able to maintain the data for our pilot based on the dimensions that we chose. However, allocating projects based on realized capacity did not alleviate any of our resourcing issues and resources still seem to be working on more projects than they can handle. Determine other factors at the organization that would help to maintain the data and work toward reclaiming capacity. Continue working with the dimensions that you chose and maintain the accuracy of this data. The next step is to identify other factors that are contributing to your resource allocation problems and begin reclaiming capacity. Continue forward to the resource management roadmap section and work on changing organizational structures and worker behavior to maximize capacity for project work.
    We were able to easily and accurately maintain the data, which led to positive results and improvement in resource allocation issues. If your strategy is easily maintained, identify factors that will help your organization reclaim capacity. Continue to maintain this data, and eventually work toward maintaining it at a more precise level. For example, if you are currently using an update frequency of “monthly” and succeeding, think about moving toward a “weekly” frequency within a few months. Once you feel confident that you can maintain project and resource data, continue on to the roadmap section to discover ways to reclaim resource capacity through organizational and behavioral change.

    Finalize resource management roles and responsibilities

    3.1.5
    15 to 30 minutes

    Input

    • Tasks for resource management
    • Stakeholder involved

    Output

    • Roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities for resource management

    Materials

    • Resource Management Playbook

    Participants

    • PMO Director/ Portfolio Manager
    • Functional Managers
    • Project Managers

    Perform a RACI exercise to help standardize terminology around roles and responsibilities and to ensure that expectations are consistent across stakeholders and teams.

    • A RACI will help create a clear understanding of the tasks and expectations for each stakeholder at each process step, assigning responsibilities and accountability for resource management outcomes.

    Responsible

    Accountable

    Consulted

    Informed

    Roles CIO PMO Portfolio Analyst Project Manager Functional Manager
    Collect supply data I A R I C
    Collect demand data I A R C I
    Identify conflicts I C/A R C C
    Resolve conflicts C A/R I R R
    Approve allocations A R I R I

    Document your roles and responsibilities in Section 2 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook.

    Use Info-Tech’s Portfolio Analyst job description to help fill any staffing needs around data maintenance

    3.1 Project Portfolio Analyst/PMO Analyst Job Description

    You will need to determine responsibilities and accountabilities for portfolio management functions within your team.

    If you do not have a clearly identifiable portfolio manager at this time, you will need to clarify who will wear which hats in terms of facilitating intake and prioritization, high-level capacity awareness, and portfolio reporting.

    • Use Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Analyst job description template to help clarify some of the required responsibilities to support your PPM strategy.
      • If you need to bring in an additional staff member to help support the strategy, you can customize the job description template to help advertise the position. Simply edit the text in grey within the template.
    • If you have other PPM tasks that you need to define responsibilities for, you can use the RASCI chart on the final tab of the PPM Strategy Development Tool.

    Download Info-Tech’s Project Portfolio Analyst Job Description Template

    Finalize the Resource Management Playbook and prepare to communicate your processes

    Once you’ve completed the pilot process and made the necessary tweaks, you should finalize your Resource Management Playbook and prepare to communicate it.

    Revisit your RM Playbook from step 2.3 and ensure it has been updated to reflect the process changes that were identified in activity 3.1.4.

    • If during the pilot process the data was too difficult or time consuming to maintain, revisit the dimensions you have chosen and select dimensions that are easier to accurately maintain. Tweak your process steps in the playbook accordingly.
    • In the long term, if you are not observing any capacity being reclaimed, revisit the roadmap that we’ll prepare in step 3.2 and address some of these inhibitors to organizational change.
    • In the next step, we will also be repurposing some of the content from the playbook, as well as from previous activities, to include them in your presentation to stakeholders, using Info-Tech’s Resource Management Communications Template.

    Download Info-Tech’s Resource Management Playbook

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    Make your process standardization comprehensive. The RM Playbook should serve as your resource management standard operating procedure. In addition to providing a walk-through of the process, an SOP also clarifies project governance by clearly defining roles and responsibilities.

    Step 3.2: Plan to engage your stakeholders with your playbook

    PHASE 1

    1.1 Set a course of action

    1.2 Estimate supply and demand

    PHASE 2

    2.1 Select resource management dimensions

    2.2 Select resource management tools

    2.3 Build process steps

    PHASE 3

    3.1 Pilot your process for viability

    3.2 Plan stakeholder engagement

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Brainstorm and plan for potential resistance to change, objections, and fatigue from stakeholders
    • Plan for next steps in reclaiming project capacity
    • Plan for next steps in overcoming supply-demand reconciliation challenges

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • PMO Director / Portfolio Manager
    • Pilot Team from Step 3.1

    Outcomes of this step

    • Plan for communicating responses and objections from stakeholders and staff
    • Plan to manage structural/enabling factors that influence success of the resource management strategy
    • Description of next steps in reclaiming project capacity and overcoming supply-demand reconciliation challenges
    • Final draft of the customized Resource Management Playbook

    Develop a resource management roadmap to communicate and reinforce the strategy

    A roadmap will help anticipate, plan, and address barriers and opportunities that influence the success of the resource management strategy.

    This step of the project will ensure the new strategy is adopted and applied with maximum success by helping you manage challenges and opportunities across three dimensions:

    1. Executive Stakeholder Factors

    For example, resistance to adopting new assumptions about ratio of project versus non-project work.

    2. Workforce/Team Factors

    For example, resistance to moving from individual- to team-based allocations.

    3. Structural Factors

    For example, ensuring priorities are stable within the chosen resource planning horizon.

    See Info-Tech’s Drive Organizational Change from the PMOfor comprehensive tools and guidance on achieving organizational buy-in for your new resource management practices.

    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. (McLean & Company)

    Anticipate a wide range of responses toward your new processes

    While your mandate may be backed by an executive sponsor, you will need to influence stakeholders from throughout the organization in order to succeed. Indeed, as EPMO leader, success will depend upon your ability to confirm and reaffirm commitments on soft or informal grounds. Prepare an engagement strategy that anticipates a wide range of responses.

    Enthusiasts Fence-sitters Skeptics Saboteurs
    What they look like: Put all their energy into learning new skills and behaviors. Start to use new skills and behaviors at a sluggish pace. Look for alternate ways of implementing the change. Refuse to learn anything new or try new behaviors.
    How they contribute: Lead the rest of the group. Provide an undercurrent of movement from old behaviors to new. Challenge decisions and raise risk points with managers. May raise valid points about the process that should be fixed.
    How to manage them: Give them space to learn and lead others. Keep them moving forward by testing their progress. Listen to them, but don’t give in to their demands. Keep communicating with them until you convert them.
    How to leverage them: Have them lead discussions and training sessions. Use them as an example to forecast the state once the change is adopted. Test new processes by having them try to poke holes in them. If you can convert them, they will lead the Skeptics and Fence-sitters.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Hone your stakeholder engagement strategy. Most people affected by an IT-enabled change tend to be fence-sitters. Small minorities will be enthusiasts, saboteurs, and skeptics. Your communication strategy should focus on engaging the skeptics, saboteurs, and enthusiasts. Fence-sitters will follow.

    Define plans to deal with resistance to change, objections, and fatigue

    Be prepared to confront skeptics and saboteurs when communicating the change.

    1. Use the templates on the following slide to:
      1. Brainstorm possible objections from stakeholders and staff. Prioritize objections that are likely to occur.
      2. Develop responses to objections.
    2. Develop a document and plan for proactively communicating responses and objections to show people that you understand their point of view.
      1. Revise the communications messaging and plan to include proactive objection handling.
    3. Discuss the likelihood and impact of “saboteurs” who aren’t convinced or affected by change management efforts.
      1. Explore contingency plans for dealing with difficult saboteurs. These individuals can negate the progress of the rest of the team by continuing to resist the process and spreading toxic energy. If necessary, be ruthless with these individuals. Let them know that the rest of the group is moving on without them, and if they can’t or won’t adopt the new standards, then they can leave.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Communicate well and engage often. Agility and continuous improvement are good, but can degenerate into volatility if change isn’t managed properly. People will perceive change to be volatile if their expectations aren’t managed through communications and engagement planning.

    Info-Tech Best Practice

    The individuals 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 implementation process – not just to make them feel included or part of the change, but also because their insight could very likely identify risks, barriers, and opportunities that need to be addressed.

    Develop a plan to manage stakeholder resistance to the new resource management strategy

    3.2.1
    30 minutes

    Brainstorm potential implications and objections that executive stakeholders might raise about your new processes.

    Dimension Decision Potential Impact, Implications, and Objections Possible Responses and Actions
    i.e. Default Project Ratio 50% “This can’t be right...” “We conducted a thorough time audit to establish this ratio.”
    “We need to spend more time on project work.” “Realistic estimates will help us control new project intake, which will help us optimize time allocated to projects.”
    i.e. Frequency Monthly “This data isn’t detailed enough, we need to know what people are working on right now.” “Maintaining an update frequency of weekly would require approximately [X] extra hours of PMO effort. We can work toward weekly as we mature.”
    i.e. Scope Person “That is a lot of people to keep track of.” “Managing individuals is still the job of the project manager; we are responsible for allocating individuals to projects.”
    i.e. Granularity of Work Assignment Project “We need to know exactly what tasks are being worked on and what the progress is.” “Assigning at task level is very difficult to accurately maintain. Once we have mastered a project-level granularity we can move toward task level.”
    i.e. Forecast Horizon One month “We need to know what each resource is working on next year.” “With a monthly forecast, our estimates are dependable. If we forecast a year in advance, this estimate will not be accurate.”

    Document the outcomes of this activity on slide 26 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Communications Template.

    Develop a plan to manage staff/team resistance to the new resource management strategy

    3.2.2
    30 minutes

    Brainstorm potential implications and objections that individual staff and members of project teams might raise about your new processes.

    Dimension Decision Potential Impact, Implications, and Objections Possible Responses and Actions
    i.e. Default Project Ratio 50% “There’s too much support work.” “We conducted a thorough time audit to establish this ratio. Realistic estimates will help us control new project intake, which will help us optimize your project time.”
    i.e. Frequency Monthly “I don’t have time to give you updates on project progress.” “This update frequency requires only [X] amount of time from you per week/month.”
    i.e. Granularity Project “I need more clarity on what I’m working on.” “Team members and project managers are in the best position to define and assign (or self-select) individual tasks.”
    i.e. Forecast Horizon One month “I need to know what my workload will be further in advance.” “You will still have a high-level understanding of what you will be working on in the future, but projects will only be officially forecasted one month in advance.”
    i.e. Allocation Cadence Monthly “We need a more frequent cadence.” “We can work toward weekly cadence as we mature.”

    Document the outcomes of this activity on slide 27 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Communications Template.

    Develop a plan to manage structural/enabling factors that influence success of the resource management strategy

    3.2.3
    30 minutes

    Brainstorm a plan to manage other risks and challenges to implementing your processes.

    Dimension Decision Potential Impact, Implications, and Objections Possible Responses and Actions
    i.e. Default Project Ratio 50% “We have approved too many projects to allocate so little time to project work.” Nothing has changed – this was always the amount of time that would actually go toward projects. If you are worried about a backlog, stop approving projects until you have completed the current workload.
    i.e. Frequency Monthly “Status reports aren’t reliably accurate and up to date more than quarterly.” Enforce strict requirements to provide monthly status updates for 1-3 key KPIs.
    i.e. Scope Person “How can we keep track of what each individual is working on?” Establish a simple, easy reporting mechanism so that resources are reporting their own progress.
    i.e. Granularity Project “How will we know the status of a project without knowing what tasks are completed?” It is in the domain of the project manager to know what tasks have been completed and to report overall project progress.
    i.e. Forecast Horizon One Month “It will be difficult to plan for resource needs in advance.” Planning a month in advance allows you to address conflicts or issues before they are urgent.

    Document the outcomes of this activity on slide 28 of Info-Tech’s Resource Management Communications Template.

    Finalize your communications plan and prepare to present the new processes to the organization

    Use Info-Tech’s Resource Management Communications Template to record the challenges your resource management strategy is addressing and how it is addressing them.

    Highlight organizational factors that necessitated the change.

    • Stakeholders and staff understandably tend to dislike change for the sake of change. Use Info-Tech’s Resource Management Communications Template to document the pain points that your process change is addressing and explain the intended benefits for all who will be subject to the new procedures.

    Determine goals and benefits for implementation success.

    • Provide metrics by which the implementation will be deemed a success. Providing this horizon will provide some structure for stakeholders and hopefully help to encourage process discipline.

    Clearly indicate what is required of people to adopt new processes.

    • Document your Resource Management Playbook. Be sure to include specific roles and responsibilities so there is no doubt regarding who is accountable for what.

    Download Info-Tech’s Resource Management Communications Template

    "You need to be able to communicate effectively with major stakeholders – you really need their buy-in. You need to demonstrate credibility with your audience in the way you communicate and show how portfolio [management] is a structured decision-making process." – Dr. Shan Rajegopal (quoted in Akass, “What Makes a Successful Portfolio Manager”)

    Review tactics for keeping your processes on track

    Once the strategy is adopted, the next step is to be prepared to address challenges as they come up. Review the tactics in the table below for assistance.

    Challenge Resolution Next Step
    Workers are distracted because they are working on too many projects at once; their attention is split and they are unproductive. Workers are distracted because they are working on too many projects at once; their attention is split and they are unproductive. Review portfolio practices for ways to limit work in progress (WIP).
    Employees are telling project managers what they want to hear and not giving honest estimates about the way their time is spent. Ensure that employees understand the value of honest time tracking. If you’re allocating your hours to the wrong projects, it is your projects that suffer. If you are overallocated, be honest and share this with management. Display employee time-tracking reports on a public board so that everyone will see where their time is spent. If they are struggling to complete projects by their deadlines they must be able to demonstrate the other work that is taking up their time.
    Resources are struggling with projects because they do not have the necessary expertise. Perform a skills audit to determine what skills employees have and assign them to projects accordingly. If an employee with a certain skill is in high demand, consider hiring more resources who are able to complete this work.

    See below for additional challenges and tactics

    Review tactics for keeping supply and demand aligned

    Once the strategy is adopted, the next step is to use the outputs of the strategy to reclaim capacity and ensure supply and demand remain aligned. Review the tactics in the table below for assistance.

    Challenge Resolution Next Step
    There is insufficient project capacity to take on new work, but demand continues to grow. Extend project due date and manage the expectations of project sponsors with data. If possible, reclaim capacity from non-project work. Customize the playbook to address insufficient project capacity.
    There is significant fluctuation in demand, making it extremely challenging to stick to allocations. Project managers can build in additional contingencies to project plans based on resourcing data, with plans for over-delivering with surplus capacity. In addition, the CIO can leverage business relationships to curb chaotic demand. The portfolio manager should analyze the project portfolio for clues on expanding demand. Customize the playbook to address large fluctuations in demand.
    On a constant basis, there are conflicting project demands over specific skills. Re-evaluate the definition of a project to guard the value of the portfolio. Continually prioritize projects based on their business values as of today. Customize the playbook to address conflicting project demands. Feed into any near- and long-term staffing plans.

    Prepare to communicate your new resource management practices and reap their benefits

    As you roll out your resource management strategy, familiarize yourself with the capability improvements that will drive your resource management success metrics.

    1. Increased capacity awareness through the ability to more efficiently and more effectively collect and track complex, diverse, and dynamic project data across the project portfolio.
    2. Improved supply management. Increased awareness of resource capacity (current and forecasted) combined with the ability to see the results of resource allocations across the portfolio will help ensure that project resources are used as effectively as possible.
    3. Improved demand management. Increased capacity awareness, combined with reliable supply management, will help PMOs set realistic limits on the amount and kind of IT projects the organization can take on at any given time. The ability to present user-friendly reports to key decision makers will help the PMO to ensure that the projects that are approved are realistically attainable and strategically aligned.
    4. Increased portfolio success. Improvements in the three areas indicated above should result in more realistic demands on project workers/managers, better products, and better service to all stakeholders. While successfully implemented PPM solutions should produce more efficient PPM processes, ideally they should also drive improved project stakeholder satisfaction across the organization.

    The image shows a series on concentric circles, labelled (from the inside out): Capacity Awareness; Supply Management; Demand Management; Project Success.

    Info-Tech client achieves resource management success by right-sizing its data requirements and focusing on reporting

    CASE STUDY

    Industry Manufacturing

    Source Info-Tech Client

    We were concerned that the staff would not want to do timesheets. With one level of task definition, it’s not really timesheets. It’s more about reconciling our allocations.” – PMO Director, Manufacturing

    Challenge

    • In a very fast-paced environment, the PMO had developed a meaningful level of process maturity.
    • There had never been time to slow down enough to introduce a mature PPM tool set.
    • The executive leadership had started to ask for more throughput of highly visible IT projects.

    Solution

    • There had never been oversight on how much IT time went toward escalated support issues and smaller enhancement requests.
    • Staff had grown accustomed to a lack of documentation rigor surrounding the portfolio.
    • Despite a historic baseline of the ratio between strategic projects, small projects, and support, the lack of recordkeeping made it hard to validate or reconcile these ratios.

    Results

    • The organization introduced a robust commercial PPM tool.
    • They were able to restrict the granularity of data to a high level in order to limit the time required to enter and manage, and track the actuals.
    • They prepared executive leadership for their renewed focus on the allocation of resources to strategically important projects.
    • Approval of projects was right-sized based on the actual capacity and realized through improved timesheet recordkeeping.

    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 Define the scope of your pilot and set appropriate goals for the test-run of your new processes

    An effective pilot lowers implementation risk, enhances the details and steps within a process, and improves stakeholder relations prior to a full scale rollout.

    3.2 Develop a plan to manage stakeholder and staff resistance to the new resource management practice

    Proactively plan for communicating responses and objections to show people that you understand their point of view and win their buy-in.

    Insight breakdown

    Insight 1

    A matrix organization creates many small, untraceable demands that are often overlooked in resource management efforts, which lead to underestimating total demand and overcommitting resources. To capture them and enhance the success of your resource management effort, focus on completeness rather than precision. Precision of data will improve over time as your process maturity grows.

    Insight 2

    Draft the resource management practice with sustainability in mind. It is about what you can and will maintain every week, even during a crisis: it is not about what you put together as a one-time snapshot. Once you stop maintaining resource data, it’s nearly impossible to catch up.

    Insight 3

    Engagement paves the way for smoother adoption. An engagement approach (rather than simply communication) turns stakeholders into advocates who can help boost your message, sustain the change, and realize benefits without constant intervention or process command-and-control.

    Summary of accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    • Disconnect between traditional resource management paradigms and today’s reality of work environment
    • Differentiation of accuracy and precision in capacity data
    • Snapshot of resource capacity supply and demand
    • Seven dimensions of resource management strategy
    • How to create sustainability of a resource management practice

    Processes Optimized

    • Collecting resource supply data
    • Capturing the project demand
    • Identifying and documenting resource constraints and issues
    • Resolving resource issues
    • Finalizing and communicating resource allocations for the forecast window

    Deliverable Completed

    • Resource Management Supply-Demand Calculator, to create an initial estimate of resource capacity supply and demand
    • Time-tracking survey emails, to validate assumptions made for creating the initial snapshot of resource capacity supply and demand
    • Resource Management Playbook, which documents your resource management strategy dimensions, process steps, and responses to challenges
    • PPM Solution Vendor Demo Script, to structure your resource management tool demos and interactions with vendors to ensure that their solutions can fully support your resource management practices
    • Portfolio Manager Lite, a spreadsheet-based resource management solution to facilitate the flow of data
    • Process Pilot Plan, to ensure that the pilot delivers value and insight necessary for a wider rollout
    • Project Portfolio Analyst job description, to help your efforts in bringing in additional staff to provide support for the new resource management practice
    • Resource Management Communications presentation, with which to engage your stakeholders during the new process rollout

    Research contributors and experts

    Trevor Bramwell, ICT Project Manager Viridor Waste Management

    John Hansknecht, Director of Technology University of Detroit Jesuit High School & Academy

    Brian Lasby, Project Manager Toronto Catholic District School Board

    Jean Charles Parise, CIO & DSO Office of the Auditor General of Canada

    Darren Schell, Associate Executive Director of IT Services University of Lethbridge

    Related Info-Tech research

    Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy

    Grow Your Own PPM Solution

    Optimize Project Intake, Approval, and Prioritization

    Maintain and Organized Portfolio

    Manage a Minimum-Viable PMO

    Establish the Benefits Realization Process

    Manage an Agile Portfolio

    Tailor Project Management Processes to Fit Your Projects

    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 to understand where you stand and how you can improve.

    Bibliography

    actiTIME. “How Poor Tracking of Work Time Affects Your Business.” N.p., Oct. 2016. Web.

    Akass, Amanda. “What Makes a Successful Portfolio Manager.” Pcubed, n.d. Web.

    Alexander, Moira. “5 Steps to avoid overcommitting resources on your IT projects.” TechRepublic. 18 July 2016. Web.

    Anderson, Ryan. “Some Shocking Statistics About Interruptions in Your Work Environment.” Filevine, 9 July 2015. Web.

    Bondale, Kiron. “Focus less on management and more on the resources with resource management.” Easy in Theory, Difficult in Practice. 16 July 2014. Web.

    Burger, Rachel. “10 Software Options that Will Make Your Project Resource Allocation Troubles Disappear.” Capterra Project Management Blog, 6 January 2016. Web.

    Cooper, Robert, G. “Effective Gating: Make product innovation more productive by using gates with teeth.” Stage-Gate International and Product Development Institute. March/April 2009. Web.

    Dimensional Research. “Lies, Damned Lies and Timesheet Data.” Replicon, July 2013. Web.

    Edelman Trust Barometer. “Leadership in a Divided World.” 2016. Web.

    Frank, T.A. “10 Execs with Time-Management Secrets You Should Steal.” Monday*. Issue 2: Nov-Dec 2014. Drucker Institute. Web.

    Huth, Susanna. “Employees waste 759 hours each year due to workplace distractions.” The Telegraph, 22 Jun 2015. Web.

    Jacobeus, Nicolas. “How Detailed Does Your Agency Time Tracking Need to Be?” Scale Blog, 18 Jul 2016. Web.

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    Master Organizational Change Management Practices

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    • Parent Category Name: Program & Project Management
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    • 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.

    Bibliography

    Basu, Chirantan. “Top Organizational Change Risks.” Chiron. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Beatty, Carol. “The Tough Work of Managing Change.” Queens University. 2015. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Brown, Deborah. “Change Management: Some Statistics.” D&B Consulting Inc. May 15, 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Burke, W. Warner. Organizational Change: Theory and Practice. 4th Edition. London: Sage, 2008.

    Buus, Inger. “Rebalancing Leaders in Times of Turbulence.” Mannaz. February 8, 2013. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Change First. “Feedback from our ROI change management survey.” 2010. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Collins, Jeff. “The Connection between User Adoption and Project Management Success.” Innovative Management Solutions. Sept. 21, 2013. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Craddock, William. “Change Management in the Strategic Alignment of Project Portfolios.” PMI. 2015. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Denning, Steve. “The Four Stories you Need to Lead Deep Organizational Change.” Forbes. July 25, 2011. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Drucker, Peter. “What Makes an Effective Executive.” Harvard Business Review. June 2004. Web. June 14, 2016

    Elwin, Toby. “Highlight Change Management – An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry.” July 6, 2012. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Enstrom, Christopher. “Employee Power: The Bases of Power Used by Front-Line Employees to Effect Organizational Change.” MA Thesis. University of Calgary. April 2003. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Ewenstein, Boris, Wesley Smith, and Ashvin Sologar. “Changing Change Management.” McKinsey & Company. July 2015. Web. June 14, 2016.

    International Project Leadership Academy. “Why Projects Fail: Facts and Figures.” Web. June 14, 2016.

    Jacobs-Long, Ann. “EPMO’s Can Make A Difference In Your Organization.” May 9, 2012. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Kotter, John. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

    Latham, Ross. “Information Management Advice 55 Change Management: Preparing for Change.” TAHO. March 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Linders, Ben. “Finding Ways to Improve Business – IT Collaboration.” InfoQ. June 6, 2013. Web. June 14, 2016

    Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince, selections from The Discourses and other writings. Ed. John Plamenatz. London: Fontana/Collins, 1972.

    Michalak, Joanna Malgorzata. “Cultural Catalyst and Barriers to Organizational Change Management: a Preliminary Overview.” Journal of Intercultural Management. 2:2. November 2010. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Miller, David, and Mike Oliver. “Engaging Stakeholder for Project Success.” PMI. 2015. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Parker, John. “How Business Analysts Can Identify Quick Wins.” EnFocus Solutions. February 15, 2013. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Paulk, January. “The Fundamental Role a Change Impact Analysis Plays in an ERP Implementation.” Panorma Consulting Solutions. March 24, 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Petouhoff, Natalie, Tamra Chandler, and Beth Montag-Schmaltz. “The Business Impact of Change Management.” Graziadio Business Review. 2006. Web. June 14, 2016.

    PM Solutions. “The State of the PMO 2014.” 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    PMI. “Pulse of the Profession: Enabling Organizational Change Throughout Strategic Initiatives.” March 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    PMI. “Pulse of the Profession: Executive Sponsor Engagement.” October 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    PMI. “Pulse of the Profession: the High Cost of Low Performance.” February 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Powers, Larry, and Ketil Been. “The Value of Organizational Change Management.” Boxley Group. 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Prosci. “Best Practices in Change Management – 2014 Edition: Executive Overview.” Web. June 14, 2016.

    Prosci. “Change Management Sponsor Checklist.” Web. June 14, 2016.

    Prosci. “Cost-benefit analysis for change management.” 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Prosci. “Five Levers of Organizational Change.” 2016. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Rick, Torben. “Change Management Requires a Compelling Story.” Meliorate. October 3, 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Rick, Torben. “The Success Rate of Organizational Change Initiatives.” Meliorate. October 13, 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Schwartz, Claire. “Implementing and Monitoring Organizational Change: Part 3.” Daptiv Blogs. June 24, 2013. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Simcik, Shawna. “Shift Happens! The Art of Change Management.” Innovative Career Consulting, Inc. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Stewart Group. “Emotional Intelligence.” 2014. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Thakur, Sidharth. “Improve your Project’s Communication with These Inspirational Quotes.” Ed. Linda Richter. Bright Hub Project Management. June 9, 2012. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Training Folks. “Implementing and Supporting Training for Important Change Initiatives.” 2012. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Warren, Karen. “Make your Training Count: The Right Training at the Right Time.” Decoded. April 12, 2015. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Willis Towers Watson. “Only One-Quarter of Employers Are Sustaining Gains from Change Management Initiatives, Towers Watson Survey Finds.” August 29, 2013. Web. June 14, 2016.

    Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting
    • The fast evolution of the cybersecurity landscape requires security training and awareness programs that are frequently updated and improved.
    • Security and awareness training programs often fail to engage end users. Lack of engagement can lead to low levels of knowledge retention.
    • Irrelevant or outdated training content does not properly prepare your end users to effectively defend the organization against security threats.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • One-time, annual training is no longer sufficient for creating an effective security awareness and training program.
    • By presenting security as a personal and individualized issue, you can make this new personal focus a driver for your organizational security awareness and training program.

    Impact and Result

    • Create a training program that delivers smaller amounts of information on a more frequent basis to minimize effort, reduce end-user training fatigue, and improve content relevance.
    • Evaluate and improve your security awareness and training program continuously to keep its content up-to-date. Leverage end-user feedback to ensure content remains relevant to those who receive it.

    Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a security awareness and training program that empowers end users, 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. Develop your training program

    Create or mature a security awareness and training program that is tailored to your organization.

    • Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users – Phase 1: Develop Your Training Program
    • Security Awareness and Training Program Development Tool
    • End-User Security Job Description Template
    • Training Materials – Physical Computer Security
    • Training Materials – Cyber Attacks
    • Training Materials – Incident Response
    • Training Materials – Mobile Security
    • Training Materials – Passwords
    • Training Materials – Phishing
    • Training Materials – Social Engineering
    • Training Materials – Web Usage
    • Security Awareness and Training Vendor Evaluation Tool
    • Security Awareness and Training Metrics Tool
    • End-User Security Knowledge Test Template
    • Security Training Campaign Development Tool

    2. Design an effective training delivery plan

    Explore methods of training delivery and select the most effective solutions.

    • Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users – Phase 2: Design an Effective Training Delivery Plan
    • Information Security Awareness and Training Policy
    • Security Awareness and Training Gamification Guide
    • Mock Spear Phishing Email Examples
    • Security Training Email Templates
    • Security Awareness and Training Module Builder and Training Schedule
    • Security Training Campaign Development Tool
    • Security Training Program Manual
    • Security Awareness and Training Feedback Template
    • Security Awareness Month Week 1: Staying in Touch
    • Security Awareness Month Week 2: Sharing Special Moments
    • Security Awareness Month Week 3: Working and Networking
    • Security Awareness Month Week 4: Families and Businesses
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Develop a Security Awareness and Training Program That Empowers End Users

    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 Outline the Plan for Long-term Program Improvement

    The Purpose

    Identify the maturity level of the existing security awareness and training program and set development goals.

    Establish program milestones and outline key initiatives for program development.

    Identify metrics to measure program effectiveness.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identified the gaps between the current maturity level of the security awareness and training program and future target states.

    Activities

    1.1 Create a program development plan.

    1.2 Investigate and select metrics to measure program effectiveness.

    1.3 Execute some low-hanging fruit initiatives for collecting metrics: e.g. create a knowledge test, feedback survey, or gamification guide.

    Outputs

    Customized development plan for program.

    Tool for tracking metrics.

    Customized knowledge quiz ready for distribution.

    Customized feedback survey for training.

    Gamification program outline.

    2 Identify and Assess Audience Groups and Security Training Topics

    The Purpose

    Determine the unique audience groups within your organization and evaluate their risks and vulnerabilities.

    Prioritize training topics and audience groups to effectively streamline program development.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Created a comprehensive list of unique audience groups and the corresponding security training that each group should receive.

    Determined priority ratings for both audience groups and the security topics to be delivered.

    Activities

    2.1 Identify the unique audience groups within your organization and the threats they face.

    2.2 Determine the priority levels of the current security topics.

    2.3 Review audience groups and determine which topics need to be delivered to each group.

    Outputs

    Risk profile for each identified audience group.

    Priority scores for all training topics.

    List of relevant security topics for each identified audience group.

    3 Plan the Training Delivery

    The Purpose

    Identify all feasible delivery channels for security training within your organization.

    Build a vendor evaluation tool and shortlist or harvest materials for in-house content creation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    List of all potential delivery mechanisms for security awareness and training.

    Built a vendor evaluation tool and discussed a vendor shortlist.

    Harvested a collection of free online materials for in-house training development.

    Activities

    3.1 Discuss potential delivery mechanisms for training, including the purchase and use of a vendor.

    3.2 If selecting a vendor, review vendor selection criteria and discuss potential vendor options.

    3.3 If creating content in-house, review and select available resources on the web.

    Outputs

    List of available delivery mechanisms for training.

    Vendor assessment tool and shortlist.

    Customized security training presentations.

    4 Create a Training Schedule for Content Deployment

    The Purpose

    Create a plan for deploying a pilot program to gather valuable feedback.

    Create an ongoing training schedule.

    Define the end users’ responsibilities towards security within the organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Created a plan to deploy a pilot program.

    Created a schedule for training deployment.

    Defined role of end users in helping protect the organization against security threats.

    Activities

    4.1 Build training modules.

    4.2 Create an ongoing training schedule.

    4.3 Define and document your end users’ responsibilities towards their security.

    Outputs

    Documented modular structure to training content.

    Training schedule.

    Security job description template.

    End-user training policy.

    Enterprise Architecture

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Planning and Architecture
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    Demystify enterprise architecture value with key metrics.

    IT Service Management Selection Guide

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
    • Parent Category Link: /service-desk
    • Your ITSM solution that was once good enough is no longer adequate for a rapidly evolving services culture.
    • Processes and data are disconnected with multiple workarounds and don’t allow the operations team to mature processes.
    • The workarounds, disparate systems, and integrations you’ve implemented to solve IT operations issues are no longer adequate.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Accessing funding for IT solutions can be challenging when the solution isn’t obviously aligned to the business need.
    • To maximize value and stakeholder satisfaction, determine use cases early, engage the right stakeholders, and define success.
    • Choosing a solution for a single purpose and then expanding it to cover other use cases can be a very effective use of technology dollars. However, spending the time up front to determine which use cases should be included and which will need a separate best-of-breed solution will make the best use of your investment.

    Impact and Result

    • Create a business case that defines use cases and requirements.
    • Shorten the list of viable vendors by matching vendors to use cases.
    • Determine which features are most important to reach your goals and select the best-matched vendor.

    IT Service Management Selection Guide Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how Info-Tech’s methodology will provide a quick solution to selecting ITSM vendors 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 a business case

    Create a light business case to gain buy-in and define goals, milestones, and use cases.

    • IT Service Management Business Case Template

    2. Define requirements

    Create your list of requirements and shortlist vendors.

    • The ITSM Vendor Evaluation Workbook
    [infographic]

    Acquire the Right Hires with Effective Interviewing

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    • Parent Category Name: Attract & Select
    • Parent Category Link: /attract-and-select
    • Scope: Acquiring the best talent relies heavily on an effective interviewing process, which involves the strategic preparation of stakeholders, including interviewers. Asking the most effective questions will draw out the most appropriate information to best assess the candidate. Evaluating the interview process and recording best practices will inspire continuous interviewing improvement within the organization.
    • Challenge: The majority of organizations do not have a solid interviewing process in place, and most interviewers are not practiced at interviewing. This results in many poor hiring decisions, costing the organization in many ways. Upsizing is on the horizon, the competition for good talent is escalating, and distinguishing between a good interviewee and a good candidate fit for a position is becoming more difficult.
    • Pain/Risk: Although properly preparing for and conducting an interview requires additional time on the part of HR, the hiring manager, and all interviewers involved, the long-term benefits of an effective interview process positively affect the organization’s bottom line and company morale.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Most interviewers are not as good as they think they are, resulting in many poor hiring decisions. A poor hire can cost an organization up to 15 times the position’s annual salary, as well as hurt employee morale.
    • The Human Resources department needs to take responsibility for an effective interview process, but the business needs to take responsibility for developing its new hire needs, and assessing the candidates using the best questions and the most effective interview types and techniques.
    • All individuals with a stake in the interview process need to invest sufficient time to help define the ideal candidate, understand their roles and decision rights in the process, and prepare individually to interview effectively.
    • There are hundreds of different interview types, techniques, and tools for an organization to use, but the most practiced and most effective is behavioral interviewing.
    • There is no right interview type and technique. Each hiring scenario needs to be evaluated to pick the appropriate type and technique that should be practiced, and the right questions that should be asked.

    Impact and Result

    • Gain insight into and understand the need for a strong interview process.
    • Strategize and plan your organization’s interview process, including how to make up an ideal candidate profile, who should be involved in the process, and how to effectively match interview types, techniques, and questions to assess the ideal candidate attributes.
    • Understand various hiring scenarios, and how an interview process may be modified to reflect your organization’s scenario.
    • Learn about the most common interview types and techniques, when they are appropriate to use, and best practices around using them effectively.
    • Evaluate your interview process and yourself as an interviewer to better inform future candidate interviewing strategy.

    Acquire the Right Hires with Effective Interviewing Research & Tools

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

    1. Implement an effective interview and continuous improvement process

    Acquire the right hire.

    • Storyboard: Acquire the Right Hires with Effective Interviewing

    2. Document all aspects of your interview strategy and plan with stakeholders

    Ensure an effective and seamless interview process.

    • Candidate Interview Strategy and Planning Guide

    3. Recognize common interviewing errors and study best practices to address these errors

    Be an effective interviewer.

    • Screening Interview Template
    • Interview Guide Template
    • Supplement: Quick Fixes to Common Interview Errors
    • Pre-interview Guide for Interviewers
    • Candidate Communication Template
    [infographic]

    Master the Secrets of VMware Licensing to Maximize Your Investment

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    • Parent Category Name: Licensing
    • Parent Category Link: /licensing
    • A lack of understanding around VMware’s licensing models, bundles, and negotiation tactics makes it difficult to negotiate from a position of strength.
    • Unfriendly commercial practices combined with hyperlink-ridden agreements have left organizations vulnerable to audits and large shortfall payments.
    • Enterprise license agreements (ELAs) come in several purchasing models and do not contain the EULA or various VMware product guide documentation that governs license usage rules and can change monthly.
    • Without a detailed understanding of VMware’s various purchasing models, shelfware often occurs.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Contracts are typically overweighted with a discount at the expense of contractual T&Cs that can restrict license usage and expose you to unpleasant financial surprises and compliance risk.
    • VMware customers almost always have incomplete price information from which to effectively negotiate a “best in class” ELA.
    • VMware has a large lead in being first to market and it realizes that running dual virtualization stacks is complex, unwieldy, and expensive. To further complicate the issues, most skill sets in the industry are skewed towards VMware.

    Impact and Result

    • Negotiate desired terms and conditions at the start of the agreement, and prioritize which use rights may be more important than an additional discount percentage.
    • Gather data points and speak with licensing partners to determine if the deal being offered is in fact as great as VMware says it is.
    • Beware of out-year pricing and ELA optimization reviews that may provide undesirable surprises and more spend than was planned.

    Master the Secrets of VMware Licensing to Maximize Your Investment Research & Tools

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

    1. Manage Your VMware Agreements – Use the Info-Tech tools capture your existing licenses and prepare for your renewal bids.

    Use Info-Tech’s licensing best practices to avoid shelfware with VMware licensing and remain compliant in case of an audit.

    • Master the Secrets of VMware Licensing to Maximize Your Investment Storyboard

    2. Manage your VMware agreements

    Use Info-Tech’s licensing best practices to avoid shelfware with VMware licensing and remain compliant in case of an audit.

    • VMware Business as Usual – Install Base SnS Renewal Only Tool
    • VMware ELA RFQ Template

    3. Transition to the VMWare Cloud – Use these tools to evaluate your ELA and vShpere requirements and make an informed choice.

    Manage your renewals and transition to the cloud subscription model.

    • VPP Transactional Purchase Tool
    • VMware ELA Analysis Tool
    • vSphere Edition 7 Features List

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Master the Secrets of VMware Licensing to Maximize Your Investment

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

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst Perspective

    Master the Secrets of VMware Licensing to Maximize Your Investment.

    The image contains a picture of Scott Bickley.

    The mechanics of negotiating a deal with VMware may seem simple at first as the vendor is willing to provide a heavy discount on an enterprise license agreement (ELA). However, come renewal time, when a reduction in spend or shelfware is needed, or to exit the ELA altogether, the process can be exceedingly frustrating as VMware holds the balance of power in the negotiation.

    Negotiating a complete agreement with VMware from the start can save you from an immense headache and unforeseen expenditures. Many VMware customers do not realize that the terms and conditions in the Volume Purchasing Program (VPP) and Enterprise Purchasing Program (EPP) agreements limit how and where they are able to use their licenses.

    Furthermore, after the renewal is complete, organizations must still worry about the management of various license types, accurate discovery of what has been deployed, visibility into license key assignments, and over and under use of licenses.

    Preventive and proactive measures enclosed within this blueprint will help VMware clients mitigate this minefield of challenges.

    Scott Bickley
    Practice Lead, Vendor Management
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    VMware's dominant position in the virtualization space can create uncertainty to your options in the long term as well as the need to understand:

    • The hybrid cloud model.
    • Hybrid VM security and management.
    • New subscription license model and how it affects renewals.

    Make an informed decision with your VMware investments to allow for continued ROI.

    There are several hurdles that are presented when considering a VMware ELA:

    • Evolving licensing and purchasing models
    • Understanding potential ROI in the cloud landscape
    • Evolving door of corporate ownership

    Overcoming these and other obstacles are key to long-term satisfaction with your VMware infrastructure.

    Info-Tech has a two-phase approach:

    • Manage your VMware agreements.
    • Plan a transition to the cloud.

    A tactical roadmap approach to VMware ELA and the cloud will ensure long-term success and savings.

    Info-Tech Insight

    VMware customers almost always have incomplete price information from which to effectively negotiate a “best in class” ELA.

    Your challenge

    VMware's dominant position in the virtualization space can create uncertainty to your options in the long term driven by:

    • VMware’s dominant market position and ownership of the virtualization market, which is forcing customers to focus on managing capacity demand to ensure a positive ROI on every license.
    • The trend toward a hybrid cloud for many organizations, especially those considering using VMware in public clouds, resulting in confusion regarding licensing and compliance scenarios.

    ELAs and EPPs are generally the only way to get a deep discount from VMware.

    The image contains a pie chart to demonstrate that 85% have answered yes to being audited by VMware for software license compliance.

    Common obstacles

    There are several hurdles that are presented when considering a VMware ELA.

    • A lack of understanding around VMware’s licensing models, bundles, and negotiation tactics makes it difficult to negotiate from a position of strength.
    • Unfriendly commercial practices combined with hyperlink-ridden agreements have left organizations vulnerable to audits and large shortfall payments.
    • ELAs come in several purchasing models and do not contain the EULA or various VMware product guide documentation that govern license usage rules and can change monthly.

    Competition is a key driver of price

    The image contains a screenshot of a bar graph to demonstrate virtualization market share % 2022.

    Source: Datanyze

    Master the Secrets of VMware Licensing to Maximize your Investment

    The image contains a screenshot of the Thought model on Master the secrets of VMware Licensing to Maximize your Investment.

    Info-Tech’s methodology for Master the Secrets of VMware Licensing to Maximize Your Investment

    1. Manage Your VMware Agreements

    2. Transition to the VMware Cloud

    Phase Steps

    1.1 Establish licensing requirements

    1.2 Evaluate licensing options

    1.3 Evaluate agreement options

    1.4 Purchase and manage licenses

    1.5 Understand SnS renewal management

    2.1 Understand the VMware subscription model

    2.2 Migrate workloads and licenses

    2.3 Manage SnS and cloud subscriptions

    Phase Outcomes

    Understanding of your licensing requirements and what agreement option best fits your needs for now and the future.

