It’s “day two” in the cloud. Now what?

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analysts’ Perspective

	Andrew Sharp Research Director Infrastructure & Operations Practice	It’s “day two” in the cloud. Now what? Just because you’re in the cloud doesn’t mean everyone is on the same page about how cloud operations work – or should work. You have an opportunity to implement new ways of working. But if people can’t see the bigger picture – the organizing framework of your cloud operations – it will be harder to get buy-in to realize value from your cloud services. Use Info-Tech’s methodology to build out and visualize a cloud operations organizing framework that defines cloud work and aligns it to the right areas.
	Nabeel Sherif Principal Research Director Infrastructure & Operations Practice
	Emily Sugerman Research Analyst Infrastructure & Operations Practice
	Scott Young Principal Research Director Infrastructure & Operations Practice

Executive Summary

Info-Tech Insight

Define your target cloud operations state first, then plan how to get there. If you begin by trying to reconstruct on-prem operations in the cloud, you will build an operations model that is the worst of both worlds.

Your Challenge

Traditional IT capabilities, activities, organizational structures, and culture need to adjust to leverage the value of cloud, optimize spend, and manage risk.

• As key applications leave for the cloud, I&O teams are still expected to manage access, spend, and security but may have little or no visibility or control over the applications themselves.
• The automation and self-service capabilities of cloud aren’t delivering the speed the business expected because teams don’t work together effectively.
• Business leaders purchase their own cloud solutions because, from their point of view, IT’s processes are cumbersome and ineffective.
• Accounting practices and governance mechanisms haven’t adjusted to enable new development practices and technologies.
• Security and cost management requirements may not be accounted for by teams acquiring or developing solutions.
• All of this contributes to frustration, missed work, wasteful spending, and unacceptable risk.

Obstacles, by the numbers:

85% of respondents reported security in the cloud was a serious concern.

73% reported balancing responsibilities between a central cloud team and business units was a top concern.

The average organization spent 13% more than they’d budgeted on cloud – even when budgets were expected to increase by 29% in the next year.

32% of all cloud spend was estimated to be wasted spend.

56% of operations professionals said their primary focus is cloud services.

81% of security professionals thought it was difficult to get developers to prioritize bug fixes.

42% of security professionals felt bugs were being caught too late in the development process.

1. Flexera 2022 State of the Cloud Report. 2. GitLab DevSecOps 2021 Survey

Cloud operations are different, but IT departments struggle to change

• There’s no sense of urgency in the organization that change is needed, particularly from teams that aren’t directly involved in operations. It can be challenging to make the case that change is needed.
• Beware “analysis paralysis”! With so many options, philosophies, approaches, and methodologies, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by choice and fail to make needed changes.
• The solution to the problem requires organizational changes beyond the operations team, but you don’t have the authority to make those changes directly. Operations can influence the solution, but they likely can’t direct it.
• Behavior, culture, and organizations take time and work to change. Progress is usually evolutionary – but this can also mean it feels like it’s happening too slowly.
• It’s not just cloud, and it probably never will be. You’ll need to account for operating both on-premises and cloud technologies for the foreseeable future.

Follow Info-Tech’s Methodology

1. Ensure alignment with the risks and drivers of the business and understand your organization’s strengths and gaps for a cloud operations world.

2. Understand the balance of different types of deliveries you’re responsible for in the cloud.

3. Reduce risk by reinforcing the key operational pillars of cloud operations to your workstreams.

4. Identify “work areas,” decide which area is responsible for what tasks and how work areas should interact in order to best facilitate desired business outcomes.

Info-Tech Insight

Start by designing operations around the main workflow you have for cloud services; i.e. If you mostly build or host in cloud, build the diagram to maximize value for that workflow.

Operating Framework Elements

Proper design of roles and responsibilities for each cloud workflow category will help reduce risk by reinforcing the key operational pillars of cloud operations.

We base this on a composite of the well-architected frameworks established by the top global cloud providers today.

Workflow Categories

• Build
• Host
• Consume

Key Pillars

• Performance
• Reliability
• Cost Effectiveness
• Security
• Operational Excellence

Risks to Mitigate

• Changes to Support Model
• Changes to Security & Governance
• Changes to Skills & Roles
• Replicating Old Habits
• Misaligned Stakeholders

Cloud Operations Design

Info-Tech’s Methodology

Blueprint deliverables

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

Cloud Maturity Assessment Assess the intensity and cloud maturity of your IT operations for each of the key cloud workstreams: Consume, Host, and Build		Communication Plan Identify stakeholders, what’s in it for them, what the impact will be, and how you will communicate over the course of the change.
Cloud Operations Design Sketchbook Capture the diagram as you build it.		Roadmap Tool Build a roadmap to put the design into action.

Key deliverable:

Cloud Operations Organizing Framework

The Cloud Operations Organizing Framework is a communication tool that introduces the cloud operations diagram and establishes its context and justification.

Project Outline

Project benefits

Calculate the value of Info-Tech’s Methodology

The value of the project is the delivery of organizational change that improves the way you manage cloud services

1. Average wasted cloud spend across all organizations, from the 2022 Flexera State of the Cloud Report

Understand your cloud vision and strategy before you redesign operations

Guide your operations redesign with an overarching cloud vision and strategy that aligns to and enables the business’s goals.

Cloud Vision		Cloud Strategy
It is difficult to get or maintain buy-in for changes to operations without everyone on the same page about the basic value proposition cloud offers your organization. Do the workload and risk analysis to create a defensible cloud vision statement that boils down into a single statement: “This is how we want to use the cloud.”	Once you have your basic cloud vision, take the next step by documenting a cloud strategy. Establish your steering committee with stakeholders from IT, business, and leadership to work through the essential decisions around vision and alignment, people, governance, and technology. Your cloud operations design should align to a cloud strategy document that provides guidelines on establishing a cloud council, preparing staff for changing skills, mitigating risks through proper governance, and setting a direction for migration, provisioning, and monitoring decisions.

Key Insights

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

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.

Workshop Overview

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

Phase 1:

Establish context

Phase Outcomes:

Define current maturity and which workstreams are important to your organization.

Understand new operating approaches and which apply to your workstream balance.

Identify a new target state for IT operations.

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 successful by working through these steps before you start work on defining your cloud operations.

Create a working folder

15 minutes

Create a central repository to support transparency and collaboration. It’s an obvious step, but one that’s often forgotten.

1. Download all the documents associated with this blueprint to a shared repository accessible to all participants. Keep separate folders for templates and work-in-progress.
2. Share the link to the repository with all attendees. Include links to the repository in any meeting invites you set up as working sessions for the project.
3. Use the repository for all the work you do in the activities listed in this blueprint.

Step 1.1: Identify goals and challenges, workstreams, and cloud maturity

Participants

• Operations Design Working Group, which may include:
  • Cloud owners
  • Platform/Applications Team leads
  • Infra & Ops managers

Outcomes

• Identify your current cloud maturity and areas in need of improvement.
• Define the advantages you expect to realize from cloud services and any obstacles you have to overcome to meet those objectives.
• Identify the reasons why redesigning cloud operations is necessary.
• Develop organization design principles.

“Start small: Begin with a couple services. Then, based on the feedback you receive from Operations and the business, modify your approach and keep increasing your footprint.” – Nenad Begovic

Cloud changes operational activities, tactics, and goals

As you adopt cloud services, the operations core mission remains . . .

• IT operations are expected to deliver stable, efficient, and secure IT services.

. . . but operational activities are evolving.

• Core IT operational processes remain relevant, such as incident or capacity management, but opportunities to automate or outsource operations tasks will change how that work is done.
• As you rely more on automation and outsourcing, the team may see less direct execution in its day-to-day work and more solution design and validation.
• Outsourcing frees the team from operational toil but reduces the direct control over your end-to-end solution and increases your reliance on your vendor.
• Pay-as-you-go pricing models present opportunities for streamlined delivery and cost rationalization but require you to rethink how you do cost and asset management.
• It’s very easy for the business to buy a SaaS solution without consulting IT, which can lead to duplicated functionality, integration challenges, security threats, and more.

Design a model for cloud operations that helps you achieve value from your cloud environment.

“As operating models shift to the cloud, you still need the same people and processes. However, the shift is focused on a higher level of operations. If your people no longer focus on server uptime, then their success metrics will change. When security is no longer protected by the four walls of a datacenter, your threat profile changes.”

(Microsoft, “Understand Cloud Operating Models,” 2022)

Operational responsibilities are shared with a range of stakeholders

When using a vendor-operated public cloud, IT exists in a shared responsibility model with the cloud service provider, one that is further differentiated by the type of cloud service model in use: broadly, software-as a service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), or infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).

Your IT operations organization may still reflect a structure where IT retains control over the entire infrastructure stack from facilities to application and defines their operational roles and processes accordingly.

If the organization chooses a co-location facility, they outsource facility responsibility to a third-party provider, but much of the rest of the traditional IT operating model remains the same. The operations model that worked for an entirely premises-based environment is very different from one that is made up of, for instance, a portfolio of SaaS applications, where your control is limited to the top of the infrastructure stack at the application layer.

Once an organization migrates workloads to the cloud, IT gives up an increasing amount of control to the vendor, and its traditional operational roles & responsibilities necessarily change.

Align operations with customer value

• Decisions about operational design should be made with customer value in mind. Remember that cloud adoption should be an enabler of adaptability in the face of changing business needs!
• Think about how the operations team is indispensable to the value received by your customer. Think about the types of changes that can add to the value your customers receive.
• A focus on value will help you establish and explain the rationale and urgency required to deliver on needed changes. If you can’t explain how the changes you propose will help deliver value, your proposal will come across as change for the sake of change.

Info-Tech Insight

Work that is invisible to the customer can still be essential to delivering customer value. A lot of operations work is invisible to your organization’s customers but required to deliver stability, security, efficiency, and more.

A new consumption model means a different mix of activities

Evolving to cloud-optimal operations also means re-assessing and adapting your team’s approach to achieving cloud maturity, especially with respect to how automation and standardization can be leveraged to best achieve optimization in cloud.

Info-Tech Insight

Cloud is a different way of consuming IT resources and applications and requires a different operational approach than traditional IT.

In most cases, cloud operations involves less direct execution and more service validation and monitoring.

The Service Models in cloud correspond to the way your organization delivers IT

Define how you plan to use cloud services

Your cloud operations will include different tasks, teams, and workflows, depending on whether you consume cloud services, build them, or host on them.

Align to the well-architected framework

• Each cloud provider has defined a well-architected framework (WAF) that defines effective deployment and operations for their services.
• WAFs embody a set of best practices and design principles to leverage the cloud in a more efficient, secure, and cost-effective manner.
• While each vendor’s WAF has its own definitions and nuances, they collectively share a set of key principles, or “pillars,” that define the desired outcome of any cloud deployment.
• These pillars address the key areas of risk when migrating to a public cloud platform.

“In order to accelerate public cloud adoption, you need to focus on infrastructure-as-code and script everything you can. Unlike traditional operations, CloudOps focuses on creating scripts: a script for task A, a script for task B, etc.”

– Nenad Begovic

Pillars

• Reliability
• Security
• Cost Optimization
• Operational Excellence
• Performance Efficiency

General Best Practice Capability Areas

• Host
• Network
• Data
• Identity Management
• Cost/Subscription Management

Assess cloud maturity

2 hours

1. Download a copy of the Cloud Maturity Assessment Tool.
2. As a group, work through:
   • The balance of your operations activities from a Host/Build/Consume perspective. What are you responsible for delivering now? How do you expect things will change in the future?
   • Which workstreams to focus on. Are there activity categories that are critical or non-critical or that don’t represent a significant portion of overall work? Conversely, are there workstreams that you feel are subject to particular risk when moving to cloud?
3. Fill out the Maturity Quiz tab in the Cloud Maturity Assessment Tool for the workstreams you have chosen to focus on.

Download theCloud Maturity Assessment Tool

Identify the drivers for organizational redesign

Whiteboard Activity

An absolute must-have in any successful redesign is a shared understanding and commitment to changing the status quo.

Without a clear and urgent call to action, the design changes will be seen as change for the sake of change and therefore entirely safe to ignore.

Take up the following questions as a group:

1. What kind of organizational change is needed?
2. Why do we think the need for this change is urgent?
3. What do we think will happen if no change occurs? What’s the worst-case scenario?

Record your answers so you can reference and use them in the communication materials you’ll create in Phase 2.

“We know, for example, that 70 percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support. We also know that when people are truly invested in change it is 30 percent more likely to stick.”

– Ewenstein, Smith, Sologar

McKinsey (2015)

Consider the value of change from advantage and obstacle perspectives

Consider what you intend to achieve and the obstacles to overcome to help identify the changes required to achieve your desired future state.

Review risks and challenges

Changes to Support Model

• Have we identified who is on the cloud ops team?
• Do we know where we are procuring skills (internal IT vs. third party) and for how long?
• Do we know where we are in the migration process?

Changes to security & governance

• Have we identified how our attack surface changes in the cloud?
• Do we have guardrails in place to govern self-provisioning users?
• Are we managing cost overage risks?

Replicating old habits

• Have we made concrete plans to leverage cloud capabilities to standardize and automate outputs?
• Are we simply reproducing existing systems in the cloud?

Changes to Skills & Roles

• Is our staff excited to learn new skills and technologies? Are our specialists prepared to acquire generalist skills to support cloud services?
• Do we have training plans created and aligned to our technology roadmap?
• Do we know what head count we need?

Misaligned stakeholders

• Have we identified our key stakeholders and teams? Have we considered what changes will impact them and how?
• Are we meeting regularly and collaborating effectively with our peers, or are we siloed?

Review cloud objectives and obstacles

Whiteboard Activity

1 hour

1. With your working group, review why you’re using cloud in the first place. What advantages do you expect to realize by adopting cloud services? If we achieve what we’ve set out to do, what should that look and feel like to us, our organization, and our organization’s customers?
   • You should have identified cloud drivers and objectives in your cloud vision and strategy – leverage and validate what you already have!
2. Next, identify obstacles that are preventing you from fully realizing the value of cloud services.
3. Finally, brainstorm initial ideas for change. What could we start doing that could help us better use cloud in the future? Are there changes to how we need to organize ourselves to collaborate more effectively?

Commonly cited advantages and obstacles

Establish organization design principles

You’ve established a need for organizational change. What will that change look like?

Design principles are concise, direct statements that describe how you will design your organization to achieve key objectives and address key challenges.