    Knowledge of VMware’s sales model and how to negotiate the best deal.

    Knowledge of the evolving cloud subscription model and how to plan your cloud migration and transition to the new licensing.

    Insight summary

    Overarching insight

    With the introduction of the subscription licensing model, VMware licensing and renewals are becoming more complex and require a deeper understanding of the license program options to best manage renewals and cloud deployments as well as to maximize legacy ROI.

    Phase 1 insight

    Contracts are typically overweighted with a discount at the expense of contractual T&Cs that can restrict license usage and expose you to unpleasant financial surprises and compliance risk.

    Phase 1 insight

    VMware has a large lead in being first to market and it realizes running dual virtualization stacks is complex, unwieldy, and expensive. To further complicate the issues, most skill sets in the industry are skewed toward VMware.

    Phase 2 insight

    VMware has purposefully reduced a focus on the actual license terms and conditions; most customers focus on the transactional purchase or the ELA document, but the rules governing usage are on a website and can be changed by VMware regularly.

    Tactical insight

    Beware of out-year pricing and ELA optimization reviews that may provide undesirable surprises and more spend than was planned.

    Tactical insight

    Negotiate desired terms and conditions at the start of the agreement, and prioritize which use rights may be more important than an additional discount percentage.

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    VMware ELA Analysis Tool

    VMware ELA RFQ Template Tool

    VPP Transaction Purchase Tool

    VMware ELA Analysis Tool

    Use this tool as a template for an RFQ with VMware ELA contracts.

    Use this tool to analyze cost breakdown and discount based on your volume purchasing program (VPP) level.

    The image contains screenshots of the VMware ELA Analysis Tool. The image contains a screenshot of the VMware ELA RFQ template tool. The image contains a screenshot of the VPP Transaction Purchase Tool.

    Key deliverable:

    VMware Business as Usual SnS Renewal Only Tool

    Use this tool to analyze discounts from a multi-year agreement vs. prepay. See how you can get the best discount.

    The image contains screenshots of the VMware Business as Usual SnS Renewal Only Tool.

    Blueprint Objectives

    The aim of this blueprint is to provide a foundational understanding of VMware’s licensing agreement and best practices to manage them.

    Why VMware

    What to Know

    The Future

    VMware is the leader in OS virtualization, however, this is a saturated market, which is being pressured by public and hybrid cloud as a competitive force taking market share.

    There are few viable alternatives to VMware for virtualization due to vendor lock-in of existing IT infrastructure footprint. It is too difficult and cost prohibitive to make a shift away from VMware even when alternative solutions are available.

    ELAs are the preferred method of contracting as it sets the stage for a land-and-expand product strategy; once locked into the ELA model, customers must examine VMware alternatives with preference or risk having Support and Subscription Services (SnS) re-priced at retail.

    VMware does not provide a great deal of publicly available information regarding its enterprise license agreement (ELA) options, leaving a knowledge gap that allows the sales team to steer the customer.

    VMware is taking countermeasures against increasing competition.

    Recent contract terms changed to eliminate perpetual caps on SnS renewals; they are now tied to a single year of discounted SnS, then they go to list price.

    Migration of list pricing to a website versus contract, where pricing can now be changed, reducing discount percentage effectiveness.

    Increased audits of customers, especially those electing to not renew an ELA.


    Examining VMware’s vendor profile

    Turbonomics conducted a vendor profile on major vendors, focusing on licensing and compliance. It illustrated the following results:

    The image contains a pie graph to demonstrate that the majority of companies say yes to using license enterprise software from VMware.

    The image contains a bar graph to demonstrate what license products organizations use of VMware products.

    Source: Turbonomics
    N-sample size

    Case Study

    The image contains a logo for ADP.

    INDUSTRY: Finance

    SOURCE: VMware.com

    “We’ll have network engineers, storage engineers, computer engineers, database engineers, and systems engineers all working together as one intact team developing and delivering goals on specific outcomes.” – Vipul Nagrath, CIO, ADP

    Improving developer capital management

    Constant innovation helped ADP keep ahead of customer needs in the human resources space, but it also brought constant changes to the IT environment. Internally, the company found it was spending too long working on delivering the required infrastructure and system updates. IT staff wanted to improve velocity for refreshes to better match the needs of ADP developers and encourage continued development innovation.

    Business needs

    • Improve turnaround time on infrastructure refreshes to better meet developer roadmaps.
    • Establish an IT culture that works at the global scale of ADP and empowers individual team members.
    • Streamline approach toward infrastructure resource delivery to reduce need for manual management.

    Impact

    • Infrastructure resource delivery reduced from 100+ days to minutes, improving ADP developer efficiency.
    • VMware Cloud™ on AWS establishes seamless private and public cloud workflows, fostering agility and innovation.
    • Automating IT management redirects resources to R&D, boosting time to market for new services.

    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: Discuss scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #2: Assess the current state.

    Determine licensing position.

    Call #3: Complete a deployment count, needs analysis, and internal audit.

    Call #4: Review findings with analyst:

    • Review licensing options.
    • Review licensing rules.
    • Review contract option types.

    Call #5: Select licensing option. Document forecasted costs and benefits.

    Call #6: Review final contract:

    • Discuss negotiation points.
    • Plan a roadmap for SAM.

    Call #7: Negotiate final contract. Evaluate and develop a roadmap for SAM.

    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 2 to 6 calls over the course of 1 to 2 months.

    Phase # 1

    Manage Your VMware Agreements

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Establish licensing requirements

    1.2 Evaluate licensing options

    1.3 Evaluate agreement options

    1.4 Purchase and manage licenses

    2.1 Understand the VMware subscription model

    2.2 Migrate workloads and licenses

    2.3 Discuss the VMware sales approach

    2.4 Manage SnS and cloud subscriptions

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understanding the VMware licensing model
    • Understanding the license agreement options
    • Understanding the VMware sales approach

    This phase will take you thorough:

    • The new VMware subscription movement to the cloud
    • How to prepare and migrate
    • Manage your subscriptions efficiently

    1.1 Establish licensing requirements

    VMware has greatly improved the features of vSphere over time.

    vSphere Main Editions Overview

    • vSphere Standard – Provides the basic features for server consolidation. A support and subscription contract (SnS) is mandatory when purchasing the vSphere Standard.
    • vSphere Enterprise Plus – Provides the full range of vSphere features. A support and subscription contract (SnS) is mandatory when purchasing the Enterprise Plus editions.
    • vSphere Essentials kit – The Essentials kit is an all-in-one solution for small environments with up to three hosts (2 CPUs on each host). Support is optional when purchasing the Essentials kit and is available on a per-incident basis.
    • vSphere Essentials Plus kit – This is similar to the Essentials kit and provides additional features such as vSphere vMotion, vSphere HA, and vSphere replication. A support and subscription contract (SnS) is sold separately, and a minimum of one year of SnS is required.

    Review vSphere Edition Features

    The image contains a screenshot to review the vSphere Edition Features.

    Download the vSphere Edition 7 Features List

    1.2 Evaluate licensing options

    VMware agreement types

    Review purchase options to align with your requirements.

    Transactional VPP EPP ELA

    Transactional

    Entry-level volume license purchasing program

    Mid-level purchasing program

    Highest-level purchasing program

    • Purchasing in this model is not recommended for business purposes unless very infrequent and low quantities.
    • 250 points minimum
    • Four tiers of discounts
    • Rolling eight-quarter points accumulation period
    • Discounts on license only

    Deal size of initial purchase typically is:

    • US$250K MSRP License + SnS (2,500 tokens)
    • Exceptions do exist with purchase volume

    Minimum deal size of top-up purchase:

    • US$50K MSRP License + SnS (500 tokens)
    • Initial purchase determines token level
    • Three-year term

    Minimum deal size of initial purchase:

    • US$150K-$250K
    • Discounted licenses and SnS through term of contract
    • Single volume license key
    • No final true-up
    • Global deployment rights and consolidation of multiple agreements

    1.2.1 The Volume Purchasing Program (VPP)

    This is the entry-level purchasing program aimed at small/mid-sized organizations.

    How the program works

    • The threshold to be able to purchase from the VPP program is 250 points minimum, equivalent to $25,000.
    • Discounts attained can only be applied to license purchases. They do not apply to service and support/renewals. Discounts range from 4% to 12%.
    • For the large majority of products 1 VPP point = ~$100.
      • Point values will be the same globally.
      • Point ratios may vary over time as SKUs are changed.
      • Points are valid for two years.

    Benefits

    • Budget predictability for two years.
    • Simple license purchase process.
    • Receive points on qualifying purchases that accumulate over a rolling eight-quarter period.
    • Online portal for tracking purchases and eligible discounts.
    • Global program where affiliates can purchase from existing contract.

    VPP Point & Discount Table

    Level

    Point Range

    Discount

    1

    250-599

    4%

    2

    600-999

    6%

    3

    1,000-1,749

    9%

    4

    1,750+

    12%

    Source: VMware Volume Purchasing Program

    1.2.2 Activity VPP Transactional Purchase Tool

    1-3 hours

    Instructions:

    1. Use the tool to analyze the cost breakdown and discount based on your Volume Purchasing Program level.
    2. On tab 1, Enter SnS install base renewal units and or new license details.
    3. Review tab 2 for Purchase summary.

    The image contains a screenshot of the VPP Transactional Purchase Tool.

    Input Output
    • SnS renewal details
    • New license requirements and pricing
    • Transaction purchase summary
    • Estimated VPP purchase level
    Materials Participants
    • Current VMware purchase orders
    • Any SnS renewal requirements
    • Transaction Purchase Tool
    • Procurement
    • Vendor Management
    • Licensing Admin

    Download the VPP Transactional Purchase Tool

    1.3 Evaluate agreement options

    Introduction to EPP and ELA

    What to know when using a token/credit-based agreement.

    Token/credit-based agreements carry high risk as customers are purchasing a set number of tokens/credits to be redeemed during the ELA term for licenses.

    • Tokens/credits that are not used during the ELA term expire and become worthless.
    • By default in most agreements (negotiation dependent), tokens/credits are tied to pricing maintained by VMware on its website that is subject to change (increase usually), resulting in a reduced value for the tokens/credits.
      • Therefore, it is necessary to negotiate to have current list prices for all products/versions included in the ELA to prevent price increases while in the current ELA term.
    • Token-based agreements may come with a lower overall discount level as VMware is granting more flexibility in terms of the wider product selection offered, vendor cost of overhead to manage the redemption program, currency exchange risks, and more complex revenue recognition headaches.

    1.3.1 The Enterprise Purchasing Program (EPP)

    This is aimed at mid-tier customers looking for flexibility with deeper discounting.

    How the program works

    • Token-based program in which tokens are redeemed for licenses and/or SnS.
      • Tokens can be added at any time to active fund.
      • Token usage is automatically tracked and reported.
    • Minimum order of 2,500 tokens, equivalent to $250,000 (1 token=$100).
      • Exceptions have been made, allowing for lower minimum spends.
    • Restricted to specific regions, not a global agreement.
    • Self-service portal for access to license keys and support entitlements.
    • Deeper discounting than the VMware Volume Purchase Program.
    • EPP initial purchase gets VPP L4 for four years.

    Benefits

    • Able to mix and match VMware products, manage licenses, and adjust deployment strategy.
    • Prices are protected for term of the EPP agreement.
    • Number of tokens needed to obtain a product or SnS are negotiated at the start of the contract and fixed for the term.
    • SnS is co-termed to the EPP term.
    • Ability to purchase new products that become available at a future date and are listed on the EPP Eligibility Matrix.

    EPP Level & Point Table

    Level

    Point Range

    7

    2,500-3,499

    8

    3,500-4,499

    9

    4,500-5,999

    10

    6,000+

    Source: VMware Volume Purchasing Program

    1.3.2 The ELA is aimed at large global organizations, offering the deepest discounts with operational benefits and flexibility

    What is an ELA?

    • The ELA agreement provides the best vehicle for global enterprises to obtain maximum discounts and price-hold protection for a set period of time. Discounts and price holds are removed once an ELA has expired.
    • The ELA minimum spend previously was $500,000. Purchase volume now generally starts at $250K total spend with exceptions and, depending on VMware, it may be possible to attain for $150K in net-new license spend.

    Key things to know

    • Customers pay up front for license and SnS rights, but depending on the deployment plans, the value of the licenses is not realized and/or recognized for up to two years after point of purchase.
    • License and SnS is paid up front for a three-year period in most ELAs, although a one- or two-year term can be negotiated.
    • Licenses not deployed in year one should be discounted in value and drive a re-evaluation of the ELA ROI, as even heavily discounted licenses that are not used until year three may not be such a great deal in retrospect.
      • Use a time value of money calculation to arrive at a realistic ROI.
      • Partner with Finance and Accounting to ensure the ROI also clears any Internal Hurdle Rate (IHR).
      • Share and strategically position your IHR with VMware and resellers to ensure they understand the minimum value an ELA deal must bring to the table.
    • Organizational changes, such as merger, acquisition, and divestiture (MAD) activities, may result in the customer paying for license rights that can no longer be used and/or require a renegotiated ELA.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If a legacy ELA exists that has “deploy or lose” language, engage VMware to recapture any lost license rights as VMware has changed this language effective with 2016 agreements and there is an “appeals” process for affected customers.

    1.3.3 Select the best ELA variant to match your specific demand profile and financial needs

    The advantages of an ELA are:

    • Maximum discount level + price protection
    • SnS discounted at % of net license fee
    • Sole option for global use territory rights

    General disadvantages are:

    • Term lock-in with SnS for three years
    • Pay up front and if defer usage, ROI drops
    • Territory rights priced at a premium versus domestic use rights

    Type of ELAs

    ELA Type

    Description

    Pros and Cons

    Capped (max quantities)

    Used to purchase a specific quantity and type of license.

    Pro – Clarity on what will be purchased

    Pro – Lower risk of over licensing

    Con – Requires accurate forecasting

    All you can eat or unlimited

    Used to purchase access to specified products that can be deployed in unlimited quantities during the ELA term.

    Pro – Acquire large quantity of licenses

    Pro – Accurate forecasting not critical

    Con – Deployment can easily exceed forecast, leading to high renewal costs

    Burn-down

    A form of capped ELA purchase that uses prepaid tokens that can be used more flexibly to acquire a variety of licenses or services. This can include the hybrid purchasing program (HPP) credits. However, the percentage redeemable for VMware subscription services may be limited to 10% of the MSRP value of the HPP credit.

    Pro – Accurate demand forecast not critical

    Pro – Can be used for products and services

    Con – Unused tokens or credits are forfeited

    True-up

    Allows for additional purchases during the ELA term on a determined schedule based on the established ELA pricing.

    Pro – Consumption payments matched after initial purchase

    Pro – Accurate demand forecast not critical

    Con – Potentially requires transaction throughout term

    1.4 Purchase and manage licenses

    Negotiating ELA terms and conditions

    Editable copies of VMware’s license and governance documentation are a requirement to initiate the dialogue and negotiation process over T&Cs.

    VMware’s licensing is complex and although documentation is publicly available, it is often hidden on VMware’s website.

    Many VMware customers often overlook reviewing the license T&Cs, leaving them open to compliance risks.

    It is imperative for customers to understand:

    • Product definition for licensing of each acquired product
    • Products included by bundle
    • Use restrictions:
      • The VMware Product Guide, which includes information about:
        • ELA Order Forms, Amendments, Exhibits, EULA, Support T&Cs, and other policies that add dozens of pages to a contractual agreement.
        • All of these documents are web based and can change monthly; URL links in the contract do not take the user to the actual document but a landing page from which customers must find the applicable documents.
      • Obtain copies of ALL current documents at the time of your order and keep as a reference in the CLM and SAM systems.

    Build in time to obtain, review, and negotiate these documents (easily weeks to months).

    1.4.1 Negotiating ELA terms and conditions specifics

    License and Deployment

    • Review perpetual use rights for all licenses purchased under the ELA (exception being subscription services).
    • Carefully scrutinize contract language for clearly defined deployment rights.
      • Some agreements contain language that terminates the use rights for licenses not deployed by the end of the ELA term.
    • While older contracts would frequently contain clearly defined token values and product prices for the ELA term, VMware has moved away from this process and now refers to URL links for current MSRP pricing.

    Use Rights

    • The customer’s legal entities and territories listed in the contract are hard limits on the license usage via the VMware Product Guide definitions. Global use rights are not a standard license grant with VMware license agreement by default. Global rights are usually tied to an ELA.
    • VMware audits most aggressively against violations of territory use rights and will use the non-compliance events to resolve the issue via a commercial transaction.
      • Negotiate for assignment rights with no strings attached in terms of fees or multi-party consent by future affiliates or successors to a surviving entity.
    • Extraordinary Corporate Transaction clause: VMware’s standard language prevents customers from using licenses within the ELA for any third party that becomes part of customer’s business by way of acquisition, merger, consolidation, change of control, reorganization, or other similar transaction.
      • Request VMware to drop this language.
    • Include any required language pertaining to MAD events as default language will not allow for transfer or assignment of license rights.

    Checklist of necessary information to negotiate the best deal

    Product details that go beyond the sales pitch

    • Product family
    • Unique product SKU for license renewal
    • Part description
    • Current regional or global price list
    • One and three-year proposal for SnS renewals including new license and SnS detail
    • SnS term dates
    • Discount or offered prices for all line items (global pricing is generally ~20% higher than US pricing)

    Different support levels (e.g. basic, enterprise, per incident)

    • Standard pricing:
      • Basic Support = 21% of current list price (12x5)
      • Production Support = 25% of current list price (24x7 for severity 1 issues) – defined in VMware Support and Subscription Services T&Cs; non-severity 1 issues are 12x5

    Details to ensure the product being purchased matches the business needs

    • Realizing after the fact the product is insufficient with respect to functional requirements or that extra spend is required can be frustrating and extend expected timelines

    SnS renewals pricing is based on the (1) year SnS list price

    • This can be bundled for a multi-year discounted SnS rate (can result in 12%+ under VPP)

    Governing agreements, VPP program details

    • Have a printed copy of documents that are URL links, which VMware can change, allowing for surprises or unexpected changes in rules

    1.4.2 Activity VMware ELA Analysis Tool

    2-4 hours

    Instructions:

    1. As a group, review the various RFQ responses. Identify top three proposals and start to enter proposal details into the VPP Prepay or ELA tabs of the analysis tool.
    2. Review savings in the ELA Offer Analysis tab.

    The image contains screenshots of the VMware ELA Analysis Tool.

    Input Output
    • RFQ requirements data
    • RFQ response data
    • Analysis of ELA proposals
    • ELA savings analysis
    Materials Participants
    • RFQ response documents
    • ELA Analysis Tool
    • IT Leadership
    • Procurement
    • Vendor Management

    Download the VMware ELA Analysis Tool

    1.4.3 Negotiating ELA terms and conditions specifics: pricing, renewal, and exit

    VMware does not offer price protection on future license consumption by default.

    Securing “out years” pricing for SnS or the cost of SnS is critical or it will default to a set percentage (25%) of MSRP, removing the ELA discount.

    Typically, the out year is one year; maximum is two years.

    Negotiate the “go forward” SnS pricing post-ELA term as part of the ELA negotiations when you have some leverage.

    Default after (1) out year is to rise to 25% of current MSRP versus as low as 20% of net license price within the ELA.

    Carefully incorporate the desired installed-base licenses that were acquired pre-ELA into the agreement, but ensure unwanted licenses are removed.

    Ancillary but binding support policies, online terms and conditions, and other hyperlinked documentation should be negotiated and incorporated as part of the agreement whenever possible.

    1.4.4 Find the best reseller partner

    Seek out a qualified VMware partner that will work with you and with your interest as a priority:

    1. Resellers, at minimum, should have achieved an enterprise-level rating, as these partners can offer the deepest discounts and have more clout with VMware.
    2. Select your reseller prior to engaging in any RFX acquisition steps. Verify they are enterprise level or higher AND secure their written commitment to maximum pass-through of the discounting provided to them by VMware.
    3. Document and prioritize key T&Cs for your ELA and submit to your sales team along with a requirement and timeline for their formal response. Essentially, this escalates outside of the VMware process and disrupts the status quo. Ideally this will occur in advance of being presented a contract by VMware and be pre-emptive in nature.
    4. If applicable and of benefit or a high priority, seek out a reseller that is willing to finance the VMware upfront payment cost at a low or no interest rate.
    5. It will be important to have ELA-level deals escalated to higher levels of authority to obtain “best in class” discount levels, above and beyond those prescribed in the VMware sales playbook.
    6. VMware’s standard process is to “route” customers through a pre-defined channel and “deal desk” process. Preferred pricing of up to an additional 10% discount is reserved for the first reseller that registers the deal with VMware, with larger discounts reserved for the Enterprise and Premium partners. Additional discounts can be earned if the deal closes within specified time periods (First Deal Registration).

    1.4.5 Activity VMware ELA RFQ Template

    1-3 hours

    Use this tool for as a template for an RFQ with VMware ELA contracts.

    1. For SnS renewals that contain no new licenses, state that the requirement for award consideration is the provisioning of all details for each itemized SnS renewal product code corresponding to all the licenses of your installed base. The details for the renewals are to be placed in Section 1 of the template.
    2. SnS Renewal Options: Info-Tech recommends that you ask for one- and three-year SnS renewal proposals, assuming these terms are realistic for your business requirements. Then compare your SnS BAU costs for these two options against ELA offers to determine the best choice for your renewal.

    The image contains a screenshot of the VMware ELA RFQ Template.

    Input Output
    • Renewing SnS data
    • Agreement type options
    • Detailed list of required licenses
    • Summary list of SnS requirements
    Materials Participants
    • RFQ Template
    • SnS renewal summary
    • New license/subscription details
    • IT Leadership
    • Vendor Management
    • Procurement

    Download the VMware ELA RFQ Template

    1.4.6 Consider your path forward

    Consider your route forward as contract commitments, license compliance, and terms and conditions differ in structure to perpetual models previously used.

    • Are you able to accurately discover VMware licensing within your environment?
    • Is licensing managed for compliance? Are internal audits conducted so you have accurate results?
    • Have the product use rights been examined for terms and conditions such as geographic rights? Some T&Cs may change over time due to hyperlinked references within commercial documents.
    • How are Oracle and SQL being used within your VMware environment? This may affect license compliance with Oracle and Microsoft in virtualized environments.
    • Prepare for the Subscription model; it’s here now and will be the lead discussion with all VMware reps going forward.

    Shift to Subscription

    1. With the $64bn takeover by Broadcom, there will be a significant shift and pressure to the subscription model.
    2. Broadcom has significant growth targets for its VMware acquisition that can only be achieved through a strong press to a SaaS model.

    Info-Tech Insight

    VMware has a license cost calculator and additional licensing documents that can be used to help determine what spend should be.

    Phase # 2

    Transition to the VMware Cloud

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    1.1 Establish licensing requirements

    1.2 Evaluate licensing options

    1.3 Evaluate agreement options

    1.4 Purchase and manage licenses

    2.1 Understand the VMware subscription model

    2.2 Migrate workloads and licenses

    2.3 Discuss the VMware sales approach

    2.4 Manage SnS and cloud subscriptions

    This phase will walk you through the following activities:

    • Understand the VMware licensing model
    • Understand the license agreement options
    • Understand the VMware sales approach

    This phase will take you thorough:

    • The new VMware subscription movement to the cloud
    • How to prepare and migrate
    • Manage your subscriptions efficiently

    2.1 Understand the VMware subscription model

    VMware Cloud Universal

    • VMware Cloud Universal unifies compute, network, and storage capabilities across infrastructures, management, and applications.
    • Take advantage of financial and cloud management flexibility by combining on-premises and SaaS capabilities for automation, operations, log analytics, and network visibility across your infrastructure.
    • Capitalize on VMware knowledge by integrating proven migration methods and plans across your transformation journey such as consumption strategies, business outcome workshops, and more.
    • Determine your eligibility to earn a one-time discount with this exclusive benefit designed to offset the value of your current unamortized VMware on-premises license investments and then reallocate toward your multi-cloud initiatives.

    2.2 Migrate workloads and licenses to the cloud

    There are several cloud migration options and solutions to consider.

    • VMware Cloud offers solutions that can provide a low-cost path to the cloud that will help accelerate modernization.
    • There are also many third-party solution providers who can be engaged to migrate workloads and other infrastructure to VMware Cloud and into other public cloud providers.
    • VMware Cloud can be deployed on many IaaS providers such as AWS, Azure, Google, Dell, and IBM.

    VMware Cloud Assist

    1. Leverage all available transition funding opportunities and any IaaS migration incentives from VMware.
    2. Learn and understand the value and capabilities of VMware vRealize Cloud Universal to help you transition and manage hybrid infrastructure.

    2.2.1 Manage your VMware cloud subscriptions

    Use VMware vRealize to manage private, public, and local environments.

    Combine SaaS and on-premises capabilities for automation, operations, log analytics, network visibility, security, and compliance into one license.

    The image contains a screenshot of a diagram to demonstrate VMware cloud subscriptions.

    2.3 The VMware sales approach

    Understand the pitch before entering the discussion

    1. VMware will present a PowerPoint presentation proposal comparing a Business-as-Usual (BAU) scenario versus the ELA model.
    2. Critical factors to consider if considering the proposed ELA are growth rate projections, deployment schedule, cost of non-ELA products/options, shelf-ware, and non-ELA discounts (e.g. VPP, multi-year, or pre-paid).
    3. Involving VMware’s direct account team along with your reseller in the negotiations can be beneficial. Keep in mind that VMware ultimately decides on the final price in terms of the discount that is passed through. Ensure you have a clear line of sight into how pricing is determined.
    4. Explore reseller incentives and promotional programs that may provide for deeper than normal discount opportunities.

    INFO-TECH TIP: Create your own assumptions as inputs into the BAU model and then evaluate the ELA value proposition instead of depending on VMware’s model.

    2.4 Manage SnS and cloud subscriptions

    The new subscription model is making SnS renewal more complex.

    • Start renewal planning four to six months prior to anniversary.
    • Work closely with your reseller on your SnS renewal options.
    • Request “as is” versus subscription renewal proposal from reseller or VMware with a “savings” component.
    • Consider and review multi-year versus annual renewal; savings will differ.
    • For the Subscription transition renewal model, ensure that credits for legacy licensing is provided.
    • Negotiate cloud transition investments and incentives from VMware.

    What information to collect and how to analyze it

    • Negotiating toward preferred terms on SnS is critical, more so than when new license purchases are made, as approximately 75-80% of server virtualization are at x86 workloads, where maintenance revenue is a larger source of revenue for VMware than new license sales.
    • All relevant license and SnS details must be obtained from VMware to include Product Family, Part Description, Product Code (SKU), Regional/Global List Price, SnS Term Dates, and Discount Price for all new licenses.
    • VMware has all costs tied to the US dollar; you must calculate currency conversion into ROI models as VMware does not adjust token values of products across geographies or currency of purchase. The token to dollar value by product SKU is locked for the three-year term. This translates into a variable cost model depending on how local currency fluctuates against the US dollar; time the initial purchase to take this into consideration, if applicable.
    • Products purchased based on MSRP price with each token contains a value of US$100. Under the Hybrid Purchasing Program (HPP) credit values and associated buying power will fluctuate over the term as VMware reserves the right to adjust current list prices. Consider locking in a set product list and pricing versus HPP.
    • Take a structured approach to discover true discounts via the use of a tailored RFQ template and options model to compare and contrast VMware ELA proposals.

    Use Info-Tech Research Group’s customized RFQ template to discover true discount levels and model various purchase options for VMware ELA proposals.

    The image contains a screenshot of the VMware RFQ Template Tool.

    Summary of accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

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

    Processes Optimized

    • Senior leaders in IT now have a clear understanding of the importance of licensing in relation to business objectives.
    • Understanding of the various licensing considerations that need to be made.
    • Contract negotiation.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Prepare for Negotiations More Effectively

    • IT budgets are increasing, but many CIOs feel their budgets are inadequate to accomplish what is being asked of them.
    • Eighty percent of organizations don’t have a mature, repeatable, scalable negotiation process.
    • Training dollars on negotiations are often wasted or ineffective.

    Price Benchmarking & Negotiation

    You need to achieve an objective assessment of vendor pricing in your IT contracts, but you have limited knowledge about:

    • Current price benchmarking on the vendor.
    • Pricing and negotiation intelligence.
    • How to secure a market-competitive price.
    • Vendor pricing tiers, models, and negotiation tactics.

    VMware vRealize Cloud Management

    VMware vCloud Suite is an integrated offering that brings together VMware’s industry-leading vSphere hypervisor and VMware vRealize Suite multi-vendor hybrid cloud management platform. VMware’s new portable licensing units allow vCloud Suite to build and manage both vSphere-based private clouds and multi-vendor hybrid clouds.

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    VMware. “Global Support and Subscription Services “SnS” Renewals Policy.” VMware, n.d. Web.
    VMware. “Support Policies.” VMware, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
    VMware. “VMware Cloud Community.” VMware Cloud, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
    VMware. “VMware Cloud on AWS” VMware Cloud, n.d. Accessed 7 May 2018.
    VMware. “VMware Enterprise Purchasing Program.” VMware, 2013. Web.
    VMware. “VMware Product Guide.” VMware, May 2018. Web.
    VMware. “VMware Volume Purchasing Program.” VMware, April 2019. Web.
    VMware. "VMware Case Studies." VMware, n.d. Web.
    Wiens, Rob. “VMware Enterprise Licensing – What You Need To Know. House of Brick, 14 April 2017. Accessed 7 May 2018

    Review Your Application Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: Architecture & Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /architecture-and-strategy
    • Over 80% of CXOs experience frustration with IT’s failure to deliver business value.
    • Sixty percent of CEOs believe that improvement is required around IT’s understanding of business goals.
    • Sixty percent of IT professionals know there is an opportunity to run applications more efficiently, eliminating wasteful or low-value activities.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Organizations need to better align their application strategy with their business strategy as they proceed through tactical initiatives.
    • Application strategies provide guidance on how they will help the organization survive and thrive.

    Impact and Result

    Aligning your business with applications through your strategy will not only increase business satisfaction but also help to ensure you’re delivering applications that enable the organization’s goals.

    Review Your Application Strategy Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should have an application strategy and why you should use Info-Tech’s approach to review it. Learn how we can support you in completing this strategy and review.

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

    1. Review your strategy

    This review guide provides organizations with a detailed assessment of their application strategy, ensuring that the applications enable the business strategy so that the organization can be more effective.The assessment provides criteria and exercises to provide actionable outcomes.

    • Application Strategy Assessment Tool
    • Application Strategy Action Plan Report Template
    • Application Strategy Sample Action Plan Report
    [infographic]

    Requirements Gathering

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    • Parent Category Name: Project Portfolio Management and Projects
    • Parent Category Link: /ppm-and-projects

    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)

     

     

    Build a Continual Improvement Program

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    • Parent Category Name: Operations Management
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    • 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.

    Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Management
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    • Business is moving faster than ever and IT is getting more demands at a faster pace.
    • Many IT organizations have traditional structures and approaches that have served them well in the past. However, these frameworks and approaches alone are no longer sufficient for today’s challenges and rapidly changing environment.
    • The inability to adaptively design and deliver services as requirements change has led to diminishing service quality and an increase in shadow IT.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Being Agile is a mindset. It is not meant to be prescriptive, but to encourage you to leverage the best approaches, frameworks, and tools to meet your needs and get the job done now.
    • The goal of service management is to enable and drive value for the business. Service management practices have to be flexible and adaptable enough to manage and deliver the right service value at the right time at the right level of quality.

    Impact and Result

    • Understand Agile principles, how they align with service management principles, and what the optimal states for agility look like.
    • Use Info-Tech’s advice and tools to perform an assessment of your organization’s state of agility, identify the gaps, and create a custom roadmap to incorporate agility into your service management practice.
    • Increase business satisfaction. The ultimate outcome of having agility in your service delivery is satisfied customers.

    Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should create a roadmap for service management agility, 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 the optimal state for agility

    Understand the components of agility and what the optimal states are for service management agility.

    • Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility – Phase 1: Understand the Optimal States for Agility

    2. Assess your current state of agility

    Determine the current state of agility in the service management practice.

    • Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility – Phase 2: Assess Your Current State of Agility
    • Service Management Agility Assessment Tool

    3. Build the roadmap

    Create a roadmap for service management agility and present it to key stakeholders to obtain their support.

    • Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility – Phase 3: Build the Roadmap for Service Management Agility
    • Service Management Agility Roadmap Template
    • Building Agility Into Our Service Management Practice Stakeholders Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build a Roadmap for Service Management Agility

    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 the Optimal States for Agility in Service Management

    The Purpose

    Understand agility and how it can complement service management.

    Understand how the components of culture, structure, processes, and resources enable agility in service management.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Clear understanding of Agile principles.

    Identifying opportunities for agility.

    Understanding of how Agile principles align with service management.

    Activities

    1.1 Understand agility.

    1.2 Understand how Agile methodologies can complement service management through culture, structure, processes, and resources.

    Outputs

    Summary of Agile principles.

    Summary of optimal components in culture, structure, processes, and resources that enable agility.

    2 Assess Your Current State of Agility in Service Management

    The Purpose

    Assess your current organizational agility with respect to culture, structure, processes, and resources.

    Identify your agility strengths and weaknesses with the agility score.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand your organization’s current enablers and constraints for agility.

    Have metrics to identify strengths or weaknesses in culture, structure, processes, and resources.

    Activities

    2.1 Complete an agility assessment.

    Outputs

    Assessment score of current state of agility.

    3 Build the Roadmap for Service Management Agility

    The Purpose

    Determine the gaps between the current and optimal states for agility.

    Create a roadmap for service management agility.

    Create a stakeholders presentation.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Have a completed custom roadmap that will help build sustainable agility into your service management practice.

    Present the roadmap to key stakeholders to communicate your plans and get organizational buy-in.

    Activities

    3.1 Create a custom roadmap for service management agility.

    3.2 Create a stakeholders presentation on service management agility.

    Outputs

    Completed roadmap for service management agility.

    Completed stakeholders presentation on service management agility.

    Build an ITSM Tool Implementation Plan

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
    • Parent Category Link: /service-desk
    • Selecting the Wrong Resources: You need ITSM technology and process experts, because this is not just a technology project, but also a process improvement opportunity.
    • Over-Reliance on the Vendor to Optimize Your Tool: Yes, the vendor will typically install and set up the tool, but they will not fix your processes for you.
    • Not Preparing for Data Migration: Data migration is complex. You need to determine what data to migrate, if any, and how that data will be mapped to the new environment.
    • Insufficient IT and End-User Training: A link to the ITSM tool manual is not enough. Staff and users need training on how your processes will be executed in the new tool.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Start with the assumption you don’t need to migrate old data.
    • ITSM tools are designed to support ITIL best practices.
    • Implement your new tool in stages to manage scope.

    Impact and Result

    • Ability to plan and scope the project to avoid or reduce last-minute chaos.
    • Opportunity to review and optimize processes as part of the ITSM tool implementation project.
    • Improved project management, and therefore, better cost and effort estimates, by identifying required tasks upfront.

    Build an ITSM Tool Implementation Plan Research & Tools

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

    1. Build an ITSM Tool Implementation Plan Deck – An implementation guide that walks you through the steps to ensure the tool delivers business value.

    There may be hundreds of parameters to define and decisions to make, so identifying the full list of tasks early is critical for the success of the implementation project.

    • Build an ITSM Tool Implementation Plan – Phases 1-3

    2. ITSM Tool Project Charter Template – A charter to document your project scope, milestones, stakeholders, risks etc. to kick-off and manage your project.

    This project charter document summarizes the Project Overview (Description, background, drivers, and objectives), Governance and Management (Project stakeholders/roles, budget, and dependencies), and Risk, Assumptions, and Constraints (Known and potential risks and mitigation strategy).

    • ITSM Tool Implementation Project Charter Template

    3. ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist – A tool to help identify the most common decisions you will need to make and prepare for your implementation project.

    The checklists in this tool identify the most common decisions and preparation you will need to make to support the implementation for the ITSM modules that we recommend are set up first: incident management and service requests; change management; and asset management. Use these checklists as a model to follow for any additional ITSM modules you plan to implement, and refer to Info-Tech's blueprints for each service management topic for additional guidance.

    • ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist

    4. ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template – A tool to help prioritize and prepare for tool rollout plan.

    This deployment plan documents the strategy and decisions made for making the transition to the new ITSM tool, and the details to execute the cutover to a live environment, including how, when, where.

    • ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template

    5. ITSM Tool Training Schedule – Use the tool to create your new tool training roadmap.

    This template is a guide for creating a training and communication plan as part of the implementation project for your ITSM tool. Use the template to document and plan the communications and training needs prior to deployment of the new tool.

    • ITSM Tool Training Schedule

    Infographic

    Further reading

    Build an ITSM Tool Implementation Plan

    Plan ahead with a step-by-step approach to ensure the tool delivers business value.

    EXECUTIVE BRIEF

    Analyst perspective

    Take control of the wheel or you might end up in a ditch.

    The image contains a picture of Frank Trovato.

    An ITSM tool implementation is a complex project with direct impact on IT’s ability to support the business. With that level of risk, you need to take control early on.

    Yes, your vendor will support or execute the technical implementation, but they depend on you to tell them how to configure ITSM parameters and workflows that affect user interface, the ability to manage incidents, and governance over assets and IT changes.

    If you leave the configuration completely to the vendor, at best you might get the same setup as in your old tool (and not realize the benefits that leadership is expecting). At worst you end up with default values that don’t fit your process needs, i.e., confusion and not realizing expected benefits.

    A successful implementation requires early planning from a wide range of resources including ITSM tool experts (supported by the vendor), process experts, and a project manager to methodically step through the hundreds of parameters you will need to define before implementation.

    Frank Trovato
    Research Director, Infrastructure and Operations
    Info-Tech Research Group

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Common Obstacles

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Leadership has invested significantly in a new ITSM tool and expects to see the benefits they were promised by the vendor and the procurement team.

    The ITSM project team needs to balance leadership expectations with the direct impact this project will have on IT staff and end users.

    Implementing an ITSM tool is a large project that is often highly complex in part because it requires input from a wide range of stakeholders: IT staff, end users, senior management, and vendors.

    A new ITSM tool will change how IT staff work and how users are serviced, and change is always difficult.

    Finally, implementing the new tool requires a migration from an existing tool without a pause in IT service availability. Incidents don’t take a week off while you execute the final product rollout.

    There may be hundreds of parameters to define and decisions to make, so identifying the full list of tasks early is critical to:

    • Identify the necessary stakeholders to provide input into implementation decisions.
    • Properly define scope and timelines.
    • Take advantage of the opportunity to review and improve processes as part of defining what will need to be configured in the new ITSM tool.

    Info-Tech Insight

    As with any large project, a key step is tackling it one bite at a time – but also understanding the size of the whole meal. This is where organizations often fail with ITSM implementations: not understanding upfront the volume of work required for a successful implementation.

    Your Challenge

    Organizations implementing a new ITSM tool often face these pitfalls:

    • Selecting the Wrong Resources: You need ITSM technology and process experts, because this is not just a technology project but also a process improvement opportunity. You will need to configure ITSM parameters and workflows in the new tool – which directly affects processes. Take advantage of that opportunity to fix pain points. For example, if your existing ticket categories are not effective, implement a better categorization scheme rather than just configure the same old, ineffective scheme.
    • Over-Reliance on the Vendor to Optimize Your Tool: Yes, the vendor will typically install and set up the tool but they will not fix your processes for you. On installation day, if you are not prepared with the categories, ticket templates, and so on that you wish to configure, your vendor will just go with the default or migrate your old parameters from your old ITSM tool.
    • Not Preparing for Data Migration: Data migration is complex. You need to determine what data to migrate, if any, and how that data will be mapped to the new environment. That takes planning and must be defined well before the vendor is ready to implement your tool.
    • Insufficient IT and End-User Training: A link to the ITSM tool manual is not enough. Staff and users need training on how your processes will be executed in the new tool.

    A survey of implementation challenges for ServiceNow’s customers

    26% Resistance to change

    43% Lacked a clear roadmap

    38% Planning for resources

    Source: Acorio, 2019

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Divide the implementation project into controllable phases for an effective implementation.

    Plan

    Define the scope of your project, identify and get buy-in from your stakeholders, and establish a timeframe for the implementation.

    Design & Build

    Identify existing process challenges and design workflows and ticket management to improve processes. Make decisions on data migrations and integrations for your new tool.

    Deploy & Train

    Create a rollout plan and communicate changes and improvements to users. Plan for the new tool deployment and monitor your solution.

    STOP: Use this blueprint after you have selected an ITSM solution

    Leverage our SoftwareReviews service and related blueprints to assist with ITSM tool selection, and then use this blueprint to plan the implementation.

    1. Evaluate solutions

    2. Select and purchase

    3. Implement (use this blueprint)

    Use our SoftwareReviews resources to evaluate solutions and vendors based on criteria such as features and customer service. Below are links to our ITSM software reviews:

    Use the following resources to help you make the case for funding and execute the purchase process:

    Your ITSM vendor or systems integrator will lead the technical implementation (e.g. software install and integration).

    As a result, your implementation plan needs to focus on preparing the information needed for implementation (e.g. ticket categories, workflow requirements) and organizational change management.

    This blueprint provides a methodology, checklist, and supporting templates to prepare for the implementation.