This is a critically important step for several reasons:

• A set of clear, concise statements that describe what the design should achieve provides parameters that will help you create and evaluate different design options.
• A focused, facilitated discussion to create those statements will help uncover conflicting assumptions between key stakeholders.
• A comprehensive description of the various ways the organization should change makes it easier to identify misaligned or incompatible objectives.
• A description of what your organization should look like in the future will help you identify where changes will be required .

Examples of design principles:

1. We will create a path to review and publish effective application/platform patterns.
2. A single governing body should have oversight into all cloud costs.
3. Development must happen only on approved cloud platforms.
4. Application teams must address operational issues that derive from the applications they’ve created.
5. Security practices should be embedded into approved cloud platforms and be automatically applied wherever possible.
6. Focus is on improving developer experience on cloud platforms.

Info-Tech Insight

Design principles will often change as the organization’s strategy evolves.

Align design principles to your objectives

Developing design principles starts with your key objectives. What do we absolutely have to get right to deliver value through cloud services?

Once you have your direction set, work through the points in the star model to establish how you will meet your objectives and deliver value. Each point in the star is an important element in your design – taken together, it paints a holistic picture of your future-state organization.

The changes you choose to implement that affect capabilities, structure, processes, rewards, and people should be self-reinforcing. Each point in the star is connected to, and should support, the other points.

“There is no one-size-fits-all organization design that all companies – regardless of their particular strategy needs – should subscribe to.”

– Jay Galbraith, “The Star Model”

Establish design principles

Track your findings in the table on the next slide.

1. Review the cloud objectives and challenges from the previous activity. As a group, decide from that list: what are the key objectives you are trying to achieve? What are the things you absolutely must get right to get value from cloud services?
2. Work through the following questions as a group:
   • What capabilities or technologies do we need to adopt or leverage differently?
   • How must our structure change? How will power shift in the new structure?
   • Will our new structure require changes to processes or information sharing?
   • How must we change how we motivate or reward employees?
   • What new skills or knowledge is required? How will we acquire those skills or knowledge?

Design principles (example)

Step 1.2: Evaluate new ways of working

Participants

Cloud Operations Design Working Group

Outcomes

Shared understanding of the horizon of work possibilities:

• Ways to work
• Ways to govern and learn

Consider the different approaches on the following slides, how they change operational work, and decide which approaches are the right fit for you.

Evaluate new ways of working

Cut through the hype

Leverage patterns to think about new ways of approaching operations work

Patterns are strategies, approaches, and philosophies that can help you imagine new ways of working in your own organization.

• The following slides provide an overview of organizing patterns that are applicable to cloud operations.
• These are strategies that have been applied successfully elsewhere. Review what they can and cannot do and decide whether they are something you can use in your own organizational design.
• Not every pattern will apply to every organization. For example, an organization which typically consumes SaaS applications will likely have very little need for SRE approaches and techniques.

Ways to work

• What work do we do? What skills do we need?
• How do we create and support systems?

Ways to govern and learn

• How do we set and enforce rules?
• How do we create and share knowledge?

Explore Applicable Patterns

What is DevOps?

“Look for obstacles constantly and treat them as opportunities to experiment and learn.” – Jez Humble, et al. Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale

1 DevOps, SRE, and Platform Engineering

What is Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)?

“Hope is not a strategy” – Benjamin Treynor Sloss, Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems

1 SRE vs Platform Engineering

2. Lakhani, Usman. “ISite Reliability Engineering: What Is It? Why Is It Important for Online Businesses?,” 2020.

3. Sloss, “Introduction,” 2017

What4 is Platform Engineering?

“Platform engineers can act as a shield between developers and the infrastructure”

– Carlos Schults, “What is Platform Engineering? The Concept Behind the Term”

1 DevOps, SRE, and Platform Engineering

What is a Cloud Center of Excellence?

You need a strong core to grow a cloud culture.

What is a Cloud Community of Practice?

“We have to stop optimizing for programmers and start optimizing for users”

– Jeff Atwood

Reinforce what we mean by patterns

Review the implications of each pattern for organizational design

1. Gustavo Franco and Matt Brown, “How SRE teams are organized and how to get started.”

Review the implications of each pattern for organizational design

Evolve your organization to meet the needs of increased adoption

Your operating model should evolve as you increase adoption of cloud services.

Adapted from Microsoft, “Get Started: Align your organization,” 2021

Choose new ways of working that make sense for your team

1 hour

Consider if, and how, the approaches to management and governance you’ve just reviewed can offer value to your organization.

1. List the organizing/managing ideas listed in the previous slides in the table below.
2. Define why it’s for you. What benefits do you expect to realize? What challenges do you expect this will help you overcome? How does this align with your key benefits and drivers for moving to cloud?
3. List risks or challenges to adoption. Why will it be hard to do? What could get in the way of adoption? Why might it not be a good fit?
4. Identify next steps to adopt proposed practices.

Step 1.3: Identify cloud work

Participants

• Operations Design Working Group

Outcomes

• Identify core work required to deliver value in key cloud workstreams.

“At first, for many people, the cloud seems vast. But what you actually do is carve out space.”

–DevOps Manager

Identify work

Before you can identify roles and responsibilities, you have to confirm what work you do as an organization and how that work enables you to meet your goals.

• A comprehensive approach that connects the work you do to your organizational goals will help you identify work that’s falling through the cracks.
• Identifying work is an opportunity to look at the tasks you regularly execute and ensure they actually drive value.
• Working through the exercise as a group will help you develop a common language around the work you do.
• To make the evident obvious: you can’t decide who should be responsible for something if you don’t know about it in the first place.

Defining work can be a lot of … work! We recommend you start by identifying work for the workstream you do most – Build, Consume, or Host – to focus your efforts. You can repeat the exercise as needed.

Map work in workstream diagrams

The five Well-Architected Framework pillars. These are principles/directions/guideposts that should inform all cloud work.

The work being done to achieve the workstream target. These are roughly aligned with the three streams on the right.

Workstream Target: A concise statement of the value you aim to achieve through this workstream. All work should help deliver value (directly or indirectly).

Define the scope of the exercise

Whiteboard Activity

20 minutes

Over the next few exercises, you’ll do a deep dive into the work you do in one specific workstream. In this exercise, we’ll decide on a workstream to focus on first.

1. Are you primarily building, hosting on, or consuming cloud services? Start with the workstream where you’re doing the most work.
2. If this isn’t sufficient to narrow your focus, look at the workstream that is most closely tied to mission critical applications, or that is most in need of review in terms of what work is done and who does it.
3. You can narrow the scope further if there’s a very specific sub-area that differs from the rest (e.g. managing your O365 environment vs. managing all SaaS applications).

Create a workstream target statement

Whiteboard Activity

30 minutes

In this activity, come up with a short sentence to describe what all this work you do is building toward. The target statement helps align participants on why work is being done and helps focus the activity on work that is most important to achieving the target statement.

Start with this common workstream target statement:

“Deliver valuable, secure, available, reliable, and efficient cloud services.”

Now, review and adjust the target statement by working through the questions below:

1. Return to the earlier exercises in Phase 1.1 where you reviewed your key objectives for cloud services. Does the target statement align with what you’d identified previously?
2. Who is the customer for the work you do? Would they see the target differently than you’ve described it?
3. Can you be more specific? Are there value drivers that are more specific to your industry, organization, business functions, or products that are key to the value your customers receive from this workstream?

Identify cloud work

1-2 hours

1. Use the workstream diagram template in the Cloud Operations Design Sketchbook, or draw the template out on a whiteboard and use sticky notes to identify work.
2. Identify the workstream at the top of the slide. Update the template value statement on the right with the value statement you created in the previous exercise.
3. Review one or more of the examples in the Cloud Operations Design Sketchbook to get a sense of the level of detail required for this exercise.

Activity instructions continue on the next slide.

Some notes to the facilitator:

• Working directly from the Cloud Operations Design Sketchbook will save you time with transcription. Sharing the document with participants (e.g. via OneDrive) will allow you to collaborate and edit the document together in real-time.
• Don’t worry about being too tidy for the moment, just get the information written down and you can clean up the diagram later.

Identify cloud work (cont’d)

4. Work together to identify work, documenting one work item per box. This should focus on future state, so record work whether it’s actually done today or not. Your space is limited on the sheet, so focus on work that is indispensable to delivering the value statement. Use the lists on the right as a reminder of key IT practice areas.

5. As much as possible, align the work items to the appropriate row (Govern & Align, Design & Execute, or Validate, Support & Monitor). You can overlap boxes between rows if needed.

Have you captured work related to:

Info-Tech Insight

Cloud work is not just applications that have been approved by IT. Consider how unsanctioned software purchased by the business will be integrated and managed.

Identify cloud work (cont’d)

6. If you have decided to adopt any of the new ways of working outlined in Step 1.2 (e.g. DevOps, SRE, etc.) review the next slide for examples of the type of work that frequently needs to be done in each of those work models. Add any additional work items as needed.

7. Consolidate boxes and clean up the diagram (e.g. remove duplicate work items, align boxes, clarify language).

8. Do a final review. Is all the work in the diagram truly aligned with the value statement? Is the work identified aligned with the design principles from Step 1.1?

If you used a whiteboard for this exercise, transcribe the output to a copy of the Cloud Operations Design Sketchbook, and repeat the exercise for other key workstreams. You will use this diagram in Phase 2.

Examples of work

Examples of work in the "Host" workstream:

• Bulk patch servers
• Add a server
• Add capacity
• Develop a new server template
• Incident management

Examples of work in the "Build" workstream:

• Provision a production server
• Provision a test environment
• Test recovery procedures
• Add capacity for a service
• Publish a new pattern
• Manage capacity/performance for a service
• Identify wasted spend across services
• Identify performance bottlenecks
• Review and shut down idle/unneeded services

Examples of work in the "Consume" workstream:

• Conduct vendor risk assessments
• Develop a standard evaluation matrix to compare solutions to existing or potential in-house offerings
• Onboard a solution
• Offboard a solution
• Conduct a renewal
• Review and negotiate a contract
• Rationalize software titles

Phase 2:

Design the organization and communicate changes

Phase Outcomes:

Draft your cloud operations diagram, identify key messages and impacts to communicate to your stakeholders, and build out the Cloud Operations Organizing Framework communication deck.

Step 2.1: Identify groups and responsibilities

Participants

• Operations Design Working Group

Outcomes

• Cloud Operations Diagram
• Success Indicators
• Roadmap

“No-one ever solved a problem by restructuring.”

– Anonymous

Visualize your cloud operations

Create a visual to help you abstract, analyze, and clarify your vision for the future state of your organization in order to align and instruct stakeholders.

Create a visual, high-level view of your organization to help you answer questions such as:

• “What work do we do? What are the roles and responsibilities of different teams?”
• “How do we interact between work areas?”
• “How has our organization changed already, and what additional changes may be needed?”
• “How do we make technology decisions?”
• “How do we provide services?”
• “How might this change be received by people on the ground?”

Decide whether to centralize or decentralize

Specialization & Focus: A group or work unit developing a focused concentration of skills, expertise, and activities aligned with an area of focus (such as the ones at right).

Decentralization: Operational teams that report to a decentralized IT or business function, either directly or via a “dotted line” relationship.

Decentralization and Specialization can:

• Duplicate work.
• Localize decision-making authority, which can increase agility and responsiveness.
• Transfer authority and accountability to local and typically smaller teams, clarifying responsibilities and encouraging staff to take ownership for service delivery.
• Enable the team to focus on complex and rapidly changing technologies or processes.
• Create islands of expertise, which can get in the way of collaboration, innovation, and decision making across groups and work units and make oversight difficult.
• Complicate the transfer of resources and knowledge between groups.

“The concept of organization design is simple in theory but highly complex in practice. Like any strategic decision, it involves making multiple trade-offs before choosing what is best suited to a business context.”

– Nitin Razdan & Arvind Pandit

Identify key work areas

Balance specialization with effective collaboration

• Much is said about breaking down organizational silos. But at some level, silos are inevitable – any company with more than one employee will have to divide work up somehow.
• Dividing up work is a delicate balancing act – ensuring individuals and groups are able to do work that is related, meaningful, and that allows autonomy while allowing for effective collaboration between groups that need to work together to achieve business goals.

Why “work areas”?

Why don’t we just use teams, groups, squads, or departments, or some other more common term for groups of people working together?

• We are not yet at the point of deciding who in the organization should be aligned to which areas in the design.
• Describing work areas as teams can shift the conversation to the organizational chart – to who does the work, rather than what needs to be done.

That’s not the goal of this exercise. If the conversation gets stuck on what you do today, it can get in the way of thinking about what you need to do in the future.

Create a future-state cloud operations diagram

1-3 hours

1. Review the example cloud operations diagram example in your copy of the Cloud Operations Design Sketchbook.
2. Identify key work areas (e.g. applications, infrastructure, platform engineering, DevOps, security). Add the name of each work area in one of the larger boxes.
   • Go back to your design principles. Did you define any work areas in your design principles that should be represented here?
   • If you have several groups or teams with similar responsibilities, consider lumping them together in one box (e.g. applications teams, 3x DevOps teams).
3. Copy the tasks from any workstream diagrams you’ve created to the same slide as the organization design diagram. Keep the workstream diagram intact, as you’ll want to be able to refer back to it later.

Activity instructions continue on the next slide.

Cloud operations diagram (cont’d)

1-3 hours

4. As a group, move the work boxes from the workstream diagram into the appropriate work area.

• Don’t worry about being too tidy for the moment – clean up the diagram when the exercise is done.
• Make adjustments to the wording of the work boxes if needed.

5. Use the space between work areas to describe how work areas must interact to achieve organizational goals. For example:

• What information should be shared between groups?
• What information sharing channels may be used?
• What processes will be handed-off between groups and how?
• How often will teams interact?
• Will interactions be formal or informal?

Create a current-state operations diagram

1 -2 hours

This exercise can be done by one person, then reviewed with the working group at a later time.

This current state diagram helps clarify the changes that may need to happen to get to your future state.

1. Color code the work boxes for each work area. For example, if you have a “DevOps” work area, make all the work boxes assigned to “DevOps” the same color.
2. On a separate slide, sketch your existing organization indicating your current teams.
3. Copy the tasks from the future-state diagram to this current-state chart. Align the tasks to the appropriate groups.
4. Review the chart with the working group. Discuss: are there teams that are doing work today that will also be done by different teams? Are there groups that may merge into one team? What types of changes may be required?

Check for biases to make better choices

Use the strategies below to spot and address flaws in your team’s thinking about your future-state design.