    Info-Tech’s methodology to build an ITSM Tool Implementation Plan

    1. Identify Scope, Stakeholders, and Preliminary Timeline

    2. Prepare to Implement Incident Management and Service Request Modules

    3. Create a Deployment Plan (Communication, Training, Rollout)

    Phase Steps

    1.1 Document define scope

    1.2 Define roles and responsibilities

    1.3 Identify preliminary timeline

    2.1 Review your existing solution and challenges

    2.2 Plan ticket management and workflow implementation

    2.3 Plan data migration, knowledgebase setup, and integrations

    2.4 Plan the module rollout

    3.1 Create a communication plan (for IT, users, and business leaders)

    3.2 Create a training plan

    3.3 Plan how you will deploy, monitor, and maintain the solution

    Phase Outcomes

    • RACI chart outlining high-level accountability and responsibilities for the project
    • Documenting timeline and team for the implementation project
    • ITSM tool implementation checklist
    • Strategy and identified opportunities to implement incident and service request modules
    • Documented communications and targeted training plan
    • Completed rollout plan and prepared to monitor your success metrics

    Insight summary

    Start with the assumption you don’t need to migrate old data

    ITSM tools are designed to support ITIL best practices

    Implement your new tool in stages to manage scope

    We all love data. We love being able to run reports showing trends, measuring changes over time, and highlighting pain points – but is your data from five years ago relevant to those assessments? Can you get by with just migrating open tickets and perhaps just the last year of critical tickets?

    Be ruthless in deciding what really needs to be in your active system to support incident matching, troubleshooting, or ongoing reporting.

    If you can’t make a strong case, don’t waste your time on old data. Remember, you can still save an exported copy or report of your old data if the need arises to search historical records.

    For organizations lacking process maturity, the tool’s default settings will often provide a good starting point. For example, a good ITSM tool will typically already be configured to follow best practices such as:

    • Separating incidents from service requests
    • Assigning resolution codes to solved tickets
    • Enabling routing based on categories

    Within those defaults, you will still need to decide your specific parameters – e.g. what your categories and resolution codes should be – so don’t blindly follow default settings but use them as a starting point.

    Start with the incident management and service requests modules. Those are typically the core of IT service management operations, so that should help realize benefits from the new tool sooner. In addition, incident management and service requests processes will support other ITSM processes such as asset management and problem management.

    Once those modules are implemented successfully (from a technology and process perspective), then start to implement your next core module (e.g. asset or change management), and continue to build from there.

    Blueprint deliverables

    This blueprint includes tools and templates to help you accomplish your goals:

    ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist

    Identify the most common decisions you will need to make and prepare for your implementation project.

    ITSM Tool Project Charter Template

    Review and edit the template to suit your project requirements

    The image contains a screenshot of the ITSM Tool Project Charter Template.
    The image contains screenshots of the ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist.

    ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template

    Prioritize and prepare tool rollout plan

    The image contains a screenshot of the ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template.

    ITSM Tool Training Schedule

    Use the checklist to create your new tool training roadmap

    The image contains a screenshot of the ITSM Tool Training Schedule.

    Blueprint benefits

    Benefits for IT

    Benefits for the business

    • Checklists and templates to support a smoother transition to the new ITSM tool.
    • Opportunity to review and optimize processes as part of the ITSM tool implementation project. A new tool with the same old processes will not achieve expected benefits.
    • Ability to plan and scope the project to avoid or reduce last-minute chaos.
    • Better planning means better results – specifically, ensuring that the implementation takes into account targeted business benefits.
    • Improved project management, and therefore better cost and effort estimates, by identifying required tasks upfront. This also provides the opportunity to re-scope or adjust timelines based on estimated effort.
    • Higher end-user satisfaction by executing a well-organized ITSM tool implementation.

    Measured value from using this blueprint

    Use this guide as an example to calculate your total cost savings from the ITSM tool implementation project.

    Phase 1

    Identify Scope, Stakeholders, and Preliminary Timeline

    Time, value, and resources saved by using Info-Tech’s methodology to define scope and plan your project

    E.g. 2 FTEs * 6 days * $80,000/year = $4,000/-

    Phase 2

    Prepare to Implement Incident Management and Service Request Modules

    Time, value, and resources saved by using Info-Tech’s methodology to build your solution strategy and determine configurations

    E.g. 2 FTEs * 8 days * $80,000/year = $5,400/-

    Phase 3

    Create a Deployment Plan (Communication, Training, Rollout)

    Time, value, and resources saved by using Info-Tech’s methodology to establish an effective communications roadmap and deploy tool

    E.g. 2 FTEs * 6 days * $80,000/year = $4,000/-

    Total Savings

    Total Savings

    Phase 1 + Phase 2 + Phase 3 = $13,400

    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

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

    Call #1: Define scope, roles, responsibilities and timeline.

    Call #2: Review your existing solution and challenges.

    Call #3: Plan ticket management and workflow implementation.

    Call #4: Plan data migration, knowledgebase setup, and integrations.

    Call #5: Plan the module rollout.

    Call #6: Create a communication plan.

    Call #7: Create a training plan.

    Call #8: Plan how you will deploy, monitor, and maintain the solution.

    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 8 calls over the course of 3 to 6 months.

    Phase 1

    Identify Stakeholders, Scope, and Preliminary Timeline

    Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

    Identify Stakeholders, Scope, and Preliminary Timeline

    Prepare to Implement Incident Management and Service Request Modules

    Create a Deployment Plan (Communication, Training, Rollout)

    This phase will walk you through the following steps:

    1. Define scope
    2. Define roles and responsibilities
    3. Identify preliminary timeline

    Step 1.1

    Define scope

    Activities

    1.1.1

    Use the Project Charter Template to capture project parameters

    1.1.2

    Leverage the Implementation Checklist to guide your preparation

    1.1.3

    Review goals that drove the ITSM tool purchase

    1.1.4

    Interview ITSM staff to identify current tool challenges and support organizational change management

    1.1.5

    Identify the modules and features you will plan to implement

    1.1.6

    Determine if data migration is required

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Define the scope of the implementation project
    • Establish the future processes and functionalities the tool will support

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Director/Manager
    • Service Manager
    • Project Manager and the project team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Specifying the implementation project
    • Identifying the business units that are needed to support the project
    • Defining the ongoing and future service management processes the tool will support

    1.1.1 Use the Project Charter Template to capture scope, stakeholders, and timeline as outlined in Phase 1

    Follow the instructions in Phase 1 (step 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3) to gather information needed to create a project charter to define project parameters.

    Specific subsections are listed below and described in more detail in the remainder of this phase.

    1. Project Overview: Includes deliverables, scope, milestones, and success metrics.
    2. Governance and Management: Includes roles, responsibilities, and resource requirements.
    3. Project Risks, Assumptions, and Constraints: Includes risks and mitigation strategies as well as any assumptions and constraints.
    4. Project Sign-Off: Includes IT and executive sign-off (if required).

    The image contains a screenshot of the Project Charter Template.

    Download the ITSM Tool Implementation Project Charter Template

    1.1.2 Leverage the Implementation Checklist to guide your preparation

    The checklist tabs align to each phase of this blueprint.

    • Phase 1 (Tab 1) – Identify Stakeholders, Scope, and Preliminary Timeline
    • Phase 2 (Tab 2) – Prepare to Implement Incident Management and Service Request Modules
    • Phase 3 (Tabs 3+4) – Prepare to Implement Additional ITSM Modules (e.g. Change Management)
    • Phase 4 (deployment section in each tab) – Create a Deployment Plan (Communication, Training, Rollout)

    The image contains screenshots from the Implementation Checklist.

    Download the ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist

    1.1.3 Review goals that drove the ITSM tool purchase

    Identify the triggers for the selection and implementation of your new ITSM tool.

    Whether this is your first ITSM tool or a replacement for your old tool, the project was likely triggered by pain points that must be addressed by the new tool to improve your service desk. Having a clear understanding of these pain points throughout the implementation of your new tool will help to prevent them from reoccurring.

    Common ITSM pain points include:

    1. Poor communication with end users on ticket status.
    2. Lack of SLA automation to escalate issues to the appropriate channels.
    3. Poor self-service options for end users to perform simple requests on their own.
    4. Undeveloped knowledgebase for users to find answers to common issues.
    5. Lack of reporting or mistrust in reporting data.
    6. Lack of automation, including ticket templates.
    7. Overcomplicated ticket categories resulting in categories being misused.
    8. Overconfiguration prevents future upgrades.
    9. Lack of integration with other tools.

    If you haven't already selected an ITSM tool, leverage the IT Service Management Selection Guide to select the right tool.

    Download the IT Service Management Selection Guide

    1.1.4 Plan to interview staff to support organizational change management

    Identify challenges with the existing tool and processes as well as potential objections to the new tool.

    Incorporate this feedback in the implementation to drive buy-in and a successful rollout.

    Implementing a new ITSM tool will force changes in how IT staff do their work:

    • At a minimum, it means learning a new interface.
    • It could also mean leveraging features that improve IT operations but could change the process or tasks for the staff.
    • Their input on the current tool and process challenges can be critical for the project.
    • Solving at least some of their challenges can help bring them onboard to use this tool properly and follow associated process changes.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Keep management in the loop through every stage of the implementation process. They are the ones who are paying for the software, so they need to be informed throughout implementation and feel that their needs and feedback are being heard to prevent pushback further into the implementation.

    1.1.5 Identify the modules and features you will plan to implement

    Consider these factors when deciding what modules and features you want to implement:

    • Specific ITSM modules based on the recommended order and any unique business requirements
    • Key features that drove the tool purchase and address key issues
    • High-level process changes needed to address challenges and realize expected benefits from the new ITSM tool (e.g. if a key goal was automated ticket routing based on categories, then the project needs to include developing a good categorization scheme)

    Recommended order for implementation:

    1. Incident Management and Service Request
    2. This is the core of service management and typically has the highest impact on the organization. Include knowledgebase development as part of this implementation.

    3. Change Management
    4. A foundational component of service management, it allows organizations to minimize disruptions to IT services when making changes to services and critical systems.

    5. Asset Management
    6. A foundational component of service management, it allows organizations to track their assets’ locations, how they are used, and when changes are made to them.

    1.1.6 Determine if data migration is required

    If you are switching from a previous ITSM tool, carefully weigh the pros and cons as well as the necessity of migrating historical transactional data before deciding to import it into the new tool.

    Importing your old transactional data will allow you to track metrics over time, which can be valuable for data analysis and reporting purposes.

    However, ask yourself what the true value of your data is before you import it.

    You will not get value out of migrating the old data if:

    • You have incomplete or inaccurate data (a high percentage of incidents did not have tickets created in the old system).
    • The categorization of your old tickets was not useful or was used inconsistently.
    • You plan on changing the ticket categorization in the new system.

    “Don’t debate whether you can import your old data until you’ve made sure that you should.”

    – Barry Cousins, Practice Lead at Info-Tech Research Group

    Info-Tech Insight

    If you decide to migrate your data, keep in mind that it can be a complex process and proper time should be budgeted for planning, structuring the data, and importing and testing it.

    Step 1.2

    Define roles and responsibilities

    Activities

    1.2.1

    Key internal roles and responsibilities

    1.2.2

    Key external roles and responsibilities

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Director/Manager
    • Service Manager
    • Project Manager and the project team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Decision on whether to hire professional services for the implementation
    • Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for the project

    1.2.1 Identify key internal roles and responsibilities

    Review the tasks outlined in the Implementation Checklist to help you identify appropriate roles and specific staff that will be needed to execute this project.

    Project Role

    Description

    RACI

    Assigned To

    Executive Sponsor

    Liaison with the executive team (the CIO would be a good candidate for this role).

    Accountable for project completion.

    Approves resource allocation and funding.

    A, C

    Name(s)

    Project Manager

    Manages the project schedule, tasks, and budget.

    May act as a liaison between executives and the project-level team.

    R

    Name(s)

    Product Owner

    Liaison with the vendor.

    SME for the new tool.

    Provides input to tool configuration decisions.

    Manages the tool post-implementation.

    R

    Name(s)

    Process Owners

    Define current processes.

    Provide input to identifying current-state process challenges to address and potential changes as part of the new tool implementation.

    R

    Name(s)

    Service Desk Manager

    Provides input to tool configuration decisions.

    Manages and trains service desk agents to use new tool and processes.

    R

    Name(s)

    ITSM Tool Core Users (e.g. Service Desk Technicians)

    Provide input to identifying current-state process challenges to address.

    Provide input to tool configuration decisions.

    C

    Name(s)

    RACI = Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed

    Assign individuals to roles through each step of the implementation project in the governance and management chart in the Project Charter Template.

    Download the Project Charter Template

    1.2.2 Key external roles and responsibilities

    Determine whether you will engage professional services for the implementation.

    There are three main ways to implement your ITSM tool

    Implemented in-house by own staff

    Implemented using a combination of your own staff and your ITSM tool vendor

    Implemented by professional services and your ITSM tool vendor

    DIY Implementation

    Adopting a DIY implementation approach can save money but could draw out your implementation timeline and increase the likelihood of errors. Carefully consider your integration environment to determine your resourcing capabilities and maturity.

    Vendor Implementation

    In most cases, your vendor will support or execute the technical implementation based on your requirements. Use this blueprint to help you define those requirements.

    Professional Services

    Opting for professional services may result in a shorter implementation period and fewer errors but may also deny your IT staff the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to maintain and configure the solution in the future.

    Clarify the role of the professional services vendor before acquiring their services to make sure your expectations are aligned. For example, are you hiring the vendor for tool installation, tool configuration, or tool customization or for training your end users?

    Step 1.3

    Identify preliminary timeline

    Activities

    1.3.1

    Identify preliminary internal target dates

    1.3.2

    Identify target dates for vendor involvement

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Director/Manager
    • Service Manager
    • Project Manager and the project team

    Outcomes of this step

    • Specifying the target dates for the implementation project

    1.3.1 Identify preliminary internal target dates

    Identify high-level start and end dates based on the following:

    • Existing process maturity
    • Process changes required (to address process issues or to realize targeted benefits from the new tool)
    • Data migration requirements (if any)
    • Information to prepare for the implementation (review the Checklist Tool)
    • Vendor availability to support implementation
    • Executive mandates that have established specific milestone dates

    Create an initial project schedule:

    • Review the remaining phases of this blueprint for more details on the implementation planning steps.
    • Review and update the Checklist Tool to suit your implementation goals and requirements.
    • Assign task owners and target dates in the Checklist Tool.

    Note: This is a preliminary schedule. Monitor progress as well as requirement changes, and adjust the scope or schedule as needed.

    Update the columns in the Checklist Tool to plan and keep track of your implementation project.

    1.3.2 Identify target dates for vendor involvement

    Plan when you'll be ready for the vendor and identify the key points for when the vendor will come in.

    Are dates already scheduled for tool installation/configuration/customization?

    If yes:

    • Clarify vendor expectations for those target dates (i.e. what do you have to have prepared in advance?).
    • Determine options to adjust dates if needed.

    If no:

    • Defer scheduling until you have reviewed and updated the Implementation Checklist. The checklist will help you determine your readiness for vendor involvement.

    Consider if the vendor will implement the ITSM tool in one go or if they will help setup the tool in stages. Keep in mind that ITSM implementation projects typically take anywhere from 9 weeks to 16 months and plan accordingly depending on the maturity of your processes and the modules and features you plan to implement.

    Use your internal target dates to estimate when you'll be ready for the vendor to set up the tool and implement the setting that you've defined.

    Phase 2

    Prepare to Implement Incident Management and Service Request Modules

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3

    Identify Stakeholders, Scope, and Preliminary Timeline

    Prepare to Implement Incident Management and Service Request Modules

    Create a Deployment Plan (Communication, Training, Rollout)

    This phase will walk you through the following steps:

    • Review your existing solution and challenges
    • Plan ticket management and workflow implementation
    • Plan data migration, knowledgebase setup, and integrations
    • Plan the module rollout

    Additional Info-Tech Research

    The Implementation Checklist Tool summarizes what you need to prepare for the implementation. If you need more assistance with developing the underlying ITSM processes, use the tools, templates, and guidance in these blueprints.

    Standardize the Service Desk

    Build core elements of service desk operations, including incident management and service request workflows, ticket categorization schemes, and ticket prioritization rules.

    Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy

    Implement tools such as an improved knowledgebase and self-service portal to enable lower tier support staff and end users to resolve incidents or fulfill service requests.

    Incident and Problem Management

    Develop a critical incident management workflow and create standard operating procedures for problem management.

    Step 2.1

    Review your existing solution and challenges

    Activities

    2.1.1

    Configure, don’t customize, your solution to minimize risk

    2.1.2

    Review your existing process and solution challenges for opportunities for improvement

    This step involves the following participants:

    1. Service Manager and Service Desk Team
    2. Project Manager and Core Project Team
    3. Subject Matter Experts and Tool Administrator, if applicable

    2.1.1 Configure your tool, don’t customize it

    Your tool may require at least some basic configurations to align with your processes, but in most cases customization of the tool is not recommended.

    Configuration

    Customization

    • Creating settings and recording reference data in the tool within the normal functionality of the tool.
    • Does not require changes to source code.

    Documentation of configurations is key.

    Failure to document configurations and the reasons for specific configurations will lead to:

    • Difficulty diagnosing incidents and problems.
    • Difficulty reconstructing the tool in the case of disaster recovery.
    • One administrator having all of the knowledge of configurations and taking it with them if they leave the organization.
    • Configurations that become useless in the future are maintained and lead to unnecessary work if documentation is not regularly reviewed.
    • Extending the functionality of the tool beyond what it was originally intended to do.
    • Requires manual changes to source code.

    Carefully consider whether a customization is necessary.

    • Over-customization of your ITSM tool code may lock you into your current version of the software by preventing future patches and upgrades, leaving you with outdated software.
    • Over-customization becomes particularly risky when your ITSM solution is integrated with other tools, as a loss in functionality of your ITSM tool resulting from over-customization may cause disruptions across the business.
    • If your selected ITSM solution doesn’t do something you think you need it to do, carefully evaluate whether you really need that customization and if the trade-off of potentially limiting future innovation is worth it.

    Case Study

    Consider the consequences of over-customizing your solution.

    INDUSTRY: Education

    SOURCE: IT Director

    Situation

    Challenge

    Resolution

    A few years ago, the service management office at the university decided to switch ITSM tools, from Computer Associates to ServiceNow.

    They wanted the new tool to behave similarly to what they had previously, so they made a lot of customized code changes to ServiceNow during implementation.

    As a result of the customizations, much of the functionality of the tool was restricted, and the upgrades were not compatible with the solution.

    The external consultants who performed the customizations and backend work did not document their changes, leaving the service management team without an understanding of why they did what they did.

    The service management team is working with ServiceNow to slowly unravel the custom code to try to get the solution back to having out-of-the-box functionality, with the ability to be upgraded.

    It has been challenging to do this work without disrupting the functionality of the tool.

    Over-customization led to the organization paying for features they couldn’t use and spending more time and resources down the road to try to reverse the changes.

    2.1.2 Review your existing process to identify opportunities for improvement

    Documenting your existing processes is an effective method for also reviewing those processes and identifying inefficiencies. Take advantage of this project to fix your process issues.

    1. Document your existing workflows for incident management and service requests.
    2. Review your workflows to identify opportunities to optimize through process refinement (e.g. clarifying escalation guidelines) or by leveraging features in your new ITSM tool (e.g. improved workflow automation).
    3. Similarly, review the challenges identified through stakeholder interviews: is there an opportunity address those challenges through process changes or leveraging your new ITSM tool?
    4. Address those challenge and issues as you execute the tasks outlined in the Implementation Checklist Tool. For example, if inconsistent ticket routing was identified as a challenge due to a vague categorization scheme, that’s a driver to review and update your scheme rather than just carry forward your existing scheme.

    Regardless of your existing ITSM maturity, this is an opportunity to review and optimize existing processes. Even the most-mature organizations can typically find an area to improve.

    Case Study

    Reviewing and defining processes before the implementation can be a project in itself.

    INDUSTRY: Defense

    SOURCE: Anonymous

    Situation

    Challenge

    Resolution

    The organization was switching to a new ITSM tool. To prepare for the implementation, they gathered stakeholders, held steering committee meetings, and broke down key processes, teams, and owners before even meeting with the larger group.

    They used a software tool called InDesign to visibly map service requests and incidents and determine who owned each process and where the handoffs were.

    The service catalog also needed to be built out as they were performing certain services that didn’t relate to anything in the catalog.

    The goal for the implementation was to have it completed within a year, but it ended up going over, taking 15 to 16 months to complete.

    Most of the time was spent identifying processes upfront before configuring the tool. There were difficulties defining processes as well as agreeing on who owned a process or service.

    There were also difficulties agreeing upon who the valid stakeholders were for processes, as groups were siloed.

    The major obstacles to implementation were therefore people and process, not the product.

    New processes were introduced, and boundaries were placed around processes that were being done in the past that weren’t necessary.

    Once the groups were able to agree upon process owners, the tool configuration and implementation itself did not pose any major difficulties.

    After the implementation, the tool was continually improved and sharpened to adapt to processes.

    Step 2.2

    Plan ticket management and workflow implementation

    Activities

    2.2.1

    Define ticket classification values

    2.2.2

    Define ticket templates for common incident types and service requests

    2.2.3

    Plan your ticket intake channels

    2.2.4

    Design a self-service portal

    2.2.5

    Plan your knowledgebase implementation in the new tool

    2.2.6

    Design your ticket status notification processes and templates

    2.2.7

    Identify required user accounts, access levels, and skills/ service groups

    2.2.8

    Review and update your workflows and escalation rules

    2.2.9

    Identify desired reporting and relevant metrics to track

    This step involves the following participants:

    1. Service Manager and Service Desk Team
    2. Project Manager and Core Project Team
    3. Subject Matter Experts and Tool Administrator, if applicable

    Outcomes of this step

    Tool is designed and configured to support service desk processes and organization needs.

    Checklist overview

    The ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist will help you estimate resources required to support demand, based on your ticket volume.

    TAB 2

    TAB 3

    TAB 4

    Incident and Service Modules Checklist

    Change Management Modules

    Asset Management Modules

    The image contains a screenshot of the ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist, tab 2. The image contains a screenshot of the ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist, tab 3. The image contains a screenshot of the ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist, tab 4.

    How to follow this section:

    The following slides contain a table that explains why each task in the module matters and what needs to be considered. Complete the checklist modules referring to this section.

    2.2.1 Define ticket classification values

    Ticket classification improves reporting, workflow automation, and problem identification.

    Review your existing ticket classification values to identify what to carry forward, drop, or change. For example, if your categorization scheme has become too complex, this is your opportunity to fix it; don’t perpetuate ineffective classification in the new tool.

    Task

    Why this matters

    Ticket Types (e.g. incident, service request, change)

    In particular, separating incidents from service requests supports appropriate ticket prioritization and resourcing; for example, an incident typically should be prioritized, and service requests can be scheduled.

    Categories (e.g. network, servers)

    An effective categorization scheme can help identify ticket assignment and escalation (e.g. network tickets would be escalated to the network team), and potentially automate ticket routing.

    Resolution Codes

    Indicates how the ticket was resolved (e.g. configuration change). Supports another layer of trends reporting and data to support problem identification.

    Status Values

    Shows what status the ticket is currently in (e.g. if the ticket has been opened or assigned to an agent, if it is in progress or has been resolved).

    2.2.2 Define ticket templates for common incident types and service requests

    Ticket templates are the backbone of automation. A common complaint is that tickets take too much time. However, a little planning can reduce the time it takes to create a ticket to less than a minute.

    Task

    Why this matters

    Identify common recurring tickets that would be good candidates for using ticket templates (e.g. common service requests and incidents).

    Some common recurring tickets such as password reset, new laptop, and login requests would be great candidates to create ticket templates for. Building a deck of standard rules to follow for common tickets saves time and reduces the number of tickets generated.

    Design ticket templates and workflows for common tickets (e.g. fields to auto-populate as well as routing and secondary tickets for onboarding requests).

    Differentiating between recurring ticket types and building pre-defined templates not just saves time but can also have major impact on how service is delivered as this will also help separate tickets. Creating these templates beforehand will also let you communicate effectively with the users at a time when all hands need to be on deck.

    2.2.3 Plan your ticket intake channels

    Consider possible ticket intake channels and evaluate their relevance to your organization.

    Task

    Why this matters

    Decide on ticket intake channels (e.g. phone, email, portal, walk-ups).

    Each standard intake channel serves its own purposes and can be extremely valuable under different circumstances. For example, walk-ins may be inefficient but necessary for critical incidents.

    If using email, identify/create the email account and appropriate permissions.

    Email works well if it automatically creates a ticket in your ticketing system, but users often don’t provide enough information in unstructured emails. Use required fields and ticket templates to ensure the ticket is properly categorized.

    If using phone, identify/create the phone number and appropriate integrations.

    Maintain the phone for users from other locations and for critical incidents but encourage users who call in to submit a ticket through the portal.

    If using a portal, determine if you will leverage the tool's portal or an existing portal.

    The web portal is the most efficient intake method, but ensure it is user friendly before promoting it.

    If using chat, determine whether you will use the tool's chat or an existing chat mechanism and whether integrations are needed.

    Another way to improve support experience for your customers is through live chat. This gives your customers an easy way to reach you at the exact moment they have questions or issues they can't fix.

    2.2.4 Design a self-service portal

    Map your processes to the tool by defining your ticket input, categories, escalations, and workflows.

    Don’t forget about the client-facing side of the solution. It is important to build a self-serve portal that has an easy-to-use interface where the user can easily find the category for the help they’re looking for. It is also necessary to educate the users on where to find the portal or how to access it.

    Task

    Why this matters

    Identify components to include (e.g. service request, incident, knowledgebase).

    Identify the categories you want the users to be able to access in the portal. Finding the right balance of components to include is very important to make it easy for your users to find all the relevant information they are looking for. This could mean fewer tickets.

    Plan the input form for service requests and incidents (e.g. mandatory fields, optional fields, drop-down lists).

    Having relevant and specific fields helps to narrow down your user’s issues and provides more information on how to allocate these tasks among the service desk resources and reduce time to further investigate the issues.

    If service catalog will be attached to the ITSM tool, define routing and workflows; if there is no existing service catalog, start a separate project to define it (e.g. services, SLAs).

    A centrally defined guide enables a uniform quality in service and clarifies the responsible tier for the ticket. Identify services that will be included in the catalog, and if the information is attached to the ITSM tool, plan for how will the routing and workflows be structured.

    Plan design requirements (e.g. company branding).

    Ensure that the portal is aligned with the company’s theme and access format. Work with the vendor to customize the branding on the tool, design requirements, images.

    2.2.5 Plan your knowledgebase (KB) implementation in the new tool

    Evaluate how onerous KB migration will be for you. Is this an opportunity to improve how the KB is organized?

    Task

    Why this matters

    Define knowledgebase categories and structure.

    Establishing knowledgebase structures or having them separated into categories makes it easy for your clients to find them (e.g. do they align with ticket categories?).

    Identify existing knowledgebase articles to add to the new tool.

    Review existing knowledgebase articles at a high level (e.g. Do you carry forward all existing articles? Take an opportunity to retire old articles?).

    Define knowledgebase article templates.

    Having standardized templates makes it an easy read and will increase its usage (e.g. all knowledgebase articles for recurring incidents will follow the same template).

    Build knowledgebase article creation, usage, and revision workflows.

    Decide how new knowledgebase articles will be built and added to the tool, how it will be accessed and used, and also any steps necessary to update the articles.

    Plan a knowledgebase feedback system.

    For example, include a comments section, like buttons, and who will get notified about feedback.

    2.2.6 Design your ticket status notification processes and templates

    Task

    Why this matters

    Identify triggers for status notifications. Balance the need for keeping users informed versus notifications being treated as spam.

    Identify when and where the users are informed to make sure you are not under or over communicating with them. Status notifications and alerts are a great way to set or reset expectations to your users on the delivery or resolution on their tickets. For example, auto-response for a new ticket, or status updates to users when the ticket is assigned, solved, and closed.

    If using email notifications, design email templates for each type of notification.

    Creating notification templates is a great way to provide standardized service to your clients and it saves time when a ticket is raised. For example, email templates for new ticket, ticket updated, or ticket closed.

    Plan how you will enable users to validate the ticket or resolve request without causing the ticket to reopen.

    For example, in the ticket solved template, provide a link to close the ticket, and ask the user to reply only if they wish to re-open the ticket (i.e. if it's not resolved). May require consulting with the ITSM tool vendor.

    Decide if customer satisfaction surveys will be sent to end users after their ticket has been closed.

    Discuss if this data would be useful to you if captured to improve/modify your service.

    If customer satisfaction surveys will be used, design the survey.

    Discuss what data would be useful to you if captured and create survey questionnaires to capture that data from your clients. For example, how many questions, types of questions, whether sent for every ticket or randomly.

    2.2.7 Identify required user accounts, access levels, and skills/service groups

    Task

    Why this matters

    Define Tier 1, 2, and 3 roles and their associated access levels.

    Having pre-established roles for different tiers and teams is a great way to boost accountability and also helps identify training requirements for each tier. For example, knowledgebase training for tier 1 & 2, reporting/analytics for IT manager.

    Identify skill groups or support teams.

    Establishing accountability for all the support practices in the service desk is important for the tickets to be effectively distributed among the functional individuals and teams. Identifying the responsibilities of groups help execute shift-left strategy.

    Identify required email permissions for each role.

    For example, define which roles get permissions to include status updates or other ticket information in their emails or to support automated notifications and other integrations with email.

    Determine how you will import users into the new tool.

    Identify the best way to migrate your users to the new tool whether it be by importing from Active Directory or the old ITSM tool, etc.

    2.2.8 Review and update your workflows and escalation rules

    Task

    Why this matters

    Document your future-state incident and service request workflows that will incorporate the above planning as well as improvements supported by the new tool.

    Document your workflows and review it to make sure it’s accurate and also to help you with communicating process expectations to all the stakeholders.

    Review the future-state workflows.

    This helps you validate that the planned changes meet your goals and identify any additional required changes.

    Update ticket classification values, templates, and ticket intake as needed based on the future-state workflows.

    Documenting your process might uncover additional requirements for classification, templates, etc. Ensure that the classification templates and related parameters align with the workflows.

    Identify opportunities to further automate workflows by leveraging the new tool.

    The process of reviewing the workflows often helps identify manual processes, labor intensive processes, very repetitive processes, etc. These can be opportunities to further automate your processes.

    2.2.9 Identify desired reporting and relevant metrics to track

    Documentation of key metrics of service desk performance and end-user satisfaction that you wish to improve through the new solution is key to evaluate the success of your implementation.

    Task

    Why this matters

    Define the metrics you will track in the new ITSM tool.

    It is critical to ensure that your tool will be able to track necessary metrics on KPIs from the start and that this data is accurate and reliable so that reporting will be relevant and meaningful to the business. Whether you use your own tool for tracking metrics or an external tool, ensure that you can get the internal data you need from the ITSM tool. This may include measures of Productivity (e.g. time to respond, time to resolve), Service (e.g. incident backlog, customer satisfaction), and Proactiveness (e.g. number of knowledgebase articles per week).

    Determine what reports you want to generate from data collected through the tool.

    It’s not enough to simply set up metrics, you have to actually use the information. Reports should be analyzed regularly and used to manage costs and productivity, improve services, and identify issues. Ensure that your service desk team contributes to the usefulness of reporting by following processes such as creating tickets for every incident and request, categorizing it properly, and closing it after it’s resolved with the proper resolution code.

    Identify the information and metrics to include in the ITSM tool's dashboards.

    A dashboard helps drive accountability across the team through greater visibility. Decide what will be reported on the dashboard. For example, average time to resolution, number of open tickets with subtotals for each priority, problem ticket aging.

    Step 2.3

    Plan data migration and integrations

    Activities

    2.3.1

    Create a data migration and archiving plan

    2.3.2

    Identify and plan required integrations

    This step involves the following participants:

    1. Service Manager and Service Desk Team
    2. Project Manager and Core Project Team
    3. Subject Matter Experts and Tool Administrator, if applicable

    Outcomes of this step

    • Decisions made around data migration, integrations, automation, and reporting.
    • ITSM Tool Implementation Checklist

    2.3.1 Create a data migration and archiving plan

    Task

    Why this matters

    Document your future-state incident and service request workflows that will incorporate the above planning as well as improvements supported by the new tool.

    Document your workflows and review them to make sure they’re accurate and also to help you with communicating process expectations to all the stakeholders.

    Review the future-state workflows.

    This helps you validate that the planned changes meet your goals and identify any additional required changes.

    Update ticket classification values, templates, and ticket intake as needed based on the future-state workflows.

    Documenting your process might uncover additional requirements for classification, templates, etc. Ensure that the classification templates and related parameters align with the workflows.

    Identify opportunities to further automate workflows leveraging the new tool.

    The process of reviewing the workflows often helps identify manual processes, labor-intensive processes, very repetitive processes, etc. These can be opportunities to further automate your processes.

    2.3.2 Identify and plan required integrations

    Consider and plan for any necessary integrations with other systems.

    A major component of the implementation that should be carefully considered throughout is if and how to integrate your ITSM tool with other applications in the environment.

    Task

    Why this matters

    Identify the systems you need to integrate with your ITSM tool (e.g. asset discovery tools, reporting systems).

    Regardless of whether your solution will be configured and installed on-premises or as a SaaS, you need to consider the underlying technology to determine how you will integrate it with other tools where necessary.

    Businesses may need to integrate their ITSM tool with other systems including asset management, network monitoring, and reporting systems to make the organization more efficient.

    Determine how data will flow between systems.

    Carefully evaluate the purpose of each integration. Clients often want their ITSM tool to be integrated with all of the available data in another application when they only need a subset of that data to be integrated.

    Consider not only which systems you need to integrate with your ITSM tool but also who the owners of those systems are and which way the data needs to flow.

    Plan the development, configuration, and testing of integrations.

    As with other aspects of the implementation, configure and test the integrations before going live with the tool.

    Step 2.4

    Plan the module rollout

    Activities

    2.4.1

    Repeat the methodology for additional ITSM modules, using the Checklists as a guide

    2.4.2

    Leverage these blueprints to help you implement change and asset management modules

    This step involves the following participants:

    1. Service Manager and Service Desk Team
    2. Project Manager and Core Project Team
    3. Subject Matter Experts and Tool Administrator, if applicable

    Outcomes of this step

    Identify and plan for additional modules and features to be implemented

    2.4.1 Repeat the methodology for additional ITSM modules, using the Checklists as a guide

    The preparation completed in Phase 1 and 2 to this point provide a foundation for additional ITSM modules.

    This blueprint starts with the incident management and service request modules as those are typically implemented first since they are the most impactful to day-to-day IT service management.

    In addition, the methodology outlined in Phase 1 and 2 to this point provides a model to follow for additional ITSM modules:

    • If you did not already account for additional modules in Phase 1, then repeat the steps in Phase 1 to define scope, stakeholders, and timeline.
    • The Implementation Checklist Tool provides tabs for Change Management and Asset Management to outline the specific details for those topic areas, but they follow the same high-level steps as Phase 2 (e.g. review existing processes, design relevant workflows).
    • If you are planning to implement other modules (e.g. Problem Management), create additional tabs in the Implementation Checklist Tool as needed, using the existing tabs as a base.
    The image contains screenshots of the ITSM checklists.

    2.4.2 Leverage these blueprints to help you implement change and asset management modules

    The Implementation Checklist Tool summarizes what you need to prepare for the implementation. If you need more assistance with developing the underlying ITSM processes, use the tools, templates, and guidance in the blueprints below.

    Optimize IT Change Management

    Define change management workflows, key roles, and supporting elements such as request-for-change forms based on best practices.

    Implement Hardware Asset Management

    Create an SOP and associated process workflows to streamline and standardize hardware asset management.

    Implement Software Asset Management

    Build on a strong hardware asset management program to also properly track and manage software assets. This includes managing software licensing, finding opportunities to reduce costs, and improving your software audit readiness.

    Phase 3

    Create a Deployment Plan (Communication, Training, Rollout)

    Phase 1Phase 2Phase 3

    Identify Stakeholders, Scope, and Preliminary Timeline

    Prepare to Implement Incident Management and Service Request Modules

    Create a Deployment Plan (Communication, Training, Rollout)

    This phase will walk you through the following steps:

    1. Create a communication plan (for IT, users, and business leaders)
    2. Create a training plan
    3. Plan how you will deploy, monitor, and maintain the solution

    ITSM Tool Training Schedule

    ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template

    Use the template to document and plan the communications and training needs prior to deployment of the new tool.

    The image contains a screenshot of the ITSM Tool Training Schedule.

    Use the deployment plan template to document the strategy and decisions made for making the transition to the new ITSM tool.

    The image contains a screenshot of the ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template.

    Download the ITSM Tool Training Schedule

    Download the ITSM Tool Deployment Plan Template

    Step 3.1

    Create a communication plan (for IT, users, and business leaders)

    Activities

    3.1.1

    Ensure there is strong communication from management throughout the implementation and deployment

    3.1.2

    Base your communications timeline on a classic change curve to accommodate natural resistance

    3.1.3

    Communicate new processes with business leaders and end users to improve positive customer feedback

    This step involves the following participants:

    1. CIO/IT Director
    2. IT Manager
    3. Service Manager

    Outcomes of this step

    Plan for communicating the change with business executives, service desk agents, and end users.

    3.1.1 Ensure there is strong communication from management throughout the implementation and deployment

    A common contributing factor for unsuccessful implementation is a lack of communication around training, transitioning, and deploying the new tool.

    Common Pitfall:

    Organizational communication and change management should have been ongoing and tightly monitored throughout the project. However, cut-over is a time in which critical communication regarding deployment and proper user training can be derailed when last-minute preparations take priority. Not only will general user frustration increase, but unintended process workarounds will emerge, eroding system effectiveness.

    Mitigating Actions:

    Deliver training for end users that will be engaged in testing. For all other users, deliver training prior to go-live to avoid the risk of training too early (where materials may not be ready or users are likely to forget what was learned). If possible, host quick refresher training a week or two prior to go-live.

    Aim to communicate the upcoming go-live. The purpose of communication here is to reiterate expectations, complexities, and ramifications on business going forward. Alleviate performance anxiety by clearly stating that temporary drops in productivity are to be expected and that there will be appropriate assistance throughout the transition period.

    Transition: Have the project/program manager remain on the project team for some time after deployment to oversee and assure smooth transition for the organization.

    Complete training: Have a clear plan for training those users that were missed in the first round of training as well as a plan for ongoing training for those that require refresher training, for new joiners to your organization, and for any training requirements that result from subsequent upgrades.

    3.1.2 Base your communications timeline on a classic change curve

    It’s important to communicate the change ahead of the implementation, but also to reinforce that communication after implementation to recover from any resistance that occurs through the implementation itself.

    Stages in a typical change curve:

    1. Change is announced. Some people are skeptical and resistant, but others are enthusiastic. Most people are fence sitters; if they trust senior leadership, they will give the benefit of the doubt and expect change to be good.
    2. Positive sentiment declines as implementation approaches. Training and other disruptions take people’s time and energy away from their work. Project setbacks and delays take credibility away from project leaders and seem to validate the efforts of saboteurs and skeptics.
    3. Overall sentiment begins to improve as people adjust and see real progress made. Ideally, early successes or quick wins neutralize saboteurs and convert skeptics. At the very least, people will begin to accept and adapt to new realities.
    4. If the project is successful and communication is reinforced after implementation, sentiment will peak and level out over time as people move on to other projects.

    The image contains a diagram of a change curve.

    1. Honeymoon of “Uninformed Optimism”: Tentative support and enthusiasm for change before people have really felt or understood what it involves.
    2. Backlash of “Informed Pessimism” (leading to “Valley of Despair”): People realize they’ve overestimated the benefits (or how soon they’ll be achieved) and underestimated the difficulty of change.
    3. Valley of Despair and beginning of “Hopeful Realism”: Sentiment bottoms out and people begin to accept the difficulty (or inevitability) of change.
    4. Bounce of “Informed Optimism”: More optimism and support when people begin to see bright spots and early successes.
    5. Contentment of “Completion”: Change has been successfully adopted and benefits are being realized.

    3.1.3 Communicate new processes

    1. Communicate with business unit leaders and users:
    • Focus on the benefits for end users to encourage buy-in for the change.
    • Include preliminary instructions with a date for training sessions.
  • Train users:
    • Teach users how to contact the service desk and submit a ticket.
    • Set expectations for IT’s response.
    • Record all your training sessions so it can used for recursive training.
  • Enforce:
    • IT must point users toward the new process, but ad hoc requests should still be expected at first. Deal with these politely but encourage all employees to use the new service desk ticketing process, if applicable.
  • Measure success:
    • Continue to adjust communications if processes aren’t being followed to ensure SLAs can be met and improved.

    “Communicate with your end users in phase 1 to let them know what will be changing, get feedback and buy-in, and inform them that training will be happening, then ensure you train them once the tool is installed. A lot of times we’ll get our tool set up but people don’t know how to use it."

    – Director of ITSM Tools

    Info-Tech Insight

    If there is a new process for ticket input, consider using a reward system for users who submit a ticket through the proper channel ;(e.g. email or self-serve portal) instead of their old method (e.g. phone). However, if a significant cultural change is required, don’t expect it to happen right away.

    Step 3.2

    Create a training plan

    Activities

    3.2.1

    Target training session(s) to the specific needs of your service desk, service groups, IT managers

    3.3.1

    Provide training (tool/portal and process changes)

    3.4.1

    Choose an appropriate training delivery method that will focus on both process and tool

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Director
    • Project Manager
    • Service Desk Manager

    Outcomes of this step

    • Training modules for different users of the tool.
    • Assignment of training modules to users and schedule for completion.

    3.2.1 Target training session(s) to the specific needs of your service desk and IT staff

    Create targeted role-based training programs for your service desk analysts; they care about the portion of the solution they are responsible for, not the functionality that is irrelevant to their job.

    Create and execute a role-based training program by conducting training sessions for targeted groups of users, training them on the functions they require to perform their jobs.