Framework above adapted from Kahneman, Lovallo, and Sibony (2011)

Be specific with metrics

Thinking of ways you could measure success can help uncover what success actually means to you.

Work collectively to generate success indicators for each key cloud initiative. Success indicators are metrics, with targets, aligned to goals, and if you are able to measure them accurately, they should help you report your progress toward your objectives.

For example, if your driver is “faster access to resources” you might consider indicators like developer satisfaction, project completion time, average time to provision, etc.

There are several reasons you may not publicize these metrics. They may be difficult to calculate or misconstrued as targets, warping behavior in unexpected ways. But managed properly, they have value in measuring operational success!

Define success indicators

Whiteboard Activity

45 minutes

1. On a whiteboard, draw a table with key objectives for the design across the top.
   • What cloud objectives should the redesign help you achieve? Refer back to the design principles from Phase 1.
   • Think about the redesign itself. How will you measure whether the project itself is proceeding according to plan? Consider metrics such as employee engagement scores and satisfaction scores from key stakeholders.
2. Consider whether the metrics are feasible to track. Record your decisions in your copy of the Cloud Operations Organizing Framework deck.

Populate a roadmap

Tool Activity

45 minutes

1. In the Roadmap Tool, populate the data entry tab with the initiatives you will take to support changes toward the new cloud operations organizing framework.
2. Input each of the tasks in the data entry tab and provide a description and rationale behind the task (as needed).
3. Assign an effort, priority, and cost level to each task (high, medium, low).
4. Assign an owner to each task – someone who can take points and shepherd the task to completion.
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.

Download the Roadmap Tool

Step 2.2: Communicate changes

Participants

• Operations Design Working Group

Outcomes

• Build a communication plan for key stakeholders
• Complete the communication deck Cloud Operations Organizing Framework
• Build a roadmap

“Words, words, words.”

– Shakespeare

Communicate changes

Which stakeholders will be affected by the changes?

Decision makers: Who do you ultimately need to convince to proceed with any changes you’ve outlined?

Peers: How will managers of other areas be affected by the changes you’re proposing? If you are you suggesting changes to the way that they, or their teams, do their work, you will have to present a compelling case that there’s value in it for them.

Staff: Are you dictating changes or looking for feedback on the path forward?

Source: The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change

Follow these guidelines for good communication

“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

Create a communication plan

1 hour

Fill out the table below.

Stakeholder group: Identify key stakeholders who may be impacted by changes to the operations team. This might include IT leadership, management, and staff.

Benefits: What’s in it for them?

Impact: What are we asking in return?

How: What mechanisms or channels will you use to communicate?

When: When (and how often) will you get the message out?

Download the Communication Plan Template

Support the transition with a plan to acquire skills

Identify the preferred way to acquire needed skill sets: contracting, outsourcing, training, or hiring.

• Some cloud projects will change the demand for some skills in the organization, and not all skills should be cultivated internally. Uncertainty about future skills and jobs will cause anxiety for your team and can lead to employee exit.
• Use Info-Tech’s research to conduct a demand analysis to identify which new and critical skills should be acquired via training or hiring (rather than outsourcing or contracting).
• Create a roadmap to clarify when training needs to be completed, a budget plan that accounts for training costs, and role descriptions that paint a picture of future work.
• Within the confines of a collective agreement, managers may be required to retrain staff into new roles before those staff are required to do work in their new jobs. Failing to plan can be more consequential.
• Remember that in cloud, a wealth of automation opportunities present a great option for offloading tasks as well!

Info-Tech Insight

Identify skills requirements and gaps as early as possible to avoid skills gaps later. Whether you plan to acquire skills via training or cross-training, hiring, contracting, or outsourcing, effectively building skills takes time. Use Info-Tech’s methodology to address skills gaps in a prioritized and rational way.

Involve HR for implementation

Your HR team should help you work through:

• Which staff and managers will move to which roles, and any headcount changes.
• Job descriptions, performance metrics, career paths, compensation, and succession planning.
• Organizational change management and implementation plans.

When do you need to involve HR?

Related Info-Tech Research

Bibliography

“2021 GitLab DevSecOps Survey.” Gitlab, 2021.
“2022 State of the Cloud Report.” Flexera, 2022.
“DevOps.” Atlassian, ND. Web. 21 July 2022.
Atwood, Jeff. “The 2030 Self-Driving Car Bet.” Coding Horror, 4 Mar 2022. Web. 5 Aug 2022.
Campbell, Andrew. “What is an operating model?” Operational Excellence Society, 12 May 2016. Web. 13 July 2022.
“DevOps.” Atlassian, ND. Web. 21 July 2022.
Ewenstein, Boris, Wesley Smith, Ashvin Sologar. “Changing change management” McKinsey, 1 July 2015. Web. 8 April 2022.
Franco, Gustavo and Matt Brown. “How SRE teams are organized, and how to get started.” Google Cloud Blog, 26 June 2019. Web. July 13 2022.
“Get started: Build a cloud operations team.” Microsoft, 10 May 2021.
ITIL Foundation: ITIL 4 Edition. Axelos, 2019.
Humble, Jez, Joanne Molesky, and Barry O’Reilly. Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale. O’Reilly Media, 2015.
Franco, Gustavo and Matt Brown. “How SRE teams are organized and how to get started.” 26 June 2019. Web. 21 July 2022.
Galbraith, Jay. “The Star Model”. ND. Web. 21 July 2022.
Kahnemanm Daniel, Dan Lovallo, and Olivier Sibony. “Before you make that big decision.” Harv Bus Rev. 2011 Jun; 89(6): 50-60, 137. PMID: 21714386.
Kesler, Greg. “Star Model of Organizational Design.” YouTube, 1 Oct 2018. Web Video. 21 Jul 2022.
Lakhani, Usman. “Site Reliability Engineering: What Is It? Why Is It Important for Online Businesses?” Info-Tech. Web. 25 May 2020.
Mansour, Sherif. “Product Management: The role and best practices for beginners.” Atlassian Agile Coach, n.d.
Murphy, Annie, Jamie Kirwin, Khalid Abdul Razak. “Operating Models: Delivering on strategy and optimizing processes.” EY, 2016.
Shults, Carlos. “What is Platform Engineering? The Concept Behind the Term.” liatrio, 3 Aug 2021. Web. 5 Aug 2022.
Sloss, Benjamin Treynor. Site Reliability Engineering – Part I: Introduction. O’Reilly Media, 2017.
“SRE vs. Platform Engineering.” Ambassador Labs, 8 Feb 2021.
“The Qualities of Leadership: Leading Change.” Cornelius & Associates, n.d. Web.
“Understand cloud operating models.” Microsoft, 02 Sept. 2022.
Velichko, Ivan. “DevOps, SRE, and Platform Engineering.” 15 Mar 2022.

Research Contributors and Experts

Define Your Digital Business Strategy

After a major crisis, find your place in the digital economy.

Info-Tech Research Group

Info-Tech is a provider of best-practice IT research advisory services that make every IT leader’s job easier.

35,000 members sharing best practices you can leverage

Millions spent developing tools and templates annually

Leverage direct access to over 100 analysts as an extension of your team

Use our massive database of benchmarks and vendor assessments

Get up to speed in a fraction of the time

Analyst Perspective

Build business resilience and prepare for a digital economy.

Dana Daher
Senior Research Analyst

To survive one of the greatest economic downturns since the Great Depression, organizations had to accelerate their digital transformation by engaging with the Digital Economy. To sustain growth and thrive as the pandemic eases, organizations must focus their attention on building business resilience by transforming how they deliver value today.
This requires a value-driven approach to digital transformation that is capable of identifying what aspects of the business to transform, what technologies to embrace, what processes to automate, and what new business models to create. And most importantly, it needs to unify digital possibilities with your customer experiences.
If there was ever a time for an organization to become a digital business, it is today.

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

• Your organization has difficulty adapting new technologies or rethinking the existing business models.
• Your management lacks a framework to rethink how your organization delivers value today, which causes annual planning to become an ideation session that lacks focus.
• There is uncertainty on how to meet evolving customer needs and how to compete in a digital economy.

Common Obstacles

• Your organization might approach digital transformation as if we were still in 2019, not recognizing that the pandemic resulted in a major shift to an end-to-end digital economy.
• Your senior-most leadership thinks digital is "IT's problem" because digital is viewed synonymously with technology.
• On the other hand, your IT team lacks the authority to make decisions without the executives’ involvement in the discussion around digital.

Info-Tech’s Approach

• Design a strategy that applies innovation to your business model, streamline and transform processes, and make use of technologies to enhance interactions with customers and employees.
• Use digital for transforming non-routine cognitive activities and for de-risking key elements of the value chain.
• Create a balanced roadmap that improves digital maturity and prepares you for long-term success in a digital economy.

Info-Tech Insight

After a major crisis, focus on restarting the growth engine and bolstering business resilience.

Your digital business strategy aims to transform the business

Digital Business Strategy

• Looks for ways to transform the business by identifying what technologies to embrace, what processes to automate, and what new business models to create.
• Unifies digital possibilities with your customer experiences.
• Accountability lies with the executive leadership.
• Must involve cross-functional participation from senior management from the different areas of the organization.

IT Strategy

• Aims to identify how to change, fix, or improve technology in support of the organization’s business strategy.
• Accountability lies with the CIO.
• Must involve IT management and gather strategic input from the business.

Becoming a digital business

Automate tasks to free up time for innovation.

Business activities (tasks, procedures, and processes, etc.) are used to create, sell, buy, and deliver goods and services.

When we convert information into a readable format used by computers, we call this digitization (e.g. converting paper into digital format). When we convert these activities into a format to be processed by a computer, we have digitalization (e.g. scheduling appointments online).

These two processes alter how work takes place in an organization and form the foundation of the concept digital transformation.

We maintain that digital transformation is all about becoming a “digital business” – an organization that performs more than 66% of all work activities via executable code.

As organizations take a step closer to this optimal state, new avenues are open to identify advances to promote growth, enhance customer experiences, secure sustainability, drive operational efficiencies, and unearth potential future business ventures.

Key Concepts:

Digital: The representation of a physical item in a format used by computers

Digitization: Conversion of information and processes into a digital format

Digitalization: Conversion of information into a format to be processed by a computer

Why transform your business?

COVID-19 has irrefutably changed livelihoods, businesses, and the economy. During the pandemic, digital tools have acted as a lifeline, helping businesses and economies survive, and in the process, have acted as a catalyst for digital transformation.

As organizations continue to safeguard business continuity and financial recovery, in the long term, recovery won’t be enough.

Although many pandemic/recession recovery periods have occurred before, this next recovery period will present two first-time challenges no one has faced before. We must find ways to:

• Recover from the COVID-19 recession.
• Compete in a digital economy.

To grow and thrive in this post-pandemic world, organizations must provide meaningful and lasting changes to brace for a future defined by digital technologies. – Dana Daher, Info-Tech Research Group

We are amid an economic transformation

What we are facing today is a paradigm shift transforming the ways in which we work, live, and relate to one another.

In the last 60 years alone, performance and productivity have been vastly improved by IT in virtually all economic activities and sectors. And today, digital technologies continue to advance IT's contribution even further by bringing unprecedented insights into economic activities that have largely been untouched by IT.

As technological innovation and the digitalization of products and services continue to support economic activities, a fundamental shift is occurring that is redefining how we live, work, shop, and relate to one another.

These rapid changes are captured in a new 21st century term:

The Digital Economy.

90% of CEOs believe the digital economy will impact their industry. But only 25% have a plan in place. – Paul Taylor, Forbes, 2020

Analyst Perspective

Become a Digital Business

Kenneth McGee
Research Fellow

Today, the world faces two profoundly complex, mega-challenges simultaneously:

1. Ending the COVID-19 pandemic and recession.
2. Creating strategies for returning to business growth.

Within the past year, healthcare professionals have searched for and found solutions that bring real hope to the belief the global pandemic/recession will soon end.

As progress towards ending COVID-19 continues, business professionals are searching for the most effective near-term and long-term methods of restoring or exceeding the rates of growth they were enjoying prior to 2020.

We believe developing a digital business strategy can deliver cost savings to help achieve near-term business growth while preparing an enterprise for long-term business growth by effectively competing within the digital economy of the future.

The Digital Economy

The digital economy refers to a concept in which all economic activity is facilitated or managed through digital technologies, data, infrastructure, services, and products (OECD, 2020).

The digital economy captures decades of digital trends including:

• Declining enterprise computing costs
• Improvements in computing power and performance; unprecedent analytic capabilities
• Rapid growth in network speeds, affordability, and geographic reach
• High adoption rates of PCs, mobile, and other computing devices

These trends among others have set the stage to permanently alter how buying and selling will take place within and between local, regional, national, and international economies.

The emerging digital economy concept is so compelling that the world economists, financial experts, and others are currently investigating how they must substantially rewrite the rules governing how taxes, trade, tangible and intangible assets, and countless other financial issues will be assessed and valued in a digital economy.

Download Info-Tech’s Digital Economy Report

Signals of Change

The digital economy captures technological developments transforming the way in which we live, work, and socialize

Technological evolution

Info-Tech’s approach to digital business strategy

A path to thrive in a digital economy.

1. Identify top value chains to be transformed
2. Identify a digitally enabled growth opportunity
3. Transform stakeholder journeys
4. Build a digital transformation roadmap

Info-Tech Insight

Pre-pandemic digital strategies have been primarily focused on automation. However, your post-pandemic digital strategy must focus on driving resilience for growth opportunities.

The Info-Tech difference:

• Understand how your organization creates value today to identify opportunities for digital transformation.
• Leverage strategic foresight to evaluate how complex trends can evolve over time and identify opportunities to leapfrog competitors.
• Design a journey map to empathize with your customers and identify opportunities to streamline or enhance existing and new experiences.
• Create a balanced roadmap that improves digital maturity and prepares you for long-term success in a digital economy.

A digital transformation starts by transforming how you deliver value today

As digital transformation is an effort to transform how you deliver value today, it is important to understand the different value-generating activities that deliver an outcome for and from your customers.

We do this by looking at value streams –which refer to the specific set of activities an industry player undertakes to create and capture value for and from the end consumer (and so the question to ask is, how do you make money as an organization?).

Our approach helps you to digitally transform those value streams that generate the most value for your organization.

Higher Education Value stream

Recruitment → Admission → Student Enrolment → Instruction & Research → Graduation → Advancement

Local Government Value Stream

Sustain Land, Property, and the Environment → Facilitate Civic Engagement → Protect Local Health and Safety → Grow the Economy → Provide Regional Infrastructure

Manufacturing Value Stream

Design Product → Produce Product → Sell Product

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify your industry’s value streams

Assess your external environment to identify new value generators

Assessing your external environment allows you to identify trends that will have a high impact on how you deliver value today.