    Use a table like this one to help identify which roles should be trained on which tasks within the ITSM tool.

    The image contains a table as an example of identifying which roles should be trained within the ITSM tool.

    The need for targeted training:

    • IT personnel may challenge the need for training. They may feel they don’t require training on the use of tools or that they don’t have time to dedicate to training when there is so much work to be done.
    • Providing targeted training focused on only the functions of the solution that each tier is responsible for can help to overcome that resistance.
    • Targeted training may include basic training for level 1 technicians and more advanced in-depth training for administrators, power users, or level 2/3 technicians.

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Properly trained users promote adoption and improve results. Always keep training materials updated and available. New employees, new software integration, and internal promotions create opportunities for training employees to align the ITSM tool with their roles and responsibilities.

    3.2.2 Provide training

    Training must take place before deployment to ensure that both your service desk agents and end users will use the tool in the way it was intended and improve end-user satisfaction.

    • Implementing a new ITSM tool will likely bring with it at least some degree of organizational and cultural change. It’s important to manage that change through proper training. Your training needs will vary depending on the maturity of the organization and the amount of cultural and process change being implemented.
    • If this is your first ITSM solution with many new changes for staff to take on board, it will be important to dedicate training time not only before deployment but also several months after the initial installation, to allow staff to gain more experience with the new tool and processes and formulate questions they may not think to ask during implementation.
    • A training plan should take into account not only training needs for the implementation project but also any ongoing training requirements that may be required. This may include:
      • Training for new personnel.
      • Training on any changes to the tool.
      • Training on any new processes the tool will support.
    • Better agent training will lead to better performance and improved end-user satisfaction.

    The image contains a screenshot of a graph to demonstrate training hours and first contact resolution.

    The blue graph line charts new-agent training hours against first contact resolution and the orange graph line charts the trendline for the dataset.

    Source: MetricNet, 2012

    3.2.3 Choose an appropriate training delivery method

    Training should include use cases that focus on not only how the tool’s interface works but also how the tool should be used to support process activities.

    1. Training through use cases highlights how the tool will support the user in role-based tasks.
    2. If new processes are being introduced along with the tool, training should cover both in an integrated way.
    3. Team leadership and management commitment ensures that all agents take their training seriously and are prepared for all use cases by the deployment date.

    Trainer-led sessions:

    Self-taught sessions:

    • May take the form of onsite or video training.
    • Vendor may train administrators or managers, who will later train remaining staff.
    • Allows for interaction with the trainer and greater opportunity to ask questions.
    • Difficult for large organizations with many users to be trained.
    • Delivered via computer-based training applications, typically through a web browser.
    • May include voice training sessions combined with exercises and quizzes.
    • More feasible for large, distributed organizations with less flexible schedules.

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Ensure that the training demonstrates not only how the tool should be used, but also the benefits it will provide your staff in terms of improved efficiency and productivity. Users who can clearly see the benefits the tool will provide for their daily work will accept the tool more readily and promote it across the organization.

    Step 3.3

    Plan how you will deploy, monitor, and maintain the solution

    Activities

    3.3.1

    Plan the transition from your old tool to ensure continual functionality

    3.3.2

    Choose a cut-over approach that works for you

    3.3.3

    Deploy the solution and any new processes simultaneously to ease the transition

    3.3.4

    Have a post-deployment support plan in place

    3.3.5

    Monitor success metrics defined in Phase 1

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Director
    • Project Manager
    • Service Desk Manager

    Outcomes of this step

    Deployment plan, including a plan for cut-over from the old tool (if applicable), release of the new tool, and post-deployment support and maintenance of the tool.

    3.3.1 Plan the transition from your old tool to ensure continual functionality

    If you will have a transitional period during which the current tool will be used alongside the new tool, develop a clear plan for the transition to ensure continued service for your end users.

    • If there will be an interim period during which only some aspects of the new ITSM tool are functional, you will need to determine how the new system and old systems will work together for that period of time. This may require creating interfaces as well as providing user documentation and/or SOPs on how the business processes will operate during the interim period.
    • Cut-over is the period during which the changeover to the new system occurs. Cut-over activities need to be tightly choreographed for a successful deployment. If improperly planned, chaos may erupt when unforeseen issues are encountered during deployment, the deployment may be jeopardized, and the organization may encounter costly interruptions to its daily operations.
    • Many organizations may leave any open tickets in the old tool until they are closed, which requires that tool run alongside the new tool for a transitional period. In this case, it is necessary to create guidelines around how long the open tickets will remain in the old system and ensure there is clear communication around these processes.

    Be prepared for the transition:

    1. Create a robust cut-over plan that includes when the old tool will be decommissioned, what activities are necessary during the cut-over, and what the contingency plan is in case of unforeseen issues.
    2. Plan for and perform mock cut-overs to establish the timeline and dependencies for all steps that need to be performed to successfully complete the changeover. Do this to avoid any surprises or delays during the true cut-over period.
    3. Establish cut-over logistics: Create a schedule for resources to work in shifts to avoid burn-out during cut-over, which can lead to lapses in judgment and easily avoidable mistakes. Allocate dedicated workspaces for cut-over activities, e.g. “war rooms” for the triage of issues.

    3.3.2 Choose a cut-over approach that works for you

    Approaches and insights from three case studies

    Case Study #1

    Case Study #2

    Case Study #3

    On day one we started recording all new incidents in the new tool, and everything that was open in the old tool remained open for about one month. At that point we transferred over some open incidents but closed old incidents with the view that if anyone really wanted something done that hadn’t been yet, they could re-submit a ticket.

    – Brett Andrews,

    Managing Director at BAPTISM Consultancy

    It made sense for us to start fresh with the new system. We left all of the old tickets in the old system and started the new system with ticket #1. We only had about a dozen open tickets in the old system so we left them there and ran the two tools side by side until those were closed.

    – CIO, Publishing

    It depends on the client and the size of their service desk as well as the complexity of their data and whether they need their old data for reporting. If there are only a dozen open tickets, they can manually move those over easily, and decide whether they want to migrate their historical data for reporting purposes.

    – Scott Walling,

    Co-Founder at Monitor 24-7 Inc.

    3.3.3 Deploy the solution and any new processes simultaneously to ease the transition

    Follow a deployment plan for introducing new processes alongside the new tool to ensure changes to both process and technology are adopted simultaneously.

    If you’re introducing new processes alongside the new tool, it’s important to maintain the link between process and tool. Typically, the processes and tool should be deployed simultaneously unless there is a strong reason not to do so.

    Deployment can be done as a big-bang or phased approach. The decision to employ a phased deployment depends on the number and size of business units the tool will support, as well as the organization’s geography and infrastructure (deployment locations).

    Before deployment, conduct readiness assessments to understand whether:

    The people are ready to accept the new system (have received the proper training and communications and understand how their jobs will change when the switch is flipped).

    The technology is ready (test results are favorable, workarounds and a plan for closure have been identified for any open defects, and the system is performing as expected).

    The data is ready (data for final conversion has been cleansed, and all conversions have been rehearsed).

    The post-deployment support model is ready (infrastructure and technical support is in place, sites are ready, knowledge transfer has been conducted with the support organization, and end users understand procedures for escalation of issues).

    3.3.4 Have a post-deployment support plan in place

    Ensure that strong internal support for the project and tool will continue after deployment.

    The stabilization period after a new software deployment can last between three and nine months, during which there may be continued training needs and fine-tuning of processes. Internal support from project leaders within your organization will be critical to recover from any dip in operational efficiency and deliver the benefits of the tool.

    Consider the following to prepare better for your support plan:

    What are the roles and responsibilities for ongoing tool administration support?

    What level of support will exist to assist service desk staff after deployment?

    How much time will project team resources devote to tackling upcoming issues and assisting with ongoing support?

    Who will be responsible for ongoing training needs and documentation?

    If your organization is spread across multiple locations, what level of support/assistance will be available at each site?

    How will new code releases or system upgrades be managed and communicated?

    Info-Tech Insight:

    Deployment is only the first step in the system lifecycle. Full benefit realization from the tool requires ongoing investment and learning to be sustained. Unless processes and training are updated on an ongoing basis, benefits gained will start to decrease over time. If your service desk efficiency stagnates at the level it was at prior to implementation, the tool has failed to serve its objective.

    Establish ongoing tool maintenance, improvement structures, and processes

    People, processes, and organizations change over time, and your ITSM tool will need to change to meet expectations.

    Develop and execute a plan for the maintenance of the solution and its infrastructure components.

    Include periodic reviews against business needs and operational requirements (e.g. patches, upgrades, and risk and security requirements).

    For maintenance updates, use the change management process and assess how an activity will impact solution design, functionality, and business processes.

    For major changes that result in significant change in current designs, functionality, and/or business processes, follow the development process used for new systems.

    Ensure that maintenance activities are periodically analyzed for abnormal trends indicating underlying quality or performance problems, cost/benefit of major upgrade, or replacement in lieu of maintenance.

    Assign responsibility for ongoing maintenance. Hold regular meetings for the following activities:

    1. Inspect data and reports.
    2. Assess whether you’re meeting SLAs.
    3. Predict any upcoming changes that may impact ticket volume (e.g. a new operating system or security patch).
    4. Create new ticket templates for recurring or upcoming issues.
    5. Create new knowledgebase articles.
    6. Determine whether ticket categories are being used correctly.
    7. Ask team if there are any problems with the tool.

    3.3.5 Monitor success metrics defined in Project Charter

    Revisit your goals for the solution and assess if they are being met by evaluating current metrics. If your goals have not yet been met, re-evaluate how to ensure the tool will deliver value.

    Sample High-Level Goals:

    1. Improved service desk efficiency
    2. Improved end-user satisfaction
    3. Improved self-service options for end users
    4. Improved data and reporting capabilities

    Sample Metric Descriptions

    Baseline Metric

    Goal

    Current Metric

    Increased ticket input through email versus phone

    50% of tickets submitted through phone

    10% of tickets submit through phone

    Reduced ticket volume (through improved self-serve capabilities)

    1,500 tickets per month

    1,200 tickets per month

    Improved first call resolution (through increased efficiency and automation)

    50% FCR

    60% FCR

    Improved ability to meet SLAs (through automated escalations and prioritization)

    5 minutes to log a ticket

    1 minute to log a ticket

    Improved time to produce reports

    3 business days

    1 business day

    Improved end-user satisfaction

    60% satisfied with services

    75% satisfied

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Optimize IT Change Management

    Define change management workflows, key roles, and supporting elements such as request-for-change forms based on best practices.

    Standardize the Service Desk

    Build core elements of service desk operations, including incident management and service request workflows, ticket categorization schemes, and ticket prioritization rules.

    Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy

    Implement tools such as an improved knowledgebase and self-service portal to enable lower tier support staff and end users to resolve incidents or fulfill service requests.

    Incident and Problem Management

    Develop a critical incident management workflow and create standard operating procedures for problem management.

    IT Service Management Selection Guide

    Identify the best-of-breed solution to make the most of your investment and engage the right stakeholders to define success.

    Analyze Your Service Desk Ticket Data

    Develop a framework to track metrics, clean data, and put your data to use for pre-defined timelines.

    Bibliography

    Adiga, Siddanth. “10 Reasons Why ITSM Implementations Fail.” Could Strategy, 6 May 2015. Web.

    Hastie, Shane, and Stéphane Wojewoda. “Standish Group 2015 Chaos Report.” InfoQ, 4 October 2015. Web.

    “How to Manage Change in the Implementation of an ITSM Software.” C2, 20 April 2015. Web.

    Lockwood, Meghan. “First Look: Annual ServiceNow Insight and Vision Executive Summary [eBook].” Acorio, 31 October 2019. Web.

    Mainville, David. “7 Steps to a Successful ITSM Tool Implementation.” Navvia, 2012. Web.

    Rae, Barclay. “Preparing for ITSM Tool Implementation.” Joe the IT Guy, 24 June 2015. Web.

    Rae, Barclay. “Successful ITSM Tool Implementation.” BrightTALK, 9 May 2013. Webcast.

    Rumburg, Jeffrey. “Metric of the Month: Agent Training Hours.” MetricNet, 2012. Web.

    Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}534|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.5/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $17,249 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 7 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Customer Relationship Management
    • Parent Category Link: /customer-relationship-management
    • Today’s customers expect to be able to transact with you in the channels of their choice. The proliferation of e-commerce, innovations in brick-and-mortar retail, and developments in mobile commerce and social media selling mean that IT organizations are managing added complexity in drafting a strategy for commerce enablement.
    • The right technology stack is critical in order to support world-class e-commerce and brick-and-mortar interactions with customers.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Support the right transactional channels for the right customers: there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to commerce enablement – understand your customers to drive selection of the right transactional channels.
    • Don’t assume that “traditional” commerce channels have stagnated: IoT, customer analytics, and blended retail are reinvigorating brick-and-mortar selling.
    • Don’t buy best-of-breed; buy best-for-you. Base commerce vendor selection on your requirements and use cases, not on the vendor’s overall performance.

    Impact and Result

    • Leverage Info-Tech’s proven, road-tested approach to using personas and scenarios to build strong business drivers for your commerce strategy.
    • Before selecting and deploying technology solutions, create a cohesive channel matrix outlining which channels your organization will support with transactional capabilities.
    • Understand evolving trends in the commerce solution space, such as AI-driven product recommendations and integration with other essential enterprise applications (i.e. CRM and marketing automation platforms).
    • Understand and apply operational best practices such as content optimization and dynamic personalization to improve the conversion rate via your e-commerce channels.

    Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers Research & Tools

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

    1. Enable Omnichannel Commerce Deck – A deck outlining the importance of creating a cohesive omnichannel framework to improve your customer experience.

    E-commerce channels have proliferated, and traditional brick-and-mortar commerce is undergoing reinvention. In order to provide your customers with a strong experience, it's imperative to create a strategy – and to deploy the right enabling technologies – that allow for robust multi-channel commerce. This storyboard provides a concise overview of how to do just that.

    • Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers – Phases 1-2

    2. Create Personas to Drive Omnichannel Requirements Template – A template to identify key customer personas for e-commerce and other channels.

    Customer personas are archetypal representations of your key audience segments. This template (and populated examples) will help you construct personas for your omnichannel commerce project.

    • Create Personas to Drive Omnichannel Requirements Template
    [infographic]

    Further reading

    Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers

    Create a cohesive, omnichannel framework that supports the right transactions through the right channels for the right customers.

    Analyst Perspective

    A clearly outlined commerce strategy is a necessary component of a broader customer experience strategy.

    This is a picture of Ben Dickie, Research Lead, Research – Applications at Info-Tech Research Group

    Ben Dickie
    Research Lead, Research – Applications
    Info-Tech Research Group

    “Your commerce strategy is where the rubber hits the road, converting your prospects into paying customers. To maximize revenue (and provide a great customer experience), it’s essential to have a clearly defined commerce strategy in place.

    A strong commerce strategy seeks to understand your target customer personas and commerce journey maps and pair these with the right channels and enabling technologies. There is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach to selecting the right commerce channels: while many organizations are making a heavy push into e-commerce and mobile commerce, others are seeking to differentiate themselves by innovating in traditional brick-and-mortar sales. Hybrid channel design now dominates many commerce strategies – using a blend of e-commerce and other channels to deliver the best-possible customer experience.

    IT leaders must work with the business to create a succinct commerce strategy that defines personas and scenarios, outlines the right channel matrix, and puts in place the right enabling technologies (for example, point-of-sale and e-commerce platforms).”

    Stop! Are you ready for this project?

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • IT leaders and business analysts supporting their commercial and marketing organizations in developing and executing a technology enablement strategy for e-commerce or brick-and-mortar commerce.
    • Any organization looking to develop a persona-based approach to identifying the right channels for their commerce strategy.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Identify key personas and customer journeys for a brick-and-mortar and/or e-commerce strategy.
    • Select the right channels for your commerce strategy and build a commerce channel matrix to codify the results.
    • Review the “art of the possible” and new developments in brick-and-mortar and e-commerce execution.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Sales managers, brand managers, and any marketing professional looking to build a cohesive commerce strategy.
    • E-commerce or POS project teams or working groups tasked with managing an RFP process for vendor selection.

    This Research Will Help Them:

    • Build a persona-centric commerce strategy.
    • Understand key technology trends in the brick-and-mortar and e-commerce space.

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    Today’s customers expect to be able to transact with you in the channels of their choice.

    The proliferation of e-commerce, innovations in brick-and-mortar retail, and developments in mobile commerce and social media selling mean that IT organizations are managing added complexity in drafting a strategy for commerce enablement.

    The right technology stack is critical to support world-class e-commerce and brick-and-mortar interactions with customers.

    Common Obstacles

    Many organizations do not define strong, customer-centric drivers for dictating which channels they should be investing in for transactional capabilities.

    As many retailers look to move shopping experiences online during the pandemic, the impetus for having a strong e-commerce suite has markedly increased. The proliferation of commerce vendors has made it difficult to identify and shortlist the right solution, while the pandemic has also highlighted the importance of adopting new vendors quickly and efficiently: companies need to understand the top players in different commerce market landscapes.

    IT is receiving a growing number of commerce platform requests and must be prepared to speak intelligently about requirements and the “art of the possible.”

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    • Leverage Info-Tech’s proven, road-tested approach to using personas and scenarios to build strong business drivers for your commerce strategy.
    • Before selecting and deploying technology solutions, create a cohesive channel matrix outlining which channels your organization will support with transactional capabilities.
    • Understand evolving trends in the commerce solution space, such as AI-driven product recommendations and integration with other essential enterprise applications (i.e. customer relationship management [CRM] and marketing automation platforms).
    • Understand and apply operational best practices such as content optimization and dynamic personalization to improve the conversion rate via your e-commerce channels.

    Info-Tech Insight

    • Support the right transactional channels for the right customers: there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to commerce enablement – understand your customers to drive selection of the right transactional channels.
    • Don’t assume that “traditional” commerce channels have stagnated: IoT, customer analytics, and blended retail are reinvigorating brick-and-mortar selling.
    • Don’t buy best-of-breed; buy best-for-you: base commerce vendor selection on your requirements and use cases, not on the vendor’s overall performance.

    A strong commerce strategy is an essential component of a savvy approach to customer experience management

    A commerce strategy outlines an organization’s approach to selling its products and services. A strong commerce strategy identifies target customers’ personas, commerce journeys that the organization wants to support, and the channels that the organization will use to transact with customers.

    Many commerce strategies encompass two distinct but complementary branches: a commerce strategy for transacting through traditional channels and an e-commerce strategy. While the latter often receives more attention from IT, it still falls on IT leaders to provide the appropriate enabling technologies to support traditional brick-and-mortar channels as well. Traditional channels have also undergone a digital renaissance in recent years, with forward-looking companies capitalizing on new technology to enhance customer experiences in their stores.

    Traditional Channels

    • Physical Stores (Brick and Mortar)
    • Kiosks or Pop-Up Stores
    • Telesales
    • Mail Orders
    • EDI Transactions

    E-Commerce Channels

    • E-Commerce Websites
    • Mobile Commerce Apps
    • Embedded Social Shopping
    • Customer Portals
    • Configure Price Quote Tool Sets (CPQ)
    • Hybrid Retail

    Info-Tech Insight

    To better serve their customers, many companies position themselves as “click-and-mortar” shops – allowing customers to transact at a store or online.

    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.

    58%
    of retail customers admitted that their expectations now are higher than they were a year ago (FinancesOnline).

    70%
    of consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 have increasing customer expectations year after year (FinancesOnline).

    69%
    of consumers now expect store associates to be armed with a mobile device to deliver value-added services, such as looking up product information and checking inventory (V12).

    73%
    of support leaders agree that customer expectations are increasing, but only…

    42%
    of support leaders are confident that they’re actually meeting those expectations.

    How can you be sure that you are meeting your customers’ expectations?

    1. Offer more personalization throughout the entire customer journey
    2. Practice quality customer service – ensure staff have up-to-date knowledge and offer quick resolution time for complaints
    3. Focus on offering low-effort experiences and easy-to-use platforms (i.e. “one-click buying”)
    4. Ensure your products and services perform well and do what they’re meant to do
    5. Ensure omnichannel availability – 9 in 10 consumers want a seamless omnichannel experience

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Omnichannel commerce is the way of the future

    Create a strategy that embraces this reality with the right tools!

    Get ahead of the competition by doing omnichannel right! Devise a strategy that allows you to create and maintain a consistent, seamless commerce experience by optimizing operations with 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 both traditional and e-commerce channels. There must also be consistency of copy, collateral, offers, and pricing between commerce channels.

    71%
    of consumers want a consistent experience across all channels, but only…

    29%
    say that they actually get it.

    (Source: Business 2 Community, 2020)

    Omnichannel is a “multichannel approach that aims to provide customers with a personalized, integrated, and seamless shopping experience across diverse touchpoints and devices.”
    Source: RingCentral, 2021

    IT is responsible for providing technology enablement of the commerce strategy: e-commerce platforms are a cornerstone

    An e-commerce platform is an enterprise application that provides end-to-end capabilities for allowing customers to purchase products or services from your company via an online channel (e.g. a traditional website, a mobile application, or an embedded link in a social media post). Modern e-commerce platforms are essential for delivering a frictionless customer journey when it comes to purchasing online.

    $6.388
    trillion dollars worth of sales will be conducted online by 2024 (eMarketer, 14 Jan. 2021).

    44%
    of all e-commerce transactions are expected to be completed via a mobile device by 2024 (Insider).

    21.8%
    of all sales will be made from online purchases by 2024 (eMarketer, 14 Jan. 2021).

    Strong E-Commerce Platforms Enable a Wide Range of Functional Areas:

    • Product Catalog Management
    • Web Content Delivery
    • Product Search Engine
    • Inventory Management
    • Shopping Cart Management
    • Discount and Coupon Management
    • Return Management and Reverse Logistics
    • Dynamic Personalization
    • Dynamic Promotions
    • Predictive Re-Targeting
    • Predictive Product Recommendations
    • Transaction Processing
    • Compliance Management
    • Commerce Workflow Management
    • Loyalty Program Management
    • Reporting and Analytics

    An e-commerce solution boosts the effectiveness and efficiency of your operations and drives top-line growth

    Take time to learn the capabilities of modern e-commerce applications. Understanding the “art of the possible” will help you to get the most out of your e-commerce platform.

    An e-commerce platform helps marketers and sales staff in three primary ways:

    1. It allows the organization to effectively and efficiently operate e-commerce operations at scale.
    2. It allows commercial staff to have a single system for managing and monitoring all commercial activity through online channels.
    3. It allows the organization to improve the customer-facing e-commerce experience, boosting conversions and top-line sales.

    A dedicated e-commerce platform improves the efficiency of customer-commerce operations

    • Workflow automation reduces the amount of time spent executing dynamic e-commerce campaigns.
    • The use of internal or third-party data increases conversion effectiveness from customer databases across the organization.

    Info-Tech Insight

    A strong e-commerce provides marketers with the data they need to produce actionable insights about their customers.

    Case Study

    INDUSTRY - Retail
    SOURCE - Salesforce (a)

    PetSmart improves customer experience by leveraging a new commerce platform in the Salesforce ecosystem

    PetSmart

    PetSmart is a leading retailer of pet products, with a heavy footprint across North America. Historically, PetSmart was a brick-and-mortar retailer, but it has placed a heavy emphasis on being a true multi-channel “click-and-mortar” retailer to ensure it maintains relevance against competitors like Amazon.

    E-Commerce Overhaul Initiative

    To improve its e-commerce capabilities, PetSmart recognized that it needed to consolidate to a single, unified e-commerce platform to realize a 360-degree view of its customers. A new platform was also required to power dynamic and engaging experiences, with appropriate product recommendations and tailored content. To pursue this initiative, the company settled on Salesforce.com’s Commerce Cloud product after an exhaustive requirements definition effort and rigorous vendor selection approach.

    Results

    After platform implementation, PetSmart was able to effortlessly handle the massive transaction volumes associated with Black Friday and Cyber Monday and deliver 1:1 experiences that boosted conversion rates.

    PetSmart standardized on the Commerce Cloud from Salesforce to great effect.

    This is an image of the journey from Discover & Engage to Retain & Advocate.

    Case Study

    Icebreaker exceeds customer expectations by using AI to power product recommendations

    INDUSTRY - Retail
    SOURCE - Salesforce (b)

    Icebreaker

    Icebreaker is a leading outerwear and lifestyle clothing company, operating six global websites and owning over 5,000 stores across 50 countries. Icebreaker is focused on providing its shoppers with accurate, real-time product suggestions to ensure it remains relevant in an increasingly competitive online market.

    E-Commerce Overhaul Initiative

    To improve its e-commerce capabilities, Icebreaker recognized that it needed to adopt a predictive recommendation engine that would offer its customers a more personalized shopping experience. This new system would need to leverage relevant data to provide both known and anonymous shoppers with product suggestions that are of interest to them. To pursue this initiative, Icebreaker settled on using Salesforce.com’s Commerce Cloud Einstein, a fully integrated AI.

    Results

    After integrating Commerce Cloud Einstein on all its global sites, Icebreaker was able to cross-sell and up-sell its merchandise more effectively by providing its shoppers with accurate product recommendations, ultimately increasing average order value.

    IT must also provide technology enablement for other channels, such as point-of-sale systems for brick-and-mortar

    Point-of-sale systems are the “real world” complement to e-commerce platforms. They provide functional capabilities for selling products in a physical store, including basic inventory management, cash register management, payment processing, and retail analytics. Many firms struggle with legacy POS environments that inhibit a modern customer experience.

    $27.338
    trillion dollars in retail sales are expected to be made globally in 2022 (eMarketer, 2022).

    84%
    of consumers believe that retailers should be doing more to integrate their online and offline channels (Invoca).

    39%
    of consumers are unlikely or very unlikely to visit a retailer’s store if the online store doesn’t provide physical store inventory information (V12).

    Strong Point-of-Sale Platforms Enable a Wide Range of Functional Areas:

    • Product Catalog Management
    • Discount Management
    • Coupon Management and Administration
    • Cash Management
    • Cash Register Reconciliation
    • Product Identification (Barcode Management)
    • Payment Processing
    • Compliance Management
    • Basic Inventory Management
    • Commerce Workflow Management
    • Exception Reporting and Overrides
    • Loyalty Program Management
    • Reporting and Analytics

    E-commerce and POS don’t live in isolation

    They’re key components of a well-oiled customer experience ecosystem!

    Integrate commerce solutions with other customer experience applications – and with ERP or logistics systems – to handoff transactions for order fulfilment.

    Having a customer master database – the central place where all up-to-the-minute data on a customer profile is stored – is essential for traditional and e-commerce success. Typically, the POS or e-commerce platform is not the system of record for the master customer profile: this information lives in a CRM platform or customer data warehouse. Conceptually, this system is at the center of the customer-experience ecosystem.

    Strong POS and e-commerce solutions orchestrate transactions but typically do not do the heavy lifting in terms of order fulfilment, shipping logistics, economic inventory management, and reverse logistics (returns). In an enterprise-grade environment, these activities are executed by an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution – integrating your commerce systems with a back-end ERP solution is a crucial step from an application architecture point of view.

    This is an example of a customer experience ecosystem.  Core Apps (CRM, ERP): MMS Suite; E-Commerce; POS; Web CMS; Data Marts/BI Tools; Social Media Platforms

    Case Study

    INDUSTRY - Retail
    SOURCES - Amazon, n.d. CNET, 2020

    Amazon is creating a hybrid omnichannel experience for retail by introducing innovative brick-and-mortar stores

    Amazon

    Amazon began as an online retailer of books in the mid-1990s, and rapidly expanded its product portfolio to nearly every category imaginable. Often hailed as the foremost success story in online commerce, the firm has driven customer loyalty via consistently strong product recommendations and a well-designed site.

    Bringing Physical Retail Into the Digital Age

    Beginning in 2016 (and expanding in 2018), Amazon introduced Amazon Go, a next-generation grocery retailer, to the Seattle market. While most firms that pursue an e-commerce strategy traditionally come from a brick-and-mortar background, Amazon upended the usual narrative: the world’s largest online retailer opening physical stores to become a true omnichannel, “click-and-mortar” vendor. From the get-go, Amazon Go focused on innovating the physical retail experience – using cameras, IoT capabilities, and mobile technologies to offer “checkout-free” virtual shopping carts that automatically know what products customers take off the shelves and bill their Amazon accounts accordingly.

    Results

    Amazon received a variety of industry and press accolades for re-inventing the physical store experience and it now owns and operates seven separate store brands, with more still on the horizon.

    Case Study

    INDUSTRY - Retail
    SOURCES - Glossy, 2020

    Old Navy

    Old Navy is a clothing and accessories retail company that owns and operates over 1,200 stores across North America and China. Typically, Old Navy has relied on using traditional marketing approaches, but recently it has shifted to producing more digitally focused campaigns to drive revenue.

    Bringing Physical Retail Into the Digital Age

    To overcome pandemic-related difficulties, including temporary store closures, Old Navy knew that it had to have strong holiday sales in 2020. With the goal of stimulating retail sales growth and maximizing its pre-existing omnichannel capabilities, Old Navy decided to focus more of its holiday campaign efforts online than in years past. With this campaign centered on connected TV platforms, such as Hulu, and social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, Old Navy was able to take a more unique, fun, and good-humored approach to marketing.

    Results

    Old Navy’s digitally focused campaign was a success. When compared with third quarter sales figures from 2019, third quarter net sales for 2020 increased by 15% and comparable sales increased by 17%.

    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 Phase 4 Phase 5

    Call #1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.

    Call #2: Assess current maturity.

    Call #4: Identify relationship between current initiatives and capabilities.

    Call #6: Identify strategy risks.

    Call #8: Identify and prioritize improvements.

    Call #3: Identify target-state capabilities.

    Call #5: Create initiative profiles.

    Call #7: Identify required budget.

    Call #9: Summarize results and plan 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 is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers – Project Overview

    1. Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy 2. Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies
    Best Practice Toolkit

    1.1 Assess Personas and Scenarios

    1.2 Create Key Drivers and Metrics

    2.1 Build the Commerce Channel Matrix

    2.2 Review Technology and Trends Primer

    Guided Implementations
    • Validate customer personas.
    • Validate commerce scenarios.
    • Review key drivers and metrics.
    • Build the channel matrix.
    • Discuss technology and trends.
    Onsite Workshop

    Module 1:

    Module 2:

    Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

    Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies

    Phase 1 Outcome:

    Phase 2 Outcome:

    An initial shortlist of customer-centric drivers for your channel strategy and supporting metrics.

    A completed commerce channel matrix tailored to your organization, and a snapshot of enabling technologies and trends.

    Phase 1

    Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

    1.1 Assess Personas and Scenarios

    1.2 Create Key Drivers and Metrics

    Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers

    Step 1.1

    Assess Personas and Scenarios

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    1.1.1 Build key customer personas for your commerce strategy.

    1.1.2 Create commerce scenarios (journey maps) that you need to enable.

    Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Business stakeholders (Sales, Marketing)
    • IT project team

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Critical customer personas
    • Key traditional and e-commerce scenarios

    Use customer personas to picture who will be using your commerce channels and guide scenario design and key drivers

    What Are Personas?

    Personas are detailed descriptions of the targeted audience of your e-commerce presence. Effective personas:

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

    Source: Usability.gov, n.d.

    Why Are Personas Important?

    Personas help:

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

    Key Elements of a Persona:

    • Persona Group (e.g. executives)
    • Demographics (e.g. nationality, age, language spoken)
    • Purpose of Using Commerce Channels (e.g. product search versus ready to transact)
    • Typical Behaviors and Tendencies (e.g. goes to different websites when cannot find products in 20 seconds)
    • Technological Environment of User (e.g. devices, browsers, network connection)
    • Professional and Technical Skills and Experiences (e.g. knowledge of websites, area of expertise)

    Use Info-Tech’s guidelines to assist in the creation of personas

    How many personas should I create?

    The number of personas that should be created is based on the organizational coverage of your commerce strategy. Here are some questions you should ask:

    • Do the personas cover a majority of your revenues or product lines?
    • Is the number manageable for your project team to map out?

    How do I prioritize which personas to create?

    The identified personas should generate the most revenue – or provide a significant opportunity – for your business. Here are some questions that you should ask:

    • Are the personas prioritized based on the revenue they generate for the business?
    • Is the persona prioritization process considering both the present and future revenues the persona is generating?

    Sample: persona for e-commerce platform

    Example

    Persona quote: “After I call the company about the widget, I would usually go onto the company’s website and look at further details about the product. How am I supposed to do so when it is so hard to find the company’s website on everyday search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing?”

    Michael is a middle-aged manager working in the financial district. He wants to buy the company’s widgets for use in his home, but since he is distrusting of online shopping, he prefers to call the company’s call center first. Afterwards, if Michael is convinced by the call center representative, he will look at the company’s website for further research before making his purchase.

    Michael does not have a lot of free time on his hands, and tries to make his free time as relaxing as possible. Due to most of his work being client-facing, he is not in front of a computer most of the time during his work. As such, Michael does not consider himself to be skilled with technology. Once he makes the decision to purchase, Michael will conduct online transactions and pay most delivery costs due to his shortage of time.

    Needs:

    • Easy-to-find website and widget information.
    • Online purchasing and delivery services.
    • Answer to his questions about the widget.
    • To maintain contact post-purchase for easy future transactions.

    Info-Tech Tip

    The quote attached to a persona should be from actual quotes that your customers have used when you reviewed your voice of the customer (VoC) surveys or focus groups to drive home the impact of their issues with your company.

    1.1.1 Activity: Build personas for your key customers that you’ll need to support via traditional and e-commerce channels

    1 hour

    1. In two to four groups, list all the major, target customer personas that need to be built. In doing so, consider the people who interact with your e-commerce site (or other channels) most often.
    2. Build a demographic profile for each customer persona. Include information such as age, geographic location, occupation, and annual income.
    3. Augment the persona with a psychographic profile. 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.
    6. Use Info-Tech’s Create Personas to Drive Omnichannel Requirements Template to assist.

    Info-Tech Insight

    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 the e-commerce platform), personas can also be built for this purpose. Examples of useful internal personas are sales managers, brand managers, and customer service directors.

    1.1.1 Activity: Build personas for your key customers that you’ll need to support via traditional and e-commerce channels (continued)

    Input

    • Customer demographics and psychographics

    Output

    • List of prioritized customer personas

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project team

    Build use-case scenarios to model the transactional customer journey and inform drivers for your commerce strategy

    A use-case scenario is a story or narrative that helps explore the set of interactions that a customer has with an organization. Scenario mapping will help identify key business and technology drivers as well as more granular functional requirements for POS or e-commerce platform selection.

    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 two to three key scenarios per persona.
    • Sketch each scenario out so that stakeholders understand the goal of the scenario.

    1.1.2 Exercise: Build commerce user scenarios to understand what you want your customers to do from a transactional viewpoint

    1 hour

    Example

    Simplified E-Commerce Workflow Purchase Products

    This image contains an example of a Simplified E-Commerce Workflow Purchase Products

    Step 1.2

    Create Key Drivers and Metrics

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Create the business drivers you need to enable with your commerce strategy.
    • Enumerate metrics to track the efficacy of your commerce strategy.

    Identify Critical Drivers for Your Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Business stakeholders (Sales, Marketing)
    • IT project team

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Business drivers for the commerce strategy
    • Metrics and key performance indicators for the commerce strategy

    1.2 Finish elaboration of your scenarios and map them to your personas: identify core business drivers for commerce

    1.5 hours

    1. List all commerce scenarios required to satisfy the immediate needs of your personas.
      1. Does the use-case scenario address commonly felt user challenges?
      2. Can the scenario be used by those with changing behaviors and tendencies?
    2. Look for recurring themes in use-case scenarios (for example, increasing average transaction cost through better product recommendations) and identify business drivers: drivers are common thematic elements that can be found across multiple scenarios. These are the key principles for your commerce strategy.
    3. Prioritize your use cases by leveraging the priorities of your business drivers.

    Example

    This is an example of how step 1.2 can help you identify business drivers

    1.2 Finish elaboration of your scenarios and map them to your personas: identify core business drivers for commerce (continuation)

    Input

    • User personas

    Output

    • List of use cases
    • Alignment of use cases to business objectives

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Business Analyst
    • Developer
    • Designer

    Show the benefits of commerce solution deployment with metrics aimed at both overall efficacy and platform adoption

    The ROI and perceived value of the organization’s e-commerce and POS solutions will be a critical indication of the success of the suite’s selection and implementation.

    Commerce Strategy and Technology Adoption Metrics

    EXAMPLE METRICS

    Commerce Performance Metrics

    Average revenue per unique transaction

    Quantity and quality of commerce insights

    Aggregate revenue by channel

    Unique customers per channel

    Savings from automated processes

    Repeat customers per channel

    User Adoption and Business Feedback Metrics

    User satisfaction feedback

    User satisfaction survey with technology

    Business adoption rates

    Application overhead cost reduction

    Info-Tech Insight

    Even if e-commerce metrics are difficult to track right now, the implementation of a dedicated e-commerce platform brings access to valuable customer intelligence from data that was once kept in silos.

    Phase 2

    Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies

    2.1 Build the Commerce Channel Matrix

    2.2 Review Technology and Trends Primer

    Enable Omnichannel Commerce That Delights Your Customers

    Step 2.1

    Build the Commerce Channel Matrix

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Based on your business drivers, create a blended mix of e-commerce channels that will suit your organization’s and customers’ needs.

    Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Business stakeholders (Sales, Marketing)
    • IT project team

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Commerce channel map

    Pick the transactional channels that align with your customer personas and enable your target scenarios and drivers

    Traditional Channels

    E-Commerce Channels

    Hybrid Channels

    Physical stores (brick and mortar) are the mainstay of retailers selling tangible goods – some now also offer intangible service delivery.

    E-commerce websites as exemplified by services like Amazon are accessible by a browser and deliver both goods and services.

    Online ordering/in-store fulfilment is a model whereby customers can place orders online but pick the product up in store.

    Telesales allows customers to place orders over the phone. This channel has declined in favor of mobile commerce via smartphone apps.

    Mobile commerce allows customers to shop through a dedicated, native mobile application on a smartphone or tablet.

    IoT-enabled smart carts/bags allow customers to shop in store, but check-out payments are handled by a mobile application.

    Mail order allows customers to send (”snail”) mail orders. A related channel is fax orders. Both have diminished in favor of e-commerce.

    Social media embedded shopping allows customers to order products directly through services such as Facebook.

    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).

    2.1 Activity: Build your commerce channel matrix

    30 minutes

    1. Inventory which transactional channels are currently used by your firm (segment by product lines if variation exists).
    2. Interview product leaders, sales leaders, and marketing managers to determine if channels support transactional capabilities or are used for marketing and service delivery.
    3. Review your customer personas, scenarios, and drivers and assess which of the channels you will use in the future to sell products and services. Document below.

    Example: Commerce Channel Map

    Product Line A Product Line B Product Line C
    Currently Used? Future Use? Currently Used? Future Use? Currently Used? Future Use?
    Store Yes Yes No No No No
    Kiosk Yes No No No No No
    E-Commerce Site/Portal No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
    Mobile App No No Yes Yes No Yes
    Embedded Social Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

    Input

    • Personas, scenarios, and driver

    Output

    • Channel map

    Materials

    • Whiteboard
    • Markers

    Participants

    • Project team

    Step 2.2

    Review Technology and Trends Primer

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • Review the scope of e-commerce and POS solutions and understand key drivers impacting e-commerce and traditional commerce.

    Map Drivers to the Right Channels and Technologies

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Business stakeholders (Sales, Marketing)
    • IT project team

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Understanding of key technologies
    • Understanding of key trends

    Application spotlight: e-commerce platforms

    How It Enables Your Strategy

    • Modern e-commerce platforms provide capabilities for end-to-end orchestration of online commerce experiences, from product site deployment to payment processing.
    • Some e-commerce platforms are purpose-built for business-to-business (B2B) commerce, emphasizing customer portals and EDI features. Other e-commerce vendors place more emphasis on business-to-consumer (B2C) capabilities, such as product catalog management and executing transactions at scale.
    • There has been an increasing degree of overlap between traditional web experience management solutions and the e-commerce market; for example, in 2018, Adobe acquired Magento to augment its overall web experience offering within Adobe Experience Manager.
    • E-commerce platforms typically fall short when it comes to order fulfilment and logistics; this piece of the puzzle is typically orchestrated via an ERP system or logistics management module.
    • This research provides a starting place for defining e-commerce requirements and selection artefacts.

    Key Trends

    • E-commerce vendors are rapidly supporting a variety of form factors and integration with other channels such as social media. Mobile is sufficiently popular that some vendors and industry commentators refer to it as “m-commerce” to differentiate app-based shopping experiences from those accessed through a traditional browser.
    • Hybrid commerce is driving more interplay between e-commerce solutions and POS.

    E-Commerce KPIs

    Strong e-commerce applications can improve:

    • Bounce Rates
    • Exit Rates
    • Lead Conversion Rates
    • Cart Abandonment Rates
    • Re-Targeting Efficacy
    • Average Cart Size
    • Average Cart Value
    • Customer Lifetime Value
    • Aggregate Reach/Impressions

    Familiarize yourself with the e-commerce market

    How it got here

    Initial Traction as the Dot-Com Era Came to Fruition

    Unlike some enterprise application markets, such as CRM, the e-commerce market appeared almost overnight during the mid-to-late nineties as the dot-com explosion fueled the need to have reliable solutions for executing transactions online.

    Early e-commerce solutions were less full-fledged suites than they were mediums for payment processing and basic product list management. PayPal and other services like Digital River were pioneers in the space, but their functionality was limited vis-à-vis tools such as web content management platforms, and their ability to amalgamate and analyze the data necessary for dynamic personalization and re-targeting was virtually non-existent.

    Rapidly Expanding Scope of Functional Capabilities as the Market Matured

    As marketers became more sophisticated and companies put an increased focus on customer experience and omnichannel interaction, the need arose for platforms that were significantly more feature rich than their early contemporaries. In this context, vendors such as Shopify and Demandware stepped into the limelight, offering far richer functionality and analytics than previous offerings, such as asset management, dynamic personalization, and the ability to re-target customers who abandoned their carts.

    As the market has matured, there has also been a series of acquisitions of some players (for example, Demandware by Salesforce) and IPOs of others (i.e. Shopify). Traditional payment-oriented services like PayPal still fill an important niche, while newer entrants like Square seek to disrupt both the e-commerce market and point-of-sale solutions to boot.

    Familiarize yourself with the e-commerce market

    Where it’s going

    Support for a Proliferation of Form Factors and Channels

    Modern e-commerce solutions are expanding the number of form factors (smartphones, tablets) they support via both responsive design and in-app capabilities. Many platforms now also support embedded purchasing options in non-owned channels (for example, social media). With the pandemic leading to a heightened affinity for online shopping, the importance of fully using these capabilities has been further emphasized.

    AI and Machine Learning

    E-commerce is another customer experience domain ripe for transformation via the potential of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms are being used to enhance the effectiveness of dynamic personalization of product collateral, improve the accuracy of product recommendations, and allow for more effective re-targeting campaigns of customers who did not make a purchase.

    Merger of Online Commerce and Traditional Point-of-Sale

    Many e-commerce vendors – particularly the large players – are now going beyond traditional e-commerce and making plays into brick-and-mortar environments, offering point-of-sale capabilities and the ability to display product assets and customizations via augmented reality – truly blending the physical and virtual shopping experience.

    Emphasis on Integration with the Broader Customer Experience Ecosystem

    The big names in e-commerce recognize they don’t live on an island: out-of-the-box integrations with popular CRM, web experience, and marketing automation platforms have been increasing at a breakneck pace. Support for digital wallets has also become increasingly popular, with many vendors integrating contactless payment technology (i.e. Apple Pay) directly into their applications.

    E-Commerce Vendor Snapshot: Part 1

    Mid-Market E-Commerce Solutions

    This image contains the logos for the following Companies: Magento; Spryker; Bigcommerce; Woo Commerce; Shopify

    E-Commerce Vendor Snapshot: Part 2

    Large Enterprise and Full-Suite E-Commerce Platforms

    This image contains the logos for the following Companies: Salesforce commerce cloud; Oracle Commerce Cloud; Adobe Commerce Cloud; Sitecore; Sap Hybris Commerce

    Speak with category experts to dive deeper into the vendor landscape

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    Evaluate software category leaders through vendor rankings and awards

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    This is an image of the data quarant report

    The Data Quadrant is a thorough evaluation and ranking of all software in an individual category to compare platforms across multiple dimensions.

    This is an image of the data quarant report chart

    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 a image of 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.

    This is a image of the Emotional Footprint Report chart

    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.

    Leading B2B E-Commerce Platforms

    As of February 2022

    Data Quadrant

    This image contains a screenshot of the Data Quadrant chart for B2B E-commerce

    Emotional Footprint

    This image contains a screenshot of the Emotional Footprint chart for B2B E-commerce

    Leading B2C E-Commerce Platforms

    As of February 2022

    Data Quadrant

    This image contains a screenshot of the Data Quadrant chart for B2C E-commerce

    Emotional Footprint

    This image contains a screenshot of the Emotional Footprint chart for B2C E-commerce

    Application spotlight: point-of-sale solutions

    How It Enables Your Strategy

    • Point-of-sale solutions provide capabilities for cash register/terminal management, transaction processing, and lightweight inventory management.
    • Many POS vendors also offer products that have the ability to create orders from EDI, phone, or fax channels.
    • An increasing emphasis has been placed on retail analytics by POS vendors – providing reporting and analysis tools to help with inventory planning, promotion management, and product recommendations.
    • Integration of POS systems with a central customer data warehouse or other system of record for customer information allows for the ability to build richer customer profiles and compare shopping habits in physical stores against other transactional channels that are offered.
    • POS vendors often offer (or integrate with) loyalty management solutions to track, manage, and redeem loyalty points. See this note on loyalty management systems.
    • Legacy and/or homegrown POS systems tend to be an area of frustration for customer experience management modernization.

    Key Trends

    • POS solutions are moving from “cash-register-only” solutions to encompass mobile POS form factors like smartphones and tablets. Vendors such as Square have experienced tremendous growth in opening up the market via “mPOS” platforms that have lower costs to entry than the traditional hardware needed to support full-fledged POS solutions.
    • This development puts robust POS toolsets in the hands of small and medium businesses that otherwise would be priced out of the market.

    POS KPIs

    Strong POS applications can improve:

    • Customer Data Collection
    • Inventory or Cash Shrinkage
    • Cost per Transaction
    • Loyalty Program Administration Costs
    • Cycle Time for Transaction Execution

    Point-of-Sales Vendor Snapshot: Part 1

    Mid-Market POS Solutions

    This image contains the following company Logos: Square; Shopify; Vend; Heartland|Retail

    Point-of-Sales Vendor Snapshot: Part 2

    Large Enterprise POS Platforms

    This image contains the following Logos: Clover; Oracle Netsuite; RQ Retail Management; Salesforce Commerce Cloud; Korona

    Leading Retail POS Systems

    As of February 2022

    Data Quadrant

    This is an image of the Data Quadrant Chart for the Leading Retail Pos Systems

    Emotional Footprint

    This is an image of the Emotional Footprint chart for the Leading Retail POS Systems

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Knowledge Gained

    • Commerce channel framework
    • Customer affinities
    • Commerce channel overview
    • Commerce-enabling technologies

    Processes Optimized

    • Persona definition for commerce strategy
    • Persona channel shortlist

    Deliverables Completed

    • Customer personas
    • Commerce user scenarios
    • Business drivers for traditional commerce and e-commerce
    • Channel matrix for omnichannel commerce

    Bibliography

    “25 Amazing Omnichannel Statistics Every Marketer Should Know (Updated for 2021).” V12, 29 June 2021. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

    “Amazon Go.” Amazon, n.d. Web.

    Andersen, Derek. “33 Statistics Retail Marketers Need to Know in 2021.” Invoca, 19 July 2021. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

    Andre, Louie. “115 Critical Customer Support Software Statistics: 2022 Market Share Analysis & Data.” FinancesOnline, 14 Jan. 2022. Accessed 25 Jan. 2022.

    Chuang, Courtney. “The future of support: 5 key trends that will shape customer care in 2022.” Intercom, 10 Jan. 2022. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

    Cramer-Flood, Ethan. “Global Ecommerce Update 2021.” eMarketer, 13 Jan. 2021. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

    Cramer-Flood, Ethan. “Spotlight on total global retail: Brick-and-mortar returns with a vengeance.” eMarketer, 3 Feb. 2022. Accessed 12 Apr. 2022.

    Fox Rubin, Ben. “Amazon now operates seven different kinds of physical stores. Here's why.” CNET, 28 Feb. 2020. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

    Krajewski, Laura. “16 Statistics on Why Omnichannel is the Future of Your Contact Center and the Foundation for a Top-Notch Competitive Customer Experience.” Business 2 Community, 10 July 2020. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

    Manoff, Jill. “Fun and convenience: CEO Nany Green on Old Navy’s priorities for holiday.” Glossy, 8 Dec. 2020. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

    Meola, Andrew. “Rise of M-Commerce: Mobile Ecommerce Shopping Stats & Trends in 2021.” Insider, 30 Dec. 2020. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

    “Outdoor apparel retailer Icebreaker uses AI to exceed shopper expectations.” Salesforce, n.d.(a). Accessed 20 Jan. 2022.

    “Personas.” Usability.gov., n.d. Web. 28 Aug. 2018.

    “PetSmart – Why Commerce Cloud?” Salesforce, n.d.(b). Web. 30 April 2018.

    Toor, Meena. “Customer expectations: 7 Types all exceptional researchers must understand.” Qualtrics, 3 Dec. 2020. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

    Westfall, Leigh. “Omnichannel vs. multichannel: What's the difference?” RingCentral, 10 Sept. 2021. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

    “Worldwide ecommerce will approach $5 trillion this year.” eMarketer, 14 Jan. 2021. Accessed 12 Jan. 2022.

    Build a Data Pipeline for Reporting and Analytics

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    • Parent Category Name: Data Management
    • Parent Category Link: /data-management
    • 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.

    Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration

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    • Parent Category Name: IT Strategy
    • Parent Category Link: /it-strategy
    • Many organizations forget the essential role IT plays during M&A integration. IT is often unaware of a merger or acquisition until the deal is announced, making it very difficult to adequately interpret business goals and appropriately assess the target organization.
    • IT-related integration activities are amongst the largest cost items in an M&A, yet these costs are often overlooked or underestimated during due diligence.
    • IT is expected to use the M&A team’s IT due diligence report and estimated IT integration budget, which may not have been generated appropriately.
    • IT involvement in integration is critical to providing a better view of risks, improving the ease of integration, and optimizing synergies.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Anticipate that you are going to be under pressure. Fulfill short-term, tactical operational imperatives while simultaneously conducting discovery and designing the technology end-state.
    • To migrate risks and guide discovery, select a high-level IT integration posture that aligns with business objectives.

    Impact and Result

    • Once a deal has been announced, use this blueprint to set out immediately to understand business M&A goals and expected synergies.
    • Assemble an IT Integration Program to conduct discovery and begin designing the technology end-state, while simultaneously identifying and delivering operational imperatives and quick-wins as soon as possible.
    • Following discovery, use this blueprint to build initiatives and put together an IT integration budget. The IT Integration Program has an obligation to explain the IT cost implications of the M&A to the business.
    • Once you have a clear understanding of the cost of your IT integration, use this blueprint to build a long-term action plan to achieve the planned technology end-state that best supports the business capabilities of the organization.

    Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should follow Info-Tech’s M&A IT integration 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 project

    Define the business’s M&A goals, assemble an IT Integration Program, and select an IT integration posture that aligns with business M&A strategy.

    • Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration – Phase 1: Launch the Project
    • IT Integration Charter

    2. Conduct discovery and design the technology end-state

    Refine the current state of each IT domain in both organizations, and then design the end-state of each domain.

    • Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration – Phase 2: Conduct Discovery and Design the Technology End-State
    • IT Integration Roadmap Tool

    3. Initiate operational imperatives and quick-wins

    Generate tactical operational imperatives and quick-wins, and then develop an interim action plan to maintain business function and capture synergies.

    • Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration – Phase 3: Initiate Operational Imperatives and Quick-Wins

    4. Develop an integration roadmap

    Generate initiatives and put together a long-term action plan to achieve the planned technology end-state.

    • Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration – Phase 4: Develop an Integration Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Make IT a Successful Partner in M&A Integration

    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

    Identification of staffing and skill set needed to manage the IT integration.

    Generation of an integration communication plan to highlight communication schedule during major integration events.

    Identification of business goals and objectives to select an IT Integration Posture that aligns with business strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined IT integration roles & responsibilities.

    Structured communication plan for key IT integration milestones.

    Creation of the IT Integration Program.

    Generation of an IT Integration Posture.

    Activities

    1.1 Define IT Integration Program responsibilities.

    1.2 Build an integration communication plan.

    1.3 Host interviews with senior management.

    1.4 Select a technology end-state and IT integration posture.

    Outputs

    Define IT Integration Program responsibilities and goals

    Structured communication plan

    Customized interview guide for each major stakeholder

    Selected technology end-state and IT integration posture

    2 Conduct Discovery and Design the Technology End-State

    The Purpose

    Identification of information sources to begin conducting discovery.

    Definition of scope of information that must be collected about target organization.

    Definition of scope of information that must be collected about your own organization.

    Refinement of the technology end-state for each IT domain of the new entity. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    A collection of necessary information to design the technology end-state of each IT domain.

    Adequate information to make accurate cost estimates.

    A designed end-state for each IT domain.

    A collection of necessary, available information to make accurate cost estimates. 

    Activities

    2.1 Define discovery scope.

    2.2 Review the data room and conduct onsite discovery.

    2.3 Design the technology end-state for each IT domain.

    2.4 Select the integration strategy for each IT domain.

    Outputs

    Tone set for discovery

    Key information collected for each IT domain

    Refined end-state for each IT domain

    Refined integration strategy for each IT domain

    3 Initiate Tactical Initiatives and Develop an Integration Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Generation of tactical initiatives that are operationally imperative and will help build business credibility.

    Prioritization and execution of tactical initiatives.

    Confirmation of integration strategy for each IT domain and generation of initiatives to achieve technology end-states.

    Prioritization and execution of integration roadmap.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Tactical initiatives generated and executed.

    Confirmed integration posture for each IT domain.

    Initiatives generated and executed upon to achieve the technology end-state of each IT domain. 

    Activities

    3.1 Build quick-win and operational imperatives.

    3.2 Build a tactical action plan and execute.

    3.3 Build initiatives to close gaps and redundancies.

    3.4 Finalize your roadmap and kick-start integration.

    Outputs

    Tactical roadmap to fulfill short-term M&A objectives and synergies

    Confirmed IT integration strategies

    Finalized integration roadmap

    Identify Opportunities to Mature the Security Architecture

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    • Parent Category Name: Secure Cloud & Network Architecture
    • Parent Category Link: /secure-cloud-network-architecture
    • Organizations do not have a solid grasp on the complexity of their infrastructure and are unaware of the overall risk to their infrastructure posed by inadequate security.
    • Organizations do not understand how to properly create and deliver value propositions of technical security solutions.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • The security architecture is a living, breathing thing based on the risk profile of your organization.
    • Compliance and risk mitigation create an intertwined relationship between the business and your security architecture. The security architecture roadmap must be regularly assessed and continuously maintained to ensure security controls align with organizational objectives.

    Impact and Result

    • A right-sized security architecture can be created by assessing the complexity of the IT department, the operations currently underway for security, and the perceived value of a security architecture within the organization. This will bring about a deeper understanding of the organizational infrastructure.
    • Developing a security architecture should also result in a list of opportunities (i.e. initiatives) that an organization can integrate into a roadmap. These initiatives will seek to improve security operations and strengthen the IT department’s understanding of security’s role within the organization.
    • A better understanding of the infrastructure will help to save time on determining the correct technologies required from vendors and therefore cut down on the amount of vendor noise.
    • Creating a defensible roadmap will assist with justifying future security spend.

    Identify Opportunities to Mature the Security Architecture Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should develop a right-sized security architecture, 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. Identify the organization’s ideal security architecture

    Complete three unique assessments to define the ideal security architecture maturity for your organization.

    • Identify Opportunities to Mature the Security Architecture – Phase 1: Identify the Organization's Ideal Security Architecture
    • Security Architecture Recommendation Tool
    • None

    2. Create a security program roadmap

    Use the results of the assessments from Phase 1 of this research to create a roadmap for improving the security program.

    • Identify Opportunities to Mature the Security Architecture – Phase 2: Create a Security Program Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Dive Into Five Years of Security Strategies

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    • Parent Category Name: Security Strategy & Budgeting
    • Parent Category Link: /security-strategy-and-budgeting
    • As organizations build their security programs, there is often the question of what are other companies doing.
    • Part of this is a desire to know whether challenges are unique to certain companies, but also to understand how people are tackling some of their security gaps.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    Don’t just wonder what others are doing – use this report to see how companies are faring in their current state, where they want to target in their future state, and the ways they’re planning to raise their security posture.

    Impact and Result

    • Whether you’re building out your security program for the first time or are just interested in how others are faring, review insights from 66 security strategies in this report.
    • This research complements the blueprint, Build an Information Security Program, and can be used as a guide while completing that project.

    Dive Into Five Years of Security Strategies Research & Tools

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

    1. Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out what this report contains.

    [infographic]

    Mentoring for Agile Teams

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    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.5/10 Overall Impact
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    • Parent Category Name: Development
    • Parent Category Link: /development
    • Today’s realities are driving organizations to digitize faster and become more Agile.
    • Most hierarchical, command and control–style organizations are not yet well adapted to using Agile.
    • So-called textbook Agile practices often clash with traditional processes and practices.
    • Members must adapt their Agile practices to accommodate their organizational realities.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • There is no one-size-fits-all approach to Agile. Agile practices need to be adjusted to work in your organization based on a thoughtful diagnosis of the challenges and solutions tailored to the nature of your organization.

    Impact and Result

    • Identify your Agile challenges and success factors (both organization-wide and team-specific).
    • Leverage the power of research and experience to solve key Agile challenges and gain immediate benefits for your project.
    • Your Agile playbook will capture your findings so future projects can benefit from them.

    Mentoring for Agile Teams Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read this Executive Brief to understand how a Agile Mentoring can help your organization to successfully establish Agile practices within your context.

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

    1. Take the Info-Tech Agile Challenges and Success Factors Survey

    This tool will help you identify where your Agile teams are experiencing the most pain so you can create your Agile challenges hit list.

    • Agile Challenges and Success Factors Survey

    2. Review typical challenges and findings

    While each organization/team will struggle with its own individual challenges, many members find they face similar organizational/systemic challenges when adopting Agile. Review these typical challenges and learn from what other members have discovered.

    • Mentoring for Agile Teams – Typical Findings

    Infographic

    Workshop: Mentoring for Agile Teams

    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 Take the Agile Challenges and Success Factors Survey

    The Purpose

    Determine whether an Agile playbook is right for you.

    Broadly survey your teams to identify Agile challenges and success factors in your organization.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Better understanding of common Agile challenges and success factors

    Identification of common Agile challenges and success factors are prevalent in your organization

    Activities

    1.1 Distribute survey and gather results.

    1.2 Consolidate survey results.

    Outputs

    Completed survey responses from across teams/organization

    Consolidated heat map of your Agile challenges and success factors

    2 Identify Your Agile Challenges Hit List

    The Purpose

    Examine consolidated survey results.

    Identify your most pressing challenges.

    Create a hit list of challenges to be resolved.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identification of the most serious challenges to your Agile transformation

    Attention focused on those challenge areas that are most impacting your Agile teams

    Activities

    2.1 Analyze and discuss your consolidated heat map.

    2.2 Prioritize identified challenges.

    2.3 Select your hit list of challenges to address.

    Outputs

    Your Agile challenges hit list

    3 Problem Solve

    The Purpose

    Address each challenge in your hit list to eliminate or improve it.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Better Agile team performance and effectiveness

    Activities

    3.1 Work with Agile mentor to problem solve each challenge in your hit list.

    3.2 Apply these to your project in real time.

    Outputs

    4 Create Your Agile Playbook

    The Purpose

    Capture the findings and lessons learned while problem solving your hit list.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Strategies and tactics for being successful with Agile in your organization which can be applied to future projects

    Activities

    4.1 For each hit list item, capture the findings and lessons learned in Module 3.

    4.2 Document these in your Agile Playbook.

    Outputs

    Your Agile Playbook deliverable

    Build Your First RPA Bot

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    • Parent Category Name: Optimization
    • Parent Category Link: /optimization
    • Your organization has many business processes that rely on manual, routine, and repetitive data collection and processing work. These processes need to be automated to meet strategic priorities.
    • Your stakeholders decided to invest in robotic process automation (RPA). They are ready to begin the planning and delivery of their first RPA bot.
    • However, your organization lacks the critical foundations involved in successful RPA delivery, such as analysis of the suitability of candidate processes, business and IT collaboration, and product ownership.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Manage your business and IT debt before you adopt RPA. RPA doubles down on your process inefficiencies, lack of operations and architectural standardization, and unenforced quality standards. RPA solutions will be fragile and prone to failure if debt is not managed.
    • Adopt BizDevOps. RPA will not be successful if your lines-of-business (LOBs) and IT are not working together. IT must empathize with how LOBs operate and proactively support the underlying operational systems. LOBs must be accountable for all products leveraging RPA and be able to rationalize RPA’s technical feasibility.
    • Start with RPA 1.0. Don’t get caught up in the AI and machine learning (RPA 2.0) hype. Evaluate the acceptance and value of RPA 1.0 to establish a sustainable and collaborative foundation for its delivery and management. Then use the lessons learned to prepare for future RPA 2.0 adoption. In many cases, RPA 1.0 is good enough.

    Impact and Result

    • Establish the right expectations. Gain a grounded understanding of RPA value and limitations in your context. Discuss current IT and business operations challenges to determine if they will impact RPA success.
    • Build your RPA governance. Clarify the roles, processes, and tools needed to support RPA delivery and management through IT and business collaboration.
    • Evaluate the fit of RPA. Obtain a thorough view of the business and technical complexities of your candidate processes. Indicate where and how RPA is expected to generate the most return.

    Build Your First RPA Bot Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how you should build your first RPA bot, 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 your RPA governance

    Set the expectations of your first RPA bot. Define the guiding principles, ethics, and delivery capabilities that will govern RPA delivery and support.

    • Build Your First RPA Bot – Phase 1: Define Your RPA Governance

    2. Deliver and manage your bots

    Validate the fit of your candidate business processes for RPA and ensure the support of your operational system. Shortlist the features of your desired RPA vendor. Modernize your delivery process to accommodate RPA.

    • Build Your First RPA Bot – Phase 2: Deliver and Manage Your Bots

    3. Roadmap your RPA adoption

    Build a roadmap of initiatives to implement your first bot and build the foundations of your RPA practice.

    • Build Your First RPA Bot – Phase 3: Roadmap Your RPA Adoption
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Build Your First RPA Bot

    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 Your RPA Governance

    The Purpose

    State the success criteria of your RPA adoption through defined objectives and metrics.

    Define your RPA guiding principles and ethics.

    Build the RPA capabilities that will support the delivery and management of your bots.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Grounded stakeholder expectations

    RPA guiding principles

    RPA capabilities and the key roles to support RPA delivery and management

    Activities

    1.1 State Your RPA Objectives.

    1.2 Define Your RPA Principles

    1.3 Develop Your RPA Capabilities

    Outputs

    RPA objectives and metrics

    RPA guiding principles and ethics

    RPA and product ownership, RPA capabilities, RPA role definitions

    2 Deliver and Manage Your Bots

    The Purpose

    Evaluate the fit of your candidate business processes for automation.

    Define the operational platform to support your RPA solution.

    Shortlist the desired RPA vendor features.

    Optimize your product delivery process to support RPA.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Verifies the decision to implement RPA for the candidate business process

    The system changes and modifications needed to support RPA

    Prioritized list of RPA vendor features

    Target state RPA delivery process

    Activities

    2.1 Prepare Your RPA Platform

    2.2 Select Your RPA Vendor

    2.3 Deliver and Manage Your Bots

    Outputs

    Assessment of candidate business processes and supporting operational platform

    List of desired RPA vendor features

    Optimized delivery process

    3 Roadmap Your RPA Adoption

    The Purpose

    Build your roadmap to implement your first RPA bot and build the foundations of your RPA practice.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Implementation initiatives

    RPA adoption roadmap

    Activities

    3.1 Roadmap Your RPA Adoption

    Outputs

    RPA adoption roadmap

    Build a More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: Marketing Solutions
    • Parent Category Link: /marketing-solutions
    • 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

    Sample of the 'PLAN' section of the GTM Strategy optimization diagram with 'GTM Align Review' circled in red.

    The presentation you create contains:

    • Timelines and work plan updates
    • Tech stack needs/modifications
    • An expanded product concept to include packaging and pricing approach
    • Asset-type concepts for marketing campaigns, sales collateral, website, and social
    • Outline of initial Launch dates
    • Outline of initial customer success, awareness/PR/AR plans, and sales training plans
    • Final business case

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved – A More Effective Go-to-Market Strategy

    By guiding your team through the Go-to-Market planning process applied to an actual GTM Strategy, you have built an important set of capabilities that underpins today’s well-managed software companies. By following the step-by-step process outlined in this blueprint, you have delivered a host of benefits that include the following:

    • Alignment of Product, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success around a deeper understanding of your target buyers and what it takes to build competitive differentiation.
    • You have calculated your product market opportunity and whether it’s worth the investment in the long-term, and for the short term you have estimated gross margins as an important part of the business case.
    • Built executive support and confidence by leading a disparate team in complex decision making that is fact and evidence based to make more effective go/no go decisions related to investing in new products.
    • And finally, because you and your team have demonstrated their ability to align programs toward a common goal and program-manage a complex initiative through to successful completion, you have led your team to develop the “institutional muscle” to take on equally complex initiatives such as acquisition integration, rebranding, launching in a new region, etc.

    Therefore, developing the capabilities to manage a complex go-to-market strategy is akin to building company scalability and is sought after as a professional development opportunity that each executive should have on his/her résumé.

    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 1-888-670-8889

    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

    Sample of the Create a Buyer Persona and Journey research Create a Buyer Persona and Journey
    • A successful go-to-market strategy depends upon deep buyer understanding. Our Create a Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint will give you a step-by-step process that when followed will provide you and your team with that deep buyer understanding you need.
    • The Create a Buyer Persona and Journey blueprint provides you with an interview containing over 75 questions that, after capturing buyer answers and insights during interviews, will strengthen your value proposition, product market fit, lead gen engine and sales effectiveness.
    Sample of the Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring research Optimize Lead Generation With Lead Scoring
    • Save time and money and improve your sales win rates when you apply our methodology to score contacts with your lead gen engine more accurately and pass better qualified leads over to your sellers.
    • Our methodology teaches marketers to develop your own lead scoring approach based upon lead/contact profile vs. your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and scores contact engagement. Applying the methodology to arrive at your own approach to scoring will mean reduced lead gen costs, higher conversion rates, and increased marketing influenced wins.

    Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics

    • Buy Link or Shortcode: {j2store}58|cart{/j2store}
    • member rating overall impact (scale of 10): 9.0/10 Overall Impact
    • member rating average dollars saved: $8,599 Average $ Saved
    • member rating average days saved: 10 Average Days Saved
    • Parent Category Name: Performance Measurement
    • Parent Category Link: /performance-measurement

    While most CIOs understand the importance of using metrics to measure IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress, when it comes to creating dashboards to communicate these metrics, they:

    • Concentrate on the data instead of the audience.
    • Display information specific to IT activities instead of showing how IT addresses business goals and problems.
    • Use overly complicated, out of context graphs that crowd the dashboard and confuse the viewer.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    While most CIOs understand the importance of using metrics to measure IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress, when it comes to creating dashboards to communicate these metrics, they:

    • Concentrate on the data instead of the audience.
    • Display information specific to IT activities instead of showing how IT addresses business goals and problems.
    • Use overly complicated, out of context graphs that crowd the dashboard and confuse the viewer.

    Impact and Result

    Use Info-Tech’s ready-made dashboards for executives to ensure you:

    • Speak to the right audience
    • About the right things
    • In the right quantity
    • Using the right measures
    • At the right time.

    Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics Research & Tools

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

    1. Establish High-Value IT Performance Metrics and Dashboards – a document that walks you through Info-Tech’s ready-made IT dashboards.

    This blueprint guides you through reviewing Info-Tech’s IT dashboards for your audience and organization, then walks you through practical exercises to customize the dashboards to your audience and organization. The blueprint also gives practical guidance for delivering your dashboards and actioning your metrics.

    • Establish High-Value IT Performance Metrics and Dashboards Storyboard

    2. Info-Tech IT Dashboards and Guide – Ready-made IT dashboards for the CIO to communicate to the CXO.

    IT dashboards with visuals and metrics that are aligned and organized by CIO priority and that allow you to customize with your own data, eliminating 80% of the dashboard design work.

    • Info-Tech IT Dashboards and Guide

    3. IT Dashboard Workbook – A step-by-step tool to identify audience needs, translate needs into metrics, design your dashboard, and track/action your metrics.

    The IT Dashboard Workbook accompanies the Establish High Value IT Metrics and Dashboards blueprint and guides you through customizing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards to your audience, crafting your messages, delivering your dashboards to your audience, actioning metrics results, and addressing audience feedback.

    • Info-Tech IT Dashboards Workbook

    4. IT Metrics Library

    Reference the IT Metrics Library for ideas on metrics to use and how to measure them.

    • IT Metrics Library

    5. HR Metrics Library

    Reference the HR Metrics Library for ideas on metrics to use and how to measure them.

    • HR Metrics Library

    Infographic

    Workshop: Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics

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

    The Purpose

    Introduce the Info-Tech IT Dashboards to give the participants an idea of how they can be used in their organization.

    Understand the importance of starting with the audience and understanding audience needs before thinking about data and metrics.

    Explain how audience needs translate into metrics.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of where to begin when it comes to considering dashboards and metrics (the audience).

    Identified audience and needs and derived metrics from those identified needs.

    Activities

    1.1 Review the info-Tech IT Dashboards and document impressions for your organization.

    1.2 Identify your audience and their attributes.

    1.3 Identify timeline and deadlines for dashboards.

    1.4 Identify and prioritize audience needs and desired outcomes.

    1.5 Associate metrics to each need.

    1.6 Identify a dashboard for each metric.

    Outputs

    Initial impressions of Info-Tech IT Dashboards.

    Completed Tabs 2 and 3 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

    2 Inventory Your Data and Assess Data Quality and Readiness

    The Purpose

    Provide guidance on how to derive metrics and assess data.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understand the importance of considering how you will measure each metric and get the data.

    Understand that measuring data can be costly and that sometimes you just can’t afford to get the measure or you can’t get the data period because the data isn’t there.

    Understand how to assess data quality and readiness.

    Activities

    2.1 Complete a data inventory for each metric on each dashboard: determine how you will measure the metric, the KPI, any observation biases, the location of the data, the type of source, the owner, and the security/compliance requirements.

    2.2 Assess data quality for availability, accuracy, and standardization.

    2.3 Assess data readiness and the frequency of measurement and reporting.

    Outputs

    Completed Tab 4 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

    3 Design and Build Your Dashboards

    The Purpose

    Guide participants in customizing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with the data identified in previous steps.

    This step may vary as some participants may not need to alter the Info-Tech IT Dashboards other than to add their own data.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Understanding of how to customize the dashboards to the participants’ organization.

    Activities

    3.1 Revisit the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and use the identified metrics to determine what should change in them.

    3.2 Build your dashboards by editing the Info-Tech IT Dashboards with your changes as planned in Step 3.1.

    Outputs

    Assessed Info-Tech IT Dashboards for your audience’s needs.

    Completed Tab 5 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

    Finalized dashboards.

    4 Deliver Your Dashboard and Plan to Action Metrics

    The Purpose

    Guide participants in learning how to create a story around the dashboards.

    Guide participants in planning to action metrics and where to record results.

    Guide participants in how to address results of metrics and feedback from audience about dashboards.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Participants understand how to speak to their dashboards.

    Participants understand how to action metrics results and feedback about dashboards.

    Activities

    4.1 Craft your story.

    4.2 Practice delivering your story.

    4.3 Plan to action your metrics.

    4.4 Understand how to record and address your results.

    Outputs

    Completed Tabs 6 and 7 of the IT Dashboard Workbook.

    5 Next Steps and Wrap-Up

    The Purpose

    Finalize work outstanding from previous steps and answer any questions.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Participants have thought about and documented how to customize the Info-Tech IT Dashboards to use in their organization, and they have everything they need to customize the dashboards with their own metrics and visuals (if necessary).

    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 IT Dashboards tailored to your organization.

    Completed IT Dashboard Workbook

    Further reading

    Establish High-Value IT Performance Dashboards and Metrics

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

    Analyst Perspective

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

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

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

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

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

    Executive Summary

    Your Challenge

    While most CIOs understand the importance of using metrics to measure IT’s accomplishments, needs, and progress, when it comes to creating dashboards to communicate these metrics, they:

    • Concentrate on the data instead of the audience.
    • Display information specific to IT activities instead of showing how IT addresses business goals and problems.
    • Use overly complicated, out of context graphs that crowd the dashboard and confuse the viewer.

    Common Obstacles

    CIOs often experience these challenges because they:

    • Have a natural bias toward data and see it as the whole story instead of a supporting character in a larger narrative.
    • Assume that the IT activity metrics that are easy to get and useful to them are equally interesting to all their stakeholders.
    • Do not have experience communicating visually to an audience unfamiliar with IT operations or lingo.

    Info-Tech’s Approach

    Use Info-Tech’s ready-made dashboards for executives to ensure you:

    • Speak to the right audience
    • About the right things
    • In the right quantity
    • Using the right measures
    • At the right time

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Your challenge

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

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

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

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

    — Source: Exasol

    CXOs and CIOs agree that IT performance metrics need improvement

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

    A diagram that shows performance indicators and metrics from cxo and cio.

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

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

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

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

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

    Deliver High-Value IT Dashboards to Your Executives

    A diagram that shows Delivering High-Value IT Dashboards to Your Executives

    Info-Tech’s approach

    Deliver High-Value Dashboards to Your Executives

    A diagram that shows High-Value Dashboard Process.

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

    The Info-Tech difference:

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

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

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

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

    Phase Steps

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

    Phase Outcomes

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

    2. Translate Audience Needs into Metrics

    Phase Steps

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

    Phase Outcomes

    1. Completed IT Tab 3 of IT Dashboard Workbook

    3. Ready Your Data for Dashboards

    Phase Steps

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

    Phase Outcomes

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

    4. Build and Deliver Your Dashboards

    Phase Steps

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

    Phase Outcomes

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

    5. Plan, Record, and Action Your Metrics

    Phase Steps

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

    Phase Outcomes

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

    How to Use This Blueprint

    Choose the path that works for you

    A diagram that shows path of using this blueprint.

    The Info-Tech IT Dashboards address several needs:

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

    Insight Summary

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

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

    Overarching insight

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

    Insight 1

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

    Insight 2

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

    Insight 3

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

    Insight 4

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

    Insight 5

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

    Blueprint deliverables

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

    Photo of Dashboards

    Key deliverable: Dashboards

    Ready-made risk, financials, talent, and strategic initiatives dashboards that organize your data in a visually appealing way so you can concentrate on the metrics and communication.

    Photo of IT Dashboard Workbook

    IT Dashboard Workbook

    The IT Dashboard Workbook keeps all your metrics, data, and dashboard work in one handy file!

    Photo of IT Dashboard Guide

    IT Dashboard Guide

    The IT Dashboard Guide provides the Info-Tech IT Dashboards and information about how to use them.

    Blueprint benefits

    CIO Benefits

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

    Business Benefits

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

    Measure the value of this blueprint

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

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

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

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

    Case Study

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

    • Industry: Construction
    • Source: Anonymous interview participant

    Challenge

    Year after year, the CIO of a construction company attended business planning with the Board to secure funding for the year. One year, the CEO interrupted and said, “You're asking me for £17 million. You asked me for £14 million last year and you asked me for £12 million the year before that. I don't quite understand what we get for our money.”

    The CEO could not understand how fixing laptops would cost £17 million and for years no one had been able to justify the IT spend.

    Solutions

    The CIO worked with his team to produce a simple one-page bubble diagram representing each IT department. Each bubble included the total costs to deliver the service, along with the number of employees. The larger the bubble, the higher the cost. The CIO brought each bubble to life as he explained to the Board what each department did.

    The Board saw, for example, that IT had architects who thought about the design of a service, where it was going, the life cycle of that service, and the new products that were coming out. They understood what those services cost and knew how many architects IT had to provide for those services.

    Recommendations

    The CEO remarked that he finally understood why the CIO needed £17 million. He even saw that the costs for some IT departments were low for the amount of people and offered to pay IT staff more (something the CIO had requested for years).

    Each year the CIO used the same slide to justify IT costs and when the CIO needed further investment for things like security or new products, an upgrade, or end of life support, the sign-offs came very quickly because the Board understood what IT was doing and that IT wasn't a bottomless pit.

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

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

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

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

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

    Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

    Guided Implementation

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

    A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

    What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

    A diagram that shows Guided Implementation in 5 phases.

    Workshop overview

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Day 3: Design and Build Your Dashboards

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

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

    Day 4: Deliver Your Dashboard and Plan to Action Metrics

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

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

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

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

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

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

    What is an IT dashboard?

    A photo of Risks - Protect the Organization. A photo of Financials: Transparent, fiscal responsibility
    A photo of talent attrat and retain top talent A photo of Strategic Initiatives: Deliver Value to Customers.

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

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

    Info-Tech IT Dashboards

    Review the Info-Tech IT Dashboards

    We created dashboards so you don’t have to.

    A photo of Risks - Protect the Organization. A photo of Financials: Transparent, fiscal responsibility A photo of talent attrat and retain top talent A photo of Strategic Initiatives: Deliver Value to Customers.

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

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

    Download the Info-Tech IT Dashboards

    Why Use Dashboards When We Have Data?

    How graphics affect us

    Cognitively

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

    Emotionally

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

    Visual clues

    • Help decode text
    • Attract attention
    • Increase memory

    Persuasion

    • 43% more effective than text alone

    — Source: (Vogel et al.)

    Phase 1

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

    A diagram that shows phase 1 to 5.

    This phase will walk you through the following:

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

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Info-Tech IT Dashboard organization and audience

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

    A photo of Info-Tech IT Dashboards

    Dashboard Customization

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

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

    Phase 1 will get you started with your audience.

    Always start with the audience

    …and not the data!

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

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

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

    46% executives identify lack of customization to individual user needs as a reason they struggle with dashboards.
    — Source: (Exasol)

    Resist the Data-First Temptation

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

    Ask first Ask later
    Who is this dashboard for? What data should I show?
    How will the audience use the dashboard to make decisions? Where do I get the data?
    How can I show what matters to the audience? How much effort is required to get the data?

    Meaningful measures rely on understanding your audience and their needs

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

    A diagram that highlights step 1-3 of understanding your audience in the high-value dashboard process.

    Step 1.1

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

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 1.1 & 1.2 to Test Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

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

    1.1.1 Examine the Info-Tech IT Dashboards

    30 minutes

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

    A diagram that shows Info-Tech IT Dashboards

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

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

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

    Consider:

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

    Step 1.2

    Identify and Document Your Audience’s Needs

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 1.1 & 1.2 to Test Info-Tech’s IT Dashboards Against Your Audience’s Needs.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Audience details documented in IT Dashboard Workbook

    Identify Your Audience and dig deeper to understand their needs

    Connect with your audience

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

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

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

    Typical Audience Needs
    Senior Leadership
    • Inform strategic planning and track progress toward objectives.
    • Understand critical challenges.
    • Ensure risks are managed.
    • Ensure budgets are managed.
    Board of Directors
    • Understand organizational risks.
    • Ensure organization is fiscally healthy.
    Business Partners
    • Support strategic workforce planning.
    • Surface upcoming risks to workforce.
    CFO
    • IT Spend
    • Budget Health and Risks

    Prioritize and select audience needs that your dashboard will address

    Prioritize needs by asking:

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

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

    Prioritize needs on Tab 2 of the IT Dashboard Workbook

    A diagram that shows 3 tiers of high priority, medium priority, and low priority.

    1.2.1 Document Your Audience Needs in the IT Dashboard Workbook

    1 hour

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

    A table of documenting audience, including key attributes, desired timeline, deadline, needs, and priority.

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Phase 2

    Translate Audience Needs Into Metrics

    A diagram that shows phase 1 to 5.

    This phase will walk you through the following:

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

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Linking audience needs to metrics has positive outcomes

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

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

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

    Dashboard Customization

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

    Phase 2 covers the process of translating needs into metrics.

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

    A diagram that highlights step 4-5 of knowing your audience needs in the high-value dashboard process.

    Step 2.1

    Document Desired Outcomes for Each Prioritized Audience Need

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 2.1 to 2.3 to translate audience needs into metrics.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

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

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

    30 minutes

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

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

    Any changes to the Info-Tech IT Dashboards?

    Consider:

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

    Desired outcomes make identifying metrics easier

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

    A diagram that shows an example of desired outcomes

    2.1.2 Document your audience’s desired outcome per prioritized need

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

    1 hour

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

    A diagram that shows desired outcome per prioritized need

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Deriving Meaningful Metrics

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

    A diagram of an example of meaningful metrics.

    Common Metrics Mistakes

    Avoid the following oversights when selecting your metrics.

    A diagram that shows 7 metrics mistakes

    Step 2.2

    Derive Metrics From Audience Needs

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 2.1 to 2.3 to translate audience needs into metrics.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Documented metrics for audience needs.

    2.2.1 Derive metrics from desired outcomes

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

    2 hours

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

    A diagram that shows derive metrics from desired outcomes

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Download IT Metrics Library

    Download HR Metrics Library

    Step 2.3

    Associate Metrics to Dashboards

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 2.1 to 2.3 to translate audience needs into metrics.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Metrics associated to each dashboard.

    2.3.1 Associate metrics to dashboards

    30 minutes

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

    A diagram that shows associate metrics to dashboards

    Phase 3

    Ready Your Data for Dashboards

    A diagram that shows phase 1 to 5.

    This phase will walk you through the following:

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

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Can you measure your metrics?

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

    A diagram that highlights step 5 of measuring your metrics in the high-value dashboard process.

    Make sure you select data that your audience trusts

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

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

    Step 3.1

    Assess Data Inventory

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 3.1 to 3.4 to ready your data for dashboards.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Documented data inventory for each metric.

    3.1.1 Data Inventory

    1 hour

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

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

    A diagram that shows 9 columns of data inventory.

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Step 3.2

    Assess Data Quality

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 3.1 to 3.4 to ready your data for dashboards.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Documented data quality assessment for each metric.

    3.2.1 Assess Data Quality

    1 hour

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

    A diagram that shows data availability, data accuracy, and data standardization columns.

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Step 3.3

    Assess Data Readiness

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 3.1 to 3.4 to ready your data for dashboards.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Documented data readiness for each metric

    3.3.1 Determine Data Readiness

    1 hour

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

    A diagram that shows data readiness section

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Step 3.4

    Assess Data Frequency

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 3.1 to 3.4 to assess data inventory, quality, and readiness.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Documented frequency of measurement for each metric.

    3.4.1 Document Planned Frequency of measurement

    10 minutes

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

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Phase 4

    Build and Deliver Your Dashboards

    A diagram that shows phase 1 to 5.