Traditionally, a PESTLE analysis is used to assess the external environment. While this is a helpful tool, it is often too broad as it identifies macro trends that are not relevant to an organization's addressable market. That is because not every factor that affects the macro environment (for example, the country of operation) affects a specific organization’s industry in the same way.

And so, instead of simply assessing the macro environment and trying to project its evolution along the PESTLE factors, we recommend to:

• Conduct a PESTLE first and deduce, from the analysis, what are possible shifts in six characteristics of an organization’s industry, or
• Proceed immediately with identifying evolutionary trends that impact the organization’s direct market.

Info-Tech Insight

While PESTLE is helpful to scan the macro environment, the analysis often lacks relevance to an organization’s industry.

An analysis of evolutionary shifts in five industry-specific characteristics would be more effective for identifying trends that impact the organization

A Market Evolution Trend Analysis (META) identifies changes in prevailing market conditions that are directly relevant to an organization’s industry, and thus provides some critical input to the strategy design process, since these trends can bring about strategic risks or opportunities.
Shifts in these five characteristics directly impact an organization:

ORGANIZATION

• Customer Expectations
• Talent Availability
• Regulatory System
• Supply Chain Continuity
• Technological Landscape

Capture existing and new value generators through a customer journey map

As we prioritize value streams, we break them down into value chains – that is the “string” of processes that interrelate that work.

However, once we identify these value chains and determine what parts we wish to digitally transform, we take on the perspective of the user, as the way they interact with your products and services will be different to the view of those within the organization who implement and provide those services.

This method allows us to build an empathetic and customer-centric lens, granting the capability to uncover challenges and potential opportunities. Here, we may define new experiences or redesign existing ones.

A digital transformation is not just about customer journeys but also about building business resilience

Pre-pandemic, a digital transformation was primarily focused around improving customer experiences. Today, we are facing a paradigm shift in the way in which we capture the priorities and strategies for a digital transformation.

As the world grows increasingly uncertain, organizations need to continue to focus on improving customer experience while simultaneously protecting their enterprise value.

Ultimately, a digital transformation has two purposes:

1. The classical model – whereby there is a focus on improving digital experiences.
2. Value protection or the reduction of enterprise risk by systematically identifying how the organization delivers value and digitally transforming it to protect future cashflows and improve the overall enterprise value.

Key deliverable:

Digital Business Strategy Presentation Template

A highly visual and compelling presentation template that enables easy customization and executive-facing content.

*Coming in 2022

Blueprint deliverables

The Digital Business Strategy Workbook supports each step of this blueprint to help you accomplish your goals:

Initiative Prioritization

Use the weighted scorecard approach to evaluate and prioritize your opportunities and initiatives.

Roadmap Gantt Chart

Populate your Gantt chart to visually represent your key initiative plan over the next 12 months.

Journey Mapping Workbook

Populate the journey maps to evaluate a user experience over its end-to-end journey.

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 2 to 4 months.

Workshop Requirements

Business Inputs

Gather business strategy documents and find information on:

• Business goals
• Current transformation initiatives
• Business capabilities to create or enhance
• Identify top ten revenue and expense generators
• Identify stakeholders

Interview the following stakeholders to uncover business context information:

• CEO
• CIO

Download the Business Context Discovery Tool

Optional Diagnostic

• Assess your digital maturity (Concierge Service)

Visit Assess Your Digital Maturity

Phase 1

Identify top value chains to be transformed

• Understand the business
• Assess your business ecosystem
• Identify two value chains for transformation

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Understand how your organization delivers value today and identify value chains to be transformed.

This phase involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across all levels of the organization.

Outcomes

• Business ecosystem
• Existing value chains to be transformed

Step 1.1

Understand the business

Activities

• Review business documents.

Identify top value chains to be transformed

This step will walk you through the following activities:

In this section you will gain an understanding of the business context for your strategy.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Business Context

Understand the business context

Understanding the business context is a must for all strategic initiatives. A pre-requisite to all strategic planning should be to elicit the business context from your business stakeholders.

1.1 Understand the business context

Objective: Elicit the business context with a careful review of business and strategy documents.

1. Gather the strategy creation team and review your business context documents. This includes business strategy documents, interview notes from executive stakeholders, and other sources for uncovering the business strategy.
2. Brainstorm in smaller groups answers to the question you were assigned:
   • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the organization?
   • What are some areas of improvement or opportunity?
   • What does it mean to have a digital business strategy?
3. Discuss the questions above with participants and document key findings. Share with the group and work through the balanced scorecard questions to complete this exercise.
4. Document your findings.

Assess your digital readiness with Info-Tech’s Digital Maturity Assessment

Input

• Business Strategy Documents
• Executive Stakeholder Interviews

Output

• Business Context Information

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Step 1.2

Assess your business ecosystem

Activities

• Identify disruptors and incumbents.

Info-Tech Insight

Your digital business strategy cannot be formulated without a clear vision of the evolution of your industry.

Identify top value chains to be transformed

This step will walk you through the following activities:

In this section, we will assess who the incumbents and disruptors are in your ecosystem and identify who your stakeholders are.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Business Ecosystem

Assess your business ecosystem

Understand the nature of your competition.

Learn what your competitors are doing.

To survive, grow, or transform in today's digital era, organizations must first have a strong pulse on their business ecosystem. Learning what your competitors are doing to grow their bottom line is key to identifying how to grow your own. Start by understanding who the key incumbents and disruptors in your industry are to identify where your industry is heading.

Incumbents: These are established leaders in the industry that possess the largest market share. Incumbents often focus their attention to their most demanding or profitable customers and neglect the needs of those down market.

Disruptors: Disruptors are primarily new entrants (typically startups) that possess the ability to displace the existing market, industry, or technology. Disruptors are often focused on smaller markets that the incumbents aren’t focused on. (Clayton Christenson, 1997)

’Disruption’ specifically refers to what happens when the incumbents are so focused on pleasing their most profitable customers that they neglect or misjudge the needs of their other segments.– Ilan Mochari, Inc., 2015

Example Business Ecosystem Analysis

1.2 Understand your business ecosystem

Objective: Identify the incumbents and disruptors in your business ecosystem.

1. Identify the key incumbents and disruptors in your business ecosystem.
   • Incumbents: These are established leaders in the industry that possess the largest market share.
   • Disruptors: Disruptors are primarily new entrants (startups) that possess the ability to displace the existing market, industry, or technology.
2. Identify target market and key customers. Who are the primary beneficiaries of your products or service offerings? Your key customers are those who keep you in business, increase profits, and are impacted by your operations.
3. Identify what their core products or services are. Assess what core problem their products solve for key customers and what key features of their solution support this.
4. Assess what the competitors' key differentiators are. There are many differentiators that an organization can have, examples include product, brand, price, service, or channel.
5. Identify what the organization’s value proposition is. Why do customers come to them specifically? Leverage insights from the key differentiators to derive this.
6. Finally, assess how your organization derives value relative to your competitors.

Input

• Market Assessment

Output

• Key Incumbents and Disruptors

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Step 1.3

Value-chain prioritization

Activities

• Identify and prioritize value chains for innovation.

Identify top value chains to be transformed

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Identify and prioritize how your organization currently delivers value today and identify value chains to be transformed.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Prioritized Value Chains

Determine what value the organization creates

Identify areas for innovation.

Value streams and value chains connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities. They enable an organization to create and capture value in the market place by engaging in a set of interconnected activities. Those activities are dependent on the specific industry segment an organization operates within.

Different types of value your organization creates

Value Streams

A value stream refers to the specific set of activities an industry player undertakes to create and capture value for and from the end consumer.

Value Chains

A value chain is a ”string” of processes within a company that interrelate and work together to meet market demand. Examining the value chain of a company will reveal how it achieves competitive advantage.

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify value streams

Begin with understanding your industry’s value streams

Value Streams

Recruitment

• The promotion of the institution and the communication with prospective students is accommodated by the recruitment component.
• Prospective students are categorized as domestic and international, undergraduate and graduate. Each having distinct processes.

Admission

• Admission into the university involves processes distinct from recruitment. Student applications are processed and evaluated and the students are informed of the decision.
• This component is also concerned with transfer students and the approval of transfer credits.

Student Enrolment

• Student enrolment is concerned with matriculation when the student first enters the institution, and subsequent enrolment and scheduling of current students.
• The component is also concerned with financial aid and the ownership of student records.

Instruction & Research

• Instruction involves program development, instructional delivery and assessment, and the accreditation of courses of study.
• The research component begins with establishing policy and degree fundamentals and concerns the research through to publication and impact assessment.

Graduation

• Graduation is not only responsible for the ceremony but also the eligibility of the candidate for an award and the subsequent maintenance of transcripts.

Advancement

• Alumni relations are the first responsibility of advancement. This involves the continual engagement with former students.
• Fundraising is the second responsibility. This includes the solicitation and stewardship of gifts from alumni and other benefactors.

Value stream defined…

Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities in the marketplace. Those activities are dependent on the specific industry segment in which an organization operates.

There are two types of value streams: core value streams and support value streams.

• Core value streams are mostly externally facing. They deliver value to either an external or internal customer and they tie to the customer perspective of the strategy map.
• Support value streams are internally facing and provide the foundational support for an organization to operate.

An effective method for ensuring all value streams have been considered is to understand that there can be different end-value receivers.

Leverage your industry’s capability maps to identify value chains

Business Capability Map Defined

A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation, rather than how. Business capabilities:

• Represent stable business functions.
• Are unique and independent of each other.
• Typically, will have a defined business outcome.

A capability map is a great starting point to identify value chains within an organization as it is a strong indicator of the processes involved to deliver on the value streams.

Info-Tech Insight

Leverage your industry reference architecture to define value streams and value chains.

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify value streams

Prioritize value streams to be supported or enhanced

Use an evaluation criteria that considers both the human and business value generators that these streams provide.

Info-Tech Insight

To produce maximum impact, focus on value streams that provide two-thirds of your enterprise value.

Business Value

Assess the value generators to the business, e.g. revenue dollars, enterprise value, cost or differentiation (competitiveness), etc.

Human Value

Assess the value generators to people, e.g. student/faculty satisfaction, well-being, and social cohesion.

Identify value chains for transformation

Value chains, pioneered by the academic Michael Porter, refer to the ”string” of processes within a company that interrelate and work together to meet market demand. An organization’s value chain is connected to the larger part of the value stream. This perspective of how value is generated encourages leaders to see each activity as a part of a series of steps required deliver value within the value stream and opens avenues to identify new opportunities for value generation.

Prioritize value chains for transformation

Once we have identified the key value chains within each value stream element, evaluate the individual processes within the value chain to identify opportunities for transformation. Evaluate the value chain processes based on the level of pain experienced by a stakeholder to accomplish that task, and the financial impact that level of the process has on the organization.

1.3 Value chain analysis

Objective: Determine how the organization creates value, and prioritize value chains for innovation.

1. The first step of delivering value is defining how it will happen. Use the organization’s industry segment to start a discussion on how value is created for customers. Working back from the moment value is realized by the customer, consider the sequential steps required to deliver value in your industry segment.
2. Define and validate the organization’s value stream. Write a short description of the value stream that includes a statement about the value provided and a clear start and end for the value stream.
3. Prioritize the value streams based on an evaluation criteria that reflects business and human value generators to the organization.
4. Identify value chains that are associated with each value stream. The value chains refer to a string of processes within the value stream element. Each value chain also captures a particular stakeholder that benefits from the value chain.
5. Once we have identified the key value chains within each value stream element, evaluate the individual processes within the value chain and identify areas for transformation. Evaluate the value chain processes based on the level of pain or exposure to risk experienced by a stakeholder to accomplish that task and the financial impact that level of the process has on the organization.

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify value streams and capability maps

Input

• Market Assessment

Output

• Key Incumbents and Disruptors

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Phase 2

Identify a digitally enabled growth opportunity

• Conduct horizon scan
• Identify leapfrog idea
• Conduct value chain impact analysis

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Assess trends that are impacting your industry and identify strategic growth opportunities.

This phase involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes

Identify new growth opportunities and value chains impacted

Phase 2.1

Horizon scanning

Activities

• Scan the internal and external environment for trends.

Info-Tech Insight

Systematically scan your environment to identify avenues or opportunities to skip one or several stages of technological development and stay ahead of disruption.

Identify a digitally enabled growth opportunity

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Scan the environment for external environment for megatrends, trends, and drivers. Prioritize trends and build a trends radar to keep track of trends within your environment.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Growth opportunity

Horizon scanning

Understand how your industry is evolving.

Horizon scanning is a systematic analysis of detecting early signs of future changes or threats.

Horizon scanning involves scanning, analyzing, and communicating changes in an organization’s environment to prepare for potential threats and opportunities. Much of what we know about the future is based around the interactions and trajectory of macro trends, trends, and drivers. These form the foundations for future intelligence.

Macro Trends

A macro trend captures a large-scale transformative trend that could impact your addressable market.

Trends

A trend captures a business use case of the macro trend. Consider trends in relation to competitors in your industry.

Drivers

A driver is an underlying force causing the trend to occur. There can be multiple causal forces, or drivers, that influence a trend, and multiple trends can be influenced by the same causal force.

Identify signals of change in the present and their potential future impacts.

Identifying macro trends

A macro trend captures a large-scale transformative trend that could change the addressable market. Here are some examples of macro trends to consider when horizon scanning for your own organization:

Talent Availability

• Decentralized workforce
• Hybrid workforce
• Diverse workforce
• Skills gap
• Digital workforce
• Multigenerational workforce

Customer Expectations

• Personalization
• Digital experience
• Data ownership
• Transparency
• Accessibility

Technological Landscape

• AI & robotics
• Virtual world
• Ubiquitous connectivity,
• Genomics
• Materials (smart, nano, bio)

Regulatory System

• Market control
• Economic shifts
• Digital regulation
• Consumer protection
• Global green

Supply Chain Continuity

• Resource scarcity
• Sustainability
• Supply chain digitization
• Circular supply chains
• Agility

Identifying trends and drivers

A trend captures a business use case of a macro trend. Assessing trends can reduce some uncertainties about the future and highlight potential opportunities for your organization. A driver captures the internal or external forces that lead the trend to occur. Understanding and capturing drivers is important to understanding why these trends are occurring and the potential impacts to your value chains.