    This phase will walk you through the following:

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

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Using your dashboard to tell your story with visuals

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

    A diagram that highlights step 6 of creating meaningful visuals in the high-value dashboard process.

    Using visual language

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

    — Source: American Management Association

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

    Step 4.1

    Design Your Dashboard

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 4.1 to 4.3 to build and deliver your dashboards.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

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

    Use clear visuals that avoid distracting the audience

    Which visual is better to present?

    Sample A:
    A photo of Sample A visuals

    Sample B:
    A diagram Sample B visuals

    Select the appropriate visuals

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

    Relationship

    A photo of Scatterplots
    Scatterplots

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

    Distribution

    A photo of Histogram
    Histogram

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

    A photo of Scatterplot
    Scatterplot

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

    Composition

    A photo of Pie chart
    Pie chart

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

    A photo of Table
    Table

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

    Comparison

    A photo of Bar graph
    Bar graph

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

    A photo of Line chart
    Line chart

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

    (Calzon)

    Examples of data visualization

    To compare categories, use a bar chart:
    2 examples of bar chart
    Conclusion: Visualizing the spend in various areas helps prioritize.


    To show trends, use a line graph:
    An example of line graph.
    Conclusion: Overlaying a trend line on revenue per employee helps justify headcount costs.


    To show simple results, text is sometimes more clear:
    A diagram that shows examples of text and graphics.
    Conclusion: Text with meaningful graphics conveys messages quickly.


    To display relative percentages of values, use a pie chart:
    An example of pie chart.
    Conclusion: Displaying proportions in a pie chart gives an at-a-glance understanding of the amount any area uses.

    Choose effective colors and design

    Select colors that will enhance the story

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

    Keep the design simple and clear

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

    Example

    A example that shows colours and design of a chart.

    Checklist to build compelling visuals in your presentation

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

    Checklist:

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

    4.1.1 Plan and validate your dashboard visuals

    1 hour

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

    A diagram of dashboard and its considerations when selecting visuals.

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Step 4.2

    Update Your Dashboards

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 4.1 to 4.3 to build and deliver your dashboards.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

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

    4.2.1 Update visuals with your own data

    2 hours

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

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboards

    Step 4.3

    Craft Your Story and Deliver Your Dashboards

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 4.1 to 4.3 to build and deliver your dashboards.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

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

    Stories are more easily understood and more likely to drive decisions

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

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

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

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

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

    — Exasol

    For more visual guidance, download the IT Dashboard Guide

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

    A diagram of an effective message, including consistent, clearn, relevant, and concise.

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Enable good communication with these components

    Be Consistent

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

    Be Clear

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

    Be Relevant

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

    Be Concise

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

    Draft the core messages to communicate

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

    4.3.1 Craft Your Story

    1 hour

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

    A diagram of dashboard to craft your story.

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    4.3.2 Finalize Your Dashboards

    30 minutes

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

    A diagram that shows strategic initiatives: deliver value to customers.

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    4.3.3 Practice Delivering Your Story With Your Dashboards

    1 hour

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

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

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Hone presentation skills before meeting with key stakeholders

    Using voice and body

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

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

    Be professional and confident

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

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

    Connect with your audience

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

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

    Info-Tech Insight

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

    Communication Delivery Checklist

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

    Phase 5

    Plan, record, and action your metrics

    A diagram that shows phase 1 to 5.

    This phase will walk you through the following:

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

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Actioning your metrics to drive results

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

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

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

    (Bernard Marr)

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

    (McKinsey)

    Step 5.1

    Plan How to Record Metrics

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

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

    A diagram that shows step 5.1 to 5.2 to plan, record, and action your metrics.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

    • Baselines and targets identified and recorded for each metric.

    5.1.1 Identify Baselines and Targets

    1 hour

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

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

    To establish targets:

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

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

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

    A diagram of identify metrics and to identify baselines and targets.

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Step 5.2

    Record and Action Metrics

    Activities:
    5.2.1 Record and Action Results

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

    A diagram that shows step 5.1 to 5.2 to plan, record, and action your metrics.

    This phase involves the following participants:

    • Senior IT leadership
    • Dashboard SMEs

    Outcomes of this step:

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

    5.2.1 Record and Action Results

    1 hour

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

    Action your measures as well as your metrics

    What should be measured can change over time as your organization matures and the business environment changes. Understanding what creates business value for your organization is critical. If metrics need to be changed, record metrics actions under Identified Actions on Tab 7. A metric will need to be addressed in one of the following ways:

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

    A diagram of record results and identify how to address results.

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

    Download Info-Tech IT Dashboard Workbook

    Tips for actioning results

    Sometimes actioning your metrics results requires more analysis

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

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

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

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

    Summary of Accomplishment

    Problem Solved

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

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

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

    Additional Support

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

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

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

    Contact your account representative for more information.

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

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

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

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

    Research Contributors and Experts

    Photo of John Corrado
    John Corrado
    Head of IT
    X4 Pharmaceuticals

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

    Photo of Grant Frost
    Grant Frost
    Chief Information & Security Officer
    Niagara Catholic School Board

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

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

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

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

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

    Photo of Jochen Sievert
    Jochen Sievert
    Director Performance Excellence & IT
    Zeon Chemicals

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

    Info-Tech Contributors

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

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

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Photo of Build an IT Risk Taxonomy

    Build an IT Risk Taxonomy

    Use this blueprint as a baseline to build a customized IT risk taxonomy suitable for your organization.

    Photo of Create a Holistic IT Dashboard

    Create a Holistic IT Dashboard

    This blueprint will help you identify the KPIs that matter to your organization.

    Photo of Develop Meaningful Service Metrics

    Develop Meaningful Service Metrics

    This blueprint will help you Identify the appropriate service metrics based on stakeholder needs.

    Photo of IT Spend & Staffing Benchmarking

    IT Spend & Staffing Benchmarking

    Use this benchmarking service to capture, analyze, and communicate your IT spending and staffing.

    Photo of Key Metrics for Every CIO

    Key Metrics for Every CIO

    This short research piece highlights the top metrics for every CIO, how those align to your CIO priorities, and action steps against those metrics.

    Photo of Present Security to Executive Stakeholders

    Present Security to Executive Stakeholders

    This blueprint helps you identify communication drivers and goals and collect data to support your presentation. It provides checklists for building and delivering a captivating security presentation.

    Bibliography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications with a Center of Excellence

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    • Parent Category Name: Optimization
    • Parent Category Link: /optimization
    • Processes pertaining to managing the application are inconsistent and do not drive excellence.
    • There is a lack of interdepartmental collaboration between different teams pertaining to the application.
    • There are no formalized roles and responsibilities for governance and support around enterprise applications.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Scale the Center of Excellence (CoE) based on business needs. There is flexibility in how extensively the CoE methodology is applied and rigidity in how consistently it should be used.
    • The CoE is a refinery. It takes raw inputs from the business and produces an enhanced product, removing waste and isolating it from re-entering day-to-day operations.
    • Excellence is about people as much as it is about process. Documented best practices should include competencies, key resources, and identified champions to advocate the CoE practice.

    Impact and Result

    • Formalize roles and responsibilities for all application initiatives.
    • Develop a standard process of governance and oversight surrounding the application.
    • Develop a comprehensive support network that consists of IT, the business, and external stakeholders to address issues and problem areas surrounding the application.

    Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications with a Center of Excellence Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should establish a Center of Excellence for your enterprise application, 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. Create a vision for the CoE

    Understand the importance of developing an enterprise application CoE, define its scope, and identify key stakeholders.

    • Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications with a Center of Excellence – Phase 1: Create a Vision for the Center of Excellence
    • Enterprise Application Center of Excellence Project Charter

    2. Design the CoE future state

    Gather high-level requirements to determine the ideal future state.

    • Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications with a Center of Excellence – Phase 2: Design the Center of Excellence Future State
    • Center of Excellence Refinery Model Template

    3. Develop a CoE roadmap

    Assess the required capabilities to reach the ideal state CoE.

    • Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications with a Center of Excellence – Phase 3: Develop a Center of Excellence Roadmap
    • Center of Excellence Exceptions Report
    • Track and Measure Benefits Tool
    • Enterprise Application Center of Excellence Stakeholder Presentation Template
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Maximize the Benefits from Enterprise Applications with a Center of Excellence

    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 a Vision for the CoE

    The Purpose

    Understand the importance of developing a CoE for enterprise applications.

    Determine how to best align the CoE mandate with business objectives.

    Complete a CoE project charter to gain buy-in, build a project team, and track project success. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Key stakeholders identified.

    Project team created with defined roles and responsibilities.

    Project charter finalized to gain buy-in.

    Activities

    1.1 Evaluate business needs and priorities.

    1.2 Identify key stakeholders and the project team.

    1.3 Align CoE with business priorities.

    1.4 Map current state CoE.

    Outputs

    Project vision

    Defined roles and responsibilities

    Strategic alignment of CoE and the business

    CoE current state schematic

    2 Design the CoE Future State

    The Purpose

    Gain a thorough understanding of pains related to the lack of application governance.

    Identify and recycle existing CoE practices.

    Visualize the CoE enhancement process.

    Visualize your ideal state CoE. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Requirements to strengthen the case for the enterprise application CoE.

    CoE value-add refinery.

    Future potential of the CoE.

    Activities

    2.1 Gather requirements.

    2.2 Map the CoE enhancement process.

    2.3 Sketch future state CoE.

    Outputs

    Classified pains, opportunities, and existing practices

    CoE refinery model

    Future state CoE sketch

    3 Develop a CoE Roadmap

    The Purpose

    Assess required capabilities and resourcing.

    List and prioritize CoE initiatives.

    Track and monitor CoE performance. 

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Next steps for the enterprise application CoE.

    CoE resourcing plan.

    CoE benefits realization tracking.

    Activities

    3.1 Build CoE capabilities.

    3.2 Identify risks and mitigation efforts.

    3.3 Prioritize and track CoE initiatives.

    3.4 Finalize stakeholder presentation.

    Outputs

    CoE potential capabilities

    Risk management plan

    CoE initiatives roadmap

    CoE stakeholder presentation

    Data Architecture

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    • Parent Category Name: Data and Business Intelligence
    • Parent Category Link: /data-and-business-intelligence
    Enable the business to achieve operational excellence, client intimacy, and product leadership with an innovative, agile, and fit-for-purpose data architecture practice

    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

    Standardize the Service Desk

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
    • Parent Category Link: /service-desk
    • Not everyone embraces their role in service support. Specialists would rather work on projects than provide service support.
    • The Service Desk lacks processes and workflows to provide consistent service. Service desk managers struggle to set and meet service-level expectations, which further compromises end-user satisfaction.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • Service desk improvement is an exercise in organizational change. Engage specialists across the IT organization in building the solution. Establish a single service-support team across the IT group and enforce it with a cooperative, customer-focused culture.
    • Don’t be fooled by a tool that’s new. A new service desk tool alone won’t solve the problem. Service desk maturity improvements depend on putting in place the right people and processes to support the technology.

    Impact and Result

    • Create a consistent customer service experience for service desk patrons, and increase efficiency, first-call resolution, and end-user satisfaction with the Service Desk.
    • Decrease time and cost to resolve service desk tickets.
    • Understand and address reporting needs to address root causes and measure success and build a solid foundation for future IT service improvements.

    Standardize the Service Desk Research & Tools

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

    1. Standardize the Service Desk Research – A step-by-step document that helps you improve customer service by driving consistency in your support approach and meet SLAs.

    Use this blueprint to standardize your service desk by assessing your current capability and laying the foundations for your service desk, design an effective incident management workflow, design a request fulfillment process, and apply the discussions and activities to make an actionable plan for improving your service desk.

    • Standardize the Service Desk – Phases 1-4

    2. Service Desk Maturity Assessment – An assessment tool to help guide process improvement efforts and track progress.

    This tool is designed to assess your service desk process maturity, identify gaps, guide improvement efforts, and measure your progress.

    • Service Desk Maturity Assessment

    3. Service Desk Project Summary – A template to help you organize process improvement initiatives using examples.

    Use this template to organize information about the service desk challenges that the organization is facing, make the case to build a right-sized service desk to address those challenges, and outline the recommended process changes.

    • Service Desk Project Summary

    4. Service Desk Roles and Responsibilities Guide – An analysis tool to determine the right roles and build ownership.

    Use the RACI template to determine roles for your service desk initiatives and to build ownership around them. Use the template and replace it with your organization's information.

    • Service Desk Roles and Responsibilities Guide

    5. Incident Management and Service Desk Standard Operating Procedure – A template designed to help service managers kick-start the standardization of service desk processes.

    The template will help you identify service desk roles and responsibilities, build ticket management processes, put in place sustainable knowledgebase practices, document ticket prioritization scheme and SLO, and document ticket workflows.

    • Incident Management and Service Desk SOP

    6. Ticket and Call Quality Assessment Tool – An assessment tool to check in on ticket and call quality quarterly and improve the quality of service desk data.

    Use this tool to help review the quality of tickets handled by agents and discuss each technician's technical capabilities to handle tickets.

    • Ticket and Call Quality Assessment Tool

    7. Workflow Library – A repository of typical workflows.

    The Workflow Library provides examples of typical workflows that make up the bulk of the incident management and request fulfillment processes at the service desk.

    • Incident Management and Service Desk Workflows (Visio)
    • Incident Management and Service Desk Workflows (PDF)

    8. Service Desk Ticket Categorization Schemes – A repository of ticket categories.

    The Ticket Categorization Schemes provide examples of ticket categories to organize the data in the service desk tool and produce reports that help managers manage the service desk and meet business requirements.

    • Service Desk Ticket Categorization Schemes

    9. Knowledge Manager – A job description template that includes a detailed explication of the responsibilities and expectations of a Knowledge Manager role.

    The Knowledge Manager's role is to collect, synthesize, organize, and manage corporate information in support of business units across the enterprise.

    • Knowledge Manager

    10. Knowledgebase Article Template – A comprehensive record of the incident management process.

    An accurate and comprehensive record of the incident management process, including a description of the incident, any workarounds identified, the root cause (if available), and the profile of the incident's source, will improve incident resolution time.

    • Knowledgebase Article Template

    11. Sample Communication Plan – A sample template to guide your communications around the integration and implementation of your overall service desk improvement initiatives.

    Use this template to develop a communication plan that outlines what stakeholders can expect as the process improvements recommended in the Standardize the Service Desk blueprint are implemented.

    • Sample Communication Plan

    12. Service Desk Roadmap – A structured roadmap tool to help build your service desk initiatives timeline.

    The Service Desk Roadmap helps track outstanding implementation activities from your service desk standardization project. Use the roadmap tool to define service desk project tasks, their owners, priorities, and timeline.

    • Service Desk Roadmap
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Standardize the Service Desk

    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 Service Desk Foundations

    The Purpose

    Discover your challenges and understand what roles, metrics, and ticket handling procedures are needed to tackle the challenges.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Set a clear understanding about the importance of service desk to your organization and service desk best practices.

    Activities

    1.1 Assess current state of the service desk.

    1.2 Review service desk and shift-left strategy.

    1.3 Identify service desk metrics and reports.

    1.4 Identify ticket handling procedures

    Outputs

    Current state assessment

    Shift-left strategy and implications

    Service desk metrics and reports

    Ticket handling procedures

    2 Design Incident Management

    The Purpose

    Build workflows for incident and critical incident tickets.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Distinguish incidents from service requests.

    Ticket categorization facilitates ticket. routing and reporting.

    Develop an SLA for your service desk team for a consistent service delivery.

    Activities

    2.1 Build incident and critical incident management workflows.

    2.2 Design ticket categorization scheme and proper ticket handling guidelines.

    2.3 Design incident escalation and prioritization guidelines.

    Outputs

    Incident and critical incident management workflows

    Ticket categorization scheme

    Ticket escalation and prioritization guidelines

    3 Design Request Fulfilment

    The Purpose

    Build service request workflows and prepare self-service portal.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Standardize request fulfilment processes.

    Prepare for better knowledge management and leverage self-service portal to facilitate shift-left strategy.

    Activities

    3.1 Build service request workflows.

    3.2 Build a targeted knowledgebase.

    3.3 Prepare for a self-serve portal project.

    Outputs

    Distinguishing criteria for requests and projects

    Service request workflows and SLAs

    Knowledgebase article template, processes, and workflows

    4 Build Project Implementation Plan

    The Purpose

    Now that you have laid the foundation of your service desk, put all the initiatives into an action plan.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Discuss priorities, set timeline, and identify effort for your service desk.

    Identify the benefits and impacts of communicating service desk initiatives to stakeholders and define channels to communicate service desk changes.

    Activities

    4.1 Build an implementation roadmap.

    4.2 Build a communication plan

    Outputs

    Project implementation and task list with associated owners

    Project communication plan and workshop summary presentation

    Further reading

    Analyst Perspective

    "Customer service issues are rarely based on personality but are almost always a symptom of poor and inconsistent process. When service desk managers are looking to hire to resolve customer service issues and executives are pushing back, it’s time to look at improving process and the support strategy to make the best use of technicians’ time, tools, and knowledge sharing. Once improvements have been made, it’s easier to make the case to add people or introduce automation.

    Replacing service desk solutions will also highlight issues around poor process. Without fixing the baseline services, the new solution will simply wrap your issues in a prettier package.

    Ultimately, the service desk needs to be the entry point for users to get help and the rest of IT needs to provide the appropriate support to ensure the first line of interaction has the knowledge and tools they need to resolve quickly and preferably on first contact. If your plans include optimization to self-serve or automation, you’ll have a hard time getting there without standardizing first."

    Sandi Conrad

    Principal Research Director, Infrastructure & Operations Practice

    Info-Tech Research Group

    A method for getting your service desk out of firefighter mode

    This Research Is Designed For:

    • The CIO and senior IT management who need to increase service desk effectiveness and timeliness and improve end-user satisfaction.
    • The service desk manager who wants to lead the team from firefighting mode to providing consistent and proactive support.

    This Research Will Also Assist:

    • Service desk teams who want to increase their own effectiveness and move from a help desk to a service desk.
    • Infrastructure and applications managers who want to decrease reactive support activities and increase strategic project productivity by shifting repetitive and low-value work left.

    This Research Will Help You:

    • Create a consistent customer service experience for service desk patrons.
    • Increase efficiency, first-call resolution, and end-user satisfaction with the Service Desk.
    • Decrease time and cost to resolve service desk tickets.
    • Understand and address reporting needs to address root causes and measure success.
    • Build a solid foundation for future IT service improvements.

    Executive Summary

    Situation

    • The CIO and senior IT management who need to increase service desk effectiveness and timeliness and improve end-user satisfaction.
    • If only the phone could stop ringing, the Service Desk could become proactive, address service levels, and improve end-user IT satisfaction.

    Complication

    • Not everyone embraces their role in service support. Specialists would rather work on projects than provide service support.
    • The Service Desk lacks processes and workflows to provide consistent service. Service desk managers struggle to set and meet service-level expectations, which further compromises end-user satisfaction.

    Resolution

    • Go beyond the blind adoption of best-practice frameworks. No simple formula exists for improving service desk maturity. Use diagnostic tools to assess the current state of the Service Desk. Identify service support challenges and draw on best-practice frameworks intelligently to build a structured response to those challenges.
    • An effective service desk must be built on the right foundations. Understand how:
      • Service desk structure affects cost and ticket volume capacity.
      • Incident management workflows can improve ticket handling, prioritization, and escalation.
      • Request fulfillment processes create opportunities for streamlining and automating services.
      • Knowledge sharing supports the processes and workflows essential to effective service support.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Service desk improvement is an exercise in organizational change. Engage specialists across the IT organization in building the solution. Establish a single service-support team across the IT group and enforce it with a cooperative, customer-focused culture. Don’t be fooled by a tool that’s new. A new service desk tool alone won’t solve the problem. Service desk maturity improvements depend on putting in place the right people and processes to support the technology

    Directors and executives understand the importance of the service desk and believe IT can do better

    A double bar graph is depicted. The blue bars represent Effectiveness and the green bars represent Importance in terms of service desk at different seniority levels, which include frontline, manager, director, and executive.

    Source: Info-Tech, 2019 Responses (N=189 organizations)

    Service Desk Importance Scores

      No Importance: 1.0-6.9
      Limited Importance: 7.0-7.9
      Significant Importance: 8.0-8.9
      Critical Importance: 9.0-10.0

    Service Desk Effectiveness Scores

      Not in Place: N/A
      Not Effective: 0.0-4.9
      Somewhat Ineffective: 5.0-5.9
      Somewhat Effective: 6.0-6.9
      Very Effective: 7.0-10.0

    Info-Tech Research Group’s IT Management and Governance Diagnostic (MGD) program assesses the importance and effectiveness of core IT processes. Since its inception, the MGD has consistently identified the service desk as an area to leverage.

    Business stakeholders consistently rank the service desk as one of the top five most important services that IT provides

    Since 2013, Info-Tech has surveyed over 40,000 business stakeholders as part of our CIO Business Vision program.

    Business stakeholders ranked the following 12 core IT services in terms of importance:

    Learn more about the CIO Business Vision Program.
    *Note: IT Security was added to CIO Business Vision 2.0 in 2019

    Top IT Services for Business Stakeholders

    1. Network Infrastructure
    2. IT Security*
    3. Data Quality
    4. Service Desk
    5. Business Applications
    6. Devices
    7. Client-Facing Technology
    8. Analytical Capability
    9. IT Innovation Leadership
    10. Projects
    11. Work Orders
    12. IT Policies
    13. Requirements Gathering
    Source: Info-Tech Research Group, 2019 (N=224 organizations)

    Having an effective and timely service desk correlates with higher end-user satisfaction with all other IT services

    A double bar graph is depicted. The blue bar represents dissatisfied ender user, and the green bar represents satisfied end user. The bars show the average of dissatisfied and satisfied end users for service desk effectiveness and service desk timeliness.

    On average, organizations that were satisfied with service desk effectiveness rated all other IT processes 46% higher than dissatisfied end users.

    Organizations that were satisfied with service desk timeliness rated all other IT processes 37% higher than dissatisfied end users.
    “Satisfied” organizations had average scores =8.“Dissatisfied" organizations had average scores “Dissatisfied" organizations had average scores =6. Source: Info-Tech Research Group, 2019 (N=18,500+ respondents from 75 organizations)

    Standardize the service desk the Info-Tech way to get measurable results

    More than one hundred organizations engaged with Info-Tech, through advisory calls and workshops, for their service desk projects in 2016. Their goal was either to improve an existing service desk or build one from scratch.

    Organizations that estimate the business impact of each project phase help us shed light on the average measured value of the engagements.

    "The analysts are an amazing resource for this project. Their approach is very methodical, and they have the ability to fill in the big picture with detailed, actionable steps. There is a real opportunity for us to get off the treadmill and make real IT service management improvements"

    - Rod Gula, IT Director

    American Realty Advisors

    Three circles are depicted. The top circle shows the sum of measured value dollar impact which is US$1,659,493.37. The middle circle shows the average measured value dollar impact which is US$19,755.87. The bottom circle shows the average measured value time saved which is 27 days.

    Info-Tech’s approach to service desk standardization focuses on building service management essentials

    This image depicts all of the phases and steps in this blueprint.

    Info-Tech draws on the COBIT framework, which focuses on consistent delivery of IT services across the organization

    This image depicts research that can be used to improve IT processes. Service Desk is circled to demonstrate which research is being used.

    The service desk is the foundation of all other service management processes.

    The image shows how the service desk is a foundation for other service management processes.

    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

    Standardize the Service Desk – project overview

    This image shows the project overview of this blueprint.

    Info-Tech delivers: Use our tools and templates to accelerate your project to completion

    Project Summary

    Image of template.

    Service Desk Standard Operating Procedures

    Image of tool.

    Service Desk Maturity Assessment Tool

    Image of tool.

    Service Desk Implementation Roadmap

    Image of tool Incident, knowledge, and request management workflows

    Incident, knowledge, and request management workflows

    The project’s key deliverable is a service desk standard operating procedure

    Benefits of documented SOPs:

    Improved training and knowledge transfer: Routine tasks can be delegated to junior staff (freeing senior staff to work on higher priority tasks).

    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.

    Compliance: Compliance audits are more manageable because the documentation is already in place.

    Transparency: Visually documented processes answer the common business question of “why does that take so long?”

    Cost savings: Work solved at first contact or with a minimal number of escalations will result in greater efficiency and more cost-effective support. This will also lead to better customer service.

    Impact of undocumented/undefined 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 built on poorly defined, unoptimized processes leads to inconsistent results.

    Documenting SOPs to prepare for an audit becomes a major time-intensive project.

    Other areas of the organization may not understand how IT operates, which can lead to confusion and unrealistic expectations.

    Support costs are highest through inefficient processes, and proactive work becomes more difficult to schedule, making the organization vulnerable to costly disruptions.

    Workshop Overview

    Image depicts workshop overview occurring over four days.

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

    Phase 1

    Lay Service Desk Foundations

    Step 1.1:Assess current state

    Image shows the steps in phase 1. Highlight is on step 1.1

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 1.1.1 Outline service desk challenges
    • 1.1.2 Assess the service desk maturity

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project Sponsor
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    Alignment on the challenges that the service desk faces, an assessment of the current state of service desk processes and technologies, and baseline metrics against which to measure improvements.

    Deliverables

    • Service Desk Maturity Assessment

    Standardizing the service desk benefits the whole business

    The image depicts 3 circles to represent the service desk foundations.

    Embrace standardization

    • Standardization prevents wasted energy on reinventing solutions to recurring issues.
    • Standardized processes are scalable so that process maturity increases with the size of your organization.

    Increase business satisfaction

    • Improve confidence that the service desk can meet service levels.
    • Create a single point of contact for incidents and requests and escalate quickly.
    • Analyze trends to forecast and meet shifting business requirements.

    Reduce recurring issues

    • Create tickets for every task and categorize them accurately.
    • Generate reliable data to support root-cause analysis.

    Increase efficiency and lower operating costs

    • Empower end users and technicians with a targeted knowledgebase (KB).
    • Cross-train to improve service consistency.

    Case Study: The CIO of Westminster College took stock of existing processes before moving to empower the “helpless desk”

    Scott Lowe helped a small staff of eight IT professionals formalize service desk processes and increase the amount of time available for projects.

    When he joined Westminster College as CIO in 2006, the department faced several infrastructure challenges, including:

    • An unreliable network
    • Aging server replacements and no replacement plan
    • IT was the “department of no”
    • A help desk known as the “helpless desk”
    • A lack of wireless connectivity
    • Internet connection speed that was much too slow

    As the CIO investigated how to address the infrastructure challenges, he realized people cared deeply about how IT spent its time.

    The project load of IT staff increased, with new projects coming in every day.

    With a long project list, it became increasingly important to improve the transparency of project request and prioritization.

    Some weeks, staff spent 80% of their time working on projects. Other weeks, support requirements might leave only 10% for project work.

    He addressed the infrastructure challenges in part by analyzing IT’s routine processes.

    Internally, IT had inefficient support processes that reduced the amount of time they could spend on projects.

    They undertook an internal process analysis effort to identify processes that would have a return on investment if they were improved. The goal was to reduce operational support time so that project time could be increased.

    Five years later, they had a better understanding of the organization's operational support time needs and were able to shift workloads to accommodate projects without compromising support.

    Common challenges experienced by service desk teams

    Unresolved issues

    • Tickets are not created for all incidents.
    • Tickets are lost or escalated to the wrong technicians.
    • Poor data impedes root-cause analysis of incidents.

    Lost resources/accountability

    • Lack of cross-training and knowledge sharing.
    • Lack of skills coverage for critical applications and services.
    • Time is wasted troubleshooting recurring issues.
    • Reports unavailable due to lack of data and poor categorization.

    High cost to resolve

    • Tier 2/3 resolve issues that should be resolved at tier 1.
    • Tier 2/3 often interrupt projects to focus on service support.

    Poor planning

    • Lack of data for effective trend analysis leads to poor demand planning.
    • Lack of data leads to lost opportunities for templating and automation.

    Low business satisfaction

    • Users are unable to get assistance with IT services quickly.
    • Users go to their favorite technician instead of using the service desk.

    Outline the organization’s service desk challenges

    1.1.1 Brainstorm service desk challenges

    Estimated Time: 45 minutes

    A. As a group, outline the areas where you think the service desk is experiencing challenges or weaknesses. Use sticky notes or a whiteboard to separate the challenges into People, Process, and Technology so you have a wholistic view of the constraints across the department.

    B. Think about the following:

    • What have you heard from users? (e.g. slow response time)
    • What have you heard from executives? (e.g. poor communication)
    • What should you start doing? (e.g. documenting processes)
    • What should you stop doing? (e.g. work that is not being entered as tickets)

    C. Document challenges in the Service Desk Project Summary.

    Participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    Assess current service desk maturity to establish a baseline and create a plan for service desk improvement

    A current-state assessment will help you build a foundation for process improvements. Current-state assessments follow a basic formula:

    1. Determine the current state of the service desk.
    2. Determine the desired state of the service desk.
    3. Build a practical path from current to desired state.
    Image depicts 2 circles and a box. The circle on the 1. left has assess current state. The circle on the right has 2. assess target state. The box has 3. build a roadmap.

    Ideally, the current-state assessment should align the delivery of IT services with organizational needs. The assessment should achieve the following goals:

    1. Identify service desk pain points.
    2. Map each pain point to business services.
    3. Assign a broad business value to the resolution of each pain point.
    4. Map each pain point to a process.

    Expert Insight

    Image of expert.

    “How do you know if you aren’t mature enough? Nothing – or everything – is recorded and tracked, customer satisfaction is low, frustration is high, and there are multiple requests and incidents that nobody ever bothers to address.”

    Rob England

    IT Consultant & Commentator

    Owner Two Hills

    Also known as The IT Skeptic

    Assess the process maturity of the service desk to determine which project phase and steps will bring the most value

    1.1.2 Measure which activity will have the greatest impact

    The Service Desk Maturity Assessmenttool helps organizations assess their service desk process maturity and focus the project on the activities that matter most.

    The tool will help guide improvement efforts and measure your progress.

    • The second tab of the tool walks through a qualitative assessment of your service desk practices. Questions will prompt you to evaluate how you are executing key activities. Select the answer in the drop-down menus that most closely aligns with your current state.
    • The third tab displays your rate of process completeness and maturity. You will receive a score for each phase, an overall score, and advice based on your performance.
    • Document the results of the efficiency assessment in the Service Desk Project Summary.

    The tool is intended for periodic use. Review your answers each year and devise initiatives to improve the process performance where you need it most.

    Where do I find the data?

    Consult:

    • Service Manager
    • Service Desk Tools
    Image is the service desk tools.

    Step 1.2:Review service support best practices

    Image shows the steps in phase 1. Highlight is on step 1.2.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    1. 1.2.1 Identify roles and responsibilities in your organization
    2. 1.2.2 Map out the current and target structure of the service desk

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project Sponsor
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    Identifying who is accountable for different support practices in the service desk will allow workload to be distributed effectively between functional teams and individuals. Closing the gaps in responsibilities will enable the execution of a shift-left strategy.

    Deliverables

    • Roles & responsibilities guide
    • Service desk structure

    Everyone in IT contributes to the success of service support

    Regardless of the service desk structure chosen to meet an organization’s service support requirements, IT staff should not doubt the role they play in service support.

    If you try to standardize service desk processes without engaging specialists in other parts of the IT organization, you will fail. Everyone in IT has a role to play in providing service support and meeting service-level agreements.

    Service Support Engagement Plan

    • Identify who is accountable for different service support processes.
    • Outline the different responsibilities of service desk agents at tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 in meeting service-level agreements for service support.
    • Draft operational-level agreements between specialty groups and the service desk to improve accountability.
    • Configure the service desk tool to ensure ticket visibility and ownership across queues.
    • Engage tier 2 and tier 3 resources in building workflows for incident management, request fulfilment, and writing knowledgebase articles.
    • Emphasize the benefits of cooperation across IT silos:
      • Better customer service and end-user satisfaction.
      • Shorter time to resolve incidents and implement requests.
      • A higher tier 1 resolution rate, more efficient escalations, and fewer interruptions from project work.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Specialists tend to distance themselves from service support as they progress through their career to focus on projects.

    However, their cooperation is critical to the success of the new service desk. Not only do they contribute to the knowledgebase, but they also handle escalations from tiers 1 and 2.

    Clear project complications by leveraging roles and responsibilities

    R

    Responsible: This person is the staff member who completes the work. Assign at least one Responsible for each task, but this could be more than one.

    A

    Accountable: This team member delegates a task and is the last person to review deliverables and/or task. Sometimes Responsible and Accountable can be the same staff. Make sure that you always assign only one Accountable for each task and not more.

    C

    Consulted: People who do not carry out the task but need to be consulted. Typically, these people are subject matter experts or stakeholders.

    I

    Informed: People who receive information about process execution and quality and need to stay informed regarding the task.

    A RACI analysis is helpful with the following:

    • Workload Balancing: Allowing responsibilities to be distributed effectively between functional teams and individuals.
    • Change Management: Ensuring key functions and processes are not overlooked during organizational changes.
    • Onboarding: New employees can identify their own roles and responsibilities.

    A RACI chart outlines which positions are Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed

    Image shows example of RACI chart

    Create a list of roles and responsibilities in your organization

    1.2.1 Create RACI matrix to define responsibilities

    1. Use the Service Desk Roles and Responsibilities Guidefor a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities of different service desk tiers.
    2. In the RACI chart, replace the top row with specific roles in your organization.
    3. Modify or expand the process tasks, as needed, in the left column.
    4. For each role, identify the responsibility values that the person brings to the service desk. Fill out each column.
    5. Document in the Service Desk SOP. Schedule a time to share the results with organization leads.
    6. Distribute the chart between all teams in your organization.

    Notes:

    • Assign one Accountable for each task.
    • Have at least one Responsible for each task.
    • Avoid generic responsibilities, such as “team meetings.”
    • Keep your RACI definitions in your documents, as they are sometimes tough to remember.

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You'll Need

    • Service Desk SOP
    • Roles and Responsibilities Guide
    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Build a single point of contact for the service desk

    Regardless of the service desk structure chosen to meet your service support requirements, end users should be in no doubt about how to access the service.

    Provide end users with:

    • A single phone number.
    • A single email address.
    • A single web portal for all incidents and requests.

    A single point of contact will ensure:

    • An agent is available to field incidents and requests.
    • Incidents and requests are prioritized according to impact and urgency.
    • Work is tracked to completion.

    This prevents ad hoc ticket channels such as shoulder grabs or direct emails, chats, or calls to a technician from interrupting work.

    A single point of contact does not mean the service desk is only accessible through one intake channel, but rather all tickets are directed to the service desk (i.e. tier 1) to be resolved or redirected appropriately.

    Image depicts 2 boxes. The smaller box labelled users and the larger box labelled Service Desk Tier 1. There are four double-sided arrows. The top is labelled email, the second is walk-in, the third is phone, the fourth is web portal.

    Directors and executives understand the importance of the service desk and believe IT can do better

    A double bar graph is depicted. The blue bars represent Effectiveness and the green bars represent Importance in terms of service desk at different seniority levels, which include frontline, manager, director, and executive.

    Source: Info-Tech, 2019 Responses (N=189 organizations)

    Service Desk Importance Scores

      No Importance: 1.0-6.9
      Limited Importance: 7.0-7.9
      Significant Importance: 8.0-8.9
      Critical Importance: 9.0-10.0

    Service Desk Effectiveness Scores

      Not in Place: N/A
      Not Effective: 0.0-4.9
      Somewhat Ineffective: 5.0-5.9
      Somewhat Effective: 6.0-6.9
      Very Effective: 7.0-10.0

    Info-Tech Research Group’s IT Management and Governance Diagnostic (MGD) program assesses the importance and effectiveness of core IT processes. Since its inception, the MGD has consistently identified the service desk as an area to leverage.

    Business stakeholders consistently rank the service desk as one of the top five most important services that IT provides

    Since 2013, Info-Tech has surveyed over 40,000 business stakeholders as part of our CIO Business Vision program.

    Business stakeholders ranked the following 12 core IT services in terms of importance:

    Learn more about the CIO Business Vision Program.
    *Note: IT Security was added to CIO Business Vision 2.0 in 2019

    Top IT Services for Business Stakeholders

    1. Network Infrastructure
    2. IT Security*
    3. Data Quality
    4. Service Desk
    5. Business Applications
    6. Devices
    7. Client-Facing Technology
    8. Analytical Capability
    9. IT Innovation Leadership
    10. Projects
    11. Work Orders
    12. IT Policies
    13. Requirements Gathering
    Source: Info-Tech Research Group, 2019 (N=224 organizations)

    Having an effective and timely service desk correlates with higher end-user satisfaction with all other IT services

    A double bar graph is depicted. The blue bar represents dissatisfied ender user, and the green bar represents satisfied end user. The bars show the average of dissatisfied and satisfied end users for service desk effectiveness and service desk timeliness.

    On average, organizations that were satisfied with service desk effectiveness rated all other IT processes 46% higher than dissatisfied end users.

    Organizations that were satisfied with service desk timeliness rated all other IT processes 37% higher than dissatisfied end users.
    “Satisfied” organizations had average scores =8.“Dissatisfied" organizations had average scores “Dissatisfied" organizations had average scores =6. Source: Info-Tech Research Group, 2019 (N=18,500+ respondents from 75 organizations)

    Standardize the service desk the Info-Tech way to get measurable results

    More than one hundred organizations engaged with Info-Tech, through advisory calls and workshops, for their service desk projects in 2016. Their goal was either to improve an existing service desk or build one from scratch.

    Organizations that estimate the business impact of each project phase help us shed light on the average measured value of the engagements.

    "The analysts are an amazing resource for this project. Their approach is very methodical, and they have the ability to fill in the big picture with detailed, actionable steps. There is a real opportunity for us to get off the treadmill and make real IT service management improvements"

    - Rod Gula, IT Director

    American Realty Advisors

    Three circles are depicted. The top circle shows the sum of measured value dollar impact which is US$1,659,493.37. The middle circle shows the average measured value dollar impact which is US$19,755.87. The bottom circle shows the average measured value time saved which is 27 days.

    Info-Tech’s approach to service desk standardization focuses on building service management essentials

    This image depicts all of the phases and steps in this blueprint.

    Info-Tech draws on the COBIT framework, which focuses on consistent delivery of IT services across the organization

    This image depicts research that can be used to improve IT processes. Service Desk is circled to demonstrate which research is being used.

    The service desk is the foundation of all other service management processes.

    The image shows how the service desk is a foundation for other service management processes.

    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

    Standardize the Service Desk – project overview

    This image shows the project overview of this blueprint.

    Info-Tech delivers: Use our tools and templates to accelerate your project to completion

    Project Summary

    Image of template.

    Service Desk Standard Operating Procedures

    Image of tool.

    Service Desk Maturity Assessment Tool

    Image of tool.

    Service Desk Implementation Roadmap

    Image of tool Incident, knowledge, and request management workflows

    Incident, knowledge, and request management workflows

    The project’s key deliverable is a service desk standard operating procedure

    Benefits of documented SOPs:

    Improved training and knowledge transfer: Routine tasks can be delegated to junior staff (freeing senior staff to work on higher priority tasks).

    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.

    Compliance: Compliance audits are more manageable because the documentation is already in place.

    Transparency: Visually documented processes answer the common business question of “why does that take so long?”

    Cost savings: Work solved at first contact or with a minimal number of escalations will result in greater efficiency and more cost-effective support. This will also lead to better customer service.

    Impact of undocumented/undefined 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 built on poorly defined, unoptimized processes leads to inconsistent results.

    Documenting SOPs to prepare for an audit becomes a major time-intensive project.

    Other areas of the organization may not understand how IT operates, which can lead to confusion and unrealistic expectations.

    Support costs are highest through inefficient processes, and proactive work becomes more difficult to schedule, making the organization vulnerable to costly disruptions.

    Workshop Overview

    Image depicts workshop overview occurring over four days.

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

    Phase 1

    Lay Service Desk Foundations

    Step 1.1:Assess current state

    Image shows the steps in phase 1. Highlight is on step 1.1

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 1.1.1 Outline service desk challenges
    • 1.1.2 Assess the service desk maturity

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project Sponsor
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    Alignment on the challenges that the service desk faces, an assessment of the current state of service desk processes and technologies, and baseline metrics against which to measure improvements.

    Deliverables

    • Service Desk Maturity Assessment

    Standardizing the service desk benefits the whole business

    The image depicts 3 circles to represent the service desk foundations.

    Embrace standardization

    • Standardization prevents wasted energy on reinventing solutions to recurring issues.
    • Standardized processes are scalable so that process maturity increases with the size of your organization.

    Increase business satisfaction

    • Improve confidence that the service desk can meet service levels.
    • Create a single point of contact for incidents and requests and escalate quickly.
    • Analyze trends to forecast and meet shifting business requirements.

    Reduce recurring issues

    • Create tickets for every task and categorize them accurately.
    • Generate reliable data to support root-cause analysis.

    Increase efficiency and lower operating costs

    • Empower end users and technicians with a targeted knowledgebase (KB).
    • Cross-train to improve service consistency.

    Case Study: The CIO of Westminster College took stock of existing processes before moving to empower the “helpless desk”

    Scott Lowe helped a small staff of eight IT professionals formalize service desk processes and increase the amount of time available for projects.

    When he joined Westminster College as CIO in 2006, the department faced several infrastructure challenges, including:

    • An unreliable network
    • Aging server replacements and no replacement plan
    • IT was the “department of no”
    • A help desk known as the “helpless desk”
    • A lack of wireless connectivity
    • Internet connection speed that was much too slow

    As the CIO investigated how to address the infrastructure challenges, he realized people cared deeply about how IT spent its time.

    The project load of IT staff increased, with new projects coming in every day.