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 innovation.

Explore trends in areas such as:

• Machine Learning
• Citizen Dev 2.0
• Venture Architecture
• Autonomous Organizations
• Self-Sovereign Cloud
• Digital Sustainability

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 identify your industry’s value streams

Images are from Info-Tech’s Rethinking Higher Education Report and 2021 Tech Trends Report

Example horizon scanning activity

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify your industry’s value streams

Prioritize trends

Develop a cross-industry holistic view of trends.

Visualize emerging and prioritize action.

Moving from horizon scanning to action requires an evaluation process to determine which trends can lead to growth opportunities. First, we need to make a short list of trends to analyze. For your digital strategy, consider trends on the time horizon that are under 24 months. Next, we need to evaluate the shortlisted opportunities by a second set of criteria: relevance to your organization and impact on industry.

Timing

The estimated time to disruption this trend will have for your industry. Assess whether the trend will require significant developments to support its entry into the ecosystem.

Relevance

The relevance of the trend to your organization. Does the trend fulfil the vision or goals of the organization?

Impact

The degree of impact the trend will have on your industry. A trend with high impact will drive new business models, products, or services.

Prioritize trends to adopt into your organization

Prioritize trends based on timing, impact, and relevance.

2.1 Scanning the horizon

Objective: Generate trends

60 minutes

• Start by selecting macro trends that are occurring in your environment using the five categories. These are the large-scale transformative trends that impact your addressable market. Macro trends have three key characteristics:
  • They span over a long period of time.
  • They impact all geographic regions.
  • They impact governments, individuals, and organizations.
• Begin to break down these macro trends into trends. Trends should reflect the direction of a macro trend and capture the pattern in events. Consider trends that directly impact your organization.
• Understand the drivers behind these trends. Why are they occurring? What is driving them? Understanding the drivers helps us understand the value they may generate.
• Deprioritize trends that are expected to happen beyond 24 months.
• Prioritize trends that have a high impact and relevance to the organization.
• If you identify more than one trend, discuss with the group which trend you would like to pursue and limit it to one opportunity.

Input

• Macro Trends
• Trends

Output

• Trends Prioritization

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook

Participants

• Executive Team

Step 2.2

Leapfrogging ideation

Activities

• Identify leapfrog ideas.
• Identify impact to value chain.

Info-Tech Insight

A systematic approach to leapfrog ideation is one of the most critical ways in which an organization can build the capacity for resilient innovation.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Evaluate trend opportunities and determine the strategic opportunities they pose. You will also work towards identifying the impact the trend has on your value chain.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• Strategic growth opportunities
• Value chain impact

Leapfrog into the future

Turn trends into growth opportunities.

To thrive in the digital age, organizations must innovate big, leverage internal creativity, and prepare for flexibility.

In this digital era, organizations are often playing catch up to a rapidly evolving technological landscape and following a strict linear approach to innovation. However, this linear catch-up approach does not help companies get ahead of competitors. Instead, organizations must identify avenues to skip one or several stages of technological development to leapfrog ahead of their competitors.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. – Alan Kay

Leapfrogging takes place when an organization introduces disruptive innovation into the market and sidesteps competitors who are unable to mobilize to respond to the opportunities.

Case Study

Classroom of the Future

Higher Education: Barco’s Virtual Classroom at UCL

University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom, selected Barco weConnect virtual classroom technology for its continuing professional development medical education offering. UCL uses the platform for synchronous teaching, where remote students can interact with a lecturer.

One of the main advantages of the system is that it enables direct interaction with students through polls, questions, and whiteboarding. The system also allows you to track student engagement in real time.

The system has also been leveraged for scientific research and publications. In their “Delphi” process, key opinion leaders were able to collaborate in an effective way to reach consensus on a subject matter. The processes that normally takes months were successfully completed in 48 hours (McCann, 2020).

Results

The system has been largely successful and has supported remote, real-time teaching, two-way engagement, engagement with international staff, and an overall enriched teaching experience.

Funnel trends into leapfrog ideas

Go from trend insights into ideas.

Brainstorm ways of generating leapfrog ideas from trend insights.

Dealing with trends is one of the most important tasks for innovation. It provides the basis of developing the future orientation of the organization. However, being aware of a trend is one thing, to develop strategies for response is another.

To identify the impact the trend has on the organization, consider the four areas of growth strategies for the organization:

1. New Customers: Leverage the trend to target new customers for existing products or services.
2. New Business Models: Adjust the business model to capture a change in how the organization delivers value.
3. New Markets: Enter or create new markets by applying existing products or services to different problems.
4. New Product or Service Offerings: Introduce new products or services to the existing market.

From trend to leapfrog ideas

2.2 Identify and prioritize opportunities

60 minutes

1. Gather the prioritized trend identified in the horizon scanning exercise (the trend identified to be “adopted” within the organization).
2. Analyze each trend identified and assess whether the trend provides an opportunity for a new customers, new markets, new business models, or new products and services.

Input

• “Adopt” Trends

Output

• Trends to pursue
• Breakdown of strategic opportunities that the trends pose

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Step 2.3

Value chain impact

Activities

• Identify impact to value chain.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Evaluate trend opportunities and determine the strategic opportunities they pose. Prioritize the opportunities and identify impact to your value chain.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• Strategic growth opportunities

Value chain analysis

Identify implications of strategic growth opportunities to the value chains.

As we identify and prioritize the opportunities available to us, we need to assess their impacts on value chains. Does the opportunity directly impact an existing value chain? Or does it open us to the creation of a new value chain?

The value chain perspective allows an organization to identify how to best minimize or enhance impacts and generate value.
As we move from opportunity to impact, it is important to break down opportunities into the relevant pieces so we can see a holistic picture of the sources of differentiation.

2.3 Value chain impact

Objective: Identify impacts to the value chain from the opportunities identified.
60 minutes

1. Once you have identified the opportunity, turn back to the value stream, and with the working group, identify the value stream impacted most by the opportunity. Leverage the human impact/business impact criteria to support the identification of the value stream to be impacted.
2. Within the value stream, brainstorm what parts of the value chain will be impacted by the new opportunity. Or ask whether this new opportunity provides you with a new value chain to be created.
3. If this opportunity will require a new value chain, identify what set of new processes or steps will be created to support this new entrant.
4. Identify any critical value chains that will be impacted by the new opportunity. What areas of the value chain pose the greatest risk? And where can we estimate the financial revenue will be impacted the most?

Input

• Opportunity

Output

• Value chains impacted

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Phase 3

Transform stakeholder journeys

• Identify stakeholder personas and scenarios
• Conduct journey map
• Identify projects

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Take the prioritized value chains and create a journey map to capture the end-to-end experience of a stakeholder.

Through a journey mapping exercise, you will identify opportunities to digitize parts of the journey. These opportunities will be broken down into functional initiatives to tackle in your strategy.

This phase involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes

1. Stakeholder persona
2. Stakeholder scenario
3. Stakeholder journey map
4. Opportunities

Step 3.1

Identify stakeholder persona and journey scenario

Activities

• Identify stakeholder persona.
• Identify stakeholder journey scenario.

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

In this step, you with identify stakeholder personas and scenarios relating to the prioritized value chains.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• A taxonomy of critical stakeholder journeys.

Identify stakeholder persona and journey scenario

From value chain to journey scenario.

Stakeholder personas and scenarios help us build empathy towards our customers. It helps put us into the shoes of a stakeholder and relate to their experience to solve problems or understand how they experience the steps or processes required to accomplish a goal. A user persona is a valuable basis for stakeholder journey mapping.

A stakeholder scenario describes the situation the journey map addresses. Scenarios can be real (for existing products and services) or anticipated.

A stakeholder persona is a fictitious profile to represent a customer or a user segment. Creating this persona helps us understand who your customers really are and why they are using your service or product.

Learn more about applying design thinking methodologies

Identify stakeholder scenarios to map

For your digital strategy, leverage the existing and opportunity value chains identified in phase 1 and 2 for journey mapping.

Identify two existing value chains to be transformed. In section 1, we identified existing value chains to be transformed. For example, your stakeholder persona is a member of the faculty (engineering), and the scenario is the curricula design process.

Identify one new value chain. In section 2, we identified a new value chain. However, for a new opportunity, the scenario is more complex as it may capture many different areas of a value chain. Subsequently, a journey map for a new opportunity may require mapping all parts of the value chain.

Identify stakeholder persona

Who are you transforming for?

To define a stakeholder scenario, we need to understand who we are mapping for. In each value chain, we identified a stakeholder who gains value from that value chain. We now need to develop a stakeholder persona: a representation of the end user to gain a strong understanding of who they are, what they need, and their pains and gains.

One of the best ways to flesh out your stakeholder persona is to engage with the stakeholders directly or to gather the input of those who may engage with them within the organization.

For example, if we want to define a journey map for a student, we might want to gather the input of students or teaching faculty that have firsthand encounters with different student types and are able to define a common student type.

Info-Tech Insight

Run a survey to understand your end users and develop a stronger picture of who they are and what they are seeking to gain from your organization.

Example Stakeholder Persona

Name: Anne
Age: 35
Occupation: Engineering Faculty
Location: Toronto, Canada

Pains

What are their frustrations, fears, and anxieties?

• Time restraints
• Using new digital tools
• Managing a class while incorporating individual learning
• Varying levels within the same class
• Unmotivated students

What do they need to do?

What do they want to get done? How will they know they are successful?

• Design curricula in a hybrid mode without loss of quality of experience of in-classroom learning.

Gains

What are their wants, needs, hopes, and dreams?

• Interactive content for students
• Curriculum alignment
• Ability to run a classroom lab (in hybrid format)
• Self-paced and self-directed learning opportunities for students

(Adapted from Osterwalder, et al., 2014)

Define a journey statement for mapping

Now that we understand who we are mapping for, we need to define a journey statement to capture the stakeholder journey.
Leverage the following format to define the journey statement.
As a [stakeholder], I need to [prioritized value chain task], so that I can [desired result or overall goal].

3.1 Identify stakeholder persona and journey scenario

Objective: Identify stakeholder persona and journey scenario statement for journey mapping exercise.

1. Start by identifying who your stakeholder is. Give your stakeholder a demographic profile – capture a typical stakeholder for this value chain.
2. Identify what the gains and pains are during this value chain and what the stakeholder is seeking to accomplish.
3. Looking at the value chain, create a statement that captures the goals and needs of the stakeholder. Use the following format to create a statement:
   As a [stakeholder], I need to [prioritized value chain task], so that I can [desired result or overall goal].

Input

• Prioritized Value Chains (existing and opportunity)

Output

• Stakeholder Persona
• Stakeholder Journey Statement

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)
• Stakeholder Persona Canvas

Participants

• Executive Team
• Stakeholders (if possible)
• Individual who works directly with stakeholders

Step 3.2

Map stakeholder journeys

Activities

• Map stakeholder journeys.

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Prioritize the journeys by focusing on what matters most to the stakeholders and estimating the organizational effort to improve those experiences.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• Candidate journeys identified for redesign or build.

Leverage customer journey mapping to capture value chains to be transformed

Conduct a journey mapping exercise to identify opportunities for innovation or automation.

A journey-based approach helps an organization understand how a stakeholder moves through a process and interacts with the organization in the form of touch points, channels, and supporting characters. By identifying pain points in the journey and the activity types, we can identify opportunities for innovation and automation along the journey.

Embrace design thinking methodologies to elevate the stakeholder journey and to build a competitive advantage for your organization.

Internal vs. external stakeholder perspective

In journey mapping, we always start with the stakeholder's perspective, then eventually transition into what the organization does business-wise to deliver value to each stakeholder. It is important to keep in mind both perspectives while conducting a journey mapping exercise as there are often different roles, processes, and technologies associated with each of the journey steps.

Stakeholder Journey
(External Perspective)

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Selecting
• Negotiating
• Approving

Business Processes
(Internal Perspective)

• Preparation
• Prospecting
• Presentation
• Closing
• Follow-Up

Info-Tech Insight

Take the perspective of an end user, who interacts with your products and services, as it is different from the view of those inside the organization, who implement and provide those services.

Build a stakeholder journey map

A stakeholder journey map is a tool used to illustrate the user’s perceptions, emotions, and needs as they move through a process and interact with the organization in the form of touch points, channels, and supporting characters.

Stakeholder Journey Map: Journey Activity

The journey activity refers to the steps taken to accomplish a goal.

The journey activity comprises the steps or sequence of tasks the stakeholder takes to accomplish their goal. These steps reflect the high-level process your candidates perform to complete a task or solve a problem.

Stakeholder Journey Map: Touch Points

Touch points are the points of interaction between a stakeholder and the organization.

A touch point refers to any time a stakeholder interacts with your organization or brand. Consider three main points of interaction with the customer in the journey:

• Before: How did they find out about you? How did they first contact you to start this journey? What channels or mediums were used?
  • Social media
  • Rating & reviews
  • Word of mouth
  • Advertising
• During: How was the sale or service accomplished?
  • Website
  • Catalog
  • Promotions
  • Point of sale
  • Phone system
• After: What happened after the sale or service?
  • Billing
  • Transactional emails
  • Marketing emails
  • Follow-ups
  • Thank-you emails

Stakeholder Journey Map: Nature of Activity

The nature of activity refers to the type of task the journey activity captures.

We categorize the activity type to identify opportunities for automation. There are four main types of task types, which in combination (as seen in the table below) capture a task or job to be automated.

Info-Tech Insight

Where automation makes sense, routine manual activities should be transformed first, followed by routine cognitive activities. Non-routine cognitive activities are the final frontier.

Stakeholder Journey Map: Metrics

Metrics are a quantifiable measurement of a process, activity, or initiative.

Metrics are crucial to justify expenses and to estimate growth for capacity planning and resourcing. There are multiple benefits to identifying and implementing metrics in a journey map:

• Metrics provide accurate indicators for accurate IT and business decisions.
• Metrics help you identify stakeholder touch point efficiencies and problems and solve issues before they become more serious.
• Active metrics tracking makes root cause analysis of issues much easier.

Example of journey mapping metrics: Cost, effort, turnaround time, throughput, net promoter score (NPS), satisfaction score

Stakeholder Journey Map: Key Moments & Pain Points

Key moments and pain points refer to the emotional status of a stakeholder at each stake of the customer journey.

The key moments are defining pieces or periods in a stakeholder's experience that create a critical turning point or memory.

The pain points are the critical problems that the stakeholder is facing during the journey or business continuity risks. Prioritize identifying pain points around key moments.