    With a long project list, it became increasingly important to improve the transparency of project request and prioritization.

    Some weeks, staff spent 80% of their time working on projects. Other weeks, support requirements might leave only 10% for project work.

    He addressed the infrastructure challenges in part by analyzing IT’s routine processes.

    Internally, IT had inefficient support processes that reduced the amount of time they could spend on projects.

    They undertook an internal process analysis effort to identify processes that would have a return on investment if they were improved. The goal was to reduce operational support time so that project time could be increased.

    Five years later, they had a better understanding of the organization's operational support time needs and were able to shift workloads to accommodate projects without compromising support.

    Common challenges experienced by service desk teams

    Unresolved issues

    • Tickets are not created for all incidents.
    • Tickets are lost or escalated to the wrong technicians.
    • Poor data impedes root-cause analysis of incidents.

    Lost resources/accountability

    • Lack of cross-training and knowledge sharing.
    • Lack of skills coverage for critical applications and services.
    • Time is wasted troubleshooting recurring issues.
    • Reports unavailable due to lack of data and poor categorization.

    High cost to resolve

    • Tier 2/3 resolve issues that should be resolved at tier 1.
    • Tier 2/3 often interrupt projects to focus on service support.

    Poor planning

    • Lack of data for effective trend analysis leads to poor demand planning.
    • Lack of data leads to lost opportunities for templating and automation.

    Low business satisfaction

    • Users are unable to get assistance with IT services quickly.
    • Users go to their favorite technician instead of using the service desk.

    Outline the organization’s service desk challenges

    1.1.1 Brainstorm service desk challenges

    Estimated Time: 45 minutes

    A. As a group, outline the areas where you think the service desk is experiencing challenges or weaknesses. Use sticky notes or a whiteboard to separate the challenges into People, Process, and Technology so you have a wholistic view of the constraints across the department.

    B. Think about the following:

    • What have you heard from users? (e.g. slow response time)
    • What have you heard from executives? (e.g. poor communication)
    • What should you start doing? (e.g. documenting processes)
    • What should you stop doing? (e.g. work that is not being entered as tickets)

    C. Document challenges in the Service Desk Project Summary.

    Participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    Assess current service desk maturity to establish a baseline and create a plan for service desk improvement

    A current-state assessment will help you build a foundation for process improvements. Current-state assessments follow a basic formula:

    1. Determine the current state of the service desk.
    2. Determine the desired state of the service desk.
    3. Build a practical path from current to desired state.
    Image depicts 2 circles and a box. The circle on the 1. left has assess current state. The circle on the right has 2. assess target state. The box has 3. build a roadmap.

    Ideally, the current-state assessment should align the delivery of IT services with organizational needs. The assessment should achieve the following goals:

    1. Identify service desk pain points.
    2. Map each pain point to business services.
    3. Assign a broad business value to the resolution of each pain point.
    4. Map each pain point to a process.

    Expert Insight

    Image of expert.

    “How do you know if you aren’t mature enough? Nothing – or everything – is recorded and tracked, customer satisfaction is low, frustration is high, and there are multiple requests and incidents that nobody ever bothers to address.”

    Rob England

    IT Consultant & Commentator

    Owner Two Hills

    Also known as The IT Skeptic

    Assess the process maturity of the service desk to determine which project phase and steps will bring the most value

    1.1.2 Measure which activity will have the greatest impact

    The Service Desk Maturity Assessmenttool helps organizations assess their service desk process maturity and focus the project on the activities that matter most.

    The tool will help guide improvement efforts and measure your progress.

    • The second tab of the tool walks through a qualitative assessment of your service desk practices. Questions will prompt you to evaluate how you are executing key activities. Select the answer in the drop-down menus that most closely aligns with your current state.
    • The third tab displays your rate of process completeness and maturity. You will receive a score for each phase, an overall score, and advice based on your performance.
    • Document the results of the efficiency assessment in the Service Desk Project Summary.

    The tool is intended for periodic use. Review your answers each year and devise initiatives to improve the process performance where you need it most.

    Where do I find the data?

    Consult:

    • Service Manager
    • Service Desk Tools
    Image is the service desk tools.

    Step 1.2:Review service support best practices

    Image shows the steps in phase 1. Highlight is on step 1.2.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    1. 1.2.1 Identify roles and responsibilities in your organization
    2. 1.2.2 Map out the current and target structure of the service desk

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project Sponsor
    • IT Director, CIO
    • IT Managers and Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    Identifying who is accountable for different support practices in the service desk will allow workload to be distributed effectively between functional teams and individuals. Closing the gaps in responsibilities will enable the execution of a shift-left strategy.

    Deliverables

    • Roles & responsibilities guide
    • Service desk structure

    Everyone in IT contributes to the success of service support

    Regardless of the service desk structure chosen to meet an organization’s service support requirements, IT staff should not doubt the role they play in service support.

    If you try to standardize service desk processes without engaging specialists in other parts of the IT organization, you will fail. Everyone in IT has a role to play in providing service support and meeting service-level agreements.

    Service Support Engagement Plan

    • Identify who is accountable for different service support processes.
    • Outline the different responsibilities of service desk agents at tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 in meeting service-level agreements for service support.
    • Draft operational-level agreements between specialty groups and the service desk to improve accountability.
    • Configure the service desk tool to ensure ticket visibility and ownership across queues.
    • Engage tier 2 and tier 3 resources in building workflows for incident management, request fulfilment, and writing knowledgebase articles.
    • Emphasize the benefits of cooperation across IT silos:
      • Better customer service and end-user satisfaction.
      • Shorter time to resolve incidents and implement requests.
      • A higher tier 1 resolution rate, more efficient escalations, and fewer interruptions from project work.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Specialists tend to distance themselves from service support as they progress through their career to focus on projects.

    However, their cooperation is critical to the success of the new service desk. Not only do they contribute to the knowledgebase, but they also handle escalations from tiers 1 and 2.

    Clear project complications by leveraging roles and responsibilities

    R

    Responsible: This person is the staff member who completes the work. Assign at least one Responsible for each task, but this could be more than one.

    A

    Accountable: This team member delegates a task and is the last person to review deliverables and/or task. Sometimes Responsible and Accountable can be the same staff. Make sure that you always assign only one Accountable for each task and not more.

    C

    Consulted: People who do not carry out the task but need to be consulted. Typically, these people are subject matter experts or stakeholders.

    I

    Informed: People who receive information about process execution and quality and need to stay informed regarding the task.

    A RACI analysis is helpful with the following:

    • Workload Balancing: Allowing responsibilities to be distributed effectively between functional teams and individuals.
    • Change Management: Ensuring key functions and processes are not overlooked during organizational changes.
    • Onboarding: New employees can identify their own roles and responsibilities.

    A RACI chart outlines which positions are Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed

    Image shows example of RACI chart

    Create a list of roles and responsibilities in your organization

    1.2.1 Create RACI matrix to define responsibilities

    1. Use the Service Desk Roles and Responsibilities Guidefor a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities of different service desk tiers.
    2. In the RACI chart, replace the top row with specific roles in your organization.
    3. Modify or expand the process tasks, as needed, in the left column.
    4. For each role, identify the responsibility values that the person brings to the service desk. Fill out each column.
    5. Document in the Service Desk SOP. Schedule a time to share the results with organization leads.
    6. Distribute the chart between all teams in your organization.

    Notes:

    • Assign one Accountable for each task.
    • Have at least one Responsible for each task.
    • Avoid generic responsibilities, such as “team meetings.”
    • Keep your RACI definitions in your documents, as they are sometimes tough to remember.

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You'll Need

    • Service Desk SOP
    • Roles and Responsibilities Guide
    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Build a tiered generalist service desk to optimize costs

    A tiered generalist service desk with a first-tier resolution rate greater than 60% has the best operating cost and customer satisfaction of all competing service desk structural models.

    Image depicts a tiered generalist service desk example. It shows a flow from users to tier 1 and to tiers 2 and 3.

    The success of a tiered generalist model depends on standardized, defined processes

    Image lists the processes and benefits of a successful tiered generalist service desk.

    Define the structure of the service desk

    1.2.2 Map out the current and target structure of the service desk

    Estimated Time: 45 minutes

    Instructions:

    1. Using the model from the previous slides as a guide, discuss how closely it matches the current service desk structure.
    2. Map out a similar diagram of your existing service desk structure, intake channels, and escalation paths.
    3. Review the structure and discuss any changes that could be made to improve efficiency. Revise as needed.
    4. Document the outcome in the Service Desk Project Summary.

    Image depicts a tiered generalist service desk example. It shows a flow from users to tier 1 and to tiers 2 and 3.

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    Use a shift-left strategy to lower service support costs, reduce time to resolve, and improve end-user satisfaction

    Shift-left strategy:

    • Shift service support tasks from specialists to generalists.
    • Implement self-service.
    • Automate incident resolution.
    Image shows the incident and service request resolution in a graph. It includes metrics of cost per ticket, average time to resolve, and end-user satisfaction.

    Work through the implications of adopting a shift-left strategy

    Overview:

    Identify process gaps that you need to fill to support the shift-left strategy and discuss how you could adopt or improve the shift-left strategy, using the discussion questions below as a guide.

    Which process gaps do you need to fill to identify ticket trends?

    • What are your most common incidents and service requests?
    • Which tickets could be resolved at tier 1?
    • Which tickets could be resolved as self-service tickets?
    • Which tickets could be automated?

    Which processes do you most need to improve to support a shift-left strategy?

    • Which incident and request processes are well documented?
    • Do you have recurring tickets that could be automated?
    • What is the state of your knowledgebase maintenance process?
    • Which articles do you most need to support tier 1 resolution?
    • What is the state of your web portal? How could it be improved to support self-service?

    Document in the Project Summary

    Step 1.3: Identify service desk metrics and reports

    Image shows the steps in phase 1. Highlight is on step 1.3.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 1.3 Create a list of required reports to identify relevant metrics

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project Sponsor
    • IT Managers and Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    Managers and analysts will have service desk metrics and reports that help set expectations and communicate service desk performance.

    Deliverables

    • A list of service desk performance metrics and reports

    Engage business unit leaders with data to appreciate needs

    Service desk reports are an opportunity to communicate the story of IT and collect stakeholder feedback. Interview business unit leaders and look for opportunities to improve IT services.

    Start with the following questions:

    • What are you hearing from your team about working with IT?
    • What are the issues that are contributing to productivity losses?
    • What are the workarounds your team does because something isn’t working?
    • Are you able to access the information you need?

    Work with business unit leaders to develop an action plan.

    Remember to communicate what you do to address stakeholder grievances.

    The service recovery paradox is a situation in which end users think more highly of IT after the organization has corrected a problem with their service compared to how they would regard the company if the service had not been faulty in the first place.

    The point is that addressing issues (and being seen to address issues) will significantly improve end-user satisfaction. Communicate that you’re listening and acting, and you should see satisfaction improve.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Presentation is everything:

    If you are presenting outside of IT, or using operational metrics to create strategic information, be prepared to:

    • Discuss trends.
    • Identify organizational and departmental impacts.
    • Assess IT costs and productivity.

    For example, “Number of incidents with ERP system has decreased by 5% after our last patch release. We are working on the next set of changes and expect the issues to continue to decrease.”

    Engage technicians to ensure they input quality data in the service desk tool

    You need better data to address problems. Communicate to the technical team what you need from them and how their efforts contribute to the usefulness of reports.

    Tickets MUST:

    • Be created for all incidents and service requests.
    • Be categorized correctly, and categories updated when the ticket is resolved.
    • Be closed after the incidents and service requests are resolved or implemented.

    Emphasize that reports are analyzed regularly and used to manage costs, improve services, and request more resources.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Service Desk Manager: Technical staff can help themselves analyze the backlog and improve service metrics if they’re looking at the right information. Ensure their service desk dashboards are helping them identify high-priority and quick-win tickets and anticipate potential SLA breaches.

    Produce service desk reports targeted to improve IT services

    Use metrics and reports to tell the story of IT.

    Metrics should be tied to business requirements and show how well IT is meeting those requirements and where obstacles exist.

    Tailor metrics and reports to specific stakeholders.

    Technicians require mostly real-time information in the form of a dashboard, providing visibility into a prioritized list of tickets for which they are responsible.

    Supervisors need tactical information to manage the team and set client expectations as well as track and meet strategic goals.

    Managers and executives need summary information that supports strategic goals. Start by looking at executive goals for the support team and then working through some of the more tactical data that will help support those goals.

    One metric doesn’t give you the whole picture

    • Don’t put too much emphasis on a single metric. At best, it will give you a distorted picture of your service desk performance. At worst, it will distort the behavior of your agents as they may adopt poor practices to meet the metric.
    • The solution is to use tension metrics: metrics that work together to give you a better sense of the state of operations.
    • Tension metrics ensure a balanced focus toward shared goals.

    Example:

    First-call resolution (FCR), end-user satisfaction, and number of tickets reopened all work together to give you a complete picture. As FCR goes up, so should end-user satisfaction, as number of tickets re-opened stays steady or declines. If the three metrics are heading in different directions, then you know you have a problem.

    Rely on internal metrics to measure and improve performance

    External metrics provide useful context, but they represent broad generalizations across different industries and organizations of different sizes. Internal metrics measured annually are more reliable.

    Internal metrics provide you with information about your actual performance. With the right continual improvement process, you can improve those metrics year over year, which is a better measure of the performance of your service desk.

    Whether a given metric is the right one for your service desk will depend on several different factors, not the least of which include:

    • The maturity of your service desk processes.
    • Your ticket volume.
    • The complexity of your tickets.
    • The degree to which your end users are comfortable with self-service.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Take external metrics with a grain of salt. Most benchmarks represent what service desks do across different industries, not what they should do. There also might be significant differences between different industries in terms of the kinds of tickets they deal with, differences which the overall average obscures.

    Use key service desk metrics to build a business case for service support improvements

    The right metrics can tell the business how hard IT works and how many resources it needs to perform:

    1. End-User Satisfactions:
      • The most important metric for measuring the perceived value of the service desk. Determine this based on a robust annual satisfaction survey of end users and transactional satisfaction surveys sent with a percentage of tickets.
    2. Ticket Volume and Cost per Ticket:
      • A key indicator of service desk efficiency, computed as the monthly operating expense divided by the average ticket volume per month.
    3. First-Contact Resolution Rate:
      • The biggest driver of end-user satisfaction. Depending on the kind of tickets you deal with, you can measure first-contact, first-tier, or first-day resolution.
    4. Average Time to Resolve (Incident) or Fulfill (Service Requests):
      • An assessment of the service desk's ability to resolve tickets effectively, measuring the time elapsed between the moment the ticket status is set to “open” and the moment it is set to “resolved.”

    Info-Tech Insight

    Metrics should be tied to business requirements. They tell the story of how well IT is meeting those requirements and help identify when obstacles get in the way. The latter can be done by pointing to discrepancies between the internal metrics you expected to reach but didn’t and external metrics you trust.

    Use service desk metrics to track progress toward strategic, operational, and tactical goals

    Image depicts a chart to show the various metrics in terms of strategic goals, tactical goals, and operational goals.

    Cost per ticket and customer satisfaction are the foundation metrics of service support

    Ultimately, everything boils down to cost containment (measured by cost per ticket) and quality of service (measured by customer satisfaction).

    Cost per ticket is a measure of the efficiency of service support:

    • A higher than average cost per ticket is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly if accompanied by higher-than-average quality levels.
    • Conversely, a low cost per ticket is not necessarily good, particularly if the low cost is achieved by sacrificing quality of service.

    Cost per ticket is the total monthly operating expense of the service desk divided by the monthly ticket volume. Operating expense includes the following components:

    • Salaries and benefits for desktop support technicians
    • Salaries and benefits for indirect personnel (team leads, supervisors, workforce schedulers, dispatchers, QA/QC personnel, trainers, and managers)
    • Technology expense (e.g. computers, software licensing fees)
    • Telecommunications expenses
    • Facilities expenses (e.g. office space, utilities, insurance)
    • Travel, training, and office supplies
    Image displays a pie chart that shows the various service desk costs.

    Create a list of required reports to identify metrics to track

    1.3.1 Start by identifying the reports you need, then identify the metrics that produce them

    1. Answer the following questions to determine the data your reports require:
      • What strategic initiatives do you need to track?
        • Example: reducing mean time to resolve, meeting SLAs
      • What operational areas need attention?
        • Example: recurring issues that need a permanent resolution
      • What kind of issues do you want to solve?
        • Example: automate tasks such as password reset or software distribution
      • What decisions or processes are held up due to lack of information?
        • Example: need to build a business case to justify infrastructure upgrades
      • How can the data be used to improve services to the business?
        • Example: recurring issues by department
    2. Document report and metrics requirements in Service Desk SOP.
    3. Provide the list to your tool administrator to create reports with auto-distribution.

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You'll Need

    • Service Desk SOP
    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Step 1.4: Review ticket handling procedures

    Image shows the steps in phase 1. Highlight is on step 1.4.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 1.4.1 Review ticket handling practices
    • 1.4.2 Identify opportunities to automate ticket creation and reduce recurring tickets

    This step involves the following participants:

    • Project Sponsor
    • IT Managers and Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    Managers and analysts will have best practices for ticket handling and troubleshooting to support ITSM data quality and improve first-tier resolution.

    DELIVERABLES

    • List of ticket templates and recurring tickets
    • Ticket and Call QA Template and ticket handling best practices

    Start by reviewing the incident intake process to find opportunities for improvement

    If end users are avoiding your service desk, you may have an intake problem. Create alternative ways for users to seek help to manage the volume; keep in mind not every request is an emergency.

    Image shows the various intake channels and the recommendation.

    Identify opportunities for improvement in your ticket channels

    The two most efficient intake channels should be encouraged for the majority of tickets.

    • Build a self-service portal.
      • Do users know where to find the portal?
      • How many tickets are created through the portal?
      • Is the interface easy to use?
    • Deal efficiently with email.
      • How quickly are messages picked up?
      • Are they manually transferred to a ticket or does the service desk tool automatically create a ticket?

    The two most traditional and fastest methods to get help must deal with emergencies and escalation effectively.

    • Phone should be the fastest way to get help for emergencies.
      • Are enough agents answering calls?
      • Are voicemails picked up on time?
      • Are the automated call routing prompts clear and concise?
    • Are walk-ins permitted and formalized?
      • Do you always have someone at the desk?
      • Is your equipment secure?
      • Are walk-ins common because no one picks up the phone or is the traffic as you’d expect?

    Ensure technicians create tickets for all incidents and requests

    Why Collect Ticket Data?

    If many tickets are missing, help service support staff understand the need to collect the data. Reports will be inaccurate and meaningless if quality data isn’t entered into the ticketing system.

    Image shows example of ticket data

    Set ticket handling expectations to drive a consistent process

    Set expectations:

    • Create and update tickets, but not at the expense of good customer service. Agents can start the ticket but shouldn’t spend five minutes creating the ticket when they should be troubleshooting the problem.
    • Update the ticket when the issue is resolved or needs to be escalated. If agents are escalating, they should make sure all relevant information is passed along to the next technician.
    • Update user of ETA if issue cannot be resolved quickly.
    • Ticket templates for common incidents can lead to fast creation, data input, and categorizations. Templates can reduce the time it takes to create tickets from two minutes to 30 seconds.
    • Update categories to reflect the actual issue and resolution.
    • Reference or link to the knowledgebase article as the documented steps taken to resolve the incident.
    • Validate incident is resolved with client; automate this process with ticket closure after a certain time.
    • Close or resolve the ticket on time.

    Use the Ticket and Call Quality Assessment Tool to improve the quality of service desk data

    Build a process to check-in on ticket and call quality monthly

    Better data leads to better decisions. Use the Ticket and Call Quality Assessment Toolto check-in on the ticket and call quality monthly for each technician and improve service desk data quality.

    1. Fill tab 1 with technician’s name.
    2. Use either tab 2 (auto-scoring) or tab 3 (manual scoring) to score the agent. The assessment includes ticket evaluation, call evaluation, and overall metric.
    3. Record the results of each review in the score summary of tab 1.
    Image shows tool.

    Use ticket templates to make ticket creation, updating, and resolution more efficient

    A screenshot of the Ticket and Call Quality Assessment Tool

    Implement measures to improve ticket handling and identify ticket template candidates

    1.4.1 Identify opportunities to automate ticket creation

    1. Poll the team and discuss.
      • How many members of the team are not creating tickets? Why?
      • How can we address those barriers?
      • What are the expectations of management?
    2. Brainstorm five to ten good candidates for ticket templates.
      • What data can auto-fill?
      • What will help process the ticket faster?
      • What automations can we build to ensure a fast, consistent service?
      • Note:
        • Ticket template name
        • Information that will auto-fill from AD and other applications
        • Categories and resolution codes
        • Automated routing and email responses
    3. Document ticket template candidates in the Service Desk Roadmap to capture the actions.

    Participants

    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You'll Needs

    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Phase 2

    Design Incident Management Processes

    Step 2.1: Build incident management workflows

    Image shows the steps in phase 2. Highlight is on step 2.1.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 2.1.1 Review incident management challenges
    • 2.1.2 Define the incident management workflow
    • 2.1.3 Define the critical incident management workflow
    • 2.1.4 Design critical incident communication plan

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    Workflows for incident management and critical incident management will improve the consistency and quality of service delivery and prepare the service desk to negotiate reliable service levels with the organization.

    DELIVERABLES

    • Incident management workflows
    • Critical incident management workflows
    • Critical incident communication plan

    Communicate the great incident resolution work that you do to improve end-user satisfaction

    End users think more highly of IT after the organization has corrected a problem with their service than they would have had the service not been faulty in the first place.

    Image displays a graph to show the service recovery paradox

    Info-Tech Insight

    Use the service recovery paradox to your advantage. Address service desk challenges explicitly, develop incident management processes that get services back online quickly, and communicate the changes.

    If you show that the service desk recovered well from the challenges end users raised, you will get greater loyalty from them.

    Assign incident roles and responsibilities to promote accountability

    The role of an incident coordinator or manager can be assigned to anyone inside the service desk that has a strong knowledge of incident resolution, attention to detail, and knows how to herd cats.

    In organizations with high ticket volumes, a separate role may be necessary.

    Everyone must recognize that incident management is a cross-IT organization process and it does not have to be a unique service desk process.

    An incident coordinator is responsible for:

    • Improving incident management processes.
    • Tracking metrics and producing reports.
    • Developing and maintaining the incident management system.
    • Developing and maintaining critical incident processes.
    • Ensuring the service support team follows the incident management process.
    • Gathering post-mortem information from the various technical resources on root cause for critical or severity 1 incidents.

    The Director of IT Services invested in incident management to improve responsiveness and set end-user expectations

    Practitioner Insight

    Ben Rodrigues developed a progressive plan to create a responsive, service-oriented culture for the service support organization.

    "When I joined the organization, there wasn’t a service desk. People just phoned, emailed, maybe left [sticky] notes for who they thought in IT would resolve it. There wasn’t a lot of investment in developing clear processes. It was ‘Let’s call somebody in IT.’

    I set up the service desk to clarify what we would do for end users and to establish some SLAs.

    I didn’t commit to service levels right away. I needed to see how many resources and what skill sets I would need. I started by drafting some SLA targets and plugging them into our tracking application. I then monitored how we did on certain things and established if we needed other skill sets. Then I communicated those SOPs to the business, so that ‘if you have an issue, this is where you go, and this is how you do it,’ and then shared those KPIs with them.

    I had monthly meetings with different function heads to say, ‘this is what I see your guys calling me about,’ and we worked on something together to make some of the pain disappear."

    -Ben Rodrigues

    Director, IT Services

    Gamma Dynacare

    Sketch out incident management challenges to focus improvements

    Common Incident Management Challenges

    End Users

    • No faith in the service desk beyond speaking with their favorite technician.
    • No expectations for response or resolution time.
    • Non-IT staff are disrupted as people ask their colleagues for IT advice.

    Technicians

    • No one manages and escalates incidents.
    • Incidents are unnecessarily urgent and more likely to have a greater impact.
    • Agents are flooded with requests to do routine tasks during desk visits.
    • Specialist support staff are subject to constant interruptions.
    • Tickets are lost, incomplete, or escalated incorrectly.
    • Incidents are resolved from scratch rather than referring to existing solutions.

    Managers

    • Tickets are incomplete or lack historical information to address complaints.
    • Tickets in system don’t match the perceived workload.
    • Unable to gather data for budgeting or business analysis.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Consistent incident management processes will improve end-user satisfaction with all other IT services.

    However, be prepared to overcome these common obstacles as you put the process in place, including:

    • Absence of management or staff commitment.
    • Lack of clarity on organizational needs.
    • Outdated work practices.
    • Poorly defined service desk goals and responsibilities.
    • Lack of a reliable knowledgebase.
    • Inadequate training.
    • Resistance to change.

    Prepare to implement or improve incident management

    2.1.1 Review incident management challenges and metrics

    1. Review your incident management challenges and the benefits of addressing them.
    2. Review the level of service you are providing with the current resources. Define clear goals and deliverables for the improvement initiative.
    3. Decide how the incident management process will interface with the service desk. Who will take on the responsibility for resolving incidents? Specifically, who will:
      • Log incidents.
      • Perform initial incident troubleshooting.
      • Own and monitor tickets.
      • Communicate with end users.
      • Update records with the resolution.
      • Close incidents.
      • Implement next steps (e.g. initiate problem management).
    4. Document recommendations and the incident management process requirements in the Service Desk SOP.

    Participants

    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You’ll Need

    • Service Desk SOP
    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Distinguish between different kinds of tickets for better SLAs

    Different ticket types are associated with radically different prioritization, routing, and service levels. For instance, most incidents are resolved within a business day, but requests take longer to implement.

    If you fail to distinguish between ticket types, your metrics will obscure service desk performance.

    Common Service Desk Tickets

    • Incidents
      • An unanticipated interruption of a service.
        • The goal of incident management is to restore the service as soon as possible, even if the resolution involves a workaround.
    • Problems
      • The root cause of several incidents.
        • The goal of problem management is to detect the root cause and provide long-term resolution and prevention.
    • Requests
      • A generic description for small changes or service access
        • Requests are small, frequent, and low risk. They are best handled by a process distinct from incident, change, and project management.
    • Changes
      • Modification or removal of anything that could influence IT services.
        • The scope includes significant changes to architectures, processes, tools, metrics, and documentation.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Organizations sometimes mistakenly classify small projects as service requests, which can compromise your data, resulting in a negative impact to the perceived value of the service desk.

    Separate incidents and service requests for increased customer service and better-defined SLAs

    Defining the differences between service requests and incidents is not just for reporting purposes. It also has a major impact on how service is delivered.

    Incidents are unexpected disruptions to normal business processes and require attempts to restore services as soon as possible (e.g. the printer is not working).

    Service requests are tasks that don’t involve something that is broken or has an immediate impact on services. They do not require immediate resolution and can typically be scheduled (e.g. new software).

    Image shows a chart on incidents and service requests.

    Focus on the big picture first to capture and streamline how your organization resolves incidents

    Image displays a flow chart to show how to organize resolving incidents.

    Document your incident management workflow to identify opportunities for improvement

    Image shows a flow cart on how to organize incident management.

    Workflow should include:

    • Ticket creation and closure
    • Triage
    • Troubleshooting
    • Escalations
    • Communications
    • Change management
    • Documentation
    • Vendor escalations

    Notes:

    • Notification and alerts should be used to set or reset expectations on delivery or resolution
    • Identify all the steps where a customer is informed and ensure we are not over or under communicating

    Collaborate to define each step of the incident management workflow

    2.1.2 Define the incident management workflow

    Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    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. Engage the team in refining the process workflow.
    4. 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 Service Desk SOP.

    Participants

    • Service Manager
    • Service Desk Support
    • Applications or Infrastructure Support

    What You’ll Need

    • Flip Chart Paper
    • Sticky Notes
    • Pens
    • Service Desk SOP
    • Project Summary

    Formalize the process for critical incident management to reduce organizational impact

    Discuss these elements to see how the organization will handle them.

    • Communication plan:
      • Who communicates with end users?
      • Who communicates with the executive team?
    • It’s important to separate the role of the technician trying to solve a problem with the need to communicate progress.
    • Change management:
    • Define a separate process for regular and emergency change management to ensure changes are timely and appropriate.
    • Business continuity plan:
    • Identify criteria to decide when a business continuity plan (BCP) must be implemented during a critical incident to minimize the business impact of the incident.
    • Post-mortems:
    • Formalize the process of discussing and documenting lessons learned, understanding outstanding issues, and addressing the root cause of incidents.
    • Source of incident notification:
    • Does the process change if users notify the service desk of an issue or if the systems management tools alert technicians?

    Critical incidents are high-impact, high-urgency events that put the effectiveness and timeliness of the service desk center stage.

    Build a workflow that focuses on quickly bringing together the right people to resolve the incident and reduces the chances of recurrence.

    Document your critical incident management workflow to identify opportunities for improvement

    Image shows a flow cart on how to organize critical incident management.

    Workflow should include:

    • Ticket creation and closure
    • Triage
    • Troubleshooting
    • Escalations
    • Communications plan
    • Change management
    • Disaster recovery or business continuity plan
    • Documentation
    • Vendor escalations
    • Post-mortem

    Collaborate to define each step of the critical incident management workflow

    2.1.3 Define the critical incident management workflow

    Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    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. Engage the team in refining the process workflow.
    4. 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 Service Desk SOP.

    Participants

    • Service Manager
    • Service Desk Support
    • Applications or Infrastructure Support

    What You’ll Need

    • Flip Chart Paper
    • Sticky Notes
    • Pens
    • Service Desk SOP

    Establish a critical incident management communication plan

    When it comes to communicating during major incidents, it’s important to get the information just right. Users don’t want too little, they don’t want too much, they just want what’s relevant to them, and they want that information at the right time.

    As an IT professional, you may not have a background in communications, but it becomes an important part of your job. Broad guidelines for good communication during a critical incident are:

    1. Communicate as broadly as the impact of your incident requires.
    2. Communicate as much detail as a specific audience requires, but no more than necessary.
    3. Communicate as far ahead of impact as possible.

    Why does communication matter?

    Sending the wrong message, at the wrong time, to the wrong stakeholders, can result in:

    • Drop in customer satisfaction.
    • Wasted time and resources from multiple customers contacting you with the same issue.
    • Dissatisfied executives kept in the dark.
    • Increased resolution time if the relevant providers and IT staff are not informed soon enough to help.

    Info-Tech Insight

    End users understand that sometimes things break. What’s important to them is that (1) you don’t repeatedly have the same problem, (2) you keep them informed, and (3) you give them enough notice when their systems will be impacted and when service will be returned.

    Automate communication to save time and deliver consistent messaging to the right stakeholders

    In the middle of resolving a critical incident, the last thing you have time for is worrying about crafting a good message. Create a series of templates to save time by providing automated, tailored messages for each stage of the process that can be quickly altered and sent out to the right stakeholders.

    Once templates are in place, when the incident occurs, it’s simply a matter of:

    1. Choosing the relevant template.
    2. Updating recipients and messaging if necessary.
    3. Adding specific, relevant data and fields.
    4. Sending the message.

    When to communicate?

    Tell users the information they need to know when they need to know it. If a user is directly impacted, tell them that. If the incident does not directly affect the user, the communication may lead to decreased customer satisfaction or failure to pay attention to future relevant messaging.

    What to say?

    • Keep messaging short and to the point.
    • Only say what you know for sure.
    • Provide only the details the audience needs to know to take any necessary action or steps on their side and no more. There’s no need to provide details on the reason for the failure before it’s resolved, though this can be done after resolution and restoration of service.

    You’ll need distinct messages for distinct audiences. For example:

    • To incident resolvers: “Servers X through Y in ABC Location are failing intermittently. Please test the servers and all the connections to determine the exact cause so we can take corrective action ASAP.”
    • To the IT department head: “Servers X through Y in ABC Location are failing intermittently. We are beginning tests. We will let you know when we have determined the exact cause and can give you an estimated completion time.”
    • To executives: “We’re having an issue with some servers at ABC Location. We are testing to determine the cause and will let you know the estimated completion time as soon as possible.”
    • To end users: “We are experience some service issues. We are working on a resolution diligently and will restore service as soon as possible.”

    Map out who will need to be contacted in the event of a critical incident

    2.1.4 Design the critical incident communication plan

    • Identify critical incidents that require communication.
    • Identify stakeholders who will need to be informed about each incident.
    • For each audience, determine:
      1. Frequency of communication
      2. Content of communication
    Use the sample template to the right as an example.

    Some questions to assist you:

    • Whose work will be interrupted, either by their services going down or by their workers having to drop everything to solve the incident?
    • What would happen if we didn’t notify this person?
    • What level of detail do they need?
    • How often would they want to be updated?
    Document outcomes in the Service Desk SOP. Image shows template of unplanned service outage.

    Measure and improve customer satisfaction with the use of relationship and transactional surveys

    Customer experience programs with a combination of relationship and transactional surveys tend to be more effective. Merging the two will give a wholistic picture of the customer experience.

    Relationship Surveys

    Relationship surveys focus on obtaining feedback on the overall customer experience.

    • Inform how well you are doing or where you need improvement in the broad services provided.
    • Provide a high-level perspective on the relationship between the business and IT.
    • Help with strategic improvement decisions.
    • Should be sent over a duration of time and to the entire customer base after they’ve had time to experience all the services provided by the service desk. This can be done as frequently as per quarter or on a yearly basis.
    • E.g. An annual satisfaction survey such as Info-Tech’s End User Satisfaction Diagnostic.

    Transactional Surveys

    Transactional surveys are tied to a specific interaction or transaction your end users have with a specific product or service.

    • Help with tactical improvement decisions.
    • Questions should point to a specific interaction.
    • Usually only a few questions that are quick and easy to complete following the transaction.
    • Since transactional surveys allow you to improve individual relationships, they should be sent shortly after the interaction with the service desk has occurred.
    • E.g. How satisfied are you with the way your ticket was resolved?

    Add transactional end-user surveys at ticket close to escalate unsatisfactory results

    A simple quantitative survey at the closing of a ticket can inform the service desk manager of any issues that were not resolved to the end user’s satisfaction. Take advantage of workflows to escalate poor results immediately for quick follow-up.

    Image shows example of survey question with rating.

    If a more complex survey is required, you may wish to include some of these questions:

    Please rate your overall satisfaction with the way your issue was handled (1=unsatisfactory, 5=fantastic)

    • The professionalism of the analyst.
    • The technical skills or knowledge of the analyst.
    • The timeliness of the service provided.
    • The overall service experience.

    Add an open-ended, qualitative question to put the number in context, and solicit critical feedback:

    What could the service desk have done to improve your experience?

    Define a process to respond to both negative and positive feedback

    Successful customer satisfaction programs respond effectively to both positive and negative outcomes. Late or lack of responses to negative comments may increase customer frustration, while not responding at all to the positive comments may give the perception of indifference. If customers are taking the time to fill out the survey, good or bad, they should be followed up with

    Take these steps to handle survey feedback:

    1. Assign resources to receive, read, and track responses. The entire team doesn’t need to receive every response, while a single resource may not have capacity to respond in a timely manner. Decide what makes the most sense in your environment.
    2. Respond to negative feedback: It may not be possible to respond to every customer that fills out a survey. Set guidelines for responding to negative surveys with no details on the issue; don’t spend time guessing why they were upset, simply ask the user why they were unsatisfied. The critical piece of taking advantage of the service recovery paradox is in the follow-up to the customer.
    3. Investigate and improve: Make sure you investigate the issue to ensure that it is a justified complaint or whether the issue is a symptom of another issue’s root cause. Identify remediation steps to ensure the issue does not repeat itself, and then communicate to the customer the action you have taken to improve.
    4. Act on positive feedback as well: If it’s easy for customers to provide feedback, then make room in your process for handling the positive results. Appreciate the time and effort your customers take to give kudos and use it as a tool to build a long-term relationship with that user. Saying thank you goes a long way and when customers know their time matters, they will be encouraged to fill out those surveys. This is also a good way to show what a great job the service desk team did with the interaction.

    Analyze survey feedback month over month to complement and justify metric results already in place

    When you combine the tracking and analysis of relationship and transactional survey data you will be able to dive into specific issues, identify trends and patterns, assess impact to users, and build a plan to make improvements.

    Once the survey data is centralized, categorized, and available you can start to focus on metrics. At a minimum, for transactional surveys, consider tracking:

    • Breakdown of satisfaction scores with trends over time
    • Unsatisfactory surveys that are related to incidents and service requests
    • Total surveys that have been actioned vs pending

    For relationship surveys, consider tracking:

    • Satisfaction scores by department and seniority level
    • Satisfaction with IT services, applications, and communication
    • Satisfaction with IT’s business enablement

    Scores of overall satisfaction with IT

    Image Source: Info-Tech End User Satisfaction Report

    Prioritize company-wide improvement initiatives by those that have the biggest impact to the entire customer base first and then communicate the plan to the organization using a variety of communication channels that will draw your customers in, e.g. dashboards, newsletters, email alerts.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Consider automating or using your ITSM notification system as a direct communication method to inform the service desk manager of negative survey results.

    Step 2.2: Design ticket categorization

    Image shows the steps in phase 2. Highlight is on step 2.2

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 2.2.1 Assess ticket categorization
    • 2.2.2 Enhance ticket categories with resolution and status codes

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    The reviewed ticket categorization scheme will be easier to use and deploy more consistently, which will improve the categorization of data and the reliability of reports.

    DELIVERABLES

    • Optimized ticket categorization

    Design a ticket classification scheme to produce useful reports

    Reliable reports depend on an effective categorization scheme.

    Too many options cause confusion; too few options provide little value. As you build the classification scheme over the next few slides, let call routing and reporting requirements be your guide.

    Effective classification schemes are concise, easy to use correctly, and easy to maintain.

    Image shows example of a ticket classification scheme.

    Keep these guidelines in mind:

    • A good categorization scheme is exhaustive and mutually exclusive: there’s a place for every ticket and every ticket fits in only one place.
    • As you build your classification scheme, ensure the categories describe the actual asset or service involved based on final resolution, not how it was reported initially.
    • Pre-populate ticket templates with relevant categories to dramatically improve reporting and routing accuracy.
    • Use a tiered system to make the categories easier to navigate. Three tiers with 6-8 categories per tier provides up to 512 sub-categories, which should be enough for the most ambitious team.
    • Track only what you will use for reporting purposes. If you don’t need a report on individual kinds of laptops, don’t create a category beyond “laptops.”
    • Avoid “miscellaneous” categories. A large portion of your tickets will eventually end up there.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Don’t do it alone! Collaborate with managers in the specialized IT groups responsible for root-cause analysis to develop a categorization scheme that makes sense for them.

    The first approach to categorization breaks down the IT portfolio into asset types

    WHY SHOULD I START WITH ASSETS?

    Start with asset types if asset management and configuration management processes figure prominently in your practice or on your service management implementation roadmap.

    Image displays example of asset types and how to categorize them.

    Building the Categories

    Ask these questions:

    • Type: What kind of asset am I working on?
    • Category: What general asset group am I working on?
    • Subcategory: What particular asset am I working on?

    Need to make quick progress? Use Info-Tech Research Group’s Service Desk Ticket Categorization Schemes template.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Think about how you will use the data to determine which components need to be included in reports. If components won’t be used for reporting, routing, or warranty, reporting down to the component level adds little value.

    The second approach to categorization breaks down the IT portfolio into types of services

    WHY SHOULD I START WITH SERVICES?

    Start with asset services if service management generally figures prominently in your practice, especially service catalog management.

    Image displays example of service types and how to categorize them.

    Building the Categories

    Ask these questions:

    • Type: What kind of service am I working on?
    • Category: What general service group am I working on?
    • Subcategory: What particular service am I working on?

    Need to make quick progress? Use Info-Tech Research Group’s Service Desk Ticket Categorization Schemes template.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Remember, ticket categories are not your only source of reports. Enhance the classification scheme with resolution and status codes for more granular reporting.

    Improve the categorization scheme to enhance routing and reporting

    2.2.1 Assess whether the service desk can improve its ticket categorization

    1. As a group, review existing categories, looking for duplicates and designations that won’t affect ticket routing. Reconcile duplicates and remove non-essential categories.
    2. As a group, re-do the categories, ensuring that the new categorization scheme will meet the reporting requirements outlined earlier.
      • Are categories exhaustive and mutually exclusive?
      • Is the tier simple and easy to use (i.e. 3 tiers x 8 categories)?
    3. Test against recent tickets to ensure you have the right categories.
    4. Record the ticket categorization scheme in the Service Desk Ticket Categorization Schemes template.

    A screenshot of the Service Desk Ticket Categorization Schemes template.

    Participants

    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You’ll Need

    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard
    • Service Desk Ticket Categorization Scheme

    Enhance the classification scheme with resolution and status codes for more granular reporting

    Resolution codes differ from detailed resolution notes.

    • A resolution code is a field within the ticketing system that should be updated at ticket close to categorize the primary way the ticket was resolved.
    • This is important for reporting purposes as it adds another level to the categorization scheme and can help you identify knowledgebase article candidates, training needs, or problems.

    Ticket statuses are a helpful field for both IT and end users to identify the current status of the ticket and to initiate workflows.

    • The most common statuses are open, pending/in progress, resolved, and closed (note the difference between resolved and closed).
    • Waiting on user or waiting on vendor are also helpful statuses to stop the clock when awaiting further information or input.

    Common Examples:

    Resolution Codes

    • How to/training
    • Configuration change
    • Upgrade
    • Installation
    • Data import/export/change
    • Information/research
    • Reboot

    Status Fields

    • Declined
    • Open
    • Closed
    • Waiting on user
    • Waiting on vendor
    • Reopened by user

    Identify and document resolution and status codes

    2.2.2 Enhance ticket categories with resolution codes

    Discuss:

    • How can we use resolution information to enhance reporting?
    • Are current status fields telling the right story?
    • Are there other requirements like project linking?