Info-Tech Insight

To identify key moments, look for moments that can dramatically influence the quality of the journey or end the journey prematurely. To improve the experience, analyze the hidden needs and how they are or aren’t being met.

Stakeholder Journey Map: Opportunities

An opportunity is an investment into people, process, or technology for the purposes of building or improving a business capability and accomplishing a specific organizational objective.

An opportunity refers to the initiatives or projects that should address a stakeholder pain. Opportunities should also produce a demonstrable financial impact – whether direct (e.g. cost reduction) or indirect (e.g. risk mitigation) – and be evaluated based on how technically difficult it will be to implement.

Customer

Create new or different experiences for customers

Workforce

Generate new organizational skills or new ways of working

Operations

Improve responsiveness and resilience of operations

Innovation

Develop different products or services

Example of stakeholder journey output: Higher Education

Stakeholder: A faculty member
Journey: As an engineering faculty member, I want to design my curricula in a hybrid mode of delivery so that I can simulate in-classroom experiences

3.2 Stakeholder journey mapping

Objective: Conduct journey mapping exercise for existing value chains and for opportunities.

1. Gather the working group and, with the journey mapping workbook, begin to map out the journey scenario statements identified in the value chain analysis. In total, there should be three journey maps:
   • Two for the existing value chains. Map out the specific point in the value chain that is to be transformed.
   • One for the opportunity value chain. Map out all parts of the value chain to be impacted by the new opportunity.
2. Start with the journey activity and map out the steps involved to accomplish the goal of the stakeholder.
3. Identify the touch points involved in the value chain.
4. Categorize the nature of the activity in the journey activity.
5. Identify metrics for the journey. How can we measure the success of the journey?
6. Identify pain points and opportunities in parallel with one another.

Input

• Value Chain Analysis
• Stakeholder Personas
• Journey Mapping Scenario

Output

• Journey Map

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook, Stakeholder Journey tab

Participants

• Executives
• Individuals in the organization that have a direct interaction with the stakeholders

Info-Tech Insight

Aim to build out 90% of the stakeholder journey map with the working team; validate the last 10% with the stakeholder themselves.

Step 3.3

Prioritize opportunities

Activities

• Prioritize opportunities.

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Prioritize the opportunities that arose from the stakeholder journey mapping exercise.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Prioritized opportunities

Prioritization of opportunities

Leverage design-thinking methods to prioritize opportunities.

As there may be many opportunities arising from the journey map, we need to prioritize ideas to identify which ones we can tackle first – or at all. Leverage IDEO’s design-thinking “three lenses of innovation” to support prioritization:

• Feasibility: Do you currently have the capabilities to deliver on this opportunity? Do we have the right partners, resources, or technology?
• Desirability: Is this a solution the stakeholder needs? Does it solve a known pain point?
• Viability: Does this initiative have an impact on the financial revenue of the organization? Is it a profitable solution that will support the business model? Will this opportunity require a complex cost structure?

3.3 Prioritization of opportunities

Objective: Prioritize opportunities for creating a roadmap.

1. Gather the opportunities identified in the journey mapping exercise
2. Assess the opportunities based on IDEO’s three lenses of innovation:
   • Feasibility: Do you currently have the capabilities to deliver on this opportunity? Do we have the right partners, resources, or technology?
   • Viability: Does this initiative have an impact on the financial revenue of the organization? Is it a profitable solution that will support the business model? Will this opportunity require a complex cost structure?
   • Desirability: Is this a solution the stakeholder needs? Does it solve a known pain point?
3. Opportunities that score high in all three areas are prioritized for the roadmap.

Input

• Opportunities From Journey Map

Output

• Prioritized Opportunities

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook

Participants

• Executives

Step 3.4

Define digital goals

Activities

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Define a digital goal as it relates to the prioritized opportunities and the stakeholder journey map.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Digital goals

Define digital goals

What digital goals can be derived from the stakeholder journey?

With the prioritized set of opportunities for each stakeholder journey, take a step back and assess what the sum of these opportunities mean for the journey. What is the overall goal or objective of these opportunities? How do these opportunities change or facilitate the journey experience? From here, identify a single goal statement for each stakeholder journey.

3.4 Define digital goals

Objective: Identify digital goals derived from the journey statements.

1. With the prioritized set of opportunities for each stakeholder journey (the two existing journeys and one opportunity journey) take a step back and assess what the sum of these opportunities means for each journey.
   • What is the overall goal or objective of these opportunities?
   • How do these opportunities change or facilitate the journey experience?
2. From here, identify a single goal for each stakeholder journey.

Input

• Opportunities From Journey Map
• Stakeholder Persona

Output

• Digital Goals

Materials

• Prioritization Matrix

Participants

• Executives

Step 3.5

Breakdown opportunities into series of initiatives

Activities

• Identify initiatives from the opportunities.

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Identify people, process, and technology initiatives for the opportunities identified.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• People, process, and technology initiatives

Break down opportunities into a series of initiatives

Brainstorm initiatives for each high-priority opportunity using the framework below. Describe each initiative as a plan or action to take to solve the problem.

Opportunity → Initiatives:

People: What initiatives are required to manage people, data, and other organizational factors that are impacted by this opportunity?

Process: What processes must be created, changed, or removed based on the data?

Technology: What systems are required to support this opportunity?

Break down opportunities into a series of initiatives

Info-Tech Insight

Ruthlessly evaluate if a initiative should stand alone or if it can be rolled up with another. Fewer initiatives or opportunities increases focus and alignment, allowing for better communication.

3.5 Break down opportunities into initiatives

Objective: Break down opportunities into people, process, and technology initiatives.

1. Split into groups and identify initiatives required to deliver on each opportunity. Document each initiative on sticky notes.
2. Have each team answer the following questions to identify initiatives for the prioritized opportunities:
   • People: What initiatives are required to manage people, data, and other organizational factors that are impacted by this opportunity?
   • Process: What processes must be created, changed, or removed based on the data?
   • Technology: What systems are required to support this opportunity?
3. Document findings in the Digital Strategy Workbook.

Input

• Opportunities

Output

• Opportunity initiatives categorized by people, process and technology

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook

Participants

• Executive team

Phase 4

Build a digital transformation roadmap

• Detail initiatives
• Build a unified roadmap roadmap

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Build a digital transformation roadmap that captures people, process, and technology initiatives.

This phase involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes

• Digital transformation roadmap

Step 4.1

Detail initiatives

Activities

• Detail initiatives.

Build a digital transformation roadmap

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Detail initiatives for each priority initiative on your horizon.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• A roadmap for your digital business strategy.

Create initiative profiles for each high-priority initiative on your strategy

Step 4.2

Build a roadmap

Activities

• Create a roadmap of initiatives.

Build a digital transformation roadmap

Info-Tech Insight

A roadmap that balances growth opportunities with business resilience will transform your organization for long-term success in the digital economy.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Identify timing of initiatives and build a Gantt chart roadmap.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• A roadmap for your digital transformation and the journey canvases for each of the prioritized journeys.

Build a roadmap to visualize your key initiative plan

Visual representations of data are more compelling than text alone.

Develop a high-level document that travels with the initiative from inception through executive inquiry, project management, and finally execution.

A initiative needs to be discrete: able to be conceptualized and discussed as an independent item. Each initiative must have three characteristics:

• Specific outcome: Describe an explicit change in the people, processes, or technology of the enterprise.
• Target end date: When the described outcome will be in effect.
• Owner: Who on the IT team is responsible for executing on the initiative.

4.2 Build your roadmap (30 minutes)

1. For the Gantt chart:
   • Input the Roadmap Start Year date.
   • Change the months and year in the Gantt chart to reflect the same roadmap start year.
   • Populate the planned start and planned end date for the pre-populated list of high-priority initiatives in each category (people, process, and technology).

Input

• Initiatives
• Initiative start & end dates
• Initiative category

Output

• Digital strategy roadmap visual

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook

Participants

• Senior Executive

Learn more about project portfolio management strategy

Step 4.3

Create a refresh strategy

Activities

• Refresh your strategy.

Build a digital transformation roadmap

Info-Tech Insight

A digital strategy is a design process, it must be revisited to pressure test and account for changes in the external environment.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Detail a refresh strategy.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• Refresh strategy

Create a refresh strategy

It is important to dedicate time to your strategy throughout the year. Create a refresh plan to assess for the changing business context and its impact on the digital business strategy. Make sure the regular planning cycle is not the primary trigger for strategy review. Put a process in place to review the strategy and make your organization proactive. Start by examining the changes to the business context and how the effect would trickle downwards. It’s typical for organizations to build a refresh strategy around budget season and hold planning and touch points to accommodate budget approval time.
Example:

4.3 Create a refresh strategy (30 minutes)

1. Work with the digital strategy creation team to identify the time frequencies the organization should consider to refresh the digital business strategy. Time frequencies can also be events that trigger a review (i.e. changing business goals). Record the different time frequencies in the Refresh of the Digital Business Strategy slide of the section.
2. Discuss with the team the different audience members for each time frequency and the scope of the refresh. The scope represents what areas of the digital business strategy need to be re-examined and possibly changed.

Example:

Input

• Digital Business Strategy

Output

• Refresh Strategy

Materials

• Digital Business Strategy Presentation Template
• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Leaders

Related Info-Tech Research

Design a Customer-Centric Digital Operating Model

Establish a new way of working to deliver value on your digital transformation initiatives.

Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy

Drive project throughput by throttling resource capacity.

Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization

Innovation needs design thinking.

Digital Maturity Improvement Service

Prepare your organization for digital transformation – or risk falling behind.

Research Contributors and Experts

Kenneth McGee

Research Fellow
Info-Tech Research Group

Kenneth McGee is a Research Fellow within the CIO practice at Info-Tech Research Group and is focused on IT business and financial management issues, including IT Strategy, IT Budgets and Cost Management, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), and Digital Transformation. He also has extensive experience developing radical IT cost reduction and return-to-growth initiatives during and following financial recessions.

Ken works with CIOs and IT leaders to help establish twenty-first-century IT organizational charters, structures, and responsibilities. Activities include IT organizational design, IT budget creation, chargeback, IT strategy formulation, and determining the business value derived from IT solutions. Ken’s research has specialized in conducting interviews with CEOs of some of the world’s largest corporations. He has also interviewed a US Cabinet member and IT executives at the White

House. He has been a frequent keynote speaker at industry conventions, client sales kick-off meetings, and IT offsite planning sessions.

Jack Hakimian

Vice President
Info-Tech Research Group

Jack has more than 25 years of technology and management consulting experience. He has served multi-billion dollar organizations in multiple industries including Financial Services and Telecommunications. Jack also served a number of large public sector institutions.

Prior to joining the Info-Tech Research Group, he worked for leading consulting players such as Accenture, Deloitte, EY, and IBM.

Jack led digital business strategy engagements as well as corporate strategy and M&A advisory services for clients across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He is a seasoned technology consultant who has developed IT strategies and technology roadmaps, led large business transformations, established data governance programs, and managed the deployment of mission-critical CRM and ERP applications.

He is a frequent speaker and panelist at technology and innovation conferences and events and holds a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering as well as an MBA from the ESCP-EAP European School of Management.

Bibliography

Abrams, Karin von. “Global Ecommerce Forecast 2021.” eMarketer, Insider Intelligence, 7 July 2021. Web.

Christenson, Clayton. The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business School, 1997. Book.

Drucker, Peter F., and Joseph A. Maciariello. Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Routledge, 2015.

Eagar, Rick, David Boulton, and Camille Demyttenaere. “The Trends in Megatrends.” Arthur D Little, Prism, no. 2, 2014. Web.

Enright, Sara, and Allison Taylor. “The Future of Stakeholder Engagement.” The Business of a Better World, October 2016. Web.

Hatem, Louise, Daniel Ker, and John Mitchell. “A roadmap toward a common framework for measuring the digital economy.” Report for the G20 Digital Economy Task Force, OECD, 2020. Web.

Kemp, Simon. “Digital 2021 April Statshot Report.” DataReportal, Global Digital Insights, 21 Apr. 2021. Web.

Larson, Chris. “Disruptive Innovation Theory: 4 Key Concepts.” Business Insights, Harvard Business School, HBS Online, 15 Nov. 2016. Web.

McCann, Leah. “Barco's Virtual Classroom at UCL: A Case Study for the Future of All University Classrooms?” rAVe, 2 July 2020. Web.

Mochari, Ilan. “The Startup Buzzword Almost Everyone Uses Incorrectly.” Inc., 19 Nov. 2015. Web.

Osterwalder, Alexander, et al. Value Proposition Design. Wiley, 2014.

Reed, Laura. “Artificial Intelligence: Is Your Job at Risk?” Science Node, 9 August 2017.

Rodeck, David. “Alphabet Soup: Understanding the Shape of a Covid-19 Recession.” Forbes, 8 June 2020. Web.

Tapscott, Don. Wikinomics. Atlantic Books, 2014.

Taylor, Paul. “Don't Be A Dodo: Adapt to the Digital Economy.” Forbes, 27 Aug. 2015. Web.

The Business Research Company. "Wholesale Global Market Report 2021: COVID-19 Impact and Recovery to 2030." Research and Markets, January 2021. Press Release.

“Topic 1: Megatrends and Trends.” BeFore, 11 October 2018.

“Updated Digital Economy Estimates – June 2021.” Bureau of Economic Analysis, June 2021. Web.

Williamson, J. N. The Leader Manager. John Wiley & Sons, 1984.

Develop Your Agile Approach for a Successful Transformation

Understand Agile fundamentals, principles, and practices so you can apply them effectively in your organization.

Analyst Perspective

Understand Agile fundamentals, principles, and practices so you can apply them effectively in your organization.

Alex Ciraco and Hans Eckman
Application Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

• Your organization wants to shorten delivery time and improve quality by adopting Agile delivery methods.
• You know that Agile transformations are complex and difficult to implement.
• Your organization may have started using Agile, but with only limited success.
• You want to maximize your Agile transformation's chances of success.

Common Obstacles

• People seem to have different, conflicting, or inadequate knowledge of Agile principles and practices.
• Your organization is not seeing the full benefits that Agile promises, and project teams aren't sure they are "doing Agile right."
• Confusion and misinformation about Agile is commonplace in your organization.

Info-Tech's Approach

• Use our Common Agile Challenges Survey to identify your organization's Agile pain points.
• Leverage this blueprint to level-set the organization on Agile fundamentals.
• Address your survey's biggest Agile pain points to see immediate benefits and improvements in the way you practice Agile in your organization.