    Draft:

    1. Write out proposed resolution codes and status fields and critically assess their value.
    2. Resolutions can be further broken down by incident and service request if desired.
    3. Test resolution codes against a few recent tickets.
    4. Record the ticket categorization scheme in the Service Desk SOP.

    Participants

    • CIO
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Technician(s)

    What You’ll Need

    • Whiteboard or Flip Chart
    • Markers

    Step 2.3: Design incident escalation and prioritization

    Image shows the steps in phase 2. Highlight is on step 2.3.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 2.3.1 Build a small number of rules to facilitate prioritization
    • 2.3.2 Define escalation rules
    • 2.3.3 Define automated escalations
    • 2.3.4 Provide guidance to each tier around escalation steps and times

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    The reviewed ticket escalation and prioritization will streamline queue management, improve the quality of escalations, and ensure agents work on the right tickets at the right time.

    DELIVERABLES

    • Optimized ticket prioritization scheme
    • Guidelines for ticket escalations
    • List of automatic escalations

    Build a ticket prioritization matrix to make escalation assessment less subjective

    Most IT leaders agree that prioritization is one of the most difficult aspects of IT in general. Set priorities based on business needs first.

    Mission-critical systems or problems that affect many people should always come first (i.e. Severity Level 1).

    The bulk of reported problems, however, are often individual problems with desktop PCs (i.e. Severity Level 3 or 4).

    Some questions to consider when deciding on problem severity include:

    • How is productivity affected?
    • How many users are affected?
    • How many systems are affected?
    • How critical are the affected systems to the organization?

    Decide how many severity levels the organization needs the service desk to have. Four levels of severity are ideal for most organizations.

    Image shows example ticket prioritization matrix

    Collect the ticket prioritization scheme in one diagram to ensure service support aligns to business requirements

    Image shows example ticket prioritization matrix

    Prioritize incidents based on severity and urgency to foreground critical issues

    2.3.1 Build a clearly defined priority scheme

    Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    1. Decide how many levels of severity are appropriate for your organization.
    2. Build a prioritization matrix, breaking down priority levels by impact and urgency.
    3. Build out the definitions of impact and urgency to complete the prioritization matrix.
    4. Run through examples of each priority level to make sure everyone is on the same page.

    Image shows example ticket prioritization matrix

    Document in the SOP

    Participants

    • Service Managers
    • Service Desk Support
    • Applications or Infrastructure Support

    What You'll Need

    • Flip Chart Paper
    • Sticky Notes
    • Pens
    • Service Desk SOP

    Example of outcome from 2.3.1

    Define response and resolution targets for each priority level to establish service-level objectives for service support

    Image shows example of response and resolution targets.

    Build clear rules to help agents determine when to escalate

    2.3.2 Assign response, resolution, and escalation times to each priority level

    Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    Instructions:

    For each incident priority level, define the associated:

    1. Response time – time from when incident record is created to the time the service desk acknowledges to the customer that their ticket has been received and assigned.
    2. Resolution time – time from when the incident record is created to the time that the customer has been advised that their problem has been resolved.
    3. Escalation time – maximum amount of time that a ticket should be worked on without progress before being escalated to someone else.

    Participants

    • Service Managers
    • Service Desk Support
    • Applications or Infrastructure Support

    What You'll Need

    • Flip Chart Paper
    • Sticky Notes
    • Pens

    Image shows example of response and resolution targets

    Use the table on the previous slide as a guide.

    Discuss the possible root causes for escalation issues

    WHY IS ESCALATION IMPORTANT?

    Escalation is not about admitting defeat, but about using your resources properly.

    Defining procedures for escalation reduces the amount of time the service desk spends troubleshooting before allocating the incident to a higher service tier. This reduces the mean time to resolve and increases end-user satisfaction.

    You can correlate escalation paths to ticket categories devised in step 2.2.

    Image shows example on potential root causes for escalation issues.

    Build decision rights to help agents determine when to escalate

    2.3.3 Provide guidance to each tier around escalation steps and times

    Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    Instructions

    1. For each support tier, define escalation rules for troubleshooting (steps that each tier should take before escalation).
    2. For each support tier, define maximum escalation times (maximum amount of time to work on a ticket without progress before escalating).
    Example of outcome from step 2.3.3 to determine when to escalate issues.

    Create a list of application specialists to get the escalation right the first time

    2.3.4 Define automated escalations

    Estimated Time: 60 minutes

    1. Identify applications that will require specialists for troubleshooting or access rights.
    2. Identify primary and secondary specialists for each application.
    3. Identify vendors that will receive escalations either immediately or after troubleshooting.
    4. Set up application groups in the service desk tool.
    5. Set up workflows in the service desk tool where appropriate.
    6. Document the automated escalations in the categorization scheme developed in step 2.2 and in the Service Desk Roles and Responsibilities Guide.

    A screenshot of the Service Desk Roles and Responsibilities Guide

    Participants

    • Service Managers
    • Service Desk Support
    • Applications or Infrastructure Support

    What You'll Need

    • Flip Chart Paper
    • Sticky Notes
    • Pens

    Phase 3

    Design Request Fulfilment Processes

    Step 3.1: Build request workflows

    Image shows the steps in phase 3. Highlight is on step 3.1.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 3.1.1 Distinguish between requests and small projects
    • 3.1.2 Define service requests with SLAs
    • 3.1.3 Build and critique request workflows

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    Workflows for service requests will improve the consistency and quality of service delivery and prepare the service desk to negotiate reliable service levels with the organization.

    DELIVERABLES

    • Workflows for the most common service requests
    • An estimated service level for each service request
    • Request vs. project criteria

    Standardize service requests for more efficient delivery

    Definitions:

    • An incident is an unexpected disruption to normal business processes and requires attempts to restore service as soon as possible (e.g. printer not working).
    • A service request is a request where nothing is broken or impacting a service and typically can be scheduled rather than requiring immediate resolution (e.g. new software application).
    • Service requests are repeatable, predictable, and easier to commit to SLAs.
    • By committing to SLAs, expectations can be set for users and business units for service fulfillment.
    • Workflows for service requests should be documented and reviewed to ensure consistency of fulfillment.
    • Documentation should be created for service request procedures that are complex.
    • Efficiencies can be created through automation such as with software deployment.
    • All service requests can be communicated through a self-service portal or service catalog.

    PREPARE A FUTURE SERVICE CATALOG

    Standardize requests to develop a consistent offering and prepare for a future service catalog.

    Document service requests to identify time to fulfill and approvals.

    Identify which service requests can be auto-approved and which will require a workflow to gain approval.

    Document workflows and analyze them to identify ways to improve SLAs. If any approvals are interrupting technical processes, rearrange them so that approvals happen before the technical team is involved.

    Determine support levels for each service offering and ensure your team can sustain them.

    Where it makes sense, automate delivery of services such as software deployment.

    Distinguish between service requests and small projects to ensure agents and end users follow the right process

    The distinction between service requests and small projects has two use cases, which are two sides of the same resourcing issue.

    • Service desk managers need to understand the difference to ensure the right approval process is followed. Typically, projects have more stringent intake requirements than requests do.
    • PMOs need to understand the difference to ensure the right people are doing the work and that small, frequent changes are standardized, automated, and taken out of the project list.

    What’s the difference between a service request and a small project?

    • The key differences involve resource scope, frequency, and risk.
    • Requests are likely to require fewer resources than projects, be fulfilled more often, and involve less risk.
    • Requests are typically done by tier 1 and 2 employees throughout the IT organization.
    • A request can turn into a small project if the scope of the request grows beyond the bounds of a normal request.

    Example: A mid-sized organization goes on a hiring blitz and needs to onboard 150 new employees in one quarter. Submitting and scheduling 150 requests for onboarding new employees would require much more time and resources.

    Projects are different from service requests and have different criteria

    A project, by terminology, is a temporary endeavor planned around producing a specific organizational or business outcome.

    Common Characteristics of Projects:

    • Time sensitive, temporary, one-off.
    • Uncertainty around how to create the unique thing, product, or service that is the project’s goal.
    • Non-repetitive work and sizeable enough to introduce heightened risk and complexity.
    • Strategic focus, business case-informed capital funding, and execution activities driven by a charter.
    • Introduces change to the organization.
    • Multiple stakeholders involved and cross-functional resourcing.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Projects require greater risk, effort, and resources than a service request and should be redirected to the PMO.

    Standard service requests vs. non-standard service requests: criteria to make them distinct

    • If there is no differentiation between standard and non-standard requests, those tickets can easily move into the backlog, growing it very quickly.
    • Create a process to easily identify non-standard requests when they enter the ticket queue to ensure customers are made aware of any delay of service, especially if it is a product or service currently not offered. This will give time for any approvals or technical solutioning that may need to occur.
    • Take recurring non-standard requests and make them standard. This is a good way to determine if there are any gaps in services offered and another vehicle to understand what your customers want.

    Standard Requests

    • Very common requests, delivered on an on-going basis
    • Defined process
    • Measured in hours or days
    • Uses service catalog, if it exists
    • Formalized and should already be documented
    • The time to deal with the request is defined

    Non-Standard Requests

    • Higher level complexity than standard requests
    • Cannot be fulfilled via service catalog
    • No defined process
    • Not supplied by questions that Service Request Definition (SRD) offers
    • Product or service is not currently offered, and it may need time for technical review, additional approvals, and procurement processes

    The right questions can help you distinguish between standard requests, non-standard requests, and projects

    Where do we draw the line between a standard and non-standard request and a project?

    The service desk can’t and shouldn’t distinguish between requests and projects on its own. Instead, engage stakeholders to determine where to draw the line.

    Whatever criteria you choose, define them carefully.

    Be pragmatic: there is no single best set of criteria and no single best definition for each criterion. The best criteria and definitions will be the ones that work in your organizational context.

    Common distinguishing factors and thresholds:

    Image shows table of the common distinguishing factors and thresholds.

    Distinguish between standard and non-standard service requests and projects

    3.1.1 Distinguish between service requests and projects

    1. Divide the group into two small teams.
    2. Each team will brainstorm examples of service requests and small projects.
    3. Identify factors and thresholds that distinguish between the two groups of items.
    4. Bring the two groups together and discuss the two sets of criteria.
    5. Consolidate one set of criteria that will help make the distinction between projects and service requests.
    6. Capture the table in the Service Desk SOP.

    Image shows blank template of the common distinguishing factors and thresholds.

    Participants

    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You'll Need

    • Service Desk SOP
    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Distinguishing factors and thresholds

    Don’t standardize request fulfilment processes alone

    Everyone in IT contributes to the fulfilment of requests, but do they know it?

    New service desk managers sometimes try to standardize request fulfilment processes on their own only to encounter either apathy or significant resistance to change.

    Moving to a tiered generalist service desk with a service-oriented culture, a high first-tier generalist resolution rate, and collaborative T2 and T3 specialists can be a big change. It is critical to get the request workflows right.

    Don’t go it alone. Engage a core team of process champions from all service support. With executive support, the right process building exercises can help you overcome resistance to change.

    Consider running the process building activities in this project phase in a working session or a workshop setting.

    Info-Tech Insight

    If they build it, they will come. Service desk improvement is an exercise in organizational change that crosses IT disciplines. Organizations that fail to engage IT specialists from other silos often encounter resistance to change that jeopardizes the process improvements they are trying to make. Overcome resistance by highlighting how process changes will benefit different groups in IT and solicit the feedback of specialists who can affect or be affected by the changes.

    Define standard service requests with SLAs and workflows

    WHY DO I NEED WORKFLOWS?

    Move approvals out of technical IT processes to make them more efficient. Evaluate all service requests to see where auto-approvals make sense. Where approvals are required, use tools and workflows to manage the process.

    Example:

    Image is an example of SLAs and workflows.

    Approvals can be the main roadblock to fulfilling service requests

    Image is example of workflow approvals.

    Review the general standard service request and inquiry fulfillment processes

    As standard service requests should follow standard, repeatable, and predictable steps to fulfill, they can be documented with workflows.

    Image is a flow chart of service and inquiry request processes.

    Review the general standard service request and inquiry fulfillment processes

    Ensure there is a standard and predictable methodology for assessing non-standard requests; inevitably those requests may still cause delay in fulfillment.

    Create a process to ensure reasonable expectations of delivery can be set with the end user and then identify what technology requests should become part of the existing standard offerings.

    Image is a flowchart of non-standard request processes

    Document service requests to ensure consistent delivery and communicate requirements to users

    3.1.2 Define service requests with SLAs

    1. On a flip chart, list standard service requests.
    2. Identify time required to fulfill, including time to schedule resources.
    3. Identify approvals required; determine if approvals can be automated through defining roles.
    4. Discuss opportunities to reduce SLAs or automate, but recognize that this may not happen right away.
    5. Discuss plans to communicate SLAs to the business units, recognizing that some users may take a bit of time to adapt to the new SLAs.
    6. Work toward improving SLAs as new opportunities for process change occur.
    7. Document SLAs in the Service Desk SOP and update as SLAs change.
    8. Build templates in the service desk tool that encapsulate workflows and routing, SLAs, categorization, and resolution.

    Participants

    • Service Desk Managers
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You'll Need

    • Service Desk SOP
    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Info-Tech Insight

    These should all be scheduled services. Anything that is requested as a rush needs to be marked as a higher urgency or priority to track end users who need training on the process.

    Analyze service request workflows to improve service delivery

    3.1.3 Build and critique request workflows

    1. Divide the group into small teams.
    2. Each team will choose one service request from the list created in the previous module and then draw the workflow. Include decision points and approvals.
    3. Discuss availability and technical support:
      • Can the service be fulfilled during regular business hours or 24x7?
      • Is technical support and application access available during regular business hours or 24x7?
    4. Reconvene and present workflows to the group.
    5. Document workflows in Visio and add to the Service Desk SOP. Where appropriate, enter workflows in the service desk tool.

    Critique workflows for efficiencies and effectiveness:

    • Do the workflows support the SLAs identified in the previous exercise?
    • Are the workflows efficient?
    • Is the IT staff consistently following the same workflow?
    • Are approvals appropriate? Is there too much bureaucracy or can some approvals be removed? Can they be preapproved?
    • Are approvals interrupting technical processes? If so, can they be moved?

    Participants

    • Service Desk Managers
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You'll Need

    • Service Desk SOP
    • Project Summary
    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Step 3.2: Build a targeted knowledgebase

    Image shows the steps in phase 3. Highlight is on step 3.2.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 3.2.1 Design knowledge management processes
    • 3.2.2 Create actionable knowledgebase articles

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    The section will introduce service catalogs and get the organization to envision what self-service tools it might include.

    DELIVERABLES

    • Knowledgebase policy and process

    A knowledgebase is an essential tool in the service management toolbox

    Knowledge Management

    Gathering, analyzing, storing & sharing knowledge to reduce the need to rediscover known solutions.

    Knowledgebase

    Organized repository of IT best practices and knowledge gained from practical experiences.

    • End-User KB
    • Give end users a chance to resolve simple issues themselves without submitting a ticket.

    • Internal KB
    • Shared resource for service desk staff and managers to share and use knowledge.

    Use the knowledgebase to document:

    • Steps for pre-escalation troubleshooting.
    • Known errors.
    • Workarounds or solutions to recurring issues.
    • Solutions that require research or complex troubleshooting.
    • Incidents that have many root causes. Start with the most frequent solution and work toward less likely issues.

    Draw on organizational goals to define the knowledge transfer target state

    Image is Info-Tech’s Knowledge Transfer Maturity Model
    *Source: McLean & Company, 2013; N=120

    It’s better to start small than to have nothing at all

    Service desk teams are often overwhelmed by the idea of building and maintaining a comprehensive integrated knowledgebase that covers an extensive amount of information.

    Don’t let this idea stop you from building a knowledgebase! It takes time to build a comprehensive knowledgebase and you must start somewhere.

    Start with existing documentation or knowledge that depends on the expertise of only a few people and is easy to document and you will already see the benefits.

    Then continue to build and improve from there. Eventually, knowledge management will be a part of the culture.

    Engage the team to build a knowledgebase targeted on your most important incidents and requests

    WHERE DO I START?

    Inventory and consolidate existing documentation, then evaluate it for audience relevancy, accuracy, and usability. Use the exercise and the next slides to develop a knowledgebase template.

    Produce a plan to improve the knowledgebase.

    • Identify the current top five or ten incidents from the service desk reports and create related knowledgebase articles.
    • Evaluate for end-user self-service or technician resolution.
    • Note any resolutions that require access rights to servers.
    • Assign documentation creation tasks for the knowledgebase to individual team members each week.
    • Apply only one incident per article.
    • Set goals for each technician to submit one or two meaningful articles per month.
    • Assign a knowledge manager to monitor creation and edit and maintain the database.
    • Set policy to drive currency of the knowledgebase. See the Service Desk SOP for an example of a workable knowledge policy.

    Use a phased approach to build a knowledgebase

    Image is an example of a phased approach to build a knowledge base

    Use a quarterly, phased approach to continue to build and maintain your knowledgebase

    Continual Knowledgebase Maintenance:

    • Once a knowledgebase is in place, future articles should be written using established templates.
    • Articles should be regularly reviewed and monitored for usage. Outdated information will be retired and archived.
    • Ticket trend analysis should be done on an ongoing basis to identify new articles.
    • A proactive approach will anticipate upcoming issues based on planned upgrades and maintenance or other changes, and document resolution steps in knowledgebase articles ahead of time.

    Every Quarter:

    1. Conduct a ticket trend analysis. Identify the most important and common tickets.
    2. Review the knowledgebase to identify relevant articles that need to be revised or written.
    3. Use data from knowledge management tool to track expiring content and lesser used articles.
    4. Assign the task of writing articles to all IT staff members.
    5. Build and revise ticket templates for incident and service requests.

    Assign a knowledge manager role to ensure accountability for knowledgebase maintenance

    Assign a knowledge manager to monitor creation and edit and maintain database.

    Knowledge Manager/Owner Role:

    • Has overall responsibility for the knowledgebase.
    • Ensures content is consistent and maintains standards.
    • Regularly monitors and updates the list of issues that should be added to the knowledgebase.
    • Regularly reviews existing knowledgebase articles to ensure KB is up to date and flags content to retire or review.
    • Assigns content creation tasks.
    • Optimizes knowledgebase structure and organization.
    • See Info-Tech’s knowledge manager role description if you need a hand defining this position.

    The knowledge manager role will likely be a role assigned to an existing resource rather than a dedicated position.

    Develop a template to ensure knowledgebase articles are easy to read and write

    A screenshot of the Knowledgebase Article Template

    QUICK TIPS

    • Use non-technical language whenever possible to help less-technical readers.
    • Identify error messages and use screenshots where it makes sense.
    • Take advantage of social features like voting buttons to increase use.
    • Use Info-Tech’s Knowledge Base Article Template to get you started.

    Analyze the necessary features for your knowledgebase and compare them against existing tools

    Service desk knowledgebases range in complexity from simple FAQs to fully integrated software suites.

    Options include:

    • Article search with negative and positive filters.
    • Tagging, with the option to have keywords generate top matches.
    • Role-based permissions (to prevent unauthorized deletions).
    • Ability to turn a ticket resolution into a knowledgebase article (typically only available if knowledgebase tool is part of the service desk tool).
    • Natural language search.
    • Partitioning so relevant articles only appear for specific audiences.
    • Editorial workflow management.
    • Ability to set alerts for scheduled article review.
    • Article reporting (most viewed, was it useful?).
    • Rich text fields for attaching screenshots.

    Determine which features your organization needs and check to see if your tools have them.

    For more information on knowledgebase improvement, refer to Info-Tech’s Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy.

    Document your knowledge management maintenance workflow to identify opportunities for improvement

    Workflow should include:

    • How you will identify top articles that need to be written
    • How you will ensure articles remain relevant
    • How you will assign new articles to be written, inclusive of peer review
    Image of flowchart of knowledgebase maintenance process.

    Design knowledgebase management processes

    3.2.1 Design knowledgebase management processes

    1. Assign a knowledge manager to monitor creation and edit and maintain the database. See Info-Tech’s knowledge manager role description if you need a hand defining this position.
    2. Discuss how you can use the service desk tool to integrate the knowledgebase with incident management, request fulfilment, and self-service processes.
    3. Discuss the suitability of a quarterly process to build and edit articles for a target knowledgebase that covers your most important incidents and requests.
    4. Set knowledgebase creation targets for tier 1, 2, and 3 analysts.
    5. Identify relevant performance metrics.
    6. Brainstorm elements that might be used as an incentive program to encourage the creation of knowledgebase articles and knowledge sharing more generally.
    7. Set policy to drive currency of knowledgebase. See the Service Desk SOP for an example of a workable knowledge policy.

    Participants

    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You’ll Need

    • Service Desk SOP
    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Create actionable knowledgebase articles

    3.2.2 Run a knowledgebase working group

    Write and critique knowledgebase articles.

    1. On a whiteboard, build a list of potential knowledgebase articles divided by audience: Technician or End User.
    2. Each team member chooses one topic and spends 20 minutes writing.
    3. Each team member either reads the article and has the team critique or passes to the technician to the right for peer review. If there are many participants, break into smaller groups.
    4. Set a goal with the team for how, when, and how often knowledgebase articles will be created.
    5. Capture knowledgebase processes in the Service Desk SOP.

    Audience: Technician

    • Password update
    • VPN printing
    • Active directory – policy, procedures, naming conventions
    • Cell phones
    • VPN client and creation set-up

    Audience: End users

    • Set up email account
    • Password creation policy
    • Voicemail – access, change greeting, activities
    • Best practices for virus, malware, phishing attempts
    • Windows 10 tips and tricks

    Participants

    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You’ll Need

    • Service Desk SOP
    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard

    Step 3.3: Prepare for a self-service portal project

    Image shows the steps in phase 3. Highlight is on step 3.3.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 3.3.1 Develop self-service tools for the end user
    • 3.3.2 Make a plan for creating or improving the self-service portal

    This step involves the following participants:

    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    The section prepares you to tackle a self-service portal project once the service desk standardization is complete.

    DELIVERABLES

    • High-level activities to create a self-service portal

    Design the self-service portal with the users’ computer skills in mind

    A study by the OECD offers a useful reminder of one of usability’s most hard-earned lessons: you are not the user.

    • There is an important difference between IT professionals and the average user that’s even more damaging to your ability to predict what will be a good self-service tool: skills in using computers, the internet, and technology in general.
    • An international research study explored the computer skills of 215,942 people aged 16-65 in 33 countries.
    • The results show that across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has strong computer-related abilities and only 33% of people can complete medium-complexity computer tasks.
    • End users are skilled, they just don’t have the same level of comfort with computers as the average IT professional. Design your self-service tools with that fact in mind.
    Image is of a graph showing the ability of computer skills from age 16-65 among various countries.

    Take an incremental and iterative approach to developing your self-service portal

    Use a web portal to offer self-serve functionality or provide FAQ information to your customers to start.

    • Don’t build from scratch. Ideally, use the functionality included with your ITSM tool.
    • If your ITSM tool doesn’t have an adequate self-service portal functionality, then harness other tools that IT already uses. Common examples include Microsoft SharePoint and Google Forms.
    • Make it as easy as possible to access the portal:
      • Deploy an app to managed devices or put the app in your app store.
      • Create a shortcut on people’s start menus or home screens.
      • Print the URL on swag such as mousepads.
    • Follow Info-Tech’s approach to developing your user facing service catalog.

    Some companies use vending machines as a form of self serve. Users can enter their purchase code and “buy” a thin client, mouse, keyboard, software, USB keys, tablet, headphones, or loaners.

    Info-Tech Insight

    Building the basics first will provide your users with immediate value. Incrementally add new features to your portal.

    Optimize the portal: self-service should be faster and more convenient than the alternative

    Design the portal by demand, not supply

    Don’t build a portal framed around current offerings and capabilities just for the sake of it. Build the portal based on what your users want and need if you want them to use it.

    Make user experience a top priority

    The portal should be designed for users to self-serve, and thus self-service must be seamless, clear, and attractive to users.

    Speak your users’ language

    Keep in mind that users may not have high technical literacy or be familiar with terminology that you find commonplace. Use terms that are easy to understand.

    Appeal to both clickers and searchers

    Ensure that users can find what they’re looking for both by browsing the site and by using search functionality.

    Use one central portal for all departments

    If multiple departments (i.e. HR, Finance) use or will use a portal, set up a shared portal so that users won’t have to guess where to go to ask for help.

    You won’t know unless you test

    You will know how to navigate the portal better than anyone, but that doesn’t mean it’s intuitive for a new user. Test the portal with users to collect and incorporate feedback.

    Self-service portal examples (1/2)

    Image is of an example of the self-service portal

    Image source: Cherwell Service Management

    Self-service examples (2/2)

    Image is of an example of the self-service portal

    Image source: Team Dynamix

    Keep the end-user facing knowledgebase relevant with workflows, multi-device access, and social features

    Workflows:

    • Easily manage peer reviews and editorial and relevance review.
    • Enable links and importing between tickets and knowledgebase articles.
    • Enable articles to appear based on ticket content.

    Multi-device access:

    • Encourage users to access self-service.
    • Enable technicians to solve problems from anywhere.

    Social features:

    • Display most popular articles first to solve trending issues.
    • Enable voting to improve usability of articles.
    • Allow collaboration on self-service.

    For more information on building self-service portal, refer to Info-Tech’s Optimize the Service Desk with a Shift-Left Strategy

    Draft a high-level project plan for a self-service portal project

    3.3.1 Draft a high-level project plan for a self-service portal project

    1. Identify stakeholders who can contribute to the project.
      • Who will help with FAQ creation?
      • Who can design the self-service portal?
      • Who needs to sign off on the project?
    2. Identify the high-level tasks that need to be done.
      • How many FAQs need to be created?
      • How will we design the service catalog’s web portal?
      • What might a phased approach look like?
      • How can we break down the project into design, build, and implementation tasks?
      • What is the rough timeline for these tasks?
    3. Capture the high-level activities in the Service Desk Roadmap.

    Participants

    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    What You’ll Need

    • Flip Chart
    • Whiteboard
    • Implementation Roadmap

    Once you have a service portal, you can review the business requirements for a service catalog

    A service catalog is a communications device that lists the IT services offered by an organization. The service catalog is designed to enable the creation of a self-service portal for the end user. The portal augments the service desk so analysts can spend time managing incidents and providing technical support.

    The big value comes from workflows:

    • Improved economics and a means to measure the costs to serve over time.
    • Incentive for adoption because things work better.
    • Abstracts delivery from offer to serve so you can outsource, insource, crowdsource, slow, speed, reassign, and cover absences without involving the end user.

    There are three types of catalogs:

    • Static:Informational only, so can be a basic website.
    • Routing and workflow: Attached to service desk tool.
    • Workflow and e-commerce: Integrated with service desk tool and ERP system.
    Image is an example of service catalog

    Image courtesy of University of Victoria

    Understand the time and effort involved in building a service catalog

    A service catalog will streamline IT service delivery, but putting one together requires a significant investment. Service desk standardization comes first.

    • Workflows and back-end services must be in place before setting up a service catalog.
    • Think of the catalog as just the delivery mechanism for service you currently provide. If they aren’t running well and delivery is not consistent, you don’t want to advertise SLAs and options.
    • Service catalogs require maintenance.
    • It’s not a one-time investment – service catalogs must be kept up to date to be useful.
    • Service catalog building requires input from VIPs.
    • Architects and wordsmiths are not the only ones that spend effort on the service catalog. Leadership from IT and the business also provide input on policy and content.

    Sample Service Catalog Efforts

    • A college with 17 IT staff spent one week on a simple service catalog.
    • A law firm with 110 IT staff spent two months on a service catalog project.
    • A municipal government with 300 IT people spent over seven months and has yet to complete the project.
    • A financial organization with 2,000 IT people has spent seven months on service catalog automation alone! The whole project has taken multiple years.

    “I would say a client with 2,000 users and an IT department with a couple of hundred, then you're looking at six months before you have the catalog there.”

    – Service Catalog Implementation Specialist,

    Health Services

    Draft a high-level project plan for a self-service portal project

    3.2.2 Make a plan for creating or improving the self-service portal

    Identify stakeholders who can contribute to the project.

    • Who will help with FAQs creation?
    • Who can design the self-service portal?
    • Who needs to sign off on the project?

    Evaluate tool options.

    • Will you stick with your existing tool or invest in a new tool?

    Identify the high-level tasks that need to be done.

    • How will we design the web portal?
    • What might a phased approach look like?
    • What is the rough timeline for these tasks?
    • How many FAQs need to be created?
    • Will we have a service catalog, and what type?

    Document the plan and tasks in the Service Desk Roadmap.

    Examples of publicly posted service catalogs:

    University of Victoria is an example of a catalog that started simple and now includes multiple divisions, notifications, systems status, communications, e-commerce, incident registration, and more.

    Indiana University is a student, faculty, and staff service catalog and self-service portal that goes beyond IT services.

    If you are ready to start building a service catalog, use Info-Tech’s Design and Build a User-Facing Service Catalog blueprint to get started.

    Phase 4

    Plan the Implementation of the Service Desk

    Step 4.1: Build communication plan

    Image shows the steps in phase 4. Highlight is on step 4.1.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 4.1.1 Create the communication plan

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Director
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager(s)
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    The communication plan and project summary will help project managers outline recommendations and communicate their benefits.

    DELIVERABLES

    • Communication plan
    • Project summary

    Effectively communicate the game plan to IT to ensure the success of service desk improvements

    Communication is crucial to the integration and overall implementation of your service desk improvement.

    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.
    • Maintainthe presence of the program throughout the business.
    • Instill ownership throughout the business, from top-level management to new hires.

    Build a communication plan to:

    1. Communicate benefits to IT:
      • Share the standard operating procedures for training and feedback.
      • Train staff on policies as they relate to end users and ensure awareness of all policy changes.
      • As changes are implemented, continue to solicit feedback on what is and is not working and communicate adjustments as appropriate.
    2. Train technicians:
      • Make sure everyone is comfortable communicating changes to customers.
    3. Measure success:
      • Review SLAs and reports. Are you consistently meeting SLAs?
      • Is it safe to communicate with end users?

    Create your communication plan to anticipate challenges, remove obstacles, and secure buy-in

    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?
    3 gears are depicted. The top gear is labelled managers with an arrow going clockwise. The middle gear is labelled technical staff with an arrow going counterclockwise. The bottom gear is labelled end users with an arrow going clockwise

    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?

    Create a communication plan to outline the project benefits

    Improved business satisfaction:

    • Improve confidence that the service desk can solve issues within the service-level agreement.
    • Channel incidents and requests through the service desk.
    • Escalate incidents quickly and accurately.

    Fewer recurring issues:

    • Tickets are created for every incident and categorized correctly.
    • Reports can be used for root-cause analysis.

    Increased efficiency or lower cost to serve:

    • Use FAQs to enable end users to self-solve.
    • Use knowledgebase to troubleshoot once, solve many times.
    • Cross-train to improve service consistency.

    Enhanced demand planning:

    • Trend analysis and reporting improve IT’s ability to forecast and address the demands of the business.

    Organize the information to manage the deployment of key messages

    Example of how to organize and manage key messages

    Create the communication plan

    4.1.1 Create the communication plan

    Estimated Time: 45 minutes

    Develop a stakeholder analysis.

    1. Identify everyone affected by the project.
    2. Assess their level of interest, value, and influence.
    3. Develop a communication strategy tailored to their level of engagement.

    Craft key messages tailored to each stakeholder group.

    Finalize the communication plan.

    1. Examine your roadmap and determine the most appropriate timing for communications.
    2. Assess when communications must happen with executives, business unit leaders, end users, and technicians.
    3. Identify any additional communication challenges that have come up.
    4. Identify who will send out the communications.
    5. Identify multiple methods for getting the messages out (newsletters, emails, posters, company meetings).
    6. For inspiration, you can refer to the Sample Communication Plan for the project.

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    Step 4.2: Build implementation roadmap

    Image shows the steps in phase 4. Highlight is on step 4.2.

    This step will walk you through the following activities:

    • 4.2.1 Build implementation roadmap

    This step involves the following participants:

    • CIO
    • IT Director
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Representation from tier 2 and tier 3 specialists

    Outcomes

    The implementation plan will help track and categorize the next steps and finalize the project.

    DELIVERABLES

    • Implementation roadmap

    Collaborate to create an implementation plan

    4.2.1 Create the implementation plan

    Estimated Time: 45 minutes

    Determine the sequence of improvement initiatives that have been identified throughout the project.

    The purpose of this exercise is to define a timeline and commit to initiatives to reach your goals.

    Instructions:

    1. Review the initiatives that will be taken to improve the service desk and revise tasks, as necessary.
    2. Input each of the tasks in the data entry tab and provide a description and rationale behind the task.
    3. Assign an effort, priority, and cost level to each task (high, medium, low).
    4. Assign ownership to each task.
    5. Identify the timeline for each task based on the priority, effort, and cost (short, medium, and long term).
    6. Highlight risk for each task if it will be deferred.
    7. Track the progress of each task with the status column.

    Participants

    • CIO
    • IT Managers
    • Service Desk Manager
    • Service Desk Agents

    A screenshot of the Roadmap tool.

    Document using the Roadmap tool.

    Related Info-Tech Research

    Standardize the Service Desk

    ImplementHardware and Software Asset Management

    Optimize Change Management Incident and Problem Management Build a Continual Improvement Plan for the Service Desk

    The Standardize blueprint reviews service desk structures and metrics and builds essential processes and workflows for incident management, service request fulfillment, and knowledge management practices.

    Once the service desk is operational, there are three paths to basic ITSM maturity:

    • Having the incident management processes and workflows built allows you to:
      • Introduce Change Management to reduce change-related incidents.
      • Introduce Problem Management to reduce incident recurrence.
      • Introduce Asset Management to augment service management processes with reliable data.

    Solicit targeted department feedback on core IT service capabilities, IT communications, and business enablement. Use the results to assess the satisfaction of end users, with each service broken down by department and seniority level.

    Works cited

    “Help Desk Staffing Models: Simple Analysis Can Save You Money.” Giva, Inc., 2 Sept. 2009. Web.

    Marrone et al. “IT Service Management: A Cross-national Study of ITIL Adoption.” Communications of the Association for Information Systems: Vol. 34, Article 49. 2014. PDF.

    Rumburg, Jeff. “Metric of the Month: First Level Resolution Rate.” MetricNet, 2011. Web.

    “Service Recovery Paradox.” Wikipedia, n.d. Web.

    Tang, Xiaojun, and Yuki Todo. “A Study of Service Desk Setup in Implementing IT Service Management in Enterprises.” Technology and Investment: Vol. 4, pp. 190-196. 2013. PDF.

    “The Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC).” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2016. Web.

    Contributors

    • Jason Aqui, IT Director, Bellevue College
    • Kevin Sigil, IT Director, Southwest Care Centre
    • Lucas Gutierrez, Service Desk Manager, City of Santa Fe
    • Rama Dhuwaraha, CIO, University of North Texas System
    • Annelie Rugg, CIO, UCLA Humanities
    • Owen McKeith, Manager IT Infrastructure, Canpotex
    • Rod Gula, IT Director, American Realty Association
    • Rosalba Trujillo, Service Desk Manager, Northgate Markets
    • Jason Metcalfe, IT Manager, Mesalabs
    • Bradley Rodgers, IT Manager, SecureTek
    • Daun Costa, IT Manager, Pita Pit
    • Kari Petty, Service Desk Manager, Mansfield Oil
    • Denis Borka, Service Desk Manager, PennTex Midstream
    • Lateef Ashekun, IT Manager, City of Atlanta
    • Ted Zeisner, IT Manager, University of Ottawa Institut de Cardiologie

    Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy

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    • Parent Category Name: Service Desk
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    • Tier 2 and 3 specialists lose time and resources working on tickets instead of more complex projects.
    • The service desk finds themselves resolving the same incidents over and over, wasting manual work on tasks that could be automated.
    • Employees expect modern, consumer-like experiences when they need help; they want to access information and resources from wherever they are and have the tools to solve their problems themselves without waiting for help.

    Our Advice

    Critical Insight

    • It can be difficult to overcome the mindset that difficult functions need to be escalated. Shift left involves a cultural change to the way the service desk works, and overcoming objections and getting buy-in up front is critical.
    • Many organizations have built a great knowledgebase but fail to see the value of it over time as it becomes overburdened with overlapping and out-of-date information. Knowledge capture, updating, and review must be embedded into your processes if you want to keep the knowledgebase useful.
    • Similarly, the self-service portal is often deployed out of the box with little input from end users and fails to deliver its intended benefits. The portal needs to be designed from the end user’s point of view with the goal of self-resolution if it will serve its purpose of deflecting tickets.

    Impact and Result

    • Embrace a shift-left strategy by moving repeatable service desk tasks and requests into lower-cost delivery channels such as self-help tools and automation.
    • Shift work from Tier 2 and 3 support to Tier 1 through good knowledge management practices that empower the first level of support with documented solutions to recurring issues and free up more specialized resources for project work and higher value tasks.
    • Shift knowledge from the service desk to the end user by enabling them to find their own solutions. A well-designed and implemented self-service portal will result in fewer logged tickets to the service desk and empowered, satisfied end users.
    • Shift away manual repetitive work through the use of AI and automation.
    • Successfully shifting this work left can reduce time to resolve, decrease support costs, and increase end-user satisfaction.

    Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy Research & Tools

    Start here – read the Executive Brief

    Read our concise Executive Brief to understand why a shift-left strategy can help to optimize your service desk, 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. Prepare to shift left

    Assess whether you’re ready to optimize the service desk with a shift-left strategy, get buy-in for the initiative, and define metrics to measure success.

    • Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy – Phase 1: Prepare to Shift Left
    • Shift-Left Prerequisites Assessment
    • Shift-Left Strategy
    • Shift-Left Stakeholder Buy-In Presentation

    2. Design shift-left model

    Build strategy and identify specific opportunities to shift service support left to Level 1 through knowledge sharing and other methods, to the end-user through self-service, and to automation and AI.

    • Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy – Phase 2: Design Shift Left Model
    • Shift-Left Action Plan
    • Knowledge Management Workflows (Visio)
    • Knowledge Management Workflows (PDF)
    • Self-Service Portal Checklist
    • Self-Service Resolution Workflow (Visio)
    • Self-Service Resolution Workflow (PDF)

    3. Implement and communicate

    Identify, track, and implement specific shift-left opportunities and document a communications plan to increase adoption.

    • Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left Strategy – Phase 3: Implement & Communicate
    • Incident Management Workflow (Visio)
    • Incident Management Workflow (PDF)
    [infographic]

    Workshop: Optimize the Service Desk With a Shift-Left 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 Prepare to Shift Left

    The Purpose

    Define how shift left would apply in your organization, get buy-in for the initiative, and define metrics to measure success.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Defined scope and objectives for the shift-left initiative

    Buy-in for the program

    Metrics to keep the project on track and evaluate success

    Activities

    1.1 Review current service desk structure

    1.2 Discuss challenges

    1.3 Review shift-left model and discuss how it would apply in your organization

    1.4 Complete the Shift-Left Prerequisites Assessment

    1.5 Complete a RACI chart for the project

    1.6 Define and document objectives

    1.7 Review the stakeholder buy-in presentation

    1.8 Document critical success factors

    1.9 Define KPIs and metrics

    Outputs

    Shift-left scope

    Completed shift-left prerequisites assessment

    RACI chart

    Defined objectives

    Stakeholder buy-in presentation

    Critical success factors

    Metrics to measure success

    2 Plan to Shift to Level 1

    The Purpose

    Build strategy and identify specific opportunities to shift service support left to Level 1 through knowledge sharing and other methods.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identified initiatives to shift work to Level 1

    Documented knowledge management process workflows and strategy

    Activities

    2.1 Identify barriers to Level 1 resolution

    2.2 Discuss knowledgebase challenges and areas for improvement

    2.3 Optimize KB input process

    2.4 Optimize KB usage process

    2.5 Optimize KB review process

    2.6 Discuss and document KCS strategy and roles

    2.7 Document knowledge success metrics

    2.8 Brainstorm additional methods of increasing FLR

    Outputs

    KB input workflow

    KB usage workflow

    KB review workflow

    KCS strategy and roles

    Knowledge management metrics

    Identified opportunities to shift to Level 1

    3 Plan to Shift to End User and Automation

    The Purpose

    Build strategy and identify specific opportunities to shift service support left to the end user through self-service and to automation and AI.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Identified initiatives to shift work to self-service and automation

    Evaluation of self-service portal and identified opportunities for improvement

    Activities

    3.1 Review existing self-service portal and discuss vision

    3.2 Identify opportunities to improve portal accessibility, UI, and features

    3.3 Evaluate the user-facing knowledgebase

    3.4 Optimize the ticket intake form

    3.5 Document plan to improve, communicate, and evaluate portal

    3.6 Map the user experience with a workflow

    3.7 Document your AI strategy

    3.8 Identify candidates for automation

    Outputs

    Identified opportunities to improve portal

    Improvements to knowledgebase

    Improved ticket intake form

    Strategy to communicate and measure success of portal

    Self-service resolution workflow

    Strategy to apply AI and automation

    Identified opportunities to shift tasks to automation

    4 Build Implementation and Communication Plan

    The Purpose

    Build an action plan to implement shift left, including a communications strategy.

    Key Benefits Achieved

    Action plan to track and implement shift-left opportunities

    Communications plan to increase adoption

    Activities

    4.1 Examine process workflows for shift-left opportunities

    4.2 Document shift-left-specific responsibilities for each role

    4.3 Identify and track shift-left opportunities in the action plan

    4.4 Brainstorm objections and responses

    4.5 Document communications plan

    Outputs

    Incident management workflow with shift-left opportunities

    Shift left responsibilities for key roles

    Shift-left action plan

    Objection handling responses

    Communications plan

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