Info-Tech Insight

Agile transformations are more likely to be successful when the entire organization genuinely understands Agile fundamentals, principles and practices, as well as the role each person plays in its success. Focus on developing a solid understanding of Agile practices so your organization can "Be Agile", not just "Do Agile".

Info-Tech's methodology

Develop your agile approach for a successful transformation

Everyone's Agile journey is not the same.

Application delivery continues to fall short

78% of IT professionals believe the business is "usually" or "always" out of sync with project requirements.
Source: "10 Ways Requirements Can Sabotage Your Projects Right From the Start"

Only 34% of software is rated as both important and effective by users.

Source: Info-Tech's CIO Business Vision Diagnostic

Agile DevOps is a progression of cultural, behavioral, and process changes. It takes time.

Enhancements and maintenance are misunderstood

Source: "IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering"

Why Agile/DevOps? It's about time to value

Leaders and stakeholders are frustrated with long lead times to implement changes. Agile/DevOps promotes smaller, more frequent releases to start earning value sooner.

Time to delivering value depends on Frequency of Releases

Embrace change, don't "scope creep" it

64% of IT professionals adopt Agile to enhance their ability to manage changing priorities.

71% of IT professionals found their ability to manage changing priorities improved after implementing Agile.

Info-Tech Insight

Traditional delivery processes work on the assumption that product requirements will remain constant throughout the SDLC. This results in delayed delivery of product enhancements which are critical to maintaining a positive customer experience.

Adapted from: "12th Annual State of Agile Report"

Agile's four core values

"…while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more."
– Source: "The Agile Manifesto"

Harness Agile's cultural advantages

Collaboration

• Team members leverage all their experience working toward a common goal.

Iterations

• Cycles provide opportunities for more product feedback.

Continual Improvement

• Self-managing teams continually improve their approach for the next iteration.

Prioritization

• The most important needs are addressed in the current iteration.

Compare Waterfall and Agile – the "what" (how are they different?)

A "One and Done" Approach (Planning & Documentation Based)
Elapsed time to deliver any value: Months to years

An "Iterative" Approach (Empirical/Evidence Based)
Elapsed time to deliver any value: Weeks

Be aware of common myths around Agile

1. … solve development and communication issues.
2. … ensure you will finish requirements faster.
3. … mean you don't need planning and documentation.

"Although Agile methods are increasingly being adopted in globally distributed settings, there is no panacea for success."
– "Negotiating Common Ground in Distributed Agile Development: A Case Study Perspective."

"Without proper planning, organizations can start throwing more resources at the work which spirals into the classic Waterfall issues of managing by schedule."
– Kristen Morton, Associate Implementation Architect,
OneShield Inc., Info-Tech Interview

Agile* SDLC

With shared ownership instead of silos, we can deliver value at the end of every iteration (aka sprint)

* There are many Agile methodologies to choose from, but Scrum is by far the most widely used (and is shown above).

Key Elements of the Agile SDLC

• You are not "one-and-done." There are many short iterations with constant feedback.
• There is an empowered product owner. This is a single authoritative voice that represents stakeholders.
• There is a fluid product backlog. This enables prioritization of requirements "just-in-time."
• Cross-functional, self-managing team. This team makes commitments and is empowered by the organization to do so.
• Working, tested code at the end of each sprint. Value becomes more deterministic along sprint boundaries.
• Demonstrate to stakeholders. Allow them to see and use the functionality and provide necessary feedback.
• Feedback is being continuously injected back into the product backlog. This shapes the future of the solution.
• Continuous improvement through sprint retrospectives.
• "Internally Governed" when done right (the virtuous cycle of sprint-demo-feedback).

A backlog stores and organizes PBIs at various stages of readiness

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

• Detailed Appropriately: Product backlog items (PBIs) are broken down and refined as necessary.
• Emergent: The backlog grows and evolves over time as PBIs are added and removed.
• Estimated: The effort a PBI requires is estimated at each tier.
• Prioritized: The PBIs value and priority are determined at each tier.

(Perforce, 2018)

Outline the criteria to proceed to the next tier via quality filters

Expand the concepts of defining "ready" and "done" to include the other stages of a PBIs journey through product planning.

Info-Tech Insight: A quality filter ensures quality is met and teams are armed with the right information to work more efficiently and improve throughput.

Deliverables

Many steps in this blueprint are accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals.

Common Agile Challenges Survey
Survey the organization to understand which of the common Agile challenges the organization is experiencing

Roadmap for Transition to Agile
Identify steps you will take to move your organization toward Agile delivery

Blueprint benefits

Measure the value of this blueprint

Implementing quality and consistent Agile practices improves SDLC metrics and reduces time to value.

• Use Select and Use SDLC Metrics Effectivelyto track and measure the impact of Agile delivery. For example:
• Reduction in PBI wait time
• Improve throughput
• Reduction in defects and defect severity
• Phase 1 helps you prepare and send your Common Agile Challenges Survey.
• Phase 2 builds a transformation plan aligned with your top pain points.

Align Agile coaching and practices to address your key pain points identified in the Common Agile Challenges Survey.

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

DIY Toolkit

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

Guided Implementation

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

Workshop

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

Consulting

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

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

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

A typical GI is between 6 to 8 calls over the course of 1 to 2 months.

Workshop Overview

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

For additional assistance planning your workshop, please refer to the facilitation planning tool in the appendix.

Related Info-Tech Research

Mentoring for Agile Teams
Get practical help and guidance on your Agile transformation journey.

Implement DevOps Practices That Work
Streamline business value delivery through the strategic adoption of DevOps practices.

Deliver on Your Digital Product Vision
Build a product vision your organization can take from strategy through execution.

Deliver Digital Products at Scale
Deliver value at the scale of your organization through defining enterprise product families.

Phase 1

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Decide who will participate in the Common Agile Challenges Survey
• Compile the results of the survey to identify your organization's biggest pain points with Agile

This phase involves the following participants:

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers and senior leaders
• Stakeholders and delivery teams

Develop Your Agile Approach for a Successful Transformation

Step 1.1

Identify common Agile challenges

Activities

1.1 Distribute Common Agile Challenges Survey and collect results

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers and senior leaders
• Stakeholders and delivery teams

Outcomes of this step

• A better understanding of your organization's Agile pain points.

Focus Agile support where it is most needed

Info-Tech Insight

There isn't one approach that cures all the problems your Agile teams are facing. First, understand these common challenges, then develop a plan to address the root causes.

Use Info-Tech's Common Agile Challenges Survey to determine common issues and what problems individual teams are facing. Use the Agile modules and supporting guides in this blueprint to provide targeted support on what matters most.

Exercise 1.1.1 Distribute Common Agile Challenges Survey

30 minutes

1. Download Survey Template: Info-Tech Common Agile Challenges Survey template.
2. Create your own local copy of the Common Agile Challenges Survey by using the template. The Common Agile Challenges Survey will help you to identify which of the many common Agile-related challenges your organization may be facing.
3. Decide on the teams/participants who will be completing the survey. It is best to distribute the survey broadly across the organization and include participants from several teams and roles.
4. Copy the link for your local survey and distribute it for participants to complete (we suggest giving them one week to complete it).
5. Collect the consolidated survey results in preparation for the next phase.
6. NOTE: Using this survey template requires having access to Microsoft Forms. If you do not have access to Microsoft Forms, an Info-Tech analyst can perform the survey for you.

Output

• Your organization's biggest Agile pain points

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Record the results in the Roadmap for Transition to Agile Template

Phase 2

Establish a Solid Foundation for Agile Delivery

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Gain a fundamental understanding of Agile
• Understand why becoming Agile is hard
• Identify steps needed to become more Agile
• Understand your biggest Agile pain points

This phase involves the following participants:

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers and senior leaders
• Stakeholders and delivery teams

Step 2.1

Align teams with Agile fundamentals

Activities

2.1.1 Share what Agile means to you
2.1.2 (Optional) Contrast two delivery teams
2.1.3 (Optional) Dissect the Agilist's Oath
2.1.4 (Optional) Create your prototype definitions of ready
2.1.5 (Optional) Create your prototype definitions of done
2.1.6 Identify the challenges of implementing agile in your organization

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers and senior leaders
• Stakeholders and delivery teams

Outcomes of this step

• A better understanding of what Agile is and why we do it.

Exercise 2.1.1 Share what Agile means to you

30-60 minutes

1. What is Agile? Why do we do it?
2. As a group, discuss and capture your thoughts on:
   1. What is Agile (its characteristics, practices, differences from alternatives, etc.)?
   2. Why do we do it (its drivers, benefits, advantages, etc.)?
3. Capture your findings in the table below:

Output

• Your current understanding of Agile and its benefits

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Why Agile/DevOps? It's about time to value

Leaders and stakeholders are frustrated with long lead times to implement changes. Agile/DevOps promotes smaller, more frequent releases to start earning value sooner.

Time to delivering value depends on frequency of releases.
Source: 5Q Partners

The pandemic accelerated the speed of digital transformation

With the massive disruption preventing people from gathering, businesses shifted to digital interactions with customers.

Companies also accelerated the pace of creating digital or digitally enhanced products and services.

(McKinsey, 2020 )

"The Digital Economy incorporates all economic activity reliant on or significantly enhanced by the use of digital inputs, including digital technologies, digital infrastructure, digital services and data."
(OECD Definition)

What does "elite" DevOps look like?

Where are you now?
Where do You Want to Be?

* Google Cloud/Accelerate State of DevOps 2021

Realize and sustain value with DevOps

Businesses with elite DevOps practices…

Waterfall vs. Agile – the "what" (How are they different?)

A "One and Done" Approach (Planning & Documentation Based)
Elapsed time to deliver any value: Months to years

An "Iterative" Approach (Empirical/Evidence Based)
Elapsed time to deliver any value: Weeks

(Optional) Exercise 2.1.2 A tale of two teams

Discussion (5-10 minutes)

As a group, discuss how these teams differ

Team 1:

Team 2:

Image Credit: DVIDS

Output

• How your organization can support Agile behavior and mindset

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Dissect the Agilist's Oath

Read and consider each element of the oath.

• As a member of this Scrum team, I recognize that we are all equally and collectively responsible for the success of this project.
• Success is defined as achieving the best possible outcome for our stakeholders given the constraints of time, money, and circumstances we will face.
• We will achieve this by working collaboratively with our product owner to regularly deliver high-quality, working, tested code that can be demonstrated, and we will adjust our path forward based on the feedback we receive.
• I will holistically embrace the concept of "good enough for now" into my work practices, because I know that waiting for the best/perfect solution does not yield optimal results.
• Collectively, we will work to holistically minimize risk for the project across all phases and disciplines.
• My primary role will be _____ [PO, SM, BA, Dev, Arch, Test, Ops, etc.], but I will contribute wherever and however best serves the current needs of the project.
• I recognize that working in Agile/Scrum is not an excuse to ignore important things like adequate design and documentation. Collectively, we will ensure that these things are completed incrementally to a level of detail and quality which adequately serves the organization and stakeholders.
• We are a team, and we will succeed or fail as one.

Exercise 2.1.3 (Optional) Dissect the Agilist's Oath

30 minutes

1. Each bullet point in the Agilist's Oath is chosen to convey one of eight key messages about Agile practices and the mindset change that's required by everyone involved.
2. As a group, discuss the "message" for each bullet point in the Agilist's Oath. Then identify which of them would be "easy" and "hard" to achieve in your organization.

• As a member of this Scrum team, I recognize that we are all equally and collectively responsible for the success of this project.
• Success is defined as achieving the best possible outcome for our stakeholders given the constraints of time, money, and circumstances we will face.
• We will achieve this by working collaboratively with our product owner to regularly deliver high-quality, working, tested code that can be demonstrated, and we will adjust our path forward based on the feedback we receive.
• I will holistically embrace the concept of "good enough for now" into my work practices, because I know that waiting for the best/perfect solution does not yield optimal results.
• Collectively, we will work to holistically minimize risk for the project across all phases and disciplines.
• My primary role will be _____ [PO, SM, BA, Dev, Arch, Test, Ops, etc.], but I will contribute wherever and however best serves the current needs of the project.
• I recognize that working in Agile/Scrum is not an excuse to ignore important things like adequate design and documentation. Collectively, we will ensure that these things are completed incrementally to a level of detail and quality which adequately serves the organization and stakeholders.
• We are a team, and we will succeed or fail as one.

Output

• How your organization can support Agile behavior and mindset

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Be aware of common myths around Agile

Agile does not . . . .

1. … solve development and communication issues.
2. … ensure you will finish requirements faster.
3. … mean you don't need planning and documentation.

"Although Agile methods are increasingly being adopted in globally distributed settings, there is no panacea for success."
– "Negotiating Common Ground in Distributed Agile Development: A Case Study Perspective."

"Without proper planning, organizations can start throwing more resources at the work which spirals into the classic Waterfall issues of managing by schedule."
– Kristen Morton, Associate Implementation Architect,
OneShield Inc., Info-Tech Interview

Agile's four core values

"…while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more."
– Source: "The Agile Manifesto"

Consider the traditional/Waterfall SDLC

With siloes and handoffs, valuable product is delivered only at the end of an extended project lifecycle.

View additional transition models in the appendix

Agile* SDLC

With shared ownership instead of silos, we can deliver value at the end of every iteration (aka sprint)

Key Elements of the Agile SDLC

• You are not "one-and-done". There are many short iterations with constant feedback.
• There is an empowered product owner. This is a single authoritative voice that represents stakeholders.
• There is a fluid product backlog. This enables prioritization of requirements "just-in-time"
• Cross-functional, self-managing team. This team makes commitments and is empowered by the organization to do so.
• Working, tested code at the end of each sprint. Value becomes more deterministic along sprint boundaries.
• Demonstrate to stakeholders. Allow them to see and use the functionality and provide necessary feedback.
• Feedback is being continuously injected back into the product backlog. This shapes the future of the solution.
• Continuous improvement through sprint retrospectives.
• "Internally Governed" when done right (the virtuous cycle of sprint-demo-feedback).

* There are many Agile methodologies to choose from, but Scrum (shown above) is by far the most widely used.

Scrum roles and responsibilities

Scrum ceremonies

Sample delivery sprint calendar

The following calendar illustrates a two-week Scrum cadence (including ceremonies). This diagram is for illustrative purposes only. The length of the sprint and timing of ceremonies may differ from delivery team to delivery team based on their needs and schedules.

Sample delivery sprint calendar

The following calendar illustrates a three-week Scrum cadence (including ceremonies). This diagram is for illustrative purposes only. The length of the sprint and timing of ceremonies may differ from delivery team to delivery team based on their needs and schedules.

Ensure your teams have the right information

Implement and enforce your definition of ready at each stage of planning. Ensure your teams understand the required tasks by clarifying the definition of done.*

* Note that your definitions of ready and done may vary from project to project, and they should be decided on collectively by the delivery team at the beginning of the project (part of setting their "norms") and updated if/when needed.

Exercise 2.1.4 (Optional) Create definition of ready and done for an oil change

10-15 minutes

Step 1:

1. As a group, create a definition of ready and done for doing an oil change (this will help you to understand the nature and value of a definition of ready and done using a relatable example):

Exercise 2.1.4 (Optional) Create your prototype definitions of ready

30-60 minutes

Step 2:

1. As a group, review the two sample definitions of ready below and select the one you consider to be the best starting point for your prototype definition of ready.

Definition of Ready SAMPLE 1:

Definition of Ready SAMPLE 2:

Output

• Prototype definitions of ready and done for your organization

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.1.4 (Optional) Create your prototype definitions of ready

30-60 minutes

Step 3:

1. As a group, using the selected sample as your starting point, decide what changes need to be made (keep/add/delete/modify):

Output

• Prototype definitions of ready and done for your organization

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.1.4 (Optional) Create your prototype definitions of ready

30-60 minutes

Step 4:

1. As a group, capture and agree on your prototype definition of ready*:

Record the results in the Roadmap for Transition to Agile Template

* This checklist helps Agile teams determine if the stories in their backlog are ready for sprint planning. As your team gains experience with Agile, tailor this list to your needs and follow it until the practice becomes second nature.

Output

• Prototype definitions of ready and done for your organization

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.1.5 (Optional) Create your prototype definitions of done

30-60 minutes

Step 5:

1. As a group, review the two sample definitions of ready below and select the one you consider to be the best starting point for your prototype definition of ready:

SAMPLE 1:

SAMPLE 2:

Output

• Prototype definitions of ready and done for your organization

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.1.4 (Optional) Create your prototype definitions of done

30-60 minutes

Step 6:

1. As a group, using the selected sample as your starting point, decide what changes need to be made (keep/add/delete/modify):

Output

• Prototype definitions of ready and done for your organization

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.1.4 (Optional) Create your prototype definitions of done

30-60 minutes

Step 7:

1. As a group, capture and agree on your prototype Definition of Done*:

Record the results in the Roadmap for Transition to Agile Template

* This checklist helps Agile teams determine if the stories in their backlog are ready for sprint planning. As your team gains experience with Agile, tailor this list to your needs and follow it until the practice becomes second nature.

Output

• Prototype definitions of ready and done for your organization

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Getting to "Agile DevOps Nirvana" is hard, but it's worth it.

Agile DevOps is a progression of cultural, behavioral, and process changes.
It takes time.

Agile DevOps may be hard, but it's worth it…

It turns out Waterfall is not as good at reducing risk and ensuring delivery after all.

Standish Group; CHAOS REPORT 2015

"I believe in this [Waterfall] concept, but the implementation described above is risky and invites failure."

– Winston W. Royce

Compare Waterfall to Agile

Hybrid SDLC: Wagile/Agilfall/WaterScrumFall

Valuable product delivered in multiple releases

If moving directly from Waterfall to Agile is too much for your organization, this can be a valuable interim step (but it won't give you the full benefits of Agile, so be careful about getting stuck here).

Exercise 2.1.6 Identify the challenges of implementing Agile in your organization

30-60 minutes

1. As a group, discuss:
   1. Why being Agile may be difficult in your organization?
   2. What are some of the roadblocks and speed bumps you may face?
   3. What incremental steps might the organization take toward becoming Agile?

Record the results in the Roadmap for Transition to Agile Template

Output

• Why being Agile is hard in your organization

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Step 2.2

Align teams with Agile fundamentals

Activities

2.2.1 Review the results of your Common Agile Challenges Survey (30-60 minutes)
2.2.2 Align your support with your top five challenges

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers and senior leaders
• Stakeholders and delivery teams

Outcomes of this step

• Identify your organization's biggest Agile pain points.

Be aware of common Agile challenges

The road to Agile is filled with potholes, speedbumps, roadblocks, and brick walls!

1. Establish an effective product owner role (PO)
2. Uncertainty about minimum viable product (MVP)
3. How non-Agile teams (like architecture, infosec, operations, etc.) work with Agile teams
4. Project governance/gating process
5. What is the role of a PM/PMO in Agile?
6. How to budget/plan Agile projects
7. How to contract and work with an Agile vendor
8. An Agile skills deficit (e.g. new-to-Agile teams who have difficulty "doing Agile right")
9. General resistance to change in the organization
10. Lack of Agile training, piloting, and coaching
11. Different Agile approaches are used by different teams
12. Backlog management and user story decomposition challenges
13. Quality assurance challenges
14. Hierarchical management practices and organization boundaries
15. Difficulty with establishing autonomous Agile teams
16. Lack of management support for Agile
17. Poor Agile estimation practices
18. Difficulty creating effective product roadmaps in Agile
19. How do we know when an Agile project is ready to go live?
20. Sprint goals are not being consistently met, or sprint deliverables that are full of bugs

Exercise 2.2.1 Review the results of your Common Agile Challenges Survey

30-60 minutes

1. Using the results of your Common Agile Challenges Survey, fill in the bar chart with your top five pain points:

Output

• Your organization's biggest Agile pain points identified and prioritized

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.2.2 Align your support with your top five challenges

30 minutes

Using the Agile Challenges support mapping on the following slides, build your transformation plan and supporting resources. You can build your plan by individual team results or as an enterprise approach.

Output

• Your organization's Agile Challenges transformation plan

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Map challenges to supporting modules

Note: Modules listed as (Future) are in development and may be available in draft format.

Map challenges to supporting modules

Note: Modules listed as (Future) are in development and may be available in draft format.

Map challenges to supporting modules

Note: Modules listed as (Future) are in development and may be available in draft format.

Map challenges to supporting blueprints

Note: Modules listed as (Future) are in development and may be available in draft format.

Map challenges to supporting blueprints

Map challenges to supporting blueprints

Step 2.3

Move stepwise to iterative Agile delivery (Optional)

Activities

2.3.1 (Optional) Identify a hypothetical project
2.3.2 (Optional) Capture your traditional delivery approach
2.3.3 (Optional) Consider what a two-phase delivery looks like
2.3.4 (Optional) Consider what a four-phase delivery looks like
2.3.5 (Optional) Consider what a four-phase delivery with monthly sprints looks like
2.3.6 (Optional) Decide on your target state and the steps required to get there

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers and senior leaders
• Stakeholders and delivery teams

Outcomes of this step

• Understand the changes that must take place in your organization to support a more Agile delivery approach.

Moving stepwise from traditional to Agile

Your transition to Agile and more frequent releases doesn't need to be all at once. Organizations may find it easier to build toward smaller iterations.

Exercise 2.3.1 (Optional) Identify a hypothetical project

15-30 minutes

1. As a group, consider some typical, large, mission-critical system deliveries your organization has done in the past (name a few as examples).
2. Imagine a project like this has been assigned to your team, and the plan calls for delivering the system using your traditional delivery approach and taking two years to complete.
3. Give this imaginary project a name (e.g. traditional project, our project).

Record this in the Roadmap for Transition to Agile Template

Info-Tech Best Practice

For best results, complete these sub-exercises with representatives from as many functional areas as possible
(e.g. stakeholders, project management, business analysis, development, testing, operations, architecture, infosec)

Output

• An imaginary delivery project that is expected to take 2 years to complete

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.2 (Optional) Capture your traditional delivery approach

30 minutes

1. As a group, discuss and capture the high-level steps followed (after project approval) in your traditional delivery approach using the table below and on the next page.

Output

• The high-level steps in your current (traditional) delivery approach and who is involved in each step

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.2 (Optional) Capture your traditional delivery approach

Output

• The high-level steps in your current (traditional) delivery approach and who is involved in each step

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.3 (Optional) Consider what a two-phase delivery looks like

30 minutes

1. As a group, imagine that project stakeholders tell you two years is too long to wait for the project, and they want to know if they can have something (even if it's not the whole thing) in production sooner.
2. Now imagine that you are able to convince the stakeholders to work with you to do the following:
   1. Identify their most important project requirements.
   2. Work with you to describe a valuable subset of the project requirements which reflect about ½ of all features they need (call this Phase 1).
   3. Work with you to get this Phase 1 of the project into production in about 1 year.
   4. Agree to leave the remaining requirements (e.g. the less important ones) until Phase 2 (second year of project).
3. As a group, identify:
   1. How hard this would be for your organization to do, on a scale of 1 to 10.
   2. Identify what changes are needed to make this happen (consider people, processes, and technology).
   3. Capture your results using the table on the following slide.

Output

• The high-level steps in your current (traditional) delivery approach and who is involved in each step

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.3 (Optional) Consider what a two-phase delivery looks like

30 minutes

1. What would be needed to let you deliver a two-year project in two one-year phases considering people, process, and technology?

How difficult would this be to achieve in your organization? (1-easy, 10-next to impossible)

e.g. 2

Output

• Understand how your organization would deliver a large project in two phases

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.4 (Optional) Consider what a four-phase delivery looks like

30 minutes

1. Now, imagine that project stakeholders tell you that even one year is still too long to wait for something of value in production, and they want to know if they can have something (even if it's not the whole thing) in production sooner.
2. Now imagine that you are able to convince the stakeholders to work with you to do the following:

1. From the "Phase 1" requirements in Exercise 2.3.3, they will identify the most important ones that they need first.
2. They will work with you to describe a valuable subset of these project requirements which reflect about ½ of all features they need (call this Phase 1A).
3. They will work with you to get this Phase 1A of the project into production in about six months.
4. Agree to leave all the remaining requirements (e.g. the less important ones) until later phases.

3. As a group, identify:

1. How hard this would be for your organization to do, on a scale of 1 to 10?
2. Identify what changes are needed to make this happen (consider people, processes, and technology).
3. Capture your results using the table on the following slide.

Output

• Understand how your organization would deliver a large project in two phases

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.4 (Optional) Consider what a four-phase delivery looks like

30 minutes

1. What more would be needed to let you deliver a two-year project in four, six-month phases considering people, process, and technology?

How difficult would this be to achieve in your organization? (1-easy, 10-next to impossible)

e.g. 5

Output

• Understand how your organization would deliver a large project in two phases

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.5 (Optional) Consider what a four-phase delivery with monthly sprints looks like

30 minutes

1. Now, imagine that project stakeholders tell you that they are happy with the six-month release approach (e.g. expect to go live four times over the two-year project, with each release providing increased functionality), but they want to see your team's progress frequently between releases.
2. Additionally, stakeholders tell you that instead of asking you to provide the traditional monthly project status reports, they want you to demonstrate whatever features you have built and work for the system on a monthly basis. This will be done in the form of a demonstration to a selected list of stakeholders each month.
3. Each month, your team must show working, tested code (not prototypes or mockups, unless asked for) and demonstrate how this month's deliverable brings value to the business.
4. Furthermore, the stakeholders would like to be able to test out the system each month, so they can play with it, test it, and provide feedback to your team about what they like and what they feel needs to change.
5. To help you to achieve this, the stakeholders designate their primary contact as the "product owner" (PO) who will be dedicated to the project and will help your team to decide what is being delivered each month. The PO will be empowered by the stakeholders to make decisions on scope and priority on an expedited basis and will also answer questions on their behalf when your team needs guidance.
6. You agree with the stakeholders these one-month deliverables will be called "sprints."

Output

• Understand how your organization would deliver a large project in two phases

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.5 (Optional) Consider what a four-phase delivery with monthly sprints looks like

30 minutes

1. What more would be needed to let you deliver a two-year project in 24 one-month sprints (plus four six-month releases) considering people, process, and technology?

How difficult would this be to achieve in your organization? (1-easy, 10-next to impossible)

e.g. 8

Output

• Understand how your organization would deliver a large project in two phases

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.6 (Optional) Define the steps to reach your target state

30 minutes

1. From Exercises 2.3.1-2.3.5, identify your current state on the stepwise transition from traditional to Agile (e.g. one-and-done).
2. Then, identify your desired future state (e.g. 24 one-month sprints with six-month releases).
3. Now, review your people, process, and technology changes identified in Exercises 2.3.1-2.3.5 and create a roadmap for this transition using the table on the next slide.

Output

• A roadmap and timeline for adopting a more Agile delivery approach

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.3.6 (Optional) Define the steps to reach your target state

30 minutes

1. Fill in the table below with your next steps. Identify who will be responsible for each step along with the timeline for completion: "Now" refers to steps you will take in the immediate future (e.g. days to weeks), "Next" refers to steps you will take in the medium term (e.g. weeks to months), and "Later" refers to long-term items (e.g. months to years).

Record the results in the Roadmap for Transition to Agile Template

Output

• A roadmap and timeline for adopting a more Agile delivery approach

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Step 2.4

Identify insights and team feedback

Activities

2.4.1 Identify key insights and takeaways
2.4.2 Perform an exit survey

This step involves the following participants:

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers and senior leaders
• Stakeholders and delivery teams

Outcomes of this step

• Identify your key insights and takeaways from Phase 2

Exercise 2.4.1 Identify key insights and takeaways

30 minutes

1. As a group, discuss and capture your thoughts on:
   1. What key insights have participants gained from the intro to Agile presentation?
   2. What if any takeaways do participants feel are needed as a result of the presentation?
   3. What changes need to be made in the organization to support/enhance Agile adoption?
2. Capture your findings in the table below:

Output

• A better understanding of Agile principles and practices
• Action items that will help solidify Agile practices in the organization

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders

Exercise 2.4.2 Perform an exit survey

30 minutes

1. Wrap up this section by addressing any remaining questions participants still have.
2. Create your local exit survey by copying the template using the link below. Then copy and distribute your local survey link.
3. Collect the consolidated survey results in preparation for your next steps.
4. NOTE: Using this survey template requires having access to Microsoft Forms. If you cannot access Microsoft Forms, an Info-Tech analyst can send the survey for you. Alternatively, this survey can be done with sticky notes and a pen and paper to calculate the outcomes.

Output

• A better understanding of Agile principles and practices
• Action items that will help solidify Agile practices in the organization

Participants

• Product owners, product managers, and scrum masters
• Delivery managers
• Delivery teams
• Stakeholders
• Senior leaders